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<p /> <p>David Cay Johnston was called by The Washington Monthly, "one of this country's most important journalists" and the Oregonian newspaper compared his work to the great muckrakers Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair. Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his exposes of tax loopholes and inequities.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to a new edition of Reality Asserts Itself. <p /> <p />One of my great pleasures in doing this series is I get a chance to talk to people who actually do their homework. A lot of interviews' subjects, they do some homework, but a lot of it's kind of general opinion. But it's a real pleasure to talk to investigative journalists who really do that, actually investigate, uncover, unravel things that we didn't know before. And in this segment of Reality Asserts Itself, I get to talk to one of America's leading investigative journalists, certainly one of the leading journalists in its economic matters, and with a long history, including a Pulitzer Prize. <p /> <p />In this Reality Asserts Itself, it's going to be my pleasure to talk to David Cay Johnston. He's a lifelong journalist and bestselling author whose recent work explores the causes and conditions of inequality in the United States. His award-winning investigative journalism has taken him through the arcane legislation and regulations to expose how corporations and the wealthy rig the system in their favor and to what lengths they go to evade taxation, all at the expense of the average taxpayer. He won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting, and the committee cited him "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms." At the Syracuse University College of Law he's a distinguished visiting lecturer, where he teaches the history of property, taxation, regulation, and commerce. He's written a trilogy of books on our pro-corporate tax system; the most recent: The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind. He's also editing the forthcoming book Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality and writes regular columns for Al Jazeera America, Tax Analysts, and a weekly piece for Newsweek. <p /> <p />And now joining us in the studio is David Cay Johnston. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Thank you. <p /> <p />JAY: So, as many or most of you know who watch Reality Asserts Itself, we usually start off with a personal story of our interview subject, and that's what we're going to do. <p /> <p />So, David, tell us a little bit. You're born in San Francisco in 1948. This is a little bit of a political biography, shall I say. In 1948, it's the beginning of the Cold War. It's McCarthyism. It's the House Un-American Activities Committee. Were you in a political household? Did people talk about this kind of stuff? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Well, my father was a man from New Orleans with a third-grade education who read a book every day. We had a photograph of him till we lost it in a fire having dinner with F.D.R. When I was a little boy--. <p /> <p />JAY: Now, hold on. You weren't having dinner with F.&amp;#160;D.&amp;#160;R. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: My father was having dinner with F.&amp;#160;D.&amp;#160;R. back in the '30s when he was a young man. And--. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Okay. I got to know. Why is he having dinner with F.&amp;#160;D.&amp;#160;R.? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: He was very active in the Young Democrats of Arizona. I think he was president or vice president of it. And so my parents were very aware of things that were in the news. My father had grown up with this third-grade education. He was in the war. He never saw combat, but he became totally disabled. And he worked while I was growing up, but he was disabled, like many people who were disabled continue to work until health stops their ability to do so. <p /> <p />JAY: He was a chef? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: He became a chef, and he worked up until 1963. And then he died 1969 when I was--just turned 20. <p /> <p />My mother was a disowned heiress, the only child of a very wealthy businessman. She testified against him in a trial in March&amp;#160;1941, where he was being sued for alienation of affection. Imagine today going to a lawyer, saying, oh, this person's sleeping with my spouse, so I want to sue them for alienation of affection. I don't think you'd get very far today. But back then, my grandfather was ordered to pay $10,000, and he disowned the star witness against him, my mother. <p /> <p />So I grew up in an unusual household of very bright people. <p /> <p />JAY: And did you grow up knowing this grandfather at all? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: No. In fact, my existence was hidden from him, and he died when I was, I think, seven years old. So, no, did not know him. Grew up knowing that he had left a very large fortune. And I certainly wasn't a part of it. <p /> <p />JAY: And nor was your mother. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Nor was my mother. <p /> <p />JAY: And your mother must have known this when she testified. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: She was told she'd get disowned, and she did it anyway. It was sort of the strange person my mother was. <p /> <p />So when I was ten years old and we lived in Mill Valley, California, in a little, tiny rented cabin slung over the side of a hill, I went to work to help the family. And by the time I was 13, we were living in Santa Cruz, where I then grew up. I was working full-time. I had seven newspaper routes, four in the morning and three in the afternoon. And on weekends I washed dishes and mowed lawns and did all sorts of things to sort of help the family. <p /> <p />JAY: So as you're throwing or handing newspapers over, are you ever thinking, I will be writing in these someday? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Actually, the scariest part was I had no idea what I was going to do to make a living. I had no--like millions of young people in America, there was no sort of path to where things were and how you got somewhere. And fortune shined upon me. When I was a senior in high school and I was married and I had a kid, the local weekly paper, which was always shooting my picture 'cause I'd won a speech contest, asked me to write a column and offered to pay me a little bit of money--$0.20 an inch. They liked it, so pretty soon they had me covering the school board and the city council for minimum wage. And one day at the county board of supervisors meeting when I was 18 years old, a reporter from The San Jose Mercury who was filling in for the local guy who was off on vacation slides down the bench next to me, asking what's going on, during the break takes me to a coffee shop. I literally don't have a penny in my pocket and I have a hole in the bottom of my shoe. And the following day he told me he had arranged a job interview for me at The San Jose Mercury as a reporter. And I looked at him and I said, "I just graduated from night high school. I'm 18 years old. They're not going to talk to me." And he said, "Yes, they are." So I went over there. They made fun of me for an hour for applying. And I went back and told him how terrible it was, and he said, you go back every three weeks on Friday night until they hire you. And nine months later, they hired me. <p /> <p />JAY: Before we pick up that story--we're jumping further ahead. I want to back up. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Sure. <p /> <p />JAY: Your father--and I'm always interested in the roots of people's political thinking, which to a large extent at least begins with transmission from their parents, and they either rebel against it, assimilate some of it, or whatever. But your father is an active Democrat. He's a Roosevelt Democrat. Is he also a Wallace Democrat? <p /> <p />Now, for those of you that have not watched all of our stuff about Wallace, who became later Roosevelt's vice president, and 'cause by and large Wallace has been left out of most American history, 'cause he was just way too left of center for the current narrative of what America is and was, Wallace was an important piece of what Roosevelt stood for. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: You know, I couldn't tell you that. Here's what I can tell you, that my father, who grew up in New Orleans and then left when he was 19 years old and went West, was furious, absolutely furious about racial discrimination. When the John Cameron Swayze news would come on in the '50s and whatever civil rights demonstrations, if my father happened to be home at news time he would get my brother and I up out of our chairs, 'cause, you know, they tell you on the news what's about to come up. He would stand us up in front of the TV and put his hands on the back of our necks, and he would say, you will pay attention to this. And I remember one time we saw hoses turned on young people or something like that, something really awful. My father turned the TV off and he says, you cannot allow this. There before the grace of God go you. You could be poor and black and in the South, and this would be happening to you. So this is about you, and you will do something about this. And in the summer of 1960--. <p /> <p />JAY: Sounds like he could have been a Wallace Democrat. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Yeah, well, maybe. <p /> <p />And in the summer of 1963, my father, who the following year voted for Goldwater on the theory that Congress wouldn't let him get into a big land war and kill his sons, my father sent me to New Orleans on the bus for the summer to stay with his relatives. And I was told to be very clear that we didn't support their brand of racism. So the first thing I did when my uncle Charlie put me in the car and we went down to the car dealership, a Mercedes dealership, was make a beeline for the water fountain that said "COLORED". And by the end of the summer, you know, the relatives were all saying I was like my father, I was a little "tetched". <p /> <p />JAY: Your father is active with F.&amp;#160;D.&amp;#160;R. at a time when the economic system, capitalism, was in severe crisis. There was a lot of people wondering whether that was--you know, whether that was the end of capitalism. F.&amp;#160;D.&amp;#160;R. kind of stood for, no, we can fix this, there are policies that can mitigate the excesses of capitalism, there's a way to have a rational capitalism. Your father grew up with that, and you grew up with that. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Well, my father, by the time, you know, I was aware of things, except for the issue of race, I wouldn't describe as especially overtly political. He certainly was part of the sort of blue-collar American male world, in which the system is not designed to help you, and he certainly believed that unions were crucial. And I know that he taught me about the idea that Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations figured out, which was that workers should be paid in teams. They work in teams. And, of course, that's not what we see today. We see that the top five executives of companies typically get about a third of the stock options, and the top 2&amp;#160;percent of executives get all the rest. And he believed in that, and as a chef he would have kitchens with at times over 100 people working for him, and he always--he explained to me when I was young about you had to coordinate all these activities and you had to get people to work together that sometimes don't like each other. <p /> <p />JAY: So you grow up with a sort of instinct of an outrage against inequality. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Yes; no, I think that's quite true. And on top of that, you know, here's my mother talking about all the money she doesn't have and sort of doesn't understand why, even though it's, you know, plainly obvious: if you testify against your father, then he's going to cut you out. <p /> <p />JAY: But was she a window for you? Did she talk much about the world of the rich? I mean, really, I mean--. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Oh, yeah, no, my mother would. She had pictures, and she would show us the horses and the house on the lake and the servant. You know, we had films of the servant opening the car and putting her into the car. And--oh, yeah. <p /> <p />JAY: But she marries a working-class guy. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Yeah. Yeah. And happily. My parents were happily married. <p /> <p />JAY: And what were her politics? I mean, had she been radicalized by the '30s herself? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Oh, no. She was Republican. <p /> <p />JAY: She was Republican. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. She took me to a Nixon rally in 1960 and to a Rockefeller rally. I got to shake hands with Nelson Rockefeller when I was 12 years old or 11 years old. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, did they ever fight about politics? I mean, they don't sound like on the same page here. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: No. They fought about things, but not that. <p /> <p />JAY: Not that. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Money. <p /> <p />JAY: They fought about money. Not enough. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: No, not enough. <p /> <p />JAY: Not enough. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: That's why I went to work so young. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. So let's jump ahead now. Well, you're born in '48. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Christmas Eve, 12/24/48--doubling numbers. <p /> <p />JAY: By the time you're ten, '58, we're still--you know, we haven't hit the sort of cultural and political revolutions and transformation of the '60s, so you're still in Leave It to Beaver, Cold War kind of mass media. How much do you assimilate of that? <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Well, remember, 1959 ('cause I was born at the end of the year and I'm ten years old) was when we had the steel strike. And even though the steel strike was in, basically, Pennsylvania and I'm living in Northern California, we felt it. And it was very clear how important back then steel was to the entire industry. We were in an industrial economy. And there were kids I know whose parents lost their jobs because of the--or at least they said they lost them because of the steel strike. And this gave me an awareness of this. <p /> <p />I also had a fundamental belief then--and it's held up until very recently in time--that we had an abundance of work to do in this country, and that if you worked hard and prospered you'd do just fine. I mean, when I left jobs and I was a young man, even with a bunch of kids, I never once worried about another job. Today is a totally different environment, because we have adopted government policies that are designed to take from the many to enrich the few instead of serving the whole economy. <p /> <p />JAY: Your whole arc is this role, that I'm going to point out what's really wrong. From that you can start to see how it could be fixed and, you know, potential reforms. And in the end I'm going to ask you, do you actually still believe that's possible? <p /> <p />And I'll just--just to tease it a bit--but we ain't going to do this until the end, really have this out, because we're going to go through David's work before we do this, but I had a similar conversation with Ralph Nader, who did an interview like this, and, you know, as a single person causing reforms for the better, it's hard to find someone who actually accomplished more than Nader. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: There's nobody in Ralph's league. <p /> <p />JAY: Nobody in his league. And I asked him the question, could you still do any of what you did. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: He probably said not likely. <p /> <p />JAY: No, he said no. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Yeah. <p /> <p />JAY: He said flat out no. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: No, that's exactly right. The--. <p /> <p />JAY: He said it was an anomaly, a little window in history, and it's closed. <p /> <p />JOHNSTON: Well, and plus, plus the business people in this world aren't stupid. They studied Ralph, they co-opted Ralph, they took over Ralph's techniques, and they used them against the public. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. We will unravel that and much more of your work in the next segment of Reality Asserts Itself with David Cay Johnston. <p /> <p />Please join us. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Taking from the Many to Give to the Few - David Cay Johnston on Reality Asserts Itself (1/4)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12312

2014-08-31

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David Cay Johnston was called by The Washington Monthly one of this countrys most important journalists and the Oregonian newspaper compared his work to the great muckrakers Lincoln Steffens Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his exposes of tax loopholes and inequities PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore And welcome to a new edition of Reality Asserts Itself One of my great pleasures in doing this series is I get a chance to talk to people who actually do their homework A lot of interviews subjects they do some homework but a lot of its kind of general opinion But its a real pleasure to talk to investigative journalists who really do that actually investigate uncover unravel things that we didnt know before And in this segment of Reality Asserts Itself I get to talk to one of Americas leading investigative journalists certainly one of the leading journalists in its economic matters and with a long history including a Pulitzer Prize In this Reality Asserts Itself its going to be my pleasure to talk to David Cay Johnston Hes a lifelong journalist and bestselling author whose recent work explores the causes and conditions of inequality in the United States His awardwinning investigative journalism has taken him through the arcane legislation and regulations to expose how corporations and the wealthy rig the system in their favor and to what lengths they go to evade taxation all at the expense of the average taxpayer He won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting and the committee cited him for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the US tax code which was instrumental in bringing about reforms At the Syracuse University College of Law hes a distinguished visiting lecturer where he teaches the history of property taxation regulation and commerce Hes written a trilogy of books on our procorporate tax system the most recent The Fine Print How Big Companies Use Plain English to Rob You Blind Hes also editing the forthcoming book Divided The Perils of Our Growing Inequality and writes regular columns for Al Jazeera America Tax Analysts and a weekly piece for Newsweek And now joining us in the studio is David Cay Johnston Thanks for joining us JOHNSTON Thank you JAY So as many or most of you know who watch Reality Asserts Itself we usually start off with a personal story of our interview subject and thats what were going to do So David tell us a little bit Youre born in San Francisco in 1948 This is a little bit of a political biography shall I say In 1948 its the beginning of the Cold War Its McCarthyism Its the House UnAmerican Activities Committee Were you in a political household Did people talk about this kind of stuff JOHNSTON Well my father was a man from New Orleans with a thirdgrade education who read a book every day We had a photograph of him till we lost it in a fire having dinner with FDR When I was a little boy JAY Now hold on You werent having dinner with Famp160Damp160R JOHNSTON My father was having dinner with Famp160Damp160R back in the 30s when he was a young man And JAY Alright Okay I got to know Why is he having dinner with Famp160Damp160R JOHNSTON He was very active in the Young Democrats of Arizona I think he was president or vice president of it And so my parents were very aware of things that were in the news My father had grown up with this thirdgrade education He was in the war He never saw combat but he became totally disabled And he worked while I was growing up but he was disabled like many people who were disabled continue to work until health stops their ability to do so JAY He was a chef JOHNSTON He became a chef and he worked up until 1963 And then he died 1969 when I wasjust turned 20 My mother was a disowned heiress the only child of a very wealthy businessman She testified against him in a trial in Marchamp1601941 where he was being sued for alienation of affection Imagine today going to a lawyer saying oh this persons sleeping with my spouse so I want to sue them for alienation of affection I dont think youd get very far today But back then my grandfather was ordered to pay 10000 and he disowned the star witness against him my mother So I grew up in an unusual household of very bright people JAY And did you grow up knowing this grandfather at all JOHNSTON No In fact my existence was hidden from him and he died when I was I think seven years old So no did not know him Grew up knowing that he had left a very large fortune And I certainly wasnt a part of it JAY And nor was your mother JOHNSTON Nor was my mother JAY And your mother must have known this when she testified JOHNSTON She was told shed get disowned and she did it anyway It was sort of the strange person my mother was So when I was ten years old and we lived in Mill Valley California in a little tiny rented cabin slung over the side of a hill I went to work to help the family And by the time I was 13 we were living in Santa Cruz where I then grew up I was working fulltime I had seven newspaper routes four in the morning and three in the afternoon And on weekends I washed dishes and mowed lawns and did all sorts of things to sort of help the family JAY So as youre throwing or handing newspapers over are you ever thinking I will be writing in these someday JOHNSTON Actually the scariest part was I had no idea what I was going to do to make a living I had nolike millions of young people in America there was no sort of path to where things were and how you got somewhere And fortune shined upon me When I was a senior in high school and I was married and I had a kid the local weekly paper which was always shooting my picture cause Id won a speech contest asked me to write a column and offered to pay me a little bit of money020 an inch They liked it so pretty soon they had me covering the school board and the city council for minimum wage And one day at the county board of supervisors meeting when I was 18 years old a reporter from The San Jose Mercury who was filling in for the local guy who was off on vacation slides down the bench next to me asking whats going on during the break takes me to a coffee shop I literally dont have a penny in my pocket and I have a hole in the bottom of my shoe And the following day he told me he had arranged a job interview for me at The San Jose Mercury as a reporter And I looked at him and I said I just graduated from night high school Im 18 years old Theyre not going to talk to me And he said Yes they are So I went over there They made fun of me for an hour for applying And I went back and told him how terrible it was and he said you go back every three weeks on Friday night until they hire you And nine months later they hired me JAY Before we pick up that storywere jumping further ahead I want to back up JOHNSTON Sure JAY Your fatherand Im always interested in the roots of peoples political thinking which to a large extent at least begins with transmission from their parents and they either rebel against it assimilate some of it or whatever But your father is an active Democrat Hes a Roosevelt Democrat Is he also a Wallace Democrat Now for those of you that have not watched all of our stuff about Wallace who became later Roosevelts vice president and cause by and large Wallace has been left out of most American history cause he was just way too left of center for the current narrative of what America is and was Wallace was an important piece of what Roosevelt stood for JOHNSTON You know I couldnt tell you that Heres what I can tell you that my father who grew up in New Orleans and then left when he was 19 years old and went West was furious absolutely furious about racial discrimination When the John Cameron Swayze news would come on in the 50s and whatever civil rights demonstrations if my father happened to be home at news time he would get my brother and I up out of our chairs cause you know they tell you on the news whats about to come up He would stand us up in front of the TV and put his hands on the back of our necks and he would say you will pay attention to this And I remember one time we saw hoses turned on young people or something like that something really awful My father turned the TV off and he says you cannot allow this There before the grace of God go you You could be poor and black and in the South and this would be happening to you So this is about you and you will do something about this And in the summer of 1960 JAY Sounds like he could have been a Wallace Democrat JOHNSTON Yeah well maybe And in the summer of 1963 my father who the following year voted for Goldwater on the theory that Congress wouldnt let him get into a big land war and kill his sons my father sent me to New Orleans on the bus for the summer to stay with his relatives And I was told to be very clear that we didnt support their brand of racism So the first thing I did when my uncle Charlie put me in the car and we went down to the car dealership a Mercedes dealership was make a beeline for the water fountain that said COLORED And by the end of the summer you know the relatives were all saying I was like my father I was a little tetched JAY Your father is active with Famp160Damp160R at a time when the economic system capitalism was in severe crisis There was a lot of people wondering whether that wasyou know whether that was the end of capitalism Famp160Damp160R kind of stood for no we can fix this there are policies that can mitigate the excesses of capitalism theres a way to have a rational capitalism Your father grew up with that and you grew up with that JOHNSTON Well my father by the time you know I was aware of things except for the issue of race I wouldnt describe as especially overtly political He certainly was part of the sort of bluecollar American male world in which the system is not designed to help you and he certainly believed that unions were crucial And I know that he taught me about the idea that Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations figured out which was that workers should be paid in teams They work in teams And of course thats not what we see today We see that the top five executives of companies typically get about a third of the stock options and the top 2amp160percent of executives get all the rest And he believed in that and as a chef he would have kitchens with at times over 100 people working for him and he alwayshe explained to me when I was young about you had to coordinate all these activities and you had to get people to work together that sometimes dont like each other JAY So you grow up with a sort of instinct of an outrage against inequality JOHNSTON Yes no I think thats quite true And on top of that you know heres my mother talking about all the money she doesnt have and sort of doesnt understand why even though its you know plainly obvious if you testify against your father then hes going to cut you out JAY But was she a window for you Did she talk much about the world of the rich I mean really I mean JOHNSTON Oh yeah no my mother would She had pictures and she would show us the horses and the house on the lake and the servant You know we had films of the servant opening the car and putting her into the car Andoh yeah JAY But she marries a workingclass guy JOHNSTON Yeah Yeah And happily My parents were happily married JAY And what were her politics I mean had she been radicalized by the 30s herself JOHNSTON Oh no She was Republican JAY She was Republican JOHNSTON Oh yeah Oh yeah She took me to a Nixon rally in 1960 and to a Rockefeller rally I got to shake hands with Nelson Rockefeller when I was 12 years old or 11 years old JAY Well did they ever fight about politics I mean they dont sound like on the same page here JOHNSTON No They fought about things but not that JAY Not that JOHNSTON Money JAY They fought about money Not enough JOHNSTON No not enough JAY Not enough JOHNSTON Thats why I went to work so young JAY Alright So lets jump ahead now Well youre born in 48 JOHNSTON Christmas Eve 122448doubling numbers JAY By the time youre ten 58 were stillyou know we havent hit the sort of cultural and political revolutions and transformation of the 60s so youre still in Leave It to Beaver Cold War kind of mass media How much do you assimilate of that JOHNSTON Well remember 1959 cause I was born at the end of the year and Im ten years old was when we had the steel strike And even though the steel strike was in basically Pennsylvania and Im living in Northern California we felt it And it was very clear how important back then steel was to the entire industry We were in an industrial economy And there were kids I know whose parents lost their jobs because of theor at least they said they lost them because of the steel strike And this gave me an awareness of this I also had a fundamental belief thenand its held up until very recently in timethat we had an abundance of work to do in this country and that if you worked hard and prospered youd do just fine I mean when I left jobs and I was a young man even with a bunch of kids I never once worried about another job Today is a totally different environment because we have adopted government policies that are designed to take from the many to enrich the few instead of serving the whole economy JAY Your whole arc is this role that Im going to point out whats really wrong From that you can start to see how it could be fixed and you know potential reforms And in the end Im going to ask you do you actually still believe thats possible And Ill justjust to tease it a bitbut we aint going to do this until the end really have this out because were going to go through Davids work before we do this but I had a similar conversation with Ralph Nader who did an interview like this and you know as a single person causing reforms for the better its hard to find someone who actually accomplished more than Nader JOHNSTON Theres nobody in Ralphs league JAY Nobody in his league And I asked him the question could you still do any of what you did JOHNSTON He probably said not likely JAY No he said no JOHNSTON Yeah JAY He said flat out no JOHNSTON No thats exactly right The JAY He said it was an anomaly a little window in history and its closed JOHNSTON Well and plus plus the business people in this world arent stupid They studied Ralph they coopted Ralph they took over Ralphs techniques and they used them against the public JAY Alright We will unravel that and much more of your work in the next segment of Reality Asserts Itself with David Cay Johnston Please join us End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Independent Film Channel, The Huffington Post, <a href="http://salon.com/" type="external">Salon.com</a>, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. His most recent book is Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. His other book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Republican-Gomorrah-Inside-Movement-Shattered/dp/1568583982" type="external">Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party</a>, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller. Max is co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself. <p /> <p />We're continuing our series of interviews with author Max Blumenthal about his new book Goliath: Life and Loathing a Greater Israel. In the previous sections of the interview, we've been talking about the far right and the center and their policy of expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel. Of course, the primary face of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu, it's prime minister, who would not overtly talk this way these days, but at the root of his thinking he seems to not be in a different position than the others we have covered in this series. <p /> <p />Here's a quote from Max's book: <p /> <p />Like every Israeli Prime Minister before him, Netanyahu's strategy depended on increasing the number of Jews living on Israeli-controlled territory and reducing the number of Palestinians. In November&amp;#160;1989, while he served as a junior minister in Shamir's government, Netanyahu spoke at Bar-Ilan University, the academic mecca of religious nationalism in Israel. Quote, Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China in Tiananmen Square, when the world's attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories, end quote, Netanyahu told his audience. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed and which I still propose should be implemented. <p /> <p />Now joining us in the studio is Max Blumenthal. Max is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author, whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in many publications. His most recent book is Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us. <p /> <p />MAX BLUMENTHAL, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, BLOGGER: Good to be with you. <p /> <p />JAY: So Benjamin Netanyahu would, again, not allow the West to see this face of his, but this seems to be part of his ideology as well, the idea of expulsion. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: It has been. And, you know, I write about Netanyahu's experience as part of the post-'67 generation. <p /> <p />There had always been, you know, a strong right-wing element within the Zionist movement, but it had always been kind of the junior partner to the labor Zionist movement. And Ze'ev Jabotinsky's most famous essay, which he wrote in 1923, "The Iron Wall, kind of laid out the strategic deterrence strategy of the Israelis, which is pure colonialism, using kind of a strategy of pure force because they could never make peace with the indigenous Arab population. And so they will have to suppress them through violence. And Jabotinsky said there's no difference between our vegetarians and our meat eaters. And so Jabotinsky's press secretary in New York was Netanyahu's father, Benzion. And so Netanyahu emerges from this kind of environment. <p /> <p />"The Iron Wall" was adopted by the labor Zionist movement as the official strategic deterrence strategy of Israel. And it's now embodied in a literal iron wall, which is the separation wall along the West Bank. And so Netanyahu moves into Israeli politics in the early '70s, and his comrades are people like Tzachi Hanegbi, whose mother was Geulah Cohen, that self-described "woman of violence" who was in the terrorist Stern Gang with Yitzhak Shamir, which carried out the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, these kind of activities. <p /> <p />And by the early '70s, these young Turks like Hanegbi and Netanyahu were actually attempting to move to the right of their intellectual and political forebears like Shamir and Cohen. Hanegbi formed a group called Kastel, which was a student group at Hebrew University, and they were known for attacking Arab students on campus. And he appointed as his guard, the guard of this right-wing club, a young Moldovan baggage handler from Ben Gurion International Airport named Avigdor Lieberman. And Netanyahu met them both and helped them both up the Likud ranks until they are both in cabinet positions or ministerial positions in Netanyahu's first government. So the settlers really celebrated Netanyahu coming into power in '96, because he had these right-wing figures populating the corridors of power. <p /> <p />Yitzhak Rabin had just been assassinated for negotiating the Oslo Accords by a right-wing fanatic who went to school at Bar-Ilan University, Yigal Amir. And you just mentioned Netanyahu's speech in 1989 at Bar-Ilan calling for mass expulsion of Palestinians. <p /> <p />And so all of a sudden Netanyahu comes under pressure from Washington to negotiate the Hebron Accords, which have proven disastrous, and he's reneged on the entire agreement; and then the Wye River accords with Arafat. <p /> <p />And so the settlers completely turned their back on Netanyahu. His base falls out from under him. <p /> <p />And then this view develops of Netanyahu that he talks tough, that he uses language like you heard at Bar-Ilan in 1989, but he's the only one who can actually bring the right around to make peace, and he actually wants to make peace. It's kind of like Nixon going to China. So when Netanyahu was elected in 2009, many people in Washington who would ally themselves with the Labor Party actually welcomed Netanyahu and saw him as this pushover. And Netanyahu went back to Bar-Ilan University in 2009 and described his vision for peace of two states living side by side and said that he believes in peace talks--the operative word being talks--because it was his mentor, Yitzhak Shamir, who conceived a plan at the dawn of the peace process to carry out talks for ten years--and he said this openly--and settle half a million Jews in the West Bank. <p /> <p />Now there there are almost half a million Jews in the West Bank, and these talks have been going on for over 20 years, maybe 25 years. And this is Netanyahu's strategy. And it's been so successful that he no longer has to pretend that he believes in two states anymore. He no longer has to pretend in this vision of peace. <p /> <p />So two weeks ago, Netanyahu went back to Bar-Ilan University to give another major national security speech. And there in the academic mecca of the religious nationalist movement he returned to his ideological roots, the real Netanyahu of 1989, the Netanyahu that hung out with Hanegbi and Lieberman, and he declared that the Palestinians are the heirs to Nazi Germany, that they are directly responsible for the Final Solution and directly responsible for the slaughter of 4,000 Jewish children in Europe, which is completely false. It's an allegation first introduced by Alan Dershowitz, which is unproven. And he said that for us to make peace, we have to first remove the poisonous tumor of anti-Semitism from the Palestinians. And he used the word kibbush, or occupation, with a sarcastic tone to suggest that Palestinian resentment of the state of Israel has nothing to do with occupation or colonialism; it has to do with pure, endemic anti-Semitism and Naziism. And this is dangerous rhetoric, considering the amount of--I mean, you just read my book and read about the amount of mob violence targeting Palestinians and non-Jewish Africans, and you hear this rhetoric from the leader of Israel. Words have consequences. And so this was really an episode not just of incitement but of Netanyahu flaunting his power in the face of the U.S., which has enforced the status quo, allowing the right to go grow beneath Netanyahu and go even further to the right. <p /> <p />So you look at this progression that I've described from Yitzhak Shamir, from the Stern Gang, to Netanyahu, who's gone to the right of Shamir, two people in the Likud Party who grew up in the post-Oslo era who never took the peace process seriously, like Naftali Bennett, who'is the head of the Jewish Home Party, which is the third-largest party in Israel right now and is making gains in municipal elections, people like Tzipi Hotovely, who's 32 years old and is a rising figure. She's a deputy transportation minister, which is a stepping stone to even higher office. And she has held hearings in the Knesset on the dangers of miscegenation or Jewish-Arab dating. She favors annexing the West Bank. Danny Danon, who's one of Netanyahu's principal challengers in the Likud Party, is, like, 42 years old, speaks horrible English, favors annexing the West Bank, writes these op-eds for The New York Times calling for a single apartheid state--I mean, these people want to bring apartheid completely out into the open. Netanyahu at least has had a strategy to counter the pressure from Washington and maintain the status quo beneath peace talks. <p /> <p />So where is the center in Israel? Netanyahu occupies the hollow center, and he has no choice but to consistently move to his right to mollify the right-wing base while the Labor Party, under the control of Shelly Yachimovich, focuses on things like the price of cottage cheese and the national insurance system and is bunkering in Tel Aviv and Haifa and in the epicenters of the enlightened public and completely has given up or has almost completely given up on the concept of two states and has relieved Netanyahu of any pressure from his left. <p /> <p />JAY: If this concept of annexing the West Bank, then how do they deal with the idea of voting and one person, one vote? I mean, the demographics are clearly against a Jewish state. So if they're going to have it, they have to--have to go to open apartheid, which is you're going to have some people can vote and others can't. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: Right. I mean, Netanyahu has already appointed a committee to explore the feasibility of annexing 60&amp;#160;percent of the West Bank, which is Area C. This area was created under Oslo. It's the area where most of the settlers live and the fewest Palestinians live. And so, through Oslo, signed by Rabin and Arafat, the stage was set for this annexation project. We have to see the Labor Party's fingerprints on this as well. <p /> <p />And what people like Naftali Bennett claim is through an annexation plan there won't be enough Palestinians in the Area C to compromise the demographic majority of Jews over the whole land. They can be given citizenship. Meanwhile, the rest of the Palestinians in the West Bank will live in these kind of bantustan clusters surrounded by walls and checkpoints with their movement limited, and they will be given Jordanian citizenship. So Palestinian quasi-state is off the table. Apartheid's in the open. But the Palestinians will be given the same kind of status that Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem have. And then you have a small amount who will be given some kind of putative Israeli citizenship. And then the Gaza Strip will just exist as this kind of territory without--with this kind of besieged human warehousing project that will have no connection to the West Bank. And eventually the goal of the Israeli right, which they've expressed openly, is to hand Gaza over to Egypt, which I can't really foresee happening. <p /> <p />But they have a very clear blueprint, a very clear blueprint, and they intend to make good on it. And the U.S. is well aware of it. <p /> <p />JAY: And this is combined with this idea of expulsion. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: It's not just about expulsion. It's more about ghettoization and human warehousing and apartheid. I don't know--but you can expect, though, that in Area C--I expect that if this plan comes into place, Palestinians who gain citizenship in Area C will start to face a rapid, a more aggressive wave of settler attacks to push them into Area A, the bantustans, where they can then be stripped of their citizenship. And, I mean, if you look at how Israel's handled citizenship in Jerusalem, they've actually enacted laws, which have been validated by municipal courts, where Palestinians who previously--who had moved to areas of Jerusalem that were declared part of the Jerusalem municipality which used to be in the West Bank, they've told them that if you move there after 2004, when it became part of the Jerusalem municipality, you can't gain residency and you only have PA status. That sounds really complicated, but I'm just trying to illustrate how Israel's been able to carefully manipulate demographics through areas where it's taken control. <p /> <p />JAY: And this is the deal they want the Palestinians to call a two-state solution [crosstalk] annexation. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: Well, no. I mean, we're talking about the annexation plan. The two-state solution is very--is actually--. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, what is the sector that out of this 60&amp;#160;percent? What do they call that? It becomes a what? <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: I mean, that's--in any case, that's what would become the Palestinian state under a two-state solution that they can't seem to negotiate. But the people--. <p /> <p />JAY: But the idea is, if you can't negotiate this structure, then you do it unilaterally. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: You do it unilaterally, and instead of giving the people in Area A, which is the big cities--Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus--Palestinian citizenship, which would give them votes at the UN and enable them to increase moderately some pressure on the state of Israel to give them more rights to airspace and that kind of thing, you give them Jordanian citizenship or Jordanian residency, which enables--it improves their freedom of movement, but it strips them of their Palestinian identity. <p /> <p />And that's--again, all of this is contingent on Washington. And Washington maintaining the status quo for so many years has brought this plan into the open. And the future leaders of Israel intend to make good on this plan. And I see no evidence from Washington that they will do anything to counter it. In fact, when you really talk to diplomats who are in the tank, who are in the Beltway, and you say, would you have a plan for what comes after the two-state solution, 'cause it's not going to happen, the best thing they can tell you is, we will increase aid to the Palestinians. That's what John Kerry and Tony Blair's plan is that they introduced at the world economic forum in Jordan was a $4&amp;#160;billion economic plan to dump more aid and charity into these occupied bantustans in the Palestinian Authority as a substitute for a state. I mean, and is that acceptable? Can the world except that? Well, we know that the United States can accept it. <p /> <p />JAY: When Netanyahu gets 20-some outstanding ovations in Congress,-- <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: Thirty-five more than Barack Obama got during his State of the Union. <p /> <p />JAY: --how aware of all of this do you think the members of Congress are? <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: Members of Congress could give two craps, they could give less than one iota of two craps about what happens over there. This is one of the few pieces of reporting in Peter arts book, The Crisis of Zionism, that I thought was really valuable, which is he had sources who told him that each member of Congress got a VIP ticket for Netanyahu's speech, and they each brought their top donor from AIPAC. And Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who's a member of Congress, who's, you know, a kind of a key link to the Israeli lobby, was given hand motions on when to cheer and when not to. And so, you know--. <p /> <p />JAY: Her hand must have gotten tired. <p /> <p />BLUMENTHAL: But the point of this is that the Democrats and the Republicans are engaged in a bipartisan project to deny the Palestinians any future. And for a liberal Democrat, why reject all of the donations that you're being offered and basically set yourself up for the kind of rancorous political environment and antagonism you're going to receive when your real agenda focuses on serving your constituents and maybe getting them better health care, providing them with services, and bringing porkbarrel projects back into your district? So the Palestinian have to be sacrificed for all that. <p /> <p />And I don't talk about U.S. Congress in my book. I don't talk about geopolitics very much. I don't talk about the broader Middle East very much. I just talk about the consequences of this policy on the ground, the facts on the ground that have been created by the U.S. policy, by the bipartisan consensus around maintaining the status quo in Israel-Palestine. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, that's one of the criticisms of the book that's so far hit the press. And in the next segment of our interview, we're going to talk about some of the criticism of Max's book. <p /> <p />Please join us for the next segment of our interview with Max on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Netanyahu's Greater Israel Based on Expulsion and Annexation - Max Blumenthal on Reality Asserts Itself pt3

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10939

2013-10-30

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Max Blumenthal is an awardwinning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times The Los Angeles Times The Daily Beast The Nation The Guardian The Independent Film Channel The Huffington Post Saloncom Al Jazeera English and many other publications His most recent book is Goliath Life and Loathing in Greater Israel His other book Republican Gomorrah Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller Max is cohost of the podcast Moderate Rebels PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself Were continuing our series of interviews with author Max Blumenthal about his new book Goliath Life and Loathing a Greater Israel In the previous sections of the interview weve been talking about the far right and the center and their policy of expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel Of course the primary face of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu its prime minister who would not overtly talk this way these days but at the root of his thinking he seems to not be in a different position than the others we have covered in this series Heres a quote from Maxs book Like every Israeli Prime Minister before him Netanyahus strategy depended on increasing the number of Jews living on Israelicontrolled territory and reducing the number of Palestinians In Novemberamp1601989 while he served as a junior minister in Shamirs government Netanyahu spoke at BarIlan University the academic mecca of religious nationalism in Israel Quote Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China in Tiananmen Square when the worlds attention was focused on what was happening in that country to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories end quote Netanyahu told his audience However to my regret they did not support that policy that I proposed and which I still propose should be implemented Now joining us in the studio is Max Blumenthal Max is an awardwinning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in many publications His most recent book is Goliath Life and Loathing in Greater Israel Thanks for joining us MAX BLUMENTHAL AUTHOR JOURNALIST BLOGGER Good to be with you JAY So Benjamin Netanyahu would again not allow the West to see this face of his but this seems to be part of his ideology as well the idea of expulsion BLUMENTHAL It has been And you know I write about Netanyahus experience as part of the post67 generation There had always been you know a strong rightwing element within the Zionist movement but it had always been kind of the junior partner to the labor Zionist movement And Zeev Jabotinskys most famous essay which he wrote in 1923 The Iron Wall kind of laid out the strategic deterrence strategy of the Israelis which is pure colonialism using kind of a strategy of pure force because they could never make peace with the indigenous Arab population And so they will have to suppress them through violence And Jabotinsky said theres no difference between our vegetarians and our meat eaters And so Jabotinskys press secretary in New York was Netanyahus father Benzion And so Netanyahu emerges from this kind of environment The Iron Wall was adopted by the labor Zionist movement as the official strategic deterrence strategy of Israel And its now embodied in a literal iron wall which is the separation wall along the West Bank And so Netanyahu moves into Israeli politics in the early 70s and his comrades are people like Tzachi Hanegbi whose mother was Geulah Cohen that selfdescribed woman of violence who was in the terrorist Stern Gang with Yitzhak Shamir which carried out the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which carried out the Deir Yassin massacre these kind of activities And by the early 70s these young Turks like Hanegbi and Netanyahu were actually attempting to move to the right of their intellectual and political forebears like Shamir and Cohen Hanegbi formed a group called Kastel which was a student group at Hebrew University and they were known for attacking Arab students on campus And he appointed as his guard the guard of this rightwing club a young Moldovan baggage handler from Ben Gurion International Airport named Avigdor Lieberman And Netanyahu met them both and helped them both up the Likud ranks until they are both in cabinet positions or ministerial positions in Netanyahus first government So the settlers really celebrated Netanyahu coming into power in 96 because he had these rightwing figures populating the corridors of power Yitzhak Rabin had just been assassinated for negotiating the Oslo Accords by a rightwing fanatic who went to school at BarIlan University Yigal Amir And you just mentioned Netanyahus speech in 1989 at BarIlan calling for mass expulsion of Palestinians And so all of a sudden Netanyahu comes under pressure from Washington to negotiate the Hebron Accords which have proven disastrous and hes reneged on the entire agreement and then the Wye River accords with Arafat And so the settlers completely turned their back on Netanyahu His base falls out from under him And then this view develops of Netanyahu that he talks tough that he uses language like you heard at BarIlan in 1989 but hes the only one who can actually bring the right around to make peace and he actually wants to make peace Its kind of like Nixon going to China So when Netanyahu was elected in 2009 many people in Washington who would ally themselves with the Labor Party actually welcomed Netanyahu and saw him as this pushover And Netanyahu went back to BarIlan University in 2009 and described his vision for peace of two states living side by side and said that he believes in peace talksthe operative word being talksbecause it was his mentor Yitzhak Shamir who conceived a plan at the dawn of the peace process to carry out talks for ten yearsand he said this openlyand settle half a million Jews in the West Bank Now there there are almost half a million Jews in the West Bank and these talks have been going on for over 20 years maybe 25 years And this is Netanyahus strategy And its been so successful that he no longer has to pretend that he believes in two states anymore He no longer has to pretend in this vision of peace So two weeks ago Netanyahu went back to BarIlan University to give another major national security speech And there in the academic mecca of the religious nationalist movement he returned to his ideological roots the real Netanyahu of 1989 the Netanyahu that hung out with Hanegbi and Lieberman and he declared that the Palestinians are the heirs to Nazi Germany that they are directly responsible for the Final Solution and directly responsible for the slaughter of 4000 Jewish children in Europe which is completely false Its an allegation first introduced by Alan Dershowitz which is unproven And he said that for us to make peace we have to first remove the poisonous tumor of antiSemitism from the Palestinians And he used the word kibbush or occupation with a sarcastic tone to suggest that Palestinian resentment of the state of Israel has nothing to do with occupation or colonialism it has to do with pure endemic antiSemitism and Naziism And this is dangerous rhetoric considering the amount ofI mean you just read my book and read about the amount of mob violence targeting Palestinians and nonJewish Africans and you hear this rhetoric from the leader of Israel Words have consequences And so this was really an episode not just of incitement but of Netanyahu flaunting his power in the face of the US which has enforced the status quo allowing the right to go grow beneath Netanyahu and go even further to the right So you look at this progression that Ive described from Yitzhak Shamir from the Stern Gang to Netanyahu whos gone to the right of Shamir two people in the Likud Party who grew up in the postOslo era who never took the peace process seriously like Naftali Bennett whois the head of the Jewish Home Party which is the thirdlargest party in Israel right now and is making gains in municipal elections people like Tzipi Hotovely whos 32 years old and is a rising figure Shes a deputy transportation minister which is a stepping stone to even higher office And she has held hearings in the Knesset on the dangers of miscegenation or JewishArab dating She favors annexing the West Bank Danny Danon whos one of Netanyahus principal challengers in the Likud Party is like 42 years old speaks horrible English favors annexing the West Bank writes these opeds for The New York Times calling for a single apartheid stateI mean these people want to bring apartheid completely out into the open Netanyahu at least has had a strategy to counter the pressure from Washington and maintain the status quo beneath peace talks So where is the center in Israel Netanyahu occupies the hollow center and he has no choice but to consistently move to his right to mollify the rightwing base while the Labor Party under the control of Shelly Yachimovich focuses on things like the price of cottage cheese and the national insurance system and is bunkering in Tel Aviv and Haifa and in the epicenters of the enlightened public and completely has given up or has almost completely given up on the concept of two states and has relieved Netanyahu of any pressure from his left JAY If this concept of annexing the West Bank then how do they deal with the idea of voting and one person one vote I mean the demographics are clearly against a Jewish state So if theyre going to have it they have tohave to go to open apartheid which is youre going to have some people can vote and others cant BLUMENTHAL Right I mean Netanyahu has already appointed a committee to explore the feasibility of annexing 60amp160percent of the West Bank which is Area C This area was created under Oslo Its the area where most of the settlers live and the fewest Palestinians live And so through Oslo signed by Rabin and Arafat the stage was set for this annexation project We have to see the Labor Partys fingerprints on this as well And what people like Naftali Bennett claim is through an annexation plan there wont be enough Palestinians in the Area C to compromise the demographic majority of Jews over the whole land They can be given citizenship Meanwhile the rest of the Palestinians in the West Bank will live in these kind of bantustan clusters surrounded by walls and checkpoints with their movement limited and they will be given Jordanian citizenship So Palestinian quasistate is off the table Apartheids in the open But the Palestinians will be given the same kind of status that Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem have And then you have a small amount who will be given some kind of putative Israeli citizenship And then the Gaza Strip will just exist as this kind of territory withoutwith this kind of besieged human warehousing project that will have no connection to the West Bank And eventually the goal of the Israeli right which theyve expressed openly is to hand Gaza over to Egypt which I cant really foresee happening But they have a very clear blueprint a very clear blueprint and they intend to make good on it And the US is well aware of it JAY And this is combined with this idea of expulsion BLUMENTHAL Its not just about expulsion Its more about ghettoization and human warehousing and apartheid I dont knowbut you can expect though that in Area CI expect that if this plan comes into place Palestinians who gain citizenship in Area C will start to face a rapid a more aggressive wave of settler attacks to push them into Area A the bantustans where they can then be stripped of their citizenship And I mean if you look at how Israels handled citizenship in Jerusalem theyve actually enacted laws which have been validated by municipal courts where Palestinians who previouslywho had moved to areas of Jerusalem that were declared part of the Jerusalem municipality which used to be in the West Bank theyve told them that if you move there after 2004 when it became part of the Jerusalem municipality you cant gain residency and you only have PA status That sounds really complicated but Im just trying to illustrate how Israels been able to carefully manipulate demographics through areas where its taken control JAY And this is the deal they want the Palestinians to call a twostate solution crosstalk annexation BLUMENTHAL Well no I mean were talking about the annexation plan The twostate solution is veryis actually JAY Well what is the sector that out of this 60amp160percent What do they call that It becomes a what BLUMENTHAL I mean thatsin any case thats what would become the Palestinian state under a twostate solution that they cant seem to negotiate But the people JAY But the idea is if you cant negotiate this structure then you do it unilaterally BLUMENTHAL You do it unilaterally and instead of giving the people in Area A which is the big citiesRamallah Bethlehem Hebron NablusPalestinian citizenship which would give them votes at the UN and enable them to increase moderately some pressure on the state of Israel to give them more rights to airspace and that kind of thing you give them Jordanian citizenship or Jordanian residency which enablesit improves their freedom of movement but it strips them of their Palestinian identity And thatsagain all of this is contingent on Washington And Washington maintaining the status quo for so many years has brought this plan into the open And the future leaders of Israel intend to make good on this plan And I see no evidence from Washington that they will do anything to counter it In fact when you really talk to diplomats who are in the tank who are in the Beltway and you say would you have a plan for what comes after the twostate solution cause its not going to happen the best thing they can tell you is we will increase aid to the Palestinians Thats what John Kerry and Tony Blairs plan is that they introduced at the world economic forum in Jordan was a 4amp160billion economic plan to dump more aid and charity into these occupied bantustans in the Palestinian Authority as a substitute for a state I mean and is that acceptable Can the world except that Well we know that the United States can accept it JAY When Netanyahu gets 20some outstanding ovations in Congress BLUMENTHAL Thirtyfive more than Barack Obama got during his State of the Union JAY how aware of all of this do you think the members of Congress are BLUMENTHAL Members of Congress could give two craps they could give less than one iota of two craps about what happens over there This is one of the few pieces of reporting in Peter arts book The Crisis of Zionism that I thought was really valuable which is he had sources who told him that each member of Congress got a VIP ticket for Netanyahus speech and they each brought their top donor from AIPAC And Debbie Wasserman Schultz whos a member of Congress whos you know a kind of a key link to the Israeli lobby was given hand motions on when to cheer and when not to And so you know JAY Her hand must have gotten tired BLUMENTHAL But the point of this is that the Democrats and the Republicans are engaged in a bipartisan project to deny the Palestinians any future And for a liberal Democrat why reject all of the donations that youre being offered and basically set yourself up for the kind of rancorous political environment and antagonism youre going to receive when your real agenda focuses on serving your constituents and maybe getting them better health care providing them with services and bringing porkbarrel projects back into your district So the Palestinian have to be sacrificed for all that And I dont talk about US Congress in my book I dont talk about geopolitics very much I dont talk about the broader Middle East very much I just talk about the consequences of this policy on the ground the facts on the ground that have been created by the US policy by the bipartisan consensus around maintaining the status quo in IsraelPalestine JAY Well thats one of the criticisms of the book thats so far hit the press And in the next segment of our interview were going to talk about some of the criticism of Maxs book Please join us for the next segment of our interview with Max on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Is President Obama&#8217;s spending an &#8220;inferno,&#8221; as Mitt Romney claims, or a binge that &#8220;never happened&#8221; as an analysis touted by the White House concluded? We judge that both of those claims are wrong on the facts.</p> <p>The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 &#8212; for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely &#8212; was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.</p> <p>That includes spending for the bank bailout legislation approved by President Bush. Annual increases in amounts actually spent since fiscal 2009 have been relatively modest. In fact, spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year is running slightly below the same period last year, and below projections.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Since pictures can convey information more efficiently than words, we&#8217;ll sum up the official spending figures in this chart. It also reflects our finding that Obama increased fiscal 2009 spending by at most $203 billion, accounting for well under half the huge increase that year.</p> <p>So if current spending is an &#8220;inferno,&#8221; it&#8217;s one that Bush (and Congress) is mostly responsible for starting. But it&#8217;s also true that Obama has done little to put it out.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Spending under Obama remains at a level that is quite high by historical standards. Measured as a percentage of the nation&#8217;s economic production, it reached the highest level since World War II in fiscal 2009, and has declined only slightly since.</p> <p>And there&#8217;s more spending to come: The health care law Obama signed in 2010 calls for a new wave starting in 2014, to subsidize coverage for millions who wouldn&#8217;t otherwise have it. That will be adding an estimated $110 billion to federal outlays in fiscal 2015, and more in later years.</p> <p>But note also that receipts are running at levels that are well below historical averages. It is the combination of historically high spending and low revenues that is producing the current string of trillion-dollar annual deficits, and piling up debt. Those who blame deficits solely on spending ignore the other side of the ledger.</p> <p>&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;&#65279;Mitt Romney claims President Barack Obama&#8217;s spending amounts to an <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/romney-warns-of-obamas-debt-spending-inferno/" type="external">&#8220;inferno.&#8221;</a> But who is really responsible for the huge jump that took place in fiscal 2009? Here are some undisputed facts:</p> <p>How Much Did Obama Add?</p> <p>But it&#8217;s also true that Obama <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app09.html" type="external">signed a number of appropriations bills</a>, plus other legislation and executive orders, that raised spending for the remainder of fiscal 2009 even above the path set by Bush. By our calculations, Obama can be fairly assigned responsibility for a maximum of $203 billion in additional spending for that year.</p> <p>It can be argued that the total should be lower. Economist <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/daniel-mitchell" type="external">Daniel J. Mitchell</a> of the libertarian CATO Institute &#8212; who once served on the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee &#8212; has <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/defending-obama-again/" type="external">put the figure at $140 billion</a>.</p> <p>Ordinarily, an incoming president has little or no influence over spending that was approved under his predecessor. So in normal circumstances, all spending for fiscal year 2009 would have been rightly tied to Bush, and fiscal 2010 would be the first year for which Obama would have prepared a budget and signed the major spending bills. And for the most part, big spending programs that require no yearly appropriations, including Social Security and Medicare, did indeed continue to operate during fiscal 2009 under the policies in effect under Bush.</p> <p>But in Obama&#8217;s case, he quickly pushed through Congress and signed a large economic stimulus measure containing a combination of tax cuts and new spending in fiscal 2009. And while Bush had signed full-year appropriations for the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and veterans programs, he had left the remainder of government agencies that need annual appropriations funded only through March 2009.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s how we arrived at our $203 billion total: We combed through all the appropriations bills signed by Obama for 2009, plus other legislation that CBO said also resulted in increased spending. We also examined the budget effects of Obama&#8217;s decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler using funds previously appropriated under TARP. And here&#8217;s what we found:</p> <p>Other big domestic programs that don&#8217;t require yearly appropriations, including Social Security and Medicare, continued to operate as they had under Bush. One big fiscal 2009 spending increase resulted from an unusually large 5.8 percent cost of living increase that took effect just before Obama took office. That was an anomaly, as we explained in &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Social Security COLA</a>,&#8221; posted Sept. 23, 2009, and there would be no COLA at all for the next two years. The same 5.8 percent COLA also was given in 2009 to millions of <a href="http://www.opm.gov/retire/annuity/cola/2009cola.asp#Current" type="external">federal retirees</a>, <a href="http://www.military.com/military-report/retirees-get-5.8-percent-cola-for-2009" type="external">military retirees and disabled veterans</a> and their survivors.</p> <p>So by our calculations, Obama can fairly be assigned responsibility for &#8212; at most &#8212; 5.8 percent of the $3.5 trillion that the federal government actually spent in fiscal 2009, which was 17.9 percent higher than fiscal 2008.</p> <p>A Binge That &#8216;Never Happened&#8217;?</p> <p>The White House has promoted <a href="http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor" type="external">a May 22 column by Rex Nutting</a> of the Wall Street Journal&#8217;s MarketWatch website that concluded &#8220;federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower.&#8221; Nutting also argued that allegations of a &#8220;reckless spending spree&#8221; by Obama constitute a &#8220;whopper&#8221; and &#8220; <a href="http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor" type="external">never happened</a>.&#8221;</p> <p>That raised howls and rebuttals from conservative stalwarts at the Wall Street Journal&#8217;s own <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422452374106994.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+TARANTO" type="external">editorial page</a>, at the libertarian <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/23/the-obama-spending-binge" type="external">Reason magazine</a>, at the <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/24/the-truth-about-president-obamas-skyrocketing-spending/" type="external">Heritage Foundation</a> and even from Cato&#8217;s economist Mitchell, who called Nutting&#8217;s comparisons &#8220;nutty&#8221; in a piece <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielmitchell/2012/05/24/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-which-president-is-the-biggest-spender-of-all/" type="external">for the Forbes magazine website,</a> even though Nutting based his analysis in part on the same $140 billion figure Mitchell uses for Obama&#8217;s fiscal 2009 spending.</p> <p>Our own analysis leads us to conclude that Obama deserves responsibility for somewhat more fiscal 2009 spending than Nutting or Mitchell assign to him, as we&#8217;ve noted. Spending in that year shot up an incredible $535 billion. Nutting and Mitchell hold Obama responsible for only 26 percent of that increase, but we conclude that Obama can fairly be assigned responsibility for as much as 38 percent.</p> <p>We also disagree with Nutting&#8217;s conclusion that Obama&#8217;s increases are the lowest since Eisenhower. Not only should Nutting have measured Obama&#8217;s increases from a lower base, in our judgment, he also fails to take account of inflation, which has been extraordinarily low during Obama&#8217;s term.</p> <p>Moderate Increases Since 2009</p> <p>Since fiscal 2009, however, it cannot be denied that spending has increased only modestly. Total federal outlays actually went down 1.7 percent in fiscal 2010, for example, then rose a little more than 4 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Spending was projected by CBO to rise less than 1 percent in fiscal 2012. In fact, CBO reported on May 7 in <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2012_04_MBR.pdf" type="external">its most recent monthly budget report</a> that spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year was 3.4 percent below the same period a year ago. That was mostly due to differences in timing of certain payments, but even adjusting for those, CBO figured spending is 0.8 percent lower so far this year.</p> <p>Update, June 7: A <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/MBR_2012_05.pdf" type="external">new CBO monthly report</a>, issued after this article was posted, showed outlays for the first eight months of the fiscal year running 1.2 percent higher than the same period a year earlier, after adjusting for timing of payments and also after taking account of an unusual adjustment to TARP outlays booked in May 2011. The June 7 CBO report thus shows fiscal 2012 spending to be on track to increase only slightly for the full fiscal year ending Sept. 30.</p> <p>But CBO also <a href="http://cbo.gov/publication/43288" type="external">projected on June 5</a> that by the end of the year, due to the continued mismatch between outlays and receipts, &#8220;the federal debt will reach roughly 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest percentage since shortly after World War II.&#8221;</p> <p>All of the yearly changes under Obama are well below the 7 percent average annual increase under Bush prior to fiscal 2009. And in that year &#8212; for which we assign most of the increase to Bush &#8212; the rise amounted to a staggering 17.9 percent.</p> <p>Overrated &#8216;TARP Effect&#8217;</p> <p>Some have claimed that the modest spending increases since fiscal 2009 are illusory, and Obama&#8217;s spending has been masked by the way the government accounts for TARP spending. For example, Wall Street Journal columnist <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422452374106994.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+TARANTO" type="external">James Taranto wrote</a> that TARP would have caused &#8220;a sharp increase in 2009, followed by a sharp decrease in 2010.&#8221;</p> <p>Actually, not so much. A close look shows the TARP effect has been rather modest.</p> <p>Spending on the TARP program turned out to be much less than the $700 billion originally authorized. Congress later reduced the authorization to <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/119xx/doc11980/11-29-tarp.pdf" type="external">$475 billion</a> in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that <a href="http://www.ibj.com/historic-financial-overhaul-signed-into-law-by-obama/PARAMS/article/21236" type="external">Obama signed on July 21, 2010</a>. And not all was spent in 2009.</p> <p>Actual outlays for TARP in fiscal 2009 <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2011_Nov_MBR.pdf" type="external">totaled $154 billion</a>, according to the CBO. So the one-time bump in spending amounted to about 4 percent of fiscal 2009 spending.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that money recovered since then is recorded as negative spending rather than as increased revenues. And that does artificially reduce Obama&#8217;s spending figures &#8212; but not by much.</p> <p>TARP decreased federal spending by $108 billion in fiscal 2010 and $39 billion last year, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2011_Nov_MBR.pdf" type="external">according to the CBO</a>. Those artificial reductions brought down federal spending by just 3 percent in fiscal 2010, and 1 percent in fiscal 2011. Even without those reductions, Obama&#8217;s spending increases wouldn&#8217;t come close to equaling the average annual increase under Bush.</p> <p>Historic Highs</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Nevertheless, the spending Obama inherited was so high that even modest increases keep it at a level that is extraordinarily lofty by historical standards.</p> <p>Perhaps the most relevant measure of federal spending is how it compares with the nation&#8217;s total economic output, as measured by gross domestic product. And spending in fiscal 2009 hit 25.2 percent of GDP &#8212; the highest since 1945.</p> <p>It hasn&#8217;t come down much since that postwar record. It was 24.1 percent of GDP in both fiscal 2010 and 2011. Spending for each of the last three fiscal years was higher than any since 1946.</p> <p>Obama has also committed the government to some big spending in future years. CBO <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf" type="external">estimated in March</a> that the insurance provisions of his health care law will cost $58 billion in fiscal 2014 and reach $110 billion in 2015, rising each year thereafter. Those costs will total nearly $1.3 trillion through the year 2022. (CBO also estimates 30 million to 33 million Americans will gain health insurance coverage as a result.)</p> <p>Beyond this year, future spending levels are impossible to predict with any accuracy. Congress <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app13.html" type="external">has yet to pass a single one</a> of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-threatens-another-debt-ceiling-fight/2012/05/15/gIQAJuCESU_story.html" type="external">remains to be seen if Congress will undo</a> the harsh, automatic cuts in military and domestic spending enacted in last year&#8217;s bargain to increase the debt ceiling. The Supreme Court is also considering whether or not to strike down the health care law.</p> <p>Furthermore, another spending showdown is looming. The government&#8217;s borrowing will soon force Congress to consider raising the legal debt ceiling once again, probably early next year. And <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-of-course-boehner-wants-another-debt-ceiling-showdown/2012/05/16/gIQATp2STU_blog.html" type="external">House Speaker John Boehner has declared</a> that &#8220;I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase.&#8221; So the president and Democrats will soon face another clash with congressional Republicans over spending levels and government revenues.</p> <p>We won&#8217;t presume to predict the outcome of the coming budget Armageddon, likely to take <a href="" type="internal" />place next January or thereabouts. Much will depend on whether Obama or Romney wins the November election, and which party wins control of the House and Senate.</p> <p>At issue, however, will be both spending and revenues. So we&#8217;ll end by reminding readers that while spending as a percentage of GDP is running at the highest level since the 1940s, tax revenues are also low by historical standards. For fiscal 2009 and 2010, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist01z2.xls" type="external">receipts were just 15.1 percent of GDP</a>, and last year they inched up to 15.4 percent. They haven&#8217;t been that low since 1950. And prior to 2009, the average since the end of World War II was 17.8 percent.</p> <p>&#8212; by Brooks Jackson</p> <p>Friedman, Emily. &#8220; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/romney-warns-of-obamas-debt-spending-inferno/" type="external">Romney Warns of Obama&#8217;s Debt, Spending &#8216;Inferno&#8217;.</a>&#8221; ABC News. 15 May 2012.</p> <p>The Associated Press. &#8220; <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-09-30-spending-bill_N.htm" type="external">Bush signs sprawling spending bill</a>.&#8221; USA Today. 30 Sep 2008.</p> <p>Sahadi, Jeanne. &#8220; <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/house_friday_bailout/index.htm" type="external">Bailout is law: President Bush signs historic $700 billion plan aimed at stemming credit crisis.</a>&#8221; CNNMoney.com. 4 Oct 2008.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41753" type="external">The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019</a>.&#8221; 7 Jan 2009.</p> <p>U.S. Social Security Administration. &#8220; <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/2009cola-pr.htm" type="external">Social Security Announces 5.8 Percent Benefit Increase for 2009</a>.&#8221; Press release. 16 Oct 2009.</p> <p>U.S. Social Security Administration. &#8220; <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm" type="external">History of Automatic Cost-Of-Living Adjustments</a>.&#8221; Web page. Accessed 4 Jun 2012.</p> <p>Office of Management and Budget. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/" type="external">Historical Tables: Table 3.2&#8212;OUTLAYS BY FUNCTION AND SUBFUNCTION: 1962&#8211;2017</a>.&#8221; 13 Feb 2012.</p> <p>The Library of Congress. &#8220; <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app09.html" type="external">Status of Appropriations Legislation for Fiscal Year 2009</a>.&#8221; Thomas website. Accessed 4 Jun 2012.</p> <p>Mitchell, Daniel J. &#8220; <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/defending-obama-again/" type="external">Defending Obama&#8230;Again</a>.&#8221; Blog post. 27 Nov 2009.</p> <p>Kornblut, Anne E. &#8220; <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/02/04/obama_signs_s-chip_legislation.html" type="external">Obama Signs S-CHIP Legislation</a>.&#8221; 4 Feb 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget/analysis-of-the-presidents-budget/reports?page=1&amp;amp;destination=topics%2Fbudget%2Fanalysis-of-the-presidents-budget%2Freports" type="external">A Preliminary Analysis of the President&#8217;s Budget and an Update of CBO&#8217;s Budget and Economic Outlook</a>.&#8221; 20 Mar 2009.</p> <p>Skiba, Katherine. &#8220; <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/stimulus/articles/2009/02/17/as-obama-signs-787-billion-stimulus-the-question-is-will-it-work" type="external">As Obama Signs $787 Billion Stimulus, the Question Is, Will it Work?</a>&#8221; U.S. News &amp;amp; World Report. 17 Feb 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/24870" type="external">Conference Agreement for H.R. 1 (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009)</a>&#8221; 13 Feb 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/21670" type="external">The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update</a>.&#8221; 18 Aug 2010.</p> <p>The White House. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-from-the-President-on-the-signing-of-HR-1105/" type="external">Statement by the President</a>.&#8221; 11 Mar 2009.</p> <p><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2009-02-25/pdf/CREC-2009-02-25-pt1-PgH2656-2.pdf#page=135" type="external">Congressional Record</a>. 25 Feb 2009; H2790, H2800.</p> <p>The White House. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Signing-of-the-Helping-Families-Save-Their-Homes-Act-and-the-Fraud-Enforcement-and-Recovery-Act/" type="external">Remarks by the president at the signing of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act</a>.&#8221; 20 May 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41215" type="external">The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update</a>.&#8221; 25 Aug 2009.</p> <p>Office of Management and Budget. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/111/saphr2346h_20090513.pdf" type="external">Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 2346 &#8211; Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009.</a>&#8221; 13 May 2009.</p> <p>The White House. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-from-the-President-upon-signing-HR-2346/" type="external">Statement from the President upon signing HR 2346 on June 24, 2009</a>.&#8221; 26 Jun 2009.</p> <p>Fletcher, Michael A. &#8220; <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/06/26/obama_signs_war_funding_bill.html" type="external">Obama Signs War Funding Bill.</a>&#8221; Washington Post. 26 Jun 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/17129" type="external">Supplemental Appropriations from 2000 to 2010</a>.&#8221; 1 Oct 2010.</p> <p><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2009-06-18/pdf/CREC-2009-06-18-pt1-PgS6772-2.pdf#page=6" type="external">Congressional Record</a>. 18 Jun 2009; S2776.</p> <p>New York Times. &#8220; <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cash_for_clunkers/index.html" type="external">Car Allowance Rebate System (Cash for Clunkers)</a>&#8221; 20 Aug 2009.</p> <p>The White House. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-by-the-Press-Secretary/" type="external">Statement by the Press Secretary</a>.&#8221; 7 Aug 2009.</p> <p><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=BUDGET&amp;amp;browsePath=Fiscal+Year+2011&amp;amp;searchPath=Fiscal+Year+2011&amp;amp;leafLevelBrowse=false&amp;amp;isCollapsed=false&amp;amp;isOpen=true&amp;amp;packageid=BUDGET-2011-APP&amp;amp;ycord=589" type="external">Budget of the U. S. Government, Appendix</a>. &#8220;Federal Funds: CONSUMER ASSISTANCE TO RECYCLE AND SAVE PROGRAM&#8221; 1 Feb 2010; 959.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9961/01-16-tarp.pdf" type="external">The Troubled Asset Relief Program: Report on Transactions Through December 31, 2008</a>.&#8221; Jan 2009.</p> <p>U.S. Treasury Department, Office of Financial Stability. &#8220; <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/briefing-room/reports/tarp-transactions/DocumentsTARPTransactions/transaction_report_01222009.pdf" type="external">Troubled Asset Relief Program Transactions Report For Period Ending January 16, 2009</a>&#8221; 22 Jan 2009.</p> <p>U.S. Treasury Department. &#8220; <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/briefing-room/reports/105/Documents105/April%20Monthly%20Report%20to%20Congress.pdf" type="external">Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)Monthly Report to Congress &#8211; April 2012</a>&#8221; 10 May 2012.</p> <p>U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Financial Stability &#8220; <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/briefing-room/reports/agency_reports/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">Agency Financial Report; Fiscal Year 2009</a>.&#8221; 10 Oct 2009.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-28-2012TARP.pdf" type="external">Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program &#8211; March 2012</a>&#8221; 28 Mar 2012.</p> <p>Jackson, Brooks. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Social Security COLA</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 23 Sep 2009.</p> <p>U.S. Office of Personnel Management. &#8220; <a href="http://www.opm.gov/retire/annuity/cola/2009cola.asp#Current" type="external">January 2009 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for Civil Service Annuitants</a>.&#8221; Undated Web page. Accessed 4 Jun 2012.</p> <p>Military.com. &#8220; <a href="http://www.military.com/military-report/retirees-get-5.8-percent-cola-for-2009" type="external">Retirees Get 5.8% COLA for 2009</a>.&#8221; 20 Oct 2008.</p> <p>Nutting, Rex. &#8220; <a href="http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor" type="external">Obama Spending Binge Never Happened</a>.&#8221; 22 May 2012.</p> <p>Taranto, James. &#8220; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422452374106994.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+TARANTO" type="external">Obama&#8217;s Permanent Emergency: How to disguise a spending binge</a>.&#8221; 23 May 2012.</p> <p>Suderman, Peter. &#8220; <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/23/the-obama-spending-binge" type="external">The Obama Spending Binge</a>.&#8221; Reason magazine. 23 May 2012.</p> <p>Darling, Bryan. &#8220; <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/24/the-truth-about-president-obamas-skyrocketing-spending/" type="external">The Truth about President Obama&#8217;s Skyrocketing Spending</a>.&#8221; Heritage Foundation. 24 May 2012.</p> <p>Mitchell, Daniel J. &#8220; <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielmitchell/2012/05/24/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-which-president-is-the-biggest-spender-of-all/" type="external">Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which President Is the Biggest Spender of All?</a>&#8221; Forbes.com. 24 May 2012.</p> <p>Jacobson, Lewis. &#8220; <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/23/facebook-posts/viral-facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/" type="external">Viral Facebook post says Barack Obama has lowest spending record of any recent president</a>.&#8221; Politifact.com. 23 May 2012.</p> <p>Kessler, Glenn. &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-facts-about-the-growth-of-spending-under-obama-part-2/2012/05/30/gJQA3V4d2U_blog.html" type="external">The facts about the growth of spending under Obama, Part 2</a>.&#8221; 31 May 2012.</p> <p>Taylor, Andrew. &#8220; <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/26/fact-check-obama-off-on-thrifty-spending-claim-2" type="external">FACT CHECK: Obama off on thrifty spending claim</a>.&#8221; The Associated Press. 26 May 2012.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2012_04_MBR.pdf" type="external">Monthly Budget Review: Fiscal Year 2012</a>.&#8221; 7 May 2012.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/119xx/doc11980/11-29-tarp.pdf" type="external">Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program&#8212;November 2010</a>.&#8221; 29 Nov 2010.</p> <p>The Associated Press. &#8220; <a href="http://www.ibj.com/historic-financial-overhaul-signed-into-law-by-obama/PARAMS/article/21236" type="external">Historic financial overhaul signed into law by Obama</a>.&#8221; 21 Jul 2010.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2011_Nov_MBR.pdf" type="external">Monthly Budget Review: Fiscal Year 2012</a>.&#8221; 7 Nov 2011.</p> <p>Congressional Budget Office. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf" type="external">Updated Estimates for the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act</a>.&#8221; 13 Mar 2012.</p> <p>Library of Congress. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Status of Appropriations Legislation for Fiscal Year 2013</a>.&#8221; 1 Jun 2012, accessed 4 Jun 2012.</p> <p>Montgomery, Lori. &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-threatens-another-debt-ceiling-fight/2012/05/15/gIQAJuCESU_story.html" type="external">Boehner threatens another debt-ceiling fight</a>.&#8221; Washington Post. 15 May 2012.</p> <p>Klein, Ezra. &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-of-course-boehner-wants-another-debt-ceiling-showdown/2012/05/16/gIQATp2STU_blog.html" type="external">Wonkbook: Of course Boehner wants another debt-ceiling showdown</a>.&#8221; Washington Post. 16 May 2012.</p> <p>Office of Management and Budget. &#8220; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals" type="external">Historical Tables: Table 1.2&#8212;Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-) as Percentages of GDP: 1930&#8211;2017</a>.&#8221; 13 Feb 2012.</p>

Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?

https://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-spending-inferno-or-not/

2012-06-04

2least

Is President Obama8217s spending an 8220inferno8221 as Mitt Romney claims or a binge that 8220never happened8221 as an analysis touted by the White House concluded We judge that both of those claims are wrong on the facts The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 8212 for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely 8212 was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office That includes spending for the bank bailout legislation approved by President Bush Annual increases in amounts actually spent since fiscal 2009 have been relatively modest In fact spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year is running slightly below the same period last year and below projections Since pictures can convey information more efficiently than words we8217ll sum up the official spending figures in this chart It also reflects our finding that Obama increased fiscal 2009 spending by at most 203 billion accounting for well under half the huge increase that year So if current spending is an 8220inferno8221 it8217s one that Bush and Congress is mostly responsible for starting But it8217s also true that Obama has done little to put it out Spending under Obama remains at a level that is quite high by historical standards Measured as a percentage of the nation8217s economic production it reached the highest level since World War II in fiscal 2009 and has declined only slightly since And there8217s more spending to come The health care law Obama signed in 2010 calls for a new wave starting in 2014 to subsidize coverage for millions who wouldn8217t otherwise have it That will be adding an estimated 110 billion to federal outlays in fiscal 2015 and more in later years But note also that receipts are running at levels that are well below historical averages It is the combination of historically high spending and low revenues that is producing the current string of trilliondollar annual deficits and piling up debt Those who blame deficits solely on spending ignore the other side of the ledger 6527965279652796527965279652796527965279Mitt Romney claims President Barack Obama8217s spending amounts to an 8220inferno8221 But who is really responsible for the huge jump that took place in fiscal 2009 Here are some undisputed facts How Much Did Obama Add But it8217s also true that Obama signed a number of appropriations bills plus other legislation and executive orders that raised spending for the remainder of fiscal 2009 even above the path set by Bush By our calculations Obama can be fairly assigned responsibility for a maximum of 203 billion in additional spending for that year It can be argued that the total should be lower Economist Daniel J Mitchell of the libertarian CATO Institute 8212 who once served on the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee 8212 has put the figure at 140 billion Ordinarily an incoming president has little or no influence over spending that was approved under his predecessor So in normal circumstances all spending for fiscal year 2009 would have been rightly tied to Bush and fiscal 2010 would be the first year for which Obama would have prepared a budget and signed the major spending bills And for the most part big spending programs that require no yearly appropriations including Social Security and Medicare did indeed continue to operate during fiscal 2009 under the policies in effect under Bush But in Obama8217s case he quickly pushed through Congress and signed a large economic stimulus measure containing a combination of tax cuts and new spending in fiscal 2009 And while Bush had signed fullyear appropriations for the Pentagon the Department of Homeland Security and veterans programs he had left the remainder of government agencies that need annual appropriations funded only through March 2009 Here8217s how we arrived at our 203 billion total We combed through all the appropriations bills signed by Obama for 2009 plus other legislation that CBO said also resulted in increased spending We also examined the budget effects of Obama8217s decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler using funds previously appropriated under TARP And here8217s what we found Other big domestic programs that don8217t require yearly appropriations including Social Security and Medicare continued to operate as they had under Bush One big fiscal 2009 spending increase resulted from an unusually large 58 percent cost of living increase that took effect just before Obama took office That was an anomaly as we explained in 8220 Social Security COLA8221 posted Sept 23 2009 and there would be no COLA at all for the next two years The same 58 percent COLA also was given in 2009 to millions of federal retirees military retirees and disabled veterans and their survivors So by our calculations Obama can fairly be assigned responsibility for 8212 at most 8212 58 percent of the 35 trillion that the federal government actually spent in fiscal 2009 which was 179 percent higher than fiscal 2008 A Binge That 8216Never Happened8217 The White House has promoted a May 22 column by Rex Nutting of the Wall Street Journal8217s MarketWatch website that concluded 8220federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower8221 Nutting also argued that allegations of a 8220reckless spending spree8221 by Obama constitute a 8220whopper8221 and 8220 never happened8221 That raised howls and rebuttals from conservative stalwarts at the Wall Street Journal8217s own editorial page at the libertarian Reason magazine at the Heritage Foundation and even from Cato8217s economist Mitchell who called Nutting8217s comparisons 8220nutty8221 in a piece for the Forbes magazine website even though Nutting based his analysis in part on the same 140 billion figure Mitchell uses for Obama8217s fiscal 2009 spending Our own analysis leads us to conclude that Obama deserves responsibility for somewhat more fiscal 2009 spending than Nutting or Mitchell assign to him as we8217ve noted Spending in that year shot up an incredible 535 billion Nutting and Mitchell hold Obama responsible for only 26 percent of that increase but we conclude that Obama can fairly be assigned responsibility for as much as 38 percent We also disagree with Nutting8217s conclusion that Obama8217s increases are the lowest since Eisenhower Not only should Nutting have measured Obama8217s increases from a lower base in our judgment he also fails to take account of inflation which has been extraordinarily low during Obama8217s term Moderate Increases Since 2009 Since fiscal 2009 however it cannot be denied that spending has increased only modestly Total federal outlays actually went down 17 percent in fiscal 2010 for example then rose a little more than 4 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept 30 Spending was projected by CBO to rise less than 1 percent in fiscal 2012 In fact CBO reported on May 7 in its most recent monthly budget report that spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year was 34 percent below the same period a year ago That was mostly due to differences in timing of certain payments but even adjusting for those CBO figured spending is 08 percent lower so far this year Update June 7 A new CBO monthly report issued after this article was posted showed outlays for the first eight months of the fiscal year running 12 percent higher than the same period a year earlier after adjusting for timing of payments and also after taking account of an unusual adjustment to TARP outlays booked in May 2011 The June 7 CBO report thus shows fiscal 2012 spending to be on track to increase only slightly for the full fiscal year ending Sept 30 But CBO also projected on June 5 that by the end of the year due to the continued mismatch between outlays and receipts 8220the federal debt will reach roughly 70 percent of gross domestic product GDP the highest percentage since shortly after World War II8221 All of the yearly changes under Obama are well below the 7 percent average annual increase under Bush prior to fiscal 2009 And in that year 8212 for which we assign most of the increase to Bush 8212 the rise amounted to a staggering 179 percent Overrated 8216TARP Effect8217 Some have claimed that the modest spending increases since fiscal 2009 are illusory and Obama8217s spending has been masked by the way the government accounts for TARP spending For example Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto wrote that TARP would have caused 8220a sharp increase in 2009 followed by a sharp decrease in 20108221 Actually not so much A close look shows the TARP effect has been rather modest Spending on the TARP program turned out to be much less than the 700 billion originally authorized Congress later reduced the authorization to 475 billion in the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that Obama signed on July 21 2010 And not all was spent in 2009 Actual outlays for TARP in fiscal 2009 totaled 154 billion according to the CBO So the onetime bump in spending amounted to about 4 percent of fiscal 2009 spending It8217s true that money recovered since then is recorded as negative spending rather than as increased revenues And that does artificially reduce Obama8217s spending figures 8212 but not by much TARP decreased federal spending by 108 billion in fiscal 2010 and 39 billion last year according to the CBO Those artificial reductions brought down federal spending by just 3 percent in fiscal 2010 and 1 percent in fiscal 2011 Even without those reductions Obama8217s spending increases wouldn8217t come close to equaling the average annual increase under Bush Historic Highs Nevertheless the spending Obama inherited was so high that even modest increases keep it at a level that is extraordinarily lofty by historical standards Perhaps the most relevant measure of federal spending is how it compares with the nation8217s total economic output as measured by gross domestic product And spending in fiscal 2009 hit 252 percent of GDP 8212 the highest since 1945 It hasn8217t come down much since that postwar record It was 241 percent of GDP in both fiscal 2010 and 2011 Spending for each of the last three fiscal years was higher than any since 1946 Obama has also committed the government to some big spending in future years CBO estimated in March that the insurance provisions of his health care law will cost 58 billion in fiscal 2014 and reach 110 billion in 2015 rising each year thereafter Those costs will total nearly 13 trillion through the year 2022 CBO also estimates 30 million to 33 million Americans will gain health insurance coverage as a result Beyond this year future spending levels are impossible to predict with any accuracy Congress has yet to pass a single one of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year starting Oct 1 and it remains to be seen if Congress will undo the harsh automatic cuts in military and domestic spending enacted in last year8217s bargain to increase the debt ceiling The Supreme Court is also considering whether or not to strike down the health care law Furthermore another spending showdown is looming The government8217s borrowing will soon force Congress to consider raising the legal debt ceiling once again probably early next year And House Speaker John Boehner has declared that 8220I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase8221 So the president and Democrats will soon face another clash with congressional Republicans over spending levels and government revenues We won8217t presume to predict the outcome of the coming budget Armageddon likely to take place next January or thereabouts Much will depend on whether Obama or Romney wins the November election and which party wins control of the House and Senate At issue however will be both spending and revenues So we8217ll end by reminding readers that while spending as a percentage of GDP is running at the highest level since the 1940s tax revenues are also low by historical standards For fiscal 2009 and 2010 receipts were just 151 percent of GDP and last year they inched up to 154 percent They haven8217t been that low since 1950 And prior to 2009 the average since the end of World War II was 178 percent 8212 by Brooks Jackson Friedman Emily 8220 Romney Warns of Obama8217s Debt Spending 8216Inferno82178221 ABC News 15 May 2012 The Associated Press 8220 Bush signs sprawling spending bill8221 USA Today 30 Sep 2008 Sahadi Jeanne 8220 Bailout is law President Bush signs historic 700 billion plan aimed at stemming credit crisis8221 CNNMoneycom 4 Oct 2008 Congressional Budget Office 8220 The Budget and Economic Outlook Fiscal Years 2009 to 20198221 7 Jan 2009 US Social Security Administration 8220 Social Security Announces 58 Percent Benefit Increase for 20098221 Press release 16 Oct 2009 US Social Security Administration 8220 History of Automatic CostOfLiving Adjustments8221 Web page Accessed 4 Jun 2012 Office of Management and Budget 8220 Historical Tables Table 328212OUTLAYS BY FUNCTION AND SUBFUNCTION 1962821120178221 13 Feb 2012 The Library of Congress 8220 Status of Appropriations Legislation for Fiscal Year 20098221 Thomas website Accessed 4 Jun 2012 Mitchell Daniel J 8220 Defending Obama8230Again8221 Blog post 27 Nov 2009 Kornblut Anne E 8220 Obama Signs SCHIP Legislation8221 4 Feb 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 A Preliminary Analysis of the President8217s Budget and an Update of CBO8217s Budget and Economic Outlook8221 20 Mar 2009 Skiba Katherine 8220 As Obama Signs 787 Billion Stimulus the Question Is Will it Work8221 US News ampamp World Report 17 Feb 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Conference Agreement for HR 1 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 20098221 13 Feb 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 The Budget and Economic Outlook An Update8221 18 Aug 2010 The White House 8220 Statement by the President8221 11 Mar 2009 Congressional Record 25 Feb 2009 H2790 H2800 The White House 8220 Remarks by the president at the signing of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act8221 20 May 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 The Budget and Economic Outlook An Update8221 25 Aug 2009 Office of Management and Budget 8220 Statement of Administration Policy HR 2346 8211 Supplemental Appropriations Act 20098221 13 May 2009 The White House 8220 Statement from the President upon signing HR 2346 on June 24 20098221 26 Jun 2009 Fletcher Michael A 8220 Obama Signs War Funding Bill8221 Washington Post 26 Jun 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Supplemental Appropriations from 2000 to 20108221 1 Oct 2010 Congressional Record 18 Jun 2009 S2776 New York Times 8220 Car Allowance Rebate System Cash for Clunkers8221 20 Aug 2009 The White House 8220 Statement by the Press Secretary8221 7 Aug 2009 Budget of the U S Government Appendix 8220Federal Funds CONSUMER ASSISTANCE TO RECYCLE AND SAVE PROGRAM8221 1 Feb 2010 959 Congressional Budget Office 8220 The Troubled Asset Relief Program Report on Transactions Through December 31 20088221 Jan 2009 US Treasury Department Office of Financial Stability 8220 Troubled Asset Relief Program Transactions Report For Period Ending January 16 20098221 22 Jan 2009 US Treasury Department 8220 Troubled Asset Relief Program TARPMonthly Report to Congress 8211 April 20128221 10 May 2012 US Department of the Treasury Office of Financial Stability 8220 Agency Financial Report Fiscal Year 20098221 10 Oct 2009 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program 8211 March 20128221 28 Mar 2012 Jackson Brooks 8220 Social Security COLA8221 FactCheckorg 23 Sep 2009 US Office of Personnel Management 8220 January 2009 CostofLiving Adjustment COLA for Civil Service Annuitants8221 Undated Web page Accessed 4 Jun 2012 Militarycom 8220 Retirees Get 58 COLA for 20098221 20 Oct 2008 Nutting Rex 8220 Obama Spending Binge Never Happened8221 22 May 2012 Taranto James 8220 Obama8217s Permanent Emergency How to disguise a spending binge8221 23 May 2012 Suderman Peter 8220 The Obama Spending Binge8221 Reason magazine 23 May 2012 Darling Bryan 8220 The Truth about President Obama8217s Skyrocketing Spending8221 Heritage Foundation 24 May 2012 Mitchell Daniel J 8220 Mirror Mirror on the Wall Which President Is the Biggest Spender of All8221 Forbescom 24 May 2012 Jacobson Lewis 8220 Viral Facebook post says Barack Obama has lowest spending record of any recent president8221 Politifactcom 23 May 2012 Kessler Glenn 8220 The facts about the growth of spending under Obama Part 28221 31 May 2012 Taylor Andrew 8220 FACT CHECK Obama off on thrifty spending claim8221 The Associated Press 26 May 2012 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Monthly Budget Review Fiscal Year 20128221 7 May 2012 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program8212November 20108221 29 Nov 2010 The Associated Press 8220 Historic financial overhaul signed into law by Obama8221 21 Jul 2010 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Monthly Budget Review Fiscal Year 20128221 7 Nov 2011 Congressional Budget Office 8220 Updated Estimates for the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act8221 13 Mar 2012 Library of Congress 8220 Status of Appropriations Legislation for Fiscal Year 20138221 1 Jun 2012 accessed 4 Jun 2012 Montgomery Lori 8220 Boehner threatens another debtceiling fight8221 Washington Post 15 May 2012 Klein Ezra 8220 Wonkbook Of course Boehner wants another debtceiling showdown8221 Washington Post 16 May 2012 Office of Management and Budget 8220 Historical Tables Table 128212Summary of Receipts Outlays and Surpluses or Deficits as Percentages of GDP 1930821120178221 13 Feb 2012

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<p>A group of Malaysian people pray during an event for the missing plane. Kamal Sellehuddin/ZUMA</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175826/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Isn&#8217;t there something strangely reassuring when your eyeballs are gripped by a &#8220; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/mystery-flight-370-us-helping-investigation-23121894" type="external">mystery</a>&#8221; on the news that has no greater meaning and yet sweeps all else away? This, of course, is the essence of the ongoing tale of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Except to the relatives of those on board, it never really mattered what happened in the cockpit that day. To the extent that the plane&#8217;s disappearance was solvable, the mystery could only end in one of two ways: it landed somewhere (somehow unnoticed, a deep unlikelihood) or it crashed somewhere, probably in an ocean. End of story. It was, however, a tale with thrilling upsides when it came to filling airtime, especially on cable news. The fact that there was no there there allowed for the raising of <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/wi0xs9/march-24--2014---arianna-huffington" type="external">every possible disappearance trope</a>&#8212;from Star Trekkian black holes to the Bermuda Triangle to Muslim terrorists&#8212;and it had the added benefit of instantly evoking a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_%28TV_series%29" type="external">popular TV show</a>. It was a formula too good to waste, and wasted it wasn&#8217;t.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />The same has been true of the story that, in the US, came to vie with it for the top news spot: the devastating mudslide in Washington State. An act of nature, sweeping out of nowhere, buries part of a tiny community, leaving an unknown but possibly large number of people dead. Was anyone still alive under all that mud? (Such potential &#8220; <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023266670_mudslidesundayxml.html" type="external">miracles</a>&#8221; are like manna from heaven for the TV news.) How many died? These questions mattered locally and to desperate relatives of those who had disappeared, but otherwise had little import. Yes, unbridled growth, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/egan-at-home-when-the-earth-moves.html" type="external">lack of attention</a> to expected disasters, and even possibly <a href="http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/subhankar-banerjee-climate-impasse-appetite-substitutes/" type="external">climate change</a> were topics that might have been attached to the mudslide horror. As a gruesome incident, it could have stood in for a lot, but in the end it stood in for nothing except itself and that was undoubtedly its abiding appeal.</p> <p>Both stories had the added benefit (for TV) of an endless stream of distraught relatives: teary or weeping or stoic or angry faces in desperately tight close-ups making heartfelt pleas for more information. For the media, it was like the weather before climate change came along.</p> <p>In response, just about anything else that could pass for news was swept aside. Given a media that normally rushes heedlessly from one potential 24/7 story to another, this was striking. In the case of Flight 370, for instance, on the 21st day after its disappearance, it still led NBC&#8217;s Nightly News with Brian Williams (with the mudslide, one week after it happened, the number two story).</p> <p>In those weeks, only one other story broke their stranglehold on the news. It was the seemingly critical question of what in the world was going on in Ukraine. There was the Russian military move into the Crimea, the referendum on that peninsula, its annexation, the alarm of the US and the European Union, the imposition of (modest) sanctions, and various warnings of a Russian military build-up and possible invasion of eastern Ukraine. Unlike the other two stories, it seemed consequential enough. And yet in some eerie way, it, too, came to resemble them. It was as if with the news on Ukraine we were being sucked back into another era&#8212;that of the superpower-run twentieth century.</p> <p>The question that seemed to loom was this: Are we in a new (i.e., the old) Cold War? It was so front and center that it sent opinion pollsters scrambling and they promptly discovered that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/27/poll-half-of-americans-see-another-cold-war-coming/" type="external">half</a>of all Americans thought we were&#8212;itself less a testament to American opinion than to the overwhelming media narrative that we were indeed living through the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/03/19/291475105/tumult-in-crimea-has-some-fearing-a-cold-war-redux" type="external">Cold</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/03/19/291475105/tumult-in-crimea-has-some-fearing-a-cold-war-redux" type="external">War redux</a>.</p> <p>Was the Soviet Union being raised from the dead? Think of this as the Flight 370 of global political coverage. It had everything a story needed: people in the square; a foreign leader who glowered just like a movie villain should and, for once in the twenty-first century, wasn&#8217;t a US president or vice president; and fears of Russian troops entering the rest of Ukraine, with Lithuania, Estonia, or some other <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/23/putin-s-dream-of-empire-doesn-t-stop-at-crimea-or-even-ukraine.html" type="external">former satellite</a> of the Soviet Union <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/18/Putin-four-invasions" type="external">next in line</a>. Where would it end? How could Vladimir Putin&#8217;s juggernaut be stopped?</p> <p>As a story, it was a time warp miracle all its own. After so many years, an American president was denouncing not al-Qaeda, or the Taliban, or the Iraqis, or the Iranians, but the Russians. Once again, as in the good old bad old days, US officials could decry the <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/28/us-takes-break-condemning-tyranny-celebrate-obamas-visit-saudi-arabia/" type="external">tyranny</a> of a major state and its dangers to the globe with a straight face. There was finally a black-and-white tale of international morality in which Americans could denounce an invasion. It had the comfy familiarity of an old-fashioned script, one whose ending everybody already knew. It implied that the world was once again easy to grasp, that everything was finally back in order&#8212;the good guys and the bad guys, East and West, freedom and tyranny.</p> <p>As an old script, it had all the fearsome charms of familiarity. While signaling danger, it actually helped tame a world that otherwise looked unsettling indeed.</p> <p>As it happens, however, Soviet armies will never again threaten to plunge through the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-01/news/mn-6926_1_fulda-gap" type="external">Fulda Gap</a>. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marwan-bishara/the-cold-war-is-not-back_b_5035522.html" type="external">Warsaw Pact</a> is long gone, never to be revived, and Germany will remain a united powerhouse, not a divided land. Argue as you will about whether the Russians or Putin are &#8220;evil,&#8221; one thing is certain, there is no &#8220; <a href="http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/reagan-evil-empire-speech-text/" type="external">empire</a>&#8221; to go with it. President Obama was on the mark recently when he referred to Putin&#8217;s Russia as a &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/world/europe/hague-summit-focuses-on-preventing-trafficking-of-nuclear-materials.html" type="external">regional power</a>&#8221; and not a superpower at all. Not even close. If anything, it&#8217;s a country that, thanks to NATO, the US, and the European Union, already had its back to the wall, with its former &#8220;satellites&#8221; long ago stripped away, and Ukraine looking like it was about to go, too. (After all, an American diplomat, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-diplomat-victoria-nuland-phonecall-leaked-video" type="external">talking tough</a>, was secretly recorded seemingly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957" type="external">sorting out</a> a future Ukrainian government with the local American ambassador!)</p> <p>Russia may not even quite be a regional powerhouse. Its economy is <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101529541" type="external">shaky</a> and, unlike the Soviet Union, it is now largely an <a href="http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=rs" type="external">oil and gas state</a> and, worse yet, its energy reserves are expected to be in <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/russia-at-risk-from-dwindling-oil-reserves-european-bank-says.html" type="external">decline</a> in future decades.</p> <p>A Planet for the Taking</p> <p>So, no, Virginia, Flight 370 was not commandeered by aliens and Vladimir Putin is not <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/03/rogers-putin-wakes-up-thinking-of-stalin-185567.html" type="external">Joseph Stalin&#8217;s</a> younger brother. The US is not in a new Cold War, its troops do not stand in any danger of going toe-to-toe with Russian invaders, and a two-superpower world is dead and buried, but so, it seems, is a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175813/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_a_new_world_order/" type="external">one superpower world</a>. History is a powerful tool, but sometimes when lost stories and old scripts dominate the headlines, it&#8217;s worth asking whether, behind the scrim of the familiar and the empty, there might not lurk an unnerving world, a new age that no one cares to focus on.</p> <p>As with a magician, sometimes you have to look where he isn&#8217;t pointing to catch sight of reality. With that in mind, I&#8217;d like to nominate British journalist Patrick Cockburn for a prize. In the midst of the recent headlines, in the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/alqaida-the-second-act-9195455.html" type="external">most important article no one noticed</a>, he pointed out something genuinely unnerving about our world.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Yes, we&#8217;re all aware that the US invasion of Iraq didn&#8217;t exactly work out as planned and that Afghanistan has been a nearly 13-year disaster, even though the US faced the most ragtag of minority insurgencies in both places. What, however, about the monumental struggle that used to be called the Global War on Terror? After all, we <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175388/engelhardt_Osama_dead_and_alive" type="external">got Osama bin Laden</a>. It took a while, but SEAL Team 6 shot him down in his hideout in Pakistan. And for years, thanks to the CIA&#8217;s drone assassination campaigns in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, Yemen, and Somalia (as well as a full scale <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/mcchrystal-a-warrior-undone-20100626" type="external">hunter-killer operation</a> in Iraq while we were still occupying that country), we&#8217;ve been told that endless <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/05/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-leader-20110605" type="external">key</a> al-Qaeda &#8220; <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/us-confident-of-killing-top-al-qaeda-strategist-227775" type="external">lieutenants</a>&#8221; have been sent to their deaths and that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan has been reduced to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/06/cia-at-most-50100-al-qaeda-in-afghanistan/" type="external">50-100 members</a>.</p> <p>Yet Cockburn concludes: &#8220;Twelve years after the &#8216;war on terror&#8217; was launched it has visibly failed and al-Qaeda-type jihadis, once confined to a few camps in Afghanistan, today rule whole provinces in the heart of the Middle East.&#8221; Look across that region today and from Pakistan to Libya, you see the rise, not the fall, of jihadis of every type. In Syria and parts of Iraq, groups that have associated themselves with al-Qaeda now have a controlling military presence in territories the size of, as Cockburn points out, Great Britain. He calls al-Qaeda&#8217;s recent rise as the jihadi brand name of choice and the failure of the US campaign against it &#8220;perhaps the most extraordinary development of the 21st century.&#8221; And that, unlike the claims we&#8217;ve been hearing at the top of the news for weeks now, might not be an exaggeration.</p> <p>Looked at another way, despite what had just happened to the Pentagon and those towers in New York, on September 12, 2001, the globe&#8217;s &#8220;sole superpower&#8221; had <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175191/tomgram%3A_turse_and_engelhardt,_shooting_gnats_with_a_machine_gun/" type="external">remarkably few enemies</a>. Small numbers of jihadis scattered mostly in the backlands of the planet and centered in an impoverished, decimated country&#8212;Afghanistan&#8212;with the most retro regime on Earth. There were, in addition, three rickety &#8220;rogue states&#8221; (North Korea, Iraq, and Iran) singled out for enemy status but incapable of harming the US, and that was that.</p> <p>The world, as Dick Cheney &amp;amp; Co. <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175336/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_war_is_a_drug/" type="external">took for granted</a>, looked ready to be dominated by the only (angry) hyperpower left after centuries of imperial rivalry. The US military, its technological capability unrivaled by any state or possible grouping of states, was to be <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/101850/engelhardt_bush%27s_faith" type="external">let loose</a> to bring the Greater Middle East to heel in a decisive way. Between that regular military and para-militarizing intelligence agencies, the planet was to be scoured of enemies, the &#8220; <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1357781/US-asks-Nato-for-help-in-draining-the-swamp-of-global-terrorism.html" type="external">swamp drained</a>&#8221; in up to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1547561.stm" type="external">60 countries</a>. The result would be a Pax Americana in the Middle East, and perhaps even globally, into the distant future. It was to be legendary. And no method&#8212;not torture, abuse, kidnapping, the creation of &#8220;black sites,&#8221; detention without charges, assassination, the creation of secret law, or surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale&#8212;was to be left out of the toolkit used to birth this new all-American planet. The &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/63903/" type="external">gloves</a>&#8221; were to be taken off in a big way.</p> <p>Thirteen years later, those plans, those dreams are down the drain. The Greater Middle East is in chaos. The US seems incapable of intervening in a meaningful way just about anywhere on Earth despite the fact that its military remains unchallenged on a global level. It&#8217;s little short of mind-blowing. And it couldn&#8217;t have been more unexpected for those in power in Washington and perhaps for Americans generally. This is perhaps why, despite changing American attitudes on <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/167471/americans-view-afghanistan-war-mistake.aspx" type="external">interventions</a> and future <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/world/americans-skeptical-of-involvement-in-foreign-conflicts-poll-finds.html" type="external">involvement</a> abroad, it&#8217;s been so hard to take in, so little focused upon here&#8212;even in the bogus, politicized <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-crisis-republicans-say-weak-obama-policy-encouraged-russia-to-invade/" type="external">discussions</a> of American &#8220;strength&#8221; and &#8220; <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-27/putin-saw-obama-weakness-in-cut-of-his-jib-republican-says" type="external">weakness</a>&#8221; which circle around the latest Russian events, as they had previously around the crises in Iran and Syria.</p> <p>Somehow, with what in any age would have seemed like a classic winning hand, Washington never put a card on that &#8220; <a href="http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/03/20/obama-all-options-are-on-the-table-with-iran/" type="external">table</a>&#8221; (on which all &#8220; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/03/john-kerry-all-options-on-the-table-to-hold-russia-accountable-in-ukraine/" type="external">options</a>&#8221; were always being kept <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/05/29/obama-syria-pentagon-daily-beast/2368669/" type="external">open</a>) that wasn&#8217;t trumped. Events in Ukraine and the Crimea seem to be part of this.</p> <p>The Chinese had an evocative phrase for times of dynastic collapse: &#8220;chaos under heaven.&#8221; Moments when it seems as if the planet itself is shifting on its axis don&#8217;t come often, but they may indeed feel like chaos under heaven&#8212;an increasingly apt phrase for a world in which no country seems to exert much control, tensions are rising in hard to identify ways, and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-threat-food-security-humankind" type="external">very climate</a>, the very habitability of the planet is increasingly <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175825/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_shooting_up_on_big_energy/" type="external">at risk</a>.</p> <p>When The Losers Are The Winners</p> <p>Even in a losing game, there are usually winners. One of the conundrums of this particular moment, however, is that the winners in our American world are exactly those who have repeatedly been playing the losing hands. Their reward for one self-defined disaster after another has been yet more money, yet wider areas of everyday life to control, and yet <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175809/tomgram:_engelhardt,_thug_state_USa." type="external">more power</a>. No matter how inept they may prove as imperial players on a world stage, they can essentially do no wrong domestically when it comes to embedding themselves ever more deeply in our lives in the name of our &#8220;security&#8221; and our &#8220;safety.&#8221; It&#8217;s a remarkable tale. Legendary, one might almost say. As the power of American power to accomplish seemingly anything fades, the power of the national security state only grows.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that, in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, the managers of our secret state have had to pull back in a few areas&#8212;especially the gathering and holding of phone metadata for the complete US population. But the significance of this is easy to exaggerate. It&#8217;s worth remembering that in the wake of the Watergate era, the last time we went through a round of &#8220;reforms&#8221; of an out-of-control secret world, the national security state somehow ended up with its own secret court system and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html" type="external">secret body of law</a> to which all citizens became accountable even though they could know nothing about it. Four decades later, in a situation in which that secret state is so much stronger, such reforms may once again turn out only to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/29/surveillance-reform-whats-not-in-new-nsa-laws" type="external">enhance its power</a>.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true as well that the CIA has had to pull back on some of the methods it used to such disastrous effect after 9/11, in particular closing those &#8220; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/23/secret-prisons-closure-obama-cia" type="external">black sites</a>&#8221; it set up (though some may still exist, possibly <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161936/cias-secret-sites-somalia" type="external">in Somalia</a> and perhaps on <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/07/230096048/heres-why-the-navy-is-holding-a-terror-suspect-at-sea" type="external">US naval ships</a>) and on the use of torture. Nonetheless, the recent spectacle of the Agency&#8217;s attack on Senator Dianne Feinstein and the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee over a still-secret 6,300 page critical report on its Bush-era torture and black site programs should be instructive. After all, Feinstein has made her reputation, in part, as the senator from the national security state. She has typically <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/19/news/la-pn-feinstein-nsa-foreign-policy-20140219" type="external">supported</a> the NSA&#8217;s secret programs as well as those of other intelligence outfits, straight down the line. There has perhaps been no one more sympathetic among Democratic representatives in Congress.</p> <p>On a single issue, a single set of programs by a single agency, however, she chose to differ and offer genuine criticism. You might think that, under the circumstances, she would still be handled by the secret state with kid gloves. Instead, the CIA <a href="http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/03/feinstein-rails-against-cia-intimidation-defining-moment-oversight/359047/" type="external">referred</a> her committee staff to the Justice Department for possible crimes, while she was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/cia-accused-of-illegally-searching-computers-used-by-senate-committee.html" type="external">attacked</a> as if she were the Great Satan and finally driven to the Senate floor to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/dianne-feinstein-cia-senate-statement-full-text" type="external">denounce</a> the CIA for potential criminal acts and infringing the Constitution. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/obama-feinstein-cia-dispute-distance" type="external">Even the president</a> didn&#8217;t come to her aid.</p> <p>Think of this as a reasonable yardstick for measuring the real power relations between Washington&#8217;s official overseers and those who are supposed to be overseen.</p> <p>Think of the overseen as now negotiating from a position of significant strength the details of their future benefits package. And we can count on one thing: whatever changes are made, they will be largely cosmetic. The many parts of America&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175809/tomgram:_engelhardt,_thug_state_USa." type="external">growing shadow government</a>&#8212;secret law, secret surveillance, secret power, and the secret state&#8212;are here to stay.</p> <p>From the 9/11 attacks on, that secret state and the militarized world of Washington that goes with it have shown themselves, even by their own standards, woefully incapable of handling a new and puzzling world. Their actions have repeatedly undermined the usual sort of imperial control, instead facilitating <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">spreading chaos</a>. Post-9/11, they have had a remarkable knack for creating not just blowback&#8212;the CIA term of tradecraft that scholar Chalmers Johnson <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175578/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_chalmers_johnson,_the_cia_and_a_blowback_world/" type="external">put into</a> our vocabulary&#8212;but something for which we have no word. Think of it perhaps as just the &#8220;blow&#8221; part of that term.</p> <p>The orderliness of secret power in Washington and chaos under heaven, the growth of a police state and a planet run riot, turn out to be two sides of the same coin. If you want a news story that will glue eyes, then think of it this way: on September 12, 2001, the national security state entered the cockpit of (to modernize a phrase) the plane of state, hijacked it, and steered it directly for the Bermuda Triangle&#8212;and here was the strangest thing of all: no one even noticed.</p> <p>Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the <a href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" type="external">American Empire Project</a> and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The United States of Fear</a> as well as a history of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The End of Victory Culture</a>. He runs the Nation Institute&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=tomdispatch-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B0086EF89K" type="external">Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America&#8217;s Wars&#8212;The Untold Story</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Why Did the Media Devote So Much Attention to the Missing Malaysian Airplane?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/media-attention-missing-malaysian-airplane-flight-370/

2014-04-03

4left

A group of Malaysian people pray during an event for the missing plane Kamal SellehuddinZUMA This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Isn8217t there something strangely reassuring when your eyeballs are gripped by a 8220 mystery8221 on the news that has no greater meaning and yet sweeps all else away This of course is the essence of the ongoing tale of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Except to the relatives of those on board it never really mattered what happened in the cockpit that day To the extent that the plane8217s disappearance was solvable the mystery could only end in one of two ways it landed somewhere somehow unnoticed a deep unlikelihood or it crashed somewhere probably in an ocean End of story It was however a tale with thrilling upsides when it came to filling airtime especially on cable news The fact that there was no there there allowed for the raising of every possible disappearance trope8212from Star Trekkian black holes to the Bermuda Triangle to Muslim terrorists8212and it had the added benefit of instantly evoking a popular TV show It was a formula too good to waste and wasted it wasn8217t The same has been true of the story that in the US came to vie with it for the top news spot the devastating mudslide in Washington State An act of nature sweeping out of nowhere buries part of a tiny community leaving an unknown but possibly large number of people dead Was anyone still alive under all that mud Such potential 8220 miracles8221 are like manna from heaven for the TV news How many died These questions mattered locally and to desperate relatives of those who had disappeared but otherwise had little import Yes unbridled growth lack of attention to expected disasters and even possibly climate change were topics that might have been attached to the mudslide horror As a gruesome incident it could have stood in for a lot but in the end it stood in for nothing except itself and that was undoubtedly its abiding appeal Both stories had the added benefit for TV of an endless stream of distraught relatives teary or weeping or stoic or angry faces in desperately tight closeups making heartfelt pleas for more information For the media it was like the weather before climate change came along In response just about anything else that could pass for news was swept aside Given a media that normally rushes heedlessly from one potential 247 story to another this was striking In the case of Flight 370 for instance on the 21st day after its disappearance it still led NBC8217s Nightly News with Brian Williams with the mudslide one week after it happened the number two story In those weeks only one other story broke their stranglehold on the news It was the seemingly critical question of what in the world was going on in Ukraine There was the Russian military move into the Crimea the referendum on that peninsula its annexation the alarm of the US and the European Union the imposition of modest sanctions and various warnings of a Russian military buildup and possible invasion of eastern Ukraine Unlike the other two stories it seemed consequential enough And yet in some eerie way it too came to resemble them It was as if with the news on Ukraine we were being sucked back into another era8212that of the superpowerrun twentieth century The question that seemed to loom was this Are we in a new ie the old Cold War It was so front and center that it sent opinion pollsters scrambling and they promptly discovered that halfof all Americans thought we were8212itself less a testament to American opinion than to the overwhelming media narrative that we were indeed living through the Cold War redux Was the Soviet Union being raised from the dead Think of this as the Flight 370 of global political coverage It had everything a story needed people in the square a foreign leader who glowered just like a movie villain should and for once in the twentyfirst century wasn8217t a US president or vice president and fears of Russian troops entering the rest of Ukraine with Lithuania Estonia or some other former satellite of the Soviet Union next in line Where would it end How could Vladimir Putin8217s juggernaut be stopped As a story it was a time warp miracle all its own After so many years an American president was denouncing not alQaeda or the Taliban or the Iraqis or the Iranians but the Russians Once again as in the good old bad old days US officials could decry the tyranny of a major state and its dangers to the globe with a straight face There was finally a blackandwhite tale of international morality in which Americans could denounce an invasion It had the comfy familiarity of an oldfashioned script one whose ending everybody already knew It implied that the world was once again easy to grasp that everything was finally back in order8212the good guys and the bad guys East and West freedom and tyranny As an old script it had all the fearsome charms of familiarity While signaling danger it actually helped tame a world that otherwise looked unsettling indeed As it happens however Soviet armies will never again threaten to plunge through the Fulda Gap The Warsaw Pact is long gone never to be revived and Germany will remain a united powerhouse not a divided land Argue as you will about whether the Russians or Putin are 8220evil8221 one thing is certain there is no 8220 empire8221 to go with it President Obama was on the mark recently when he referred to Putin8217s Russia as a 8220 regional power8221 and not a superpower at all Not even close If anything it8217s a country that thanks to NATO the US and the European Union already had its back to the wall with its former 8220satellites8221 long ago stripped away and Ukraine looking like it was about to go too After all an American diplomat talking tough was secretly recorded seemingly sorting out a future Ukrainian government with the local American ambassador Russia may not even quite be a regional powerhouse Its economy is shaky and unlike the Soviet Union it is now largely an oil and gas state and worse yet its energy reserves are expected to be in decline in future decades A Planet for the Taking So no Virginia Flight 370 was not commandeered by aliens and Vladimir Putin is not Joseph Stalin8217s younger brother The US is not in a new Cold War its troops do not stand in any danger of going toetotoe with Russian invaders and a twosuperpower world is dead and buried but so it seems is a one superpower world History is a powerful tool but sometimes when lost stories and old scripts dominate the headlines it8217s worth asking whether behind the scrim of the familiar and the empty there might not lurk an unnerving world a new age that no one cares to focus on As with a magician sometimes you have to look where he isn8217t pointing to catch sight of reality With that in mind I8217d like to nominate British journalist Patrick Cockburn for a prize In the midst of the recent headlines in the most important article no one noticed he pointed out something genuinely unnerving about our world Yes we8217re all aware that the US invasion of Iraq didn8217t exactly work out as planned and that Afghanistan has been a nearly 13year disaster even though the US faced the most ragtag of minority insurgencies in both places What however about the monumental struggle that used to be called the Global War on Terror After all we got Osama bin Laden It took a while but SEAL Team 6 shot him down in his hideout in Pakistan And for years thanks to the CIA8217s drone assassination campaigns in the Pakistani tribal borderlands Yemen and Somalia as well as a full scale hunterkiller operation in Iraq while we were still occupying that country we8217ve been told that endless key alQaeda 8220 lieutenants8221 have been sent to their deaths and that alQaeda in Afghanistan has been reduced to 50100 members Yet Cockburn concludes 8220Twelve years after the 8216war on terror8217 was launched it has visibly failed and alQaedatype jihadis once confined to a few camps in Afghanistan today rule whole provinces in the heart of the Middle East8221 Look across that region today and from Pakistan to Libya you see the rise not the fall of jihadis of every type In Syria and parts of Iraq groups that have associated themselves with alQaeda now have a controlling military presence in territories the size of as Cockburn points out Great Britain He calls alQaeda8217s recent rise as the jihadi brand name of choice and the failure of the US campaign against it 8220perhaps the most extraordinary development of the 21st century8221 And that unlike the claims we8217ve been hearing at the top of the news for weeks now might not be an exaggeration Looked at another way despite what had just happened to the Pentagon and those towers in New York on September 12 2001 the globe8217s 8220sole superpower8221 had remarkably few enemies Small numbers of jihadis scattered mostly in the backlands of the planet and centered in an impoverished decimated country8212Afghanistan8212with the most retro regime on Earth There were in addition three rickety 8220rogue states8221 North Korea Iraq and Iran singled out for enemy status but incapable of harming the US and that was that The world as Dick Cheney ampamp Co took for granted looked ready to be dominated by the only angry hyperpower left after centuries of imperial rivalry The US military its technological capability unrivaled by any state or possible grouping of states was to be let loose to bring the Greater Middle East to heel in a decisive way Between that regular military and paramilitarizing intelligence agencies the planet was to be scoured of enemies the 8220 swamp drained8221 in up to 60 countries The result would be a Pax Americana in the Middle East and perhaps even globally into the distant future It was to be legendary And no method8212not torture abuse kidnapping the creation of 8220black sites8221 detention without charges assassination the creation of secret law or surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale8212was to be left out of the toolkit used to birth this new allAmerican planet The 8220 gloves8221 were to be taken off in a big way Thirteen years later those plans those dreams are down the drain The Greater Middle East is in chaos The US seems incapable of intervening in a meaningful way just about anywhere on Earth despite the fact that its military remains unchallenged on a global level It8217s little short of mindblowing And it couldn8217t have been more unexpected for those in power in Washington and perhaps for Americans generally This is perhaps why despite changing American attitudes on interventions and future involvement abroad it8217s been so hard to take in so little focused upon here8212even in the bogus politicized discussions of American 8220strength8221 and 8220 weakness8221 which circle around the latest Russian events as they had previously around the crises in Iran and Syria Somehow with what in any age would have seemed like a classic winning hand Washington never put a card on that 8220 table8221 on which all 8220 options8221 were always being kept open that wasn8217t trumped Events in Ukraine and the Crimea seem to be part of this The Chinese had an evocative phrase for times of dynastic collapse 8220chaos under heaven8221 Moments when it seems as if the planet itself is shifting on its axis don8217t come often but they may indeed feel like chaos under heaven8212an increasingly apt phrase for a world in which no country seems to exert much control tensions are rising in hard to identify ways and the very climate the very habitability of the planet is increasingly at risk When The Losers Are The Winners Even in a losing game there are usually winners One of the conundrums of this particular moment however is that the winners in our American world are exactly those who have repeatedly been playing the losing hands Their reward for one selfdefined disaster after another has been yet more money yet wider areas of everyday life to control and yet more power No matter how inept they may prove as imperial players on a world stage they can essentially do no wrong domestically when it comes to embedding themselves ever more deeply in our lives in the name of our 8220security8221 and our 8220safety8221 It8217s a remarkable tale Legendary one might almost say As the power of American power to accomplish seemingly anything fades the power of the national security state only grows It8217s true that in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations the managers of our secret state have had to pull back in a few areas8212especially the gathering and holding of phone metadata for the complete US population But the significance of this is easy to exaggerate It8217s worth remembering that in the wake of the Watergate era the last time we went through a round of 8220reforms8221 of an outofcontrol secret world the national security state somehow ended up with its own secret court system and secret body of law to which all citizens became accountable even though they could know nothing about it Four decades later in a situation in which that secret state is so much stronger such reforms may once again turn out only to enhance its power It8217s true as well that the CIA has had to pull back on some of the methods it used to such disastrous effect after 911 in particular closing those 8220 black sites8221 it set up though some may still exist possibly in Somalia and perhaps on US naval ships and on the use of torture Nonetheless the recent spectacle of the Agency8217s attack on Senator Dianne Feinstein and the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee over a stillsecret 6300 page critical report on its Bushera torture and black site programs should be instructive After all Feinstein has made her reputation in part as the senator from the national security state She has typically supported the NSA8217s secret programs as well as those of other intelligence outfits straight down the line There has perhaps been no one more sympathetic among Democratic representatives in Congress On a single issue a single set of programs by a single agency however she chose to differ and offer genuine criticism You might think that under the circumstances she would still be handled by the secret state with kid gloves Instead the CIA referred her committee staff to the Justice Department for possible crimes while she was attacked as if she were the Great Satan and finally driven to the Senate floor to denounce the CIA for potential criminal acts and infringing the Constitution Even the president didn8217t come to her aid Think of this as a reasonable yardstick for measuring the real power relations between Washington8217s official overseers and those who are supposed to be overseen Think of the overseen as now negotiating from a position of significant strength the details of their future benefits package And we can count on one thing whatever changes are made they will be largely cosmetic The many parts of America8217s growing shadow government8212secret law secret surveillance secret power and the secret state8212are here to stay From the 911 attacks on that secret state and the militarized world of Washington that goes with it have shown themselves even by their own standards woefully incapable of handling a new and puzzling world Their actions have repeatedly undermined the usual sort of imperial control instead facilitating spreading chaos Post911 they have had a remarkable knack for creating not just blowback8212the CIA term of tradecraft that scholar Chalmers Johnson put into our vocabulary8212but something for which we have no word Think of it perhaps as just the 8220blow8221 part of that term The orderliness of secret power in Washington and chaos under heaven the growth of a police state and a planet run riot turn out to be two sides of the same coin If you want a news story that will glue eyes then think of it this way on September 12 2001 the national security state entered the cockpit of to modernize a phrase the plane of state hijacked it and steered it directly for the Bermuda Triangle8212and here was the strangest thing of all no one even noticed Tom Engelhardt is a cofounder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War The End of Victory Culture He runs the Nation Institute8217s TomDispatchcom His latest book coauthored with Nick Turse is Terminator Planet The First History of Drone Warfare 20012050 Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook and Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch Book Ann Jones8217s They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return From America8217s Wars8212The Untold Story To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p /> <p><a href="/about/advertising/contact-form" type="external">Advertise on MotherJones.com</a></p> <p /> <p>Over the past century, the federal government has pumped <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/05/02/62098/big-oil-profits-and-tax-breaks-remain-high-despite-sequestration-cuts/" type="external">more than $470 billion</a> into the oil and gas industry in the form of generous, never-expiring tax breaks. Once intended to jump-start struggling domestic drillers, these incentives have become a tidy bonus for some of the world&#8217;s most profitable companies.</p> <p>Taxpayers currently subsidize the oil industry by as much as $4.8 billion a year, with about half of that going to the big five oil companies&#8212;ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips&#8212;which get an average tax break of $3.34 on every barrel of domestic crude they produce. With Washington looking under the couch cushions for sources of new revenue, oil prices topping $100 a barrel, and the world feeling the heat from its dependence on fossil fuels, there&#8217;s been a renewed push to close these decades-old loopholes. But history suggests that Big Oil won&#8217;t let go of its perks without a brawl.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>Writing Off Drilling Expenses: A century ago, drilling for oil was risky business. Start-up costs were high, and prospectors couldn&#8217;t be sure they&#8217;d find crude. To encourage the nascent industry, in 1916 Congress approved the expensing of &#8220;intangible drilling costs&#8221;&#8212;pretty much any equipment used or work done&#8212;in the first year of a well&#8217;s life. Today, prospectors rarely hit dry holes, but the century-old tax break remains a gusher. Oil companies can expense 70 percent of their drilling costs and depreciate the rest. Annual cost to taxpayers: $700 million to $3.5 billion</p> <p>The Depletion Allowance: When you sunk a well 90 years ago, you didn&#8217;t know how much it would yield or for how long. That was the idea when oil producers argued that the tax code should account for the &#8220;depletion&#8221; of their reserves. In 1926, Congress introduced the &#8220;excess of percentage over cost depletion deferral,&#8221; a.k.a. the depletion allowance. Since 1975, only small companies may claim it, but the price tag is still big. Under the allowance, an oil producer may deduct 15 percent (originally 27.5 percent) of any gross income from a well. And unlike normal depreciation, this deduction may be claimed indefinitely. Annual cost to taxpayers: $612 million to $1.1 billion</p> <p>Domestic Manufacturing Deduction: In 2004, ostensibly to prevent jobs from being shipped overseas, Congress extended a tax break for stateside manufacturers to cover the oil industry. Never mind that most US oil jobs are nearly outsourcing-proof, since a well in Alaska or a refinery in Louisiana can&#8217;t be sent to China. Annual cost to taxpayers: $574 million</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Oil and gas companies and their employees have pumped more than $357 million into federal candidates&#8217; campaigns since 1990, with $4 out of every $5 going to Republicans. And that&#8217;s nothing compared to what they&#8217;ve spent on lobbying: more than $1.4 billion in the past 15 years. Last year, the industry employed 796 lobbyists, nearly 60 percent of them ex-members of Congress and staffers who&#8217;d come through the revolving door from Capitol Hill.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a pretty damn good investment,&#8221; says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has tried to end the industry&#8217;s perks. Outside groups, some with oil industry connections, spent $23.5 million to defeat him in 2012. &#8220;If you&#8217;re thinking about taking on oil companies, be ready for that kind of onslaught,&#8221; he says.</p> <p>Stepping on Big Oil&#8217;s toes has always been risky, but in the post-Citizens United era, oil and gas executives can pour unlimited money (sometimes anonymously) into races. In 2012, Chevron gave <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/10/26/chevron-donates-2-5-million-to-gop-super-pac/" type="external">$2.5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund</a>, a super-PAC devoted to expanding the Republican majority in the House. And oil-backed dark-money groups like the American Petroleum Institute, the American Energy Alliance, and the Chamber of Commerce spent <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/12/455578/pro-oil-outside-groups-spend-more-than-16-million-on-energy-attack-ads-since-january/" type="external">tens of millions on ads</a> attacking President Obama&#8217;s energy policies.</p> <p>This makes many lawmakers wary of crossing Big Oil, explains a senior aide to another Democratic senator. &#8220;We have a lot of members who are willing to vote the right way, but they&#8217;re not out there fighting the fight on this,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Do you really want to stick your neck out and attract enormous amounts of money?&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Facing Marginal tax rates of more than 90 percent, some Hollywood stars of the &#8217;40s and &#8217;50s sought shelter in oil. A 1959 newspaper article explained their tax scheme:</p> <p>Jimmy Stewart, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope take their salary and invest it immediately in oil. If oil is hit, cost of drilling is deducted and 27.5 percent depletion is taken off the top with no taxes. If the well is dry, cost of drilling is deducted before taxes. This is called &#8220;drilling with tax money.&#8221;</p> <p>In the 1956 petro-epic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaIl5YSxi8U" type="external">Giant</a>, the depletion allowance is described as &#8220;the best thing to hit Texas since we whupped Geronimo,&#8221; prompting Elizabeth Taylor to quip, &#8220;How about an exemption for depreciation of first-class brains, Senator?&#8221; Screenwriter Ivan Moffat said that &#8220;oil interests&#8221; <a href="http://www.americanlegends.com/Interviews/dean_moffat.htm" type="external">pressured</a> studio head Jack Warner to kill Taylor&#8217;s line.</p> <p>Testifying against high tax rates before Congress in 1958, Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan <a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/hot-prospect" type="external">noted the similarity</a> between actors and oil wells: &#8220;We feel we are about as short-lived as an oil well and twice as pretty.&#8221; Yet, he added, &#8220;we have no depletion allowance to compensate for the diminishing market value.&#8221; When Reagan recut the federal tax code three decades later, oil&#8217;s tax loopholes stayed in the picture.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>John F. Kennedy made noises about ending the depletion allowance during his 1960 presidential campaign, much to the consternation of his running mate, Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson. When an LBJ staffer handed Bobby Kennedy a neutral-sounding statement on the tax break for his big brother to read, Bobby literally tore it to shreds. Jack Kennedy was assassinated before he could take action, prompting some conspiracy theorists to contend that he was offed to protect Johnson&#8217;s petroleum constituency. Longtime Republican operative Roger Stone advances this notion in his recent book, <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781626363137-0" type="external">The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ</a>. &#8220;That was the difference between Lyndon and me. I wasn&#8217;t willing to kill for it,&#8221; Stone claims his mentor Richard Nixon told him over martinis. (All evidence suggests that President Gerald Ford, who oversaw the end of the depletion allowance for big oil companies in 1975, died from natural causes.)</p> <p /> <p /> <p>The oil and gas industry insists that it doesn&#8217;t receive any government handouts. Technically, it&#8217;s got a point: Its favorite giveaways are tax expenditures buried in the tax code. So the government isn&#8217;t actually giving oil companies much money&#8212;it&#8217;s just losing money it otherwise could be collecting from them.</p> <p>To protect these tax breaks, the oil industry doesn&#8217;t have to convince lawmakers to do something; it has to convince them to do nothing. As a Republican senatorial aide explains, &#8220;Once you get it in the code, it is really, really hard to change.&#8221; Besides, few politicians want to untangle the wonkiness of decades-old tax loopholes. &#8220;When you get into the weeds with it, it&#8217;s tax policy,&#8221; says Autumn Hanna, an analyst at <a href="http://www.taxpayer.net/" type="external">Taxpayers for Common Sense</a>. &#8220;Who&#8217;s excited and interested in tax policy?&#8221;</p> <p>Industry officials, environmentalists, and reps from both parties say the best shot at curbing the tax breaks is to tackle the entire tax structure. Within the industry, former Shell head John Hofmeister says, the thinking goes like this: &#8220;Let&#8217;s do comprehensive tax reform, and if these incentives disappear during the course of that discussion, okay.&#8221; Lowering corporate taxes could easily compensate for the loss of the current tax breaks. And if a tax overhaul never gets off the ground, the oil industry will be content with the status quo. As former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond once said, &#8220;Presidents come and go; Exxon doesn&#8217;t come and go.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>Lyndon Johnson: In 1949, Johnson, then a junior senator, accused Federal Power Commission head Leland Olds of being a communist and torpedoed his reconfirmation. Olds&#8217; crime: He&#8217;d testified against the deregulation of the oil industry. As president, LBJ held off any discussion of tweaking oil subsidies.</p> <p>Sam Rayburn: The long-serving Democratic speaker of the House blocked any prospective member of the Ways and Means Committee who wanted to trim or eliminate the depletion allowance. He once convinced oilmen to make a large campaign donation by warning them that congressional Republicans would &#8220;tear your depletion allowance and intangible-drilling write-offs to pieces.&#8221;</p> <p>George H.W. Bush: After President Nixon signaled that he wanted to end oil import quotas, Bush, then a House freshman, met with industry leaders and Treasury Secretary David Kennedy. Kennedy changed Nixon&#8217;s mind, prompting Bush to write to the secretary: &#8220;I was so appreciative of your telling them [the industry reps] how I bled and died for the oil industry. That might kill me off in the Washington Post but it darn sure helps in Houston.&#8221;</p> <p>James A. Baker III: As the Reagan White House shot down tax loopholes during the &#8220; <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780394758114-0" type="external">showdown at Gucci Gulch</a>,&#8221; Treasury Secretary James Baker drew fire away from the oil industry. The final cuts, the Wall Street Journal&#8216;s Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray wrote, were &#8220;a very mild swipe, designed only to enable Baker to say publicly that no special interest was spared the tax-reform knife.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Lloyd Bentsen: The day after he finished crafting the 1986 tax reform bill, then-Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) got a call from Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. Bentsen said he and seven senators would block the massive bill unless Packwood kept a special tax break for oil and gas companies. Packwood relented and the bill sailed through.</p> <p>Joe Barton: Barton, the climate-change-denying representative who famously <a href="" type="internal">apologized to BP</a> after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, defended the tax incentives for big oil companies in 2011, arguing that <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/barton-govt-subsidies-necessary-to-keep-exxon-from-going-out-of-business" type="external">&#8220;they&#8217;ll go out of business&#8221;</a> without them.</p> <p>Ted Cruz: Though Cruz was born in Canada, his parents met at a Texas oil company. The junior senator from the Lone Star State has shown his loyalty to the family biz by proposing to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/276455/growth-and-jobs-agenda-ted-cruz" type="external">end the ban</a> on offshore drilling, allow <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/10/3272871/ted-cruz-energy/" type="external">unrestricted fracking</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-what-kind-of-conservative-is-ted-cruz/2012/08/14/c611eef2-e645-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html" type="external">abolish</a> the Energy Department, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/276455/growth-and-jobs-agenda-ted-cruz" type="external">slash corporate taxes</a>, and <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/276455/growth-and-jobs-agenda-ted-cruz" type="external">block cap-and-trade</a>.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>As crude prices dipped in 1995, the oil industry cried poverty. A sympathetic President Bill Clinton signed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, a five-year deal where companies could drill in US waters without paying any royalties. If oil prices rose, royalties would kick in.</p> <p>Yet the Interior Department didn&#8217;t include the price trigger on more than 1,000 leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The bungled deals weren&#8217;t disclosed until several years later. In a series of testy hearings, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/washington/22oil.html" type="external">grilled agency lawyers</a> on what went wrong; clerical error was their best answer. The leases amounted to a de facto subsidy of as much as $14.7 billion. In 2007, a federal court in Louisiana challenged Interior&#8217;s ability to impose price triggers on any deepwater leases signed under the act, potentially depriving the government of $38 billion in future royalties. The Justice Department has appealed, and the case slogs on.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>THE SOLYNDRA SCANDAL was just the most recent flare-up in a growing controversy over subsidies for renewable energy, with fossil fuel fans taking aim at taxpayer help for solar and wind startups. &#8220;It is not the role of government to pick winners and losers,&#8221; Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fred-upton-gop-critic-of-solyndra-loan-sought-funds-for-mich-solar-firm/2011/11/16/gIQAJKGhSN_story.html" type="external">griped</a> about the failed solar company that left taxpayers on the hook for a $535 million loan.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that the renewable-energy industry currently snags a bigger chunk of the subsidy pie&#8212;$7.3 billion a year, compared to $4.8 billion for oil. (Plus, renewables received another $6.2 billion in direct subsidies, research and development funding, loan guarantees, and other help in 2010; fossil fuels got just 2 percent of that.) The difference is that renewables are at the stage where oil was a century ago: a promising yet not fully developed technology that needs a government boost to come to scale. That&#8217;s what motivated the original tax giveaways to what would become Big Oil.</p> <p>Oil subsidies haven&#8217;t gone away as the industry has matured because they are locked into the tax code. However, the more recent incentives for renewables expire every few years, forcing producers to scramble for support on Capitol Hill and injecting uncertainty into the market. Two of the biggest breaks for renewables expire at the end of <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/production-tax-credit-for.html" type="external">2013</a> and <a href="http://www.seia.org/policy/finance-tax/solar-investment-tax-credit" type="external">2016</a>. An investment credit for advanced energy research is capped at $300 million.</p> <p>And the renewables industry is still playing catch-up. An analysis by DBL Investors found that the early subsidies for oil and gas development dwarfed those given to renewables in the past two decades. Subsidizing promising new sources of energy, the report&#8217;s authors write, is as &#8220; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-healey/subsidies-for-renewable-energy_b_1151023.html" type="external">American as apple pie</a>.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>THE $4.8 BILLION in tax breaks that go to oil companies annually are a drop in the barrel for them, but it could go a long way toward spurring the clean-energy economy. Some other things we could do with it:</p> <p>Guarantee loans for renewable-energy projects that could generate $24 billion in private-sector investment and as much as $475 billion in economic activity.</p> <p>Fund a 17-fold increase in the budget of the Department of Energy&#8217;s <a href="http://arpa-e.energy.gov/" type="external">Advanced Research Projects Agency</a>, which supports cutting-edge energy R&amp;amp;D.</p> <p>Hire 109,000 workers to manufacture and install clean-power generators, retrofit buildings, and do other green jobs.</p> <p>&#8220;Green retrofit&#8221; 1.9 million homes, decreasing their energy use up to 30 percent.</p> <p>Expand <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan-repayment/" type="external">federal lending authority</a> for high-efficiency auto projects like Tesla Motors by nearly 20 percent.</p> <p>Increase doe spending on developing solar technology by more than 1,500 percent. Increase spending on fuel cell research by 4,500 percent.</p> <p>Install between 1,200 and 1,600 two-megawatt wind turbines, enough to power 620,000 homes.</p> <p>Quintuple the Army Corps of Engineers&#8217; budget for flood and storm <a href="http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/Missions/FloodRiskManagement/FloodRiskManagementProgram.aspx" type="external">damage reduction</a> and shore protection&#8212;needed to cope with threats from climate change.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>Not all oil subsidies date back to the early years of the 20th century. The industry is also reaping massive benefits from the federal money that set off the explosion of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial technology used to squeeze gas and oil from shale deposits.</p> <p>In the 1970s, Presidents Nixon and Ford launched an urgent effort to boost domestic oil and gas production. In 1977, the Department of Energy oversaw the first large-scale demonstration of hydraulic fracturing to produce shale gas; it also funded the development of new drilling techniques for reaching these previously hard-to-tap deposits. According to <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Where_the_Shale_Gas_Revolution_Came_From2.pdf" type="external">an investigation by the Breakthrough Institute</a>, over the next two decades the feds spent $137 million on key research that led to the $283-billion-a-year gas boom. Thanks to this taxpayer-backed investment, notes the group, &#8220;shale gas went from inaccessible deposits locked in unfamiliar geologic formations to the fastest growing contributor to the nation&#8217;s energy portfolio.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;As far as shale is concerned, I don&#8217;t know that industry would ever have taken a look at it without the federal program,&#8221; Alex Crawley, former associate director for research at the National Petroleum Technology Office, told Breakthrough. It didn&#8217;t happen overnight, explained Terry Engelder, a Penn State University geosciences professor and an expert on shale gas. &#8220;This really took 20 to 30 to 40 years before it really worked. In terms of solar, it&#8217;s going to be the same.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p /> <p>If tax breaks for oil companies were cut off, the industry and its allies warn, gas prices would soar, domestic oil production would tank, and the entire economy would take a hit. When Democrats targeted the subsidies for oil in 2011, Continental Resources CEO and Mitt Romney <a href="" type="internal">megadonor</a> Harold Hamm said it would kill &#8220; <a href="http://newsok.com/in-defense-of-fossil-fuels/article/3551779" type="external">thousands of American jobs</a>.&#8221; Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congress-set-grill-big-oil-bosses-tax-subsidies/story?id=13580819" type="external">declared</a>, &#8220;Raising taxes on American energy production will increase the price of gas. Oh, and it would also make us even more dependent on foreign sources of oil.&#8221;</p> <p>The data suggests otherwise. Research by economist Stephen Brown found that the average American consumer would spend an extra <a href="http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/091009sbtest.pdf" type="external">60 cents a year</a> on petroleum products if Congress eliminated the oil industry&#8217;s main tax perks. Even an American Petroleum Institute tax expert <a href="http://api.org/Newsroom/upload/Opening_Statement_Johnson_Taxes_May2011_as_prepared.pdf" type="external">has said that ending tax breaks</a> &#8220;would not affect the global economics underpinning oil supply and demand, which explain today&#8217;s gasoline prices.&#8221; Alan Krueger, the Treasury Department&#8217;s chief economist, told Congress in 2009 that cutting oil and gas subsidies would shrink domestic production by less than <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg284.aspx" type="external">0.5 percent</a> and wouldn&#8217;t significantly change how much we import. The oil companies&#8217; costs would increase 2 percent and some jobs would be lost, but the industry would be more efficient in the long run.</p> <p>And there&#8217;s an added benefit from killing aid to oil companies: protecting the planet. According to the International Energy Agency, governments worldwide spent <a href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2012/PresentationtoPress.pdf" type="external">$523 billion</a> subsidizing fossil fuel consumption in 2011. Ending that spending would cut global CO2 emissions nearly 6 percent by 2035. And it would free up money for addressing the environmental costs of fossil fuels, mitigate the effects of climate change, and remove what the IEA calls a &#8220;hand brake&#8221; slowing the development of clean energy.</p> <p /> <p>Estimated Annual Tax Breaks for the Big Five: <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/05/02/62098/big-oil-profits-and-tax-breaks-remain-high-despite-sequestration-cuts/" type="external">Center for American Progress</a></p> <p>Estimated Tax Break per Barrel of Oil Produced in US: Calculation based on companies&#8217; SEC filings and <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/05/02/62098/big-oil-profits-and-tax-breaks-remain-high-despite-sequestration-cuts/" type="external">Center for American Progress data</a></p> <p>Total Tax Breaks&#8230;/Average Annual Tax Breaks: <a href="http://www.dblinvestors.com/documents/What-Would-Jefferson-Do-Final-Version.pdf" type="external">DBL Investors</a> (PDF), <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/wp-content/uploads/cbofiles/attachments/03-06-FuelsandEnergy_Brief.pdf" type="external">Congressional Budget Office</a> (PDF)</p> <p>Political Giving: <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a></p> <p>Federal Lobbying: <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a></p> <p>Campaign Spending by Top 20 Donors: <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a></p> <p>Energy Tax Breaks: <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/wp-content/uploads/cbofiles/attachments/03-06-FuelsandEnergy_Brief.pdf" type="external">Congressional Budget Office</a> (PDF)</p> <p>Where Our Energy Comes From: <a href="http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/perspectives.cfm" type="external">Energy Information Administration</a></p> <p /> <p />

Triumph of the Drill: How Big Oil Clings to Billions in Government Giveaways

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/oil-subsidies-renewable-energy-tax-breaks/

2014-04-14

4left

Advertise on MotherJonescom Over the past century the federal government has pumped more than 470 billion into the oil and gas industry in the form of generous neverexpiring tax breaks Once intended to jumpstart struggling domestic drillers these incentives have become a tidy bonus for some of the world8217s most profitable companies Taxpayers currently subsidize the oil industry by as much as 48 billion a year with about half of that going to the big five oil companies8212ExxonMobil Shell Chevron BP and ConocoPhillips8212which get an average tax break of 334 on every barrel of domestic crude they produce With Washington looking under the couch cushions for sources of new revenue oil prices topping 100 a barrel and the world feeling the heat from its dependence on fossil fuels there8217s been a renewed push to close these decadesold loopholes But history suggests that Big Oil won8217t let go of its perks without a brawl amp160 amp160 Writing Off Drilling Expenses A century ago drilling for oil was risky business Startup costs were high and prospectors couldn8217t be sure they8217d find crude To encourage the nascent industry in 1916 Congress approved the expensing of 8220intangible drilling costs82218212pretty much any equipment used or work done8212in the first year of a well8217s life Today prospectors rarely hit dry holes but the centuryold tax break remains a gusher Oil companies can expense 70 percent of their drilling costs and depreciate the rest Annual cost to taxpayers 700 million to 35 billion The Depletion Allowance When you sunk a well 90 years ago you didn8217t know how much it would yield or for how long That was the idea when oil producers argued that the tax code should account for the 8220depletion8221 of their reserves In 1926 Congress introduced the 8220excess of percentage over cost depletion deferral8221 aka the depletion allowance Since 1975 only small companies may claim it but the price tag is still big Under the allowance an oil producer may deduct 15 percent originally 275 percent of any gross income from a well And unlike normal depreciation this deduction may be claimed indefinitely Annual cost to taxpayers 612 million to 11 billion Domestic Manufacturing Deduction In 2004 ostensibly to prevent jobs from being shipped overseas Congress extended a tax break for stateside manufacturers to cover the oil industry Never mind that most US oil jobs are nearly outsourcingproof since a well in Alaska or a refinery in Louisiana can8217t be sent to China Annual cost to taxpayers 574 million Oil and gas companies and their employees have pumped more than 357 million into federal candidates8217 campaigns since 1990 with 4 out of every 5 going to Republicans And that8217s nothing compared to what they8217ve spent on lobbying more than 14 billion in the past 15 years Last year the industry employed 796 lobbyists nearly 60 percent of them exmembers of Congress and staffers who8217d come through the revolving door from Capitol Hill 8220It8217s a pretty damn good investment8221 says Sen Sherrod Brown DOhio who has tried to end the industry8217s perks Outside groups some with oil industry connections spent 235 million to defeat him in 2012 8220If you8217re thinking about taking on oil companies be ready for that kind of onslaught8221 he says Stepping on Big Oil8217s toes has always been risky but in the postCitizens United era oil and gas executives can pour unlimited money sometimes anonymously into races In 2012 Chevron gave 25 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund a superPAC devoted to expanding the Republican majority in the House And oilbacked darkmoney groups like the American Petroleum Institute the American Energy Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce spent tens of millions on ads attacking President Obama8217s energy policies This makes many lawmakers wary of crossing Big Oil explains a senior aide to another Democratic senator 8220We have a lot of members who are willing to vote the right way but they8217re not out there fighting the fight on this8221 he says 8220Do you really want to stick your neck out and attract enormous amounts of money8221 amp160 Facing Marginal tax rates of more than 90 percent some Hollywood stars of the 821740s and 821750s sought shelter in oil A 1959 newspaper article explained their tax scheme Jimmy Stewart Bing Crosby and Bob Hope take their salary and invest it immediately in oil If oil is hit cost of drilling is deducted and 275 percent depletion is taken off the top with no taxes If the well is dry cost of drilling is deducted before taxes This is called 8220drilling with tax money8221 In the 1956 petroepic Giant the depletion allowance is described as 8220the best thing to hit Texas since we whupped Geronimo8221 prompting Elizabeth Taylor to quip 8220How about an exemption for depreciation of firstclass brains Senator8221 Screenwriter Ivan Moffat said that 8220oil interests8221 pressured studio head Jack Warner to kill Taylor8217s line Testifying against high tax rates before Congress in 1958 Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan noted the similarity between actors and oil wells 8220We feel we are about as shortlived as an oil well and twice as pretty8221 Yet he added 8220we have no depletion allowance to compensate for the diminishing market value8221 When Reagan recut the federal tax code three decades later oil8217s tax loopholes stayed in the picture John F Kennedy made noises about ending the depletion allowance during his 1960 presidential campaign much to the consternation of his running mate Texas Sen Lyndon Johnson When an LBJ staffer handed Bobby Kennedy a neutralsounding statement on the tax break for his big brother to read Bobby literally tore it to shreds Jack Kennedy was assassinated before he could take action prompting some conspiracy theorists to contend that he was offed to protect Johnson8217s petroleum constituency Longtime Republican operative Roger Stone advances this notion in his recent book The Man Who Killed Kennedy The Case Against LBJ 8220That was the difference between Lyndon and me I wasn8217t willing to kill for it8221 Stone claims his mentor Richard Nixon told him over martinis All evidence suggests that President Gerald Ford who oversaw the end of the depletion allowance for big oil companies in 1975 died from natural causes The oil and gas industry insists that it doesn8217t receive any government handouts Technically it8217s got a point Its favorite giveaways are tax expenditures buried in the tax code So the government isn8217t actually giving oil companies much money8212it8217s just losing money it otherwise could be collecting from them To protect these tax breaks the oil industry doesn8217t have to convince lawmakers to do something it has to convince them to do nothing As a Republican senatorial aide explains 8220Once you get it in the code it is really really hard to change8221 Besides few politicians want to untangle the wonkiness of decadesold tax loopholes 8220When you get into the weeds with it it8217s tax policy8221 says Autumn Hanna an analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense 8220Who8217s excited and interested in tax policy8221 Industry officials environmentalists and reps from both parties say the best shot at curbing the tax breaks is to tackle the entire tax structure Within the industry former Shell head John Hofmeister says the thinking goes like this 8220Let8217s do comprehensive tax reform and if these incentives disappear during the course of that discussion okay8221 Lowering corporate taxes could easily compensate for the loss of the current tax breaks And if a tax overhaul never gets off the ground the oil industry will be content with the status quo As former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond once said 8220Presidents come and go Exxon doesn8217t come and go8221 Lyndon Johnson In 1949 Johnson then a junior senator accused Federal Power Commission head Leland Olds of being a communist and torpedoed his reconfirmation Olds8217 crime He8217d testified against the deregulation of the oil industry As president LBJ held off any discussion of tweaking oil subsidies Sam Rayburn The longserving Democratic speaker of the House blocked any prospective member of the Ways and Means Committee who wanted to trim or eliminate the depletion allowance He once convinced oilmen to make a large campaign donation by warning them that congressional Republicans would 8220tear your depletion allowance and intangibledrilling writeoffs to pieces8221 George HW Bush After President Nixon signaled that he wanted to end oil import quotas Bush then a House freshman met with industry leaders and Treasury Secretary David Kennedy Kennedy changed Nixon8217s mind prompting Bush to write to the secretary 8220I was so appreciative of your telling them the industry reps how I bled and died for the oil industry That might kill me off in the Washington Post but it darn sure helps in Houston8221 James A Baker III As the Reagan White House shot down tax loopholes during the 8220 showdown at Gucci Gulch8221 Treasury Secretary James Baker drew fire away from the oil industry The final cuts the Wall Street Journal8216s Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray wrote were 8220a very mild swipe designed only to enable Baker to say publicly that no special interest was spared the taxreform knife8221 amp160 amp160 Lloyd Bentsen The day after he finished crafting the 1986 tax reform bill thenSen Bob Packwood ROre got a call from Texas Sen Lloyd Bentsen Bentsen said he and seven senators would block the massive bill unless Packwood kept a special tax break for oil and gas companies Packwood relented and the bill sailed through Joe Barton Barton the climatechangedenying representative who famously apologized to BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster defended the tax incentives for big oil companies in 2011 arguing that 8220they8217ll go out of business8221 without them Ted Cruz Though Cruz was born in Canada his parents met at a Texas oil company The junior senator from the Lone Star State has shown his loyalty to the family biz by proposing to end the ban on offshore drilling allow unrestricted fracking abolish the Energy Department slash corporate taxes and block capandtrade As crude prices dipped in 1995 the oil industry cried poverty A sympathetic President Bill Clinton signed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act a fiveyear deal where companies could drill in US waters without paying any royalties If oil prices rose royalties would kick in Yet the Interior Department didn8217t include the price trigger on more than 1000 leases in the Gulf of Mexico The bungled deals weren8217t disclosed until several years later In a series of testy hearings Rep Darrell Issa RCalif grilled agency lawyers on what went wrong clerical error was their best answer The leases amounted to a de facto subsidy of as much as 147 billion In 2007 a federal court in Louisiana challenged Interior8217s ability to impose price triggers on any deepwater leases signed under the act potentially depriving the government of 38 billion in future royalties The Justice Department has appealed and the case slogs on amp160 THE SOLYNDRA SCANDAL was just the most recent flareup in a growing controversy over subsidies for renewable energy with fossil fuel fans taking aim at taxpayer help for solar and wind startups 8220It is not the role of government to pick winners and losers8221 Rep Fred Upton RMich griped about the failed solar company that left taxpayers on the hook for a 535 million loan It8217s true that the renewableenergy industry currently snags a bigger chunk of the subsidy pie821273 billion a year compared to 48 billion for oil Plus renewables received another 62 billion in direct subsidies research and development funding loan guarantees and other help in 2010 fossil fuels got just 2 percent of that The difference is that renewables are at the stage where oil was a century ago a promising yet not fully developed technology that needs a government boost to come to scale That8217s what motivated the original tax giveaways to what would become Big Oil Oil subsidies haven8217t gone away as the industry has matured because they are locked into the tax code However the more recent incentives for renewables expire every few years forcing producers to scramble for support on Capitol Hill and injecting uncertainty into the market Two of the biggest breaks for renewables expire at the end of 2013 and 2016 An investment credit for advanced energy research is capped at 300 million And the renewables industry is still playing catchup An analysis by DBL Investors found that the early subsidies for oil and gas development dwarfed those given to renewables in the past two decades Subsidizing promising new sources of energy the report8217s authors write is as 8220 American as apple pie8221 amp160 THE 48 BILLION in tax breaks that go to oil companies annually are a drop in the barrel for them but it could go a long way toward spurring the cleanenergy economy Some other things we could do with it Guarantee loans for renewableenergy projects that could generate 24 billion in privatesector investment and as much as 475 billion in economic activity Fund a 17fold increase in the budget of the Department of Energy8217s Advanced Research Projects Agency which supports cuttingedge energy RampampD Hire 109000 workers to manufacture and install cleanpower generators retrofit buildings and do other green jobs 8220Green retrofit8221 19 million homes decreasing their energy use up to 30 percent Expand federal lending authority for highefficiency auto projects like Tesla Motors by nearly 20 percent Increase doe spending on developing solar technology by more than 1500 percent Increase spending on fuel cell research by 4500 percent Install between 1200 and 1600 twomegawatt wind turbines enough to power 620000 homes Quintuple the Army Corps of Engineers8217 budget for flood and storm damage reduction and shore protection8212needed to cope with threats from climate change Not all oil subsidies date back to the early years of the 20th century The industry is also reaping massive benefits from the federal money that set off the explosion of hydraulic fracturing or fracking the controversial technology used to squeeze gas and oil from shale deposits In the 1970s Presidents Nixon and Ford launched an urgent effort to boost domestic oil and gas production In 1977 the Department of Energy oversaw the first largescale demonstration of hydraulic fracturing to produce shale gas it also funded the development of new drilling techniques for reaching these previously hardtotap deposits According to an investigation by the Breakthrough Institute over the next two decades the feds spent 137 million on key research that led to the 283billionayear gas boom Thanks to this taxpayerbacked investment notes the group 8220shale gas went from inaccessible deposits locked in unfamiliar geologic formations to the fastest growing contributor to the nation8217s energy portfolio8221 8220As far as shale is concerned I don8217t know that industry would ever have taken a look at it without the federal program8221 Alex Crawley former associate director for research at the National Petroleum Technology Office told Breakthrough It didn8217t happen overnight explained Terry Engelder a Penn State University geosciences professor and an expert on shale gas 8220This really took 20 to 30 to 40 years before it really worked In terms of solar it8217s going to be the same8221 If tax breaks for oil companies were cut off the industry and its allies warn gas prices would soar domestic oil production would tank and the entire economy would take a hit When Democrats targeted the subsidies for oil in 2011 Continental Resources CEO and Mitt Romney megadonor Harold Hamm said it would kill 8220 thousands of American jobs8221 Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell declared 8220Raising taxes on American energy production will increase the price of gas Oh and it would also make us even more dependent on foreign sources of oil8221 The data suggests otherwise Research by economist Stephen Brown found that the average American consumer would spend an extra 60 cents a year on petroleum products if Congress eliminated the oil industry8217s main tax perks Even an American Petroleum Institute tax expert has said that ending tax breaks 8220would not affect the global economics underpinning oil supply and demand which explain today8217s gasoline prices8221 Alan Krueger the Treasury Department8217s chief economist told Congress in 2009 that cutting oil and gas subsidies would shrink domestic production by less than 05 percent and wouldn8217t significantly change how much we import The oil companies8217 costs would increase 2 percent and some jobs would be lost but the industry would be more efficient in the long run And there8217s an added benefit from killing aid to oil companies protecting the planet According to the International Energy Agency governments worldwide spent 523 billion subsidizing fossil fuel consumption in 2011 Ending that spending would cut global CO2 emissions nearly 6 percent by 2035 And it would free up money for addressing the environmental costs of fossil fuels mitigate the effects of climate change and remove what the IEA calls a 8220hand brake8221 slowing the development of clean energy Estimated Annual Tax Breaks for the Big Five Center for American Progress Estimated Tax Break per Barrel of Oil Produced in US Calculation based on companies8217 SEC filings and Center for American Progress data Total Tax Breaks8230Average Annual Tax Breaks DBL Investors PDF Congressional Budget Office PDF Political Giving Center for Responsive Politics Federal Lobbying Center for Responsive Politics Campaign Spending by Top 20 Donors Center for Responsive Politics Energy Tax Breaks Congressional Budget Office PDF Where Our Energy Comes From Energy Information Administration

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;amp;search_source=search_form&amp;amp;version=llv1&amp;amp;anyorall=all&amp;amp;safesearch=1&amp;amp;searchterm=surveillance#id=84386374&amp;amp;src=AcvxzwLRVbEdOhkMw7TcRw-1-53"&amp;gt;alphaspirit&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Shutterstock</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175473/tomgram%3A_steve_fraser%2C_%22de-fault_is_ours%22/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>In a 1950s civics textbook of mine, I can remember a Martian landing on Main Street, USA., to be instructed in the glories of our political system. You know, our tripartite government, checks and balances, miraculous set of rights, and vibrant democracy. There was, Americans then thought, much to be proud of, and so for that generation of children, many Martians were instructed in the American way of life. These days, I suspect, not so many.</p> <p>Still, I wondered just what lessons might be offered to such a Martian crash-landing in Washington as 2014 begins. Certainly checks, balances, rights, and democracy wouldn&#8217;t top any New Year&#8217;s list. Since my childhood, in fact, that tripartite government has grown a fourth part, a national security state that is remarkably unchecked and unbalanced. In recent times, that labyrinthine structure of intelligence agencies morphing into war-fighting outfits, the US military (with its own secret military, the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175426/nick_turse_the_military%27s_secret_military" type="external">special operations forces</a>, gestating inside it), and the Department of Homeland Security, a monster conglomeration of agencies that is an actual &#8220;defense department,&#8221; as well as a vast contingent of weapons makers, contractors, and profiteers bolstered by an army of lobbyists, has never stopped growing. It has won the undying fealty of Congress, embraced the power of the presidency, made itself into a jobs program for the American people, and been largely free to do as it pleased with almost unlimited taxpayer dollars.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />The expansion of Washington&#8217;s national security state&#8212;let&#8217;s call it the NSS&#8212;to gargantuan proportions has historically met little opposition. In the wake of the Edward Snowden <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files" type="external">revelations</a>, however, some resistance has arisen, especially when it comes to the &#8220;right&#8221; of one part of the NSS to turn the world into <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_you_are_our_secret/" type="external">a listening post</a> and gather, in particular, American communications of every sort. The debate about this&#8212;invariably framed within the boundaries of whether or not we should have more security or more privacy and how exactly to balance the two&#8212;has been reasonably vigorous. The problem is: it doesn&#8217;t begin to get at the real nature of the NSS or the problems it poses.</p> <p>If I were to instruct that stray Martian lost in the nation&#8217;s capital, I might choose another framework entirely for my lesson. After all, the focus of the NSS, which has like an incubus grown to monumental proportions inside the body of the political system, would seem distinctly monomaniacal, if only we could step outside our normal way of thinking for a moment. At a cost of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175545/" type="external">nearly a trillion dollars</a> a year, its main global enemy consists of thousands of lightly armed jihadis and wannabe jihadis scattered mainly across the backlands of the planet. They are capable of causing genuine damage&#8212;though far less to the United States than numerous <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/car-bombs-kill-scores-in-baghdad-in-sign-of-crisis-in-iraq/2013/10/27/7ae9c376-3cb3-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html" type="external">other countries</a>&#8212;but not of shaking our way of life. And yet for the leaders, bureaucrats, corporate cronies, rank and file, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/business/media/when-60-minutes-checks-its-journalistic-skepticism-at-the-door.html" type="external">acolytes</a> of the NSS, it&#8217;s a focus that can never be intense enough on behalf of a system that can never grow large enough or be well funded enough.</p> <p>None of the frameworks we normally call on to understand the national security state capture the irrationality, genuine inanity, and actual madness that lie at its heart. Perhaps reimagining what has developed in these last decades as a faith-based system&#8212;a new national religion &#8212;would help. This, at least, is the way I would explain the new Washington to that wayward Martian.</p> <p>Imagine what we call &#8220;national security&#8221; as, at heart, a proselytizing warrior religion. It has its holy orders. It has its sacred texts (classified). It has its dogma and its warrior priests. It has its sanctified promised land, known as &#8220;the homeland.&#8221; It has its seminaries, which we call think tanks. It is a monotheistic faith in that it broaches no alternatives to itself. It is Manichaean in its view of the world. As with so many religions, its god is an eye in the sky, an all-seeing Being who knows your secrets.</p> <p>Edward Snowden, the man who in 2013 pulled back the curtain on part of this system, revealing its true nature to anyone who cared to look, is an apostate, never to be forgiven by those in its holy orders. He is a Judas to be hunted down, returned to the US, put on trial as a &#8220; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/29/der-spiegel-nsa-hacking-unit-tao" type="external">traitor</a>,&#8221; and then&#8212;so say some retired NSS warriors (who often channel the opinions and feelings of those still in office)&#8212; <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/17/ex-cia-director-snowden-should-be-hanged-if-convicted-for-treason/" type="external">hung</a> by the neck until dead or <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/john-bolton-edward-snowden_n_4461196.html" type="external">swung</a> &#8220;from a tall oak tree.&#8221;</p> <p>Al-Qaeda is, of course, the system&#8217;s Devil, whose evil seed is known to land and breed anywhere on the planet from Sana&#8217;a, Yemen, to Boston, Massachusetts, if we are not eternally and ever more on guard. In the name of the epic global struggle against it and the need to protect the homeland, nothing is too much, no step taken a point too far. (As the Devil is traditionally a shape-shifter, able to manifest himself in many forms, it is, however, possible that tomorrow&#8217;s version of him may be, say, China.)</p> <p>The leaders of this faith-based system are, not surprisingly, fundamentalist true believers. They don&#8217;t wear long beards, wave the Koran, shout &#8220;Death to the Great Satan,&#8221; or live in the backlands of the planet. Instead, they <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/11/nsa-chiefs-keith-alexander-senate-surveillance" type="external">speak bureaucratically</a>, tend to sport military uniforms and medals, and inhabit high-tech government facilities. Fundamentalist as they are, they may not, in the normal sense, be religious at all. They are not obliged to believe in the importance of being &#8220;born again&#8221; or fear being &#8220;left behind&#8221; in a future End Times&#8212;though such beliefs <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175597/andrew_bacevich_boykinism" type="external">don&#8217;t disqualify them</a> either.</p> <p>They issue the equivalent of fatwas against those they proclaim to be their enemies. They have a set of Sharia-like laws, both immutable and flexible. Punishments for breaking them may not run to stoning to death or the cutting off of hands, but they do involve the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-to-sentence-bradley-manning-today/2013/08/20/85bee184-09d0-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html" type="external">cutting off of lives</a>.</p> <p>Theirs is an implacable warrior religion, calling down retribution on people often seen <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/drones-us-military" type="external">only poorly</a> by video feed, thousands of miles distant from Washington, D.C., <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/50-years-in-langley-recollections-of-cias-ohb/index.html" type="external">Langley</a>, Virginia, or <a href="http://clui.org/ludb/site/national-security-agency-nsa-headquarters" type="external">Fort Meade</a>, Maryland. It&#8217;s no mistake that the weapons fired by their fleet of drone aircraft are called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire" type="external">Hellfire missiles</a>, since it is indeed hellfire and brimstone that they believe they are delivering to the politically sinful of the world. Nor is it a happenstance that the planes which fire those missiles have been dubbed Predators and Reapers (as in &#8220;Grim&#8221;), for they do see themselves as the annointed deliverers of Death to their enemies.</p> <p>While they have a powerful urge to maintain the faith the American public has in them, they also believe deeply that they know best, that their knowledge is the Washington equivalent of God-given, and that the deepest mysteries and secrets of their faith should be held close indeed.</p> <p>Until you enter their orders and rise into their secret world, there is such a thing as too-much knowledge. As a result, they have developed a faith-based <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_you_are_our_secret/" type="external">system of secrecy</a> in which the deepest mysteries have, until recently, been held by the smallest numbers of believers, in which problems are adjudicated in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court/2013/06/07/4700b382-cfec-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_graphic.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost" type="external">&#8220;court&#8221; system</a> so secret that only favored arguments by the national security state can be presented to its judges, in which just about any document produced, no matter how anodyne, will be <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175570/engelhardt_that_makes_no_sense" type="external">classified</a> as too dangerous to be read by &#8220;the people.&#8221; This has meant that, until recently, most assessments of the activities of the national security state have to be taken on faith.</p> <p>In addition, in the service of that faith, NSS officials may&#8212;and their religion permits this&#8212; <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/16/131216fa_fact_lizza" type="external">lie to and manipulate</a> the public, Congress, allies, or anyone else, and do so without compunction. They may publicly deny realities they know to exist, or offer, as Conor Friedersdorf has <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/how-americans-were-deceived-about-cell-phone-location-data/282239/" type="external">written</a>, statements &#8220;exquisitely crafted to mislead.&#8221; They do this based on <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-defenses-of-nsa-phone-program-may-be-unraveling/2013/12/19/6927d8a2-68d3-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html" type="external">the belief</a> that the deepest secrets of their world and how it operates can only truly be understood by those already inducted into their orders. And yet, they are not simply manipulating us in service to their One True Faith. Nothing is ever that simple. Before they manipulate us, they must spend years manipulating themselves. Only because they have already convinced themselves of the deeper truth of their mission do they accept the necessity of manipulating others in what still passes for a democracy. To serve the people, in other words, they have no choice but to lie to them.</p> <p>Like other religious institutions in their heyday, the NSS has also shown a striking ability to generate support for its ever-growing structure by turning itself into a lucrative global operation. In a world where genuine enemies are in remarkably short supply (though you&#8217;d never know it from the gospel according to them), it has exhibited remarkable skill in rallying those who might support it financially, whether they call themselves Democrats or Republicans, and ensuring, even in budgetary tough times, that its coffers <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cockburn-budget-deal-defense-20131220,0,4754116,print.story" type="external">will continue</a> to burst at the seams.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />It has also worked hard to expand what, <a href="http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html" type="external">since 1961</a>, has been known as the military-industrial complex. In the twenty-first century, the NSS has put special effort into subsidizing <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175507/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_arrival_of_the_warrior_corporation/" type="external">warrior corporations</a> ready to enter the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175691/engelhardt_filling_the_global_battlefield" type="external">global battlefield</a> with it. In the process, it has &#8220;privatized&#8221;&#8212;that is, corporatized&#8212;its global operations. It has essentially merged with a set of crony outfits that now do a significant part of its work. It has hired private contractors by the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/nsa-leak-contractors_n_3418876.html?1370919691" type="external">tens of thousands</a>, creating <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175780/pratap_chatterjee_the_Jason_Bourne_strategy" type="external">corporate spies</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/digital_blackwater_meet_the_contractors_who_analyze_your_personal_data/" type="external">corporate analysts</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/156858394X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">corporate</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/156858394X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">mercenaries</a>, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175699/david_vine_baseworld_profiteering" type="external">corporate builders</a>, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175036/pratap_chatterjee_inheriting_halliburton_s_army" type="external">corporate providers</a> for a structure that is increasingly becoming the profit-center of a state within a state. All of this, in turn, helps to support a growing theocratic warrior class in <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/department-of-defenses-revolving-door-in-full-swing-98813.html" type="external">the luxury</a> to which it has become accustomed.</p> <p>Since 9/11, the result has been a religion of perpetual conflict whose doctrines tend to grow ever more extreme. In our time, for instance, the NSS has moved from Dick Cheney&#8217;s &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175402/engelhardt_100%25_doctrine" type="external">1% doctrine</a>&#8221; (if there&#8217;s even a 1% chance that some country might someday attack us, we should strike first) to something like a &#8220;0% doctrine.&#8221; Whether in its drone wars with their <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/engelhardt_assassin_in_chief" type="external">presidential &#8220;kill lists&#8221;</a> or the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html" type="external">cyber war</a>&#8212;probably the first in history&#8212;that it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/stuxnet-was-work-of-us-and-israeli-experts-officials-say/2012/06/01/gJQAlnEy6U_story.html" type="external">launched</a> against Iran, it no longer cares to argue most of the time that such strikes need even a 1% justification. Its ongoing, self-proclaimed global war, whether <a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2013/12/31/us-drone-strikes-decline-in-2013-but-ground-raids-grow/" type="external">on the ground</a> or in the air, in person or by drone, in space or cyberspace (where its <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/pentagon-cybersecurity-role-101485.html" type="external">newest military command</a> is already in action) is justification enough for just about any act, however aggressive.</p> <p>Put all this together and what you have is a description of a militant organization whose purpose is to carry out a Washington version of global jihad, a perpetual war in the name of the true faith.</p> <p>A Practical Failure, A Faith-Based Success Story</p> <p>Looked at another way, the national security state is also a humongous humbug, a gigantic fraud of a belief system that only delivers because its followers never choose to look at the world through Martian eyes.</p> <p>Let&#8217;s start with its gargantuan side. No matter how you cut it, the NSS is a Ripley&#8217;s Believe It or Not of staggering numbers that, once you step outside its thought system, don&#8217;t add up. The US national defense budget is estimated to be larger than those of the next <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/" type="external">13 countries combined</a>&#8212;that is, simply off-the-charts more expensive. The US Navy has <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-to-keep-11-aircraft-carriers/" type="external">11</a> aircraft carrier strike groups when no other country has more than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country" type="external">two</a>. No other national security outfit can claim to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html" type="external">sweep up</a> &#8220;nearly five billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world&#8221;; nor, like the National Security Agency&#8217;s Special Source Operations group in 2006, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html" type="external">boast</a> about being capable of ingesting the equivalent of &#8220;one Library of Congress every 14.4 seconds&#8221;; nor does it have any competitors when it comes to <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/" type="external">constructing</a> &#8220;building complexes for top-secret intelligence work&#8221; (33 in the Washington area alone between 2001 and 2010). And its building programs <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1" type="external">around the US</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/army-generals-report-defends-decision-to-build-36-million-headquarters-in-afghanistan/2013/12/03/5ed883e4-5c51-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html" type="external">globally</a> are never-ending.</p> <p>It is creating a jet fighter that will be the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2136312,00.html" type="external">most expensive</a> weapons system in history. Its weapons makers controlled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html" type="external">78%</a> of the global arms market in 2012. When its military departed Iraq after eight years of invasion and occupation, it left with <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/24/us-iraq-withdrawal-idUSTRE7AN0MI20111124" type="external">three million objects</a> ranging from armored vehicles to laptop computers and porta-potties (and destroyed or handed over to the Iraqis countless more). In a world where other countries have, at best, a handful of military bases outside their territory, it has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175338/nick_turse_planet_of_bases" type="external">countless hundreds</a>. In 2011 alone, it managed to classify <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175570/engelhardt_that_makes_no_sense" type="external">92,064,862</a> of the documents it generated, giving secrecy a new order of magnitude. And that&#8217;s just to dip a toe in the ocean of a national security state that dwarfs the one which fought the Cold War against an actual imperial superpower.</p> <p>Again, if you were to step outside the world of NSS dogma and the arguments that go with it, such numbers&#8212;and they are legion&#8212;would surely represent one of the worst investments in modern memory. If a system of this sort weren&#8217;t faith-based, and if that faith weren&#8217;t widespread and deeply accepted (even if now possibly <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/30/cnn-poll-afghanistan-war-most-unpopular-in-u-s-history/" type="external">on the wane</a>), people would automatically look at such numbers and the results they deliver and ask why, for all its promises of safety and security, the NSS so regularly fails to deliver. And why the response to failure can always be encapsulated in one word: more.</p> <p>After all, if the twenty-first century has taught us anything, it&#8217;s that the most expensive and over-equipped military on the planet <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175114/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_what_the_US_military_can%27t_do" type="external">can&#8217;t win</a> a war. Its two <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/28/cost_of_iraq_linda_bilmes_says_iraq_and_afghanistan_wars_could_cost_6_trillion.html" type="external">multi-trillion-dollar</a> attempts since 9/11, in Iraq and Afghanistan, both against lightly armed minority insurgencies, proved disasters. (In Iraq, however, despite an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/middleeast/last-convoy-of-american-troops-leaves-iraq.html" type="external">ignominious US pullout</a> and the chaos that has followed in the region, the NSS and its supporters have continued to promote the idea that <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/10/29/david_petraeus_how_we_won_the_surge_in_iraq#sthash.VRwebYVs.dpbs" type="external">General David Petraeus&#8217;s &#8220;surge&#8221;</a> was indeed some kind of historic last-minute &#8220;victory.&#8221;)</p> <p>After 12 long years in Afghanistan and an <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175176/tomgram%3A__state_of_surge,_afghanistan/" type="external">Obama era surge</a> in that country, the latest <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/afghanistan-gains-will-be-lost-quickly-after-drawdown-us-intelligence-estimate-warns/2013/12/28/ac609f90-6f32-11e3-aecc-85cb037b7236_story.html?hpid=z2" type="external">grim National Intelligence Estimate</a> from the US intelligence community suggests that no matter what Washington now does, the likelihood is that things there will only go from bad enough to far worse. Years of a drone campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/us-yemen-us-drones-insight-idUSBRE9BC0A020131213" type="external">strengthened</a> that organization; an air intervention in Libya led to chaos, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/" type="external">dead ambassador</a>, and a <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/11/al_qaeda_and_the_thr_1.php" type="external">growing</a> al-Qaeda movement in northern Africa&#8212;and so it repetitively goes.</p> <p>Similarly, intelligence officials brag of terrorist plots&#8212; <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence" type="external">54</a> of them!&#8212;that have been broken up thanks in whole or in part to the National Security Agency&#8217;s metadata sweeps of US phone calls; it also claims that, given the need of secrecy, only four of them can be made public. (The claims of success on even those four, when examined by journalists, have proved <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-doubt-about-nsas-impact-yeah-there" type="external">less than impressive</a>.) Meanwhile, the presidential task force charged with reviewing the NSA revelations, which had access to a far wider range of insider information, came to an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/23/obama-cant-point-to-a-single-time-the-nsa-call-records-program-prevented-a-terrorist-attack/" type="external">even more startling conclusion</a>: not one instance could be found in which that metadata the NSA was storing in bulk had thwarted a terrorist plot. &#8220;Our review,&#8221; the panel wrote, &#8220;suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks.&#8221; (And keep in mind that, based on what we do know about such terror plots, a surprising number of them were planned or sparked or made possible by <a href="" type="internal">FBI-inspired plants</a>.)</p> <p>In fact, claims of success against such plots couldn&#8217;t be more faith-based, relying as they generally do on the word of intelligence officials who have proven themselves untrustworthy or on the impossible-to-prove-or-disprove claim that if such a system didn&#8217;t exist, far worse would have happened. That version of a success story is well summarized in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html" type="external">the claim</a> that &#8220;we didn&#8217;t have another 9/11.&#8221;</p> <p>In other words, in bang-for-the-buck practical terms, Washington&#8217;s national security state should be viewed as a remarkable failure. And yet, in faith-based terms, it couldn&#8217;t be a greater success. Its false gods are largely accepted by acclamation and regularly worshiped in Washington and beyond. As the funding continues to pour in, the NSS has transformed itself into something like a shadow government in that city, while precluding from all serious discussion the possibility of its own future dismantlement or of what could replace it. It has made other options ephemeral and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175402/engelhardt_100%25_doctrine" type="external">more immediate dangers</a> than terrorism to the health and wellbeing of Americans seem, at best, secondary. It has pumped fear into the American soul. It is a religion of state power.</p> <p>No Martian could mistake it for anything else.</p> <p>Tom Engelhardt, a co-founder of the <a href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" type="external">American Empire Project</a> and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The United States of Fear</a> as well as a history of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The End of Victory Culture</a>, runs the Nation Institute&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=tomdispatch-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B0086EF89K" type="external">Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America&#8217;s Wars&#8212;The Untold Story</a>.To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Why Our Debate About Surveillance Doesn’t Go Far Enough

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/why-our-debate-about-surveillance-doesnt-go-far-enough/

2014-01-06

4left

amplta hrefhttpwwwshutterstockcomcatmhtmllangenampampsearch_sourcesearch_formampampversionllv1ampampanyorallallampampsafesearch1ampampsearchtermsurveillanceid84386374ampampsrcAcvxzwLRVbEdOhkMw7TcRw153ampgtalphaspiritampltaampgtShutterstock This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website In a 1950s civics textbook of mine I can remember a Martian landing on Main Street USA to be instructed in the glories of our political system You know our tripartite government checks and balances miraculous set of rights and vibrant democracy There was Americans then thought much to be proud of and so for that generation of children many Martians were instructed in the American way of life These days I suspect not so many Still I wondered just what lessons might be offered to such a Martian crashlanding in Washington as 2014 begins Certainly checks balances rights and democracy wouldn8217t top any New Year8217s list Since my childhood in fact that tripartite government has grown a fourth part a national security state that is remarkably unchecked and unbalanced In recent times that labyrinthine structure of intelligence agencies morphing into warfighting outfits the US military with its own secret military the special operations forces gestating inside it and the Department of Homeland Security a monster conglomeration of agencies that is an actual 8220defense department8221 as well as a vast contingent of weapons makers contractors and profiteers bolstered by an army of lobbyists has never stopped growing It has won the undying fealty of Congress embraced the power of the presidency made itself into a jobs program for the American people and been largely free to do as it pleased with almost unlimited taxpayer dollars The expansion of Washington8217s national security state8212let8217s call it the NSS8212to gargantuan proportions has historically met little opposition In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations however some resistance has arisen especially when it comes to the 8220right8221 of one part of the NSS to turn the world into a listening post and gather in particular American communications of every sort The debate about this8212invariably framed within the boundaries of whether or not we should have more security or more privacy and how exactly to balance the two8212has been reasonably vigorous The problem is it doesn8217t begin to get at the real nature of the NSS or the problems it poses If I were to instruct that stray Martian lost in the nation8217s capital I might choose another framework entirely for my lesson After all the focus of the NSS which has like an incubus grown to monumental proportions inside the body of the political system would seem distinctly monomaniacal if only we could step outside our normal way of thinking for a moment At a cost of nearly a trillion dollars a year its main global enemy consists of thousands of lightly armed jihadis and wannabe jihadis scattered mainly across the backlands of the planet They are capable of causing genuine damage8212though far less to the United States than numerous other countries8212but not of shaking our way of life And yet for the leaders bureaucrats corporate cronies rank and file and acolytes of the NSS it8217s a focus that can never be intense enough on behalf of a system that can never grow large enough or be well funded enough None of the frameworks we normally call on to understand the national security state capture the irrationality genuine inanity and actual madness that lie at its heart Perhaps reimagining what has developed in these last decades as a faithbased system8212a new national religion 8212would help This at least is the way I would explain the new Washington to that wayward Martian Imagine what we call 8220national security8221 as at heart a proselytizing warrior religion It has its holy orders It has its sacred texts classified It has its dogma and its warrior priests It has its sanctified promised land known as 8220the homeland8221 It has its seminaries which we call think tanks It is a monotheistic faith in that it broaches no alternatives to itself It is Manichaean in its view of the world As with so many religions its god is an eye in the sky an allseeing Being who knows your secrets Edward Snowden the man who in 2013 pulled back the curtain on part of this system revealing its true nature to anyone who cared to look is an apostate never to be forgiven by those in its holy orders He is a Judas to be hunted down returned to the US put on trial as a 8220 traitor8221 and then8212so say some retired NSS warriors who often channel the opinions and feelings of those still in office8212 hung by the neck until dead or swung 8220from a tall oak tree8221 AlQaeda is of course the system8217s Devil whose evil seed is known to land and breed anywhere on the planet from Sana8217a Yemen to Boston Massachusetts if we are not eternally and ever more on guard In the name of the epic global struggle against it and the need to protect the homeland nothing is too much no step taken a point too far As the Devil is traditionally a shapeshifter able to manifest himself in many forms it is however possible that tomorrow8217s version of him may be say China The leaders of this faithbased system are not surprisingly fundamentalist true believers They don8217t wear long beards wave the Koran shout 8220Death to the Great Satan8221 or live in the backlands of the planet Instead they speak bureaucratically tend to sport military uniforms and medals and inhabit hightech government facilities Fundamentalist as they are they may not in the normal sense be religious at all They are not obliged to believe in the importance of being 8220born again8221 or fear being 8220left behind8221 in a future End Times8212though such beliefs don8217t disqualify them either They issue the equivalent of fatwas against those they proclaim to be their enemies They have a set of Sharialike laws both immutable and flexible Punishments for breaking them may not run to stoning to death or the cutting off of hands but they do involve the cutting off of lives Theirs is an implacable warrior religion calling down retribution on people often seen only poorly by video feed thousands of miles distant from Washington DC Langley Virginia or Fort Meade Maryland It8217s no mistake that the weapons fired by their fleet of drone aircraft are called Hellfire missiles since it is indeed hellfire and brimstone that they believe they are delivering to the politically sinful of the world Nor is it a happenstance that the planes which fire those missiles have been dubbed Predators and Reapers as in 8220Grim8221 for they do see themselves as the annointed deliverers of Death to their enemies While they have a powerful urge to maintain the faith the American public has in them they also believe deeply that they know best that their knowledge is the Washington equivalent of Godgiven and that the deepest mysteries and secrets of their faith should be held close indeed Until you enter their orders and rise into their secret world there is such a thing as toomuch knowledge As a result they have developed a faithbased system of secrecy in which the deepest mysteries have until recently been held by the smallest numbers of believers in which problems are adjudicated in a 8220court8221 system so secret that only favored arguments by the national security state can be presented to its judges in which just about any document produced no matter how anodyne will be classified as too dangerous to be read by 8220the people8221 This has meant that until recently most assessments of the activities of the national security state have to be taken on faith In addition in the service of that faith NSS officials may8212and their religion permits this8212 lie to and manipulate the public Congress allies or anyone else and do so without compunction They may publicly deny realities they know to exist or offer as Conor Friedersdorf has written statements 8220exquisitely crafted to mislead8221 They do this based on the belief that the deepest secrets of their world and how it operates can only truly be understood by those already inducted into their orders And yet they are not simply manipulating us in service to their One True Faith Nothing is ever that simple Before they manipulate us they must spend years manipulating themselves Only because they have already convinced themselves of the deeper truth of their mission do they accept the necessity of manipulating others in what still passes for a democracy To serve the people in other words they have no choice but to lie to them Like other religious institutions in their heyday the NSS has also shown a striking ability to generate support for its evergrowing structure by turning itself into a lucrative global operation In a world where genuine enemies are in remarkably short supply though you8217d never know it from the gospel according to them it has exhibited remarkable skill in rallying those who might support it financially whether they call themselves Democrats or Republicans and ensuring even in budgetary tough times that its coffers will continue to burst at the seams It has also worked hard to expand what since 1961 has been known as the militaryindustrial complex In the twentyfirst century the NSS has put special effort into subsidizing warrior corporations ready to enter the global battlefield with it In the process it has 8220privatized82218212that is corporatized8212its global operations It has essentially merged with a set of crony outfits that now do a significant part of its work It has hired private contractors by the tens of thousands creating corporate spies corporate analysts corporate mercenaries corporate builders and corporate providers for a structure that is increasingly becoming the profitcenter of a state within a state All of this in turn helps to support a growing theocratic warrior class in the luxury to which it has become accustomed Since 911 the result has been a religion of perpetual conflict whose doctrines tend to grow ever more extreme In our time for instance the NSS has moved from Dick Cheney8217s 8220 1 doctrine8221 if there8217s even a 1 chance that some country might someday attack us we should strike first to something like a 82200 doctrine8221 Whether in its drone wars with their presidential 8220kill lists8221 or the cyber war8212probably the first in history8212that it launched against Iran it no longer cares to argue most of the time that such strikes need even a 1 justification Its ongoing selfproclaimed global war whether on the ground or in the air in person or by drone in space or cyberspace where its newest military command is already in action is justification enough for just about any act however aggressive Put all this together and what you have is a description of a militant organization whose purpose is to carry out a Washington version of global jihad a perpetual war in the name of the true faith A Practical Failure A FaithBased Success Story Looked at another way the national security state is also a humongous humbug a gigantic fraud of a belief system that only delivers because its followers never choose to look at the world through Martian eyes Let8217s start with its gargantuan side No matter how you cut it the NSS is a Ripley8217s Believe It or Not of staggering numbers that once you step outside its thought system don8217t add up The US national defense budget is estimated to be larger than those of the next 13 countries combined8212that is simply offthecharts more expensive The US Navy has 11 aircraft carrier strike groups when no other country has more than two No other national security outfit can claim to sweep up 8220nearly five billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world8221 nor like the National Security Agency8217s Special Source Operations group in 2006 boast about being capable of ingesting the equivalent of 8220one Library of Congress every 144 seconds8221 nor does it have any competitors when it comes to constructing 8220building complexes for topsecret intelligence work8221 33 in the Washington area alone between 2001 and 2010 And its building programs around the US and globally are neverending It is creating a jet fighter that will be the most expensive weapons system in history Its weapons makers controlled 78 of the global arms market in 2012 When its military departed Iraq after eight years of invasion and occupation it left with three million objects ranging from armored vehicles to laptop computers and portapotties and destroyed or handed over to the Iraqis countless more In a world where other countries have at best a handful of military bases outside their territory it has countless hundreds In 2011 alone it managed to classify 92064862 of the documents it generated giving secrecy a new order of magnitude And that8217s just to dip a toe in the ocean of a national security state that dwarfs the one which fought the Cold War against an actual imperial superpower Again if you were to step outside the world of NSS dogma and the arguments that go with it such numbers8212and they are legion8212would surely represent one of the worst investments in modern memory If a system of this sort weren8217t faithbased and if that faith weren8217t widespread and deeply accepted even if now possibly on the wane people would automatically look at such numbers and the results they deliver and ask why for all its promises of safety and security the NSS so regularly fails to deliver And why the response to failure can always be encapsulated in one word more After all if the twentyfirst century has taught us anything it8217s that the most expensive and overequipped military on the planet can8217t win a war Its two multitrilliondollar attempts since 911 in Iraq and Afghanistan both against lightly armed minority insurgencies proved disasters In Iraq however despite an ignominious US pullout and the chaos that has followed in the region the NSS and its supporters have continued to promote the idea that General David Petraeus8217s 8220surge8221 was indeed some kind of historic lastminute 8220victory8221 After 12 long years in Afghanistan and an Obama era surge in that country the latest grim National Intelligence Estimate from the US intelligence community suggests that no matter what Washington now does the likelihood is that things there will only go from bad enough to far worse Years of a drone campaign against alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has strengthened that organization an air intervention in Libya led to chaos a dead ambassador and a growing alQaeda movement in northern Africa8212and so it repetitively goes Similarly intelligence officials brag of terrorist plots8212 54 of them8212that have been broken up thanks in whole or in part to the National Security Agency8217s metadata sweeps of US phone calls it also claims that given the need of secrecy only four of them can be made public The claims of success on even those four when examined by journalists have proved less than impressive Meanwhile the presidential task force charged with reviewing the NSA revelations which had access to a far wider range of insider information came to an even more startling conclusion not one instance could be found in which that metadata the NSA was storing in bulk had thwarted a terrorist plot 8220Our review8221 the panel wrote 8220suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony metadata was not essential to preventing attacks8221 And keep in mind that based on what we do know about such terror plots a surprising number of them were planned or sparked or made possible by FBIinspired plants In fact claims of success against such plots couldn8217t be more faithbased relying as they generally do on the word of intelligence officials who have proven themselves untrustworthy or on the impossibletoproveordisprove claim that if such a system didn8217t exist far worse would have happened That version of a success story is well summarized in the claim that 8220we didn8217t have another 9118221 In other words in bangforthebuck practical terms Washington8217s national security state should be viewed as a remarkable failure And yet in faithbased terms it couldn8217t be a greater success Its false gods are largely accepted by acclamation and regularly worshiped in Washington and beyond As the funding continues to pour in the NSS has transformed itself into something like a shadow government in that city while precluding from all serious discussion the possibility of its own future dismantlement or of what could replace it It has made other options ephemeral and more immediate dangers than terrorism to the health and wellbeing of Americans seem at best secondary It has pumped fear into the American soul It is a religion of state power No Martian could mistake it for anything else Tom Engelhardt a cofounder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War The End of Victory Culture runs the Nation Institute8217s TomDispatchcom His latest book coauthored with Nick Turse is Terminator Planet The First History of Drone Warfare 20012050 Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch Book Ann Jones8217s They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return From America8217s Wars8212The Untold StoryTo stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Q: Did then-Sen. Barack Obama get a law "passed in dead silence" that allowed black farmers to file "unlawful" discrimination claims against the USDA totaling $1.25 billion?</p> <p>A: No. Obama supported the 2008 bill, but did not sponsor it or vote on it. It was not "passed in dead silence"; there were six floor votes. All claims are pending judicial review and approval.</p> <p>FULL QUESTION</p> <p>Could you please check this out for me and let me know if it is true or not?</p> <p>Pigford vs. Glickman</p> <p>"In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997."</p> <p>The case was entitled "Pigford vs. Glickman" and in 1999, the black farmers won their case.</p> <p>The government agreed to pay each of them as much as $50,000 to settle their claims.</p> <p>But then on February 23, 2010, something shocking happened in relation to that original judgment: In total silence, the USDA agreed to release more funds to "Pigford."</p> <p>[EET ]</p> <p>The amount was a staggering&#8230;&#8230; $1.25 billion. This was because the original number of plaintiffs &#8211; 400 black farmers had now swollen, in a class action suit, to include a total of 86,000 black farmers throughout America.</p> <p>There was only one teensy problem:</p> <p>The United States of America doesn&#8217;t have 86,000 black farmers!!!!</p> <p>According to accurate and totally verifiable Official USDA 2007 Census data, the total number of black farmers throughout America is only 39,697.</p> <p>Hmmm&#8230; by the Official USDA 1992 Census data the US had only 18,816 black farmers!! Oops!!</p> <p>Well, gosh &#8211; how on earth did 39,697 explode into the fraudulent 86,000 claims??</p> <p>And how did $50,000 explode into $1.25 billion??</p> <p>Well, folks, you&#8217;ll just have to ask the woman who not only spearheaded this case because of her position in 1997 at the "Rural Development Leadership Network", but whose family received the highest single payout (approximately $13 million) from that action &#8211; Shirley Sherrod. Oops again!!</p> <p>Yes, folks it appears that Ms. Sherrod had just unwittingly exposed herself as the perpetrator of one of the biggest fraud claims in the history of the United States &#8211; &#8211; a fraud enabled solely because she screamed racism at the government and cowed them into submission.</p> <p>And it gets even more interesting&#8230; Ms. Sherrod has also exposed the person who aided and abetted her in this race fraud.</p> <p>As it turns out, the original judgment of "Pigford vs. Glickman" in 1999 only applied to a total of about 16,000 black farmers.</p> <p>But&#8230;.in 2008, a junior US Senator got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue for funds.</p> <p>The Senator was Barack Hussein Obama.</p> <p>Because this law was passed in dead silence, and because the woman responsible for spearheading it was an obscure USDA official, American taxpayers did not realize that they had just been forced in the midst of a worldwide recession to pay out more than $1.25 billion to settle a race claim.</p> <p>But Andy Breitbart knew. And on Monday, July 22, 2010, he cleverly laid a trap which Sherrod &#8211; &#8211; and Obama + his cronies &#8211; &#8211; stumbled headfirst into which has now resulted in the entire world discovering the existence of this corrupt financial judgment.</p> <p>As for Ms. Sherrod?? Well, she&#8217;s discovering too late that her cry of &#8216;racism&#8217; to the media which was intended to throw the spotlight on Breitbart has instead thrown that spotlight on herself and the huge corruption. Sherrod has vanished from public view.</p> <p>But the perpetrator of that law passed in dead silence leading to unlawful claims &amp;amp; corruption&#8230;.. is still trying to fool all of US.</p> <p>Go to Google and read for yourself "Pigford vs. Glickman", or "Pigford Obama".</p> <p>As some have said, "The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their President."</p> <p>http://mydd.com/users/nancy-scola/posts/pigford-black-farmers-and-obama</p> <p>http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/10/obama-carries-on-the-pigford-fraud/</p> <p>&#8230;. there are many more &#8230;</p> <p>Why haven&#8217;t we heard more about this??</p> <p>[/EET]</p> <p>FULL ANSWER</p> <p>We have seen a number of viral e-mails, including this one, that inaccurately describe the circumstances surrounding the initial and final settlements of a racial discrimination suit brought against the United States Department of Agriculture.</p> <p>Pigford v. Glickman was a class-action lawsuit brought in 1997. The suit, in which farmer Timothy Pigford sued then-Agriculture Secretary <a href="http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/about/dan-glickman" type="external">Dan Glickman</a>, resulted in a court-approved agreement in 1999 to settle claims of discrimination that occurred between 1983 and 1997. But tens of thousands of black farmers missed the deadline for filing claims. Congress took testimony on complaints that inadequate notice and poor legal representation were to blame for the late claims and passed a law in 2008 that gave the late filers the right to have their cases heard on the merits. The 2008 law provided $100 million to settle the additional claims. Congress in 2010 appropriated another $1.15 billion. The second settlement came to be known as Pigford II.</p> <p>This e-mail makes a number of incorrect conspiratorial claims about Pigford II:</p> <p>Pigford I</p> <p>For years, black farmers had complained of discrimination in the awarding of USDA farm loans, debt restructuring and crop payments. In 1997, following a USDA-commissioned investigation that validated these complaints, a class-action lawsuit was filed by Pigford seeking damages and relief. On April 14, 1999, Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a settlement agreement and consent decree in Pigford v. Glickman &#8212; which was later named Pigford v. Vilsack and came to be known as Pigford I.</p> <p>The settlement provided two ways to seek damages: a fast-track process (Track A) that provided $50,000 plus loan forgiveness and offsets of tax liability, and a longer process (Track B) that required claimants to establish actual monetary damages caused by USDA discriminatory practices. The Track B process resulted in larger payments. As of April 7 of this year, a little more than <a href="http://www.pigfordmonitor.org/stats/" type="external">$1 billion</a> had been paid to 15,645 Track A claimants. About 6,900, or 31 percent of the claims, were denied. In a <a href="http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RS20430.pdf" type="external">2010 report</a>, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that "many in Congress &#8230; voiced much concern over the large percentage of denials, especially under Track A &#8212; the &#8216;virtually automatic&#8217; cash payment." CRS&amp;#160;went on to say: "More alarming to many, however, was the large percentage of farmers who did not have their cases heard on the merits because they filed late. &#8230;"</p> <p>The monitor appointed by the court to oversee the handling of the Pigford claims explained in a <a href="http://www.pigfordmonitor.org/updates/update11.pdf" type="external">2002 memorandum</a> that the deadline for filing a claim had been Oct. 12, 1999. The memo also said that those who filed late had until Sept. 15, 2000, to file a "late claim application" with a court-appointed arbitrator, who would decide if there were "extraordinary circumstances" that would permit the late claimants to be a party to the case.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>In a <a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju96110.000/hju96110_0.HTM" type="external">2004 House hearing</a> on the status of the Pigford case, arbitrator Michael K. Lewis testified that 65,950 late claim applications were filed by Sept. 15, 2000, and 7,742 were filed after the deadline. He told Congress, "I have completed my initial review of all 65,000 petitions. Of that number, I have found 2,268 petitions to have met the &#8221; &#8216;extraordinary circumstances beyond his control&#8217; standard."</p> <p>The rejection of tens of thousands of late claims triggered more lawsuits, as well as congressional hearings and legislation. It also triggered a lot of false and misleading information.</p> <p>Pigford II</p> <p>The e-mail is incorrect in saying that Obama "got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue."</p> <p>As CRS described in its report, numerous lawsuits filed after the Pigford I settlement were consolidated into a single case legally known as In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation. That case became known as Pigford II. Bills were submitted in both the House ( <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr5575ih/pdf/BILLS-109hr5575ih.pdf" type="external">in 2006</a> and <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hr3073ih/pdf/BILLS-110hr3073ih.pdf" type="external">2007</a>) and the Senate ( <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109s3976is/pdf/BILLS-109s3976is.pdf" type="external">in 2006</a> and <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110s515is/pdf/BILLS-110s515is.pdf" type="external">2007</a>) to allow the late claims to be heard on the merits. Obama supported these bills, but he was hardly alone. And it wasn&#8217;t a partisan issue. Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Charles Grassley of Iowa sponsored the 2006 and 2007 Senate bills, respectively. Obama was a cosponsor of Grassley&#8217;s bill in 2007, and he sponsored his own version of the <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110s1989is/pdf/BILLS-110s1989is.pdf" type="external">bill</a> that year.</p> <p>The standalone House and Senate bills did not pass, but Congress included a provision in the 2008 farm appropriations bill that permitted the courts to hear late claims and budgeted $100 million to pay those found to have merit. Obama did not sponsor the <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-110publ234/pdf/PLAW-110publ234.pdf" type="external">farm bill</a>. In fact, Obama &#8212; who was campaigning for president &#8212; <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00434" type="external">didn&#8217;t vote on the Senate bill,</a> the <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=2&amp;amp;vote=00130" type="external">conference report</a> or the <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=2&amp;amp;vote=00140" type="external">veto override</a>.</p> <p>The e-mail also wrongly says that "this law was passed in dead silence." As we said, there were six votes on the farm bill &#8212; two of them by the two-thirds majority required to override Bush&#8217;s veto. In a <a href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080521-4.html" type="external">veto</a> statement, the Republican president objected to continuing "subsidies for the wealthy" farmers. He did not mention the Pigford case.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that Obama played a prominent role in funding Pigford II. His administration agreed to settle the claims that were now allowed to proceed as a result of the 2008 farm bill. But the e-mail is wrong to say that the USDA&amp;#160;"in total silence &#8230; agreed to release more funds to Pigford."</p> <p>The USDA and Department of Justice publicly released a <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-ag-160.html" type="external">joint statement</a> announcing the $1.25 billion settlement in 2010. Plus, the USDA could not "release more funds to Pigford"&amp;#160;without the approval of Congress, and the money could not be paid out without court approval of the settlement. On Nov. 19, 2010, the Senate by <a href="http://bingaman.senate.gov/policy/votes/20101203-01.cfm" type="external">unanimous consent</a> passed the <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ291/pdf/PLAW-111publ291.pdf" type="external">Claims Resolution Act of 2010</a> &#8212; which provided $1.15 billion in addition to the $100 million already appropriated. The House passed the bill <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll584.xml" type="external">256-152</a> on Nov. 20, 2010. It was signed by Obama. The court has not yet approved the settlement, and no awards have been paid to any Pigford II claimants, said Justice spokeswoman Jessica Smith.</p> <p>The e-mail also incorrectly says there were 86,000 "fraudulent claims" filed as a result of the 2008 law that permitted the late claims to go forward. As proof, the e-mail cites 1992 Census data that it says showed there were "only 18,816 black farmers" and 2007 Census data that counted "only 39,697" farmers. The e-mail asks, "How on earth did 39,697 explode into the fraudulent 86,000 claims?" The CRS&amp;#160;report provides some answers. That report says Census data prior to 2002 counted farms, not farmers. Some farms had multiple farmers, so there were more black farmers than black-owned farms.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Also, the CRS&amp;#160;report said some blacks may be eligible for relief even though they were not farmers. They would include individuals or the estates of individuals who sought to farm but "were denied loans or other farm assistance," the CRS&amp;#160;said. It is also likely that some of the claims filed so far will not result in payment. As we said before, nearly a third of the Track A claims in Pigford I were denied. According to a <a href="http://www.blackfarmercase.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=58&amp;amp;Itemid=64" type="external">website</a> set up by the plaintiffs&#8217; attorneys by <a href="http://www.blackfarmercase.com/sites/default/files/2008.12.15%20Signed%20CMO%20No.%201%20re%20website%20and%20phone%20bank_0.pdf" type="external">order</a> of the court, the Pigford II claims will not be adjudicated until the fall of 2012, and payments will not occur until "late 2012-early 2013."</p> <p>So, we don&#8217;t know how many claims are fraudulent, but those that are should be denied payments. (Similar to Pigford I, there is a fast track payment of $50,000 with debt relief and a longer process for specific damages up to $250,000.)&amp;#160;</p> <p>Shirley Sherrod &amp;amp;&amp;#160;Pigford</p> <p>Finally, the e-mail makes two erroneous claims about Shirley Sherrod, a former USDA official who was fired for remarks she made about race that turned out to be <a href="" type="internal">misrepresented</a> by a conservative blogger. (Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the White House later <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-21/politics/agriculture.employee.usda_1_shirley-sherrod-andrew-breitbart-apology?_s=PM:POLITICS" type="external">apologized</a> to Sherrod.)</p> <p>The e-mail states that the &#8220;woman responsible for spearheading the case was an obscure USDA official,&#8221; referring to Sherrod. But she was not a USDA&amp;#160;official when Congress passed the 2008 farm bill, which allowed black farmers to file late claims and have their cases heard on the merits. She was the USDA&#8217;s Georgia state director of rural development for only one year, from <a href="http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&amp;amp;contentid=2009/07/0353.xml" type="external">July 2009</a> until <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011263-503544.html" type="external">July 2010</a>.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that Sherrod, who is black and a former farmer, was active in the Pigford case prior to working at the USDA. She, along with others at the <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.org/shirleydirector.html" type="external">Rural Development Leadership Network</a>, helped organize black farmers to file claims in the original Pigford suit. But she was fighting the USDA&amp;#160;from outside the agency, not influencing it from within. <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-21/politics/sherrod.profile_1_hosie-miller-white-farmer-georgia/3?_s=PM:POLITICS" type="external">She told CNN</a>: &#8220;I was deeply involved in all of that work and in the settlement, and in helping farmers to file their claims. So I was having to fight USDA just for the services, for the loans for farmers, for some of the programs that should have been automatic, that others were getting.&#8221;</p> <p>The e-mail also erroneously states that Sherrod&#8217;s &#8220;family received the highest single payout (approximately $13 million) from that action.&#8221; The $13 million &#8212; which the Rural Development Leadership Network called the " <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.org/shirleydirector.html" type="external">largest award so far</a>" in 2009 &#8212; did not go to her &#8220;family.&#8221; Rather, the money was awarded to New Communities, a farming collective founded in 1969 in rural Georgia by Sherrod and her husband, Charles. At its height, New Communities was 5,700 acres &#8212; the largest tract of black-owned land in the country &#8212; and had about a dozen families living on and working the land full time before it went out of business in 1985, according to a <a href="http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&amp;amp;page_id=234361275&amp;amp;page_url=%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-dyn%2farticles%2fA58560-2001Dec4.html&amp;amp;page_last_updated=12%2f6%2f2001+6%3a38%3a54+AM&amp;amp;firstName=Charles&amp;amp;lastName=Sherrod" type="external">2001 article</a> by the Associated Press. In addition to their share of the New Communities settlement, Sherrod and her husband were awarded <a href="http://www.ruraldevelopment.org/shirleydirector.html" type="external">$150,000</a> each for pain and suffering.&amp;#160;</p> <p>This is a case of conspiracy theorists twisting the facts to build a false narrative about Obama and Sherrod.&amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8211;Eugene Kiely and Alex Eisenhower</p> <p>Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008. <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-110publ234/pdf/PLAW-110publ234.pdf" type="external">Pub. L. 110-234</a>. 22 May 2008.</p> <p>White House. " <a href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080521-4.html" type="external">Farm Bill Veto Message</a>." 21 May 2008.</p> <p>"Department of Justice and USDA Announce Historic Settlement in Lawsuit by Black Farmers Claiming Discrimination by USDA." <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-ag-160.html" type="external">Press release</a>. Department of Justice. 18 Feb 2010.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Office of the Monitor. " <a href="http://www.pigfordmonitor.org/stats/" type="external">National Statistics Regarding Pigford v. Vilsack Track A Implementation as of April 7, 2011</a>." Dated 7 Apr 2011, accessed 27 Apr 2011.</p> <p>Cowan, Tadlock and Jody Feder. " <a href="http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RS20430.pdf" type="external">The Pigford Cases:&amp;#160;USDA&amp;#160;Settlement of Discrimination Suits by Black Farmers</a>." Congressional Research Service. 10 Dec 2010.</p> <p>Office of the Monitor. " <a href="http://www.pigfordmonitor.org/updates/update11.pdf" type="external">Monitor Update: Understanding Who Is Part of the Pigford Case</a>." 27 Nov 2002.</p> <p>"Status of the Implementation of the Pigford v. Glickman Settlement." <a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju96110.000/hju96110_0.HTM" type="external">Transcript</a>. Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee. 28 Sep 2008.</p> <p>U.S. House. " <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr5575ih/pdf/BILLS-109hr5575ih.pdf" type="external">H.R. 5575</a>, A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture &#8230;" (as introduced 9 Jun 2006.)&amp;#160;</p> <p>U.S. House. " <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hr3073ih/pdf/BILLS-110hr3073ih.pdf" type="external">H.R. 3073</a>, A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture &#8230;" (as introduced 18 Jul 2007.)&amp;#160;</p> <p>U.S. Senate. " <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109s3976is/pdf/BILLS-109s3976is.pdf" type="external">S. 3976</a>, A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture &#8230;" (as introduced 28 Sep 2006.)</p> <p>U.S. Senate. " <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110s515is/pdf/BILLS-110s515is.pdf" type="external">S. 515</a>, A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture &#8230;" (as introduced 7 Feb 2007.)</p> <p>U.S. Senate. " <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110s1989is/pdf/BILLS-110s1989is.pdf" type="external">S. 1989</a>, A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture &#8230;" (as introduced 3 Aug 2007.)</p> <p>U.S. Senate. H.R. 2419, roll call vote <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00434" type="external">#434</a>. 14 Dec 2007.</p> <p>U.S. Senate. H.R. 2419, roll call vote <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=2&amp;amp;vote=00130" type="external">#130</a>. 15 May 2008.</p> <p>U.S. Senate. H.R. 2419, roll call vote <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;amp;session=2&amp;amp;vote=00140" type="external">#140</a>. 22 May 2008.</p> <p>Claims Resolution Act of 2009. <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ291/pdf/PLAW-111publ291.pdf" type="external">Pub. L. 111-291</a>. 8 Dec 2010.</p> <p>"Statement by the President on House Passage of the Claims Settlement Act of 2010." <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/30/statement-president-house-passage-claims-settlement-act-2010" type="external">Press release</a>. White House. 30 Nov 2010.</p> <p>"Claims Resolution Act of 2010." <a href="http://bingaman.senate.gov/policy/votes/20101203-01.cfm" type="external">Press release</a>. Sen. Jeff Bingaman. 19 Nov 2010.</p> <p>U.S. House. H.R. 4783, roll call vote <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll584.xml" type="external">#584</a>. 30 Nov 2010.</p> <p>Informational Website for In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation. " <a href="http://www.blackfarmercase.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=58&amp;amp;Itemid=64" type="external">What Comes Next?</a>"&amp;#160;Undated, accessed 28 Apr 2011.</p> <p>In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation. No. 08-mc-0511. <a href="http://www.blackfarmercase.com/sites/default/files/2008.12.15%20Signed%20CMO%20No.%201%20re%20website%20and%20phone%20bank_0.pdf" type="external">Case management order No. 1</a>. 15 Dec 2008.</p> <p>Novak, Viveca. " <a href="" type="internal">Shirley Sherrod&#8217;s Contextual Nightmare</a>."&amp;#160;FactCheck.org. 21 Jul 2010.</p> <p>CNN Wire Staff. " <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-21/politics/agriculture.employee.usda_1_shirley-sherrod-andrew-breitbart-apology?_s=PM:POLITICS" type="external">Vilsack, White House apologize to former USDA&amp;#160;official</a>."&amp;#160;CNN. 21 Jul 2010.</p> <p>"Obama administration continues naming state directors for rural development." <a href="http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&amp;amp;contentid=2009/07/0353.xml" type="external">Press release</a>. Department of Agriculture. 30 Jul 2009.</p> <p>Montopoli, Brian. " <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011263-503544.html" type="external">Vilsack: I Will Have to Live With Shirley Sherrod Mistake</a>." CBS News. 21 Jul 2010.</p> <p>Kavanagh, Jim. " <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-21/politics/sherrod.profile_1_hosie-miller-white-farmer-georgia/3?_s=PM:POLITICS" type="external">Sherrod&#8217;s steadfast motto:&amp;#160;Let&#8217;s work together</a>." CNN. 21 Jul 2010.</p> <p>Breed, Allen G. " <a href="http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&amp;amp;page_id=234361275&amp;amp;page_url=%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-dyn%2farticles%2fA58560-2001Dec4.html&amp;amp;page_last_updated=12%2f6%2f2001+6%3a38%3a54+AM&amp;amp;firstName=Charles&amp;amp;lastName=Sherrod" type="external">Black Farmers&#8217; lawsuit revives a dream</a>."&amp;#160;Associated Press. 6 Dec 2001.&amp;#160;</p>

Obama and the ‘Pigford’ Cases

https://factcheck.org/2011/04/obama-and-the-pigford-cases/

2011-04-29

2least

Q Did thenSen Barack Obama get a law passed in dead silence that allowed black farmers to file unlawful discrimination claims against the USDA totaling 125 billion A No Obama supported the 2008 bill but did not sponsor it or vote on it It was not passed in dead silence there were six floor votes All claims are pending judicial review and approval FULL QUESTION Could you please check this out for me and let me know if it is true or not Pigford vs Glickman In 1997 400 AfricanAmerican farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997 The case was entitled Pigford vs Glickman and in 1999 the black farmers won their case The government agreed to pay each of them as much as 50000 to settle their claims But then on February 23 2010 something shocking happened in relation to that original judgment In total silence the USDA agreed to release more funds to Pigford EET The amount was a staggering82308230 125 billion This was because the original number of plaintiffs 8211 400 black farmers had now swollen in a class action suit to include a total of 86000 black farmers throughout America There was only one teensy problem The United States of America doesn8217t have 86000 black farmers According to accurate and totally verifiable Official USDA 2007 Census data the total number of black farmers throughout America is only 39697 Hmmm8230 by the Official USDA 1992 Census data the US had only 18816 black farmers Oops Well gosh 8211 how on earth did 39697 explode into the fraudulent 86000 claims And how did 50000 explode into 125 billion Well folks you8217ll just have to ask the woman who not only spearheaded this case because of her position in 1997 at the Rural Development Leadership Network but whose family received the highest single payout approximately 13 million from that action 8211 Shirley Sherrod Oops again Yes folks it appears that Ms Sherrod had just unwittingly exposed herself as the perpetrator of one of the biggest fraud claims in the history of the United States 8211 8211 a fraud enabled solely because she screamed racism at the government and cowed them into submission And it gets even more interesting8230 Ms Sherrod has also exposed the person who aided and abetted her in this race fraud As it turns out the original judgment of Pigford vs Glickman in 1999 only applied to a total of about 16000 black farmers But8230in 2008 a junior US Senator got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue for funds The Senator was Barack Hussein Obama Because this law was passed in dead silence and because the woman responsible for spearheading it was an obscure USDA official American taxpayers did not realize that they had just been forced in the midst of a worldwide recession to pay out more than 125 billion to settle a race claim But Andy Breitbart knew And on Monday July 22 2010 he cleverly laid a trap which Sherrod 8211 8211 and Obama his cronies 8211 8211 stumbled headfirst into which has now resulted in the entire world discovering the existence of this corrupt financial judgment As for Ms Sherrod Well she8217s discovering too late that her cry of 8216racism8217 to the media which was intended to throw the spotlight on Breitbart has instead thrown that spotlight on herself and the huge corruption Sherrod has vanished from public view But the perpetrator of that law passed in dead silence leading to unlawful claims ampamp corruption8230 is still trying to fool all of US Go to Google and read for yourself Pigford vs Glickman or Pigford Obama As some have said The Republic can survive a Barack Obama It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their President httpmyddcomusersnancyscolapostspigfordblackfarmersandobama httpfrontpagemagcom20110110obamacarriesonthepigfordfraud 8230 there are many more 8230 Why haven8217t we heard more about this EET FULL ANSWER We have seen a number of viral emails including this one that inaccurately describe the circumstances surrounding the initial and final settlements of a racial discrimination suit brought against the United States Department of Agriculture Pigford v Glickman was a classaction lawsuit brought in 1997 The suit in which farmer Timothy Pigford sued thenAgriculture Secretary Dan Glickman resulted in a courtapproved agreement in 1999 to settle claims of discrimination that occurred between 1983 and 1997 But tens of thousands of black farmers missed the deadline for filing claims Congress took testimony on complaints that inadequate notice and poor legal representation were to blame for the late claims and passed a law in 2008 that gave the late filers the right to have their cases heard on the merits The 2008 law provided 100 million to settle the additional claims Congress in 2010 appropriated another 115 billion The second settlement came to be known as Pigford II This email makes a number of incorrect conspiratorial claims about Pigford II Pigford I For years black farmers had complained of discrimination in the awarding of USDA farm loans debt restructuring and crop payments In 1997 following a USDAcommissioned investigation that validated these complaints a classaction lawsuit was filed by Pigford seeking damages and relief On April 14 1999 Judge Paul L Friedman of the US District Court for the District of Columbia approved a settlement agreement and consent decree in Pigford v Glickman 8212 which was later named Pigford v Vilsack and came to be known as Pigford I The settlement provided two ways to seek damages a fasttrack process Track A that provided 50000 plus loan forgiveness and offsets of tax liability and a longer process Track B that required claimants to establish actual monetary damages caused by USDA discriminatory practices The Track B process resulted in larger payments As of April 7 of this year a little more than 1 billion had been paid to 15645 Track A claimants About 6900 or 31 percent of the claims were denied In a 2010 report the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that many in Congress 8230 voiced much concern over the large percentage of denials especially under Track A 8212 the 8216virtually automatic8217 cash payment CRSamp160went on to say More alarming to many however was the large percentage of farmers who did not have their cases heard on the merits because they filed late 8230 The monitor appointed by the court to oversee the handling of the Pigford claims explained in a 2002 memorandum that the deadline for filing a claim had been Oct 12 1999 The memo also said that those who filed late had until Sept 15 2000 to file a late claim application with a courtappointed arbitrator who would decide if there were extraordinary circumstances that would permit the late claimants to be a party to the caseamp160amp160 In a 2004 House hearing on the status of the Pigford case arbitrator Michael K Lewis testified that 65950 late claim applications were filed by Sept 15 2000 and 7742 were filed after the deadline He told Congress I have completed my initial review of all 65000 petitions Of that number I have found 2268 petitions to have met the 8221 8216extraordinary circumstances beyond his control8217 standard The rejection of tens of thousands of late claims triggered more lawsuits as well as congressional hearings and legislation It also triggered a lot of false and misleading information Pigford II The email is incorrect in saying that Obama got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue As CRS described in its report numerous lawsuits filed after the Pigford I settlement were consolidated into a single case legally known as In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation That case became known as Pigford II Bills were submitted in both the House in 2006 and 2007 and the Senate in 2006 and 2007 to allow the late claims to be heard on the merits Obama supported these bills but he was hardly alone And it wasn8217t a partisan issue Republican Sens George Allen of Virginia and Charles Grassley of Iowa sponsored the 2006 and 2007 Senate bills respectively Obama was a cosponsor of Grassley8217s bill in 2007 and he sponsored his own version of the bill that year The standalone House and Senate bills did not pass but Congress included a provision in the 2008 farm appropriations bill that permitted the courts to hear late claims and budgeted 100 million to pay those found to have merit Obama did not sponsor the farm bill In fact Obama 8212 who was campaigning for president 8212 didn8217t vote on the Senate bill the conference report or the veto override The email also wrongly says that this law was passed in dead silence As we said there were six votes on the farm bill 8212 two of them by the twothirds majority required to override Bush8217s veto In a veto statement the Republican president objected to continuing subsidies for the wealthy farmers He did not mention the Pigford case It8217s true that Obama played a prominent role in funding Pigford II His administration agreed to settle the claims that were now allowed to proceed as a result of the 2008 farm bill But the email is wrong to say that the USDAamp160in total silence 8230 agreed to release more funds to Pigford The USDA and Department of Justice publicly released a joint statement announcing the 125 billion settlement in 2010 Plus the USDA could not release more funds to Pigfordamp160without the approval of Congress and the money could not be paid out without court approval of the settlement On Nov 19 2010 the Senate by unanimous consent passed the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 8212 which provided 115 billion in addition to the 100 million already appropriated The House passed the bill 256152 on Nov 20 2010 It was signed by Obama The court has not yet approved the settlement and no awards have been paid to any Pigford II claimants said Justice spokeswoman Jessica Smith The email also incorrectly says there were 86000 fraudulent claims filed as a result of the 2008 law that permitted the late claims to go forward As proof the email cites 1992 Census data that it says showed there were only 18816 black farmers and 2007 Census data that counted only 39697 farmers The email asks How on earth did 39697 explode into the fraudulent 86000 claims The CRSamp160report provides some answers That report says Census data prior to 2002 counted farms not farmers Some farms had multiple farmers so there were more black farmers than blackowned farmsamp160 Also the CRSamp160report said some blacks may be eligible for relief even though they were not farmers They would include individuals or the estates of individuals who sought to farm but were denied loans or other farm assistance the CRSamp160said It is also likely that some of the claims filed so far will not result in payment As we said before nearly a third of the Track A claims in Pigford I were denied According to a website set up by the plaintiffs8217 attorneys by order of the court the Pigford II claims will not be adjudicated until the fall of 2012 and payments will not occur until late 2012early 2013 So we don8217t know how many claims are fraudulent but those that are should be denied payments Similar to Pigford I there is a fast track payment of 50000 with debt relief and a longer process for specific damages up to 250000amp160 Shirley Sherrod ampampamp160Pigford Finally the email makes two erroneous claims about Shirley Sherrod a former USDA official who was fired for remarks she made about race that turned out to be misrepresented by a conservative blogger Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the White House later apologized to Sherrod The email states that the 8220woman responsible for spearheading the case was an obscure USDA official8221 referring to Sherrod But she was not a USDAamp160official when Congress passed the 2008 farm bill which allowed black farmers to file late claims and have their cases heard on the merits She was the USDA8217s Georgia state director of rural development for only one year from July 2009 until July 2010 It8217s true that Sherrod who is black and a former farmer was active in the Pigford case prior to working at the USDA She along with others at the Rural Development Leadership Network helped organize black farmers to file claims in the original Pigford suit But she was fighting the USDAamp160from outside the agency not influencing it from within She told CNN 8220I was deeply involved in all of that work and in the settlement and in helping farmers to file their claims So I was having to fight USDA just for the services for the loans for farmers for some of the programs that should have been automatic that others were getting8221 The email also erroneously states that Sherrod8217s 8220family received the highest single payout approximately 13 million from that action8221 The 13 million 8212 which the Rural Development Leadership Network called the largest award so far in 2009 8212 did not go to her 8220family8221 Rather the money was awarded to New Communities a farming collective founded in 1969 in rural Georgia by Sherrod and her husband Charles At its height New Communities was 5700 acres 8212 the largest tract of blackowned land in the country 8212 and had about a dozen families living on and working the land full time before it went out of business in 1985 according to a 2001 article by the Associated Press In addition to their share of the New Communities settlement Sherrod and her husband were awarded 150000 each for pain and sufferingamp160 This is a case of conspiracy theorists twisting the facts to build a false narrative about Obama and Sherrodamp160 8211Eugene Kiely and Alex Eisenhower Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 Pub L 110234 22 May 2008 White House Farm Bill Veto Message 21 May 2008 Department of Justice and USDA Announce Historic Settlement in Lawsuit by Black Farmers Claiming Discrimination by USDA Press release Department of Justice 18 Feb 2010amp160 Office of the Monitor National Statistics Regarding Pigford v Vilsack Track A Implementation as of April 7 2011 Dated 7 Apr 2011 accessed 27 Apr 2011 Cowan Tadlock and Jody Feder The Pigford Casesamp160USDAamp160Settlement of Discrimination Suits by Black Farmers Congressional Research Service 10 Dec 2010 Office of the Monitor Monitor Update Understanding Who Is Part of the Pigford Case 27 Nov 2002 Status of the Implementation of the Pigford v Glickman Settlement Transcript Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee 28 Sep 2008 US House HR 5575 A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture 8230 as introduced 9 Jun 2006amp160 US House HR 3073 A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture 8230 as introduced 18 Jul 2007amp160 US Senate S 3976 A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture 8230 as introduced 28 Sep 2006 US Senate S 515 A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture 8230 as introduced 7 Feb 2007 US Senate S 1989 A Bill to Provide a Mechanism for the Determination on the Merits of the Claims of Claimants who Met the Class Criteria in a Civil Action Relating to Racial Discrimination by the Department of Agriculture 8230 as introduced 3 Aug 2007 US Senate HR 2419 roll call vote 434 14 Dec 2007 US Senate HR 2419 roll call vote 130 15 May 2008 US Senate HR 2419 roll call vote 140 22 May 2008 Claims Resolution Act of 2009 Pub L 111291 8 Dec 2010 Statement by the President on House Passage of the Claims Settlement Act of 2010 Press release White House 30 Nov 2010 Claims Resolution Act of 2010 Press release Sen Jeff Bingaman 19 Nov 2010 US House HR 4783 roll call vote 584 30 Nov 2010 Informational Website for In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation What Comes Nextamp160Undated accessed 28 Apr 2011 In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation No 08mc0511 Case management order No 1 15 Dec 2008 Novak Viveca Shirley Sherrod8217s Contextual Nightmareamp160FactCheckorg 21 Jul 2010 CNN Wire Staff Vilsack White House apologize to former USDAamp160officialamp160CNN 21 Jul 2010 Obama administration continues naming state directors for rural development Press release Department of Agriculture 30 Jul 2009 Montopoli Brian Vilsack I Will Have to Live With Shirley Sherrod Mistake CBS News 21 Jul 2010 Kavanagh Jim Sherrod8217s steadfast mottoamp160Let8217s work together CNN 21 Jul 2010 Breed Allen G Black Farmers8217 lawsuit revives a dreamamp160Associated Press 6 Dec 2001amp160

Q/NOUN Did/VERB thenSen/PUNCT Barack/PROPN Obama/PROPN get/VERB a/DET law/NOUN passed/VERB in/ADP dead/ADJ silence/NOUN that/PRON allowed/VERB black/ADJ farmers/NOUN to/PART file/VERB unlawful/ADJ discrimination/NOUN claims/NOUN against/ADP the/DET USDA/PROPN totaling/VERB 125/NUM billion/NUM A/DET No/PRON Obama/PROPN supported/VERB the/DET 2008/NUM bill/NOUN but/CCONJ did/AUX not/PART sponsor/VERB it/PRON or/CCONJ vote/VERB on/ADP it/PRON It/PRON was/AUX not/PART passed/VERB in/ADP dead/ADJ silence/NOUN there/PRON were/VERB six/NUM floor/NOUN votes/NOUN All/DET claims/NOUN are/AUX pending/VERB judicial/ADJ review/NOUN and/CCONJ approval/NOUN FULL/ADJ QUESTION/NOUN Could/AUX you/PRON please/INTJ check/VERB this/PRON out/ADP for/ADP me/PRON and/CCONJ let/VERB me/PRON know/VERB if/SCONJ it/PRON is/AUX true/ADJ or/CCONJ not/PART Pigford/PROPN vs/ADP Glickman/PROPN In/ADP 1997/NUM 400/NUM AfricanAmerican/PROPN farmers/NOUN sued/VERB the/DET United/PROPN States/PROPN Department/PROPN of/ADP 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<p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />It's one year since Occupy began in New York. And now joining us to discuss what Occupy has achieved and what it might go next are three activists based in Baltimore. <p /> <p />First of all, joining us is Kate Khatib. She's coeditor of a new book, We Are Many. She's a founding member of Red Emma's collective and a collective member at AK Press. And she currently teaches politics at the Maryland Institute College of Art. <p /> <p />Also joining us and also an editor of the same book, We Are Many, is Mike McGuire. He's a construction builder, an organizer with a background in labor, Latin America, and creative protest. He's been working with the Occupy movement since its birth on September 17, 2011, in Zuccotti Park. And he's also helping us build the new headquarters of The Real News Network. <p /> <p />And Lester Spence. Lester is a contributor to the book We Are Many. He's an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he specializes in racial politics, urban politics, and American political thought. And he's the author of the book Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics. Thanks. Thank you all for joining. <p /> <p />ALL: Thanks for having us. <p /> <p />JAY: So when Occupy was going on in Baltimore, I was talking to different black activists, young people, and I was asking, are you going down, are you part of it, and it was sort of, "Yeah." And when I kind of pushed them, it was, well, it's good, we're happy it's happening, but it's kind of a white thing. And there was a little bit of, well, we've been activists in Baltimore for a long time and we've been fighting on all these issues, and now all of a sudden these guys show up and they're getting all the attention, and no one has ever cared a damn about what we've been doing, and we've been at it for so long. And I guess there's some truth to all of that. But then there also is a kind of racial divide to some extent within left progressive politics in Baltimore. So talk about that and that in relationship to Occupy. <p /> <p />LESTER SPENCE, CONTRIBUTOR, WE ARE ONE: There is this long history, both at the level of the country, and then if you look at individual cities or regions, of tension between those on the black left, black liberal left, and then those on white liberal left. And I apologize for making it a stark white/black thing, so I'd probably better articulate it as a white/nonwhite thing, right? <p /> <p />And what it really boils down&#226;&#128;&#148;it boils down to a few matters. One is: is there serious resource differentials? Right? So in general, white activists tend to have more resources than nonwhite activists do. There's also a kind of a&#226;&#128;&#148;. <p /> <p />JAY: Resources because some of them are professionals and have money or what? <p /> <p />SPENCE: Oh. So there's a number of ways to think about it. They have more time to organize, they have more money, they have&#226;&#128;&#148;they're better plugged into networks that have time and money, they're more skilled, or they're not necessarily more skilled, but there are certain skills that they have more of&#226;&#128;&#148;the skills they have, they have more of, right, than those who are nonwhite. And their interests are actually different. Right? They have different political interests. So they may have the same general goal of promoting social justice, but what that looks like on the ground is going to differ. <p /> <p />JAY: Like what? Give an example. <p /> <p />SPENCE: One example is like on&#226;&#128;&#148;I'll take an example that we're dealing with now, like the student debt. Right? So there are a number of people who are interested in student debt, right? And student debt actually is a serious problem, and everybody actually deals with it. But if you were to place issues important to black communities in Rust Belt cities like Baltimore, if you were to place them on a hierarchy, you know, if you were to number them 1&#194;&amp;#160;to&#194;&amp;#160;5, what's your most important issue, student debt is in there, but it probably wouldn't actually make the top five. It's important. You know, black people go to school just like everybody else. You know, black people have the same type of debt burdens, and actually in some cases more debt burdens. <p /> <p />But the most important issue would probably be criminal justice. Right? It would probably be the relationships with the police and relationships with the state that are deeply&#226;&#128;&#148;that you could actually call terroristic in a number of different ways, right? Whereas with other&#226;&#128;&#148;whereas white populations, who tend to be&#226;&#128;&#148;white activist populations, who tend to be but are not solely middle-class, they tend to be interested in different types of concerns. <p /> <p />So both are interested in social justice, but what it actually means are different, where it's deployed is different. Right? So you're talking about neighborhood activism, where people are really concerned with their neighborhoods, whereas in the case of white activists, they may be concerned more globally and less specifically concerned with neighborhoods in general and black neighborhoods specifically. <p /> <p />JAY: So you find, then, that the white activist groups in Baltimore don't get as involved in what you see as the local issues facing the people here. I mean, do you think that's a fair critique? <p /> <p />SPENCE: Facing black people. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, facing black people, which in Baltimore is the majority of the city. <p /> <p />MIKE MCGUIRE, COEDITOR, WE ARE MANY: I think there's something to that critique, but I don't think that's everything. Like, we're talking about an explosive moment, first of all. <p /> <p />So, like, Kate and I&#226;&#128;&#148;I'm the white guy here, but Kate and I and a bunch of other folks have been working in support of the same organizations that you were talking to. They were saying, you know, Occupy is cool and we kind of like it and support it. So we've been working with them for years. And it's not an issue of whether or not these relationships exist. It's that they are separate organizations, they're separate issues, they're separate foci. And we're all working together on it. <p /> <p />But with Occupy, you have this explosion. And it is precisely what Lester was talking about. Like, there's all of a sudden a flood of resources, both media attention, media outreach, wealth. You know, Occupy Baltimore still has money that we have because we raised more money than we could use and we don't have a method for spending it. Occupy Wall Street raised&#226;&#128;&#148;in, like, the first month, month and a half that it existed, it raised a half million dollars. So all these resources&#226;&#128;&#148;human resources, financial resources&#226;&#128;&#148;all flowed in. And it became, you know, a target, because it was what people were talking about. <p /> <p />But on the racial tip, like, as we were organizing in Baltimore, there was a bunch of stuff. First, to be fair, you know, I've been organizing in Baltimore for, I guess, over 20 years now, and this was some of the easiest organizing that I've done, but it was also the most multiracial organizing that I've done. When I&#226;&#128;&#148;I'm talking about, like, an instantaneous thing. Like, I work with organizations that represent Baltimore and are people of color. But in terms of, like, this coming together of people, I've never seen something so diverse in Baltimore. <p /> <p />JAY: As Occupy. <p /> <p />MCGUIRE: Yeah. And this is&#226;&#128;&#148;and it's kind of interesting. It's probably, as Lester and I have talked about&#226;&#128;&#148;talked this stuff through in the piece that we were writing, the numbers are, in Baltimore and elsewhere, probably about inverse to the proportions of society. So Baltimore is 65&#194;&amp;#160;percent black. Occupy Baltimore was probably 65&#194;&amp;#160;percent white and then 35&#194;&amp;#160;percent people of color. And it was similar in Detroit, it was similar in other cities. <p /> <p />But, you know, we were doing outreach, and there are different kinds of outreach. Like, when we were going around knocking on doors&#226;&#128;&#148;and I'll say this: me, as a white guy, when I was going around knocking on doors in black communities in Baltimore, I was better received than any other doorknocking that I've ever done. And that was&#226;&#128;&#148;like, in the past, people looked at me like I was a space alien, like, you're not from my community, you're here because you want something from me. And on this occasion, it was kind of the first occasion that I've just been going around knocking on every door on the street where that didn't happen. <p /> <p />JAY: Because they had heard of Occupy, they knew this was&#226;&#128;&#148;they'd gotten their head around 1&#194;&amp;#160;percent and 99&#194;&amp;#160;percent? <p /> <p />MCGUIRE: Yeah. And some folks that I was meeting knocking on doors over in East Baltimore, near where they're building this youth jail, some folks were like, oh, yeah, man, I brought bread down to y'all, folks that I had never seen, but they swung bread down to donate to the encampment. And so there's that. <p /> <p />But then there's also the organized black left, and that was a lot harder to work with. So, you know, there is the black community, and then there's the organized black left. And there's&#226;&#128;&#148;as Lester was noting, there's a trend towards black nationalism. <p /> <p />And, you know, Kate and I were doing organizing around this new youth jail. It's an issue that has been addressed in Baltimore for a while, and it's been led by a coalition of&#226;&#128;&#148;actually, a coalition mostly composed of black youth themselves. And there are elements in the black community that were looking at us and saying, how dare you come in like colonial conquerors and occupy our issue, how dare you take this issue away from us, and what business do you have talking about this. And we had to address this. Like, we had an organization that was demanding a list of names, racial identities, and affiliations of everybody who was involved in the organizing. <p /> <p />JAY: This is a left, black organization. <p /> <p />MCGUIRE: Yeah. Yeah. <p /> <p />JAY: Right. So how did you deal with this, Kate? <p /> <p />KHATIB: We had to really ask ourselves what our motivations were. We had to make sure that as an organizing group we were actually really doing something that we believed in. But, you know, in the particular action that Mike is talking about, before we even undertook it, we actually spent a lot of time reaching out to the organizations that had been working around the issue of halting the construction of the youth jail, largely organizations that are led by black youth in Baltimore, and saying, you know, Occupy is interested in being involved, Occupy has access to media, access to strategy, access to ideas and creative potential, and we really want to put that in the service of this particular struggle, is that something that you'll work on with us. <p /> <p />JAY: And just to remind everybody&#226;&#128;&#148;I guess if you've watched The Real News regularly, you'd know what we're talking about, but this was governor of Maryland wants to build a $100&#194;&amp;#160;million new youth prison in Baltimore, and there's quite a opposition movement grew up against it, which is going on, what, for more than a year now? Or two years? <p /> <p />SPENCE: Three years. <p /> <p />JAY: Three years. <p /> <p />MCGUIRE: Three years. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, and has involved a lot of people in this opposition. So go on. <p /> <p />KHATIB: And I won't say that everything that happened around the youth jail's action was perfect or went off perfectly. There certainly was more outreach that could have been done. But I think ultimately we undertook that action in very strong solidarity and with a lot of guidance and co-organizing from some of the organizations that had been organizing around this issue for previous years, for many years. So, you know, it wasn't really a case of colonization, but it was really easy to kind of see it as that. <p /> <p />And, you know, I think that action in particular is something that Mike and Lester talk about in their essay for this book. The whole question of race in Occupy is something that I talk about in the introduction to the book. And one of the things that I point out or one of the stories that I tell is my experience in Occupy Baltimore as a member of the facilitation team. So at the very first Occupy Baltimore meeting, the facilitation team was me and a room full of white guys. And over the course of Occupy, over the course of the next month, month and a half, six weeks, that facilitation team transformed into primarily women and folks of color. And that was staggering. I mean, it was amazing to be up facilitating these 500-person meetings and look around and be like, wow, this is&#226;&#128;&#148;like, I'm not the only person of color in this&#226;&#128;&#148;you know, what I expected to be a white activist space. <p /> <p />And one of the things that I've written about in the introduction to the book and one of the things that has been kind of circulating around the movement is this question of, if we talk about Occupy as a predominantly white movement, do we not devalue the very important work that folks of color have put into the movement, in Baltimore but also nationally. And, in fact, I think it's really important to recognize that there are folks of color who very much identify with Occupy as a movement that they've been helping to drive. <p /> <p />And so we do absolutely have to talk about racial dynamics in social movements. We absolutely have to talk about race and racism and the color lines within Occupy itself. But we also have to be respectful and aware of the fact that there are folks of color who have been participating in the movement from day one and to make sure to not diminish their participation. <p /> <p />JAY: Because I'm new to Baltimore and because I'm a journalist, I get to just ask people questions and I get to talk to lots of different people. So I've heard kind of both arguments. I mean, one argument, you know, you hear from some black activists&#226;&#128;&#148;and I should say, 'cause we're talking about some of the organizations that have been involved in the prison protest and kind of the ones that are very active, I'm not talking about them; it's kind of more other people that I've heard at sort of forums and people that have shown up. But this&#226;&#128;&#148;one, this idea is that whenever blacks and whites wind up in the same organization, the whites take over or try to take over, true or not true. The second thing is this pushback the other way, which is, you know, this is a black city and this needs to be black politics, and yeah, you guys can be a support group, but, you know, it's up to the black people to lead, so it's kind of racial-based leadership not based on ideas, based on, you know, who's the best leaders. <p /> <p />SPENCE: Anytime you've got [incompr.] particularly in cities&#226;&#128;&#148;in Baltimore&#226;&#128;&#148;it's important that folks looking at this who aren't in Baltimore realize that Baltimore's&#226;&#128;&#148;actually technically is the South, right? It is the first city to implement&#226;&#128;&#148;Alabama&#226;&#128;&#148;Jackson, Mississippi, wasn't the first place or Birmingham, Alabama, wasn't the first place to institute segregation laws; it was Baltimore. Right? So there's this long and deep history of segregation. And it's not just about separating white bodies from nonwhite bodies; it's about resource hoarding, right, serious political, economic, and cultural resources. <p /> <p />So when you've got a moment like Occupy, even though it's the 21st century, even though we've had now three black mayors in Baltimore, there's going to be a great deal of tension at the outset as far as getting people on the same page, as far as creating this kind of democratic space where people feel as if they can contribute. Right? <p /> <p />So there's this tendency to kind of&#226;&#128;&#148;to articulate the racial politics space when you're talking about black pushback as just these kids who want their or these black folk who want their own stuff because people are trying to take it. No, it's not really that. It's really this idea that we have to&#226;&#128;&#148;that black people need to have a space where they can democratically figure out what's best for them. And there is this long history of things happening, of these incursions where that's not able to take place. So that's really&#226;&#128;&#148;so even as I&#226;&#128;&#148;even as I work with Occupy, as I've worked with Occupy Baltimore, I consider myself a member of it, it's like I understand that deep history. <p /> <p />JAY: Okay. Well, in the next segment, we're going to pick up more on that history, 'cause in 1968 there were thousands of black people on the streets of Baltimore as part of a nationwide protest. And the first Occupy Baltimore was actually from the U.S. military with tanks and guns. And the question is: what happened from '68 to now in terms of the movement in Baltimore? <p /> <p />So please join us for the next part of this discussion on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Baltimore, Race and the Occupy Movement

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D9030

2012-10-25

4left

PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore Its one year since Occupy began in New York And now joining us to discuss what Occupy has achieved and what it might go next are three activists based in Baltimore First of all joining us is Kate Khatib Shes coeditor of a new book We Are Many Shes a founding member of Red Emmas collective and a collective member at AK Press And she currently teaches politics at the Maryland Institute College of Art Also joining us and also an editor of the same book We Are Many is Mike McGuire Hes a construction builder an organizer with a background in labor Latin America and creative protest Hes been working with the Occupy movement since its birth on September 17 2011 in Zuccotti Park And hes also helping us build the new headquarters of The Real News Network And Lester Spence Lester is a contributor to the book We Are Many Hes an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University where he specializes in racial politics urban politics and American political thought And hes the author of the book Stare in the Darkness The Limits of HipHop and Black Politics Thanks Thank you all for joining ALL Thanks for having us JAY So when Occupy was going on in Baltimore I was talking to different black activists young people and I was asking are you going down are you part of it and it was sort of Yeah And when I kind of pushed them it was well its good were happy its happening but its kind of a white thing And there was a little bit of well weve been activists in Baltimore for a long time and weve been fighting on all these issues and now all of a sudden these guys show up and theyre getting all the attention and no one has ever cared a damn about what weve been doing and weve been at it for so long And I guess theres some truth to all of that But then there also is a kind of racial divide to some extent within left progressive politics in Baltimore So talk about that and that in relationship to Occupy LESTER SPENCE CONTRIBUTOR WE ARE ONE There is this long history both at the level of the country and then if you look at individual cities or regions of tension between those on the black left black liberal left and then those on white liberal left And I apologize for making it a stark whiteblack thing so Id probably better articulate it as a whitenonwhite thing right And what it really boils down226128148it boils down to a few matters One is is there serious resource differentials Right So in general white activists tend to have more resources than nonwhite activists do Theres also a kind of a226128148 JAY Resources because some of them are professionals and have money or what SPENCE Oh So theres a number of ways to think about it They have more time to organize they have more money they have226128148theyre better plugged into networks that have time and money theyre more skilled or theyre not necessarily more skilled but there are certain skills that they have more of226128148the skills they have they have more of right than those who are nonwhite And their interests are actually different Right They have different political interests So they may have the same general goal of promoting social justice but what that looks like on the ground is going to differ JAY Like what Give an example SPENCE One example is like on226128148Ill take an example that were dealing with now like the student debt Right So there are a number of people who are interested in student debt right And student debt actually is a serious problem and everybody actually deals with it But if you were to place issues important to black communities in Rust Belt cities like Baltimore if you were to place them on a hierarchy you know if you were to number them 1194amp160to194amp1605 whats your most important issue student debt is in there but it probably wouldnt actually make the top five Its important You know black people go to school just like everybody else You know black people have the same type of debt burdens and actually in some cases more debt burdens But the most important issue would probably be criminal justice Right It would probably be the relationships with the police and relationships with the state that are deeply226128148that you could actually call terroristic in a number of different ways right Whereas with other226128148whereas white populations who tend to be226128148white activist populations who tend to be but are not solely middleclass they tend to be interested in different types of concerns So both are interested in social justice but what it actually means are different where its deployed is different Right So youre talking about neighborhood activism where people are really concerned with their neighborhoods whereas in the case of white activists they may be concerned more globally and less specifically concerned with neighborhoods in general and black neighborhoods specifically JAY So you find then that the white activist groups in Baltimore dont get as involved in what you see as the local issues facing the people here I mean do you think thats a fair critique SPENCE Facing black people JAY Yeah facing black people which in Baltimore is the majority of the city MIKE MCGUIRE COEDITOR WE ARE MANY I think theres something to that critique but I dont think thats everything Like were talking about an explosive moment first of all So like Kate and I226128148Im the white guy here but Kate and I and a bunch of other folks have been working in support of the same organizations that you were talking to They were saying you know Occupy is cool and we kind of like it and support it So weve been working with them for years And its not an issue of whether or not these relationships exist Its that they are separate organizations theyre separate issues theyre separate foci And were all working together on it But with Occupy you have this explosion And it is precisely what Lester was talking about Like theres all of a sudden a flood of resources both media attention media outreach wealth You know Occupy Baltimore still has money that we have because we raised more money than we could use and we dont have a method for spending it Occupy Wall Street raised226128148in like the first month month and a half that it existed it raised a half million dollars So all these resources226128148human resources financial resources226128148all flowed in And it became you know a target because it was what people were talking about But on the racial tip like as we were organizing in Baltimore there was a bunch of stuff First to be fair you know Ive been organizing in Baltimore for I guess over 20 years now and this was some of the easiest organizing that Ive done but it was also the most multiracial organizing that Ive done When I226128148Im talking about like an instantaneous thing Like I work with organizations that represent Baltimore and are people of color But in terms of like this coming together of people Ive never seen something so diverse in Baltimore JAY As Occupy MCGUIRE Yeah And this is226128148and its kind of interesting Its probably as Lester and I have talked about226128148talked this stuff through in the piece that we were writing the numbers are in Baltimore and elsewhere probably about inverse to the proportions of society So Baltimore is 65194amp160percent black Occupy Baltimore was probably 65194amp160percent white and then 35194amp160percent people of color And it was similar in Detroit it was similar in other cities But you know we were doing outreach and there are different kinds of outreach Like when we were going around knocking on doors226128148and Ill say this me as a white guy when I was going around knocking on doors in black communities in Baltimore I was better received than any other doorknocking that Ive ever done And that was226128148like in the past people looked at me like I was a space alien like youre not from my community youre here because you want something from me And on this occasion it was kind of the first occasion that Ive just been going around knocking on every door on the street where that didnt happen JAY Because they had heard of Occupy they knew this was226128148theyd gotten their head around 1194amp160percent and 99194amp160percent MCGUIRE Yeah And some folks that I was meeting knocking on doors over in East Baltimore near where theyre building this youth jail some folks were like oh yeah man I brought bread down to yall folks that I had never seen but they swung bread down to donate to the encampment And so theres that But then theres also the organized black left and that was a lot harder to work with So you know there is the black community and then theres the organized black left And theres226128148as Lester was noting theres a trend towards black nationalism And you know Kate and I were doing organizing around this new youth jail Its an issue that has been addressed in Baltimore for a while and its been led by a coalition of226128148actually a coalition mostly composed of black youth themselves And there are elements in the black community that were looking at us and saying how dare you come in like colonial conquerors and occupy our issue how dare you take this issue away from us and what business do you have talking about this And we had to address this Like we had an organization that was demanding a list of names racial identities and affiliations of everybody who was involved in the organizing JAY This is a left black organization MCGUIRE Yeah Yeah JAY Right So how did you deal with this Kate KHATIB We had to really ask ourselves what our motivations were We had to make sure that as an organizing group we were actually really doing something that we believed in But you know in the particular action that Mike is talking about before we even undertook it we actually spent a lot of time reaching out to the organizations that had been working around the issue of halting the construction of the youth jail largely organizations that are led by black youth in Baltimore and saying you know Occupy is interested in being involved Occupy has access to media access to strategy access to ideas and creative potential and we really want to put that in the service of this particular struggle is that something that youll work on with us JAY And just to remind everybody226128148I guess if youve watched The Real News regularly youd know what were talking about but this was governor of Maryland wants to build a 100194amp160million new youth prison in Baltimore and theres quite a opposition movement grew up against it which is going on what for more than a year now Or two years SPENCE Three years JAY Three years MCGUIRE Three years JAY Yeah and has involved a lot of people in this opposition So go on KHATIB And I wont say that everything that happened around the youth jails action was perfect or went off perfectly There certainly was more outreach that could have been done But I think ultimately we undertook that action in very strong solidarity and with a lot of guidance and coorganizing from some of the organizations that had been organizing around this issue for previous years for many years So you know it wasnt really a case of colonization but it was really easy to kind of see it as that And you know I think that action in particular is something that Mike and Lester talk about in their essay for this book The whole question of race in Occupy is something that I talk about in the introduction to the book And one of the things that I point out or one of the stories that I tell is my experience in Occupy Baltimore as a member of the facilitation team So at the very first Occupy Baltimore meeting the facilitation team was me and a room full of white guys And over the course of Occupy over the course of the next month month and a half six weeks that facilitation team transformed into primarily women and folks of color And that was staggering I mean it was amazing to be up facilitating these 500person meetings and look around and be like wow this is226128148like Im not the only person of color in this226128148you know what I expected to be a white activist space And one of the things that Ive written about in the introduction to the book and one of the things that has been kind of circulating around the movement is this question of if we talk about Occupy as a predominantly white movement do we not devalue the very important work that folks of color have put into the movement in Baltimore but also nationally And in fact I think its really important to recognize that there are folks of color who very much identify with Occupy as a movement that theyve been helping to drive And so we do absolutely have to talk about racial dynamics in social movements We absolutely have to talk about race and racism and the color lines within Occupy itself But we also have to be respectful and aware of the fact that there are folks of color who have been participating in the movement from day one and to make sure to not diminish their participation JAY Because Im new to Baltimore and because Im a journalist I get to just ask people questions and I get to talk to lots of different people So Ive heard kind of both arguments I mean one argument you know you hear from some black activists226128148and I should say cause were talking about some of the organizations that have been involved in the prison protest and kind of the ones that are very active Im not talking about them its kind of more other people that Ive heard at sort of forums and people that have shown up But this226128148one this idea is that whenever blacks and whites wind up in the same organization the whites take over or try to take over true or not true The second thing is this pushback the other way which is you know this is a black city and this needs to be black politics and yeah you guys can be a support group but you know its up to the black people to lead so its kind of racialbased leadership not based on ideas based on you know whos the best leaders SPENCE Anytime youve got incompr particularly in cities226128148in Baltimore226128148its important that folks looking at this who arent in Baltimore realize that Baltimores226128148actually technically is the South right It is the first city to implement226128148Alabama226128148Jackson Mississippi wasnt the first place or Birmingham Alabama wasnt the first place to institute segregation laws it was Baltimore Right So theres this long and deep history of segregation And its not just about separating white bodies from nonwhite bodies its about resource hoarding right serious political economic and cultural resources So when youve got a moment like Occupy even though its the 21st century even though weve had now three black mayors in Baltimore theres going to be a great deal of tension at the outset as far as getting people on the same page as far as creating this kind of democratic space where people feel as if they can contribute Right So theres this tendency to kind of226128148to articulate the racial politics space when youre talking about black pushback as just these kids who want their or these black folk who want their own stuff because people are trying to take it No its not really that Its really this idea that we have to226128148that black people need to have a space where they can democratically figure out whats best for them And there is this long history of things happening of these incursions where thats not able to take place So thats really226128148so even as I226128148even as I work with Occupy as Ive worked with Occupy Baltimore I consider myself a member of it its like I understand that deep history JAY Okay Well in the next segment were going to pick up more on that history cause in 1968 there were thousands of black people on the streets of Baltimore as part of a nationwide protest And the first Occupy Baltimore was actually from the US military with tanks and guns And the question is what happened from 68 to now in terms of the movement in Baltimore So please join us for the next part of this discussion on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5325453058/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&amp;gt;DonkeyHotey&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175628/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Mitt Romney had hardly conceded before Republicans started fighting over where to head next. Some Republicans&#8212;and many Democrats&#8212;now claim that the writing is on the wall: demography is destiny, which means the GOP is going the way of the Whigs and the Dodo. Across the country, they see an aging white majority shrinking as the US heads for the future as a majority-minority country and the Grand Old Party becomes the Gray Old Party. Others say: not so fast.</p> <p>In the month since <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE#gid=19" type="external">51%</a> of the electorate chose to keep Barack Obama in the White House, I&#8217;ve spent my time listening to GOP pundits, operators, and voters. While the Party busily analyzes the results, its leaders and factions are already out front, pushing their own long-held opinions and calling for calm in the face of onrushing problems.</p> <p>Do any of their proposals exhibit a willingness to make the kind of changes the GOP will need to attract members of the growing groups that the GOP has spent years antagonizing like Hispanics, Asian Americans, unmarried women, secular whites, and others? In a word: no.</p> <p>Instead, from my informal survey, it looks to this observer (and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175590/tomgram%3A_jeremiah_goulka,_confessions_of_a_former_republican" type="external">former Republican</a>) as if the party is betting all its money on cosmetic change. Think of it as the Botox Solution. It wants to tweak its talking points slightly and put more minority and female Republicans on stage as spokespeople. Many in the GOP seem to believe that this will do the trick in 2014 and beyond. Are they deluded?</p> <p>You&#8221;ve heard the expression &#8220;putting lipstick on a pig,&#8221; haven&#8217;t you?</p> <p>The Blame Game and the Short-Term Outlook</p> <p>Although most Republicans see hints of future demographic challenges in the exit polls, many prefer to focus on other factors to explain Romney&#8217;s loss out of a desire <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-in-ohio-the-gop-puzzles-over-missing-white-voters/article/2513293#.UL6z65PjlEB" type="external">not to</a> &#8220;blow up the party if there are less radical solutions.&#8221; (Hence, the delusional quality of so many of their post-mortems and the lack of interest in meaningful change.)</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p> <p>First, they cite the Romney factor: a weak candidate, too moderate&#8212;or too conservative&#8212;who failed to fight the Obama campaign&#8221;s early efforts to paint him as an out-of-touch plutocrat. In other words, his history (Bain Capital and Romneycare) depth-charged him before demographics could even kick in. He was, unfortunately, the perfect <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-05/opinions/35500772_1_private-equity-private-equity-firms-mitt-romney" type="external">quarter-billionaire</a> candidate for a Democratic narrative that the GOP is only out for the rich and doesn&#8217;t &#8220;care about people like me.&#8221; (He predictably lost <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/" type="external">that</a> exit poll question by a margin of 81% to 18%). Running a &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/post/rick-perry-doubles-down-on-vulture-capitalist-criticism-of-mitt-romney/2012/01/11/gIQAziWqqP_blog.html" type="external">vulture capitalist</a>&#8221; (and a Mormon) <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us-usa-election-poll-bible-belt-idUSBRE88A05H20120911" type="external">drove</a> a number of Republican voters to stay home or even&#8212;gasp!&#8212;vote for Obama. It&#8221;s a mistake that won&#8217;t be repeated in 2016.</p> <p>Second, they point to the Obama factor. In both <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election" type="external">2008</a> and <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/11/08-election-race-ethnicity-frey" type="external">2012</a>, he attracted unprecedented levels of minority and <a href="http://www.civicyouth.org/youth-turnout-at-least-49-22-23-million-under-30-voted/" type="external">young</a> voters, a phenomenon that might not be repeated in 2016. Some Republican operatives are also <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/12/our-path-forward-is-not-moderation-it-is-infrastructure/" type="external">convinced</a> that his campaign simply had a much better &#8220;ground game&#8221; and grasp of how to employ technology to turn out voters. ( <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/12/republicans-not-handling-election-results-well.html" type="external">Half</a> of self-identifying Republican voters think, as they did in 2008, that Obama simply stole the election through registration fraud involving African Americans.)</p> <p>Third, they emphasize the powers of incumbency. Romney only became the presumptive front-runner because the GOP&#8221;s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8334-250_162-57552171/an-early-look-at-the-2016-gop-presidential-contenders/" type="external">A-list</a>&#8212;mostly too young in any case&#8212;feared the <a href="http://spotlight.ipsos-na.com/index.php/public-affairs/much-ado-about-nothing-obama-will-be-president-again-in-2013/" type="external">huge</a> advantage an incumbent president enjoys and stayed home. 2016, they swear, will be different. Nor do they seem to fear a reprise of the 2008 and 2012 primary circuses because the A-listers in 2016, they insist, will all have well-established conservative bona fides and won&#8217;t have to bend over backwards to cultivate the conservative base.</p> <p>Trying to appeal to the Right while facing various nutcase candidates, Romney shot himself in both feet, labeling himself a &#8220;severe conservative&#8221; and staking an <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/17/071217fa_fact_lizza" type="external">extreme</a> anti-immigration position. George W. Bush, on the other hand, could run as a &#8220;compassionate conservative&#8221; in 2000 because his street cred on the Right was unchallengeable. Indeed, Paul Ryan is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57557179/ryan-rubio-lay-out-vision-for-future-of-gop/" type="external">already</a> talking up &#8220;compassion,&#8221; while Ted Cruz, the new (extreme) senator from Texas, is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/ted-cruz-speech-stokes-2016-speculation-84436.html" type="external">hawking</a> &#8220;opportunity conservatism.&#8221;</p> <p>Fourth, there is the perceived success of Republicans other than Romney, particularly in what white Republicans call the &#8220;Heartland.&#8221; GOP operatives are still angry at Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock for losing two gimme Senate seats to the Dems by &#8220;saying stupid things&#8221; (in the <a href="http://uneditedpolitics.com/louisiana-governor-bobby-jindal-and-wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-interview-on-fox-news-sunday-111812/" type="external">words</a> of Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor and frequent visitor to Iowa), and they wonder how they lost in Montana and North Dakota.</p> <p><a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/bio/Nick-Turse-0?order=title&amp;amp;sort=asc" type="external" />Still, they kept their majority in the House of Representatives, losing only a handful of seats. (That the GOP lost the majority of <a href="" type="internal">total votes cast</a> gets less attention.) The Party also added a 30th governor to its roster, and held onto its control of <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/press-room/history-holds-true-in-2012-legislative-races.aspx" type="external">the majority</a> of top offices and legislative chambers in the states. Come 2014, GOP operatives expect the Party to do quite nicely, as the opposition party often does in midterm elections, especially if turnout demographics <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_11/turnout_disparities_and_the_de041105.php" type="external">look like</a> 2006 and 2010. Another lesson many movement conservatives have learned is that the more they pound away on their issues, the more they shift American politics rightward even when they lose.</p> <p>All of this suggests to anxious Republicans that they are not crazy for seeing no immediate need to make big changes to appeal to demographic groups outside the Party&#8217;s aging white base. But the short term is likely to be short indeed. Think of them, then, as the POD or the Party of Denial.</p> <p>Meanwhile, on the Bridge of the Titanic</p> <p>Avoid it as they may, the long-term picture couldn&#8217;t look grimmer for the Party. Demographics may well be destiny. Even a cursory look at the numbers exposes the looming threat to the Party&#8217;s future prospects.</p> <p>* Whites: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/09/white-voter-decline-2012-conundrum" type="external">About</a> three-quarters of the electorate (and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/scocca/2012/11/mitt_romney_white_voters_the_gop_candidate_s_race_based_monochromatic_campaign.html" type="external">88%</a> of Romney&#8217;s voters) this year were white, but their numbers are steadily sinking&#8212;by 2% since 2008. Yes, many whites may have stayed home this year, turned off by <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/a-guide-for-the-99-what-is-a-car-elevator-and-why-does-mitt-need-one/255134/" type="external">Mr. Car Elevator</a>, but whites are projected to become a demographic minority by <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/07/a-milestone-en-route-to-a-majority-minority-nation/" type="external">2050</a>&#8212;or possibly even before <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137448906/us-will-have-minority-whites-sooner-says-demographer" type="external">2040</a>&#8212;and minority births are now <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57435957/census-more-minority-u.s-births-than-white-now/" type="external">outpacing</a> white births.</p> <p>* White Christians: The bulk of Romney&#8217;s supporters ( <a href="http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/11/american-values-post-election-survey-2012/" type="external">79%</a>) were white Christians (40% of whom were evangelicals), but this is an aging and <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx" type="external">shrinking</a> group. Three-quarters of senior voters but only a quarter of millennial voters are white Christians, and the generations in between are much <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Age/Religion-Among-the-Millennials.aspx" type="external">less likely</a> to consider themselves &#8220;strong&#8221; members of their religion than seniors. (Non-white Christians, Jews, observers of other faiths, and the growing number of the religiously-unaffiliated <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/How-the-Faithful-Voted-2012-Preliminary-Exit-Poll-Analysis.aspx#rr" type="external">all</a> overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.)</p> <p>* Hispanics: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/" type="external">According to</a> the Washington Post exit polls, Obama received 71% of the Hispanic vote in 2012 (67% in 2008). Already 10% of this year&#8221;s voters (9% in 2008), the Hispanic population is exploding, accounting for <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2010/5/09%20metro%20america/metro_america_report.pdf" type="external">half</a> of US population growth.</p> <p>* Asian Americans: The nation&#8217;s fastest growing demographic group&#8212;now 3% of this year&#8217;s voters (2% in 2008)&#8212;gave Obama 73% of its vote in 2012 (62% in 2008).</p> <p>* Unmarried Women: The percentage of unmarried women has been growing slowly since the 1970s, up to <a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff18.html" type="external">53%</a> of women as of last year. Even among subgroups favoring Obama, there was a <a href="http://www.voterparticipation.org/hard-proof-women-are-not-a-monolithic-voting-bloc/" type="external">marriage gap</a> in which unmarried women (23% of this year&#8221;s voters) favored Obama by huge margins. Despite winning 53% of (mostly white) married women, 31% of this year&#8221;s voters (down from 33% in 2008), Romney lost women overall by 11 points.</p> <p>* The Young: The millennial generation (born between 1978 and 2000) has been voting overwhelmingly for Democrats ( <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/" type="external">66%</a>for Obama in 2008, 60% this year). They are projected to be <a href="http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/progressive-movement/report/2010/06/16/7953/demographic-change-and-the-future-of-the-parties/" type="external">40%</a> of the eligible voting pool by 2020. Because they are relatively diverse and secular, the GOP cannot assume that enough will emulate previous generations and swing to the right as they age.</p> <p>Such polling figures should frighten GOP leaders. There&#8217;s no reason to believe that what we saw on November 6th was anything but the tip of the iceberg.</p> <p>The factions in the party that are not socially conservative see these looming threats as an opportunity to get the GOP to drop the social stuff. But movement conservatives aren&#8217;t going to cede ideological ground, not when they (correctly) think it&#8217;s a necessity if they are to attract their base voters. &#8220;This country doesn&#8217;t need two liberal or Democratic parties,&#8221; is the <a href="http://uneditedpolitics.com/louisiana-governor-bobby-jindal-and-wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-interview-on-fox-news-sunday-111812/" type="external">way</a> Bobby Jindal puts it, typically enough.</p> <p>Like right-wing pundit Fred Barnes, many movement conservatives and Tea Party leaders will <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/setback-not-catastrophe_662228.html" type="external">continue to insist</a> that whites are going to remain &#8220;the nation&#8217;s dominant voting bloc&#8230; for many elections to come.&#8221; Hedging their bets, they have decided to become more &#8220;inclusive&#8221; or at least just inclusive enough in these days of micro-targeting and razor-thin election margins. After all, Romney would have <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/assessing-how-pivotal-the-hispanic-vote-was-to-obamas-victory/" type="external">won</a> New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado if he had captured even slightly higher shares of the Hispanic vote and he could have <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2012/11/electoral-alchemy-what-was-mitt-romneys-magic-number.html#ixzz2DisUhHkH" type="external">won</a> in the Electoral College if fewer than 200,000 voters in key states had switched their votes.</p> <p>To get more inclusive, however, these leaders offer an entirely cosmetic approach: emphasize the Party&#8217;s middle-class message, increase outreach or &#8220;partnership&#8221; with Hispanics and Asian Americans, back off the anti-immigration message a tad, say fewer stupid things &#224; la Akin and Mourdock, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.</p> <p>A Nonsense Strategy</p> <p>When it comes to why this won&#8217;t work down the line, it&#8217;s hard to know where to start. Take that middle-class message. Many Republicans think that it should offer &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-should-balance-principle-and-results/2012/11/08/25490024-29d3-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_story.html" type="external">crossover appeal</a>&#8221; on its own, so long as it&#8217;s said loudly enough.</p> <p>But what exactly is it? After all, it&#8217;s never about jobs going abroad, retirement worries (except insofar as the GOP wants to increase insecurity by privatizing Social Security), underwater mortgages, missing childcare for working families, exploding higher education costs, or what global warming is doing to the Midwestern breadbasket and coastal agriculture (much less the long-term capability of the planet to sustain life as we know it). Instead, it remains about &#8220;choice,&#8221; lowering taxes (again), &#8220;entitlement reform,&#8221; and getting the government out of the way of economic growth.</p> <p>As if what the middle class really wants or needs is &#8220;choice&#8221; in education (Jindal&#8221;s plan to divert tax funds to private and parochial schools through vouchers was just ruled <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/judge-blocks-gov-bobby-jindals-signature-school-voucher-160707761.html" type="external">unconstitutional</a>); &#8220;choice,&#8221; not affordability, in health care (the <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm" type="external">#1</a> cause of personal bankruptcy in America); and ever more environmental pollution, as well as further challenges to getting workman&#8221;s comp if you get injured on the job.</p> <p>Studies have repeatedly shown that most Americans are <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/27-5" type="external">&#8220;operationally&#8221; liberal</a> on the substance of most policy issues. In other words, Republicans will support &#8220;small government,&#8221; until you ask about cutting spending on anything other than anti-poverty programs. In fact, less than a third of self-identifying Republicans <a href="http://elections.reuters.com/?title=Agree+or+disagree%3A+The+wealthiest+Americans+should+pay+higher+tax+rates#poll/path/dimensions/PV12_4/type/week/filters/PARTY_ID_:2" type="external">surveyed by</a> Reuters/Ipsos this year &#8220;somewhat&#8221; or &#8220;strongly&#8221; disagreed with the proposition that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher tax rates.</p> <p>As a counter to the charge that the GOP is the party of the rich, Jindal offered <a href="http://uneditedpolitics.com/louisiana-governor-bobby-jindal-and-wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-interview-on-fox-news-sunday-111812/" type="external">this</a> on Fox News: &#8220;We&#8230; need to make it very clear&#8230; that we&#8221;re not the party of Big: big businesses, big banks, big Wall Street, big bailouts.&#8221;</p> <p>Um&#8230; who other than Republican true believers will buy that?</p> <p>The Jerk Factor</p> <p>As for those demographic groups the GOP needs to start winning over in the medium- and long-term, putative 2016 A-lister Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wants to see a <a href="http://uneditedpolitics.com/louisiana-governor-bobby-jindal-and-wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-interview-on-fox-news-sunday-111812/" type="external">middle class</a> &#8220;message of prosperity and freedom for all&#8221; communicated loudly to immigrants and the young. But as one astute Republican insider said to me, &#8220;Hispanics won&#8217;t hear our message so long as they think our immigration platform says, &#8216;We hate Mexicans.'&#8221;</p> <p>Bobby Jindal was right to say, &#8220;If we want people to like us, we have to like them first.&#8221; But the Party hasn&#8217;t truly begun to grasp what might be called the liking gap between the GOP and the groups it needs to cultivate. It&#8217;s time for Republicans to take a long, hard look in the mirror. It&#8217;s not just recent anti-immigration fervor that repels Hispanics and others from the party. The GOP needs to internalize the fact that the dead bird hanging from its neck is its entire modern history.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that the Democrats were once the segregationists and Abraham Lincoln and the conservationist, trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt were Republicans, as Republicans are fond of pointing out. But that&#8221;s ancient history.</p> <p>The Party&#8217;s modern history began when business leaders got politicized in response to the New Deal and then the GOP began courting the Dixiecrats after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 (despite <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=x-o9qAO_oEEC&amp;amp;pg=PA167&amp;amp;dq=%22delivered+the+south+to+the+republican+party%22+moyers&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=t-OMT6D_Ooio8ATwi-2FDg&amp;amp;ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false" type="external">knowing</a> that he had &#8220;just delivered the South to the Republican Party&#8221;). The white South started voting for GOP presidential candidates in the Nixon years and would soon become <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/110352/no-southern-comfort-wishful-liberals" type="external">solidly</a> Republican. At 70% of the electorate (nearly 90% in Mississippi), it remains so today.</p> <p>White-flight suburbs around the country followed suit. Add in the fervent cultivation of evangelical Protestant Christians&#8212;anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-evolution, anti-science&#8212;and the various modern incarnations of nativist Know Nothings. don&#8217;t forget the <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/108150/the-revolution-eats-its-own" type="external">ejection</a> of moderates from the Party, and you have the essential history of the modern GOP in two paragraphs.</p> <p>So the GOP can say that it wants to and plans to like Hispanics, Asian Americans, unmarried women, and secular youth, but to be believable, merely easing off on its anti-immigration message or going quiet on abortion won&#8217;t do the trick. And if it wants to prove that it cares, it will have to put some real money where its mouth is.</p> <p>What the Party Should Do&#8212;and won&#8217;t</p> <p>Here&#8217;s an idea: how about some &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">extraordinary financial gifts</a>&#8220; like the ones Mitt Romney denounced just days after his loss!</p> <p>To really go after the groups it needs, the GOP would have to do the inconceivable: drop the &#8220;entitlement reform&#8221; racket, open the wallet, and reach below a restrictive definition of the middle class. It might, for instance, mean adding more money to Food Stamps, rather than poking fun at the &#8220;food stamp president,&#8221; because a full <a href="http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/" type="external">quarter</a> of Hispanics and 35% of Hispanic children are poor.</p> <p>According <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;ved=0CDAQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.census.gov%2Fcompendia%2Fstatab%2F2012%2Ftables%2F12s0690.pdf&amp;amp;ei=Ni_FUMyzOMeR0QHinIGQBQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNGWO9gk--ifbmkRjTCIhsYb-osxXw" type="external">to</a> the Census, the median income for Hispanics in 2009 was $38,039 versus $51,861 for whites. The difference is far starker when you compare median net worth: Thanks to the economic crisis, Hispanic households lost <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2069/housing-bubble-subprime-mortgages-hispanics-blacks-household-wealth-disparity" type="external">66%</a> of their median net worth, falling to $6,325 in 2009, compared to $113,149 for white households (a 16% loss).</p> <p>It would undoubtedly mean supporting equal pay for equal work, which the GOP has consistently opposed. It would mean working to make healthcare more affordable for everyone. That&#8221;s how you prove you care in politics&#8212;and it would also be good for the nation.</p> <p>Similarly, if the Republicans want to be taken seriously as &#8220;defenders&#8221; of the middle class, they would need to do something to defend it from its predators. No, not the lower class but the upper class, the predatory lenders and speculators, the fraudsters, the manipulators of the financial system, the folks who got bailed out while everyone else shouldered the risk.</p> <p>It hardly needs to be said that this isn&#8217;t likely to happen in any of our lifetimes.</p> <p>So far the only Republican suggestion I&#8217;ve heard that seems more than (barely) cosmetic is for the Party to drop its aversion to gay marriage. That would, at least, be a beneficial, if cynically motivated, move to look less hateful.</p> <p>Hesitation in the Face of Change</p> <p>It is, of course, theoretically possible that Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) could attract enough Hispanic and other voters in 2016 to win the presidency. Provided that the primaries don&#8217;t turn into another bizarro battle. Provided that the tone set by Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, or fringe candidates of their ilk doesn&#8217;t sink the A-listers. Provided that not too many &#8220;stupid&#8221; things are said&#8212;on abortion, immigration, evolution, or global warming. (Rubio has <a href="http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201212/marco-rubio-interview-gq-december-2012?printable=true&amp;amp;utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;amp;utm_medium=twitte&amp;amp;mobify=0" type="external">already</a> gotten to work on that one by punting on a question about the Earth&#8217;s age to keep the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/on-being-the-stupid-party/265461/" type="external">creationists</a> happy.)</p> <p>But come 2020, 2024, or 2028, whatever&#8217;s left of the GOP is going to be kicking itself for not having built a foundation of anything other than words that no one outside its rank-and-file actually believed. Texas, after all, could go purple by <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/19/121119fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all" type="external">2020</a> or <a href="http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/11/exclusive-analysis-if-trends-hold-texas-will-be-a-toss-up-state-by-2024/" type="external">2024</a>.</p> <p>Of all the signals emanating from the GOP since Election Day, perhaps the most significant came last week when the socially and fiscally conservative Tea Party kingmaker Jim <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/jim-demint-resignation-an_n_2256692.html" type="external">DeMint</a> voted with his feet. The man who would rather have &#8220;30 Republicans in the Senate who believe in principles of freedom than 60 who don&#8217;t believe in anything&#8221; is leaving that body <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2012/12/jim-demint-and-the-heritage-foundation.html#entry-more" type="external">for</a> the Heritage Foundation&#8212;a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/12/09/jim_demint_the_rights_new_kingmaker/" type="external">hint</a> about the future of what is arguably the most important GOP organization in the country.</p> <p>It looks like the GOP is at the wheel of the Titanic, sailing toward that iceberg, while the band plays &#8220;Nearer My God to Thee&#8221; for all it&#8217;s worth.</p> <p>Jeremiah Goulka, a TomDispatch regular, writes about American politics and culture, focusing on the Republican Party, race, and security. He was formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation, a Hurricane Katrina recovery worker, and an attorney at the US Department of Justice. You can follow him on Twitter @jeremiahgoulka or contact him through his website <a href="http://www.jeremiahgoulka.com" type="external">jeremiahgoulka.com</a>.</p> <p>To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

The Rich, White, Conservative GOP Must Change, But It Won’t

https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/rich-white-conservative-gop-must-change-it-wont/

2012-12-13

4left

amplta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotosdonkeyhotey5325453058sizeszinphotostreamampgtDonkeyHoteyampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Mitt Romney had hardly conceded before Republicans started fighting over where to head next Some Republicans8212and many Democrats8212now claim that the writing is on the wall demography is destiny which means the GOP is going the way of the Whigs and the Dodo Across the country they see an aging white majority shrinking as the US heads for the future as a majorityminority country and the Grand Old Party becomes the Gray Old Party Others say not so fast In the month since 51 of the electorate chose to keep Barack Obama in the White House I8217ve spent my time listening to GOP pundits operators and voters While the Party busily analyzes the results its leaders and factions are already out front pushing their own longheld opinions and calling for calm in the face of onrushing problems Do any of their proposals exhibit a willingness to make the kind of changes the GOP will need to attract members of the growing groups that the GOP has spent years antagonizing like Hispanics Asian Americans unmarried women secular whites and others In a word no Instead from my informal survey it looks to this observer and former Republican as if the party is betting all its money on cosmetic change Think of it as the Botox Solution It wants to tweak its talking points slightly and put more minority and female Republicans on stage as spokespeople Many in the GOP seem to believe that this will do the trick in 2014 and beyond Are they deluded You8221ve heard the expression 8220putting lipstick on a pig8221 haven8217t you The Blame Game and the ShortTerm Outlook Although most Republicans see hints of future demographic challenges in the exit polls many prefer to focus on other factors to explain Romney8217s loss out of a desire not to 8220blow up the party if there are less radical solutions8221 Hence the delusional quality of so many of their postmortems and the lack of interest in meaningful change First they cite the Romney factor a weak candidate too moderate8212or too conservative8212who failed to fight the Obama campaign8221s early efforts to paint him as an outoftouch plutocrat In other words his history Bain Capital and Romneycare depthcharged him before demographics could even kick in He was unfortunately the perfect quarterbillionaire candidate for a Democratic narrative that the GOP is only out for the rich and doesn8217t 8220care about people like me8221 He predictably lost that exit poll question by a margin of 81 to 18 Running a 8220 vulture capitalist8221 and a Mormon drove a number of Republican voters to stay home or even8212gasp8212vote for Obama It8221s a mistake that won8217t be repeated in 2016 Second they point to the Obama factor In both 2008 and 2012 he attracted unprecedented levels of minority and young voters a phenomenon that might not be repeated in 2016 Some Republican operatives are also convinced that his campaign simply had a much better 8220ground game8221 and grasp of how to employ technology to turn out voters Half of selfidentifying Republican voters think as they did in 2008 that Obama simply stole the election through registration fraud involving African Americans Third they emphasize the powers of incumbency Romney only became the presumptive frontrunner because the GOP8221s Alist8212mostly too young in any case8212feared the huge advantage an incumbent president enjoys and stayed home 2016 they swear will be different Nor do they seem to fear a reprise of the 2008 and 2012 primary circuses because the Alisters in 2016 they insist will all have wellestablished conservative bona fides and won8217t have to bend over backwards to cultivate the conservative base Trying to appeal to the Right while facing various nutcase candidates Romney shot himself in both feet labeling himself a 8220severe conservative8221 and staking an extreme antiimmigration position George W Bush on the other hand could run as a 8220compassionate conservative8221 in 2000 because his street cred on the Right was unchallengeable Indeed Paul Ryan is already talking up 8220compassion8221 while Ted Cruz the new extreme senator from Texas is hawking 8220opportunity conservatism8221 Fourth there is the perceived success of Republicans other than Romney particularly in what white Republicans call the 8220Heartland8221 GOP operatives are still angry at Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock for losing two gimme Senate seats to the Dems by 8220saying stupid things8221 in the words of Bobby Jindal Louisiana governor and frequent visitor to Iowa and they wonder how they lost in Montana and North Dakota Still they kept their majority in the House of Representatives losing only a handful of seats That the GOP lost the majority of total votes cast gets less attention The Party also added a 30th governor to its roster and held onto its control of the majority of top offices and legislative chambers in the states Come 2014 GOP operatives expect the Party to do quite nicely as the opposition party often does in midterm elections especially if turnout demographics look like 2006 and 2010 Another lesson many movement conservatives have learned is that the more they pound away on their issues the more they shift American politics rightward even when they lose All of this suggests to anxious Republicans that they are not crazy for seeing no immediate need to make big changes to appeal to demographic groups outside the Party8217s aging white base But the short term is likely to be short indeed Think of them then as the POD or the Party of Denial Meanwhile on the Bridge of the Titanic Avoid it as they may the longterm picture couldn8217t look grimmer for the Party Demographics may well be destiny Even a cursory look at the numbers exposes the looming threat to the Party8217s future prospects Whites About threequarters of the electorate and 88 of Romney8217s voters this year were white but their numbers are steadily sinking8212by 2 since 2008 Yes many whites may have stayed home this year turned off by Mr Car Elevator but whites are projected to become a demographic minority by 20508212or possibly even before 20408212and minority births are now outpacing white births White Christians The bulk of Romney8217s supporters 79 were white Christians 40 of whom were evangelicals but this is an aging and shrinking group Threequarters of senior voters but only a quarter of millennial voters are white Christians and the generations in between are much less likely to consider themselves 8220strong8221 members of their religion than seniors Nonwhite Christians Jews observers of other faiths and the growing number of the religiouslyunaffiliated all overwhelmingly vote for Democrats Hispanics According to the Washington Post exit polls Obama received 71 of the Hispanic vote in 2012 67 in 2008 Already 10 of this year8221s voters 9 in 2008 the Hispanic population is exploding accounting for half of US population growth Asian Americans The nation8217s fastest growing demographic group8212now 3 of this year8217s voters 2 in 20088212gave Obama 73 of its vote in 2012 62 in 2008 Unmarried Women The percentage of unmarried women has been growing slowly since the 1970s up to 53 of women as of last year Even among subgroups favoring Obama there was a marriage gap in which unmarried women 23 of this year8221s voters favored Obama by huge margins Despite winning 53 of mostly white married women 31 of this year8221s voters down from 33 in 2008 Romney lost women overall by 11 points The Young The millennial generation born between 1978 and 2000 has been voting overwhelmingly for Democrats 66for Obama in 2008 60 this year They are projected to be 40 of the eligible voting pool by 2020 Because they are relatively diverse and secular the GOP cannot assume that enough will emulate previous generations and swing to the right as they age Such polling figures should frighten GOP leaders There8217s no reason to believe that what we saw on November 6th was anything but the tip of the iceberg The factions in the party that are not socially conservative see these looming threats as an opportunity to get the GOP to drop the social stuff But movement conservatives aren8217t going to cede ideological ground not when they correctly think it8217s a necessity if they are to attract their base voters 8220This country doesn8217t need two liberal or Democratic parties8221 is the way Bobby Jindal puts it typically enough Like rightwing pundit Fred Barnes many movement conservatives and Tea Party leaders will continue to insist that whites are going to remain 8220the nation8217s dominant voting bloc8230 for many elections to come8221 Hedging their bets they have decided to become more 8220inclusive8221 or at least just inclusive enough in these days of microtargeting and razorthin election margins After all Romney would have won New Mexico Florida Nevada and Colorado if he had captured even slightly higher shares of the Hispanic vote and he could have won in the Electoral College if fewer than 200000 voters in key states had switched their votes To get more inclusive however these leaders offer an entirely cosmetic approach emphasize the Party8217s middleclass message increase outreach or 8220partnership8221 with Hispanics and Asian Americans back off the antiimmigration message a tad say fewer stupid things 224 la Akin and Mourdock cross your fingers and hope for the best A Nonsense Strategy When it comes to why this won8217t work down the line it8217s hard to know where to start Take that middleclass message Many Republicans think that it should offer 8220 crossover appeal8221 on its own so long as it8217s said loudly enough But what exactly is it After all it8217s never about jobs going abroad retirement worries except insofar as the GOP wants to increase insecurity by privatizing Social Security underwater mortgages missing childcare for working families exploding higher education costs or what global warming is doing to the Midwestern breadbasket and coastal agriculture much less the longterm capability of the planet to sustain life as we know it Instead it remains about 8220choice8221 lowering taxes again 8220entitlement reform8221 and getting the government out of the way of economic growth As if what the middle class really wants or needs is 8220choice8221 in education Jindal8221s plan to divert tax funds to private and parochial schools through vouchers was just ruled unconstitutional 8220choice8221 not affordability in health care the 1 cause of personal bankruptcy in America and ever more environmental pollution as well as further challenges to getting workman8221s comp if you get injured on the job Studies have repeatedly shown that most Americans are 8220operationally8221 liberal on the substance of most policy issues In other words Republicans will support 8220small government8221 until you ask about cutting spending on anything other than antipoverty programs In fact less than a third of selfidentifying Republicans surveyed by ReutersIpsos this year 8220somewhat8221 or 8220strongly8221 disagreed with the proposition that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher tax rates As a counter to the charge that the GOP is the party of the rich Jindal offered this on Fox News 8220We8230 need to make it very clear8230 that we8221re not the party of Big big businesses big banks big Wall Street big bailouts8221 Um8230 who other than Republican true believers will buy that The Jerk Factor As for those demographic groups the GOP needs to start winning over in the medium and longterm putative 2016 Alister Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wants to see a middle class 8220message of prosperity and freedom for all8221 communicated loudly to immigrants and the young But as one astute Republican insider said to me 8220Hispanics won8217t hear our message so long as they think our immigration platform says 8216We hate Mexicans8221 Bobby Jindal was right to say 8220If we want people to like us we have to like them first8221 But the Party hasn8217t truly begun to grasp what might be called the liking gap between the GOP and the groups it needs to cultivate It8217s time for Republicans to take a long hard look in the mirror It8217s not just recent antiimmigration fervor that repels Hispanics and others from the party The GOP needs to internalize the fact that the dead bird hanging from its neck is its entire modern history It8217s true that the Democrats were once the segregationists and Abraham Lincoln and the conservationist trustbusting Teddy Roosevelt were Republicans as Republicans are fond of pointing out But that8221s ancient history The Party8217s modern history began when business leaders got politicized in response to the New Deal and then the GOP began courting the Dixiecrats after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 despite knowing that he had 8220just delivered the South to the Republican Party8221 The white South started voting for GOP presidential candidates in the Nixon years and would soon become solidly Republican At 70 of the electorate nearly 90 in Mississippi it remains so today Whiteflight suburbs around the country followed suit Add in the fervent cultivation of evangelical Protestant Christians8212antigay antichoice antievolution antiscience8212and the various modern incarnations of nativist Know Nothings don8217t forget the ejection of moderates from the Party and you have the essential history of the modern GOP in two paragraphs So the GOP can say that it wants to and plans to like Hispanics Asian Americans unmarried women and secular youth but to be believable merely easing off on its antiimmigration message or going quiet on abortion won8217t do the trick And if it wants to prove that it cares it will have to put some real money where its mouth is What the Party Should Do8212and won8217t Here8217s an idea how about some 8220 extraordinary financial gifts8220 like the ones Mitt Romney denounced just days after his loss To really go after the groups it needs the GOP would have to do the inconceivable drop the 8220entitlement reform8221 racket open the wallet and reach below a restrictive definition of the middle class It might for instance mean adding more money to Food Stamps rather than poking fun at the 8220food stamp president8221 because a full quarter of Hispanics and 35 of Hispanic children are poor According to the Census the median income for Hispanics in 2009 was 38039 versus 51861 for whites The difference is far starker when you compare median net worth Thanks to the economic crisis Hispanic households lost 66 of their median net worth falling to 6325 in 2009 compared to 113149 for white households a 16 loss It would undoubtedly mean supporting equal pay for equal work which the GOP has consistently opposed It would mean working to make healthcare more affordable for everyone That8221s how you prove you care in politics8212and it would also be good for the nation Similarly if the Republicans want to be taken seriously as 8220defenders8221 of the middle class they would need to do something to defend it from its predators No not the lower class but the upper class the predatory lenders and speculators the fraudsters the manipulators of the financial system the folks who got bailed out while everyone else shouldered the risk It hardly needs to be said that this isn8217t likely to happen in any of our lifetimes So far the only Republican suggestion I8217ve heard that seems more than barely cosmetic is for the Party to drop its aversion to gay marriage That would at least be a beneficial if cynically motivated move to look less hateful Hesitation in the Face of Change It is of course theoretically possible that Senator Marco Rubio RFla could attract enough Hispanic and other voters in 2016 to win the presidency Provided that the primaries don8217t turn into another bizarro battle Provided that the tone set by Rick Santorum Michele Bachmann or fringe candidates of their ilk doesn8217t sink the Alisters Provided that not too many 8220stupid8221 things are said8212on abortion immigration evolution or global warming Rubio has already gotten to work on that one by punting on a question about the Earth8217s age to keep the creationists happy But come 2020 2024 or 2028 whatever8217s left of the GOP is going to be kicking itself for not having built a foundation of anything other than words that no one outside its rankandfile actually believed Texas after all could go purple by 2020 or 2024 Of all the signals emanating from the GOP since Election Day perhaps the most significant came last week when the socially and fiscally conservative Tea Party kingmaker Jim DeMint voted with his feet The man who would rather have 822030 Republicans in the Senate who believe in principles of freedom than 60 who don8217t believe in anything8221 is leaving that body for the Heritage Foundation8212a hint about the future of what is arguably the most important GOP organization in the country It looks like the GOP is at the wheel of the Titanic sailing toward that iceberg while the band plays 8220Nearer My God to Thee8221 for all it8217s worth Jeremiah Goulka a TomDispatch regular writes about American politics and culture focusing on the Republican Party race and security He was formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation a Hurricane Katrina recovery worker and an attorney at the US Department of Justice You can follow him on Twitter jeremiahgoulka or contact him through his website jeremiahgoulkacom To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Donald Trump has a plan to solve America&#8217;s drug crisis: kill the drug dealers.</p> <p>&#8220;We have pushers and drugs dealers, they are killing hundreds and hundreds of people,&#8221; Trump&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/01/donald-trump-death-penalty-suggestion-opioid-crisis-376176" type="external">said</a>&amp;#160;at a recent White House summit on opioid abuse. &#8220;Some countries have a very, very tough penalty &#8212; the ultimate penalty &#8212; and by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump claims he got the idea for killing drug dealers from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-rally-in-pennsylvania-ahead-of-special-house-election/2018/03/10/3eed9dc0-23f4-11e8-86f6-54bfff693d2b_story.html?utm_term=.d2151f6bbf00" type="external">&amp;#160;his pal</a>, Chinese president for life, Xi Jinping. That&#8217;s a first: an American president openly borrowing a criminal justice program from an autocrat (and a Communist one, to boot).&amp;#160; To be fair, Trump clearly also&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/27/trump-reportedly-praised-singapore-for-executing-drug-dealers-heres-how-theyre-killed/?utm_term=.0e28584f1930" type="external">had in mind</a>&amp;#160;the experience of a democratic country. In the last two years, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has encouraged a spree of extrajudicial police executions aimed at the drug trade that, according to Human Rights Watch, has left&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/18/philippines-dutertes-drug-war-claims-12000-lives" type="external">more than 12,000</a> Filipinos dead. Although the International Criminal Court has&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/icc-claims-crimes-against-humanity-duterte-philippines" type="external">launched</a>&amp;#160;an inquiry into Duterte&#8217;s &#8220;crimes against humanity,&#8221; Trump has praised him for doing an &#8220;incredible job&#8221; with his anti-drug program.</p> <p>The president&#8217;s embrace of the death penalty for drug dealers is but one example of his across-the-board scorn for human rights as he buddies up with the world&#8217;s most notorious autocrats and directs the Pentagon to ensure that ongoing human rights catastrophes around the world grow even worse. Meanwhile, he&#8217;s proposed slashing State Department programs promoting democracy and human rights, while trying to roll back movements for rights and freedoms in the United States.</p> <p /> <p>Think of him as a driver who&#8217;s been licensed to operate the world&#8217;s largest vehicle despite his utter contempt for the rules of the road. Not surprisingly, the traffic forecast is bleak: with hardliner Mike Pompeo about to take over as secretary of state, his department will prove even less of a speed bump in the president&#8217;s dangerous game of chicken with the global community.</p> <p>Two Cheers for Hypocrisy</p> <p>U.S. foreign policy used to be reliably two-faced. Washington would regularly call out its adversaries on human rights abuses while largely ignoring the egregious violations of its closest friends. During the Cold War, for instance, the U.S. routinely lambasted the Soviet Union for its appalling record on human rights but handed out free passes to Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, the Shah of Iran, and others of their ilk.</p> <p>Sure, the State Department has been issuing an exhaustive annual report on human rights violators that, for half a century, provided grim details on repressive governments like those of the Saudis and Egyptians.&amp;#160; But that didn&#8217;t stop successive administrations from supplying those same autocracies with virtually all the weapons and military aid they claimed they needed, even as Washington maintained an arms embargo on China instituted after Beijing cracked down on the Tiananmen Square protests in June 1989. And when the United States does lift such embargoes, as with&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-obama/u-s-lifts-arms-ban-on-old-foe-vietnam-as-china-tensions-simmer-idUSKCN0YD050" type="external">Vietnam in 2016</a>, it has everything to do with geopolitics (containing China) and nothing to do with human rights.</p> <p>Now along comes Donald Trump, a thoroughgoing hypocrite on practically every subject &#8212; except human rights. There, he has extended the blind eye of American policy to just about everyone. With a few exceptions that prove the rule, he could care less about such abuses, even when they involve&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-administrations-no-good-very-bad-wednesday/2018/03/01/7dc60fd2-1d69-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.3cef1ef9edf2" type="external">his own administration</a>&amp;#160;&#8212; including&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/09/politics/david-sorensen-white-house-resign-domestic-abuse-allegation/index.html" type="external">wife-beaters</a>,&amp;#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348063-gorka-resigns-from-wh-report" type="external">Nazi sympathizers</a>, and the&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/flynn-whistleblower-nuclear-plan-sanctions/547685/" type="external">incorrigibly corrupt</a>, not to mention&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-policy-is-clear-civilian-casualties-dont-matter-in-the-war-on-terror/" type="external">U.S. military personnel</a>&amp;#160;abroad (or&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/congress-needs-hold-ice-accountable-abuses" type="external">ICE employees</a>&amp;#160;in this country).</p> <p>Consider these telling changes in the Trumpian era. When the State Department released last year&#8217;s human rights report, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/rex-tillerson-state-department-human-rights-report/index.html" type="external">didn&#8217;t even bother</a>&amp;#160;to hold the traditional press conference or present the findings himself, though he was in Washington at the time.&amp;#160; This year&#8217;s report, unreleased and overdue, will reportedly give shorter shrift to women&#8217;s rights and discrimination of various kinds, prompting an outcry from&amp;#160; <a href="http://files.pfaw.org/uploads/2018/02/2018-02-26-PPFAsignon-StateDeptHumanRightsReport-Letter-171signers.pdf" type="external">more than 170</a>&amp;#160;human-rights organizations. &#8220;This sends a clear signal that women&#8217;s reproductive rights are not a priority for this administration, and that it&#8217;s not even a rights violation we must or should report on,&#8221; an unnamed State Department official typically&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/department-women-rights-abortion-420361" type="external">told</a>&amp;#160;Politico.</p> <p>The writing has been on the wall in big block letters from the&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176234/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_a_globalism_of_the_1%25" type="external">earliest moments</a>&amp;#160;of the Trump era. In May 2017, in his first town hall meeting with State Department staff, Tillerson&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/19/tillerson-state-human-rights-304118" type="external">warned</a>&amp;#160;that human rights should not become an obstacle in the U.S. pursuit of national interests, a shot across the department&#8217;s bow that contributed to a wave of&amp;#160; <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/09/u-s-diplomat-resigns-warning-of-state-departments-diminished-role-diplomacy-national-security-tillerson-africa-somalia-south-sudan/" type="external">subsequent resignations</a>. Similarly, the administration&#8217;s first National Security Strategy&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/opinion/susan-rice-america-global-strategy.html" type="external">barely mentioned</a>&amp;#160;human rights.</p> <p>The diminished impact of the State Department reflects the diminished state of the department itself. Expect Pompeo to be even more aggressive than Tillerson at de-staffing it through&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/07/politics/trump-ambassador-vacancies/index.html" type="external">unfilled</a>&amp;#160;ambassadorial positions (including South Korea and the European Union), the&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-democrats-say-they-have-proof-state-dept-staff-was-pushed-out-over-disloyalty-to-trump/2018/03/15/16f8fe1a-2884-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html?utm_term=.f5b84cc71b5c" type="external">purging</a>&amp;#160;of staff for political reasons,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/us/politics/state-department-buyouts.html" type="external">cash buyouts</a>&amp;#160;for early retirements, and major reductions at embassies like the new one&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176402/unavailable%20on%20the%20State%20Department%E2%80%99s%20website" type="external">in Cuba</a>. Among the many top positions that remain unfilled, there aren&#8217;t even&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/?utm_term=.1dd0ebde1161" type="external">nominees</a>&amp;#160;for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights or assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor (or, for that matter, special envoy on North Korean human rights).&amp;#160; The Trump team proposed&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/12/17004372/trump-budget-state-department-defense-cuts" type="external">slashing</a>&amp;#160;the State Department budget by 25% from $53 billion to $39 billion. Congress, however, rebelled and&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/23/heres-whats-in-the-budget-bill-nobodys-bothered-to-read-217701" type="external">reduced</a>&amp;#160;the shrinkage to just 6% in the final budget bill signed by the president last week.&amp;#160; As part of these ostensible austerity measures, Trump wanted to effectively eliminate the bulk of &#8220;democracy promotion&#8221; by&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-trump-administration-wants-to-dismantle-ronald-reagans-infrastructure-of-democracy/2018/03/04/8b94d7f6-1e54-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.ecf19d72762e" type="external">gutting</a> the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its associated institutions.</p> <p>Critics of the NED &#8212; and there are&amp;#160; <a href="http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/national_endowment_for_democracy/" type="external">many of them</a>&amp;#160;with telling points to make &#8212; will rejoice. But let&#8217;s not kid ourselves: the alternative world Trump is creating will be even grimmer.</p> <p>Bullets, Not Ballots</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s assault on diplomacy does not represent any across-the-board reduction in America&#8217;s engagement with the world. After all, Pentagon spending is slated to rise by&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176391/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_the_pentagon_budget_as_corporate_welfare_for_weapons_makers/" type="external">$80 billion a year</a>&amp;#160;or nearly twice the (reduced) budget of the shrunken State Department. And keep in mind that the Pentagon is actively involved in human rights abuses globally.</p> <p>It is, for instance, giving Saudi Arabia billions of dollars in weapons (including&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/opinion/obama-saudi-arabia-trade-cluster-bombs.html" type="external">cluster bombs</a>) to bomb Yemen back to the Stone Age, while air-refueling American-produced F-16s that the Saudis are deploying and providing further logistical support for this devastating air war. The result has been a catastrophe, including more than 5,000 dead civilians, a devastating famine, and a health crisis that, in 2017, already led to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2017/12/29/its-time-to-get-real-about-yemens-death-toll" type="external">more than 2,000&amp;#160;</a>casualties from a cholera epidemic and&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.apnews.com/56f80edbd9cd44b1912debe02fe900cf" type="external">50,000 children</a>&amp;#160;dead from malnutrition and other diseases.</p> <p>As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump promised to &#8220; <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-ben-carson-stab-speech" type="external">bomb the shit</a>&#8221; out of the Islamic State and he&#8217;s been as good as his word. The Trump administration upped the number of aerial attacks against that group without regard for civilian casualties&amp;#160; <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/civilian-casualties-soared-in-iraq-and-syria-in-2017-was-trumps-bloodthirsty-rhetoric-to-blame/" type="external">in 2017</a>. Up to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/23/us-air-wars-trump" type="external">20,000 bombs</a>&amp;#160;were, for instance, dropped on ISIS&#8217;s &#8220;capital,&#8221; the Syrian city of Raqqa. In one particularly gruesome case, the U.N. has&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-37-72_EN.pdf" type="external">accused</a>&amp;#160;the U.S.-led coalition of violating international law by bombing a school building near that city in March 2017, killing 150 people among the displaced families sheltered there. Such acts have only been compounded by the Trump administration&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/opinion/trump-despots-human-rights.html" type="external">indifference</a>&amp;#160;to war crimes committed by the Syrian government and its Russian ally.</p> <p>In Afghanistan, Trump has similarly given the U.S. military free rein to attack the Taliban. From August to the end of last year, Washington conducted&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-new-us-air-blitz-in-afghanistan-isnt-stopping-for-winter-but-will-it-stop-the-taliban/2018/01/16/c9bb874c-f4cd-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html?utm_term=.6461186e5070" type="external">almost as many</a>&amp;#160;air strikes there as it had in 2015 and 2016 combined. Who then could be surprised that Afghanistan&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/17/civilian-deaths-in-afghanistan-war-at-record-high-says-un" type="external">experienced</a>&amp;#160;more civilian deaths in 2017&amp;#160;than during any other comparable period in the 16-year war?</p> <p>Occasionally, the White House still talks about defending human rights, as in an executive order issued as 2017 ended that targeted &#8220;serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.&#8221; That order, however, focused on only&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/21/trump-targets-human-rights-abusers-executive-order-russia-255032" type="external">13 individuals</a>, including the former president of Gambia, an arms dealer in the Balkans, a Guatemalan politician, and the son of Russia&#8217;s prosecutor general.</p> <p>In Trump&#8217;s universe, in other words, human rights abuses are committed only by a handful of &#8220;bad hombres.&#8221; The world&#8217;s greatest human rights abusers aren&#8217;t on that list &#8212; because many of them are among the president&#8217;s BFFs.</p> <p>Despots Galore</p> <p>President Trump has made a point of establishing close working relationships with some of the worst autocrats on the planet. His first official trip overseas in May 2017 was typical.&amp;#160; It wasn&#8217;t the usual&amp;#160; <a href="http://fpif.org/trumps-apology-tour/" type="external">inaugural jaunt</a>&amp;#160;to Canada, Mexico, or Europe. Instead, he made a beeline for Saudi Arabia, a country that lacks democracy, subordinates women, has never allowed freedom of speech or assembly, and imposes severe restrictions on its Shiite minority. Just Trump&#8217;s kind of place! He gave a speech in Riyadh condemning terrorism without once mentioning Saudi contributions to Sunni extremism around the world and capped things off by promising $110 billion in weaponry for the kingdom.</p> <p>Saudi Arabia has been a friend of the United States since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Trump, however, wants to bind Washington and Riyadh even more closely in an anti-Iranian front (an impulse the appointment of Mike Pompeo, a well-known&amp;#160; <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/03/14/rex-tillerson-mike-pompeo-gina-haspel-cia/" type="external">Iranophobe</a>, can only strengthen). &amp;#160;And the Saudi royals were just one entry on a crowded Trumpian list of despots that includes Duterte and Russian President&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/trump-i-have-a-good-feeling-about-putin-we-can-be-a-positive?utm_term=.dcmdRBpaRR#.woQeV9g0VV" type="external">Vladimir Putin</a>. (&#8220;I&#8217;ve always had a good instinct about Putin.&#8221;) Also on the list is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Trump praised (&#8220;We have a great friendship&#8221;) even as the Turkish leader was throwing journalists in prison and conducting a military campaign against the country&#8217;s Kurdish minority. As for his chum Xi, Trump recently&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/04/trump-praises-chinese-president-extending-tenure-for-life.html" type="external">eulogized</a>&amp;#160;the Chinese president for making himself ruler for life, wistfully regretting that an unnamed American president couldn&#8217;t do the same.</p> <p>Then there&#8217;s Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who seized power in a violent coup in 2013,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/14/9153967/rabaa-sisi" type="external">killing hundreds</a>, jailing tens of thousands, and torturing his opponents. For Trump, these were merely signs of a stiff spine. &#8220;I just want to let everybody know that we are very much behind President Sisi; he has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation,&#8221; he&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/donald-trump-welcomes-egypt-sisi-white-house-170403164810319.html" type="external">said</a>&amp;#160;on welcoming the Egyptian leader to the White House in April 2017.</p> <p>Such &#8220;friendships&#8221; are actually green lights for bad behavior. Soon after Trump shook the hands of the leaders of various Arab states&amp;#160;in Saudi Arabia in May 2017, for instance, Bahrain&amp;#160; <a href="https://lobelog.com/bahrains-assault-on-free-press/" type="external">cracked down</a>&amp;#160;on its free press and extrajudicial killings&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/since-trumps-mideast-visit-extrajudicial-killings-have-spiked-in-egypt/2017/08/30/62bf48c0-8200-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html?utm_term=.e5e09de13617" type="external">rose dramatically</a>&amp;#160;in Egypt. Saudi Arabia launched a blockade against Qatar, in part because of its support for democracy movements during the Arab Spring and the relative freedom of its state-supported media outlet Al-Jazeera. Although Qatar has been a close military ally of Washington &#8212; the largest American military base in the region is located there &#8212; Trump&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/06/qatar-panic-buying-as-shoppers-stockpile-food-due-to-saudi-blockade" type="external">immediately tweeted</a>&amp;#160;his support for the blockade.</p> <p>Perhaps his closest overseas soul mate, however, has been Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has taken full advantage of that relationship to ratchet up pressure on the Palestinian community through&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-citing-extrajudicial-executions-amnesty-raps-israel-for-abuses-1.5845212" type="external">extrajudicial executions</a>, expanded settlements, police crackdowns, and the ever-punishing blockade of Gaza. In return, Trump has given Netanyahu whatever he wants, including an American embassy in Jerusalem and recognition of that city as Israel&#8217;s capital.</p> <p>Trump has raised the issue of human rights abuses only in the case of four countries: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.&amp;#160; And after spending his first year in office trading insults with Kim Jong-un, he&#8217;s recently made a dramatic pivot, offering to sit down and negotiate with the North Korean leader, reducing his &#8220;axis of evil&#8221; to three.</p> <p>Except for those outliers, his position has been that sovereign states should be allowed to do whatever they like within their own borders, as he himself moved with visible enthusiasm to suppress human rights at home. Like his friend Viktor Orban in Hungary, Trump&amp;#160;took aim at immigrants; like Putin in Russia, he targeted LGBT advances; like Erdogan in Turkey, he accused the mainstream press of being the enemy; and like his&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176359/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_drowning_liberalism_in_the_bathtub/" type="external">alt-right buddies</a>&amp;#160;in Europe, he navigated close to neo-Nazis. No wonder Amnesty International has labeled Trump a &#8220; <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-43152496" type="external">threat</a>&#8221; to human rights.</p> <p>Smashing the International Community</p> <p>The Trump administration has continued to wage America&#8217;s ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa. At various moments, the president himself has also threatened to attack both&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/world/asia/north-korea-un-sanctions-nuclear-missile-united-nations.html" type="external">North Korea</a>&amp;#160;and&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics/trumps-threat-of-venezuela-military-action-could-bolster-maduro-idUSKBN1AT040" type="external">Venezuela</a>. And with Pompeo heading for the State Department and the even more Iranophobic and bloodthirsty John Bolton&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/hr-mcmaster-trump-bolton.html" type="external">becoming</a>&amp;#160;national security advisor, a military conflict with Iran may well be in the offing.</p> <p>So far, however, the only new &#8220;war&#8221; President Trump has launched is a metaphoric one against the international community &#8212; with all-too-real consequences.</p> <p>He promptly withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and then the Paris climate accord, while regularly threatening to deep-six a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran signed by the Obama administration &#8212; all acts reflecting his disgust for anything that smacks of internationalism (or Obama himself).</p> <p>His assault on the global human rights order has been even more dramatic. One of his first gestures was to re-impose a &#8220;global gag rule&#8221;&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/14/trumps-mexico-city-policy-or-global-gag-rule" type="external">restricting U.S. funding</a>&amp;#160;for organizations worldwide that provide family-planning assistance. Over the summer, his administration quietly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-state-department-war-crimes-office-genocide-investigate-and-prevent-rex-tillerson-todd-a7846756.html" type="external">&amp;#160;prepared</a>&amp;#160;to close the State Department office that investigates genocide and war crimes. In October, it&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-unesco-withdrawal.html" type="external">announced</a>&amp;#160;its future withdrawal from the U.N. cultural organization UNESCO (because of alleged anti-Israel bias).</p> <p>Soon after, the administration&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/03/donald-trump-pulls-us-out-of-un-global-compact-on-migration" type="external">pulled out</a>&amp;#160;of a global migration pact that Obama had enthusiastically endorsed the year before. A month later, it&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Trump-cuts-UNRWA-funding-amid-Abbas-assault-536917" type="external">cut</a> funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees, and is now preparing to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/international-criminal-court-urges-supporters-rally-trump-pulls-support/3695055.html" type="external">reduce cooperation</a>&amp;#160;with the International Criminal Court. Its biggest target so far, however, has been the U.N. Human Rights Council. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/haley-threatens-us-withdrawal-un-human-rights/index.html" type="external">presented</a>&amp;#160;that council with an ultimatum: &#8220;If it fails to change, then we must pursue the advancement of human rights outside of the council.&#8221; Although the Council has yet to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-and-nikki-haley-take-aim-at-the-un-human-rights-council/" type="external">bend</a>&amp;#160;to U.S. demands, Trump and company are undoubtedly uninterested in its &#8220;reform.&#8221;&amp;#160; (Washington hasn&#8217;t even bothered to replace its special representative on the Council.)</p> <p>No international initiative has proven too small for his administration to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/eiti_withdraw.pdf" type="external">target</a>, even the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard implemented by 52 countries whose task is to reduce corruption in the energy and mining sector. As Adam Davidson&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-is-quietly-dismantling-the-architecture-of-global-governance" type="external">commented</a>&amp;#160;in the&amp;#160;New Yorker, &#8220;[T]he Trump&amp;#160;Administration is actively implementing, in real policy, its avowed distrust &#8212; even contempt &#8212; for international compacts designed to improve the lives of people around the world.&amp;#160; Abandoning EITI is not for show; it is a move toward dismantling the architecture of global governance.&#8221;</p> <p>At a gut level, Donald Trump just hates &#8220;globalism,&#8221; which represents the antithesis of his America First doctrine. If he gets his way, the United States will not simply withhold its support for global initiatives, it will undermine any kind of global planning or cooperation that has a peaceable bent to it. Just as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/thatcherism-triumphant/" type="external">believed</a>&amp;#160;only in individuals, not &#8220;society,&#8221; Trump dismisses the U.N. and believes only in powerful actors. As his then-loyal adjutants, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and former chief economic advisor Gary Cohn, put it in a&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426" type="external">Wall Street Journal&amp;#160;op-ed</a>&amp;#160;in May 2017, &#8220;The world is not a &#8216;global community&#8217; but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.&#8221; Thanks to the Trump team, the international community is quickly devolving into World Wrestling Entertainment.</p> <p>At first, the new president&#8217;s global belligerence had a certain unifying effect. Even as the United States withdrew from the Paris climate accord, for instance, the last two holdouts (Syria and Nicaragua)&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/climate/syria-joins-paris-agreement.html" type="external">signed on</a>&amp;#160;and the rest of the world&#8217;s nations recommitted themselves to achieving the agreement&#8217;s goals without U.S. participation. In the face of a possible U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the other signatories (Europe, Russia, China, and Iran) redoubled their efforts to preserve it.</p> <p>But bullies have a pernicious influence on social norms, which means that a single powerful rule-breaker can do much to undermine global institutions. As such, the Trump administration&#8217;s withdrawal from the climate deal has largely&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/ban-ki-moon-us-paris-climate-agreement-withdrawal" type="external">deflated</a>&amp;#160;that global effort.&amp;#160; The Europeans have reluctantly agreed to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-tillerson/tillerson-says-washington-europe-start-work-on-iran-nuclear-deal-idUSKBN1FG0CF" type="external">form a working group</a>&amp;#160;with the U.S. on altering the Iran nuclear deal, while the Iranians&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.bourseandbazaar.com/news-1/2018/3/14/iran-says-tillerson-firing-shows-us-determined-to-quit-nuclear-deal" type="external">recently indicated</a>&amp;#160;that they might withdraw from it if the Europeans can&#8217;t keep Washington on board. Having broken the international rules of the road, Trump is now rewriting them to reflect his extreme version of American exceptionalism.</p> <p>After the genocidal bloodletting of World War II, the U.N. and its foundational documents on human rights represented a different, more humane trajectory for the world. Donald Trump is attempting to rewind world history to an earlier era of blood and soil, of a nationalism red in tooth and claw, and of unfettered capitalism. He has brokered an informal alliance of autocrats and financiers worldwide against the U.N. and human rights more generally.</p> <p>In this reincarnated version of an older order, the rich and the strong will prosper &#8212; at least for a while. Trump and friends will make out like bandits &#8212; at least for a while. And until citizens unite across borders to rescue the human rights order from this onslaught, the weak and the outnumbered will have ever fewer places to turn on an increasingly heartless planet.</p> <p>John Feffer, a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176359/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_drowning_liberalism_in_the_bathtub" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, is the author of the dystopian novel&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467244/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Splinterlands</a>&amp;#160;(a Dispatch Books original) and the director of&amp;#160; <a href="http://fpif.org/" type="external">Foreign Policy In Focus</a>&amp;#160;at the Institute for Policy Studies. His latest book is&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1783609486/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe&#8217;s Broken Dreams</a>.&amp;#160;</p>

The President’s BFFs Are the World’s Greatest Human Rights Abusers

https://truthdig.com/articles/the-presidents-bffs-are-the-worlds-greatest-human-rights-abusers/

2018-03-26

4left

Donald Trump has a plan to solve America8217s drug crisis kill the drug dealers 8220We have pushers and drugs dealers they are killing hundreds and hundreds of people8221 Trumpamp160 saidamp160at a recent White House summit on opioid abuse 8220Some countries have a very very tough penalty 8212 the ultimate penalty 8212 and by the way they have much less of a drug problem than we do8221 Trump claims he got the idea for killing drug dealers from amp160his pal Chinese president for life Xi Jinping That8217s a first an American president openly borrowing a criminal justice program from an autocrat and a Communist one to bootamp160 To be fair Trump clearly alsoamp160 had in mindamp160the experience of a democratic country In the last two years Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has encouraged a spree of extrajudicial police executions aimed at the drug trade that according to Human Rights Watch has leftamp160 more than 12000 Filipinos dead Although the International Criminal Court hasamp160 launchedamp160an inquiry into Duterte8217s 8220crimes against humanity8221 Trump has praised him for doing an 8220incredible job8221 with his antidrug program The president8217s embrace of the death penalty for drug dealers is but one example of his acrosstheboard scorn for human rights as he buddies up with the world8217s most notorious autocrats and directs the Pentagon to ensure that ongoing human rights catastrophes around the world grow even worse Meanwhile he8217s proposed slashing State Department programs promoting democracy and human rights while trying to roll back movements for rights and freedoms in the United States Think of him as a driver who8217s been licensed to operate the world8217s largest vehicle despite his utter contempt for the rules of the road Not surprisingly the traffic forecast is bleak with hardliner Mike Pompeo about to take over as secretary of state his department will prove even less of a speed bump in the president8217s dangerous game of chicken with the global community Two Cheers for Hypocrisy US foreign policy used to be reliably twofaced Washington would regularly call out its adversaries on human rights abuses while largely ignoring the egregious violations of its closest friends During the Cold War for instance the US routinely lambasted the Soviet Union for its appalling record on human rights but handed out free passes to Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines the Shah of Iran and others of their ilk Sure the State Department has been issuing an exhaustive annual report on human rights violators that for half a century provided grim details on repressive governments like those of the Saudis and Egyptiansamp160 But that didn8217t stop successive administrations from supplying those same autocracies with virtually all the weapons and military aid they claimed they needed even as Washington maintained an arms embargo on China instituted after Beijing cracked down on the Tiananmen Square protests in June 1989 And when the United States does lift such embargoes as withamp160 Vietnam in 2016 it has everything to do with geopolitics containing China and nothing to do with human rights Now along comes Donald Trump a thoroughgoing hypocrite on practically every subject 8212 except human rights There he has extended the blind eye of American policy to just about everyone With a few exceptions that prove the rule he could care less about such abuses even when they involveamp160 his own administrationamp1608212 includingamp160 wifebeatersamp160 Nazi sympathizers and theamp160 incorrigibly corrupt not to mentionamp160 US military personnelamp160abroad oramp160 ICE employeesamp160in this country Consider these telling changes in the Trumpian era When the State Department released last year8217s human rights report Secretary of State Rex Tillersonamp160 didn8217t even botheramp160to hold the traditional press conference or present the findings himself though he was in Washington at the timeamp160 This year8217s report unreleased and overdue will reportedly give shorter shrift to women8217s rights and discrimination of various kinds prompting an outcry fromamp160 more than 170amp160humanrights organizations 8220This sends a clear signal that women8217s reproductive rights are not a priority for this administration and that it8217s not even a rights violation we must or should report on8221 an unnamed State Department official typicallyamp160 toldamp160Politico The writing has been on the wall in big block letters from theamp160 earliest momentsamp160of the Trump era In May 2017 in his first town hall meeting with State Department staff Tillersonamp160 warnedamp160that human rights should not become an obstacle in the US pursuit of national interests a shot across the department8217s bow that contributed to a wave ofamp160 subsequent resignations Similarly the administration8217s first National Security Strategyamp160 barely mentionedamp160human rights The diminished impact of the State Department reflects the diminished state of the department itself Expect Pompeo to be even more aggressive than Tillerson at destaffing it throughamp160 unfilledamp160ambassadorial positions including South Korea and the European Union theamp160 purgingamp160of staff for political reasonsamp160 cash buyoutsamp160for early retirements and major reductions at embassies like the new oneamp160 in Cuba Among the many top positions that remain unfilled there aren8217t evenamp160 nomineesamp160for undersecretary for civilian security democracy and human rights or assistant secretary for democracy human rights and labor or for that matter special envoy on North Korean human rightsamp160 The Trump team proposedamp160 slashingamp160the State Department budget by 25 from 53 billion to 39 billion Congress however rebelled andamp160 reducedamp160the shrinkage to just 6 in the final budget bill signed by the president last weekamp160 As part of these ostensible austerity measures Trump wanted to effectively eliminate the bulk of 8220democracy promotion8221 byamp160 gutting the National Endowment for Democracy NED and its associated institutions Critics of the NED 8212 and there areamp160 many of themamp160with telling points to make 8212 will rejoice But let8217s not kid ourselves the alternative world Trump is creating will be even grimmer Bullets Not Ballots Trump8217s assault on diplomacy does not represent any acrosstheboard reduction in America8217s engagement with the world After all Pentagon spending is slated to rise byamp160 80 billion a yearamp160or nearly twice the reduced budget of the shrunken State Department And keep in mind that the Pentagon is actively involved in human rights abuses globally It is for instance giving Saudi Arabia billions of dollars in weapons includingamp160 cluster bombs to bomb Yemen back to the Stone Age while airrefueling Americanproduced F16s that the Saudis are deploying and providing further logistical support for this devastating air war The result has been a catastrophe including more than 5000 dead civilians a devastating famine and a health crisis that in 2017 already led toamp160 more than 2000amp160casualties from a cholera epidemic andamp160 50000 childrenamp160dead from malnutrition and other diseases As a presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to 8220 bomb the shit8221 out of the Islamic State and he8217s been as good as his word The Trump administration upped the number of aerial attacks against that group without regard for civilian casualtiesamp160 in 2017 Up toamp160 20000 bombsamp160were for instance dropped on ISIS8217s 8220capital8221 the Syrian city of Raqqa In one particularly gruesome case the UN hasamp160 accusedamp160the USled coalition of violating international law by bombing a school building near that city in March 2017 killing 150 people among the displaced families sheltered there Such acts have only been compounded by the Trump administration8217samp160 indifferenceamp160to war crimes committed by the Syrian government and its Russian ally In Afghanistan Trump has similarly given the US military free rein to attack the Taliban From August to the end of last year Washington conductedamp160 almost as manyamp160air strikes there as it had in 2015 and 2016 combined Who then could be surprised that Afghanistanamp160 experiencedamp160more civilian deaths in 2017amp160than during any other comparable period in the 16year war Occasionally the White House still talks about defending human rights as in an executive order issued as 2017 ended that targeted 8220serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world8221 That order however focused on onlyamp160 13 individuals including the former president of Gambia an arms dealer in the Balkans a Guatemalan politician and the son of Russia8217s prosecutor general In Trump8217s universe in other words human rights abuses are committed only by a handful of 8220bad hombres8221 The world8217s greatest human rights abusers aren8217t on that list 8212 because many of them are among the president8217s BFFs Despots Galore President Trump has made a point of establishing close working relationships with some of the worst autocrats on the planet His first official trip overseas in May 2017 was typicalamp160 It wasn8217t the usualamp160 inaugural jauntamp160to Canada Mexico or Europe Instead he made a beeline for Saudi Arabia a country that lacks democracy subordinates women has never allowed freedom of speech or assembly and imposes severe restrictions on its Shiite minority Just Trump8217s kind of place He gave a speech in Riyadh condemning terrorism without once mentioning Saudi contributions to Sunni extremism around the world and capped things off by promising 110 billion in weaponry for the kingdom Saudi Arabia has been a friend of the United States since the days of President Franklin D Roosevelt Trump however wants to bind Washington and Riyadh even more closely in an antiIranian front an impulse the appointment of Mike Pompeo a wellknownamp160 Iranophobe can only strengthen amp160And the Saudi royals were just one entry on a crowded Trumpian list of despots that includes Duterte and Russian Presidentamp160 Vladimir Putin 8220I8217ve always had a good instinct about Putin8221 Also on the list is Recep Tayyip Erdogan whom Trump praised 8220We have a great friendship8221 even as the Turkish leader was throwing journalists in prison and conducting a military campaign against the country8217s Kurdish minority As for his chum Xi Trump recentlyamp160 eulogizedamp160the Chinese president for making himself ruler for life wistfully regretting that an unnamed American president couldn8217t do the same Then there8217s Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah elSisi who seized power in a violent coup in 2013amp160 killing hundreds jailing tens of thousands and torturing his opponents For Trump these were merely signs of a stiff spine 8220I just want to let everybody know that we are very much behind President Sisi he has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation8221 heamp160 saidamp160on welcoming the Egyptian leader to the White House in April 2017 Such 8220friendships8221 are actually green lights for bad behavior Soon after Trump shook the hands of the leaders of various Arab statesamp160in Saudi Arabia in May 2017 for instance Bahrainamp160 cracked downamp160on its free press and extrajudicial killingsamp160 rose dramaticallyamp160in Egypt Saudi Arabia launched a blockade against Qatar in part because of its support for democracy movements during the Arab Spring and the relative freedom of its statesupported media outlet AlJazeera Although Qatar has been a close military ally of Washington 8212 the largest American military base in the region is located there 8212 Trumpamp160 immediately tweetedamp160his support for the blockade Perhaps his closest overseas soul mate however has been Benjamin Netanyahu The Israeli prime minister has taken full advantage of that relationship to ratchet up pressure on the Palestinian community throughamp160 extrajudicial executions expanded settlements police crackdowns and the everpunishing blockade of Gaza In return Trump has given Netanyahu whatever he wants including an American embassy in Jerusalem and recognition of that city as Israel8217s capital Trump has raised the issue of human rights abuses only in the case of four countries Iran Cuba Venezuela and North Koreaamp160 And after spending his first year in office trading insults with Kim Jongun he8217s recently made a dramatic pivot offering to sit down and negotiate with the North Korean leader reducing his 8220axis of evil8221 to three Except for those outliers his position has been that sovereign states should be allowed to do whatever they like within their own borders as he himself moved with visible enthusiasm to suppress human rights at home Like his friend Viktor Orban in Hungary Trumpamp160took aim at immigrants like Putin in Russia he targeted LGBT advances like Erdogan in Turkey he accused the mainstream press of being the enemy and like hisamp160 altright buddiesamp160in Europe he navigated close to neoNazis No wonder Amnesty International has labeled Trump a 8220 threat8221 to human rights Smashing the International Community The Trump administration has continued to wage America8217s ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa At various moments the president himself has also threatened to attack bothamp160 North Koreaamp160andamp160 Venezuela And with Pompeo heading for the State Department and the even more Iranophobic and bloodthirsty John Boltonamp160 becomingamp160national security advisor a military conflict with Iran may well be in the offing So far however the only new 8220war8221 President Trump has launched is a metaphoric one against the international community 8212 with alltooreal consequences He promptly withdrew from the TransPacific Partnership and then the Paris climate accord while regularly threatening to deepsix a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran signed by the Obama administration 8212 all acts reflecting his disgust for anything that smacks of internationalism or Obama himself His assault on the global human rights order has been even more dramatic One of his first gestures was to reimpose a 8220global gag rule8221amp160 restricting US fundingamp160for organizations worldwide that provide familyplanning assistance Over the summer his administration quietly amp160preparedamp160to close the State Department office that investigates genocide and war crimes In October itamp160 announcedamp160its future withdrawal from the UN cultural organization UNESCO because of alleged antiIsrael bias Soon after the administrationamp160 pulled outamp160of a global migration pact that Obama had enthusiastically endorsed the year before A month later itamp160 cut funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency which helps Palestinian refugees and is now preparing toamp160 reduce cooperationamp160with the International Criminal Court Its biggest target so far however has been the UN Human Rights Council UN Ambassador Nikki Haleyamp160 presentedamp160that council with an ultimatum 8220If it fails to change then we must pursue the advancement of human rights outside of the council8221 Although the Council has yet toamp160 bendamp160to US demands Trump and company are undoubtedly uninterested in its 8220reform8221amp160 Washington hasn8217t even bothered to replace its special representative on the Council No international initiative has proven too small for his administration toamp160 target even the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative EITI a global standard implemented by 52 countries whose task is to reduce corruption in the energy and mining sector As Adam Davidsonamp160 commentedamp160in theamp160New Yorker 8220The Trumpamp160Administration is actively implementing in real policy its avowed distrust 8212 even contempt 8212 for international compacts designed to improve the lives of people around the worldamp160 Abandoning EITI is not for show it is a move toward dismantling the architecture of global governance8221 At a gut level Donald Trump just hates 8220globalism8221 which represents the antithesis of his America First doctrine If he gets his way the United States will not simply withhold its support for global initiatives it will undermine any kind of global planning or cooperation that has a peaceable bent to it Just as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcheramp160 believedamp160only in individuals not 8220society8221 Trump dismisses the UN and believes only in powerful actors As his thenloyal adjutants National Security Advisor HR McMaster and former chief economic advisor Gary Cohn put it in aamp160 Wall Street Journalamp160opedamp160in May 2017 8220The world is not a 8216global community8217 but an arena where nations nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage8221 Thanks to the Trump team the international community is quickly devolving into World Wrestling Entertainment At first the new president8217s global belligerence had a certain unifying effect Even as the United States withdrew from the Paris climate accord for instance the last two holdouts Syria and Nicaraguaamp160 signed onamp160and the rest of the world8217s nations recommitted themselves to achieving the agreement8217s goals without US participation In the face of a possible US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal the other signatories Europe Russia China and Iran redoubled their efforts to preserve it But bullies have a pernicious influence on social norms which means that a single powerful rulebreaker can do much to undermine global institutions As such the Trump administration8217s withdrawal from the climate deal has largelyamp160 deflatedamp160that global effortamp160 The Europeans have reluctantly agreed toamp160 form a working groupamp160with the US on altering the Iran nuclear deal while the Iraniansamp160 recently indicatedamp160that they might withdraw from it if the Europeans can8217t keep Washington on board Having broken the international rules of the road Trump is now rewriting them to reflect his extreme version of American exceptionalism After the genocidal bloodletting of World War II the UN and its foundational documents on human rights represented a different more humane trajectory for the world Donald Trump is attempting to rewind world history to an earlier era of blood and soil of a nationalism red in tooth and claw and of unfettered capitalism He has brokered an informal alliance of autocrats and financiers worldwide against the UN and human rights more generally In this reincarnated version of an older order the rich and the strong will prosper 8212 at least for a while Trump and friends will make out like bandits 8212 at least for a while And until citizens unite across borders to rescue the human rights order from this onslaught the weak and the outnumbered will have ever fewer places to turn on an increasingly heartless planet John Feffer aamp160 TomDispatch regular is the author of the dystopian novelamp160 Splinterlandsamp160a Dispatch Books original and the director ofamp160 Foreign Policy In Focusamp160at the Institute for Policy Studies His latest book isamp160 Aftershock A Journey into Eastern Europe8217s Broken Dreamsamp160

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<p>Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is Deputy Director of the Center for Social and Labor Research in Kiev, an editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore. <p /> <p />Presidential elections in Ukraine are set to be held on Sunday, and it looks as if chocolate magnate or chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko, who supported the Maidan protests, is set to win. But how will his presidency fundamentally differ from that of the former ousted president Yanukovych? <p /> <p />Now joining us to discuss this is Volodymyr Ishchenko. Volodymyr is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is the deputy director of the Center for Society Research in Kiev, an editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism, and a lecturer in the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. <p /> <p />Thank you for joining us, Volodymyr. <p /> <p />VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO, DEPUTY DIR., CENTER FOR SOCIETY RESEARCH: Yeah. Good evening. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So, Volodymyr, let's start off with who is Poroshenko. <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: Poroshenko is one of the hundred richest people in Ukraine. He's well known for his confectionery production, for his chocolates. He is called "chocolate king" in Ukraine. And, yeah, it's quite true that he's the likeliest winner of the coming elections, probably win--he's able to win in the first round of elections, so, basically, the day after tomorrow, on Sunday. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: And it's been reported in the press that he had supported the Maidan protests. Do you think that his presidency is going to fundamentally differ from that of ousted president, former/ousted president Yanukovych? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: No, for various reasons. It's quite clear that he will not give up his business, and I don't expect that he will not use the state preferences and his new power to help his business interests as well. So it's actually the--Yanukovych created his financial/industrial group with the help of state apparatus. But Poroshenko is a rich man [incompr.] business. And this is actually the first time in Ukrainian history when the oligarch directly becomes a president. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So does his coming to power then represent a sort of a new seizure of power by a different set within the oligarchic class? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: Yes, although it can be just slightly different in the nearest future, because Poroshenko is now dependent on the genuine support from other oligarchs. The problem is, Yanukovych--and one of the reasons why he went down and why he lost his power: that he was trying to take too much control over economy and the state for his own oligarchic group. It was called--so-called family, basically family of Yanukovych and his relatives. And at this moment, Poroshenko would be much more dependent on the support of other oligarchs, because the situation in the Eastern Ukraine is not going to be pacified with these elections. And Poroshenko would be also more dependent on the Western government, on the Western powers, because of the IMF financial help, without which the Kiev government would not be able to solve economic situation in Ukraine. And also of that, not very evident and very clear, but still, the kind of, like, behind military support from NATO is also very important for Kiev government, 'cause the Russian foreign invasion is quite a real possibility still. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So, since the ouster of Yanukovych, it's been widely reported in Russian media and some left media that there's been a seizure of power by neofascists and the far right within the political establishment. How fair do you think this current characterization is of the current political ruling class within Ukraine? And how much does the far right and parties like, let's say, Svoboda have within Ukrainian civil society? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: Yeah, you have to be quite precise here. And these exaggerations about the role of the far right are so over-present, and they have to be counteracted. <p /> <p />Of course, there are far rights in the new government. Svoboda have four ministerial positions--actually, not four; it's three now. They had four after Yanukovych escaped Kiev in March, but the minister of defense is not from Svoboda at the moment. And there are also other people with high governmental positions, which if--they are not the far-right activists anymore, but they still had far-right background in the past. For example, the minister of education, the secretary for national defense and security, these people had been the activists of the far-right organizations, but they are not anymore. <p /> <p />Still, the presence of Svoboda is dangerous, but you should understand that while the Eastern Ukrainian uprising is still going on they would not be able to promote their nationalist policies. So this uprising [in Donbas?] were working as a kind of, like, balance. If they would try to promote something really divisive and nationalist policies, they would only put more fuel to this fire in the East. <p /> <p />And on the other hand, you cannot just ignore, because many people, for example, say that you look at their, like, electoral ratings, of Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok or of the Right Sector leader, Dmytro Yarosh, they have very little, something like 1-3 percent, according to different polls, so they don't have any chances to compete in the coming elections; but still they have more support as a party, so their party ratings actually is growing, especially for Svoboda. The support for Svoboda went up from 5 percent in March to 7 percent in May. And so they're increasing their chances to have more support during the next parliamentary elections. And they would also be able to play on some oppositional issues. For example, if they would be smart, they could use their deteriorating social-economic situation in Ukraine and go against the IMF austerity policies. If they would go to the opposition, they may have chances to increase their support even more. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: Do we see a coinciding rising of support for leftist parties? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: No. The problem is that--in fact, we have--for the recent years, we had only one party which could--it was pretend to be leftist. It was the Communist Party of Ukraine. But in fact they were leftist supporters for Yanukovych regime. One of the most embarrassing things: that they anonymously voted for the repressive laws of January 16, which quite significantly restricted the civic liberties--freedom of speech and freedom for peaceful assemblies [incompr.] Not even everyone from the ruling Party of Regions voted for those laws, but every MP from the Communist Party of Ukraine. <p /> <p />And they were actually very much discredited. By many people, they were not even seen as a leftist party at all. For example, the richest woman in the parliament, Oksana Kaletnyk, she was an MP from the Communist Party of--Communist Party faction. So they were directly dependent on some oligarchs in Ukraine, and they were actually defending their interests. <p /> <p />And at the moment, the Communist Party can be actually banned for support of separatist actions in the Eastern Europe. And the acting president of Ukraine, Turchynov, has called for some trial against the Communist Party, and the possible resolution of this trial can be bad for the party. <p /> <p />And on the other hand, there are some new left initiatives, and quite important one, but still they have quite marginal positions and they are very weak and very divided. And this Maidan protest has only added to this division, and that's--many people on the left cannot even speak with each other and cooperate now, because some supported Maidan and some groups support the anti-Maidan protests at the moment in the Eastern Ukraine. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So let's shift the conversation to the political rebellion that's taking place in the eastern regions of Ukraine, like Donetsk. There's been several different accounts that I've read that characterizes the protesters. Some of these accounts include describing them as self-organized independent militias that have no particular affiliation or, you know, particular sympathy for Kiev or Moscow. Other accounts describe them, especially in the Western press--in The New York Times you'll see them described as pro-Russian militants who seek annexation from Russia. And then some other accounts I've also read have described them as, described the political rebellion in the East as a workers rebellion, nonetheless with orders issued from the coal and the steel oligarchs. Which of these characterizations do you think is fair or accurate? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: The leaders of the protest are definitely the pro-Russian separatists. And these are the people--many of them are actually Russian citizens, like, for example, Igor Strelkov, who is the Russian citizen, and he's suspected to be a Russian intelligence officer, so, like, real Russian agent, but there are also many accounts that he can be just a simple volunteer volunteering for this cause to separate Donbas from Ukraine. And other leaders of Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic, they do really have Russian nationalist views. Even the constitution of Donetsk People's Republic is quite, actually, conservative; it is even more conservative than the Ukrainian Constitution. For example, basically they banned abortion. They proclaimed the state religion, which is to be Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate. <p /> <p />But having to say this, it's--you cannot reject that the separatist rebellion in Donbas has some mass base. And for example, according to the last polls taken in, conducted in the beginning of May, 56 percent of the citizens in Donetsk, in Lugansk regions, they see the uprising as a people's rebellion, not as a terrorist act, not as a covert aggression from Russia, but as a legitimate people's rebellion. So the majority in these regions do so see this uprising as legitimate and the uprising with legitimate claims. <p /> <p />And on the other hand, yes, there are some worker support, but also that's--there are some workers who are on the side of Kiev government. And there are many actions, actually, by workers who do not support neither Kiev government nor Russian separatists. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: And how, also, would you characterize some of the--I mean, you mentioned some of it before, but how would you characterize some of the politics of these rebellions? Are they mostly of a nationalist character? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: It's--you can't actually talk about the politics at the moment, because they didn't have so much time, actually, to do some policies. And one of their--for example, it was an exaggeration from some of the leftist authors, who compared this people's republic with Paris Commune. But it is not like this. They--for a whole month they were not actually taking power in these regions. They started to take actual power only after referendum on May 11. So only in the middle of May, not so--quite recently. And the ideological texts, like the Constitution, as I said, it's quite conservative, and it is not so much leftist or social or whatever you can call it. They tried to--actually, there is a lot of talks about nationalization, but this nationalization is connected more to the position of the richest man of Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, who is based in the Eastern Ukraine. He's from--he is of Eastern Ukrainian origin. And, you know, he has many property in the Eastern Ukraine and in Donbas particularly. And recently he said that he will not pay taxes to this self-proclaimed people's republic and that he's actually--he was trying, actually, to mobilize his employees against Donetsk People's Republic--actually, without much success, I would say. And in return, the leaders of separatists said that they are going to nationalize Akhmetov's industries. <p /> <p />But it would be too exaggerated to see it as a kind of, like, leftist turn or leftist policies. They are now in the objective situation where they are threatened by the Kiev government. They do not have so overwhelming support within Donetsk region. They are fighting with the oligarchs, who are /ba&#618;.dz&#603;r/ and who are actually sponsoring the so-called volunteer battalions to fight the separatists. And in this situation they have some--maybe objectively moved forward to nationalization issues and other issues. <p /> <p />It's also important how the social-economic situation will develop in Ukraine, for example if it's continue to deteriorate. And when people will see how much they are going to pay for electricity for public utilities according to IMF-required austerity measures, the social component in this uprising may become more significant, may become more evident and clear, and these people will talk more about the social demands, about social-economic demands. <p /> <p />But actually I doubt that these Russian nationalist leaders will be able to lead this social-economic struggle and I don't think that they would become, like, leftists or socialists this way. <p /> <p />So it would be--the most precise way to characterize this complexity would be to say that there are real important and legitimate grievances which are driving Donbas people against the Kiev government, not only identity issues, not only cultural issues, but also social-economic. But this whole idea with separate people's republic, people's republics, it is not--they're--basically, they're channeling these social-economic grievances and social-economic protest to this nationalist agenda, to pro-Russian agenda, and it is not beneficial for development of genuine social protest for social reform in Ukraine. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So what do you think needs to be done to bring an end to the civil war in the eastern regions of Ukraine? And do you think the presidential election is going to play any role in that? <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: No, that's--I'm quite sure that this election will not pacify the Eastern Ukrainian regions. Many people are now waiting for kind of, like, legitimate president, but Poroshenko is not, would not, will not be seen as a legitimate president in Donbas. Now he has only something like 6 percent support in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. And so 6 percent is just--is nothing. <p /> <p />And, moreover, in many, probably even in the majority electoral districts in Donbas and Lugansk regions, no elections would be possible to have; they are controlled by separatists. So what would be the reason for Donbas people to see Poroshenko as a legitimate national leader if they were not even able to vote for him and they do not trust him and they don't support him? <p /> <p />And basically now we have two options for Ukraine. <p /> <p />Either we will have a large bloodshed and escalation of civil war after presidential elections--because the Kiev government is not going to stop a so-called antiterrorist operation, and as far as the armed rebels do have support among local civilians and they can, for example, hide in the resident blocks in the cities, actually in the houses where the people, civilians, live, this military action would lead to more and more victims, deaths, and suffering to the local population, and they would only push them into more opposition against Kiev government. And in the final instance it would be not the worst scenario if it will only be just local Ukrainian civil war without participation of Russian forces, without participation of NATO forces--there can be much more devastating for the whole-world scenarios. <p /> <p />And the alternative option, the peaceful option, is to have negotiations with the leaders on the armed rebels. At the moment, in the last week's Kiev government was trying to organize round tables of so-called national unity, but they were speaking with the Party of Regions representatives, the former ruling party under Yanukovych, which had its major support in the Eastern Ukraine. But at the moment they do not control anything. They are not the legitimate authority for the Eastern Ukraine. They are not real representatives for the people who took up the arms against Kiev government. So this is more like a show, it is more like--as it's not a serious negotiation. <p /> <p />For a peaceful solution, you have to start the negotiations with those people who are actually fighting with each other. And it will be--the best option would be if we will see some moderate wins, both in Kiev government and among pro-Russian separatists that would try to negotiate with each other and that they would try to marginalize the radicals on both sides. But the problem is that at the moment we do not see the emergence of these moderate wings. Kiev government seems to be very much unified in its position against the separatists, and they're anonymously saying that no negotiations with the terrorists. But the problem is, yeah, so [if?] the terrorists stopped--stop being terrorists at the moment when they become freedom fighters, at the moment when they become the legitimate power at some territory. <p /> <p />And on the other side, we are seeing now growing contradictions within the separatist camp, where, for example, the mayor of Sloviansk, [the] town where the whole uprising started, is not supporting the Donetsk People's Republic government in Donetsk. And so we see more a kind of--not a unified camp, more or less contradictory and even quarreling with each other, various groups of separatists. <p /> <p />And in principle, Kiev government can play on this and can try to differentiate that we can negotiate with these people and we can support these people against other. But at the moment they are doing quite stupid continuation of military action, that it's only leading to more suffering for Donbas people. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: Okay. Volodymyr Ishchenko, thank you very much for joining us. <p /> <p />ISHCHENKO: Thank you. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Presidential Elections in Ukraine Will Usher in Direct Rule of Oligarchs

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D11900

2014-05-22

4left

Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine He is Deputy Director of the Center for Social and Labor Research in Kiev an editor of Commons Journal for Social Criticism ANTON WORONCZUK TRNN PRODUCER Welcome to The Real News Network Im Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore Presidential elections in Ukraine are set to be held on Sunday and it looks as if chocolate magnate or chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko who supported the Maidan protests is set to win But how will his presidency fundamentally differ from that of the former ousted president Yanukovych Now joining us to discuss this is Volodymyr Ishchenko Volodymyr is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine He is the deputy director of the Center for Society Research in Kiev an editor of Commons Journal for Social Criticism and a lecturer in the National University of KyivMohyla Academy Thank you for joining us Volodymyr VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO DEPUTY DIR CENTER FOR SOCIETY RESEARCH Yeah Good evening WORONCZUK So Volodymyr lets start off with who is Poroshenko ISHCHENKO Poroshenko is one of the hundred richest people in Ukraine Hes well known for his confectionery production for his chocolates He is called chocolate king in Ukraine And yeah its quite true that hes the likeliest winner of the coming elections probably winhes able to win in the first round of elections so basically the day after tomorrow on Sunday WORONCZUK And its been reported in the press that he had supported the Maidan protests Do you think that his presidency is going to fundamentally differ from that of ousted president formerousted president Yanukovych ISHCHENKO No for various reasons Its quite clear that he will not give up his business and I dont expect that he will not use the state preferences and his new power to help his business interests as well So its actually theYanukovych created his financialindustrial group with the help of state apparatus But Poroshenko is a rich man incompr business And this is actually the first time in Ukrainian history when the oligarch directly becomes a president WORONCZUK So does his coming to power then represent a sort of a new seizure of power by a different set within the oligarchic class ISHCHENKO Yes although it can be just slightly different in the nearest future because Poroshenko is now dependent on the genuine support from other oligarchs The problem is Yanukovychand one of the reasons why he went down and why he lost his power that he was trying to take too much control over economy and the state for his own oligarchic group It was calledsocalled family basically family of Yanukovych and his relatives And at this moment Poroshenko would be much more dependent on the support of other oligarchs because the situation in the Eastern Ukraine is not going to be pacified with these elections And Poroshenko would be also more dependent on the Western government on the Western powers because of the IMF financial help without which the Kiev government would not be able to solve economic situation in Ukraine And also of that not very evident and very clear but still the kind of like behind military support from NATO is also very important for Kiev government cause the Russian foreign invasion is quite a real possibility still WORONCZUK So since the ouster of Yanukovych its been widely reported in Russian media and some left media that theres been a seizure of power by neofascists and the far right within the political establishment How fair do you think this current characterization is of the current political ruling class within Ukraine And how much does the far right and parties like lets say Svoboda have within Ukrainian civil society ISHCHENKO Yeah you have to be quite precise here And these exaggerations about the role of the far right are so overpresent and they have to be counteracted Of course there are far rights in the new government Svoboda have four ministerial positionsactually not four its three now They had four after Yanukovych escaped Kiev in March but the minister of defense is not from Svoboda at the moment And there are also other people with high governmental positions which ifthey are not the farright activists anymore but they still had farright background in the past For example the minister of education the secretary for national defense and security these people had been the activists of the farright organizations but they are not anymore Still the presence of Svoboda is dangerous but you should understand that while the Eastern Ukrainian uprising is still going on they would not be able to promote their nationalist policies So this uprising in Donbas were working as a kind of like balance If they would try to promote something really divisive and nationalist policies they would only put more fuel to this fire in the East And on the other hand you cannot just ignore because many people for example say that you look at their like electoral ratings of Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok or of the Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh they have very little something like 13 percent according to different polls so they dont have any chances to compete in the coming elections but still they have more support as a party so their party ratings actually is growing especially for Svoboda The support for Svoboda went up from 5 percent in March to 7 percent in May And so theyre increasing their chances to have more support during the next parliamentary elections And they would also be able to play on some oppositional issues For example if they would be smart they could use their deteriorating socialeconomic situation in Ukraine and go against the IMF austerity policies If they would go to the opposition they may have chances to increase their support even more WORONCZUK Do we see a coinciding rising of support for leftist parties ISHCHENKO No The problem is thatin fact we havefor the recent years we had only one party which couldit was pretend to be leftist It was the Communist Party of Ukraine But in fact they were leftist supporters for Yanukovych regime One of the most embarrassing things that they anonymously voted for the repressive laws of January 16 which quite significantly restricted the civic libertiesfreedom of speech and freedom for peaceful assemblies incompr Not even everyone from the ruling Party of Regions voted for those laws but every MP from the Communist Party of Ukraine And they were actually very much discredited By many people they were not even seen as a leftist party at all For example the richest woman in the parliament Oksana Kaletnyk she was an MP from the Communist Party ofCommunist Party faction So they were directly dependent on some oligarchs in Ukraine and they were actually defending their interests And at the moment the Communist Party can be actually banned for support of separatist actions in the Eastern Europe And the acting president of Ukraine Turchynov has called for some trial against the Communist Party and the possible resolution of this trial can be bad for the party And on the other hand there are some new left initiatives and quite important one but still they have quite marginal positions and they are very weak and very divided And this Maidan protest has only added to this division and thatsmany people on the left cannot even speak with each other and cooperate now because some supported Maidan and some groups support the antiMaidan protests at the moment in the Eastern Ukraine WORONCZUK So lets shift the conversation to the political rebellion thats taking place in the eastern regions of Ukraine like Donetsk Theres been several different accounts that Ive read that characterizes the protesters Some of these accounts include describing them as selforganized independent militias that have no particular affiliation or you know particular sympathy for Kiev or Moscow Other accounts describe them especially in the Western pressin The New York Times youll see them described as proRussian militants who seek annexation from Russia And then some other accounts Ive also read have described them as described the political rebellion in the East as a workers rebellion nonetheless with orders issued from the coal and the steel oligarchs Which of these characterizations do you think is fair or accurate ISHCHENKO The leaders of the protest are definitely the proRussian separatists And these are the peoplemany of them are actually Russian citizens like for example Igor Strelkov who is the Russian citizen and hes suspected to be a Russian intelligence officer so like real Russian agent but there are also many accounts that he can be just a simple volunteer volunteering for this cause to separate Donbas from Ukraine And other leaders of Donetsk Peoples Republic and Lugansk Peoples Republic they do really have Russian nationalist views Even the constitution of Donetsk Peoples Republic is quite actually conservative it is even more conservative than the Ukrainian Constitution For example basically they banned abortion They proclaimed the state religion which is to be Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate But having to say this itsyou cannot reject that the separatist rebellion in Donbas has some mass base And for example according to the last polls taken in conducted in the beginning of May 56 percent of the citizens in Donetsk in Lugansk regions they see the uprising as a peoples rebellion not as a terrorist act not as a covert aggression from Russia but as a legitimate peoples rebellion So the majority in these regions do so see this uprising as legitimate and the uprising with legitimate claims And on the other hand yes there are some worker support but also thatsthere are some workers who are on the side of Kiev government And there are many actions actually by workers who do not support neither Kiev government nor Russian separatists WORONCZUK And how also would you characterize some of theI mean you mentioned some of it before but how would you characterize some of the politics of these rebellions Are they mostly of a nationalist character ISHCHENKO Itsyou cant actually talk about the politics at the moment because they didnt have so much time actually to do some policies And one of theirfor example it was an exaggeration from some of the leftist authors who compared this peoples republic with Paris Commune But it is not like this Theyfor a whole month they were not actually taking power in these regions They started to take actual power only after referendum on May 11 So only in the middle of May not soquite recently And the ideological texts like the Constitution as I said its quite conservative and it is not so much leftist or social or whatever you can call it They tried toactually there is a lot of talks about nationalization but this nationalization is connected more to the position of the richest man of Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov who is based in the Eastern Ukraine Hes fromhe is of Eastern Ukrainian origin And you know he has many property in the Eastern Ukraine and in Donbas particularly And recently he said that he will not pay taxes to this selfproclaimed peoples republic and that hes actuallyhe was trying actually to mobilize his employees against Donetsk Peoples Republicactually without much success I would say And in return the leaders of separatists said that they are going to nationalize Akhmetovs industries But it would be too exaggerated to see it as a kind of like leftist turn or leftist policies They are now in the objective situation where they are threatened by the Kiev government They do not have so overwhelming support within Donetsk region They are fighting with the oligarchs who are ba618dz603r and who are actually sponsoring the socalled volunteer battalions to fight the separatists And in this situation they have somemaybe objectively moved forward to nationalization issues and other issues Its also important how the socialeconomic situation will develop in Ukraine for example if its continue to deteriorate And when people will see how much they are going to pay for electricity for public utilities according to IMFrequired austerity measures the social component in this uprising may become more significant may become more evident and clear and these people will talk more about the social demands about socialeconomic demands But actually I doubt that these Russian nationalist leaders will be able to lead this socialeconomic struggle and I dont think that they would become like leftists or socialists this way So it would bethe most precise way to characterize this complexity would be to say that there are real important and legitimate grievances which are driving Donbas people against the Kiev government not only identity issues not only cultural issues but also socialeconomic But this whole idea with separate peoples republic peoples republics it is nottheyrebasically theyre channeling these socialeconomic grievances and socialeconomic protest to this nationalist agenda to proRussian agenda and it is not beneficial for development of genuine social protest for social reform in Ukraine WORONCZUK So what do you think needs to be done to bring an end to the civil war in the eastern regions of Ukraine And do you think the presidential election is going to play any role in that ISHCHENKO No thatsIm quite sure that this election will not pacify the Eastern Ukrainian regions Many people are now waiting for kind of like legitimate president but Poroshenko is not would not will not be seen as a legitimate president in Donbas Now he has only something like 6 percent support in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts And so 6 percent is justis nothing And moreover in many probably even in the majority electoral districts in Donbas and Lugansk regions no elections would be possible to have they are controlled by separatists So what would be the reason for Donbas people to see Poroshenko as a legitimate national leader if they were not even able to vote for him and they do not trust him and they dont support him And basically now we have two options for Ukraine Either we will have a large bloodshed and escalation of civil war after presidential electionsbecause the Kiev government is not going to stop a socalled antiterrorist operation and as far as the armed rebels do have support among local civilians and they can for example hide in the resident blocks in the cities actually in the houses where the people civilians live this military action would lead to more and more victims deaths and suffering to the local population and they would only push them into more opposition against Kiev government And in the final instance it would be not the worst scenario if it will only be just local Ukrainian civil war without participation of Russian forces without participation of NATO forcesthere can be much more devastating for the wholeworld scenarios And the alternative option the peaceful option is to have negotiations with the leaders on the armed rebels At the moment in the last weeks Kiev government was trying to organize round tables of socalled national unity but they were speaking with the Party of Regions representatives the former ruling party under Yanukovych which had its major support in the Eastern Ukraine But at the moment they do not control anything They are not the legitimate authority for the Eastern Ukraine They are not real representatives for the people who took up the arms against Kiev government So this is more like a show it is more likeas its not a serious negotiation For a peaceful solution you have to start the negotiations with those people who are actually fighting with each other And it will bethe best option would be if we will see some moderate wins both in Kiev government and among proRussian separatists that would try to negotiate with each other and that they would try to marginalize the radicals on both sides But the problem is that at the moment we do not see the emergence of these moderate wings Kiev government seems to be very much unified in its position against the separatists and theyre anonymously saying that no negotiations with the terrorists But the problem is yeah so if the terrorists stoppedstop being terrorists at the moment when they become freedom fighters at the moment when they become the legitimate power at some territory And on the other side we are seeing now growing contradictions within the separatist camp where for example the mayor of Sloviansk the town where the whole uprising started is not supporting the Donetsk Peoples Republic government in Donetsk And so we see more a kind ofnot a unified camp more or less contradictory and even quarreling with each other various groups of separatists And in principle Kiev government can play on this and can try to differentiate that we can negotiate with these people and we can support these people against other But at the moment they are doing quite stupid continuation of military action that its only leading to more suffering for Donbas people WORONCZUK Okay Volodymyr Ishchenko thank you very much for joining us ISHCHENKO Thank you WORONCZUK And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/49952928@N04/5932714457/in/photolist-a3fHji-a3ib7w-a3fBR4-a3hYGL-a3fM4Z-a3fJk4-a3fPV6-a3fzV6-a3fKkT-a3fAiR-a3fD1k-a3fJFH-a3fBqV-a3fqVz-a3fJ1P-a3fas4-a3iB2s-a3fyNP-a3iGdb-a3irbs-a3iEsd-a3iHXS-a3iDoy-a3iBKf-a3fCBz-a3fEbv-a3hTyC-a3iyfu-a3fB4k-a3ijP9-aCPSmY-qFJeo-qFJcx-qFJ8Y-qFJ84-qFJ7s-qFJ8C-qFJ3o-ggczd-ggcrb-2FR3XM-7gTUmH-7gXSe9-7gTWLa-7gTV5n-7gTSwX-7gXPTb-7gTSNc-7gXQ2w-PZDzB-74H96d"&amp;gt;paolaharvey&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175773/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>A week after the most powerful &#8220;super typhoon&#8221; ever recorded pummeled the Philippines, killing <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24954011" type="external">thousands</a> in a single province, and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating &#8220; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-pollution-northeastern-china-20131022,0,5024464.story#axzz2kOIplREj" type="external">airpocalypse</a>,&#8221; suffocating the city with coal-plant pollution, government leaders beware! Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change, they are the type of disasters that, scientists tell us, will become a pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive consumption of carbon-based fuels. If, as is now the case, governments across the planet back an <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175734/michael_klare_entering_the_third_carbon_age" type="external">extension of the carbon age</a> and ever increasing reliance on <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/05/03/understanding-unconventional-oil/ao4f" type="external">&#8220;unconventional&#8221; fossil fuels</a> like tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble. In fact, we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />None of us can predict the future, but when it comes to a mass rebellion against the perpetrators of global destruction, we can see a glimmer of the coming upheaval in events of the present moment. Take a look and you will see that the assorted environmental protests that have long bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and support. With an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57609494/" type="external">floods</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/31/2312591/climate-change-wildfires/" type="external">fires</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-parched-20130806-dto,0,5922502.htmlstory#axzz2kOIplREj" type="external">droughts</a>, and <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/typhoon-haiyan-climate-change-continues-2710436" type="external">storms</a> become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet, more people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly bold protest actions. Sooner or later, government leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in the end, be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside.</p> <p>In fact, it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to others. Because climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human populations, the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain in strength across the planet. While circumstances may vary, the ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable forms of energy. And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation in others.</p> <p>A wave of serial eruptions of this sort would not be without precedent. In the early years of twentieth-first century, for example, one government after another in disparate parts of the former Soviet Union was swept away in what were called the &#8220; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution" type="external">color revolutions</a>&#8220;&#8212;populist upheavals against old-style authoritarian regimes. These included the &#8220;Rose Revolution&#8221; in Georgia (2003), the &#8220;Orange Revolution&#8221; in Ukraine (2004), and the &#8220;Pink&#8221; or &#8220;Tulip Revolution&#8221; in Kyrgyzstan (2005). In 2011, a similar wave of protests erupted in North Africa, culminating in what we call the Arab Spring.</p> <p>Like these earlier upheavals, a &#8220;green revolution&#8221; is <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175737/" type="external">unlikely</a> to arise from a highly structured political campaign with clearly identified leaders. In all likelihood, it will erupt spontaneously, after a cascade of climate-change induced disasters provokes an outpouring of public fury. Once ignited, however, it will undoubtedly ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broad-ranging, systemic transformations of their energy and climate policies. In this sense, any such upheaval&#8212;whatever form it takes&#8212;will prove &#8220;revolutionary&#8221; by seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with transformative implications.</p> <p>Foreshadowings of such a process can already be found around the globe. Take the mass environmental protests that erupted in Turkey this June. Though sparked by a far smaller concern than planetary devastation via climate change, for a time they actually posed a significant threat to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing party. Although his forces eventually succeeded in crushing the protests&#8212; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/europe/development-project-in-istanbul-focus-of-violent-protests-is-stopped-by-court.html" type="external">leaving</a> four dead, 8,000 injured, and 11 blinded by tear-gas canisters&#8212;his reputation as a moderate Islamist was <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-defends-right-peaceful-protest-turkey" type="external">badly damaged</a> by the episode.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Like so many surprising upheavals on this planet, the Turkish uprising had the most modest of beginnings: on May 27th, a handful of environmental activists <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/world/europe/istanbul-protests-started-over-trees.html" type="external">blocked</a> bulldozers sent by the government to level Gezi Park, a tiny oasis of greenery in the heart of Istanbul, and prepare the way for the construction of an upscale mall. The government responded to this small-scale, non-violent action by sending in riot police and clearing the area, a move that enraged many Turks and prompted tens of thousands of them to occupy nearby Taksim Square. This move, in turn, led to an even more brutal <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-16/turkish-police-block-off-taksim-after-street-battles-overnight.html" type="external">police crackdown</a> and then to huge demonstrations in Istanbul and around the country. In the end, mass protests <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey" type="external">erupted</a> in 70 cities, the largest display of anti-government sentiment since Erdogan&#8217;s Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002.</p> <p>This was, in the most literal sense possible, a &#8220;green&#8221; revolution, ignited by the government&#8217;s assault on the last piece of greenery in central Istanbul. But once the police intervened in full strength, it became a wide-ranging rebuke to Erdogan&#8217;s <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-defends-right-peaceful-protest-turkey" type="external">authoritarian impulses</a> and his drive to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/world/europe/in-istanbuls-taksim-square-an-achilles-heel.html" type="external">remake</a> the city as a neo-Ottoman showplace&#8212;replete with fancy malls and high-priced condominiums&#8212;while eliminating poor neighborhoods and freewheeling public spaces like Taksim Square. &#8220;It&#8217;s all about superiority, and ruling over the people like sultans,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html" type="external">declared</a> one protestor. It&#8217;s not just about the trees in Gezi Park, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html" type="external">said</a> another: &#8220;We are here to stand up against those who are trying to make a profit from our land.&#8221;</p> <p>The Ningbo Rebellion</p> <p>The same trajectory of events&#8212;a small-scale environmental protest evolving into a full-scale challenge to governmental authority&#8212;can be seen in other mass protests of recent years.</p> <p>Take a Chinese example: in October 2012, students and middle class people joined with poor farmers to protest the construction of an $8.8 billion petrochemical facility in Ningbo, a city of 3.4 million people south of Shanghai. In a country where environmental pollution has reached nearly unprecedented levels, these protests were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/world/asia/protests-against-sinopec-plant-in-china-reach-third-day.html" type="external">touched off</a> by fears that the plant, to be built by the state-owned energy company Sinopec with local government support, would produce <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraxylene" type="external">paraxylene</a>, a toxic substance used in plastics, paints, and cleaning solvents.</p> <p>Here, too, the initial spark that led to the protests was small-scale. On October 22nd, some 200 farmers obstructed a road near the district government&#8217;s office in an attempt to block the plant&#8217;s construction. After the police were called in to clear the blockade, students from nearby Ningbo University joined the protests. Using social media, the protestors quickly enlisted support from middle-class residents of the city who converged in their thousands on downtown Ningbo. When riot police moved in to break up the crowds, the protestors <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world/asia/protests-against-expansion-of-china-chemical-plant-turn-violent.html" type="external">fought back</a>, attacking police cars and throwing bricks and water bottles. While the police eventually gained the upper hand after several days of pitched battles, the Chinese government concluded that mass action of this sort, occurring in the heart of a major city and featuring an alliance of students, farmers, and young professionals, was too great a threat. After five days of fighting, the government gave in, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/28/chinese-factory-plan-ditched-protests" type="external">announcing</a> the cancellation of the petrochemical project.</p> <p>The Ningbo demonstrations were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/06/business/Protests-Over-Large-Projects.html" type="external">hardly the first</a> such upheavals to erupt in China. They did, however, highlight a growing governmental vulnerability to mass environmental protest. For decades, the reigning Chinese Communist Party has justified its monopolistic hold on power by citing its success in generating rapid economic growth. But that growth means the use of ever more fossil fuels and petrochemicals, which, in turn, means increased carbon emissions and disastrous atmospheric pollution, including one &#8220; <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/169305324/beijings-air-quality-reaches-hazardous-levels" type="external">airpocalypse</a>&#8221; after another.</p> <p>Until recently, most Chinese seemed to accept such conditions as the inevitable consequences of growth, but it seems that tolerance of environmental degradation is rapidly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/asia/beijing-journal-anger-grows-over-air-pollution-in-china.html" type="external">diminishing</a>. As a result, the party finds itself in a terrible bind: it can slow development as a step toward cleaning up the environment, incurring a risk of growing economic discontent, or it can continue its growth-at-all-costs policy, and find itself embroiled in a firestorm of Ningbo-style environmental protests.</p> <p>This dilemma&#8212;the environment versus the economy&#8212;has proven to be at the heart of similar mass eruptions elsewhere on the planet.</p> <p>After Fukushima</p> <p>Two of the largest protests of this sort were sparked by the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants on March 11, 2011, after a massive tsunami struck northern Japan. In both of these actions&#8212;the first in Germany, the second in Japan&#8212;the future of nuclear power and the survival of governments were placed in doubt.</p> <p>The biggest protests occurred in Germany. On March 26th, 15 days after the Fukushima explosions, an estimated <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12872339" type="external">250,000</a> people participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations across the country&#8212;100,000 in Berlin, and up to 40,000 each in Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne. &#8220;Today&#8217;s demonstrations are just the prelude to a new, strong, anti-nuclear movement,&#8221; <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12872339" type="external">declared</a> Jochen Stay, a protest leader. &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to let up until the plants are finally mothballed.&#8221;</p> <p>At issue was the fate of Germany&#8217;s remaining nuclear power plants. Although touted as an attractive alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear power is seen by most Germans as a dangerous and unwelcome energy option. Several months prior to Fukushima, German Chancellor Angela Merkel <a href="http://www.dw.de/merkel-hails-contentious-new-power-policy-as-greenest-in-the-world/a-5978792-1" type="external">insisted</a> that Germany would keep its 17 operating reactors until 2040, allowing a smooth transition from the country&#8217;s historic reliance on coal to renewable energy for generating electricity. Immediately after Fukushima, she ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany&#8217;s seven oldest reactors for safety inspections but refused to close the others, provoking an outpouring of protest.</p> <p>Witnessing the scale of the demonstrations, and after suffering an electoral defeat in the key state of Baden-W&#252;rttemberg, Merkel evidently came to the conclusion that clinging to her position would be the equivalent of political suicide. On May 30th, she <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208" type="external">announced</a> that the seven reactors undergoing inspections would be closed permanently and the remaining 10 would be phased out by 2022, almost 20 years earlier than in her original plan.</p> <p>By all accounts, the decision to phase out nuclear power almost two decades early will have significant repercussions for the German economy. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nuclear-power-germany-renewable-energy" type="external">Shutting down</a> the reactors and replacing them with wind and solar energy will cost an estimated $735 billion and take several decades, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html" type="external">producing</a> soaring electricity bills and periodic energy shortages. However, such is the strength of <a href="http://pri.org/stories/2011-07-20/germanys-anti-nuclear-shift" type="external">anti-nuclear sentiment</a> in Germany that Merkel felt she had no choice but to close the reactors anyway.</p> <p>The anti-nuclear protests in Japan occurred considerably later, but were no less momentous. On July 16, 2012, 16 months after the Fukushima disaster, an estimated <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/world/asia/thousands-gather-in-tokyo-to-protest-nuclear-restart.html" type="external">170,000 people</a> assembled in Tokyo to protest a government plan to restart the country&#8217;s nuclear reactors, idled after the disaster. This was not only Japan&#8217;s largest antinuclear demonstration in many years, but the largest of any sort to occur in recent memory.</p> <p>For the government, the July 16th action was particularly significant. Prior to Fukushima, most Japanese had embraced the country&#8217;s growing reliance on nuclear power, putting their trust in the government to ensure its safety. After Fukushima and the disastrous attempts of the reactors&#8217; owner, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company" type="external">Tokyo Electric Power Company</a> (TEPCO), to deal with the situation, public support for nuclear power <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/world/asia/japans-prime-minister-orders-restart-of-2-nuclear-reactors.html" type="external">plummeted</a>. As it became increasingly evident that the government had <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201301050037" type="external">mishandled</a> the crisis, people lost faith in its ability to exercise effective control over the nuclear industry. Repeated promises that nuclear reactors could be made safe lost all credibility when it became known that government officials had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/world/asia/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-a-man-made-disaster-report-says.html" type="external">long collaborated</a> with TEPCO executives in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/asia/tepco-admits-failure-in-acknowledging-risks-at-nuclear-plant.html" type="external">covering up</a> safety concerns at Fukushima and, once the meltdowns occurred, in <a href="http://nuclear-news.net/2013/09/02/tepcos-deliberate-lies-to-conceal-true-level-of-fukushima-radiation/" type="external">concealing</a> information about the true scale of the disaster and its medical implications.</p> <p>The July 16th protest and others like it should be seen as a public vote against the government&#8217;s energy policy and oversight capabilities. &#8220;Japanese have not spoken out against the national government,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/world/asia/thousands-in-tokyo-protest-the-restarting-of-a-nuclear-plant.html" type="external">said</a> one protestor, a 29-year-old homemaker who brought her one-year-old son. &#8220;Now, we have to speak out, or the government will endanger us all.&#8221;</p> <p>Skepticism about the government, rare for twenty-first-century Japan, has proved a major obstacle to its desire to <a href="http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=JA" type="external">restart</a> the country&#8217;s 50 idled reactors. While most Japanese oppose nuclear power, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains determined to get the rectors running again in order to reduce Japan&#8217;s heavy reliance on imported energy and promote economic growth. &#8220;I think it is impossible to promise zero [nuclear power plants] at this stage,&#8221; he <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201310250045" type="external">declared</a> this October. &#8220;From the government&#8217;s standpoint, [nuclear plants] are extremely important for a stable energy supply and economic activities.&#8221;</p> <p>Despite such sentiments, Abe is finding it extremely difficult to garner support for his plans, and it is doubtful that significant numbers of those reactors will be coming online anytime soon.</p> <p>The Explosions Ahead</p> <p>What these episodes tell us is that people around the world are becoming ever more concerned about energy policy as it affects their lives and are prepared&#8212;often on short notice&#8212;to engage in mass protests. At the same time, governments globally, with rare exceptions, are deeply wedded to existing energy policies. These almost invariably turn them into targets, no matter what the original spark for mass opposition. As the results of climate change become ever more disruptive, government officials will find themselves repeatedly choosing between long-held energy plans and the possibility of losing their grip on power.</p> <p>Because few governments are as yet prepared to launch the sorts of efforts that might even begin to effectively address the peril of climate change, they will increasingly be seen as obstacles to essential action and so as entities that need to be removed. In short, climate rebellion&#8212;spontaneous protests that may at any moment evolve into unquenchable mass movements&#8212;is on the horizon. Faced with such rebellions, recalcitrant governments will respond with some combination of accommodation to popular demands and harsh repression.</p> <p>Many governments will be at risk from such developments, but the Chinese leadership appears to be especially vulnerable. The ruling party has staked its future viability on an endless carbon-fueled growth agenda that is steadily destroying the country&#8217;s environment. It has already faced half-a-dozen environmental upheavals like the one in Ningbo, and has responded to them by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/world/asia/chinese-officials-cancel-plant-project-amid-protests.html" type="external">agreeing</a> to protestors&#8217; demands or by employing brute force. The question is: How long can this go on?</p> <p>Environmental conditions are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2013/jun/07/chinas-environmental-problems-grim-ministry-report" type="external">bound to worsen</a>, especially as China continues to rely on coal for home heating and electrical power, and yet there is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/business/energy-environment/chinas-clean-air-drive-likely-to-take-a-long-time.html" type="external">no indication</a> that the ruling Communist Party is prepared to take the radical steps required to significantly reduce domestic coal consumption. This translates into the possibility of mass protests erupting at any time and on a potentially unprecedented scale. And these, in turn, could bring the Party&#8217;s very survival into question&#8212;a <a href="http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2011/05/04/china-political-stability-amid-jasmine-revolutions/" type="external">scenario</a> guaranteed to produce immense anxiety among the country&#8217;s top leaders.</p> <p>And what about the United States? At this point, it would be ludicrous to say that, as a result of popular disturbances, the nation&#8217;s political leadership is at any risk of being swept away or even forced to take serious steps to scale back reliance on fossil fuels. There are, however, certainly signs of a growing nationwide campaign against aspects of fossil fuel reliance, including <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175618/" type="external">vigorous protests</a> against hydraulic fracturing (&#8220;fracking&#8221;) and the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175648/michael_klare_a_presidential_decision" type="external">Keystone XL tar sands pipeline</a>.</p> <p>For environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben, all this adds up to an incipient mass movement against the continued consumption of fossil fuels. &#8220;In the last few years,&#8221; he has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175737/" type="external">written</a>, this movement &#8220;has blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swath of American institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks, and challenged practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking for natural gas.&#8221; It may not have achieved the success of the drive for gay marriage, he observed, but it &#8220;continues to grow quickly, and it&#8217;s starting to claim some victories.&#8221;</p> <p>If it&#8217;s still too early to gauge the future of this anti-carbon movement, it does seem, at least, to be gaining momentum. In the 2013 elections, for example, three cities in energy-rich Colorado&#8212;Boulder, Fort Collins, and Lafayette&#8212; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/us/colorado-cities-rejection-of-fracking-poses-political-test-for-natural-gas-industry.html" type="external">voted</a> to ban or place moratoriums on fracking within their boundaries, while protests against Keystone XL and similar projects are on the rise.</p> <p>Nobody can say that a green energy revolution is a sure thing, but who can deny that energy-oriented environmental protests in the US and elsewhere have the potential to expand into something far greater? Like China, the United States will experience genuine damage from climate change and its unwavering commitment to fossil fuels in the years ahead. Americans are not, for the most part, passive people. Expect them, like the Chinese, to respond to these perils with increased ire and a determination to alter government policy.</p> <p>So don&#8217;t be surprised if that green energy revolution erupts in your neighborhood as part of humanity&#8217;s response to the greatest danger we&#8217;ve ever faced. If governments won&#8217;t take the lead on an imperiled planet, someone will.</p> <p>Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Race for What&#8217;s Left</a>. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from <a href="http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&amp;amp;key=124" type="external">the Media Education Foundation</a>. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America&#8217;s Wars&#8212;The Untold Story</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Will Natural Disasters Fuel an Environmental Movement?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/climate-change-protest-environment-public-disaster/

2013-11-19

4left

amplta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotos49952928N045932714457inphotolista3fHjia3ib7wa3fBR4a3hYGLa3fM4Za3fJk4a3fPV6a3fzV6a3fKkTa3fAiRa3fD1ka3fJFHa3fBqVa3fqVza3fJ1Pa3fas4a3iB2sa3fyNPa3iGdba3irbsa3iEsda3iHXSa3iDoya3iBKfa3fCBza3fEbva3hTyCa3iyfua3fB4ka3ijP9aCPSmYqFJeoqFJcxqFJ8YqFJ84qFJ7sqFJ8CqFJ3oggczdggcrb2FR3XM7gTUmH7gXSe97gTWLa7gTV5n7gTSwX7gXPTb7gTSNc7gXQ2wPZDzB74H96dampgtpaolaharveyampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website A week after the most powerful 8220super typhoon8221 ever recorded pummeled the Philippines killing thousands in a single province and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating 8220 airpocalypse8221 suffocating the city with coalplant pollution government leaders beware Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change they are the type of disasters that scientists tell us will become a pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive consumption of carbonbased fuels If as is now the case governments across the planet back an extension of the carbon age and ever increasing reliance on 8220unconventional8221 fossil fuels like tar sands and shale gas we should all expect trouble In fact we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution None of us can predict the future but when it comes to a mass rebellion against the perpetrators of global destruction we can see a glimmer of the coming upheaval in events of the present moment Take a look and you will see that the assorted environmental protests that have long bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and support With an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying floods fires droughts and storms become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet more people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly bold protest actions Sooner or later government leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may in the end be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside In fact it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to others Because climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human populations the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain in strength across the planet While circumstances may vary the ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable forms of energy And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation in others A wave of serial eruptions of this sort would not be without precedent In the early years of twentiethfirst century for example one government after another in disparate parts of the former Soviet Union was swept away in what were called the 8220 color revolutions82208212populist upheavals against oldstyle authoritarian regimes These included the 8220Rose Revolution8221 in Georgia 2003 the 8220Orange Revolution8221 in Ukraine 2004 and the 8220Pink8221 or 8220Tulip Revolution8221 in Kyrgyzstan 2005 In 2011 a similar wave of protests erupted in North Africa culminating in what we call the Arab Spring Like these earlier upheavals a 8220green revolution8221 is unlikely to arise from a highly structured political campaign with clearly identified leaders In all likelihood it will erupt spontaneously after a cascade of climatechange induced disasters provokes an outpouring of public fury Once ignited however it will undoubtedly ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broadranging systemic transformations of their energy and climate policies In this sense any such upheaval8212whatever form it takes8212will prove 8220revolutionary8221 by seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with transformative implications Foreshadowings of such a process can already be found around the globe Take the mass environmental protests that erupted in Turkey this June Though sparked by a far smaller concern than planetary devastation via climate change for a time they actually posed a significant threat to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing party Although his forces eventually succeeded in crushing the protests8212 leaving four dead 8000 injured and 11 blinded by teargas canisters8212his reputation as a moderate Islamist was badly damaged by the episode Like so many surprising upheavals on this planet the Turkish uprising had the most modest of beginnings on May 27th a handful of environmental activists blocked bulldozers sent by the government to level Gezi Park a tiny oasis of greenery in the heart of Istanbul and prepare the way for the construction of an upscale mall The government responded to this smallscale nonviolent action by sending in riot police and clearing the area a move that enraged many Turks and prompted tens of thousands of them to occupy nearby Taksim Square This move in turn led to an even more brutal police crackdown and then to huge demonstrations in Istanbul and around the country In the end mass protests erupted in 70 cities the largest display of antigovernment sentiment since Erdogan8217s Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002 This was in the most literal sense possible a 8220green8221 revolution ignited by the government8217s assault on the last piece of greenery in central Istanbul But once the police intervened in full strength it became a wideranging rebuke to Erdogan8217s authoritarian impulses and his drive to remake the city as a neoOttoman showplace8212replete with fancy malls and highpriced condominiums8212while eliminating poor neighborhoods and freewheeling public spaces like Taksim Square 8220It8217s all about superiority and ruling over the people like sultans8221 declared one protestor It8217s not just about the trees in Gezi Park said another 8220We are here to stand up against those who are trying to make a profit from our land8221 The Ningbo Rebellion The same trajectory of events8212a smallscale environmental protest evolving into a fullscale challenge to governmental authority8212can be seen in other mass protests of recent years Take a Chinese example in October 2012 students and middle class people joined with poor farmers to protest the construction of an 88 billion petrochemical facility in Ningbo a city of 34 million people south of Shanghai In a country where environmental pollution has reached nearly unprecedented levels these protests were touched off by fears that the plant to be built by the stateowned energy company Sinopec with local government support would produce paraxylene a toxic substance used in plastics paints and cleaning solvents Here too the initial spark that led to the protests was smallscale On October 22nd some 200 farmers obstructed a road near the district government8217s office in an attempt to block the plant8217s construction After the police were called in to clear the blockade students from nearby Ningbo University joined the protests Using social media the protestors quickly enlisted support from middleclass residents of the city who converged in their thousands on downtown Ningbo When riot police moved in to break up the crowds the protestors fought back attacking police cars and throwing bricks and water bottles While the police eventually gained the upper hand after several days of pitched battles the Chinese government concluded that mass action of this sort occurring in the heart of a major city and featuring an alliance of students farmers and young professionals was too great a threat After five days of fighting the government gave in announcing the cancellation of the petrochemical project The Ningbo demonstrations were hardly the first such upheavals to erupt in China They did however highlight a growing governmental vulnerability to mass environmental protest For decades the reigning Chinese Communist Party has justified its monopolistic hold on power by citing its success in generating rapid economic growth But that growth means the use of ever more fossil fuels and petrochemicals which in turn means increased carbon emissions and disastrous atmospheric pollution including one 8220 airpocalypse8221 after another Until recently most Chinese seemed to accept such conditions as the inevitable consequences of growth but it seems that tolerance of environmental degradation is rapidly diminishing As a result the party finds itself in a terrible bind it can slow development as a step toward cleaning up the environment incurring a risk of growing economic discontent or it can continue its growthatallcosts policy and find itself embroiled in a firestorm of Ningbostyle environmental protests This dilemma8212the environment versus the economy8212has proven to be at the heart of similar mass eruptions elsewhere on the planet After Fukushima Two of the largest protests of this sort were sparked by the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants on March 11 2011 after a massive tsunami struck northern Japan In both of these actions8212the first in Germany the second in Japan8212the future of nuclear power and the survival of governments were placed in doubt The biggest protests occurred in Germany On March 26th 15 days after the Fukushima explosions an estimated 250000 people participated in antinuclear demonstrations across the country8212100000 in Berlin and up to 40000 each in Hamburg Munich and Cologne 8220Today8217s demonstrations are just the prelude to a new strong antinuclear movement8221 declared Jochen Stay a protest leader 8220We8217re not going to let up until the plants are finally mothballed8221 At issue was the fate of Germany8217s remaining nuclear power plants Although touted as an attractive alternative to fossil fuels nuclear power is seen by most Germans as a dangerous and unwelcome energy option Several months prior to Fukushima German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that Germany would keep its 17 operating reactors until 2040 allowing a smooth transition from the country8217s historic reliance on coal to renewable energy for generating electricity Immediately after Fukushima she ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany8217s seven oldest reactors for safety inspections but refused to close the others provoking an outpouring of protest Witnessing the scale of the demonstrations and after suffering an electoral defeat in the key state of BadenW252rttemberg Merkel evidently came to the conclusion that clinging to her position would be the equivalent of political suicide On May 30th she announced that the seven reactors undergoing inspections would be closed permanently and the remaining 10 would be phased out by 2022 almost 20 years earlier than in her original plan By all accounts the decision to phase out nuclear power almost two decades early will have significant repercussions for the German economy Shutting down the reactors and replacing them with wind and solar energy will cost an estimated 735 billion and take several decades producing soaring electricity bills and periodic energy shortages However such is the strength of antinuclear sentiment in Germany that Merkel felt she had no choice but to close the reactors anyway The antinuclear protests in Japan occurred considerably later but were no less momentous On July 16 2012 16 months after the Fukushima disaster an estimated 170000 people assembled in Tokyo to protest a government plan to restart the country8217s nuclear reactors idled after the disaster This was not only Japan8217s largest antinuclear demonstration in many years but the largest of any sort to occur in recent memory For the government the July 16th action was particularly significant Prior to Fukushima most Japanese had embraced the country8217s growing reliance on nuclear power putting their trust in the government to ensure its safety After Fukushima and the disastrous attempts of the reactors8217 owner the Tokyo Electric Power Company TEPCO to deal with the situation public support for nuclear power plummeted As it became increasingly evident that the government had mishandled the crisis people lost faith in its ability to exercise effective control over the nuclear industry Repeated promises that nuclear reactors could be made safe lost all credibility when it became known that government officials had long collaborated with TEPCO executives in covering up safety concerns at Fukushima and once the meltdowns occurred in concealing information about the true scale of the disaster and its medical implications The July 16th protest and others like it should be seen as a public vote against the government8217s energy policy and oversight capabilities 8220Japanese have not spoken out against the national government8221 said one protestor a 29yearold homemaker who brought her oneyearold son 8220Now we have to speak out or the government will endanger us all8221 Skepticism about the government rare for twentyfirstcentury Japan has proved a major obstacle to its desire to restart the country8217s 50 idled reactors While most Japanese oppose nuclear power Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains determined to get the rectors running again in order to reduce Japan8217s heavy reliance on imported energy and promote economic growth 8220I think it is impossible to promise zero nuclear power plants at this stage8221 he declared this October 8220From the government8217s standpoint nuclear plants are extremely important for a stable energy supply and economic activities8221 Despite such sentiments Abe is finding it extremely difficult to garner support for his plans and it is doubtful that significant numbers of those reactors will be coming online anytime soon The Explosions Ahead What these episodes tell us is that people around the world are becoming ever more concerned about energy policy as it affects their lives and are prepared8212often on short notice8212to engage in mass protests At the same time governments globally with rare exceptions are deeply wedded to existing energy policies These almost invariably turn them into targets no matter what the original spark for mass opposition As the results of climate change become ever more disruptive government officials will find themselves repeatedly choosing between longheld energy plans and the possibility of losing their grip on power Because few governments are as yet prepared to launch the sorts of efforts that might even begin to effectively address the peril of climate change they will increasingly be seen as obstacles to essential action and so as entities that need to be removed In short climate rebellion8212spontaneous protests that may at any moment evolve into unquenchable mass movements8212is on the horizon Faced with such rebellions recalcitrant governments will respond with some combination of accommodation to popular demands and harsh repression Many governments will be at risk from such developments but the Chinese leadership appears to be especially vulnerable The ruling party has staked its future viability on an endless carbonfueled growth agenda that is steadily destroying the country8217s environment It has already faced halfadozen environmental upheavals like the one in Ningbo and has responded to them by agreeing to protestors8217 demands or by employing brute force The question is How long can this go on Environmental conditions are bound to worsen especially as China continues to rely on coal for home heating and electrical power and yet there is no indication that the ruling Communist Party is prepared to take the radical steps required to significantly reduce domestic coal consumption This translates into the possibility of mass protests erupting at any time and on a potentially unprecedented scale And these in turn could bring the Party8217s very survival into question8212a scenario guaranteed to produce immense anxiety among the country8217s top leaders And what about the United States At this point it would be ludicrous to say that as a result of popular disturbances the nation8217s political leadership is at any risk of being swept away or even forced to take serious steps to scale back reliance on fossil fuels There are however certainly signs of a growing nationwide campaign against aspects of fossil fuel reliance including vigorous protests against hydraulic fracturing 8220fracking8221 and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline For environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben all this adds up to an incipient mass movement against the continued consumption of fossil fuels 8220In the last few years8221 he has written this movement 8220has blocked the construction of dozens of coalfired power plants fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline convinced a wide swath of American institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks and challenged practices like mountaintopremoval coal mining and fracking for natural gas8221 It may not have achieved the success of the drive for gay marriage he observed but it 8220continues to grow quickly and it8217s starting to claim some victories8221 If it8217s still too early to gauge the future of this anticarbon movement it does seem at least to be gaining momentum In the 2013 elections for example three cities in energyrich Colorado8212Boulder Fort Collins and Lafayette8212 voted to ban or place moratoriums on fracking within their boundaries while protests against Keystone XL and similar projects are on the rise Nobody can say that a green energy revolution is a sure thing but who can deny that energyoriented environmental protests in the US and elsewhere have the potential to expand into something far greater Like China the United States will experience genuine damage from climate change and its unwavering commitment to fossil fuels in the years ahead Americans are not for the most part passive people Expect them like the Chinese to respond to these perils with increased ire and a determination to alter government policy So don8217t be surprised if that green energy revolution erupts in your neighborhood as part of humanity8217s response to the greatest danger we8217ve ever faced If governments won8217t take the lead on an imperiled planet someone will Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author most recently of The Race for What8217s Left A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch Book Ann Jones8217s They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return From America8217s Wars8212The Untold Story To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from 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<p><a href="http://www.dhs.gov/photo/tsa-contributes-inauguration-security" type="external">Jeremy Trujillo</a>/Department of Homeland Security&amp;lt;a href="http://www.dhs.gov/photo/tsa-contributes-inauguration-security"&amp;gt;Jeremy Trujillo&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Department of Homeland Security</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175646/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Consider Inauguration Day, more than two weeks gone and already part of our distant past. In its wake, President Obama was <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/21/obama-sets-goals-unite-inauguration-speech" type="external">hailed</a> (or <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/mitch-mcconnell-obama-inauguration-speech_n_2528485.html" type="external">reviled</a>) for his &#8220;liberal&#8221; <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-21/politics/36473487_1_president-obama-vice-president-biden-free-market" type="external">second inaugural address</a>. On that day everything from his invocation of women&#8217;s rights (&#8220;Seneca Falls&#8221;), the civil rights movement (&#8220;Selma&#8221;), and the gay rights movement (&#8220;Stonewall&#8221;) to his wife&#8217;s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/a-closeup-of-michelle-obamas-new-look/" type="external">new bangs</a> and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57566981/beyonce-admits-inauguration-day-lip-sync-says-shell-absolutely-be-singing-live-at-super-bowl/" type="external">Beyonc&#233;&#8217;s lip-syncing</a> was fodder for the media extravaganza. The president was even <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/krugman-deficit-hawks-down.html?ref=paulkrugman" type="external">praised</a> (or <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/22/obama-second-inaugural-address-translated/" type="external">reviled</a>) for what he took pains not to bring up: the budget deficit. Was anything, in fact, not grist for the media mill, the hordes of talking heads, and the chattering classes?</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p> <p>One subject, at least, got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and, when mentioned, certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling on. Yet nothing better caught our changing American world. Washington, after all, was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era&#8212;not even Lincoln&#8217;s second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War, or Franklin Roosevelt&#8217;s during World War II, or John F. Kennedy&#8217;s at the height of the Cold War.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s how NBC Nightly News <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#50529127" type="external">described</a> some of the security arrangements as the day approached:</p> <p>&#8220;[T]he airspace above Washington&#8230; [will be] a virtual no-fly zone for 30 miles in all directions from the US capital. Six miles of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers will be shut down, with 150 blocks of downtown Washington closed to traffic, partly out of concern for car or truck bombs&#8230; with counter-snipers on top of buildings around the capital and along the parade route&#8230; [and] detectors monitoring the air for toxins&#8230; At the ready near the capital, thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack&#8230; All this security will cost about $120 million dollars for hundreds of federal agents, thousands of local police, and national guardsmen from 25 states.&#8221;</p> <p>Consider just the money. It&#8217;s common knowledge that, until the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/us/politics/house-takes-on-fiscal-cliff.html" type="external">recent deal</a> over the renewal of the George W. Bush tax cuts for all but the richest of Americans, taxes had not been raised <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/republicans_know_voters_support_barack_obama_s_pledge_to_raise_taxes_on.html" type="external">since</a> the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read_my_lips:_no_new_taxes" type="external">read-my-lips-no-new-taxes</a> era of his father. That&#8217;s typical of the way we haven&#8217;t yet assimilated the new world we find ourselves in. After all, shouldn&#8217;t that $120 million in taxpayer money spent on &#8220;safety&#8221; and &#8220;security&#8221; for a single event in Washington be considered part of an ongoing Osama bin Laden tax?</p> <p>Maybe it&#8217;s time to face the facts: this isn&#8217;t your grandfather&#8217;s America. Once, prospective Americans landed in a New World. This time around, a new world&#8217;s landed on us.</p> <p>Making Fantasy Into Reality</p> <p>Bin Laden, of course, is <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175388/engelhardt,%20bin_laden_dead_and_alive" type="external">long dead</a>, but his was the 9/11 spark that, in the hands of George W. Bush and his top officials, helped turn this country into a lockdown state and first set significant portions of the Greater Middle East <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/101850/engelhardt_bush%27s_faith" type="external">aflame</a>. In that sense, bin Laden has been thriving in Washington ever since and no commando raid in Pakistan or elsewhere has a chance of doing him in.</p> <p>Since the al-Qaeda leader was aware of the relative powerlessness of his organization and its hundreds or, in its heyday, perhaps thousands of active followers, his urge was to defeat the US by <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/02/dont_get_cocky_america?page=full" type="external">provoking</a> its leaders into treasury-draining wars in the Greater Middle East. In his world, it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/middleeast/21parcel.html" type="external">was thought</a> that such a set of involvements&#8212;and the &#8220;homeland&#8221; security down payments that went with them&#8212;could <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/bin-ladens-war-of-a-thousand-cuts-will-live-on/238228/" type="external">bleed</a> the richest, most powerful nation on the planet dry. In this, he and his associates, imitators, and wannabes were reasonably canny. The bin Laden tax, including that $120 million for Inauguration Day, has proved heavy indeed.</p> <p>In the meantime, he&#8212;and 9/11 as it entered the American psyche&#8212;helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us all. The resulting <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175325/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_united_states_of_fear/" type="external">United States of Fear</a> has since engaged in two disastrous <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/project_syndicate/2011/09/the_true_cost_of_911.html" type="external">more-than-trillion dollar</a> wars and a &#8220;Global War on Terror&#8221; that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime. (See <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/foreign/drones/?hpid=z2" type="external">Yemen</a>, Pakistan, and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/29/niger-approves-american-surveillance-drones" type="external">Mali</a>.) It has also funded the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175629/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_supersizing_secrecy/" type="external">supersized</a> growth of a <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/" type="external">labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy</a>; that post-9/11 creation, the <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/2006-09-10-security-industry_x.htm" type="external">Department of Homeland Security</a>; and, of course, the Pentagon and the US military, including the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175426/nick_turse_a_secret_war_in_120_countries" type="external">special operations forces</a>, an ever-expanding secret military elite cocooned within it.</p> <p>Given the enemy at hand&#8212;not a giant empire, but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands&#8212;all of these institutions, which make up the post-9/11 National Security Complex, expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations (as would that most un-American of all words, &#8220;homeland&#8221;). All of this, in turn, happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington, and much of the rest of the country.</p> <p>Even if you ignore that Inauguration Day no-boating zone or the 30-mile no-fly zone (the sort of thing the US once imposed on enemy lands and now imposes on itself), consider those &#8220;thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack.&#8221; Just about nothing on this planet is utterly inconceivable, but it&#8217;s worth noting that, as far as we know, the national security bureaucracy made no preparations for an unexpected tornado on Inauguration Day. Given recent extreme weather events, including <a href="http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/09/18/severe-weather-warning-issued-for-d-c-area-until-midnight/" type="external">tornado warnings</a> for Washington, that would at least have been a plausible scenario to consider.</p> <p>Certainly, a biological or chemical attack is a similarly imaginable possibility. After all, it actually <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805065113/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">happened</a> in Tokyo in 1995, when followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult set off Sarin gas in that city&#8217;s subway system, killing 11. But the likelihood of any conceivable set of Islamic terrorists attacking those inaugural crowds with either chemical or biological weapons was, to say the least, microscopic. As something to protect Washington visitors against, it ranked at least on a par with the ( <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/" type="external">nonexistent</a>) post-9/11 al-Qaeda sleeper cells and sleeper-assassins so crucial to the plot of the TV show &#8220;Homeland.&#8221;</p> <p>And yet, in these years, what might have remained essentially a nightmarish fantasy has become an impending reality around which the national security folks organize their lives&#8212;and ours. Ever since the now largely forgotten <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks" type="external">anthrax mail attacks</a> that killed five soon after 9/11&#8212;the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174966/engelhardt_six_questions" type="external">anthrax</a> in those envelopes may have come directly from a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/science/10anthrax.html" type="external">US bioweapons laboratory</a>&#8212;all sorts of fantastic scenarios involving biochemical attacks have become part and parcel of the American lockdown state.</p> <p>In the Bush era, for instance, among the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/9301/jim_lobe_dating_Cheney%27s_nuclear_drumbeat" type="external">apocalyptic dream scenes</a> the president and his top officials used to panic Congress into approving a much-desired invasion of Iraq were the possibility of future <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/" type="external">mushroom clouds</a> over American cities and this claim: that Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had drones (he didn&#8217;t) and the means to get them to the East Coast of the US (he didn&#8217;t), and the ability to use them to launch attacks in which chemical and biological weaponry would be sprayed over US cities (he didn&#8217;t). This was a presidentially promoted fantasy of the first order, but no matter. Some senators <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5385.htm" type="external">actually voted</a> to go to war at least partially on the basis of it.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />As is often true of ruling groups, Bush and his cronies weren&#8217;t just manipulating us with the fear of nightmarish future attacks, but themselves as well. Thanks to New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer&#8217;s fine book The Dark Side, for instance, we know that Vice President Dick Cheney was <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174975/engelhardt_the_value_of_one" type="external">always driven</a> around Washington with &#8220;a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit&#8221; in the backseat of his car.</p> <p>The post-9/11 National Security Complex has been convulsed by such fears. After all, it has funded itself by promising Americans one thing: total safety from one of the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175402/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_100%25_doctrine_in_washington" type="external">lesser dangers</a> of our American world&#8212;&#8221; <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/" type="external">terrorism</a>.&#8221; The fear of terrorism (essentially that bin Laden tax again) has been a financial winner for the Complex, but it carries its own built-in terrors. Even with the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/30/us-intel-budget-topped-75-billion-in-2012/" type="external">$75 billion</a> or more a year that we pump into the &#8220; <a href="http://www.intelligence.gov/about-the-intelligence-community/" type="external">US Intelligence Community</a>,&#8221; the possibility that it might not discover some bizarre plot, and that, as a result, several airliners might then go down, or a crowd in Washington be decimated, or you name it, undoubtedly leaves many in the Complex in an ongoing state of terror. After all, their jobs and livelihoods are at stake.</p> <p>Think of their fantasies and fears, which have become ever more real in these years without in any way becoming realities, as the building blocks of the American lockdown state. In this way, intent on &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/63903/mark_danner_bush's_state_of_exception" type="external">taking the gloves off</a>&#8220;&#8212;removing, that is, all those constraints they believed had been put on the executive branch in the Watergate era&#8212;and perhaps preemptively living out their own nightmares, figures like Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed our world.</p> <p>The Powers of the Lockdown State</p> <p>As cultists of a &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/46791/engelhardt_the_unrestrained_president" type="external">unitary executive</a>,&#8221; they&#8212;and the administration of national security managers who followed in the Obama years&#8212;lifted the executive branch right out of the universe of American legality. They liberated it to do more or less what it wished, as long as &#8220;war,&#8221; &#8220;terrorism,&#8221; or &#8220;security&#8221; could be invoked. Meanwhile, with their Global War on Terror well launched and promoted as a multigenerational struggle, they made wartime their property for the long run.</p> <p>In the process, they oversaw the building of a National Security Complex with powers that boggle the imagination and freed themselves from the last shreds of accountability for their actions. They established or strengthened the power of the executive to: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558812/Dick-Cheney-Condoleezza-Rice-authorised-waterboarding-torture-Al-Qaeda-prisoners.html#ixzz0M0uvDCRj" type="external">torture</a> at <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1494/engelhardt_george_orwell" type="external">will</a> (and create the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/2116/greenberg_dratel_37_questions" type="external">&#8220;legal&#8221;</a> justification for it); <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174842/karen_greenberg_guantanamo_forever" type="external">imprison</a> at <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer" type="external">will</a>, indefinitely and without trial; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/engelhardt_assassin-in-chief" type="external">assassinate</a> at will (including American citizens); <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/tom_engelhardt_dolce-vita" type="external">kidnap</a> at will anywhere in the world and &#8220;render&#8221; the captive into the hands of <a href="" type="internal">allied torturers</a>; turn any mundane government document (at least <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175570/engelhardt_that_makes_no_sense" type="external">92 million</a> of them in 2011 alone) into a classified object and so help spread a penumbra of secrecy over the workings of the American government; surveil Americans in ways never before attempted (and only <a href="http://www.salon.com/2008/07/09/fisa_vote/" type="external">&#8220;legalized&#8221;</a> by Congress after the fact, the way you might backdate a check); make war perpetually on their own say-so; and transform whistleblowing&#8212;that is, revealing anything about the inner workings of the lockdown state to other Americans&#8212;into the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175500/van_buren_silent_state" type="external">only prosecutable crime</a> that anyone in the Complex can commit.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that some version of a number of these powers existed before 9/11. &#8220;Renditions&#8221; of terror suspects, for instance, first <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11404.htm" type="external">ramped up</a> in the Clinton years; the FBI <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO" type="external">conducted</a> illegal surveillance of antiwar organizations and other groups in the 1960s; the classification of government documents had long been on the rise; the congressional power to make war had long been on the wane; and prosecution of those who acted illegally while in government service was probably never a commonplace. (Both the <a href="http://watergate.info/analysis/casualties-and-convictions" type="external">Watergate</a> and <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm" type="external">Iran-Contra</a> scandals, however, did involve actual convictions or guilty pleas for illegal acts, followed in some of the Iran-Contra cases by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html" type="external">presidential pardons</a>.) Still, in each case, after 9/11, the national security state gained new or greatly magnified powers, including an unprecedented capacity to lockdown the country (and American liberties as well).</p> <p>What it means to be in such a post-legal world&#8212;to know that, no matter what <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer" type="external">acts</a> a government official commits, he or she will never be brought to court or have a chance of being put in jail&#8212;has yet to fully sink in. This is true even of critics of the Obama administration, who, as in the case of its drone wars, continue to focus on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/critics-us-drone-brennan-cia-nomination" type="external">questions</a> of <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/barack-obama-drone-ranger" type="external">legality</a>, as if that issue weren&#8217;t settled. In this sense, they continue to live in an increasingly fantasy-based version of America in which the rule of law still applies to everyone.</p> <p>In reality, in the Bush and Obama years, the United States has become a nation not of laws but of legal memos, not of legality but of legalisms&#8212;and you don&#8217;t have to be a lawyer to know it. The result? Secret armies, secret wars, secret surveillance, and spreading state secrecy, which meant a government of the bureaucrats about which the American people could know next to nothing. And it&#8217;s all &#8220;legal.&#8221;</p> <p>Consider, for instance, this passage from a recent <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-drone-strikes-will-get-pass-in-counterterrorism-playbook-officials-say/2013/01/19/ca169a20-618d-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html" type="external">Washington Post piece</a> on the codification of &#8220;targeted killing operations&#8221;&#8212;i.e. drone assassinations&#8212;in what&#8217;s now called the White House &#8220;playbook&#8221;: &#8220;Among the subjects covered&#8230; are the process for adding names to kill lists, the legal principles that govern when US citizens can be targeted overseas, and the sequence of approvals required when the CIA or US military conducts drone strikes outside war zones.&#8221;</p> <p>Those &#8220;legal principles&#8221; are, of course, being written up by lawyers working for people like Obama counterterrorism &#8220;tsar&#8221; John O. Brennan; that is, officials who want the greatest possible latitude when it comes to knocking off &#8220;terrorist suspects,&#8221; American or otherwise. Imagine, for instance, lawyers hired by a group of neighborhood thieves creating a &#8220;playbook&#8221; outlining which kinds of houses they considered it legal to break into and just why that might be so. Would the &#8220;principles&#8221; in that document be written up in the press as &#8220;legal&#8221; ones?</p> <p>Here&#8217;s the kicker. According to the Post, the &#8220;legal principles&#8221; a White House with no intention of seriously limiting, no less shutting down, America&#8217;s drone wars has painstakingly established as &#8220;law&#8221; are not, for the foreseeable future, going to be applied to Pakistan&#8217;s tribal borderlands where the <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/foreign/drones/?hpid=z2" type="external">most intense drone strikes</a> still take place. The CIA&#8217;s secret drone war there is instead going to be given a free pass for a year or more to blast away as it pleases&#8212;the White House equivalent of Monopoly&#8217;s get-out-of-jail-free card.</p> <p>In other words, even by the White House&#8217;s definition of legality, what the CIA is doing in Pakistan should be considered illegal. But these days when it comes to anything connected to American war-making, legality is whatever the White House says it is (and you won&#8217;t find their legalisms seriously challenged by American courts).</p> <p>Post-Legal Drones and the New Legalism</p> <p>This week, during the Senate confirmation hearings for Brennan&#8217;s nomination as CIA director, we are undoubtedly going to hear much about &#8220;legality&#8221; and drone assassination campaigns. Senator <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/wyden-brennan/" type="external">Ron Wyden</a>, for instance, has <a href="http://www.katu.com/politics/Wyden-demands-targeted-killing-legal-opinions-from-CIA-nominee-187052271.html" type="external">demanded</a> that the White House release a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html" type="external">50-page</a> &#8220;legal&#8221; memo its lawyers created to justify the drone assassination of an American citizen, which the White House decided was far too hush-hush for either the Congress or ordinary Americans to read. But here&#8217;s the thing: if Wyden got that bogus document, undoubtedly filled with legalisms (as a <a href="http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans" type="external">just-leaked</a> 16-page Justice Department &#8220;white paper&#8221; justifying drone killings is), and released it to the rest of us, what difference would it make? Yes, we might learn something about the vestiges of a guilty conscience when it comes to American legality in a White House run by a former &#8220;constitutional law professor.&#8221; But we would know little else.</p> <p>Once upon a time, an argument over whether such drone strikes were legal or not might have had some heft to it. After all, the United States was once hailed, above all, as a &#8220;nation of laws.&#8221; But make no mistake: today, such a &#8220;debate&#8221; will, in the Seinfeldian sense, be an argument about nothing, or rather about an issue that has long been <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/01/panetta-drones-to-be-continuing-tool-of-us-154829.html" type="external">settled</a>.</p> <p>The drone strikes, after all, are perfectly &#8220;legal.&#8221; How do we know? Because the administration which produced that 50-page document (and similar memos) assures us that it&#8217;s so, even if they don&#8217;t care to fully reveal their reasoning, and because, truth be told, on such matters they can do whatever they want to do. It&#8217;s legal because they&#8217;ve increasingly become the ones who define legality.</p> <p>It would, of course, be illegal for Canadians, Pakistanis, or Iranians to fly missile-armed drones over Minneapolis or New York, no less take out their versions of bad guys in the process. That would, among other things, be a breach of American sovereignty. The US can, however, do more or less what it wants when and where it wants. The reason: it has established, to the satisfaction of our national security managers&#8212;and they have the secret legal documents (written by themselves) to prove it&#8212;that US drones can cross national boundaries just about anywhere if the bad guys are, in their opinion, bad enough. And that&#8217;s &#8220;the law&#8221;!</p> <p>As with our distant wars, most Americans are remarkably unaffected in any direct way by the lockdown of this country. And yet in a post-legal drone world of perpetual &#8220;wartime,&#8221; in which fantasies of disaster outrace far more realistic dangers and fears, sooner or later the bin Laden tax will take its toll, the chickens will come home to roost, and they will be able to do anything in our name (without even worrying about producing secret legal memos to justify their acts). By then, we&#8217;ll be completely locked down and the key thrown away.</p> <p>Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the <a href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" type="external">American Empire Project</a> and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The United States of Fear</a> as well as a history of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The End of Victory Culture</a>, runs the Nation Institute&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=tomdispatch-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B0086EF89K" type="external">Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Face-Empire-Cyberwarfare/dp/1608463109/" type="external">The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare</a>.To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Paying the Bin Laden Tax

https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/paying-the-bin-laden-tax-inauguration/

2013-02-05

4left

Jeremy TrujilloDepartment of Homeland Securityamplta hrefhttpwwwdhsgovphototsacontributesinaugurationsecurityampgtJeremy TrujilloampltaampgtDepartment of Homeland Security This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Consider Inauguration Day more than two weeks gone and already part of our distant past In its wake President Obama was hailed or reviled for his 8220liberal8221 second inaugural address On that day everything from his invocation of women8217s rights 8220Seneca Falls8221 the civil rights movement 8220Selma8221 and the gay rights movement 8220Stonewall8221 to his wife8217s new bangs and Beyonc2338217s lipsyncing was fodder for the media extravaganza The president was even praised or reviled for what he took pains not to bring up the budget deficit Was anything in fact not grist for the media mill the hordes of talking heads and the chattering classes One subject at least got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and when mentioned certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling on Yet nothing better caught our changing American world Washington after all was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era8212not even Lincoln8217s second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt8217s during World War II or John F Kennedy8217s at the height of the Cold War Here8217s how NBC Nightly News described some of the security arrangements as the day approached 8220The airspace above Washington8230 will be a virtual nofly zone for 30 miles in all directions from the US capital Six miles of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers will be shut down with 150 blocks of downtown Washington closed to traffic partly out of concern for car or truck bombs8230 with countersnipers on top of buildings around the capital and along the parade route8230 and detectors monitoring the air for toxins8230 At the ready near the capital thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack8230 All this security will cost about 120 million dollars for hundreds of federal agents thousands of local police and national guardsmen from 25 states8221 Consider just the money It8217s common knowledge that until the recent deal over the renewal of the George W Bush tax cuts for all but the richest of Americans taxes had not been raised since the readmylipsnonewtaxes era of his father That8217s typical of the way we haven8217t yet assimilated the new world we find ourselves in After all shouldn8217t that 120 million in taxpayer money spent on 8220safety8221 and 8220security8221 for a single event in Washington be considered part of an ongoing Osama bin Laden tax Maybe it8217s time to face the facts this isn8217t your grandfather8217s America Once prospective Americans landed in a New World This time around a new world8217s landed on us Making Fantasy Into Reality Bin Laden of course is long dead but his was the 911 spark that in the hands of George W Bush and his top officials helped turn this country into a lockdown state and first set significant portions of the Greater Middle East aflame In that sense bin Laden has been thriving in Washington ever since and no commando raid in Pakistan or elsewhere has a chance of doing him in Since the alQaeda leader was aware of the relative powerlessness of his organization and its hundreds or in its heyday perhaps thousands of active followers his urge was to defeat the US by provoking its leaders into treasurydraining wars in the Greater Middle East In his world it was thought that such a set of involvements8212and the 8220homeland8221 security down payments that went with them8212could bleed the richest most powerful nation on the planet dry In this he and his associates imitators and wannabes were reasonably canny The bin Laden tax including that 120 million for Inauguration Day has proved heavy indeed In the meantime he8212and 911 as it entered the American psyche8212helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us all The resulting United States of Fear has since engaged in two disastrous morethantrillion dollar wars and a 8220Global War on Terror8221 that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime See Yemen Pakistan and Mali It has also funded the supersized growth of a labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy that post911 creation the Department of Homeland Security and of course the Pentagon and the US military including the special operations forces an everexpanding secret military elite cocooned within it Given the enemy at hand8212not a giant empire but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands8212all of these institutions which make up the post911 National Security Complex expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations as would that most unAmerican of all words 8220homeland8221 All of this in turn happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington and much of the rest of the country Even if you ignore that Inauguration Day noboating zone or the 30mile nofly zone the sort of thing the US once imposed on enemy lands and now imposes on itself consider those 8220thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack8221 Just about nothing on this planet is utterly inconceivable but it8217s worth noting that as far as we know the national security bureaucracy made no preparations for an unexpected tornado on Inauguration Day Given recent extreme weather events including tornado warnings for Washington that would at least have been a plausible scenario to consider Certainly a biological or chemical attack is a similarly imaginable possibility After all it actually happened in Tokyo in 1995 when followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult set off Sarin gas in that city8217s subway system killing 11 But the likelihood of any conceivable set of Islamic terrorists attacking those inaugural crowds with either chemical or biological weapons was to say the least microscopic As something to protect Washington visitors against it ranked at least on a par with the nonexistent post911 alQaeda sleeper cells and sleeperassassins so crucial to the plot of the TV show 8220Homeland8221 And yet in these years what might have remained essentially a nightmarish fantasy has become an impending reality around which the national security folks organize their lives8212and ours Ever since the now largely forgotten anthrax mail attacks that killed five soon after 9118212the anthrax in those envelopes may have come directly from a US bioweapons laboratory8212all sorts of fantastic scenarios involving biochemical attacks have become part and parcel of the American lockdown state In the Bush era for instance among the apocalyptic dream scenes the president and his top officials used to panic Congress into approving a muchdesired invasion of Iraq were the possibility of future mushroom clouds over American cities and this claim that Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had drones he didn8217t and the means to get them to the East Coast of the US he didn8217t and the ability to use them to launch attacks in which chemical and biological weaponry would be sprayed over US cities he didn8217t This was a presidentially promoted fantasy of the first order but no matter Some senators actually voted to go to war at least partially on the basis of it As is often true of ruling groups Bush and his cronies weren8217t just manipulating us with the fear of nightmarish future attacks but themselves as well Thanks to New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer8217s fine book The Dark Side for instance we know that Vice President Dick Cheney was always driven around Washington with 8220a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit8221 in the backseat of his car The post911 National Security Complex has been convulsed by such fears After all it has funded itself by promising Americans one thing total safety from one of the lesser dangers of our American world82128221 terrorism8221 The fear of terrorism essentially that bin Laden tax again has been a financial winner for the Complex but it carries its own builtin terrors Even with the 75 billion or more a year that we pump into the 8220 US Intelligence Community8221 the possibility that it might not discover some bizarre plot and that as a result several airliners might then go down or a crowd in Washington be decimated or you name it undoubtedly leaves many in the Complex in an ongoing state of terror After all their jobs and livelihoods are at stake Think of their fantasies and fears which have become ever more real in these years without in any way becoming realities as the building blocks of the American lockdown state In this way intent on 8220 taking the gloves off82208212removing that is all those constraints they believed had been put on the executive branch in the Watergate era8212and perhaps preemptively living out their own nightmares figures like Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed our world The Powers of the Lockdown State As cultists of a 8220 unitary executive8221 they8212and the administration of national security managers who followed in the Obama years8212lifted the executive branch right out of the universe of American legality They liberated it to do more or less what it wished as long as 8220war8221 8220terrorism8221 or 8220security8221 could be invoked Meanwhile with their Global War on Terror well launched and promoted as a multigenerational struggle they made wartime their property for the long run In the process they oversaw the building of a National Security Complex with powers that boggle the imagination and freed themselves from the last shreds of accountability for their actions They established or strengthened the power of the executive to torture at will and create the 8220legal8221 justification for it imprison at will indefinitely and without trial assassinate at will including American citizens kidnap at will anywhere in the world and 8220render8221 the captive into the hands of allied torturers turn any mundane government document at least 92 million of them in 2011 alone into a classified object and so help spread a penumbra of secrecy over the workings of the American government surveil Americans in ways never before attempted and only 8220legalized8221 by Congress after the fact the way you might backdate a check make war perpetually on their own sayso and transform whistleblowing8212that is revealing anything about the inner workings of the lockdown state to other Americans8212into the only prosecutable crime that anyone in the Complex can commit It8217s true that some version of a number of these powers existed before 911 8220Renditions8221 of terror suspects for instance first ramped up in the Clinton years the FBI conducted illegal surveillance of antiwar organizations and other groups in the 1960s the classification of government documents had long been on the rise the congressional power to make war had long been on the wane and prosecution of those who acted illegally while in government service was probably never a commonplace Both the Watergate and IranContra scandals however did involve actual convictions or guilty pleas for illegal acts followed in some of the IranContra cases by presidential pardons Still in each case after 911 the national security state gained new or greatly magnified powers including an unprecedented capacity to lockdown the country and American liberties as well What it means to be in such a postlegal world8212to know that no matter what acts a government official commits he or she will never be brought to court or have a chance of being put in jail8212has yet to fully sink in This is true even of critics of the Obama administration who as in the case of its drone wars continue to focus on questions of legality as if that issue weren8217t settled In this sense they continue to live in an increasingly fantasybased version of America in which the rule of law still applies to everyone In reality in the Bush and Obama years the United States has become a nation not of laws but of legal memos not of legality but of legalisms8212and you don8217t have to be a lawyer to know it The result Secret armies secret wars secret surveillance and spreading state secrecy which meant a government of the bureaucrats about which the American people could know next to nothing And it8217s all 8220legal8221 Consider for instance this passage from a recent Washington Post piece on the codification of 8220targeted killing operations82218212ie drone assassinations8212in what8217s now called the White House 8220playbook8221 8220Among the subjects covered8230 are the process for adding names to kill lists the legal principles that govern when US citizens can be targeted overseas and the sequence of approvals required when the CIA or US military conducts drone strikes outside war zones8221 Those 8220legal principles8221 are of course being written up by lawyers working for people like Obama counterterrorism 8220tsar8221 John O Brennan that is officials who want the greatest possible latitude when it comes to knocking off 8220terrorist suspects8221 American or otherwise Imagine for instance lawyers hired by a group of neighborhood thieves creating a 8220playbook8221 outlining which kinds of houses they considered it legal to break into and just why that might be so Would the 8220principles8221 in that document be written up in the press as 8220legal8221 ones Here8217s the kicker According to the Post the 8220legal principles8221 a White House with no intention of seriously limiting no less shutting down America8217s drone wars has painstakingly established as 8220law8221 are not for the foreseeable future going to be applied to Pakistan8217s tribal borderlands where the most intense drone strikes still take place The CIA8217s secret drone war there is instead going to be given a free pass for a year or more to blast away as it pleases8212the White House equivalent of Monopoly8217s getoutofjailfree card In other words even by the White House8217s definition of legality what the CIA is doing in Pakistan should be considered illegal But these days when it comes to anything connected to American warmaking legality is whatever the White House says it is and you won8217t find their legalisms seriously challenged by American courts PostLegal Drones and the New Legalism This week during the Senate confirmation hearings for Brennan8217s nomination as CIA director we are undoubtedly going to hear much about 8220legality8221 and drone assassination campaigns Senator Ron Wyden for instance has demanded that the White House release a 50page 8220legal8221 memo its lawyers created to justify the drone assassination of an American citizen which the White House decided was far too hushhush for either the Congress or ordinary Americans to read But here8217s the thing if Wyden got that bogus document undoubtedly filled with legalisms as a justleaked 16page Justice Department 8220white paper8221 justifying drone killings is and released it to the rest of us what difference would it make Yes we might learn something about the vestiges of a guilty conscience when it comes to American legality in a White House run by a former 8220constitutional law professor8221 But we would know little else Once upon a time an argument over whether such drone strikes were legal or not might have had some heft to it After all the United States was once hailed above all as a 8220nation of laws8221 But make no mistake today such a 8220debate8221 will in the Seinfeldian sense be an argument about nothing or rather about an issue that has long been settled The drone strikes after all are perfectly 8220legal8221 How do we know Because the administration which produced that 50page document and similar memos assures us that it8217s so even if they don8217t care to fully reveal their reasoning and because truth be told on such matters they can do whatever they want to do It8217s legal because they8217ve increasingly become the ones who define legality It would of course be illegal for Canadians Pakistanis or Iranians to fly missilearmed drones over Minneapolis or New York no less take out their versions of bad guys in the process That would among other things be a breach of American sovereignty The US can however do more or less what it wants when and where it wants The reason it has established to the satisfaction of our national security managers8212and they have the secret legal documents written by themselves to prove it8212that US drones can cross national boundaries just about anywhere if the bad guys are in their opinion bad enough And that8217s 8220the law8221 As with our distant wars most Americans are remarkably unaffected in any direct way by the lockdown of this country And yet in a postlegal drone world of perpetual 8220wartime8221 in which fantasies of disaster outrace far more realistic dangers and fears sooner or later the bin Laden tax will take its toll the chickens will come home to roost and they will be able to do anything in our name without even worrying about producing secret legal memos to justify their acts By then we8217ll be completely locked down and the key thrown away Tom Engelhardt cofounder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War The End of Victory Culture runs the Nation Institute8217s TomDispatchcom His latest book coauthored with Nick Turse is Terminator Planet The First History of Drone Warfare 20012050 Follow TomDispatch on Twitter TomDispatch and join us on Facebook Check out the newest Dispatch book Nick Turse8217s The Changing Face of Empire Special Ops Drones Proxy Fighters Secret Bases and CyberwarfareTo stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Vijay Prashad is the Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and is also chief editor of LeftWord Books. Vija He is the author of over 18 books among them The Death of a Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016).</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />We're continuing our interview with Vijay Prashad. And you can find a full biography of Vijay somewhere down below the video player. But just to remind you quickly, Vijay is this year's Edward Said Chair at American University at Beirut. He's written many books. His most recent is The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us again. <p /> <p />VIJAY PRASHAD, PROF. INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, TRINITY COLLEGE: Pleasure. Thank you. <p /> <p />JAY: So the underlying issue here was the illegality of the Iraq War. Now, after President Obama got elected, there's been a lot of focus, both to some extent from the Obama administration, but also from the media and various organizations, on the issue of torture. And, you know, yes, torture is a violation of international law as well. Yes, it's a terrible thing. Yes, many terrible things were done. But, frankly, to my mind it pales in significance to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were killed in an illegal war. And we have very little focus on the issue of waging this illegal war. Far from it. President Obama, once he was president, started defending the war and started congratulating the troops and all the rest. I mean, his entire criticism of the Iraq War evaporated once he became president. <p /> <p />So, I mean, I guess maybe the question here is just where are we at in terms of international law? You know, you go from Nuremberg, where it seemed to be the beginning of a new way to think about international law, to the non-vote, when the United States wanted a vote, the Bush administration wanted the UN Security Council to endorse this invasion of Iraq, and they wouldn't. You know, France said no and Russia said no and China said no. I believe Germany, they said no or abstain. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Abstain. <p /> <p />JAY: But then the American government said, well, okay, well, we're doing it anyway. And there were no repercussions. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Well, I mean, international law is in a very poor situation. And it's actually gotten worse, in a sense, since 2003 when the United States extended its war. I mean, the Iraq War begins in 1990. It never really ends. I mean, the whole sanctions regime is a form of warfare. The Clinton administration occasionally would send cruise missiles onto Iraqi soil. So the war never really ended. It was accelerated in 2003. It's a separate matter. <p /> <p />But since 2003, things have got much worse. In fact, in the first term of the Obama administration, the Obama administration enshrined through pressure on the UN this idea of responsibility to protect, the R2P doctrine, you know, which means that if a sovereign state or if the United Nations sees a country somehow, you know, persecuting a minority, then the idea of that state having sovereignty over its territory is invalid and the United Nations can come in and act or a member state authorized by the United Nations can come in and act. So if in Libya the United Nations decides there is a situation where minorities are being, you know, acted upon in a bad way, either being killed or being persecuted in some way, the UN can come in and act. <p /> <p />You know, on the surface, in terms of common sense, this sounds like a good idea, that, you know, why should a state have the right to oppress its people. You know, let's say Germany didn't invade Austria, didn't invade Czechoslovakia; it just oppressed Jews inside Germany. Why should Germany have the right to do that? It's a perfectly commonsensical objection. <p /> <p />The problem with these new international laws like R2P, responsibility to protect, etc., is not the commonsensical idea of it; it's who gets to determine which state is mistreating its population, who gets to determine which state is mistreating its population to such an extent that invasion is necessary to overthrow the regime, you know, and that everybody in the UN body, you know, recognizes this responsibility-to-protect doctrine is used extremely erratically on the surface. But, actually, it's used with U.S. or Northern Atlantic countries' interests in mind. You know, you attack and invade in Libya because you have interests that are transparent; at the same time, President Obama will be celebrating the birthday of the president of Equatorial Guinea, who also oppresses and brutalizes his people. So you pick and choose. <p /> <p />Now, you can't have international law where it's applied at a pick-and-choose mechanism. You know, if it's law, if its the law of nations, it has to apply universally. And in this sense we now have laws where the adjudicator of the law has taken upon itself, in other words, the United States and its Western European allies have taken upon themselves the responsibility to become not only the legislators but also the executive and the judiciary. There is no separation of powers. You know, the International Criminal Court is used when it's useful. <p /> <p />So at the start of the Libya war, the prosecutor there, Mr.&amp;#160;Ocampo, framed warrants against Mr.&amp;#160;Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, against Abdullah Senussi. The war is over. Mr. Gaddafi is dead. His son Saif al-Islam is in captivity. Mr.&amp;#160;Abdullah Senussi is in captivity in Libya. The ICC for two years has been fighting to have the warrants of arrest executed by a pro-Western government in Libya. And the NATO powers that helped, that used the ICC justification for their bombing raid, is helping block bringing these people to justice in The Hague. In other words, international law is useful when it's to your advantage. When it's not to your advantage, it's jettisoned into the bin. This sets a terrible precedent for other countries. You know. <p /> <p />And I'm not saying that the United States should act, you know, honorably so that other countries will go by example. In many cases, other other countries act much more honorably. But the fact is, if the most powerful military in the world believes that its military force sets the terms of international law, why should anybody take international law seriously? This is a great disservice done to the legacy of the Nuremberg Charter. <p /> <p />JAY: And as much as the Americans have been the driving force in undermining international law for their own, I think, very narrow nationalist interest, Russia, China, Western Europe, too, I mean, France and others, you know, once the Iraq War was on, okay, they washed their hands of it. I mean, nobody called for any repercussions. You know, there was a certain stand made at that Security Council meeting in, I guess, 2003, I guess. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Correct. <p /> <p />JAY: But after that, you know, they're all back to making money, and this is the way it is. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Well, it's true that on the Iraq question there has been very little stomach for a retrospective investigation of what happened. But on Libya it's a slightly different issue, because it is the case that many of the countries of the South, many of the BRICS countries, for instance, have been asking in the UN Security Council for an investigation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorized military force in Libya. You know, they have been asking for an investigation and in fact have authorized the UN to conduct an investigation. So the UN begins to do its investigation, and NATO sends the United Nations. Now, NATO acted in Libya following a UN resolution and constantly reiterated the fact that we are just operating under the terms of UN Resolution 1973. When the UN then asked for an investigation of civilian casualty deaths as a result of NATO's bombing, NATO sent--NATO headquarters in Brussels sent a letter to the UN, saying, we have conducted our own investigation; we have not committed any, you know, war crimes or any crimes, so we don't need to share anything with you. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, it's clear that they completely violated the resolution. I mean, they didn't just defend Benghazi. They started bombing on Gaddafi's head and killed many, many Libyans in the course of it. But I do want to just add again this point. Well, of course the Americans and the French and the British and the Canadians are by far the primary villains of this piece. The Russians, you know, gave up on it. Like, half--it wasn't, you know, halfway into this Libyan war where Obama meets Medvedev in Europe, and Medvedev comes out and says, oh, it's time for Gaddafi to leave. And later it turns out Russia keeps its oil deal that it had through Eni. So, I mean--. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: No, Russia is not playing with a clean hand here. <p /> <p />JAY: They're playing the same hand. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Yeah, because they have the oil company. Gazprom has interests. They have a dirty hand. <p /> <p />But also remember the Russians have an ongoing war in Chechnya, and much of what the United States has been doing in its war on terror has retroactively justified Russia's war in Chechnya. So, you know, from naked self-interest, these countries have now--I mean, they are jumping up and down in glee because they can win on both sides. On the one hand, they can stand out and self-righteously criticize the United States, saying, you have black sites, you have tortured, you have this, you have that, while on the other hand, they can then retroactively justify their terrible war that they conducted, and actually in a slow way continue to conduct, in Chechnya, Dagestan, etc. So they don't have clean hands either. <p /> <p />The issue is that these countries, none of them have a high moral ground. It begs the question of why, then, should the UN Security Council, if none of these permanent members have clean hands, have a high moral ground, why should these countries in the UN Security Council have the white-carded veto? <p /> <p />JAY: Okay. So let me give the counterargument. What do you do in a situation where, say, it's like a Mobutu or somebody in the Congo? What do you do when you have a situation where a regime--and more than likely a regime put in power in the first place through U.S. policy, 'cause they put so many crazy people in power, particularly in Africa, but not only. But the legacy of the Cold War was horrible situations in certain countries. What do you do when a regime is in fact conducting genocide within its own borders? Is there a point? <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Absolutely. I mean, there is no question that you stand back at the border and watch a regime kill its people, no question, you have to act. In the same way as international law enjoins people if they see their government doing something, you know, that is illegal, a war crime, they must speak out, in the same way there is an obligation on the international community to act. <p /> <p />The question is: what does the international community--as it stands now, when the UN says all member states must act to prevent a genocide in Benghazi, what they should actually have written in their resolution is NATO should act. I mean, what we need to do now is to strengthen regional institutions. You know, the African Union has been deliberately starved and sidelined. <p /> <p />JAY: Which means--but just in case people mistake what you're saying, you're saying it shouldn't have been NATO. If there is going to be any intervention, it should be by regional forces. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Absolutely, because people have to live side-by-side. You know, NATO--. <p /> <p />JAY: But in the Libyan situation, Qatar, if they could, and, you know, might have been more than happy to do that, you know, get--hire a Pakistani army and invade Libya. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Well, but Qatar doesn't have to live directly with the, you know, catastrophe that comes right after the regime falls. I mean, Libya is in catastrophe. We needed the Algerians, we needed the Tunisians, we needed the Egyptians, you know, the actual regional partners that have to live through the consequences of their intervention, you know, and therefore have to strengthen the will--. <p /> <p />I'll give you another example. In the 1990s, there was a group formed in Central Asia called the Shanghai Cooperative Organization. The principal reason why the Central Asian countries Russia, China (later, India joins as a member state) joined this organization is they all had a common interest in dealing with the Taliban. They wanted to get rid of the Taliban. But if they had acted, rather than a U.S. occupation, they would have all as regional, as neighboring partners had a stake in the future of Afghanistan. You know, the United States doesn't have a stake in the future of Afghanistan. You can pull troops out in 2014, and you go back home. Next there's a convulsion in Afghanistan. It affects Central Asia, those--you know, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan. It affects Pakistan. It affects Iran. It affects India. You know, regional countries need to involve themselves. <p /> <p />That is why we are at the point now where the United States' self-anointed role as the global policeman, using NATO, essentially, as the force, that needs to go. We need to build up robust regional organizations, you know, which adhere to international law and operate at a minimum standard not to come in and occupy places, but to come in, to act against atrocities and create a political space for a negotiation. <p /> <p />In Syria, for instance, you know, an amazing thing occurred a year ago in the Syrian conflict when four countries that would never sit together, never come into the room together--Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt--formed the Syria Contact Group. You know, it was a small opening. These countries have approximate reason to help deal with the Syrian conflict. They were all, for one, involved in it. They were embroiled in it. If they were allowed to be the central focus, to help open political space in Syria, it would have been more effective. <p /> <p />Meanwhile, what the Russians and Americans did was they said, look, this Syrian contact group, it's just utopian. It's baloney. It's not going to happen. You never going to meet. And they said, we're going to meet in Madrid, and that's going to be the focus. All eyes should focus on the American-Russian meeting in Madrid. It's not about the regional partners. <p /> <p />That has to end. We have to build, you know, robust regional organizations. <p /> <p />JAY: Which partly means Americans need to tell their government to stay the hell out of these things. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Exactly. And these regional organizations have to learn to operate under the strict scrutiny of international law, you know, which has to be the basis of regional intervention, not whimsy, not we don't like this person, etc. It has to be strictly on the principles of international law. <p /> <p />JAY: Okay. That will be a challenge, too. But at least if it's regional, as you say, they have to suffer more the consequences of their decisions, 'cause we don't want to create some kind of illusion about who these regional governments are. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Not at all. <p /> <p />JAY: 'Cause they don't have--I mean, if they could be the big superpower and kick everybody's ass, they would. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Absolutely. I mean, if you just take the Syrian conflict again, one in six people who live in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. It may be one in four in Jordan. You know, these countries suffer the consequences of cataclysm in their neighborhood. They need to have a direct involvement in the discussion. It cannot be the Americans and the Russians adjudicating something that's happening on the ground. You need the Saudis at the table. You need the Iranians at the table. If they're not there, nothing is going to happen. <p /> <p />For Afghanistan, it's not about the Americans meeting the Taliban in Doha with the Karzai government. You need the Indians there. You need the Pakistanis there. You need the Iranians there. You know, these are the major stakeholders. These are people who have contradictory interests in Afghanistan. They need to create not agreement but a modus vivendi. You know, the Indians and Pakistanis have to agree not to use Afghanistan as a space for their conflict. <p /> <p />JAY: And the only way this happens is if the Americans are willing to let go of some of their global power. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Absolutely. <p /> <p />JAY: Okay. Thanks very much for joining us. <p /> <p />We're going to continue a series of interviews with Vijay on The Real News. He's going back to Beirut soon. He's going to be talking to us about the Middle East. And we're going to talk more big-picture stuff. But for now, that concludes this series of interviews with Vijay on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />Thanks very much, Vijay. <p /> <p />PRASHAD: Pleasure. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

International Law and "The Responsibility to Protect" - Vijay Prashad on Reality Asserts Itself (4/4)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10557

2013-08-11

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Vijay Prashad is the Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and is also chief editor of LeftWord Books Vija He is the author of over 18 books among them The Death of a Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution University of California Press 2016 PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome back to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore And welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network Were continuing our interview with Vijay Prashad And you can find a full biography of Vijay somewhere down below the video player But just to remind you quickly Vijay is this years Edward Said Chair at American University at Beirut Hes written many books His most recent is The Poorer Nations A Possible History of the Global South Thanks for joining us again VIJAY PRASHAD PROF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES TRINITY COLLEGE Pleasure Thank you JAY So the underlying issue here was the illegality of the Iraq War Now after President Obama got elected theres been a lot of focus both to some extent from the Obama administration but also from the media and various organizations on the issue of torture And you know yes torture is a violation of international law as well Yes its a terrible thing Yes many terrible things were done But frankly to my mind it pales in significance to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were killed in an illegal war And we have very little focus on the issue of waging this illegal war Far from it President Obama once he was president started defending the war and started congratulating the troops and all the rest I mean his entire criticism of the Iraq War evaporated once he became president So I mean I guess maybe the question here is just where are we at in terms of international law You know you go from Nuremberg where it seemed to be the beginning of a new way to think about international law to the nonvote when the United States wanted a vote the Bush administration wanted the UN Security Council to endorse this invasion of Iraq and they wouldnt You know France said no and Russia said no and China said no I believe Germany they said no or abstain PRASHAD Abstain JAY But then the American government said well okay well were doing it anyway And there were no repercussions PRASHAD Well I mean international law is in a very poor situation And its actually gotten worse in a sense since 2003 when the United States extended its war I mean the Iraq War begins in 1990 It never really ends I mean the whole sanctions regime is a form of warfare The Clinton administration occasionally would send cruise missiles onto Iraqi soil So the war never really ended It was accelerated in 2003 Its a separate matter But since 2003 things have got much worse In fact in the first term of the Obama administration the Obama administration enshrined through pressure on the UN this idea of responsibility to protect the R2P doctrine you know which means that if a sovereign state or if the United Nations sees a country somehow you know persecuting a minority then the idea of that state having sovereignty over its territory is invalid and the United Nations can come in and act or a member state authorized by the United Nations can come in and act So if in Libya the United Nations decides there is a situation where minorities are being you know acted upon in a bad way either being killed or being persecuted in some way the UN can come in and act You know on the surface in terms of common sense this sounds like a good idea that you know why should a state have the right to oppress its people You know lets say Germany didnt invade Austria didnt invade Czechoslovakia it just oppressed Jews inside Germany Why should Germany have the right to do that Its a perfectly commonsensical objection The problem with these new international laws like R2P responsibility to protect etc is not the commonsensical idea of it its who gets to determine which state is mistreating its population who gets to determine which state is mistreating its population to such an extent that invasion is necessary to overthrow the regime you know and that everybody in the UN body you know recognizes this responsibilitytoprotect doctrine is used extremely erratically on the surface But actually its used with US or Northern Atlantic countries interests in mind You know you attack and invade in Libya because you have interests that are transparent at the same time President Obama will be celebrating the birthday of the president of Equatorial Guinea who also oppresses and brutalizes his people So you pick and choose Now you cant have international law where its applied at a pickandchoose mechanism You know if its law if its the law of nations it has to apply universally And in this sense we now have laws where the adjudicator of the law has taken upon itself in other words the United States and its Western European allies have taken upon themselves the responsibility to become not only the legislators but also the executive and the judiciary There is no separation of powers You know the International Criminal Court is used when its useful So at the start of the Libya war the prosecutor there Mramp160Ocampo framed warrants against Mramp160Gaddafi his son Saif alIslam Gaddafi against Abdullah Senussi The war is over Mr Gaddafi is dead His son Saif alIslam is in captivity Mramp160Abdullah Senussi is in captivity in Libya The ICC for two years has been fighting to have the warrants of arrest executed by a proWestern government in Libya And the NATO powers that helped that used the ICC justification for their bombing raid is helping block bringing these people to justice in The Hague In other words international law is useful when its to your advantage When its not to your advantage its jettisoned into the bin This sets a terrible precedent for other countries You know And Im not saying that the United States should act you know honorably so that other countries will go by example In many cases other other countries act much more honorably But the fact is if the most powerful military in the world believes that its military force sets the terms of international law why should anybody take international law seriously This is a great disservice done to the legacy of the Nuremberg Charter JAY And as much as the Americans have been the driving force in undermining international law for their own I think very narrow nationalist interest Russia China Western Europe too I mean France and others you know once the Iraq War was on okay they washed their hands of it I mean nobody called for any repercussions You know there was a certain stand made at that Security Council meeting in I guess 2003 I guess PRASHAD Correct JAY But after that you know theyre all back to making money and this is the way it is PRASHAD Well its true that on the Iraq question there has been very little stomach for a retrospective investigation of what happened But on Libya its a slightly different issue because it is the case that many of the countries of the South many of the BRICS countries for instance have been asking in the UN Security Council for an investigation of UN Resolution 1973 which authorized military force in Libya You know they have been asking for an investigation and in fact have authorized the UN to conduct an investigation So the UN begins to do its investigation and NATO sends the United Nations Now NATO acted in Libya following a UN resolution and constantly reiterated the fact that we are just operating under the terms of UN Resolution 1973 When the UN then asked for an investigation of civilian casualty deaths as a result of NATOs bombing NATO sentNATO headquarters in Brussels sent a letter to the UN saying we have conducted our own investigation we have not committed any you know war crimes or any crimes so we dont need to share anything with you JAY Well its clear that they completely violated the resolution I mean they didnt just defend Benghazi They started bombing on Gaddafis head and killed many many Libyans in the course of it But I do want to just add again this point Well of course the Americans and the French and the British and the Canadians are by far the primary villains of this piece The Russians you know gave up on it Like halfit wasnt you know halfway into this Libyan war where Obama meets Medvedev in Europe and Medvedev comes out and says oh its time for Gaddafi to leave And later it turns out Russia keeps its oil deal that it had through Eni So I mean PRASHAD No Russia is not playing with a clean hand here JAY Theyre playing the same hand PRASHAD Yeah because they have the oil company Gazprom has interests They have a dirty hand But also remember the Russians have an ongoing war in Chechnya and much of what the United States has been doing in its war on terror has retroactively justified Russias war in Chechnya So you know from naked selfinterest these countries have nowI mean they are jumping up and down in glee because they can win on both sides On the one hand they can stand out and selfrighteously criticize the United States saying you have black sites you have tortured you have this you have that while on the other hand they can then retroactively justify their terrible war that they conducted and actually in a slow way continue to conduct in Chechnya Dagestan etc So they dont have clean hands either The issue is that these countries none of them have a high moral ground It begs the question of why then should the UN Security Council if none of these permanent members have clean hands have a high moral ground why should these countries in the UN Security Council have the whitecarded veto JAY Okay So let me give the counterargument What do you do in a situation where say its like a Mobutu or somebody in the Congo What do you do when you have a situation where a regimeand more than likely a regime put in power in the first place through US policy cause they put so many crazy people in power particularly in Africa but not only But the legacy of the Cold War was horrible situations in certain countries What do you do when a regime is in fact conducting genocide within its own borders Is there a point PRASHAD Absolutely I mean there is no question that you stand back at the border and watch a regime kill its people no question you have to act In the same way as international law enjoins people if they see their government doing something you know that is illegal a war crime they must speak out in the same way there is an obligation on the international community to act The question is what does the international communityas it stands now when the UN says all member states must act to prevent a genocide in Benghazi what they should actually have written in their resolution is NATO should act I mean what we need to do now is to strengthen regional institutions You know the African Union has been deliberately starved and sidelined JAY Which meansbut just in case people mistake what youre saying youre saying it shouldnt have been NATO If there is going to be any intervention it should be by regional forces PRASHAD Absolutely because people have to live sidebyside You know NATO JAY But in the Libyan situation Qatar if they could and you know might have been more than happy to do that you know gethire a Pakistani army and invade Libya PRASHAD Well but Qatar doesnt have to live directly with the you know catastrophe that comes right after the regime falls I mean Libya is in catastrophe We needed the Algerians we needed the Tunisians we needed the Egyptians you know the actual regional partners that have to live through the consequences of their intervention you know and therefore have to strengthen the will Ill give you another example In the 1990s there was a group formed in Central Asia called the Shanghai Cooperative Organization The principal reason why the Central Asian countries Russia China later India joins as a member state joined this organization is they all had a common interest in dealing with the Taliban They wanted to get rid of the Taliban But if they had acted rather than a US occupation they would have all as regional as neighboring partners had a stake in the future of Afghanistan You know the United States doesnt have a stake in the future of Afghanistan You can pull troops out in 2014 and you go back home Next theres a convulsion in Afghanistan It affects Central Asia thoseyou know Kazakhstan Tajikistan It affects Pakistan It affects Iran It affects India You know regional countries need to involve themselves That is why we are at the point now where the United States selfanointed role as the global policeman using NATO essentially as the force that needs to go We need to build up robust regional organizations you know which adhere to international law and operate at a minimum standard not to come in and occupy places but to come in to act against atrocities and create a political space for a negotiation In Syria for instance you know an amazing thing occurred a year ago in the Syrian conflict when four countries that would never sit together never come into the room togetherTurkey Saudi Arabia Iran and Egyptformed the Syria Contact Group You know it was a small opening These countries have approximate reason to help deal with the Syrian conflict They were all for one involved in it They were embroiled in it If they were allowed to be the central focus to help open political space in Syria it would have been more effective Meanwhile what the Russians and Americans did was they said look this Syrian contact group its just utopian Its baloney Its not going to happen You never going to meet And they said were going to meet in Madrid and thats going to be the focus All eyes should focus on the AmericanRussian meeting in Madrid Its not about the regional partners That has to end We have to build you know robust regional organizations JAY Which partly means Americans need to tell their government to stay the hell out of these things PRASHAD Exactly And these regional organizations have to learn to operate under the strict scrutiny of international law you know which has to be the basis of regional intervention not whimsy not we dont like this person etc It has to be strictly on the principles of international law JAY Okay That will be a challenge too But at least if its regional as you say they have to suffer more the consequences of their decisions cause we dont want to create some kind of illusion about who these regional governments are PRASHAD Not at all JAY Cause they dont haveI mean if they could be the big superpower and kick everybodys ass they would PRASHAD Absolutely I mean if you just take the Syrian conflict again one in six people who live in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee It may be one in four in Jordan You know these countries suffer the consequences of cataclysm in their neighborhood They need to have a direct involvement in the discussion It cannot be the Americans and the Russians adjudicating something thats happening on the ground You need the Saudis at the table You need the Iranians at the table If theyre not there nothing is going to happen For Afghanistan its not about the Americans meeting the Taliban in Doha with the Karzai government You need the Indians there You need the Pakistanis there You need the Iranians there You know these are the major stakeholders These are people who have contradictory interests in Afghanistan They need to create not agreement but a modus vivendi You know the Indians and Pakistanis have to agree not to use Afghanistan as a space for their conflict JAY And the only way this happens is if the Americans are willing to let go of some of their global power PRASHAD Absolutely JAY Okay Thanks very much for joining us Were going to continue a series of interviews with Vijay on The Real News Hes going back to Beirut soon Hes going to be talking to us about the Middle East And were going to talk more bigpicture stuff But for now that concludes this series of interviews with Vijay on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network Thanks very much Vijay PRASHAD Pleasure JAY And thank you for joining us End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Just three days after their last meeting, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made some missteps in the Miami debate:</p> <p>The Democratic presidential candidates met in Miami for the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/09/transcript-the-post-univision-democratic-debate-annotated/" type="external">March 9 debate</a> hosted by&amp;#160;Univision and the Washington Post, and conducted partially in Spanish.</p> <p>Clinton claimed that in 2006, Sanders &#8220;stood with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous, absurd efforts to, quote, &#8216;hunt down immigrants.&#8217; &#8221; Sanders vehemently objected, saying he did &#8220;not support vigilantes&#8221; and that Clinton&#8217;s accusation was &#8220;horrific&#8221; and &#8220;unfair.&#8221;</p> <p>Sanders accused Clinton of unfairly cherry-picking &#8220;pieces&#8221; out of larger bills to distort his record. But in this case, Sanders voted in favor of a stand-alone amendment proposed by Minutemen-friendly Republicans. Sanders argued that the legislation merely codified existing policy, but it was opposed by a majority of Democrats.</p> <p>At issue is Sanders&#8217; vote for a fairly obscure amendment that sought to prohibit the&amp;#160;U.S. Border Patrol from tipping off the Mexican government about the whereabouts and enforcement efforts of the civilian border patrol known as the &#8220; <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33353.pdf" type="external">Minuteman Project</a>.&#8221;</p> <p>Whether that was actually happening is a matter of <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co#.ud8OZoyyD" type="external">some debate</a>&amp;#160;and speculation, according to BuzzFeed News. Nonetheless, Republican&amp;#160;Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia was worried enough about it that he offered <a href="https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/house-amendment/971" type="external">an amendment</a> to a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that stated &#8220;[n]one of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group &#8230; operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, unless required by international treaty.&#8221;</p> <p>Kingston and other Republicans <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2006/06/06/house-section/article/H3367-2" type="external">made clear</a> from the floor of the House that the amendment was designed to protect the activities of the Minutemen.</p> <p>Kingston, June 6, 2006:&amp;#160;Mr. Chairman, what this amendment does is it clarifies Congress&#8217;&amp;#160;position on a Border Patrol practice or a practice of the U.S.&amp;#160;Government that tips off illegal immigrants as to where citizen patrols&amp;#160;may be located. As we know, we had lots of testimony and lots of visits&amp;#160;from people along the border, and we have seen lots of cameras and lots&amp;#160;of videos about just the total lawlessness of people coming illegally&amp;#160;over the border at night.</p> <p>As a response in that area, a group has sprung up called the&amp;#160;Minutemen Project, and the Minutemen Project is definitely not&amp;#160;politically correct in Washington, D.C. However, they filled a void&amp;#160;which the government was unable to fill.&amp;#160;There are over 7,000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization, and I&amp;#160;am sure, like any other group of 7,000 people, you could find a bad&amp;#160;apple or two. Yet, at the same time overall, their help has been&amp;#160;productive and good. &#8230;</p> <p>What my amendment does is simply says that the U.S. Government cannot&amp;#160;tip off the Mexican officials as to where these folks are located.&amp;#160;Plain and simple, nothing fancy about it. I am sure the Border Patrol&amp;#160;will say, oh, no, we are not doing that, and yet one of the Web pages&amp;#160;of the Secretary of Mexico had the information very explicit, and we&amp;#160;just do not believe that is a good practice.&amp;#160;So what we wanted to do is confirm Congress&#8217; position in an&amp;#160;amendment.</p> <p>Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat and ranking member on the Committee on Homeland Security, said he had no objection to the amendment because that was already federal policy, and therefore the amendment &#8220;apparently does nothing.&#8221;</p> <p>Sabo, June 6, 2006:&amp;#160;Mr. Chairman, we are told by Customs and Border Patrol that&amp;#160;this amendment has no effect on its operation because it only shares&amp;#160;information when it is required by international treaty, the same as&amp;#160;what this amendment says. So to the best of my&amp;#160;knowledge this amendment simply restates what is policy.&amp;#160;If people want to put it in the bill, I guess that is okay because it&amp;#160;apparently does nothing.</p> <p>The amendment passed <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll224.xml#Y" type="external">293-107</a>. It was supported nearly unanimously by Republicans, and while a majority of Democrats opposed it, a sizable number &#8212; 76 &#8211;went along with it. Sanders, at the time a member of the House but running for the Senate, voted for it. It ultimately was not included in the DHS funding bill passed by the Senate.</p> <p>&#8220;People put forward nuisance amendments all the time,&#8221; Michael Briggs, Sanders&#8217; top communications strategist and longtime aide, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co#.ud8OZoyyD" type="external">told BuzzFeed News</a>. &#8220;In this case, the Customs and Border Patrol [according to Sabo] said it was a meaningless thing and [Sanders] and Sabo voted for it.&#8221;</p> <p>To recap, here&#8217;s what Clinton said during the debate: &#8220;And in 2006, when Senator Sanders was running for the Senate from Vermont, he voted in the House with hard-line Republicans for indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants, and then he sided with those Republicans to stand with vigilantes known as Minutemen who were taking up outposts along the border to hunt down immigrants.&#8221;</p> <p>Moments later, Clinton reiterated that Sanders &#8220;stood with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous, absurd efforts to, quote, &#8216;hunt down immigrants.&#8217; &#8221;</p> <p>When a debate moderator asked Sanders if he supported the Minutemen, Sanders responded, &#8220;Of course not. There was a piece of legislation supported by dozens and dozens of members of the House which codified existing legislation. What the secretary is doing tonight and has done very often is take large pieces of legislation and take pieces out of it.&amp;#160;&#8230; No, I do not support vigilantes, and that is a horrific statement, an unfair statement to make.&#8221;</p> <p>We&#8217;ll let readers decide if Clinton goes too far when she equates&amp;#160;Sanders&#8217; support for the amendment with&amp;#160;&#8220;[standing]&amp;#160;with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous, absurd efforts to &#8230; hunt down immigrants.&#8221; Certainly some of the amendment&#8217;s supporters saw it as at least symbolic support for the Minutemen&#8217;s efforts. But&amp;#160;Sanders makes a plausible argument that he believed he was voting for a do-nothing amendment that was merely codifying existing policy &#8212; indeed that was the view of the&amp;#160;ranking Democrat on the Committee on Homeland Security at the time. But as for Sanders&#8217; defense that Clinton was cherry-picking his support for a larger bill, in this case, the Kingston amendment was voted on as a stand-alone amendment.</p> <p>Clinton was misleading when she said&amp;#160;Sanders &#8220;would delay implementing&#8221; the Clean Power Plan. Sanders has proposed&amp;#160;changes to the CPP that could cause a delay, but those changes&amp;#160;entail adding regulations for methane emissions &#8212; a greenhouse gas 20 times more&amp;#160; <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/oilandgas/basic.html" type="external">potent</a> than carbon dioxide.</p> <p>Clinton was responding to a question regarding difficulty of passing environmental legislation in Congress. Clinton cited executive powers to regulate pollution &#8212; singling out the Clean Power Plan, which the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in&amp;#160; <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule" type="external">June 2014</a> to cut carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/fact-sheet-clean-power-plan-overview" type="external">30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030</a>.</p> <p>Clinton:&amp;#160;The clean power plan is something that Sen.&amp;#160;Sanders has said he would delay implementing, which makes absolutely no sense. We need to implement all of the president&#8217;s executive actions and quickly move to make a bridge from coal to natural gas to clean energy.</p> <p>But Sanders supports the Clean Power Plan, as <a href="http://www.lcv.org/assets/docs/presidential-candidates-on-cpp.pdf" type="external">the League of Conservation Voters notes</a> in its review of the presidential candidates&#8217; positions on the plan. He <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00307" type="external">voted</a> <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00306" type="external">twice</a> in the same day against <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/17/amid-record-global-temperatures-congress-to-vote-to-stop-obamas-clean-power-plan/" type="external">Republican efforts to block the EPA</a>from implementing the Clean Power Plan and a separate EPA regulation of new power plants.</p> <p>So what is Clinton talking about?</p> <p>In late February, the environmental news website Grist <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/6-things-bernie-sanders-would-do-to-crack-down-on-fracking-even-if-congress-doesnt-go-along/" type="external">spoke</a> with Sanders&#8217; campaign about&amp;#160;specifics on the senator&#8217;s plans to curb hydraulic fracturing &#8212; fracking &#8212; for oil and natural gas. The campaign told Grist that Sanders would&amp;#160;&#8220;[r]egulate methane, not just carbon, through the Clean Power Plan,&#8221; among other policy proposals.</p> <p>To back up her claim that&amp;#160;Sanders &#8220;would delay implementing&#8221; the Clean Power Plan, Clinton&#8217;s campaign referred us to two articles published on Feb. 26, one by <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/270872-sanders-shouldnt-hit-reset-on-clean-power-plan" type="external">The Hill</a> and another by&amp;#160; <a href="http://legal-planet.org/2016/02/26/bernie-sanders-position-on-the-clean-power-plan/" type="external">Legal Planet</a>. The authors of both articles voiced criticism of Sanders&#8217; proposed changes to the CPP.</p> <p>For example, Ann Carlson, the author of the Legal Planet article, says Sanders&#8217; changes &#8220;would cause significant delay in [the CPP&#8217;s]&amp;#160;implementation simply because of the procedural requirements of notice and comment.&#8221;</p> <p>We asked the Sanders campaign for a response to the criticism that his plan could cause a delay in implementing the Clean Power Plan, but we did not get a response. However, we know that Sanders supports the Clean Power Plan and in fact has voted against attempts to block its implementation.</p> <p>Sanders said that when Central American children illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 Clinton said &#8220;send them back.&#8221; That&#8217;s misleading. Actually, she said&amp;#160;she would not deport children who had &#8220;a legitimate claim for asylum&#8221; and &#8220;would face some terrible danger if they return.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">As we have written before</a>, there was a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who illegally crossed into the United States in 2014. President Obama <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-obama-idUSKBN0FC28220140708" type="external">sought funding</a> to, among other things, expedite the deportation of the unaccompanied minors. Clinton supported the president&#8217;s position, which some within his party criticized.</p> <p>Sanders: When we talk about immigration, the secretary will remember that one of the great tragedies, human tragedies of recent years is children came from Honduras where there&#8217;s probably more violence than almost any place in this country, and they came into this country. And I said welcome those children into this country, Secretary Clinton said send them back. That&#8217;s a difference.</p> <p>We&#8217;ve <a href="" type="internal">looked at Clinton&#8217;s remarks before</a> when the same attack line was used against her by former Maryland Gov. Martin O&#8217;Malley, who has since ended his presidential campaign. In a post-debate press release, the Sanders campaign cites remarks Clinton made during <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/politics/clinton-town-hall-what-to-watch/" type="external">a June 17, 2014, town hall</a> event on CNN, specifically when she said &#8220;just because your child gets across the border, that doesn&#8217;t mean the child gets to stay.&#8221;</p> <p>But Clinton said more than that at the town hall and in the weeks that followed.</p> <p>Her full response to the question shows she said some children should be returned to &#8220;responsible adults in their families&#8221; back home, but not all of them should be deported. She also said that allowing all of the children to stay would &#8220;encourage more children to make that dangerous journey&#8221; to the U.S.</p> <p>Clinton addressed the topic more fully five weeks later in interviews with John Harwood of the New York Times and Jorge Ramos of Fusion, a media company that is jointly owned by Univision and Disney/ABC Television. Ramos was one of the moderators of the March 9&amp;#160;debate.</p> <p>She told Harwood of the Times in a <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/10-questions-for-hillary-rodham-clinton/?_r=0" type="external">radio interview on July 24, 2014</a>, that there is a difference between migrant children and refugee children, and they are treated differently under the law.</p> <p>&#8220;We have two categories of people that are represented by these poor children that have come across our border. We have migrants, children who are leaving for a variety of reasons &#8212; economic, they want to reunite with family members,&#8221; she told the Times. &#8220;And we have refugees, people who have reason to be threatened, people who have bad probabilities if they return home as to what might happen to them.&#8221;</p> <p>Five days later, Ramos asked her ( <a href="http://fusion.net/video/3281/hillary-clinton-discusses-child-migrants-the-cuban-embargo-feminism-and-the-name-redskins/" type="external">at 2:09 into the interview</a>): &#8220;Who would you deport?&#8221; She responded: &#8220;Whoever was in the category of where they don&#8217;t have a legitimate claim for asylum.&#8221; She went on to say, &#8220;There may be some kids who definitely would face terrible danger if they return.&#8221;</p> <p>So, there is more to the story than Clinton just saying &#8220;send them back.&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton said the Supreme Court &#8220;took away a presidency&#8221; when it ordered an end to the 2000 Florida recount.</p> <p>Clinton: [L]et&#8217;s remember three words: Bush versus Gore. A court took away a presidency.</p> <p>We agree that the Supreme Court&#8217;s 5-4 ruling in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html" type="external">Bush v. Gore</a> effectively made George W. Bush the winner in the 2000 presidential election, over his Democratic challenger, Vice President Al Gore. It ended the recounts and legal wrangling that had gone on for weeks, awarding Florida&#8217;s electoral votes to Bush and thus tipping the balance in the national election in Bush&#8217;s favor.</p> <p>But &#8212; <a href="" type="internal">as we reported in 2008</a> &#8212; Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida&#8217;s highest court, according to a massive months-long, $1 million <a href="http://www.electionstudies.org/florida2000/data/data_files.htm" type="external">study</a> commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001.</p> <p>And Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Gore asked for, the study found.</p> <p>The study concluded that Gore might have eked out a narrow win (by a margin ranging from 42 to 171 votes out of a total of 6 million cast) had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots in the state. But Gore never asked for that.</p> <p>Clinton said &#8220;everybody&#8221; who got bailout funds &#8220;has paid it back.&#8221; Not quite.</p> <p>Clinton: And by the way, everybody, who, quote, &#8220;got money&#8221; in the quote, &#8220;bailout&#8221; that also included money for the auto rescue has paid it back. So, the Treasury was out nothing.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that the U.S. eventually made an overall profit from the controversial bank rescue package that was enacted in 2008, and was known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP. But it lost money on its bailout of General Motors and Chrysler Corp., and has yet to recover its investments in a number of financial institutions.</p> <p>According to the U.S. Treasury, as of the end of last year the government had <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/Pages/default.aspx#" type="external">netted a profit of more than $12 billion</a> on the overall program.</p> <p>But that profit was held down by <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/automotive-programs/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">a $9.3 billion loss on the auto bailout</a> portion of the program.</p> <p>Furthermore, not all banks paid back the funds they received. As of its <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/reports/Documents/2016.01%20January%20Monthly%20Report%20to%20Congress.pdf" type="external">most recent monthly report to Congress</a> on the TARP program, the Treasury Department showed that of 707 financial institutions in which TARP invested funds through its Capital Purchase Program, 32 ended in bankruptcy or receivership, and 17 still showed outstanding balances. The largest of those was $125 million still owed by First BanCorp of San Juan, Puerto Rico.</p> <p>To be sure, anything eventually recovered from those remaining institutions will further increase the overall profit on the TARP program. But it&#8217;s just not true that &#8220;everybody&#8221; has paid back TARP funds, even eight years later.</p> <p>And once again, the candidates repeated claims we&#8217;ve fact-checked before:</p> <p>&#8212; by Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, D&#8217;Angelo Gore and Vanessa Schipani</p> <p>Clarification, March 10: We inadvertently left off the first name of Rep. Martin Olav Sabo in our original story.</p> <p>Vina, Stephen R. &#8220; <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33353.pdf" type="external">Civilian Patrols Along the Border:&amp;#160;Legal and Policy Issues</a>.&#8221; Congressional Research Service. 7 Apr 2006.</p> <p>McMorris-Santoro, Evan. &#8220; <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co#.lkyGqWVVM" type="external">In 2006, Bernie Sanders Voted In Support Of An Immigration Conspiracy Theory</a>.&#8221; BuzzFeed News. 9 Dec 2015.</p> <p>Congress.gov.&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/house-amendment/971" type="external">H.Amdt.971 to H.R.5441</a>. Offered by Rep. Jack Kingston. 6 June 2006.</p> <p>Congressional Record. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2006/06/06/house-section/article/H3367-2" type="external">Debate on&amp;#160;Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007</a>. 6 Jun 2006.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Clinton Spins Immigration, Emails</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 8 Jul 2015.</p> <p>Paski, Jen. <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/03/238718.htm" type="external">Daily Press Briefing</a>. U.S. Department of State. 10 Mar 2015.</p> <p>ABC. &#8220; <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/Politics/week-transcript-secretary-state-colin-powell/story?id=29463658" type="external">This Week with George Stephanopoulos</a>.&#8221; Transcript. 8 Mar 2015.</p> <p>Shapiro, Lauren. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Surge of &#8216;Unaccompanied Children</a>.&#8217; &#8221; FactCheck.org. 18 Jul 2014.</p> <p>Holland, Steve and Richard Cowan. &#8220; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-obama-idUSKBN0FC28220140708" type="external">Obama seeks money, fast hearings to curb young migrant surge</a>.&#8221; Reuters. 8 Jul 2014.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">O&#8217;Malley&#8217;s Immigration Exaggeration</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 15 May 2015.</p> <p>Merica, Dan. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/politics/clinton-town-hall-what-to-watch/" type="external">6 times Clinton sounded, acted like a candidate</a>.&#8221; CNN. 18 June 2014.</p> <p>Harwood, John. &#8220; <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/10-questions-for-hillary-rodham-clinton/?_r=0" type="external">10 Questions for Hillary Rodham Clinton</a>.&#8221; New York Times. 24 Jul 2014.</p> <p>Ramos, Jorge. &#8220; <a href="http://fusion.net/video/3281/hillary-clinton-discusses-child-migrants-the-cuban-embargo-feminism-and-the-name-redskins/" type="external">Hillary Clinton discusses child migrants, the Cuban embargo, feminism, and the name &#8216;Redskins.&#8217;</a>&amp;#160;&#8221; Fusion. 29 Jul 2014.</p> <p>EPA. &#8220; <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/oilandgas/basic.html" type="external">Basic Information: Emissions from the Oil &amp;amp; Natural Gas Industry</a>.&#8221; Accessed 9 Mar 2016.</p> <p>Adler, Ben. &#8220; <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/6-things-bernie-sanders-would-do-to-crack-down-on-fracking-even-if-congress-doesnt-go-along/" type="external">6 things Bernie Sanders would do to crack down on fracking, even if Congress doesn&#8217;t go along</a>.&#8221; Grist. 21 Feb 2016.</p> <p>Revesz,&amp;#160;Richard. &#8220; <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/270872-sanders-shouldnt-hit-reset-on-clean-power-plan" type="external">Sanders shouldn&#8217;t hit &#8216;reset&#8217; on Clean Power Plan</a>.&#8221; The Hill. 26 Feb 2016.</p> <p>Carlson, Ann. &#8220; <a href="http://legal-planet.org/2016/02/26/bernie-sanders-position-on-the-clean-power-plan/" type="external">Bernie Sanders&#8217; Position on the Clean Power Plan</a>.&#8221; Legal Planet. 26 Feb 2016.</p> <p>White House. &#8220; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/the_cost_of_delaying_action_to_stem_climate_change.pdf" type="external">The Cost of Delaying Action to Stem Climate Change</a>.&#8221; Jul 2014.</p> <p>EPA. &#8220; <a href="http://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/clean-power-plan-existing-power-plants" type="external">Clean Power Plan for Existing Power Plants</a>.&#8221; Accessed 9 Mar 2016.</p> <p>EPA. &#8220; <a href="http://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-clean-power-plan-overview" type="external">FACT SHEET: Clean Power Plan Overview</a>.&#8221; Accessed 9 Mar 2016.</p> <p>League of Conservation Voters. &#8220; <a href="http://www.lcv.org/assets/docs/presidential-candidates-on-cpp.pdf" type="external">In Their Own Words: 2016 Presidential Candidates&amp;#160;on the Clean Power&amp;#160;Plan</a>.&#8221; 3 Mar 2016.</p> <p>114th Congress, U.S. Senate, 1st Session.&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00307" type="external">Roll Call Vote No. 307</a>. 17 Nov 2015.</p> <p>114th Congress, U.S. Senate, 1st Session.&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&amp;amp;session=1&amp;amp;vote=00306" type="external">Roll Call Vote No. 306</a>. 17 Nov 2015.</p> <p>Mooney, Chris. &#8220; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/17/amid-record-global-temperatures-congress-to-vote-to-stop-obamas-clean-power-plan/" type="external">Amid record global temperatures, Senate votes to block Obama&#8217;s Clean Power Plan</a>.&#8221; The Washington Post. 17 Nov 2015.</p> <p>U.S. Treasury Department. &#8220; <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/Pages/default.aspx#" type="external">TARP Programs</a>.&#8221; Web page updated 16 Jan 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Treasury Department. &#8220; <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/automotive-programs/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">TARP Programs: Auto Industry</a>.&#8221; Web page updated 8 Jan 2015.</p> <p>U.S. Treasury Department. &#8220; <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/reports/Documents/2016.01%20January%20Monthly%20Report%20to%20Congress.pdf" type="external">Troubled Assets Relief Program: Monthly Report to Congress, January 2016</a>.&#8221; 10 Feb 2016.</p> <p>Jackson, Brooks. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">The Florida Recount of 2000</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 22 Jan 2008.</p> <p>DeSilver, Drew. &#8220; <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/" type="external">For most workers, real wages have barely budged for decades</a>.&#8221;&amp;#160;Pew Research Center. 9 Oct 2014.</p> <p>Greenstone, Michael and Adam Looney. &#8220; <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/jobs/posts/2011/07/08-jobs-greenstone-looney" type="external">The Great Recession May Be Over, but American Families Are Working Harder than Ever</a>.&#8221; Brookings Institution. 8 Jul 2011.</p> <p>Bureau of Labor Statistics. &#8220; <a href="http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=ce" type="external">Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)</a>.&#8221; data extracted 5 Feb 2016.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene, et. al. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">FactChecking the MSNBC Democratic Debate</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 5 Feb 2016.</p>

FactChecking the Eighth Democratic Debate

https://factcheck.org/2016/03/factchecking-the-eighth-democratic-debate/

2016-03-10

2least

Just three days after their last meeting Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made some missteps in the Miami debate The Democratic presidential candidates met in Miami for the March 9 debate hosted byamp160Univision and the Washington Post and conducted partially in Spanish Clinton claimed that in 2006 Sanders 8220stood with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous absurd efforts to quote 8216hunt down immigrants8217 8221 Sanders vehemently objected saying he did 8220not support vigilantes8221 and that Clinton8217s accusation was 8220horrific8221 and 8220unfair8221 Sanders accused Clinton of unfairly cherrypicking 8220pieces8221 out of larger bills to distort his record But in this case Sanders voted in favor of a standalone amendment proposed by Minutemenfriendly Republicans Sanders argued that the legislation merely codified existing policy but it was opposed by a majority of Democrats At issue is Sanders8217 vote for a fairly obscure amendment that sought to prohibit theamp160US Border Patrol from tipping off the Mexican government about the whereabouts and enforcement efforts of the civilian border patrol known as the 8220 Minuteman Project8221 Whether that was actually happening is a matter of some debateamp160and speculation according to BuzzFeed News Nonetheless Republicanamp160Rep Jack Kingston of Georgia was worried enough about it that he offered an amendment to a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that stated 8220none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group 8230 operating in the State of California Texas New Mexico or Arizona unless required by international treaty8221 Kingston and other Republicans made clear from the floor of the House that the amendment was designed to protect the activities of the Minutemen Kingston June 6 2006amp160Mr Chairman what this amendment does is it clarifies Congress8217amp160position on a Border Patrol practice or a practice of the USamp160Government that tips off illegal immigrants as to where citizen patrolsamp160may be located As we know we had lots of testimony and lots of visitsamp160from people along the border and we have seen lots of cameras and lotsamp160of videos about just the total lawlessness of people coming illegallyamp160over the border at night As a response in that area a group has sprung up called theamp160Minutemen Project and the Minutemen Project is definitely notamp160politically correct in Washington DC However they filled a voidamp160which the government was unable to fillamp160There are over 7000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization and Iamp160am sure like any other group of 7000 people you could find a badamp160apple or two Yet at the same time overall their help has beenamp160productive and good 8230 What my amendment does is simply says that the US Government cannotamp160tip off the Mexican officials as to where these folks are locatedamp160Plain and simple nothing fancy about it I am sure the Border Patrolamp160will say oh no we are not doing that and yet one of the Web pagesamp160of the Secretary of Mexico had the information very explicit and weamp160just do not believe that is a good practiceamp160So what we wanted to do is confirm Congress8217 position in anamp160amendment Rep Martin Olav Sabo a Minnesota Democrat and ranking member on the Committee on Homeland Security said he had no objection to the amendment because that was already federal policy and therefore the amendment 8220apparently does nothing8221 Sabo June 6 2006amp160Mr Chairman we are told by Customs and Border Patrol thatamp160this amendment has no effect on its operation because it only sharesamp160information when it is required by international treaty the same asamp160what this amendment says So to the best of myamp160knowledge this amendment simply restates what is policyamp160If people want to put it in the bill I guess that is okay because itamp160apparently does nothing The amendment passed 293107 It was supported nearly unanimously by Republicans and while a majority of Democrats opposed it a sizable number 8212 76 8211went along with it Sanders at the time a member of the House but running for the Senate voted for it It ultimately was not included in the DHS funding bill passed by the Senate 8220People put forward nuisance amendments all the time8221 Michael Briggs Sanders8217 top communications strategist and longtime aide told BuzzFeed News 8220In this case the Customs and Border Patrol according to Sabo said it was a meaningless thing and Sanders and Sabo voted for it8221 To recap here8217s what Clinton said during the debate 8220And in 2006 when Senator Sanders was running for the Senate from Vermont he voted in the House with hardline Republicans for indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants and then he sided with those Republicans to stand with vigilantes known as Minutemen who were taking up outposts along the border to hunt down immigrants8221 Moments later Clinton reiterated that Sanders 8220stood with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous absurd efforts to quote 8216hunt down immigrants8217 8221 When a debate moderator asked Sanders if he supported the Minutemen Sanders responded 8220Of course not There was a piece of legislation supported by dozens and dozens of members of the House which codified existing legislation What the secretary is doing tonight and has done very often is take large pieces of legislation and take pieces out of itamp1608230 No I do not support vigilantes and that is a horrific statement an unfair statement to make8221 We8217ll let readers decide if Clinton goes too far when she equatesamp160Sanders8217 support for the amendment withamp1608220standingamp160with the Minutemen vigilantes in their ridiculous absurd efforts to 8230 hunt down immigrants8221 Certainly some of the amendment8217s supporters saw it as at least symbolic support for the Minutemen8217s efforts Butamp160Sanders makes a plausible argument that he believed he was voting for a donothing amendment that was merely codifying existing policy 8212 indeed that was the view of theamp160ranking Democrat on the Committee on Homeland Security at the time But as for Sanders8217 defense that Clinton was cherrypicking his support for a larger bill in this case the Kingston amendment was voted on as a standalone amendment Clinton was misleading when she saidamp160Sanders 8220would delay implementing8221 the Clean Power Plan Sanders has proposedamp160changes to the CPP that could cause a delay but those changesamp160entail adding regulations for methane emissions 8212 a greenhouse gas 20 times moreamp160 potent than carbon dioxide Clinton was responding to a question regarding difficulty of passing environmental legislation in Congress Clinton cited executive powers to regulate pollution 8212 singling out the Clean Power Plan which the Environmental Protection Agency proposed inamp160 June 2014 to cut carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 Clintonamp160The clean power plan is something that Senamp160Sanders has said he would delay implementing which makes absolutely no sense We need to implement all of the president8217s executive actions and quickly move to make a bridge from coal to natural gas to clean energy But Sanders supports the Clean Power Plan as the League of Conservation Voters notes in its review of the presidential candidates8217 positions on the plan He voted twice in the same day against Republican efforts to block the EPAfrom implementing the Clean Power Plan and a separate EPA regulation of new power plants So what is Clinton talking about In late February the environmental news website Grist spoke with Sanders8217 campaign aboutamp160specifics on the senator8217s plans to curb hydraulic fracturing 8212 fracking 8212 for oil and natural gas The campaign told Grist that Sanders wouldamp1608220regulate methane not just carbon through the Clean Power Plan8221 among other policy proposals To back up her claim thatamp160Sanders 8220would delay implementing8221 the Clean Power Plan Clinton8217s campaign referred us to two articles published on Feb 26 one by The Hill and another byamp160 Legal Planet The authors of both articles voiced criticism of Sanders8217 proposed changes to the CPP For example Ann Carlson the author of the Legal Planet article says Sanders8217 changes 8220would cause significant delay in the CPP8217samp160implementation simply because of the procedural requirements of notice and comment8221 We asked the Sanders campaign for a response to the criticism that his plan could cause a delay in implementing the Clean Power Plan but we did not get a response However we know that Sanders supports the Clean Power Plan and in fact has voted against attempts to block its implementation Sanders said that when Central American children illegally crossed the USMexico border in 2014 Clinton said 8220send them back8221 That8217s misleading Actually she saidamp160she would not deport children who had 8220a legitimate claim for asylum8221 and 8220would face some terrible danger if they return8221 As we have written before there was a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children from El Salvador Guatemala and Honduras who illegally crossed into the United States in 2014 President Obama sought funding to among other things expedite the deportation of the unaccompanied minors Clinton supported the president8217s position which some within his party criticized Sanders When we talk about immigration the secretary will remember that one of the great tragedies human tragedies of recent years is children came from Honduras where there8217s probably more violence than almost any place in this country and they came into this country And I said welcome those children into this country Secretary Clinton said send them back That8217s a difference We8217ve looked at Clinton8217s remarks before when the same attack line was used against her by former Maryland Gov Martin O8217Malley who has since ended his presidential campaign In a postdebate press release the Sanders campaign cites remarks Clinton made during a June 17 2014 town hall event on CNN specifically when she said 8220just because your child gets across the border that doesn8217t mean the child gets to stay8221 But Clinton said more than that at the town hall and in the weeks that followed Her full response to the question shows she said some children should be returned to 8220responsible adults in their families8221 back home but not all of them should be deported She also said that allowing all of the children to stay would 8220encourage more children to make that dangerous journey8221 to the US Clinton addressed the topic more fully five weeks later in interviews with John Harwood of the New York Times and Jorge Ramos of Fusion a media company that is jointly owned by Univision and DisneyABC Television Ramos was one of the moderators of the March 9amp160debate She told Harwood of the Times in a radio interview on July 24 2014 that there is a difference between migrant children and refugee children and they are treated differently under the law 8220We have two categories of people that are represented by these poor children that have come across our border We have migrants children who are leaving for a variety of reasons 8212 economic they want to reunite with family members8221 she told the Times 8220And we have refugees people who have reason to be threatened people who have bad probabilities if they return home as to what might happen to them8221 Five days later Ramos asked her at 209 into the interview 8220Who would you deport8221 She responded 8220Whoever was in the category of where they don8217t have a legitimate claim for asylum8221 She went on to say 8220There may be some kids who definitely would face terrible danger if they return8221 So there is more to the story than Clinton just saying 8220send them back8221 Clinton said the Supreme Court 8220took away a presidency8221 when it ordered an end to the 2000 Florida recount Clinton Let8217s remember three words Bush versus Gore A court took away a presidency We agree that the Supreme Court8217s 54 ruling in Bush v Gore effectively made George W Bush the winner in the 2000 presidential election over his Democratic challenger Vice President Al Gore It ended the recounts and legal wrangling that had gone on for weeks awarding Florida8217s electoral votes to Bush and thus tipping the balance in the national election in Bush8217s favor But 8212 as we reported in 2008 8212 Bush probably still would have won even if the US Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida8217s highest court according to a massive monthslong 1 million study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001 And Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Gore asked for the study found The study concluded that Gore might have eked out a narrow win by a margin ranging from 42 to 171 votes out of a total of 6 million cast had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots in the state But Gore never asked for that Clinton said 8220everybody8221 who got bailout funds 8220has paid it back8221 Not quite Clinton And by the way everybody who quote 8220got money8221 in the quote 8220bailout8221 that also included money for the auto rescue has paid it back So the Treasury was out nothing It8217s true that the US eventually made an overall profit from the controversial bank rescue package that was enacted in 2008 and was known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP But it lost money on its bailout of General Motors and Chrysler Corp and has yet to recover its investments in a number of financial institutions According to the US Treasury as of the end of last year the government had netted a profit of more than 12 billion on the overall program But that profit was held down by a 93 billion loss on the auto bailout portion of the program Furthermore not all banks paid back the funds they received As of its most recent monthly report to Congress on the TARP program the Treasury Department showed that of 707 financial institutions in which TARP invested funds through its Capital Purchase Program 32 ended in bankruptcy or receivership and 17 still showed outstanding balances The largest of those was 125 million still owed by First BanCorp of San Juan Puerto Rico To be sure anything eventually recovered from those remaining institutions will further increase the overall profit on the TARP program But it8217s just not true that 8220everybody8221 has paid back TARP funds even eight years later And once again the candidates repeated claims we8217ve factchecked before 8212 by Eugene Kiely Brooks Jackson Lori Robertson Robert Farley D8217Angelo Gore and Vanessa Schipani Clarification March 10 We inadvertently left off the first name of Rep Martin Olav Sabo in our original story Vina Stephen R 8220 Civilian Patrols Along the Borderamp160Legal and Policy Issues8221 Congressional Research Service 7 Apr 2006 McMorrisSantoro Evan 8220 In 2006 Bernie Sanders Voted In Support Of An Immigration Conspiracy Theory8221 BuzzFeed News 9 Dec 2015 Congressgovamp160 HAmdt971 to HR5441 Offered by Rep Jack Kingston 6 June 2006 Congressional Record Debate onamp160Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2007 6 Jun 2006 Kiely Eugene 8220 Clinton Spins Immigration Emails8221 FactCheckorg 8 Jul 2015 Paski Jen Daily Press Briefing US Department of State 10 Mar 2015 ABC 8220 This Week with George Stephanopoulos8221 Transcript 8 Mar 2015 Shapiro Lauren 8220 Surge of 8216Unaccompanied Children8217 8221 FactCheckorg 18 Jul 2014 Holland Steve and Richard Cowan 8220 Obama seeks money fast hearings to curb young migrant surge8221 Reuters 8 Jul 2014 Kiely Eugene 8220 O8217Malley8217s Immigration Exaggeration8221 FactCheckorg 15 May 2015 Merica Dan 8220 6 times Clinton sounded acted like a candidate8221 CNN 18 June 2014 Harwood John 8220 10 Questions for Hillary Rodham Clinton8221 New York Times 24 Jul 2014 Ramos Jorge 8220 Hillary Clinton discusses child migrants the Cuban embargo feminism and the name 8216Redskins8217amp1608221 Fusion 29 Jul 2014 EPA 8220 Basic Information Emissions from the Oil ampamp Natural Gas Industry8221 Accessed 9 Mar 2016 Adler Ben 8220 6 things Bernie Sanders would do to crack down on fracking even if Congress doesn8217t go along8221 Grist 21 Feb 2016 Reveszamp160Richard 8220 Sanders shouldn8217t hit 8216reset8217 on Clean Power Plan8221 The Hill 26 Feb 2016 Carlson Ann 8220 Bernie Sanders8217 Position on the Clean Power Plan8221 Legal Planet 26 Feb 2016 White House 8220 The Cost of Delaying Action to Stem Climate Change8221 Jul 2014 EPA 8220 Clean Power Plan for Existing Power Plants8221 Accessed 9 Mar 2016 EPA 8220 FACT SHEET Clean Power Plan Overview8221 Accessed 9 Mar 2016 League of Conservation Voters 8220 In Their Own Words 2016 Presidential Candidatesamp160on the Clean Poweramp160Plan8221 3 Mar 2016 114th Congress US Senate 1st Sessionamp160 Roll Call Vote No 307 17 Nov 2015 114th Congress US Senate 1st Sessionamp160 Roll Call Vote No 306 17 Nov 2015 Mooney Chris 8220 Amid record global temperatures Senate votes to block Obama8217s Clean Power Plan8221 The Washington Post 17 Nov 2015 US Treasury Department 8220 TARP Programs8221 Web page updated 16 Jan 2016 US Treasury Department 8220 TARP Programs Auto Industry8221 Web page updated 8 Jan 2015 US Treasury Department 8220 Troubled Assets Relief Program Monthly Report to Congress January 20168221 10 Feb 2016 Jackson Brooks 8220 The Florida Recount of 20008221 FactCheckorg 22 Jan 2008 DeSilver Drew 8220 For most workers real wages have barely budged for decades8221amp160Pew Research Center 9 Oct 2014 Greenstone Michael and Adam Looney 8220 The Great Recession May Be Over but American Families Are Working Harder than Ever8221 Brookings Institution 8 Jul 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics 8220 Employment Hours and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey National8221 data extracted 5 Feb 2016 Kiely Eugene et al 8220 FactChecking the MSNBC Democratic Debate8221 FactCheckorg 5 Feb 2016

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<p>Baptist News Global provides a free listing of ministry-related jobs for Baptist churches, theological institutions and organizations across the United States. Each posting is for 30 days and is limited to 150 words. Businesses may purchase a post in the &#8220;And More&#8221; section for $1.20 per word (minimum of $50 for 30 days). To submit a ministry-related job or inquire about other advertising options on this page, contact Barbara Francis at 336-717-1135, ext. 8 or <a href="" type="internal">barbara@baptistnews.com</a>.</p> <p><a type="external" href="" /></p> <p><a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>FULL-TIME PASTOR.&amp;#160; Friendship Independent Missionary Baptist Church of Perry, Florid, is currently seeking a full-time pastor. We are a small conservative church.&amp;#160; Position is available immediately.&amp;#160; We have a parsonage and pay a full-time salary.&amp;#160; Applicant must believe that the Holy Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God, meet all the qualifications of I Timothy and Titus, preach and teach only from the King James Bible.&amp;#160; We are looking for someone to help rebuild our congregation.&amp;#160; If you have questions or feel led to submit a resume and doctrinal statement, contact <a href="mailto:lauraj2502@gmail.com" type="external">lauraj2502@gmail.com</a>. (Posted 02.14.17)</p> <p>FULL-TIME ASSOCIATE PASTOR.&amp;#160; First Congregational Church of Naples ( <a href="http://www.naplesflchurch.com/" type="external">www.naplesflchurch.com</a>) in Naples, Fla., is seeking a full-time associate pastor who will assist with all pastoral duties including worship, preaching, pastoral care and lay life leadership. Located in a growing community in Southwest Florida, First Congregational is a relatively new church start with 200-plus members. It is a positive congregation with a focus on the positive things of the faith. For information or to submit a r&#233;sum&#233;, contact the search committee at <a href="mailto:leswicker@aol.com" type="external">leswicker@aol.com</a>. (Posted 01.13.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>MINISTER OF MUSIC.&amp;#160; Madison Baptist Church in Madison, Ga., is searching for a full-time Minister of Music who is a committed Christian, is energetic, and appreciates all types of music encompassing all ages of our music ministry.&amp;#160; We are a dually aligned CBF/SBC church with an average worship attendance of 200. Preference will be given to candidates with at least a Bachelor&#8217;s degree and some church music experience, but other inquiries are welcomed. Resume and cover letter should be submitted to <a href="mailto:mbc.minister.search@gmail.com" type="external">mbc.minister.search@gmail.com</a> or Minister of Music Search Committee, 328 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. If you need further information, please contact us at the above email address.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;(Posted 01.09.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>FULL-TIME ASSOCIATE PASTOR. First Baptist Church, Williamsburg, KY, is seeking a full-time associate pastor who will creatively visualize and incorporate the mission of the church and the love of Jesus Christ in ministry with children, youth, and their families. Send resumes to fbcwoffice@gmail.com. (Posted 01.06.17) <a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>MEDIA &amp;amp; COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR. First Baptist Zachary, La., is searching for a full-time Media/Communications Director to join our ministry team. The Media and Communications Director contributes to engaging worship services and resources staff and volunteers for ministry by maintaining, installing, and repairing the lighting, video, and sound systems operated by the media volunteer staff.&amp;#160; This role will also assist in training volunteers to fulfill roles in these areas across all of FBC Zachary&#8217;s ministries for weekend worship, midweek events, and special worship experiences throughout the year.&amp;#160; This person will be the primary contact for all tech support calls for all venues. A detailed job description may be found <a href="http://fbcz.org/jobs" type="external">here</a>. Please submit resumes and cover letters to <a href="mailto:mediaSearch@fbcz.org" type="external">mediaSearch@fbcz.org</a> &amp;#160;or via snail mail (Attn: Media Search, First Baptist, 4200 Main Street, Zachary, LA 70791) for consideration. No calls, please. (Posted 01.19.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>FULL-TIME PASTOR OF FAMILIES.&amp;#160; Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, MO, is seeking a full-time Pastor of Families.&amp;#160; The position will be responsible for providing leadership and oversight to ministry and spiritual development for families and their children from birth through twelfth grade in the church. This position requires a ministerial Christian approach, ethical behavior, good attitude, and awareness of boundaries.&amp;#160; The Pastor of Families should value diversity and understand and appreciate that Holmeswood members and our community are diverse.&amp;#160; He/she will support the participation of all members in the various ministries of the church. The Pastor of Families will have opportunities to serve in worship, which may include preaching and explore other areas of ministry as personally interested. Applicants should send their resume to <a href="mailto:David.McDaniel@holmeswood.org" type="external">David.McDaniel@holmeswood.org</a>&amp;#160; or call <a href="tel:(816)%20942-1729" type="external">(816)942-1729</a>. Website: <a href="http://www.holmeswood.org/" type="external">www.holmeswood.org</a>. (Posted 02.20.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>MINISTER TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. The Minister to Children and Families at First Baptist Church, Smithfield, N.C., provides relational leadership for extending the ministry and purposes of the church by planning, conducting, and evaluating a comprehensive program for children (birth through sixth grade) and families which under girds their spiritual, emotional, and social development as it relates to their becoming and growing as Christians, and provides opportunities and experiences at the family level for growth in Christian discipleship within and among the families of the church. Qualifications: Bachelor&#8217;s Degree with emphasis on child development&#8211;Required Graduate degree from accredited seminary/divinity school &#8212; Preferred. Previous ministry experience in a Baptist church of like faith and order is preferred. Qualified candidates email <a href="mailto:fbcsmithfieldpersonnel@gmail.com" type="external">fbcsmithfieldpersonnel@gmail.com</a> for a complete position description. (Posted 02.10.17)</p> <p>SENIOR PASTOR.&amp;#160; Immanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, N.C., is seeking a senior pastor to lead us as we begin our second 100 years. We are a diversified church that supports both CBF and SBC ministries, and we have a rich history of mission outreach to the Greenville community. Our church is located within walking distance of a growing East Carolina University, with approximately 28,000 students, where we have a strong outreach ministry, including international students. Our worship services include a blend of contemporary and traditional music. We affirm both men and women in ministry and leadership roles. The successful candidate will possess a strong calling to the pastoral ministry, and hold a degree from an accredited seminary or divinity school. Submit r&#233;sum&#233;s to Pastor Search Committee, Immanuel Baptist Church, 1101 S. Elm St., Greenville, NC 27858, or to <a href="mailto:pastorsearch@ibcg.org" type="external">pastorsearch@ibcg.org</a>. We will begin reviewing r&#233;sum&#233;s on April 1, and will continue until the position is filled. (Posted 02.08.17)</p> <p>MINISTER WITH STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES.&amp;#160; Providence Baptist Church, a moderate Baptist&amp;#160;church of 1500 members in Charlotte, NC, is seeking a Minister with Students and their&amp;#160;Families.&amp;#160; Send cover letter and resume to <a href="mailto:providenceSMsearch@gmail.com" type="external">providenceSMsearch@gmail.com</a> by March 1.&amp;#160;Information is available <a href="http://www.providencebc.org/connect/student-minister-search/" type="external">here</a>. (02.02.17)</p> <p>ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.&amp;#160; First Baptist Church, New Bern, NC, is seeking a full-time Associate Pastor of Christian Education. Our church has a strong Christian heritage, a warm and loving congregation with a heart for missions and is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.&amp;#160; <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VxGZuEp6WECW9VnFX8KhkanHa9KMv4BtW_8ou8EhQ-I/edit" type="external">Click here</a> for a job description. Interested candidates may submit a resume to <a href="mailto:fbcedusearch@gmail.com" type="external">fbcedusearch@gmail.com</a> &amp;#160;by March 15, 2017. (Posted 01.06.17)</p> <p>MINISTER OF CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP AND YOUNG ADULTS.&amp;#160; First Baptist, Wilmington, N.C., is seeking an individual to provide leadership for contemporary worship and for ministry with young adults. All applicants should have the ability to: Recruit, lead and develop a praise band of highly skilled volunteers that include both vocal and instrumental musicians; Facilitate a creative and multi-faceted approach to worship; Provide appropriate oversight to the technological and audio/visual aspects of worship; Work in a collaborative worship environment that includes the gifts and abilities of both staff and lay leadership; Serve as the lead minister focusing on the spiritual needs of young adults; and Connect the experience of worship to the larger identity and mission of our congregation. Our church is a diverse congregation. Any candidate should feel comfortable serving in a church in which: A breadth of theological and political diversity is celebrated; Women are embraced in any and all levels of congregational leadership; and Mission and ministry are intentionally holistic focused on both the material and spiritual needs of persons. While our church has significant ties to CBF, we are open to candidates of a variety of denominational backgrounds as long as they can affirm the values and beliefs we hold in common as a community of faith. Please send all inquiries, recommendations and r&#233;sum&#233;s to <a href="mailto:searchcommittee@fbcwilmington.org" type="external">searchcommittee@fbcwilmington.org</a> &amp;#160;with the subject line as &#8220;Worship and Young Adult Position.&#8221; (Posted 01.05.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF YOUTH AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT. Spring Creek Baptist Church in Oklahoma City is seeking an Associate Pastor of Youth and Community Engagement. This minister will work with our youth and their families, using these primary relationships to serve the larger church. The ideal candidate will exhibit a sense of adventure and fun, balanced by the ability to attend to the deep currents of spiritual life for our students. She/he will develop liturgical and social rhythms that give space for reflection and inclusion. The Associate Pastor will also be charged with Community Engagement. This encompasses missions, but extends to a holistic understanding of inward and outward congregational energies. She/he will need skills in digital communication technologies, comfort in cultural difference, and the ability to translate local/regional/international needs into our church context. This is a salaried position with benefits, and compensation will be based on experience. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.springcreekbc.com/associatepastorsearch" type="external">here</a>. Resumes and references can sent to <a href="mailto:associatepastorsearch@springcreekbc.com" type="external">associatepastorsearch@springcreekbc.com</a>.</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>WORSHIP PASTOR. Welcome Baptist Church, Greenville, S.C., is seeking a full-time Worship Pastor to passionately lead in authentic blended worship that glorifies God.&amp;#160;To be considered for this position, please submit a cover letter, resume, link to a worship service you have lead (not required), and your salary requirements to&amp;#160; <a href="mailto:welcomebaptistworshippastor@gmail.com" type="external">welcomebaptistworshippastor@gmail.com</a>.&amp;#160;You may also send copies of the information to: Welcome Baptist Church, Attn: Pam Knight, 2730 Anderson Road, Greenville, SC 29611. For more information and to view the job description, visit&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.welcomebaptist.com/" type="external">www.welcomebaptist.com</a>. (Posted 02.07.17)</p> <p>DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS.&amp;#160; The Baptist Church of Beaufort, SC, is seeking to fill the role of Director of Communications. This is a full-time salaried position beginning immediately, with regular office hours through the week. Applicants should have a degree in either Communications, Graphic Design, Marketing, Public Relations or a related field, to lead the overall Communications System of the church. Successful applicants will be capable of assessing audience, message and methods for overall church communication needs, as well as content creation and delivery including website, social media, in-house publications, press relations, signage, audio-visual management, and technology support. Contact Paul Capps at The Baptist Church of Beaufort, 843-524-3197 or send resumes to <a href="mailto:pcapps@bcob.org" type="external">pcapps@bcob.org</a>. (Posted 01.06.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>PASTOR.&amp;#160; Lovera Baptist Church, San Antonio, Texas,&amp;#160;seeks&amp;#160;a part-time/bi-vocational Pastor. LBC is affiliated the San Antonio Baptist Association. LBC is seeking a Pastor who can lead the church in evangelism, discipleship, teaching, and missions to engage the community and the world with the Gospel.&amp;#160; 10 years of ministerial experience and formal theological education preferred.&amp;#160; Resumes and letters of reference should be sent to Pastor Search Committee at <a href="mailto:Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com" type="external">Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com</a> or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church, 333 Lovera Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78212.&amp;#160; DVDs or links to online sermons are appreciated.&amp;#160; The search committee is accepting applications and recommendations until the position is filled. (Posted 01.18.17)</p> <p>MINISTER OF MUSIC. Lovera Baptist Church, San Antonio, TX, seeks a part-time Music Director. Resumes and letters of reference can be sent to Administrative Committee Chairman at <a href="mailto:Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com" type="external">Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com</a> &amp;#160;or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church, 333 Lovera Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78212.&amp;#160;(Posted 01.18.17)</p> <p>PIANIST.&amp;#160; Lovera Baptist Church, San Antonio, TX, seeks a pianist or organist for Sunday morning 11:00 worship service.&amp;#160; Resumes and letters of reference can be sent to Administrative Committee Chairman at <a href="mailto:Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com" type="external">Loverabaptistchurch@yahoo.com</a> &amp;#160;or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church, 333 Lovera Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78212.&amp;#160;(Posted 01.18.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p>SENIOR PASTOR.&amp;#160; Emmaus Baptist Church in Poquoson, VA, is seeking a full-time Senior Pastor who is effective in preaching and teaching the Bible as God&#8217;s Holy Word; who depends on the power of prayer; who ably leads in nurturing and caring for families and for individuals; who values a healthy church fellowship and surrounding community; and who enjoys prompting believers to grow spiritually as well as physically, emotionally and socially.&amp;#160; We affiliate with CBF and BGAV.&amp;#160; We affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and support both men and women in leadership positions.&amp;#160; Candidates should have at least 5 years of experience as a Senior Pastor and a MDIV degree.&amp;#160; Please send cover letter and resume to <a href="mailto:PastorSearch@ebcmin.com" type="external">PastorSearch@ebcmin.com</a>. (Posted 02.17.17)</p> <p>EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.&amp;#160; The Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage &amp;amp; Studies are seeking an executive director to serve as the chief operating officer of both organizations.&amp;#160; The Historical Society, founded in 1876, is focused upon collecting, preserving and sharing the tangible evidences of Virginia Baptist history and operates a research library and archives, including a church records repository, on the campus of the University of Richmond.&amp;#160; It also maintains a heritage gallery with changing exhibits for individual visitors and church groups.&amp;#160; The Heritage Center, founded in 2000, centers upon educational programming and resources.&amp;#160; Applicants should have a demonstrated knowledge of the field of Baptist history and heritage. &amp;#160;A search committee has been appointed consisting of William P. Tuck, chair, Helen S. Wood, and John L. Gordon.&amp;#160; Address inquires and send resumes to Dr. Tuck at <a href="mailto:wtuck@verizon.net" type="external">wtuck@verizon.net</a> &amp;#160;or 2340 Castlebridge Rd., Midlothian, VA 23113.&amp;#160; Deadline March 15. (Posted 02.17.17)</p> <p>MINISTER OF MUSIC/ORGANIST.&amp;#160; Hampton Baptist Church, in downtown Hampton, Va., is seeking a Minister of Music/Organist.&amp;#160; HBC is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, has a traditional worship service, and about 250 active members. The ideal candidate will have a high level of artistic and technical skills based on professional training in organ and choral church music and a well-established understanding of what a music ministry entails.&amp;#160; Information and a job description are available at <a href="http://www.hamptonbaptist.org/" type="external">www.hamptonbaptist.org</a>. Submit inquiries and resumes by March 15, 2017 to: <a href="mailto:church@hamptonbaptist.org" type="external">church@hamptonbaptist.org</a>, fax 757-723-8432, or mail to 40 Kings Way, Hampton, VA 23669, Attn. William Trimble, Chair, Minister of Music Search Committee. (Posted 02.03.17)</p> <p>PASTOR.&amp;#160;Calvary Baptist Church located in Emporia, VA, is seeking a full-time pastor. Interested pastors should view our website <a href="http://www.cbcemporia.org/" type="external">www.cbcemporia.org</a> and Facebook page.&amp;#160; Resumes may be emailed to <a href="mailto:calvaryemporiasearch@gmail.com" type="external">calvaryemporiasearch@gmail.com</a>. (Posted 01.24.17)</p> <p>SENIOR PASTOR.&amp;#160;Azalea Baptist Church located in Norfolk, VA, is seeking a full-time senior pastor.&amp;#160; We are a moderate, community-minded church with strong military ties whose members come from diverse backgrounds. We affiliate with the CBF, CBF of Virginia and BGAV.&amp;#160; We affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and support both men and women in leadership positions.&amp;#160; We also affirm that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is at the heart of Christianity.&amp;#160; Our approach to evangelism and outreach is to develop loving relationships and reflect Jesus Christ in our daily lives.&amp;#160; The candidate should hold a degree from an accredited seminary and five years pastoral experience is desired.&amp;#160; Applications can be sent to&amp;#160; <a href="mailto:azaleasearch@aol.com" type="external">azaleasearch@aol.com</a>&amp;#160;or mailed to Azalea Baptist Church, 3314 E. Little Creek Rd., Norfolk, Virginia 23518.&amp;#160; &amp;#160;Attention:&amp;#160; Pastor Search Committee. (Posted 01.24.17)</p> <p>CHILDREN&#8217;S MINISTRY DIRECTOR. &amp;#160;Bayside Baptist Church , Virginia Beach, VA, is seeking a part-time Children&#8217;s Ministry Director. We are looking for someone who loves Jesus, has a passion to disciple children, and who can lead our children&#8217;s ministry team to help kids know, love, and follow Jesus. Responsibilities will include overseeing the ministries and volunteers for C hildren&#8217;s&amp;#160;Sunday&amp;#160;School, Children&#8217;s Worship, VBS, and Summer Camp. For more information or to apply, contact Michael Feldman at&amp;#160; <a href="mailto:Feldman@baysidebc.org" type="external">Feldman@baysidebc.org</a>. (Posted 01.18.17)</p> <p>YOUTH MINISTRY DIRECTOR. &amp;#160;Bayside Baptist Church , Virginia Beach, VA, is seeking a part-time Youth Ministry Director. We are looking for someone who loves Jesus, is passionate about helping students know and own their faith, and who can lead our youth ministry team to help youth become mature followers of Jesus. Responsibilities will include discipling students and overseeing the volunteers, weekly events (Sunday&amp;#160;School and&amp;#160;Wednesday&amp;#160;night), and regularly occurring annual events (Summer Camp, etc.).&amp;#160;For more information or to apply, contact Michael Feldman at&amp;#160; <a href="mailto:Feldman@baysidebc.org" type="external">Feldman@baysidebc.org</a>. (Posted 01.18.17)</p> <p>SENIOR PASTOR.&amp;#160; Haymarket Baptist Church, Haymarket VA, is seeking a senior pastor.&amp;#160; HBC is a missions minded church with around 100 attendees per week.&amp;#160; We are a welcoming congregation&amp;#160;with a desire to attract&amp;#160;all ages.&amp;#160; We are seeking a servant leader in an active relationship with Jesus Christ who feels called to join with and reach out to our community.&amp;#160; The successful candidate will be personable, preach passionately from the Bible, and&amp;#160;inspire biblical teaching and compassionate pastoral care. The senior pastor should honor our history and values while encouraging continued growth in Christ. A Master&#8217;s Degree and 6 or more years of experience are preferred. Please submit resumes to <a href="mailto:hbcpsc2016@gmail.com" type="external">hbcpsc2016@gmail.com</a> or mail them to 5952 Amber Ridge Road Haymarket VA 20169. Website:&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.haymarketbaptistchurch.org/" type="external">http://www.haymarketbaptistchurch.org/</a>&amp;#160;(Posted 01.12.17)</p> <p>MINISTER/DIRECTOR OF MUSIC.&amp;#160; Ravensworth Baptist Church, Annandale, VA, is seeking a salaried part-time Minister or Director of music (seminary experience is preferred but not required) to guide the congregation in its ministry to each other, our community, and the world by providing leadership and support for the church&#8217;s music ministry. The Director of Music will coordinate with church staff, volunteers, and musicians from the wider community to create a rich and varied atmosphere of worshipful music from many styles and genres. We are seeking someone who can bring new life to traditional music and a sense of the sacred to newer music. The Director will lead the adult choir in rehearsal and worship, but also incorporate special music and more participatory congregational singing. Successful candidates will have a passion, not only for the music, but for the way that music enriches the worship service. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.ravensworthbaptist.org/" type="external">www.ravensworthbaptist.org</a>. Ravensworth Baptist Church is an inclusive and welcoming Christian community where expressing the love of God to all people is central to our worship, study, and service. (Posted 01.06.17)</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a> <a type="external" href="" /></p> <p><a href="http://www.churchbookkeepingtool.com/" type="external">WWW.CHURCHBOOKKEEPINGTOOL.COM</a>. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;Affordable Professional Church Management Tool.</p> <p><a href="#top" type="external">Back to top of page</a></p>

Ministry jobs and more

https://baptistnews.com/article/ministry-jobs-and-more-6/

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Baptist News Global provides a free listing of ministryrelated jobs for Baptist churches theological institutions and organizations across the United States Each posting is for 30 days and is limited to 150 words Businesses may purchase a post in the 8220And More8221 section for 120 per word minimum of 50 for 30 days To submit a ministryrelated job or inquire about other advertising options on this page contact Barbara Francis at 3367171135 ext 8 or barbarabaptistnewscom FULLTIME PASTORamp160 Friendship Independent Missionary Baptist Church of Perry Florid is currently seeking a fulltime pastor We are a small conservative churchamp160 Position is available immediatelyamp160 We have a parsonage and pay a fulltime salaryamp160 Applicant must believe that the Holy Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God meet all the qualifications of I Timothy and Titus preach and teach only from the King James Bibleamp160 We are looking for someone to help rebuild our congregationamp160 If you have questions or feel led to submit a resume and doctrinal statement contact lauraj2502gmailcom Posted 021417 FULLTIME ASSOCIATE PASTORamp160 First Congregational Church of Naples wwwnaplesflchurchcom in Naples Fla is seeking a fulltime associate pastor who will assist with all pastoral duties including worship preaching pastoral care and lay life leadership Located in a growing community in Southwest Florida First Congregational is a relatively new church start with 200plus members It is a positive congregation with a focus on the positive things of the faith For information or to submit a r233sum233 contact the search committee at leswickeraolcom Posted 011317 Back to top of page MINISTER OF MUSICamp160 Madison Baptist Church in Madison Ga is searching for a fulltime Minister of Music who is a committed Christian is energetic and appreciates all types of music encompassing all ages of our music ministryamp160 We are a dually aligned CBFSBC church with an average worship attendance of 200 Preference will be given to candidates with at least a Bachelor8217s degree and some church music experience but other inquiries are welcomed Resume and cover letter should be submitted to mbcministersearchgmailcom or Minister of Music Search Committee 328 South Main Street Madison GA 30650 If you need further information please contact us at the above email addressamp160amp160Posted 010917 Back to top of page FULLTIME ASSOCIATE PASTOR First Baptist Church Williamsburg KY is seeking a fulltime associate pastor who will creatively visualize and incorporate the mission of the church and the love of Jesus Christ in ministry with children youth and their families Send resumes to fbcwofficegmailcom Posted 010617 Back to top of page MEDIA ampamp COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR First Baptist Zachary La is searching for a fulltime MediaCommunications Director to join our ministry team The Media and Communications Director contributes to engaging worship services and resources staff and volunteers for ministry by maintaining installing and repairing the lighting video and sound systems operated by the media volunteer staffamp160 This role will also assist in training volunteers to fulfill roles in these areas across all of FBC Zachary8217s ministries for weekend worship midweek events and special worship experiences throughout the yearamp160 This person will be the primary contact for all tech support calls for all venues A detailed job description may be found here Please submit resumes and cover letters to mediaSearchfbczorg amp160or via snail mail Attn Media Search First Baptist 4200 Main Street Zachary LA 70791 for consideration No calls please Posted 011917 Back to top of page FULLTIME PASTOR OF FAMILIESamp160 Holmeswood Baptist Church Kansas City MO is seeking a fulltime Pastor of Familiesamp160 The position will be responsible for providing leadership and oversight to ministry and spiritual development for families and their children from birth through twelfth grade in the church This position requires a ministerial Christian approach ethical behavior good attitude and awareness of boundariesamp160 The Pastor of Families should value diversity and understand and appreciate that Holmeswood members and our community are diverseamp160 Heshe will support the participation of all members in the various ministries of the church The Pastor of Families will have opportunities to serve in worship which may include preaching and explore other areas of ministry as personally interested Applicants should send their resume to DavidMcDanielholmeswoodorgamp160 or call 8169421729 Website wwwholmeswoodorg Posted 022017 Back to top of page MINISTER TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES The Minister to Children and Families at First Baptist Church Smithfield NC provides relational leadership for extending the ministry and purposes of the church by planning conducting and evaluating a comprehensive program for children birth through sixth grade and families which under girds their spiritual emotional and social development as it relates to their becoming and growing as Christians and provides opportunities and experiences at the family level for growth in Christian discipleship within and among the families of the church Qualifications Bachelor8217s Degree with emphasis on child development8211Required Graduate degree from accredited seminarydivinity school 8212 Preferred Previous ministry experience in a Baptist church of like faith and order is preferred Qualified candidates email fbcsmithfieldpersonnelgmailcom for a complete position description Posted 021017 SENIOR PASTORamp160 Immanuel Baptist Church in Greenville NC is seeking a senior pastor to lead us as we begin our second 100 years We are a diversified church that supports both CBF and SBC ministries and we have a rich history of mission outreach to the Greenville community Our church is located within walking distance of a growing East Carolina University with approximately 28000 students where we have a strong outreach ministry including international students Our worship services include a blend of contemporary and traditional music We affirm both men and women in ministry and leadership roles The successful candidate will possess a strong calling to the pastoral ministry and hold a degree from an accredited seminary or divinity school Submit r233sum233s to Pastor Search Committee Immanuel Baptist Church 1101 S Elm St Greenville NC 27858 or to pastorsearchibcgorg We will begin reviewing r233sum233s on April 1 and will continue until the position is filled Posted 020817 MINISTER WITH STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIESamp160 Providence Baptist Church a moderate Baptistamp160church of 1500 members in Charlotte NC is seeking a Minister with Students and theiramp160Familiesamp160 Send cover letter and resume to providenceSMsearchgmailcom by March 1amp160Information is available here 020217 ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATIONamp160 First Baptist Church New Bern NC is seeking a fulltime Associate Pastor of Christian Education Our church has a strong Christian heritage a warm and loving congregation with a heart for missions and is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowshipamp160 Click here for a job description Interested candidates may submit a resume to fbcedusearchgmailcom amp160by March 15 2017 Posted 010617 MINISTER OF CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP AND YOUNG ADULTSamp160 First Baptist Wilmington NC is seeking an individual to provide leadership for contemporary worship and for ministry with young adults All applicants should have the ability to Recruit lead and develop a praise band of highly skilled volunteers that include both vocal and instrumental musicians Facilitate a creative and multifaceted approach to worship Provide appropriate oversight to the technological and audiovisual aspects of worship Work in a collaborative worship environment that includes the gifts and abilities of both staff and lay leadership Serve as the lead minister focusing on the spiritual needs of young adults and Connect the experience of worship to the larger identity and mission of our congregation Our church is a diverse congregation Any candidate should feel comfortable serving in a church in which A breadth of theological and political diversity is celebrated Women are embraced in any and all levels of congregational leadership and Mission and ministry are intentionally holistic focused on both the material and spiritual needs of persons While our church has significant ties to CBF we are open to candidates of a variety of denominational backgrounds as long as they can affirm the values and beliefs we hold in common as a community of faith Please send all inquiries recommendations and r233sum233s to searchcommitteefbcwilmingtonorg amp160with the subject line as 8220Worship and Young Adult Position8221 Posted 010517 Back to top of page ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF YOUTH AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Spring Creek Baptist Church in Oklahoma City is seeking an Associate Pastor of Youth and Community Engagement This minister will work with our youth and their families using these primary relationships to serve the larger church The ideal candidate will exhibit a sense of adventure and fun balanced by the ability to attend to the deep currents of spiritual life for our students Shehe will develop liturgical and social rhythms that give space for reflection and inclusion The Associate Pastor will also be charged with Community Engagement This encompasses missions but extends to a holistic understanding of inward and outward congregational energies Shehe will need skills in digital communication technologies comfort in cultural difference and the ability to translate localregionalinternational needs into our church context This is a salaried position with benefits and compensation will be based on experience For more information visit here Resumes and references can sent to associatepastorsearchspringcreekbccom Back to top of page WORSHIP PASTOR Welcome Baptist Church Greenville SC is seeking a fulltime Worship Pastor to passionately lead in authentic blended worship that glorifies Godamp160To be considered for this position please submit a cover letter resume link to a worship service you have lead not required and your salary requirements toamp160 welcomebaptistworshippastorgmailcomamp160You may also send copies of the information to Welcome Baptist Church Attn Pam Knight 2730 Anderson Road Greenville SC 29611 For more information and to view the job description visitamp160 wwwwelcomebaptistcom Posted 020717 DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONSamp160 The Baptist Church of Beaufort SC is seeking to fill the role of Director of Communications This is a fulltime salaried position beginning immediately with regular office hours through the week Applicants should have a degree in either Communications Graphic Design Marketing Public Relations or a related field to lead the overall Communications System of the church Successful applicants will be capable of assessing audience message and methods for overall church communication needs as well as content creation and delivery including website social media inhouse publications press relations signage audiovisual management and technology support Contact Paul Capps at The Baptist Church of Beaufort 8435243197 or send resumes to pcappsbcoborg Posted 010617 Back to top of page PASTORamp160 Lovera Baptist Church San Antonio Texasamp160seeksamp160a parttimebivocational Pastor LBC is affiliated the San Antonio Baptist Association LBC is seeking a Pastor who can lead the church in evangelism discipleship teaching and missions to engage the community and the world with the Gospelamp160 10 years of ministerial experience and formal theological education preferredamp160 Resumes and letters of reference should be sent to Pastor Search Committee at Loverabaptistchurchyahoocom or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church 333 Lovera Blvd San Antonio TX 78212amp160 DVDs or links to online sermons are appreciatedamp160 The search committee is accepting applications and recommendations until the position is filled Posted 011817 MINISTER OF MUSIC Lovera Baptist Church San Antonio TX seeks a parttime Music Director Resumes and letters of reference can be sent to Administrative Committee Chairman at Loverabaptistchurchyahoocom amp160or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church 333 Lovera Blvd San Antonio TX 78212amp160Posted 011817 PIANISTamp160 Lovera Baptist Church San Antonio TX seeks a pianist or organist for Sunday morning 1100 worship serviceamp160 Resumes and letters of reference can be sent to Administrative Committee Chairman at Loverabaptistchurchyahoocom amp160or mailed to Lovera Baptist Church 333 Lovera Blvd San Antonio TX 78212amp160Posted 011817 Back to top of page SENIOR PASTORamp160 Emmaus Baptist Church in Poquoson VA is seeking a fulltime Senior Pastor who is effective in preaching and teaching the Bible as God8217s Holy Word who depends on the power of prayer who ably leads in nurturing and caring for families and for individuals who values a healthy church fellowship and surrounding community and who enjoys prompting believers to grow spiritually as well as physically emotionally and sociallyamp160 We affiliate with CBF and BGAVamp160 We affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and support both men and women in leadership positionsamp160 Candidates should have at least 5 years of experience as a Senior Pastor and a MDIV degreeamp160 Please send cover letter and resume to PastorSearchebcmincom Posted 021717 EXECUTIVE DIRECTORamp160 The Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage ampamp Studies are seeking an executive director to serve as the chief operating officer of both organizationsamp160 The Historical Society founded in 1876 is focused upon collecting preserving and sharing the tangible evidences of Virginia Baptist history and operates a research library and archives including a church records repository on the campus of the University of Richmondamp160 It also maintains a heritage gallery with changing exhibits for individual visitors and church groupsamp160 The Heritage Center founded in 2000 centers upon educational programming and resourcesamp160 Applicants should have a demonstrated knowledge of the field of Baptist history and heritage amp160A search committee has been appointed consisting of William P Tuck chair Helen S Wood and John L Gordonamp160 Address inquires and send resumes to Dr Tuck at wtuckverizonnet amp160or 2340 Castlebridge Rd Midlothian VA 23113amp160 Deadline March 15 Posted 021717 MINISTER OF MUSICORGANISTamp160 Hampton Baptist Church in downtown Hampton Va is seeking a Minister of MusicOrganistamp160 HBC is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has a traditional worship service and about 250 active members The ideal candidate will have a high level of artistic and technical skills based on professional training in organ and choral church music and a wellestablished understanding of what a music ministry entailsamp160 Information and a job description are available at wwwhamptonbaptistorg Submit inquiries and resumes by March 15 2017 to churchhamptonbaptistorg fax 7577238432 or mail to 40 Kings Way Hampton VA 23669 Attn William Trimble Chair Minister of Music Search Committee Posted 020317 PASTORamp160Calvary Baptist Church located in Emporia VA is seeking a fulltime pastor Interested pastors should view our website wwwcbcemporiaorg and Facebook pageamp160 Resumes may be emailed to calvaryemporiasearchgmailcom Posted 012417 SENIOR PASTORamp160Azalea Baptist Church located in Norfolk VA is seeking a fulltime senior pastoramp160 We are a moderate communityminded church with strong military ties whose members come from diverse backgrounds We affiliate with the CBF CBF of Virginia and BGAVamp160 We affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and support both men and women in leadership positionsamp160 We also affirm that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is at the heart of Christianityamp160 Our approach to evangelism and outreach is to develop loving relationships and reflect Jesus Christ in our daily livesamp160 The candidate should hold a degree from an accredited seminary and five years pastoral experience is desiredamp160 Applications can be sent toamp160 azaleasearchaolcomamp160or mailed to Azalea Baptist Church 3314 E Little Creek Rd Norfolk Virginia 23518amp160 amp160Attentionamp160 Pastor Search Committee Posted 012417 CHILDREN8217S MINISTRY DIRECTOR amp160Bayside Baptist Church Virginia Beach VA is seeking a parttime Children8217s Ministry Director We are looking for someone who loves Jesus has a passion to disciple children and who can lead our children8217s ministry team to help kids know love and follow Jesus Responsibilities will include overseeing the ministries and volunteers for C hildren8217samp160Sundayamp160School Children8217s Worship VBS and Summer Camp For more information or to apply contact Michael Feldman atamp160 Feldmanbaysidebcorg Posted 011817 YOUTH MINISTRY DIRECTOR amp160Bayside Baptist Church Virginia Beach VA is seeking a parttime Youth Ministry Director We are looking for someone who loves Jesus is passionate about helping students know and own their faith and who can lead our youth ministry team to help youth become mature followers of Jesus Responsibilities will include discipling students and overseeing the volunteers weekly events Sundayamp160School andamp160Wednesdayamp160night and regularly occurring annual events Summer Camp etcamp160For more information or to apply contact Michael Feldman atamp160 Feldmanbaysidebcorg Posted 011817 SENIOR PASTORamp160 Haymarket Baptist Church Haymarket VA is seeking a senior pastoramp160 HBC is a missions minded church with around 100 attendees per weekamp160 We are a welcoming congregationamp160with a desire to attractamp160all agesamp160 We are seeking a servant leader in an active relationship with Jesus Christ who feels called to join with and reach out to our communityamp160 The successful candidate will be personable preach passionately from the Bible andamp160inspire biblical teaching and compassionate pastoral care The senior pastor should honor our history and values while encouraging continued growth in Christ A Master8217s Degree and 6 or more years of experience are preferred Please submit resumes to hbcpsc2016gmailcom or mail them to 5952 Amber Ridge Road Haymarket VA 20169 Websiteamp160 httpwwwhaymarketbaptistchurchorgamp160Posted 011217 MINISTERDIRECTOR OF MUSICamp160 Ravensworth Baptist Church Annandale VA is seeking a salaried parttime Minister or Director of music seminary experience is preferred but not required to guide the congregation in its ministry to each other our community and the world by providing leadership and support for the church8217s music ministry The Director of Music will coordinate with church staff volunteers and musicians from the wider community to create a rich and varied atmosphere of worshipful music from many styles and genres We are seeking someone who can bring new life to traditional music and a sense of the sacred to newer music The Director will lead the adult choir in rehearsal and worship but also incorporate special music and more participatory congregational singing Successful candidates will have a passion not only for the music but for the way that music enriches the worship service For more information visit wwwravensworthbaptistorg Ravensworth Baptist Church is an inclusive and welcoming Christian community where expressing the love of God to all people is central to our worship study and service Posted 010617 Back to top of page WWWCHURCHBOOKKEEPINGTOOLCOM amp160amp160Affordable Professional Church Management Tool Back to top of page

Baptist/PROPN News/PROPN Global/PROPN provides/VERB a/DET free/ADJ listing/NOUN of/ADP ministryrelated/ADJ jobs/NOUN for/ADP Baptist/ADJ churches/NOUN theological/ADJ institutions/NOUN and/CCONJ organizations/NOUN across/ADP the/DET United/PROPN States/PROPN Each/DET posting/NOUN is/AUX for/ADP 30/NUM days/NOUN and/CCONJ is/AUX limited/VERB to/ADP 150/NUM words/NOUN Businesses/PROPN may/AUX purchase/VERB a/DET post/NOUN in/ADP the/DET 8220And/NUM More8221/PROPN section/NOUN for/ADP 120/NUM per/ADP word/NOUN minimum/NOUN of/ADP 50/NUM for/ADP 30/NUM days/NOUN To/PART submit/VERB a/DET ministryrelated/ADJ job/NOUN or/CCONJ inquire/VERB about/ADP other/ADJ advertising/NOUN options/NOUN on/ADP this/DET page/NOUN contact/NOUN Barbara/PROPN Francis/PROPN at/ADP 3367171135/NUM ext/VERB 8/NUM or/CCONJ barbarabaptistnewscom/PROPN FULLTIME/PROPN PASTORamp160/NOUN Friendship/PROPN Independent/PROPN Missionary/PROPN Baptist/PROPN Church/PROPN of/ADP Perry/PROPN Florid/PROPN is/AUX currently/ADV 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<p>Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera and Jacobin. He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning: The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower, published by Verso.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />As we've been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general, the role of police is rather obvious: police are there to enforce the law. Well, what are those laws? Well, essentially those laws protect people that own stuff, and the more you own, the more protection to get. And if you don't happen to own any stuff and you're poor and you're desperate, you're likely to have to try to get stuff to live, and sometimes that means breaking those laws. So we ask police to enforce that, and that often means we want the police to be a hammer, because if you're living in desperate conditions and you're poor, you often act out desperately. <p /> <p />And as a society, we've told cops, you can wear a gun. In fact, we've said the state, through the police, have a monopoly on violence--legal violence, that is. And there's supposed to be some check on that. And the check is: cops have to be reasonable in the use of force. And if they're unreasonable and they use excessive force, they should be charged, we say, criminally. It's not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process. <p /> <p />But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality, and even more importantly, when police kill people? Well, how often across the country does that actually happen? How easy is it, or how difficult, to indict a cop? <p /> <p />Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader. Chase is an attorney, an author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, The London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera. Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation "Why It's Impossible to Indict a Cop". <p /> <p />Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />CHASE MADAR, ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR: Happy to be here. <p /> <p />JAY: So give us some of the numbers. First of all, how many police killings are there? Let's put the Ferguson thing in context. How many times a year, normally, do cops kill somebody? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, last year, according to FBI statistics, there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country. That's probably a lowball figure and undercount, because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem, an issue, that they should keep a real detailed tally of this. And so this was the highest tally of police shootings, fatal shootings of people for very long, for about 10, 20 years. And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general, the homicide rate, has been steadily sinking since the early '90s. <p /> <p />JAY: So how many of these 400-some-odd cops that killed people justifiably? That means none of them were charged. How many cops were charged? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, we don't even have a good statistic on that. I mean, probably none. Police get charged very, very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction. And the more serious the infraction, like homicide, the even less likely they are to get charged, even to get indicted first, and certainly to be convicted later. <p /> <p />JAY: So why is it so difficult to indict police? It's hard to imagine that there isn't some evidence in some of these cases, at least, that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen, any civilian. Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting, and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police. They see themselves as part of the same team as the police. And they are reluctant to rock that boat, to poison their relationships with the police, which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Chase, I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago, and they used to--whenever they won a case, convicted someone, they would actually cut the person's tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk, and they would compare how many ties they had up. It was all a conviction numbers game, which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction. It's not that you're necessarily after the truth of the situation. <p /> <p />MADAR: That's right. And we have a huge exception in that numbers game. You want as few cops convicted, or even prosecuted or charged, when you're prosecutor. <p /> <p />And you see this--I mean, it's almost obscenely personified in the St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, whose father was a police officer, who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor. And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement, including very long testimony from the police officer, a potential defendant, Darren Wilson, is virtually unprecedented. And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case, so he wouldn't have to be the unpopular guy in the DA's office in St. Louis County who came down as a cop. This allowed him to just say, okay, well, it was the grand jury that did it, not me. <p /> <p />JAY: And even The New York Times--and to some extent The Washington Post--have commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated. We haven't had time to read the whole transcripts, but they've got lots of money. They can get people to do it. And they've written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic, without any challenge of significance, whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cop's narrative was grilled and discredited by the state's attorney, by the prosecutor. And it should actually be the other way around. He's supposed to be trying to get a conviction. That's why he calls these. If he didn't think there was grounds to convict at all, he shouldn't even have called the grand jury. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. And, sadly, this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work, if you know how our criminal justice system works. <p /> <p />And even the rare event had this gone to trial, had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson, I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off, even though his story, his own testimony is very hard to believe--I'm not saying 100 percent that it's wrong, but it's really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him, quote, like a demon, like some kind of pro-wrestler. It just--a real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that, to challenge it, to question it. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Even the incident at the car, this was a big piece of it, because I think it's because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street, but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way, that Brown could have been leaning in the window, and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car. Of course, we don't know because there's no trial and there's no chance to impeach any of these witnesses. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely, and that's exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee, even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police, to shield them from liability. We all like to think that the law is fair, that the law might even be on our side. But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians, the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway, flexibility, and discretion as to when they use force, even deadly force. <p /> <p />So I just want people to know that this isn't just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships, though it is that. It is also baked into the laws themselves, and not just in Missouri, but really nationwide. Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who aren't cops, from the point of view of citizens, civilians. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, it goes back, I think, [to] what I was saying in the beginning, that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff, the elites in the country, they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than they're concerned about the abuse of that force, so that they need to protect the cops unless it's completely egregious. There's just such obvious number of witnesses that it's impossible. Okay, then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say, okay, you, this police force, you're risking another Rodney King across the country, and you're going to have to get reform, because we don't want you triggering some mass rebellion. So, yeah, we'll pull you back from your worst excesses. But in day-to-day policing, Congress, the president, the state in general, they want the police to be a--feel free and not hesitate. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. It's disturbing how--well, how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States. <p /> <p />I mean, let's talk about the federal government, too, a little bit. There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson. But they've backed off from that just because, again, the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer, and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think they're going to win. They didn't think they were going to win this one, a criminal conviction, so they've backed off. <p /> <p />What I'm a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Department--say, Albuquerque, which has had a rash of fatal police shootings, often of unarmed civilians, over the past few years, and tries to do root-and-branch reform, restructure it, force new training policies, new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons, much less taking the safety off and using them. These don't involve any punishment for individual officers, even ones who have behaved really badly. <p /> <p />JAY: Even in this case, why didn't this guy have a taser? He says it was big and complicated or too difficult, so he didn't carry one. I mean, how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law, not just some code of practice? I mean, he could have tasered Brown in the street. He didn't have to shoot him, even assuming Brown even was threatening, 'cause that's clearly in dispute. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, even assuming that. I mean, it's no excuse to say that it's big and complicated. If a taser is too complicated for you, then obviously you should not be a patrol officer. I mean, it's really that simple. <p /> <p />JAY: There's simply no consequence. We have the same thing in Baltimore. We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police. And the idea of a community police review board, that it only makes sense, first of all, if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen, so at least there's some real-world consequences even if the state's attorney almost never lays a charge--they occasionally do, but it's very, very rare. But even that doesn't work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, these civilian review boards, they sound like a great idea, and I would like to see one that actually works someday, that does keep close control, real control, and real authority over the police. But as you said, that's only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments. <p /> <p />And I'm encouraged by the demonstrations that we've seen all over the United States in the past couple of days. I hope that continues. But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around. I mean, these are public servants. Their job is to work for us. They should be under firm civilian control, without a doubt. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, the thing is: you have to define us. They do work for the community. They work for the community of people that own stuff. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, I want to question that a little bit. To a degree, that's certainly right. I don't see how the capitalist rate, the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson, by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down. And in this sense I'm a little more optimistic, because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being, for the seeable future, I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, I agree with you. I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under today's conditions. But I'm not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit. What's good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment, which keeps wages down, and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if they're undocumented. Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything, that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits. I mean, frankly, in the long run, if people are really rational, that's not even good for corporate profits. Everyone--there's actually--the whole economy would do better if people were paid better. But still that is the mentality. So, yeah, it's keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas. I mean, you don't see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in--. And, like, we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park, which is fairly wealthy, white, and it wasn't that long ago black cops weren't allowed to arrest people in Roland Park. They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest. <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short- to medium-term to get the police back under control. (When I say back, that assumes they were under control earlier, which is really debatable.) <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, that's a stretch. <p /> <p />MADAR: One thing that's come to light is the kind of petty constant over-policing for fines, minor infractions, traffic violations, and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines. And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St. Louis County get revenue. It's often the second-largest revenue stream. <p /> <p />JAY: And wasn't there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson? <p /> <p />MADAR: Twenty percent in Ferguson, and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar, that we need to look at this and think, is this really the best way? Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money. And so it's a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on. <p /> <p />JAY: Add to that the incarceration industry. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, sure. And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration, this is a factor of the over-policing that I just talked about. We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries, but our sentences for people who are convicted are much, much, much higher. A lot of this--but really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure. But it's also how we come down so hard on even young people, charging them as adults. And when we charge adults, it's--the sentence is often much, much higher than in other nations. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />MADAR: Thank you. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Almost Impossible to Indict a Cop

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12719

2014-11-26

4left

Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique the London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera and Jacobin He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower published by Verso PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore As weve been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general the role of police is rather obvious police are there to enforce the law Well what are those laws Well essentially those laws protect people that own stuff and the more you own the more protection to get And if you dont happen to own any stuff and youre poor and youre desperate youre likely to have to try to get stuff to live and sometimes that means breaking those laws So we ask police to enforce that and that often means we want the police to be a hammer because if youre living in desperate conditions and youre poor you often act out desperately And as a society weve told cops you can wear a gun In fact weve said the state through the police have a monopoly on violencelegal violence that is And theres supposed to be some check on that And the check is cops have to be reasonable in the use of force And if theyre unreasonable and they use excessive force they should be charged we say criminally Its not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality and even more importantly when police kill people Well how often across the country does that actually happen How easy is it or how difficult to indict a cop Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader Chase is an attorney an author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique The London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation Why Its Impossible to Indict a Cop Thanks very much for joining us Jason CHASE MADAR ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR Happy to be here JAY So give us some of the numbers First of all how many police killings are there Lets put the Ferguson thing in context How many times a year normally do cops kill somebody MADAR Well last year according to FBI statistics there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country Thats probably a lowball figure and undercount because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem an issue that they should keep a real detailed tally of this And so this was the highest tally of police shootings fatal shootings of people for very long for about 10 20 years And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general the homicide rate has been steadily sinking since the early 90s JAY So how many of these 400someodd cops that killed people justifiably That means none of them were charged How many cops were charged MADAR Well we dont even have a good statistic on that I mean probably none Police get charged very very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction And the more serious the infraction like homicide the even less likely they are to get charged even to get indicted first and certainly to be convicted later JAY So why is it so difficult to indict police Its hard to imagine that there isnt some evidence in some of these cases at least that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction MADAR Yeah absolutely Well the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen any civilian Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police They see themselves as part of the same team as the police And they are reluctant to rock that boat to poison their relationships with the police which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer JAY Yeah Chase I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago and they used towhenever they won a case convicted someone they would actually cut the persons tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk and they would compare how many ties they had up It was all a conviction numbers game which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction Its not that youre necessarily after the truth of the situation MADAR Thats right And we have a huge exception in that numbers game You want as few cops convicted or even prosecuted or charged when youre prosecutor And you see thisI mean its almost obscenely personified in the St Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch whose father was a police officer who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement including very long testimony from the police officer a potential defendant Darren Wilson is virtually unprecedented And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case so he wouldnt have to be the unpopular guy in the DAs office in St Louis County who came down as a cop This allowed him to just say okay well it was the grand jury that did it not me JAY And even The New York Timesand to some extent The Washington Posthave commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated We havent had time to read the whole transcripts but theyve got lots of money They can get people to do it And theyve written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic without any challenge of significance whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cops narrative was grilled and discredited by the states attorney by the prosecutor And it should actually be the other way around Hes supposed to be trying to get a conviction Thats why he calls these If he didnt think there was grounds to convict at all he shouldnt even have called the grand jury MADAR Yeah absolutely And sadly this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work if you know how our criminal justice system works And even the rare event had this gone to trial had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off even though his story his own testimony is very hard to believeIm not saying 100 percent that its wrong but its really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him quote like a demon like some kind of prowrestler It justa real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that to challenge it to question it JAY Yeah Even the incident at the car this was a big piece of it because I think its because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way that Brown could have been leaning in the window and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car Of course we dont know because theres no trial and theres no chance to impeach any of these witnesses MADAR Yeah absolutely and thats exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police to shield them from liability We all like to think that the law is fair that the law might even be on our side But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway flexibility and discretion as to when they use force even deadly force So I just want people to know that this isnt just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships though it is that It is also baked into the laws themselves and not just in Missouri but really nationwide Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who arent cops from the point of view of citizens civilians JAY Well it goes back I think to what I was saying in the beginning that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff the elites in the country they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than theyre concerned about the abuse of that force so that they need to protect the cops unless its completely egregious Theres just such obvious number of witnesses that its impossible Okay then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say okay you this police force youre risking another Rodney King across the country and youre going to have to get reform because we dont want you triggering some mass rebellion So yeah well pull you back from your worst excesses But in daytoday policing Congress the president the state in general they want the police to be afeel free and not hesitate MADAR Yeah Its disturbing howwell how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States I mean lets talk about the federal government too a little bit There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson But theyve backed off from that just because again the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think theyre going to win They didnt think they were going to win this one a criminal conviction so theyve backed off What Im a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Departmentsay Albuquerque which has had a rash of fatal police shootings often of unarmed civilians over the past few years and tries to do rootandbranch reform restructure it force new training policies new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons much less taking the safety off and using them These dont involve any punishment for individual officers even ones who have behaved really badly JAY Even in this case why didnt this guy have a taser He says it was big and complicated or too difficult so he didnt carry one I mean how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law not just some code of practice I mean he could have tasered Brown in the street He didnt have to shoot him even assuming Brown even was threatening cause thats clearly in dispute MADAR Yeah even assuming that I mean its no excuse to say that its big and complicated If a taser is too complicated for you then obviously you should not be a patrol officer I mean its really that simple JAY Theres simply no consequence We have the same thing in Baltimore We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police And the idea of a community police review board that it only makes sense first of all if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen so at least theres some realworld consequences even if the states attorney almost never lays a chargethey occasionally do but its very very rare But even that doesnt work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job MADAR Yeah I mean these civilian review boards they sound like a great idea and I would like to see one that actually works someday that does keep close control real control and real authority over the police But as you said thats only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments And Im encouraged by the demonstrations that weve seen all over the United States in the past couple of days I hope that continues But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around I mean these are public servants Their job is to work for us They should be under firm civilian control without a doubt JAY Well the thing is you have to define us They do work for the community They work for the community of people that own stuff MADAR Yeah I mean I want to question that a little bit To a degree thats certainly right I dont see how the capitalist rate the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down And in this sense Im a little more optimistic because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being for the seeable future I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality JAY Yeah I agree with you I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under todays conditions But Im not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit Whats good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment which keeps wages down and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if theyre undocumented Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits I mean frankly in the long run if people are really rational thats not even good for corporate profits Everyonetheres actuallythe whole economy would do better if people were paid better But still that is the mentality So yeah its keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas I mean you dont see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in And like we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park which is fairly wealthy white and it wasnt that long ago black cops werent allowed to arrest people in Roland Park They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest MADAR Well but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short to mediumterm to get the police back under control When I say back that assumes they were under control earlier which is really debatable JAY Yeah thats a stretch MADAR One thing thats come to light is the kind of petty constant overpolicing for fines minor infractions traffic violations and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St Louis County get revenue Its often the secondlargest revenue stream JAY And wasnt there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson MADAR Twenty percent in Ferguson and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar that we need to look at this and think is this really the best way Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money And so its a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on JAY Add to that the incarceration industry MADAR Yeah sure And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration this is a factor of the overpolicing that I just talked about We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries but our sentences for people who are convicted are much much much higher A lot of thisbut really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure But its also how we come down so hard on even young people charging them as adults And when we charge adults itsthe sentence is often much much higher than in other nations JAY Alright Thanks very much for joining us Jason MADAR Thank you JAY And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p /> <p>Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has written nine books, including "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" (2009), "I Don't Believe in Atheists" (2008) and the best-selling "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" (2008). His book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> CHRIS HEDGES, PULITZER-PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST: Welcome back to part two of our discussion of the state of American democracy and the rise of corporate capitalism, inverted totalitarianism, with Professor Sheldon Wolin. <p /> <p />Professor Wolin, we were talking about the freeing of corporate capital, because of the Cold War, from internal democratic restraints. And that freeing saw corporate capital really make war against participatory democracy, democratic institutions. Can you describe a little bit what the process was, how they began to hollow out those institutions and weaken them? <p /> <p />SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. EMERITUS POLITICS, PRINCETON: Well, I think you really have to start with the political parties themselves. <p /> <p />The Republicans, of course, have never had much of an appetite for popular participation. The Democrats have had a checkered history of it. Sometimes very sympathetic, and other times indifferent. But during the '60s, and really even during the '50s as well, movement toward democracy began to take shape with the realization of the kind of voter restrictions, the most elementary kind of restrictions on democracy, prevalent especially, of course, in the South, and especially involving the disfranchisement of African-American voters, so that that kind of development--and, of course, the attempt on the part of Freedom Riders and others to go into the South and try to help African-Americans organize politically and to defend their rights--created a kind of political context, I think, probably which had never existed before, in which there were fundamental arguments about franchise, election, disenfranchisement, race, and a range of related issues that simply called for a kind of debate that, as I say, had scarcely been raised for decades. And it meant that a certain generation, or a couple of generations, had had a political exposure that was truly unprecedented in recent American history, not only the Freedom Riders who went down, but practically every campus in the country was affected by it, and not only because various faculty and students went to Alabama and elsewhere, but because it became a standard topic of conversation, to learn how the movement was doing, what kind of obstacles were being met, and what we could do, and there were marches and marches and marches, so that it was a political experience that was, I think, as I've said, unprecedented in terms of its intensity and in terms of the huge number of citizens being involved of a younger age. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And yet, when we look back at the nine 1930s, what I think marked the so-called New Left was that it was not coupled with labor. <p /> <p />WOLIN: No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. The '30s were kind of a peculiar thing. I mean, it shouldn't be simply dismissed, because it did have lasting influence, because it showed, to some degree at least, that it was possible to get a progressive administration, that Roosevelt, whatever his failings and shortcomings, had shown that with sufficient popular support, you could manage to make some kind of dent in the kind of political privileges that existed in the country and help to benefit the economic plight of most people. And he did make serious attempts. It, of course, ran into all kinds of problems, but that's the nature of politics. But I don't think it can be underestimated, the extent to which the New Deal influence spread throughout the society. I think it had an extraordinary effect, long-run effect in terms of igniting ideas about popular participation and its possibilities. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And yet it was really a response to the breakdown of capitalism. <p /> <p />WOLIN: It certainly was. I mean, it had its limitations. <p /> <p />But I think there's a very real question about how far the country was prepared to go at that time. It's important to remember that the early '30s--meaning by that from 1932, say, on--was not only a period of New Deal ferment; it was also a period of reactionary ferment, and that one mustn't forget such things as the Liberty League, and also, and above all, Father Coughlin, who was an extraordinary figure, someone who began as a defender of the New Deal and ended up as a bitter anti-Semite and had to be disowned--or at least throttled--by his own church, he had become so extreme. <p /> <p />But there were a lot of things percolating in those years, and on both sides, because, I've said, the New Deal and the liberal resurgence also would cause the reaction that I think led to a kind of permanent--I want to say permanent conservative realization that it had to develop a kind of standing set of its own institutions and foundations and fund-raising activities all the year round, not just to wait for elections, but to become a kind of permanent force, conscious conservative force in American politics from the ground up. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And that started when, would you say? <p /> <p />WOLIN: I would say it started with the reaction to the New Deal, which would mean in about 1934. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And so, essentially they're building antidemocratic institutions to burrow themselves into what we would consider the fundamental institutions of an open society--universities, the press, political parties. Would that be correct? <p /> <p />WOLIN: Yeah, that would be largely correct, yes. They did realize that those institutions were porous and that they lent themselves to an influence of money and the influence of the kind of people who had big money. And so they waged a counter campaign. And the result was, I think, a sort of permanent change, especially in the Republican Party, because remember, the Republican Party was not a reactionary party in the early '30s, and even as late as the 1936 election with Alf Landon, who was very much a moderate--and he only won Maine and Vermont, but still he was significant--and that Wendell Wilkie was a power in the party until at least 1940, had a very important liberal wing. So it took a while for the evolution of the Republican Party to becoming the kind of staunch and continuous opponent of New Deal legislation with leaders who by and large were committed to rolling it back and to introducing conservative reforms in education and economic structure and social security systems and so on. <p /> <p />HEDGES: We'd spoken earlier about what you term inverted totalitarianism. When did that process begin? Would we signal the beginning of that process with those reactionary forces in the 1930s? Is that when it started? <p /> <p />WOLIN: I think in the broad view it would start back then. I think it didn't gain full steam until you had those parallel developments that involved such sophisticated public relations powers and political party organizations that were round-the-year operations, that with a conscious ideological slant and an appeal to donors who wanted to support that kind of slant, so that politics--while all of those elements had been present, to be sure, for a long time, they achieved a certain organizational strength and longevity that I think was unique to that period. <p /> <p />And one has to remember that the '30s was a very troubled political period, because not only of the New Deal and the controversies it raised, and not only because of the reactionary elements at home, but Europe was clearly heading toward some uncertain future with Hitler and Mussolini, and then the specter of Stalin, so that it was a very, very worrisome, nervous period that had a lot to be nervous about. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Do you have a theory as to why Europe went one way and America went another? <p /> <p />WOLIN: Well, I'm sure there are lots of reasons. One that I would emphasize is the failure of governments in that country to be able to capture and mobilize and sustain popular support while introducing structural, economic, and social changes that would meet the kinds of growing needs of a large urban and industrialized population. I think that was the failure. <p /> <p />HEDGES: You talk in--I think it's in Politics and Vision--about how fascism arose out of Weimar, which was essentially a weak democracy. And yet you argue, inverted totalitarianism, certainly a species of totalitarianism, can often be the product of a strong democracy. <p /> <p />WOLIN: It can, in the sense that that strong democracy can do what its name implies. In the pursuit of popular ends, it develops inevitably powerful institutions to promote those ends. And very often they lend themselves to being taken over and utilized, that--for example, that popular means of communication and news information and so on can become very easily propaganda means for corporate capitalism, which understands that if you gain control of newspapers, radio, television, that you're in a position to really shape the political atmosphere. <p /> <p />HEDGES: You write in Democracy Incorporated that you don't believe we have any authentic democratic institutions left. <p /> <p />WOLIN: I don't. That may be a bit of an overstatement, but I think--in terms of effective democratic institutions, I don't think we do. I think there's potential. I think there's potential in movements towards self-government, movements towards economic independence, and movements towards educational reform, and so on, that have the seeds for change. But I think that it's very difficult now, given the way the media is controlled and the way political parties are organized and controlled, it's very difficult to get a foothold in politics in such a way that you can translate it into electoral reforms, electoral victories, and legislation, and so on. It's a very, very complex, difficult, demanding process. And as I've said before, democracy's great trouble is it's episodic. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Right. <p /> <p />WOLIN: And that just makes it easier for those who can hire other people to keep a sustained pressure on government to go the other way. <p /> <p />HEDGES: You talk about how democratic institutions which have essentially surrendered themselves to corporate power have pushed politics, if we define politics as that which is concerned with the common good and with accepting the risks, the benefits, and the sacrifices evenly across the society, that essentially that has pushed political life, to some extent, underground, outside of the traditional political institutions. <p /> <p />WOLIN: I certainly think that there's something to be said for that, because I think if you look strictly at our political parties and the national political processes, you get a picture of a society which seems to be moribund in terms of popular democracy. But if you look at what happens locally and even in statewide situations, there's still a lot of vitality out there, and people still feel that they have a right to complain, to agitate, to promote causes that would benefit them. And this still remains, I think, a strong element in it. <p /> <p />But I do think we're facing a period in which economic uncertainty is such that, particularly for younger people, in the sense that we don't really know anymore, with any degree of high certainty, how to prepare young people for a constantly changing economy, so that young people, in a certain sense, who are the sort of stuff of later political movements and political support systems, that young people are in a very real way puzzled and, I think, confused, and sort of don't know where to go, and are being propelled in certain directions that don't really add up to their long-run benefit. And it starts with, I think, the secondary education, and it continues in college. The plight of liberal arts education is just extraordinary today. It's so much on the defensive and so much on the ropes that it's hard to see what, if any, place it'll have in the future. <p /> <p />HEDGES: It's hard to see you in most politics departments at American universities today. It was probably a lonely position even when you--. <p /> <p />WOLIN: Oh, yeah, because most American--most political science departments have become in effect social science departments and much more addicted to seeking out quantitative projects that lend themselves to apparent scientific certainty and are less attuned--in fact, I think, even, I would say, apprehensive--about appearing to be supportive of popular causes. It's just not in the grain anymore. And the more that academic positions become precarious, as they have become, with tenure becoming more and more a rarity--. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Thirty-five percent now of positions are actually tenured. <p /> <p />WOLIN: Yeah, I would believe it. I would believe it. I mean, and that becomes a problem in terms of finding people willing to take a certain risk, with the understanding that while they're taking a risk, it won't be so fatal to their life chances. But I'm afraid it is now. And it doesn't bode well, because it seems to me, in a left-handed sort of way, it encourages the kind of professionalization of politics that results in the kind of political parties and political system that we've been warned about from the year one. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And a political passivity, which you say--you talk about classical totalitarian regimes mobilize the masses, whereas in inverted totalitarianism, the goal is to render the masses politically passive. And you use Hobbes to describe that. Can you speak a little bit about that? <p /> <p />WOLIN: Well, Hobbes is interesting because he writes in the so-called social contract tradition, and that had been a tradition which grew up in the late 16th and 17th century. The social contract position had furthered the notion that a political society and its governance should be the result of an agreement, of an agreement by the people as to what sort of government they wanted and what sort of role they wanted to play for themselves in such a government. And the social contract was an agreement they made with each other that they would create such a system and that they would support it, but they would reserve the right to oppose it, even rebel against it, if it proceeded to work contrary to the designs of the original contract, so that that became the sort of medium by which democratic ideas were carried through the 17th century and into much of the 18th century, including the American colonies and the arguments over the American Constitution as well--and especially, I should add, in the arguments about state constitutions and government. <p /> <p />HEDGES: And that fostering of political passivity, you have said in your work, is caused by what you were speaking about earlier, the economic insecurity, the precariousness of the position, which I think you go back to Hobbes as citing as one of the kind of fundamental controlling elements to shut down any real political activity. <p /> <p />WOLIN: Yes, I believe that very strongly. I think if you go back way to the Athenian democracy, one of the things you notice about it is that it paid citizens to participate. In other words, they would be relieved from a certain amount of economic insecurity in order to engage actively in politics. Well, when we get to our times and modern times, that kind of guarantee doesn't exist in any form whatsoever. We barely can manage to have an election day that isn't where we suspend work and other obligations to give citizens an opportunity to vote. They have to cram a vote into a busy, normal day, so that the relationship between economic structures and institutions and political institutions of democracy are just really in tension now, in which the requirements of the one are being undercut by the operations of the other. And I don't see any easy solution to it, because the forces that control the economy control to a large extent public opinion, modes of publication, and so on, and make it very difficult to mount counter-views. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Well, in fact, to engage in real participatory democracy or political activity is to put yourself in a more precarious position vis-&#224;-vis your work, your status within the society. <p /> <p />WOLIN: There's no question about it. And that's true of, I think, virtually every activity. It's now certainly frowned upon in academic work, and certainly in public education it's frowned on. And there's no effort made to really make it a bit easier for people to participate. And the intensity that economic survival requires today leaves most people exhausted. There's--and understandably. They don't have much, if any, time for politics. So we're in a really difficult situation, where the requirements of democracy are such that they're being undermined by the realities of a kind of economy and society that we've developed. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Which you point out Hobbes foresaw. <p /> <p />WOLIN: He did. He did indeed. And his solution was you surrender your political rights. Yeah. <p /> <p />HEDGES: Thank you. <p /> <p />Stay tuned for part three with our discussion with Professor Sheldon Wolin. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Hedges & Wolin (2/8): Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12557

2014-10-23

4left

Chris Hedges whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America the Middle East Africa and the Balkans He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor National Public Radio The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years He has written nine books including Empire of Illusion The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle 2009 I Dont Believe in Atheists 2008 and the bestselling American Fascists The Christian Right and the War on America 2008 His book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning 2003 was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction CHRIS HEDGES PULITZERPRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST Welcome back to part two of our discussion of the state of American democracy and the rise of corporate capitalism inverted totalitarianism with Professor Sheldon Wolin Professor Wolin we were talking about the freeing of corporate capital because of the Cold War from internal democratic restraints And that freeing saw corporate capital really make war against participatory democracy democratic institutions Can you describe a little bit what the process was how they began to hollow out those institutions and weaken them SHELDON WOLIN PROF EMERITUS POLITICS PRINCETON Well I think you really have to start with the political parties themselves The Republicans of course have never had much of an appetite for popular participation The Democrats have had a checkered history of it Sometimes very sympathetic and other times indifferent But during the 60s and really even during the 50s as well movement toward democracy began to take shape with the realization of the kind of voter restrictions the most elementary kind of restrictions on democracy prevalent especially of course in the South and especially involving the disfranchisement of AfricanAmerican voters so that that kind of developmentand of course the attempt on the part of Freedom Riders and others to go into the South and try to help AfricanAmericans organize politically and to defend their rightscreated a kind of political context I think probably which had never existed before in which there were fundamental arguments about franchise election disenfranchisement race and a range of related issues that simply called for a kind of debate that as I say had scarcely been raised for decades And it meant that a certain generation or a couple of generations had had a political exposure that was truly unprecedented in recent American history not only the Freedom Riders who went down but practically every campus in the country was affected by it and not only because various faculty and students went to Alabama and elsewhere but because it became a standard topic of conversation to learn how the movement was doing what kind of obstacles were being met and what we could do and there were marches and marches and marches so that it was a political experience that was I think as Ive said unprecedented in terms of its intensity and in terms of the huge number of citizens being involved of a younger age HEDGES And yet when we look back at the nine 1930s what I think marked the socalled New Left was that it was not coupled with labor WOLIN No it wasnt No it wasnt The 30s were kind of a peculiar thing I mean it shouldnt be simply dismissed because it did have lasting influence because it showed to some degree at least that it was possible to get a progressive administration that Roosevelt whatever his failings and shortcomings had shown that with sufficient popular support you could manage to make some kind of dent in the kind of political privileges that existed in the country and help to benefit the economic plight of most people And he did make serious attempts It of course ran into all kinds of problems but thats the nature of politics But I dont think it can be underestimated the extent to which the New Deal influence spread throughout the society I think it had an extraordinary effect longrun effect in terms of igniting ideas about popular participation and its possibilities HEDGES And yet it was really a response to the breakdown of capitalism WOLIN It certainly was I mean it had its limitations But I think theres a very real question about how far the country was prepared to go at that time Its important to remember that the early 30smeaning by that from 1932 say onwas not only a period of New Deal ferment it was also a period of reactionary ferment and that one mustnt forget such things as the Liberty League and also and above all Father Coughlin who was an extraordinary figure someone who began as a defender of the New Deal and ended up as a bitter antiSemite and had to be disownedor at least throttledby his own church he had become so extreme But there were a lot of things percolating in those years and on both sides because Ive said the New Deal and the liberal resurgence also would cause the reaction that I think led to a kind of permanentI want to say permanent conservative realization that it had to develop a kind of standing set of its own institutions and foundations and fundraising activities all the year round not just to wait for elections but to become a kind of permanent force conscious conservative force in American politics from the ground up HEDGES And that started when would you say WOLIN I would say it started with the reaction to the New Deal which would mean in about 1934 HEDGES And so essentially theyre building antidemocratic institutions to burrow themselves into what we would consider the fundamental institutions of an open societyuniversities the press political parties Would that be correct WOLIN Yeah that would be largely correct yes They did realize that those institutions were porous and that they lent themselves to an influence of money and the influence of the kind of people who had big money And so they waged a counter campaign And the result was I think a sort of permanent change especially in the Republican Party because remember the Republican Party was not a reactionary party in the early 30s and even as late as the 1936 election with Alf Landon who was very much a moderateand he only won Maine and Vermont but still he was significantand that Wendell Wilkie was a power in the party until at least 1940 had a very important liberal wing So it took a while for the evolution of the Republican Party to becoming the kind of staunch and continuous opponent of New Deal legislation with leaders who by and large were committed to rolling it back and to introducing conservative reforms in education and economic structure and social security systems and so on HEDGES Wed spoken earlier about what you term inverted totalitarianism When did that process begin Would we signal the beginning of that process with those reactionary forces in the 1930s Is that when it started WOLIN I think in the broad view it would start back then I think it didnt gain full steam until you had those parallel developments that involved such sophisticated public relations powers and political party organizations that were roundtheyear operations that with a conscious ideological slant and an appeal to donors who wanted to support that kind of slant so that politicswhile all of those elements had been present to be sure for a long time they achieved a certain organizational strength and longevity that I think was unique to that period And one has to remember that the 30s was a very troubled political period because not only of the New Deal and the controversies it raised and not only because of the reactionary elements at home but Europe was clearly heading toward some uncertain future with Hitler and Mussolini and then the specter of Stalin so that it was a very very worrisome nervous period that had a lot to be nervous about HEDGES Do you have a theory as to why Europe went one way and America went another WOLIN Well Im sure there are lots of reasons One that I would emphasize is the failure of governments in that country to be able to capture and mobilize and sustain popular support while introducing structural economic and social changes that would meet the kinds of growing needs of a large urban and industrialized population I think that was the failure HEDGES You talk inI think its in Politics and Visionabout how fascism arose out of Weimar which was essentially a weak democracy And yet you argue inverted totalitarianism certainly a species of totalitarianism can often be the product of a strong democracy WOLIN It can in the sense that that strong democracy can do what its name implies In the pursuit of popular ends it develops inevitably powerful institutions to promote those ends And very often they lend themselves to being taken over and utilized thatfor example that popular means of communication and news information and so on can become very easily propaganda means for corporate capitalism which understands that if you gain control of newspapers radio television that youre in a position to really shape the political atmosphere HEDGES You write in Democracy Incorporated that you dont believe we have any authentic democratic institutions left WOLIN I dont That may be a bit of an overstatement but I thinkin terms of effective democratic institutions I dont think we do I think theres potential I think theres potential in movements towards selfgovernment movements towards economic independence and movements towards educational reform and so on that have the seeds for change But I think that its very difficult now given the way the media is controlled and the way political parties are organized and controlled its very difficult to get a foothold in politics in such a way that you can translate it into electoral reforms electoral victories and legislation and so on Its a very very complex difficult demanding process And as Ive said before democracys great trouble is its episodic HEDGES Right WOLIN And that just makes it easier for those who can hire other people to keep a sustained pressure on government to go the other way HEDGES You talk about how democratic institutions which have essentially surrendered themselves to corporate power have pushed politics if we define politics as that which is concerned with the common good and with accepting the risks the benefits and the sacrifices evenly across the society that essentially that has pushed political life to some extent underground outside of the traditional political institutions WOLIN I certainly think that theres something to be said for that because I think if you look strictly at our political parties and the national political processes you get a picture of a society which seems to be moribund in terms of popular democracy But if you look at what happens locally and even in statewide situations theres still a lot of vitality out there and people still feel that they have a right to complain to agitate to promote causes that would benefit them And this still remains I think a strong element in it But I do think were facing a period in which economic uncertainty is such that particularly for younger people in the sense that we dont really know anymore with any degree of high certainty how to prepare young people for a constantly changing economy so that young people in a certain sense who are the sort of stuff of later political movements and political support systems that young people are in a very real way puzzled and I think confused and sort of dont know where to go and are being propelled in certain directions that dont really add up to their longrun benefit And it starts with I think the secondary education and it continues in college The plight of liberal arts education is just extraordinary today Its so much on the defensive and so much on the ropes that its hard to see what if any place itll have in the future HEDGES Its hard to see you in most politics departments at American universities today It was probably a lonely position even when you WOLIN Oh yeah because most Americanmost political science departments have become in effect social science departments and much more addicted to seeking out quantitative projects that lend themselves to apparent scientific certainty and are less attunedin fact I think even I would say apprehensiveabout appearing to be supportive of popular causes Its just not in the grain anymore And the more that academic positions become precarious as they have become with tenure becoming more and more a rarity HEDGES Thirtyfive percent now of positions are actually tenured WOLIN Yeah I would believe it I would believe it I mean and that becomes a problem in terms of finding people willing to take a certain risk with the understanding that while theyre taking a risk it wont be so fatal to their life chances But Im afraid it is now And it doesnt bode well because it seems to me in a lefthanded sort of way it encourages the kind of professionalization of politics that results in the kind of political parties and political system that weve been warned about from the year one HEDGES And a political passivity which you sayyou talk about classical totalitarian regimes mobilize the masses whereas in inverted totalitarianism the goal is to render the masses politically passive And you use Hobbes to describe that Can you speak a little bit about that WOLIN Well Hobbes is interesting because he writes in the socalled social contract tradition and that had been a tradition which grew up in the late 16th and 17th century The social contract position had furthered the notion that a political society and its governance should be the result of an agreement of an agreement by the people as to what sort of government they wanted and what sort of role they wanted to play for themselves in such a government And the social contract was an agreement they made with each other that they would create such a system and that they would support it but they would reserve the right to oppose it even rebel against it if it proceeded to work contrary to the designs of the original contract so that that became the sort of medium by which democratic ideas were carried through the 17th century and into much of the 18th century including the American colonies and the arguments over the American Constitution as welland especially I should add in the arguments about state constitutions and government HEDGES And that fostering of political passivity you have said in your work is caused by what you were speaking about earlier the economic insecurity the precariousness of the position which I think you go back to Hobbes as citing as one of the kind of fundamental controlling elements to shut down any real political activity WOLIN Yes I believe that very strongly I think if you go back way to the Athenian democracy one of the things you notice about it is that it paid citizens to participate In other words they would be relieved from a certain amount of economic insecurity in order to engage actively in politics Well when we get to our times and modern times that kind of guarantee doesnt exist in any form whatsoever We barely can manage to have an election day that isnt where we suspend work and other obligations to give citizens an opportunity to vote They have to cram a vote into a busy normal day so that the relationship between economic structures and institutions and political institutions of democracy are just really in tension now in which the requirements of the one are being undercut by the operations of the other And I dont see any easy solution to it because the forces that control the economy control to a large extent public opinion modes of publication and so on and make it very difficult to mount counterviews HEDGES Well in fact to engage in real participatory democracy or political activity is to put yourself in a more precarious position vis224vis your work your status within the society WOLIN Theres no question about it And thats true of I think virtually every activity Its now certainly frowned upon in academic work and certainly in public education its frowned on And theres no effort made to really make it a bit easier for people to participate And the intensity that economic survival requires today leaves most people exhausted Theresand understandably They dont have much if any time for politics So were in a really difficult situation where the requirements of democracy are such that theyre being undermined by the realities of a kind of economy and society that weve developed HEDGES Which you point out Hobbes foresaw WOLIN He did He did indeed And his solution was you surrender your political rights Yeah HEDGES Thank you Stay tuned for part three with our discussion with Professor Sheldon Wolin End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera and Jacobin. He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning: The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower, published by Verso.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />As we've been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general, the role of police is rather obvious: police are there to enforce the law. Well, what are those laws? Well, essentially those laws protect people that own stuff, and the more you own, the more protection to get. And if you don't happen to own any stuff and you're poor and you're desperate, you're likely to have to try to get stuff to live, and sometimes that means breaking those laws. So we ask police to enforce that, and that often means we want the police to be a hammer, because if you're living in desperate conditions and you're poor, you often act out desperately. <p /> <p />And as a society, we've told cops, you can wear a gun. In fact, we've said the state, through the police, have a monopoly on violence--legal violence, that is. And there's supposed to be some check on that. And the check is: cops have to be reasonable in the use of force. And if they're unreasonable and they use excessive force, they should be charged, we say, criminally. It's not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process. <p /> <p />But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality, and even more importantly, when police kill people? Well, how often across the country does that actually happen? How easy is it, or how difficult, to indict a cop? <p /> <p />Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader. Chase is an attorney, an author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, The London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera. Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation "Why It's Impossible to Indict a Cop". <p /> <p />Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />CHASE MADAR, ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR: Happy to be here. <p /> <p />JAY: So give us some of the numbers. First of all, how many police killings are there? Let's put the Ferguson thing in context. How many times a year, normally, do cops kill somebody? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, last year, according to FBI statistics, there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country. That's probably a lowball figure and undercount, because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem, an issue, that they should keep a real detailed tally of this. And so this was the highest tally of police shootings, fatal shootings of people for very long, for about 10, 20 years. And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general, the homicide rate, has been steadily sinking since the early '90s. <p /> <p />JAY: So how many of these 400-some-odd cops that killed people justifiably? That means none of them were charged. How many cops were charged? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, we don't even have a good statistic on that. I mean, probably none. Police get charged very, very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction. And the more serious the infraction, like homicide, the even less likely they are to get charged, even to get indicted first, and certainly to be convicted later. <p /> <p />JAY: So why is it so difficult to indict police? It's hard to imagine that there isn't some evidence in some of these cases, at least, that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen, any civilian. Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting, and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police. They see themselves as part of the same team as the police. And they are reluctant to rock that boat, to poison their relationships with the police, which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Chase, I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago, and they used to--whenever they won a case, convicted someone, they would actually cut the person's tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk, and they would compare how many ties they had up. It was all a conviction numbers game, which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction. It's not that you're necessarily after the truth of the situation. <p /> <p />MADAR: That's right. And we have a huge exception in that numbers game. You want as few cops convicted, or even prosecuted or charged, when you're prosecutor. <p /> <p />And you see this--I mean, it's almost obscenely personified in the St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, whose father was a police officer, who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor. And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement, including very long testimony from the police officer, a potential defendant, Darren Wilson, is virtually unprecedented. And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case, so he wouldn't have to be the unpopular guy in the DA's office in St. Louis County who came down as a cop. This allowed him to just say, okay, well, it was the grand jury that did it, not me. <p /> <p />JAY: And even The New York Times--and to some extent The Washington Post--have commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated. We haven't had time to read the whole transcripts, but they've got lots of money. They can get people to do it. And they've written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic, without any challenge of significance, whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cop's narrative was grilled and discredited by the state's attorney, by the prosecutor. And it should actually be the other way around. He's supposed to be trying to get a conviction. That's why he calls these. If he didn't think there was grounds to convict at all, he shouldn't even have called the grand jury. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. And, sadly, this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work, if you know how our criminal justice system works. <p /> <p />And even the rare event had this gone to trial, had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson, I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off, even though his story, his own testimony is very hard to believe--I'm not saying 100 percent that it's wrong, but it's really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him, quote, like a demon, like some kind of pro-wrestler. It just--a real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that, to challenge it, to question it. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Even the incident at the car, this was a big piece of it, because I think it's because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street, but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way, that Brown could have been leaning in the window, and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car. Of course, we don't know because there's no trial and there's no chance to impeach any of these witnesses. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely, and that's exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee, even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police, to shield them from liability. We all like to think that the law is fair, that the law might even be on our side. But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians, the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway, flexibility, and discretion as to when they use force, even deadly force. <p /> <p />So I just want people to know that this isn't just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships, though it is that. It is also baked into the laws themselves, and not just in Missouri, but really nationwide. Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who aren't cops, from the point of view of citizens, civilians. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, it goes back, I think, [to] what I was saying in the beginning, that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff, the elites in the country, they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than they're concerned about the abuse of that force, so that they need to protect the cops unless it's completely egregious. There's just such obvious number of witnesses that it's impossible. Okay, then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say, okay, you, this police force, you're risking another Rodney King across the country, and you're going to have to get reform, because we don't want you triggering some mass rebellion. So, yeah, we'll pull you back from your worst excesses. But in day-to-day policing, Congress, the president, the state in general, they want the police to be a--feel free and not hesitate. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. It's disturbing how--well, how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States. <p /> <p />I mean, let's talk about the federal government, too, a little bit. There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson. But they've backed off from that just because, again, the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer, and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think they're going to win. They didn't think they were going to win this one, a criminal conviction, so they've backed off. <p /> <p />What I'm a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Department--say, Albuquerque, which has had a rash of fatal police shootings, often of unarmed civilians, over the past few years, and tries to do root-and-branch reform, restructure it, force new training policies, new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons, much less taking the safety off and using them. These don't involve any punishment for individual officers, even ones who have behaved really badly. <p /> <p />JAY: Even in this case, why didn't this guy have a taser? He says it was big and complicated or too difficult, so he didn't carry one. I mean, how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law, not just some code of practice? I mean, he could have tasered Brown in the street. He didn't have to shoot him, even assuming Brown even was threatening, 'cause that's clearly in dispute. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, even assuming that. I mean, it's no excuse to say that it's big and complicated. If a taser is too complicated for you, then obviously you should not be a patrol officer. I mean, it's really that simple. <p /> <p />JAY: There's simply no consequence. We have the same thing in Baltimore. We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police. And the idea of a community police review board, that it only makes sense, first of all, if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen, so at least there's some real-world consequences even if the state's attorney almost never lays a charge--they occasionally do, but it's very, very rare. But even that doesn't work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, these civilian review boards, they sound like a great idea, and I would like to see one that actually works someday, that does keep close control, real control, and real authority over the police. But as you said, that's only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments. <p /> <p />And I'm encouraged by the demonstrations that we've seen all over the United States in the past couple of days. I hope that continues. But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around. I mean, these are public servants. Their job is to work for us. They should be under firm civilian control, without a doubt. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, the thing is: you have to define us. They do work for the community. They work for the community of people that own stuff. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, I want to question that a little bit. To a degree, that's certainly right. I don't see how the capitalist rate, the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson, by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down. And in this sense I'm a little more optimistic, because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being, for the seeable future, I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, I agree with you. I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under today's conditions. But I'm not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit. What's good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment, which keeps wages down, and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if they're undocumented. Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything, that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits. I mean, frankly, in the long run, if people are really rational, that's not even good for corporate profits. Everyone--there's actually--the whole economy would do better if people were paid better. But still that is the mentality. So, yeah, it's keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas. I mean, you don't see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in--. And, like, we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park, which is fairly wealthy, white, and it wasn't that long ago black cops weren't allowed to arrest people in Roland Park. They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest. <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short- to medium-term to get the police back under control. (When I say back, that assumes they were under control earlier, which is really debatable.) <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, that's a stretch. <p /> <p />MADAR: One thing that's come to light is the kind of petty constant over-policing for fines, minor infractions, traffic violations, and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines. And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St. Louis County get revenue. It's often the second-largest revenue stream. <p /> <p />JAY: And wasn't there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson? <p /> <p />MADAR: Twenty percent in Ferguson, and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar, that we need to look at this and think, is this really the best way? Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money. And so it's a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on. <p /> <p />JAY: Add to that the incarceration industry. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, sure. And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration, this is a factor of the over-policing that I just talked about. We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries, but our sentences for people who are convicted are much, much, much higher. A lot of this--but really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure. But it's also how we come down so hard on even young people, charging them as adults. And when we charge adults, it's--the sentence is often much, much higher than in other nations. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />MADAR: Thank you. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Almost Impossible to Indict a Cop

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12719

2014-11-26

4left

Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique the London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera and Jacobin He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower published by Verso PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore As weve been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general the role of police is rather obvious police are there to enforce the law Well what are those laws Well essentially those laws protect people that own stuff and the more you own the more protection to get And if you dont happen to own any stuff and youre poor and youre desperate youre likely to have to try to get stuff to live and sometimes that means breaking those laws So we ask police to enforce that and that often means we want the police to be a hammer because if youre living in desperate conditions and youre poor you often act out desperately And as a society weve told cops you can wear a gun In fact weve said the state through the police have a monopoly on violencelegal violence that is And theres supposed to be some check on that And the check is cops have to be reasonable in the use of force And if theyre unreasonable and they use excessive force they should be charged we say criminally Its not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality and even more importantly when police kill people Well how often across the country does that actually happen How easy is it or how difficult to indict a cop Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader Chase is an attorney an author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique The London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation Why Its Impossible to Indict a Cop Thanks very much for joining us Jason CHASE MADAR ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR Happy to be here JAY So give us some of the numbers First of all how many police killings are there Lets put the Ferguson thing in context How many times a year normally do cops kill somebody MADAR Well last year according to FBI statistics there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country Thats probably a lowball figure and undercount because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem an issue that they should keep a real detailed tally of this And so this was the highest tally of police shootings fatal shootings of people for very long for about 10 20 years And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general the homicide rate has been steadily sinking since the early 90s JAY So how many of these 400someodd cops that killed people justifiably That means none of them were charged How many cops were charged MADAR Well we dont even have a good statistic on that I mean probably none Police get charged very very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction And the more serious the infraction like homicide the even less likely they are to get charged even to get indicted first and certainly to be convicted later JAY So why is it so difficult to indict police Its hard to imagine that there isnt some evidence in some of these cases at least that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction MADAR Yeah absolutely Well the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen any civilian Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police They see themselves as part of the same team as the police And they are reluctant to rock that boat to poison their relationships with the police which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer JAY Yeah Chase I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago and they used towhenever they won a case convicted someone they would actually cut the persons tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk and they would compare how many ties they had up It was all a conviction numbers game which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction Its not that youre necessarily after the truth of the situation MADAR Thats right And we have a huge exception in that numbers game You want as few cops convicted or even prosecuted or charged when youre prosecutor And you see thisI mean its almost obscenely personified in the St Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch whose father was a police officer who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement including very long testimony from the police officer a potential defendant Darren Wilson is virtually unprecedented And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case so he wouldnt have to be the unpopular guy in the DAs office in St Louis County who came down as a cop This allowed him to just say okay well it was the grand jury that did it not me JAY And even The New York Timesand to some extent The Washington Posthave commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated We havent had time to read the whole transcripts but theyve got lots of money They can get people to do it And theyve written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic without any challenge of significance whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cops narrative was grilled and discredited by the states attorney by the prosecutor And it should actually be the other way around Hes supposed to be trying to get a conviction Thats why he calls these If he didnt think there was grounds to convict at all he shouldnt even have called the grand jury MADAR Yeah absolutely And sadly this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work if you know how our criminal justice system works And even the rare event had this gone to trial had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off even though his story his own testimony is very hard to believeIm not saying 100 percent that its wrong but its really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him quote like a demon like some kind of prowrestler It justa real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that to challenge it to question it JAY Yeah Even the incident at the car this was a big piece of it because I think its because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way that Brown could have been leaning in the window and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car Of course we dont know because theres no trial and theres no chance to impeach any of these witnesses MADAR Yeah absolutely and thats exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police to shield them from liability We all like to think that the law is fair that the law might even be on our side But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway flexibility and discretion as to when they use force even deadly force So I just want people to know that this isnt just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships though it is that It is also baked into the laws themselves and not just in Missouri but really nationwide Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who arent cops from the point of view of citizens civilians JAY Well it goes back I think to what I was saying in the beginning that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff the elites in the country they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than theyre concerned about the abuse of that force so that they need to protect the cops unless its completely egregious Theres just such obvious number of witnesses that its impossible Okay then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say okay you this police force youre risking another Rodney King across the country and youre going to have to get reform because we dont want you triggering some mass rebellion So yeah well pull you back from your worst excesses But in daytoday policing Congress the president the state in general they want the police to be afeel free and not hesitate MADAR Yeah Its disturbing howwell how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States I mean lets talk about the federal government too a little bit There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson But theyve backed off from that just because again the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think theyre going to win They didnt think they were going to win this one a criminal conviction so theyve backed off What Im a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Departmentsay Albuquerque which has had a rash of fatal police shootings often of unarmed civilians over the past few years and tries to do rootandbranch reform restructure it force new training policies new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons much less taking the safety off and using them These dont involve any punishment for individual officers even ones who have behaved really badly JAY Even in this case why didnt this guy have a taser He says it was big and complicated or too difficult so he didnt carry one I mean how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law not just some code of practice I mean he could have tasered Brown in the street He didnt have to shoot him even assuming Brown even was threatening cause thats clearly in dispute MADAR Yeah even assuming that I mean its no excuse to say that its big and complicated If a taser is too complicated for you then obviously you should not be a patrol officer I mean its really that simple JAY Theres simply no consequence We have the same thing in Baltimore We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police And the idea of a community police review board that it only makes sense first of all if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen so at least theres some realworld consequences even if the states attorney almost never lays a chargethey occasionally do but its very very rare But even that doesnt work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job MADAR Yeah I mean these civilian review boards they sound like a great idea and I would like to see one that actually works someday that does keep close control real control and real authority over the police But as you said thats only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments And Im encouraged by the demonstrations that weve seen all over the United States in the past couple of days I hope that continues But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around I mean these are public servants Their job is to work for us They should be under firm civilian control without a doubt JAY Well the thing is you have to define us They do work for the community They work for the community of people that own stuff MADAR Yeah I mean I want to question that a little bit To a degree thats certainly right I dont see how the capitalist rate the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down And in this sense Im a little more optimistic because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being for the seeable future I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality JAY Yeah I agree with you I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under todays conditions But Im not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit Whats good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment which keeps wages down and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if theyre undocumented Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits I mean frankly in the long run if people are really rational thats not even good for corporate profits Everyonetheres actuallythe whole economy would do better if people were paid better But still that is the mentality So yeah its keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas I mean you dont see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in And like we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park which is fairly wealthy white and it wasnt that long ago black cops werent allowed to arrest people in Roland Park They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest MADAR Well but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short to mediumterm to get the police back under control When I say back that assumes they were under control earlier which is really debatable JAY Yeah thats a stretch MADAR One thing thats come to light is the kind of petty constant overpolicing for fines minor infractions traffic violations and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St Louis County get revenue Its often the secondlargest revenue stream JAY And wasnt there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson MADAR Twenty percent in Ferguson and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar that we need to look at this and think is this really the best way Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money And so its a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on JAY Add to that the incarceration industry MADAR Yeah sure And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration this is a factor of the overpolicing that I just talked about We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries but our sentences for people who are convicted are much much much higher A lot of thisbut really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure But its also how we come down so hard on even young people charging them as adults And when we charge adults itsthe sentence is often much much higher than in other nations JAY Alright Thanks very much for joining us Jason MADAR Thank you JAY And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera and Jacobin. He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning: The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower, published by Verso.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />As we've been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general, the role of police is rather obvious: police are there to enforce the law. Well, what are those laws? Well, essentially those laws protect people that own stuff, and the more you own, the more protection to get. And if you don't happen to own any stuff and you're poor and you're desperate, you're likely to have to try to get stuff to live, and sometimes that means breaking those laws. So we ask police to enforce that, and that often means we want the police to be a hammer, because if you're living in desperate conditions and you're poor, you often act out desperately. <p /> <p />And as a society, we've told cops, you can wear a gun. In fact, we've said the state, through the police, have a monopoly on violence--legal violence, that is. And there's supposed to be some check on that. And the check is: cops have to be reasonable in the use of force. And if they're unreasonable and they use excessive force, they should be charged, we say, criminally. It's not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process. <p /> <p />But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality, and even more importantly, when police kill people? Well, how often across the country does that actually happen? How easy is it, or how difficult, to indict a cop? <p /> <p />Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader. Chase is an attorney, an author in New York. He writes for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, The London Review of Books, The American Conservative, Al Jazeera. Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation "Why It's Impossible to Indict a Cop". <p /> <p />Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />CHASE MADAR, ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR: Happy to be here. <p /> <p />JAY: So give us some of the numbers. First of all, how many police killings are there? Let's put the Ferguson thing in context. How many times a year, normally, do cops kill somebody? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, last year, according to FBI statistics, there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country. That's probably a lowball figure and undercount, because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem, an issue, that they should keep a real detailed tally of this. And so this was the highest tally of police shootings, fatal shootings of people for very long, for about 10, 20 years. And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general, the homicide rate, has been steadily sinking since the early '90s. <p /> <p />JAY: So how many of these 400-some-odd cops that killed people justifiably? That means none of them were charged. How many cops were charged? <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, we don't even have a good statistic on that. I mean, probably none. Police get charged very, very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction. And the more serious the infraction, like homicide, the even less likely they are to get charged, even to get indicted first, and certainly to be convicted later. <p /> <p />JAY: So why is it so difficult to indict police? It's hard to imagine that there isn't some evidence in some of these cases, at least, that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen, any civilian. Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting, and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police. They see themselves as part of the same team as the police. And they are reluctant to rock that boat, to poison their relationships with the police, which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Chase, I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago, and they used to--whenever they won a case, convicted someone, they would actually cut the person's tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk, and they would compare how many ties they had up. It was all a conviction numbers game, which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction. It's not that you're necessarily after the truth of the situation. <p /> <p />MADAR: That's right. And we have a huge exception in that numbers game. You want as few cops convicted, or even prosecuted or charged, when you're prosecutor. <p /> <p />And you see this--I mean, it's almost obscenely personified in the St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, whose father was a police officer, who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor. And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement, including very long testimony from the police officer, a potential defendant, Darren Wilson, is virtually unprecedented. And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case, so he wouldn't have to be the unpopular guy in the DA's office in St. Louis County who came down as a cop. This allowed him to just say, okay, well, it was the grand jury that did it, not me. <p /> <p />JAY: And even The New York Times--and to some extent The Washington Post--have commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated. We haven't had time to read the whole transcripts, but they've got lots of money. They can get people to do it. And they've written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic, without any challenge of significance, whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cop's narrative was grilled and discredited by the state's attorney, by the prosecutor. And it should actually be the other way around. He's supposed to be trying to get a conviction. That's why he calls these. If he didn't think there was grounds to convict at all, he shouldn't even have called the grand jury. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely. And, sadly, this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work, if you know how our criminal justice system works. <p /> <p />And even the rare event had this gone to trial, had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson, I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off, even though his story, his own testimony is very hard to believe--I'm not saying 100 percent that it's wrong, but it's really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him, quote, like a demon, like some kind of pro-wrestler. It just--a real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that, to challenge it, to question it. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Even the incident at the car, this was a big piece of it, because I think it's because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street, but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way, that Brown could have been leaning in the window, and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car. Of course, we don't know because there's no trial and there's no chance to impeach any of these witnesses. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, absolutely, and that's exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee, even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police, to shield them from liability. We all like to think that the law is fair, that the law might even be on our side. But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians, the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway, flexibility, and discretion as to when they use force, even deadly force. <p /> <p />So I just want people to know that this isn't just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships, though it is that. It is also baked into the laws themselves, and not just in Missouri, but really nationwide. Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who aren't cops, from the point of view of citizens, civilians. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, it goes back, I think, [to] what I was saying in the beginning, that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff, the elites in the country, they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than they're concerned about the abuse of that force, so that they need to protect the cops unless it's completely egregious. There's just such obvious number of witnesses that it's impossible. Okay, then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say, okay, you, this police force, you're risking another Rodney King across the country, and you're going to have to get reform, because we don't want you triggering some mass rebellion. So, yeah, we'll pull you back from your worst excesses. But in day-to-day policing, Congress, the president, the state in general, they want the police to be a--feel free and not hesitate. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. It's disturbing how--well, how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States. <p /> <p />I mean, let's talk about the federal government, too, a little bit. There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson. But they've backed off from that just because, again, the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer, and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think they're going to win. They didn't think they were going to win this one, a criminal conviction, so they've backed off. <p /> <p />What I'm a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Department--say, Albuquerque, which has had a rash of fatal police shootings, often of unarmed civilians, over the past few years, and tries to do root-and-branch reform, restructure it, force new training policies, new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons, much less taking the safety off and using them. These don't involve any punishment for individual officers, even ones who have behaved really badly. <p /> <p />JAY: Even in this case, why didn't this guy have a taser? He says it was big and complicated or too difficult, so he didn't carry one. I mean, how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law, not just some code of practice? I mean, he could have tasered Brown in the street. He didn't have to shoot him, even assuming Brown even was threatening, 'cause that's clearly in dispute. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, even assuming that. I mean, it's no excuse to say that it's big and complicated. If a taser is too complicated for you, then obviously you should not be a patrol officer. I mean, it's really that simple. <p /> <p />JAY: There's simply no consequence. We have the same thing in Baltimore. We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police. And the idea of a community police review board, that it only makes sense, first of all, if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen, so at least there's some real-world consequences even if the state's attorney almost never lays a charge--they occasionally do, but it's very, very rare. But even that doesn't work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, these civilian review boards, they sound like a great idea, and I would like to see one that actually works someday, that does keep close control, real control, and real authority over the police. But as you said, that's only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments. <p /> <p />And I'm encouraged by the demonstrations that we've seen all over the United States in the past couple of days. I hope that continues. But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around. I mean, these are public servants. Their job is to work for us. They should be under firm civilian control, without a doubt. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, the thing is: you have to define us. They do work for the community. They work for the community of people that own stuff. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah. I mean, I want to question that a little bit. To a degree, that's certainly right. I don't see how the capitalist rate, the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson, by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down. And in this sense I'm a little more optimistic, because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being, for the seeable future, I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, I agree with you. I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under today's conditions. But I'm not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit. What's good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment, which keeps wages down, and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if they're undocumented. Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything, that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits. I mean, frankly, in the long run, if people are really rational, that's not even good for corporate profits. Everyone--there's actually--the whole economy would do better if people were paid better. But still that is the mentality. So, yeah, it's keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas. I mean, you don't see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in--. And, like, we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park, which is fairly wealthy, white, and it wasn't that long ago black cops weren't allowed to arrest people in Roland Park. They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest. <p /> <p />MADAR: Well, but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short- to medium-term to get the police back under control. (When I say back, that assumes they were under control earlier, which is really debatable.) <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, that's a stretch. <p /> <p />MADAR: One thing that's come to light is the kind of petty constant over-policing for fines, minor infractions, traffic violations, and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines. And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St. Louis County get revenue. It's often the second-largest revenue stream. <p /> <p />JAY: And wasn't there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson? <p /> <p />MADAR: Twenty percent in Ferguson, and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar, that we need to look at this and think, is this really the best way? Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money. And so it's a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on. <p /> <p />JAY: Add to that the incarceration industry. <p /> <p />MADAR: Yeah, sure. And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration, this is a factor of the over-policing that I just talked about. We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries, but our sentences for people who are convicted are much, much, much higher. A lot of this--but really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure. But it's also how we come down so hard on even young people, charging them as adults. And when we charge adults, it's--the sentence is often much, much higher than in other nations. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Thanks very much for joining us, Jason. <p /> <p />MADAR: Thank you. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Almost Impossible to Indict a Cop

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12719

2014-11-26

4left

Chase Madar is an attorney and author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique the London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera and Jacobin He is the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning The Story of the Wikileaks Whistleblower published by Verso PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore As weve been saying on The Real News Network in relation to Ferguson and in general the role of police is rather obvious police are there to enforce the law Well what are those laws Well essentially those laws protect people that own stuff and the more you own the more protection to get And if you dont happen to own any stuff and youre poor and youre desperate youre likely to have to try to get stuff to live and sometimes that means breaking those laws So we ask police to enforce that and that often means we want the police to be a hammer because if youre living in desperate conditions and youre poor you often act out desperately And as a society weve told cops you can wear a gun In fact weve said the state through the police have a monopoly on violencelegal violence that is And theres supposed to be some check on that And the check is cops have to be reasonable in the use of force And if theyre unreasonable and they use excessive force they should be charged we say criminally Its not enough just to have some internal disciplinary process But how often do cops get charged criminally for police brutality and even more importantly when police kill people Well how often across the country does that actually happen How easy is it or how difficult to indict a cop Now joining us from New York is Chase Mader Chase is an attorney an author in New York He writes for The Nation Le Monde diplomatique The London Review of Books The American Conservative Al Jazeera Most recently he wrote the article in The Nation Why Its Impossible to Indict a Cop Thanks very much for joining us Jason CHASE MADAR ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR Happy to be here JAY So give us some of the numbers First of all how many police killings are there Lets put the Ferguson thing in context How many times a year normally do cops kill somebody MADAR Well last year according to FBI statistics there were 461 justifiable homicides committed by police around the country Thats probably a lowball figure and undercount because our federal government does not think this is significant enough a problem an issue that they should keep a real detailed tally of this And so this was the highest tally of police shootings fatal shootings of people for very long for about 10 20 years And this is also coming at a time when the murder rate in general the homicide rate has been steadily sinking since the early 90s JAY So how many of these 400someodd cops that killed people justifiably That means none of them were charged How many cops were charged MADAR Well we dont even have a good statistic on that I mean probably none Police get charged very very infrequently criminally for any kind of infraction And the more serious the infraction like homicide the even less likely they are to get charged even to get indicted first and certainly to be convicted later JAY So why is it so difficult to indict police Its hard to imagine that there isnt some evidence in some of these cases at least that at least should go to a trial if not a conviction MADAR Yeah absolutely Well the reason is quite simply both the institutions and even the laws themselves heavily favor the police whenever a police commits an act of violence against any citizen any civilian Start with the simple fact that it is prosecutors who of course do the prosecuting and prosecutors depend on a close relationship with the police They see themselves as part of the same team as the police And they are reluctant to rock that boat to poison their relationships with the police which is what will surely happen if they come down hard on an individual police officer JAY Yeah Chase I had a friend who was a prosecutor in Chicago and they used towhenever they won a case convicted someone they would actually cut the persons tie and pin it on the wall behind the desk and they would compare how many ties they had up It was all a conviction numbers game which implies you have to collaborate with the cops to get your conviction Its not that youre necessarily after the truth of the situation MADAR Thats right And we have a huge exception in that numbers game You want as few cops convicted or even prosecuted or charged when youre prosecutor And you see thisI mean its almost obscenely personified in the St Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch whose father was a police officer who in the past has really acted more like a defense attorney for police officers rather than a prosecutor And what he did by forcing a grand jury to study all of the evidence and hear witness statement after witness statement including very long testimony from the police officer a potential defendant Darren Wilson is virtually unprecedented And all of this to a large degree was so that the DA could insulate himself from the politics of this case so he wouldnt have to be the unpopular guy in the DAs office in St Louis County who came down as a cop This allowed him to just say okay well it was the grand jury that did it not me JAY And even The New York Timesand to some extent The Washington Posthave commented on the extent to which the process was manipulated We havent had time to read the whole transcripts but theyve got lots of money They can get people to do it And theyve written that the interrogation of the cop in front of the grand jury was extremely sympathetic without any challenge of significance whereas anyone who was a witness that disagreed with the cops narrative was grilled and discredited by the states attorney by the prosecutor And it should actually be the other way around Hes supposed to be trying to get a conviction Thats why he calls these If he didnt think there was grounds to convict at all he shouldnt even have called the grand jury MADAR Yeah absolutely And sadly this is pretty much what one would predict if you know about how prosecutors work if you know how our criminal justice system works And even the rare event had this gone to trial had there been criminal charges filed against Darren Wilson I think sad truth is he probably would have gotten off even though his story his own testimony is very hard to believeIm not saying 100 percent that its wrong but its really hard to believe his version that Mike Brown came at him quote like a demon like some kind of prowrestler It justa real prosecutor should have had a chance to pick at that to challenge it to question it JAY Yeah Even the incident at the car this was a big piece of it because I think its because they say that Brown attacked the cop in the car that laid the grounds for him thinking that he would be attacked again on the street but that you could argue the evidence a completely opposite way that Brown could have been leaning in the window and he could of been grabbed and pulled into the car Of course we dont know because theres no trial and theres no chance to impeach any of these witnesses MADAR Yeah absolutely and thats exactly why there should have been a trial in this casee even though I think the laws themselves that we have in our country are very much designed to protect police to shield them from liability We all like to think that the law is fair that the law might even be on our side But when it comes to a police officer versus civilians the law bends over backwards to grant police an incredible amount of leeway flexibility and discretion as to when they use force even deadly force So I just want people to know that this isnt just a matter of institutions and institutional relationships though it is that It is also baked into the laws themselves and not just in Missouri but really nationwide Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue is really lousy from the point of view of people who arent cops from the point of view of citizens civilians JAY Well it goes back I think to what I was saying in the beginning that the real fact of this is or the essence of this is is people that own stuff the elites in the country they far more want the cops to be feeling free to wield force than theyre concerned about the abuse of that force so that they need to protect the cops unless its completely egregious Theres just such obvious number of witnesses that its impossible Okay then maybe even the Department of Justice will step in and say okay you this police force youre risking another Rodney King across the country and youre going to have to get reform because we dont want you triggering some mass rebellion So yeah well pull you back from your worst excesses But in daytoday policing Congress the president the state in general they want the police to be afeel free and not hesitate MADAR Yeah Its disturbing howwell how uncontroversial this decision is and this whole problem is in a lot of parts of the United States I mean lets talk about the federal government too a little bit There was a lot of hope that the Department of Justice in Washington might swoop in and file civil rights violation charges against Darren Wilson But theyve backed off from that just because again the laws are heavily in favor of the police officer and the DOJ really only likes to take cases that they think theyre going to win They didnt think they were going to win this one a criminal conviction so theyve backed off What Im a little more optimistic about is when the Department of Justice sweeps in and goes into an entire Police Departmentsay Albuquerque which has had a rash of fatal police shootings often of unarmed civilians over the past few years and tries to do rootandbranch reform restructure it force new training policies new regulations about when officers should be touching their weapons much less taking the safety off and using them These dont involve any punishment for individual officers even ones who have behaved really badly JAY Even in this case why didnt this guy have a taser He says it was big and complicated or too difficult so he didnt carry one I mean how can that not be in itself actually a violation of law not just some code of practice I mean he could have tasered Brown in the street He didnt have to shoot him even assuming Brown even was threatening cause thats clearly in dispute MADAR Yeah even assuming that I mean its no excuse to say that its big and complicated If a taser is too complicated for you then obviously you should not be a patrol officer I mean its really that simple JAY Theres simply no consequence We have the same thing in Baltimore We just had a town hall here a few days ago at The Real News about should the community control the police And the idea of a community police review board that it only makes sense first of all if you have the right to hire and fire the police chief and hire and fire policemen so at least theres some realworld consequences even if the states attorney almost never lays a chargethey occasionally do but its very very rare But even that doesnt work unless you have an aroused population that demands that the review committee or the police services board actually does his job MADAR Yeah I mean these civilian review boards they sound like a great idea and I would like to see one that actually works someday that does keep close control real control and real authority over the police But as you said thats only going to work if there is a certain degree of mobilization and people taking responsibility and taking charge over their Police Departments And Im encouraged by the demonstrations that weve seen all over the United States in the past couple of days I hope that continues But it should not really be a radical idea that police exist to serve the community rather than the other way around I mean these are public servants Their job is to work for us They should be under firm civilian control without a doubt JAY Well the thing is you have to define us They do work for the community They work for the community of people that own stuff MADAR Yeah I mean I want to question that a little bit To a degree thats certainly right I dont see how the capitalist rate the corporate rate of profit is really well served by riots in Ferguson by police shootings that are going up even as violent crime goes down And in this sense Im a little more optimistic because even if our whole economic system is with us to stay for the time being for the seeable future I do think that real changes in policing and in police departments can at least bring down the level of gratuitous police violence and police brutality JAY Yeah I agree with you I think some of the worst excesses could be mitigated under todays conditions But Im not suggesting that riots are good for the rate of corporate profit Whats good for the rate of corporate profit is high unemployment which keeps wages down and people willing to work for minimum wage and sometimes below minimum wage if theyre undocumented Having big subsections of impoverished people willing to work for almost anything that is good for certain kinds of corporate profits I mean frankly in the long run if people are really rational thats not even good for corporate profits Everyonetheres actuallythe whole economy would do better if people were paid better But still that is the mentality So yeah its keeping the lid on the poor is their role in these types of areas I mean you dont see Baltimore police beating the hell out of people in And like we have an area in Baltimore called Roland Park which is fairly wealthy white and it wasnt that long ago black cops werent allowed to arrest people in Roland Park They actually had to call a white cop to come and do the arrest MADAR Well but let me tell you a little bit what I think might work in the short to mediumterm to get the police back under control When I say back that assumes they were under control earlier which is really debatable JAY Yeah thats a stretch MADAR One thing thats come to light is the kind of petty constant overpolicing for fines minor infractions traffic violations and other things that get punished with a constant stream of fines And this is a huge way that the city of Ferguson and many other municipalities in St Louis County get revenue Its often the secondlargest revenue stream JAY And wasnt there something like 20 percent of the municipal revenue in Ferguson MADAR Twenty percent in Ferguson and even higher in some of the neighboring towns that are similar that we need to look at this and think is this really the best way Because it does seem to a lot of people in Ferguson and elsewhere that the police are treating them as exploitable cash cows that are just there to be milked for their money And so its a constant feeling that many people have in Ferguson and many other places in the United States of just being preyed on JAY Add to that the incarceration industry MADAR Yeah sure And the whole incarceration business of mass incarceration this is a factor of the overpolicing that I just talked about We do have higher violent crime than in many comparable countries but our sentences for people who are convicted are much much much higher A lot of thisbut really just about 20 to 25 percent of this is nonviolent drug offenses from our war on drugs that is been a clear failure But its also how we come down so hard on even young people charging them as adults And when we charge adults itsthe sentence is often much much higher than in other nations JAY Alright Thanks very much for joining us Jason MADAR Thank you JAY And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usairforce/13991119140/in/photolist-njm9h5-oksT8q-7MBf8b-7MBf49-9NF42G-oVHE3p-9NC5eF-9ND6qW-9NvgtE-oVGE6K-ekW2f7-8mpYBw-5p2WHA-9LSp9S-cwQUFA-9NxKaD-ny4gus-9MnZH8-9ND1jY-7yMunZ-9NHcFm-9NC2JV-9NBP6p-9NANWq-ca2vyu-9NvFDv-niBysd-duieSA-9NxRVo-fKeAGz-boA4g9-oVH1aJ-9ND8dE-csTRAj-eiFooi-pR31y-9Nv8dj-5o1its-9NE2qX-9NEaaT-jhbn2-7MxgjZ-87o6y1-BAtmT-jhbn3-9NE8ht-9NE4ke-9NBZKi-9NGqDK-jhbn4"&amp;gt;John Bainter&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175936/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee&#8217;s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily redacted report on the secret CIA drone wars and other American air campaigns in the 18-year-long war on terror was finally released. That day, committee chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) took to the Senate floor, amid the warnings of his Republican colleagues that its release might &#8220; <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/226477-republicans-blast-troubling-cia-report" type="external">inflame</a>&#8221; America&#8217;s enemies leading to violence across the Greater Middle East, and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/09/dianne-feinstein-cia-torture-report-full-remarks/20151977/" type="external">said</a>:</p> <p>&#8220;Over the past couple of weeks, I have gone through a great deal of introspection about whether to delay the release of this report to a later time. We are clearly in a period of turmoil and instability in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, that&#8217;s going to continue for the foreseeable future, whether this report is released or not. There may never be the &#8216;right&#8217; time to release it. The instability we see today will not be resolved in months or years. But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely. The simple fact is that the drone and air campaigns we have launched and pursued these last 18 years have proven to be a stain on our values and on our history.&#8221;</p> <p>Though it was a Friday afternoon, normally a dead zone for media attention, the response was instant and stunning. As had happened five years earlier with the committee&#8217;s similarly fought-over report on torture, it became a 24/7 media event. The &#8220;revelations&#8221; from the report poured out to a stunned nation. There were the CIA&#8217;s own figures on the <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/" type="external">hundreds</a> of <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/11/more-than-160-children-killed-in-us-strikes/" type="external">children</a> in the backlands of Pakistan and Yemen killed by drone strikes against &#8220;terrorists&#8221; and &#8220;m <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />ilitants.&#8221; There were the &#8220; <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/08/01/get-the-data-the-return-of-double-tap-drone-strikes/" type="external">double-tap strikes</a>&#8221; in which drones returned after initial attacks to go after rescuers of those buried in rubble or to take out the funerals of those previously slain. There were the CIA&#8217;s own statistics on the stunning numbers of unknown villagers killed for every significant and known figure targeted and finally taken out ( <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147" type="external">1,147</a> dead in Pakistan for 41 men specifically targeted). There were the unexpected internal Agency discussions of the imprecision of the robotic weapons always publicly hailed as &#8220;surgically precise&#8221; (and also of the weakness of much of the intelligence that led them to their targets). There was the joking and commonplace use of dehumanizing language (&#8220; <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/10/not_a_bug_splat_artists_confront" type="external">bug splat</a>&#8221; for those killed) by the teams directing the drones. There were the &#8220; <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/the-case-against-drone-strikes-on-people-who-only-act-like-terrorists/278744/" type="external">signature strikes</a>,&#8221; or the targeting of groups of young men of military age about whom nothing specifically was known, and of course there was the raging argument that ensued in the media over the &#8220;effectiveness&#8221; of it all (including various emails from CIA officials admitting that drone campaigns in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen had proven to be mechanisms not so much for destroying terrorists as for creating new ones).</p> <p>There were the new tidbits of information on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_assassin-in-chief/" type="external">workings</a> of the president&#8217;s &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html" type="external">kill list</a>&#8221; and the convening of &#8220; <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/drones-silent-killers-64909" type="external">terror Tuesday</a>&#8221; briefings to target specific individuals around the world. There were the insider discussions of ongoing decisions to <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175872/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_undue_process_in_washington/" type="external">target American citizens</a> abroad for assassination by drone without due process of law and the revealing emails in which participants up to presidential advisers discussed how exactly to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/24/obama-drone-memo-secret-law-transparency" type="external">craft</a> the exculpatory &#8220;legal&#8221; documents for those acts at the Department of Justice.</p> <p>Above all, to an unsuspecting nation, there was the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s_wedding_album_from_hell/" type="external">shocking revelation</a> that American air power had, in the course of those years, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s_wedding_album_from_hell/" type="external">destroyed</a> in whole or in part at least nine wedding parties, including brides, grooms, family members, and revelers, involving the deaths of hundreds of wedding goers in at least three countries of the Greater Middle East. This revelation shocked the nation, resulting in headlines ranging from the Washington Post&#8216;s sober &#8220;Wedding Tally Revealed&#8221; to the New York Post&#8216;s &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Bride and Boom!</a>&#8220;</p> <p>But while all of that created headlines, the main debate was over the &#8220;effectiveness&#8221; of the White House&#8217;s and CIA&#8217;s drone campaigns. As Senator Wyden insisted that day in his speech:</p> <p>&#8220;If you read the many case studies in the executive summary of our report, it will be unmistakable not only how ineffective American air power has been over these years, but how, for every &#8216;bad guy&#8217; taken out, the air strikes were, in the end, a mechanism for the mass creation of terrorists and a continuing, powerful recruitment tool for jihadist and al-Qaeda-linked organizations across the Greater Middle East and Africa. If you doubt me, just count the jihadis in our world on September 10, 2001, and today in the areas of Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia where our major drone campaigns have taken place, as well, of course, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then tell me with a straight face that they &#8216;worked.'&#8221;</p> <p>As with the <a href="http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf" type="external">2014 torture report</a>, so the responses of those deeply implicated in the drone assassination campaigns and the loosing of American air power more generally in the backlands of the planet put on display the full strength of the American national security state. It was no surprise, of course, when CIA Director David Petraeus (on his second tour of duty at the Agency) held the usual Langley, Virginia, news conference&#8212;an <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/John-brennan-cia-live-press-conference-torture-report/383701/" type="external">unknown event</a> until then-Director John Brennan first held one in December 2014 to dispute the Senate torture report. There, as the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/us/politics/cia-director-brennan-torture-report.html" type="external">described it</a>, Petraeus criticized the latest report for being &#8220;&#8216;flawed,&#8217; &#8216;partisan,&#8217; and &#8216;frustrating,&#8217; and pointed out numerous disagreements that he had with its damning conclusions about the CIA&#8217;s drone program.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />The real brunt of the attack, however, came from prominent former CIA officials, including former directors <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/us/politics/ex-chief-leads-vocal-defense-of-spy-agency.html" type="external">George Tenet</a> (&#8220;You know, the image that&#8217;s been portrayed is we sat around the campfire and said, &#8216;Oh boy, now we go get to assassinate people.&#8217; We don&#8217;t assassinate people. Let me say that again to you, we don&#8217;t assassinate people. O.K.?&#8221;); <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/exclusive-former-cia-director-michael-hayden-torture-report-n265031" type="external">Mike Hayden</a> (&#8220;If the world had acted as American air power has done in these years, many people who shouldn&#8217;t have gotten married wouldn&#8217;t have gotten married and the world would be a saner place for marriage.&#8221;); and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-director-impossible-to-assess-gains-from-enhanced-interrogations/2014/12/11/8ba972e0-8160-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html" type="external">Brennan</a> himself (&#8220;Whatever your views are on our drone program, our nation and in particular this agency did a lot of things right during a difficult time to keep this country strong and secure and you should be thanking them, not undermining them.&#8221;). Hayden, Brennan, and national security, intelligence, and Pentagon officials also blanketed the news and the Sunday morning talk shows. Former CIA Director of Public Affairs Bill Harlow, who had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/us/politics/obama-says-senate-report-vindicates-his-ending-of-cia-program.html" type="external">set up</a> the website <a href="http://ciasavedlives.com/" type="external">ciasavedlives.com</a> to defend the patriotic honor of the Agency at the time of the release of the Senate torture report, repeated the process five years later with the website dontdronethecia.com.</p> <p>Former CIA Director Leon Panetta repeated his <a href="http://www.wired.com/2009/05/cia-chief-drones-only-game-in-town-for-stopping-al-qaeda/" type="external">classic statement</a> of 2009, insisting to a range of media interviewers that the drone campaign was not just &#8220;effective,&#8221; but still &#8220;the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.&#8221; Former President Barack Obama did an interview with NBC News from his new <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-obama-library-bids-deadline-20141211-story.html" type="external">presidential library</a>, still under construction in Chicago, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/obama-cia-torture-some-folks-brennan-spying" type="external">saying</a> in part, &#8220;We assassinated some folks, but those who did so were American <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/192873/they-said-no-torture-real-heroes-bush-years" type="external">patriots</a> working in a time of great stress and fear. Assassination may have been necessary and understandable in the moment, but it is not who we are.&#8221; And <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/us/politics/cheney-senate-report-on-torture.html" type="external">78-year-old</a> former Vice President Dick Cheney, who appeared on Fox News from his Wyoming ranch, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dick-cheney-cia-torture-report-113482.html" type="external">insisted</a> that the new Senate report, like the old one, was a &#8220;gob of unpatriotic hooey.&#8221; President Hillary Clinton, interviewed by BuzzFeed, said of the report, &#8220;One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them.&#8221; She did not, however, go on to admit that the still ongoing drone program or even the wedding air strikes were &#8220;mistakes.&#8221;</p> <p>On December 11th, as everyone knows, the mass junior high school shootings in Wisconsin occurred and media attention quite understandably shifted there, 24/7. On December 13th, Reuters reported that a drone attack in Pakistan&#8217;s tribal borderlands, which was &#8220;suspected&#8221; of killing seven &#8220;militants,&#8221; including possibly an al-Qaeda sub-commander&#8212;local residents reported that two children and a 70-year-old elder had been among the dead&#8212;was the <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/" type="external">thousandth drone strike</a> in the CIA&#8217;s secret wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. &amp;#160;</p> <p>Running a Criminal Enterprise in Washington</p> <p>It&#8217;s not 2019, of course. We don&#8217;t know whether Hillary Clinton will be elected president or Ron Wyden reelected to the Senate, no less whether he&#8217;ll become the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a body once again controlled by Democrats, or whether there will ever be a torture-report-style investigation of the &#8220;secret&#8221; drone assassination campaigns the White House, the CIA, and the US military have been running across the backlands of the planet.</p> <p>Still, count me among the surprised if, in 2019, some part or parts of the US national security state and the White House aren&#8217;t still running drone campaigns that cross national borders with impunity, kill whomever those in Washington choose in &#8220; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/obamas-secret-kill-list-shows-president-final-word/story?id=16449862" type="external">terror Tuesday</a>&#8221; meetings or target in &#8220;signature strikes,&#8221; take out American citizens if it pleases the White House to do so, and generally continue to run what has proven to be a global war for (not on) terror.</p> <p>When it comes to all of this &#8220;secret&#8221; but remarkably well-publicized behavior, as with the CIA&#8217;s torture program, the US has been making up the future rules of the road for the rest of the world. It has created a gold standard for assassination and torture by green-lighting &#8220; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/14/dick-cheney-rectal-feeding-cia-torture-report" type="external">rectal rehydration</a>&#8221; (a euphemism for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/cia-torture-homeland-24-great-tv-no-way-to-govern" type="external">anal rape</a>) and other grim acts. In the process, it has cooked up self-serving explanations and justifications for actions that would outrage official Washington and the public generally if any other country <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/12/11/us-called-out-foreign-regimes-as-cia-used-same-torture-methods/" type="external">committed</a> them.</p> <p>This piece, of course, is not really about the future, but the past and what we should already know about it. What&#8217;s most remarkable about the Senate torture report is that&#8212;except for the odd, grim detail like &#8220;rectal rehydration&#8221;&#8212;we should never have needed it. Black sites, torture techniques, the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/13/249968_yet-no-apology-cias-mistaken-detention.html?sp=/99/100/&amp;amp;rh=1" type="external">abusing</a> of innocents&#8212;the essential information about the nightmarish <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1494/" type="external">Bermuda Triangle of injustice</a> the Bush administration set up after 9/11 has been publicly available, in <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174897/karen_greenberg_barbarism_lite" type="external">many instances</a> for years.</p> <p>Those &#8220;2019&#8221; revelations about drone assassination campaigns and other grim aspects of the loosing of American air power in the Greater Middle East have been on the public record for years, too. In truth, we shouldn&#8217;t be in any doubt about much of what&#8217;s billed as &#8220;secret&#8221; in our American world. And the lessons to be drawn from those secret acts should be obvious enough without spending another <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/the-senate-torture-report-cost-at-least-40-million-but-whose-fault-is-that-20141210" type="external">$40 million</a> and studying yet more millions of classified documents for years.</p> <p>Here are three conclusions that should now be obvious enough when it comes to Washington&#8217;s never-ending war on terror and the growth of the national security state. &amp;#160;</p> <p>1. Whatever grim actions are the focus of debate at the moment, take it for granted that they don&#8217;t &#8220;work&#8221; because nothing connected to the war on terror has worked: The coverage of the Senate torture report has been <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175934/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_the_torture_wars/" type="external">focused</a> on arguments over whether those &#8220;enhanced interrogation techniques,&#8221; or EITs, &#8220;worked&#8221; in the years after 9/11 (as in 2019, the coverage would undoubtedly focus on whether drone assassination campaigns had worked). The executive summary of the Senate report has already offered numerous cases where information gained through torture practices did not produce actionable intelligence or stop terror plots or save lives, though <a href="http://husseini.posthaven.com/what-both-sides-are-ignoring-torture-did-work-to-produce-war-see-footnote-857-of-report" type="external">misinformation</a> from them might have helped embolden the Bush administration in its invasion of Iraq.</p> <p><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/227092-senior-bush-officials-push-back-against-cia-report" type="external">Bush administration officials</a>, former CIA directors, and the intelligence &#8220;community&#8221; in general have vociferously insisted on the opposite. Six former top CIA officials, including three former directors, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-interrogations-saved-lives-1418142644" type="external">publicly claimed</a> that those torture techniques &#8220;saved thousands of lives.&#8221; The truth, however, is that we shouldn&#8217;t even be having a serious discussion of this issue. We know the answer. We knew it long before the redacted executive summary of the Senate report was released. Torture didn&#8217;t work, because 13 years of the war on terror has offered a simple enough lesson: nothing worked.</p> <p>You name it and it <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_a_record_of_unparalleled_failure/" type="external">failed</a>. It doesn&#8217;t matter whether you&#8217;re talking about invasions, occupations, interventions, small conflicts, raids, bombing runs, secret operations, offshore &#8220;black sites,&#8221; or god knows what else&#8212;none of it came close to succeeding by even the most minimal standards set in Washington. In this period, many grim things were done and most of them blew back, creating more enemies, new Islamic extremist movements, and even a jihadist mini-state in the heart of the Middle East that, fittingly enough, was essentially founded at Camp Bucca, an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story" type="external">American military prison</a> in Iraq. Let me repeat that: if Washington did it any time in the last 13 years, whatever it was, it didn&#8217;t work. Period. &amp;#160;</p> <p>2. In national security and war terms, only one thing has &#8220;worked&#8221; in these years and that&#8217;s the national security state itself: Every blunder, every disaster, every extreme act that proved a horror in the world also perversely strengthened the national security state. In other words, the crew that couldn&#8217;t shoot straight could do no wrong when it came to their own agencies and careers.</p> <p>No matter how poorly or badly or stupidly or immorally or criminally agents, operatives, war fighters, private contractors, and high officials acted or what they ordered done, each disaster in this period was like a dose of further career enhancement, like manna from heaven, for a structure that ate taxpayer dollars for lunch and <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/" type="external">grew</a> in unprecedented ways, despite a world that <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175191/tomgram%3A_turse_and_engelhardt,_shooting_gnats_with_a_machine_gun/" type="external">lacked</a> all significant enemies. In these years, the national security state entrenched itself and its methods in Washington for the long run. The Department of Homeland Security expanded; the 17 interlocked intelligence agencies that made up the US intelligence community exploded; the Pentagon grew endlessly; the corporate &#8220;complexes&#8221; that surrounded and meshed with an increasingly privatized national security apparatus had a field day. And the various officials who oversaw every botched operation and sally into the world, including the torture regime the Bush administration created, were almost to a man promoted, as well as <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174840/bush_s_free_world_and_welcome_to_it" type="external">honored</a> in various ways and, in retirement, found themselves further honored and enriched. The single lesson from all of this for any official was: whatever you do, however rash, extreme, or dumb beyond imagining, whatever you don&#8217;t accomplish, whomever you hurt, you are enriching the national security state&#8212;and that&#8217;s a good thing. &amp;#160;</p> <p>3. Nothing Washington did could ever qualify as a &#8220;war crime&#8221; or even a straightforward crime because, in national security terms, our wartime capital has become a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175833/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_knowledge_is_crime/" type="external">crime-free zone</a>: Again, this is an obvious fact of our era. There can be no accountability (hence all the promotions) and especially no criminal accountability inside the national security state. While the rest of us are still in legal America, its officials are in what I&#8217;ve long called &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175398/engelhardt_welcome_to" type="external">post-legal</a>&#8221; America and in that state, neither torture (to the point of death), nor kidnapping and assassination, nor <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/jose-rodriguez-and-the-ninety-two-tapes" type="external">destroying evidence</a> of criminal activity, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/james-clappers-least-untruthful-statement-to-the-senate/2013/06/11/e50677a8-d2d8-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_blog.html" type="external">perjury</a>, or the setting up of an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/019975411X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">extralegal prison system</a> are crimes. The only possible crime in national security Washington is <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175500/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_in_washington,_fear_the_silence,_not_the_noise/" type="external">whistleblowing</a>. On this, too, the evidence is in and the results speak for themselves. The post-9/11 moment has proven to be an eternal &#8220;get out of jail free card&#8221; for the officials of two administrations and the national security state.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the obvious points, the simple conclusions that might be drawn from the last 13 years go unnoticed in a Washington where nothing, it seems, can be learned. As a result, for all the sound and fury of this torture moment, the national security state will only <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/14/washington-torture-report_n_6323510.html" type="external">grow stronger</a>, more organized, more aggressively ready to defend itself, while ridding itself of the last vestiges of democratic oversight and control.</p> <p>There is only one winner in the war on terror and it&#8217;s the national security state itself. So let&#8217;s be clear, despite its supporters who regularly hail the &#8220;patriotism&#8221; of such officials, and despite an increasingly grim world filled with bad guys, they are not the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/torture-is-who-we-are-cia-report/383670/" type="external">good guys</a> and they are running what, by any normal standards, should be considered a criminal enterprise.</p> <p>See you in 2019.</p> <p>Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the <a href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" type="external">American Empire Project</a> and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The End of Victory Culture</a>. He runs the Nation Institute&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>. His new book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a> (Haymarket Books). To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>[Note on weddings: On the issue of wedding parties obliterated by American air power, a subject TomDispatch has been covering for years, I had counted news reports on <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s_wedding_album_from_hell/" type="external">seven of them</a> by the time an eighth, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s_wedding_album_from_hell/" type="external">Yemeni wedding party</a>, was blown away in December 2013. Since then, a correspondent has pointed out to me a report that a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089560091.html" type="external">ninth wedding party</a>, the second in Iraq, may have been hit by US air power on October 8, 2004, in the city of Fallujah, with the groom dying and the bride wounded.]</p>

How Will We Look Back on Drone Strikes in 2019?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/how-will-we-look-back-drone-strikes-2019/

2014-12-18

4left

amplta hrefhttpswwwflickrcomphotosusairforce13991119140inphotolistnjm9h5oksT8q7MBf8b7MBf499NF42GoVHE3p9NC5eF9ND6qW9NvgtEoVGE6KekW2f78mpYBw5p2WHA9LSp9ScwQUFA9NxKaDny4gus9MnZH89ND1jY7yMunZ9NHcFm9NC2JV9NBP6p9NANWqca2vyu9NvFDvniBysdduieSA9NxRVofKeAGzboA4g9oVH1aJ9ND8dEcsTRAjeiFooipR31y9Nv8dj5o1its9NE2qX9NEaaTjhbn27MxgjZ87o6y1BAtmTjhbn39NE8ht9NE4ke9NBZKi9NGqDKjhbn4ampgtJohn BainterampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website It was December 6 2019 three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress That day the 500page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee8217s long foughtover muchdelayed heavily redacted report on the secret CIA drone wars and other American air campaigns in the 18yearlong war on terror was finally released That day committee chairman Ron Wyden DOR took to the Senate floor amid the warnings of his Republican colleagues that its release might 8220 inflame8221 America8217s enemies leading to violence across the Greater Middle East and said 8220Over the past couple of weeks I have gone through a great deal of introspection about whether to delay the release of this report to a later time We are clearly in a period of turmoil and instability in many parts of the world Unfortunately that8217s going to continue for the foreseeable future whether this report is released or not There may never be the 8216right8217 time to release it The instability we see today will not be resolved in months or years But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely The simple fact is that the drone and air campaigns we have launched and pursued these last 18 years have proven to be a stain on our values and on our history8221 Though it was a Friday afternoon normally a dead zone for media attention the response was instant and stunning As had happened five years earlier with the committee8217s similarly foughtover report on torture it became a 247 media event The 8220revelations8221 from the report poured out to a stunned nation There were the CIA8217s own figures on the hundreds of children in the backlands of Pakistan and Yemen killed by drone strikes against 8220terrorists8221 and 8220m ilitants8221 There were the 8220 doubletap strikes8221 in which drones returned after initial attacks to go after rescuers of those buried in rubble or to take out the funerals of those previously slain There were the CIA8217s own statistics on the stunning numbers of unknown villagers killed for every significant and known figure targeted and finally taken out 1147 dead in Pakistan for 41 men specifically targeted There were the unexpected internal Agency discussions of the imprecision of the robotic weapons always publicly hailed as 8220surgically precise8221 and also of the weakness of much of the intelligence that led them to their targets There was the joking and commonplace use of dehumanizing language 8220 bug splat8221 for those killed by the teams directing the drones There were the 8220 signature strikes8221 or the targeting of groups of young men of military age about whom nothing specifically was known and of course there was the raging argument that ensued in the media over the 8220effectiveness8221 of it all including various emails from CIA officials admitting that drone campaigns in Pakistan Afghanistan and Yemen had proven to be mechanisms not so much for destroying terrorists as for creating new ones There were the new tidbits of information on the workings of the president8217s 8220 kill list8221 and the convening of 8220 terror Tuesday8221 briefings to target specific individuals around the world There were the insider discussions of ongoing decisions to target American citizens abroad for assassination by drone without due process of law and the revealing emails in which participants up to presidential advisers discussed how exactly to craft the exculpatory 8220legal8221 documents for those acts at the Department of Justice Above all to an unsuspecting nation there was the shocking revelation that American air power had in the course of those years destroyed in whole or in part at least nine wedding parties including brides grooms family members and revelers involving the deaths of hundreds of wedding goers in at least three countries of the Greater Middle East This revelation shocked the nation resulting in headlines ranging from the Washington Post8216s sober 8220Wedding Tally Revealed8221 to the New York Post8216s 8220 Bride and Boom8220 But while all of that created headlines the main debate was over the 8220effectiveness8221 of the White House8217s and CIA8217s drone campaigns As Senator Wyden insisted that day in his speech 8220If you read the many case studies in the executive summary of our report it will be unmistakable not only how ineffective American air power has been over these years but how for every 8216bad guy8217 taken out the air strikes were in the end a mechanism for the mass creation of terrorists and a continuing powerful recruitment tool for jihadist and alQaedalinked organizations across the Greater Middle East and Africa If you doubt me just count the jihadis in our world on September 10 2001 and today in the areas of Pakistan Yemen Libya and Somalia where our major drone campaigns have taken place as well of course as in Iraq and Afghanistan Then tell me with a straight face that they 8216worked8221 As with the 2014 torture report so the responses of those deeply implicated in the drone assassination campaigns and the loosing of American air power more generally in the backlands of the planet put on display the full strength of the American national security state It was no surprise of course when CIA Director David Petraeus on his second tour of duty at the Agency held the usual Langley Virginia news conference8212an unknown event until thenDirector John Brennan first held one in December 2014 to dispute the Senate torture report There as the New York Times described it Petraeus criticized the latest report for being 82208216flawed8217 8216partisan8217 and 8216frustrating8217 and pointed out numerous disagreements that he had with its damning conclusions about the CIA8217s drone program8221 The real brunt of the attack however came from prominent former CIA officials including former directors George Tenet 8220You know the image that8217s been portrayed is we sat around the campfire and said 8216Oh boy now we go get to assassinate people8217 We don8217t assassinate people Let me say that again to you we don8217t assassinate people OK8221 Mike Hayden 8220If the world had acted as American air power has done in these years many people who shouldn8217t have gotten married wouldn8217t have gotten married and the world would be a saner place for marriage8221 and Brennan himself 8220Whatever your views are on our drone program our nation and in particular this agency did a lot of things right during a difficult time to keep this country strong and secure and you should be thanking them not undermining them8221 Hayden Brennan and national security intelligence and Pentagon officials also blanketed the news and the Sunday morning talk shows Former CIA Director of Public Affairs Bill Harlow who had set up the website ciasavedlivescom to defend the patriotic honor of the Agency at the time of the release of the Senate torture report repeated the process five years later with the website dontdronetheciacom Former CIA Director Leon Panetta repeated his classic statement of 2009 insisting to a range of media interviewers that the drone campaign was not just 8220effective8221 but still 8220the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the alQaeda leadership8221 Former President Barack Obama did an interview with NBC News from his new presidential library still under construction in Chicago saying in part 8220We assassinated some folks but those who did so were American patriots working in a time of great stress and fear Assassination may have been necessary and understandable in the moment but it is not who we are8221 And 78yearold former Vice President Dick Cheney who appeared on Fox News from his Wyoming ranch insisted that the new Senate report like the old one was a 8220gob of unpatriotic hooey8221 President Hillary Clinton interviewed by BuzzFeed said of the report 8220One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes we admit them8221 She did not however go on to admit that the still ongoing drone program or even the wedding air strikes were 8220mistakes8221 On December 11th as everyone knows the mass junior high school shootings in Wisconsin occurred and media attention quite understandably shifted there 247 On December 13th Reuters reported that a drone attack in Pakistan8217s tribal borderlands which was 8220suspected8221 of killing seven 8220militants8221 including possibly an alQaeda subcommander8212local residents reported that two children and a 70yearold elder had been among the dead8212was the thousandth drone strike in the CIA8217s secret wars in Pakistan Yemen and Somalia amp160 Running a Criminal Enterprise in Washington It8217s not 2019 of course We don8217t know whether Hillary Clinton will be elected president or Ron Wyden reelected to the Senate no less whether he8217ll become the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a body once again controlled by Democrats or whether there will ever be a torturereportstyle investigation of the 8220secret8221 drone assassination campaigns the White House the CIA and the US military have been running across the backlands of the planet Still count me among the surprised if in 2019 some part or parts of the US national security state and the White House aren8217t still running drone campaigns that cross national borders with impunity kill whomever those in Washington choose in 8220 terror Tuesday8221 meetings or target in 8220signature strikes8221 take out American citizens if it pleases the White House to do so and generally continue to run what has proven to be a global war for not on terror When it comes to all of this 8220secret8221 but remarkably wellpublicized behavior as with the CIA8217s torture program the US has been making up the future rules of the road for the rest of the world It has created a gold standard for assassination and torture by greenlighting 8220 rectal rehydration8221 a euphemism for anal rape and other grim acts In the process it has cooked up selfserving explanations and justifications for actions that would outrage official Washington and the public generally if any other country committed them This piece of course is not really about the future but the past and what we should already know about it What8217s most remarkable about the Senate torture report is that8212except for the odd grim detail like 8220rectal rehydration82218212we should never have needed it Black sites torture techniques the abusing of innocents8212the essential information about the nightmarish Bermuda Triangle of injustice the Bush administration set up after 911 has been publicly available in many instances for years Those 822020198221 revelations about drone assassination campaigns and other grim aspects of the loosing of American air power in the Greater Middle East have been on the public record for years too In truth we shouldn8217t be in any doubt about much of what8217s billed as 8220secret8221 in our American world And the lessons to be drawn from those secret acts should be obvious enough without spending another 40 million and studying yet more millions of classified documents for years Here are three conclusions that should now be obvious enough when it comes to Washington8217s neverending war on terror and the growth of the national security state amp160 1 Whatever grim actions are the focus of debate at the moment take it for granted that they don8217t 8220work8221 because nothing connected to the war on terror has worked The coverage of the Senate torture report has been focused on arguments over whether those 8220enhanced interrogation techniques8221 or EITs 8220worked8221 in the years after 911 as in 2019 the coverage would undoubtedly focus on whether drone assassination campaigns had worked The executive summary of the Senate report has already offered numerous cases where information gained through torture practices did not produce actionable intelligence or stop terror plots or save lives though misinformation from them might have helped embolden the Bush administration in its invasion of Iraq Bush administration officials former CIA directors and the intelligence 8220community8221 in general have vociferously insisted on the opposite Six former top CIA officials including three former directors publicly claimed that those torture techniques 8220saved thousands of lives8221 The truth however is that we shouldn8217t even be having a serious discussion of this issue We know the answer We knew it long before the redacted executive summary of the Senate report was released Torture didn8217t work because 13 years of the war on terror has offered a simple enough lesson nothing worked You name it and it failed It doesn8217t matter whether you8217re talking about invasions occupations interventions small conflicts raids bombing runs secret operations offshore 8220black sites8221 or god knows what else8212none of it came close to succeeding by even the most minimal standards set in Washington In this period many grim things were done and most of them blew back creating more enemies new Islamic extremist movements and even a jihadist ministate in the heart of the Middle East that fittingly enough was essentially founded at Camp Bucca an American military prison in Iraq Let me repeat that if Washington did it any time in the last 13 years whatever it was it didn8217t work Period amp160 2 In national security and war terms only one thing has 8220worked8221 in these years and that8217s the national security state itself Every blunder every disaster every extreme act that proved a horror in the world also perversely strengthened the national security state In other words the crew that couldn8217t shoot straight could do no wrong when it came to their own agencies and careers No matter how poorly or badly or stupidly or immorally or criminally agents operatives war fighters private contractors and high officials acted or what they ordered done each disaster in this period was like a dose of further career enhancement like manna from heaven for a structure that ate taxpayer dollars for lunch and grew in unprecedented ways despite a world that lacked all significant enemies In these years the national security state entrenched itself and its methods in Washington for the long run The Department of Homeland Security expanded the 17 interlocked intelligence agencies that made up the US intelligence community exploded the Pentagon grew endlessly the corporate 8220complexes8221 that surrounded and meshed with an increasingly privatized national security apparatus had a field day And the various officials who oversaw every botched operation and sally into the world including the torture regime the Bush administration created were almost to a man promoted as well as honored in various ways and in retirement found themselves further honored and enriched The single lesson from all of this for any official was whatever you do however rash extreme or dumb beyond imagining whatever you don8217t accomplish whomever you hurt you are enriching the national security state8212and that8217s a good thing amp160 3 Nothing Washington did could ever qualify as a 8220war crime8221 or even a straightforward crime because in national security terms our wartime capital has become a crimefree zone Again this is an obvious fact of our era There can be no accountability hence all the promotions and especially no criminal accountability inside the national security state While the rest of us are still in legal America its officials are in what I8217ve long called 8220 postlegal8221 America and in that state neither torture to the point of death nor kidnapping and assassination nor destroying evidence of criminal activity perjury or the setting up of an extralegal prison system are crimes The only possible crime in national security Washington is whistleblowing On this too the evidence is in and the results speak for themselves The post911 moment has proven to be an eternal 8220get out of jail free card8221 for the officials of two administrations and the national security state Unfortunately the obvious points the simple conclusions that might be drawn from the last 13 years go unnoticed in a Washington where nothing it seems can be learned As a result for all the sound and fury of this torture moment the national security state will only grow stronger more organized more aggressively ready to defend itself while ridding itself of the last vestiges of democratic oversight and control There is only one winner in the war on terror and it8217s the national security state itself So let8217s be clear despite its supporters who regularly hail the 8220patriotism8221 of such officials and despite an increasingly grim world filled with bad guys they are not the good guys and they are running what by any normal standards should be considered a criminal enterprise See you in 2019 Tom Engelhardt is a cofounder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War The End of Victory Culture He runs the Nation Institute8217s TomDispatchcom His new book is Shadow Government Surveillance Secret Wars and a Global Security State in a SingleSuperpower World Haymarket Books To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here Note on weddings On the issue of wedding parties obliterated by American air power a subject TomDispatch has been covering for years I had counted news reports on seven of them by the time an eighth a Yemeni wedding party was blown away in December 2013 Since then a correspondent has pointed out to me a report that a ninth wedding party the second in Iraq may have been hit by US air power on October 8 2004 in the city of Fallujah with the groom dying and the bride wounded

amplta/PROPN hrefhttpswwwflickrcomphotosusairforce13991119140inphotolistnjm9h5oksT8q7MBf8b7MBf499NF42GoVHE3p9NC5eF9ND6qW9NvgtEoVGE6KekW2f78mpYBw5p2WHA9LSp9ScwQUFA9NxKaDny4gus9MnZH89ND1jY7yMunZ9NHcFm9NC2JV9NBP6p9NANWqca2vyu9NvFDvniBysdduieSA9NxRVofKeAGzboA4g9oVH1aJ9ND8dEcsTRAjeiFooipR31y9Nv8dj5o1its9NE2qX9NEaaTjhbn27MxgjZ87o6y1BAtmTjhbn39NE8ht9NE4ke9NBZKi9NGqDKjhbn4ampgtJohn/PROPN BainterampltaampgtFlickr/PROPN This/DET story/NOUN first/ADV appeared/VERB on/ADP the/DET TomDispatch/PROPN website/NOUN It/PRON was/AUX December/PROPN 6/NUM 2019/NUM three/NUM years/NOUN into/ADP a/DET sagging/VERB Clinton/PROPN presidency/NOUN and/CCONJ a/DET bitterly/ADV divided/VERB Congress/PROPN That/DET day/NOUN the/DET 500page/PROPN executive/ADJ summary/NOUN of/ADP the/DET Senate/PROPN Intelligence/PROPN Committee8217s/PROPN long/ADJ foughtover/ADV muchdelayed/VERB heavily/ADV redacted/VERB report/NOUN on/ADP the/DET secret/ADJ CIA/PROPN drone/NOUN wars/NOUN and/CCONJ other/ADJ American/ADJ air/NOUN 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<p /> <p>Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America, and Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.</p> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR TRNN: Welcome back to the Real News Network, and welcome to this week's edition of the Ratner Report, with Michael Ratner who now joins us from New York City. Michael's the President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He's also chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He's also a board member at the Real News. Thanks for joining us again. <p /> <p />MICHAEL RATNER: Good to be with you, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: So the Brennan hearings happened on Thursday. As far as oversight goes, now, I have to say, I didn't get to see the whole hearing, because as we're doing this interview the hearing is still going on. But I think both of us saw most of it. One mention of collateral damage. <p /> <p />SEN. RON WYDEN: If the executive branch makes a mistake, and kills the wrong person or a group of the wrong people, how should the government acknowledge that? <p /> <p />JOHN BRENNAN: I believe we need to acknowledge it. <p /> <p />JAY: But we know that hundreds of people have been killed targeting a certain individual, and then their families are around them, or people living in villages near them have been killed, and where the heck's the legal basis of that? <p /> <p />RATNER: You know, we haven't gotten the figures on that. We have different groups out there try and count. They read all the newspapers, et cetera, try to try to figure out who's been killed and how many. The estimates are as high as 3,000 or 4,000 people having been killed by the drones, of which 800-900 are probably civilians, maybe more, and of which 200-300 are children. Those are the figures. And yet Brennan, as I recall, sat in that hearing where the administration has put out the evidence, [quote] evidence, to claim that only single digits are the number of civilians killed in these. <p /> <p />SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: For the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government's conduct of targeted strikes. And the figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year, has typically been in the single digits. When I asked to give out the actual numbers, I'm told you can't. And I say, why not? Because it's classified. <p /> <p />RATNER: It's a bald-faced lie. What they have done is they've dropped drones on people and killed many, many civilians. <p /> <p />So the fact is, unfortunately, Brennan is going to be confirmed. Do I think he should be? No. Not because of his character in particular, but because of the whole policy and practice of the Obama administration and the CIA. Brennan happens to have some serious questions about him, obviously. He was Tenet's deputy, the head of the CIA, in 2004-2005, when the CIA was doing its global detention and torture program, he was there. He knew about it. He claims that he voiced some objections to people. We've never seen any evidence of that. He certainly didn't reveal it, certainly didn't try and stop it. <p /> <p />So he was aware of enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture. We really don't know what his positions are, except he was a faithful person at the CIA during that period, and my guess is went along with it, because we have no evidence. <p /> <p />JAY: And when Sen. Levin asked him a direct question: &#147;Do you consider waterboarding torture?&#148; he wouldn't answer it, he wouldn't give it a yes or no. <p /> <p />SEN. CARL LEVIN: You said publicly that you believe waterboarding is inconsistent with American values, it's something that should be prohibited, goes beyond the bounds of what a civilized society should employ. My question is this: in your opinion, does waterboarding constitute torture? <p /> <p />BRENNAN: The attorney general has referred to waterboarding as torture. Many people have referred to it as torture. The attorney general, premier law enforcement officer and lawyer of this country, and as you all know and as we've had the discussion, Senator, the term 'torture' has a lot of legal and political implications. It is something that should have been banned long ago. It never should have taken place, in my view. And therefore, if I were to go to CIA, it would never, in fact, be brought back. <p /> <p />LEVIN: Do you have a personal opinion as to whether waterboarding is torture? <p /> <p />BRENNAN: I have a personal opinion that waterboarding is reprehensible and it's something that should not be done. And again, I am not a lawyer, Senator, and I can't address that question. <p /> <p />LEVIN: Well, you've read opinions as to whether or not waterboarding is torture. And I'm [inaud.] you accept those opinions of the attorney general. That's my question. <p /> <p />BRENNAN: Senator, you know, I've read a lot of legal opinions. I've read an Office of Legal Counsel opinion in the previous administration that said, in fact, waterboarding could be used. So from the standpoint of that, you know, I cannot point to a single legal document on this issue. But as far as I'm concerned, waterboarding is something that never should have been employed, and as far as I'm concerned, never will be if I have anything to do with it. <p /> <p />LEVIN: Is waterboarding banned by the Geneva Conventions? <p /> <p />BRENNAN: I believe the attorney general also has said that it's contrary, in contravention of the Geneva Convention. Again, I am not a lawyer or a legal scholar to make a determination about what is in violation of an international convention. <p /> <p />JAY: Completely evasive. Why is that? <p /> <p />RATNER: I mean, look at this period that he was there. He was there when the waterboarding was going on, when 54 countries in the world were cooperating in this global network of rendition and terrorism, according to the recent OSI report. Brennan refuses to answer whether waterboarding is torture, even though Eric Holder eventually said yes, it's torture, and it's illegal. Brennan won't answer it, I presume, because either A, he might have been implicated in a way we don't know and doesn't want to say it's torture, because that makes it a violation of the law, and he could be arrested and indicted and tried for that. Or his fellows at the CIA who were clearly involved in waterboarding, if he is head of the CIA, said well, it's torture, the employees under him are then guilty of torture. And so he is in this position, would be in this position of saying, my employees tortured. Even though Eric Holder, our attorney general, already says that he did torture. <p /> <p />Now, I should say something about Brennan during this period. He claims that he had some disagreements about this. But if you look at his statement in 2005, he said rendition was one of the most important and effective means of getting the, quote, terrorists, and getting information from them. And then they asked him about--well, not, this wasn't at the hearing, but in 2005 they said, well, what about all the fact that these guys are tortured everywhere? You know, they're sent to Egypt. And he says, well, we get assurances from the country so they won't be tortured. Well, we know that's just complete BS, because under his, quote, watch, when he's at the CIA, these people have been tortured right and left. <p /> <p />JAY: That's why they were sent to those countries, because they would get tortured. <p /> <p />RATNER: That's the only reason. Why would you send someone to Egypt? Why not send to a, you know, you could even send them to a, you know, a nice country they might not be tortured in, you send them to the countries that are known for torture. And under his, when he was at the CIA, look what happened. Maher Arar, a fellow Canadian of yours, is sent to Syria and tortured by the very CIA, when he is deputy to Tenet at the CIA. Has there ever been an apology by the U.S.? No. And this is Tenet. El-Masri is taken off a bus in Macedonia and sent by the U.S. to Afghanistan, where he's tortured. Brennan is at the CIA at the time. Never a word about that. <p /> <p />So he has a history here. A history that prevented him from being made chief of the CIA during Obama's first term. That's why he wasn't, because he was at the CIA, he was head of the counterterrorism section, and he was obviously had his hands, or certainly his eyes open, to what was happening and how people were being tortured. And so he couldn't get it then. So think about it. Now that he's had four years of practicing killing people with drones, making up a target list with Obama, now he gets to be head of the CIA because he's, quote, trusted by Obama. Yeah, trusted to use drones to kill people who shouldn't be killed. <p /> <p />JAY: There's a report, just quickly, the OSI put out a report recently on the torture network--I shouldn't say torture network. What exactly is it? It's a rendition network? What was it? <p /> <p />RATNER: Yeah. It's a global--it's really the global rendition and torture network. And it was run from the CIA, Tenet was there for a fair amount of that time. And what it involved was picking up people like Maher Arar at Kennedy airport in New York, shipping him to Syria, kidnapping a guy like, kidnapping the Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan, sending him to Egypt for torture. Taking a guy in Australia like [Habib], sending him to Egypt for torture, sending [some] Swedish guys to Egypt for torture. It involved the worldwide detention, interrogation, and rendition program. <p /> <p />Fifty-four countries, according to this important OSI report, were involved in some way, whether by allowing the flights to go through, whether helping people get picked up, and some of those courts in some of those countries have found that program utterly illegal. The European Court of Human Rights found Macedonia guilty of cooperating in the rendition of El-Masri to Afghanistan. Found that the way in which El-Masri was detained by the U.S. officials, by the CIA people, who stripped him, sodomized him, took him to Afghanistan, that that was a form of torture. They found that Maher Arar, likewise in that report, is found, of course, to have been tortured in Syria. <p /> <p />This was the global detention torture system that the CIA was running when Brennan was a deputy director at the CIA. This is the guy we're now putting in charge of the CIA. So between torture and drones, what we're really saying, and the sort of easy questioning that I think we had in the unwillingness to bear down on this guy, is really saying that drone policy is really part and parcel right now of a U.S., quote, global war on terror. <p /> <p />JAY: Now, the Senate committee talked about the report they had done, which was, I think, 6,000 pages, an executive summary of 300 pages, which according to even Brennan, said he was shocked to read it. And apparently it was the story of the use of torture and rendition by the CIA and how they had been essentially covering it up, even from the Senate committee. <p /> <p />BRENNAN: If I am confirmed, one of my highest priorities would be the committee's lengthy report on the CIA's former rendition, detention, and interrogation program, that involved now-banned interrogation techniques. I have read the findings and executive summary of the 6,000-page report, which raises a number of very serious issues. <p /> <p />JAY: So I guess that's something in terms of the Senate committee, but I guess it's more something if they would make some of it public. But it doesn't appear they're going to, are they? <p /> <p />RATNER: The Senate report is apparently very good. It was done a number of, a couple of years ago. Senator Levin, I think, was one of the leaders doing the report. It has not been made public yet. The important thing in that report is not only probably what it documents about the CIA's role, and Brennan apparently gets a passing mention in it, apparently he wasn't the guy who actually was the instrumental person in making that program happen. <p /> <p />But what's interesting about that report is in 2007, Brennan spoke about the fact that incredibly valuable intelligence was gotten through what he refers to as, by the euphemism 'enhanced interrogation techniques', EIT, or torture. He said the CIA got great information from that. This 6,000-page report by Levin and the other members of that committee said they got no valuable intelligence. I want to repeat that: no valuable intelligence. <p /> <p />LEVIN: Are you aware of any intelligence information that supports Mr. Rodriguez's claim that the lead information on the courier came from KSM and [al libi]. <p /> <p />BRENNAN: I have not reviewed the intelligence thoroughly, but I am not aware of any. <p /> <p />LEVIN: Now, Michael Mukasey, former attorney general. Wall Street Journal: consider how the intelligence that led to Bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who broke like a dam under pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information, including eventually the name, the name of a trusted courier of Bin Laden. <p /> <p />Our statement, that of the chairman and myself, is that that statement is wrong. Do you have any information to the contrary? <p /> <p />BRENNAN: My impression earlier on was that there was information that was provided that was useful and valuable. But as I said, I've read, now, the first volume of your report, which raises questions about whether any of that information was accurate. <p /> <p />JAY: The reason we know that is because Feinstein and Levin did go public with the statement about that. So even though the report is secret, they have stated that part publicly. <p /> <p />RATNER: That's correct. So now you have Brennan, who's about to be the CIA chief, who swore up and down that they got valuable intelligence from torture or enhanced interrogation techniques. Now you have Senator Levin issuing a 6,000-page report with Feinstein, not issuing, [inaud.] release, saying there was no valuable information. So Brennan says, well, I guess I should really read that report and I'll get back to you, and I think everything's wrong. <p /> <p />And that's another aspect of the hearing. A number of questions, including one you and I have spoken about, but the question of whether there was a meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia with Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, with people from Iraq, and that was one of the key pieces of evidence used to support the Iraqi government, to support the, the war against Iraq. Levin pushes to try and say, you should declassify that cable. Czechoslovakia doesn't care and it will show how this war was basically a fraud. <p /> <p />LEVIN: The issue here is whether or not there ever was a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, who was one of the people who attacked the trade center, and the Iraqi intelligence. The cable that came in has been classified by the CIA, even though the report of the--and this is what the CIA did to the cable. Now, it's very significant for the historical record, here. We went to war based on allegations that there was a relationship between Iraq and the attackers. The 9/11 attackers. It's very important that this cable be declassified. The only reason to keep it redacted and classified, frankly, is to protect an administration. Not to protect sources and methods. <p /> <p />RATNER: He's pushing on that, but at the same time it's been years, now, and at the same time they're only pushing Brennan now that he's going to become head of the CIA. He will then be head of the CIA, and will he answer any of these numerous requests that the Senate Intelligence Committee is now bold enough to ask while he's going through the confirmation hearing. We'll see the answer to that. I mean, I think it'll be surprising if we ever see that cable. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, because Levin actually comes right out, I think he even said, based on a lie, and connected it directly to Cheney. <p /> <p />LEVIN: We knew it never took place. And yet repeatedly, particularly the vice president, made reference to there was a report of a meeting between these two. <p /> <p />JAY: Thanks very much for joining us, Michael. <p /> <p />RATNER: Thank you, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Brennan Hearings: What is the Legal Basis for Drone Targeted Killings? Pt.2

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D9662%23.URZckkrjn0A

2013-02-09

4left

Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights CCR in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo He taught at Yale Law School and Columbia Law School and was President of the National Lawyers Guild His current books include Hell No Your Right to Dissent in the TwentyFirst Century America and Who Killed Che How the CIA Got Away With Murder NOTE Mr Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome back to the Real News Network and welcome to this weeks edition of the Ratner Report with Michael Ratner who now joins us from New York City Michaels the President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights Hes also chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin Hes also a board member at the Real News Thanks for joining us again MICHAEL RATNER Good to be with you Paul JAY So the Brennan hearings happened on Thursday As far as oversight goes now I have to say I didnt get to see the whole hearing because as were doing this interview the hearing is still going on But I think both of us saw most of it One mention of collateral damage SEN RON WYDEN If the executive branch makes a mistake and kills the wrong person or a group of the wrong people how should the government acknowledge that JOHN BRENNAN I believe we need to acknowledge it JAY But we know that hundreds of people have been killed targeting a certain individual and then their families are around them or people living in villages near them have been killed and where the hecks the legal basis of that RATNER You know we havent gotten the figures on that We have different groups out there try and count They read all the newspapers et cetera try to try to figure out whos been killed and how many The estimates are as high as 3000 or 4000 people having been killed by the drones of which 800900 are probably civilians maybe more and of which 200300 are children Those are the figures And yet Brennan as I recall sat in that hearing where the administration has put out the evidence quote evidence to claim that only single digits are the number of civilians killed in these SEN DIANNE FEINSTEIN For the past several years this committee has done significant oversight of the governments conduct of targeted strikes And the figures we have obtained from the executive branch which we have done our utmost to verify confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in the single digits When I asked to give out the actual numbers Im told you cant And I say why not Because its classified RATNER Its a baldfaced lie What they have done is theyve dropped drones on people and killed many many civilians So the fact is unfortunately Brennan is going to be confirmed Do I think he should be No Not because of his character in particular but because of the whole policy and practice of the Obama administration and the CIA Brennan happens to have some serious questions about him obviously He was Tenets deputy the head of the CIA in 20042005 when the CIA was doing its global detention and torture program he was there He knew about it He claims that he voiced some objections to people Weve never seen any evidence of that He certainly didnt reveal it certainly didnt try and stop it So he was aware of enhanced interrogation techniques or torture We really dont know what his positions are except he was a faithful person at the CIA during that period and my guess is went along with it because we have no evidence JAY And when Sen Levin asked him a direct question 147Do you consider waterboarding torture148 he wouldnt answer it he wouldnt give it a yes or no SEN CARL LEVIN You said publicly that you believe waterboarding is inconsistent with American values its something that should be prohibited goes beyond the bounds of what a civilized society should employ My question is this in your opinion does waterboarding constitute torture BRENNAN The attorney general has referred to waterboarding as torture Many people have referred to it as torture The attorney general premier law enforcement officer and lawyer of this country and as you all know and as weve had the discussion Senator the term torture has a lot of legal and political implications It is something that should have been banned long ago It never should have taken place in my view And therefore if I were to go to CIA it would never in fact be brought back LEVIN Do you have a personal opinion as to whether waterboarding is torture BRENNAN I have a personal opinion that waterboarding is reprehensible and its something that should not be done And again I am not a lawyer Senator and I cant address that question LEVIN Well youve read opinions as to whether or not waterboarding is torture And Im inaud you accept those opinions of the attorney general Thats my question BRENNAN Senator you know Ive read a lot of legal opinions Ive read an Office of Legal Counsel opinion in the previous administration that said in fact waterboarding could be used So from the standpoint of that you know I cannot point to a single legal document on this issue But as far as Im concerned waterboarding is something that never should have been employed and as far as Im concerned never will be if I have anything to do with it LEVIN Is waterboarding banned by the Geneva Conventions BRENNAN I believe the attorney general also has said that its contrary in contravention of the Geneva Convention Again I am not a lawyer or a legal scholar to make a determination about what is in violation of an international convention JAY Completely evasive Why is that RATNER I mean look at this period that he was there He was there when the waterboarding was going on when 54 countries in the world were cooperating in this global network of rendition and terrorism according to the recent OSI report Brennan refuses to answer whether waterboarding is torture even though Eric Holder eventually said yes its torture and its illegal Brennan wont answer it I presume because either A he might have been implicated in a way we dont know and doesnt want to say its torture because that makes it a violation of the law and he could be arrested and indicted and tried for that Or his fellows at the CIA who were clearly involved in waterboarding if he is head of the CIA said well its torture the employees under him are then guilty of torture And so he is in this position would be in this position of saying my employees tortured Even though Eric Holder our attorney general already says that he did torture Now I should say something about Brennan during this period He claims that he had some disagreements about this But if you look at his statement in 2005 he said rendition was one of the most important and effective means of getting the quote terrorists and getting information from them And then they asked him aboutwell not this wasnt at the hearing but in 2005 they said well what about all the fact that these guys are tortured everywhere You know theyre sent to Egypt And he says well we get assurances from the country so they wont be tortured Well we know thats just complete BS because under his quote watch when hes at the CIA these people have been tortured right and left JAY Thats why they were sent to those countries because they would get tortured RATNER Thats the only reason Why would you send someone to Egypt Why not send to a you know you could even send them to a you know a nice country they might not be tortured in you send them to the countries that are known for torture And under his when he was at the CIA look what happened Maher Arar a fellow Canadian of yours is sent to Syria and tortured by the very CIA when he is deputy to Tenet at the CIA Has there ever been an apology by the US No And this is Tenet ElMasri is taken off a bus in Macedonia and sent by the US to Afghanistan where hes tortured Brennan is at the CIA at the time Never a word about that So he has a history here A history that prevented him from being made chief of the CIA during Obamas first term Thats why he wasnt because he was at the CIA he was head of the counterterrorism section and he was obviously had his hands or certainly his eyes open to what was happening and how people were being tortured And so he couldnt get it then So think about it Now that hes had four years of practicing killing people with drones making up a target list with Obama now he gets to be head of the CIA because hes quote trusted by Obama Yeah trusted to use drones to kill people who shouldnt be killed JAY Theres a report just quickly the OSI put out a report recently on the torture networkI shouldnt say torture network What exactly is it Its a rendition network What was it RATNER Yeah Its a globalits really the global rendition and torture network And it was run from the CIA Tenet was there for a fair amount of that time And what it involved was picking up people like Maher Arar at Kennedy airport in New York shipping him to Syria kidnapping a guy like kidnapping the Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan sending him to Egypt for torture Taking a guy in Australia like Habib sending him to Egypt for torture sending some Swedish guys to Egypt for torture It involved the worldwide detention interrogation and rendition program Fiftyfour countries according to this important OSI report were involved in some way whether by allowing the flights to go through whether helping people get picked up and some of those courts in some of those countries have found that program utterly illegal The European Court of Human Rights found Macedonia guilty of cooperating in the rendition of ElMasri to Afghanistan Found that the way in which ElMasri was detained by the US officials by the CIA people who stripped him sodomized him took him to Afghanistan that that was a form of torture They found that Maher Arar likewise in that report is found of course to have been tortured in Syria This was the global detention torture system that the CIA was running when Brennan was a deputy director at the CIA This is the guy were now putting in charge of the CIA So between torture and drones what were really saying and the sort of easy questioning that I think we had in the unwillingness to bear down on this guy is really saying that drone policy is really part and parcel right now of a US quote global war on terror JAY Now the Senate committee talked about the report they had done which was I think 6000 pages an executive summary of 300 pages which according to even Brennan said he was shocked to read it And apparently it was the story of the use of torture and rendition by the CIA and how they had been essentially covering it up even from the Senate committee BRENNAN If I am confirmed one of my highest priorities would be the committees lengthy report on the CIAs former rendition detention and interrogation program that involved nowbanned interrogation techniques I have read the findings and executive summary of the 6000page report which raises a number of very serious issues JAY So I guess thats something in terms of the Senate committee but I guess its more something if they would make some of it public But it doesnt appear theyre going to are they RATNER The Senate report is apparently very good It was done a number of a couple of years ago Senator Levin I think was one of the leaders doing the report It has not been made public yet The important thing in that report is not only probably what it documents about the CIAs role and Brennan apparently gets a passing mention in it apparently he wasnt the guy who actually was the instrumental person in making that program happen But whats interesting about that report is in 2007 Brennan spoke about the fact that incredibly valuable intelligence was gotten through what he refers to as by the euphemism enhanced interrogation techniques EIT or torture He said the CIA got great information from that This 6000page report by Levin and the other members of that committee said they got no valuable intelligence I want to repeat that no valuable intelligence LEVIN Are you aware of any intelligence information that supports Mr Rodriguezs claim that the lead information on the courier came from KSM and al libi BRENNAN I have not reviewed the intelligence thoroughly but I am not aware of any LEVIN Now Michael Mukasey former attorney general Wall Street Journal consider how the intelligence that led to Bin Laden came to hand It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who broke like a dam under pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding He loosed a torrent of information including eventually the name the name of a trusted courier of Bin Laden Our statement that of the chairman and myself is that that statement is wrong Do you have any information to the contrary BRENNAN My impression earlier on was that there was information that was provided that was useful and valuable But as I said Ive read now the first volume of your report which raises questions about whether any of that information was accurate JAY The reason we know that is because Feinstein and Levin did go public with the statement about that So even though the report is secret they have stated that part publicly RATNER Thats correct So now you have Brennan whos about to be the CIA chief who swore up and down that they got valuable intelligence from torture or enhanced interrogation techniques Now you have Senator Levin issuing a 6000page report with Feinstein not issuing inaud release saying there was no valuable information So Brennan says well I guess I should really read that report and Ill get back to you and I think everythings wrong And thats another aspect of the hearing A number of questions including one you and I have spoken about but the question of whether there was a meeting in Prague Czechoslovakia with Mohammed Atta one of the 911 hijackers with people from Iraq and that was one of the key pieces of evidence used to support the Iraqi government to support the the war against Iraq Levin pushes to try and say you should declassify that cable Czechoslovakia doesnt care and it will show how this war was basically a fraud LEVIN The issue here is whether or not there ever was a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta who was one of the people who attacked the trade center and the Iraqi intelligence The cable that came in has been classified by the CIA even though the report of theand this is what the CIA did to the cable Now its very significant for the historical record here We went to war based on allegations that there was a relationship between Iraq and the attackers The 911 attackers Its very important that this cable be declassified The only reason to keep it redacted and classified frankly is to protect an administration Not to protect sources and methods RATNER Hes pushing on that but at the same time its been years now and at the same time theyre only pushing Brennan now that hes going to become head of the CIA He will then be head of the CIA and will he answer any of these numerous requests that the Senate Intelligence Committee is now bold enough to ask while hes going through the confirmation hearing Well see the answer to that I mean I think itll be surprising if we ever see that cable JAY Yeah because Levin actually comes right out I think he even said based on a lie and connected it directly to Cheney LEVIN We knew it never took place And yet repeatedly particularly the vice president made reference to there was a report of a meeting between these two JAY Thanks very much for joining us Michael RATNER Thank you Paul JAY And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Photo by David Stanley | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p> <p>Amid renewed talk by the Trump administration of a military option against North Korea, one salient fact goes unnoticed. The United States is already at war with the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea (DPRK &#8211; the formal name for North Korea). It is doing so through non-military means, with the aim of inducing economic collapse. In a sense, the policy is a continuation of the Obama administration&#8217;s &#8216;strategic patience&#8217; on steroids, in that it couples a refusal to engage in diplomacy with the piling on of sanctions that constitute collective punishment of the entire North Korean population.</p> <p>We are told that UN Security Council resolution 2375, passed on September 11, was &#8220;watered down&#8221; so as to obtain Chinese and Russian agreement. In relative terms, this is true, in that the original draft as submitted by the United States called for extreme measures such as a total oil embargo. However, Western media give the impression that the resolution as passed is mild or mainly symbolic. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p> <p>The resolution, in tandem with previous sanction votes and in particular resolution 2371 from August 5, is aimed squarely at inflicting economic misery. Among other things, the August sanctions prohibit North Korea from exporting coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore, and seafood, all key commodities in the nation&#8217;s international trade.&amp;#160; The resolution also banned countries from opening new or expanding existing joint ventures with the DPRK. <a href="#_edn1" type="external">[1]</a></p> <p>September&#8217;s resolution further constrains North Korea&#8217;s ability to engage in regular international trade by barring the export of textiles. It is estimated that together, the sanctions eliminate 90 percent of the DPRK&#8217;s export earnings. <a href="#_edn2" type="external">[2]</a> Foreign exchange is essential for the smooth operation of any modern economy, and U.S. officials hope that by blocking North Korea&#8217;s ability to earn sufficient foreign exchange, the resolutions will deal a crippling blow to the economy. For North Korea&#8217;s estimated 100,000 to 200,000 textile workers the impact will be immediate, plunging most of them into unemployment. &#8220;If the goal of the sanctions is to create difficulties for ordinary workers and their ability to make a livelihood, then a ban on textiles will work,&#8221; specialist Paul Tija wryly notes. <a href="#_edn3" type="external">[3]</a></p> <p>With around eighty percent of its land comprising mountainous terrain, North Korea has a limited amount of arable land, and the nation typically fills its food gap through imports. Sharply reduced rainfall during the April-June planting season this year reduced the amount of water available for irrigation and hampered sowing activities. Satellite monitoring indicates that crop yields are likely to fall well below the norm. <a href="#_edn4" type="external">[4]</a> To make up for the shortfall, the DPRK has significantly boosted imports. <a href="#_edn5" type="external">[5]</a> How much longer it can continue to do so remains to be seen, in the face of dwindling reserves of foreign exchange. In effect, by blocking North Korea&#8217;s ability to engage in international trade, the United States has succeeded in weaponizing food by denying North Korea the means of providing an adequate supply to its people.</p> <p>The September resolution also adversely impacts the livelihoods of North Korea&#8217;s overseas workers, who will not be allowed to renew their contracts once they expire. They can only look forward to being forced from their jobs and expelled from their homes. <a href="#_edn6" type="external">[6]</a></p> <p>International partnership is discouraged, as the resolution bans &#8220;the opening, maintenance, and operation of all joint ventures or cooperative entities, new and existing,&#8221; which in effect permanently kills off any prospect of the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. With only two exceptions, all current operations are ordered to shut down within four months. <a href="#_edn7" type="external">[7]</a></p> <p>A cap is imposed on the amount of oil North Korea is allowed to import, amounting to about a thirty percent reduction from current levels, along with a total ban on the import of natural gas and condensates. <a href="#_edn8" type="external">[8]</a> Many factories and manufacturing plants could be forced to close down when they can no longer operate machinery. For the average person, hardship lies ahead as winter approaches, when many homes and offices will no longer be able to be heated.</p> <p>What has any of this to do with North Korea&#8217;s nuclear program? Nothing. The sanctions are an expression of pure malevolence. Vengeance is hitting every citizen of North Korea to further the U.S. goal of geopolitical domination of the Asia-Pacific.</p> <p>Like North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel are non-signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and have nuclear and missile arsenals. India and Pakistan launched ICBMs earlier in the year. North Korea is singled out for punishment, while the others receive U.S. aid. There is no principle at stake here. For that matter, there is something unseemly in the United States, with over one thousand nuclear tests, denouncing North Korea for its six. The U.S., having launched four ICBMs this year, condemns the DPRK for launching half that many. Is it not absurd that the United States, with its long record in recent years of bombing, invading, threatening, and overthrowing other nations, accuses North Korea, which has been at peace for several decades, of being an international threat?</p> <p>North Korea observed the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, and concluded that only a nuclear deterrent could stop the United States from attacking. It is the &#8220;threat&#8221; of North Korea being able to defend itself that has aroused U.S. ire on a spectacular scale.</p> <p>The U.S. war on the North Korean people does not stop with UN sanctions. In a recent hearing, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce called for Chinese banks that do ordinary business with North Korea to be targeted: &#8220;We can designate Chinese banks and companies unilaterally, giving them a choice between doing business with North Korea or the United States&#8230;It&#8217;s not just China. We should go after banks and companies in other countries that do business with North Korea in the same way&#8230;We should press countries to end all trade with North Korea.&#8221; <a href="#_edn9" type="external">[9]</a></p> <p>At the same hearing, the Treasury Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea mentioned that his department had worked with the Justice Department to blacklist Russia&#8217;s Independent Petroleum Company in June, along with associated individuals and companies, for having shipped oil to North Korea. Despite the fact that there was no UN resolution at that time which forbade such trade, the U.S. seized nearly $7 million belonging to the company and its partners. <a href="" type="internal">[10]</a></p> <p>Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton was, if anything, more aggressive in her rhetoric than her colleagues, announcing that &#8220;we continue to call for all countries to cut trade ties with Pyongyang to increase North Korea&#8217;s financial isolation and choke off revenue sources.&#8221; She cautioned China and Russia that they must acquiesce to U.S. demands, warning them that if they &#8220;do not act, we will use the tools we have at our disposal. Just last month we rolled out new sanctions targeting Russian and Chinese individuals and entities supporting the DPRK.&#8221; <a href="#_edn11" type="external">[11]</a></p> <p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had threats to deliver, as well, warning China that if its actions against North Korea fail to live up to U.S. expectations, &#8220;we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system.&#8221; <a href="#_edn12" type="external">[12]</a> Since all international financial transactions process through the U.S. banking system, this threat is tantamount to shutting down Beijing&#8217;s ability to conduct trade with any nation. It was a rather extravagant threat, and undoubtedly a difficult one to pull off, but one which the Trump administration is just reckless enough to consider undertaking.</p> <p>There is nothing illegal or forbidden in a nation trading with North Korea in non-prohibited commodities. Yet, a total trade blockade is what Washington is after. U.S. officials are preparing sanctions against foreign banks and companies that do business with North Korea. &#8220;We intend to deny the regime its last remaining sources of revenue, unless and until it reverses course and denuclearizes,&#8221; Billingslea darkly warns. &#8220;Those who collaborate with them are exposing themselves to enormous jeopardy.&#8221; <a href="#_edn13" type="external">[13]</a> In essence, Washington is running an international protection racket: give us what we demand, or we will hurt you. This is gangsterism as foreign policy.</p> <p>China opposed the UN sanctions that the Trump administration presented at the UN Security Council in September. However, according to U.S. and UN officials, the United States managed to extort China&#8217;s acquiescence by threatening to hit Chinese businesses with secondary sanctions. <a href="#_edn14" type="external">[14]</a></p> <p>Before the August UN vote, similar threats were conveyed to Chinese diplomats at the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, as U.S. officials indicated that ten businesses and individuals would be sanctioned if China did not vote in favor of sanctions. <a href="#_edn15" type="external">[15]</a></p> <p>As a shot across the bow, the U.S. sanctioned the Chinese Bank of Dandong back in June, leading to Western firms severing contacts with the institution. <a href="#_edn16" type="external">[16]</a></p> <p>Washington&#8217;s threats prompted China to implement steps in the financial realm that exceed what is called for by the UN Security Council resolutions. China&#8217;s largest banks have banned North Korean individuals and entities from opening new accounts, and some firms are not allowing deposits in existing accounts. <a href="#_edn17" type="external">[17]</a> There is no UN prohibition on North Koreans opening accounts abroad, so the action is regarded as a proactive measure by Chinese banks to avoid becoming the target of U.S. sanctions. <a href="#_edn18" type="external">[18]</a></p> <p>The demands never cease, no matter how much China gives way. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently insisted that China impose a total oil embargo on North Korea. <a href="#_edn19" type="external">[19]</a> China refused to go along, but it can expect be subjected to mounting pressure from the U.S. in the weeks ahead.</p> <p>U.S. officials are fanning out across the globe, seeking to cajole or threaten other nations to join the anti-DPRK crusade. Since most nations stand to lose far more by displeasing the U.S. than in ending a longstanding relationship with the DPRK, the campaign is having an effect.</p> <p>In April, India banned all trade with North Korea, with the exception of food and medicine. This action failed to satisfy the Trump administration, which sent officials to New Delhi to ask for the curtailing of diplomatic contacts with the DPRK and help in monitoring North Korean economic activities in the region. <a href="" type="internal">[20]</a> The Philippines, for its part, responded to U.S. demands by suspending all trade activity with North Korea. <a href="#_edn21" type="external">[21]</a> Mexico and Peru are among the nations that are expelling North Korean diplomats, on the arbitrary basis of responding to U.S. directives. <a href="#_edn22" type="external">[22]</a> In addition to announcing that it would reduce North Korea&#8217;s diplomatic staff, Kuwait also said it would no longer issue visas to North Korean citizens. <a href="#_edn23" type="external">[23]</a></p> <p>Many African nations have warm relations with the DPRK, dating back to the period of the continent&#8217;s liberation struggles. U.S. officials are focusing particular attention on Africa, and several nations are currently under investigation by the United Nations for their trade with North Korea. <a href="#_edn24" type="external">[24]</a> The demand to cut relations with North Korea is not an easy sell for Washington, as Africans remember the U.S. for having backed apartheid regimes, while the DPRK had supported African liberation. &#8220;Our world outlook was determined by who was on our side during the most crucial time of our struggle, and North Korea was there for us,&#8221; says Tuliameni Kalomoh, an official in Namibia&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. <a href="#_edn25" type="external">[25]</a> This is not the kind of language Washington likes to hear. U.S. economic power is sufficient to ruin any small nation, and with little choice in the matter, Namibia cancelled all contracts with North Korean firms. <a href="#_edn26" type="external">[26]</a></p> <p>Egypt and Uganda are among the nations that have cut ties with the DPRK, and more nations are expected to follow suit, as the United States turns up the heat. Outside of the United Nations, the Trump administration is systematically erecting a total trade blockade against North Korea. Through this means, the U.S. hopes that North Korea will capitulate. That aim is premised on a serious misjudgment of the North Korean character.</p> <p>The Trump administration claims that UN sanctions and its policy of maximum pressure are intended to bring North Korea to the negotiating table. But it is not the DPRK that needs to be persuaded to talk. President Trump has tweeted, &#8220;Talking is not the answer!&#8221;&amp;#160; U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert laid down a stringent condition for negotiations: &#8220;For us to engage in talks with the DPRK, they would have to denuclearize.&#8221; <a href="#_edn27" type="external">[27]</a> The demand for North Korea to give the United States everything it wants upfront, without receiving anything in return, as a precondition for talks is such an obvious nonstarter that it has to be regarded as a recipe for avoiding diplomacy.</p> <p>North Korea contacted the Obama administration on several occasions and requested talks, only to be rebuffed each time and told it needed to denuclearize. This sad disconnect continues under Trump. In May, the DPRK informed the United States that it would stop nuclear testing and missile launches if the U.S. would drop its hostile policy and sanctions, as well as sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War. <a href="#_edn28" type="external">[28]</a> The U.S. may not have cared for the conditions, but it could have suggested adjustments, had it been so inclined. Certainly, it was an opening that could have led to dialogue.</p> <p>It is not diplomacy that the Trump administration seeks, but to crush North Korea. If the ostensible reason for UN sanctions is to persuade a reluctant party to negotiate, then one can only conclude that the wrong nation is being sanctioned. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was scathing in her criticism of American and British leaders: &#8220;They are the loudest when it comes to sanctions, but nowhere to be found when it comes to making efforts to promote peace talks. They want nothing to do with responsibility.&#8221; <a href="#_edn29" type="external">[29]</a> The months ahead look bleak. Unless China and Russia can find a way to oppose U.S. designs without becoming targets themselves, the North Korean people will stand alone and bear the burden of Trump&#8217;s malice. It says something for their character that they refuse to be cowed.</p> <p>Notes.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref1" type="external">[1]</a> SC/12945, &#8220;Security Council Toughens Sanctions Against Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2371 (2017), United Nations Security Council, August 5, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref2" type="external">[2]</a> &#8220;UN Security Council Toughens Sanctions on North Korea,&#8221; Radio Free Europe, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref3" type="external">[3]</a> Sue-Lin Wong, Richa Naidu, &#8220;U.N. Ban on North Korean Textiles Will Disrupt Industry and Ordinary Lives, Experts Say,&#8221; Reuters, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref4" type="external">[4]</a> &#8220;Prolonged Dry Weather Threatens the 2017 Main Season Food Crop Production,&#8221; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, July 20, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref5" type="external">[5]</a> &#8220;North Korean Food Imports Climb in June: KITA,&#8221; NK News, August 18, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref6" type="external">[6]</a> &#8220;Fact Sheet: Resolution 2375 (2017) Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea,&#8221; United States Mission to the United Nations, September 11, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref7" type="external">[7]</a> SC/12983, &#8220;Security Council Imposes Fresh Sanctions on Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea, Including Bans on Natural Gas Sales, Worth Authorizations for its Nationals,&#8221; United Nations Security Council, September 11, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref8" type="external">[8]</a> &#8220;Fact Sheet: Resolution 2375 (2017) Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea,&#8221; United States Mission to the United Nations, September 11, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref9" type="external">[9]</a> Opening Statement of the Honorable Ed Royce (R-CA), &#8220;Sanctions, Diplomacy, and Information: Pressuring North Korea,&#8221; House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">[10]</a> &#8220;Testimony of Assistant Secretary Marshall S. Billingslea,&#8221; House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;Treasury Sanctions Suppliers of North Korea&#8217;s Nuclear Weapons Proliferation Programs,&#8221; U.S. Department of Treasury, June 1, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref11" type="external">[11]</a> &#8220;Statement of Susan Thornton, Acting Secretary of State,&#8221; House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref12" type="external">[12]</a> Ian Talley, &#8220;U.S. Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions,&#8221; Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref13" type="external">[13]</a> Ian Talley, &#8220;U.S. Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions,&#8221; Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref14" type="external">[14]</a> &#8220;Clear and Present Blackmail: US Coaxes China to Back Anti-N Korea UN Resolution,&#8221; Sputnik News, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref15" type="external">[15]</a> Yi Yong-in, &#8220;US Pledges to Sanction Ten More Chinese Entities if China Doesn&#8217;t Cooperate in NK UNSC Resolution,&#8221; Hankyoreh, July 22, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref16" type="external">[16]</a> Matthew Pennington, &#8220;US Blacklists China Bank, Revving Up Pressure Over NKorea,&#8221; Associated Press, June 30, 2017.</p> <p>Joel Schectman and David Brunnstrom, &#8220;U.S. targets Chinese Bank, Company, Two Individuals Over North Korea,&#8221; Reuters, June 20, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref17" type="external">[17]</a> &#8220;China&#8217;s Biggest Banks Ban New North Korean Accounts,&#8221; Financial Times, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref18" type="external">[18]</a> Stephen McDonell, &#8220;China Banks Fear US North Korea Sanctions,&#8221; BBC News, September 12, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref19" type="external">[19]</a> Nick Wadhams, &#8220;China Rebuffs U.S. Demand to Cut Off Oil Exports to North Korea,&#8221; September 15, 2017.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">[20]</a> Indrani Bagchi, &#8220;Scale Back Engagement with North Korea, US Tells India,&#8221; The Times of India, July 30, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref21" type="external">[21]</a> &#8220;Philippines Suspends Trade with N. Korea,&#8221; Yonhap, September 9, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref22" type="external">[22]</a> &#8220;North Korea-U.S. Te4nsions Are Not Mexico&#8217;s Business: Diplomat,&#8221; Reuters, September 8, 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;Peru Says Expelling North Korean Ambassador Over Nuclear Program,&#8221; Reuters, September 11, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref23" type="external">[23]</a> &#8220;Kuwait Decides to Reduce N.K. Diplomatic Staff, Stops Issuing Visas for N. Koreans,&#8221; Yonhap, September 16, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref24" type="external">[24]</a> Kevin J. Kelley, &#8220;UN Probes Tanzania and Uganda Deals with North Korea,&#8221; East African, September 13, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref25" type="external">[25]</a> Kevin Sieff, &#8220;North Korea&#8217;s Surprising, Lucrative Relationship with Africa,&#8221; Washington Post, July 10, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref26" type="external">[26]</a> George Hendricks, &#8220;North Korean Contracts Terminated,&#8221; The Namibian, September 15, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref27" type="external">[27]</a> Heather Nauert, &#8220;Department Press Briefing,&#8221; U.S. Department of State, June 15, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref28" type="external">[28]</a> Jeong Yong-soo, &#8220;In May, North Offered to End Testing if Washington Backs Off,&#8221; JoongAng Ilbo, September 5, 2017.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref29" type="external">[29]</a> &#8220;Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying&#8217;s Regular Press Conference on August 30, 2017,&#8221; (China) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, August 30, 2017.</p>

Trump’s War on the North Korean People

https://counterpunch.org/2017/09/19/trumps-war-on-the-north-korean-people/

2017-09-19

4left

Photo by David Stanley CC BY 20 Amid renewed talk by the Trump administration of a military option against North Korea one salient fact goes unnoticed The United States is already at war with the Democratic People8217s Republic of Korea DPRK 8211 the formal name for North Korea It is doing so through nonmilitary means with the aim of inducing economic collapse In a sense the policy is a continuation of the Obama administration8217s 8216strategic patience8217 on steroids in that it couples a refusal to engage in diplomacy with the piling on of sanctions that constitute collective punishment of the entire North Korean population We are told that UN Security Council resolution 2375 passed on September 11 was 8220watered down8221 so as to obtain Chinese and Russian agreement In relative terms this is true in that the original draft as submitted by the United States called for extreme measures such as a total oil embargo However Western media give the impression that the resolution as passed is mild or mainly symbolic Nothing could be further from the truth The resolution in tandem with previous sanction votes and in particular resolution 2371 from August 5 is aimed squarely at inflicting economic misery Among other things the August sanctions prohibit North Korea from exporting coal iron iron ore lead lead ore and seafood all key commodities in the nation8217s international tradeamp160 The resolution also banned countries from opening new or expanding existing joint ventures with the DPRK 1 September8217s resolution further constrains North Korea8217s ability to engage in regular international trade by barring the export of textiles It is estimated that together the sanctions eliminate 90 percent of the DPRK8217s export earnings 2 Foreign exchange is essential for the smooth operation of any modern economy and US officials hope that by blocking North Korea8217s ability to earn sufficient foreign exchange the resolutions will deal a crippling blow to the economy For North Korea8217s estimated 100000 to 200000 textile workers the impact will be immediate plunging most of them into unemployment 8220If the goal of the sanctions is to create difficulties for ordinary workers and their ability to make a livelihood then a ban on textiles will work8221 specialist Paul Tija wryly notes 3 With around eighty percent of its land comprising mountainous terrain North Korea has a limited amount of arable land and the nation typically fills its food gap through imports Sharply reduced rainfall during the AprilJune planting season this year reduced the amount of water available for irrigation and hampered sowing activities Satellite monitoring indicates that crop yields are likely to fall well below the norm 4 To make up for the shortfall the DPRK has significantly boosted imports 5 How much longer it can continue to do so remains to be seen in the face of dwindling reserves of foreign exchange In effect by blocking North Korea8217s ability to engage in international trade the United States has succeeded in weaponizing food by denying North Korea the means of providing an adequate supply to its people The September resolution also adversely impacts the livelihoods of North Korea8217s overseas workers who will not be allowed to renew their contracts once they expire They can only look forward to being forced from their jobs and expelled from their homes 6 International partnership is discouraged as the resolution bans 8220the opening maintenance and operation of all joint ventures or cooperative entities new and existing8221 which in effect permanently kills off any prospect of the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex With only two exceptions all current operations are ordered to shut down within four months 7 A cap is imposed on the amount of oil North Korea is allowed to import amounting to about a thirty percent reduction from current levels along with a total ban on the import of natural gas and condensates 8 Many factories and manufacturing plants could be forced to close down when they can no longer operate machinery For the average person hardship lies ahead as winter approaches when many homes and offices will no longer be able to be heated What has any of this to do with North Korea8217s nuclear program Nothing The sanctions are an expression of pure malevolence Vengeance is hitting every citizen of North Korea to further the US goal of geopolitical domination of the AsiaPacific Like North Korea India Pakistan and Israel are nonsignatories to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and have nuclear and missile arsenals India and Pakistan launched ICBMs earlier in the year North Korea is singled out for punishment while the others receive US aid There is no principle at stake here For that matter there is something unseemly in the United States with over one thousand nuclear tests denouncing North Korea for its six The US having launched four ICBMs this year condemns the DPRK for launching half that many Is it not absurd that the United States with its long record in recent years of bombing invading threatening and overthrowing other nations accuses North Korea which has been at peace for several decades of being an international threat North Korea observed the fate of Yugoslavia Iraq and Libya and concluded that only a nuclear deterrent could stop the United States from attacking It is the 8220threat8221 of North Korea being able to defend itself that has aroused US ire on a spectacular scale The US war on the North Korean people does not stop with UN sanctions In a recent hearing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce called for Chinese banks that do ordinary business with North Korea to be targeted 8220We can designate Chinese banks and companies unilaterally giving them a choice between doing business with North Korea or the United States8230It8217s not just China We should go after banks and companies in other countries that do business with North Korea in the same way8230We should press countries to end all trade with North Korea8221 9 At the same hearing the Treasury Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea mentioned that his department had worked with the Justice Department to blacklist Russia8217s Independent Petroleum Company in June along with associated individuals and companies for having shipped oil to North Korea Despite the fact that there was no UN resolution at that time which forbade such trade the US seized nearly 7 million belonging to the company and its partners 10 Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton was if anything more aggressive in her rhetoric than her colleagues announcing that 8220we continue to call for all countries to cut trade ties with Pyongyang to increase North Korea8217s financial isolation and choke off revenue sources8221 She cautioned China and Russia that they must acquiesce to US demands warning them that if they 8220do not act we will use the tools we have at our disposal Just last month we rolled out new sanctions targeting Russian and Chinese individuals and entities supporting the DPRK8221 11 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had threats to deliver as well warning China that if its actions against North Korea fail to live up to US expectations 8220we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the US and international dollar system8221 12 Since all international financial transactions process through the US banking system this threat is tantamount to shutting down Beijing8217s ability to conduct trade with any nation It was a rather extravagant threat and undoubtedly a difficult one to pull off but one which the Trump administration is just reckless enough to consider undertaking There is nothing illegal or forbidden in a nation trading with North Korea in nonprohibited commodities Yet a total trade blockade is what Washington is after US officials are preparing sanctions against foreign banks and companies that do business with North Korea 8220We intend to deny the regime its last remaining sources of revenue unless and until it reverses course and denuclearizes8221 Billingslea darkly warns 8220Those who collaborate with them are exposing themselves to enormous jeopardy8221 13 In essence Washington is running an international protection racket give us what we demand or we will hurt you This is gangsterism as foreign policy China opposed the UN sanctions that the Trump administration presented at the UN Security Council in September However according to US and UN officials the United States managed to extort China8217s acquiescence by threatening to hit Chinese businesses with secondary sanctions 14 Before the August UN vote similar threats were conveyed to Chinese diplomats at the USChina Comprehensive Economic Dialogue as US officials indicated that ten businesses and individuals would be sanctioned if China did not vote in favor of sanctions 15 As a shot across the bow the US sanctioned the Chinese Bank of Dandong back in June leading to Western firms severing contacts with the institution 16 Washington8217s threats prompted China to implement steps in the financial realm that exceed what is called for by the UN Security Council resolutions China8217s largest banks have banned North Korean individuals and entities from opening new accounts and some firms are not allowing deposits in existing accounts 17 There is no UN prohibition on North Koreans opening accounts abroad so the action is regarded as a proactive measure by Chinese banks to avoid becoming the target of US sanctions 18 The demands never cease no matter how much China gives way US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently insisted that China impose a total oil embargo on North Korea 19 China refused to go along but it can expect be subjected to mounting pressure from the US in the weeks ahead US officials are fanning out across the globe seeking to cajole or threaten other nations to join the antiDPRK crusade Since most nations stand to lose far more by displeasing the US than in ending a longstanding relationship with the DPRK the campaign is having an effect In April India banned all trade with North Korea with the exception of food and medicine This action failed to satisfy the Trump administration which sent officials to New Delhi to ask for the curtailing of diplomatic contacts with the DPRK and help in monitoring North Korean economic activities in the region 20 The Philippines for its part responded to US demands by suspending all trade activity with North Korea 21 Mexico and Peru are among the nations that are expelling North Korean diplomats on the arbitrary basis of responding to US directives 22 In addition to announcing that it would reduce North Korea8217s diplomatic staff Kuwait also said it would no longer issue visas to North Korean citizens 23 Many African nations have warm relations with the DPRK dating back to the period of the continent8217s liberation struggles US officials are focusing particular attention on Africa and several nations are currently under investigation by the United Nations for their trade with North Korea 24 The demand to cut relations with North Korea is not an easy sell for Washington as Africans remember the US for having backed apartheid regimes while the DPRK had supported African liberation 8220Our world outlook was determined by who was on our side during the most crucial time of our struggle and North Korea was there for us8221 says Tuliameni Kalomoh an official in Namibia8217s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 25 This is not the kind of language Washington likes to hear US economic power is sufficient to ruin any small nation and with little choice in the matter Namibia cancelled all contracts with North Korean firms 26 Egypt and Uganda are among the nations that have cut ties with the DPRK and more nations are expected to follow suit as the United States turns up the heat Outside of the United Nations the Trump administration is systematically erecting a total trade blockade against North Korea Through this means the US hopes that North Korea will capitulate That aim is premised on a serious misjudgment of the North Korean character The Trump administration claims that UN sanctions and its policy of maximum pressure are intended to bring North Korea to the negotiating table But it is not the DPRK that needs to be persuaded to talk President Trump has tweeted 8220Talking is not the answer8221amp160 US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert laid down a stringent condition for negotiations 8220For us to engage in talks with the DPRK they would have to denuclearize8221 27 The demand for North Korea to give the United States everything it wants upfront without receiving anything in return as a precondition for talks is such an obvious nonstarter that it has to be regarded as a recipe for avoiding diplomacy North Korea contacted the Obama administration on several occasions and requested talks only to be rebuffed each time and told it needed to denuclearize This sad disconnect continues under Trump In May the DPRK informed the United States that it would stop nuclear testing and missile launches if the US would drop its hostile policy and sanctions as well as sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War 28 The US may not have cared for the conditions but it could have suggested adjustments had it been so inclined Certainly it was an opening that could have led to dialogue It is not diplomacy that the Trump administration seeks but to crush North Korea If the ostensible reason for UN sanctions is to persuade a reluctant party to negotiate then one can only conclude that the wrong nation is being sanctioned Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was scathing in her criticism of American and British leaders 8220They are the loudest when it comes to sanctions but nowhere to be found when it comes to making efforts to promote peace talks They want nothing to do with responsibility8221 29 The months ahead look bleak Unless China and Russia can find a way to oppose US designs without becoming targets themselves the North Korean people will stand alone and bear the burden of Trump8217s malice It says something for their character that they refuse to be cowed Notes 1 SC12945 8220Security Council Toughens Sanctions Against Democratic People8217s Republic of Korea Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2371 2017 United Nations Security Council August 5 2017 2 8220UN Security Council Toughens Sanctions on North Korea8221 Radio Free Europe September 12 2017 3 SueLin Wong Richa Naidu 8220UN Ban on North Korean Textiles Will Disrupt Industry and Ordinary Lives Experts Say8221 Reuters September 12 2017 4 8220Prolonged Dry Weather Threatens the 2017 Main Season Food Crop Production8221 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations July 20 2017 5 8220North Korean Food Imports Climb in June KITA8221 NK News August 18 2017 6 8220Fact Sheet Resolution 2375 2017 Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea8221 United States Mission to the United Nations September 11 2017 7 SC12983 8220Security Council Imposes Fresh Sanctions on Democratic People8217s Republic of Korea Including Bans on Natural Gas Sales Worth Authorizations for its Nationals8221 United Nations Security Council September 11 2017 8 8220Fact Sheet Resolution 2375 2017 Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea8221 United States Mission to the United Nations September 11 2017 9 Opening Statement of the Honorable Ed Royce RCA 8220Sanctions Diplomacy and Information Pressuring North Korea8221 House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing September 12 2017 10 8220Testimony of Assistant Secretary Marshall S Billingslea8221 House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing September 12 2017 8220Treasury Sanctions Suppliers of North Korea8217s Nuclear Weapons Proliferation Programs8221 US Department of Treasury June 1 2017 11 8220Statement of Susan Thornton Acting Secretary of State8221 House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing September 12 2017 12 Ian Talley 8220US Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions8221 Wall Street Journal September 12 2017 13 Ian Talley 8220US Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions8221 Wall Street Journal September 12 2017 14 8220Clear and Present Blackmail US Coaxes China to Back AntiN Korea UN Resolution8221 Sputnik News September 12 2017 15 Yi Yongin 8220US Pledges to Sanction Ten More Chinese Entities if China Doesn8217t Cooperate in NK UNSC Resolution8221 Hankyoreh July 22 2017 16 Matthew Pennington 8220US Blacklists China Bank Revving Up Pressure Over NKorea8221 Associated Press June 30 2017 Joel Schectman and David Brunnstrom 8220US targets Chinese Bank Company Two Individuals Over North Korea8221 Reuters June 20 2017 17 8220China8217s Biggest Banks Ban New North Korean Accounts8221 Financial Times September 12 2017 18 Stephen McDonell 8220China Banks Fear US North Korea Sanctions8221 BBC News September 12 2017 19 Nick Wadhams 8220China Rebuffs US Demand to Cut Off Oil Exports to North Korea8221 September 15 2017 20 Indrani Bagchi 8220Scale Back Engagement with North Korea US Tells India8221 The Times of India July 30 2017 21 8220Philippines Suspends Trade with N Korea8221 Yonhap September 9 2017 22 8220North KoreaUS Te4nsions Are Not Mexico8217s Business Diplomat8221 Reuters September 8 2017 8220Peru Says Expelling North Korean Ambassador Over Nuclear Program8221 Reuters September 11 2017 23 8220Kuwait Decides to Reduce NK Diplomatic Staff Stops Issuing Visas for N Koreans8221 Yonhap September 16 2017 24 Kevin J Kelley 8220UN Probes Tanzania and Uganda Deals with North Korea8221 East African September 13 2017 25 Kevin Sieff 8220North Korea8217s Surprising Lucrative Relationship with Africa8221 Washington Post July 10 2017 26 George Hendricks 8220North Korean Contracts Terminated8221 The Namibian September 15 2017 27 Heather Nauert 8220Department Press Briefing8221 US Department of State June 15 2017 28 Jeong Yongsoo 8220In May North Offered to End Testing if Washington Backs Off8221 JoongAng Ilbo September 5 2017 29 8220Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying8217s Regular Press Conference on August 30 20178221 China Ministry of Foreign Affairs August 30 2017

Photo/NOUN by/ADP David/PROPN Stanley/PROPN CC/PROPN BY/PROPN 20/NUM Amid/ADP renewed/VERB talk/NOUN by/ADP the/DET Trump/PROPN administration/NOUN of/ADP a/DET military/ADJ option/NOUN against/ADP North/PROPN Korea/PROPN one/NUM salient/NOUN fact/NOUN goes/VERB unnoticed/ADJ The/DET United/PROPN States/PROPN is/AUX already/ADV at/ADP war/NOUN with/ADP the/DET Democratic/PROPN People8217s/PROPN Republic/PROPN of/ADP Korea/PROPN DPRK/PROPN 8211/NUM the/DET formal/ADJ name/NOUN for/ADP North/PROPN Korea/PROPN It/PRON is/AUX doing/VERB so/ADV through/ADP nonmilitary/ADJ means/NOUN with/ADP the/DET aim/NOUN of/ADP inducing/VERB economic/ADJ collapse/NOUN In/ADP a/DET sense/NOUN the/DET policy/NOUN is/AUX a/DET continuation/NOUN of/ADP the/DET Obama/PROPN administration8217s/PROPN 8216strategic/ADJ patience8217/NOUN on/ADP steroids/NOUN in/SCONJ that/SCONJ it/PRON couples/VERB a/DET refusal/NOUN to/PART engage/VERB in/ADP diplomacy/NOUN with/ADP the/DET piling/NOUN on/ADP of/ADP 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<p>US Army soldiers conduct a patrol through the village of Kowtalay in the Nuristan province of Afghanistan.&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/768980804/"&amp;gt;Michael Bracken/US Army&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175442/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_how_washington_creates_global_instability/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>It&#8217;s a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called &#8220;the arc of instability.&#8221; It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them&#8212;from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia &#8212;Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly, in outright war or what passes for peace.</p> <p>Garrisoning the planet is just part of it. The Pentagon and US intelligence services are also running covert special forces and spy operations, launching drone attacks, building bases and secret prisons, training, arming, and funding local security forces, and engaging in a host of other militarized activities right up to full-scale war. But while you consider this, keep one fact in mind: the odds are that there is no longer a single nation in the arc of instability in which the United States is in no way militarily involved.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Covenant of the Arc</p> <p>&#8220;Freedom is on the march in the broader Middle East,&#8221; the president said in his speech. &#8220;The hope of liberty now reaches from Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut and beyond. Slowly but surely, we&#8217;re helping to transform the broader Middle East from an arc of instability into an arc of freedom.&#8221;</p> <p>An arc of freedom. You could be forgiven if you thought that this was an excerpt from President Barack Obama&#8217;s <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa" type="external">Arab Spring speech</a>, where he said &#8220;[I]t will be the policy of the United States to&#8230; support transitions to democracy.&#8221; Those were, however, the words of his predecessor George W. Bush. The giveaway is that phrase &#8220;arc of instability,&#8221; a core rhetorical concept of the former president&#8217;s global vision and that of his <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MI10Dj02.html" type="external">neoconservative supporters</a>.</p> <p>The dream of the Bush years was to militarily dominate that arc, which largely coincided with the area from North Africa to the Chinese border, also known as the Greater Middle East, but sometimes was said to stretch from Latin America to Southeast Asia. While the phrase has been dropped in the Obama years, when it comes to projecting military power President Obama is in the process of trumping his predecessor.</p> <p>In addition to waging more wars in &#8220;arc&#8221; nations, Obama has overseen the deployment of greater numbers of special operations forces to the region, has transferred or brokered the sale of substantial quantities of weapons there, while continuing to build and expand military bases at a torrid rate, as well as training and supplying large numbers of indigenous forces. Pentagon documents and open source information indicate that there is not a single country in that arc in which US military and intelligence agencies are not now active. This raises questions about just how crucial the American role has been in the region&#8217;s increasing volatility and destabilization.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Flooding the Arc</p> <p>Given the centrality of the arc of instability to Bush administration thinking, it was hardly surprising that it launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and carried out limited strikes in three other arc states&#8212; <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-11-04-yemen-explosion_x.htm" type="external">Yemen</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/world/asia/28pstan.html" type="external">Pakistan</a>, and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6243459.stm" type="external">Somalia</a>. Nor should anyone have been shocked that it also deployed elite <a href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020318/fronts.html" type="external">military forces</a> and special operators from the Central Intelligence Agency elsewhere within <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh" type="external">the arc</a>.</p> <p>In his book The One Percent Doctrine, journalist Ron Suskind reported on CIA plans, unveiled in September 2001 and known as the &#8220;Worldwide Attack Matrix,&#8221; for &#8220;detailed operations against terrorists in 80 countries.&#8221; At about the same time, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1547561.stm" type="external">proclaimed</a> that the nation had embarked on &#8220;a large multi-headed effort that probably spans 60 countries.&#8221; By the end of the Bush years, the Pentagon would indeed have special operations forces deployed in 60 countries around the world.</p> <p>It has been the Obama administration, however, that has embraced the concept far more fully and engaged the region even more broadly. Last year, the Washington Post reported that US had <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304965.html" type="external">deployed</a> special operations forces in 75 countries, from South America to Central Asia. Recently, however, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me that on any given day, America&#8217;s elite troops are working in about 70 countries, and that its country total by year&#8217;s end would be around <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175426/" type="external">120</a>. These forces are engaged in a host of missions, from <a href="http://savannahnow.com/bryan-county-now/2011-06-17/richmond-hill-ranger-dies-afghanistan#.Th2ZMWGpaSo" type="external">Army Rangers</a> involved in conventional combat in Afghanistan to the team of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/04/seal-team-6-inside-osama" type="external">Navy SEALs</a> who assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, to trainers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines within US Special Operations Command working globally from the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175426/" type="external">Dominican Republic</a> to <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/25/afghanistan-troop-drawdown-america-s-other-covert-wars.html" type="external">Yemen</a>.</p> <p>The United States is now involved in wars in six arc-of-instability nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It has military personnel deployed in other arc states, including Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Of these countries, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175310/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_base_desires_in_afghanistan" type="external">Afghanistan</a>, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175159/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_out_of_iraq%2C_into_the_gulf" type="external">host</a> US military bases, while the CIA is reportedly building a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/15/source-drone-base-set-for-persian-gulf-region/" type="external">secret base</a> somewhere in the region for use in its expanded drone wars in Yemen and Somalia. It is also using already existing facilities in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/world/threats-and-responses-the-operations-us-turns-horn-of-africa-into-a-military-hub.html?ref=djibouti" type="external">Djibouti</a>, <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/10979876" type="external">Ethiopia</a>, and the <a href="http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/01-Jul-2011/CIA-shifts-drone-operations-to-Afghan-bases" type="external">United Arab Emirates</a> for the same purposes, and operating a clandestine <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161936/cias-secret-sites-somalia" type="external">base in Somalia</a> where it runs indigenous agents and carries out counterterrorism training for local partners.</p> <p>In addition to its own military efforts, the Obama administration has also arranged for the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175393/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_obama_and_the_mideast_arms_trade" type="external">sale of weaponry</a> to regimes in arc states across the Middle East, including <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175367/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon_and_murder_in_bahrain" type="external">Bahrain</a>, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175385/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_how_to_arm_a_dictator" type="external">Yemen</a>. It has been indoctrinating and schooling indigenous military partners through the State Department&#8217;s and Pentagon&#8217;s International Military Education and Training program. Last year, it provided training to more than 7,000 students from 130 countries. &#8220;The emphasis is on the Middle East and Africa because we know that terrorism will grow, and we know that vulnerable countries are the most targeted,&#8221; Kay Judkins, the program&#8217;s policy manager, recently told the American Forces Press Service.</p> <p>According to Pentagon documents released earlier this year, the US has personnel&#8212;some in token numbers, some in more sizeable contingents&#8212;deployed in 76 <a href="http://thomaspmbarnett.com/storage/pnm.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1282003965649" type="external">other nations sometimes counted in the arc of instability</a>: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d&#8217;Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Syria, Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.</p> <p>While arrests of 30 members of an alleged <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/world/middleeast/23tehran.html" type="external">CIA spy ring in Iran</a> earlier this year may be, like earlier incarcerations of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-iran-usa-hikers-idUSTRE76113820110702" type="external">supposed American &#8220;spies&#8221;</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101306180" type="external">pure theater</a> for internal consumption or international bargaining, there is little doubt that the US is conducting covert operations there, too. Last year, <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7136614.ece" type="external">reports surfaced</a> that US black ops teams had been authorized to run missions inside that country, and spies and local proxies are almost certainly at work there as well. Just recently, the Wall Street Journal <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576547233284967482.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" type="external">revealed</a> a series of &#8220;secret operations on the Iran-Iraq border&#8221; by the US military and a coming CIA campaign of covert operations aimed at halting the smuggling of Iranian arms into Iraq.</p> <p>All of this suggests that there may, in fact, not be a single nation within the arc of instability, however defined, in which the United States is without a base or military or intelligence personnel, or where it is not running agents, sending weapons, conducting covert operations&#8212;or at war.</p> <p>The Arc of History</p> <p>Just after President Obama came into office in 2009, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Drawing special attention to the arc of instability, he summed up the global situation this way: &#8220;The large region from the Middle East to South Asia is the locus for many of the challenges facing the United States in the twenty-first century.&#8221; Since then, as with the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174878/if_the_gwot_were_gone_" type="external">Bush-identified phrase</a> &#8220;global war on terror,&#8221; the Obama administration and the US military have largely avoided using &#8220;arc of instability,&#8221; preferring to refer to it using far vaguer formulations.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1844674517/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association&#8217;s annual Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, for example, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, then the chief of US Special Operations Command, pointed toward a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, said Olson, the lit portion of the planet&#8212;the industrialized nations of the global north&#8212;were considered the key areas. Since then, he told the audience, 51 countries, almost all of them in the arc of instability, have taken precedence. &#8220;Our strategic focus,&#8221; he said, &#8220;has shifted largely to the south&#8230; certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren&#8217;t.&#8221;</p> <p>More recently, in remarks at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., John O. Brennan, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, outlined the president&#8217;s new <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175416/" type="external">National Strategy for Counterterrorism</a>, which highlighted carrying out missions in the &#8220;Pakistan-Afghanistan region&#8221; and &#8220;a focus on specific regions, including what we might call the periphery&#8212;places like Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and the Maghreb [northern Africa].&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;This does not,&#8221; Brennan insisted, &#8220;require a &#8216;global&#8217; war&#8221;&#8212;and indeed, despite the Bush-era terminology, it never has. While, for instance, planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Germany and would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid hailed from the United Kingdom, advanced, majority-white Western nations have never been American targets. The &#8220;arc&#8221; has never arced out of the global south, whose countries are assumed to be fundamentally unstable by nature and their problems fixable through military intervention.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Building Instability</p> <p>A decade&#8217;s evidence has made it clear that US operations in the arc of instability are destabilizing. For years, to take one example, Washington has wielded military aid, military actions, and diplomatic pressure in such a way as to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/03/01/us-pakistan-usa-ambassador-idUSN0122025020070301" type="external">undermine</a> the government of Pakistan, <a href="http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/us-pakistan-military-cooperation/p16644" type="external">promote factionalism</a> within its military and intelligence services, and stoke <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/09/07/74966/anti-americanism-rises-in-pakistan.html" type="external">anti-American sentiment</a> to remarkable levels among the country&#8217;s population. (According to a <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/21/pakistan.bin.laden.poll/" type="external">recent survey</a>, just 12 percent of Pakistanis have a positive view of the United States.)</p> <p>A semi-secret drone war in that nation&#8217;s tribal borderlands, involving hundreds of missile strikes and significant, if unknown levels, of civilian casualties, has been only the most polarizing of Washington&#8217;s many ham-handed efforts. When it comes to that CIA-run effort, a recent <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/30-2" type="external">Pew survey</a> of Pakistanis found that 97 percent of respondents viewed it negatively, a figure almost impossible to achieve in any sort of polling.</p> <p>In Yemen, long-time support&#8212;in the form of aid, military training, and weapons, as well as periodic air or drone strikes&#8212;for dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh led to a special relationship between the US and elite Yemeni forces led by Saleh&#8217;s relatives. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/yemen-demonstrators-killed-raid-camp" type="external">This year, those units</a> have been instrumental in cracking down on the freedom struggle there, <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/07/13/Yemens-Saleh-is-politcally-dead/UPI-43551310565043/" type="external">killing protesters</a> and arresting dissenting officers who <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/yemen-officers-arrested-betraying-president-130259006.html" type="external">refused orders</a> to open fire on civilians. It&#8217;s hardly surprising that, even before Yemen slid into a <a href="http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/11/who_is_running_yemen" type="external">leaderless void</a> (after Saleh was wounded in an assassination attempt), a survey of Yemenis found&#8212;again a jaw-dropping polling figure&#8212;99 percent of respondents viewed the US government&#8217;s relations with the Islamic world unfavorably, while just 4 percent &#8220;somewhat&#8221; or &#8220;strongly approved&#8221; of Saleh&#8217;s cooperation with Washington.</p> <p>Instead of pulling back from operations in Yemen, however, the US has doubled down. The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303848104576384051572679110.html" type="external">CIA</a>, with support from Saudi Arabia&#8217;s intelligence service, has been running local agents as well as a lethal drone campaign aimed at Islamic militants. The <a href="http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/06/ap-yemen-report-says-cia-building-drone-base-nearby-061411/" type="external">US military</a> has been carrying out its own air strikes, as well as sending in more trainers to work with indigenous forces, while American <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/25/afghanistan-troop-drawdown-america-s-other-covert-wars.html" type="external">black ops teams</a> launch lethal missions, often alongside Yemeni allies.</p> <p>These efforts have set the stage for further ill-will, political instability, and possible blowback. Just last year, a US <a href="http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/11/who_is_running_yemen" type="external">drone strike</a> accidentally killed Jabr al-Shabwani, the son of strongman Sheikh Ali al-Shabwani. In an act of revenge, Ali repeatedly attacked of one of Yemen&#8217;s largest oil pipelines, resulting in billions of dollars in lost revenue for the Yemeni government, and demanded Saleh stop cooperating with the US strikes.</p> <p>Earlier this year, in Egypt and Tunisia, long-time US efforts to promote what it liked to call &#8220;regional stability&#8221;&#8212;through military alliances, aid, training, and weaponry&#8212;collapsed in the face of popular movements against the US-supported dictators ruling those nations. Similarly, in <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175367/" type="external">Bahrain</a>, <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/2011415181326266737.html" type="external">Iraq</a>, <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/03/28/jordan-set-independent-inquiry-attacks-protesters" type="external">Jordan</a>, <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/19/kuwait-dozens-injured-arrested-bidun-crackdown" type="external">Kuwait</a>, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0619/Can-fresh-Morocco-protests-build-momentum-for-reform" type="external">Morocco</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/world/middleeast/01oman.html" type="external">Oman</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12707488" type="external">Saudi Arabia</a>, and the <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/03/uae-civil-society-crackdown-widens" type="external">United Arab Emirates</a>, popular protests erupted against authoritarian regimes partnered with and armed courtesy of the US military. It&#8217;s hardly surprising that, when asked in a recent survey whether President Obama had met the expectations created by his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09" type="external">2009 speech in Cairo</a>, where he called for &#8220;a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,&#8221; only 4 percent of Egyptians answered yes. (The same poll found only 6 percent of Jordanians thought so and just 1 percent of Lebanese.)</p> <p>A recent Zogby poll of respondents in six Arab countries&#8212;Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates&#8212;found that, taking over from a president who had propelled anti-Americanism in the Muslim world to an <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0222/p99s01-duts.html" type="external">all-time high</a>, Obama managed to drive such attitudes even higher. Substantial majorities of Arabs in every country now view the US as not contributing &#8220;to peace and stability in the Arab World.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Increasing Instability Across the Globe</p> <p>US interference in the arc of instability is certainly nothing new. Leaving aside current wars, over the last century, the United States has engaged in military interventions in the global south in Cambodia, Congo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Egypt, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Somalia, Thailand, and Vietnam, among other places. The CIA has waged covert campaigns in many of the same countries, as well as Afghanistan, Algeria, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, and Syria, to name just a few.</p> <p>Like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama evidently looks out on the &#8220;unlit world&#8221; and sees a source of global volatility and danger for the United States. His answer has been to deploy US military might to blunt instability, shore up allies, and protect American lives.</p> <p>Despite the salient lesson of 9/11&#8211; interventions abroad beget blowback at home&#8212;he has waged wars in response to blowback that have, in turn, generated more of the same. A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that most Americans differ with the president when it comes to his idea of how the US should be involved abroad. Seventy-five percent of voters, for example, <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/75_see_vital_u_s_interests_as_only_reason_for_committing_military_forces_to_overseas_action" type="external">agreed with</a> this proposition in a recent poll: &#8220;The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.&#8221; In addition, clear majorities of Americans are against defending Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and a host of other arc of instability countries, even if they are attacked by outside powers.</p> <p>After decades of overt and covert US interventions in arc states, including the last 10 years of constant warfare, most are still poor, underdeveloped, and seemingly even more unstable. This year, in their annual <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/2011_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings" type="external">failed state index</a>&#8212;a ranking of the most volatile nations on the planet&#8212;Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace placed the two arc nations that have seen the largest military interventions by the US&#8212;Iraq and Afghanistan&#8212;in their top ten. Pakistan and Yemen ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, while Somalia&#8212;the site of US interventions under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, during the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/africa/25somalia.html" type="external">Bush presidency</a> in the 2000s, and again under Obama&#8212;had the dubious honor of being number one.</p> <p>For all the discussions here about (armed) &#8220;nation-building efforts&#8221; in the region, what we&#8217;ve clearly witnessed is a decade of nation unbuilding that ended only when the peoples of various Arab lands took their futures into their own hands and their bodies out into the streets. As recent polling in arc nations indicates, people of the global south see the United States as promoting or sustaining, not preventing, instability, and objective measures bear out their claims. The fact that numerous popular uprisings opposing authoritarian rulers allied with the US have proliferated this year provides the strongest evidence yet of that.</p> <p>With Americans balking at defending arc-of-instability nations, with clear indications that military interventions don&#8217;t promote stability, and with a budget crisis of epic proportions at home, it remains to be seen what pretexts the Obama administration will rely on to continue a failed policy&#8212;one that seems certain to make the world more volatile and put American citizens at greater risk.</p> <p>Nick Turse is a historian, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175426/nick_turse_a_secret_war_in_120_countries" type="external">investigative journalist</a>, the associate editor of <a href="http://tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>, and a senior editor at Alternet.org. His latest book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1844674517/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan</a>(Verso Books). You can follow him on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/NickTurse" type="external">@NickTurse</a>, on <a href="http://nickturse.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>, and on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/nick.turse" type="external">Facebook</a>. This article is a collaboration between <a href="http://www.alternet.org/" type="external">Alternet.org</a> and TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:43308/acctId:25612" type="external">here</a>.</p>

The US Has Special Operations Forces in How Many Countries?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/us-special-operations-forces-75-countries/

2011-09-19

4left

US Army soldiers conduct a patrol through the village of Kowtalay in the Nuristan province of Afghanistanamplta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotossoldiersmediacenter768980804ampgtMichael BrackenUS ArmyampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website It8217s a story that should take your breath away the destabilization of what in the Bush years used to be called 8220the arc of instability8221 It involves at least 97 countries across the bulk of the global south much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil and in every single one of them8212from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia 8212Washington is militarily involved overtly or covertly in outright war or what passes for peace Garrisoning the planet is just part of it The Pentagon and US intelligence services are also running covert special forces and spy operations launching drone attacks building bases and secret prisons training arming and funding local security forces and engaging in a host of other militarized activities right up to fullscale war But while you consider this keep one fact in mind the odds are that there is no longer a single nation in the arc of instability in which the United States is in no way militarily involved amp160 Covenant of the Arc 8220Freedom is on the march in the broader Middle East8221 the president said in his speech 8220The hope of liberty now reaches from Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut and beyond Slowly but surely we8217re helping to transform the broader Middle East from an arc of instability into an arc of freedom8221 An arc of freedom You could be forgiven if you thought that this was an excerpt from President Barack Obama8217s Arab Spring speech where he said 8220It will be the policy of the United States to8230 support transitions to democracy8221 Those were however the words of his predecessor George W Bush The giveaway is that phrase 8220arc of instability8221 a core rhetorical concept of the former president8217s global vision and that of his neoconservative supporters The dream of the Bush years was to militarily dominate that arc which largely coincided with the area from North Africa to the Chinese border also known as the Greater Middle East but sometimes was said to stretch from Latin America to Southeast Asia While the phrase has been dropped in the Obama years when it comes to projecting military power President Obama is in the process of trumping his predecessor In addition to waging more wars in 8220arc8221 nations Obama has overseen the deployment of greater numbers of special operations forces to the region has transferred or brokered the sale of substantial quantities of weapons there while continuing to build and expand military bases at a torrid rate as well as training and supplying large numbers of indigenous forces Pentagon documents and open source information indicate that there is not a single country in that arc in which US military and intelligence agencies are not now active This raises questions about just how crucial the American role has been in the region8217s increasing volatility and destabilization amp160 Flooding the Arc Given the centrality of the arc of instability to Bush administration thinking it was hardly surprising that it launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and carried out limited strikes in three other arc states8212 Yemen Pakistan and Somalia Nor should anyone have been shocked that it also deployed elite military forces and special operators from the Central Intelligence Agency elsewhere within the arc In his book The One Percent Doctrine journalist Ron Suskind reported on CIA plans unveiled in September 2001 and known as the 8220Worldwide Attack Matrix8221 for 8220detailed operations against terrorists in 80 countries8221 At about the same time thenSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed that the nation had embarked on 8220a large multiheaded effort that probably spans 60 countries8221 By the end of the Bush years the Pentagon would indeed have special operations forces deployed in 60 countries around the world It has been the Obama administration however that has embraced the concept far more fully and engaged the region even more broadly Last year the Washington Post reported that US had deployed special operations forces in 75 countries from South America to Central Asia Recently however US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me that on any given day America8217s elite troops are working in about 70 countries and that its country total by year8217s end would be around 120 These forces are engaged in a host of missions from Army Rangers involved in conventional combat in Afghanistan to the team of Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan to trainers from the Army Navy Air Force and Marines within US Special Operations Command working globally from the Dominican Republic to Yemen The United States is now involved in wars in six arcofinstability nations Afghanistan Iraq Libya Pakistan Somalia and Yemen It has military personnel deployed in other arc states including Algeria Bahrain Djibouti Egypt Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Morocco Oman Pakistan Qatar Saudi Arabia Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates Of these countries Afghanistan Bahrain Djibouti Iraq Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all host US military bases while the CIA is reportedly building a secret base somewhere in the region for use in its expanded drone wars in Yemen and Somalia It is also using already existing facilities in Djibouti Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates for the same purposes and operating a clandestine base in Somalia where it runs indigenous agents and carries out counterterrorism training for local partners In addition to its own military efforts the Obama administration has also arranged for the sale of weaponry to regimes in arc states across the Middle East including Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Morocco Saudi Arabia Tunisia the United Arab Emirates and Yemen It has been indoctrinating and schooling indigenous military partners through the State Department8217s and Pentagon8217s International Military Education and Training program Last year it provided training to more than 7000 students from 130 countries 8220The emphasis is on the Middle East and Africa because we know that terrorism will grow and we know that vulnerable countries are the most targeted8221 Kay Judkins the program8217s policy manager recently told the American Forces Press Service According to Pentagon documents released earlier this year the US has personnel8212some in token numbers some in more sizeable contingents8212deployed in 76 other nations sometimes counted in the arc of instability Angola Botswana Burundi Cameroon Chad Congo Cote d8217Ivoire Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Guinea Kenya Liberia Madagascar Mali Mauritania Mozambique Niger Nigeria Rwanda Senegal Sierra Leone South Africa Sudan Tanzania Togo Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Sri Lanka Syria Antigua the Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Colombia Costa Rica Cuba the Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Venezuela Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Macedonia Romania Serbia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Bangladesh Myanmar Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia the Philippines Singapore Thailand and Vietnam While arrests of 30 members of an alleged CIA spy ring in Iran earlier this year may be like earlier incarcerations of supposed American 8220spies8221 pure theater for internal consumption or international bargaining there is little doubt that the US is conducting covert operations there too Last year reports surfaced that US black ops teams had been authorized to run missions inside that country and spies and local proxies are almost certainly at work there as well Just recently the Wall Street Journal revealed a series of 8220secret operations on the IranIraq border8221 by the US military and a coming CIA campaign of covert operations aimed at halting the smuggling of Iranian arms into Iraq All of this suggests that there may in fact not be a single nation within the arc of instability however defined in which the United States is without a base or military or intelligence personnel or where it is not running agents sending weapons conducting covert operations8212or at war The Arc of History Just after President Obama came into office in 2009 thenDirector of National Intelligence Dennis Blair briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Drawing special attention to the arc of instability he summed up the global situation this way 8220The large region from the Middle East to South Asia is the locus for many of the challenges facing the United States in the twentyfirst century8221 Since then as with the Bushidentified phrase 8220global war on terror8221 the Obama administration and the US military have largely avoided using 8220arc of instability8221 preferring to refer to it using far vaguer formulations During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association8217s annual Special Operations and LowIntensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year for example Navy Admiral Eric Olson then the chief of US Special Operations Command pointed toward a composite satellite image of the world at night Before September 11 2001 said Olson the lit portion of the planet8212the industrialized nations of the global north8212were considered the key areas Since then he told the audience 51 countries almost all of them in the arc of instability have taken precedence 8220Our strategic focus8221 he said 8220has shifted largely to the south8230 certainly within the special operations community as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren8217t8221 More recently in remarks at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC John O Brennan the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism outlined the president8217s new National Strategy for Counterterrorism which highlighted carrying out missions in the 8220PakistanAfghanistan region8221 and 8220a focus on specific regions including what we might call the periphery8212places like Yemen Somalia Iraq and the Maghreb northern Africa8221 8220This does not8221 Brennan insisted 8220require a 8216global8217 war82218212and indeed despite the Bushera terminology it never has While for instance planning for the 911 attacks took place in Germany and wouldbe shoebomber Richard Reid hailed from the United Kingdom advanced majoritywhite Western nations have never been American targets The 8220arc8221 has never arced out of the global south whose countries are assumed to be fundamentally unstable by nature and their problems fixable through military intervention amp160 Building Instability A decade8217s evidence has made it clear that US operations in the arc of instability are destabilizing For years to take one example Washington has wielded military aid military actions and diplomatic pressure in such a way as to undermine the government of Pakistan promote factionalism within its military and intelligence services and stoke antiAmerican sentiment to remarkable levels among the country8217s population According to a recent survey just 12 percent of Pakistanis have a positive view of the United States A semisecret drone war in that nation8217s tribal borderlands involving hundreds of missile strikes and significant if unknown levels of civilian casualties has been only the most polarizing of Washington8217s many hamhanded efforts When it comes to that CIArun effort a recent Pew survey of Pakistanis found that 97 percent of respondents viewed it negatively a figure almost impossible to achieve in any sort of polling In Yemen longtime support8212in the form of aid military training and weapons as well as periodic air or drone strikes8212for dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh led to a special relationship between the US and elite Yemeni forces led by Saleh8217s relatives This year those units have been instrumental in cracking down on the freedom struggle there killing protesters and arresting dissenting officers who refused orders to open fire on civilians It8217s hardly surprising that even before Yemen slid into a leaderless void after Saleh was wounded in an assassination attempt a survey of Yemenis found8212again a jawdropping polling figure821299 percent of respondents viewed the US government8217s relations with the Islamic world unfavorably while just 4 percent 8220somewhat8221 or 8220strongly approved8221 of Saleh8217s cooperation with Washington Instead of pulling back from operations in Yemen however the US has doubled down The CIA with support from Saudi Arabia8217s intelligence service has been running local agents as well as a lethal drone campaign aimed at Islamic militants The US military has been carrying out its own air strikes as well as sending in more trainers to work with indigenous forces while American black ops teams launch lethal missions often alongside Yemeni allies These efforts have set the stage for further illwill political instability and possible blowback Just last year a US drone strike accidentally killed Jabr alShabwani the son of strongman Sheikh Ali alShabwani In an act of revenge Ali repeatedly attacked of one of Yemen8217s largest oil pipelines resulting in billions of dollars in lost revenue for the Yemeni government and demanded Saleh stop cooperating with the US strikes Earlier this year in Egypt and Tunisia longtime US efforts to promote what it liked to call 8220regional stability82218212through military alliances aid training and weaponry8212collapsed in the face of popular movements against the USsupported dictators ruling those nations Similarly in Bahrain Iraq Jordan Kuwait Morocco Oman Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates popular protests erupted against authoritarian regimes partnered with and armed courtesy of the US military It8217s hardly surprising that when asked in a recent survey whether President Obama had met the expectations created by his 2009 speech in Cairo where he called for 8220a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world8221 only 4 percent of Egyptians answered yes The same poll found only 6 percent of Jordanians thought so and just 1 percent of Lebanese A recent Zogby poll of respondents in six Arab countries8212Egypt Jordan Lebanon Morocco Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates8212found that taking over from a president who had propelled antiAmericanism in the Muslim world to an alltime high Obama managed to drive such attitudes even higher Substantial majorities of Arabs in every country now view the US as not contributing 8220to peace and stability in the Arab World8221 amp160 Increasing Instability Across the Globe US interference in the arc of instability is certainly nothing new Leaving aside current wars over the last century the United States has engaged in military interventions in the global south in Cambodia Congo Cuba the Dominican Republic El Salvador Egypt Grenada Guatemala Haiti Honduras Iraq Kuwait Laos Lebanon Libya Panama the Philippines Mexico Nicaragua Panama Somalia Thailand and Vietnam among other places The CIA has waged covert campaigns in many of the same countries as well as Afghanistan Algeria Chile Ecuador Indonesia Iran and Syria to name just a few Like George W Bush before him Barack Obama evidently looks out on the 8220unlit world8221 and sees a source of global volatility and danger for the United States His answer has been to deploy US military might to blunt instability shore up allies and protect American lives Despite the salient lesson of 9118211 interventions abroad beget blowback at home8212he has waged wars in response to blowback that have in turn generated more of the same A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that most Americans differ with the president when it comes to his idea of how the US should be involved abroad Seventyfive percent of voters for example agreed with this proposition in a recent poll 8220The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest8221 In addition clear majorities of Americans are against defending Afghanistan Iraq Pakistan Saudi Arabia and a host of other arc of instability countries even if they are attacked by outside powers After decades of overt and covert US interventions in arc states including the last 10 years of constant warfare most are still poor underdeveloped and seemingly even more unstable This year in their annual failed state index8212a ranking of the most volatile nations on the planet8212Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace placed the two arc nations that have seen the largest military interventions by the US8212Iraq and Afghanistan8212in their top ten Pakistan and Yemen ranked 12th and 13th respectively while Somalia8212the site of US interventions under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s during the Bush presidency in the 2000s and again under Obama8212had the dubious honor of being number one For all the discussions here about armed 8220nationbuilding efforts8221 in the region what we8217ve clearly witnessed is a decade of nation unbuilding that ended only when the peoples of various Arab lands took their futures into their own hands and their bodies out into the streets As recent polling in arc nations indicates people of the global south see the United States as promoting or sustaining not preventing instability and objective measures bear out their claims The fact that numerous popular uprisings opposing authoritarian rulers allied with the US have proliferated this year provides the strongest evidence yet of that With Americans balking at defending arcofinstability nations with clear indications that military interventions don8217t promote stability and with a budget crisis of epic proportions at home it remains to be seen what pretexts the Obama administration will rely on to continue a failed policy8212one that seems certain to make the world more volatile and put American citizens at greater risk Nick Turse is a historian investigative journalist the associate editor of TomDispatchcom and a senior editor at Alternetorg His latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from AfghanistanVerso Books You can follow him on Twitter NickTurse on Tumblr and on Facebook This article is a collaboration between Alternetorg and TomDispatchcom To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Dr. Heiner Flassbeck graduated in April 1976 in economics from Saarland University, Germany, concentrating on money and credit, business cycle theory and general philosophy of science; obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the Free University, Berlin, Germany in July 1987. 2005 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg.</p> <p>Employment started at the German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden between 1976 and 1980, followed by the Federal Ministry of Economics, Bonn until January 1986; chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin between 1988 and 1998, and State Secretary (Vice Minister) from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Bonn, responsible for international affairs, the EU and IMF.</p> <p>Worked at UNCTAD since 2000; from 2003 to December 2012 he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies. He was the principal author of the team preparing UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report, with specialization in macroeconomics, exchange rate policies, and international finance. Since January 2013 he is Director of Flassbeck-Economics, a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions (www.flassbeck-economics.com). Co-authored ACT NOW! The Global Manifesto for Economic Policy published in 2013 in Germany.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. We're continuing our discussion with Heiner Flassbeck--the state of the world economy, the possibility or danger of deeper recession, and what should be done about it. <p /> <p />Now joining us again from Geneva is Heiner Flassbeck. He served as director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, known as UNCTAD. He was a vice minister at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Bonn in 1998 and '99. He's now a professor of economics at Hamburg University. And you can find more of his work at FlassbeckEconomics.de. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us, Heiner. <p /> <p />HEINER FLASSBECK, PROF. ECONOMICS, HAMBURG UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me. <p /> <p />JAY: So in the book that you've just--you know, you released recently, Act Now, I'm just going to quote one of the headings. The financial crisis was not inevitable, nor is the looming crisis of the real economy. Both are man-made. Both are consequences, direct and indirect, of a flawed economic doctrine that has seen arrival over the past 30 years. <p /> <p />Heiner, doesn't that doctrine, though, emerge from the system itself, in the sense that, you know, if you're a capitalist, there's some objectivity to how you can make the most money, and with the concentration of ownership and the immense political power in the hands of the finance sector, that it's inevitable to have this kind of policy. And not only that, it's kind of because of the way the system is. You can't even get the most measly, weakest regulation through to try to control this situation. What I'm getting at: if the policy is--of course, you know, sets the framework, but it's the way the economy is built and structured now that you have such policy. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, sure. But, well, what we can do is we ask policymakers to do more. What we said, Act Now, is to look at the different areas where we have still a lot of pending problems. And what we are asking for is to look into it in its interdependence. So you don't only have the fiscal side, with people afraid of government debt; you don't have only the monetary side, where monetary policy tries to do a lot of things. You mentioned rightly we still have the pending problems in the financial system as such and the financial markets, and we have a looming big problem on the labor market. So all this plays together. But it has a certain root cause, and the root cause is that we misunderstand what market economy is about, we misunderstand today how a market economy has to be run, and we misunderstand the role of policies. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, let's dig into some of those things. And we'll kind of return to this question near the end. But you talk about the main fallacies of this economic doctrine, and one of the ones you start with is this idea that markets are just inherently efficient. I mean, what's wrong with that idea? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Well, it's wrong in financial markets. Obviously, what we have is herding. We have herding in the financial markets. We have clear evidence that, for example, you have the commodity markets driven by financial action by financial market participants who in a herding way drive the prices up, systematically driving prices up. And this is clearly against the needs of the consumers. It's against the needs of even the producers, because it's producing volatility in the prices. And you have it the same on the currency side. You have it in the stock markets. You have everywhere dramatic, dramatic distortions of prices by financial markets. So financial markets, with their herding behavior, do the opposite of what is expected of a reasonable market. That is one thing. <p /> <p />The other thing is that the labor market is not functioning. The labor markets--nowadays we have the lowest wage share ever and we have the highest unemployment at the same time. So that doesn't go together. That is obviously a systemic misfunctioning of the market. And it has to be called--the government has to be called in, because this doesn't work. It cannot heal itself. You have high unemployment putting pressure on wages. At the same time, you need wage increases for a sound consumption revival. But that's not there. And that is why, as I said before, people are desperately digging into their savings again and making the whole system extremely fragile. <p /> <p />JAY: And it's not only a lack of efficiency, as they say, but, you know, there are very important cases of outright fraud. The LIBOR scandal, where banks are essentially conniving with each other to manipulate interest rates and other similar kinds of things. I mean, have we--you know, we've gotten to a point where there's not even a pretention of an actual market. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, that's right. You have all these things in addition. But what I say is even worse. I have to insist it's even worse than fraud or anecdotal or single misbehavior of a certain person. What we have is the systemic malfunctioning of the system, systemic malfunctioning of the labor market, systemic malfunctioning of the financial markets. And these markets are so important that--these are the most important markets in the whole economy, and if they are not working well, then you cannot expect their economic policy to achieve what they want to achieve. <p /> <p />Look at monetary policy. Monetary policy is the best example. There you have some people really trying to do what is possible, but they're trying desperately to get the economy going, but it's not going. The biggest stimulus in all times that we have in the last years in the United States, in Japan, in Europe now, it doesn't work. It doesn't permeate through the economy. It doesn't find the right channel to get people to investment. But they're investing in short-term [incompr.] again. But they're not investing in fixed capital in the long term. <p /> <p />And this is where only the government can change things. The government has to be the game-changer here. The government has to step in. The government has to reduce, restrict the movement of the financial markets. It has to stimulate real investment in fixed capital, in infrastructure, in education, whatever you have. <p /> <p />JAY: Through direct public investment. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah. Public investment is an important part of it, no doubt about it. But, again, you see the ideology is such that they tell us, well, government debt is a bad thing. Government debt is not a bad thing. Government debt is absolutely necessary if you are in the situation where you are in the United States and elsewhere, where the private households are, per balance, still savers, net savers, where the government should not go into debt anymore, but where the company sector is a big saver, a net saver. <p /> <p />So how can you have all the sectors saving? It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. But it's not allowed to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it, that not all sectors can be net savers. Somewhere someone has to be a debtor, because savings and debt always nets to zero. So for the world as a whole, there need to be--you have to be as many debtors as you have savers. <p /> <p />But we do not have debtors anymore, because debtor, it seems to be a bad thing. And this cannot work. <p /> <p />So the natural debtor for a market system is the company sector. Nowadays in most of the economies, not only in United States, but in Europe as well, in Germany, it's a scandal that the company sector is a net saver and is not doing their work in terms of taking the money from the banks and using it for productive investment. <p /> <p />JAY: Do you think it's possible that part of what's happening here in terms of the financial elite, the, you know, economic, corporate elite is that they want a fundamental restructuring, especially the United States and Europe, they want wages to go down, they want a lower-wage environment, partly 'cause they want to compete with the low-wage economies in Asia and other places, and partly just 'cause they can, they've always wanted it, and labor's just so much weaker now as a result of globalization and other reasons, they can do it, and that the sort of traditional Keynesian idea that it's okay to have public debt now because when the economy recovers, you know, taxes and other income will come in and you'll be able to get out of that debt? But is it possible that this economic elite don't think there's ever going to be that kind of recovery, in the sense they think there's going to, and perhaps even to a sense is what they want, a longer-term recession that restructures the whole relationship of labor and capital, and as a result of that, they focus on public debt, 'cause if you believe that's the trajectory, then maybe public debt does get to be big and dangerous in their eyes? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Well, I think they're not as smart as you think they are, because if they were that smart, they would understand that it cannot work in that way. But because the one thing is you cannot really compete with developing countries, no big economy like United States or Europe as a whole can compete with developing countries about wages. That wouldn't make sense, because, first of all, we have a currency in between, we have an exchange rate that can be changed, so you never can succeed, finally, in cutting your wage to get export markets. That doesn't work anyway. <p /> <p />The other thing is that the domestic market is in danger of collapsing. And this would hurt these people as well. So they need a domestic market. In the end, they need a domestic market. <p /> <p />I fully understand what you're saying. They like the power that they have with rather high unemployment. But in the end, they cannot succeed with that. They can only succeed with a flourishing economy, and you can make money in the long term only if the economy is growing sufficiently quick. <p /> <p />JAY: But are you kind of assuming--like, you say I shouldn't think they're that smart. But I'm suggesting to you, are you thinking they're really that rational? 'Cause you keep saying in the long run, in the long run. But do they actually care about the long run? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, that's one thing that I acknowledge already. Many of these people do not care about the long run. But this is mainly true for people in the financial markets, because they don't have any fixed assets. You know? They have nothing that can be lost, so to say. They have a number of papers, and they know anyway that the value of these papers is very questionable, and the only problem is to get out early on. But if you are an owner of a bigger compound, of a bigger factory [incompr.] and you have a lot of fixed capital, then I think you think a bit about it. Otherwise, we would have to say, well, then market economy is over and it's no longer doable, it's no longer an efficient model at all. <p /> <p />I'm not that skeptical. I'm very skeptical concerning the financial market and the labor market, but I think overall in the goods market, if the other sectors are well regulated, then you have a chance to go back to [crosstalk] <p /> <p />JAY: Now, do you see any sign of this at the political level, a division in the interests between what you can say is the goods sector and the financial sector? Because the goods sector seems just gleeful about the fact that they can drive wages down, break unions. And they don't seem to have any longer view than the financial markets do. I mean, they think if they get their own--they can beat up their own workers, somehow magically there's going to be some other workers that can buy their stuff. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah. Yeah. But this is an error, as I said. This is the biggest of all errors. If you are a short-sighted person in the financial markets, you can be very rational. If you are a short-sighted person in the goods market, it is much more difficult to be rational, so to say, and to get what you want, because you have to use your capacities for a couple of years, and you cannot expect that the people can be exploited for a couple of years without having negative repercussions. <p /> <p />What we see after the 2008, 2009 crisis is already extremely negative repercussions that are coming from consumers that are not able to buy. I mean, why is the American economy in such a bad shape? Why is Europe going down? Why is Japan not recovering for 20 years? It's always the same reason, namely, that consumers do not expect income growth and they cannot get out of it. So you can survive--Japan has shown that you can survive for 20 years. But what we do, if we look at this: we're endangering our democracies, we're endangering the way we have been working in the past, and we are endangering the whole edifice of our societies, the moral ground, so to say, on which our societies have been built in the past. <p /> <p />JAY: I was at a conference a couple of years ago that Soros, George Soros organized, and he started off the conference, he spoke first. And he's certainly someone who knows how to make money out of crises. But his opening words were: I'm bewildered. And he went on to say that he's totally flummoxed, bewildered by the attitudes of the rest of the financial elite, who don't seem to want to deal with any of the structural issues. And this is a guy, as I say, he knows how to make money out of these situations, but that there's no rationality left in these circles. It's a feeding fest. And they have a political power that doesn't seem to be able to be challenged, at least within the current paradigm. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: No, that's right. As I said, in the financial markets I fully agree. If you look at how fiercely they are fighting at this moment in the United States against any bit of regulation in the commodity markets, for example, where we have very clear evidence, as I said, we have extremely clear evidence that the prices are driven up by financial speculation, by the kind of financialization that we have, where we have clear evidence that the volatility is increasing, but they're fighting like hell with their lobbies in Washington. They're fighting in Brussels. They're fighting everywhere. And they're quite successful in at least delaying any kind of legislation, of regulation that would stop them making short-term money. This is--there we have a big systemic problem. This is a systemic problem of the market economy. <p /> <p />As I said, I'm not as skeptical in the goods market, in the normal producing markets. There it is always an attempt, as you said, by enterprise, by company sector to drive down wages in a very short-sighted view also. But this is manageable, much more manageable by a competent government than in financial markets, because the financial markets are putting so much pressure, and they have so much money, and they are permanently sponsored by the government system with zero interest rates at the moment. The get a huge subsidization, they get a huge subsidization from the government, and nevertheless, or because of that, are able to stop the government from regulating them. <p /> <p />JAY: Right. Okay. We're going to do one more segment, where we're going to talk about, well, if there was a competent government (I'd like to know where that's going to be) that actually was rational and actually had the interests of the society in its agenda, what would it do? That's going to be the next part of our interview with Heiner Flassbeck on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Systemic Malfunctioning of the Labor and Financial Markets

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10173

2013-05-06

4left

Dr Heiner Flassbeck graduated in April 1976 in economics from Saarland University Germany concentrating on money and credit business cycle theory and general philosophy of science obtained a PhD in Economics from the Free University Berlin Germany in July 1987 2005 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg Employment started at the German Council of Economic Experts Wiesbaden between 1976 and 1980 followed by the Federal Ministry of Economics Bonn until January 1986 chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research DIW in Berlin between 1988 and 1998 and State Secretary Vice Minister from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance Bonn responsible for international affairs the EU and IMF Worked at UNCTAD since 2000 from 2003 to December 2012 he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies He was the principal author of the team preparing UNCTADs Trade and Development Report with specialization in macroeconomics exchange rate policies and international finance Since January 2013 he is Director of FlassbeckEconomics a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions wwwflassbeckeconomicscom Coauthored ACT NOW The Global Manifesto for Economic Policy published in 2013 in Germany PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome back to The Real News Network Were continuing our discussion with Heiner Flassbeckthe state of the world economy the possibility or danger of deeper recession and what should be done about it Now joining us again from Geneva is Heiner Flassbeck He served as director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development known as UNCTAD He was a vice minister at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Bonn in 1998 and 99 Hes now a professor of economics at Hamburg University And you can find more of his work at FlassbeckEconomicsde Thanks for joining us Heiner HEINER FLASSBECK PROF ECONOMICS HAMBURG UNIVERSITY Thanks for having me JAY So in the book that youve justyou know you released recently Act Now Im just going to quote one of the headings The financial crisis was not inevitable nor is the looming crisis of the real economy Both are manmade Both are consequences direct and indirect of a flawed economic doctrine that has seen arrival over the past 30 years Heiner doesnt that doctrine though emerge from the system itself in the sense that you know if youre a capitalist theres some objectivity to how you can make the most money and with the concentration of ownership and the immense political power in the hands of the finance sector that its inevitable to have this kind of policy And not only that its kind of because of the way the system is You cant even get the most measly weakest regulation through to try to control this situation What Im getting at if the policy isof course you know sets the framework but its the way the economy is built and structured now that you have such policy FLASSBECK Yeah sure But well what we can do is we ask policymakers to do more What we said Act Now is to look at the different areas where we have still a lot of pending problems And what we are asking for is to look into it in its interdependence So you dont only have the fiscal side with people afraid of government debt you dont have only the monetary side where monetary policy tries to do a lot of things You mentioned rightly we still have the pending problems in the financial system as such and the financial markets and we have a looming big problem on the labor market So all this plays together But it has a certain root cause and the root cause is that we misunderstand what market economy is about we misunderstand today how a market economy has to be run and we misunderstand the role of policies JAY Well lets dig into some of those things And well kind of return to this question near the end But you talk about the main fallacies of this economic doctrine and one of the ones you start with is this idea that markets are just inherently efficient I mean whats wrong with that idea FLASSBECK Well its wrong in financial markets Obviously what we have is herding We have herding in the financial markets We have clear evidence that for example you have the commodity markets driven by financial action by financial market participants who in a herding way drive the prices up systematically driving prices up And this is clearly against the needs of the consumers Its against the needs of even the producers because its producing volatility in the prices And you have it the same on the currency side You have it in the stock markets You have everywhere dramatic dramatic distortions of prices by financial markets So financial markets with their herding behavior do the opposite of what is expected of a reasonable market That is one thing The other thing is that the labor market is not functioning The labor marketsnowadays we have the lowest wage share ever and we have the highest unemployment at the same time So that doesnt go together That is obviously a systemic misfunctioning of the market And it has to be calledthe government has to be called in because this doesnt work It cannot heal itself You have high unemployment putting pressure on wages At the same time you need wage increases for a sound consumption revival But thats not there And that is why as I said before people are desperately digging into their savings again and making the whole system extremely fragile JAY And its not only a lack of efficiency as they say but you know there are very important cases of outright fraud The LIBOR scandal where banks are essentially conniving with each other to manipulate interest rates and other similar kinds of things I mean have weyou know weve gotten to a point where theres not even a pretention of an actual market FLASSBECK Yeah thats right You have all these things in addition But what I say is even worse I have to insist its even worse than fraud or anecdotal or single misbehavior of a certain person What we have is the systemic malfunctioning of the system systemic malfunctioning of the labor market systemic malfunctioning of the financial markets And these markets are so important thatthese are the most important markets in the whole economy and if they are not working well then you cannot expect their economic policy to achieve what they want to achieve Look at monetary policy Monetary policy is the best example There you have some people really trying to do what is possible but theyre trying desperately to get the economy going but its not going The biggest stimulus in all times that we have in the last years in the United States in Japan in Europe now it doesnt work It doesnt permeate through the economy It doesnt find the right channel to get people to investment But theyre investing in shortterm incompr again But theyre not investing in fixed capital in the long term And this is where only the government can change things The government has to be the gamechanger here The government has to step in The government has to reduce restrict the movement of the financial markets It has to stimulate real investment in fixed capital in infrastructure in education whatever you have JAY Through direct public investment FLASSBECK Yeah Public investment is an important part of it no doubt about it But again you see the ideology is such that they tell us well government debt is a bad thing Government debt is not a bad thing Government debt is absolutely necessary if you are in the situation where you are in the United States and elsewhere where the private households are per balance still savers net savers where the government should not go into debt anymore but where the company sector is a big saver a net saver So how can you have all the sectors saving Its impossible Its absolutely impossible But its not allowed to talk about it Nobody wants to talk about it that not all sectors can be net savers Somewhere someone has to be a debtor because savings and debt always nets to zero So for the world as a whole there need to beyou have to be as many debtors as you have savers But we do not have debtors anymore because debtor it seems to be a bad thing And this cannot work So the natural debtor for a market system is the company sector Nowadays in most of the economies not only in United States but in Europe as well in Germany its a scandal that the company sector is a net saver and is not doing their work in terms of taking the money from the banks and using it for productive investment JAY Do you think its possible that part of whats happening here in terms of the financial elite the you know economic corporate elite is that they want a fundamental restructuring especially the United States and Europe they want wages to go down they want a lowerwage environment partly cause they want to compete with the lowwage economies in Asia and other places and partly just cause they can theyve always wanted it and labors just so much weaker now as a result of globalization and other reasons they can do it and that the sort of traditional Keynesian idea that its okay to have public debt now because when the economy recovers you know taxes and other income will come in and youll be able to get out of that debt But is it possible that this economic elite dont think theres ever going to be that kind of recovery in the sense they think theres going to and perhaps even to a sense is what they want a longerterm recession that restructures the whole relationship of labor and capital and as a result of that they focus on public debt cause if you believe thats the trajectory then maybe public debt does get to be big and dangerous in their eyes FLASSBECK Well I think theyre not as smart as you think they are because if they were that smart they would understand that it cannot work in that way But because the one thing is you cannot really compete with developing countries no big economy like United States or Europe as a whole can compete with developing countries about wages That wouldnt make sense because first of all we have a currency in between we have an exchange rate that can be changed so you never can succeed finally in cutting your wage to get export markets That doesnt work anyway The other thing is that the domestic market is in danger of collapsing And this would hurt these people as well So they need a domestic market In the end they need a domestic market I fully understand what youre saying They like the power that they have with rather high unemployment But in the end they cannot succeed with that They can only succeed with a flourishing economy and you can make money in the long term only if the economy is growing sufficiently quick JAY But are you kind of assuminglike you say I shouldnt think theyre that smart But Im suggesting to you are you thinking theyre really that rational Cause you keep saying in the long run in the long run But do they actually care about the long run FLASSBECK Yeah thats one thing that I acknowledge already Many of these people do not care about the long run But this is mainly true for people in the financial markets because they dont have any fixed assets You know They have nothing that can be lost so to say They have a number of papers and they know anyway that the value of these papers is very questionable and the only problem is to get out early on But if you are an owner of a bigger compound of a bigger factory incompr and you have a lot of fixed capital then I think you think a bit about it Otherwise we would have to say well then market economy is over and its no longer doable its no longer an efficient model at all Im not that skeptical Im very skeptical concerning the financial market and the labor market but I think overall in the goods market if the other sectors are well regulated then you have a chance to go back to crosstalk JAY Now do you see any sign of this at the political level a division in the interests between what you can say is the goods sector and the financial sector Because the goods sector seems just gleeful about the fact that they can drive wages down break unions And they dont seem to have any longer view than the financial markets do I mean they think if they get their ownthey can beat up their own workers somehow magically theres going to be some other workers that can buy their stuff FLASSBECK Yeah Yeah But this is an error as I said This is the biggest of all errors If you are a shortsighted person in the financial markets you can be very rational If you are a shortsighted person in the goods market it is much more difficult to be rational so to say and to get what you want because you have to use your capacities for a couple of years and you cannot expect that the people can be exploited for a couple of years without having negative repercussions What we see after the 2008 2009 crisis is already extremely negative repercussions that are coming from consumers that are not able to buy I mean why is the American economy in such a bad shape Why is Europe going down Why is Japan not recovering for 20 years Its always the same reason namely that consumers do not expect income growth and they cannot get out of it So you can surviveJapan has shown that you can survive for 20 years But what we do if we look at this were endangering our democracies were endangering the way we have been working in the past and we are endangering the whole edifice of our societies the moral ground so to say on which our societies have been built in the past JAY I was at a conference a couple of years ago that Soros George Soros organized and he started off the conference he spoke first And hes certainly someone who knows how to make money out of crises But his opening words were Im bewildered And he went on to say that hes totally flummoxed bewildered by the attitudes of the rest of the financial elite who dont seem to want to deal with any of the structural issues And this is a guy as I say he knows how to make money out of these situations but that theres no rationality left in these circles Its a feeding fest And they have a political power that doesnt seem to be able to be challenged at least within the current paradigm FLASSBECK No thats right As I said in the financial markets I fully agree If you look at how fiercely they are fighting at this moment in the United States against any bit of regulation in the commodity markets for example where we have very clear evidence as I said we have extremely clear evidence that the prices are driven up by financial speculation by the kind of financialization that we have where we have clear evidence that the volatility is increasing but theyre fighting like hell with their lobbies in Washington Theyre fighting in Brussels Theyre fighting everywhere And theyre quite successful in at least delaying any kind of legislation of regulation that would stop them making shortterm money This isthere we have a big systemic problem This is a systemic problem of the market economy As I said Im not as skeptical in the goods market in the normal producing markets There it is always an attempt as you said by enterprise by company sector to drive down wages in a very shortsighted view also But this is manageable much more manageable by a competent government than in financial markets because the financial markets are putting so much pressure and they have so much money and they are permanently sponsored by the government system with zero interest rates at the moment The get a huge subsidization they get a huge subsidization from the government and nevertheless or because of that are able to stop the government from regulating them JAY Right Okay Were going to do one more segment where were going to talk about well if there was a competent government Id like to know where thats going to be that actually was rational and actually had the interests of the society in its agenda what would it do Thats going to be the next part of our interview with Heiner Flassbeck on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Dr. Heiner Flassbeck graduated in April 1976 in economics from Saarland University, Germany, concentrating on money and credit, business cycle theory and general philosophy of science; obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the Free University, Berlin, Germany in July 1987. 2005 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg.</p> <p>Employment started at the German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden between 1976 and 1980, followed by the Federal Ministry of Economics, Bonn until January 1986; chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin between 1988 and 1998, and State Secretary (Vice Minister) from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Bonn, responsible for international affairs, the EU and IMF.</p> <p>Worked at UNCTAD since 2000; from 2003 to December 2012 he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies. He was the principal author of the team preparing UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report, with specialization in macroeconomics, exchange rate policies, and international finance. Since January 2013 he is Director of Flassbeck-Economics, a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions (www.flassbeck-economics.com). Co-authored ACT NOW! The Global Manifesto for Economic Policy published in 2013 in Germany.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. We're continuing our discussion with Heiner Flassbeck--the state of the world economy, the possibility or danger of deeper recession, and what should be done about it. <p /> <p />Now joining us again from Geneva is Heiner Flassbeck. He served as director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, known as UNCTAD. He was a vice minister at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Bonn in 1998 and '99. He's now a professor of economics at Hamburg University. And you can find more of his work at FlassbeckEconomics.de. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us, Heiner. <p /> <p />HEINER FLASSBECK, PROF. ECONOMICS, HAMBURG UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me. <p /> <p />JAY: So in the book that you've just--you know, you released recently, Act Now, I'm just going to quote one of the headings. The financial crisis was not inevitable, nor is the looming crisis of the real economy. Both are man-made. Both are consequences, direct and indirect, of a flawed economic doctrine that has seen arrival over the past 30 years. <p /> <p />Heiner, doesn't that doctrine, though, emerge from the system itself, in the sense that, you know, if you're a capitalist, there's some objectivity to how you can make the most money, and with the concentration of ownership and the immense political power in the hands of the finance sector, that it's inevitable to have this kind of policy. And not only that, it's kind of because of the way the system is. You can't even get the most measly, weakest regulation through to try to control this situation. What I'm getting at: if the policy is--of course, you know, sets the framework, but it's the way the economy is built and structured now that you have such policy. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, sure. But, well, what we can do is we ask policymakers to do more. What we said, Act Now, is to look at the different areas where we have still a lot of pending problems. And what we are asking for is to look into it in its interdependence. So you don't only have the fiscal side, with people afraid of government debt; you don't have only the monetary side, where monetary policy tries to do a lot of things. You mentioned rightly we still have the pending problems in the financial system as such and the financial markets, and we have a looming big problem on the labor market. So all this plays together. But it has a certain root cause, and the root cause is that we misunderstand what market economy is about, we misunderstand today how a market economy has to be run, and we misunderstand the role of policies. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, let's dig into some of those things. And we'll kind of return to this question near the end. But you talk about the main fallacies of this economic doctrine, and one of the ones you start with is this idea that markets are just inherently efficient. I mean, what's wrong with that idea? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Well, it's wrong in financial markets. Obviously, what we have is herding. We have herding in the financial markets. We have clear evidence that, for example, you have the commodity markets driven by financial action by financial market participants who in a herding way drive the prices up, systematically driving prices up. And this is clearly against the needs of the consumers. It's against the needs of even the producers, because it's producing volatility in the prices. And you have it the same on the currency side. You have it in the stock markets. You have everywhere dramatic, dramatic distortions of prices by financial markets. So financial markets, with their herding behavior, do the opposite of what is expected of a reasonable market. That is one thing. <p /> <p />The other thing is that the labor market is not functioning. The labor markets--nowadays we have the lowest wage share ever and we have the highest unemployment at the same time. So that doesn't go together. That is obviously a systemic misfunctioning of the market. And it has to be called--the government has to be called in, because this doesn't work. It cannot heal itself. You have high unemployment putting pressure on wages. At the same time, you need wage increases for a sound consumption revival. But that's not there. And that is why, as I said before, people are desperately digging into their savings again and making the whole system extremely fragile. <p /> <p />JAY: And it's not only a lack of efficiency, as they say, but, you know, there are very important cases of outright fraud. The LIBOR scandal, where banks are essentially conniving with each other to manipulate interest rates and other similar kinds of things. I mean, have we--you know, we've gotten to a point where there's not even a pretention of an actual market. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, that's right. You have all these things in addition. But what I say is even worse. I have to insist it's even worse than fraud or anecdotal or single misbehavior of a certain person. What we have is the systemic malfunctioning of the system, systemic malfunctioning of the labor market, systemic malfunctioning of the financial markets. And these markets are so important that--these are the most important markets in the whole economy, and if they are not working well, then you cannot expect their economic policy to achieve what they want to achieve. <p /> <p />Look at monetary policy. Monetary policy is the best example. There you have some people really trying to do what is possible, but they're trying desperately to get the economy going, but it's not going. The biggest stimulus in all times that we have in the last years in the United States, in Japan, in Europe now, it doesn't work. It doesn't permeate through the economy. It doesn't find the right channel to get people to investment. But they're investing in short-term [incompr.] again. But they're not investing in fixed capital in the long term. <p /> <p />And this is where only the government can change things. The government has to be the game-changer here. The government has to step in. The government has to reduce, restrict the movement of the financial markets. It has to stimulate real investment in fixed capital, in infrastructure, in education, whatever you have. <p /> <p />JAY: Through direct public investment. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah. Public investment is an important part of it, no doubt about it. But, again, you see the ideology is such that they tell us, well, government debt is a bad thing. Government debt is not a bad thing. Government debt is absolutely necessary if you are in the situation where you are in the United States and elsewhere, where the private households are, per balance, still savers, net savers, where the government should not go into debt anymore, but where the company sector is a big saver, a net saver. <p /> <p />So how can you have all the sectors saving? It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. But it's not allowed to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it, that not all sectors can be net savers. Somewhere someone has to be a debtor, because savings and debt always nets to zero. So for the world as a whole, there need to be--you have to be as many debtors as you have savers. <p /> <p />But we do not have debtors anymore, because debtor, it seems to be a bad thing. And this cannot work. <p /> <p />So the natural debtor for a market system is the company sector. Nowadays in most of the economies, not only in United States, but in Europe as well, in Germany, it's a scandal that the company sector is a net saver and is not doing their work in terms of taking the money from the banks and using it for productive investment. <p /> <p />JAY: Do you think it's possible that part of what's happening here in terms of the financial elite, the, you know, economic, corporate elite is that they want a fundamental restructuring, especially the United States and Europe, they want wages to go down, they want a lower-wage environment, partly 'cause they want to compete with the low-wage economies in Asia and other places, and partly just 'cause they can, they've always wanted it, and labor's just so much weaker now as a result of globalization and other reasons, they can do it, and that the sort of traditional Keynesian idea that it's okay to have public debt now because when the economy recovers, you know, taxes and other income will come in and you'll be able to get out of that debt? But is it possible that this economic elite don't think there's ever going to be that kind of recovery, in the sense they think there's going to, and perhaps even to a sense is what they want, a longer-term recession that restructures the whole relationship of labor and capital, and as a result of that, they focus on public debt, 'cause if you believe that's the trajectory, then maybe public debt does get to be big and dangerous in their eyes? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Well, I think they're not as smart as you think they are, because if they were that smart, they would understand that it cannot work in that way. But because the one thing is you cannot really compete with developing countries, no big economy like United States or Europe as a whole can compete with developing countries about wages. That wouldn't make sense, because, first of all, we have a currency in between, we have an exchange rate that can be changed, so you never can succeed, finally, in cutting your wage to get export markets. That doesn't work anyway. <p /> <p />The other thing is that the domestic market is in danger of collapsing. And this would hurt these people as well. So they need a domestic market. In the end, they need a domestic market. <p /> <p />I fully understand what you're saying. They like the power that they have with rather high unemployment. But in the end, they cannot succeed with that. They can only succeed with a flourishing economy, and you can make money in the long term only if the economy is growing sufficiently quick. <p /> <p />JAY: But are you kind of assuming--like, you say I shouldn't think they're that smart. But I'm suggesting to you, are you thinking they're really that rational? 'Cause you keep saying in the long run, in the long run. But do they actually care about the long run? <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah, that's one thing that I acknowledge already. Many of these people do not care about the long run. But this is mainly true for people in the financial markets, because they don't have any fixed assets. You know? They have nothing that can be lost, so to say. They have a number of papers, and they know anyway that the value of these papers is very questionable, and the only problem is to get out early on. But if you are an owner of a bigger compound, of a bigger factory [incompr.] and you have a lot of fixed capital, then I think you think a bit about it. Otherwise, we would have to say, well, then market economy is over and it's no longer doable, it's no longer an efficient model at all. <p /> <p />I'm not that skeptical. I'm very skeptical concerning the financial market and the labor market, but I think overall in the goods market, if the other sectors are well regulated, then you have a chance to go back to [crosstalk] <p /> <p />JAY: Now, do you see any sign of this at the political level, a division in the interests between what you can say is the goods sector and the financial sector? Because the goods sector seems just gleeful about the fact that they can drive wages down, break unions. And they don't seem to have any longer view than the financial markets do. I mean, they think if they get their own--they can beat up their own workers, somehow magically there's going to be some other workers that can buy their stuff. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: Yeah. Yeah. But this is an error, as I said. This is the biggest of all errors. If you are a short-sighted person in the financial markets, you can be very rational. If you are a short-sighted person in the goods market, it is much more difficult to be rational, so to say, and to get what you want, because you have to use your capacities for a couple of years, and you cannot expect that the people can be exploited for a couple of years without having negative repercussions. <p /> <p />What we see after the 2008, 2009 crisis is already extremely negative repercussions that are coming from consumers that are not able to buy. I mean, why is the American economy in such a bad shape? Why is Europe going down? Why is Japan not recovering for 20 years? It's always the same reason, namely, that consumers do not expect income growth and they cannot get out of it. So you can survive--Japan has shown that you can survive for 20 years. But what we do, if we look at this: we're endangering our democracies, we're endangering the way we have been working in the past, and we are endangering the whole edifice of our societies, the moral ground, so to say, on which our societies have been built in the past. <p /> <p />JAY: I was at a conference a couple of years ago that Soros, George Soros organized, and he started off the conference, he spoke first. And he's certainly someone who knows how to make money out of crises. But his opening words were: I'm bewildered. And he went on to say that he's totally flummoxed, bewildered by the attitudes of the rest of the financial elite, who don't seem to want to deal with any of the structural issues. And this is a guy, as I say, he knows how to make money out of these situations, but that there's no rationality left in these circles. It's a feeding fest. And they have a political power that doesn't seem to be able to be challenged, at least within the current paradigm. <p /> <p />FLASSBECK: No, that's right. As I said, in the financial markets I fully agree. If you look at how fiercely they are fighting at this moment in the United States against any bit of regulation in the commodity markets, for example, where we have very clear evidence, as I said, we have extremely clear evidence that the prices are driven up by financial speculation, by the kind of financialization that we have, where we have clear evidence that the volatility is increasing, but they're fighting like hell with their lobbies in Washington. They're fighting in Brussels. They're fighting everywhere. And they're quite successful in at least delaying any kind of legislation, of regulation that would stop them making short-term money. This is--there we have a big systemic problem. This is a systemic problem of the market economy. <p /> <p />As I said, I'm not as skeptical in the goods market, in the normal producing markets. There it is always an attempt, as you said, by enterprise, by company sector to drive down wages in a very short-sighted view also. But this is manageable, much more manageable by a competent government than in financial markets, because the financial markets are putting so much pressure, and they have so much money, and they are permanently sponsored by the government system with zero interest rates at the moment. The get a huge subsidization, they get a huge subsidization from the government, and nevertheless, or because of that, are able to stop the government from regulating them. <p /> <p />JAY: Right. Okay. We're going to do one more segment, where we're going to talk about, well, if there was a competent government (I'd like to know where that's going to be) that actually was rational and actually had the interests of the society in its agenda, what would it do? That's going to be the next part of our interview with Heiner Flassbeck on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Systemic Malfunctioning of the Labor and Financial Markets

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2013-05-06

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Dr Heiner Flassbeck graduated in April 1976 in economics from Saarland University Germany concentrating on money and credit business cycle theory and general philosophy of science obtained a PhD in Economics from the Free University Berlin Germany in July 1987 2005 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg Employment started at the German Council of Economic Experts Wiesbaden between 1976 and 1980 followed by the Federal Ministry of Economics Bonn until January 1986 chief macroeconomist in the German Institute for Economic Research DIW in Berlin between 1988 and 1998 and State Secretary Vice Minister from October 1998 to April 1999 at the Federal Ministry of Finance Bonn responsible for international affairs the EU and IMF Worked at UNCTAD since 2000 from 2003 to December 2012 he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies He was the principal author of the team preparing UNCTADs Trade and Development Report with specialization in macroeconomics exchange rate policies and international finance Since January 2013 he is Director of FlassbeckEconomics a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions wwwflassbeckeconomicscom Coauthored ACT NOW The Global Manifesto for Economic Policy published in 2013 in Germany PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome back to The Real News Network Were continuing our discussion with Heiner Flassbeckthe state of the world economy the possibility or danger of deeper recession and what should be done about it Now joining us again from Geneva is Heiner Flassbeck He served as director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development known as UNCTAD He was a vice minister at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Bonn in 1998 and 99 Hes now a professor of economics at Hamburg University And you can find more of his work at FlassbeckEconomicsde Thanks for joining us Heiner HEINER FLASSBECK PROF ECONOMICS HAMBURG UNIVERSITY Thanks for having me JAY So in the book that youve justyou know you released recently Act Now Im just going to quote one of the headings The financial crisis was not inevitable nor is the looming crisis of the real economy Both are manmade Both are consequences direct and indirect of a flawed economic doctrine that has seen arrival over the past 30 years Heiner doesnt that doctrine though emerge from the system itself in the sense that you know if youre a capitalist theres some objectivity to how you can make the most money and with the concentration of ownership and the immense political power in the hands of the finance sector that its inevitable to have this kind of policy And not only that its kind of because of the way the system is You cant even get the most measly weakest regulation through to try to control this situation What Im getting at if the policy isof course you know sets the framework but its the way the economy is built and structured now that you have such policy FLASSBECK Yeah sure But well what we can do is we ask policymakers to do more What we said Act Now is to look at the different areas where we have still a lot of pending problems And what we are asking for is to look into it in its interdependence So you dont only have the fiscal side with people afraid of government debt you dont have only the monetary side where monetary policy tries to do a lot of things You mentioned rightly we still have the pending problems in the financial system as such and the financial markets and we have a looming big problem on the labor market So all this plays together But it has a certain root cause and the root cause is that we misunderstand what market economy is about we misunderstand today how a market economy has to be run and we misunderstand the role of policies JAY Well lets dig into some of those things And well kind of return to this question near the end But you talk about the main fallacies of this economic doctrine and one of the ones you start with is this idea that markets are just inherently efficient I mean whats wrong with that idea FLASSBECK Well its wrong in financial markets Obviously what we have is herding We have herding in the financial markets We have clear evidence that for example you have the commodity markets driven by financial action by financial market participants who in a herding way drive the prices up systematically driving prices up And this is clearly against the needs of the consumers Its against the needs of even the producers because its producing volatility in the prices And you have it the same on the currency side You have it in the stock markets You have everywhere dramatic dramatic distortions of prices by financial markets So financial markets with their herding behavior do the opposite of what is expected of a reasonable market That is one thing The other thing is that the labor market is not functioning The labor marketsnowadays we have the lowest wage share ever and we have the highest unemployment at the same time So that doesnt go together That is obviously a systemic misfunctioning of the market And it has to be calledthe government has to be called in because this doesnt work It cannot heal itself You have high unemployment putting pressure on wages At the same time you need wage increases for a sound consumption revival But thats not there And that is why as I said before people are desperately digging into their savings again and making the whole system extremely fragile JAY And its not only a lack of efficiency as they say but you know there are very important cases of outright fraud The LIBOR scandal where banks are essentially conniving with each other to manipulate interest rates and other similar kinds of things I mean have weyou know weve gotten to a point where theres not even a pretention of an actual market FLASSBECK Yeah thats right You have all these things in addition But what I say is even worse I have to insist its even worse than fraud or anecdotal or single misbehavior of a certain person What we have is the systemic malfunctioning of the system systemic malfunctioning of the labor market systemic malfunctioning of the financial markets And these markets are so important thatthese are the most important markets in the whole economy and if they are not working well then you cannot expect their economic policy to achieve what they want to achieve Look at monetary policy Monetary policy is the best example There you have some people really trying to do what is possible but theyre trying desperately to get the economy going but its not going The biggest stimulus in all times that we have in the last years in the United States in Japan in Europe now it doesnt work It doesnt permeate through the economy It doesnt find the right channel to get people to investment But theyre investing in shortterm incompr again But theyre not investing in fixed capital in the long term And this is where only the government can change things The government has to be the gamechanger here The government has to step in The government has to reduce restrict the movement of the financial markets It has to stimulate real investment in fixed capital in infrastructure in education whatever you have JAY Through direct public investment FLASSBECK Yeah Public investment is an important part of it no doubt about it But again you see the ideology is such that they tell us well government debt is a bad thing Government debt is not a bad thing Government debt is absolutely necessary if you are in the situation where you are in the United States and elsewhere where the private households are per balance still savers net savers where the government should not go into debt anymore but where the company sector is a big saver a net saver So how can you have all the sectors saving Its impossible Its absolutely impossible But its not allowed to talk about it Nobody wants to talk about it that not all sectors can be net savers Somewhere someone has to be a debtor because savings and debt always nets to zero So for the world as a whole there need to beyou have to be as many debtors as you have savers But we do not have debtors anymore because debtor it seems to be a bad thing And this cannot work So the natural debtor for a market system is the company sector Nowadays in most of the economies not only in United States but in Europe as well in Germany its a scandal that the company sector is a net saver and is not doing their work in terms of taking the money from the banks and using it for productive investment JAY Do you think its possible that part of whats happening here in terms of the financial elite the you know economic corporate elite is that they want a fundamental restructuring especially the United States and Europe they want wages to go down they want a lowerwage environment partly cause they want to compete with the lowwage economies in Asia and other places and partly just cause they can theyve always wanted it and labors just so much weaker now as a result of globalization and other reasons they can do it and that the sort of traditional Keynesian idea that its okay to have public debt now because when the economy recovers you know taxes and other income will come in and youll be able to get out of that debt But is it possible that this economic elite dont think theres ever going to be that kind of recovery in the sense they think theres going to and perhaps even to a sense is what they want a longerterm recession that restructures the whole relationship of labor and capital and as a result of that they focus on public debt cause if you believe thats the trajectory then maybe public debt does get to be big and dangerous in their eyes FLASSBECK Well I think theyre not as smart as you think they are because if they were that smart they would understand that it cannot work in that way But because the one thing is you cannot really compete with developing countries no big economy like United States or Europe as a whole can compete with developing countries about wages That wouldnt make sense because first of all we have a currency in between we have an exchange rate that can be changed so you never can succeed finally in cutting your wage to get export markets That doesnt work anyway The other thing is that the domestic market is in danger of collapsing And this would hurt these people as well So they need a domestic market In the end they need a domestic market I fully understand what youre saying They like the power that they have with rather high unemployment But in the end they cannot succeed with that They can only succeed with a flourishing economy and you can make money in the long term only if the economy is growing sufficiently quick JAY But are you kind of assuminglike you say I shouldnt think theyre that smart But Im suggesting to you are you thinking theyre really that rational Cause you keep saying in the long run in the long run But do they actually care about the long run FLASSBECK Yeah thats one thing that I acknowledge already Many of these people do not care about the long run But this is mainly true for people in the financial markets because they dont have any fixed assets You know They have nothing that can be lost so to say They have a number of papers and they know anyway that the value of these papers is very questionable and the only problem is to get out early on But if you are an owner of a bigger compound of a bigger factory incompr and you have a lot of fixed capital then I think you think a bit about it Otherwise we would have to say well then market economy is over and its no longer doable its no longer an efficient model at all Im not that skeptical Im very skeptical concerning the financial market and the labor market but I think overall in the goods market if the other sectors are well regulated then you have a chance to go back to crosstalk JAY Now do you see any sign of this at the political level a division in the interests between what you can say is the goods sector and the financial sector Because the goods sector seems just gleeful about the fact that they can drive wages down break unions And they dont seem to have any longer view than the financial markets do I mean they think if they get their ownthey can beat up their own workers somehow magically theres going to be some other workers that can buy their stuff FLASSBECK Yeah Yeah But this is an error as I said This is the biggest of all errors If you are a shortsighted person in the financial markets you can be very rational If you are a shortsighted person in the goods market it is much more difficult to be rational so to say and to get what you want because you have to use your capacities for a couple of years and you cannot expect that the people can be exploited for a couple of years without having negative repercussions What we see after the 2008 2009 crisis is already extremely negative repercussions that are coming from consumers that are not able to buy I mean why is the American economy in such a bad shape Why is Europe going down Why is Japan not recovering for 20 years Its always the same reason namely that consumers do not expect income growth and they cannot get out of it So you can surviveJapan has shown that you can survive for 20 years But what we do if we look at this were endangering our democracies were endangering the way we have been working in the past and we are endangering the whole edifice of our societies the moral ground so to say on which our societies have been built in the past JAY I was at a conference a couple of years ago that Soros George Soros organized and he started off the conference he spoke first And hes certainly someone who knows how to make money out of crises But his opening words were Im bewildered And he went on to say that hes totally flummoxed bewildered by the attitudes of the rest of the financial elite who dont seem to want to deal with any of the structural issues And this is a guy as I say he knows how to make money out of these situations but that theres no rationality left in these circles Its a feeding fest And they have a political power that doesnt seem to be able to be challenged at least within the current paradigm FLASSBECK No thats right As I said in the financial markets I fully agree If you look at how fiercely they are fighting at this moment in the United States against any bit of regulation in the commodity markets for example where we have very clear evidence as I said we have extremely clear evidence that the prices are driven up by financial speculation by the kind of financialization that we have where we have clear evidence that the volatility is increasing but theyre fighting like hell with their lobbies in Washington Theyre fighting in Brussels Theyre fighting everywhere And theyre quite successful in at least delaying any kind of legislation of regulation that would stop them making shortterm money This isthere we have a big systemic problem This is a systemic problem of the market economy As I said Im not as skeptical in the goods market in the normal producing markets There it is always an attempt as you said by enterprise by company sector to drive down wages in a very shortsighted view also But this is manageable much more manageable by a competent government than in financial markets because the financial markets are putting so much pressure and they have so much money and they are permanently sponsored by the government system with zero interest rates at the moment The get a huge subsidization they get a huge subsidization from the government and nevertheless or because of that are able to stop the government from regulating them JAY Right Okay Were going to do one more segment where were going to talk about well if there was a competent government Id like to know where thats going to be that actually was rational and actually had the interests of the society in its agenda what would it do Thats going to be the next part of our interview with Heiner Flassbeck on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>We deeply regret the passing of Jonathan Schell. We will do everything possible to keep his life long mission for peace and disarmament a central part of TRNN coverage.</p> <p>Jonathan joined the board of TRNN in 2005, he was at our very first board meeting, smiling ear to ear. Since that day he never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of our work.</p> <p>As a journalist and anti-war activist he condemned conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq and warned of a nuclear holocaust in terrifying detail in his prize-winning book, The Fate of the Earth (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize).</p> <p>He was a writer and journalist, Peace and Disarmament Correspondent for The Nation magazine, a fellow at the Nation Institute, visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine from 1967 to 1987. He was a native of NY.</p> <p>Schell's companion, Irena Gross, reported that Schell died of cancer on Tuesday at their home in New York City.</p> <p>Here is a link to his work with TRNN: <a href="" type="internal">The Real News</a></p> <p>The Nation Magazine: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179014/remembering-jonathan-schell-1943-2014" type="external">The Nation</a></p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />One might've expected in the U.S. presidential elections that Iran would be more of an issue than it is, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is imminent and the need for an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites, and then a pushback by the Obama administration and top American military leaders, saying, no, not now. In fact, some American military leaders have gone so far as to make it clear that the U.S. would not be involved if Israel launches a unilateral attack. One might have expected then Romney to get involved in all of this, talk about throwing Israel under the bus, and giving this as an example of more Obama apologies. But we haven't quite heard that level of rhetoric. <p /> <p />Now joining us to talk about all of this is Jonathan Schell. Jonathan's a fellow at the Nation Institute, teaches a course on the nuclear dilemma at Yale University. He's the author of many books, including most recently The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of the Nuclear Danger. Thanks for joining us, Jonathan. <p /> <p />JONATHAN SCHELL, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Good to be with you, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: I should add, Jonathan's also on the board of The Real News Network, right from the beginning of the board. So, Jonathan, talk about where we're at with this. There's been this whole debate about red lines. The Obama red line and the Netanyahu red line seem not to be the same line. So what is this all about? <p /> <p />SCHELL: Well, you know, it's very peculiar thing. I can think of really no historical precedent for it. It's a case where depending on certain technical arrangements that are made in another country with regard to a weapons system, namely nuclear weapons, a decision will be made whether to have peace or war. Mind you, it's short of their actually getting the bomb, because almost by definition the policy can't be to wait till they have a bomb, because then they would deter you. And so everybody's talking about red lines&#226;&#128;&#148;in other words, some technical step that Iran would take that would precipitate a war, an attack either by Israel or the United States. <p /> <p />But the funny thing is that almost nobody&#226;&#128;&#148;and I think I can say nobody&#226;&#128;&#148;has actually defined what they would consider a red line to be. It's a very curious situation. Let me read you something from&#226;&#128;&#148;Netanyahu gives you the flavor of the discussion. Very curious. And he came closer than anyone else, really, to finally defining a red line that should supposedly serve as a trigger for an American attack. But here's what he had to say: <p /> <p />"So I think that as they get closer and closer and closer to the achievement of the weapons-grade material&#226;&#128;&#148;and they're very close, they're six months away from being about 90&#194;&amp;#160;percent of having the enriched uranium for an atom bomb&#226;&#128;&#148;I think you have to place that red line before them." <p /> <p />Now, what on earth does this mean, they're six months away from being 90&#194;&amp;#160;percent of having the enriched uranium? And yet we know that we're not here talking about weapon-grade uranium. At most we're talking about some medium-enriched uranium. But nobody can really fathom what that 90&#194;&amp;#160;percent would be. And Obama, who's really sort of steadfastly refused to fix a red line, is equally vague on this, hasn't really said what would cause a war for the United States. <p /> <p />JAY: One of the things that Obama's been and leading officials have been pretty clear on, and it coincides with the national intelligence estimate that was done during Bush's years, which is that Iran has not taken the decision to build a nuclear bomb, where Netanyahu clearly says he thinks they have. And that seems to be quite a difference. <p /> <p />SCHELL: That is a very clear difference, not regarding red lines but regarding something different, which would be&#226;&#128;&#148;you might call it a red line, but it's really not something technical; it's something political. And the question there becomes whether Iran has made a political determination, whether they sat down at a meeting and said, let's make an atomic bomb. Actually, the last thing we heard about it from the U.S. was back, if memory serves, in 2007 the national intelligence estimate under George Bush said they had not&#226;&#128;&#148;they were not acting under such guidance, but the&#226;&#128;&#148;previously, up until 2003, they had decided to, and then decided against it. So it's a very mysterious and&#226;&#128;&#148;. <p /> <p />JAY: Well, that seems like the American position is the red line is when they decide to build a bomb. And there's been lots of people that know this business of making bombs that said, if they're actually going to make a decision and take those kinds of steps, that the intelligence agencies would know about it, the IAEA would know about it, they probably even have to stop the inspections of the IAEA altogether, and that if they were going to do something, there'd be time to do it. That seems to be the American position. And Netanyahu, you know, his rhetoric has been, no, we need to go now. But in Israel we know there's been tremendous opposition to Netanyahu's positions from top security and military leaders. And a lot of people have wondered if his, Netanyahu's, militant position has other objectives than really about to launch an attack. And I wonder what you think of that. Does he really have some other agenda here? <p /> <p />SCHELL: Well, we're all left going with our hunches here. But my hunch is that it's all political and it's American electoral political, that the objective of Netanyahu is neither to create conditions for launching an Israeli attack, nor even, I don't think, trying to goad the United States into making an attack, although he would certainly like to have that. But I think he knows what I also suspect, which is that Obama has no such intention and&#226;&#128;&#148;emphatically&#226;&#128;&#148;not before the election. <p /> <p />So you have to wonder why he's making such a tremendous fuss and throwing these temper tantrums. And really&#226;&#128;&#148;and, again, and these are hunches, these are things you can't know for sure, but it looks to me like he's trying to intervene or has been trying to intervene in the American election by creating a circumstance that will make Obama look weak, like a poor supporter of Israel, as if he's throwing Israel under the bus, as Romney keeps saying. So I think that's what's going on here. <p /> <p />But I [also think] there's been a shift of the political tide. And, of course, what's been very important there is Obama's moving ahead a bit in the polls. And we've seen quite a change in the rhetoric of Netanyahu on this, and even on Romney as well. It's quite interesting. And I wonder whether that's coordinated. <p /> <p />JAY: And part of that might be with Dempsey speaking about this and other American military leaders suggesting that if a unilateral action by Israel wound up in the deaths of American soldiers&#226;&#128;&#148;'cause one would think if Iran counterattacks, the obvious target would be American soldiers somewhere in the Middle East, and there's lots of potential targets there&#226;&#128;&#148;if some Americans start dying as a result of this, you know, we're seeing that even some of the neocons are saying, you'd better be careful here, you could have a real shift in American public opinion, where Israel starts getting blamed for the deaths of U.S. soldiers. <p /> <p />SCHELL: I think that's true. And I think Obama, almost for the first time in his presidency, has shown a certain readiness not to cater to the wishes of the Israeli government, not to cater to Netanyahu. And we saw him actually refusing to meet with Netanyahu now that the UN is meeting in New York. There was an opportunity for them to meet, and Obama said, really I don't have time in my schedule for that, and it was considered to be a kind of snub. So he was actually willing to take a little bit of political heat of that type and to risk the perception of being seen as weak that Netanyahu was trying to create. <p /> <p />And then in an interview that Netanyahu did on Meet the Press on Sunday, he too backed off a little bit and refused to distinguish between the positions taken by Romney and Obama, and when asked if the U.S. was throwing Israel under the bus, as Romney had said, he wouldn't endorse that. So he seemed to back off a little bit. <p /> <p />And, again, I think what's changed is the political winds, both in Israel and in the United States. So it doesn't seem like a winning strategy to paint Obama as weak. And then also, of course, he's worried that now that Obama's moving ahead in the polls a little bit, that he's going to get stuck with Obama in the next term and will have offended him now and be stuck with him then and really have [incompr.] <p /> <p />JAY: But there's another piece of this, which I don't think gets talked about enough&#226;&#128;&#148;I keep harping on this on The Real News, but I don't see much of it anywhere else&#226;&#128;&#148;which is, you know, it's like a magician: you know, look at my hand waving around over here, and the real action's in this hand, and you have Netanyahu, you know, screaming about war and potential unilateral attack, but over on this hand what's really going on is that there is a war going on against Iran, and an economic war of very serious sanctions that's causing a lot of hardship for ordinary Iranians. <p /> <p />SCHELL: And not only economic. It's also military, low-level military, because after all, five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed, have been assassinated, in all likelihood by Israel, which refuses to really clarify the matter. And also just this week we had two major explosions in electrical plants that feed the nuclear plants in Iran. <p /> <p />And then on top of that we have an incredibly serious departure, really, in the whole history of warfare, and that is the use of cyberwar to actually upset the technical arrangements and the centrifuges in the nuclear plants in Iran, really the first instance of that historically and something that's full of consequence for the future, because we can expect other countries to get into that line of work as well, not just the United States, which has been doing this, and Israel. <p /> <p />JAY: And President Obama, as yet, never&#226;&#128;&#148;I don't think he ever gets asked by mainstream media, and he certainly never explained how is it that you're involved with such serious sanctions against Iran when your intelligence agencies are telling you they have not&#226;&#128;&#148;they don't have a nuclear weapons program, that if they don't have the nuclear weapons program, then what's the justification for the sanctions. <p /> <p />SCHELL: Well, I think that there is an answer that could be given to that question, and that is&#226;&#128;&#148;and this again goes to these clouds of fog that are rolling over the whole Iranian program and what would be a red line and what wouldn't be, because one of the things that's happened here that's&#226;&#128;&#148;is not sufficiently noticed is that Obama really took on board the Bush policy towards nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and he bought into it big-time with Iran just a couple of months ago when he said that he wasn't going to have a policy of containment or deterrence, he was going to have a policy of prevention. So in other words, the policy that they both embraced&#226;&#128;&#148;and this is, again, something new in the nuclear age&#226;&#128;&#148;is one of preemptive war in order to prevent a country from going nuclear. And that is really something radically new. And once you put yourself in that box, it's very difficult to get out of it again. <p /> <p />And so I think what we see is that they're trying everything short of war in order not to either have to make good on that promise, or as I suspect would really happen sometime after the election would be to back out of it, because I actually don't think that Obama would go to war with Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon. I don't&#226;&#128;&#148;that would be have such a high cost attached to it that I just don't think he would be willing to do it. He's had enough trouble backing the U.S. out of the two futile wars that we were already in&#226;&#128;&#148;two of the many, that is, the one in Iran and the one in Afghanistan. I don't think that he's going to want to get in a third. But that's for the future; that's not for the present. <p /> <p />JAY: And there's no reason he's even going to have to face that decision. I mean, all the evidence points to the fact that Iran simply isn't going to make that decision to move towards an actual weapon. And that's not me saying it, 'cause I don't know that much about these things; it's top Israeli intelligence officials are saying that, that it's just&#226;&#128;&#148;that Iran is a rational actor, they act in their own interests, and it would be crazy of them to create some kind of program that all it would do is make them a target for an attack. And so it's really very difficult to imagine Obama would ever have to make such a decision. <p /> <p />SCHELL: Yeah. Well, I agree with that, too. I went on out on a limb and said, I don't think Obama is going to attack Iran. That would be crazy. It would make the Iraq War and the Afghan War look like a picnic, to go to war with Iran. Imagine that. And Obama, whatever else he is, he's not a crazy person. He's&#226;&#128;&#148;I think he's a pretty sane person. He's not crazy. And that would be crazy. <p /> <p />And so I'll go out on another limb and agree with you there and say that I think that Iran knows well that it would pay a very, very heavy price if it were actually go ahead and test an atomic bomb. For one thing, they'd simply have to tear up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is something that really has almost universal support all over the world. So that would be a very, very serious political act. I imagine that it would have serious domestic consequences within Iran, and they would have to violate, you know, about 700 promises they made that they were not going to go into the nuclear weapon business [crosstalk] <p /> <p />JAY: I mean, the real issue here&#226;&#128;&#148;and we've talked about this before on The Real News, and you and I have talked about this before&#226;&#128;&#148;is what Israel really objects to and why they're threatening Iran is they don't like Iran's influence and power in the region, particularly Hezbollah and Hamas, and they would love to see regime change in Iran. But the idea that Iran would give them a reason to get the Americans to attack because they actually are building a bomb, it's kind of preposterous, actually. <p /> <p />SCHELL: Yeah. Well, what you do understand and gather is that what they are really afraid of is that if Iran has the bomb, it will embolden them to deputize Hamas and Hezbollah and who knows who else to be a little bolder and more aggressive in their conventional policies vis-&#195;&amp;#160;-vis Israel. <p /> <p />My own personal take on that is that countries are not emboldened when they have nuclear weapons; rather, it makes them more cautious. If you want an example of that, look back at China in 1964. Mao Zedong talked a very tough line about having the nuclear weapons, very belligerent, very reckless-sounding. And the second he got the bomb, he turned all cautious, and you hardly heard of it again, and it made them very cautious. <p /> <p />So I think the Israelis are wrong on that point, but there is good evidence that they believe it. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Okay. Thanks for joining us, Jonathan. <p /> <p />SCHELL: My pleasure. <p /> <p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Iran and the "Red Line" Debate

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D8854

2012-09-20

4left

We deeply regret the passing of Jonathan Schell We will do everything possible to keep his life long mission for peace and disarmament a central part of TRNN coverage Jonathan joined the board of TRNN in 2005 he was at our very first board meeting smiling ear to ear Since that day he never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of our work As a journalist and antiwar activist he condemned conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq and warned of a nuclear holocaust in terrifying detail in his prizewinning book The Fate of the Earth nominated for a Pulitzer Prize He was a writer and journalist Peace and Disarmament Correspondent for The Nation magazine a fellow at the Nation Institute visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine from 1967 to 1987 He was a native of NY Schells companion Irena Gross reported that Schell died of cancer on Tuesday at their home in New York City Here is a link to his work with TRNN The Real News The Nation Magazine The Nation PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore One mightve expected in the US presidential elections that Iran would be more of an issue than it is with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is imminent and the need for an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites and then a pushback by the Obama administration and top American military leaders saying no not now In fact some American military leaders have gone so far as to make it clear that the US would not be involved if Israel launches a unilateral attack One might have expected then Romney to get involved in all of this talk about throwing Israel under the bus and giving this as an example of more Obama apologies But we havent quite heard that level of rhetoric Now joining us to talk about all of this is Jonathan Schell Jonathans a fellow at the Nation Institute teaches a course on the nuclear dilemma at Yale University Hes the author of many books including most recently The Seventh Decade The New Shape of the Nuclear Danger Thanks for joining us Jonathan JONATHAN SCHELL JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR Good to be with you Paul JAY I should add Jonathans also on the board of The Real News Network right from the beginning of the board So Jonathan talk about where were at with this Theres been this whole debate about red lines The Obama red line and the Netanyahu red line seem not to be the same line So what is this all about SCHELL Well you know its very peculiar thing I can think of really no historical precedent for it Its a case where depending on certain technical arrangements that are made in another country with regard to a weapons system namely nuclear weapons a decision will be made whether to have peace or war Mind you its short of their actually getting the bomb because almost by definition the policy cant be to wait till they have a bomb because then they would deter you And so everybodys talking about red lines226128148in other words some technical step that Iran would take that would precipitate a war an attack either by Israel or the United States But the funny thing is that almost nobody226128148and I think I can say nobody226128148has actually defined what they would consider a red line to be Its a very curious situation Let me read you something from226128148Netanyahu gives you the flavor of the discussion Very curious And he came closer than anyone else really to finally defining a red line that should supposedly serve as a trigger for an American attack But heres what he had to say So I think that as they get closer and closer and closer to the achievement of the weaponsgrade material226128148and theyre very close theyre six months away from being about 90194amp160percent of having the enriched uranium for an atom bomb226128148I think you have to place that red line before them Now what on earth does this mean theyre six months away from being 90194amp160percent of having the enriched uranium And yet we know that were not here talking about weapongrade uranium At most were talking about some mediumenriched uranium But nobody can really fathom what that 90194amp160percent would be And Obama whos really sort of steadfastly refused to fix a red line is equally vague on this hasnt really said what would cause a war for the United States JAY One of the things that Obamas been and leading officials have been pretty clear on and it coincides with the national intelligence estimate that was done during Bushs years which is that Iran has not taken the decision to build a nuclear bomb where Netanyahu clearly says he thinks they have And that seems to be quite a difference SCHELL That is a very clear difference not regarding red lines but regarding something different which would be226128148you might call it a red line but its really not something technical its something political And the question there becomes whether Iran has made a political determination whether they sat down at a meeting and said lets make an atomic bomb Actually the last thing we heard about it from the US was back if memory serves in 2007 the national intelligence estimate under George Bush said they had not226128148they were not acting under such guidance but the226128148previously up until 2003 they had decided to and then decided against it So its a very mysterious and226128148 JAY Well that seems like the American position is the red line is when they decide to build a bomb And theres been lots of people that know this business of making bombs that said if theyre actually going to make a decision and take those kinds of steps that the intelligence agencies would know about it the IAEA would know about it they probably even have to stop the inspections of the IAEA altogether and that if they were going to do something thered be time to do it That seems to be the American position And Netanyahu you know his rhetoric has been no we need to go now But in Israel we know theres been tremendous opposition to Netanyahus positions from top security and military leaders And a lot of people have wondered if his Netanyahus militant position has other objectives than really about to launch an attack And I wonder what you think of that Does he really have some other agenda here SCHELL Well were all left going with our hunches here But my hunch is that its all political and its American electoral political that the objective of Netanyahu is neither to create conditions for launching an Israeli attack nor even I dont think trying to goad the United States into making an attack although he would certainly like to have that But I think he knows what I also suspect which is that Obama has no such intention and226128148emphatically226128148not before the election So you have to wonder why hes making such a tremendous fuss and throwing these temper tantrums And really226128148and again and these are hunches these are things you cant know for sure but it looks to me like hes trying to intervene or has been trying to intervene in the American election by creating a circumstance that will make Obama look weak like a poor supporter of Israel as if hes throwing Israel under the bus as Romney keeps saying So I think thats whats going on here But I also think theres been a shift of the political tide And of course whats been very important there is Obamas moving ahead a bit in the polls And weve seen quite a change in the rhetoric of Netanyahu on this and even on Romney as well Its quite interesting And I wonder whether thats coordinated JAY And part of that might be with Dempsey speaking about this and other American military leaders suggesting that if a unilateral action by Israel wound up in the deaths of American soldiers226128148cause one would think if Iran counterattacks the obvious target would be American soldiers somewhere in the Middle East and theres lots of potential targets there226128148if some Americans start dying as a result of this you know were seeing that even some of the neocons are saying youd better be careful here you could have a real shift in American public opinion where Israel starts getting blamed for the deaths of US soldiers SCHELL I think thats true And I think Obama almost for the first time in his presidency has shown a certain readiness not to cater to the wishes of the Israeli government not to cater to Netanyahu And we saw him actually refusing to meet with Netanyahu now that the UN is meeting in New York There was an opportunity for them to meet and Obama said really I dont have time in my schedule for that and it was considered to be a kind of snub So he was actually willing to take a little bit of political heat of that type and to risk the perception of being seen as weak that Netanyahu was trying to create And then in an interview that Netanyahu did on Meet the Press on Sunday he too backed off a little bit and refused to distinguish between the positions taken by Romney and Obama and when asked if the US was throwing Israel under the bus as Romney had said he wouldnt endorse that So he seemed to back off a little bit And again I think whats changed is the political winds both in Israel and in the United States So it doesnt seem like a winning strategy to paint Obama as weak And then also of course hes worried that now that Obamas moving ahead in the polls a little bit that hes going to get stuck with Obama in the next term and will have offended him now and be stuck with him then and really have incompr JAY But theres another piece of this which I dont think gets talked about enough226128148I keep harping on this on The Real News but I dont see much of it anywhere else226128148which is you know its like a magician you know look at my hand waving around over here and the real actions in this hand and you have Netanyahu you know screaming about war and potential unilateral attack but over on this hand whats really going on is that there is a war going on against Iran and an economic war of very serious sanctions thats causing a lot of hardship for ordinary Iranians SCHELL And not only economic Its also military lowlevel military because after all five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed have been assassinated in all likelihood by Israel which refuses to really clarify the matter And also just this week we had two major explosions in electrical plants that feed the nuclear plants in Iran And then on top of that we have an incredibly serious departure really in the whole history of warfare and that is the use of cyberwar to actually upset the technical arrangements and the centrifuges in the nuclear plants in Iran really the first instance of that historically and something thats full of consequence for the future because we can expect other countries to get into that line of work as well not just the United States which has been doing this and Israel JAY And President Obama as yet never226128148I dont think he ever gets asked by mainstream media and he certainly never explained how is it that youre involved with such serious sanctions against Iran when your intelligence agencies are telling you they have not226128148they dont have a nuclear weapons program that if they dont have the nuclear weapons program then whats the justification for the sanctions SCHELL Well I think that there is an answer that could be given to that question and that is226128148and this again goes to these clouds of fog that are rolling over the whole Iranian program and what would be a red line and what wouldnt be because one of the things thats happened here thats226128148is not sufficiently noticed is that Obama really took on board the Bush policy towards nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and he bought into it bigtime with Iran just a couple of months ago when he said that he wasnt going to have a policy of containment or deterrence he was going to have a policy of prevention So in other words the policy that they both embraced226128148and this is again something new in the nuclear age226128148is one of preemptive war in order to prevent a country from going nuclear And that is really something radically new And once you put yourself in that box its very difficult to get out of it again And so I think what we see is that theyre trying everything short of war in order not to either have to make good on that promise or as I suspect would really happen sometime after the election would be to back out of it because I actually dont think that Obama would go to war with Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon I dont226128148that would be have such a high cost attached to it that I just dont think he would be willing to do it Hes had enough trouble backing the US out of the two futile wars that we were already in226128148two of the many that is the one in Iran and the one in Afghanistan I dont think that hes going to want to get in a third But thats for the future thats not for the present JAY And theres no reason hes even going to have to face that decision I mean all the evidence points to the fact that Iran simply isnt going to make that decision to move towards an actual weapon And thats not me saying it cause I dont know that much about these things its top Israeli intelligence officials are saying that that its just226128148that Iran is a rational actor they act in their own interests and it would be crazy of them to create some kind of program that all it would do is make them a target for an attack And so its really very difficult to imagine Obama would ever have to make such a decision SCHELL Yeah Well I agree with that too I went on out on a limb and said I dont think Obama is going to attack Iran That would be crazy It would make the Iraq War and the Afghan War look like a picnic to go to war with Iran Imagine that And Obama whatever else he is hes not a crazy person Hes226128148I think hes a pretty sane person Hes not crazy And that would be crazy And so Ill go out on another limb and agree with you there and say that I think that Iran knows well that it would pay a very very heavy price if it were actually go ahead and test an atomic bomb For one thing theyd simply have to tear up the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty which is something that really has almost universal support all over the world So that would be a very very serious political act I imagine that it would have serious domestic consequences within Iran and they would have to violate you know about 700 promises they made that they were not going to go into the nuclear weapon business crosstalk JAY I mean the real issue here226128148and weve talked about this before on The Real News and you and I have talked about this before226128148is what Israel really objects to and why theyre threatening Iran is they dont like Irans influence and power in the region particularly Hezbollah and Hamas and they would love to see regime change in Iran But the idea that Iran would give them a reason to get the Americans to attack because they actually are building a bomb its kind of preposterous actually SCHELL Yeah Well what you do understand and gather is that what they are really afraid of is that if Iran has the bomb it will embolden them to deputize Hamas and Hezbollah and who knows who else to be a little bolder and more aggressive in their conventional policies vis195amp160vis Israel My own personal take on that is that countries are not emboldened when they have nuclear weapons rather it makes them more cautious If you want an example of that look back at China in 1964 Mao Zedong talked a very tough line about having the nuclear weapons very belligerent very recklesssounding And the second he got the bomb he turned all cautious and you hardly heard of it again and it made them very cautious So I think the Israelis are wrong on that point but there is good evidence that they believe it JAY Alright Okay Thanks for joining us Jonathan SCHELL My pleasure JAY And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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for/ADP a/DET Pulitzer/PROPN Prize/PROPN He/PRON was/AUX a/DET writer/NOUN and/CCONJ journalist/NOUN Peace/PROPN and/CCONJ Disarmament/PROPN Correspondent/PROPN for/ADP The/DET Nation/PROPN magazine/NOUN a/DET fellow/NOUN at/ADP the/DET Nation/PROPN Institute/PROPN visiting/VERB lecturer/NOUN at/ADP the/DET Yale/PROPN Law/PROPN School/PROPN and/CCONJ a/DET staff/NOUN writer/NOUN at/ADP The/DET New/PROPN Yorker/PROPN magazine/NOUN from/ADP 1967/NUM to/ADP 1987/NUM He/PRON was/AUX a/DET native/NOUN of/ADP NY/PROPN Schells/PROPN companion/NOUN Irena/PROPN Gross/PROPN reported/VERB that/SCONJ Schell/PROPN died/VERB of/ADP cancer/NOUN on/ADP Tuesday/PROPN at/ADP their/PRON home/NOUN in/ADP New/PROPN York/PROPN City/PROPN Here/ADV is/AUX a/DET link/NOUN to/ADP his/PRON work/NOUN with/ADP TRNN/PROPN The/DET Real/PROPN News/PROPN The/DET Nation/PROPN Magazine/PROPN The/DET Nation/PROPN PAUL/PROPN JAY/PROPN SENIOR/PROPN EDITOR/NOUN TRNN/PROPN Welcome/PROPN to/ADP The/DET Real/PROPN News/PROPN Network/PROPN I/PRON m/VERB Paul/PROPN Jay/PROPN in/ADP Baltimore/PROPN One/PROPN might/AUX ve/AUX expected/VERB in/ADP the/DET US/PROPN presidential/ADJ elections/NOUN that/PRON Iran/PROPN would/AUX be/AUX more/ADJ of/ADP an/DET issue/NOUN than/SCONJ it/PRON is/AUX with/ADP Israeli/ADJ Prime/PROPN Minister/PROPN Netanyahu/PROPN saying/VERB that/SCONJ the/DET development/NOUN of/ADP a/DET nuclear/ADJ weapon/NOUN in/ADP Iran/PROPN is/AUX imminent/ADJ and/CCONJ the/DET need/NOUN for/ADP an/DET attack/NOUN on/ADP the/DET Iranian/ADJ nuclear/ADJ sites/NOUN and/CCONJ then/ADV a/DET pushback/NOUN by/ADP the/DET Obama/PROPN administration/NOUN and/CCONJ top/ADJ American/ADJ military/ADJ leaders/NOUN saying/VERB no/INTJ not/PART now/ADV In/ADP fact/NOUN some/DET American/ADJ military/ADJ leaders/NOUN have/AUX gone/VERB so/ADV far/ADV as/SCONJ to/PART make/VERB it/PRON clear/ADJ that/SCONJ the/DET US/PROPN would/AUX not/PART be/AUX involved/VERB if/SCONJ Israel/PROPN launches/VERB a/DET unilateral/ADJ attack/NOUN One/PRON might/AUX have/AUX expected/VERB then/ADV Romney/PROPN to/PART get/VERB involved/VERB in/ADP all/PRON of/ADP this/DET talk/NOUN about/ADP throwing/VERB Israel/PROPN under/ADP the/DET bus/NOUN and/CCONJ giving/VERB this/PRON as/ADP an/DET example/NOUN of/ADP more/ADJ Obama/PROPN apologies/NOUN But/CCONJ we/PRON have/AUX nt/PART quite/ADV heard/VERB that/DET level/NOUN of/ADP rhetoric/NOUN Now/ADV joining/VERB us/PRON to/PART talk/VERB about/ADP all/PRON of/ADP this/PRON is/AUX Jonathan/PROPN Schell/PROPN Jonathans/PROPN a/DET fellow/NOUN at/ADP the/DET Nation/PROPN Institute/PROPN teaches/VERB a/DET course/NOUN on/ADP the/DET nuclear/ADJ dilemma/NOUN at/ADP Yale/PROPN University/PROPN He/PRON s/VERB the/DET author/NOUN of/ADP many/ADJ books/NOUN including/VERB most/ADV recently/ADV The/DET Seventh/PROPN Decade/PROPN The/DET New/PROPN Shape/PROPN of/ADP the/DET Nuclear/PROPN Danger/PROPN Thanks/NOUN for/ADP joining/VERB us/PRON Jonathan/PROPN JONATHAN/PROPN SCHELL/PROPN JOURNALIST/ADV AND/CCONJ AUTHOR/PROPN Good/ADJ to/PART be/AUX with/ADP you/PRON Paul/PROPN JAY/PROPN I/PRON should/AUX add/VERB Jonathans/PROPN also/ADV on/ADP the/DET board/NOUN of/ADP The/DET Real/PROPN News/PROPN Network/PROPN right/ADV from/ADP the/DET beginning/NOUN of/ADP the/DET board/NOUN So/ADV Jonathan/PROPN talk/VERB about/ADP where/SCONJ were/AUX at/ADP with/ADP this/PRON There/PRON s/AUX been/AUX this/DET whole/ADJ debate/NOUN about/ADP red/ADJ lines/NOUN The/DET Obama/PROPN red/ADJ line/NOUN and/CCONJ the/DET Netanyahu/PROPN red/ADJ line/NOUN seem/VERB not/PART to/PART be/AUX the/DET same/ADJ line/NOUN So/ADV what/PRON is/AUX this/PRON all/PRON about/ADP SCHELL/PROPN Well/INTJ you/PRON know/VERB its/PRON very/ADV peculiar/ADJ thing/NOUN I/PRON can/AUX think/VERB of/ADP really/ADV no/DET historical/ADJ precedent/NOUN for/ADP it/PRON Its/PRON a/DET case/NOUN where/SCONJ depending/VERB on/ADP certain/ADJ technical/ADJ arrangements/NOUN that/PRON 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<p>Shir Hever is an economist working at The Real News Network. His economic research focuses on Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory; international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel; the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy; and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. His first book: Political Economy of Israel's Occupation: Repression Beyond Exploitation, was published by Pluto Press.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />Israel apparently has bombed inside Syria, as most people that follow the news know by now. Originally, the propaganda or PR around this event was that they were bombing chemical weapons on their way to Hezbollah. Now the story seems to be they were taking out some kind of advanced rocketry (we're told by The Washington Post, at least) that was being sent from Iran to Hezbollah. One way or the other, Israel does not seem to be hiding the fact that they made such a strike. <p /> <p />Now joining us to discuss Israeli strategic thinking in all of this is Shir Hever. Shir is a political economist. He works regularly with The Real News. He joins us now where he's working in Germany. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us again, Shir. <p /> <p />SHIR HEVER, ECONOMIST, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER: Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. <p /> <p />JAY: So what do you make of what Israel's tactical strategic positioning is towards the current situation in Syria? <p /> <p />HEVER: I think it's very important to keep in mind that the Israeli strategy is very short-term. While a lot of regional forces like Turkey and global forces, the United States and Russia, are playing a complicated game and manipulating what's happening in Syria, Israel is mostly concerned about its domestic politics. <p /> <p />The Israeli government is in a tight position at the moment, because John Kerry, secretary of state for the U.S., had some visits to the region, tried to restart the peace negotiations. And in so doing, he mentioned and tried to revive the Arab peace initiative. And that puts Israel in a very difficult position, because the Arab peace initiative is a very reasonable offer. Israel has no intentions of accepting it. And if this sort of pressure continues, Israel will be exposed as unwilling to work with the United States and unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinians. <p /> <p />A few weeks ago, the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu, came to a comedy show as a guest star. And in that comedy show, they asked him, well, are you going to restart the peace negotiations, are you going to resume the peace process, and he said, you know, there is a lot of clashes around the Middle East, the Middle East is very heated up right now, so maybe it's not a good time. <p /> <p />This gives us a very good idea of what exactly he stands to gain from the civil war in Syria. As long as there is fighting, as long as there is war, he can just keep distracting from the fact that he's actually not doing it. <p /> <p />JAY: And we did a story a few days ago. We quoted Daniel Pipes, who's a pretty well-known neocon pundit, academic, who was very closely connected to Likud and the sort of right-wing opinion in Israel. And he overtly said, essentially, whichever side--meaning Assad or the opposition--whichever side seems to be getting weak, that side should be strengthened by the West--in other words, even support Assad if Assad seems to be losing--in order to keep the civil war going--essentially, let your enemies kill each other--and didn't seem very concerned about what happens to the Syrian population caught between them. <p /> <p />And then is there not another part to this in terms of Israel's interest, that as long as there's such chaos and Assad's so weak, they can do exactly this, they can bomb something on its way to Hezbollah, and, it seems, without--I should say, with impunity? <p /> <p />HEVER: Yeah. But we should also from a historical point of view remember that Assad's regime, and also his father's regime, were both--Hafez al-Assad, his father--have both been relatively convenient neighbors for Israel. Although there is no peace between the countries, both Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad have generally kept the ceasefire in place and haven't tried to provoke any kind of action against Israel. <p /> <p />This could change, of course, if the regime in Syria will change. And one of the things that is discussed inside Israel is whether actually Israel should do something in order to protect Assad. And part of that is also the sort of propaganda that you hear a lot in Israel, as if the rebels are actually working for al-Qaeda, all of them are al-Qaeda. And that sort of talk is very common in the Israeli media. <p /> <p />So, suddenly Assad, who was the terrible enemy of Israel--and, in fact, Israeli politicians and activists have been interrogated, imprisoned for visiting Syria, for meeting Assad and talking to him. Now, suddenly, there is a shift and he's becoming a sort of possible almost ally of Israel. <p /> <p />And one somewhat cynical view is that this attack against Syria over the weekend has in some extent strengthened Assad, because it was an attack against the Syrian army loyal to the regime, a military base. Forty-two soldiers have been killed, according to some sources, in these attacks. And Assad therefore immediately could claim this is something that proves that the rebels are supported by outside groups, that Israel is helping the rebels, Israel is part of the groups trying to overthrow the regime. And that to some extent actually gives him more legitimacy. <p /> <p />I seriously doubt that the Israeli government has formulated their attack in such a way to try to give Assad more popularity and more legitimacy. <p /> <p />I think that if we try to analyze why Israel decided to attack Syria all of a sudden, the reasons are more--have a lot more to do with two things. One of them is the real fear inside Israel that the technological superiority that Israel wields over the region will weaken. Israel's army is in a state of crisis, a long-term crisis, mainly because conscription rates are dropping because the soldiers are not willing to--are not as motivated as before and not willing to risk their lives as before. And that makes Israel more and more dependent on the military companies, on the military technology, on their ability to use unmanned drones and sophisticated missile systems and so on. <p /> <p />This particular attack, initially they said it was against--to stop chemical weapons from being shipped to Hezbollah. Later they changed the story and talked about Fateh-110 missiles. These missiles are, as they are reported in the media, lightweight, very accurate, and can be launched without too much preparation and too much facilities. That means that Israel will find it very difficult to intercept those missiles, and that those missiles could actually target Israeli airfields or Israeli sensitive antennas and so on. That's exactly what Israel is afraid of. That would mean that Israel will lose its technological edge to some extent. And that would open the question why is Israel not negotiating, why Israel is not activating any kind of diplomatic channels. And they wanted to prevent those missiles from reaching Hezbollah at any cost, because that would make it very difficult for Israel to launch raids on Lebanon at will, as Israel has often tried to do. <p /> <p />JAY: And Israel certainly assumes, rightly or wrongly, that if there ever is an attack on Iran, Israel thinks that Hezbollah might, as an ally of Iran, attack from Lebanon. And they want to, I assume, take out whatever advanced capability there that they can. <p /> <p />HEVER: Well, that might be one reason for it. But Israel has so far never attacked Iran directly, only very indirectly, through some complicated cyber means. But Israel has attacked Lebanon so many times. And Hezbollah's main reason and call for popularity inside Lebanon is that they protect Lebanon from Israel, or at least try to protect Lebanon from Israel. Israel bombed Lebanon over the years many times. In 2006, for the first time, Hezbollah was able to launch rockets back at Israel to such an extent that actually caused significant damage. <p /> <p />One of the things that the Israeli army was very much concerned about and the Israeli public was concerned about, the Israeli government was concerned about: what if one of those rockets would hit a sensitive facility, for example, a fuel reservoir? And because of that concern, Israel has not launched a massive invasion against Lebanon since 2006, and instead focused most of its violence against Gaza, the Gaza Strip. But that means that if Hezbollah will have the ability to intentionally target sensitive areas inside Israel, then maybe Israel will just not have the option of attacking Lebanon anymore. That's something I don't think the Israeli government is willing to forego. <p /> <p />JAY: And [crosstalk] just let me--this is an important point here, because there's--you know, in the Western media there's sort of this presumption that Hezbollah is just waiting to get enough arms so they can attack Israel. And, you know, Hezbollah's always painted as sort of the more likely aggressor in this scenario. But even when I've been in Israel and other times when I've read, you know, top Israeli intelligence people, especially after they retire, they all talk more or less that Hezbollah's in a defensive position, that, you know, if Israel left Hezbollah alone, it's not--there's no reason to think Hezbollah would attack Israel. <p /> <p />HEVER: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And the main argument that Hezbollah still has against Israel is that Israel continues to occupy a piece of Lebanon called the Shebaa farms. And actually if Israel would withdraw from that territory, it's very doubtful that Hezbollah would try any kind of further attacks against Israel. <p /> <p />But what you said before about Iran does deserve some mention, because we do see some interesting development here of Israel's and the U.S. relations. Netanyahu has pushed Obama very strongly over the past years to what is known as the red lines policy regarding Iran, so that Obama would declare openly what are the red lines that will cause the U.S. to intervene against Iran. And, of course, that is also something that's mainly concerned with domestic policies within Israel, because Netanyahu is too afraid to launch a direct attack against Iran, or has been so far too afraid to launch a direct attack. But if he can show that he made the U.S. make such a move, that he forced Obama's hand, that would make him seem like a hero of Israel's security. <p /> <p />Now, Obama, so far, refused to comply with that demand. He didn't say exactly what is the red line that will make the U.S. bomb Iran or invade Iran. But Obama did make a speech, a very--using very similar words, very similar terminology, speaking about Syria, and speaking specifically about the use of chemical weapons. And shortly after that speech, Israel claimed that there was a use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria, which was originally taken with some skepticism in the U.S. But Chuck Hagel decided to accept this intelligence report coming from Israel, possibly also because otherwise he would, within the U.S., be perceived as not faithful enough to the Israeli intelligence, doubting the Israeli intelligence for no reason. <p /> <p />And, of course, as soon as--we know that there are red lines. The red line is chemical weapons. Israel claims chemical weapons were used. Then Israel attacked Syria. Then that puts Israel in a position where they can act freely and the U.S. cannot actually do anything to withhold Israel, even if the consequences of that attack might further destabilize the region. <p /> <p />JAY: Do you get any sense that Israel wants the United States to militarily intervene in Syria? You seem to see a difference of--serious difference of opinion here. As I said, Daniel Pipes, who I think shares a lot of the opinions or speaks for some of Likud and right-wing Israel, seems to argue against any kind of intervention and says, you know, let the two sides kill each other and support whichever one is getting weaker. But then you have The Washington Post in an editorial say, it's time for U.S. intervention to end the war quickly. They don't exactly spell out what that intervention is, but they talk about the spreading of this Sunni-Shia split and how this might affect Lebanon and become a wider regional war. They don't mention the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in all of this, who are fueling all of this. Then you have somebody like Bill Keller writes in The New York Times, Syria is not Iraq, and suggesting an intervention in Syria would not be fraught with the same danger Iraq was. What--in the context of that, what's going on in terms of Israeli thinking, as far as one can ascertain? <p /> <p />HEVER: Israel--the Israeli elite, especially the military elite, the ministers of defense over the past few years have developed a very delicate strategy of brinkmanship, because on the one hand, the Israeli economy and the Israeli military system depend on constant chaos, constant fighting, constant threat of terrorism. And that is something that fuels into Israel's military industry. And I want to say something about that too. <p /> <p />But on the other hand, a lot of more, let's say, sane, reasonable people in Israel know that you can go too far, you can go past a certain point in which this threatens Israel's stability, that it could harm Israel's economy, like what happened in 2006 when Hezbollah was actually able to fight back, something that the Israeli military is not really ready for. So they're always trying to choose their targets which would be the easy targets, mainly attacking the Gaza Strip, which is defenseless, or almost defenseless, and not attacking countries like Syria, who still have an army. <p /> <p />So in that--and Netanyahu in that context represents a sort of moderate voice, because despite of his very right-wing rhetoric and very sort of xenophobic politics, he's after all a pragmatic politician and so far has chosen very carefully the sort of targets he's--is tangling with so as to avoid a situation where Israel loses control over the situation. <p /> <p />But on the other hand, you have all these military companies. That's, I think, a point that we cannot forget. If we compare this attack against Syria this year to the attack that Israel had against Syria in 2007--there was also a raid at the time, and that raid was--the Israeli army didn't take responsibility for it, the Israeli government didn't take responsibility for it. It was kind of understood in the international media that probably this is an Israeli attack. Probably no other force in the region has the ability to launch such an attack. But Israel never actually took responsibility and never claimed that it was an Israeli attack. <p /> <p />If we look at this attack this weekend, the situation is very different. Officially, the Israeli army didn't claim responsibility for the attack, the Israeli government didn't claim responsibility. You have this absurd situation in which the Israeli newspapers, when they want to talk about this attack, they refer to foreign sources. They say, according to foreign sources it was an Israeli attack, but--so, assuming if it was indeed an Israeli attack, let's say, this and that, but we cannot know for sure. <p /> <p />But at the same time, the Israeli army has leaked the specifics of the attack, what kind of mechanisms were used to attack. And they even gave the brand names of two missiles developed by the Israeli military company Rafael, which is the same military company that developed the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamas-fired rockets from Gaza. And the Rafael company produced these two missiles. They're called Popeye and Spice. And one of the things that these missiles can do is, apparently, attack a fortified target, because those military bases were protected by concrete walls, and they could punch through those concrete walls. And they could also be fired from far away so that the Israeli Air Force could claim that they've actually never entered Syrian air space. They've--hover just out of reach and fire these missiles into Syria. So we have this absurd situation where the Israeli Air Force is actually telling how they did this attack, but not admitting that they actually did this attack. <p /> <p />JAY: And why do you think they leaked this? <p /> <p />HEVER: Because these missiles are going to be sold now. If we look at the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamas-fired rockets in the attack of November&amp;#160;2012, three months after the Iron Dome system was deployed, there was a weapon trade show, trade fair in India in which the Iron Dome system was already offered for sale. And I think it's very likely that the Popeye missiles and Spice missiles have just gotten their publicity, and now they are going to be sold to armies around the world and bring many profits to the company Rafael. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Shir. <p /> <p />HEVER: Thank you, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Israel's Syria Strategy to Weaken Hezbollah and Profit from Chaos

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10171

2013-05-06

4left

Shir Hever is an economist working at The Real News Network His economic research focuses on Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy and the boycott divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel His first book Political Economy of Israels Occupation Repression Beyond Exploitation was published by Pluto Press PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore Israel apparently has bombed inside Syria as most people that follow the news know by now Originally the propaganda or PR around this event was that they were bombing chemical weapons on their way to Hezbollah Now the story seems to be they were taking out some kind of advanced rocketry were told by The Washington Post at least that was being sent from Iran to Hezbollah One way or the other Israel does not seem to be hiding the fact that they made such a strike Now joining us to discuss Israeli strategic thinking in all of this is Shir Hever Shir is a political economist He works regularly with The Real News He joins us now where hes working in Germany Thanks for joining us again Shir SHIR HEVER ECONOMIST ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER Hi Paul Thanks for having me JAY So what do you make of what Israels tactical strategic positioning is towards the current situation in Syria HEVER I think its very important to keep in mind that the Israeli strategy is very shortterm While a lot of regional forces like Turkey and global forces the United States and Russia are playing a complicated game and manipulating whats happening in Syria Israel is mostly concerned about its domestic politics The Israeli government is in a tight position at the moment because John Kerry secretary of state for the US had some visits to the region tried to restart the peace negotiations And in so doing he mentioned and tried to revive the Arab peace initiative And that puts Israel in a very difficult position because the Arab peace initiative is a very reasonable offer Israel has no intentions of accepting it And if this sort of pressure continues Israel will be exposed as unwilling to work with the United States and unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinians A few weeks ago the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu came to a comedy show as a guest star And in that comedy show they asked him well are you going to restart the peace negotiations are you going to resume the peace process and he said you know there is a lot of clashes around the Middle East the Middle East is very heated up right now so maybe its not a good time This gives us a very good idea of what exactly he stands to gain from the civil war in Syria As long as there is fighting as long as there is war he can just keep distracting from the fact that hes actually not doing it JAY And we did a story a few days ago We quoted Daniel Pipes whos a pretty wellknown neocon pundit academic who was very closely connected to Likud and the sort of rightwing opinion in Israel And he overtly said essentially whichever sidemeaning Assad or the oppositionwhichever side seems to be getting weak that side should be strengthened by the Westin other words even support Assad if Assad seems to be losingin order to keep the civil war goingessentially let your enemies kill each otherand didnt seem very concerned about what happens to the Syrian population caught between them And then is there not another part to this in terms of Israels interest that as long as theres such chaos and Assads so weak they can do exactly this they can bomb something on its way to Hezbollah and it seems withoutI should say with impunity HEVER Yeah But we should also from a historical point of view remember that Assads regime and also his fathers regime were bothHafez alAssad his fatherhave both been relatively convenient neighbors for Israel Although there is no peace between the countries both Hafez alAssad and Bashar alAssad have generally kept the ceasefire in place and havent tried to provoke any kind of action against Israel This could change of course if the regime in Syria will change And one of the things that is discussed inside Israel is whether actually Israel should do something in order to protect Assad And part of that is also the sort of propaganda that you hear a lot in Israel as if the rebels are actually working for alQaeda all of them are alQaeda And that sort of talk is very common in the Israeli media So suddenly Assad who was the terrible enemy of Israeland in fact Israeli politicians and activists have been interrogated imprisoned for visiting Syria for meeting Assad and talking to him Now suddenly there is a shift and hes becoming a sort of possible almost ally of Israel And one somewhat cynical view is that this attack against Syria over the weekend has in some extent strengthened Assad because it was an attack against the Syrian army loyal to the regime a military base Fortytwo soldiers have been killed according to some sources in these attacks And Assad therefore immediately could claim this is something that proves that the rebels are supported by outside groups that Israel is helping the rebels Israel is part of the groups trying to overthrow the regime And that to some extent actually gives him more legitimacy I seriously doubt that the Israeli government has formulated their attack in such a way to try to give Assad more popularity and more legitimacy I think that if we try to analyze why Israel decided to attack Syria all of a sudden the reasons are morehave a lot more to do with two things One of them is the real fear inside Israel that the technological superiority that Israel wields over the region will weaken Israels army is in a state of crisis a longterm crisis mainly because conscription rates are dropping because the soldiers are not willing toare not as motivated as before and not willing to risk their lives as before And that makes Israel more and more dependent on the military companies on the military technology on their ability to use unmanned drones and sophisticated missile systems and so on This particular attack initially they said it was againstto stop chemical weapons from being shipped to Hezbollah Later they changed the story and talked about Fateh110 missiles These missiles are as they are reported in the media lightweight very accurate and can be launched without too much preparation and too much facilities That means that Israel will find it very difficult to intercept those missiles and that those missiles could actually target Israeli airfields or Israeli sensitive antennas and so on Thats exactly what Israel is afraid of That would mean that Israel will lose its technological edge to some extent And that would open the question why is Israel not negotiating why Israel is not activating any kind of diplomatic channels And they wanted to prevent those missiles from reaching Hezbollah at any cost because that would make it very difficult for Israel to launch raids on Lebanon at will as Israel has often tried to do JAY And Israel certainly assumes rightly or wrongly that if there ever is an attack on Iran Israel thinks that Hezbollah might as an ally of Iran attack from Lebanon And they want to I assume take out whatever advanced capability there that they can HEVER Well that might be one reason for it But Israel has so far never attacked Iran directly only very indirectly through some complicated cyber means But Israel has attacked Lebanon so many times And Hezbollahs main reason and call for popularity inside Lebanon is that they protect Lebanon from Israel or at least try to protect Lebanon from Israel Israel bombed Lebanon over the years many times In 2006 for the first time Hezbollah was able to launch rockets back at Israel to such an extent that actually caused significant damage One of the things that the Israeli army was very much concerned about and the Israeli public was concerned about the Israeli government was concerned about what if one of those rockets would hit a sensitive facility for example a fuel reservoir And because of that concern Israel has not launched a massive invasion against Lebanon since 2006 and instead focused most of its violence against Gaza the Gaza Strip But that means that if Hezbollah will have the ability to intentionally target sensitive areas inside Israel then maybe Israel will just not have the option of attacking Lebanon anymore Thats something I dont think the Israeli government is willing to forego JAY And crosstalk just let methis is an important point here because theresyou know in the Western media theres sort of this presumption that Hezbollah is just waiting to get enough arms so they can attack Israel And you know Hezbollahs always painted as sort of the more likely aggressor in this scenario But even when Ive been in Israel and other times when Ive read you know top Israeli intelligence people especially after they retire they all talk more or less that Hezbollahs in a defensive position that you know if Israel left Hezbollah alone its nottheres no reason to think Hezbollah would attack Israel HEVER Yeah thats absolutely true And the main argument that Hezbollah still has against Israel is that Israel continues to occupy a piece of Lebanon called the Shebaa farms And actually if Israel would withdraw from that territory its very doubtful that Hezbollah would try any kind of further attacks against Israel But what you said before about Iran does deserve some mention because we do see some interesting development here of Israels and the US relations Netanyahu has pushed Obama very strongly over the past years to what is known as the red lines policy regarding Iran so that Obama would declare openly what are the red lines that will cause the US to intervene against Iran And of course that is also something thats mainly concerned with domestic policies within Israel because Netanyahu is too afraid to launch a direct attack against Iran or has been so far too afraid to launch a direct attack But if he can show that he made the US make such a move that he forced Obamas hand that would make him seem like a hero of Israels security Now Obama so far refused to comply with that demand He didnt say exactly what is the red line that will make the US bomb Iran or invade Iran But Obama did make a speech a veryusing very similar words very similar terminology speaking about Syria and speaking specifically about the use of chemical weapons And shortly after that speech Israel claimed that there was a use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria which was originally taken with some skepticism in the US But Chuck Hagel decided to accept this intelligence report coming from Israel possibly also because otherwise he would within the US be perceived as not faithful enough to the Israeli intelligence doubting the Israeli intelligence for no reason And of course as soon aswe know that there are red lines The red line is chemical weapons Israel claims chemical weapons were used Then Israel attacked Syria Then that puts Israel in a position where they can act freely and the US cannot actually do anything to withhold Israel even if the consequences of that attack might further destabilize the region JAY Do you get any sense that Israel wants the United States to militarily intervene in Syria You seem to see a difference ofserious difference of opinion here As I said Daniel Pipes who I think shares a lot of the opinions or speaks for some of Likud and rightwing Israel seems to argue against any kind of intervention and says you know let the two sides kill each other and support whichever one is getting weaker But then you have The Washington Post in an editorial say its time for US intervention to end the war quickly They dont exactly spell out what that intervention is but they talk about the spreading of this SunniShia split and how this might affect Lebanon and become a wider regional war They dont mention the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in all of this who are fueling all of this Then you have somebody like Bill Keller writes in The New York Times Syria is not Iraq and suggesting an intervention in Syria would not be fraught with the same danger Iraq was Whatin the context of that whats going on in terms of Israeli thinking as far as one can ascertain HEVER Israelthe Israeli elite especially the military elite the ministers of defense over the past few years have developed a very delicate strategy of brinkmanship because on the one hand the Israeli economy and the Israeli military system depend on constant chaos constant fighting constant threat of terrorism And that is something that fuels into Israels military industry And I want to say something about that too But on the other hand a lot of more lets say sane reasonable people in Israel know that you can go too far you can go past a certain point in which this threatens Israels stability that it could harm Israels economy like what happened in 2006 when Hezbollah was actually able to fight back something that the Israeli military is not really ready for So theyre always trying to choose their targets which would be the easy targets mainly attacking the Gaza Strip which is defenseless or almost defenseless and not attacking countries like Syria who still have an army So in thatand Netanyahu in that context represents a sort of moderate voice because despite of his very rightwing rhetoric and very sort of xenophobic politics hes after all a pragmatic politician and so far has chosen very carefully the sort of targets hesis tangling with so as to avoid a situation where Israel loses control over the situation But on the other hand you have all these military companies Thats I think a point that we cannot forget If we compare this attack against Syria this year to the attack that Israel had against Syria in 2007there was also a raid at the time and that raid wasthe Israeli army didnt take responsibility for it the Israeli government didnt take responsibility for it It was kind of understood in the international media that probably this is an Israeli attack Probably no other force in the region has the ability to launch such an attack But Israel never actually took responsibility and never claimed that it was an Israeli attack If we look at this attack this weekend the situation is very different Officially the Israeli army didnt claim responsibility for the attack the Israeli government didnt claim responsibility You have this absurd situation in which the Israeli newspapers when they want to talk about this attack they refer to foreign sources They say according to foreign sources it was an Israeli attack butso assuming if it was indeed an Israeli attack lets say this and that but we cannot know for sure But at the same time the Israeli army has leaked the specifics of the attack what kind of mechanisms were used to attack And they even gave the brand names of two missiles developed by the Israeli military company Rafael which is the same military company that developed the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamasfired rockets from Gaza And the Rafael company produced these two missiles Theyre called Popeye and Spice And one of the things that these missiles can do is apparently attack a fortified target because those military bases were protected by concrete walls and they could punch through those concrete walls And they could also be fired from far away so that the Israeli Air Force could claim that theyve actually never entered Syrian air space Theyvehover just out of reach and fire these missiles into Syria So we have this absurd situation where the Israeli Air Force is actually telling how they did this attack but not admitting that they actually did this attack JAY And why do you think they leaked this HEVER Because these missiles are going to be sold now If we look at the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamasfired rockets in the attack of Novemberamp1602012 three months after the Iron Dome system was deployed there was a weapon trade show trade fair in India in which the Iron Dome system was already offered for sale And I think its very likely that the Popeye missiles and Spice missiles have just gotten their publicity and now they are going to be sold to armies around the world and bring many profits to the company Rafael JAY Alright Thanks for joining us Shir HEVER Thank you Paul JAY Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Shir Hever is an economist working at The Real News Network. His economic research focuses on Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory; international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel; the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy; and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. His first book: Political Economy of Israel's Occupation: Repression Beyond Exploitation, was published by Pluto Press.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. <p /> <p />Israel apparently has bombed inside Syria, as most people that follow the news know by now. Originally, the propaganda or PR around this event was that they were bombing chemical weapons on their way to Hezbollah. Now the story seems to be they were taking out some kind of advanced rocketry (we're told by The Washington Post, at least) that was being sent from Iran to Hezbollah. One way or the other, Israel does not seem to be hiding the fact that they made such a strike. <p /> <p />Now joining us to discuss Israeli strategic thinking in all of this is Shir Hever. Shir is a political economist. He works regularly with The Real News. He joins us now where he's working in Germany. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us again, Shir. <p /> <p />SHIR HEVER, ECONOMIST, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER: Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. <p /> <p />JAY: So what do you make of what Israel's tactical strategic positioning is towards the current situation in Syria? <p /> <p />HEVER: I think it's very important to keep in mind that the Israeli strategy is very short-term. While a lot of regional forces like Turkey and global forces, the United States and Russia, are playing a complicated game and manipulating what's happening in Syria, Israel is mostly concerned about its domestic politics. <p /> <p />The Israeli government is in a tight position at the moment, because John Kerry, secretary of state for the U.S., had some visits to the region, tried to restart the peace negotiations. And in so doing, he mentioned and tried to revive the Arab peace initiative. And that puts Israel in a very difficult position, because the Arab peace initiative is a very reasonable offer. Israel has no intentions of accepting it. And if this sort of pressure continues, Israel will be exposed as unwilling to work with the United States and unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinians. <p /> <p />A few weeks ago, the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu, came to a comedy show as a guest star. And in that comedy show, they asked him, well, are you going to restart the peace negotiations, are you going to resume the peace process, and he said, you know, there is a lot of clashes around the Middle East, the Middle East is very heated up right now, so maybe it's not a good time. <p /> <p />This gives us a very good idea of what exactly he stands to gain from the civil war in Syria. As long as there is fighting, as long as there is war, he can just keep distracting from the fact that he's actually not doing it. <p /> <p />JAY: And we did a story a few days ago. We quoted Daniel Pipes, who's a pretty well-known neocon pundit, academic, who was very closely connected to Likud and the sort of right-wing opinion in Israel. And he overtly said, essentially, whichever side--meaning Assad or the opposition--whichever side seems to be getting weak, that side should be strengthened by the West--in other words, even support Assad if Assad seems to be losing--in order to keep the civil war going--essentially, let your enemies kill each other--and didn't seem very concerned about what happens to the Syrian population caught between them. <p /> <p />And then is there not another part to this in terms of Israel's interest, that as long as there's such chaos and Assad's so weak, they can do exactly this, they can bomb something on its way to Hezbollah, and, it seems, without--I should say, with impunity? <p /> <p />HEVER: Yeah. But we should also from a historical point of view remember that Assad's regime, and also his father's regime, were both--Hafez al-Assad, his father--have both been relatively convenient neighbors for Israel. Although there is no peace between the countries, both Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad have generally kept the ceasefire in place and haven't tried to provoke any kind of action against Israel. <p /> <p />This could change, of course, if the regime in Syria will change. And one of the things that is discussed inside Israel is whether actually Israel should do something in order to protect Assad. And part of that is also the sort of propaganda that you hear a lot in Israel, as if the rebels are actually working for al-Qaeda, all of them are al-Qaeda. And that sort of talk is very common in the Israeli media. <p /> <p />So, suddenly Assad, who was the terrible enemy of Israel--and, in fact, Israeli politicians and activists have been interrogated, imprisoned for visiting Syria, for meeting Assad and talking to him. Now, suddenly, there is a shift and he's becoming a sort of possible almost ally of Israel. <p /> <p />And one somewhat cynical view is that this attack against Syria over the weekend has in some extent strengthened Assad, because it was an attack against the Syrian army loyal to the regime, a military base. Forty-two soldiers have been killed, according to some sources, in these attacks. And Assad therefore immediately could claim this is something that proves that the rebels are supported by outside groups, that Israel is helping the rebels, Israel is part of the groups trying to overthrow the regime. And that to some extent actually gives him more legitimacy. <p /> <p />I seriously doubt that the Israeli government has formulated their attack in such a way to try to give Assad more popularity and more legitimacy. <p /> <p />I think that if we try to analyze why Israel decided to attack Syria all of a sudden, the reasons are more--have a lot more to do with two things. One of them is the real fear inside Israel that the technological superiority that Israel wields over the region will weaken. Israel's army is in a state of crisis, a long-term crisis, mainly because conscription rates are dropping because the soldiers are not willing to--are not as motivated as before and not willing to risk their lives as before. And that makes Israel more and more dependent on the military companies, on the military technology, on their ability to use unmanned drones and sophisticated missile systems and so on. <p /> <p />This particular attack, initially they said it was against--to stop chemical weapons from being shipped to Hezbollah. Later they changed the story and talked about Fateh-110 missiles. These missiles are, as they are reported in the media, lightweight, very accurate, and can be launched without too much preparation and too much facilities. That means that Israel will find it very difficult to intercept those missiles, and that those missiles could actually target Israeli airfields or Israeli sensitive antennas and so on. That's exactly what Israel is afraid of. That would mean that Israel will lose its technological edge to some extent. And that would open the question why is Israel not negotiating, why Israel is not activating any kind of diplomatic channels. And they wanted to prevent those missiles from reaching Hezbollah at any cost, because that would make it very difficult for Israel to launch raids on Lebanon at will, as Israel has often tried to do. <p /> <p />JAY: And Israel certainly assumes, rightly or wrongly, that if there ever is an attack on Iran, Israel thinks that Hezbollah might, as an ally of Iran, attack from Lebanon. And they want to, I assume, take out whatever advanced capability there that they can. <p /> <p />HEVER: Well, that might be one reason for it. But Israel has so far never attacked Iran directly, only very indirectly, through some complicated cyber means. But Israel has attacked Lebanon so many times. And Hezbollah's main reason and call for popularity inside Lebanon is that they protect Lebanon from Israel, or at least try to protect Lebanon from Israel. Israel bombed Lebanon over the years many times. In 2006, for the first time, Hezbollah was able to launch rockets back at Israel to such an extent that actually caused significant damage. <p /> <p />One of the things that the Israeli army was very much concerned about and the Israeli public was concerned about, the Israeli government was concerned about: what if one of those rockets would hit a sensitive facility, for example, a fuel reservoir? And because of that concern, Israel has not launched a massive invasion against Lebanon since 2006, and instead focused most of its violence against Gaza, the Gaza Strip. But that means that if Hezbollah will have the ability to intentionally target sensitive areas inside Israel, then maybe Israel will just not have the option of attacking Lebanon anymore. That's something I don't think the Israeli government is willing to forego. <p /> <p />JAY: And [crosstalk] just let me--this is an important point here, because there's--you know, in the Western media there's sort of this presumption that Hezbollah is just waiting to get enough arms so they can attack Israel. And, you know, Hezbollah's always painted as sort of the more likely aggressor in this scenario. But even when I've been in Israel and other times when I've read, you know, top Israeli intelligence people, especially after they retire, they all talk more or less that Hezbollah's in a defensive position, that, you know, if Israel left Hezbollah alone, it's not--there's no reason to think Hezbollah would attack Israel. <p /> <p />HEVER: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And the main argument that Hezbollah still has against Israel is that Israel continues to occupy a piece of Lebanon called the Shebaa farms. And actually if Israel would withdraw from that territory, it's very doubtful that Hezbollah would try any kind of further attacks against Israel. <p /> <p />But what you said before about Iran does deserve some mention, because we do see some interesting development here of Israel's and the U.S. relations. Netanyahu has pushed Obama very strongly over the past years to what is known as the red lines policy regarding Iran, so that Obama would declare openly what are the red lines that will cause the U.S. to intervene against Iran. And, of course, that is also something that's mainly concerned with domestic policies within Israel, because Netanyahu is too afraid to launch a direct attack against Iran, or has been so far too afraid to launch a direct attack. But if he can show that he made the U.S. make such a move, that he forced Obama's hand, that would make him seem like a hero of Israel's security. <p /> <p />Now, Obama, so far, refused to comply with that demand. He didn't say exactly what is the red line that will make the U.S. bomb Iran or invade Iran. But Obama did make a speech, a very--using very similar words, very similar terminology, speaking about Syria, and speaking specifically about the use of chemical weapons. And shortly after that speech, Israel claimed that there was a use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria, which was originally taken with some skepticism in the U.S. But Chuck Hagel decided to accept this intelligence report coming from Israel, possibly also because otherwise he would, within the U.S., be perceived as not faithful enough to the Israeli intelligence, doubting the Israeli intelligence for no reason. <p /> <p />And, of course, as soon as--we know that there are red lines. The red line is chemical weapons. Israel claims chemical weapons were used. Then Israel attacked Syria. Then that puts Israel in a position where they can act freely and the U.S. cannot actually do anything to withhold Israel, even if the consequences of that attack might further destabilize the region. <p /> <p />JAY: Do you get any sense that Israel wants the United States to militarily intervene in Syria? You seem to see a difference of--serious difference of opinion here. As I said, Daniel Pipes, who I think shares a lot of the opinions or speaks for some of Likud and right-wing Israel, seems to argue against any kind of intervention and says, you know, let the two sides kill each other and support whichever one is getting weaker. But then you have The Washington Post in an editorial say, it's time for U.S. intervention to end the war quickly. They don't exactly spell out what that intervention is, but they talk about the spreading of this Sunni-Shia split and how this might affect Lebanon and become a wider regional war. They don't mention the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in all of this, who are fueling all of this. Then you have somebody like Bill Keller writes in The New York Times, Syria is not Iraq, and suggesting an intervention in Syria would not be fraught with the same danger Iraq was. What--in the context of that, what's going on in terms of Israeli thinking, as far as one can ascertain? <p /> <p />HEVER: Israel--the Israeli elite, especially the military elite, the ministers of defense over the past few years have developed a very delicate strategy of brinkmanship, because on the one hand, the Israeli economy and the Israeli military system depend on constant chaos, constant fighting, constant threat of terrorism. And that is something that fuels into Israel's military industry. And I want to say something about that too. <p /> <p />But on the other hand, a lot of more, let's say, sane, reasonable people in Israel know that you can go too far, you can go past a certain point in which this threatens Israel's stability, that it could harm Israel's economy, like what happened in 2006 when Hezbollah was actually able to fight back, something that the Israeli military is not really ready for. So they're always trying to choose their targets which would be the easy targets, mainly attacking the Gaza Strip, which is defenseless, or almost defenseless, and not attacking countries like Syria, who still have an army. <p /> <p />So in that--and Netanyahu in that context represents a sort of moderate voice, because despite of his very right-wing rhetoric and very sort of xenophobic politics, he's after all a pragmatic politician and so far has chosen very carefully the sort of targets he's--is tangling with so as to avoid a situation where Israel loses control over the situation. <p /> <p />But on the other hand, you have all these military companies. That's, I think, a point that we cannot forget. If we compare this attack against Syria this year to the attack that Israel had against Syria in 2007--there was also a raid at the time, and that raid was--the Israeli army didn't take responsibility for it, the Israeli government didn't take responsibility for it. It was kind of understood in the international media that probably this is an Israeli attack. Probably no other force in the region has the ability to launch such an attack. But Israel never actually took responsibility and never claimed that it was an Israeli attack. <p /> <p />If we look at this attack this weekend, the situation is very different. Officially, the Israeli army didn't claim responsibility for the attack, the Israeli government didn't claim responsibility. You have this absurd situation in which the Israeli newspapers, when they want to talk about this attack, they refer to foreign sources. They say, according to foreign sources it was an Israeli attack, but--so, assuming if it was indeed an Israeli attack, let's say, this and that, but we cannot know for sure. <p /> <p />But at the same time, the Israeli army has leaked the specifics of the attack, what kind of mechanisms were used to attack. And they even gave the brand names of two missiles developed by the Israeli military company Rafael, which is the same military company that developed the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamas-fired rockets from Gaza. And the Rafael company produced these two missiles. They're called Popeye and Spice. And one of the things that these missiles can do is, apparently, attack a fortified target, because those military bases were protected by concrete walls, and they could punch through those concrete walls. And they could also be fired from far away so that the Israeli Air Force could claim that they've actually never entered Syrian air space. They've--hover just out of reach and fire these missiles into Syria. So we have this absurd situation where the Israeli Air Force is actually telling how they did this attack, but not admitting that they actually did this attack. <p /> <p />JAY: And why do you think they leaked this? <p /> <p />HEVER: Because these missiles are going to be sold now. If we look at the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamas-fired rockets in the attack of November&amp;#160;2012, three months after the Iron Dome system was deployed, there was a weapon trade show, trade fair in India in which the Iron Dome system was already offered for sale. And I think it's very likely that the Popeye missiles and Spice missiles have just gotten their publicity, and now they are going to be sold to armies around the world and bring many profits to the company Rafael. <p /> <p />JAY: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Shir. <p /> <p />HEVER: Thank you, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Israel's Syria Strategy to Weaken Hezbollah and Profit from Chaos

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10171

2013-05-06

4left

Shir Hever is an economist working at The Real News Network His economic research focuses on Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy and the boycott divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel His first book Political Economy of Israels Occupation Repression Beyond Exploitation was published by Pluto Press PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Baltimore Israel apparently has bombed inside Syria as most people that follow the news know by now Originally the propaganda or PR around this event was that they were bombing chemical weapons on their way to Hezbollah Now the story seems to be they were taking out some kind of advanced rocketry were told by The Washington Post at least that was being sent from Iran to Hezbollah One way or the other Israel does not seem to be hiding the fact that they made such a strike Now joining us to discuss Israeli strategic thinking in all of this is Shir Hever Shir is a political economist He works regularly with The Real News He joins us now where hes working in Germany Thanks for joining us again Shir SHIR HEVER ECONOMIST ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER Hi Paul Thanks for having me JAY So what do you make of what Israels tactical strategic positioning is towards the current situation in Syria HEVER I think its very important to keep in mind that the Israeli strategy is very shortterm While a lot of regional forces like Turkey and global forces the United States and Russia are playing a complicated game and manipulating whats happening in Syria Israel is mostly concerned about its domestic politics The Israeli government is in a tight position at the moment because John Kerry secretary of state for the US had some visits to the region tried to restart the peace negotiations And in so doing he mentioned and tried to revive the Arab peace initiative And that puts Israel in a very difficult position because the Arab peace initiative is a very reasonable offer Israel has no intentions of accepting it And if this sort of pressure continues Israel will be exposed as unwilling to work with the United States and unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinians A few weeks ago the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu came to a comedy show as a guest star And in that comedy show they asked him well are you going to restart the peace negotiations are you going to resume the peace process and he said you know there is a lot of clashes around the Middle East the Middle East is very heated up right now so maybe its not a good time This gives us a very good idea of what exactly he stands to gain from the civil war in Syria As long as there is fighting as long as there is war he can just keep distracting from the fact that hes actually not doing it JAY And we did a story a few days ago We quoted Daniel Pipes whos a pretty wellknown neocon pundit academic who was very closely connected to Likud and the sort of rightwing opinion in Israel And he overtly said essentially whichever sidemeaning Assad or the oppositionwhichever side seems to be getting weak that side should be strengthened by the Westin other words even support Assad if Assad seems to be losingin order to keep the civil war goingessentially let your enemies kill each otherand didnt seem very concerned about what happens to the Syrian population caught between them And then is there not another part to this in terms of Israels interest that as long as theres such chaos and Assads so weak they can do exactly this they can bomb something on its way to Hezbollah and it seems withoutI should say with impunity HEVER Yeah But we should also from a historical point of view remember that Assads regime and also his fathers regime were bothHafez alAssad his fatherhave both been relatively convenient neighbors for Israel Although there is no peace between the countries both Hafez alAssad and Bashar alAssad have generally kept the ceasefire in place and havent tried to provoke any kind of action against Israel This could change of course if the regime in Syria will change And one of the things that is discussed inside Israel is whether actually Israel should do something in order to protect Assad And part of that is also the sort of propaganda that you hear a lot in Israel as if the rebels are actually working for alQaeda all of them are alQaeda And that sort of talk is very common in the Israeli media So suddenly Assad who was the terrible enemy of Israeland in fact Israeli politicians and activists have been interrogated imprisoned for visiting Syria for meeting Assad and talking to him Now suddenly there is a shift and hes becoming a sort of possible almost ally of Israel And one somewhat cynical view is that this attack against Syria over the weekend has in some extent strengthened Assad because it was an attack against the Syrian army loyal to the regime a military base Fortytwo soldiers have been killed according to some sources in these attacks And Assad therefore immediately could claim this is something that proves that the rebels are supported by outside groups that Israel is helping the rebels Israel is part of the groups trying to overthrow the regime And that to some extent actually gives him more legitimacy I seriously doubt that the Israeli government has formulated their attack in such a way to try to give Assad more popularity and more legitimacy I think that if we try to analyze why Israel decided to attack Syria all of a sudden the reasons are morehave a lot more to do with two things One of them is the real fear inside Israel that the technological superiority that Israel wields over the region will weaken Israels army is in a state of crisis a longterm crisis mainly because conscription rates are dropping because the soldiers are not willing toare not as motivated as before and not willing to risk their lives as before And that makes Israel more and more dependent on the military companies on the military technology on their ability to use unmanned drones and sophisticated missile systems and so on This particular attack initially they said it was againstto stop chemical weapons from being shipped to Hezbollah Later they changed the story and talked about Fateh110 missiles These missiles are as they are reported in the media lightweight very accurate and can be launched without too much preparation and too much facilities That means that Israel will find it very difficult to intercept those missiles and that those missiles could actually target Israeli airfields or Israeli sensitive antennas and so on Thats exactly what Israel is afraid of That would mean that Israel will lose its technological edge to some extent And that would open the question why is Israel not negotiating why Israel is not activating any kind of diplomatic channels And they wanted to prevent those missiles from reaching Hezbollah at any cost because that would make it very difficult for Israel to launch raids on Lebanon at will as Israel has often tried to do JAY And Israel certainly assumes rightly or wrongly that if there ever is an attack on Iran Israel thinks that Hezbollah might as an ally of Iran attack from Lebanon And they want to I assume take out whatever advanced capability there that they can HEVER Well that might be one reason for it But Israel has so far never attacked Iran directly only very indirectly through some complicated cyber means But Israel has attacked Lebanon so many times And Hezbollahs main reason and call for popularity inside Lebanon is that they protect Lebanon from Israel or at least try to protect Lebanon from Israel Israel bombed Lebanon over the years many times In 2006 for the first time Hezbollah was able to launch rockets back at Israel to such an extent that actually caused significant damage One of the things that the Israeli army was very much concerned about and the Israeli public was concerned about the Israeli government was concerned about what if one of those rockets would hit a sensitive facility for example a fuel reservoir And because of that concern Israel has not launched a massive invasion against Lebanon since 2006 and instead focused most of its violence against Gaza the Gaza Strip But that means that if Hezbollah will have the ability to intentionally target sensitive areas inside Israel then maybe Israel will just not have the option of attacking Lebanon anymore Thats something I dont think the Israeli government is willing to forego JAY And crosstalk just let methis is an important point here because theresyou know in the Western media theres sort of this presumption that Hezbollah is just waiting to get enough arms so they can attack Israel And you know Hezbollahs always painted as sort of the more likely aggressor in this scenario But even when Ive been in Israel and other times when Ive read you know top Israeli intelligence people especially after they retire they all talk more or less that Hezbollahs in a defensive position that you know if Israel left Hezbollah alone its nottheres no reason to think Hezbollah would attack Israel HEVER Yeah thats absolutely true And the main argument that Hezbollah still has against Israel is that Israel continues to occupy a piece of Lebanon called the Shebaa farms And actually if Israel would withdraw from that territory its very doubtful that Hezbollah would try any kind of further attacks against Israel But what you said before about Iran does deserve some mention because we do see some interesting development here of Israels and the US relations Netanyahu has pushed Obama very strongly over the past years to what is known as the red lines policy regarding Iran so that Obama would declare openly what are the red lines that will cause the US to intervene against Iran And of course that is also something thats mainly concerned with domestic policies within Israel because Netanyahu is too afraid to launch a direct attack against Iran or has been so far too afraid to launch a direct attack But if he can show that he made the US make such a move that he forced Obamas hand that would make him seem like a hero of Israels security Now Obama so far refused to comply with that demand He didnt say exactly what is the red line that will make the US bomb Iran or invade Iran But Obama did make a speech a veryusing very similar words very similar terminology speaking about Syria and speaking specifically about the use of chemical weapons And shortly after that speech Israel claimed that there was a use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria which was originally taken with some skepticism in the US But Chuck Hagel decided to accept this intelligence report coming from Israel possibly also because otherwise he would within the US be perceived as not faithful enough to the Israeli intelligence doubting the Israeli intelligence for no reason And of course as soon aswe know that there are red lines The red line is chemical weapons Israel claims chemical weapons were used Then Israel attacked Syria Then that puts Israel in a position where they can act freely and the US cannot actually do anything to withhold Israel even if the consequences of that attack might further destabilize the region JAY Do you get any sense that Israel wants the United States to militarily intervene in Syria You seem to see a difference ofserious difference of opinion here As I said Daniel Pipes who I think shares a lot of the opinions or speaks for some of Likud and rightwing Israel seems to argue against any kind of intervention and says you know let the two sides kill each other and support whichever one is getting weaker But then you have The Washington Post in an editorial say its time for US intervention to end the war quickly They dont exactly spell out what that intervention is but they talk about the spreading of this SunniShia split and how this might affect Lebanon and become a wider regional war They dont mention the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in all of this who are fueling all of this Then you have somebody like Bill Keller writes in The New York Times Syria is not Iraq and suggesting an intervention in Syria would not be fraught with the same danger Iraq was Whatin the context of that whats going on in terms of Israeli thinking as far as one can ascertain HEVER Israelthe Israeli elite especially the military elite the ministers of defense over the past few years have developed a very delicate strategy of brinkmanship because on the one hand the Israeli economy and the Israeli military system depend on constant chaos constant fighting constant threat of terrorism And that is something that fuels into Israels military industry And I want to say something about that too But on the other hand a lot of more lets say sane reasonable people in Israel know that you can go too far you can go past a certain point in which this threatens Israels stability that it could harm Israels economy like what happened in 2006 when Hezbollah was actually able to fight back something that the Israeli military is not really ready for So theyre always trying to choose their targets which would be the easy targets mainly attacking the Gaza Strip which is defenseless or almost defenseless and not attacking countries like Syria who still have an army So in thatand Netanyahu in that context represents a sort of moderate voice because despite of his very rightwing rhetoric and very sort of xenophobic politics hes after all a pragmatic politician and so far has chosen very carefully the sort of targets hesis tangling with so as to avoid a situation where Israel loses control over the situation But on the other hand you have all these military companies Thats I think a point that we cannot forget If we compare this attack against Syria this year to the attack that Israel had against Syria in 2007there was also a raid at the time and that raid wasthe Israeli army didnt take responsibility for it the Israeli government didnt take responsibility for it It was kind of understood in the international media that probably this is an Israeli attack Probably no other force in the region has the ability to launch such an attack But Israel never actually took responsibility and never claimed that it was an Israeli attack If we look at this attack this weekend the situation is very different Officially the Israeli army didnt claim responsibility for the attack the Israeli government didnt claim responsibility You have this absurd situation in which the Israeli newspapers when they want to talk about this attack they refer to foreign sources They say according to foreign sources it was an Israeli attack butso assuming if it was indeed an Israeli attack lets say this and that but we cannot know for sure But at the same time the Israeli army has leaked the specifics of the attack what kind of mechanisms were used to attack And they even gave the brand names of two missiles developed by the Israeli military company Rafael which is the same military company that developed the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamasfired rockets from Gaza And the Rafael company produced these two missiles Theyre called Popeye and Spice And one of the things that these missiles can do is apparently attack a fortified target because those military bases were protected by concrete walls and they could punch through those concrete walls And they could also be fired from far away so that the Israeli Air Force could claim that theyve actually never entered Syrian air space Theyvehover just out of reach and fire these missiles into Syria So we have this absurd situation where the Israeli Air Force is actually telling how they did this attack but not admitting that they actually did this attack JAY And why do you think they leaked this HEVER Because these missiles are going to be sold now If we look at the Iron Dome system that was used against Hamasfired rockets in the attack of Novemberamp1602012 three months after the Iron Dome system was deployed there was a weapon trade show trade fair in India in which the Iron Dome system was already offered for sale And I think its very likely that the Popeye missiles and Spice missiles have just gotten their publicity and now they are going to be sold to armies around the world and bring many profits to the company Rafael JAY Alright Thanks for joining us Shir HEVER Thank you Paul JAY Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Jan 23 (Reuters) - China Development Financial Holding Corp</p> <p>* Says its unit CDIB Capital Group disposes 1.2 million shares of GlobalWafers Co Ltd , at the average price of T$258.04 per share, for T$300.6 million in total</p> <p>* Gains from the disposal is about T$217.5 million</p> <p>Source text in Chinese: <a href="https://goo.gl/7MFDhw" type="external">goo.gl/7MFDhw</a></p> <p>Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Wednesday after Wall Street was knocked hard by concerns about tighter controls on the tech industry, denting a brief global equities recovery driven by hopes that the risk of a U.S.-China trade war was easing.</p> FILE PHOTO: A man walks past an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai <p>They extended losses further after China&#8217;s state-run Global Times reported China will soon announce a list of retaliatory tariffs on United States exports to China.</p> <p>MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 1.5 percent, turning red for the week, led by information technology shares .MIAPJIT00PUS, such as Tencent ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0700.HK" type="external">0700.HK</a>). Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> fell 1.3 percent.</p> <p>U.S S&amp;amp;P500 mini futures ESc1 fell 0.4 percent in Asia, a day after the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 1.73 percent and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 2.93 percent, making the benchmark indexes' fourth decline in five sessions.[.N]</p> <p>The info tech sector .SPLRCT was the worst hit with a fall of 3.5 percent, as investors expect tighter control on the industry following a furor over use of Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) data by political consultants.</p> <p>Facebook fell 4.9 percent on Tuesday, taking its losses to almost 18 percent since March 16, when the firm first acknowledged the problem. Twitter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) fell 12 percent while Google parent Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) fell 4.5 percent.</p> <p>Another weak spot was Nvidia ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NVDA.O" type="external">NVDA.O</a>), which fell 7.8 percent after the chipmaker temporarily suspended self-driving tests across the globe after an Uber Technologies Inc UBER.UL autonomous vehicle killed a woman.</p> <p>Investors rotated out of the tech sector, which had long outperformed the market on hopes of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT).</p> <p>&#8220;There is a sense that there will be more regulations on Facebook or FANG and that the cost of compliance will increase,&#8221; said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, chief strategist at Mizuho Securities.</p> <p>The so-called FANG quartet of tech stocks, which includes Facebook, Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Netflix ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>) and Alphabet, has been a darling of many investors.</p> <p>European stock futures point to lower openings for European stocks, with futures for Germany's Dax FDXc1 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.GDAXI" type="external">.GDAXI</a> and France's Cac FCEc1 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FCHI" type="external">.FCHI</a> down 0.9 percent and those for Britain's FTSE FFIc1 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTSE" type="external">.FTSE</a> falling 0.7 percent.</p> <p>The report that Beijing plans to announce retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods rekindled worries about a Sino-U.S. trade war.</p> <p>While the market remains highly vulnerable to news headline like this, recent reports of behind-the-scenes talks between Washington and Beijing spurred some optimism.</p> <p>&#8220;It would be in China&#8217;s interest to pursue trade rather than taking retaliatory actions. So eventually, they are likely to avert a trade war and strike a deal that will please (U.S. President Donald) Trump and increase trade,&#8221; said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial Holdings.</p> <p>&#8220;The market is still nervous, and there&#8217;s a feeling you never know what Trump will do. But excessive wariness is likely to gradually wane,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>In the currency market, the dollar changed hands at 105.51 yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a>, not far from Monday's 16-1/2-month low of 104.56, as the Japanese currency was supported by the risk-averse mood.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0700.HK" type="external">Tencent Holdings Ltd</a> 412.2 0700.HK Hong Kong Stock -20.00 (-4.63%) 0700.HK .SPX .IXIC FB.O TWTR.N <p>The euro lost steam after soft euro zone economic data and comments from European Central Bank policymakers flagging low underlying inflation.</p> <p>Economic sentiment in the 19-countries sharing the euro slipped for the third month in a row in March while bank lending slowed.</p> <p>Erkki Liikanen, an ECB Governing Council member, said that underlying inflation in the euro zone may remain lower than expected even if growth is robust, so the central bank needs to remain patient in removing stimulus.</p> <p>Another member, Jozef Makuch from Slovakia, also struck a similarly cautious tone.</p> <p>The euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> traded at $1.2415, having lost steam after it rose to $1.24765 the previous day.</p> <p>Germany&#8217;s 10-year Bund yield DE10YT=TWEB also hit a two-month low below 0.500 percent, having taken a downward shift since hitting a 1-1/2-year high of 0.795 percent in Feb. 15.</p> <p>The 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield US10YT=RR dropped to 2.770 percent, its lowest level in seven weeks. The two-year yield US2YT=RR stood at 2.270 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;In short, markets had priced in policy normalization by the world&#8217;s central banks too much,&#8221; said Tohru Yamamoto, chief fixed income strategist at Daiwa Securities.</p> <p>Oil prices stepped back as a report of increasing U.S. crude inventories from industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) surprised many traders.</p> <p>U.S. WTI crude futures CLc1 dropped 0.8 percent to $64.72 while Brent crude futures LCOc1 traded 0.7 percent lower at $69.62 per barrel, off Monday&#8217;s high of $71.05, which was its highest since late January.</p> <p>Editing by Kim Coghill and Sam Holmes</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>FRANKFURT/ZURICH (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) is buying Novartis ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NOVN.S" type="external">NOVN.S</a>) out of their consumer healthcare joint venture for $13 billion, taking full control of products including Sensodyne toothpaste, Panadol headache tablets, muscle gel Voltaren, and Nicotinell patches.</p> <p>GSK&#8217;s biggest move since Emma Walmsley became chief executive last year follows the British drugmaker&#8217;s decision last week to quit the race to buy Pfizer&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PFE.N" type="external">PFE.N</a>) consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. company hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.</p> <p>Consumer remedies sold over the counter have lower margins than prescription drugs, but they are typically well-known brands with customers.</p> <p>&#8220;The proposed transaction addresses one of our key capital allocation priorities and will allow GSK shareholders to capture the full value of one of the world&#8217;s leading consumer healthcare businesses,&#8221; Walmsley said in a statement on Tuesday.</p> <p>Although some pharmaceuticals groups have been keen to hold consumer care products, intense price competition online, mainly from Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), as well as cheaper store-brand products, have led others to doubt their stable returns longer-term.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-novartis-gsk-margins/gsk-says-very-confident-about-consumer-margin-goal-of-at-least-20-percent-idUSKBN1H317X" type="external">GSK says very confident about consumer margin goal of at least 20 percent</a> <p>The British group&#8217;s shares jumped 6.1 percent, outperforming a 2 percent gain in the STOXX Europe 600 Health Care .SXDP.</p> <p>GSK said that as well as ending the Novartis venture it would start a strategic review of Horlicks and other consumer nutrition products, sparking another potential industry shake-up. The review will include an assessment of its majority stake in India-listed GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GLSM.NS" type="external">GLSM.NS</a>).</p> <p>&#8220;The decision not to pay up for Pfizer&#8217;s consumer assets will have led GSK CEO Emma Walmsley to remove uncertainty by bringing all the consumer revenues in-house and assisting toward efficient capital allocation,&#8221; said Ketan Patel, co-manager of the Amity UK Fund at EdenTree Investment Management, who holds GSK shares.</p> <p>&#8220;Long-term investors will welcome the greater clarity this brings to both companies.&#8221;</p> <p>GSK said that the purchase would boost adjusted earnings and cash flows.</p> <p>Pfizer has been struggling to sell its consumer healthcare business after GSK and Reckitt Benckiser ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RB.L" type="external">RB.L</a>) both dropped out of the bidding, while differences in price expectations have also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MRCG.DE" type="external">MRCG.DE</a>) attempts to sell its consumer products unit.</p> <p>And GSK&#8217;s call for bids for its consumer healthcare nutrition brands - with a regional focus on India - could detract attention from Merck&#8217;s asset, which relies heavily on sales of vitamins and dietary supplements in emerging markets.</p> NOVARTIS SHARES RISE <p>Barclays analysts said Glaxo was paying less than 17 times expected 2018 core earnings for the joint venture stake, while sources have told Reuters that both Merck and Pfizer had asked for up to 20 times for their respective assets.</p> <p>Yet analysts at Baader Helvea welcomed the cash price fetched by Novartis as &#8220;excellent news&#8221; for the Swiss company, whose shares opened 1.9 percent higher.</p> <p>Deutsche Bank analysts said the move decluttered Novartis&#8217;s portfolio, but cautioned that the Swiss group was being too vague about what it would do with the cash.</p> <p>&#8220;The time&amp;#160;is&amp;#160;right for Novartis to divest&amp;#160;a&amp;#160;non-core asset at an&amp;#160;attractive price,&#8221; Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said.</p> <p>Novartis said the money would be used by Novartis to expand its business organically as well as for bolt-on acquisitions.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>In an interview before the deal was announced, Narasimhan ruled out large acquisitions by the Basel-based company.</p> <p>&#8220;We want to focus our M&amp;amp;A efforts on bolt on acquisitions that have either new technologies or products that fit into our core therapeutic areas,&#8221; he told CNBC in an interview recorded on Sunday.</p> <p>For Narasimhan, a Harvard trained medical doctor, the disposal is among his first moves as CEO, a role he took on less than two months ago when he replaced Joe Jimenez.</p> <p>He is now emphasizing the use of technology to boost returns on research investment but Novartis is currently also reviewing its Alcon eye care unit for a possible spinoff to shareholders, which could come in early 2019.</p> <p>Under the 2014 deal to pool their consumer assets, Novartis had the right so sell its 36.5 percent stake to Glaxo from this month. The transaction is set to complete in the second quarter, subject to necessary approvals.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GlaxoSmithKline PLC</a> 1355.4 GSK.L London Stock Exchange +4.40 (+0.33%) GSK.L NOVN.S PFE.N AMZN.O GLSM.NS <p>($1 = 0.7029 pounds)</p> <p>additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London, Michael Shields in Zurich; editing by Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Akzo Nobel will sell its chemicals business in a 10.1 billion euro ($12.6 billion) deal to buyers led by Carlyle Group, the maker of Dulux paints said on Tuesday, making good on a promise made as it fought off a takeover last year.</p> <p>The sale of the Specialty Chemicals operation to Carlyle and Singapore&#8217;s GIC sovereign wealth fund for a slightly better than expected price will allow Akzo to focus on its main paints and coatings business.</p> <p>It delivers one of the biggest commitments made by Akzo Nobel in its defense against a 26 billion euro ($32 billion) takeover offer from U.S. rival PPG Industries last year.</p> <p>It may also help to repair strained relationships with shareholders unhappy with the rejection of the bid.</p> <p>Akzo Nobel CEO Thierry Vanlancker, who took charge last July after the bid battle, expects 7.5 billion euros in net proceeds from the sale. The 10.1 billion euro valuation includes debt.</p> <p>The division being sold produces an array of chemicals used in plastic packaging, tissue paper, cleaning materials, pharmaceuticals, food products, salts and adhesives.</p> <p>The 7.5 billion euro total will be returned to shareholders, Vanlancker told Reuters, with the company deciding on the distribution through dividends or share buybacks in the coming months.</p> <p>The deal leaves Akzo as &#8220;one of the top 3 largest paints and coatings companies in the world,&#8221; Vanlancker said.</p> <p>He said Akzo must now deliver on a goal to achieve a 15 percent margin on sales by 2020, after that measure fell to 9.4 percent last year.</p> <p>That goal will mainly be delivered through cost savings and efficiency measures, Vanlancker said, as overall sales growth in the paints and coatings market is expected to remain modest.</p> <p>&#8220;We will be looking at size (acquisition) opportunities as they come along&#8221;, Vanlancker said. &#8220;But size is really not top of mind, it&#8217;s performance of the business.&#8221;</p> <p>The remaining Akzo business will have 35,700 employees, while Speciality Chemicals employs around 10,000.</p> DEFENSE PLAN <p>Akzo will try to strengthen its position in promising markets such as powder coatings, which showed 10 percent global growth last year, the CEO said. Akzo also expects its sales of decorative paints in China and Europe to increase.</p> <p>Shares rose 2.7 percent to 77.70 euros. That is well short of the figure of around 95 euros in the cash and share offer from PPG last year.</p> <p>Analyst Wim Hoste of KBC said the sale price for Specialty Chemicals represented a multiple of 9.8 times core earnings, &#8220;which is a bit higher ... than we were banking on.&#8221;</p> <p>Bankers advising potential buyers had said they expected the business to fetch an enterprise value of 8-9 times the unit&#8217;s expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).</p> <p>Carlyle had been vying for the asset with U.S. private equity firm Apollo and its consortium partner, Dutch fund PGGM, as well as Dutch investor Hal Investments, and Advent International partnered with Bain Capital Private Equity, people familiar with the matter had told Reuters.</p> <p>Akzo first announced plans to sell the business last April, when PPG was in full pursuit. Many shareholders were dismayed as Akzo&#8217;s boards appeared uninterested in talks with PPG and when they ultimately rejected the U.S. company&#8217;s best offer.</p> <p>With support from Dutch politicians, Akzo argued a takeover was not in the interest of other stakeholders, including employees.</p> <p>Shareholders sued unsuccessfully to have chairman Antony Burgmans removed. Akzo&#8217;s CEO and chief financial officer both resigned last year on health grounds. Burgmans is due to retire after next month&#8217;s annual meeting, with former Maersk CEO Nils Andersen nominated to take his place.</p> <p>Vanlancker said Akzo had extracted promises from Carlyle to keep the chemicals company&#8217;s head offices in the Netherlands, though it made no commitment to retain all of the business&#8217;s 2,500 employees in the Netherlands.</p> FILE PHOTO - AkzoNobel's logo is seen in Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 16, 2012. REUTERS/Robin van Lonkhuijsen/United Photos/File Photo <p>The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be concluded before the end of the year, Akzo said.</p> <p>Lazard, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC advised Akzo Nobel on the sale.</p> <p>($1 = 0.8023 euros)</p> <p>Reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer; Editing by Jason Neely and Keith Weir</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Wall Street closed sharply lower Tuesday, with each of the major U.S. indexes suffering their fourth decline in five sessions, fueled by a selloff in the tech sector.</p> <p>Tech stocks, among the best performing sectors of the bull market, have been under pressure recently as concerns about government regulation stemming from their strong growth and privacy questions surrounding Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>).</p> <p>&#8220;What it really amounts to is a complete lack of knowing what to expect,&#8221; said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York.</p> <p>&#8220;It seems so open-ended, there is a lot of risk here and investors don&#8217;t like uncertainty and this is the definition of uncertainty.&#8221;</p> <p>Facebook shares dropped 4.9 percent at $152.22 and is down nearly 15 percent for the month. The Nasdaq Internet index .QNET saw its worst daily percentage drop since June 2016.</p> <p>Of the 11 major sectors of the S&amp;amp;P 500 only defensive plays such as consumer staples, telecom, real estate and utilities ended the session in positive territory.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 344.89 points, or 1.43 percent, to 23,857.71, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 45.93 points, or 1.73 percent, to 2,612.62 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 211.74 points, or 2.93 percent, to 7,008.81.</p> <p>Since hitting a record on Jan. 26, equities have been battered by worries about rising inflation, the pace of interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the possibility of a global trade war. The S&amp;amp;P 500 is down 9.1 percent from its high.</p> <p>White House trade adviser Peter Navarro confirmed on Monday top Trump administration officials have asked China to cut tariffs on imported cars, allow foreign majority ownership of financial services firms and buy more U.S.-made semiconductors in negotiations to avoid imposing tariffs on a host of Chinese goods.</p> <p>A person familiar with the discussions said these were among the asks from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as they pursue talks with Beijing.</p> <p>Markets roared back on Monday with their best day since August 2015 on hopes that the world&#8217;s two largest economies were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances.</p> <p>But those gains proved temporary as early advances were overcome by the tech sector weakness.</p> <p>The drop in Facebook continues to put pressure on the tech sector .SPLRCT, which is down 5.2 percent for March and on track for its worst month since April 2016.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>Privacy concerns for the social media giant were highlighted further on Tuesday when a whistleblower said Canadian company AggregateIQ had developed software to target Republican voters in the 2016 U.S. election.</p> <p>Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) shares fell 4.5 percent after an appeals courts resurrected a multibillion dollar copyright case brought by Oracle Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ORCL.N" type="external">ORCL.N</a>) against the company.</p> <p>Nvidia ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NVDA.O" type="external">NVDA.O</a>) was another weak spot, falling 7.8 percent after the chipmaker temporarily suspended self-driving tests across the globe.</p> <p>Tesla ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) shares were off 8.2 percent after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board opened a field investigation of last week&#8217;s fatal Tesla crash and vehicle fire.</p> <p>Twitter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) fell 12 percent after short-seller Citron Research called the stock &#8220;most vulnerable&#8221; to privacy regulations.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 152.22 FB.O Nasdaq -7.84 (-4.90%) FB.O .DJI .SPX .IXIC GOOGL.O <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.36-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.57 billion shares, compared to the 7.37 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-China Development Financial Holding unit disposes stake in GlobalWafers for T$300.6 mln Shares skid on specter of tighter tech regulation, U.S.-China trade spat GSK buys out Novartis in $13 billion consumer healthcare shake-up Akzo Nobel reshapes business with 10 billion euro sale Wall Street closes sharply lower, tech leads late selloff

https://reuters.com/article/brief-china-development-financial-holdin/brief-china-development-financial-holding-unit-disposes-stake-in-globalwafers-for-t3006-mln-idUSL4N1PI1IY

2018-01-23

2least

Jan 23 Reuters China Development Financial Holding Corp Says its unit CDIB Capital Group disposes 12 million shares of GlobalWafers Co Ltd at the average price of T25804 per share for T3006 million in total Gains from the disposal is about T2175 million Source text in Chinese googl7MFDhw Further company coverage Beijing Headline News Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles TOKYO Reuters Asian shares fell on Wednesday after Wall Street was knocked hard by concerns about tighter controls on the tech industry denting a brief global equities recovery driven by hopes that the risk of a USChina trade war was easing FILE PHOTO A man walks past an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo Japan February 9 2018 REUTERSToru Hanai They extended losses further after China8217s staterun Global Times reported China will soon announce a list of retaliatory tariffs on United States exports to China MSCIs broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS fell 15 percent turning red for the week led by information technology shares MIAPJIT00PUS such as Tencent 0700HK Japans Nikkei N225 fell 13 percent US SampampP500 mini futures ESc1 fell 04 percent in Asia a day after the SampampP 500 SPX lost 173 percent and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 293 percent making the benchmark indexes fourth decline in five sessionsN The info tech sector SPLRCT was the worst hit with a fall of 35 percent as investors expect tighter control on the industry following a furor over use of Facebook FBO data by political consultants Facebook fell 49 percent on Tuesday taking its losses to almost 18 percent since March 16 when the firm first acknowledged the problem Twitter TWTRN fell 12 percent while Google parent Alphabet GOOGLO fell 45 percent Another weak spot was Nvidia NVDAO which fell 78 percent after the chipmaker temporarily suspended selfdriving tests across the globe after an Uber Technologies Inc UBERUL autonomous vehicle killed a woman Investors rotated out of the tech sector which had long outperformed the market on hopes of new technologies such as artificial intelligence AI and internet of things IoT 8220There is a sense that there will be more regulations on Facebook or FANG and that the cost of compliance will increase8221 said Nobuhiko Kuramochi chief strategist at Mizuho Securities The socalled FANG quartet of tech stocks which includes Facebook Amazoncom AMZNO Netflix NFLXO and Alphabet has been a darling of many investors European stock futures point to lower openings for European stocks with futures for Germanys Dax FDXc1 GDAXI and Frances Cac FCEc1 FCHI down 09 percent and those for Britains FTSE FFIc1 FTSE falling 07 percent The report that Beijing plans to announce retaliatory tariffs against the US President Donald Trump8217s plans for tariffs on up to 60 billion of Chinese goods rekindled worries about a SinoUS trade war While the market remains highly vulnerable to news headline like this recent reports of behindthescenes talks between Washington and Beijing spurred some optimism 8220It would be in China8217s interest to pursue trade rather than taking retaliatory actions So eventually they are likely to avert a trade war and strike a deal that will please US President Donald Trump and increase trade8221 said Hiroshi Watanabe economist at Sony Financial Holdings 8220The market is still nervous and there8217s a feeling you never know what Trump will do But excessive wariness is likely to gradually wane8221 he added In the currency market the dollar changed hands at 10551 yen JPY not far from Mondays 1612month low of 10456 as the Japanese currency was supported by the riskaverse mood Tencent Holdings Ltd 4122 0700HK Hong Kong Stock 2000 463 0700HK SPX IXIC FBO TWTRN The euro lost steam after soft euro zone economic data and comments from European Central Bank policymakers flagging low underlying inflation Economic sentiment in the 19countries sharing the euro slipped for the third month in a row in March while bank lending slowed Erkki Liikanen an ECB Governing Council member said that underlying inflation in the euro zone may remain lower than expected even if growth is robust so the central bank needs to remain patient in removing stimulus Another member Jozef Makuch from Slovakia also struck a similarly cautious tone The euro EUR traded at 12415 having lost steam after it rose to 124765 the previous day Germany8217s 10year Bund yield DE10YTTWEB also hit a twomonth low below 0500 percent having taken a downward shift since hitting a 112year high of 0795 percent in Feb 15 The 10year US Treasuries yield US10YTRR dropped to 2770 percent its lowest level in seven weeks The twoyear yield US2YTRR stood at 2270 percent 8220In short markets had priced in policy normalization by the world8217s central banks too much8221 said Tohru Yamamoto chief fixed income strategist at Daiwa Securities Oil prices stepped back as a report of increasing US crude inventories from industry group American Petroleum Institute API surprised many traders US WTI crude futures CLc1 dropped 08 percent to 6472 while Brent crude futures LCOc1 traded 07 percent lower at 6962 per barrel off Monday8217s high of 7105 which was its highest since late January Editing by Kim Coghill and Sam Holmes Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles FRANKFURTZURICH Reuters GlaxoSmithKline GSKL is buying Novartis NOVNS out of their consumer healthcare joint venture for 13 billion taking full control of products including Sensodyne toothpaste Panadol headache tablets muscle gel Voltaren and Nicotinell patches GSK8217s biggest move since Emma Walmsley became chief executive last year follows the British drugmaker8217s decision last week to quit the race to buy Pfizer8217s PFEN consumer healthcare business endangering an auction the US company hoped would bring in as much as 20 billion Consumer remedies sold over the counter have lower margins than prescription drugs but they are typically wellknown brands with customers 8220The proposed transaction addresses one of our key capital allocation priorities and will allow GSK shareholders to capture the full value of one of the world8217s leading consumer healthcare businesses8221 Walmsley said in a statement on Tuesday Although some pharmaceuticals groups have been keen to hold consumer care products intense price competition online mainly from Amazon AMZNO as well as cheaper storebrand products have led others to doubt their stable returns longerterm Related Coverage GSK says very confident about consumer margin goal of at least 20 percent The British group8217s shares jumped 61 percent outperforming a 2 percent gain in the STOXX Europe 600 Health Care SXDP GSK said that as well as ending the Novartis venture it would start a strategic review of Horlicks and other consumer nutrition products sparking another potential industry shakeup The review will include an assessment of its majority stake in Indialisted GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare GLSMNS 8220The decision not to pay up for Pfizer8217s consumer assets will have led GSK CEO Emma Walmsley to remove uncertainty by bringing all the consumer revenues inhouse and assisting toward efficient capital allocation8221 said Ketan Patel comanager of the Amity UK Fund at EdenTree Investment Management who holds GSK shares 8220Longterm investors will welcome the greater clarity this brings to both companies8221 GSK said that the purchase would boost adjusted earnings and cash flows Pfizer has been struggling to sell its consumer healthcare business after GSK and Reckitt Benckiser RBL both dropped out of the bidding while differences in price expectations have also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA8217s MRCGDE attempts to sell its consumer products unit And GSK8217s call for bids for its consumer healthcare nutrition brands with a regional focus on India could detract attention from Merck8217s asset which relies heavily on sales of vitamins and dietary supplements in emerging markets NOVARTIS SHARES RISE Barclays analysts said Glaxo was paying less than 17 times expected 2018 core earnings for the joint venture stake while sources have told Reuters that both Merck and Pfizer had asked for up to 20 times for their respective assets Yet analysts at Baader Helvea welcomed the cash price fetched by Novartis as 8220excellent news8221 for the Swiss company whose shares opened 19 percent higher Deutsche Bank analysts said the move decluttered Novartis8217s portfolio but cautioned that the Swiss group was being too vague about what it would do with the cash 8220The timeamp160isamp160right for Novartis to divestamp160aamp160noncore asset at anamp160attractive price8221 Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said Novartis said the money would be used by Novartis to expand its business organically as well as for bolton acquisitions Slideshow 2 Images In an interview before the deal was announced Narasimhan ruled out large acquisitions by the Baselbased company 8220We want to focus our MampampA efforts on bolt on acquisitions that have either new technologies or products that fit into our core therapeutic areas8221 he told CNBC in an interview recorded on Sunday For Narasimhan a Harvard trained medical doctor the disposal is among his first moves as CEO a role he took on less than two months ago when he replaced Joe Jimenez He is now emphasizing the use of technology to boost returns on research investment but Novartis is currently also reviewing its Alcon eye care unit for a possible spinoff to shareholders which could come in early 2019 Under the 2014 deal to pool their consumer assets Novartis had the right so sell its 365 percent stake to Glaxo from this month The transaction is set to complete in the second quarter subject to necessary approvals GlaxoSmithKline PLC 13554 GSKL London Stock Exchange 440 033 GSKL NOVNS PFEN AMZNO GLSMNS 1 07029 pounds additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London Michael Shields in Zurich editing by Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles AMSTERDAM Reuters Akzo Nobel will sell its chemicals business in a 101 billion euro 126 billion deal to buyers led by Carlyle Group the maker of Dulux paints said on Tuesday making good on a promise made as it fought off a takeover last year The sale of the Specialty Chemicals operation to Carlyle and Singapore8217s GIC sovereign wealth fund for a slightly better than expected price will allow Akzo to focus on its main paints and coatings business It delivers one of the biggest commitments made by Akzo Nobel in its defense against a 26 billion euro 32 billion takeover offer from US rival PPG Industries last year It may also help to repair strained relationships with shareholders unhappy with the rejection of the bid Akzo Nobel CEO Thierry Vanlancker who took charge last July after the bid battle expects 75 billion euros in net proceeds from the sale The 101 billion euro valuation includes debt The division being sold produces an array of chemicals used in plastic packaging tissue paper cleaning materials pharmaceuticals food products salts and adhesives The 75 billion euro total will be returned to shareholders Vanlancker told Reuters with the company deciding on the distribution through dividends or share buybacks in the coming months The deal leaves Akzo as 8220one of the top 3 largest paints and coatings companies in the world8221 Vanlancker said He said Akzo must now deliver on a goal to achieve a 15 percent margin on sales by 2020 after that measure fell to 94 percent last year That goal will mainly be delivered through cost savings and efficiency measures Vanlancker said as overall sales growth in the paints and coatings market is expected to remain modest 8220We will be looking at size acquisition opportunities as they come along8221 Vanlancker said 8220But size is really not top of mind it8217s performance of the business8221 The remaining Akzo business will have 35700 employees while Speciality Chemicals employs around 10000 DEFENSE PLAN Akzo will try to strengthen its position in promising markets such as powder coatings which showed 10 percent global growth last year the CEO said Akzo also expects its sales of decorative paints in China and Europe to increase Shares rose 27 percent to 7770 euros That is well short of the figure of around 95 euros in the cash and share offer from PPG last year Analyst Wim Hoste of KBC said the sale price for Specialty Chemicals represented a multiple of 98 times core earnings 8220which is a bit higher than we were banking on8221 Bankers advising potential buyers had said they expected the business to fetch an enterprise value of 89 times the unit8217s expected earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortization EBITDA Carlyle had been vying for the asset with US private equity firm Apollo and its consortium partner Dutch fund PGGM as well as Dutch investor Hal Investments and Advent International partnered with Bain Capital Private Equity people familiar with the matter had told Reuters Akzo first announced plans to sell the business last April when PPG was in full pursuit Many shareholders were dismayed as Akzo8217s boards appeared uninterested in talks with PPG and when they ultimately rejected the US company8217s best offer With support from Dutch politicians Akzo argued a takeover was not in the interest of other stakeholders including employees Shareholders sued unsuccessfully to have chairman Antony Burgmans removed Akzo8217s CEO and chief financial officer both resigned last year on health grounds Burgmans is due to retire after next month8217s annual meeting with former Maersk CEO Nils Andersen nominated to take his place Vanlancker said Akzo had extracted promises from Carlyle to keep the chemicals company8217s head offices in the Netherlands though it made no commitment to retain all of the business8217s 2500 employees in the Netherlands FILE PHOTO AkzoNobels logo is seen in Amsterdam Netherlands February 16 2012 REUTERSRobin van LonkhuijsenUnited PhotosFile Photo The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be concluded before the end of the year Akzo said Lazard JPMorgan Chase and HSBC advised Akzo Nobel on the sale 1 08023 euros Reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer Editing by Jason Neely and Keith Weir Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Wall Street closed sharply lower Tuesday with each of the major US indexes suffering their fourth decline in five sessions fueled by a selloff in the tech sector Tech stocks among the best performing sectors of the bull market have been under pressure recently as concerns about government regulation stemming from their strong growth and privacy questions surrounding Facebook FBO 8220What it really amounts to is a complete lack of knowing what to expect8221 said Peter Kenny senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group in New York 8220It seems so openended there is a lot of risk here and investors don8217t like uncertainty and this is the definition of uncertainty8221 Facebook shares dropped 49 percent at 15222 and is down nearly 15 percent for the month The Nasdaq Internet index QNET saw its worst daily percentage drop since June 2016 Of the 11 major sectors of the SampampP 500 only defensive plays such as consumer staples telecom real estate and utilities ended the session in positive territory The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 34489 points or 143 percent to 2385771 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 4593 points or 173 percent to 261262 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 21174 points or 293 percent to 700881 Since hitting a record on Jan 26 equities have been battered by worries about rising inflation the pace of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and the possibility of a global trade war The SampampP 500 is down 91 percent from its high White House trade adviser Peter Navarro confirmed on Monday top Trump administration officials have asked China to cut tariffs on imported cars allow foreign majority ownership of financial services firms and buy more USmade semiconductors in negotiations to avoid imposing tariffs on a host of Chinese goods A person familiar with the discussions said these were among the asks from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as they pursue talks with Beijing Markets roared back on Monday with their best day since August 2015 on hopes that the world8217s two largest economies were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances But those gains proved temporary as early advances were overcome by the tech sector weakness The drop in Facebook continues to put pressure on the tech sector SPLRCT which is down 52 percent for March and on track for its worst month since April 2016 Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 26 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid Privacy concerns for the social media giant were highlighted further on Tuesday when a whistleblower said Canadian company AggregateIQ had developed software to target Republican voters in the 2016 US election Alphabet GOOGLO shares fell 45 percent after an appeals courts resurrected a multibillion dollar copyright case brought by Oracle Corp ORCLN against the company Nvidia NVDAO was another weak spot falling 78 percent after the chipmaker temporarily suspended selfdriving tests across the globe Tesla TSLAO shares were off 82 percent after the US National Transportation Safety Board opened a field investigation of last week8217s fatal Tesla crash and vehicle fire Twitter TWTRN fell 12 percent after shortseller Citron Research called the stock 8220most vulnerable8221 to privacy regulations Facebook Inc 15222 FBO Nasdaq 784 490 FBO DJI SPX IXIC GOOGLO Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 212to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 336to1 ratio favored decliners Volume on US exchanges was 757 billion shares compared to the 737 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak Editing by Susan Thomas Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>CLEVELAND &#8212; On the third night of the Republican convention, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence accepted his party&#8217;s nomination for vice president, and Sen. Ted Cruz rejected calls to endorse the GOP ticket. But Pence and Cruz had one thing in common: They and other speakers distorted the facts.</p> <p>Note to Readers</p> <p>Our managing editor, Lori Robertson, is on the scene in Cleveland. This story was written with the help of the entire staff, based in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Next week, we will dispatch our staffers in Philadelphia for the Democratic convention. We intend to vet the major speeches at both conventions for factual accuracy, applying the same standards to both.</p> <p>In <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4612581/governor-mike-pence-accepts-gop-vice-presidential-nomination&amp;amp;start=544" type="external">accepting</a> the nomination, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said that as the &#8220;national debt has nearly doubled in these eight years&#8221; under Obama, Hillary Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;only answer is to keep borrowing and spending.&#8221; An analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget&amp;#160;concluded that Clinton&#8217;s tax and spending plans would result in a &#8220;relatively small&#8221; &amp;#160;increase to the nation&#8217;s debt, while Trump&#8217;s plan would result in a &#8220;massive increase&#8221; to the debt.</p> <p>Pence is correct about the debt nearly doubling <a href="" type="internal">under Obama</a>; in fact the debt held by the public has more than doubled. And Clinton has proposed&amp;#160;$1.45 trillion in new spending &#8212; mostly on infrastructure, paid leave and education proposals &#8212; according to a June 27 report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called &#8220; <a href="http://www.crfb.org/papers/promises-and-price-tags-fiscal-guide-2016-election" type="external">Promises and Price Tags</a>.&#8221; But that new spending is largely offset by $1.2 trillion in new revenue from proposed&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">tax increases</a> for the wealthiest Americans. So, the report concludes, Clinton would increase the debt by $250 billion by 2026.</p> <p>However, the report concluded that Trump&#8217;s plan would have far more dire consequences for the debt. The group found that Trump&#8217;s tax plan would&amp;#160;result in $10.5 trillion less in tax revenues, which would be partially offset by $650 billion less in primary spending. Together with $1.7 trillion in higher interest costs, the report concludes that the sum of Trump&#8217;s policies would increase the debt by $11.5 trillion over 10 years.</p> <p>&#8220;Our national debt is at post-war record-high levels and projected to grow unsustainably,&#8221;&amp;#160; <a href="http://crfb.org/blogs/marc-goldwein-both-clinton-and-trump-would-grow-national-debt" type="external">wrote&amp;#160;Marc Goldwein</a>, senior policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. &#8220;And neither former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor businessman Donald Trump would reverse course &#8212; Trump, in fact, would make our debt dramatically worse.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;The result is that under Clinton&#8217;s plans, debt would grow from 75 percent of GDP today &#8212; it was half that before the great recession! &#8212; to 87 percent of GDP by 2026,&#8221; Goldwein wrote. &#8220;Under Trump&#8217;s plans, debt would grow to a whopping 127 percent of GDP by 2026.&#8221;</p> <p>Goldwein noted that the estimates are &#8220;subject to uncertainty.&#8221; But, he said, &#8220;there does not seem to be a plausible path for either candidate to put the debt on a sustainable path without modifying or adding to their plans.&#8221; And, he said, neither can get there &#8220;simply by growing the economy.&#8221;</p> <p>Pence revived an old chestnut from the 2012 presidential campaign, <a href="https://youtu.be/c7oUpJrv0eY?t=29m34" type="external">saying</a> that &#8220;we cannot have four more years of apologizing to our enemies.&#8221; The claim hearkens back to Mitt Romney&#8217;s frequent jab that Obama began&amp;#160;his presidency on an &#8220;apology tour&#8221; in foreign countries. But as&amp;#160;we <a href="" type="internal">wrote then</a>, and again when Trump made a <a href="" type="internal">similar claim</a> in June,&amp;#160;we read through all of the speeches in question and concluded that &#8220;we didn&#8217;t see that any of them rise to the level of an actual apology.&#8221;</p> <p>In <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09" type="external">a speech</a>&amp;#160;in Cairo, in June 2009, for example, Obama spoke about tensions between the U.S. and the Muslim world, and placed blame on both sides. And then he called for a &#8220;new beginning.&#8221; That&#8217;s not the same as &#8220;apologizing to our enemies.&#8221; Our fact-checking colleagues at <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/15/mitt-romney/obama-remarks-never-true-apology/" type="external">PolitiFact</a> and the Washington Post <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/02/obamas_apology_tour.html" type="external">Fact Checker</a> reached the same conclusion: Obama never apologized.</p> <p>Pence boasted that Indiana has &#8220;the highest credit rating in the nation,&#8221; and that &#8220;businesses large and small have created nearly 150,000 new jobs&#8221; on his watch. He&#8217;s right, but both statements could use some context.</p> <p>Indiana added <a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMS18000000500000001" type="external">147,800 jobs</a>&amp;#160;from January 2013, when he became governor, to May. But <a href="" type="internal">as we wrote before,</a>&amp;#160;the state&#8217;s private job growth rate during that time was 5.9 percent. There were 20 states and the District of Columbia that experienced faster job growth, including nine that had&amp;#160;percentage increases in the double digits. Florida (12.7 percent increase) and Utah (12.4 percent) were the top two states with the fastest-growing rates.</p> <p>As for the state&#8217;s bond rating, Indiana has held a AAA rating with all three ratings agencies since 2010 &#8212; nearly three years before Pence took office, as the governor&#8217;s office said in a <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a-QbVaSt0gMJ:mikepence.com/the-25-cities-where-your-paycheck-will-go-the-furthest/+&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;ct=clnk&amp;amp;gl=us" type="external">press release</a> last month.</p> <p>Eric Trump wrongly claimed that the U.S. is &#8220;one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.&#8221; Though the U.S. has one of the highest business tax rates, U.S.&amp;#160;personal taxes don&#8217;t even break the top ten among industrialized nations.</p> <p>Eric Trump: Who better to implement commonsense tax reductions for one of the highest-taxed nations in the world, allowing our citizens a chance to keep more of what they earn, as opposed to having it squandered away by our inefficient government.</p> <p>Eric Trump may have borrowed the claim from his father, whom we have <a href="" type="internal">twice flagged</a> for this incorrect assertion.</p> <p>The younger Trump may have been on firm ground had he been talking about business taxes. The&amp;#160;U.S. has the highest business statutory tax rate among industrialized nations, but it was second to France when considering the marginal effective tax rate, according to <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-corporate-taxation-prime-reform" type="external">an analysis</a> by the Tax Foundation.</p> <p>But Trump did not specify that he was talking about business taxes, and&amp;#160;he said if his father is elected president, he would &#8220;[allow] our citizens a chance to keep more of what they earn,&#8221; suggesting he was talking about personal taxes. On that count, he is wrong. The U.S. <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV" type="external">ranked</a> 27th out of 30 countries among industrialized nations when it comes to tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in 2014, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And it ranked 17th out of 29 industrialized countries when it comes to tax revenue per capita.</p> <p>Florida Gov. Rick Scott claimed the U.S. has &#8220;world-record high debt,&#8221; when, in fact, it doesn&#8217;t, at least by the measure economists prefer. And he said the U.S. economy is &#8220;not growing,&#8221; when it is.</p> <p>Scott: Today America is in terrible, world-record high debt. Our economy is not growing.</p> <p>Debt: <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html" type="external">According to the CIA World Factbook</a>, the U.S. ranks 39th in public debt, measured as a percentage of each country&#8217;s economic output, out of 178 nations listed.</p> <p>The CIA estimated that U.S. debt stood at 73.6 percent of its gross domestic product in 2015, while the most indebted country was Japan, with public debt equal to 227.9 percent of its GDP.</p> <p>Greece stood at third, with debt equal to 171.3 percent of its GDP.</p> <p>It may well be true that the simple dollar value of U.S. debt is larger than that of any other country, but it&#8217;s also true that the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/world_economies_gdp/" type="external">U.S. has by far the world&#8217;s largest economy</a>. So economists use debt as a percentage of GDP to make comparisons of how large a nation&#8217;s debt is in relation to its ability to repay it.</p> <p>Growth: The most recent <a href="http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2016/gdp1q16_3rd.htm" type="external">figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis</a> show the U.S. economy was growing at a yearly rate of 1.1 percent in the first three months of 2016, after growing at a rate of 1.4 percent in the final three months of 2015. These are &#8220;real&#8221; growth figures, adjusted for inflation.</p> <p>Furthermore, the U.S. economy has shown <a href="http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&amp;amp;step=3&amp;amp;isuri=1&amp;amp;904=2003&amp;amp;903=316&amp;amp;906=a&amp;amp;905=2016&amp;amp;910=x&amp;amp;911=0" type="external">positive growth each year since the end of the 2007-2009 recession.</a> GDP rose by 2.5 percent in 2010, 1.6 percent in 2011, 2.2 percent in 2012, 1.5 percent in 2013, 2.4 percent in 2014 and 2.4 percent for all of 2015.</p> <p>Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm said that &#8220;America now has more oil than Saudi Arabia or Russia.&#8221; Not so.</p> <p>The U.S. has passed Saudi Arabia and Russia in <a href="http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/" type="external">production of petroleum</a>, but estimates put Saudi Arabia&#8217;s and Russia&#8217;s proved reserves of crude oil way ahead of the U.S.</p> <p>In 2014, the U.S. had <a href="http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&amp;amp;pid=57&amp;amp;aid=6" type="external">37 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves</a>, according to the most recent figures from the Energy Information Administration.</p> <p>Proved energy reserves, <a href="http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=proved" type="external">as defined by the EIA</a>, are &#8220;estimated quantities of energy sources that analysis of geologic and engineering data demonstrates with reasonable certainty are recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions.&#8221;</p> <p>In that sense, the U.S. is far behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, which, in 2014, had proved reserves totaling 238 billion barrels of crude oil and 80 billion barrels of crude oil, respectively. Those estimates were the same in 2015, according to the EIA, which does not yet have a 2015 estimate for U.S. crude oil reserves.</p> <p>On the other hand, the U.S. is <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=26352" type="external">currently the largest producer of petroleum</a>. But that&#8217;s different from having more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia, as Hamm said.</p> <p>The U.S. produced 15.04 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2015, <a href="http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/rankings/#?prodact=53-1&amp;amp;cy=2015" type="external">according to EIA figures</a>. Saudi Arabia, with 11.95 million barrels per day, and Russia, with 11.03 million barrels per day, were second and third.</p> <p>However, figures for petroleum production include crude oil, natural gas plant liquids, condensates and other refined liquids. So based on just <a href="http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&amp;amp;pid=57&amp;amp;aid=1&amp;amp;cid=regions&amp;amp;syid=2010&amp;amp;eyid=2014&amp;amp;unit=TBPD" type="external">production of crude oil</a>, including&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=Lease" type="external">lease condensate</a>, the U.S., with 8.65 million barrels per day, still trailed Russia, with 10.1 million barrels per day, and Saudi Arabia, with 9.7 million barrels per day, in 2014, which is the most recent year for EIA data.</p> <p>Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that Iran &#8220;celebrates as holidays&#8221; a &#8220;Death to America Day and Death to Israel Day.&#8221; These aren&#8217;t official names of Iranian holidays, but rather chants used by demonstrators, often on certain days.</p> <p>Our fact-checking colleagues at PolitiFact.com looked into part of that claim and <a href="http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/mar/13/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-iran-annually-has-death-america-holi/" type="external">found</a> there wasn&#8217;t an official &#8220;Death to America Day.&#8221; Cruz was referring to anti-American demonstrations on Nov. 4, the anniversary of Iranian students&#8217; takeover of the U.S. embassy in 1979 and the Iran hostage crisis.</p> <p>Cruz&#8217;s office had referred PolitiFact to a <a href="http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1987/Iran-Declares-Death-To-America-Day-To-Mark-1979-Embassy-Seizure/id-349374a3c1c5a4ec6c3fbefd1ac3f2ae" type="external">1987 Associated Press</a> story that said Tehran Radio had called the occasion &#8220;Death to America Day.&#8221; Other news reports indicated that commemoration of&amp;#160;the day sparked anti-American demonstrations, but those reports didn&#8217;t use the name &#8220;Death to America Day.&#8221;</p> <p>One scholar, Gary Sick, who was also&amp;#160;on President Carter&#8217;s&amp;#160;National Security Council at the time of the hostage crisis, told Politifact that the phrase is shouted &#8220;at most events related to the revolution.&#8221;</p> <p>In short, the anti-American sentiment is expressed on the anniversary of the hostage-taking, but Politifact found there wasn&#8217;t a designated &#8220;Death to America Day.&#8221;</p> <p>As for a &#8220;Death to Israel Day,&#8221; we found a similar situation. <a href="http://www.jns.org/news-briefs/2016/7/1/iranians-chant-death-to-israel-america-in-al-quds-day-protests#.V5BVAvkrLIU=" type="external">News</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/07/10/al-quds-day-rally-iran-pleitgen-pkg.cnn" type="external">stories</a> reported that demonstrators in Iran chanted &#8220;death to Israel&#8221; on &#8220;Al-Quds Day,&#8221; which is held the last Friday of Ramadan. Al Jazeera and CNN described the day as one to show solidarity with Palestinians, but CNN said in <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/07/10/al-quds-day-rally-iran-pleitgen-pkg.cnn" type="external">a 2015 story</a> that the day often becomes a &#8220;bashing&#8221; of Israel and the United States.</p> <p>Al Jazeera <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/thousands-rally-iran-al-quds-day-160701140624059.html" type="external">reported on July 1</a>&amp;#160;of this year: &#8220;Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have staged anti-Israel rallies across the Islamic Republic to mark al-Quds day, the country&#8217;s annual Palestinian solidarity day, which falls on&amp;#160;the last Friday of Ramadan. Footage from Iranian state television showed massive crowds demonstrating in the capital Tehran, chanting &#8216;Death to Israel.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>While demonstrators have chanted&amp;#160;the phrase on that day, the actual holiday is Al-Quds Day.</p> <p>Both <a href="https://youtu.be/E7qTlujMjP4?t=8m53s" type="external">Cruz</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/c7oUpJrv0eY?t=27m58s" type="external">Pence</a>&amp;#160;took a Hillary Clinton quote on the Benghazi terrorist attacks out of context, leaving the false impression that she didn&#8217;t care about the deaths of four Americans.</p> <p>Cruz:&amp;#160;Theirs is the party &#8230; that responds to the death of Americans in Benghazi by asking, &#8220;What difference does it make?&#8221;</p> <p>Pence: And it was Hillary Clinton who left Americans in harm&#8217;s way in Benghazi and after four Americans fell said, &#8220;What difference, at this point, does it make?&#8221;</p> <p>We <a href="" type="internal">wrote about this claim</a> on Day 2 of the convention, when Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey made similar claims.</p> <p>At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Jan. 23, 2013, Clinton did say, &#8220;What difference at this point does it make?&#8221; But she did so when Johnson asked if the attack on the diplomatic facilities in Benghazi was a &#8220;spontaneous&#8221; response to an anti-Muslim internet video, as initially claimed by the Obama administration, or, as the administration later admitted, a terrorist attack. (See our <a href="" type="internal">latest Benghazi timeline</a>.)</p> <p>Johnson asked, &#8220;But, Madame Secretary, do you disagree with me that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what happened wouldn&#8217;t have ascertained immediately that there was no protest?&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton said she didn&#8217;t want to &#8220;interfere&#8221; with the FBI or State Department investigations. After some back-and-forth, she made the &#8220;what difference does it make&#8221; comment, which was a reference to his line of questioning &#8212; not the deaths of Americans.</p> <p>Clinton, Jan. 23, 2013: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they&#8217;d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.</p> <p>Cruz and Pence have every right to take issue with her answer, but they twist her words by claiming she said something that she did not.</p> <p>Pastor Darrell Scott was incorrect when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2FquR7XaaQ&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=3m53s" type="external">he said</a> that minority unemployment had increased under President Obama. In fact, unemployment for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians, the nation&#8217;s three largest minority groups, has declined significantly since Obama took office in January 2009.</p> <p>Darrell Scott: &#8230; our government, which over the last eight years, has brought the rhetoric of hope, but the reality of higher minority unemployment.</p> <p>As the chart above shows, African American unemployment has fallen from 12.7 percent in January 2009 to 8.6 percent in June 2016, the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5RCj&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">most recent data from</a> the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over that same time period, the unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans has dropped from 10.1 percent to 5.8 percent, and the rate for Asian Americans has declined from 6.2 percent to 3.7 percent.</p> <p>Minority unemployment has fallen in <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5Sdp&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">absolute terms</a> as well. The total number of unemployed African Americans was 1.68 million in June, down from 2.26 million in January 2009. And unemployment among Hispanics is also down from 2.22 million in January 2009 to 1.54 million in June.</p> <p>Asian unemployment is down too, from 435,000 in January 2009 to 358,000 in June, based on non-seasonally adjusted figures.</p> <p>It is true that Hispanics and African Americans continue to be unemployed at higher rates than all Americans. As of June, the unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics, 8.6 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively, were above the national unemployment rate of 4.9 percent.</p> <p>&#8212; Lori Robertson, with Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Robert Farley, D&#8217;Angelo Gore, Zachary Gross and Ilana Nathans</p> <p>Bureau of Labor Statistics. <a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMS18000000500000001" type="external">State and Area Employment, Hours and Earnings</a>. accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Trump Oversells Pence&#8217;s Record</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 17 Jul 2016.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a-QbVaSt0gMJ:mikepence.com/the-25-cities-where-your-paycheck-will-go-the-furthest/+&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;ct=clnk&amp;amp;gl=us" type="external">Fitch Ratings Reaffirms Indiana&#8217;s AAA Credit Rating</a>.&#8221; Press release. Office of the Indiana Governor. 30 Jun 2016.</p> <p>Doman, Linda. &#8220; <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=26352" type="external">United States remains largest producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons</a>.&#8221; Energy Information Administration. 23 May 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Energy Information Administration. <a href="http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&amp;amp;pid=57&amp;amp;aid=1&amp;amp;cid=regions&amp;amp;syid=2010&amp;amp;eyid=2014&amp;amp;unit=TBPD" type="external">Production of Crude Oil including Lease Condensate (Thousand Barrels Per Day)</a>. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Energy Information Administration. <a href="http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/rankings/#?prodact=53-1&amp;amp;cy=2015" type="external">Total Petroleum and Other Liquids Production, 2015</a>. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Energy Information Administration. <a href="http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&amp;amp;pid=57&amp;amp;aid=6" type="external">Crude Oil Proved Reserves (Billion Barrels)</a>. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5Sdp&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">Civilian Unemployment Rate</a>, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5Sdp&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">Unemployment Rate: Black or African American</a>, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>US. Bureau of Labor Statistics. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5Sdp&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">Unemployment Rate: Hispanic or Latino</a>, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>US. Bureau of Labor Statistics. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5Sdp&amp;amp;utm_source=direct&amp;amp;utm_medium=exported-chart&amp;amp;utm_campaign=myfred_referrer" type="external">Unemployment Rate: Asian</a>, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.&amp;#160;Accessed 20 Jul 2016.</p> <p>Selby, W. Gardner. &#8220; <a href="http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/mar/13/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-iran-annually-has-death-america-holi/" type="external">Ted Cruz says Iran annually has Death to America holiday</a>.&#8221; PolitiFact.com. 13 Mar 2015.</p> <p>CNN.com. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/07/10/al-quds-day-rally-iran-pleitgen-pkg.cnn" type="external">&#8216;Death to Israel&#8217; chanted at al-Quds day in Iran</a>.&#8221; 10 Jul 2015.</p> <p>AlJazeera.com. &#8220; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/thousands-rally-iran-al-quds-day-160701140624059.html" type="external">Thousands rally in Iran on al-Quds day</a>.&#8221; 1 Jul 2016.</p> <p>Farley, Robert. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Romney&#8217;s Sorry &#8216;Apology&#8217; Dig</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 31 Aug 2012.</p> <p>White House website. &#8220; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09" type="external">Remarks by the President at Cairo University</a>.&#8221; 4 Jun 2009.</p> <p>Drobnic Holan, Angie. &#8220; <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/15/mitt-romney/obama-remarks-never-true-apology/" type="external">Obama&#8217;s remarks never a true &#8216;apology</a>,&#8217;&#8221; PolitiFact. 15 Mar 2010.</p> <p>Kessler, Glenn. &#8220; <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/02/obamas_apology_tour.html" type="external">Obama&#8217;s &#8216;Apology Tour</a>.&#8217;&#8221; Washington Post. 22 Feb 2011.</p> <p>Jackson, Brooks. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Obama&#8217;s Numbers July 2016 Update</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 11 Jul 2016.</p> <p>Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. &#8220; <a href="http://www.crfb.org/papers/promises-and-price-tags-fiscal-guide-2016-election" type="external">Promises and Price Tags: A Fiscal Guide to the 2016 Election</a>.&#8221; 27 Jun 2016.</p> <p>Goldwein, Marc.&amp;#160;&#8220;B <a href="http://crfb.org/blogs/marc-goldwein-both-clinton-and-trump-would-grow-national-debt" type="external">oth Clinton and Trump Would Grow National Debt</a>.&#8221; Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 7 Jul 2016.</p> <p>FactCheck.org. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">FactChecking the 10th GOP Debate</a>.&#8221; 26 Feb 2016.</p> <p>Mintz, Jack and Chen, Duanjie. &#8220; <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-corporate-taxation-prime-reform" type="external">U.S. Corporate Taxation: Prime for Reform</a>.&#8221; Tax Foundation. 4 Feb 2015.</p> <p>Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. &#8220; <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV" type="external">Revenue Statistics &#8211; OECD countries: Comparative tables</a>.&#8221;</p>

FactChecking Day 3 of the GOP Convention

https://factcheck.org/2016/07/factchecking-day-3-of-the-gop-convention/

2016-07-21

2least

CLEVELAND 8212 On the third night of the Republican convention Indiana Gov Mike Pence accepted his party8217s nomination for vice president and Sen Ted Cruz rejected calls to endorse the GOP ticket But Pence and Cruz had one thing in common They and other speakers distorted the facts Note to Readers Our managing editor Lori Robertson is on the scene in Cleveland This story was written with the help of the entire staff based in Philadelphia and Washington DC Next week we will dispatch our staffers in Philadelphia for the Democratic convention We intend to vet the major speeches at both conventions for factual accuracy applying the same standards to both In accepting the nomination Indiana Gov Mike Pence said that as the 8220national debt has nearly doubled in these eight years8221 under Obama Hillary Clinton8217s 8220only answer is to keep borrowing and spending8221 An analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budgetamp160concluded that Clinton8217s tax and spending plans would result in a 8220relatively small8221 amp160increase to the nation8217s debt while Trump8217s plan would result in a 8220massive increase8221 to the debt Pence is correct about the debt nearly doubling under Obama in fact the debt held by the public has more than doubled And Clinton has proposedamp160145 trillion in new spending 8212 mostly on infrastructure paid leave and education proposals 8212 according to a June 27 report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called 8220 Promises and Price Tags8221 But that new spending is largely offset by 12 trillion in new revenue from proposedamp160 tax increases for the wealthiest Americans So the report concludes Clinton would increase the debt by 250 billion by 2026 However the report concluded that Trump8217s plan would have far more dire consequences for the debt The group found that Trump8217s tax plan wouldamp160result in 105 trillion less in tax revenues which would be partially offset by 650 billion less in primary spending Together with 17 trillion in higher interest costs the report concludes that the sum of Trump8217s policies would increase the debt by 115 trillion over 10 years 8220Our national debt is at postwar recordhigh levels and projected to grow unsustainably8221amp160 wroteamp160Marc Goldwein senior policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 8220And neither former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor businessman Donald Trump would reverse course 8212 Trump in fact would make our debt dramatically worse8221 8220The result is that under Clinton8217s plans debt would grow from 75 percent of GDP today 8212 it was half that before the great recession 8212 to 87 percent of GDP by 20268221 Goldwein wrote 8220Under Trump8217s plans debt would grow to a whopping 127 percent of GDP by 20268221 Goldwein noted that the estimates are 8220subject to uncertainty8221 But he said 8220there does not seem to be a plausible path for either candidate to put the debt on a sustainable path without modifying or adding to their plans8221 And he said neither can get there 8220simply by growing the economy8221 Pence revived an old chestnut from the 2012 presidential campaign saying that 8220we cannot have four more years of apologizing to our enemies8221 The claim hearkens back to Mitt Romney8217s frequent jab that Obama beganamp160his presidency on an 8220apology tour8221 in foreign countries But asamp160we wrote then and again when Trump made a similar claim in Juneamp160we read through all of the speeches in question and concluded that 8220we didn8217t see that any of them rise to the level of an actual apology8221 In a speechamp160in Cairo in June 2009 for example Obama spoke about tensions between the US and the Muslim world and placed blame on both sides And then he called for a 8220new beginning8221 That8217s not the same as 8220apologizing to our enemies8221 Our factchecking colleagues at PolitiFact and the Washington Post Fact Checker reached the same conclusion Obama never apologized Pence boasted that Indiana has 8220the highest credit rating in the nation8221 and that 8220businesses large and small have created nearly 150000 new jobs8221 on his watch He8217s right but both statements could use some context Indiana added 147800 jobsamp160from January 2013 when he became governor to May But as we wrote beforeamp160the state8217s private job growth rate during that time was 59 percent There were 20 states and the District of Columbia that experienced faster job growth including nine that hadamp160percentage increases in the double digits Florida 127 percent increase and Utah 124 percent were the top two states with the fastestgrowing rates As for the state8217s bond rating Indiana has held a AAA rating with all three ratings agencies since 2010 8212 nearly three years before Pence took office as the governor8217s office said in a press release last month Eric Trump wrongly claimed that the US is 8220one of the highesttaxed nations in the world8221 Though the US has one of the highest business tax rates USamp160personal taxes don8217t even break the top ten among industrialized nations Eric Trump Who better to implement commonsense tax reductions for one of the highesttaxed nations in the world allowing our citizens a chance to keep more of what they earn as opposed to having it squandered away by our inefficient government Eric Trump may have borrowed the claim from his father whom we have twice flagged for this incorrect assertion The younger Trump may have been on firm ground had he been talking about business taxes Theamp160US has the highest business statutory tax rate among industrialized nations but it was second to France when considering the marginal effective tax rate according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation But Trump did not specify that he was talking about business taxes andamp160he said if his father is elected president he would 8220allow our citizens a chance to keep more of what they earn8221 suggesting he was talking about personal taxes On that count he is wrong The US ranked 27th out of 30 countries among industrialized nations when it comes to tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in 2014 according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development And it ranked 17th out of 29 industrialized countries when it comes to tax revenue per capita Florida Gov Rick Scott claimed the US has 8220worldrecord high debt8221 when in fact it doesn8217t at least by the measure economists prefer And he said the US economy is 8220not growing8221 when it is Scott Today America is in terrible worldrecord high debt Our economy is not growing Debt According to the CIA World Factbook the US ranks 39th in public debt measured as a percentage of each country8217s economic output out of 178 nations listed The CIA estimated that US debt stood at 736 percent of its gross domestic product in 2015 while the most indebted country was Japan with public debt equal to 2279 percent of its GDP Greece stood at third with debt equal to 1713 percent of its GDP It may well be true that the simple dollar value of US debt is larger than that of any other country but it8217s also true that the US has by far the world8217s largest economy So economists use debt as a percentage of GDP to make comparisons of how large a nation8217s debt is in relation to its ability to repay it Growth The most recent figures from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis show the US economy was growing at a yearly rate of 11 percent in the first three months of 2016 after growing at a rate of 14 percent in the final three months of 2015 These are 8220real8221 growth figures adjusted for inflation Furthermore the US economy has shown positive growth each year since the end of the 20072009 recession GDP rose by 25 percent in 2010 16 percent in 2011 22 percent in 2012 15 percent in 2013 24 percent in 2014 and 24 percent for all of 2015 Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm said that 8220America now has more oil than Saudi Arabia or Russia8221 Not so The US has passed Saudi Arabia and Russia in production of petroleum but estimates put Saudi Arabia8217s and Russia8217s proved reserves of crude oil way ahead of the US In 2014 the US had 37 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves according to the most recent figures from the Energy Information Administration Proved energy reserves as defined by the EIA are 8220estimated quantities of energy sources that analysis of geologic and engineering data demonstrates with reasonable certainty are recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions8221 In that sense the US is far behind Saudi Arabia and Russia which in 2014 had proved reserves totaling 238 billion barrels of crude oil and 80 billion barrels of crude oil respectively Those estimates were the same in 2015 according to the EIA which does not yet have a 2015 estimate for US crude oil reserves On the other hand the US is currently the largest producer of petroleum But that8217s different from having more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia as Hamm said The US produced 1504 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2015 according to EIA figures Saudi Arabia with 1195 million barrels per day and Russia with 1103 million barrels per day were second and third However figures for petroleum production include crude oil natural gas plant liquids condensates and other refined liquids So based on just production of crude oil includingamp160 lease condensate the US with 865 million barrels per day still trailed Russia with 101 million barrels per day and Saudi Arabia with 97 million barrels per day in 2014 which is the most recent year for EIA data Sen Ted Cruz claimed that Iran 8220celebrates as holidays8221 a 8220Death to America Day and Death to Israel Day8221 These aren8217t official names of Iranian holidays but rather chants used by demonstrators often on certain days Our factchecking colleagues at PolitiFactcom looked into part of that claim and found there wasn8217t an official 8220Death to America Day8221 Cruz was referring to antiAmerican demonstrations on Nov 4 the anniversary of Iranian students8217 takeover of the US embassy in 1979 and the Iran hostage crisis Cruz8217s office had referred PolitiFact to a 1987 Associated Press story that said Tehran Radio had called the occasion 8220Death to America Day8221 Other news reports indicated that commemoration ofamp160the day sparked antiAmerican demonstrations but those reports didn8217t use the name 8220Death to America Day8221 One scholar Gary Sick who was alsoamp160on President Carter8217samp160National Security Council at the time of the hostage crisis told Politifact that the phrase is shouted 8220at most events related to the revolution8221 In short the antiAmerican sentiment is expressed on the anniversary of the hostagetaking but Politifact found there wasn8217t a designated 8220Death to America Day8221 As for a 8220Death to Israel Day8221 we found a similar situation News stories reported that demonstrators in Iran chanted 8220death to Israel8221 on 8220AlQuds Day8221 which is held the last Friday of Ramadan Al Jazeera and CNN described the day as one to show solidarity with Palestinians but CNN said in a 2015 story that the day often becomes a 8220bashing8221 of Israel and the United States Al Jazeera reported on July 1amp160of this year 8220Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have staged antiIsrael rallies across the Islamic Republic to mark alQuds day the country8217s annual Palestinian solidarity day which falls onamp160the last Friday of Ramadan Footage from Iranian state television showed massive crowds demonstrating in the capital Tehran chanting 8216Death to Israel82178221 While demonstrators have chantedamp160the phrase on that day the actual holiday is AlQuds Day Both Cruz and Penceamp160took a Hillary Clinton quote on the Benghazi terrorist attacks out of context leaving the false impression that she didn8217t care about the deaths of four Americans Cruzamp160Theirs is the party 8230 that responds to the death of Americans in Benghazi by asking 8220What difference does it make8221 Pence And it was Hillary Clinton who left Americans in harm8217s way in Benghazi and after four Americans fell said 8220What difference at this point does it make8221 We wrote about this claim on Day 2 of the convention when Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and former US Attorney General Michael B Mukasey made similar claims At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Jan 23 2013 Clinton did say 8220What difference at this point does it make8221 But she did so when Johnson asked if the attack on the diplomatic facilities in Benghazi was a 8220spontaneous8221 response to an antiMuslim internet video as initially claimed by the Obama administration or as the administration later admitted a terrorist attack See our latest Benghazi timeline Johnson asked 8220But Madame Secretary do you disagree with me that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what happened wouldn8217t have ascertained immediately that there was no protest8221 Clinton said she didn8217t want to 8220interfere8221 with the FBI or State Department investigations After some backandforth she made the 8220what difference does it make8221 comment which was a reference to his line of questioning 8212 not the deaths of Americans Clinton Jan 23 2013 With all due respect the fact is we had four dead Americans Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they8217d they go kill some Americans What difference at this point does it make It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again Senator Cruz and Pence have every right to take issue with her answer but they twist her words by claiming she said something that she did not Pastor Darrell Scott was incorrect when he said that minority unemployment had increased under President Obama In fact unemployment for African Americans Hispanics and Asians the nation8217s three largest minority groups has declined significantly since Obama took office in January 2009 Darrell Scott 8230 our government which over the last eight years has brought the rhetoric of hope but the reality of higher minority unemployment As the chart above shows African American unemployment has fallen from 127 percent in January 2009 to 86 percent in June 2016 the most recent data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Over that same time period the unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans has dropped from 101 percent to 58 percent and the rate for Asian Americans has declined from 62 percent to 37 percent Minority unemployment has fallen in absolute terms as well The total number of unemployed African Americans was 168 million in June down from 226 million in January 2009 And unemployment among Hispanics is also down from 222 million in January 2009 to 154 million in June Asian unemployment is down too from 435000 in January 2009 to 358000 in June based on nonseasonally adjusted figures It is true that Hispanics and African Americans continue to be unemployed at higher rates than all Americans As of June the unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics 86 percent and 58 percent respectively were above the national unemployment rate of 49 percent 8212 Lori Robertson with Eugene Kiely Brooks Jackson Robert Farley D8217Angelo Gore Zachary Gross and Ilana Nathans Bureau of Labor Statistics State and Area Employment Hours and Earnings accessed 20 Jul 2016 Kiely Eugene 8220 Trump Oversells Pence8217s Record8221 FactCheckorg 17 Jul 2016 8220 Fitch Ratings Reaffirms Indiana8217s AAA Credit Rating8221 Press release Office of the Indiana Governor 30 Jun 2016 Doman Linda 8220 United States remains largest producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons8221 Energy Information Administration 23 May 2016 US Energy Information Administration Production of Crude Oil including Lease Condensate Thousand Barrels Per Day Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Energy Information Administration Total Petroleum and Other Liquids Production 2015 Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Energy Information Administration Crude Oil Proved Reserves Billion Barrels Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Civilian Unemployment Rate retrieved from FRED Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Unemployment Rate Black or African American retrieved from FRED Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Unemployment Rate Hispanic or Latino retrieved from FRED Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Accessed 20 Jul 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Unemployment Rate Asian retrieved from FRED Federal Reserve Bank of St Louisamp160Accessed 20 Jul 2016 Selby W Gardner 8220 Ted Cruz says Iran annually has Death to America holiday8221 PolitiFactcom 13 Mar 2015 CNNcom 8220 8216Death to Israel8217 chanted at alQuds day in Iran8221 10 Jul 2015 AlJazeeracom 8220 Thousands rally in Iran on alQuds day8221 1 Jul 2016 Farley Robert 8220 Romney8217s Sorry 8216Apology8217 Dig8221 FactCheckorg 31 Aug 2012 White House website 8220 Remarks by the President at Cairo University8221 4 Jun 2009 Drobnic Holan Angie 8220 Obama8217s remarks never a true 8216apology82178221 PolitiFact 15 Mar 2010 Kessler Glenn 8220 Obama8217s 8216Apology Tour82178221 Washington Post 22 Feb 2011 Jackson Brooks 8220 Obama8217s Numbers July 2016 Update8221 FactCheckorg 11 Jul 2016 Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 8220 Promises and Price Tags A Fiscal Guide to the 2016 Election8221 27 Jun 2016 Goldwein Marcamp1608220B oth Clinton and Trump Would Grow National Debt8221 Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 7 Jul 2016 FactCheckorg 8220 FactChecking the 10th GOP Debate8221 26 Feb 2016 Mintz Jack and Chen Duanjie 8220 US Corporate Taxation Prime for Reform8221 Tax Foundation 4 Feb 2015 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 8220 Revenue Statistics 8211 OECD countries Comparative tables8221

CLEVELAND/PROPN 8212/NUM On/ADP the/DET third/ADJ night/NOUN of/ADP the/DET Republican/ADJ convention/NOUN Indiana/PROPN Gov/PROPN Mike/PROPN Pence/PROPN accepted/VERB his/PRON party8217s/PROPN nomination/NOUN for/ADP vice/NOUN president/NOUN and/CCONJ Sen/PROPN Ted/PROPN Cruz/PROPN rejected/VERB calls/NOUN to/PART endorse/VERB the/DET GOP/PROPN ticket/NOUN But/CCONJ Pence/PROPN and/CCONJ Cruz/PROPN had/VERB one/NUM thing/NOUN in/ADP common/ADJ They/PRON and/CCONJ other/ADJ speakers/NOUN distorted/VERB the/DET facts/NOUN Note/PROPN to/ADP Readers/NOUN Our/PRON managing/VERB editor/NOUN Lori/PROPN Robertson/PROPN is/AUX on/ADP the/DET scene/NOUN in/ADP Cleveland/PROPN This/DET story/NOUN was/AUX written/VERB with/ADP the/DET help/NOUN of/ADP the/DET entire/ADJ staff/NOUN based/VERB in/ADP Philadelphia/PROPN and/CCONJ Washington/PROPN DC/PROPN Next/PROPN week/NOUN we/PRON will/AUX dispatch/VERB our/PRON staffers/NOUN in/ADP Philadelphia/PROPN for/ADP the/DET Democratic/ADJ convention/NOUN We/PRON intend/VERB to/PART vet/VERB the/DET major/ADJ speeches/NOUN at/ADP both/DET conventions/NOUN for/ADP factual/ADJ accuracy/NOUN applying/VERB the/DET same/ADJ standards/NOUN to/ADP both/PRON In/ADP accepting/VERB the/DET nomination/NOUN Indiana/PROPN Gov/PROPN Mike/PROPN Pence/PROPN said/VERB that/SCONJ as/SCONJ the/DET 8220national/ADJ debt/NOUN has/AUX nearly/ADV doubled/VERB in/ADP these/DET eight/NUM years8221/NOUN under/ADP Obama/PROPN Hillary/PROPN Clinton8217s/PROPN 8220only/ADV answer/NOUN is/AUX to/PART keep/VERB borrowing/NOUN and/CCONJ spending8221/NOUN An/DET analysis/NOUN by/ADP the/DET nonpartisan/PROPN Committee/PROPN for/ADP a/DET Responsible/PROPN Federal/PROPN Budgetamp160concluded/VERB that/SCONJ Clinton8217s/PROPN tax/NOUN and/CCONJ spending/NOUN plans/NOUN would/AUX result/VERB in/ADP a/DET 8220relatively/ADJ small8221/PROPN amp160increase/PROPN to/ADP the/DET nation8217s/PROPN debt/NOUN while/SCONJ Trump8217s/ADJ plan/NOUN would/AUX 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concludes/VERB Clinton/PROPN would/AUX increase/VERB the/DET debt/NOUN by/ADP 250/NUM billion/NUM by/ADP 2026/NUM However/ADV the/DET report/NOUN concluded/VERB that/SCONJ Trump8217s/PROPN plan/NOUN would/AUX have/VERB far/ADV more/ADV dire/ADJ consequences/NOUN for/ADP the/DET debt/NOUN The/DET group/NOUN found/VERB that/SCONJ Trump8217s/ADJ tax/NOUN plan/NOUN wouldamp160result/NUM in/ADP 105/NUM trillion/NUM less/ADJ in/ADP tax/NOUN revenues/NOUN which/PRON would/AUX be/AUX partially/ADV offset/VERB by/ADP 650/NUM billion/NUM less/ADJ in/ADP primary/ADJ spending/NOUN Together/ADV with/ADP 17/NUM trillion/NUM in/ADP higher/ADJ interest/NOUN costs/NOUN the/DET report/NOUN concludes/VERB that/SCONJ the/DET sum/NOUN of/ADP Trump8217s/PROPN policies/NOUN would/AUX increase/VERB the/DET debt/NOUN by/ADP 115/NUM trillion/NUM over/ADP 10/NUM years/NOUN 8220Our/NUM national/ADJ debt/NOUN is/AUX at/ADP postwar/ADJ recordhigh/NOUN levels/NOUN and/CCONJ projected/VERB to/PART grow/VERB 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8220apology/NOUN tour8221/NOUN in/ADP foreign/ADJ countries/NOUN But/CCONJ asamp160we/PROPN wrote/VERB then/ADV and/CCONJ again/ADV when/SCONJ Trump/PROPN made/VERB a/DET similar/ADJ claim/NOUN in/ADP Juneamp160we/PROPN read/VERB through/ADP all/PRON of/ADP the/DET speeches/NOUN in/ADP question/NOUN and/CCONJ concluded/VERB that/SCONJ 8220we/PROPN didn8217/PROPN t/PROPN see/VERB that/SCONJ any/PRON of/ADP them/PRON rise/VERB to/ADP the/DET level/NOUN of/ADP an/DET actual/ADJ apology8221/NOUN In/ADP a/DET speechamp160/NUM in/ADP Cairo/PROPN in/ADP June/PROPN 2009/NUM for/ADP example/NOUN Obama/PROPN spoke/VERB about/ADP tensions/NOUN between/ADP the/DET US/PROPN and/CCONJ the/DET Muslim/ADJ world/NOUN and/CCONJ placed/VERB blame/NOUN on/ADP both/DET sides/NOUN And/CCONJ then/ADV he/PRON called/VERB for/ADP a/DET 8220new/ADJ beginning8221/PROPN That8217s/PROPN not/PART the/DET same/ADJ as/ADP 8220apologizing/VERB to/ADP our/PRON enemies8221/NOUN Our/PRON factchecking/VERB colleagues/NOUN 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<p>By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175646/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_paying_the_bin_laden_tax/#more" type="external">TomDispatch</a>.</p> <p>Consider Inauguration Day, more than two weeks gone and already part of our distant past. &amp;#160;In its wake, President Obama was&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/21/obama-sets-goals-unite-inauguration-speech" type="external">hailed</a>&amp;#160;(or&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/mitch-mcconnell-obama-inauguration-speech_n_2528485.html" type="external">reviled</a>) for his &#8220;liberal&#8221;&amp;#160; <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-21/politics/36473487_1_president-obama-vice-president-biden-free-market" type="external">second inaugural address</a>.&amp;#160; On that day everything from his invocation of women&#8217;s rights (&#8220;Seneca Falls&#8221;), the civil rights movement (&#8220;Selma&#8221;), and the gay rights movement (&#8220;Stonewall&#8221;) to his wife&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/a-closeup-of-michelle-obamas-new-look/" type="external">new bangs</a>&amp;#160;and&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57566981/beyonce-admits-inauguration-day-lip-sync-says-shell-absolutely-be-singing-live-at-super-bowl/" type="external">Beyonc&#233;&#8217;s lip-syncing</a>&amp;#160;was fodder for the media extravaganza.&amp;#160; The president was even&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/krugman-deficit-hawks-down.html?ref=paulkrugman" type="external">praised</a>&amp;#160;(or&amp;#160; <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/22/obama-second-inaugural-address-translated/" type="external">reviled</a>) for what he took pains not to bring up: the budget deficit.&amp;#160; Was anything, in fact, not grist for the media mill, the hordes of talking heads, and the chattering classes?</p> <p>One subject, at least, got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and, when mentioned, certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling on.&amp;#160; Yet nothing better caught our changing American world.&amp;#160; Washington, after all, was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era &#8212; not even Lincoln&#8217;s second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War, or Franklin Roosevelt&#8217;s during World War II, or John F. Kennedy&#8217;s at the height of the Cold War.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s how NBC Nightly News&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#50529127" type="external">described</a>&amp;#160;some of the security arrangements as the day approached:</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;[T]he airspace above Washington&#8230; [will be] a virtual no-fly zone for 30 miles in all directions from the U.S. capital.&amp;#160; Six miles of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers will be shut down, with 150 blocks of downtown Washington closed to traffic, partly out of concern for car or truck bombs&#8230; with counter-snipers on top of buildings around the capital and along the parade route&#8230; [and] detectors monitoring the air for toxins&#8230; At the ready near the capital, thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack&#8230; All this security will cost about $120 million dollars for hundreds of federal agents, thousands of local police, and national guardsmen from 25 states.&#8221;</p> <p>Consider just the money.&amp;#160; It&#8217;s common knowledge that, until the&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/us/politics/house-takes-on-fiscal-cliff.html" type="external">recent deal</a>&amp;#160;over the renewal of the George W. Bush tax cuts for all but the richest of Americans, taxes had not been raised&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/republicans_know_voters_support_barack_obama_s_pledge_to_raise_taxes_on.html" type="external">since</a>&amp;#160;the&amp;#160; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read_my_lips:_no_new_taxes" type="external">read-my-lips-no-new-taxes</a>&amp;#160;era of his father.&amp;#160; That&#8217;s typical of the way we haven&#8217;t yet assimilated the new world we find ourselves in.&amp;#160; After all, shouldn&#8217;t that $120 million in taxpayer money spent on &#8220;safety&#8221; and &#8220;security&#8221; for a single event in Washington be considered part of an ongoing Osama bin Laden tax?</p> <p>Maybe it&#8217;s time to face the facts: this isn&#8217;t your grandfather&#8217;s America. Once, prospective Americans landed in a New World.&amp;#160; This time around, a new world&#8217;s landed on us.</p> <p>Making Fantasy Into Reality</p> <p>Bin Laden, of course, is&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175388/engelhardt,%20bin_laden_dead_and_alive" type="external">long dead</a>, but his was the 9/11 spark that, in the hands of George W. Bush and his top officials, helped turn this country into a lockdown state and first set significant portions of the Greater Middle East&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/101850/engelhardt_bush%27s_faith" type="external">aflame</a>.&amp;#160; In that sense, bin Laden has been thriving in Washington ever since and no commando raid in Pakistan or elsewhere has a chance of doing him in.</p> <p>Since the al-Qaeda leader was aware of the relative powerlessness of his organization and its hundreds or, in its heyday, perhaps thousands of active followers, his urge was to defeat the U.S. by&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/02/dont_get_cocky_america?page=full" type="external">provoking</a>&amp;#160;its leaders into treasury-draining wars in the Greater Middle East.&amp;#160; In his world, it&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/middleeast/21parcel.html" type="external">was thought</a>&amp;#160;that such a set of involvements &#8212; and the &#8220;homeland&#8221; security down payments that went with them &#8212; could&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/bin-ladens-war-of-a-thousand-cuts-will-live-on/238228/" type="external">bleed</a>&amp;#160;the richest, most powerful nation on the planet dry.&amp;#160; In this, he and his associates, imitators, and wannabes were reasonably canny.&amp;#160; The bin Laden tax, including that $120 million for Inauguration Day, has proved heavy indeed.</p> <p>In the meantime, he &#8212; and 9/11 as it entered the American psyche &#8212; helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us all.&amp;#160; The resulting <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175325/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_united_states_of_fear/" type="external">United States of Fear</a> has since engaged in two disastrous <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/project_syndicate/2011/09/the_true_cost_of_911.html" type="external">more-than-trillion dollar</a> wars and a &#8220;Global War on Terror&#8221; that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime. (See <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/foreign/drones/?hpid=z2" type="external">Yemen</a>, Pakistan, and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/29/niger-approves-american-surveillance-drones" type="external">Mali</a>.)&amp;#160; It has also funded the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175629/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_supersizing_secrecy/" type="external">supersized</a> growth of a <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/" type="external">labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy</a>; that post-9/11 creation, the <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/2006-09-10-security-industry_x.htm" type="external">Department of Homeland Security</a>; and, of course, the Pentagon and the U.S. military, including the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175426/nick_turse_a_secret_war_in_120_countries" type="external">special operations forces</a>, an ever-expanding secret military elite cocooned within it.</p> <p>Given the enemy at hand &#8212; not a giant empire, but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands &#8212; all of these institutions, which make up the post-9/11 National Security Complex, expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations (as would that most un-American of all words, &#8220;homeland&#8221;).&amp;#160; All of this, in turn, happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington, and much of the rest of the country.</p> <p>Even if you ignore that Inauguration Day no-boating zone or the 30-mile no-fly zone (the sort of thing the U.S. once imposed on enemy lands and now imposes on itself), consider those &#8220;thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack.&#8221;&amp;#160; Just about nothing on this planet is utterly inconceivable, but it&#8217;s worth noting that, as far as we know, the national security bureaucracy made no preparations for an unexpected tornado on Inauguration Day.&amp;#160; Given recent extreme weather events, including <a href="http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/09/18/severe-weather-warning-issued-for-d-c-area-until-midnight/" type="external">tornado warnings</a> for Washington, that would at least have been a plausible scenario to consider.</p> <p>Certainly, a biological or chemical attack is a similarly imaginable possibility.&amp;#160; After all, it actually <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805065113/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">happened</a> in Tokyo in 1995, when followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult set off Sarin gas in that city&#8217;s subway system, killing 11.&amp;#160; But the likelihood of any conceivable set of Islamic terrorists attacking those inaugural crowds with either chemical or biological weapons was, to say the least, microscopic.&amp;#160; As something to protect Washington visitors against, it ranked at least on a par with the ( <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/" type="external">nonexistent</a>) post-9/11 al-Qaeda sleeper cells and sleeper-assassins so crucial to the plot of the TV show &#8220;Homeland.&#8221;</p> <p>And yet, in these years, what might have remained essentially a nightmarish fantasy has become an impending reality around which the national security folks organize their lives &#8212; and ours. &amp;#160;Ever since the now largely forgotten <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks" type="external">anthrax mail attacks</a> that killed five soon after 9/11 &#8212; the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174966/engelhardt_six_questions" type="external">anthrax</a> in those envelopes may have come directly from a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/science/10anthrax.html" type="external">U.S. bioweapons laboratory</a> &#8212; all sorts of fantastic scenarios involving biochemical attacks have become part and parcel of the American lockdown state.</p> <p>In the Bush era, for instance, among the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/9301/jim_lobe_dating_Cheney%27s_nuclear_drumbeat" type="external">apocalyptic dream scenes</a> the president and his top officials used to panic Congress into approving a much-desired invasion of Iraq were the possibility of future <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/" type="external">mushroom clouds</a> over American cities and this claim: that Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had drones (he didn&#8217;t) and the means to get them to the East Coast of the U.S. (he didn&#8217;t), and the ability to use them to launch attacks in which chemical and biological weaponry would be sprayed over U.S. cities (he didn&#8217;t).&amp;#160; This was a presidentially promoted fantasy of the first order, but no matter.&amp;#160; Some senators <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5385.htm" type="external">actually voted</a> to go to war at least partially on the basis of it.</p> <p>As is often true of ruling groups, Bush and his cronies weren&#8217;t just manipulating us with the fear of nightmarish future attacks, but themselves as well.&amp;#160; Thanks to New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer&#8217;s fine book The Dark Side, for instance, we know that Vice President Dick Cheney was <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174975/engelhardt_the_value_of_one" type="external">always driven</a> around Washington with &#8220;a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit&#8221; in the backseat of his car.</p> <p>The post-9/11 National Security Complex has been convulsed by such fears.&amp;#160; After all, it has funded itself by promising Americans one thing: total safety from one of the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175402/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_100%25_doctrine_in_washington" type="external">lesser dangers</a> of our American world &#8212; &#8220; <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/american-muslim-terrorism/" type="external">terrorism</a>.&#8221;&amp;#160; The fear of terrorism (essentially that bin Laden tax again) has been a financial winner for the Complex, but it carries its own built-in terrors.&amp;#160; Even with the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/30/us-intel-budget-topped-75-billion-in-2012/" type="external">$75 billion</a> or more a year that we pump into the &#8220; <a href="http://www.intelligence.gov/about-the-intelligence-community/" type="external">U.S. Intelligence Community</a>,&#8221; the possibility that it might not discover some bizarre plot, and that, as a result, several airliners might then go down, or a crowd in Washington be decimated, or you name it, undoubtedly leaves many in the Complex in an ongoing state of terror.&amp;#160; After all, their jobs and livelihoods are at stake.</p> <p>Think of their fantasies and fears, which have become ever more real in these years without in any way becoming realities, as the building blocks of the American lockdown state. &amp;#160;In this way, intent on &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/63903/mark_danner_bush's_state_of_exception" type="external">taking the gloves off</a>&#8221; &#8212; removing, that is, all those constraints they believed had been put on the executive branch in the Watergate era &#8212; and perhaps preemptively living out their own nightmares, figures like Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed our world.</p> <p>The Powers of the Lockdown State</p> <p>As cultists of a &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/46791/engelhardt_the_unrestrained_president" type="external">unitary executive</a>,&#8221; they &#8212; and the administration of national security managers who followed in the Obama years &#8212; lifted the executive branch right out of the universe of American legality.&amp;#160; They liberated it to do more or less what it wished, as long as &#8220;war,&#8221; &#8220;terrorism,&#8221; or &#8220;security&#8221; could be invoked.&amp;#160; Meanwhile, with their Global War on Terror well launched and promoted as a multigenerational struggle, they made wartime their property for the long run.</p> <p>In the process, they oversaw the building of a National Security Complex with powers that boggle the imagination and freed themselves from the last shreds of accountability for their actions.&amp;#160; They established or strengthened the power of the executive to: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558812/Dick-Cheney-Condoleezza-Rice-authorised-waterboarding-torture-Al-Qaeda-prisoners.html#ixzz0M0uvDCRj" type="external">torture</a> at <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1494/engelhardt_george_orwell" type="external">will</a> (and create the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/2116/greenberg_dratel_37_questions" type="external">&#8220;legal&#8221;</a> justification for it); <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174842/karen_greenberg_guantanamo_forever" type="external">imprison</a> at <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer" type="external">will</a>, indefinitely and without trial; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/engelhardt_assassin-in-chief" type="external">assassinate</a> at will (including American citizens); <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/tom_engelhardt_dolce-vita" type="external">kidnap</a> at will anywhere in the world and &#8220;render&#8221; the captive into the hands of <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/exclusive-i-was-kidnapped-cia" type="external">allied torturers</a>; turn any mundane government document (at least <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175570/engelhardt_that_makes_no_sense" type="external">92 million</a> of them in 2011 alone) into a classified object and so help spread a penumbra of secrecy over the workings of the American government; surveil Americans in ways never before attempted (and only <a href="http://www.salon.com/2008/07/09/fisa_vote/" type="external">&#8220;legalized&#8221;</a> by Congress after the fact, the way you might backdate a check); make war perpetually on their own say-so; and transform whistleblowing &#8212; that is, revealing anything about the inner workings of the lockdown state to other Americans &#8212; into the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175500/van_buren_silent_state" type="external">only prosecutable crime</a> that anyone in the Complex can commit.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that some version of a number of these powers existed before 9/11.&amp;#160; &#8220;Renditions&#8221; of terror suspects, for instance, first <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11404.htm" type="external">ramped up</a> in the Clinton years; the FBI <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO" type="external">conducted</a> illegal surveillance of antiwar organizations and other groups in the 1960s; the classification of government documents had long been on the rise; the congressional power to make war had long been on the wane; and prosecution of those who acted illegally while in government service was probably never a commonplace. (Both the <a href="http://watergate.info/analysis/casualties-and-convictions" type="external">Watergate</a> and <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm" type="external">Iran-Contra</a> scandals, however, did involve actual convictions or guilty pleas for illegal acts, followed in some of the Iran-Contra cases by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html" type="external">presidential pardons</a>.)&amp;#160; Still, in each case, after 9/11, the national security state gained new or greatly magnified powers, including an unprecedented capacity to lockdown the country (and American liberties as well).</p> <p>What it means to be in such a post-legal world &#8212; to know that, no matter what <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer" type="external">acts</a> a government official commits, he or she will never be brought to court or have a chance of being put in jail &#8212; has yet to fully sink in.&amp;#160; This is true even of critics of the Obama administration, who, as in the case of its drone wars, continue to focus on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/critics-us-drone-brennan-cia-nomination" type="external">questions</a> of <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/barack-obama-drone-ranger" type="external">legality</a>, as if that issue weren&#8217;t settled.&amp;#160; In this sense, they continue to live in an increasingly fantasy-based version of America in which the rule of law still applies to everyone.</p> <p>In reality, in the Bush and Obama years, the United States has become a nation not of laws but of legal memos, not of legality but of legalisms &#8212; and you don&#8217;t have to be a lawyer to know it.&amp;#160; The result?&amp;#160; Secret armies, secret wars, secret surveillance, and spreading state secrecy, which meant a government of the bureaucrats about which the American people could know next to nothing.&amp;#160; And it&#8217;s all &#8220;legal.&#8221;</p> <p>Consider, for instance, this passage from a recent <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-drone-strikes-will-get-pass-in-counterterrorism-playbook-officials-say/2013/01/19/ca169a20-618d-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html" type="external">Washington Post piece</a> on the codification of &#8220;targeted killing operations&#8221; &#8212; i.e. drone assassinations &#8212; in what&#8217;s now called the White House &#8220;playbook&#8221;: &#8220;Among the subjects covered&#8230; are the process for adding names to kill lists, the legal principles that govern when U.S. citizens can be targeted overseas, and the sequence of approvals required when the CIA or U.S. military conducts drone strikes outside war zones.&#8221;</p> <p>Those &#8220;legal principles&#8221; are, of course, being written up by lawyers working for people like Obama counterterrorism &#8220;tsar&#8221; John O. Brennan; that is, officials who want the greatest possible latitude when it comes to knocking off &#8220;terrorist suspects,&#8221; American or otherwise.&amp;#160; Imagine, for instance, lawyers hired by a group of neighborhood thieves creating a &#8220;playbook&#8221; outlining which kinds of houses they considered it legal to break into and just why that might be so.&amp;#160; Would the &#8220;principles&#8221; in that document be written up in the press as &#8220;legal&#8221; ones?</p> <p>Here&#8217;s the kicker.&amp;#160; According to the Post, the &#8220;legal principles&#8221; a White House with no intention of seriously limiting, no less shutting down, America&#8217;s drone wars has painstakingly established as &#8220;law&#8221; are not, for the foreseeable future, going to be applied to Pakistan&#8217;s tribal borderlands where the <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/foreign/drones/?hpid=z2" type="external">most intense drone strikes</a> still take place.&amp;#160; The CIA&#8217;s secret drone war there is instead going to be given a free pass for a year or more to blast away as it pleases &#8212; the White House equivalent of Monopoly&#8217;s get-out-of-jail-free card.</p> <p>In other words, even by the White House&#8217;s definition of legality, what the CIA is doing in Pakistan should be considered illegal.&amp;#160; But these days when it comes to anything connected to American war-making, legality is whatever the White House says it is (and you won&#8217;t find their legalisms seriously challenged by American courts).&amp;#160;</p> <p>Post-Legal Drones and the New Legalism</p> <p>This week, during the Senate confirmation hearings for Brennan&#8217;s nomination as CIA director, we are undoubtedly going to hear much about &#8220;legality&#8221; and drone assassination campaigns.&amp;#160; Senator <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/wyden-brennan/" type="external">Ron Wyden</a>, for instance, has <a href="http://www.katu.com/politics/Wyden-demands-targeted-killing-legal-opinions-from-CIA-nominee-187052271.html" type="external">demanded</a> that the White House release a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html" type="external">50-page</a> &#8220;legal&#8221; memo its lawyers created to justify the drone assassination of an American citizen, which the White House decided was far too hush-hush for either the Congress or ordinary Americans to read.&amp;#160; But here&#8217;s the thing: if Wyden got that bogus document, undoubtedly filled with legalisms (as a <a href="http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans" type="external">just-leaked</a> 16-page Justice Department &#8220;white paper&#8221; justifying drone killings is), and released it to the rest of us, what difference would it make?&amp;#160; Yes, we might learn something about the vestiges of a guilty conscience when it comes to American legality in a White House run by a former &#8220;constitutional law professor.&#8221;&amp;#160; But we would know little else.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Once upon a time, an argument over whether such drone strikes were legal or not might have had some heft to it. &amp;#160;After all, the United States was once hailed, above all, as a &#8220;nation of laws.&#8221;&amp;#160; But make no mistake: today, such a &#8220;debate&#8221; will, in the Seinfeldian sense, be an argument about nothing, or rather about an issue that has long been <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/01/panetta-drones-to-be-continuing-tool-of-us-154829.html" type="external">settled</a>.</p> <p>The drone strikes, after all, are perfectly &#8220;legal.&#8221;&amp;#160; How do we know?&amp;#160; Because the administration which produced that 50-page document (and similar memos) assures us that it&#8217;s so, even if they don&#8217;t care to fully reveal their reasoning, and because, truth be told, on such matters they can do whatever they want to do.&amp;#160; It&#8217;s legal because they&#8217;ve increasingly become the ones who define legality.</p> <p>It would, of course, be illegal for Canadians, Pakistanis, or Iranians to fly missile-armed drones over Minneapolis or New York, no less take out their versions of bad guys in the process.&amp;#160; That would, among other things, be a breach of American sovereignty. &amp;#160;The U.S. can, however, do more or less what it wants when and where it wants. &amp;#160;The reason: it has established, to the satisfaction of our national security managers &#8212; and they have the secret legal documents (written by themselves) to prove it &#8212; that U.S. drones can cross national boundaries just about anywhere if the bad guys are, in their opinion, bad enough.&amp;#160; And that&#8217;s &#8220;the law&#8221;!</p> <p>As with our distant wars, most Americans are remarkably unaffected in any direct way by the lockdown of this country.&amp;#160; And yet in a post-legal drone world of perpetual &#8220;wartime,&#8221; in which fantasies of disaster outrace far more realistic dangers and fears, sooner or later the bin Laden tax will take its toll, the chickens will come home to roost, and they will be able to do anything in our name (without even worrying about producing secret legal memos to justify their acts).&amp;#160; By then, we&#8217;ll be completely locked down and the key thrown away.</p> <p>Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the <a href="http://www.americanempireproject.com/" type="external">American Empire Project</a> and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The United States of Fear</a> as well as a history of the Cold War, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/155849586X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The End of Victory Culture</a>, runs the Nation Institute&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=tomdispatch-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B0086EF89K" type="external">Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Face-Empire-Cyberwarfare/dp/1608463109/" type="external">The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.</a></p> <p>Copyright 2013 Tom Engelhardt</p>

The American Lockdown State

https://truthdig.com/articles/the-american-lockdown-state/

2013-02-05

4left

By Tom Engelhardt TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch Consider Inauguration Day more than two weeks gone and already part of our distant past amp160In its wake President Obama wasamp160 hailedamp160oramp160 reviled for his 8220liberal8221amp160 second inaugural addressamp160 On that day everything from his invocation of women8217s rights 8220Seneca Falls8221 the civil rights movement 8220Selma8221 and the gay rights movement 8220Stonewall8221 to his wife8217samp160 new bangsamp160andamp160 Beyonc2338217s lipsyncingamp160was fodder for the media extravaganzaamp160 The president was evenamp160 praisedamp160oramp160 reviled for what he took pains not to bring up the budget deficitamp160 Was anything in fact not grist for the media mill the hordes of talking heads and the chattering classes One subject at least got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and when mentioned certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling onamp160 Yet nothing better caught our changing American worldamp160 Washington after all was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era 8212 not even Lincoln8217s second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt8217s during World War II or John F Kennedy8217s at the height of the Cold War Here8217s how NBC Nightly Newsamp160 describedamp160some of the security arrangements as the day approached 8220The airspace above Washington8230 will be a virtual nofly zone for 30 miles in all directions from the US capitalamp160 Six miles of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers will be shut down with 150 blocks of downtown Washington closed to traffic partly out of concern for car or truck bombs8230 with countersnipers on top of buildings around the capital and along the parade route8230 and detectors monitoring the air for toxins8230 At the ready near the capital thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack8230 All this security will cost about 120 million dollars for hundreds of federal agents thousands of local police and national guardsmen from 25 states8221 Consider just the moneyamp160 It8217s common knowledge that until theamp160 recent dealamp160over the renewal of the George W Bush tax cuts for all but the richest of Americans taxes had not been raisedamp160 sinceamp160theamp160 readmylipsnonewtaxesamp160era of his fatheramp160 That8217s typical of the way we haven8217t yet assimilated the new world we find ourselves inamp160 After all shouldn8217t that 120 million in taxpayer money spent on 8220safety8221 and 8220security8221 for a single event in Washington be considered part of an ongoing Osama bin Laden tax Maybe it8217s time to face the facts this isn8217t your grandfather8217s America Once prospective Americans landed in a New Worldamp160 This time around a new world8217s landed on us Making Fantasy Into Reality Bin Laden of course isamp160 long dead but his was the 911 spark that in the hands of George W Bush and his top officials helped turn this country into a lockdown state and first set significant portions of the Greater Middle Eastamp160 aflameamp160 In that sense bin Laden has been thriving in Washington ever since and no commando raid in Pakistan or elsewhere has a chance of doing him in Since the alQaeda leader was aware of the relative powerlessness of his organization and its hundreds or in its heyday perhaps thousands of active followers his urge was to defeat the US byamp160 provokingamp160its leaders into treasurydraining wars in the Greater Middle Eastamp160 In his world itamp160 was thoughtamp160that such a set of involvements 8212 and the 8220homeland8221 security down payments that went with them 8212 couldamp160 bleedamp160the richest most powerful nation on the planet dryamp160 In this he and his associates imitators and wannabes were reasonably cannyamp160 The bin Laden tax including that 120 million for Inauguration Day has proved heavy indeed In the meantime he 8212 and 911 as it entered the American psyche 8212 helped facilitate the locking down of this society in ways that should unnerve us allamp160 The resulting United States of Fear has since engaged in two disastrous morethantrillion dollar wars and a 8220Global War on Terror8221 that shows no sign of ending in our lifetime See Yemen Pakistan and Maliamp160 It has also funded the supersized growth of a labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy that post911 creation the Department of Homeland Security and of course the Pentagon and the US military including the special operations forces an everexpanding secret military elite cocooned within it Given the enemy at hand 8212 not a giant empire but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands 8212 all of these institutions which make up the post911 National Security Complex expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations as would that most unAmerican of all words 8220homeland8221amp160 All of this in turn happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington and much of the rest of the country Even if you ignore that Inauguration Day noboating zone or the 30mile nofly zone the sort of thing the US once imposed on enemy lands and now imposes on itself consider those 8220thousands of doses of antidotes in case of a chemical or biological attack8221amp160 Just about nothing on this planet is utterly inconceivable but it8217s worth noting that as far as we know the national security bureaucracy made no preparations for an unexpected tornado on Inauguration Dayamp160 Given recent extreme weather events including tornado warnings for Washington that would at least have been a plausible scenario to consider Certainly a biological or chemical attack is a similarly imaginable possibilityamp160 After all it actually happened in Tokyo in 1995 when followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult set off Sarin gas in that city8217s subway system killing 11amp160 But the likelihood of any conceivable set of Islamic terrorists attacking those inaugural crowds with either chemical or biological weapons was to say the least microscopicamp160 As something to protect Washington visitors against it ranked at least on a par with the nonexistent post911 alQaeda sleeper cells and sleeperassassins so crucial to the plot of the TV show 8220Homeland8221 And yet in these years what might have remained essentially a nightmarish fantasy has become an impending reality around which the national security folks organize their lives 8212 and ours amp160Ever since the now largely forgotten anthrax mail attacks that killed five soon after 911 8212 the anthrax in those envelopes may have come directly from a US bioweapons laboratory 8212 all sorts of fantastic scenarios involving biochemical attacks have become part and parcel of the American lockdown state In the Bush era for instance among the apocalyptic dream scenes the president and his top officials used to panic Congress into approving a muchdesired invasion of Iraq were the possibility of future mushroom clouds over American cities and this claim that Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had drones he didn8217t and the means to get them to the East Coast of the US he didn8217t and the ability to use them to launch attacks in which chemical and biological weaponry would be sprayed over US cities he didn8217tamp160 This was a presidentially promoted fantasy of the first order but no matteramp160 Some senators actually voted to go to war at least partially on the basis of it As is often true of ruling groups Bush and his cronies weren8217t just manipulating us with the fear of nightmarish future attacks but themselves as wellamp160 Thanks to New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer8217s fine book The Dark Side for instance we know that Vice President Dick Cheney was always driven around Washington with 8220a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit8221 in the backseat of his car The post911 National Security Complex has been convulsed by such fearsamp160 After all it has funded itself by promising Americans one thing total safety from one of the lesser dangers of our American world 8212 8220 terrorism8221amp160 The fear of terrorism essentially that bin Laden tax again has been a financial winner for the Complex but it carries its own builtin terrorsamp160 Even with the 75 billion or more a year that we pump into the 8220 US Intelligence Community8221 the possibility that it might not discover some bizarre plot and that as a result several airliners might then go down or a crowd in Washington be decimated or you name it undoubtedly leaves many in the Complex in an ongoing state of terroramp160 After all their jobs and livelihoods are at stake Think of their fantasies and fears which have become ever more real in these years without in any way becoming realities as the building blocks of the American lockdown state amp160In this way intent on 8220 taking the gloves off8221 8212 removing that is all those constraints they believed had been put on the executive branch in the Watergate era 8212 and perhaps preemptively living out their own nightmares figures like Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed our world The Powers of the Lockdown State As cultists of a 8220 unitary executive8221 they 8212 and the administration of national security managers who followed in the Obama years 8212 lifted the executive branch right out of the universe of American legalityamp160 They liberated it to do more or less what it wished as long as 8220war8221 8220terrorism8221 or 8220security8221 could be invokedamp160 Meanwhile with their Global War on Terror well launched and promoted as a multigenerational struggle they made wartime their property for the long run In the process they oversaw the building of a National Security Complex with powers that boggle the imagination and freed themselves from the last shreds of accountability for their actionsamp160 They established or strengthened the power of the executive to torture at will and create the 8220legal8221 justification for it imprison at will indefinitely and without trial assassinate at will including American citizens kidnap at will anywhere in the world and 8220render8221 the captive into the hands of allied torturers turn any mundane government document at least 92 million of them in 2011 alone into a classified object and so help spread a penumbra of secrecy over the workings of the American government surveil Americans in ways never before attempted and only 8220legalized8221 by Congress after the fact the way you might backdate a check make war perpetually on their own sayso and transform whistleblowing 8212 that is revealing anything about the inner workings of the lockdown state to other Americans 8212 into the only prosecutable crime that anyone in the Complex can commit It8217s true that some version of a number of these powers existed before 911amp160 8220Renditions8221 of terror suspects for instance first ramped up in the Clinton years the FBI conducted illegal surveillance of antiwar organizations and other groups in the 1960s the classification of government documents had long been on the rise the congressional power to make war had long been on the wane and prosecution of those who acted illegally while in government service was probably never a commonplace Both the Watergate and IranContra scandals however did involve actual convictions or guilty pleas for illegal acts followed in some of the IranContra cases by presidential pardonsamp160 Still in each case after 911 the national security state gained new or greatly magnified powers including an unprecedented capacity to lockdown the country and American liberties as well What it means to be in such a postlegal world 8212 to know that no matter what acts a government official commits he or she will never be brought to court or have a chance of being put in jail 8212 has yet to fully sink inamp160 This is true even of critics of the Obama administration who as in the case of its drone wars continue to focus on questions of legality as if that issue weren8217t settledamp160 In this sense they continue to live in an increasingly fantasybased version of America in which the rule of law still applies to everyone In reality in the Bush and Obama years the United States has become a nation not of laws but of legal memos not of legality but of legalisms 8212 and you don8217t have to be a lawyer to know itamp160 The resultamp160 Secret armies secret wars secret surveillance and spreading state secrecy which meant a government of the bureaucrats about which the American people could know next to nothingamp160 And it8217s all 8220legal8221 Consider for instance this passage from a recent Washington Post piece on the codification of 8220targeted killing operations8221 8212 ie drone assassinations 8212 in what8217s now called the White House 8220playbook8221 8220Among the subjects covered8230 are the process for adding names to kill lists the legal principles that govern when US citizens can be targeted overseas and the sequence of approvals required when the CIA or US military conducts drone strikes outside war zones8221 Those 8220legal principles8221 are of course being written up by lawyers working for people like Obama counterterrorism 8220tsar8221 John O Brennan that is officials who want the greatest possible latitude when it comes to knocking off 8220terrorist suspects8221 American or otherwiseamp160 Imagine for instance lawyers hired by a group of neighborhood thieves creating a 8220playbook8221 outlining which kinds of houses they considered it legal to break into and just why that might be soamp160 Would the 8220principles8221 in that document be written up in the press as 8220legal8221 ones Here8217s the kickeramp160 According to the Post the 8220legal principles8221 a White House with no intention of seriously limiting no less shutting down America8217s drone wars has painstakingly established as 8220law8221 are not for the foreseeable future going to be applied to Pakistan8217s tribal borderlands where the most intense drone strikes still take placeamp160 The CIA8217s secret drone war there is instead going to be given a free pass for a year or more to blast away as it pleases 8212 the White House equivalent of Monopoly8217s getoutofjailfree card In other words even by the White House8217s definition of legality what the CIA is doing in Pakistan should be considered illegalamp160 But these days when it comes to anything connected to American warmaking legality is whatever the White House says it is and you won8217t find their legalisms seriously challenged by American courtsamp160 PostLegal Drones and the New Legalism This week during the Senate confirmation hearings for Brennan8217s nomination as CIA director we are undoubtedly going to hear much about 8220legality8221 and drone assassination campaignsamp160 Senator Ron Wyden for instance has demanded that the White House release a 50page 8220legal8221 memo its lawyers created to justify the drone assassination of an American citizen which the White House decided was far too hushhush for either the Congress or ordinary Americans to readamp160 But here8217s the thing if Wyden got that bogus document undoubtedly filled with legalisms as a justleaked 16page Justice Department 8220white paper8221 justifying drone killings is and released it to the rest of us what difference would it makeamp160 Yes we might learn something about the vestiges of a guilty conscience when it comes to American legality in a White House run by a former 8220constitutional law professor8221amp160 But we would know little elseamp160 Once upon a time an argument over whether such drone strikes were legal or not might have had some heft to it amp160After all the United States was once hailed above all as a 8220nation of laws8221amp160 But make no mistake today such a 8220debate8221 will in the Seinfeldian sense be an argument about nothing or rather about an issue that has long been settled The drone strikes after all are perfectly 8220legal8221amp160 How do we knowamp160 Because the administration which produced that 50page document and similar memos assures us that it8217s so even if they don8217t care to fully reveal their reasoning and because truth be told on such matters they can do whatever they want to doamp160 It8217s legal because they8217ve increasingly become the ones who define legality It would of course be illegal for Canadians Pakistanis or Iranians to fly missilearmed drones over Minneapolis or New York no less take out their versions of bad guys in the processamp160 That would among other things be a breach of American sovereignty amp160The US can however do more or less what it wants when and where it wants amp160The reason it has established to the satisfaction of our national security managers 8212 and they have the secret legal documents written by themselves to prove it 8212 that US drones can cross national boundaries just about anywhere if the bad guys are in their opinion bad enoughamp160 And that8217s 8220the law8221 As with our distant wars most Americans are remarkably unaffected in any direct way by the lockdown of this countryamp160 And yet in a postlegal drone world of perpetual 8220wartime8221 in which fantasies of disaster outrace far more realistic dangers and fears sooner or later the bin Laden tax will take its toll the chickens will come home to roost and they will be able to do anything in our name without even worrying about producing secret legal memos to justify their actsamp160 By then we8217ll be completely locked down and the key thrown away Tom Engelhardt cofounder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War The End of Victory Culture runs the Nation Institute8217s TomDispatchcom His latest book coauthored with Nick Turse is Terminator Planet The First History of Drone Warfare 20012050 Follow TomDispatch on Twitter TomDispatch and join us on Facebook Check out the newest Dispatch book Nick Turse8217s The Changing Face of Empire Special Ops Drones Proxy Fighters Secret Bases and Cyberwarfare Copyright 2013 Tom Engelhardt

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<p>A US Air Force Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress dropping bombs over Vietnam. &amp;lt;a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bombing_during_the_Vietnam_War#mediaviewer/File:Boeing_B-52F-70-BW_(SN_57-0162)_in_flight_dropping_bombs_061128-F-1234S-004.jpg"&amp;gt;USAF - National Museum of the U.S. Air Force&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Wikimedia</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175953/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p> <p>The 1960s&#8212;that extraordinary decade&#8212;is celebrating its 50th birthday one year at a time. Happy birthday, 1965! How, though, do you commemorate the Vietnam War, the era&#8217;s signature catastrophe? After all, our government prosecuted its brutal and indiscriminate war under false pretexts, long after most citizens objected, and failed to achieve any of its stated objectives. More than 58,000 Americans were killed along with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">more than</a> four million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.</p> <p>So what exactly do we write on the jubilee party invitation? You probably know the answer. We&#8217;ve been rehearsing it for decades. You leave out every troubling memory of the war and simply say: &#8220;Let&#8217;s honor all our military veterans for their service and sacrifice.&#8221;</p> <p>For a little perspective on the 50th anniversary, consider this: we&#8217;re now as distant from the 1960s as the young Bob Dylan was from Teddy Roosevelt. For today&#8217;s typical college students, the Age of Aquarius is ancient history. Most of their parents weren&#8217;t even alive in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson launched a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/profile.html" type="external">massive escalation</a> of the Vietnam War, initiating the daily bombing of the entire country, North and South, and an enormous buildup of more than half a million troops.</p> <p>In the post-Vietnam decades, our culture has buried so much of the history once considered essential to any debate about that most controversial of all American wars that little of substance remains. Still, oddly enough, most of the 180 students who take my Vietnam War class each year arrive deeply curious. They seem to sense that the subject is like a dark family secret that might finally be exposed. All that most of them know is that the Sixties, the war years, were a &#8220;time of turmoil.&#8221; &amp;#160;As for Vietnam, they have few cultural markers or landmarks, which shouldn&#8217;t be surprising. Even Hollywood&#8212;that powerful shaper of historical memory&#8212;stopped making Vietnam movies long ago. Some of my students have stumbled across old films like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/?ref_=nv_sr_2" type="external">Apocalypse Now</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" type="external">Platoon</a>, but it&#8217;s rare for even one of them to have seen either of the most searing documentaries made during that war, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064482/" type="external">In the Year of the Pig</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d2ml82lc7s" type="external">Hearts and Minds</a>. Such relics of profound antiwar fervor simply disappeared from popular memory along with the antiwar movement itself.</p> <p>On the other hand, there is an advantage to the fact that students make it to that first class without strong convictions about the war. It means they can be surprised, even shocked, when they learn about the war&#8217;s wrenching realities and that&#8217;s when real education can begin. For example, many students are stunned to discover that the US government, forever proclaiming its desire to spread democracy, actually blocked Vietnam&#8217;s <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=vietnam_637" type="external">internationally sanctioned</a> reunification election in 1956 because of the near certainty that Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh would be the overwhelming winner.</p> <p>They&#8217;re even more astonished to discover the kind of &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175639/tomgram%3A_jonathan_schell,_seeing_the_reality_of_the_vietnam_war,_50_years_late/" type="external">free-fire zone</a>&#8221; bloodshed and mayhem the US military unleashed on the South Vietnamese countryside. Nothing shocks them more, though, than the details of the <a href="http://life.time.com/history/my-lai-remembering-an-american-atrocity-in-vietnam-march-1968/#3" type="external">My Lai massacre</a> in which American ground troops killed, at close range, more than 500 unarmed, unresisting, South Vietnamese civilians&#8212;most of them women, children, and old men&#8212;over a four-hour stretch on March 16, 1968. In high school, many students tell me, My Lai is not discussed.</p> <p>An American Tragedy</p> <p>Don&#8217;t think that young students are the only products of a whitewashed history of the Vietnam War. Many older Americans have also been affected by decades of distortion and revision designed to sanitize an impossibly soiled record. The first step in the cleansing process was to scrub out as much memory as possible and it began even before the US-backed regime in South Vietnam collapsed in 1975. A week before the fall of Saigon, President Gerald Ford was already <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4859" type="external">encouraging</a> citizens to put aside a war that was &#8220;finished as far as America is concerned.&#8221; A kind of willful amnesia was needed, he suggested, to &#8220;regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam.&#8221;</p> <p>At that moment, forgetting made all the sense in the world since it seemed unimaginable, even to the president, that Americans would ever find a positive way to remember the war&#8212;and little wonder. Except for a few unapologetic former policymakers like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/15/us/walt-rostow-adviser-to-kennedy-and-johnson-dies-at-86.html" type="external">Walt Rostow</a> and <a href="http://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/kissinger_3/" type="external">Henry Kissinger</a>, virtually everyone, whatever their politics, believed that it had been an unmitigated disaster. In 1971, for example, a remarkable <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0072536187/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">58%</a> of the public told pollsters that they thought the conflict was &#8220;immoral,&#8221; a word that most Americans had never applied to their country&#8217;s wars.</p> <p>How quickly times change. Jump ahead a decade and Americans had already found an appealing formula for commemorating the war. It turned out to be surprisingly simple: focus on us, not them, and agree that the war was primarily an American tragedy. Stop worrying about the damage Americans had inflicted on Vietnam and focus on what we had done to ourselves. Soon enough, President Ronald Reagan and his followers were claiming that the war had been disastrous mainly because it had weakened an American sense of pride and patriotism, while inhibiting the nation&#8217;s desire to project power globally. Under Reagan, &#8220;Vietnam&#8221; became a <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=85202" type="external">rallying cry</a> for both a revived nationalism and militarism.</p> <p>Though liberals and moderates didn&#8217;t buy Reagan&#8217;s view that Vietnam had been a &#8220; <a href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/8.18.80.html" type="external">noble</a>&#8221; and winnable war, they did generally support a growing belief that would, in the end, successfully supplant lingering antiwar perspectives and focus instead on a process of national &#8220;healing.&#8221; At the heart of that new creed was the idea that our own veterans were the greatest victims of the war and that their wounds were largely a consequence of their shabby treatment by antiwar protestors upon returning from the battle zone to an unwelcoming home front. Indeed, it became an article of faith that the most shameful aspect of the Vietnam War was the nation&#8217;s failure to embrace and honor its returning soldiers.</p> <p>Of course, there was a truth to the vet-as-victim belief. Vietnam veterans had, in fact, been horribly ill-treated. Their chief abuser, however, was their own government, which first lied to them about the causes and nature of the war, then sent them off to fight for an unpopular, dictatorial regime in a land where they were widely regarded as foreign invaders. Finally, on their return, it failed to provide them with either adequate <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&amp;amp;dat=19810610&amp;amp;id=JhUyAAAAIBAJ&amp;amp;sjid=yaQFAAAAIBAJ&amp;amp;pg=2427,4588120" type="external">support</a> or <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/156523" type="external">benefits</a>.</p> <p>And corporate America was also to blame. Employers were reluctant to hire or train them, in many cases scared off by crude 1970s media stereotypes about wacko, drug-addled, and violent vets. Nor did <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1998/nov/11/local/me-41612" type="external">traditional veterans&#8217; organizations</a> like the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars provide a warm welcome to those coming home from a deeply contested and unpopular war filled with disillusioned soldiers.</p> <p>The Antiwar Movement Dispatched to the Trash Bin of History</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670025399/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />In the 1980s, however, the Americans most saddled with blame for abusing Vietnam veterans were the antiwar activists of the previous era. Forget that, in its later years, the antiwar movement was often led by and filled with antiwar vets. According to a pervasive postwar myth, veterans returning home from Vietnam were commonly accused of being &#8220;baby killers&#8221; and spat upon by protestors. The spat-upon story&#8212;wildly <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/30/debunking_a_spitting_image/" type="external">exaggerated</a>, if not entirely invented&#8212;helped reinforce the rightward turn in American politics in the post-Vietnam era. It was a way of teaching Americans to &#8220;honor&#8221; victimized veterans, while dishonoring the millions of Americans who had fervently worked to bring them safely home from war. In this way, the most extraordinary antiwar movement in memory was discredited and dispatched to the trash bin of history.</p> <p>In the process, something new happened. Americans began to treat those who served the country as heroic by definition, no matter what they had actually done. This phenomenon first appeared in another context entirely. In early 1981, when American diplomats and other personnel were finally released from 444 days of captivity in Iran, the former hostages were given a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/29/us/hometowns-give-freed-americans-hero-s-welcome.html" type="external">hero&#8217;s welcome</a> for the ages. There was a White House party, ticker-tape parades, the bestowal of season tickets to professional sporting events, you name it. This proved to be where a new definition of &#8220;heroism&#8221; first took root. Americans had once believed that true heroes took great risks on behalf of noble ideals. Now, they conferred such status on an entire group of people who had simply survived a horrible ordeal.</p> <p>To do so next with Vietnam veterans, and indeed with every soldier or veteran who followed in their footsteps seemed like a no-brainer. It was such an easy formula to apply in a new, far more cynical age. You no longer had to believe that the missions American &#8220;heroes&#8221; fought were noble and just; you could simply agree that anyone who &#8220;served America&#8221; in whatever capacity automatically deserved acclaim.</p> <p>By the time the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened on Washington&#8217;s Mall in 1982, a consensus had grown up around the idea that, whatever you thought about the Vietnam War, all Americans should honor the vets who fought in it, no matter what any of them had done. Memorial planners helped persuade the public that it was possible to &#8220; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1558499024/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">separate the warrior from the war</a>.&#8221; As the black granite wall of the Memorial itself so vividly demonstrated, you could honor veterans without commenting on the war in which they had fought. In the years to come, that lesson would be repeated so often that it became a bedrock part of the culture. A classic example was an ad run in 1985 on the 10th anniversary of the war&#8217;s end by defense contractor United Technologies:</p> <p>&#8220;Let others use this occasion to explain why we were there, what we accomplished, what went wrong, and who was right. We seek here only to draw attention to those who served&#8230; They fought not for territorial gain, or national glory, or personal wealth. They fought only because they were called to serve&#8230; whatever acrimony lingers in our consciousness&#8230; let us not forget the Vietnam veteran.&#8221;</p> <p>Since the attacks of 9/11, ritualized support for troops and veterans, more symbolic than substantive, has grown ever more common, replete with <a href="http://www.loc.gov/folklife/ribbons/ribbons.html" type="external">yellow ribbons</a>, <a href="http://www.flybangor.com/troop-greeters" type="external">airport greetings</a>, <a href="http://web.welcomebackveterans.org/index" type="external">welcome home ceremonies</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Memorial_Highway" type="external">memorial highways</a>, <a href="https://www.honorflight.org/" type="external">honor flights</a>, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/" type="external">benefit concerts</a>, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/" type="external">ballgame flyovers</a>. Through it all, politicians, celebrities, and athletes constantly remind us that we&#8217;ve never done enough to demonstrate our support.</p> <p>Perhaps some veterans do find meaning and sustenance in our endless thank-yous, but others find them hollow and demeaning. The noble vet is as reductive a stereotype as the crazy vet, and repeated empty gestures of gratitude foreclose the possibility of real dialogue and debate. &#8220;Thank you for your service&#8221; requires nothing of us, while &#8220;Please tell me about your service&#8221; might, though we could then be in for a disturbing few hours. As two-tour Afghan War veteran Rory Fanning has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/" type="external">pointed out</a>, &#8220;We use the term hero in part because it makes us feel good and in part because it shuts soldiers up&#8230; Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent, which is one reason military bureaucrats feed off the term.&#8221;</p> <p>13 Years&#8217; Worth of Commemorating the Warriors</p> <p>Although a majority of Americans came to reject the wars in both <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/when-and-why-did-americans-turn-against-the-war-in-afghanistan/240880/" type="external">Afghanistan</a> and <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/161399/10th-anniversary-iraq-war-mistake.aspx" type="external">Iraq</a> in proportions roughly as high as in the Vietnam era, the present knee-jerk association between military service and &#8220;our freedom&#8221; inhibits thinking about Washington&#8217;s highly militarized policies in the world. And in 2012, with congressional approval and funding, the Pentagon began <a href="http://www.vietnamwar50th.com/about/" type="external">institutionalizing</a> that Vietnam &#8220;thank you&#8221; as a multi-year, multi-million-dollar &#8220;50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Vietnam War.&#8221; It&#8217;s a thank-you celebration that is slated to last 13 years until 2025, although the emphasis is on the period from Memorial Day 2015 to Veterans Day 2017.</p> <p>You won&#8217;t be surprised to learn that the Pentagon&#8217;s number-one objective is &#8220;to thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War&#8221; in &#8220;partnership&#8221; with more than 10,000 corporations and local groups which are &#8220;to sponsor hometown events to honor Vietnam veterans, their families, and those who were prisoners of war and missing in action.&#8221; Additional goals include: &#8220;to pay tribute to the contributions made on the home front&#8221; (presumably not by peace activists) and &#8220;to highlight the advances in technology, science, and medicine related to military research conducted during the Vietnam War.&#8221; (It&#8217;s a little hard to imagine quite what that refers to though an even more effective Agent Orange defoliant or improved cluster bombs come to mind.)</p> <p>Since the Pentagon realizes that, however hard you try, you can&#8217;t entirely &#8220;separate the warrior from the war,&#8221; it is also seeking &#8220;to provide the American public with historically accurate materials and interactive experiences that will help Americans better understand and appreciate the service of our Vietnam veterans and the history of US involvement in the Vietnam War.&#8221; However, it turns out that &#8220;accuracy&#8221; and &#8220;appreciation&#8221; can both be served only if you carefully scrub that history clean of untoward incidents and exclude all the under-appreciators, including the thousands of American soldiers who became so disgusted with the war that they <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931859272/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">turned on their officers</a>, avoided or refused combat missions, deserted in record numbers, and created the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sir-No-Suppressed-Movement-Vietnam/dp/B000IB0DE4/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1422926653&amp;amp;sr=1-1&amp;amp;keywords=sir+no+sir" type="external">most vibrant</a> antiwar GI and veterans movement in our history.</p> <p>The most ambitious of the &#8220;educational resources&#8221; provided on the Vietnam War Commemoration website is an &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175808/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_the_pentagon_makes_history_the_first_casualty/" type="external">interactive timeline</a>.&#8221; As other historians have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/us/pentagons-web-timeline-brings-back-vietnam-and-protesters-.html?_r=0" type="external">demonstrated</a>, this historical cavalcade has proven to be a masterwork of disproportion, distortion, and omission. For example, it offers just three short sentences on the &#8220;killings&#8221; at My Lai (the word &#8220;massacre&#8221; does not appear) and says that the officer who led Charlie Company into the village, Lt. William Calley, was &#8220;sentenced to life in prison&#8221; without adding that he was paroled by President Richard Nixon after just three-and-a-half years under house arrest.&amp;#160;</p> <p>That desperately inadequate description avoids the most obviously embarrassing question: How could such a thing happen? &amp;#160;It is conveniently dropped onto a page that includes lengthy official citations of seven American servicemen who received Medals of Honor. The fact that antiwar Senator Robert Kennedy entered the presidential race on the same day as the My Lai massacre isn&#8217;t even mentioned, nor his assassination three months later, nor the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., just weeks after My Lai, an event that spurred bitter and bloody <a href="http://www.amazon.com/African-American-Experience-Vietnam-Brothers/dp/0742545326/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1423098733&amp;amp;sr=1-2&amp;amp;keywords=westheider#reader_0742545326" type="external">racial clashes</a> on US military bases throughout South Vietnam and the world.</p> <p>It should not go unnoticed that the same government that is spending $65 million commemorating the veterans of a once-reviled war has failed to provide sufficient medical care for them. In 2014, news surfaced that the Veterans Administration had <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/va-scandal-update-35-veterans-affairs-workers-be-fired-1k-more-may-get-pink-slips-1721538" type="external">left</a> some 100,000 veterans waiting for medical attention and that some VA hospitals sought to cover up their egregious delays. Every day an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/04/the-missing-context-behind-a-widely-cited-statistic-that-there-are-22-veteran-suicides-a-day/" type="external">estimated 22 veterans</a> commit suicide, and among vets of Iraq and Afghanistan the suicide rate, according to <a href="http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/S1047-2797%2814%2900525-0/fulltext" type="external">one study</a>, is 50% higher than that of their civilian peers.</p> <p>The Pentagon&#8217;s anniversary commemoration has triggered some heated push-back from groups like <a href="http://www.veteransforpeace.org/" type="external">Veterans for Peace</a> and the <a href="http://tomhayden.com/home/vietnam-peace-commemoration-committee-petition.html" type="external">Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee</a> (co-founded by Tom Hayden). Both are planning <a href="http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/" type="external">alternative commemorations</a> designed to include antiwar perspectives once so common but now glaringly absent from popular memory. From such efforts might come the first full public critical reappraisal of the war to challenge four decades of cosmetic makeover.</p> <p>Unfortunately, in our twenty-first-century American world of permanent war, rehashing Vietnam may strike many as irrelevant or redundant. If so, it&#8217;s likely that neither the Pentagon&#8217;s commemoration nor the antiwar counter-commemorations will get much notice. Perhaps the most damaging legacy of the post-Vietnam era lies in the way Americans have learned to live in a perpetual &#8220;wartime&#8221; without war being part of daily consciousness. While public support for Washington&#8217;s war policies is feeble at best, few share the Vietnam era faith that they can challenge a war-making machine that seems to have a life of its own.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Last year, US Special Operations forces <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175945/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_a_shadow_war_in_150_countries/" type="external">conducted</a> secret military missions in 133 countries and are on pace to beat that mark in 2015, yet these far-flung commitments go largely unnoticed by the major media and most citizens. We rely on 1% of Americans &#8220;to protect our freedoms&#8221; in roughly 70% of the world&#8217;s countries and at home, and all that is asked of us is that we offer an occasional &#8220;thank you for your service&#8221; to people we don&#8217;t know and whose wars we need not spend precious time thinking about.</p> <p>From the Vietnam War, the Pentagon and its apologists learned fundamental lessons about how to burnish, bend, and bury the truth. The results have been devastating. The fashioning of a bogus American tragedy from a real Vietnamese one has paved the way for so many more such tragedies, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Pakistan to Yemen, and&#8212;if history is any guide&#8212;an unknown one still emerging, no doubt from another of those 133 countries.</p> <p>Christian Appy, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, is the author of three books about the Vietnam War, including the just-published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670025399/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity</a> (Viking). To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464962/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Men Explain Things to Me</a>, and Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p>

50 Years Ago This Week We Started Bombing Vietnam

https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/50th-anniversay-vietnam-veterans-war/

2015-02-09

4left

A US Air Force Boeing B52F70BW Stratofortress dropping bombs over Vietnam amplta hrefhttpcommonswikimediaorgwikiCategoryBombing_during_the_Vietnam_WarmediaviewerFileBoeing_B52F70BW_SN_570162_in_flight_dropping_bombs_061128F1234S004jpgampgtUSAF National Museum of the US Air ForceampltaampgtWikimedia This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website The 1960s8212that extraordinary decade8212is celebrating its 50th birthday one year at a time Happy birthday 1965 How though do you commemorate the Vietnam War the era8217s signature catastrophe After all our government prosecuted its brutal and indiscriminate war under false pretexts long after most citizens objected and failed to achieve any of its stated objectives More than 58000 Americans were killed along with more than four million Vietnamese Laotians and Cambodians So what exactly do we write on the jubilee party invitation You probably know the answer We8217ve been rehearsing it for decades You leave out every troubling memory of the war and simply say 8220Let8217s honor all our military veterans for their service and sacrifice8221 For a little perspective on the 50th anniversary consider this we8217re now as distant from the 1960s as the young Bob Dylan was from Teddy Roosevelt For today8217s typical college students the Age of Aquarius is ancient history Most of their parents weren8217t even alive in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson launched a massive escalation of the Vietnam War initiating the daily bombing of the entire country North and South and an enormous buildup of more than half a million troops In the postVietnam decades our culture has buried so much of the history once considered essential to any debate about that most controversial of all American wars that little of substance remains Still oddly enough most of the 180 students who take my Vietnam War class each year arrive deeply curious They seem to sense that the subject is like a dark family secret that might finally be exposed All that most of them know is that the Sixties the war years were a 8220time of turmoil8221 amp160As for Vietnam they have few cultural markers or landmarks which shouldn8217t be surprising Even Hollywood8212that powerful shaper of historical memory8212stopped making Vietnam movies long ago Some of my students have stumbled across old films like Apocalypse Now and Platoon but it8217s rare for even one of them to have seen either of the most searing documentaries made during that war In the Year of the Pig and Hearts and Minds Such relics of profound antiwar fervor simply disappeared from popular memory along with the antiwar movement itself On the other hand there is an advantage to the fact that students make it to that first class without strong convictions about the war It means they can be surprised even shocked when they learn about the war8217s wrenching realities and that8217s when real education can begin For example many students are stunned to discover that the US government forever proclaiming its desire to spread democracy actually blocked Vietnam8217s internationally sanctioned reunification election in 1956 because of the near certainty that Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh would be the overwhelming winner They8217re even more astonished to discover the kind of 8220 freefire zone8221 bloodshed and mayhem the US military unleashed on the South Vietnamese countryside Nothing shocks them more though than the details of the My Lai massacre in which American ground troops killed at close range more than 500 unarmed unresisting South Vietnamese civilians8212most of them women children and old men8212over a fourhour stretch on March 16 1968 In high school many students tell me My Lai is not discussed An American Tragedy Don8217t think that young students are the only products of a whitewashed history of the Vietnam War Many older Americans have also been affected by decades of distortion and revision designed to sanitize an impossibly soiled record The first step in the cleansing process was to scrub out as much memory as possible and it began even before the USbacked regime in South Vietnam collapsed in 1975 A week before the fall of Saigon President Gerald Ford was already encouraging citizens to put aside a war that was 8220finished as far as America is concerned8221 A kind of willful amnesia was needed he suggested to 8220regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam8221 At that moment forgetting made all the sense in the world since it seemed unimaginable even to the president that Americans would ever find a positive way to remember the war8212and little wonder Except for a few unapologetic former policymakers like Walt Rostow and Henry Kissinger virtually everyone whatever their politics believed that it had been an unmitigated disaster In 1971 for example a remarkable 58 of the public told pollsters that they thought the conflict was 8220immoral8221 a word that most Americans had never applied to their country8217s wars How quickly times change Jump ahead a decade and Americans had already found an appealing formula for commemorating the war It turned out to be surprisingly simple focus on us not them and agree that the war was primarily an American tragedy Stop worrying about the damage Americans had inflicted on Vietnam and focus on what we had done to ourselves Soon enough President Ronald Reagan and his followers were claiming that the war had been disastrous mainly because it had weakened an American sense of pride and patriotism while inhibiting the nation8217s desire to project power globally Under Reagan 8220Vietnam8221 became a rallying cry for both a revived nationalism and militarism Though liberals and moderates didn8217t buy Reagan8217s view that Vietnam had been a 8220 noble8221 and winnable war they did generally support a growing belief that would in the end successfully supplant lingering antiwar perspectives and focus instead on a process of national 8220healing8221 At the heart of that new creed was the idea that our own veterans were the greatest victims of the war and that their wounds were largely a consequence of their shabby treatment by antiwar protestors upon returning from the battle zone to an unwelcoming home front Indeed it became an article of faith that the most shameful aspect of the Vietnam War was the nation8217s failure to embrace and honor its returning soldiers Of course there was a truth to the vetasvictim belief Vietnam veterans had in fact been horribly illtreated Their chief abuser however was their own government which first lied to them about the causes and nature of the war then sent them off to fight for an unpopular dictatorial regime in a land where they were widely regarded as foreign invaders Finally on their return it failed to provide them with either adequate support or benefits And corporate America was also to blame Employers were reluctant to hire or train them in many cases scared off by crude 1970s media stereotypes about wacko drugaddled and violent vets Nor did traditional veterans8217 organizations like the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars provide a warm welcome to those coming home from a deeply contested and unpopular war filled with disillusioned soldiers The Antiwar Movement Dispatched to the Trash Bin of History In the 1980s however the Americans most saddled with blame for abusing Vietnam veterans were the antiwar activists of the previous era Forget that in its later years the antiwar movement was often led by and filled with antiwar vets According to a pervasive postwar myth veterans returning home from Vietnam were commonly accused of being 8220baby killers8221 and spat upon by protestors The spatupon story8212wildly exaggerated if not entirely invented8212helped reinforce the rightward turn in American politics in the postVietnam era It was a way of teaching Americans to 8220honor8221 victimized veterans while dishonoring the millions of Americans who had fervently worked to bring them safely home from war In this way the most extraordinary antiwar movement in memory was discredited and dispatched to the trash bin of history In the process something new happened Americans began to treat those who served the country as heroic by definition no matter what they had actually done This phenomenon first appeared in another context entirely In early 1981 when American diplomats and other personnel were finally released from 444 days of captivity in Iran the former hostages were given a hero8217s welcome for the ages There was a White House party tickertape parades the bestowal of season tickets to professional sporting events you name it This proved to be where a new definition of 8220heroism8221 first took root Americans had once believed that true heroes took great risks on behalf of noble ideals Now they conferred such status on an entire group of people who had simply survived a horrible ordeal To do so next with Vietnam veterans and indeed with every soldier or veteran who followed in their footsteps seemed like a nobrainer It was such an easy formula to apply in a new far more cynical age You no longer had to believe that the missions American 8220heroes8221 fought were noble and just you could simply agree that anyone who 8220served America8221 in whatever capacity automatically deserved acclaim By the time the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened on Washington8217s Mall in 1982 a consensus had grown up around the idea that whatever you thought about the Vietnam War all Americans should honor the vets who fought in it no matter what any of them had done Memorial planners helped persuade the public that it was possible to 8220 separate the warrior from the war8221 As the black granite wall of the Memorial itself so vividly demonstrated you could honor veterans without commenting on the war in which they had fought In the years to come that lesson would be repeated so often that it became a bedrock part of the culture A classic example was an ad run in 1985 on the 10th anniversary of the war8217s end by defense contractor United Technologies 8220Let others use this occasion to explain why we were there what we accomplished what went wrong and who was right We seek here only to draw attention to those who served8230 They fought not for territorial gain or national glory or personal wealth They fought only because they were called to serve8230 whatever acrimony lingers in our consciousness8230 let us not forget the Vietnam veteran8221 Since the attacks of 911 ritualized support for troops and veterans more symbolic than substantive has grown ever more common replete with yellow ribbons airport greetings welcome home ceremonies memorial highways honor flights benefit concerts and ballgame flyovers Through it all politicians celebrities and athletes constantly remind us that we8217ve never done enough to demonstrate our support Perhaps some veterans do find meaning and sustenance in our endless thankyous but others find them hollow and demeaning The noble vet is as reductive a stereotype as the crazy vet and repeated empty gestures of gratitude foreclose the possibility of real dialogue and debate 8220Thank you for your service8221 requires nothing of us while 8220Please tell me about your service8221 might though we could then be in for a disturbing few hours As twotour Afghan War veteran Rory Fanning has pointed out 8220We use the term hero in part because it makes us feel good and in part because it shuts soldiers up8230 Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent which is one reason military bureaucrats feed off the term8221 13 Years8217 Worth of Commemorating the Warriors Although a majority of Americans came to reject the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq in proportions roughly as high as in the Vietnam era the present kneejerk association between military service and 8220our freedom8221 inhibits thinking about Washington8217s highly militarized policies in the world And in 2012 with congressional approval and funding the Pentagon began institutionalizing that Vietnam 8220thank you8221 as a multiyear multimilliondollar 822050th Anniversary Commemoration of the Vietnam War8221 It8217s a thankyou celebration that is slated to last 13 years until 2025 although the emphasis is on the period from Memorial Day 2015 to Veterans Day 2017 You won8217t be surprised to learn that the Pentagon8217s numberone objective is 8220to thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War8221 in 8220partnership8221 with more than 10000 corporations and local groups which are 8220to sponsor hometown events to honor Vietnam veterans their families and those who were prisoners of war and missing in action8221 Additional goals include 8220to pay tribute to the contributions made on the home front8221 presumably not by peace activists and 8220to highlight the advances in technology science and medicine related to military research conducted during the Vietnam War8221 It8217s a little hard to imagine quite what that refers to though an even more effective Agent Orange defoliant or improved cluster bombs come to mind Since the Pentagon realizes that however hard you try you can8217t entirely 8220separate the warrior from the war8221 it is also seeking 8220to provide the American public with historically accurate materials and interactive experiences that will help Americans better understand and appreciate the service of our Vietnam veterans and the history of US involvement in the Vietnam War8221 However it turns out that 8220accuracy8221 and 8220appreciation8221 can both be served only if you carefully scrub that history clean of untoward incidents and exclude all the underappreciators including the thousands of American soldiers who became so disgusted with the war that they turned on their officers avoided or refused combat missions deserted in record numbers and created the most vibrant antiwar GI and veterans movement in our history The most ambitious of the 8220educational resources8221 provided on the Vietnam War Commemoration website is an 8220 interactive timeline8221 As other historians have demonstrated this historical cavalcade has proven to be a masterwork of disproportion distortion and omission For example it offers just three short sentences on the 8220killings8221 at My Lai the word 8220massacre8221 does not appear and says that the officer who led Charlie Company into the village Lt William Calley was 8220sentenced to life in prison8221 without adding that he was paroled by President Richard Nixon after just threeandahalf years under house arrestamp160 That desperately inadequate description avoids the most obviously embarrassing question How could such a thing happen amp160It is conveniently dropped onto a page that includes lengthy official citations of seven American servicemen who received Medals of Honor The fact that antiwar Senator Robert Kennedy entered the presidential race on the same day as the My Lai massacre isn8217t even mentioned nor his assassination three months later nor the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr just weeks after My Lai an event that spurred bitter and bloody racial clashes on US military bases throughout South Vietnam and the world It should not go unnoticed that the same government that is spending 65 million commemorating the veterans of a oncereviled war has failed to provide sufficient medical care for them In 2014 news surfaced that the Veterans Administration had left some 100000 veterans waiting for medical attention and that some VA hospitals sought to cover up their egregious delays Every day an estimated 22 veterans commit suicide and among vets of Iraq and Afghanistan the suicide rate according to one study is 50 higher than that of their civilian peers The Pentagon8217s anniversary commemoration has triggered some heated pushback from groups like Veterans for Peace and the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee cofounded by Tom Hayden Both are planning alternative commemorations designed to include antiwar perspectives once so common but now glaringly absent from popular memory From such efforts might come the first full public critical reappraisal of the war to challenge four decades of cosmetic makeover Unfortunately in our twentyfirstcentury American world of permanent war rehashing Vietnam may strike many as irrelevant or redundant If so it8217s likely that neither the Pentagon8217s commemoration nor the antiwar countercommemorations will get much notice Perhaps the most damaging legacy of the postVietnam era lies in the way Americans have learned to live in a perpetual 8220wartime8221 without war being part of daily consciousness While public support for Washington8217s war policies is feeble at best few share the Vietnam era faith that they can challenge a warmaking machine that seems to have a life of its ownamp160 Last year US Special Operations forces conducted secret military missions in 133 countries and are on pace to beat that mark in 2015 yet these farflung commitments go largely unnoticed by the major media and most citizens We rely on 1 of Americans 8220to protect our freedoms8221 in roughly 70 of the world8217s countries and at home and all that is asked of us is that we offer an occasional 8220thank you for your service8221 to people we don8217t know and whose wars we need not spend precious time thinking about From the Vietnam War the Pentagon and its apologists learned fundamental lessons about how to burnish bend and bury the truth The results have been devastating The fashioning of a bogus American tragedy from a real Vietnamese one has paved the way for so many more such tragedies from Afghanistan to Iraq Pakistan to Yemen and8212if history is any guide8212an unknown one still emerging no doubt from another of those 133 countries Christian Appy professor of history at the University of Massachusetts is the author of three books about the Vietnam War including the justpublished American Reckoning The Vietnam War and Our National Identity Viking To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook Check out the newest Dispatch Book Rebecca Solnit8217s Men Explain Things to Me and Tom Engelhardt8217s latest book Shadow Government Surveillance Secret Wars and a Global Security State in a SingleSuperpower World

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30397825@N00/1317273206/in/photolist-31pnr1-8YFQFh-5KxsAZ-83MLrE-3tL4L-afcWzq-4bhBd1-eYJ72P-4EESNW-afcKbq-4GjHyR-6vU7uX-fTEQEp-fTEQEV-vjyvr-5P6aqN-afa3Ar-34hHYB-34nhpA-34hHHD-34nh1E-34hHRB-4rCUXK-bqgRr2-bqgRLH-67x1iC-6BkRwu-dKiQ8A-34nh7Q-34nhaj-8yk1o1-5kTJma-7ZPb1J-7ZPb37-6T9Cp1-5Lpqhx-dGpz56-5vByDV-dGpyHP-8Ev3uP-a31VKU-dGpziT-dGpyPK-dGpyWv-8hqqWT-f9FWpZ-f9FWua-f9FWGk-96uvok-vYAv-fY3yy"&amp;gt;skampy&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175760/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>For years, energy analysts had been anticipating an imminent decline in global oil supplies.&amp;#160;Suddenly, they&#8217;re singing a new song: Fossil fuels growing scarce?&amp;#160;Don&#8217;t even think about it!&amp;#160;The news couldn&#8217;t be better: fossil fuels will become ever more abundant.&amp;#160;And all that talk about climate change?&amp;#160;Don&#8217;t worry about it, they chant.&amp;#160;Go out and enjoy the benefits of cheap and plentiful energy forever.</p> <p>This movement from gloom about our energy future to what can only be called fossil-fuel euphoria may prove to be the hallmark of our peculiar moment.&amp;#160;In a speech this September, for instance, Barry Smitherman, chairman of the <a href="http://www.rrc.state.tx.us" type="external">Texas Railroad Commission</a> (that state&#8217;s energy regulatory agency), <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/09/world-hydrocarbon-supply-relatively-boundless-seg-told.html" type="external">claimed</a> that the Earth possesses a &#8220;relatively boundless supply&#8221; of oil and natural gas.&amp;#160;Not only that&#8212;and you can practically hear the chorus of cheering in Houston and other oil centers&#8212;but many of the most exploitable new deposits are located in the US and Canada.&amp;#160;As a result&#8212;add a roll of drums and a blaring of trumpets&#8212;the expected boost in energy is predicted to provide the United States with a cornucopia of economic and political rewards, including industrial expansion at home and enhanced geopolitical clout abroad.&amp;#160;The country, <a href="http://www.api.org/news-and-media/testimony-speeches/2013/karen-moreau-remarks-press-briefing-teleconference-america-global-energy-leader" type="external">exulted</a> Karen Moreau of the New York State Petroleum Council, another industry cheerleader, is now in a position &#8220;to become a global superpower on energy.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />There are good reasons to be deeply skeptical of such claims, but that hardly matters when they are gaining traction in Washington and on Wall Street.&amp;#160;What we&#8217;re seeing is a sea change in elite thinking on the future availability and attractiveness of fossil fuels.&amp;#160;Senior government officials, including President Obama, have already become infected with this euphoria, as have top Wall Street investors&#8212;which means it will have a powerful and longlasting, though largely pernicious, effect on the country&#8217;s energy policy, industrial development, and foreign relations.</p> <p>The speed and magnitude of this shift in thinking has been little short of astonishing.&amp;#160;Just a few years ago, we were girding for the imminent prospect of &#8220; <a href="http://www.peakoil.net/about-peak-oil" type="external">peak oil</a>,&#8221; the point at which daily worldwide output would reach its maximum and begin an irreversible decline. &amp;#160;This, experts assumed, would result in a global energy crisis, sky-high oil prices, and severe disruptions to the world economy.</p> <p>Today, peak oil <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/citis-ed-morse-explains-why-everyone-is-wrong-about-peak-oil-calls-for-80-90-crude-in-2020-2012-6" type="external">seems</a> a distant will-o&#8217;-the-wisp.&amp;#160;Experts at the US government&#8217;s Energy Information Administration (EIA) confidently <a href="http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/" type="external">project</a> that global oil output will reach 115 million barrels per day by 2040&#8212;a stunning 34% increase above the current level of 86 million barrels.&amp;#160;Natural gas production is expected to soar as well, leaping from 113 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to a projected 185 trillion in 2040.</p> <p>These rosy assessments rest to a surprising extent on a single key assumption: that the United States, until recently a declining energy producer, will experience a sharp increase in output through the exploitation of shale oil and natural gas reserves through hydro-fracking and other technological innovations.&amp;#160;&#8220;In a matter of a few years, the trends have reversed,&#8221; Moreau <a href="http://www.api.org/news-and-media/testimony-speeches/2013/karen-moreau-remarks-press-briefing-teleconference-america-global-energy-leader" type="external">declared</a> last February.&amp;#160;&#8220;There is a new energy reality of vast domestic resources of oil and natural gas brought about by advancing technology&#8230; For the first time in generations, we are able to see that our energy supply is no longer limited, foreign, and finite; it is American and abundant.&#8221;</p> <p>The boost in domestic oil and gas output, it is further claimed, will fuel an industrial renaissance in the United States&#8212;with new plants and factories being built to take advantage of abundant local low-cost energy supplies. &amp;#160;&#8220;The economic consequences of this supply-and-demand revolution are potentially extraordinary,&#8221; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577285972222946812.html" type="external">asserted</a> Ed Morse, the head of global commodities research at Citigroup in New York.&amp;#160;America&#8217;s gross domestic product, he claimed, will grow by 2% to 3% over the next seven years as a result of the energy revolution alone, adding as much as $624 billion to the national economy.&amp;#160;Even greater gains can be made, Morse and others <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/22516820-beca-11e2-a9d4-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk&amp;amp;siteedition=intl#axzz2hRU9XDHR" type="external">claim</a>, if the US becomes a significant exporter of fossil fuels, particularly in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).</p> <p>Not only will these developments result in added jobs&#8212;as many as three million, claims energy analyst Daniel Yergin&#8212;but they will also enhance America&#8217;s economic status vis-&#224;-vis its competitors.&amp;#160;&#8220;US natural gas is abundant and prices are low&#8212;a third of their level in Europe and a quarter of that in Japan,&#8221; Yergin <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b2202a8a-2e57-11e2-8f7a-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2eIndApU8" type="external">wrote</a> recently.&amp;#160;&#8220;This is boosting energy-intensive manufacturing in the US, much to the dismay of competitors in both Europe and Asia.&#8221;</p> <p>This fossil fuel euphoria has even surfaced in statements by President Obama.&amp;#160;For all his talk of climate change perils and the need to invest in renewables, he has also gloated over the jump in domestic energy production and promised to facilitate further increases.&amp;#160;&#8220;Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/30/remarks-president-americas-energy-security" type="external">affirmed</a> in March 2011.&amp;#160;&#8220;And for the first time in more than a decade, oil we imported accounted for less than half of the liquid fuel we consumed.&amp;#160;So that was a good trend. &amp;#160;To keep reducing that reliance on imports, my administration is encouraging offshore oil exploration and production.&#8221;</p> <p>Money Pouring into Fossil Fuels</p> <p>This burst of euphoria about fossil fuels and America&#8217;s energy future is guaranteed to have a disastrous impact on the planet.&amp;#160;In the long term, it will make Earth a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/science/earth/extreme-heat-is-covering-more-of-the-earth-a-study-says.html" type="external">hotter</a>, far more extreme place to live by vastly increasing carbon emissions and diverting investment funds from renewables and green energy to new fossil fuel projects.&amp;#160;For all the excitement these endeavors may be generating, it hardly takes a genius to see that they mean ever more carbon dioxide heading into the atmosphere and an ever less hospitable planet.</p> <p>The preference for fossil fuel investments is easy to spot in the industry&#8217;s trade journals, as well as in recent statistical data and anecdotal reports of all sorts.&amp;#160;According to the reliable <a href="http://www.iea.org" type="external">International Energy Agency</a> (IEA), <a href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2012/#d.en.26099" type="external">private and public investment</a> in fossil fuel projects over the next quarter century will outpace investment in renewable energy by a ratio of three to one.&amp;#160;In other words, for every dollar spent on new wind farms, solar arrays, and tidal power research, three dollars will go into the development of new oil fields, shale gas operations, and coal mines.</p> <p>From industry sources it&#8217;s clear that big-money investors are rushing to take advantage of the current boom in unconventional energy output in the US&#8212;the climate be damned.&amp;#160;&#8220;The dollars needed [to develop such projects] have never been larger,&#8221; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303492504579111360245276476.html" type="external">commented</a> Maynard Holt, co-president of Houston-based investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt &amp;amp; Company.&amp;#160;&#8220;But the money is truly out there. &amp;#160;The global energy capital river is flowing our way.&#8221;</p> <p>In the either/or equation that seems to be our energy future, the capital river is rushing into the exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels, while it&#8217;s slowing to a trickle in the world of the true unconventionals&#8212;the energy sources that don&#8217;t add carbon to the atmosphere. This, indeed, was the conclusion reached by the IEA, which in 2012 <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175621/" type="external">warned</a> that the seemingly inexorable growth in greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide is likely to eliminate all prospect of averting the worst effects of climate change.</p> <p>Petro Machismo</p> <p>The new energy euphoria is also fueling a growing sense that the American superpower, whose influence has recently seemed to be <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175753/tomgram%3A_dilip_hiro%2C_the_mystery_of_washington%27s_waning_global_power/" type="external">on the wane</a>, may soon acquire fresh geopolitical clout through its mastery of the latest energy technologies.&amp;#160;&#8220;America&#8217;s new energy posture allows us to engage from a position of greater strength,&#8221; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/24/remarks-tom-donilon-national-security-advisor-president-launch-columbia-" type="external">crowed</a> National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in an April address at Columbia University.&amp;#160;Increased domestic energy output, he explained, will help reduce US vulnerability to global supply disruptions and price hikes.&amp;#160;&#8220;It also affords us a stronger hand in pursuing and implementing our international security goals.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />A new elite consensus is forming around the strategic advantages of expanded oil and gas production. &amp;#160;In particular, this outlook holds that the US is benefiting from substantially reduced oil imports from the Middle East by eliminating a dependency that has led to several disastrous interventions in that region and exposed the country to periodic disruptions in oil deliveries, starting with the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74. &amp;#160;&#8220;The shift in oil sources means the global supply system will become more resilient, our energy supplies will become more secure, and the nation will have more flexibility in dealing with crises,&#8221; Yergin <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204449804577068932026951376.html" type="external">wrote</a> in the Wall Street Journal.</p> <p>This turnaround, he and other experts <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b2202a8a-2e57-11e2-8f7a-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2eIndApU8" type="external">claim</a>, is what allowed Washington to adopt a tougher stance with Tehran in negotiations over Iran&#8217;s nuclear enrichment program.&amp;#160;With the US less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, so goes the argument, American leaders need not fear Iranian threats to disrupt the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf to international markets.&amp;#160;&#8220;The substantial increase in oil production in the United States,&#8221; Donilon declared in April, is what allowed Washington to impose tough sanctions on Iranian oil &#8220;while minimizing the burdens on the rest of the world.&#8221;&amp;#160;</p> <p>A stance of what could be called petro machismo is growing in Washington, underlying such initiatives as the president&#8217;s widely ballyhooed policy announcement of a &#8220; <a href="http://www.defense.gov/News/newsarticle.aspx?ID=119505" type="external">pivot</a>&#8221; from the Middle East to Asia (still largely words backed by only the most modest of actions) and efforts to constrain Russia&#8217;s international influence.</p> <p>Ever since Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency of that country, Moscow has sought to sway the behavior of its former Warsaw Pact allies and the former republics of the Soviet Union by <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/russia-s-energy-politics-gas-dispute-has-europe-trembling-a-393168.html" type="external">exploiting</a> its dominant energy role in the region.&amp;#160;It offered cheap natural gas to governments willing to follow its policy dictates, while threatening to cut off supplies to those that weren&#8217;t.&amp;#160;Now, some American strategists hope to reduce Russia&#8217;s clout by <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/russia-s-energy-politics-gas-dispute-has-europe-trembling-a-393168.html" type="external">helping</a> friendly nations like Poland and the Baltic states develop their own shale gas reserves and build LNG terminals.&amp;#160;These would allow them to import gas from &#8220;friendly&#8221; states, including the US (once its LNG export capacities are expanded).&amp;#160;&#8220;If we can export some natural gas to Europe and to Japan and other Asian nations,&#8221; Karen Moreau <a href="http://www.api.org/news-and-media/testimony-speeches/2013/karen-moreau-remarks-press-briefing-teleconference-america-global-energy-leader" type="external">suggested</a> in February, &#8220;we strengthen our relationships and influence in those places&#8212;and perhaps reduce the influence of other producers such as Russia.&#8221;</p> <p>The crucial issue is this: if American elites continue to believe that increased oil and gas production will provide the US with a strategic advantage, Washington will be tempted to exercise a &#8220;stronger hand&#8221; when pursuing its &#8220;international security goals.&#8221; &amp;#160;The result will undoubtedly be heightened international friction and discord.</p> <p>Is the Euphoria Justified?</p> <p>There is no doubt that the present fossil fuel euphoria will lead in troubling directions, even if the rosy predictions of rising energy output are, in the long run, likely to prove both unreliable and unrealistic.&amp;#160;The petro machismo types make several interconnected claims:</p> <p>* The world&#8217;s fossil fuel reserves are vast, especially when &#8220;unconventional&#8221; sources of fuel&#8212;Canadian tar sands, shale gas, and the like&#8212;are included.</p> <p>* The utilization of advanced technologies, especially fracking, will permit the effective exploitation of a significant share of these untapped reserves (assuming that governments don&#8217;t restrict fracking and other controversial drilling activities).</p> <p>* Fossil fuels will continue to supply an enormous share of global energy requirements for the foreseeable future, even given rising world temperatures, growing public opposition, and other challenges.</p> <p>Each of these assertions is packed with unacknowledged questions and improbabilities that are impossible to explore thoroughly in an article of this length.&amp;#160;But here are some major areas of doubt.&amp;#160;</p> <p>To begin with, those virtually &#8220;boundless&#8221; untapped oil reserves have yet to be systematically explored, meaning that it&#8217;s impossible to know if they do, in fact, contain commercially significant reserves of oil and gas.&amp;#160;To offer an apt example, the US Geological Survey, in one of the most widely cited estimates of untapped energy reserves, <a href="http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/servlet/onepetropreview?id=OTC-22061-MS" type="external">has reported</a> that approximately 13% of the world&#8217;s undiscovered oil reserves and 30% percent of its natural gas lie above the Arctic Circle.&amp;#160;But this assessment is based on geological analyses of rock samples, not exploratory drilling.&amp;#160;Whether the area actually holds such large reserves will not be known until widespread drilling has occurred.&amp;#160;So far, initial Arctic drilling operations, like those <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15087783" type="external">off Greenland</a>, have generally proved disappointing.</p> <p>Similarly, the Energy Information Administration has reported that China possesses vast shale formations that could harbor substantial reserves of oil and gas. &amp;#160;According to a 2013 EIA survey, that country&#8217;s technically recoverable shale gas reserves are <a href="http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH" type="external">estimated</a> at 1,275 trillion cubic feet, more than twice the figure for the United States.&amp;#160;Once again, however, the real extent of those reserves won&#8217;t be known without extensive drilling, which is only in its beginning stages.</p> <p>To say, then, that global reserves are &#8220;boundless&#8221; is to disguise all the hypotheticals lurking within that description.&amp;#160;Reality may fall far short of industry claims.</p> <p>The effectiveness of new technologies in exploiting such problematic reserves is also open to question.&amp;#160;True, fracking and other unconventional technologies have already substantially increased the production of hard-to-exploit fuels, including tar sands, shale gas, and deep-sea reserves.&amp;#160;Many experts predict that such gains are likely to be repeated in the future.&amp;#160;The EIA, for example, suggests that US output of shale oil via fracking will <a href="http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/index.cfm" type="external">jump</a> by 221% over the next 15 years, and natural gas by 164%.&amp;#160;The big question, however, is whether these projected increases will actually come to fruition.&amp;#160;While early gains are likely, the odds are that future growth will come at a far slower pace.</p> <p>As a start, the most lucrative US shale formations in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Texas have already experienced substantial exploration and many of the most attractive drilling sites (or &#8220;plays&#8221;) are now fully developed.&amp;#160;More fracking, no doubt, will release additional oil and gas, but the record shows that fossil-fuel output tends to decline once the earliest, most promising reservoirs are exploited.&amp;#160;In fact, <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8914" type="external">notes</a> energy analyst Art Berman, &#8220;several of the more mature shale gas plays are either in decline or appear to be approaching peak production.&#8221;</p> <p>Doubts are also multiplying over the potential for exploiting shale reserves in other parts of the world. &amp;#160;Preliminary drilling suggests that many of the shale formations in Europe and China possess fewer hydrocarbons and will be harder to develop than those now being exploited in this country. In Poland, for example, efforts to extract domestic shale reserves have been <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/05/08/blow-to-polands-shale-ambitions-as-talisman-and-marathon-pull-out/#axzz2hLh83vL2" type="external">stymied</a> by disappointing drilling efforts and the subsequent departure of major foreign firms, including Exxon Mobil and Marathon Oil.</p> <p>Finally, there is a crucial but difficult to assess factor in the future energy equation: the degree to which energy companies and energy states will run into resistance when exploiting ever more remote (and environmentally sensitive) resource zones.&amp;#160;No one yet knows how much energy industry efforts may be constrained by the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175544/" type="external">growing opposition</a> of local residents, scientists, environmentalists, and others who <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/energy/gasdrilling/" type="external">worry about</a> the environmental degradation caused by unconventional energy extraction and the climate consequences of rising fossil fuel combustion.&amp;#160;Despite industry claims that fracking, tar sands production, and Arctic drilling can be performed without endangering local residents, harming the environment, or wrecking the planet, <a href="http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20130930/NEWS10/309300032/Poll-Fracking-opposition-an-all-time-high-NY" type="external">ever more people</a> are coming to the opposite conclusion&#8212;and beginning to take steps to protect their perceived interests.</p> <p>In New York State, for example, a fervent anti-fracking oppositional movement has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175618/" type="external">prevented</a> government officials from allowing such activities to begin in the rich Marcellus shale formation, one of the largest in the world.&amp;#160;Although Albany may, in time, allow limited fracking operations there, it is unlikely to permit large-scale drilling throughout the state.&amp;#160;Similarly, an impressive opposition in British Columbia to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge_Northern_Gateway_Pipelines" type="external">proposed</a> Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline, especially by the native peoples of the region, has put that project on <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/you-heard-it-here-northern-gateways-dead/article4589760/" type="external">indefinite hold</a>.&amp;#160;And growing <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/world/europe/as-drilling-practice-takes-off-in-us-europe-proves-hesitant.html" type="external">popular opposition</a> to fracking in Europe is making itself felt across the region.&amp;#160;The European Parliament, for example, recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/business/energy-environment/european-lawmakers-tighten-rules-on-fracking.html" type="external">imposed</a> tough environmental constraints on the practice.</p> <p>As heat waves and extreme storm activity increase, so will concern over climate change and opposition to wholesale fossil fuel extraction. &amp;#160;The IEA warned of this possibility in the 2012 edition of its World Energy Outlook.&amp;#160;Shale gas and other unconventional forms of natural gas are predicted to provide nearly half the net gain in world gas output over the next 25 years, the report <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,33339,en.html" type="external">noted</a>.&amp;#160;&#8220;There are,&#8221; it added, &#8220;also concerns about the environmental impact of producing unconventional gas that, if not properly addressed, could halt the unconventional gas revolution in its tracks.&#8221;</p> <p>Reaction to that IEA report last November was revealing.&amp;#160;Its release <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175621" type="external">prompted</a> a mini-wave of <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578114591174453074.html" type="external">ecstatic commentary</a> in the American media about its prediction that, thanks to the explosion in unconventional energy output, this country would soon <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-12/u-s-to-overtake-saudi-arabia-s-oil-production-by-2020-iea-says.html%20" type="external">overtake</a> Saudi Arabia as the world&#8217;s leading oil producer.&amp;#160;In fact, the fossil fuel craze can be said to have started with this claim.&amp;#160;None of the hundreds of articles and editorials written on the subject, however, bothered to discuss the caveats the report offered or its warnings of planetary catastrophe.&amp;#160;</p> <p>As is so often the case with mass delusions, those caught up in fossil fuel mania have not bothered to think through the grim realities involved.&amp;#160;While industry bigwigs may continue to remain on an energy high, the rest of us will not be so lucky.&amp;#160;The accelerated production and combustion of fossil fuels can have only one outcome: a severely imperiled planet.</p> <p>Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Race for What&#8217;s Left</a> (Picador).&amp;#160;A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from <a href="http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&amp;amp;key=124" type="external">the Media Education Foundation</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Face-Empire-Cyberwarfare/dp/1608463109/" type="external">The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Is There an End to Fossil Fuel Euphoria?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/fossil-fuel-euphoria-peak-oil/

2013-10-15

4left

amplta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotos30397825N001317273206inphotolist31pnr18YFQFh5KxsAZ83MLrE3tL4LafcWzq4bhBd1eYJ72P4EESNWafcKbq4GjHyR6vU7uXfTEQEpfTEQEVvjyvr5P6aqNafa3Ar34hHYB34nhpA34hHHD34nh1E34hHRB4rCUXKbqgRr2bqgRLH67x1iC6BkRwudKiQ8A34nh7Q34nhaj8yk1o15kTJma7ZPb1J7ZPb376T9Cp15LpqhxdGpz565vByDVdGpyHP8Ev3uPa31VKUdGpziTdGpyPKdGpyWv8hqqWTf9FWpZf9FWuaf9FWGk96uvokvYAvfY3yyampgtskampyampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website For years energy analysts had been anticipating an imminent decline in global oil suppliesamp160Suddenly they8217re singing a new song Fossil fuels growing scarceamp160Don8217t even think about itamp160The news couldn8217t be better fossil fuels will become ever more abundantamp160And all that talk about climate changeamp160Don8217t worry about it they chantamp160Go out and enjoy the benefits of cheap and plentiful energy forever This movement from gloom about our energy future to what can only be called fossilfuel euphoria may prove to be the hallmark of our peculiar momentamp160In a speech this September for instance Barry Smitherman chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission that state8217s energy regulatory agency claimed that the Earth possesses a 8220relatively boundless supply8221 of oil and natural gasamp160Not only that8212and you can practically hear the chorus of cheering in Houston and other oil centers8212but many of the most exploitable new deposits are located in the US and Canadaamp160As a result8212add a roll of drums and a blaring of trumpets8212the expected boost in energy is predicted to provide the United States with a cornucopia of economic and political rewards including industrial expansion at home and enhanced geopolitical clout abroadamp160The country exulted Karen Moreau of the New York State Petroleum Council another industry cheerleader is now in a position 8220to become a global superpower on energy8221 There are good reasons to be deeply skeptical of such claims but that hardly matters when they are gaining traction in Washington and on Wall Streetamp160What we8217re seeing is a sea change in elite thinking on the future availability and attractiveness of fossil fuelsamp160Senior government officials including President Obama have already become infected with this euphoria as have top Wall Street investors8212which means it will have a powerful and longlasting though largely pernicious effect on the country8217s energy policy industrial development and foreign relations The speed and magnitude of this shift in thinking has been little short of astonishingamp160Just a few years ago we were girding for the imminent prospect of 8220 peak oil8221 the point at which daily worldwide output would reach its maximum and begin an irreversible decline amp160This experts assumed would result in a global energy crisis skyhigh oil prices and severe disruptions to the world economy Today peak oil seems a distant willo8217thewispamp160Experts at the US government8217s Energy Information Administration EIA confidently project that global oil output will reach 115 million barrels per day by 20408212a stunning 34 increase above the current level of 86 million barrelsamp160Natural gas production is expected to soar as well leaping from 113 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to a projected 185 trillion in 2040 These rosy assessments rest to a surprising extent on a single key assumption that the United States until recently a declining energy producer will experience a sharp increase in output through the exploitation of shale oil and natural gas reserves through hydrofracking and other technological innovationsamp1608220In a matter of a few years the trends have reversed8221 Moreau declared last Februaryamp1608220There is a new energy reality of vast domestic resources of oil and natural gas brought about by advancing technology8230 For the first time in generations we are able to see that our energy supply is no longer limited foreign and finite it is American and abundant8221 The boost in domestic oil and gas output it is further claimed will fuel an industrial renaissance in the United States8212with new plants and factories being built to take advantage of abundant local lowcost energy supplies amp1608220The economic consequences of this supplyanddemand revolution are potentially extraordinary8221 asserted Ed Morse the head of global commodities research at Citigroup in New Yorkamp160America8217s gross domestic product he claimed will grow by 2 to 3 over the next seven years as a result of the energy revolution alone adding as much as 624 billion to the national economyamp160Even greater gains can be made Morse and others claim if the US becomes a significant exporter of fossil fuels particularly in the form of liquefied natural gas LNG Not only will these developments result in added jobs8212as many as three million claims energy analyst Daniel Yergin8212but they will also enhance America8217s economic status vis224vis its competitorsamp1608220US natural gas is abundant and prices are low8212a third of their level in Europe and a quarter of that in Japan8221 Yergin wrote recentlyamp1608220This is boosting energyintensive manufacturing in the US much to the dismay of competitors in both Europe and Asia8221 This fossil fuel euphoria has even surfaced in statements by President Obamaamp160For all his talk of climate change perils and the need to invest in renewables he has also gloated over the jump in domestic energy production and promised to facilitate further increasesamp1608220Last year American oil production reached its highest level since 20038221 he affirmed in March 2011amp1608220And for the first time in more than a decade oil we imported accounted for less than half of the liquid fuel we consumedamp160So that was a good trend amp160To keep reducing that reliance on imports my administration is encouraging offshore oil exploration and production8221 Money Pouring into Fossil Fuels This burst of euphoria about fossil fuels and America8217s energy future is guaranteed to have a disastrous impact on the planetamp160In the long term it will make Earth a hotter far more extreme place to live by vastly increasing carbon emissions and diverting investment funds from renewables and green energy to new fossil fuel projectsamp160For all the excitement these endeavors may be generating it hardly takes a genius to see that they mean ever more carbon dioxide heading into the atmosphere and an ever less hospitable planet The preference for fossil fuel investments is easy to spot in the industry8217s trade journals as well as in recent statistical data and anecdotal reports of all sortsamp160According to the reliable International Energy Agency IEA private and public investment in fossil fuel projects over the next quarter century will outpace investment in renewable energy by a ratio of three to oneamp160In other words for every dollar spent on new wind farms solar arrays and tidal power research three dollars will go into the development of new oil fields shale gas operations and coal mines From industry sources it8217s clear that bigmoney investors are rushing to take advantage of the current boom in unconventional energy output in the US8212the climate be damnedamp1608220The dollars needed to develop such projects have never been larger8221 commented Maynard Holt copresident of Houstonbased investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt ampamp Companyamp1608220But the money is truly out there amp160The global energy capital river is flowing our way8221 In the eitheror equation that seems to be our energy future the capital river is rushing into the exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels while it8217s slowing to a trickle in the world of the true unconventionals8212the energy sources that don8217t add carbon to the atmosphere This indeed was the conclusion reached by the IEA which in 2012 warned that the seemingly inexorable growth in greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide is likely to eliminate all prospect of averting the worst effects of climate change Petro Machismo The new energy euphoria is also fueling a growing sense that the American superpower whose influence has recently seemed to be on the wane may soon acquire fresh geopolitical clout through its mastery of the latest energy technologiesamp1608220America8217s new energy posture allows us to engage from a position of greater strength8221 crowed National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in an April address at Columbia Universityamp160Increased domestic energy output he explained will help reduce US vulnerability to global supply disruptions and price hikesamp1608220It also affords us a stronger hand in pursuing and implementing our international security goals8221 A new elite consensus is forming around the strategic advantages of expanded oil and gas production amp160In particular this outlook holds that the US is benefiting from substantially reduced oil imports from the Middle East by eliminating a dependency that has led to several disastrous interventions in that region and exposed the country to periodic disruptions in oil deliveries starting with the Arab oil embargo of 197374 amp1608220The shift in oil sources means the global supply system will become more resilient our energy supplies will become more secure and the nation will have more flexibility in dealing with crises8221 Yergin wrote in the Wall Street Journal This turnaround he and other experts claim is what allowed Washington to adopt a tougher stance with Tehran in negotiations over Iran8217s nuclear enrichment programamp160With the US less dependent on Middle Eastern oil so goes the argument American leaders need not fear Iranian threats to disrupt the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf to international marketsamp1608220The substantial increase in oil production in the United States8221 Donilon declared in April is what allowed Washington to impose tough sanctions on Iranian oil 8220while minimizing the burdens on the rest of the world8221amp160 A stance of what could be called petro machismo is growing in Washington underlying such initiatives as the president8217s widely ballyhooed policy announcement of a 8220 pivot8221 from the Middle East to Asia still largely words backed by only the most modest of actions and efforts to constrain Russia8217s international influence Ever since Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency of that country Moscow has sought to sway the behavior of its former Warsaw Pact allies and the former republics of the Soviet Union by exploiting its dominant energy role in the regionamp160It offered cheap natural gas to governments willing to follow its policy dictates while threatening to cut off supplies to those that weren8217tamp160Now some American strategists hope to reduce Russia8217s clout by helping friendly nations like Poland and the Baltic states develop their own shale gas reserves and build LNG terminalsamp160These would allow them to import gas from 8220friendly8221 states including the US once its LNG export capacities are expandedamp1608220If we can export some natural gas to Europe and to Japan and other Asian nations8221 Karen Moreau suggested in February 8220we strengthen our relationships and influence in those places8212and perhaps reduce the influence of other producers such as Russia8221 The crucial issue is this if American elites continue to believe that increased oil and gas production will provide the US with a strategic advantage Washington will be tempted to exercise a 8220stronger hand8221 when pursuing its 8220international security goals8221 amp160The result will undoubtedly be heightened international friction and discord Is the Euphoria Justified There is no doubt that the present fossil fuel euphoria will lead in troubling directions even if the rosy predictions of rising energy output are in the long run likely to prove both unreliable and unrealisticamp160The petro machismo types make several interconnected claims The world8217s fossil fuel reserves are vast especially when 8220unconventional8221 sources of fuel8212Canadian tar sands shale gas and the like8212are included The utilization of advanced technologies especially fracking will permit the effective exploitation of a significant share of these untapped reserves assuming that governments don8217t restrict fracking and other controversial drilling activities Fossil fuels will continue to supply an enormous share of global energy requirements for the foreseeable future even given rising world temperatures growing public opposition and other challenges Each of these assertions is packed with unacknowledged questions and improbabilities that are impossible to explore thoroughly in an article of this lengthamp160But here are some major areas of doubtamp160 To begin with those virtually 8220boundless8221 untapped oil reserves have yet to be systematically explored meaning that it8217s impossible to know if they do in fact contain commercially significant reserves of oil and gasamp160To offer an apt example the US Geological Survey in one of the most widely cited estimates of untapped energy reserves has reported that approximately 13 of the world8217s undiscovered oil reserves and 30 percent of its natural gas lie above the Arctic Circleamp160But this assessment is based on geological analyses of rock samples not exploratory drillingamp160Whether the area actually holds such large reserves will not be known until widespread drilling has occurredamp160So far initial Arctic drilling operations like those off Greenland have generally proved disappointing Similarly the Energy Information Administration has reported that China possesses vast shale formations that could harbor substantial reserves of oil and gas amp160According to a 2013 EIA survey that country8217s technically recoverable shale gas reserves are estimated at 1275 trillion cubic feet more than twice the figure for the United Statesamp160Once again however the real extent of those reserves won8217t be known without extensive drilling which is only in its beginning stages To say then that global reserves are 8220boundless8221 is to disguise all the hypotheticals lurking within that descriptionamp160Reality may fall far short of industry claims The effectiveness of new technologies in exploiting such problematic reserves is also open to questionamp160True fracking and other unconventional technologies have already substantially increased the production of hardtoexploit fuels including tar sands shale gas and deepsea reservesamp160Many experts predict that such gains are likely to be repeated in the futureamp160The EIA for example suggests that US output of shale oil via fracking will jump by 221 over the next 15 years and natural gas by 164amp160The big question however is whether these projected increases will actually come to fruitionamp160While early gains are likely the odds are that future growth will come at a far slower pace As a start the most lucrative US shale formations in Arkansas Pennsylvania North Dakota and Texas have already experienced substantial exploration and many of the most attractive drilling sites or 8220plays8221 are now fully developedamp160More fracking no doubt will release additional oil and gas but the record shows that fossilfuel output tends to decline once the earliest most promising reservoirs are exploitedamp160In fact notes energy analyst Art Berman 8220several of the more mature shale gas plays are either in decline or appear to be approaching peak production8221 Doubts are also multiplying over the potential for exploiting shale reserves in other parts of the world amp160Preliminary drilling suggests that many of the shale formations in Europe and China possess fewer hydrocarbons and will be harder to develop than those now being exploited in this country In Poland for example efforts to extract domestic shale reserves have been stymied by disappointing drilling efforts and the subsequent departure of major foreign firms including Exxon Mobil and Marathon Oil Finally there is a crucial but difficult to assess factor in the future energy equation the degree to which energy companies and energy states will run into resistance when exploiting ever more remote and environmentally sensitive resource zonesamp160No one yet knows how much energy industry efforts may be constrained by the growing opposition of local residents scientists environmentalists and others who worry about the environmental degradation caused by unconventional energy extraction and the climate consequences of rising fossil fuel combustionamp160Despite industry claims that fracking tar sands production and Arctic drilling can be performed without endangering local residents harming the environment or wrecking the planet ever more people are coming to the opposite conclusion8212and beginning to take steps to protect their perceived interests In New York State for example a fervent antifracking oppositional movement has prevented government officials from allowing such activities to begin in the rich Marcellus shale formation one of the largest in the worldamp160Although Albany may in time allow limited fracking operations there it is unlikely to permit largescale drilling throughout the stateamp160Similarly an impressive opposition in British Columbia to the proposed Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline especially by the native peoples of the region has put that project on indefinite holdamp160And growing popular opposition to fracking in Europe is making itself felt across the regionamp160The European Parliament for example recently imposed tough environmental constraints on the practice As heat waves and extreme storm activity increase so will concern over climate change and opposition to wholesale fossil fuel extraction amp160The IEA warned of this possibility in the 2012 edition of its World Energy Outlookamp160Shale gas and other unconventional forms of natural gas are predicted to provide nearly half the net gain in world gas output over the next 25 years the report notedamp1608220There are8221 it added 8220also concerns about the environmental impact of producing unconventional gas that if not properly addressed could halt the unconventional gas revolution in its tracks8221 Reaction to that IEA report last November was revealingamp160Its release prompted a miniwave of ecstatic commentary in the American media about its prediction that thanks to the explosion in unconventional energy output this country would soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the world8217s leading oil produceramp160In fact the fossil fuel craze can be said to have started with this claimamp160None of the hundreds of articles and editorials written on the subject however bothered to discuss the caveats the report offered or its warnings of planetary catastropheamp160 As is so often the case with mass delusions those caught up in fossil fuel mania have not bothered to think through the grim realities involvedamp160While industry bigwigs may continue to remain on an energy high the rest of us will not be so luckyamp160The accelerated production and combustion of fossil fuels can have only one outcome a severely imperiled planet Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author most recently of The Race for What8217s Left Picadoramp160A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch book Nick Turse8217s The Changing Face of Empire Special Ops Drones Proxy Fighters Secret Bases and Cyberwarfare To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Over the past year, media reports and op-eds have examined the lead poisoning disaster in Flint, Michigan, from a variety of angles. Some focus on Michigan&#8217;s <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/03/23/snyder-appointed-task-force-calls-review-emergency-manager-law/82154780/" type="external">emergency manager laws</a>, which the Republican-dominated legislature has used to suspend democracy in majority-African-American cities, including Flint, Detroit, Pontiac, Highland Park, and Benton Harbor.</p> <p>Others focus on the larger issue of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/regulatory-gaps-leave-unsafe-lead-levels-in-water-nationwide.html" type="external">lead pipes</a> and decaying infrastructure, or the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/21/flint-water-crisis-emails-reveal-governor-snyder-informed-of-problems-a-year-ago" type="external">criminal negligence</a> of Governor Rick Snyder and his administration. Still others note that the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0131-highsmith-flint-water-crisis-20160131-story.html" type="external">long history</a> of housing discrimination in Flint, and the <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2016/02/05/end-emergency-manager-law/79910280/" type="external">racist</a> application of emergency manager laws, help explain why the majority of the poisoning victims are African American (although they include many working-class whites).</p> <p>Corporate media coverage, however, has ignored the relationship between the water crisis in Flint and ongoing mass water shutoffs in Detroit. More broadly, it has obscured the role of neoliberal restructuring in undermining one of the nation&#8217;s largest water systems, and in leaving over one hundred thousand people without running water in a state surrounded by the Great Lakes.</p> <p>Since 2000, state-appointed emergency managers in <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303949704579459722759653130" type="external">Detroit</a>, <a href="http://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PoP-ch-6-Water-in-Detroit.pdf" type="external">Highland Park</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-cohen/is-the-tragedy-in-flint-a_b_9103320.html" type="external">Flint</a>, and <a href="http://www.theoaklandpress.com/article/OP/20130129/NEWS/301299896" type="external">Pontiac</a> have outsourced key functions of their water departments to private companies, while ramping up water shutoffs on low-income households. Since 2013, when Republican governor Rick Snyder placed Detroit under an emergency manager, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department (DWSD) has shut off water for over one hundred thousand <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/what-happens-when-detroit-shuts-off-the-water-of-100000-people/374548/" type="external">residents</a>, provoking <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49127%20#.V7oR_vkrLVd" type="external">condemnation</a> from the United Nations Human Rights Council.</p> <p>Public health experts have also <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25893-detroit-water-shut-offs-condemned-as-threat-to-health/" type="external">said</a> that the mass shutoffs will increase infectious disease and infant mortality in Detroit. Meanwhile, even after its lead-contaminated water became a national scandal, Flint has <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/01/city_to_restart_water_shutoff.html" type="external">continued</a> to shut off water for residents unable or unwilling to pay for poisoned water.</p> <p>Whether from shutoffs, contamination, or both, so many poor and working-class urban residents in Michigan lack water to properly bathe, clean, or flush their toilets. Why are so many people unable to use tap water in a state bordering the Great Lakes, the largest group of freshwater lakes on earth?</p> <p>Michigan&#8217;s water crisis is rooted in the hollowing out of the public sector over the past three decades, which emergency manager laws have accelerated.</p> <p>Between 1977 and 2010, DWSD was under an EPA consent decree for Clean Water Act violations. Judge John Feikens, an arrogant <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/02/us/judge-is-critical-of-detroit-mayor.html" type="external">racist</a> and longtime opponent of school desegregation, recommended <a href="http://www.waterindustry.org/New%20Projects/detroit.htm" type="external">Victor Mercado</a> to head DWSD in 2002. Mercado was a former vice president of Thames North America (an offshoot of Thames Water, privatized by Margaret Thatcher in 1989) and United Water (a subsidiary of the French multinational Suez).</p> <p>In 2003, United Water took over Atlanta&#8217;s water system, with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/10/us/as-cities-move-to-privatize-water-atlanta-steps-back.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">disastrous results</a>. In Detroit, Mercado cut DWSD&#8217;s maintenance and repair staff by 13 percent, and accelerated the outsourcing of unionized jobs to private contractors. This process continued under Mercado&#8217;s successors, culminating in 2012 when DWSD signed a contract with EMA, Inc. that included plans to lay off 81 percent of DWSD&#8217;s staff, leading to a <a href="http://www.afscme207.com/inthenews.htm" type="external">strike by AFSCME Local 207</a>.</p> <p>While Mercado laid off unionized workers and illegally rigged bids with private contractors, water rates in Detroit more than doubled. At the same time, as a result of welfare reform, the number of recipients of cash assistance in Wayne County fell from 198,000 in 1995&#8211;96 to 32,613 in 2003, and to <a href="https://www.waynemetro.org/file/207/download?token=8f3QoYvw" type="external">15,238</a> by 2013.</p> <p>As part of welfare reform, Republican governor John Engler eliminated the Vendor Pay program in 2002, which had assisted welfare recipients with water and other utility bills. Overnight, tens of thousands of low-income people enrolled in the Vendor Pay program, many of them disabled and elderly, were <a href="http://mwro.org/past_actions.htm" type="external">at risk for water shutoffs</a>.</p> <p>This problem was most severe in Highland Park, the birthplace of Ford&#8217;s Model T. After Highland Park&#8217;s tax base collapsed in the 1990s, following the relocation of Chrysler&#8217;s headquarters to suburban Auburn Hills, Governor Engler appointed corporate accountant Ramona Pearson as emergency manager in 2001. To fill gaping budget holes, Pearson closed schools, libraries, and community centers, while jacking up Highland Park&#8217;s water rates to three times the national average, even though over half the residents lived below the federal poverty line. (These events are described in the Liz&#8217;s Miller&#8217;s excellent 2007 documentary <a href="http://waterfrontmovie.com/" type="external">The Water Front</a>).</p> <p>While downsizing the Highland Park Water Plant to four employees, Pearson began negotiations to sell the plant to the <a href="http://www.citizenarchive.org/print_article.cfm?ID=11974" type="external">Rothchild Wright Group</a> in 2004. Pearson only dropped these proposals under pressure from daily protests organized by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Highland Park Human Rights Coalition, led by veteran activists like Maureen Taylor and the late <a href="" type="internal">General Baker</a>.</p> <p>The water crisis in Michigan is also intertwined with the subprime mortgage meltdown, which is closely related to <a href="http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf?attempt=2" type="external">financial deregulation</a>. In 2005&#8211;7, Detroit had the <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mshda/Data_230191_7.pdf" type="external">highest rate</a> of subprime mortgage foreclosures in the United States. While increasingly deregulated banks were <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/01/24/subprime-detroit-morgan-stanley/22286935/" type="external">aggressively marketing</a> adjustable-rate subprime mortgages to working-class African Americans in Detroit, they were also selling <a href="http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Bhatti_Dirty_Deals.pdf" type="external">risky financial instruments</a> to the city government. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 allowed the swaps market to metastasize from $180 billion in 1998 to $6 trillion in 2004 to $57 trillion by the summer of 2008.</p> <p>In 2005, during this &#8220;wild west&#8221; period for predatory lenders, Detroit entered into a $1.4 billion dollar deal with UBS AG and Merrill Lynch Capital Services (later acquired by Bank of America). The deal included two layers of speculative financial instruments, one of which was an &#8220;interest rate swap&#8221; to fund DWSD. The swap deal constituted a bet that interest rates would rise. After interest rates plummeted as a result of the 2008 crash, DWSD was forced to pay <a href="http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/water-woes-and-the-swaps-swamp/Content?oid=2214702" type="external">$537 million</a> in swap termination payments to banks.</p> <p>In order to pay the termination fees, DWSD increased water rates, and took out $489 million in further bond debt in 2012. That year, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-09-13/detroit-shows-wall-street-never-loses-on-bad-swaps-muni-credit" type="external">Bloomberg</a> reported that &#8220;debt service has climbed to more than 40 percent of revenue&#8221; at DWSD. As a result, nearly half of Detroiters&#8217; water payments were going to pay debt service to banks, inflated by the banks&#8217; predatory swap deal. In April 2013, ongoing DWSD rate increases provided a <a href="http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/flints_switch_to_river_water_l.html" type="external">public rationale</a> for Flint&#8217;s emergency manager, Ed Kurtz, to switch from DWSD to the Flint River, although the <a href="http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/01/25/new-emails-reveal-the-switch-to-the-flint-river-was-not-about-saving-money" type="external">actual reasons</a> remain murky.</p> <p>Emergency manager legislation has only exacerbated these problems. In 2012, 52 percent of Michigan voters and 82 percent of Detroit voters <a href="http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/election_results_michigan_vote.html" type="external">struck down</a> Public Act 4. This legislation, signed by Governor Snyder in 2011, expanded the authority of emergency managers to unilaterally break public-sector union contracts, and even lock elected officials out of city hall and council chambers and freeze email accounts. Empowered by the new law, Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Robert Bobb <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/04/19/michigan-emergency-manager-robert-bobb-issues-layoff-notice-to-all-detroit-public-school-teachers/#5b53b92069ca" type="external">laid off</a> all of the district&#8217;s unionized teachers in 2011, and proposed to increase class sizes to sixty.</p> <p>Immediately after voters rejected Public Act 4, Snyder signed a <a href="http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/snyder_signs_replacement_emerg.html" type="external">replacement bill</a>, Public Act 436, which included a provision that it could not be overturned by popular referendum. During the same session, Snyder signed Michigan&#8217;s first right-to-work law. The primary purpose of Michigan&#8217;s emergency manager legislation (drafted with <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/14756" type="external">help</a> from the Mackinac Center, a think tank funded by Dick Devos, the Walton Family, the Koch brothers, and other right-wing billionaires) is to break public-sector unions.</p> <p>In March 2013, Governor Snyder appointed Kevyn Orr as emergency manager for Detroit. Orr, a bankruptcy lawyer from <a href="http://www.jonesday.com/principlesandvalues/clientlist/" type="external">Jones Day</a> (the largest corporate law firm in the United States), placed bids to privatize <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303949704579459722759653130" type="external">DWSD</a>, the <a href="http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/detroit-public-lighting-department-to-be-phased-out-emergency-manager-orr-tells-dte-energy" type="external">Detroit Public Lighting Department</a>, and <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/04/detroit_employees_skip_work_ah.html" type="external">waste collection</a> at the Detroit Public Works Department, while <a href="http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20131112/NEWS/131119958/state-lease-of-belle-isle-has-begun-90-day-transition-period-will" type="external">leasing Belle Isle</a> (the largest city-owned island park in the United States) to the state of Michigan for thirty years. Also in 2013, a consortium of local foundations released the <a href="http://detroitfuturecity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/DFC_ExecutiveSummary_2ndEd.pdf" type="external">Detroit Future City</a> plan, which proposes to &#8220;replace, repurpose, decommission&#8221; or &#8220;reduce and maintain&#8221; water and other basic services in nearly half the city of Detroit. The plan also concentrates resources in a gentrifying &#8220;digital/creative&#8221; zone centered on downtown and the Cass Corridor (recently <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/04/21/detroits-cass-corridor-makes-way-new-era/26156687/" type="external">rebranded</a> as &#8220;Midtown Detroit&#8221; by developers).</p> <p>The same year, Mackinac Center board member Rodney Lockwood released a futuristic novel and <a href="http://www.commonwealthofbelleisle.com/" type="external">promotional web site</a>, called Belle Isle: Detroit&#8217;s Game Changer, which promoted the idea of turning Belle Isle into an offshore tax haven for thirty-five thousand citizens (membership fee: $300,000), where the official currency would be the Rand, in honor of Ayn Rand. The novel describes a mid-twenty-first-century Detroit with a population of forty-five thousand, where neighborhoods have been cleared of people and replaced with &#8220;green zones&#8221; where wealthy entrepreneurs operate urban farms.</p> <p>This scheme closely resembles the Hantz Farms project, led by developer John Hantz (another <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/2009/12/29/news/economy/farming_detroit.fortune/index.htm" type="external">Ayn Rand devotee</a> with an estimated net worth of $100 million). As geographer Sara Safransky has <a href="https://www.academia.edu/10055113/Greening_the_urban_frontier_Race_property_and_resettlement_in_Detroit" type="external">noted</a>, under this plan Hantz &#8220;could potentially own one-fourteenth of Detroit.&#8221;</p> <p>While developers eyed an increasingly indebted Detroit for land grabs and privatization opportunities, Emergency Manager Orr supported the intensification of DWSD&#8217;s program of residential water shutoffs. In a city where nearly 40 percent of the residents fall below the federal poverty line, increasing water rates are a formula for default.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.mwro.org/" type="external">Michigan Welfare Rights Organization</a> and the <a href="https://peopleswaterboard.org/members" type="external">People&#8217;s Water Board</a> (founded in 2007) had long advocated a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By2p2ytUJwFzRy1VazFhVGlzQTQ/edit" type="external">water affordability plan</a>, which would cap water bills at 2 percent of household income for residents with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty line, and 2.5 percent for those at 50-100 percent. The Detroit city council approved a water affordability plan in 2006, but the city never implemented it.</p> <p>In February 2014, the DWSD customer service department announced that &#8220;DWSD is preparing to ramp-up shutoffs. Any account sixty days past due will be subject to shutoff.&#8221; According to the Detroit News, roughly half of the city&#8217;s water accounts fell into this category as of March 2014.</p> <p>As a result of this ruthless policy, shutoffs rapidly escalated, as the following table (based on DWSD statistics available <a href="http://archive.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/financials/Finance_Committee_Binder_7-14-2014.pdf" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://archive.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/financials/Finance_Committee_Binder_5-28-2015.pdf" type="external">here</a>, and <a href="http://archive.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/financials/Finance_Committee_Binder_7-22-2015.pdf" type="external">here</a>) illustrates. Economist Roger Colton, who helped design the Water Affordability Plan passed by the Detroit City Council in 2006, told me in an interview that a &#8220;safe&#8221; estimate for the number of Detroit residents facing water shutoffs since 2013 was one hundred thousand. Moreover, the shutoffs spiked dramatically under the rule of Emergency Manager Orr, from March 2013 through December 2014.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>While this humanitarian crisis unfolded, Orr began seeking bids from private water companies, including American Water, Veolia, and United Water, to take over DWSD. By April 2014, the city had received thirty different proposals. Orr asked companies to come up with binding bids by June. The announcement came during a breakdown in negotiations with suburban municipalities about regionalizing DWSD under a new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA).</p> <p>The GLWA board would be governed by <a href="http://www.detroitmi.gov/How-Do-I/Great-Lakes-Water-Authority" type="external">six members</a>, with two appointed by the mayor of Detroit, one appointed by the governor, and one each appointed by Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties. In June 2015, the City of Detroit leased DWSD to the GLWA for forty years, in return for $50 million per year for use of city assets. For the first time in 180 years, Detroit would lose control of its water system.</p> <p>GLWA&#8217;s <a href="https://www.oakgov.com/exec/Documents/great_lakes_water_authority/Detroit_DWSD_Executed_MOU_Sept_9_2014_FINAL.pdf" type="external">Memorandum of Understanding</a>, adopted later that year, listed Veolia, the world&#8217;s largest private water company, as a contractor hired to &#8220;undertake an assessment of the systems and make recommendations to assist the parties in operating models, capital requirements and saving opportunities.&#8221; Veolia was also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-cohen/is-the-tragedy-in-flint-a_b_9103320.html" type="external">hired</a> by Flint&#8217;s emergency manager in 2015, and deemed the city&#8217;s water &#8220;safe&#8221; despite rapidly rising lead levels.</p> <p>Beginning in May and June 2014, Detroit activists began a campaign of civil disobedience against the mass shutoffs. In June, protesters began to physically blockade the Homrich dispatch facility at 4660 Grand Boulevard, to prevent trucks from leaving to perform shutoffs. Between July 10 and July 25, police arrested twenty-nine protesters attempting to blockade Homrich trucks, many of them chanting &#8220;We Shall Not Be Moved.&#8221; On July 18, over one thousand protesters <a href="http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/detroit/activists-protest-detroit-water-shutoffs" type="external">marched</a> in downtown Detroit to protest the shutoffs, in an action called by National Nurses United. Many of the protesters targeted Wall Street banks, both because of their role in the city&#8217;s foreclosure crisis and in the predatory swap deal.</p> <p>Between October 18 and 20, in response to letters from the People&#8217;s Water Board, UN Special Rapporteurs Leilani Farha and Catarina de Albuquerque visited Detroit. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UkUVjyF_XE" type="external">press conference</a>, Leilani Farha, the special rapporteur on the human right to water, called Detroit&#8217;s water crisis a &#8220;man-made perfect storm&#8221; caused by poverty, unaffordable water rates, and DWSD&#8217;s draconian shutoff policy. The shutoffs, the UN experts <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49127" type="external">told the press</a>, violated international human rights laws to which &#8220;the United States is bound,&#8221; both concerning the &#8220;right to water&#8221; and the &#8220;right to nondiscrimination,&#8221; because of their disproportionate effect on African-Americans.</p> <p>However, Mayor Mike Duggan disregarded the United Nations, and has proven equally supportive of mass water <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/05/24/detroit-water-shutoffs-poverty-unpaid-bills/27852135/" type="external">shutoffs</a> and the <a href="http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/8331/mayor_duggan_s_development_chief_%20says_the_detroit_%20future_city_plan_is_his_bible#.V7r7ivkrLVd" type="external">Detroit Future City</a> urban triage plan. The shutoffs have continued, and the GLWA has <a href="http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/07/06/detroit-water-shut-offs-resume-and-residents-continue-to-struggle-with-bills" type="external">failed</a> to devote even the paltry $4.5 million it pledged in 2014 to water assistance programs.</p> <p>The difference in shutoff policies toward low-income households and local corporate interests also provides a revealing window into the GLWA&#8217;s priorities. In 2015, while the city officially shut off water service for 23,300 homes, it only shut off 680 businesses, <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2016/03/31/detroit-water-shutoffs/82497496/" type="external">despite the fact</a> that businesses owed $41 million in water bills, compared with $26 million for private homes. Delinquent businesses that have not been shut off (despite enormous water bills) included the Detroit Red Wings stadium and the Palmer Park Golf Course.</p> <p>During the same period, the Flint water crisis became a national scandal. Few commentators, however, have examined the links between the water crises in Detroit and Flint. As noted previously, the DWSD rate increases provided a public rationale for Flint&#8217;s emergency manager, Ed Kurtz, to switch Flint from DWSD to the Flint River in April 2013. His successor, Darnell Earley, oversaw the completion of this process.</p> <p>Disregarding the EPA&#8217;s lead and copper rule, Governor Snyder&#8217;s appointees at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) exempted the Flint water treatment plant from corrosion control. Instead, MDEQ only promised to test Flint water during two six-month trial periods, and institute corrosion control if lead and copper levels exceeded EPA standards. Because the Flint River water was high in corrosive chlorides, the new water supply caused lead and copper to leach from water pipes into the city&#8217;s drinking water for over two years.</p> <p>When technicians discovered elevated lead and copper levels, Governor Snyder&#8217;s MDEQ <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/04/20/2-mdeq-employees-city-employee-charged-flint-water-crisis/83272760/" type="external">tampered</a> with the test results to conceal the problem. An epidemiological <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303003" type="external">study</a> in 2014&#8211;15, led by Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha of Michigan Children&#8217;s Hospital, found that the incidence of elevated blood lead levels in Flint children more than doubled after the switch.</p> <p>Such problems were not isolated to Flint, however. The following year, school officials in Detroit <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2016/04/13/elevated-lead-levels-found-detroit-schools-water/83013420/" type="external">discovered</a> elevated levels of lead and copper in nineteen out of sixty-two schools tested. During the same period, Darnell Earley, the emergency manager in Flint during the water crisis, became the emergency manager of the Detroit Public Schools. After the Flint lead poisoning scandal attracted national attention, Earley <a href="http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/detroit-public-schools-em-darnell-earley-expected-to-resign" type="external">stepped down</a> from his position at DPS.</p> <p>Following the resignation, Governor Snyder praised Earley, saying that he &#8220;restructured a heavily bureaucratic central office&#8221; and &#8220;set in place operating and cost-containment measures&#8221; at DPS. However, the lead testing results suggested that such &#8220;restructuring&#8221; and &#8220;cost containment&#8221; was as dangerous for children in Detroit as in Flint.</p> <p>At one Detroit school, Ronald Brown Academy, tests showed lead levels of 1,500 parts per billion, and tests at eight schools found copper levels at 1,300 parts per billion. Similar complaints about black mold, rats, roaches, and leaking roofs contributed to a &#8220; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/detroit-public-school-student-walk-outs-and-teacher-sick-outs-2016-1" type="external">sick-out</a>&#8221; by teachers that closed eighty-five of one hundred DPS schools in the winter of 2015&#8211;16.</p> <p>After seven years under emergency management, Detroit schools are more hazardous than ever. The water test results, in particular, suggest that a Flint-like poisoning crisis could easily occur in Detroit.</p> <p>The interconnected water crises in Detroit and Flint demonstrate the massive human costs of destroying the public sector, which antidemocratic emergency manager laws have accelerated. The combination of risky financial deals and privatization is also increasing water rates and shutoffs in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/how-wall-street-caused-a-water-crisis-in-americas-cities/" type="external">other cities</a>. Although population decline and aging infrastructure partially explain water rate increases, neoliberal restructuring is at the heart of the problem. The decimation of the welfare state, which led to the removal of Michigan&#8217;s vendor pay program, have also made poor and working-class residents (disproportionately African Americans) more vulnerable to shutoffs.</p> <p>Addressing this crisis will require a moratorium on residential water shutoffs, and implementing ambitious water affordability programs. The People&#8217;s Water Board and other organizations have pushed to get <a href="http://www.circleofblue.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Water-bill-package-summary_REV2213.pdf" type="external">ten water affordability bills</a> before the Michigan house. The People&#8217;s Water Board also deserves <a href="https://peopleswaterboard.org/donate-to-peoples-water-board-coalition" type="external">support</a>.</p> <p>More generally, we need to fight the multinational corporate drive to commodify and maximize profits from water and other survival necessities. As Martin Luther King Jr pointed out in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagCA3FytMU" type="external">speech</a> &#8220;Where Do We Go From Here?&#8221; in August 1967, almost exactly half a century ago:</p> <p>Why are there forty million poor people in America?&#8221; When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy .&amp;#160;.&amp;#160;. &#8220;Who owns the oil?&#8221; You begin to ask the question, &#8220;Who owns the iron ore?&#8221; You begin to ask the question, &#8220;Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?&#8221;</p> <p>In the context of global climate change, and claims that privatization is a <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/4/water-managementprivatizationworldbankgroupifc.html" type="external">solution</a> to growing water scarcity, we need to ask those questions more than ever.</p>

Neoliberalism’s Deadly Experiment

https://jacobinmag.com/2016/10/water-detroit-flint-emergency-management-lead-snyder-privatization/

2018-10-03

4left

Over the past year media reports and opeds have examined the lead poisoning disaster in Flint Michigan from a variety of angles Some focus on Michigan8217s emergency manager laws which the Republicandominated legislature has used to suspend democracy in majorityAfricanAmerican cities including Flint Detroit Pontiac Highland Park and Benton Harbor Others focus on the larger issue of lead pipes and decaying infrastructure or the criminal negligence of Governor Rick Snyder and his administration Still others note that the long history of housing discrimination in Flint and the racist application of emergency manager laws help explain why the majority of the poisoning victims are African American although they include many workingclass whites Corporate media coverage however has ignored the relationship between the water crisis in Flint and ongoing mass water shutoffs in Detroit More broadly it has obscured the role of neoliberal restructuring in undermining one of the nation8217s largest water systems and in leaving over one hundred thousand people without running water in a state surrounded by the Great Lakes Since 2000 stateappointed emergency managers in Detroit Highland Park Flint and Pontiac have outsourced key functions of their water departments to private companies while ramping up water shutoffs on lowincome households Since 2013 when Republican governor Rick Snyder placed Detroit under an emergency manager the Detroit Water and Sewage Department DWSD has shut off water for over one hundred thousand residents provoking condemnation from the United Nations Human Rights Council Public health experts have also said that the mass shutoffs will increase infectious disease and infant mortality in Detroit Meanwhile even after its leadcontaminated water became a national scandal Flint has continued to shut off water for residents unable or unwilling to pay for poisoned water Whether from shutoffs contamination or both so many poor and workingclass urban residents in Michigan lack water to properly bathe clean or flush their toilets Why are so many people unable to use tap water in a state bordering the Great Lakes the largest group of freshwater lakes on earth Michigan8217s water crisis is rooted in the hollowing out of the public sector over the past three decades which emergency manager laws have accelerated Between 1977 and 2010 DWSD was under an EPA consent decree for Clean Water Act violations Judge John Feikens an arrogant racist and longtime opponent of school desegregation recommended Victor Mercado to head DWSD in 2002 Mercado was a former vice president of Thames North America an offshoot of Thames Water privatized by Margaret Thatcher in 1989 and United Water a subsidiary of the French multinational Suez In 2003 United Water took over Atlanta8217s water system with disastrous results In Detroit Mercado cut DWSD8217s maintenance and repair staff by 13 percent and accelerated the outsourcing of unionized jobs to private contractors This process continued under Mercado8217s successors culminating in 2012 when DWSD signed a contract with EMA Inc that included plans to lay off 81 percent of DWSD8217s staff leading to a strike by AFSCME Local 207 While Mercado laid off unionized workers and illegally rigged bids with private contractors water rates in Detroit more than doubled At the same time as a result of welfare reform the number of recipients of cash assistance in Wayne County fell from 198000 in 1995821196 to 32613 in 2003 and to 15238 by 2013 As part of welfare reform Republican governor John Engler eliminated the Vendor Pay program in 2002 which had assisted welfare recipients with water and other utility bills Overnight tens of thousands of lowincome people enrolled in the Vendor Pay program many of them disabled and elderly were at risk for water shutoffs This problem was most severe in Highland Park the birthplace of Ford8217s Model T After Highland Park8217s tax base collapsed in the 1990s following the relocation of Chrysler8217s headquarters to suburban Auburn Hills Governor Engler appointed corporate accountant Ramona Pearson as emergency manager in 2001 To fill gaping budget holes Pearson closed schools libraries and community centers while jacking up Highland Park8217s water rates to three times the national average even though over half the residents lived below the federal poverty line These events are described in the Liz8217s Miller8217s excellent 2007 documentary The Water Front While downsizing the Highland Park Water Plant to four employees Pearson began negotiations to sell the plant to the Rothchild Wright Group in 2004 Pearson only dropped these proposals under pressure from daily protests organized by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Highland Park Human Rights Coalition led by veteran activists like Maureen Taylor and the late General Baker The water crisis in Michigan is also intertwined with the subprime mortgage meltdown which is closely related to financial deregulation In 200582117 Detroit had the highest rate of subprime mortgage foreclosures in the United States While increasingly deregulated banks were aggressively marketing adjustablerate subprime mortgages to workingclass African Americans in Detroit they were also selling risky financial instruments to the city government The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 allowed the swaps market to metastasize from 180 billion in 1998 to 6 trillion in 2004 to 57 trillion by the summer of 2008 In 2005 during this 8220wild west8221 period for predatory lenders Detroit entered into a 14 billion dollar deal with UBS AG and Merrill Lynch Capital Services later acquired by Bank of America The deal included two layers of speculative financial instruments one of which was an 8220interest rate swap8221 to fund DWSD The swap deal constituted a bet that interest rates would rise After interest rates plummeted as a result of the 2008 crash DWSD was forced to pay 537 million in swap termination payments to banks In order to pay the termination fees DWSD increased water rates and took out 489 million in further bond debt in 2012 That year Bloomberg reported that 8220debt service has climbed to more than 40 percent of revenue8221 at DWSD As a result nearly half of Detroiters8217 water payments were going to pay debt service to banks inflated by the banks8217 predatory swap deal In April 2013 ongoing DWSD rate increases provided a public rationale for Flint8217s emergency manager Ed Kurtz to switch from DWSD to the Flint River although the actual reasons remain murky Emergency manager legislation has only exacerbated these problems In 2012 52 percent of Michigan voters and 82 percent of Detroit voters struck down Public Act 4 This legislation signed by Governor Snyder in 2011 expanded the authority of emergency managers to unilaterally break publicsector union contracts and even lock elected officials out of city hall and council chambers and freeze email accounts Empowered by the new law Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Robert Bobb laid off all of the district8217s unionized teachers in 2011 and proposed to increase class sizes to sixty Immediately after voters rejected Public Act 4 Snyder signed a replacement bill Public Act 436 which included a provision that it could not be overturned by popular referendum During the same session Snyder signed Michigan8217s first righttowork law The primary purpose of Michigan8217s emergency manager legislation drafted with help from the Mackinac Center a think tank funded by Dick Devos the Walton Family the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires is to break publicsector unions In March 2013 Governor Snyder appointed Kevyn Orr as emergency manager for Detroit Orr a bankruptcy lawyer from Jones Day the largest corporate law firm in the United States placed bids to privatize DWSD the Detroit Public Lighting Department and waste collection at the Detroit Public Works Department while leasing Belle Isle the largest cityowned island park in the United States to the state of Michigan for thirty years Also in 2013 a consortium of local foundations released the Detroit Future City plan which proposes to 8220replace repurpose decommission8221 or 8220reduce and maintain8221 water and other basic services in nearly half the city of Detroit The plan also concentrates resources in a gentrifying 8220digitalcreative8221 zone centered on downtown and the Cass Corridor recently rebranded as 8220Midtown Detroit8221 by developers The same year Mackinac Center board member Rodney Lockwood released a futuristic novel and promotional web site called Belle Isle Detroit8217s Game Changer which promoted the idea of turning Belle Isle into an offshore tax haven for thirtyfive thousand citizens membership fee 300000 where the official currency would be the Rand in honor of Ayn Rand The novel describes a midtwentyfirstcentury Detroit with a population of fortyfive thousand where neighborhoods have been cleared of people and replaced with 8220green zones8221 where wealthy entrepreneurs operate urban farms This scheme closely resembles the Hantz Farms project led by developer John Hantz another Ayn Rand devotee with an estimated net worth of 100 million As geographer Sara Safransky has noted under this plan Hantz 8220could potentially own onefourteenth of Detroit8221 While developers eyed an increasingly indebted Detroit for land grabs and privatization opportunities Emergency Manager Orr supported the intensification of DWSD8217s program of residential water shutoffs In a city where nearly 40 percent of the residents fall below the federal poverty line increasing water rates are a formula for default The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and the People8217s Water Board founded in 2007 had long advocated a water affordability plan which would cap water bills at 2 percent of household income for residents with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty line and 25 percent for those at 50100 percent The Detroit city council approved a water affordability plan in 2006 but the city never implemented it In February 2014 the DWSD customer service department announced that 8220DWSD is preparing to rampup shutoffs Any account sixty days past due will be subject to shutoff8221 According to the Detroit News roughly half of the city8217s water accounts fell into this category as of March 2014 As a result of this ruthless policy shutoffs rapidly escalated as the following table based on DWSD statistics available here here and here illustrates Economist Roger Colton who helped design the Water Affordability Plan passed by the Detroit City Council in 2006 told me in an interview that a 8220safe8221 estimate for the number of Detroit residents facing water shutoffs since 2013 was one hundred thousand Moreover the shutoffs spiked dramatically under the rule of Emergency Manager Orr from March 2013 through December 2014 While this humanitarian crisis unfolded Orr began seeking bids from private water companies including American Water Veolia and United Water to take over DWSD By April 2014 the city had received thirty different proposals Orr asked companies to come up with binding bids by June The announcement came during a breakdown in negotiations with suburban municipalities about regionalizing DWSD under a new Great Lakes Water Authority GLWA The GLWA board would be governed by six members with two appointed by the mayor of Detroit one appointed by the governor and one each appointed by Wayne Macomb and Oakland counties In June 2015 the City of Detroit leased DWSD to the GLWA for forty years in return for 50 million per year for use of city assets For the first time in 180 years Detroit would lose control of its water system GLWA8217s Memorandum of Understanding adopted later that year listed Veolia the world8217s largest private water company as a contractor hired to 8220undertake an assessment of the systems and make recommendations to assist the parties in operating models capital requirements and saving opportunities8221 Veolia was also hired by Flint8217s emergency manager in 2015 and deemed the city8217s water 8220safe8221 despite rapidly rising lead levels Beginning in May and June 2014 Detroit activists began a campaign of civil disobedience against the mass shutoffs In June protesters began to physically blockade the Homrich dispatch facility at 4660 Grand Boulevard to prevent trucks from leaving to perform shutoffs Between July 10 and July 25 police arrested twentynine protesters attempting to blockade Homrich trucks many of them chanting 8220We Shall Not Be Moved8221 On July 18 over one thousand protesters marched in downtown Detroit to protest the shutoffs in an action called by National Nurses United Many of the protesters targeted Wall Street banks both because of their role in the city8217s foreclosure crisis and in the predatory swap deal Between October 18 and 20 in response to letters from the People8217s Water Board UN Special Rapporteurs Leilani Farha and Catarina de Albuquerque visited Detroit In a press conference Leilani Farha the special rapporteur on the human right to water called Detroit8217s water crisis a 8220manmade perfect storm8221 caused by poverty unaffordable water rates and DWSD8217s draconian shutoff policy The shutoffs the UN experts told the press violated international human rights laws to which 8220the United States is bound8221 both concerning the 8220right to water8221 and the 8220right to nondiscrimination8221 because of their disproportionate effect on AfricanAmericans However Mayor Mike Duggan disregarded the United Nations and has proven equally supportive of mass water shutoffs and the Detroit Future City urban triage plan The shutoffs have continued and the GLWA has failed to devote even the paltry 45 million it pledged in 2014 to water assistance programs The difference in shutoff policies toward lowincome households and local corporate interests also provides a revealing window into the GLWA8217s priorities In 2015 while the city officially shut off water service for 23300 homes it only shut off 680 businesses despite the fact that businesses owed 41 million in water bills compared with 26 million for private homes Delinquent businesses that have not been shut off despite enormous water bills included the Detroit Red Wings stadium and the Palmer Park Golf Course During the same period the Flint water crisis became a national scandal Few commentators however have examined the links between the water crises in Detroit and Flint As noted previously the DWSD rate increases provided a public rationale for Flint8217s emergency manager Ed Kurtz to switch Flint from DWSD to the Flint River in April 2013 His successor Darnell Earley oversaw the completion of this process Disregarding the EPA8217s lead and copper rule Governor Snyder8217s appointees at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality MDEQ exempted the Flint water treatment plant from corrosion control Instead MDEQ only promised to test Flint water during two sixmonth trial periods and institute corrosion control if lead and copper levels exceeded EPA standards Because the Flint River water was high in corrosive chlorides the new water supply caused lead and copper to leach from water pipes into the city8217s drinking water for over two years When technicians discovered elevated lead and copper levels Governor Snyder8217s MDEQ tampered with the test results to conceal the problem An epidemiological study in 2014821115 led by Dr Mona HannaAttisha of Michigan Children8217s Hospital found that the incidence of elevated blood lead levels in Flint children more than doubled after the switch Such problems were not isolated to Flint however The following year school officials in Detroit discovered elevated levels of lead and copper in nineteen out of sixtytwo schools tested During the same period Darnell Earley the emergency manager in Flint during the water crisis became the emergency manager of the Detroit Public Schools After the Flint lead poisoning scandal attracted national attention Earley stepped down from his position at DPS Following the resignation Governor Snyder praised Earley saying that he 8220restructured a heavily bureaucratic central office8221 and 8220set in place operating and costcontainment measures8221 at DPS However the lead testing results suggested that such 8220restructuring8221 and 8220cost containment8221 was as dangerous for children in Detroit as in Flint At one Detroit school Ronald Brown Academy tests showed lead levels of 1500 parts per billion and tests at eight schools found copper levels at 1300 parts per billion Similar complaints about black mold rats roaches and leaking roofs contributed to a 8220 sickout8221 by teachers that closed eightyfive of one hundred DPS schools in the winter of 2015821116 After seven years under emergency management Detroit schools are more hazardous than ever The water test results in particular suggest that a Flintlike poisoning crisis could easily occur in Detroit The interconnected water crises in Detroit and Flint demonstrate the massive human costs of destroying the public sector which antidemocratic emergency manager laws have accelerated The combination of risky financial deals and privatization is also increasing water rates and shutoffs in other cities Although population decline and aging infrastructure partially explain water rate increases neoliberal restructuring is at the heart of the problem The decimation of the welfare state which led to the removal of Michigan8217s vendor pay program have also made poor and workingclass residents disproportionately African Americans more vulnerable to shutoffs Addressing this crisis will require a moratorium on residential water shutoffs and implementing ambitious water affordability programs The People8217s Water Board and other organizations have pushed to get ten water affordability bills before the Michigan house The People8217s Water Board also deserves support More generally we need to fight the multinational corporate drive to commodify and maximize profits from water and other survival necessities As Martin Luther King Jr pointed out in his speech 8220Where Do We Go From Here8221 in August 1967 almost exactly half a century ago Why are there forty million poor people in America8221 When you ask that question you begin to question the capitalistic economy amp160amp160 8220Who owns the oil8221 You begin to ask the question 8220Who owns the iron ore8221 You begin to ask the question 8220Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is twothirds water8221 In the context of global climate change and claims that privatization is a solution to growing water scarcity we need to ask those questions more than ever

Over/ADP the/DET past/ADJ year/NOUN media/NOUN reports/NOUN and/CCONJ opeds/NOUN have/AUX examined/VERB the/DET lead/NOUN poisoning/VERB disaster/NOUN in/ADP Flint/PROPN Michigan/PROPN from/ADP a/DET variety/NOUN of/ADP angles/NOUN Some/DET focus/NOUN on/ADP Michigan8217s/PROPN emergency/NOUN manager/NOUN laws/NOUN which/PRON the/DET Republicandominated/PROPN legislature/NOUN has/AUX used/VERB to/PART suspend/VERB democracy/NOUN in/ADP majorityAfricanAmerican/ADJ cities/NOUN including/VERB Flint/PROPN Detroit/PROPN Pontiac/PROPN Highland/PROPN Park/PROPN and/CCONJ Benton/PROPN Harbor/PROPN Others/PROPN focus/VERB on/ADP the/DET larger/ADJ issue/NOUN of/ADP lead/ADJ pipes/NOUN and/CCONJ decaying/VERB infrastructure/NOUN or/CCONJ the/DET criminal/ADJ negligence/NOUN of/ADP Governor/PROPN Rick/PROPN Snyder/PROPN and/CCONJ his/PRON administration/NOUN Still/ADV others/NOUN note/VERB that/SCONJ the/DET long/ADJ history/NOUN of/ADP housing/NOUN discrimination/NOUN in/ADP Flint/PROPN 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Detroit/PROPN Meanwhile/ADV even/ADV after/SCONJ its/PRON leadcontaminated/VERB water/NOUN became/VERB a/DET national/ADJ scandal/NOUN Flint/PROPN has/AUX continued/VERB to/PART shut/VERB off/ADP water/NOUN for/ADP residents/NOUN unable/ADJ or/CCONJ unwilling/ADJ to/PART pay/VERB for/ADP poisoned/VERB water/NOUN Whether/SCONJ from/ADP shutoffs/NOUN contamination/NOUN or/CCONJ both/DET so/ADV many/ADJ poor/ADJ and/CCONJ workingclass/VERB urban/ADJ residents/NOUN in/ADP Michigan/PROPN lack/NOUN water/NOUN to/PART properly/ADV bathe/VERB clean/ADJ or/CCONJ flush/VERB their/PRON toilets/NOUN Why/SCONJ are/AUX so/ADV many/ADJ people/NOUN unable/ADJ to/PART use/VERB tap/NOUN water/NOUN in/ADP a/DET state/NOUN bordering/VERB the/DET Great/PROPN Lakes/PROPN the/DET largest/ADJ group/NOUN of/ADP freshwater/NOUN lakes/NOUN on/ADP earth/PROPN Michigan8217s/PROPN water/NOUN crisis/NOUN is/AUX rooted/VERB in/ADP the/DET hollowing/NOUN out/ADP of/ADP the/DET public/ADJ sector/NOUN over/ADP the/DET past/ADJ three/NUM decades/NOUN which/PRON emergency/NOUN manager/NOUN laws/NOUN have/AUX accelerated/VERB Between/ADP 1977/NUM and/CCONJ 2010/NUM DWSD/PROPN was/AUX under/ADP an/DET EPA/PROPN consent/NOUN decree/NOUN for/ADP Clean/PROPN Water/PROPN Act/PROPN violations/VERB Judge/PROPN John/PROPN Feikens/PROPN an/DET arrogant/ADJ racist/NOUN and/CCONJ longtime/ADJ opponent/NOUN of/ADP school/NOUN desegregation/NOUN recommended/VERB Victor/PROPN Mercado/PROPN to/PART head/VERB DWSD/PROPN in/ADP 2002/NUM Mercado/PROPN was/AUX a/DET former/ADJ vice/NOUN president/NOUN of/ADP Thames/PROPN North/PROPN America/PROPN an/DET offshoot/NOUN of/ADP Thames/PROPN Water/PROPN privatized/VERB by/ADP Margaret/PROPN Thatcher/PROPN in/ADP 1989/NUM and/CCONJ United/PROPN Water/PROPN a/DET subsidiary/NOUN of/ADP the/DET French/ADJ multinational/ADJ Suez/PROPN In/ADP 2003/NUM United/PROPN Water/PROPN took/VERB over/ADP Atlanta8217s/PROPN water/NOUN system/NOUN with/ADP disastrous/ADJ results/NOUN In/ADP Detroit/PROPN Mercado/PROPN cut/VERB DWSD8217s/PROPN maintenance/NOUN and/CCONJ repair/NOUN staff/NOUN by/ADP 13/NUM percent/NOUN and/CCONJ accelerated/VERB the/DET outsourcing/NOUN of/ADP unionized/ADJ jobs/NOUN to/ADP private/ADJ contractors/NOUN This/DET process/NOUN continued/VERB under/ADP Mercado8217s/PROPN successors/NOUN culminating/VERB in/ADP 2012/NUM when/SCONJ DWSD/PROPN signed/VERB a/DET contract/NOUN with/ADP EMA/PROPN Inc/PROPN that/PRON included/VERB plans/NOUN to/PART lay/VERB off/ADP 81/NUM percent/NOUN of/ADP DWSD8217s/ADJ staff/NOUN leading/VERB to/ADP a/DET strike/NOUN by/ADP AFSCME/PROPN Local/PROPN 207/NUM While/SCONJ Mercado/PROPN laid/VERB off/ADP unionized/ADJ workers/NOUN and/CCONJ illegally/ADV rigged/VERB bids/NOUN with/ADP private/ADJ contractors/NOUN water/NOUN rates/NOUN in/ADP Detroit/PROPN more/ADV than/ADP doubled/VERB At/ADP the/DET same/ADJ time/NOUN as/ADP a/DET result/NOUN of/ADP welfare/NOUN reform/NOUN the/DET number/NOUN of/ADP recipients/NOUN of/ADP cash/NOUN assistance/NOUN in/ADP Wayne/PROPN County/PROPN fell/VERB from/ADP 198000/NUM in/ADP 1995821196/NUM to/ADP 32613/NUM in/ADP 2003/NUM and/CCONJ to/ADP 15238/NUM by/ADP 2013/NUM As/ADP part/NOUN of/ADP welfare/NOUN reform/NOUN Republican/ADJ governor/NOUN John/PROPN Engler/PROPN eliminated/VERB the/DET Vendor/PROPN Pay/PROPN program/NOUN in/ADP 2002/NUM which/PRON had/AUX assisted/VERB welfare/NOUN recipients/NOUN with/ADP water/NOUN and/CCONJ other/ADJ utility/NOUN bills/NOUN Overnight/ADV tens/NOUN of/ADP thousands/NOUN of/ADP lowincome/NOUN people/NOUN enrolled/VERB in/ADP the/DET Vendor/PROPN Pay/PROPN program/NOUN many/ADJ of/ADP them/PRON disabled/ADJ and/CCONJ elderly/ADJ were/AUX at/ADP risk/NOUN for/ADP water/NOUN shutoffs/NOUN This/DET problem/NOUN was/AUX most/ADV severe/ADJ in/ADP Highland/PROPN Park/PROPN the/DET birthplace/NOUN of/ADP Ford8217s/PROPN Model/PROPN T/PROPN After/SCONJ Highland/PROPN Park8217s/PROPN tax/NOUN base/NOUN collapsed/VERB in/ADP the/DET 1990s/NOUN following/VERB the/DET relocation/NOUN of/ADP Chrysler8217s/PROPN headquarters/PROPN to/ADP suburban/ADJ Auburn/PROPN Hills/PROPN Governor/PROPN Engler/PROPN appointed/VERB corporate/ADJ accountant/NOUN Ramona/PROPN Pearson/PROPN as/ADP emergency/NOUN manager/NOUN in/ADP 2001/NUM To/PART fill/VERB gaping/VERB budget/NOUN holes/NOUN Pearson/PROPN closed/VERB schools/NOUN libraries/NOUN and/CCONJ community/NOUN centers/NOUN while/SCONJ jacking/VERB up/ADP Highland/PROPN Park8217s/PROPN water/NOUN rates/NOUN to/ADP three/NUM times/NOUN the/DET national/ADJ average/NOUN even/ADV though/SCONJ over/ADP half/DET the/DET residents/NOUN lived/VERB below/ADP the/DET federal/ADJ poverty/NOUN line/NOUN These/DET events/NOUN are/AUX described/VERB in/ADP the/DET Liz8217s/PROPN Miller8217s/PROPN excellent/ADJ 2007/NUM documentary/NOUN The/DET Water/PROPN Front/PROPN While/SCONJ downsizing/VERB the/DET Highland/PROPN Park/PROPN Water/PROPN Plant/PROPN to/ADP four/NUM employees/NOUN Pearson/PROPN began/VERB negotiations/NOUN to/PART sell/VERB the/DET plant/NOUN to/ADP the/DET Rothchild/PROPN Wright/PROPN Group/PROPN in/ADP 2004/NUM Pearson/PROPN only/ADV dropped/VERB these/DET proposals/NOUN under/ADP pressure/NOUN from/ADP daily/ADJ protests/NOUN organized/VERB by/ADP the/DET Michigan/PROPN Welfare/PROPN Rights/PROPN Organization/PROPN and/CCONJ Highland/PROPN Park/PROPN Human/PROPN Rights/PROPN Coalition/PROPN led/VERB by/ADP veteran/NOUN activists/NOUN like/ADP Maureen/PROPN Taylor/PROPN and/CCONJ the/DET late/ADJ General/PROPN Baker/PROPN The/DET water/NOUN crisis/NOUN in/ADP Michigan/PROPN is/AUX also/ADV intertwined/VERB with/ADP the/DET subprime/ADJ mortgage/NOUN meltdown/NOUN which/PRON is/AUX closely/ADV related/ADJ to/ADP financial/ADJ deregulation/NOUN In/ADP 200582117/NUM Detroit/PROPN had/VERB the/DET highest/ADJ rate/NOUN of/ADP subprime/ADJ mortgage/NOUN foreclosures/NOUN in/ADP the/DET United/PROPN States/PROPN While/SCONJ increasingly/ADV deregulated/VERB banks/NOUN were/AUX aggressively/ADV marketing/VERB adjustablerate/NOUN subprime/ADJ mortgages/NOUN to/PART workingclass/VERB African/PROPN Americans/PROPN in/ADP Detroit/PROPN they/PRON were/AUX also/ADV selling/VERB risky/ADJ financial/ADJ instruments/NOUN to/ADP the/DET city/NOUN government/NOUN The/DET Commodity/PROPN Futures/PROPN Modernization/PROPN Act/PROPN of/ADP 2000/NUM allowed/VERB the/DET swaps/NOUN market/NOUN to/PART metastasize/VERB from/ADP 180/NUM billion/NUM in/ADP 1998/NUM to/ADP 6/NUM trillion/NUM in/ADP 2004/NUM to/ADP 57/NUM trillion/NUM by/ADP the/DET summer/NOUN of/ADP 2008/NUM In/ADP 2005/NUM during/ADP this/DET 8220wild/PROPN west8221/PROPN period/NOUN for/ADP predatory/NOUN lenders/NOUN Detroit/PROPN entered/VERB into/ADP a/DET 14/NUM billion/NUM dollar/NOUN deal/NOUN with/ADP UBS/PROPN AG/PROPN and/CCONJ Merrill/PROPN Lynch/PROPN Capital/PROPN Services/PROPN later/ADV acquired/VERB by/ADP Bank/PROPN of/ADP America/PROPN The/DET deal/NOUN included/VERB two/NUM layers/NOUN of/ADP speculative/ADJ financial/ADJ instruments/NOUN one/NUM of/ADP which/PRON was/AUX an/DET 8220interest/ADJ rate/NOUN swap8221/NOUN to/PART fund/VERB DWSD/PROPN The/DET swap/NOUN deal/NOUN constituted/VERB a/DET bet/NOUN that/SCONJ interest/NOUN rates/NOUN would/AUX rise/VERB After/SCONJ interest/NOUN rates/NOUN plummeted/VERB as/ADP a/DET result/NOUN of/ADP the/DET 2008/NUM crash/NOUN DWSD/PROPN was/AUX forced/VERB to/PART pay/VERB 537/NUM million/NUM in/ADP swap/NOUN termination/NOUN payments/NOUN to/ADP banks/NOUN In/ADP order/NOUN to/PART pay/VERB the/DET termination/NOUN fees/NOUN DWSD/PROPN increased/VERB water/NOUN rates/NOUN and/CCONJ took/VERB out/ADP 489/NUM million/NUM in/ADP further/ADJ bond/NOUN debt/NOUN in/ADP 2012/NUM That/DET year/NOUN Bloomberg/PROPN reported/VERB that/SCONJ 8220debt/PROPN service/NOUN has/AUX climbed/VERB to/ADP more/ADJ than/ADP 40/NUM percent/NOUN of/ADP revenue8221/PROPN at/ADP DWSD/PROPN As/ADP a/DET result/NOUN nearly/ADV half/NOUN of/ADP Detroiters8217/ADJ water/NOUN payments/NOUN were/AUX going/VERB to/PART pay/VERB debt/NOUN service/NOUN to/ADP banks/NOUN inflated/VERB by/ADP the/DET banks8217/PROPN predatory/NOUN swap/NOUN deal/NOUN In/ADP April/PROPN 2013/NUM ongoing/ADJ DWSD/PROPN rate/NOUN increases/NOUN provided/VERB a/DET public/ADJ rationale/NOUN for/ADP Flint8217s/PROPN emergency/NOUN manager/NOUN Ed/PROPN Kurtz/PROPN to/PART switch/VERB from/ADP DWSD/PROPN to/ADP the/DET Flint/PROPN River/PROPN although/SCONJ the/DET actual/ADJ reasons/NOUN remain/VERB murky/ADJ Emergency/PROPN manager/NOUN legislation/NOUN has/AUX only/ADV exacerbated/VERB these/DET problems/NOUN In/ADP 2012/NUM 52/NUM percent/NOUN of/ADP Michigan/PROPN voters/NOUN and/CCONJ 82/NUM percent/NOUN of/ADP Detroit/PROPN voters/NOUN struck/VERB down/ADP Public/PROPN Act/PROPN 4/NUM This/DET legislation/NOUN signed/VERB by/ADP Governor/PROPN Snyder/PROPN in/ADP 2011/NUM expanded/VERB the/DET authority/NOUN 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<p>LONDON (Reuters) - A flurry of merger activity among European stocks drove strong moves on Monday as regional indexes notched up new records, with investors shrugging off the U.S. government shutdown as a global stocks &#8220;melt-up&#8221; continued to grip European markets.</p> The German share price index, DAX board, is seen at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Staff/Remote <p>Euro zone stocks .STOXXE gained 0.3 percent to hit a fresh 10-year high, and the pan-European STOXX 600 index recovered from early losses to trade up 0.3 percent.</p> <p>Spain's IBEX <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IBEX" type="external">.IBEX</a>, which had been held back by instability in Catalonia, hit its highest since August, up 1 percent after a ratings upgrade from Fitch that also sent the country's borrowing costs down to six-week lows.</p> <p>Spain&#8217;s Santander bank ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SAN.MC" type="external">SAN.MC</a>) was the biggest single boost to the STOXX 600, leading a rally among financials.</p> <p>While strong banking and oil stocks underpinned the market, merger and acquisition news across telecoms, pharmaceuticals and luxury sectors drove the lion&#8217;s share of big stock moves.</p> <p>Orange ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ORAN.PA" type="external">ORAN.PA</a>) and Deutsche Telekom ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DTEGn.DE" type="external">DTEGn.DE</a>) rose 2.1 percent each after a report in French daily Le Monde said the two companies had held merger talks last year.</p> <p>&#8220;This could boost M&amp;amp;A expectations in Europe,&#8221; said AFS Group analyst Jauke de Jong in Amsterdam. The telecoms sector has lagged the market for months, but hopes of dealmaking drew investors in, sending the index .SXKP up 1.4 percent.</p> <p>French drugmaker Sanofi ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SASY.PA" type="external">SASY.PA</a>) fell 2.9 percent after the company announced an $11.6 billion takeover of U.S. hemophilia treatment specialist Bioverativ BIVV.O, with some traders saying the deal looked expensive.</p> <p>Kepler Cheuvreux analysts said the deal raised a &#8220;host of questions&#8221; and wondered whether Bioverativ&#8217;s pipeline could offset pressure from a rival Roche treatment.</p> <p>Swedish firm Sobi ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SOBIV.ST" type="external">SOBIV.ST</a>), a partner to Bioverativ, soared 16.5 percent.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IBEX" type="external">SIBE Mercado Continuo Espanol</a> 9600.4 .IBEX Madrid SE C.A.T.S. +45.40 (+0.48%) .IBEX SAN.MC ORAN.PA DTEGn.DE SASY.PA <p>Cartier owner Richemont&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CFR.S" type="external">CFR.S</a>) offer for full control of online luxury retailer Yoox Net-a-Porter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=YNAP.MI" type="external">YNAP.MI</a>) sent the Italian stock surging 24 percent to a record high.</p> <p>&#8220;Given the lack of interesting acquisition targets up for sale in their core business of hard luxury, Richemont has decided to put at work its big cash pile investing into distribution channels,&#8221; wrote Bernstein analysts.</p> <p>Richemont shares closed down 1.6 percent as investors digested the up-to-2.8 billion euro ($3.4 billion) offer, a nearly 26 percent premium over YNAP&#8217;s closing price on Friday.</p> <p>UBS ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=UBSG.S" type="external">UBSG.S</a>), Switzerland&#8217;s biggest bank, recovered after an early fall when it reported a quarterly loss, driven by a large writedown on the U.S. tax reforms. UBS still boosted its dividends and announced a new share buyback program, and the stock was up 0.4 percent at the close.</p> <p>Retailers .SXRP performed well thanks to a 27.5 percent jump from UK online grocer Ocado ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OCDO.L" type="external">OCDO.L</a>) after it signed an agreement with Sobeys SOBEF.UL to develop the online grocery business at Canada&#8217;s second-largest food retailer.</p> <p>Germany-listed shares in South African retailer Steinhoff&amp;#160;( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNHG.DE" type="external">SNHG.DE</a>) ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SRRJ.J" type="external">SRRJ.J</a>) rose more than 11 percent after the firm sold its 13.5 percent stake in investment firm PSG Group&amp;#160;for 7.1 billion rand ($587 million) as it scrambled to plug a liquidity hole.</p> <p>Reporting by Julien Ponthus; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Kevin Liffey</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tesla Inc shares rose on Thursday ahead of the expected release next week of the company&#8217;s quarterly auto production data, while a senior executive urged workers at the automaker to hit a weekly production target of 2,500 Model 3 sedans by the end of March.</p> A Tesla Model 3 sedan, its first car aimed at the mass market, is displayed during its launch in Hawthorne, California, March 31, 2016. REUTERS/Joe White/File Photo <p>Quickly ramping up Model 3 production is crucial for the Silicon Valley electric vehicle maker. The company&#8217;s profitability depends on delivering the new sedans to customers on a waiting list that Tesla has said now numbers about 500,000 advance reservation holders.</p> <p>Tesla shares recovered to $266.13, up 3 percent, Thursday after a sell-off prompted by a Moody&#8217;s debt downgrade and news that safety regulators are investigating a Model X-involved fatality.</p> <p>In an email to employees viewed by Reuters, Tesla Senior Vice President of Engineering Doug Fields wrote that production of Tesla vehicles is &#8220;well into the 200&#8217;s on every single line.&#8221;</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-tesla-recall/tesla-voluntarily-recalls-early-model-s-vehicles-over-power-steering-bolts-idUSKBN1H5381" type="external">Tesla voluntarily recalls early Model S vehicles over power steering bolts</a> <p>Field gave reasons why Tesla needs to get to 2,500 vehicles a week, including: &#8220;There are an incredible number of people who &#8216;short&#8217; Tesla stock, which means they profit when we fail. And lately the story is the same: &#8216;Tesla can&#8217;t do high-volume production&#8217;. I find that personally insulting, and you should too. Let&#8217;s make them regret ever betting against us.&#8221;</p> <p>Tesla must &#8220;quickly break through the 300 cars/day barrier, and keep going,&#8221; the email continued.</p> <p>Tesla did not immediately comment on the email, which was previously reported by Bloomberg News.</p> <p>Doubts that Tesla could meet its production targets and concerns about cash reserves were behind Moody&#8217;s downgrade of Tesla last week. The ratings agency cited the likelihood of a new capital raise, which it estimated at over $2 billion, in part to cover approximately $1.2 billion in convertible bonds coming due by March 2019.</p> <p>The downgrade, together with a fatality involving a Model X that is currently being investigated by safety regulators, sent shares down 12 percent for the week, even after Thursday&#8217;s rebound. That made it Tesla&#8217;s worst week in nine months.</p> <p>Tesla shares are still above the $255.73 level, the price when Tesla last announced a capital raise in March last year to raise $1.15 billion.</p> <p>Moody&#8217;s and other analysts have predicted Tesla will soon have to sell more shares to replenish cash reserves and pay for expansion of Model 3 production and new vehicles such as the Tesla Semi electric commercial truck and a compact sport utility vehicle.</p> <p>As of Dec. 31, Tesla had $3.4 billion in cash and securities. Moody&#8217;s estimated approximately $500 million in cash was needed for normal operations and forecast cash burn this year of about $2 billion.</p> <p>Beyond the $2 billion that Moody&#8217;s predicted Tesla would seek in the near-term, it said the company would likely need to raise additional capital during the second half of 2019.</p> <p>Chief Executive Elon Musk has promised to build 10,000 Model 3s per week by some point in 2018 after meeting a 5,000-per week target by the end of the second quarter. Tesla built only 2,425 Model 3s in its fourth quarter.</p> <p>Barclays analyst Brian Johnson warned in a note to investors on Thursday that Tesla could engage in a Model 3 &#8220;burst rate&#8221; of production that could send shares up, but would not be sustainable.</p> <p>Writing by Alexandria Sage and Joe White; Edting by Tom Brown</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street surged on Thursday, bringing an upbeat end to a tumultuous, holiday-shortened week as technology stocks rebounded, but the S&amp;amp;P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted their biggest quarterly declines in more than two years.</p> <p>The year started strong, but early gains evaporated as the markets entered a correction over interest rate jitters, fears of an escalating import tariff dispute between the United States and China, and a selloff in the tech sector.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: S&amp;amp;P Quarterly performance during bull market - <a href="https://reut.rs/2pUJYLR" type="external">reut.rs/2pUJYLR</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2pUJYLR" type="external" /> <p>Tech stocks reversed course on Thursday and the S&amp;amp;P 500 information technology index .SPLRCT closed up 2.2 percent after reaching a session high of 3.2 percent, helping push the S&amp;amp;P 500 up 1.4 percent, with the Dow and Nasdaq also rallying.</p> <p>&#8220;All the fears now look overblown. Interest rates, the concern about tariffs, we&#8217;re going to get into a trade war,&#8221; said Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management in New York. &#8220;But now clearer heads are prevailing. If anything this is a buying opportunity.&#8221;</p> <p>Technology gains were led by Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), Intel ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=INTC.O" type="external">INTC.O</a>), Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) and Microsoft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) shares.</p> <p>&#8220;Tech will always lead the charge in a bull market. And we&#8217;re in a bull market,&#8221; said Cote.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 254.69 points, or 1.07 percent, to close at 24,103.11, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 35.87 points, or 1.38 percent, to 2,640.87 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 114.22 points, or 1.64 percent, to 7,063.45.</p> <p>Investors were unfazed by economic reports showing a slight increase in consumer spending and initial jobless claims dropping to a more than 45-year low.</p> Slideshow (4 Images) <p>In other data, core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rose by 1.6 percent year-on-year. The index, the Federal Reserve&#8217;s preferred measure of inflation, has been below the U.S. central bank&#8217;s 2 percent target since mid-2012.</p> <p>Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) closed up 1.1 percent, recovering from a 4.6 percent drop after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the online retailer via Twitter early Thursday, claiming without evidence that the company pays &#8220;little to no taxes to state &amp;amp; local governments.&#8221;</p> <p>Stocks shot up earlier in the week as comments from officials in the United States and China suggested the world&#8217;s two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances, averting a trade war.</p> <p>But worries that retaliatory tariffs would harm the global economy led investors to cut equity exposure to a four-month low in March and reduce holdings of U.S. stocks to the lowest in nearly two years, according to a Reuters poll.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 159.79 FB.O Nasdaq +6.76 (+4.42%) FB.O INTC.O GOOGL.O MSFT.O .DJI <p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.66-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.23-to-1 ratio favored advancers.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.49 billion shares, compared to the 7.29 billion average over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Reporting by Stephen Culp in New York; Additional reporting by Charles Mikolajczak; Editing by James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - U.S. retailer Walmart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>) is in early-stage talks with health insurer Humana Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HUM.N" type="external">HUM.N</a>) about developing closer ties, with the acquisition of Humana being discussed as one possibility, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.</p> Shopping carts are seen outside a new Wal-Mart Express store in Chicago July 26, 2011. REUTERS/John Gress/Files <p>Should the talks lead to a tieup, it would be the latest deal to bring together a retail chain and a health insurer in the last few months, following CVS Health Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVS.N" type="external">CVS.N</a>) $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AET.N" type="external">AET.N</a>) and Cigna Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CI.N" type="external">CI.N</a>) $54 billion deal to buy Express Scripts Holding Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ESRX.O" type="external">ESRX.O</a>).</p> <p>Walmart approached Humana earlier this month and the deliberations are preliminary, two of the sources said. While the conversations have focused on new partnerships, an acquisition of Humana by Walmart is also something being discussed, the sources added.</p> <p>The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Humana and Walmart declined to comment.</p> <p>Walmart and Humana have market capitalizations of $264 billion and $37 billion, respectively.</p> <p>An acquisition of Humana would represent a significant strategic shift for Walmart, which is the world&#8217;s largest retailer and has been focused on fending off Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) in online shopping.</p> <p>Amazon has also been looking at entering the healthcare sector. Earlier this year, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BRKa.N" type="external">BRKa.N</a>) and JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), said they would form a company aimed at cutting healthcare costs for their U.S. employees.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">Walmart Inc</a> 88.97 WMT.N New York Stock Exchange +1.20 (+1.37%) WMT.N HUM.N CVS.N AET.N CI.N <p>&#8220;The risks (for Walmart) of becoming entangled in the complex U.S. healthcare industry are considerable, especially at a time when Walmart is grappling with the competitive challenges of a rapidly shifting retail market,&#8221; Neil Saunders, managing director of retail consultancy GlobalData Retail, wrote in a note.</p> <p>&#8220;The hammering out of any agreement, which would be Walmart&#8217;s largest ever corporate deal, would, of itself, be an enormous distraction,&#8221; Saunders added.</p> <p>Walmart currently has a co-branded Medicare drug plan with Humana that steers patients to Walmart stores. The partnership offers a prescription drug plan that can save up to 20 percent in drug costs for customers.</p> <p>Closer ties between the two companies could allow Walmart to tap into Humana&#8217;s patient population, expanding low-level medical services in its pharmacies to avoid ER visits. They could allow it to better manage prescription drug use though access to medical records.</p> <p>Humana&#8217;s biggest business is managing Medicare Advantage health plans for older and disabled people, a heavily regulated business that Walmart would have to take on in an acquisition.</p> <p>Memberships in retail Medicare Advantage plans - where individuals sign up directly with Humana - rose about 1 percent to 2.86 million, as of Dec. 31. Employer or other group-based Medicare Advantage membership climbed 24 percent to 441,400.</p> <p>Last month, Walmart reported a sharp drop in profit and online sales growth during the critical holiday period and forecast annual profit at the lower end of expectations.</p> <p>Reporting by Carl O'Donnell and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose and Michele Gershberg in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fund managers have begun to ditch so-called FANG stocks that powered the U.S. stock market to record highs in January and are slowly rotating into commodity-related shares and other value stocks which typically outperform in late-cycle recoveries.</p> <p>Portfolio managers holding shares of Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Netflix Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>), and Google-parent Alphabet Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) say they are increasingly concerned that the data scandal that has sent shares of Facebook down nearly 15 percent year-to-date will spill over into all of the FANG stocks, imperiling the broad market&#8217;s momentum at a time when there are no clear companies or sectors to take their place.</p> <p>On Tuesday, an index which tracks the FANG stocks along with six other mega-cap technology stocks tumbled 6.3 percent, the biggest decline since September 2014.</p> <p>Facebook rose as much as 1.5 percent in early trading Wednesday before falling into the red, one day after sources told Reuters that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify before Congress. Amazon.com dropped 4 percent, while Netflix fell 5 percent. Google-parent Alphabet was slightly positive.</p> <p>&#8220;There are legitimate concerns over the business models of these companies, and I expect that they will be ironed out in legislation&#8221; that will likely eat into their profit margins, said Michael Cuggino, a portfolio manager of the $17-billion Permanent Portfolio funds.</p> <p>Cuggino, who would not say whether he was selling any of his shares in Facebook, said that commodity and industrial stocks look more attractive now given rising inflation and continued global economic growth.</p> <p>Each FANG company rose more than 33 percent last year, helping power the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> to a nearly 20-percent gain. Yet those gains have left the broad S&amp;amp;P 500 trading at a high trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 21.7, leaving it overpriced despite a boost to margins from the Republican-led corporate tax cut at the end of 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;Rising volatility and changing market leadership are now pointing towards the possible conclusion that the stock market peaked in late January 2018,&#8221; said Douglas Kass, president of Seabreeze Capital Management.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 is now down 2.2 percent for the year, and down nearly 10 percent below the high of 2872.87 it reached on Jan. 26.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) UNFRIENDED <p>Fund managers say that the high valuation of FANG stocks and the likelihood of regulation are pushing them into traditional value stocks like energy and defense companies.</p> <p>Connor Browne, a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, said that he sold his shares of Netflix and Amazon.com last year after both companies blew through his price targets. He used those gains instead to increase positions in energy stocks such as pipeline operator Enterprise Products Partners LP ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EPD.N" type="external">EPD.N</a>) and crude oil shipping company Overseas Shipholding Group Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OSG.N" type="external">OSG.N</a>) that stand to benefit from the recovery in the price of oil.</p> <p>&#8220;We noticed that in all of this excitement over the FANGs taking over the world, there are parts of the economy that seem really out of favor and offer more compelling opportunities,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Even after the selloff, FANG stocks continue to trade at higher valuations than the broad market. Netflix trades at a P/E of 210 and Amazon.com trades at a P/E of 327. Facebook and Google-parent Alphabet, both of which have been directly linked with privacy concerns, now trade at valuations near 52-week lows.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 159.79 FB.O Nasdaq +6.76 (+4.42%) FB.O AMZN.O NFLX.O GOOGL.O .SPX <p>The overhang of increased government oversight has sunk the fortunes of large technology companies in the past. Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) reached a settlement in an antitrust case with the Department of Justice in 2002 that lasted until 2011, contributing to a long period of underperformance that kept the stock below the high it reached in 1999 until 2016. Since then, the stock is up nearly 60 percent on the strength of its cloud-based services.</p> <p>Margaret Patel, a senior portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Funds, said that she has been adding to defense stocks like Raytheon Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RTN.N" type="external">RTN.N</a>) that should benefit from increasing military spending in both the U.S. and overseas. At the same time, she is increasing her exposure of non-FANG technology stocks like Adobe Systems Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADBE.O" type="external">ADBE.O</a>) and Microsoft that have been hurt by the recent sell-off in the sector.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very hard to see another sector that still has all the fundamental drivers for growing much faster than any other sector,&#8221; she said.</p> <p>Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Dealmaking drives European stocks as equity melt-up continues Tesla shares recover as company pushes to hit Model 3 target U.S. stocks jump in upbeat end to tumultuous quarter Walmart talking with Humana on closer ties; acquisition possible: sources FANG stocks' bite has U.S. fund managers looking for alternatives

https://reuters.com/article/us-europe-stocks/dealmaking-drives-european-stocks-as-equity-melt-up-continues-idUSKBN1FB0WT

2018-01-22

2least

LONDON Reuters A flurry of merger activity among European stocks drove strong moves on Monday as regional indexes notched up new records with investors shrugging off the US government shutdown as a global stocks 8220meltup8221 continued to grip European markets The German share price index DAX board is seen at the stock exchange in Frankfurt Germany January 16 2018 REUTERSStaffRemote Euro zone stocks STOXXE gained 03 percent to hit a fresh 10year high and the panEuropean STOXX 600 index recovered from early losses to trade up 03 percent Spains IBEX IBEX which had been held back by instability in Catalonia hit its highest since August up 1 percent after a ratings upgrade from Fitch that also sent the countrys borrowing costs down to sixweek lows Spain8217s Santander bank SANMC was the biggest single boost to the STOXX 600 leading a rally among financials While strong banking and oil stocks underpinned the market merger and acquisition news across telecoms pharmaceuticals and luxury sectors drove the lion8217s share of big stock moves Orange ORANPA and Deutsche Telekom DTEGnDE rose 21 percent each after a report in French daily Le Monde said the two companies had held merger talks last year 8220This could boost MampampA expectations in Europe8221 said AFS Group analyst Jauke de Jong in Amsterdam The telecoms sector has lagged the market for months but hopes of dealmaking drew investors in sending the index SXKP up 14 percent French drugmaker Sanofi SASYPA fell 29 percent after the company announced an 116 billion takeover of US hemophilia treatment specialist Bioverativ BIVVO with some traders saying the deal looked expensive Kepler Cheuvreux analysts said the deal raised a 8220host of questions8221 and wondered whether Bioverativ8217s pipeline could offset pressure from a rival Roche treatment Swedish firm Sobi SOBIVST a partner to Bioverativ soared 165 percent SIBE Mercado Continuo Espanol 96004 IBEX Madrid SE CATS 4540 048 IBEX SANMC ORANPA DTEGnDE SASYPA Cartier owner Richemont8217s CFRS offer for full control of online luxury retailer Yoox NetaPorter YNAPMI sent the Italian stock surging 24 percent to a record high 8220Given the lack of interesting acquisition targets up for sale in their core business of hard luxury Richemont has decided to put at work its big cash pile investing into distribution channels8221 wrote Bernstein analysts Richemont shares closed down 16 percent as investors digested the upto28 billion euro 34 billion offer a nearly 26 percent premium over YNAP8217s closing price on Friday UBS UBSGS Switzerland8217s biggest bank recovered after an early fall when it reported a quarterly loss driven by a large writedown on the US tax reforms UBS still boosted its dividends and announced a new share buyback program and the stock was up 04 percent at the close Retailers SXRP performed well thanks to a 275 percent jump from UK online grocer Ocado OCDOL after it signed an agreement with Sobeys SOBEFUL to develop the online grocery business at Canada8217s secondlargest food retailer Germanylisted shares in South African retailer Steinhoffamp160 SNHGDE SRRJJ rose more than 11 percent after the firm sold its 135 percent stake in investment firm PSG Groupamp160for 71 billion rand 587 million as it scrambled to plug a liquidity hole Reporting by Julien Ponthus Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Kevin Liffey Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Tesla Inc shares rose on Thursday ahead of the expected release next week of the company8217s quarterly auto production data while a senior executive urged workers at the automaker to hit a weekly production target of 2500 Model 3 sedans by the end of March A Tesla Model 3 sedan its first car aimed at the mass market is displayed during its launch in Hawthorne California March 31 2016 REUTERSJoe WhiteFile Photo Quickly ramping up Model 3 production is crucial for the Silicon Valley electric vehicle maker The company8217s profitability depends on delivering the new sedans to customers on a waiting list that Tesla has said now numbers about 500000 advance reservation holders Tesla shares recovered to 26613 up 3 percent Thursday after a selloff prompted by a Moody8217s debt downgrade and news that safety regulators are investigating a Model Xinvolved fatality In an email to employees viewed by Reuters Tesla Senior Vice President of Engineering Doug Fields wrote that production of Tesla vehicles is 8220well into the 2008217s on every single line8221 Related Coverage Tesla voluntarily recalls early Model S vehicles over power steering bolts Field gave reasons why Tesla needs to get to 2500 vehicles a week including 8220There are an incredible number of people who 8216short8217 Tesla stock which means they profit when we fail And lately the story is the same 8216Tesla can8217t do highvolume production8217 I find that personally insulting and you should too Let8217s make them regret ever betting against us8221 Tesla must 8220quickly break through the 300 carsday barrier and keep going8221 the email continued Tesla did not immediately comment on the email which was previously reported by Bloomberg News Doubts that Tesla could meet its production targets and concerns about cash reserves were behind Moody8217s downgrade of Tesla last week The ratings agency cited the likelihood of a new capital raise which it estimated at over 2 billion in part to cover approximately 12 billion in convertible bonds coming due by March 2019 The downgrade together with a fatality involving a Model X that is currently being investigated by safety regulators sent shares down 12 percent for the week even after Thursday8217s rebound That made it Tesla8217s worst week in nine months Tesla shares are still above the 25573 level the price when Tesla last announced a capital raise in March last year to raise 115 billion Moody8217s and other analysts have predicted Tesla will soon have to sell more shares to replenish cash reserves and pay for expansion of Model 3 production and new vehicles such as the Tesla Semi electric commercial truck and a compact sport utility vehicle As of Dec 31 Tesla had 34 billion in cash and securities Moody8217s estimated approximately 500 million in cash was needed for normal operations and forecast cash burn this year of about 2 billion Beyond the 2 billion that Moody8217s predicted Tesla would seek in the nearterm it said the company would likely need to raise additional capital during the second half of 2019 Chief Executive Elon Musk has promised to build 10000 Model 3s per week by some point in 2018 after meeting a 5000per week target by the end of the second quarter Tesla built only 2425 Model 3s in its fourth quarter Barclays analyst Brian Johnson warned in a note to investors on Thursday that Tesla could engage in a Model 3 8220burst rate8221 of production that could send shares up but would not be sustainable Writing by Alexandria Sage and Joe White Edting by Tom Brown Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street surged on Thursday bringing an upbeat end to a tumultuous holidayshortened week as technology stocks rebounded but the SampampP 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted their biggest quarterly declines in more than two years The year started strong but early gains evaporated as the markets entered a correction over interest rate jitters fears of an escalating import tariff dispute between the United States and China and a selloff in the tech sector GRAPHIC SampampP Quarterly performance during bull market reutrs2pUJYLR Tech stocks reversed course on Thursday and the SampampP 500 information technology index SPLRCT closed up 22 percent after reaching a session high of 32 percent helping push the SampampP 500 up 14 percent with the Dow and Nasdaq also rallying 8220All the fears now look overblown Interest rates the concern about tariffs we8217re going to get into a trade war8221 said Doug Cote chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management in New York 8220But now clearer heads are prevailing If anything this is a buying opportunity8221 Technology gains were led by Facebook FBO Intel INTCO Alphabet GOOGLO and Microsoft MSFTO shares 8220Tech will always lead the charge in a bull market And we8217re in a bull market8221 said Cote The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 25469 points or 107 percent to close at 2410311 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 3587 points or 138 percent to 264087 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 11422 points or 164 percent to 706345 Investors were unfazed by economic reports showing a slight increase in consumer spending and initial jobless claims dropping to a more than 45year low Slideshow 4 Images In other data core personal consumption expenditures PCE rose by 16 percent yearonyear The index the Federal Reserve8217s preferred measure of inflation has been below the US central bank8217s 2 percent target since mid2012 Amazoncom AMZNO closed up 11 percent recovering from a 46 percent drop after US President Donald Trump criticized the online retailer via Twitter early Thursday claiming without evidence that the company pays 8220little to no taxes to state ampamp local governments8221 Stocks shot up earlier in the week as comments from officials in the United States and China suggested the world8217s two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances averting a trade war But worries that retaliatory tariffs would harm the global economy led investors to cut equity exposure to a fourmonth low in March and reduce holdings of US stocks to the lowest in nearly two years according to a Reuters poll Facebook Inc 15979 FBO Nasdaq 676 442 FBO INTCO GOOGLO MSFTO DJI Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 366to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 223to1 ratio favored advancers Volume on US exchanges was 749 billion shares compared to the 729 billion average over the last 20 trading days Reporting by Stephen Culp in New York Additional reporting by Charles Mikolajczak Editing by James Dalgleish Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters US retailer Walmart Inc WMTN is in earlystage talks with health insurer Humana Inc HUMN about developing closer ties with the acquisition of Humana being discussed as one possibility people familiar with the matter said on Thursday Shopping carts are seen outside a new WalMart Express store in Chicago July 26 2011 REUTERSJohn GressFiles Should the talks lead to a tieup it would be the latest deal to bring together a retail chain and a health insurer in the last few months following CVS Health Corp8217s CVSN 69 billion deal to acquire Aetna Inc AETN and Cigna Corp8217s CIN 54 billion deal to buy Express Scripts Holding Co ESRXO Walmart approached Humana earlier this month and the deliberations are preliminary two of the sources said While the conversations have focused on new partnerships an acquisition of Humana by Walmart is also something being discussed the sources added The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential Humana and Walmart declined to comment Walmart and Humana have market capitalizations of 264 billion and 37 billion respectively An acquisition of Humana would represent a significant strategic shift for Walmart which is the world8217s largest retailer and has been focused on fending off Amazoncom Inc AMZNO in online shopping Amazon has also been looking at entering the healthcare sector Earlier this year Amazon Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRKaN and JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN said they would form a company aimed at cutting healthcare costs for their US employees Walmart Inc 8897 WMTN New York Stock Exchange 120 137 WMTN HUMN CVSN AETN CIN 8220The risks for Walmart of becoming entangled in the complex US healthcare industry are considerable especially at a time when Walmart is grappling with the competitive challenges of a rapidly shifting retail market8221 Neil Saunders managing director of retail consultancy GlobalData Retail wrote in a note 8220The hammering out of any agreement which would be Walmart8217s largest ever corporate deal would of itself be an enormous distraction8221 Saunders added Walmart currently has a cobranded Medicare drug plan with Humana that steers patients to Walmart stores The partnership offers a prescription drug plan that can save up to 20 percent in drug costs for customers Closer ties between the two companies could allow Walmart to tap into Humana8217s patient population expanding lowlevel medical services in its pharmacies to avoid ER visits They could allow it to better manage prescription drug use though access to medical records Humana8217s biggest business is managing Medicare Advantage health plans for older and disabled people a heavily regulated business that Walmart would have to take on in an acquisition Memberships in retail Medicare Advantage plans where individuals sign up directly with Humana rose about 1 percent to 286 million as of Dec 31 Employer or other groupbased Medicare Advantage membership climbed 24 percent to 441400 Last month Walmart reported a sharp drop in profit and online sales growth during the critical holiday period and forecast annual profit at the lower end of expectations Reporting by Carl ODonnell and Greg Roumeliotis in New York Additional reporting by Nandita Bose and Michele Gershberg in New York Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Fund managers have begun to ditch socalled FANG stocks that powered the US stock market to record highs in January and are slowly rotating into commodityrelated shares and other value stocks which typically outperform in latecycle recoveries Portfolio managers holding shares of Facebook Inc FBO Amazoncom Inc AMZNO Netflix Inc NFLXO and Googleparent Alphabet Inc GOOGLO say they are increasingly concerned that the data scandal that has sent shares of Facebook down nearly 15 percent yeartodate will spill over into all of the FANG stocks imperiling the broad market8217s momentum at a time when there are no clear companies or sectors to take their place On Tuesday an index which tracks the FANG stocks along with six other megacap technology stocks tumbled 63 percent the biggest decline since September 2014 Facebook rose as much as 15 percent in early trading Wednesday before falling into the red one day after sources told Reuters that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify before Congress Amazoncom dropped 4 percent while Netflix fell 5 percent Googleparent Alphabet was slightly positive 8220There are legitimate concerns over the business models of these companies and I expect that they will be ironed out in legislation8221 that will likely eat into their profit margins said Michael Cuggino a portfolio manager of the 17billion Permanent Portfolio funds Cuggino who would not say whether he was selling any of his shares in Facebook said that commodity and industrial stocks look more attractive now given rising inflation and continued global economic growth Each FANG company rose more than 33 percent last year helping power the SampampP 500 SPX to a nearly 20percent gain Yet those gains have left the broad SampampP 500 trading at a high trailing pricetoearnings ratio of 217 leaving it overpriced despite a boost to margins from the Republicanled corporate tax cut at the end of 2017 8220Rising volatility and changing market leadership are now pointing towards the possible conclusion that the stock market peaked in late January 20188221 said Douglas Kass president of Seabreeze Capital Management The SampampP 500 is now down 22 percent for the year and down nearly 10 percent below the high of 287287 it reached on Jan 26 Slideshow 2 Images UNFRIENDED Fund managers say that the high valuation of FANG stocks and the likelihood of regulation are pushing them into traditional value stocks like energy and defense companies Connor Browne a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management said that he sold his shares of Netflix and Amazoncom last year after both companies blew through his price targets He used those gains instead to increase positions in energy stocks such as pipeline operator Enterprise Products Partners LP EPDN and crude oil shipping company Overseas Shipholding Group Inc OSGN that stand to benefit from the recovery in the price of oil 8220We noticed that in all of this excitement over the FANGs taking over the world there are parts of the economy that seem really out of favor and offer more compelling opportunities8221 he said Even after the selloff FANG stocks continue to trade at higher valuations than the broad market Netflix trades at a PE of 210 and Amazoncom trades at a PE of 327 Facebook and Googleparent Alphabet both of which have been directly linked with privacy concerns now trade at valuations near 52week lows Facebook Inc 15979 FBO Nasdaq 676 442 FBO AMZNO NFLXO GOOGLO SPX The overhang of increased government oversight has sunk the fortunes of large technology companies in the past Microsoft Corp MSFTO reached a settlement in an antitrust case with the Department of Justice in 2002 that lasted until 2011 contributing to a long period of underperformance that kept the stock below the high it reached in 1999 until 2016 Since then the stock is up nearly 60 percent on the strength of its cloudbased services Margaret Patel a senior portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Funds said that she has been adding to defense stocks like Raytheon Co RTNN that should benefit from increasing military spending in both the US and overseas At the same time she is increasing her exposure of nonFANG technology stocks like Adobe Systems Inc ADBEO and Microsoft that have been hurt by the recent selloff in the sector 8220It8217s very hard to see another sector that still has all the fundamental drivers for growing much faster than any other sector8221 she said Reporting by David Randall Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Forward Industries Inc:</p> <p>* FORWARD INDUSTRIES- ENTERED INTO STOCK PURCHASE AGREEMENT BY &amp;amp; AMONG CO, INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SOLUTIONS, HOLDERS OF ALL OF COMMON STOCK OF IPS, MAIMAN</p> <p>* FORWARD INDUSTRIES SAYS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ALL OF INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SOLUTIONS OUTSTANDING SECURITIES,CO PAID ABOUT $1.9 MILLION IN CASH- SEC FILING Source text: ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2BfUFvi" type="external">bit.ly/2BfUFvi</a>) Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked U.S. regulators for exemptions to the nation&#8217;s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress, according to sources familiar with the matter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, in this April 25, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo <p>The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard - a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into the nation&#8217;s fuel supply, or buy government-awarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending.</p> <p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months, according to an agency source, driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs.</p> <p>But the agency won&#8217;t name the firms receiving the exemptions, citing a concern over disclosing private company information.</p> <p>Both Chevron ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>) and Exxon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM.N" type="external">XOM.N</a>), among the world&#8217;s most profitable energy companies, have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities - Chevron&#8217;s 54,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Utah and the Exxon&#8217;s 60,000 bpd refinery in Montana, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.</p> <p>The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017, which came due this year, the sources said.</p> <p>The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications, which have not been previously reported, follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ANDV.N" type="external">ANDV.N</a>), one of the biggest U.S. refining companies.</p> <p>The waivers could save Andeavor $50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company&#8217;s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law.</p> <p>Husky Energy - a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire - will also be seeking an exemption, this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior, Wisconsin plant, spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters, disclosing the waiver for the first time.</p> <p>Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50,000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CLMT.O" type="external">CLMT.O</a>) for $435 million in November.</p> <p>The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them &#8220;disproportionate economic hardship.&#8221;</p> <p>A spokesman for Chevron, Braden Reddall, declined to confirm or deny the application, but said waivers provide an edge.</p> <p>&#8220;Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS,&#8221; he said in a written statement to Reuters. &#8220;If true, any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment.</p> <p>The exceptions and the EPA&#8217;s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby, which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny,&#8221; five Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa, wrote in a joint statement Thursday.</p> <p>&#8220;This looks like just another backdoor attempt by (EPA) Administrator (Scott) Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent.&#8221;</p> <p>Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing &#8216;small&#8217; about Exxon and Chevron, both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100.</p> <p>&#8220;For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hard-working farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS,&#8221; Dinneen said.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>It&#8217;s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions.</p> <p>She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75,000 bpd - regardless of the size of the company that owns it.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA decisions on waivers are based on refinery-specific information,&#8221; she said in an email. &#8220;We continue to work through petitions received for 2017.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon reported net profits of $19.7 billion last year. Chevron reported earning $9.2 billion.</p> <p>Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies, and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>Republican Senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, home to several small refineries, praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday. He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation&#8217;s largest refiners.</p> <p>&#8220;I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program. They know that we can&#8217;t allow it to hurt our nation&#8217;s small refineries,&#8221; Barrasso said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">Chevron Corp</a> 119.23 CVX.N New York Stock Exchange -0.02 (-0.02%) CVX.N XOM.N ANDV.N CLMT.O PSX.N &#8216;DEMAND DESTRUCTION&#8217; <p>The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to U.S. refineries, according to a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A current EPA official, however, said the number reached 20 for 2016.</p> <p>The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past. A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of &#8220;economic hardship&#8221; - opening the door for more facilities to be eligible.</p> <p>The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs - which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications.</p> <p>Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand. The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives.</p> <p>Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways: they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits, called RINs, to prove compliance, and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market. That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars.</p> <p>Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PSX.N" type="external">PSX.N</a>) also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver, as does CVR Energy ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVI.N" type="external">CVI.N</a>) which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn.</p> <p>Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions.</p> <p>Icahn&#8217;s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program - while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues - drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns.</p> <p>Biofuels proponents including U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as &#8220;demand destruction&#8221; for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war.</p> <p>The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron, has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past, arguing for a level competitive playing field.</p> <p>Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twelve U.S. senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBGI.O" type="external">SBGI.O</a>) for &#8220;deliberately distorting news&#8221; and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company&#8217;s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TRCO.N" type="external">TRCO.N</a>).</p> The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) logo is seen before the FCC Net Neutrality hearing in Washington February 26, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas <p>Sinclair, which is already the largest U.S. broadcaststation owner, announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune&#8217;s 42 TV stations in 33 markets, extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.</p> <p>In a letter, the senators, 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders, expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclair-owned stations around the country being forced to read company-mandated scripts. The scripts criticized &#8220;the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country&#8221; and have drawn fire.</p> <p>&#8220;We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws,&#8221; the senators wrote. They added that it &#8220;may have violated the FCC&#8217;s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging, slanting, or falsifying information.&#8221;</p> <p>In a letter to senators on Thursday reviewed by Reuters, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected their request, saying the agency does not have authority to revoke a license based on the content of a particular newscast. Pai made similar comments last year when President Donald Trump suggested NBC&#8217;s licenses could be challenged over its news reporting.</p> <p>&#8220;I can hardly think of an action more chilling of free speech than the federal government investigating a broadcast station because of disagreement with its news coverage or promotion of that coverage,&#8221; Pai wrote.</p> <p>After the scripts drew significant public attention, Trump tweeted on April 2 in defense of Sinclair: &#8220;Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBGI.O" type="external">Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc</a> 29.5 SBGI.O Nasdaq +0.05 (+0.17%) SBGI.O TRCO.N <p>In February, Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat, said the FCC&#8217;s inspector general was investigating whether Pai was biased in Sinclair&#8217;s favor.</p> <p>Pallone in November asked the inspector general to investigate, citing a string of FCC decisions he said benefited Sinclair and a media report that Trump&#8217;s election campaign struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage.</p> <p>Pai has repeatedly denied he has taken actions aimed at benefiting a single company and Sinclair has denied improper conduct.</p> <p>Sinclair declined to comment on the senators&#8217; letter, signed by the 11 Democrats, including Senators Maria Cantwell, Tom Udall, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Sanders.</p> <p>Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>TOKYO/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asia stocks pared early gains on Friday as caution crept in ahead of the U.S. earnings season and as investors weighed the possible impact on global growth from a tariff spat between the United States and China.</p> FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato <p>Investors were also left digesting mixed data from China which showed March exports unexpectedly fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier while imports grew more than forecast.</p> <p>That left the country with a rare trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, the first since last February.</p> <p>China is the world&#8217;s biggest net crude oil consumer and top buyer of copper, coal, iron ore and soy.</p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 0.07 percent, having risen as much as 0.5 percent in morning trading.</p> <p>It is still up about 2 percent on the week.</p> <p>Chinese shares took a small knock, with both the blue-chip CSI300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.CSI300" type="external">.CSI300</a> and Shanghai's SSE Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SSEC" type="external">.SSEC</a> off 0.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.HSI" type="external">.HSI</a> eased 0.1 percent while Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> gained 0.5 percent.</p> <p>Meanwhile, futures pointed to a weak start for U.S. shares with E-Minis for S&amp;amp;P 500 ESc1 down 0.3 percent.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>&#8220;Our U.S. equity strategists think that this earnings season should be a significant support for equities as companies deliver stronger than expected earnings growth and provide guidance on shareholder return from the tax windfall,&#8221; analysts at JPMorgan said in a note.</p> <p>&#8220;Our Asia equity strategists agree.&#8221;</p> <p>However, trade tensions dominated conversations with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.</p> <p>In a change of tack, Trump Thursday asked his trade advisers to look at re-joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year.</p> <p>But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets have been pushed around by Trump,&#8221; said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial Holdings.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.CSI300" type="external">China Securities Index Co Ltd</a> 3868.4458 .CSI300 China Securities Index Co Ltd -30.19 (-0.77%) .CSI300 .SSEC .HSI .N225 JPM.N <p>&#8220;His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his re-election. If protectionism doesn&#8217;t work, he may switch to international trade,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the U.S. is really re-joining the TPP. But if it does, it&#8217;s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it.&#8221;</p> <p>In the currency market, the dollar was a shade firmer at 107.35 yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a>, edging near to a five-week high of 107.49 touched on April 5.</p> <p>The yen is sought when investors turn risk averse because Japan&#8217;s hefty current surplus and massive offshore assets provide protection against the capital outflows deficit-running countries are vulnerable to.</p> <p>The euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> was flat at $1.2328, though on the week it has kept gains of 0.4 percent.</p> <p>Oil prices edged lower following suggestions from U.S. President Donald Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent. They are still set for their biggest weekly gains since last July. [O/R]</p> <p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 were off 20 cents at $71.82 a barrel, not far from Wednesday&#8217;s high of $73.09. U.S. WTI crude futures CLc1 slipped 20 cents to $66.89.</p> <p>Elsewhere, bitcoin <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=BTC&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">BTC=BTSP</a> fetched $7,968.5 after 14.2 percent gains on Thursday, its biggest gain in four months.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain&#8217;s takeover regulator said Walt Disney ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires Twenty-First Century Fox&#8217;s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch&#8217;s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European pay-TV company itself.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London, Britain June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo <p>Fox ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FOXA.O" type="external">FOXA.O</a>) agreed an offer to buy all of Sky ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SKYB.L" type="external">SKYB.L</a>) 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval, while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets, including its stake in Sky, in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance.</p> <p>The ruling means that if Fox&#8217;s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch&#8217;s media influence, Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox&#8217;s assets.</p> <p>Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox&#8217;s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets, but Britain&#8217;s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox&#8217;s 10.75 pounds-a-share price.</p> A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid - RC1277BFE810 <p>Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox.</p> <p>The Takeover Panel, however, said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney&#8217;s acquiring control of Fox, and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">Walt Disney Co</a> 100.39 DIS.N New York Stock Exchange -0.41 (-0.41%) DIS.N FOXA.O SKYB.L CMCSA.O FOX COMMITTED <p>The Panel&#8217;s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets, or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky.</p> <p>U.S. cable company Comcast ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CMCSA.O" type="external">CMCSA.O</a>) said on Feb. 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky.</p> <p>Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel&#8217;s ruling, and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time.</p> <p>Twenty-First Century Fox said that under the ruling, any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney&#8217;s acquisition of Fox is completed, which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox&#8217;s offer for Sky.</p> <p>&#8220;21CF (Fox) remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 2016,&#8221; it said.</p> <p>The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority, it added.</p> <p>Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Forward Industries Enters Into Stock Purchase Agreement Exclusive: Chevron, Exxon seek 'small refinery' waivers from U.S. biofuels law Twelve senators seek FCC probe of Sinclair news scripts, pause in Tribune review Stocks pare gains on uncertainties over trade, mixed China data Disney must offer to buy all of Sky, Britain's takeover regulator rules

https://reuters.com/article/brief-forward-industries-enters-into-sto/brief-forward-industries-enters-into-stock-purchase-agreement-idUSFWN1PD1DD

2018-01-18

2least

Jan 18 Reuters Forward Industries Inc FORWARD INDUSTRIES ENTERED INTO STOCK PURCHASE AGREEMENT BY ampamp AMONG CO INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SOLUTIONS HOLDERS OF ALL OF COMMON STOCK OF IPS MAIMAN FORWARD INDUSTRIES SAYS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ALL OF INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SOLUTIONS OUTSTANDING SECURITIESCO PAID ABOUT 19 MILLION IN CASH SEC FILING Source text bitly2BfUFvi Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked US regulators for exemptions to the nation8217s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress according to sources familiar with the matter FILE PHOTO A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar California in this April 25 2013 file photo REUTERSMike BlakeFile Photo The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the US Renewable Fuel Standard a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as cornbased ethanol into the nation8217s fuel supply or buy governmentawarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending The US Environmental Protection Agency EPA has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months according to an agency source driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs But the agency won8217t name the firms receiving the exemptions citing a concern over disclosing private company information Both Chevron CVXN and Exxon XOMN among the world8217s most profitable energy companies have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities Chevron8217s 54500 barrelperday refinery in Utah and the Exxon8217s 60000 bpd refinery in Montana two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017 which came due this year the sources said The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications which have not been previously reported follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ANDVN one of the biggest US refining companies The waivers could save Andeavor 50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company8217s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law Husky Energy a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire will also be seeking an exemption this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior Wisconsin plant spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters disclosing the waiver for the first time Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners CLMTO for 435 million in November The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75000 barrels per day bpd that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them 8220disproportionate economic hardship8221 A spokesman for Chevron Braden Reddall declined to confirm or deny the application but said waivers provide an edge 8220Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS8221 he said in a written statement to Reuters 8220If true any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage8221 Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment The exceptions and the EPA8217s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits 8220EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny8221 five Republican senators including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa wrote in a joint statement Thursday 8220This looks like just another backdoor attempt by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent8221 Bob Dinneen head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing 8216small8217 about Exxon and Chevron both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100 8220For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hardworking farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS8221 Dinneen said Slideshow 2 Images It8217s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75000 bpd regardless of the size of the company that owns it 8220EPA decisions on waivers are based on refineryspecific information8221 she said in an email 8220We continue to work through petitions received for 20178221 Exxon reported net profits of 197 billion last year Chevron reported earning 92 billion Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming home to several small refineries praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation8217s largest refiners 8220I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program They know that we can8217t allow it to hurt our nation8217s small refineries8221 Barrasso said Chevron Corp 11923 CVXN New York Stock Exchange 002 002 CVXN XOMN ANDVN CLMTO PSXN 8216DEMAND DESTRUCTION8217 The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to US refineries according to a former US official who spoke on condition of anonymity A current EPA official however said the number reached 20 for 2016 The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of 8220economic hardship8221 opening the door for more facilities to be eligible The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits called RINs to prove compliance and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 PSXN also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver as does CVR Energy CVIN which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions Icahn8217s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns Biofuels proponents including US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as 8220demand destruction8221 for cornbased ethanol Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war The American Petroleum Institute which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past arguing for a level competitive playing field Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles WASHINGTON Reuters Twelve US senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group SBGIO for 8220deliberately distorting news8221 and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company8217s proposed 39 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co TRCON The Federal Communications Commission FCC logo is seen before the FCC Net Neutrality hearing in Washington February 26 2015 REUTERSYuri Gripas Sinclair which is already the largest US broadcaststation owner announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune8217s 42 TV stations in 33 markets extending its reach to 72 percent of American households In a letter the senators 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclairowned stations around the country being forced to read companymandated scripts The scripts criticized 8220the troubling trend of irresponsible one sided news stories plaguing our country8221 and have drawn fire 8220We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws8221 the senators wrote They added that it 8220may have violated the FCC8217s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging slanting or falsifying information8221 In a letter to senators on Thursday reviewed by Reuters FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected their request saying the agency does not have authority to revoke a license based on the content of a particular newscast Pai made similar comments last year when President Donald Trump suggested NBC8217s licenses could be challenged over its news reporting 8220I can hardly think of an action more chilling of free speech than the federal government investigating a broadcast station because of disagreement with its news coverage or promotion of that coverage8221 Pai wrote After the scripts drew significant public attention Trump tweeted on April 2 in defense of Sinclair 8220Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC8221 Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc 295 SBGIO Nasdaq 005 017 SBGIO TRCON In February Representative Frank Pallone a Democrat said the FCC8217s inspector general was investigating whether Pai was biased in Sinclair8217s favor Pallone in November asked the inspector general to investigate citing a string of FCC decisions he said benefited Sinclair and a media report that Trump8217s election campaign struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage Pai has repeatedly denied he has taken actions aimed at benefiting a single company and Sinclair has denied improper conduct Sinclair declined to comment on the senators8217 letter signed by the 11 Democrats including Senators Maria Cantwell Tom Udall Elizabeth Warren Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal as well as Sanders Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Dan Grebler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles TOKYOSYDNEY Reuters Asia stocks pared early gains on Friday as caution crept in ahead of the US earnings season and as investors weighed the possible impact on global growth from a tariff spat between the United States and China FILE PHOTO A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo Japan November 9 2016 REUTERSIssei Kato Investors were also left digesting mixed data from China which showed March exports unexpectedly fell 27 percent from a year earlier while imports grew more than forecast That left the country with a rare trade deficit of 498 billion for the month the first since last February China is the world8217s biggest net crude oil consumer and top buyer of copper coal iron ore and soy MSCI8217s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 007 percent having risen as much as 05 percent in morning trading It is still up about 2 percent on the week Chinese shares took a small knock with both the bluechip CSI300 index CSI300 and Shanghais SSE Composite SSEC off 04 percent Hong Kongs Hang Seng index HSI eased 01 percent while Japans Nikkei N225 gained 05 percent Meanwhile futures pointed to a weak start for US shares with EMinis for SampampP 500 ESc1 down 03 percent The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES 8220Our US equity strategists think that this earnings season should be a significant support for equities as companies deliver stronger than expected earnings growth and provide guidance on shareholder return from the tax windfall8221 analysts at JPMorgan said in a note 8220Our Asia equity strategists agree8221 However trade tensions dominated conversations with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan Singapore and South Korea In a change of tack Trump Thursday asked his trade advisers to look at rejoining the Trans Pacific Partnership a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama 8220Markets have been pushed around by Trump8221 said Hiroshi Watanabe economist at Sony Financial Holdings China Securities Index Co Ltd 38684458 CSI300 China Securities Index Co Ltd 3019 077 CSI300 SSEC HSI N225 JPMN 8220His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his reelection If protectionism doesn8217t work he may switch to international trade8221 he added 8220Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the US is really rejoining the TPP But if it does it8217s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it8221 In the currency market the dollar was a shade firmer at 10735 yen JPY edging near to a fiveweek high of 10749 touched on April 5 The yen is sought when investors turn risk averse because Japan8217s hefty current surplus and massive offshore assets provide protection against the capital outflows deficitrunning countries are vulnerable to The euro EUR was flat at 12328 though on the week it has kept gains of 04 percent Oil prices edged lower following suggestions from US President Donald Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent They are still set for their biggest weekly gains since last July OR Brent crude futures LCOc1 were off 20 cents at 7182 a barrel not far from Wednesday8217s high of 7309 US WTI crude futures CLc1 slipped 20 cents to 6689 Elsewhere bitcoin BTCBTSP fetched 79685 after 142 percent gains on Thursday its biggest gain in four months Additional reporting by Swati Pandey Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Britain8217s takeover regulator said Walt Disney DISN must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires TwentyFirst Century Fox8217s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch8217s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European payTV company itself FILE PHOTO The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London Britain June 29 2017 REUTERSToby MelvilleFile Photo Fox FOXAO agreed an offer to buy all of Sky SKYBL 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets including its stake in Sky in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance The ruling means that if Fox8217s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch8217s media influence Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox8217s assets Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox8217s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets but Britain8217s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox8217s 1075 poundsashare price A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US December 14 2017 REUTERSBrendan McDermid RC1277BFE810 Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox The Takeover Panel however said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney8217s acquiring control of Fox and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets Walt Disney Co 10039 DISN New York Stock Exchange 041 041 DISN FOXAO SKYBL CMCSAO FOX COMMITTED The Panel8217s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky US cable company Comcast CMCSAO said on Feb 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel8217s ruling and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time TwentyFirst Century Fox said that under the ruling any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney8217s acquisition of Fox is completed which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox8217s offer for Sky 822021CF Fox remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 20168221 it said The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain8217s Competition and Markets Authority it added Reporting by Paul Sandle Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>NYPD officers form a line near Zuccotti Park in November.&amp;lt;a href="http://motherjones.com/slideshows/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-eviction-photos/08"&amp;gt;Jacob Blickenstaff&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram%3A_stephan_salisbury%2C_weaponizing_the_body_politic/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of &#8220;shock and awe&#8221; had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California. American police forces had been &#8220;militarized,&#8221; many commentators <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/opinion/navarrette-militarized-police/index.html" type="external">worried</a>, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />There should have been no surprise. Those flash grenades <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/occupy-oakland-police-tea_n_1239232.html" type="external">exploding</a> in Oakland and the sound cannons on <a href="http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/lrad-explains-sound-cannon-use-at-occupy-wall-street.php" type="external">New York&#8217;s streets</a> simply opened small windows onto a national policing landscape long in the process of militarization&#8212;a bleak domestic no man&#8217;s land marked by tanks and drones, robot bomb detectors, grenade launchers, tasers, and most of all, interlinked video surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on unobtrusive server farms everywhere.</p> <p>The ubiquitous fantasy of &#8220;homeland security,&#8221; pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.</p> <p>In such a world, deadly gadgetry is just a grant request away, so why shouldn&#8217;t the 14,000 at-risk souls in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, have a closed-circuit-digital-camera-and-monitor system (cost: $180,000, courtesy of the Homeland Security Department) <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/12/us_doles_out_millions_for_street_cameras/?page=full" type="external">identical</a> to the one up and running in New York&#8217;s Times Square?</p> <p>So much money has gone into armoring and arming local law-enforcement since 9/11 that the federal government could have <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/27/BUGADEUAO01.DTL&amp;amp;ao=all" type="external">rebuilt</a> post-Katrina New Orleans five times over and had enough money left in the kitty to provide job training and housing for every one of the record 41,000-plus homeless people in New York City. It could have added in the growing population of 15,000 homeless in Philadelphia, my hometown, and still have had money to spare. Add disintegrating Detroit, Newark, and Camden to the list. Throw in some crumbling bridges and roads, too.</p> <p>But why drone on? We all know that addressing acute social and economic issues here in the homeland was the road not taken. Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security alone has <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/" type="external">doled out</a> somewhere between $30 billion and $40 billion in direct grants to state and local law enforcement, as well as other first responders. At the same time, defense contractors have proven endlessly inventive in adapting <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/18/defense-cuts-force-contractors-to-look-to-sell-spy-tech-to-cops-others.html" type="external">sales pitches</a> originally honed for the military on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the desires of police on the streets of San Francisco and lower Manhattan. Oakland may not be Basra but (as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld liked to say) there are always the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns" type="external">unknown unknowns</a>: best be prepared.</p> <p>All told, the federal government <a href="http://nationalpriorities.org/publications/2011/us-security-spending-since-911/" type="external">has appropriated</a> about $635 billion, accounting for inflation, for homeland security-related activities and equipment since the 9/11 attacks. To conclude, though, that &#8220;the police&#8221; have become increasingly militarized casts too narrow a net. The truth is that virtually the entire apparatus of government has been mobilized and militarized right down to the university campus.</p> <p>Perhaps the pepper spray <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4" type="external">used</a> on Occupy demonstrators last November at University of California-Davis wasn&#8217;t directly paid for by the federal government. But those who used it work closely with Homeland Security and the FBI &#8220;in developing prevention strategies that threaten campus life, property, and environments,&#8221; as UC Davis&#8217;s Comprehensive Emergency and Continuity Management Plan puts it.</p> <p>Government budgets at every level now include allocations aimed at fighting an ephemeral &#8220;War on Terror&#8221; in the United States. A vast surveillance and military buildup has taken place nationwide to conduct a pseudo-war against what can be imagined, not what we actually face. The costs of this effort, started by the Bush administration and promoted faithfully by the Obama administration, have been, and continue to be, virtually incalculable. In the process, public service and the public imagination have been weaponized.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Farewell to Peaceful Private Life</p> <p>We&#8217;re not just talking money eagerly squandered. That may prove the least of it. More importantly, the fundamental values of American democracy&#8212;particularly the right to lead an autonomous private life&#8212;have been compromised with grim efficiency. The weaponry and tactics now routinely employed by police are visible evidence of this.</p> <p>Yes, it&#8217;s true that Montgomery County, Texas, has <a href="http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/texas-county-police-buys-drone-can-carry-weapons" type="external">purchased</a> a weapons-capable drone. (They say they&#8217;ll only arm it with tasers, if necessary.) Yes, it&#8217;s true that the Tampa police have <a href="http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2012/jan/05/4/tampa-police-to-buy-armored-vehicle-communication--ar-344028/" type="external">beefed the force up</a> with an eight-ton armored personnel carrier, augmenting two older tanks the department already owns. Yes, the Fargo police are ready with <a href="http://americaswarwithin.org/articles/2011/12/21/local-police-stockpile-high-tech-combat-ready-gear" type="external">bomb detection robots</a>, and Chicago <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574539910412824756.html" type="external">boasts a network</a> of at least 15,000 interlinked surveillance cameras.</p> <p>New York City&#8217;s 34,000-member police force is now the ground zero of a <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/Justice_Department_to_review_complaints_on_NYPD_spying_of_Muslims.html" type="external">growing outcry</a> over rampant secret spying on Muslim students and communities up and down the East coast. It has been a big beneficiary of federal security largess. Between 2003 and 2010, the city <a href="http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/homeland/Does-New-York-City.html" type="external">received</a> more than $1.1 billion through Homeland Security&#8217;s Urban Areas Security Initiative grant program. And that&#8217;s only one of the grant programs funneling such money to New York.</p> <p>The Obama White House itself has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/27/nypd-muslim-surveillance_n_1303400.html" type="external">directly funded</a> part of the New York Police Department&#8217;s anti-Muslim surveillance program. Top officials of New York&#8217;s finest have, however, repeatedly <a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-10-16/local/30303646_1_nypd-grant-money-vendors" type="external">refused to disclose</a> just how much anti-terrorism money it has been spending, citing, of course, security.</p> <p>Can New York City ever be &#8220;secure&#8221;? Mayor Michael Bloomberg <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2068428/Bloomberg-I-army-NYPD-State-Department-New-York-City.html" type="external">boasted recently</a> with obvious satisfaction: &#8220;I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world.&#8221; That would be the Vietnamese army actually, but accuracy isn&#8217;t the point. The smugness of the boast is. And meanwhile the money keeps pouring in and the &#8220;security&#8221; activities only multiply.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584288/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Why, for instance, are New York cops <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/newark-mayor-and-yale-university-head-slam-nypd-spying-program.html" type="external">traveling</a> to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and Newark, New Jersey, to spy on ordinary Muslim citizens, who have nothing to do with New York and are not suspected of doing anything? For what conceivable purpose does Tampa want an eight-ton armored vehicle? Why do Texas sheriffs north of Houston believe one drone&#8212;or a dozen, for that matter&#8212;will make Montgomery County a better place? What manner of thinking conjures up a future that requires such hardware? We have entered a dark world that demands an inescapable battery of closed-circuit, networked video cameras trained on ordinary citizens strolling Michigan Avenue.</p> <p>This is not simply a police issue. Law enforcement agencies may acquire the equipment and deploy it, but city legislators and executives must approve the expenditures and the uses. State legislators and bureaucrats refine the local grant requests. Federal officials, with endless input from national security and defense vendors and lobbyists, appropriate the funds.</p> <p>Doubters are simply swept aside (while legions of security and terrorism pundits spin dread-inducing fantasies), and ultimately, the American people accept and live with the results. We get what we pay for&#8212;Mayor Bloomberg&#8217;s &#8220;army,&#8221; replicated coast to coast.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Budgets Tell the Story</p> <p>Militarized thinking is made manifest through budgets, which daily reshape political and bureaucratic life in large and small ways. Not long after the 9/11 attacks, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, <a href="http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/testimony/2001/1206transcriptsenatejudiciarycommittee.htm" type="external">appearing</a> before the Senate Judiciary Committee, used this formula to define the new American environment and so the thinking that went with it: &#8220;Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities&#8212;plotting, planning, and waiting to kill again.&#8221; To counter that, the government had urgently embarked on &#8220;a wartime reorganization,&#8221; he said, and was &#8220;forging new relationships of cooperation with state and local law enforcement.&#8221;</p> <p>While such visionary Ashcroftian rhetoric has cooled in recent years, the relationships and funding he touted a decade ago have been institutionalized throughout government&#8212;federal, state, and local&#8212;as well as civil society. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, with a total 2012 budget of about $57 billion, is the most obvious example of this.</p> <p>That budget only hints at what&#8217;s being doled out for homeland security at the federal level. Such moneys flow not just from Homeland Security, but from the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Commerce Department, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense.</p> <p>In 2010, the Office of Management and Budget <a href="http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&amp;amp;File_id=b7e871b1-77af-464e-ab6e-3fca8511c1ce" type="external">reckoned</a> that 31 separate federal agencies were involved in homeland security-related funding that year to the tune of more than $65 billion. The Census Bureau, which has itself been <a href="http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2327" type="external">compromised</a> by War on Terror activities&#8212;mapping Middle Eastern and Muslim communities for counter-terrorism officials&#8212;estimated that federal homeland security funding topped $70 billion in 2010. But government officials acknowledge that much funding is not included in that compilation. (Grants made through the $5.6 billion Project BioShield, to offer but one example, an exotic vaccination and medical program launched in 2004, are absent from the total.)</p> <p>Even the estimate of more than $635 billion in such expenditures does not tell the full spending story. That figure does not include the national intelligence or military intelligence budgets for which the Obama Administration is seeking $52.6 billion and $19.6 billion respectively in 2013, or secret parts of the national security budget, the so-called black budget.</p> <p>Local funding is also unaccounted for. New York&#8217;s Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/exclusive-elaborate-new-york-city-post-911-security/" type="external">claims</a> total national homeland security spending could easily be near a trillion dollars. Money well spent, he says&#8212;New York needs that anti-terror army, the thousands of surveillance cameras, those sophisticated new weapons, and, naturally, a navy that now includes <a href="http://www.policeone.com/police-products/investigation/video-surveillance/articles/4780384-NYC-cops-skim-for-bombs-using-drone-submarines/" type="external">six drone submarines</a> (thanks to $540,000 in Homeland Security cash) to keep an eye on the terrorist threat beneath the waves.</p> <p>And even that&#8217;s not enough.</p> <p>&#8220;We have a new boat on order,&#8221; Kelly <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/exclusive-elaborate-new-york-city-post-911-security/" type="external">said</a> recently, alluding to a bullet-proof vessel paid for by, yes, Homeland Security (cost unspecified). &#8220;We envision a situation where we may have to get to an island or across water quickly, so we&#8217;re able to transport our heavy weapons officers rapidly. We have to do things differently. We know that this is where terrorists want to come.&#8221;</p> <p>With submarines available to those who protect and serve (and grab the grant money), a simple armored SWAT carrier should hardly raise an eyebrow. The Tampa police will get one as part of their security buildup before the city hosts the Republican convention this summer. Tampa and Charlotte, which will host the Democratic convention, each received special $50 million security allocations from Congress to &#8220;harden&#8221; the cities.</p> <p>Marc Hamlin, Tampa&#8217;s assistant police chief, <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article1209265.ece" type="external">told</a> the Tampa city council that two old tanks, already owned and operated by the police, were simply not enough. They were just too unreliable. &#8220;Thank God we have two, because one seems to break down every week,&#8221; he lamented.</p> <p>Not everyone on the council seemed convinced Tampa needed a truck sheathed in 1.5-inch high-grade steel, and featuring ballistic glass panels, blast shields, and powered turrets. City Council Vice Chairwoman Mary Mulhern claimed she found the purchase &#8220;kind of troubling,&#8221; a sign that Tampa is becoming &#8220;militarized.&#8221; Then she voted to approve it anyway, along with the other council members. Hamlin was pleased. &#8220;It&#8217;s one of those things where you prepare for the worst, and you hope for the best,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/baybuzz/content/tampa-ready-begin-spending-republican-national-convention-security-funds-police-upgrades" type="external">explained</a>.</p> <p>When Mulhern suggested that some of the windfall $50 million might be used to help the city&#8217;s growing homeless population, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article1209265.ece" type="external">set her straight</a>. &#8220;We can&#8217;t be diverted from what the appropriate use of that money is, and that is to provide a safe environment for the convention. It&#8217;s not to be used for pet projects or things totally unrelated to security.&#8221;</p> <p>Tampa will also be spending more than $1 million for state of the art digital video uplinks to surveillance helicopters. (&#8220;Analog technology is almost Stone Age,&#8221; commented one approving council member.) Another $2 million will go to install 60 surveillance cameras on city streets. That represents an uncharacteristic pullback from the city&#8217;s initial plan to acquire more than 230 cameras as well as two drones at a cost of about $5 million. Even the police deemed that too expensive&#8212;for the moment.</p> <p>All of this hardware will remain in Tampa after the Republicans and any protestors are long gone. What use will it serve then? In the Tampa area, the armored truck will join the armored fleet, police officials said, ferrying SWAT teams on calls and protecting police serving search warrants. In the past, Hamlin claimed, Tampa&#8217;s tanks have been shot at. He did not mention that crime rates in Tampa and across Florida are at four-decade lows.</p> <p>The video surveillance cameras will, of course, also <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/tampa-gets-six-bids-for-surveillance-cameras-at-the-republican-national/1211236" type="external">stay in place</a>, streaming digitized images to an ever-growing database, where they will be stored waiting for the day when facial recognition software is employed to mix and match. This strategy is being followed all over the country, including in Chicago, with its huge video surveillance network, and New York City, where all of lower Manhattan is now on camera.</p> <p>Tampa has already been down this road once in the post-9/11 era. The city was home to a much-watched experiment in using such software. Images taken by cameras installed on the street were to be matched with photographs in a database of suspects. The system failed completely and was <a href="http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=security/bigbrother/tech/tampa-scraps-facial-recognition.txt" type="external">scrapped</a> in 2003. On the other hand, sheriffs in the Tampa Bay area are currently <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1019492.ece" type="external">using</a> facial recognition software to match photographs snapped by police on the street with a database of suspects with outstanding warrants. Police are excited by that program and look forward to its future expansion.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>The Rise of the Fusion Centers</p> <p>Homeland Security has played a big role in creating one particularly potent element in the nation&#8217;s expanding database network. Working with the Department of Justice in the wake of 9/11, it launched what has grown into 72 interlinked state &#8220;fusion centers&#8221;&#8212;repositories for everything from Immigration Customs Enforcement data and photographs to local police reports and even gossip. &#8220; <a href="http://www.vsp.state.va.us/FusionCenter/Report_Suspicious_Activity.shtm" type="external">Suspicious Activity Reports</a>&#8221; gathered from public tipsters&#8212;thanks to Homeland Security&#8217;s &#8220;if you see something, say something&#8221; program&#8212;are now flowing into state centers. Those fusion centers are possibly the greatest facilitators of dish in history, and have vast potential for disseminating dubious information and stigmatizing purely political activity. And most Americans have never even heard of them.</p> <p>Yet fusion centers now operate in every state, centralizing intelligence gathering and facilitating dissemination of material of every sort across the country. Here is where information gathered by cops and citizens, FBI agents and immigration officers goes to fester. It is a staggering load of data, unevenly and sometimes questionably vetted, and it is ultimately <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1883101,00.html" type="external">available</a> to any state or local law-enforcement officer, any immigration agent or official, any intelligence or security bureaucrat with a computer and network access.</p> <p>The idea for these centers grew from the notion that agencies needed to share what they knew in an &#8220;unfettered&#8221; environment. How comforting to know that the walls between intelligence and law enforcement are breached in an essentially <a href="http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/" type="external">unregulated fashion</a>.</p> <p>Many other states have monitored antiwar activists, gathering and storing names and information. <a href="http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fusion-center-encourages-improper-investigations-lobbying-groups-and-anti-war" type="external">Texas</a> and other states have stored &#8220;intelligence&#8221; on Muslims. <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175303/" type="external">Pennsylvania</a> gathered reports on opponents of natural gas drilling. <a href="http://publicintelligence.net/florida-fusion-center-monitored-bp-protests-ron-paul-events-code-pink/" type="external">Florida</a> has scrutinized supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul. The list of such questionable activities is very long. We have no idea how much dubious data has been squirreled away by authorities and remains within the networked system. But we do know that information pours into it with relative ease and spreads like an oil slick. Cleaning up and removing the mess is another story entirely.</p> <p>Anyone who wants to learn something about fusion center funding will also find it maddeningly difficult to track. Not even the Homeland Security Department can say with certainty how much of its own money has gone into these data nests over the last decade. The amounts are staggering, however. From 2004 to 2009 alone, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that states used about $426 million in Homeland Security Department grants to fund fusion-related activities nationally. The centers also receive state and local funds, as well as funds from other federal agencies. How much? We don&#8217;t know, although GAO data suggest state and local funding at least equals the Homeland Security share.</p> <p>Yet, as Tampa, New York City, and other urban areas bulk up with high-tech anti-terrorism equipment and fusion centers have proliferated, the number of even remotely &#8220;terror-related&#8221; incidents has declined. The equipment acquired and projects inaugurated to fend off largely imaginary threats is instead increasingly deployed to address ordinary criminal activity, perceived political disruptions, and the tracking and surveillance of American Muslims. The Transportation Safety Administration is now even <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/mission-creep-this-tennessee-highway-is-now-patrolled-by-tsa/247243/" type="external">patrolling highways</a>. It could be called a case of mission creep, but the more accurate description might be: bait-and-switch.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/09/does_the_united_states_spend_too_much_on_homeland_security.html" type="external">chances</a> of an American dying in a terrorist incident in a given year are 1 in 3.5 million. To reduce that risk, to make something minuscule even more minuscule, what has the nation spent? What has it cost us? Instead of rebuilding a ravaged American city in a timely fashion or making Americans more secure in their &#8220;underwater&#8221; homes and their disappearing jobs, we have created militarized police forces, visible evidence of police-state-style funding.</p> <p>Stephan Salisbury is cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175418/stephan_salisbury_islam-baiting_doesn%27t_work" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>. His most recent book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584288/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Mohamed&#8217;s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland</a>. To listen to Timothy MacBain&#8217;s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Salisbury discusses post-9/11 police &#8220;mission creep&#8221; in this country, click <a href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2012/03/welcome-to-house-of-fund.html" type="external">here</a>, or download it to your iPod <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&amp;amp;amp;subid=&amp;amp;amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;amp;amp;type=10&amp;amp;amp;tmpid=5573&amp;amp;amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817" type="external">here</a>. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook.</a> To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:43308/acctId:25612" type="external">here</a>.</p>

How to Fund an American Police State

https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/how-to-fund-american-police-state-homeland-security/

2012-03-05

4left

NYPD officers form a line near Zuccotti Park in Novemberamplta hrefhttpmotherjonescomslideshows201111occupywallstreetevictionphotos08ampgtJacob Blickenstaffampltaampgt This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions it seemed as though some diminutive version of 8220shock and awe8221 had stumbled from Baghdad Iraq to Oakland California American police forces had been 8220militarized8221 many commentators worried as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies surprises bursting upon us from nowhere There should have been no surprise Those flash grenades exploding in Oakland and the sound cannons on New York8217s streets simply opened small windows onto a national policing landscape long in the process of militarization8212a bleak domestic no man8217s land marked by tanks and drones robot bomb detectors grenade launchers tasers and most of all interlinked video surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on unobtrusive server farms everywhere The ubiquitous fantasy of 8220homeland security8221 pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 911 has been widely embraced by the public It has also excited intense weapons and technoenvy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment In such a world deadly gadgetry is just a grant request away so why shouldn8217t the 14000 atrisk souls in Scottsbluff Nebraska have a closedcircuitdigitalcameraandmonitor system cost 180000 courtesy of the Homeland Security Department identical to the one up and running in New York8217s Times Square So much money has gone into armoring and arming local lawenforcement since 911 that the federal government could have rebuilt postKatrina New Orleans five times over and had enough money left in the kitty to provide job training and housing for every one of the record 41000plus homeless people in New York City It could have added in the growing population of 15000 homeless in Philadelphia my hometown and still have had money to spare Add disintegrating Detroit Newark and Camden to the list Throw in some crumbling bridges and roads too But why drone on We all know that addressing acute social and economic issues here in the homeland was the road not taken Since 911 the Department of Homeland Security alone has doled out somewhere between 30 billion and 40 billion in direct grants to state and local law enforcement as well as other first responders At the same time defense contractors have proven endlessly inventive in adapting sales pitches originally honed for the military on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the desires of police on the streets of San Francisco and lower Manhattan Oakland may not be Basra but as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld liked to say there are always the unknown unknowns best be prepared All told the federal government has appropriated about 635 billion accounting for inflation for homeland securityrelated activities and equipment since the 911 attacks To conclude though that 8220the police8221 have become increasingly militarized casts too narrow a net The truth is that virtually the entire apparatus of government has been mobilized and militarized right down to the university campus Perhaps the pepper spray used on Occupy demonstrators last November at University of CaliforniaDavis wasn8217t directly paid for by the federal government But those who used it work closely with Homeland Security and the FBI 8220in developing prevention strategies that threaten campus life property and environments8221 as UC Davis8217s Comprehensive Emergency and Continuity Management Plan puts it Government budgets at every level now include allocations aimed at fighting an ephemeral 8220War on Terror8221 in the United States A vast surveillance and military buildup has taken place nationwide to conduct a pseudowar against what can be imagined not what we actually face The costs of this effort started by the Bush administration and promoted faithfully by the Obama administration have been and continue to be virtually incalculable In the process public service and the public imagination have been weaponized amp160 Farewell to Peaceful Private Life We8217re not just talking money eagerly squandered That may prove the least of it More importantly the fundamental values of American democracy8212particularly the right to lead an autonomous private life8212have been compromised with grim efficiency The weaponry and tactics now routinely employed by police are visible evidence of this Yes it8217s true that Montgomery County Texas has purchased a weaponscapable drone They say they8217ll only arm it with tasers if necessary Yes it8217s true that the Tampa police have beefed the force up with an eightton armored personnel carrier augmenting two older tanks the department already owns Yes the Fargo police are ready with bomb detection robots and Chicago boasts a network of at least 15000 interlinked surveillance cameras New York City8217s 34000member police force is now the ground zero of a growing outcry over rampant secret spying on Muslim students and communities up and down the East coast It has been a big beneficiary of federal security largess Between 2003 and 2010 the city received more than 11 billion through Homeland Security8217s Urban Areas Security Initiative grant program And that8217s only one of the grant programs funneling such money to New York The Obama White House itself has directly funded part of the New York Police Department8217s antiMuslim surveillance program Top officials of New York8217s finest have however repeatedly refused to disclose just how much antiterrorism money it has been spending citing of course security Can New York City ever be 8220secure8221 Mayor Michael Bloomberg boasted recently with obvious satisfaction 8220I have my own army in the NYPD which is the seventh largest army in the world8221 That would be the Vietnamese army actually but accuracy isn8217t the point The smugness of the boast is And meanwhile the money keeps pouring in and the 8220security8221 activities only multiply Why for instance are New York cops traveling to Yale University in New Haven Connecticut and Newark New Jersey to spy on ordinary Muslim citizens who have nothing to do with New York and are not suspected of doing anything For what conceivable purpose does Tampa want an eightton armored vehicle Why do Texas sheriffs north of Houston believe one drone8212or a dozen for that matter8212will make Montgomery County a better place What manner of thinking conjures up a future that requires such hardware We have entered a dark world that demands an inescapable battery of closedcircuit networked video cameras trained on ordinary citizens strolling Michigan Avenue This is not simply a police issue Law enforcement agencies may acquire the equipment and deploy it but city legislators and executives must approve the expenditures and the uses State legislators and bureaucrats refine the local grant requests Federal officials with endless input from national security and defense vendors and lobbyists appropriate the funds Doubters are simply swept aside while legions of security and terrorism pundits spin dreadinducing fantasies and ultimately the American people accept and live with the results We get what we pay for8212Mayor Bloomberg8217s 8220army8221 replicated coast to coast amp160 Budgets Tell the Story Militarized thinking is made manifest through budgets which daily reshape political and bureaucratic life in large and small ways Not long after the 911 attacks thenAttorney General John Ashcroft appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee used this formula to define the new American environment and so the thinking that went with it 8220Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities8212plotting planning and waiting to kill again8221 To counter that the government had urgently embarked on 8220a wartime reorganization8221 he said and was 8220forging new relationships of cooperation with state and local law enforcement8221 While such visionary Ashcroftian rhetoric has cooled in recent years the relationships and funding he touted a decade ago have been institutionalized throughout government8212federal state and local8212as well as civil society The creation of the Department of Homeland Security with a total 2012 budget of about 57 billion is the most obvious example of this That budget only hints at what8217s being doled out for homeland security at the federal level Such moneys flow not just from Homeland Security but from the Justice Department the Environmental Protection Agency the Commerce Department the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Defense In 2010 the Office of Management and Budget reckoned that 31 separate federal agencies were involved in homeland securityrelated funding that year to the tune of more than 65 billion The Census Bureau which has itself been compromised by War on Terror activities8212mapping Middle Eastern and Muslim communities for counterterrorism officials8212estimated that federal homeland security funding topped 70 billion in 2010 But government officials acknowledge that much funding is not included in that compilation Grants made through the 56 billion Project BioShield to offer but one example an exotic vaccination and medical program launched in 2004 are absent from the total Even the estimate of more than 635 billion in such expenditures does not tell the full spending story That figure does not include the national intelligence or military intelligence budgets for which the Obama Administration is seeking 526 billion and 196 billion respectively in 2013 or secret parts of the national security budget the socalled black budget Local funding is also unaccounted for New York8217s Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly claims total national homeland security spending could easily be near a trillion dollars Money well spent he says8212New York needs that antiterror army the thousands of surveillance cameras those sophisticated new weapons and naturally a navy that now includes six drone submarines thanks to 540000 in Homeland Security cash to keep an eye on the terrorist threat beneath the waves And even that8217s not enough 8220We have a new boat on order8221 Kelly said recently alluding to a bulletproof vessel paid for by yes Homeland Security cost unspecified 8220We envision a situation where we may have to get to an island or across water quickly so we8217re able to transport our heavy weapons officers rapidly We have to do things differently We know that this is where terrorists want to come8221 With submarines available to those who protect and serve and grab the grant money a simple armored SWAT carrier should hardly raise an eyebrow The Tampa police will get one as part of their security buildup before the city hosts the Republican convention this summer Tampa and Charlotte which will host the Democratic convention each received special 50 million security allocations from Congress to 8220harden8221 the cities Marc Hamlin Tampa8217s assistant police chief told the Tampa city council that two old tanks already owned and operated by the police were simply not enough They were just too unreliable 8220Thank God we have two because one seems to break down every week8221 he lamented Not everyone on the council seemed convinced Tampa needed a truck sheathed in 15inch highgrade steel and featuring ballistic glass panels blast shields and powered turrets City Council Vice Chairwoman Mary Mulhern claimed she found the purchase 8220kind of troubling8221 a sign that Tampa is becoming 8220militarized8221 Then she voted to approve it anyway along with the other council members Hamlin was pleased 8220It8217s one of those things where you prepare for the worst and you hope for the best8221 he explained When Mulhern suggested that some of the windfall 50 million might be used to help the city8217s growing homeless population Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn set her straight 8220We can8217t be diverted from what the appropriate use of that money is and that is to provide a safe environment for the convention It8217s not to be used for pet projects or things totally unrelated to security8221 Tampa will also be spending more than 1 million for state of the art digital video uplinks to surveillance helicopters 8220Analog technology is almost Stone Age8221 commented one approving council member Another 2 million will go to install 60 surveillance cameras on city streets That represents an uncharacteristic pullback from the city8217s initial plan to acquire more than 230 cameras as well as two drones at a cost of about 5 million Even the police deemed that too expensive8212for the moment All of this hardware will remain in Tampa after the Republicans and any protestors are long gone What use will it serve then In the Tampa area the armored truck will join the armored fleet police officials said ferrying SWAT teams on calls and protecting police serving search warrants In the past Hamlin claimed Tampa8217s tanks have been shot at He did not mention that crime rates in Tampa and across Florida are at fourdecade lows The video surveillance cameras will of course also stay in place streaming digitized images to an evergrowing database where they will be stored waiting for the day when facial recognition software is employed to mix and match This strategy is being followed all over the country including in Chicago with its huge video surveillance network and New York City where all of lower Manhattan is now on camera Tampa has already been down this road once in the post911 era The city was home to a muchwatched experiment in using such software Images taken by cameras installed on the street were to be matched with photographs in a database of suspects The system failed completely and was scrapped in 2003 On the other hand sheriffs in the Tampa Bay area are currently using facial recognition software to match photographs snapped by police on the street with a database of suspects with outstanding warrants Police are excited by that program and look forward to its future expansion amp160 amp160 The Rise of the Fusion Centers Homeland Security has played a big role in creating one particularly potent element in the nation8217s expanding database network Working with the Department of Justice in the wake of 911 it launched what has grown into 72 interlinked state 8220fusion centers82218212repositories for everything from Immigration Customs Enforcement data and photographs to local police reports and even gossip 8220 Suspicious Activity Reports8221 gathered from public tipsters8212thanks to Homeland Security8217s 8220if you see something say something8221 program8212are now flowing into state centers Those fusion centers are possibly the greatest facilitators of dish in history and have vast potential for disseminating dubious information and stigmatizing purely political activity And most Americans have never even heard of them Yet fusion centers now operate in every state centralizing intelligence gathering and facilitating dissemination of material of every sort across the country Here is where information gathered by cops and citizens FBI agents and immigration officers goes to fester It is a staggering load of data unevenly and sometimes questionably vetted and it is ultimately available to any state or local lawenforcement officer any immigration agent or official any intelligence or security bureaucrat with a computer and network access The idea for these centers grew from the notion that agencies needed to share what they knew in an 8220unfettered8221 environment How comforting to know that the walls between intelligence and law enforcement are breached in an essentially unregulated fashion Many other states have monitored antiwar activists gathering and storing names and information Texas and other states have stored 8220intelligence8221 on Muslims Pennsylvania gathered reports on opponents of natural gas drilling Florida has scrutinized supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul The list of such questionable activities is very long We have no idea how much dubious data has been squirreled away by authorities and remains within the networked system But we do know that information pours into it with relative ease and spreads like an oil slick Cleaning up and removing the mess is another story entirely Anyone who wants to learn something about fusion center funding will also find it maddeningly difficult to track Not even the Homeland Security Department can say with certainty how much of its own money has gone into these data nests over the last decade The amounts are staggering however From 2004 to 2009 alone the Government Accountability Office GAO reported that states used about 426 million in Homeland Security Department grants to fund fusionrelated activities nationally The centers also receive state and local funds as well as funds from other federal agencies How much We don8217t know although GAO data suggest state and local funding at least equals the Homeland Security share Yet as Tampa New York City and other urban areas bulk up with hightech antiterrorism equipment and fusion centers have proliferated the number of even remotely 8220terrorrelated8221 incidents has declined The equipment acquired and projects inaugurated to fend off largely imaginary threats is instead increasingly deployed to address ordinary criminal activity perceived political disruptions and the tracking and surveillance of American Muslims The Transportation Safety Administration is now even patrolling highways It could be called a case of mission creep but the more accurate description might be baitandswitch The chances of an American dying in a terrorist incident in a given year are 1 in 35 million To reduce that risk to make something minuscule even more minuscule what has the nation spent What has it cost us Instead of rebuilding a ravaged American city in a timely fashion or making Americans more secure in their 8220underwater8221 homes and their disappearing jobs we have created militarized police forces visible evidence of policestatestyle funding Stephan Salisbury is cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a TomDispatch regular His most recent book is Mohamed8217s Ghosts An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland To listen to Timothy MacBain8217s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Salisbury discusses post911 police 8220mission creep8221 in this country click here or download it to your iPod here Follow TomDispatch on Twitter TomDispatch and join us on Facebook To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

NYPD/PROPN officers/NOUN form/VERB a/DET line/NOUN near/ADP Zuccotti/PROPN Park/PROPN in/ADP Novemberamplta/PROPN hrefhttpmotherjonescomslideshows201111occupywallstreetevictionphotos08ampgtJacob/PROPN Blickenstaffampltaampgt/PROPN This/DET story/NOUN first/ADV appeared/VERB on/ADP the/DET TomDispatch/PROPN website/NOUN At/ADP the/DET height/NOUN of/ADP the/DET Occupy/PROPN Wall/PROPN Street/PROPN evictions/NOUN it/PRON seemed/VERB as/SCONJ though/SCONJ some/DET diminutive/ADJ version/NOUN of/ADP 8220shock/PROPN and/CCONJ awe8221/NOUN had/AUX stumbled/VERB from/ADP Baghdad/PROPN Iraq/PROPN to/ADP Oakland/PROPN California/PROPN American/ADJ police/NOUN forces/NOUN had/AUX been/AUX 8220militarized8221/NUM many/ADJ commentators/NOUN worried/VERB as/SCONJ though/SCONJ the/DET firepower/NOUN and/CCONJ callous/ADJ tactics/NOUN on/ADP display/NOUN were/AUX anomalies/NOUN surprises/NOUN bursting/VERB upon/SCONJ us/PRON from/ADP nowhere/ADV There/PRON should/AUX have/AUX been/AUX no/DET 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<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Spectrum Brands Holdings Inc:</p> <p>* SPECTRUM BRANDS HOLDINGS POSTPONES 2018 ANNUAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS</p> <p>* SPECTRUM BRANDS SAYS GIVEN ONGOING DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN HRG GROUP &amp;amp; SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF CO&#8217;S BOARD, IT IS &#8220;APPROPRIATE&#8221; TO DELAY ANNUAL MEETING Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked U.S. regulators for exemptions to the nation&#8217;s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress, according to sources familiar with the matter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, in this April 25, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo <p>The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard - a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into the nation&#8217;s fuel supply, or buy government-awarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending.</p> <p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months, according to an agency source, driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs.</p> <p>But the agency won&#8217;t name the firms receiving the exemptions, citing a concern over disclosing private company information.</p> <p>Both Chevron ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>) and Exxon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM.N" type="external">XOM.N</a>), among the world&#8217;s most profitable energy companies, have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities - Chevron&#8217;s 54,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Utah and the Exxon&#8217;s 60,000 bpd refinery in Montana, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.</p> <p>The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017, which came due this year, the sources said.</p> <p>The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications, which have not been previously reported, follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ANDV.N" type="external">ANDV.N</a>), one of the biggest U.S. refining companies.</p> <p>The waivers could save Andeavor $50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company&#8217;s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law.</p> <p>Husky Energy - a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire - will also be seeking an exemption, this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior, Wisconsin plant, spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters, disclosing the waiver for the first time.</p> <p>Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50,000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CLMT.O" type="external">CLMT.O</a>) for $435 million in November.</p> <p>The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them &#8220;disproportionate economic hardship.&#8221;</p> <p>A spokesman for Chevron, Braden Reddall, declined to confirm or deny the application, but said waivers provide an edge.</p> <p>&#8220;Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS,&#8221; he said in a written statement to Reuters. &#8220;If true, any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment.</p> <p>The exceptions and the EPA&#8217;s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby, which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny,&#8221; five Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa, wrote in a joint statement Thursday.</p> <p>&#8220;This looks like just another backdoor attempt by (EPA) Administrator (Scott) Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent.&#8221;</p> <p>Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing &#8216;small&#8217; about Exxon and Chevron, both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100.</p> <p>&#8220;For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hard-working farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS,&#8221; Dinneen said.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>It&#8217;s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions.</p> <p>She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75,000 bpd - regardless of the size of the company that owns it.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA decisions on waivers are based on refinery-specific information,&#8221; she said in an email. &#8220;We continue to work through petitions received for 2017.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon reported net profits of $19.7 billion last year. Chevron reported earning $9.2 billion.</p> <p>Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies, and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>Republican Senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, home to several small refineries, praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday. He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation&#8217;s largest refiners.</p> <p>&#8220;I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program. They know that we can&#8217;t allow it to hurt our nation&#8217;s small refineries,&#8221; Barrasso said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">Chevron Corp</a> 119.23 CVX.N New York Stock Exchange -0.02 (-0.02%) CVX.N XOM.N ANDV.N CLMT.O PSX.N &#8216;DEMAND DESTRUCTION&#8217; <p>The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to U.S. refineries, according to a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A current EPA official, however, said the number reached 20 for 2016.</p> <p>The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past. A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of &#8220;economic hardship&#8221; - opening the door for more facilities to be eligible.</p> <p>The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs - which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications.</p> <p>Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand. The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives.</p> <p>Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways: they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits, called RINs, to prove compliance, and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market. That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars.</p> <p>Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PSX.N" type="external">PSX.N</a>) also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver, as does CVR Energy ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVI.N" type="external">CVI.N</a>) which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn.</p> <p>Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions.</p> <p>Icahn&#8217;s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program - while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues - drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns.</p> <p>Biofuels proponents including U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as &#8220;demand destruction&#8221; for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war.</p> <p>The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron, has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past, arguing for a level competitive playing field.</p> <p>Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>TOKYO/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian stocks were cautiously higher on Friday ahead of the U.S. earnings season and as investors pondered the implications of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the prospect of a global trade war.</p> FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato <p>U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s tendency to change his mind over key policy and political issues has fuelled wild market gyrations in recent weeks.</p> <p>Spreadbetters pointed to a largely muted start for Europe, with FTSE futures a shade higher FFIc1 and DAX futures FDXc1 up 0.2 percent. E-Mini futures for the S&amp;amp;P500 ESc1 were unchanged as were Dow futures 1YMc1.</p> <p>Investors were also reviewing mixed data from China which showed March exports unexpectedly fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier while imports jumped more than forecast.</p> <p>While the figures pointed to robust demand from the world&#8217;s top consumer of crude, copper and iron ore, they left the country with a rare trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, the first since last February.</p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 0.1 percent, having risen as much as 0.5 percent in morning trading.</p> <p>It is still up about 2 percent on the week.</p> <p>Chinese shares took a knock, with both the blue-chip CSI300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.CSI300" type="external">.CSI300</a> and Shanghai's SSE Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SSEC" type="external">.SSEC</a> falling 0.8 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.HSI" type="external">.HSI</a> inched lower too while Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> gained 0.55 percent.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>Still, investors also had reason to fret.</p> <p>&#8220;The worry-list for investors remains long with another military strike on Syria after yet another chemical attack looming large and the Mueller inquiry getting even closer to Trump,&#8221; said Shane Oliver, Sydney-based chief economist at AMP Capital.</p> <p>Markets heaved a sigh of relief over suggestions from Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent. However, the threat of a strike remained after Washington&#8217;s earlier warnings against the Syrian government for what is said was a suspected poison gas attack on its civilians.</p> TRADE WAR? <p>Trade tensions also wasn&#8217;t far off the surface, with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.</p> <p>In the most recent change of tack, Trump Thursday asked his advisers to look at re-joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.CSI300" type="external">China Securities Index Co Ltd</a> 3871.464 .CSI300 China Securities Index Co Ltd -27.17 (-0.70%) .CSI300 .SSEC .HSI .N225 JPM.N <p>But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets have been pushed around by Trump,&#8221; said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial Holdings.</p> <p>&#8220;His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his re-election. If protectionism doesn&#8217;t work, he may switch to international trade,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the U.S. is really re-joining the TPP. But if it does, it&#8217;s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it.&#8221;</p> <p>In the currency market, the dollar gained to at 107.57 yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a>, a level not seen since Feb.22.</p> <p>The euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> was flat at $1.2326, though on the week it has kept gains of 0.4 percent.</p> <p>Oil prices edged lower but are still set for their biggest weekly gains since last July. [O/R]</p> <p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 were off 17 cents at $71.85 a barrel, not far from Wednesday&#8217;s high of $73.09. U.S. WTI crude futures CLc1 slipped 17 cents to $66.9.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twelve U.S. senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBGI.O" type="external">SBGI.O</a>) for &#8220;deliberately distorting news&#8221; and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company&#8217;s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TRCO.N" type="external">TRCO.N</a>).</p> The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) logo is seen before the FCC Net Neutrality hearing in Washington February 26, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas <p>Sinclair, which is already the largest U.S. broadcaststation owner, announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune&#8217;s 42 TV stations in 33 markets, extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.</p> <p>In a letter, the senators, 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders, expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclair-owned stations around the country being forced to read company-mandated scripts. The scripts criticized &#8220;the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country&#8221; and have drawn fire.</p> <p>&#8220;We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws,&#8221; the senators wrote. They added that it &#8220;may have violated the FCC&#8217;s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging, slanting, or falsifying information.&#8221;</p> <p>In a letter to senators on Thursday reviewed by Reuters, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected their request, saying the agency does not have authority to revoke a license based on the content of a particular newscast. Pai made similar comments last year when President Donald Trump suggested NBC&#8217;s licenses could be challenged over its news reporting.</p> <p>&#8220;I can hardly think of an action more chilling of free speech than the federal government investigating a broadcast station because of disagreement with its news coverage or promotion of that coverage,&#8221; Pai wrote.</p> <p>After the scripts drew significant public attention, Trump tweeted on April 2 in defense of Sinclair: &#8220;Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBGI.O" type="external">Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc</a> 29.5 SBGI.O Nasdaq -- (--%) SBGI.O TRCO.N <p>In February, Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat, said the FCC&#8217;s inspector general was investigating whether Pai was biased in Sinclair&#8217;s favor.</p> <p>Pallone in November asked the inspector general to investigate, citing a string of FCC decisions he said benefited Sinclair and a media report that Trump&#8217;s election campaign struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage.</p> <p>Pai has repeatedly denied he has taken actions aimed at benefiting a single company and Sinclair has denied improper conduct.</p> <p>Sinclair declined to comment on the senators&#8217; letter, signed by the 11 Democrats, including Senators Maria Cantwell, Tom Udall, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Sanders.</p> <p>Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain&#8217;s takeover regulator said Walt Disney ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires Twenty-First Century Fox&#8217;s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch&#8217;s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European pay-TV company itself.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London, Britain June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo <p>Fox ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FOXA.O" type="external">FOXA.O</a>) agreed an offer to buy all of Sky ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SKYB.L" type="external">SKYB.L</a>) 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval, while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets, including its stake in Sky, in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance.</p> <p>The ruling means that if Fox&#8217;s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch&#8217;s media influence, Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox&#8217;s assets.</p> <p>Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox&#8217;s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets, but Britain&#8217;s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox&#8217;s 10.75 pounds-a-share price.</p> A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid - RC1277BFE810 <p>Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox.</p> <p>The Takeover Panel, however, said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney&#8217;s acquiring control of Fox, and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">Walt Disney Co</a> 100.39 DIS.N New York Stock Exchange -0.41 (-0.41%) DIS.N FOXA.O SKYB.L CMCSA.O FOX COMMITTED <p>The Panel&#8217;s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets, or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky.</p> <p>U.S. cable company Comcast ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CMCSA.O" type="external">CMCSA.O</a>) said on Feb. 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky.</p> <p>Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel&#8217;s ruling, and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time.</p> <p>Twenty-First Century Fox said that under the ruling, any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney&#8217;s acquisition of Fox is completed, which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox&#8217;s offer for Sky.</p> <p>&#8220;21CF (Fox) remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 2016,&#8221; it said.</p> <p>The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority, it added.</p> <p>Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Spectrum Brands Postpones 2018 Annual Meeting Of Stockholders Exclusive: Chevron, Exxon seek 'small refinery' waivers from U.S. biofuels law Stocks cautious on trade, Syria anxiety; dollar near six-week highs Twelve senators seek FCC probe of Sinclair news scripts, pause in Tribune review Disney must offer to buy all of Sky, Britain's takeover regulator rules

https://reuters.com/article/brief-spectrum-brands-postpones-2018-ann/brief-spectrum-brands-postpones-2018-annual-meeting-of-stockholders-idUSFWN1PD1FE

2018-01-18

2least

Jan 18 Reuters Spectrum Brands Holdings Inc SPECTRUM BRANDS HOLDINGS POSTPONES 2018 ANNUAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS SPECTRUM BRANDS SAYS GIVEN ONGOING DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN HRG GROUP ampamp SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF CO8217S BOARD IT IS 8220APPROPRIATE8221 TO DELAY ANNUAL MEETING Source text for Eikon Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked US regulators for exemptions to the nation8217s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress according to sources familiar with the matter FILE PHOTO A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar California in this April 25 2013 file photo REUTERSMike BlakeFile Photo The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the US Renewable Fuel Standard a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as cornbased ethanol into the nation8217s fuel supply or buy governmentawarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending The US Environmental Protection Agency EPA has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months according to an agency source driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs But the agency won8217t name the firms receiving the exemptions citing a concern over disclosing private company information Both Chevron CVXN and Exxon XOMN among the world8217s most profitable energy companies have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities Chevron8217s 54500 barrelperday refinery in Utah and the Exxon8217s 60000 bpd refinery in Montana two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017 which came due this year the sources said The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications which have not been previously reported follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ANDVN one of the biggest US refining companies The waivers could save Andeavor 50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company8217s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law Husky Energy a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire will also be seeking an exemption this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior Wisconsin plant spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters disclosing the waiver for the first time Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners CLMTO for 435 million in November The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75000 barrels per day bpd that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them 8220disproportionate economic hardship8221 A spokesman for Chevron Braden Reddall declined to confirm or deny the application but said waivers provide an edge 8220Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS8221 he said in a written statement to Reuters 8220If true any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage8221 Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment The exceptions and the EPA8217s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits 8220EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny8221 five Republican senators including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa wrote in a joint statement Thursday 8220This looks like just another backdoor attempt by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent8221 Bob Dinneen head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing 8216small8217 about Exxon and Chevron both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100 8220For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hardworking farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS8221 Dinneen said Slideshow 2 Images It8217s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75000 bpd regardless of the size of the company that owns it 8220EPA decisions on waivers are based on refineryspecific information8221 she said in an email 8220We continue to work through petitions received for 20178221 Exxon reported net profits of 197 billion last year Chevron reported earning 92 billion Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming home to several small refineries praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation8217s largest refiners 8220I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program They know that we can8217t allow it to hurt our nation8217s small refineries8221 Barrasso said Chevron Corp 11923 CVXN New York Stock Exchange 002 002 CVXN XOMN ANDVN CLMTO PSXN 8216DEMAND DESTRUCTION8217 The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to US refineries according to a former US official who spoke on condition of anonymity A current EPA official however said the number reached 20 for 2016 The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of 8220economic hardship8221 opening the door for more facilities to be eligible The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits called RINs to prove compliance and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 PSXN also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver as does CVR Energy CVIN which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions Icahn8217s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns Biofuels proponents including US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as 8220demand destruction8221 for cornbased ethanol Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war The American Petroleum Institute which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past arguing for a level competitive playing field Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles TOKYOSYDNEY Reuters Asian stocks were cautiously higher on Friday ahead of the US earnings season and as investors pondered the implications of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the prospect of a global trade war FILE PHOTO A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo Japan November 9 2016 REUTERSIssei Kato US President Donald Trump8217s tendency to change his mind over key policy and political issues has fuelled wild market gyrations in recent weeks Spreadbetters pointed to a largely muted start for Europe with FTSE futures a shade higher FFIc1 and DAX futures FDXc1 up 02 percent EMini futures for the SampampP500 ESc1 were unchanged as were Dow futures 1YMc1 Investors were also reviewing mixed data from China which showed March exports unexpectedly fell 27 percent from a year earlier while imports jumped more than forecast While the figures pointed to robust demand from the world8217s top consumer of crude copper and iron ore they left the country with a rare trade deficit of 498 billion for the month the first since last February MSCI8217s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 01 percent having risen as much as 05 percent in morning trading It is still up about 2 percent on the week Chinese shares took a knock with both the bluechip CSI300 index CSI300 and Shanghais SSE Composite SSEC falling 08 percent Hong Kongs Hang Seng index HSI inched lower too while Japans Nikkei N225 gained 055 percent The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES Still investors also had reason to fret 8220The worrylist for investors remains long with another military strike on Syria after yet another chemical attack looming large and the Mueller inquiry getting even closer to Trump8221 said Shane Oliver Sydneybased chief economist at AMP Capital Markets heaved a sigh of relief over suggestions from Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent However the threat of a strike remained after Washington8217s earlier warnings against the Syrian government for what is said was a suspected poison gas attack on its civilians TRADE WAR Trade tensions also wasn8217t far off the surface with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan Singapore and South Korea In the most recent change of tack Trump Thursday asked his advisers to look at rejoining the Trans Pacific Partnership a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year China Securities Index Co Ltd 3871464 CSI300 China Securities Index Co Ltd 2717 070 CSI300 SSEC HSI N225 JPMN But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama 8220Markets have been pushed around by Trump8221 said Hiroshi Watanabe economist at Sony Financial Holdings 8220His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his reelection If protectionism doesn8217t work he may switch to international trade8221 he added 8220Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the US is really rejoining the TPP But if it does it8217s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it8221 In the currency market the dollar gained to at 10757 yen JPY a level not seen since Feb22 The euro EUR was flat at 12326 though on the week it has kept gains of 04 percent Oil prices edged lower but are still set for their biggest weekly gains since last July OR Brent crude futures LCOc1 were off 17 cents at 7185 a barrel not far from Wednesday8217s high of 7309 US WTI crude futures CLc1 slipped 17 cents to 669 Additional reporting by Swati Pandey Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles WASHINGTON Reuters Twelve US senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group SBGIO for 8220deliberately distorting news8221 and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company8217s proposed 39 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co TRCON The Federal Communications Commission FCC logo is seen before the FCC Net Neutrality hearing in Washington February 26 2015 REUTERSYuri Gripas Sinclair which is already the largest US broadcaststation owner announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune8217s 42 TV stations in 33 markets extending its reach to 72 percent of American households In a letter the senators 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclairowned stations around the country being forced to read companymandated scripts The scripts criticized 8220the troubling trend of irresponsible one sided news stories plaguing our country8221 and have drawn fire 8220We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws8221 the senators wrote They added that it 8220may have violated the FCC8217s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging slanting or falsifying information8221 In a letter to senators on Thursday reviewed by Reuters FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected their request saying the agency does not have authority to revoke a license based on the content of a particular newscast Pai made similar comments last year when President Donald Trump suggested NBC8217s licenses could be challenged over its news reporting 8220I can hardly think of an action more chilling of free speech than the federal government investigating a broadcast station because of disagreement with its news coverage or promotion of that coverage8221 Pai wrote After the scripts drew significant public attention Trump tweeted on April 2 in defense of Sinclair 8220Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC8221 Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc 295 SBGIO Nasdaq SBGIO TRCON In February Representative Frank Pallone a Democrat said the FCC8217s inspector general was investigating whether Pai was biased in Sinclair8217s favor Pallone in November asked the inspector general to investigate citing a string of FCC decisions he said benefited Sinclair and a media report that Trump8217s election campaign struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage Pai has repeatedly denied he has taken actions aimed at benefiting a single company and Sinclair has denied improper conduct Sinclair declined to comment on the senators8217 letter signed by the 11 Democrats including Senators Maria Cantwell Tom Udall Elizabeth Warren Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal as well as Sanders Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Dan Grebler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Britain8217s takeover regulator said Walt Disney DISN must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires TwentyFirst Century Fox8217s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch8217s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European payTV company itself FILE PHOTO The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London Britain June 29 2017 REUTERSToby MelvilleFile Photo Fox FOXAO agreed an offer to buy all of Sky SKYBL 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets including its stake in Sky in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance The ruling means that if Fox8217s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch8217s media influence Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox8217s assets Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox8217s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets but Britain8217s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox8217s 1075 poundsashare price A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US December 14 2017 REUTERSBrendan McDermid RC1277BFE810 Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox The Takeover Panel however said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney8217s acquiring control of Fox and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets Walt Disney Co 10039 DISN New York Stock Exchange 041 041 DISN FOXAO SKYBL CMCSAO FOX COMMITTED The Panel8217s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky US cable company Comcast CMCSAO said on Feb 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel8217s ruling and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time TwentyFirst Century Fox said that under the ruling any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney8217s acquisition of Fox is completed which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox8217s offer for Sky 822021CF Fox remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 20168221 it said The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain8217s Competition and Markets Authority it added Reporting by Paul Sandle Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p /> <p>Congressional Apportionment Reform:</p> <p>An Idea Whose Time Has Come</p> <p>A Legislative Response to Citizens United</p> <p>by Robert Mark</p> <p>Overview: Defining the Problem</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />The decennial US Census has been used since 1790 as the basis for the United States representational form of government. As a result of growing population, the number of House members eventually quadrupled in size. In 1911, the number of Representatives was last fixed at 435. In principle, districts are reapportioned every ten years after the decennial US Census. The number of districts apportioned to each state is defined by Congress, in accordance with Title 2 of US Code. During the 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled in a series of cases that congressional and state legislative districts must consist of relatively equal populations. Specifically, the Court's decision in Wesberry v. Sanders <a href="#N_1_" type="external">(1)</a> mandated that states apportion congressional district boundaries based strictly according to population. <a href="#N_2_" type="external">(2)</a></p> <p>Due to population shifts in the last fifty years, there has been a shift in the number of districts apportioned in each state which has caused extreme variances in the number of citizens per district from states losing districts to states gaining districts. As a result, "citizens in the larger district have less direct access to, and influence upon, their elected Representative - thus diluting the principle of 'one man, one vote', which has been upheld by the US Supreme Court." <a href="#N_3_" type="external">(3)</a> In addition, the restriction to 435 members has effectively diluted the power of the people over their own representative in the People's House from 1/33,000 to 1/709,980. By limiting the number of districts with an increasing population, we have made the Peoples House susceptible to big donors and special interests, especially in light of the Citizens United case unleashing corporate money into American politics. Convoluted gerrymandered congressional districts have resulted in making what was intended by the founders to be a relatively local office more like a state wide office, removing candidates from direct communication with the electorate necessitating reliance upon broadcast media. This has resulted in elections turning on who can afford the most negative ads and not on the character and ideas of the candidate who is known to all his neighbors, as were Davey Crockett and Sam Houston.</p> <p /> <p>Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution provides :</p> <p>Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.</p> <p>Note: for purposes of apportionment, the division is made based upon the number of people, whether citizens or not. The Authors did not set a minimum number of districts. Ignoring the 3/5 rule <a href="#N_4_" type="external">(4)</a>, and based upon the 2010 Census of 308,745,538, the Constitution would currently limit the size of Congress to no more than 10,291 members. The current size of Congress is 435, or one MC for each 709,980 residents, not exactly the proportional representation the founders had in mind in limiting the size of districts to no less than 30,000 residents.</p> <p /> <p>Historically, The First Congress attempted to address the number of districts when it approved a series of twelve amendments to the Constitution and submitted them to the States for ratification. The first such amendment, known as Article the First, dealt with apportionment.</p> <p>Article the first... After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons. <a href="#N_5_" type="external">(5)</a></p> <p /> <p>This amendment was proposed as a means to ensure a minimum representation for the common people in the new government defined by United States Constitution. In the First Congress, amendments properly addressing the issue were produced by both the House and the Senate, each providing for a minimum representation based on the expanding population of the nation. According to the original intention of the drafters of the amendment, the bolded "less" should have been "more", and the bolded "more" should have been "less". The text as it was approved by Congress and sent to the States was due to a scrivener's error. However, both the original draft and the version approved by Congress contained an internal inconsistency that would have made it impossible to satisfy all the conditions at certain population sizes. <a href="#N_6_" type="external">(6)</a></p> <p>Failure to for the States to adopt the Amendment prevented the problems created by the scrivener's error. Under the intent of the framers of the amendment, a population of 308,745,538 in the 2010 census would have resulted in roughly 1625 districts of 190,000. Wyoming, the least populous state, would have three representatives. Currently, Wyoming has only one representative. <a href="#N_7_" type="external">(7)</a></p> <p /> <p>During the period that the current U.S. Constitution has been in effect, the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 33,000 in 1790 to over 700,000 as of 2011. Prior to the 20th century, the number of representatives increased every decade as more states joined the union, and the population increased. No particular apportionment method was used during the period 1850 to 1890, but from 1890 through 1910, the increasing membership of the House was calculated in such a way as to ensure that no state lost a seat due to shifts in apportionment population. In 1881, a provision for equally-populated contiguous and compact single-member districts was added to the reapportionment law, and this was echoed in all decennial reapportionment acts through to 1911. In 1881, a provision for equally populated contiguous and compact single member districts was added to the reapportionment law, and this was echoed in all decennial reapportionment acts through to 1911. <a href="#N_8_" type="external">(8)</a> [Emphasis Added]</p> <p>Ratio of representation in the House,</p> <p>1789-1913 Years</p> <p>SourceConstituents per Rep.</p> <p /> <p>In 1911, The Apportionment Act of 1911, Public Law 62-5, raised the membership of the U.S. House to 433 with a provision to add one permanent seat each upon the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico as states. As provided, membership increased to 435 in 1912. <a href="#N_9_" type="external">(9)</a> Key provisions of the Act provided:</p> <p>Section 1. That after the third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirteen, the House of Representatives shall be composed of four hundred and thirty-three Members, to be apportioned among the several States . . . <a href="#N_10_" type="external">(10)</a></p> <p>Section 2. That if the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico shall become States in the Union before the apportionment of Representatives under the next decennial census they shall have one Representative each, and if one of such Territories shall so become a State, such State shall have one Representative, which Representative or Representatives shall be in addition to the number four hundred and thirty-three, as provided in section one of this Act, and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with this section are to that extent hereby repealed.</p> <p>Section 3. That in each State entitled under this apportionment to more than one Representative, the Representatives to the Sixty-third and each subsequent Congress shall be elected by districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory, and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants. The said districts shall be equal to the number of Representatives to which such State may be entitled in Congress, no district electing more than one Representative.</p> <p>[Emphasis Added]</p> <p>The law did not actually cap the number of districts, it just set the number based on the 1910 census. But it effectively limited the number of districts for 20 years. For the first and only time, Congress failed to pass an apportionment act after the 1920 census. In 1920, the Republicans removed the Democrats from power as the Whigs had done in 1838, taking the presidency and both houses of Congress. Due to increased immigration and a large rural-to-urban shift in population from 1910 to 1920, the new Republican Congress refused to reapportion the House of Representatives with the traditional contiguous, single-member districts stipulations because such a reapportionment would have redistricted many House members out of their districts. <a href="#N_11_" type="external">(11)</a> <a href="#N_12_" type="external">(12)</a> A reapportionment in 1921 in the traditional fashion would have increased the size of the House to 483 seats, but many members would have lost their seats due to the population shifts. <a href="#N_13_" type="external">(13)</a> This left the allocations of the Act of 1911 in place until the 1930 census.</p> <p>The Reapportionment Act of 1929 established a method for reallocating seats among the states, given population shifts and continuing the maximum of 435 representatives. <a href="#N_14_" type="external">(14)</a> It was this act that actually set the cap on the number of members in the House of Representatives at 435, in effect set in place by both the failure of the Congress to reapportion in 1920 and the desire to cut representation to immigrant and rural to urban (black and southern) migrants. The bill neither repealed nor restated the requirements of the previous apportionment acts that districts be contiguous, compact, and equally populated. The Reapportionment act of 1929 did away with any mention of districts at all. This provided a solution to the problem of threatened incumbents by allowing the political parties in control of the state legislatures to draw redistricting lines at will. <a href="#N_15_" type="external">(15)</a></p> <p>It was not clear whether these requirements were still in effect until in 1932 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Wood v. Broom, 287 U.S. 1 (1932), that the provisions of each apportionment act affected only the apportionment for which they were written. Thus the size and population requirements, last stated in the Apportionment Act of 1911, expired immediately with the enactment of the subsequent Apportionment Act.</p> <p>The Apportionment Act of 1941, Act of Nov. 15, 1941, 55 Stat. 761-762, made the apportionment process self-executing after each decennial census. This lifted Congress's responsibility to pass an apportionment act for each census, and ensured that the events surrounding the 1920 census would not happen again. The number of U.S. Representatives increased temporarily to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states during the 86th Congress (seating one member from each of those states without changing the apportionment of the other seats because of the Article I requirement that each state have at least one representative). After the 1960 census and the 1962 election, that number went back to 435. <a href="#N_16_" type="external">(16)</a> Since 1961, there has been no apportionment legislation passed by Congress. The self-executing provisions of the Apportionment Act of 1941 made it unnecessary to enact an apportionment bill. Unfortunately, the requirements for districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory, and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants have not been the law for everyone since 1929.</p> <p>Federal law requires the Clerk of the House of Representatives to notify each state government of its entitled number of seats no later than January 25 of the year immediately following the census. After seats have been reapportioned, each state determines the boundaries of congressional districts--geographical areas within the state of approximately equal population--in a process called redistricting, 2 U.S.C. &#167; 2c. Any citizen of the State can challenge the constitutionality of the redistricting in their US district court. 28 U.S.C. &#167; 2284(a).</p> <p /> <p>Since 1846 the Texas Delegation to the United States Congress has grown from the original four to the current 36. Since 1936, the delegation has grown from 23 to the current 36, mostly at the expense of Northeastern and Midwestern (blue) states. <a href="#N_17_" type="external">(17)</a> As a result of the 2010 Census, the following reflects the effects of the shift in population:</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>But increasing the size of the house not only effects Congressional Races, but would have a decided effect on Presidential Politics. Looking at the data above, in the 2012 election, the Democratic States lost 9 (net 7) seats that would have represented votes in the electoral college whereas Republican States picked up a net 7. If population trends from the Midwest and Northeast to the Sunbelt, red states will pick up electoral votes and blue states will lose electoral votes. In a close electoral election, this could be a game changer. <a href="#N_21_" type="external">(21)</a></p> <p /> <p>First, this author recommend that the Congress pass legislation increasing the size of the House to no fewer than one congressperson for every 563,646 or the population of the least populous state. Using this formulary would result in 548 members, not an unmanageable number. If however, one goal is to increase the influence of the people over individual members of congress and un-dilute such influence, a more ideal scenario is to create one district for every 281,823, thereby assuring Wyoming of two districts and providing Montana with 3. Then allowing for an increase in all the states and equality of population in the districts nationally. This is almost three times the population for the legislative districts created for the new Iraqi government under the guidance of the United States. <a href="#N_22_" type="external">(22)</a> Obviously, this model rather than current U.S. reality proved to be a more workable democratic model than our own broken system in the minds of the Nation Builders at The Pentagon.</p> <p>Critics will argue that such an increase would be beyond the capacity of the Capitol Building. While this may be true, it does not preclude the use of technology for televised debate and electronic voting, either from remote areas in the Capitol or the Congressional Offices, or God forbid, from within the districts. This would give citizens greater access to their Representatives. <a href="#N_23_" type="external">(23)</a></p> <p>The idea of 3,000 or more members of Congress, constituting a Washington-based power elite, would scare people if we continue to apply the 1780s approach to governing. But our government needs to evolve to reflect the world we live in. What if members of Congress went to Washington quarterly for two week conventions? The rest of the time they could live in their districts, using widely adopted technologies to collaborate and vote online. It is ridiculous that a member must be "present" to cast a vote in Congress in 2012. <a href="#N_24_" type="external">(24)</a></p> <p>In addition, it would allow for the passage of legislation, restoring the 1910 and prior years rules requiring "districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory" which would further increase access and reduce the need for multiple district offices to provide for ever expanding geographical districts, thus providing cost savings in an era of record deficits. [See Appendix I for more on compaction of districts].</p> <p>Finally, because there are more of them, pay to Members of Congress could be cut and the size of congressional staff's could be slashed. As a larger Congress would make it feasible for no Congressperson to sit on more than one committee, this would further justify staff expense cuts. This change, which would considerably reduce the power of individual legislators and increase the influence of constituents, only requires a legislative change. This solution is far less difficult and complicated than a Constitutional chang;: however, cementing specific requirements in the Constitution similar to that required under the never approved Amendment the First might be considered in the future.</p> <p>This author is not so naive as to suggest that Members of Congress would easily leap at an opportunity to dilute their own power. It is possible to organize over the next decades public demand with a Grover Norquist-like pledge for congressional candidates first seeking office to support this change. In addition, applying the principles of as set forth in Wesberry v. Sanders, <a href="#N_25_" type="external">(25)</a> a court could be asked to enter a judgement ordering increasing the size of the districts in order to insure that each district meet the constitutional requirement of proportionate population and in light of the Voting Rights Act. Clearly, the almost 2-1 disparity between Montana and Wyoming would suggest that the House is not apportioned based upon equal population. For further discussion of expansion of Congress, see http://www.thirty-thousand.org/#Q5.</p> <p>One proposal suggested is that rather than increase the size of the House, the Congress reapportion the voting strength of each congressperson based upon the size of his district. Thus, districts with higher populations get a fractional increase in the weight of their vote and those with small populations get a fractional decrease in the weight of their vote. This author does not endorse that proposal as it would be too confusing for the average voter and sounds on it's face undemocratic and quite possibly unconstitutional. Raising the cap to 1098 with a floating adjustment for every census is far easier a pill for the average citizen to swallow. After 90 years, the time has come.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">LIKE My Facebook Page</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/EgbertoWillies" type="external">Follow @EgbertoWillies</a></p>

Congressional Apportionment Reform: An Idea Whose Time Has Come – A Legislative Response to Citizens United

http://egbertowillies.com/2013/02/15/congressional-apportionment-reform-an-idea-whose-time-has-come-a-legislative-response-to-citizens-united/

2013-02-15

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Congressional Apportionment Reform An Idea Whose Time Has Come A Legislative Response to Citizens United by Robert Mark Overview Defining the Problem The decennial US Census has been used since 1790 as the basis for the United States representational form of government As a result of growing population the number of House members eventually quadrupled in size In 1911 the number of Representatives was last fixed at 435 In principle districts are reapportioned every ten years after the decennial US Census The number of districts apportioned to each state is defined by Congress in accordance with Title 2 of US Code During the 1960s the Supreme Court ruled in a series of cases that congressional and state legislative districts must consist of relatively equal populations Specifically the Courts decision in Wesberry v Sanders 1 mandated that states apportion congressional district boundaries based strictly according to population 2 Due to population shifts in the last fifty years there has been a shift in the number of districts apportioned in each state which has caused extreme variances in the number of citizens per district from states losing districts to states gaining districts As a result citizens in the larger district have less direct access to and influence upon their elected Representative thus diluting the principle of one man one vote which has been upheld by the US Supreme Court 3 In addition the restriction to 435 members has effectively diluted the power of the people over their own representative in the Peoples House from 133000 to 1709980 By limiting the number of districts with an increasing population we have made the Peoples House susceptible to big donors and special interests especially in light of the Citizens United case unleashing corporate money into American politics Convoluted gerrymandered congressional districts have resulted in making what was intended by the founders to be a relatively local office more like a state wide office removing candidates from direct communication with the electorate necessitating reliance upon broadcast media This has resulted in elections turning on who can afford the most negative ads and not on the character and ideas of the candidate who is known to all his neighbors as were Davey Crockett and Sam Houston Article I Section 2 of the United States Constitution provides Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective Numbers which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons including those bound to Service for a Term of Years and excluding Indians not taxed three fifths of all other Persons The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States and within every subsequent Term of ten Years in such Manner as they shall by Law direct The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand but each State shall have at Least one Representative and until such enumeration shall be made the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three Massachusetts eight RhodeIsland and Providence Plantations one Connecticut five NewYork six New Jersey four Pennsylvania eight Delaware one Maryland six Virginia ten North Carolina five South Carolina five and Georgia three Note for purposes of apportionment the division is made based upon the number of people whether citizens or not The Authors did not set a minimum number of districts Ignoring the 35 rule 4 and based upon the 2010 Census of 308745538 the Constitution would currently limit the size of Congress to no more than 10291 members The current size of Congress is 435 or one MC for each 709980 residents not exactly the proportional representation the founders had in mind in limiting the size of districts to no less than 30000 residents Historically The First Congress attempted to address the number of districts when it approved a series of twelve amendments to the Constitution and submitted them to the States for ratification The first such amendment known as Article the First dealt with apportionment Article the first After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand until the number shall amount to one hundred after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons 5 This amendment was proposed as a means to ensure a minimum representation for the common people in the new government defined by United States Constitution In the First Congress amendments properly addressing the issue were produced by both the House and the Senate each providing for a minimum representation based on the expanding population of the nation According to the original intention of the drafters of the amendment the bolded less should have been more and the bolded more should have been less The text as it was approved by Congress and sent to the States was due to a scriveners error However both the original draft and the version approved by Congress contained an internal inconsistency that would have made it impossible to satisfy all the conditions at certain population sizes 6 Failure to for the States to adopt the Amendment prevented the problems created by the scriveners error Under the intent of the framers of the amendment a population of 308745538 in the 2010 census would have resulted in roughly 1625 districts of 190000 Wyoming the least populous state would have three representatives Currently Wyoming has only one representative 7 During the period that the current US Constitution has been in effect the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 33000 in 1790 to over 700000 as of 2011 Prior to the 20th century the number of representatives increased every decade as more states joined the union and the population increased No particular apportionment method was used during the period 1850 to 1890 but from 1890 through 1910 the increasing membership of the House was calculated in such a way as to ensure that no state lost a seat due to shifts in apportionment population In 1881 a provision for equallypopulated contiguous and compact singlemember districts was added to the reapportionment law and this was echoed in all decennial reapportionment acts through to 1911 In 1881 a provision for equally populated contiguous and compact single member districts was added to the reapportionment law and this was echoed in all decennial reapportionment acts through to 1911 8 Emphasis Added Ratio of representation in the House 17891913 Years SourceConstituents per Rep In 1911 The Apportionment Act of 1911 Public Law 625 raised the membership of the US House to 433 with a provision to add one permanent seat each upon the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico as states As provided membership increased to 435 in 1912 9 Key provisions of the Act provided Section 1 That after the third day of March nineteen hundred and thirteen the House of Representatives shall be composed of four hundred and thirtythree Members to be apportioned among the several States 10 Section 2 That if the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico shall become States in the Union before the apportionment of Representatives under the next decennial census they shall have one Representative each and if one of such Territories shall so become a State such State shall have one Representative which Representative or Representatives shall be in addition to the number four hundred and thirtythree as provided in section one of this Act and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with this section are to that extent hereby repealed Section 3 That in each State entitled under this apportionment to more than one Representative the Representatives to the Sixtythird and each subsequent Congress shall be elected by districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants The said districts shall be equal to the number of Representatives to which such State may be entitled in Congress no district electing more than one Representative Emphasis Added The law did not actually cap the number of districts it just set the number based on the 1910 census But it effectively limited the number of districts for 20 years For the first and only time Congress failed to pass an apportionment act after the 1920 census In 1920 the Republicans removed the Democrats from power as the Whigs had done in 1838 taking the presidency and both houses of Congress Due to increased immigration and a large ruraltourban shift in population from 1910 to 1920 the new Republican Congress refused to reapportion the House of Representatives with the traditional contiguous singlemember districts stipulations because such a reapportionment would have redistricted many House members out of their districts 11 12 A reapportionment in 1921 in the traditional fashion would have increased the size of the House to 483 seats but many members would have lost their seats due to the population shifts 13 This left the allocations of the Act of 1911 in place until the 1930 census The Reapportionment Act of 1929 established a method for reallocating seats among the states given population shifts and continuing the maximum of 435 representatives 14 It was this act that actually set the cap on the number of members in the House of Representatives at 435 in effect set in place by both the failure of the Congress to reapportion in 1920 and the desire to cut representation to immigrant and rural to urban black and southern migrants The bill neither repealed nor restated the requirements of the previous apportionment acts that districts be contiguous compact and equally populated The Reapportionment act of 1929 did away with any mention of districts at all This provided a solution to the problem of threatened incumbents by allowing the political parties in control of the state legislatures to draw redistricting lines at will 15 It was not clear whether these requirements were still in effect until in 1932 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Wood v Broom 287 US 1 1932 that the provisions of each apportionment act affected only the apportionment for which they were written Thus the size and population requirements last stated in the Apportionment Act of 1911 expired immediately with the enactment of the subsequent Apportionment Act The Apportionment Act of 1941 Act of Nov 15 1941 55 Stat 761762 made the apportionment process selfexecuting after each decennial census This lifted Congresss responsibility to pass an apportionment act for each census and ensured that the events surrounding the 1920 census would not happen again The number of US Representatives increased temporarily to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states during the 86th Congress seating one member from each of those states without changing the apportionment of the other seats because of the Article I requirement that each state have at least one representative After the 1960 census and the 1962 election that number went back to 435 16 Since 1961 there has been no apportionment legislation passed by Congress The selfexecuting provisions of the Apportionment Act of 1941 made it unnecessary to enact an apportionment bill Unfortunately the requirements for districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants have not been the law for everyone since 1929 Federal law requires the Clerk of the House of Representatives to notify each state government of its entitled number of seats no later than January 25 of the year immediately following the census After seats have been reapportioned each state determines the boundaries of congressional districtsgeographical areas within the state of approximately equal populationin a process called redistricting 2 USC 167 2c Any citizen of the State can challenge the constitutionality of the redistricting in their US district court 28 USC 167 2284a Since 1846 the Texas Delegation to the United States Congress has grown from the original four to the current 36 Since 1936 the delegation has grown from 23 to the current 36 mostly at the expense of Northeastern and Midwestern blue states 17 As a result of the 2010 Census the following reflects the effects of the shift in population But increasing the size of the house not only effects Congressional Races but would have a decided effect on Presidential Politics Looking at the data above in the 2012 election the Democratic States lost 9 net 7 seats that would have represented votes in the electoral college whereas Republican States picked up a net 7 If population trends from the Midwest and Northeast to the Sunbelt red states will pick up electoral votes and blue states will lose electoral votes In a close electoral election this could be a game changer 21 First this author recommend that the Congress pass legislation increasing the size of the House to no fewer than one congressperson for every 563646 or the population of the least populous state Using this formulary would result in 548 members not an unmanageable number If however one goal is to increase the influence of the people over individual members of congress and undilute such influence a more ideal scenario is to create one district for every 281823 thereby assuring Wyoming of two districts and providing Montana with 3 Then allowing for an increase in all the states and equality of population in the districts nationally This is almost three times the population for the legislative districts created for the new Iraqi government under the guidance of the United States 22 Obviously this model rather than current US reality proved to be a more workable democratic model than our own broken system in the minds of the Nation Builders at The Pentagon Critics will argue that such an increase would be beyond the capacity of the Capitol Building While this may be true it does not preclude the use of technology for televised debate and electronic voting either from remote areas in the Capitol or the Congressional Offices or God forbid from within the districts This would give citizens greater access to their Representatives 23 The idea of 3000 or more members of Congress constituting a Washingtonbased power elite would scare people if we continue to apply the 1780s approach to governing But our government needs to evolve to reflect the world we live in What if members of Congress went to Washington quarterly for two week conventions The rest of the time they could live in their districts using widely adopted technologies to collaborate and vote online It is ridiculous that a member must be present to cast a vote in Congress in 2012 24 In addition it would allow for the passage of legislation restoring the 1910 and prior years rules requiring districts composed of a contiguous and compact territory which would further increase access and reduce the need for multiple district offices to provide for ever expanding geographical districts thus providing cost savings in an era of record deficits See Appendix I for more on compaction of districts Finally because there are more of them pay to Members of Congress could be cut and the size of congressional staffs could be slashed As a larger Congress would make it feasible for no Congressperson to sit on more than one committee this would further justify staff expense cuts This change which would considerably reduce the power of individual legislators and increase the influence of constituents only requires a legislative change This solution is far less difficult and complicated than a Constitutional chang however cementing specific requirements in the Constitution similar to that required under the never approved Amendment the First might be considered in the future This author is not so naive as to suggest that Members of Congress would easily leap at an opportunity to dilute their own power It is possible to organize over the next decades public demand with a Grover Norquistlike pledge for congressional candidates first seeking office to support this change In addition applying the principles of as set forth in Wesberry v Sanders 25 a court could be asked to enter a judgement ordering increasing the size of the districts in order to insure that each district meet the constitutional requirement of proportionate population and in light of the Voting Rights Act Clearly the almost 21 disparity between Montana and Wyoming would suggest that the House is not apportioned based upon equal population For further discussion of expansion of Congress see httpwwwthirtythousandorgQ5 One proposal suggested is that rather than increase the size of the House the Congress reapportion the voting strength of each congressperson based upon the size of his district Thus districts with higher populations get a fractional increase in the weight of their vote and those with small populations get a fractional decrease in the weight of their vote This author does not endorse that proposal as it would be too confusing for the average voter and sounds on its face undemocratic and quite possibly unconstitutional Raising the cap to 1098 with a floating adjustment for every census is far easier a pill for the average citizen to swallow After 90 years the time has come amp160 LIKE My Facebook Page Follow EgbertoWillies

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<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9984.T" type="external">9984.T</a>) closed a deal with Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] on Thursday, making SoftBank the largest stakeholder in the ride-services firm and providing a much-needed boost to controversy-ridden Uber.</p> FILE PHOTO: A photo illustration shows the Uber app on a mobile telephone, as it is held up for a posed photograph, in London, Britain, November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Simon Dawson/File Photo <p>The deal includes a large purchase of shares from existing Uber investors and employees at a discounted valuation for the company of $48 billion, a 30 percent drop from Uber&#8217;s most recent valuation of $68 billion. These secondary stock sales will be completed by the end of the day Thursday on the Nasdaq Private Market, an Uber spokesman said.</p> <p>The investor group, which is co-led by SoftBank and Dragoneer Investment Group and includes Sequoia Capital, has also completed a $1.25 billion investment of fresh cash at the other, higher valuation, the spokesman said.</p> <p>In all, the investors will take a stake of about a 17.5 percent in Uber, with SoftBank keeping 15 percent, becoming the company&#8217;s largest shareholder. The investment triggers a number of governance changes at Uber, including the addition of new board members, which take effect immediately.</p> <p>&#8220;This is a great outcome for our shareholders, employees and customers, strengthening Uber&#8217;s governance as we double down on our technology investments and continue to bring our services to more people in more places around the world,&#8221; said the Uber spokesman.</p> <p>The official closing of the deal marks the end of a months-long process fraught with infighting among board members.</p> <p>Power struggles have been fierce - an early and large investor, Benchmark Capital, sued in August to force co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick off the board. Meanwhile, Uber has been struggling with controversies including federal criminal probes, a massive data breach and a lawsuit claiming trade-secrets theft.</p> FILE PHOTO: The logo of SoftBank Group Corp is displayed at SoftBank World 2017 conference in Tokyo, Japan, July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo <p>The board first voted to move forward with the SoftBank investment in October, and the deal at times seemed close to falling apart, until Uber said last month that the investor group had enough willing stock sellers to go through with the transaction.</p> <p>As part of the terms of the deal, Uber will expand its board from 11 to 17 members including four independent directors, limit some early shareholders&#8217; voting power and slash the control wielded Kalanick, who remains on the board.</p> <p>Benchmark had also agreed to drop its lawsuit against Kalanick upon completion of the deal.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9984.T" type="external">SoftBank Group Corp</a> 7988.0 9984.T Tokyo Stock Exchange -- (--%) 9984.T S.N <p>SoftBank has added two representatives to Uber&#8217;s board of directors: Rajeev Misra, who is chief executive of SoftBank&#8217;s Vision Fund, a $98 billion tech investment vehicle; and Marcelo Claure, Sprint Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=S.N" type="external">S.N</a>) president and CEO and a member of SoftBank&#8217;s board of directors, according to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly because the plans are still private.</p> <p>Uber declined to confirm any new board members.</p> <p>&#8220;Uber has a very bright future under its new leadership,&#8221; Misra said in a written statement, referring to new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who helped broker the deal and benefits from the new governance changes.</p> <p>Misra wants Uber to focus on growing in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia - not Asia, which has been among the most costly and competitive regions for the ride-services firm, according to the source. Such a change could help Uber achieve profitability more quickly, but could also signal a retreat from some of the biggest transportation markets.</p> <p>SoftBank also has stakes in China ride-hailing app Didi, India&#8217;s Ola and Southeast Asia&#8217;s Grab, all of which compete with Uber in the region.</p> <p>The Financial Times first reported Misra&#8217;s comments earlier Thursday.</p> <p>SoftBank had no trouble drumming up interest among shareholders, as many investors and employees were unable to sell as many shares as they would have liked because SoftBank had put limits on how much it would buy.</p> <p>Kalanick sold nearly a third of his 10 percent stake in the ride-services company for about $1.4 billion, according to another person familiar with the matter. He had offered to sell half of his shares.</p> <p>Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Sandra Maler and Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Genuine Parts Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">GPC.N</a>) said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business S.P. Richards and merge it with Essendant ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ESND.O" type="external">ESND.O</a>) in a tax-free transaction for shareholders, as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses.</p> <p>The combined company will have more products and resources, giving its customers - mainly independent dealers - a one-stop shop as they grapple with intense competition from e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and big-box stores.</p> <p>&#8220;This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry,&#8221; Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts.</p> <p>Essendant&#8217;s shares jumped 18 percent to $10.00, while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at $90.17 in morning trading.</p> <p>Illinois-based Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies, while Atlanta, Georgia-based S.P. Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies.</p> <p>The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips. S.P. Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company. Essendant had a market capitalization of about $323.5 million as of Wednesday&#8217;s close.</p> <p>Genuine Parts, one of the leading U.S. car parts distributors, said the deal implied a valuation of about $680 million for S.P. Richards.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">Genuine Parts Co</a> 90.13 GPC.N New York Stock Exchange +0.47 (+0.52%) GPC.N ESND.O AMZN.O <p>Genuine Parts will get $347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newly-formed combined company. Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal, the transaction will be tax-free for the companies&#8217; shareholders.</p> <p>The company has been evaluating options for the S.P. Richards business, which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies.</p> <p>Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers. Its net sales declined 6.2 percent to $5.04 billion in 2017, while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent.</p> <p>Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses. Last year, the company completed a deal to buy London-based Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australia&#8217;s Inenco Group.</p> <p>Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant, while J.P. Morgan advised Genuine Parts.</p> <p>Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year.</p> <p>Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur &#8220;very soon or not so soon at all,&#8221; easing fears of confrontation with Russia.</p> <p>That lifted U.S. Treasury yields US10YT=RR, leading to a 1.8 percent increase in financial stocks .SPSY, which had the biggest percentage advance among the S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s 11 major sectors.</p> <p>The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.3 percent, adding the most gains to the S&amp;amp;P.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war,&#8221; said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. &#8220;Earnings are coming up and expectations are high.&#8221;</p> <p>Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) and Delta Air Lines Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAL.N" type="external">DAL.N</a>) added to the sanguine mood.</p> <p>Delta topped profit estimates, sending its shares 2.9 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks.</p> <p>BlackRock gained 1.5 percent after the asset manager&#8217;s quarterly profit rose more than expected.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> Slideshow (3 Images) <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>&#8220;People are looking forward to earnings season,&#8221; said Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. &#8220;Market participants are not wanting to miss out if (earnings are) as good as the forecasts say they will be.&#8221;</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 293.6 points, or 1.21 percent, to 24,483.05, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 21.8 points, or 0.83 percent, to 2,663.99, and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 71.22 points, or 1.01 percent, to 7,140.25.</p> <p>Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly U.S. initial jobless claims report, which pointed to sustained labor market strength.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BlackRock Inc</a> 533.01 BLK.N New York Stock Exchange +7.70 (+1.47%) BLK.N DAL.N JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) was a notable laggard among technology stocks, falling 1.5 percent following a 5.3 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network&#8217;s data security.</p> <p>Bed Bath &amp;amp; Beyond Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBBY.O" type="external">BBBY.O</a>) shares dived 20.0 percent after the company&#8217;s full-year profit forecast missed estimates.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 1.20-to-1 ratio and on the Nasdaq, for a 1.84-to-1 ratio.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.12 billion shares, compared to the 7.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>HONG KONG/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Walmart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>) is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian e-commerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the U.S. retail giant&#8217;s biggest acquisition of an online business, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.</p> <p>Reuters reported last week that Walmart completed its due diligence on Flipkart and had made a proposal to buy 51 percent or more of the Indian company for between $10 billion to $12 billion.</p> <p>A deal with Flipkart would step up Walmart&#8217;s battle with Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) for a bigger share of India&#8217;s fledgling e-commerce market, which Morgan Stanley estimates will be worth $200 billion in a decade. Local media have reported that Amazon is exploring a possible counter offer for Flipkart.</p> <p>Both sources declined to be named as the talks are private.</p> <p>Walmart will buy both new and existing Flipkart shares, with the new shares expected to value the Bengaluru-based firm at at least $18 billion, the sources said. The price for existing shares would value the firm at about $12 billion, one of the people said.</p> <p>Japan&#8217;s SoftBank Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9984.T" type="external">9984.T</a>), which owns roughly one-fifth of Flipkart via its Vision Fund, is unlikely to sell any of its shares due to the low price being offered for the existing shares, this source said.</p> <p>Reuters has previously reported that early investors such as Tiger Global, Accel and Naspers will likely sell their entire stakes in Flipkart to Walmart if a deal is reached.</p> <p>A deal is not yet finalised, and talks between Walmart, Flipkart and its investors are ongoing, one of the people said.</p> <p>Flipkart also counts eBay ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EBAY.O" type="external">EBAY.O</a>), Tencent Holdings ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0700.HK" type="external">0700.HK</a>) and Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) among its investors.</p> <p>Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment, a representative for Walmart in India declined comment while SoftBank said it doesn&#8217;t comment on speculation.</p> BIG INDIAN BATTLE <p>For Walmart, the world&#8217;s largest retailer known for its superstores, a deal with Flipkart would open up the vast Indian market.</p> <p>Walmart has for years tried to enter India but has remained confined to a &#8216;cash-and-carry&#8217; wholesale business amid tough restrictions on foreign investment. It currently operates 21 such stores in India.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>By comparison, Amazon closely trails Flipkart, which along with its fashion units controls nearly 40 percent of India&#8217;s online retail market, according to estimates by researcher Forrester.</p> <p>Flipkart&#8217;s investors are concerned that any deal with Amazon would run into regulatory hurdles as a combination would have more than 70 percent of India&#8217;s online retail market, one of the sources said.</p> <p>Walmart&#8217;s push into e-commerce comes as Amazon has embraced offline retail, with an affiliate of the Seattle-based company picking up a $27.6 million stake in Indian retailer Shopper&#8217;s Stop Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SHOP.NS" type="external">SHOP.NS</a>).</p> <p>In the United States, Amazon also bought high-end grocer Whole Foods Market Inc for $13.7 billion last year.</p> <p>Walmart&#8217;s investment would give Flipkart not just additional funds to fight Amazon, but also arm it with a formidable ally with extensive experience in retailing, logistics and supply chain management.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">Walmart Inc</a> 85.43 WMT.N New York Stock Exchange -0.48 (-0.56%) WMT.N AMZN.O 9984.T EBAY.O 0700.HK <p>Former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in 2007 in India&#8217;s tech hub of Bengaluru.</p> <p>Like Amazon&#8217;s founder Jeff Bezos, they began by selling books, but have diversified rapidly, including by selling smartphones, such as those made by China&#8217;s Xiaomi, through exclusive flash sales, and now compete with Amazon in almost all product categories.</p> <p>Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Martin Howell</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The global oil stocks surplus is close to evaporating, OPEC said on Thursday, citing healthy energy demand and its own supply cuts while revising up its forecast for production from rivals who have benefited from higher oil prices.</p> A flag with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) logo is seen during a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producing countries in Vienna, Austria September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger <p>U.S. shale oil output has been booming over the past year since OPEC reduced its own production in tandem with Russia to prop up global oil prices.</p> <p>But as oil production collapsed in OPEC member Venezuela and is still facing hiccups in countries such as Libya and Angola, the oil exporters&#8217; group is still producing below its targets meaning the world needs to use stocks to meet rising demand.</p> <p>The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly report oil stocks in the developed world reversed a rise in January to fall by 17.4 million barrels in February to 2.854 billion barrels, around 43 million barrels above the latest five-year average.</p> <p>&#8220;We have achieved an over 150 percent conformity level,&#8221; OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo told Reuters in New Delhi, referring to OPEC&#8217;s commitments under the supply-cutting pact. He said the glut has effectively shrunk by nine-tenths since the start of 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;We have seen an accelerated shrinkage of stocks in storage from unparalleled highs of about 400 million barrels to about 43 million above the five-year average,&#8221; Barkindo said.</p> <p>Stock levels are now 207 million barrels below their level in February 2017, with crude stocks in a surplus of 55 million barrels and product stocks in a deficit of 12 million.</p> <p>&#8220;Looking forward, a healthy global economic forecast for 2018, positive car sales data in recent months, stronger 2018 yea-on-year U.S. product consumption in January and potentially tighter global product markets are expected to boost gasoline and distillates demand ...,&#8221; OPEC said.</p> <p>&#8220;High conformity levels observed by OPEC and non-OPEC producing countries ... should further enhance market stability and support crude and product markets in the months ahead.&#8221;</p> <p>The 14-member, Vienna-based producer group said its collective output, according to secondary sources, fell 201,000 bpd to 31.96 million bpd in March from February, driven by declines in Angola, Algeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Libya.</p> <p>The figure is below the 32.6 million bpd that OPEC sees as demand for its crude for the whole of 2018.</p> <p>OPEC, Russia and several other non-OPEC producers began to cut supply in January 2017. The pact runs until the end of the year and OPEC meets in Vienna in June to decide on its next course of action.</p> THIRD YEAR OF CUTS <p>OPEC&#8217;s leader Saudi Arabia has said it would like the pact to be extended into 2019.</p> <p>&#8220;There is growing confidence that the declaration of cooperation will be extended beyond 2018,&#8221; Barkindo told Reuters. &#8220;Russia will continue to play a leading role.&#8221;</p> <p>On Thursday, OPEC also revised its forecast for supply growth from its rivals, non-OPEC, which is now forecast to grow by a further 80,000 barrels per day this year to 1.71 million bpd, driven largely by higher-than-anticipated growth in the first quarter in the United States and the former Soviet Union.</p> <p>At the same time, it increased its forecast for global oil demand growth for this year by 30,000 bpd to 1.63 million bpd.</p> <p>&#8220;This mainly reflects the positive momentum in the OECD in the 1Q18 on the back of better-than-expected data, and supported by development in industrial activities, colder-than-anticipated weather and strong mining activities in the OECD Americas and the OECD Asia Pacific,&#8221; it said in the monthly market report.</p> <p>Production in the United Arab Emirates posted the largest month-on-month increase, according to the secondary sources, rising by around 45,000 bpd in March to 2.86 million bpd.</p> <p>OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia told the group it pumped 9.907 million bpd in March, 28,000 bpd below its February level.</p> <p>Venezuela reported production of 1.509 million bpd in March, 77,000 bpd below the level it reported in February.</p> <p>Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar; Editing by Dale Hudson and David Evans</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

SoftBank is now Uber's largest shareholder as deal closes Genuine Parts to merge S.P. Richards business with Essendant Wall Street gains on earnings optimism, waning Syria jitters Exclusive: Walmart close to buying majority of India's Flipkart OPEC sees oil markets tighten further even as U.S. shale booms

https://reuters.com/article/us-uber-softbank-tender/softbank-is-now-ubers-largest-shareholder-as-deal-closes-idUSKBN1F72WL

2018-01-18

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SAN FRANCISCO Reuters A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp 9984T closed a deal with Uber Technologies Inc UBERUL on Thursday making SoftBank the largest stakeholder in the rideservices firm and providing a muchneeded boost to controversyridden Uber FILE PHOTO A photo illustration shows the Uber app on a mobile telephone as it is held up for a posed photograph in London Britain November 10 2017 REUTERSSimon DawsonFile Photo The deal includes a large purchase of shares from existing Uber investors and employees at a discounted valuation for the company of 48 billion a 30 percent drop from Uber8217s most recent valuation of 68 billion These secondary stock sales will be completed by the end of the day Thursday on the Nasdaq Private Market an Uber spokesman said The investor group which is coled by SoftBank and Dragoneer Investment Group and includes Sequoia Capital has also completed a 125 billion investment of fresh cash at the other higher valuation the spokesman said In all the investors will take a stake of about a 175 percent in Uber with SoftBank keeping 15 percent becoming the company8217s largest shareholder The investment triggers a number of governance changes at Uber including the addition of new board members which take effect immediately 8220This is a great outcome for our shareholders employees and customers strengthening Uber8217s governance as we double down on our technology investments and continue to bring our services to more people in more places around the world8221 said the Uber spokesman The official closing of the deal marks the end of a monthslong process fraught with infighting among board members Power struggles have been fierce an early and large investor Benchmark Capital sued in August to force cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick off the board Meanwhile Uber has been struggling with controversies including federal criminal probes a massive data breach and a lawsuit claiming tradesecrets theft FILE PHOTO The logo of SoftBank Group Corp is displayed at SoftBank World 2017 conference in Tokyo Japan July 20 2017 REUTERSIssei KatoFile Photo The board first voted to move forward with the SoftBank investment in October and the deal at times seemed close to falling apart until Uber said last month that the investor group had enough willing stock sellers to go through with the transaction As part of the terms of the deal Uber will expand its board from 11 to 17 members including four independent directors limit some early shareholders8217 voting power and slash the control wielded Kalanick who remains on the board Benchmark had also agreed to drop its lawsuit against Kalanick upon completion of the deal SoftBank Group Corp 79880 9984T Tokyo Stock Exchange 9984T SN SoftBank has added two representatives to Uber8217s board of directors Rajeev Misra who is chief executive of SoftBank8217s Vision Fund a 98 billion tech investment vehicle and Marcelo Claure Sprint Corp SN president and CEO and a member of SoftBank8217s board of directors according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly because the plans are still private Uber declined to confirm any new board members 8220Uber has a very bright future under its new leadership8221 Misra said in a written statement referring to new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi who helped broker the deal and benefits from the new governance changes Misra wants Uber to focus on growing in the United States Europe Latin America and Australia not Asia which has been among the most costly and competitive regions for the rideservices firm according to the source Such a change could help Uber achieve profitability more quickly but could also signal a retreat from some of the biggest transportation markets SoftBank also has stakes in China ridehailing app Didi India8217s Ola and Southeast Asia8217s Grab all of which compete with Uber in the region The Financial Times first reported Misra8217s comments earlier Thursday SoftBank had no trouble drumming up interest among shareholders as many investors and employees were unable to sell as many shares as they would have liked because SoftBank had put limits on how much it would buy Kalanick sold nearly a third of his 10 percent stake in the rideservices company for about 14 billion according to another person familiar with the matter He had offered to sell half of his shares Reporting by Heather Somerville Editing by Sandra Maler and Matthew Lewis Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Genuine Parts Co GPCN said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business SP Richards and merge it with Essendant ESNDO in a taxfree transaction for shareholders as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses The combined company will have more products and resources giving its customers mainly independent dealers a onestop shop as they grapple with intense competition from ecommerce giant Amazoncom Inc AMZNO and bigbox stores 8220This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry8221 Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts Essendant8217s shares jumped 18 percent to 1000 while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at 9017 in morning trading Illinoisbased Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies while Atlanta Georgiabased SP Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips SP Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company Essendant had a market capitalization of about 3235 million as of Wednesday8217s close Genuine Parts one of the leading US car parts distributors said the deal implied a valuation of about 680 million for SP Richards Genuine Parts Co 9013 GPCN New York Stock Exchange 047 052 GPCN ESNDO AMZNO Genuine Parts will get 347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newlyformed combined company Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal the transaction will be taxfree for the companies8217 shareholders The company has been evaluating options for the SP Richards business which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers Its net sales declined 62 percent to 504 billion in 2017 while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses Last year the company completed a deal to buy Londonbased Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australia8217s Inenco Group Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant while JP Morgan advised Genuine Parts Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters US stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as US President Donald Trump8217s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries The SampampP 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur 8220very soon or not so soon at all8221 easing fears of confrontation with Russia That lifted US Treasury yields US10YTRR leading to a 18 percent increase in financial stocks SPSY which had the biggest percentage advance among the SampampP8217s 11 major sectors The technology sector SPLRCT rose 13 percent adding the most gains to the SampampP 8220We8217re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war8221 said Michael Antonelli managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee 8220Earnings are coming up and expectations are high8221 Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc BLKN and Delta Air Lines Inc DALN added to the sanguine mood Delta topped profit estimates sending its shares 29 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks BlackRock gained 15 percent after the asset manager8217s quarterly profit rose more than expected The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Slideshow 3 Images Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES 8220People are looking forward to earnings season8221 said Tracie McMillion head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in WinstonSalem North Carolina 8220Market participants are not wanting to miss out if earnings are as good as the forecasts say they will be8221 The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 2936 points or 121 percent to 2448305 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 218 points or 083 percent to 266399 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 7122 points or 101 percent to 714025 Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly US initial jobless claims report which pointed to sustained labor market strength BlackRock Inc 53301 BLKN New York Stock Exchange 770 147 BLKN DALN JPMN CN WFCN Facebook Inc FBO was a notable laggard among technology stocks falling 15 percent following a 53 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network8217s data security Bed Bath ampamp Beyond Inc BBBYO shares dived 200 percent after the company8217s fullyear profit forecast missed estimates Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 120to1 ratio and on the Nasdaq for a 184to1 ratio Volume on US exchanges was 612 billion shares compared to the 727 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles HONG KONGMUMBAI Reuters Walmart Inc WMTN is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian ecommerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the US retail giant8217s biggest acquisition of an online business two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Reuters reported last week that Walmart completed its due diligence on Flipkart and had made a proposal to buy 51 percent or more of the Indian company for between 10 billion to 12 billion A deal with Flipkart would step up Walmart8217s battle with Amazoncom AMZNO for a bigger share of India8217s fledgling ecommerce market which Morgan Stanley estimates will be worth 200 billion in a decade Local media have reported that Amazon is exploring a possible counter offer for Flipkart Both sources declined to be named as the talks are private Walmart will buy both new and existing Flipkart shares with the new shares expected to value the Bengalurubased firm at at least 18 billion the sources said The price for existing shares would value the firm at about 12 billion one of the people said Japan8217s SoftBank Group 9984T which owns roughly onefifth of Flipkart via its Vision Fund is unlikely to sell any of its shares due to the low price being offered for the existing shares this source said Reuters has previously reported that early investors such as Tiger Global Accel and Naspers will likely sell their entire stakes in Flipkart to Walmart if a deal is reached A deal is not yet finalised and talks between Walmart Flipkart and its investors are ongoing one of the people said Flipkart also counts eBay EBAYO Tencent Holdings 0700HK and Microsoft Corp MSFTO among its investors Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment a representative for Walmart in India declined comment while SoftBank said it doesn8217t comment on speculation BIG INDIAN BATTLE For Walmart the world8217s largest retailer known for its superstores a deal with Flipkart would open up the vast Indian market Walmart has for years tried to enter India but has remained confined to a 8216cashandcarry8217 wholesale business amid tough restrictions on foreign investment It currently operates 21 such stores in India Slideshow 2 Images By comparison Amazon closely trails Flipkart which along with its fashion units controls nearly 40 percent of India8217s online retail market according to estimates by researcher Forrester Flipkart8217s investors are concerned that any deal with Amazon would run into regulatory hurdles as a combination would have more than 70 percent of India8217s online retail market one of the sources said Walmart8217s push into ecommerce comes as Amazon has embraced offline retail with an affiliate of the Seattlebased company picking up a 276 million stake in Indian retailer Shopper8217s Stop Ltd SHOPNS In the United States Amazon also bought highend grocer Whole Foods Market Inc for 137 billion last year Walmart8217s investment would give Flipkart not just additional funds to fight Amazon but also arm it with a formidable ally with extensive experience in retailing logistics and supply chain management Walmart Inc 8543 WMTN New York Stock Exchange 048 056 WMTN AMZNO 9984T EBAYO 0700HK Former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in 2007 in India8217s tech hub of Bengaluru Like Amazon8217s founder Jeff Bezos they began by selling books but have diversified rapidly including by selling smartphones such as those made by China8217s Xiaomi through exclusive flash sales and now compete with Amazon in almost all product categories Writing by Miyoung Kim Editing by Martin Howell Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDONNEW DELHI Reuters The global oil stocks surplus is close to evaporating OPEC said on Thursday citing healthy energy demand and its own supply cuts while revising up its forecast for production from rivals who have benefited from higher oil prices A flag with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC logo is seen during a meeting of OPEC and nonOPEC producing countries in Vienna Austria September 22 2017 REUTERSLeonhard Foeger US shale oil output has been booming over the past year since OPEC reduced its own production in tandem with Russia to prop up global oil prices But as oil production collapsed in OPEC member Venezuela and is still facing hiccups in countries such as Libya and Angola the oil exporters8217 group is still producing below its targets meaning the world needs to use stocks to meet rising demand The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly report oil stocks in the developed world reversed a rise in January to fall by 174 million barrels in February to 2854 billion barrels around 43 million barrels above the latest fiveyear average 8220We have achieved an over 150 percent conformity level8221 OPEC SecretaryGeneral Mohammad Barkindo told Reuters in New Delhi referring to OPEC8217s commitments under the supplycutting pact He said the glut has effectively shrunk by ninetenths since the start of 2017 8220We have seen an accelerated shrinkage of stocks in storage from unparalleled highs of about 400 million barrels to about 43 million above the fiveyear average8221 Barkindo said Stock levels are now 207 million barrels below their level in February 2017 with crude stocks in a surplus of 55 million barrels and product stocks in a deficit of 12 million 8220Looking forward a healthy global economic forecast for 2018 positive car sales data in recent months stronger 2018 yeaonyear US product consumption in January and potentially tighter global product markets are expected to boost gasoline and distillates demand 8221 OPEC said 8220High conformity levels observed by OPEC and nonOPEC producing countries should further enhance market stability and support crude and product markets in the months ahead8221 The 14member Viennabased producer group said its collective output according to secondary sources fell 201000 bpd to 3196 million bpd in March from February driven by declines in Angola Algeria Venezuela Saudi Arabia and Libya The figure is below the 326 million bpd that OPEC sees as demand for its crude for the whole of 2018 OPEC Russia and several other nonOPEC producers began to cut supply in January 2017 The pact runs until the end of the year and OPEC meets in Vienna in June to decide on its next course of action THIRD YEAR OF CUTS OPEC8217s leader Saudi Arabia has said it would like the pact to be extended into 2019 8220There is growing confidence that the declaration of cooperation will be extended beyond 20188221 Barkindo told Reuters 8220Russia will continue to play a leading role8221 On Thursday OPEC also revised its forecast for supply growth from its rivals nonOPEC which is now forecast to grow by a further 80000 barrels per day this year to 171 million bpd driven largely by higherthananticipated growth in the first quarter in the United States and the former Soviet Union At the same time it increased its forecast for global oil demand growth for this year by 30000 bpd to 163 million bpd 8220This mainly reflects the positive momentum in the OECD in the 1Q18 on the back of betterthanexpected data and supported by development in industrial activities colderthananticipated weather and strong mining activities in the OECD Americas and the OECD Asia Pacific8221 it said in the monthly market report Production in the United Arab Emirates posted the largest monthonmonth increase according to the secondary sources rising by around 45000 bpd in March to 286 million bpd OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia told the group it pumped 9907 million bpd in March 28000 bpd below its February level Venezuela reported production of 1509 million bpd in March 77000 bpd below the level it reported in February Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar Editing by Dale Hudson and David Evans Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Vietnam: it&#8217;s always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures.</p> <p>A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a century later, they&#8217;re still losing it and blaming others for doing so.</p> <p>Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in the previous century and perhaps it&#8217;s well that they did. The United States really had no business intervening in that anti-colonial civil war in the first place, supporting a South Vietnamese government of questionable legitimacy and stifling promised nationwide elections on both sides of that country&#8217;s artificial border. In doing so, Washington presented an easy villain for a North Vietnamese-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgency, a group known to Americans in those years as the Vietcong.</p> <p>More than two decades of involvement and, at the war&#8217;s peak, half a million American troops never altered the basic weakness of the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. Despite millions of Asian deaths and 58,000 American ones, South Vietnam&#8217;s military could not, in the end, hold the line without American support and finally collapsed under the weight of a conventional North Vietnamese invasion in April 1975.</p> <p /> <p>There&#8217;s just one thing. Though a majority of historians (known in academia as the &#8220;orthodox&#8221; school) subscribe to the basic contours of the above narrative, the vast majority of senior American military officers do not. Instead, they&#8217;re still refighting the Vietnam War to a far cheerier outcome through the books they read, the scholarship they publish and&#8212;most disturbingly&#8212;the policies they continue to pursue in the Greater Middle East.</p> <p>The Big Re-Write</p> <p>In 1986, future general, Iraq-Afghan War commander, and CIA director David Petraeus penned <a href="http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/2010winter/Petraeus.pdf" type="external">an article</a>&amp;#160;for the military journal&amp;#160;&#8220;Parameters,&#8221; that summarized his Princeton doctoral dissertation on the Vietnam War.&amp;#160;It was a piece commensurate with then-Maj. Petraeus&#8217; impressive intellect, except for its disastrous conclusions on the lessons of that war. Though he did observe that Vietnam&amp;#160;had <a href="http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/2010winter/Petraeus.pdf" type="external">&#8220;cost the military dearly&#8221;</a>&amp;#160;and that &#8220;the frustrations of Vietnam are deeply etched in the minds of those who lead the services,&#8221; his real fear was that the war had left the military unprepared to wage what were then called &#8220;low-intensity conflicts&#8221; and are now known as counterinsurgencies. His takeaway: What the country needed wasn&#8217;t fewer Vietnams but better-fought ones. The next time, he concluded fatefully, the military should do a far better job of implementing counterinsurgency forces, equipment, tactics and doctrine to win such wars.</p> <p>Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in Iraq, he and a whole generation of&amp;#160; <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/30/the-coindinistas/" type="external">COINdinistas</a>&amp;#160;(like-minded officers devoted to his favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very conclusions to win the war on terror. The names of some of them&#8212;H.R. McMaster and James Mattis, for instance&#8212;should ring a bell or two these days. In Iraq and later in Afghanistan, Petraeus and his acolytes would get their chance to translate theory into practice.&amp;#160;Americans&#8212;and much of the rest of the planet&#8212;still live with the results.</p> <p>Like Petraeus, an entire generation of senior military leaders, commissioned in the years after the Vietnam War and now atop the defense behemoth, remain fixated on that ancient conflict. After all these decades, such &#8220;thinking&#8221; generals and &#8220;soldier-scholars&#8221; continue to draw all the wrong lessons from what, thanks in part to them, has now become America&#8217;s&amp;#160;second longest war.</p> <p>Rival Schools</p> <p>Historian Gary Hess identifies two <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592310802061349?journalCode=fswi20" type="external">main schools</a>&amp;#160;of revisionist thinking. There are the &#8220;Clausewitzians&#8221; (named after the nineteenth century Prussian military theorist) who insist that Washington never sufficiently attacked the enemy&#8217;s true center of gravity in North Vietnam. Beneath the academic language, they essentially agree on one key thing: The U.S. military should have bombed the North into a parking lot.</p> <p>The second school, which includes Petraeus, Hess labeled the &#8220;hearts-and-minders.&#8221; As COINdinistas, they felt the war effort never focused clearly enough on isolating the Vietcong, protecting local villages in the South, building schools and handing out candy&#8212;everything, in short, that might have won (in the phrase of that era) Vietnamese hearts and minds.</p> <p>Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have won in Vietnam.</p> <p>The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the 21st century. Senior commanders, some now serving in key national security positions, fixated on Vietnam, have translated that conflict&#8217;s supposed lessons into what now passes for military strategy in Washington. <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176366/tomgram%253A_danny_sjursen%252C_three_administrations%252C_one_standard_playbook" type="external">The&amp;#160;result</a>&amp;#160;has been an ever-expanding war on terror campaign waged ceaselessly from South Asia to West Africa, which has essentially turned out to be perpetual war based on the can-do belief that counterinsurgency and advise-and-assist missions should have worked in Vietnam and can work now.</p> <p>The Go-Big Option</p> <p>The leading voice of the Clausewitzian school was U.S. Army Col. and Korean War/Vietnam War vet Harry Summers, whose 1982 book,&amp;#160;&#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0891415637/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">On Strategy</a>: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War,&#8221; became an instant classic within the military. It&#8217;s easy enough to understand why. Summers argued that civilian policymakers&#8212;not the military rank-and-file&#8212;had lost the war by focusing hopelessly on the insurgency in South Vietnam rather than on the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. More troops, more aggressiveness, even full-scale invasions of communist safe havens in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, would have led to victory.</p> <p>Summers had a deep emotional investment in his topic. Later&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.historynet.com/deliberate-distortions-still-obscure-understanding-of-the-vietnam-war.htm" type="external">he would argue</a> that the source of post-war pessimistic analyses of the conflict lay in &#8220;draft dodgers and war evaders still [struggling] with their consciences.&#8221; In his own work, Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians), failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts of escalation he advocated, and didn&#8217;t even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national security interest of the United States.</p> <p>Perhaps he would have done well to reconsider a famous <a href="http://www.historynet.com/deliberate-distortions-still-obscure-understanding-of-the-vietnam-war.htm" type="external">post-war encounter</a>&amp;#160;he had with a North Vietnamese officer, a Colonel Tu, whom he assured that &#8220;you know you never beat us on the battlefield.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;That may be so,&#8221; replied his former enemy, &#8220;but it is also irrelevant.&#8221;</p> <p>Whatever its limitations, his work remains influential in military circles to this day. (I was assigned the book as a West Point cadet.)</p> <p>A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current national security adviser H.R. McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book,&amp;#160;&#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060929081/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Dereliction of Duty</a>.&#8221; He argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were derelict in failing to give President Lyndon Johnson an honest appraisal of what it would take to win, which meant that &#8220;the nation went to war without the benefit of effective military advice.&#8221;&amp;#160;He concluded that the war was lost not in the field or by the media or even on antiwar college campuses, but in Washington, D.C., through a failure of nerve by the Pentagon&#8217;s generals, which led civilian officials to opt for a deficient strategy.</p> <p>McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy&#8212;a full ground invasion of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another &#8220;go-big&#8221; Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/03/hr-mcmaster-book-vietnam-war-215673" type="external">pointed out</a>&amp;#160;recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge&#8212; <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/03/hr-mcmaster-book-vietnam-war-215673" type="external">an observation</a>&amp;#160;of historian Edward Miller&#8212;that &#8220;the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war.&#8221;</p> <p>COIN: A Small (Forever) War</p> <p>Another Vietnam veteran, retired Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich, fired the opening salvo for the hearts-and-minders.&amp;#160;In&amp;#160;&#8220; <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/army-and-vietnam" type="external">The Army and Vietnam</a>,&#8221; published in 1986, he argued that the NLF, not the North Vietnamese Army, was the enemy&#8217;s chief center of gravity and that the American military&#8217;s failure to emphasize counterinsurgency principles over conventional concepts of war sealed its fate.&amp;#160;While such arguments were, in reality,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592310802061349?journalCode=fswi20" type="external">no more impressive</a>&amp;#160;than those of the Clausewitzians, they have remained popular with military audiences, as historian&amp;#160;Dale Andrade&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592310802061349?journalCode=fswi20" type="external">points out</a>, because they offer a &#8220;simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam.&#8221;</p> <p>Krepinevich would write an influential 2005&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/winning-in-iraq.html" type="external">Foreign Affairs piece</a>, &#8220;How to Win in Iraq,&#8221; in which he applied his Vietnam conclusions to a new strategy of prolonged counterinsurgency in the Middle East, quickly&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/winning-in-iraq.html" type="external">winning over</a>&amp;#160;New York Times&#8217; resident conservative columnist, David Brooks, and generating &#8220;discussion in the Pentagon, CIA, American Embassy in Baghdad, and the office of the vice president.&#8221;</p> <p>In 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive hearts-and-minds tract,&amp;#160;&#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0156013096/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">A Better War</a>: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America&#8217;s Last Years in Vietnam.&#8221; Sorley <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/reviews/abetterwar0808.htm" type="external">boldly asserted</a>&amp;#160;that, by the spring of 1970, &#8220;the fighting wasn&#8217;t over, but the war was won.&#8221; According to his comforting tale, the real explanation for failure lay with the &#8220;big-war&#8221; strategy of U.S. commander Gen. William Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor, Gen. Creighton Abrams&#8212;Sorley&#8217;s knight in shining armor&#8212;was (or at least should have been) a war winner.</p> <p>Critics&amp;#160; <a href="https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=409" type="external">noted that</a> Sorley overemphasized the marginal differences between the two generals&#8217; strategies and produced a remarkably counterfactual work.&amp;#160;It didn&#8217;t matter, however. By 2005, just as the situation in Iraq, a country then locked in a sectarian civil war amid an American occupation, went from bad to worse, Sorley&#8217;s book&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110301971.html" type="external">found its way</a>&amp;#160;into the hands of the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid and State Department counselor Philip Zelikow. By then,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110301971.html" type="external">according to</a>&amp;#160;The&amp;#160;Washington Post&#8217;s David Ignatius, it could also &#8220;be found on the bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad.&#8221;</p> <p>Another influential hearts-and-minds devotee was Lt. Col. John Nagl. (He even&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/dt3sbh/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-john-nagl" type="external">made it</a>&amp;#160;onto&amp;#160;&#8220;The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.&#8221;) His&amp;#160;&#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226567702/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife</a>: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam,&#8221; followed Krepinevich in claiming that &#8220;if [Creighton] Abrams had gotten the call to lead the American effort at the start of the war, America might very well have won it.&#8221;&amp;#160;In 2006, the&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114282258020302710" type="external">Wall Street Journal reported</a>&amp;#160;that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker &#8220;so liked [Nagl&#8217;s] book that he made it required reading for all four-star generals,&#8221; while the Iraq War commander of that moment, Gen. George Casey, gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a copy during a visit to Baghdad.</p> <p>David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1499347030/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">co-authors</a>&amp;#160;in 2006 of &#8220;Counterinsurgency: FM 3-24,&#8221; the first ( <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/opinion/07shultz.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;amp;gwh=2DB74A1E689AADF8A4587D9EF0BBA275&amp;amp;gwt=pay&amp;amp;assetType=opinion" type="external">New York Times-reviewed</a>) military field manual for counterinsurgency since Vietnam, must also be considered among the pantheon of hearts-and-minders. Nagl wrote <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/841519foreword.html" type="external">a foreword</a>&amp;#160;for their manual, while Krepinevich provided a glowing <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/841519foreword.html" type="external">back-cover endorsement</a>.</p> <p>Such revisionist interpretations would prove tragic in Iraq and Afghanistan, once they had filtered down to the entire officer corps.</p> <p>Reading All the Wrong Books&amp;#160;</p> <p>In 2009, when former West Point history professor Col. Gregory Daddis <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Withdrawal-Reassessing-Americas-Final-Vietnam/dp/0190691085" type="external">was deployed</a>&amp;#160;to Iraq as the command historian for the Multinational Corps&#8212;the military&#8217;s primary tactical headquarters&#8212;he noted that corps commander Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby had assigned a professional reading list to his principal subordinates. To his disappointment, Daddis also discovered that the only Vietnam War book included was Sorley&#8217;s&amp;#160;&#8220;A Better War.&#8221; This should have surprised no one, since his argument&#8212;that American soldiers in Vietnam&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Withdrawal-Reassessing-Americas-Final-Vietnam/dp/0190691085" type="external">were denied</a>&amp;#160;an impending victory by civilian policymakers, a liberal media and antiwar protesters&#8212;was still resonant among the officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire.&amp;#160;It wasn&#8217;t the military&#8217;s fault!</p> <p>Officers have long distributed professional reading lists for subordinates, intellectual guideposts to the complex challenges ahead. Indeed, there&#8217;s much to be admired in the concept, but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of an entire generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The generals have been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were essentially meant to reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful and unending wars.</p> <p>Just after 9/11, for instance, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers&#8212;who spoke at my West Point graduation&#8212; <a href="http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/jcs/reading-list.htm" type="external">included</a>&amp;#160;Summers&#8217;&amp;#160;&#8220;On Strategy&#8221; on his list. A few years later, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker&amp;#160; <a href="https://history.army.mil/brochures/CSAReadingList.pdf" type="external">added</a>&amp;#160;McMaster&#8217;s&amp;#160;&#8220;Dereliction of Duty.&#8221; The trend continues today.&amp;#160;Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has kept McMaster and added&amp;#160;&#8220;Diplomacy&#8221;&amp;#160;by Henry Kissinger (he of the illegal bombing of both Laos and Cambodia and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kissingers-Shadow-Americas-Controversial-Statesman/dp/1627794492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1515190809&amp;amp;sr=1-1&amp;amp;keywords=greg+grandin+kissinger" type="external">war criminal</a>&amp;#160;fame). Current Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley kept Kissinger <a href="https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/leaders/csa/2017_csa_reading_list.pdf" type="external">and added</a>&amp;#160;good old Lewis Sorley. To top it all off, Secretary of Defense Mattis <a href="http://taskandpurpose.com/30-books-mattis-thinks-every-good-leader-needs-read/" type="external">has included</a>&amp;#160;yet another Kissinger book and, in a <a href="http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/ltgen-james-mattis-reading-list" type="external">different list</a>, Krepinevich&#8217;s&amp;#160;&#8220;The Army and Vietnam.&#8221;</p> <p>Just as important as which books made the lists is what&#8217;s missing from them: None of these senior commanders include newer&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hanois-War-International-History-Vietnam/dp/080783551X" type="external">scholarship</a>,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Carried-Tim-OBrien/dp/0618706410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1516724264&amp;amp;sr=1-1&amp;amp;keywords=tim+o%27brien+the+things+they+carried" type="external">novels</a> or journalistic accounts that might raise thorny, uncomfortable questions about whether the Vietnam War was winnable, necessary or advisable, or incorporate local voices that might highlight the limits of American influence and power.</p> <p>Serving in the Shadow of Vietnam&amp;#160;</p> <p>Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War. They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110228183126/http:/www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=166" type="external">in 1974</a>, future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal <a href="https://www.ted.com/profiles/766049" type="external">in 1976</a>, and present national security adviser H.R. McMaster <a href="https://www.hoover.org/profiles/h-r-mcmaster" type="external">in 1984</a>. Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Mattis" type="external">in 1971</a>, while Trump&#8217;s Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his commission <a href="https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography-View/Article/602724/john-f-kelly/" type="external">in 1976</a>.</p> <p>In other words, the generation of officers now overseeing the still-spreading war on terror entered military service at the end of or after the tragic war in Southeast Asia. That meant they narrowly escaped combat duty in the bloodiest American conflict since World War II and so the professional credibility that went with it.&amp;#160;They were mentored and taught by academy tactical officers, ROTC instructors, and commanders who had cut their teeth on that conflict. Vietnam literally dominated the discourse of their era&#8212;and it&#8217;s never ended.</p> <p>Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster and the others entered service when military prestige had reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where to lay the blame for that&#8212;on civilians in Washington (or in the nation&#8217;s streets) or on a military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in Vietnam&#8217;s shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only lead to 21st-century disasters.</p> <p>From Vietnam to the War on Terror to Generational War</p> <p>All of this misremembering, all of those Vietnam &#8220;lessons&#8221; inform the U.S. military&#8217;s ongoing &#8220;surges&#8221; and &#8220;advise-and-assist&#8221; approaches to its wars in the Greater Middle East and Africa. Representatives of both Vietnam revisionist schools now guide the development of the Trump administration&#8217;s version of global strategy. President Trump&#8217;s in-house Clausewitzians clamor for&#8212; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/trump-military-troops-afghanistan-mattis/index.html" type="external">and receive</a>&#8212;ever more delegated authority to do their damnedest and what retired Gen. (and Vietnam vet) Edward Meyer&amp;#160; <a href="http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/2010winter/Petraeus.pdf" type="external">called for</a>&amp;#160;back in 1983: &#8220;a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam.&#8221; In other words, more bombs, more troops and carte blanche to escalate such conflicts to their hearts&#8217; content.</p> <p>Meanwhile, President Trump&#8217;s hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have spent three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176363/tomgram%253A_nick_turse%252C_a_wider_world_of_war/" type="external">70 percent</a>&amp;#160;of the world&#8217;s nations. Furthermore, they&#8217;ve recently fought for and been granted a new &#8220;mini-surge&#8221; in Afghanistan intended to&#8212;in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language&#8212;&#8220; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/donald-trump-afghanistan-troops-taliban-stalemate.html" type="external">break the deadlock</a>,&#8221; &#8220;reverse the decline&#8221; and &#8220; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-u-s-commander-in-afghanistan-says-effort-is-still-in-a-stalemate/" type="external">end the stalemate</a>&#8221; there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176302/tomgram%253A_danny_sjursen%252C_fighting_the_war_you_know_%2528even_if_it_won%2527t_work%2529" type="external">I was there</a>&amp;#160;in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, &#8220;stabilize&#8221; Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump that&#8212;despite his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/against-his-original-instinct-trump-opts-to-escalate-in-americas-longest-war/2017/08/21/50a76516-868b-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html" type="external">original instincts</a>&#8212;4,000 or 5,000 (or&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/up-to-1000-more-us-troops-could-be-headed-to-afghanistan-this-spring/2018/01/21/153930b6-fd1b-11e7-a46b-a3614530bd87_story.html?tid=ss_tw&amp;amp;utm_term=.49583691600f" type="external">6,000</a>&amp;#160;or 7,000) more troops (and yet more&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-turn-military-focus-on-afghanistan-as-isis-battles-ebb-1515685110" type="external">drones</a>,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-new-us-air-blitz-in-afghanistan-isnt-stopping-for-winter-but-will-it-stop-the-taliban/2018/01/16/c9bb874c-f4cd-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html?utm_term=.f94510b3a205" type="external">planes</a>&amp;#160;and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on farce.</p> <p>The hearts-and-minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting.&amp;#160;None of today&#8217;s acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington couldn&#8217;t have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who&amp;#160; <a href="https://generalmcpeak.com/about-general-merrill-a-mcpeak/" type="external">flew 269</a>&amp;#160;combat missions over that country)&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2017/09/oregons_gen_merrill_mcpeak_on.html" type="external">noted</a>&amp;#160;in the recent Ken Burns documentary series: &#8220;We were fighting on the wrong side.&#8221;</p> <p>Today&#8217;s leaders don&#8217;t even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end.&amp;#160;In an interview last June, Petraeus&#8212;still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment&#8212;disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as &#8220; <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/courage-end-generational-wars/" type="external">generational</a>.&#8221; Eerily enough, to cite a Vietnam-era precedent, Gen. Creighton Abrams predicted something similar, speaking to the White House as the war in Southeast Asia was winding down. Even as President Richard Nixon slowly withdrew U.S. forces, handing over their duties to the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN)&#8212;a process known then as &#8220;Vietnamization&#8221;&#8212;the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592310802061349?journalCode=fswi20" type="external">general warned</a>&amp;#160;that, despite ARVN improvements, continued U.S. support &#8220;would be required indefinitely&amp;#160;to maintain an effective force.&#8221;&amp;#160;Vietnam, too, had its &#8220;generational&#8221; side (until, of course, it didn&#8217;t).</p> <p>That war and its ill-fated lessons will undoubtedly continue to influence U.S. commanders until a new set of myths, explaining away a new set of failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, take over, possibly thanks to books by veterans of these conflicts about how Washington could have won the war on terror.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not that our generals don&#8217;t read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the wrong books.</p> <p>In 1986, Gen. Petraeus ended his influential&amp;#160; <a href="http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/2010winter/Petraeus.pdf" type="external">Parameters article</a>&amp;#160;with a quote from historian George Herring: &#8220;Each historical situation is unique and the use of analogy is at best misleading, at worst, dangerous.&#8221;&amp;#160;When it comes to Vietnam and a cohort of officers shaped in its shadow (and even now convinced it could have been won), &#8220;dangerous&#8221; hardly describes the results. They&#8217;ve helped bring us generational war and, for today&#8217;s young soldiers, ceaseless tragedy.</p>

Vietnam: The War That Never Ends for the U.S. Military High Command

https://truthdig.com/articles/vietnam-war-never-ends-u-s-military-high-command/

2018-01-30

4left

Vietnam it8217s always there Looming in the past informing American futures A 50yearold war once labeled the longest in our history is still alive and well and still being refought by one group of Americans the military high command And almost half a century later they8217re still losing it and blaming others for doing so Of course the US military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in the previous century and perhaps it8217s well that they did The United States really had no business intervening in that anticolonial civil war in the first place supporting a South Vietnamese government of questionable legitimacy and stifling promised nationwide elections on both sides of that country8217s artificial border In doing so Washington presented an easy villain for a North Vietnamesebacked National Liberation Front NLF insurgency a group known to Americans in those years as the Vietcong More than two decades of involvement and at the war8217s peak half a million American troops never altered the basic weakness of the USbacked regime in Saigon Despite millions of Asian deaths and 58000 American ones South Vietnam8217s military could not in the end hold the line without American support and finally collapsed under the weight of a conventional North Vietnamese invasion in April 1975 There8217s just one thing Though a majority of historians known in academia as the 8220orthodox8221 school subscribe to the basic contours of the above narrative the vast majority of senior American military officers do not Instead they8217re still refighting the Vietnam War to a far cheerier outcome through the books they read the scholarship they publish and8212most disturbingly8212the policies they continue to pursue in the Greater Middle East The Big ReWrite In 1986 future general IraqAfghan War commander and CIA director David Petraeus penned an articleamp160for the military journalamp1608220Parameters8221 that summarized his Princeton doctoral dissertation on the Vietnam Waramp160It was a piece commensurate with thenMaj Petraeus8217 impressive intellect except for its disastrous conclusions on the lessons of that war Though he did observe that Vietnamamp160had 8220cost the military dearly8221amp160and that 8220the frustrations of Vietnam are deeply etched in the minds of those who lead the services8221 his real fear was that the war had left the military unprepared to wage what were then called 8220lowintensity conflicts8221 and are now known as counterinsurgencies His takeaway What the country needed wasn8217t fewer Vietnams but betterfought ones The next time he concluded fatefully the military should do a far better job of implementing counterinsurgency forces equipment tactics and doctrine to win such wars Two decades later when the next Vietnamlike quagmire did indeed present itself in Iraq he and a whole generation ofamp160 COINdinistasamp160likeminded officers devoted to his favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare embraced those very conclusions to win the war on terror The names of some of them8212HR McMaster and James Mattis for instance8212should ring a bell or two these days In Iraq and later in Afghanistan Petraeus and his acolytes would get their chance to translate theory into practiceamp160Americans8212and much of the rest of the planet8212still live with the results Like Petraeus an entire generation of senior military leaders commissioned in the years after the Vietnam War and now atop the defense behemoth remain fixated on that ancient conflict After all these decades such 8220thinking8221 generals and 8220soldierscholars8221 continue to draw all the wrong lessons from what thanks in part to them has now become America8217samp160second longest war Rival Schools Historian Gary Hess identifies two main schoolsamp160of revisionist thinking There are the 8220Clausewitzians8221 named after the nineteenth century Prussian military theorist who insist that Washington never sufficiently attacked the enemy8217s true center of gravity in North Vietnam Beneath the academic language they essentially agree on one key thing The US military should have bombed the North into a parking lot The second school which includes Petraeus Hess labeled the 8220heartsandminders8221 As COINdinistas they felt the war effort never focused clearly enough on isolating the Vietcong protecting local villages in the South building schools and handing out candy8212everything in short that might have won in the phrase of that era Vietnamese hearts and minds Both schools however agreed on something basic that the US military should have won in Vietnam The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the 21st century Senior commanders some now serving in key national security positions fixated on Vietnam have translated that conflict8217s supposed lessons into what now passes for military strategy in Washington Theamp160resultamp160has been an everexpanding war on terror campaign waged ceaselessly from South Asia to West Africa which has essentially turned out to be perpetual war based on the cando belief that counterinsurgency and adviseandassist missions should have worked in Vietnam and can work now The GoBig Option The leading voice of the Clausewitzian school was US Army Col and Korean WarVietnam War vet Harry Summers whose 1982 bookamp1608220 On Strategy A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War8221 became an instant classic within the military It8217s easy enough to understand why Summers argued that civilian policymakers8212not the military rankandfile8212had lost the war by focusing hopelessly on the insurgency in South Vietnam rather than on the North Vietnamese capital Hanoi More troops more aggressiveness even fullscale invasions of communist safe havens in Laos Cambodia and North Vietnam would have led to victory Summers had a deep emotional investment in his topic Lateramp160 he would argue that the source of postwar pessimistic analyses of the conflict lay in 8220draft dodgers and war evaders still struggling with their consciences8221 In his own work Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors as would so many later military historians failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences nuclear or otherwise of the sorts of escalation he advocated and didn8217t even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national security interest of the United States Perhaps he would have done well to reconsider a famous postwar encounteramp160he had with a North Vietnamese officer a Colonel Tu whom he assured that 8220you know you never beat us on the battlefield8221 8220That may be so8221 replied his former enemy 8220but it is also irrelevant8221 Whatever its limitations his work remains influential in military circles to this day I was assigned the book as a West Point cadet A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current national security adviser HR McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 bookamp1608220 Dereliction of Duty8221 He argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were derelict in failing to give President Lyndon Johnson an honest appraisal of what it would take to win which meant that 8220the nation went to war without the benefit of effective military advice8221amp160He concluded that the war was lost not in the field or by the media or even on antiwar college campuses but in Washington DC through a failure of nerve by the Pentagon8217s generals which led civilian officials to opt for a deficient strategy McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer but he still suggested that the Joint Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy8212a full ground invasion of the North or unrelenting carpetbombing of that country In this sense he was just another 8220gobig8221 Clausewitzian who as historian Ronald Spectoramp160 pointed outamp160recently ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge8212 an observationamp160of historian Edward Miller8212that 8220the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war8221 COIN A Small Forever War Another Vietnam veteran retired Lt Col Andrew Krepinevich fired the opening salvo for the heartsandmindersamp160Inamp1608220 The Army and Vietnam8221 published in 1986 he argued that the NLF not the North Vietnamese Army was the enemy8217s chief center of gravity and that the American military8217s failure to emphasize counterinsurgency principles over conventional concepts of war sealed its fateamp160While such arguments were in realityamp160 no more impressiveamp160than those of the Clausewitzians they have remained popular with military audiences as historianamp160Dale Andradeamp160 points out because they offer a 8220simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam8221 Krepinevich would write an influential 2005amp160 Foreign Affairs piece 8220How to Win in Iraq8221 in which he applied his Vietnam conclusions to a new strategy of prolonged counterinsurgency in the Middle East quicklyamp160 winning overamp160New York Times8217 resident conservative columnist David Brooks and generating 8220discussion in the Pentagon CIA American Embassy in Baghdad and the office of the vice president8221 In 1999 retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive heartsandminds tractamp1608220 A Better War The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America8217s Last Years in Vietnam8221 Sorley boldly assertedamp160that by the spring of 1970 8220the fighting wasn8217t over but the war was won8221 According to his comforting tale the real explanation for failure lay with the 8220bigwar8221 strategy of US commander Gen William Westmoreland The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor Gen Creighton Abrams8212Sorley8217s knight in shining armor8212was or at least should have been a war winner Criticsamp160 noted that Sorley overemphasized the marginal differences between the two generals8217 strategies and produced a remarkably counterfactual workamp160It didn8217t matter however By 2005 just as the situation in Iraq a country then locked in a sectarian civil war amid an American occupation went from bad to worse Sorley8217s bookamp160 found its wayamp160into the hands of the head of US Central Command Gen John Abizaid and State Department counselor Philip Zelikow By thenamp160 according toamp160Theamp160Washington Post8217s David Ignatius it could also 8220be found on the bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad8221 Another influential heartsandminds devotee was Lt Col John Nagl He evenamp160 made itamp160ontoamp1608220The Daily Show with Jon Stewart8221 Hisamp1608220 Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam8221 followed Krepinevich in claiming that 8220if Creighton Abrams had gotten the call to lead the American effort at the start of the war America might very well have won it8221amp160In 2006 theamp160 Wall Street Journal reportedamp160that Army Chief of Staff Gen Peter Schoomaker 8220so liked Nagl8217s book that he made it required reading for all fourstar generals8221 while the Iraq War commander of that moment Gen George Casey gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a copy during a visit to Baghdad David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattisamp160 coauthorsamp160in 2006 of 8220Counterinsurgency FM 3248221 the first New York Timesreviewed military field manual for counterinsurgency since Vietnam must also be considered among the pantheon of heartsandminders Nagl wrote a forewordamp160for their manual while Krepinevich provided a glowing backcover endorsement Such revisionist interpretations would prove tragic in Iraq and Afghanistan once they had filtered down to the entire officer corps Reading All the Wrong Booksamp160 In 2009 when former West Point history professor Col Gregory Daddis was deployedamp160to Iraq as the command historian for the Multinational Corps8212the military8217s primary tactical headquarters8212he noted that corps commander Lt Gen Charles Jacoby had assigned a professional reading list to his principal subordinates To his disappointment Daddis also discovered that the only Vietnam War book included was Sorley8217samp1608220A Better War8221 This should have surprised no one since his argument8212that American soldiers in Vietnamamp160 were deniedamp160an impending victory by civilian policymakers a liberal media and antiwar protesters8212was still resonant among the officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmireamp160It wasn8217t the military8217s fault Officers have long distributed professional reading lists for subordinates intellectual guideposts to the complex challenges ahead Indeed there8217s much to be admired in the concept but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of an entire generation of future leaders In the case of Vietnam the perils are obvious The generals have been assigning and reading problematic books for years works that were essentially meant to reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful and unending wars Just after 911 for instance Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen Richard Myers8212who spoke at my West Point graduation8212 includedamp160Summers8217amp1608220On Strategy8221 on his list A few years later thenArmy Chief of Staff Gen Peter Schoomakeramp160 addedamp160McMaster8217samp1608220Dereliction of Duty8221 The trend continues todayamp160Marine Corps Commandant Gen Robert Neller has kept McMaster and addedamp1608220Diplomacy8221amp160by Henry Kissinger he of the illegal bombing of both Laos and Cambodia and war criminalamp160fame Current Army Chief of Staff Gen Mark Milley kept Kissinger and addedamp160good old Lewis Sorley To top it all off Secretary of Defense Mattis has includedamp160yet another Kissinger book and in a different list Krepinevich8217samp1608220The Army and Vietnam8221 Just as important as which books made the lists is what8217s missing from them None of these senior commanders include neweramp160 scholarshipamp160 novels or journalistic accounts that might raise thorny uncomfortable questions about whether the Vietnam War was winnable necessary or advisable or incorporate local voices that might highlight the limits of American influence and power Serving in the Shadow of Vietnamamp160 Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the withdrawal of most US ground troops or thereafter Petraeus in 1974 future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 and present national security adviser HR McMaster in 1984 Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in 1971 while Trump8217s Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War receiving his commission in 1976 In other words the generation of officers now overseeing the stillspreading war on terror entered military service at the end of or after the tragic war in Southeast Asia That meant they narrowly escaped combat duty in the bloodiest American conflict since World War II and so the professional credibility that went with itamp160They were mentored and taught by academy tactical officers ROTC instructors and commanders who had cut their teeth on that conflict Vietnam literally dominated the discourse of their era8212and it8217s never ended Petraeus Mattis McMaster and the others entered service when military prestige had reached a nadir or was just rebounding And those reading lists taught the young officers where to lay the blame for that8212on civilians in Washington or in the nation8217s streets or on a military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively They would serve in Vietnam8217s shadow the shadow of defeat and the conclusions they would draw from it would only lead to 21stcentury disasters From Vietnam to the War on Terror to Generational War All of this misremembering all of those Vietnam 8220lessons8221 inform the US military8217s ongoing 8220surges8221 and 8220adviseandassist8221 approaches to its wars in the Greater Middle East and Africa Representatives of both Vietnam revisionist schools now guide the development of the Trump administration8217s version of global strategy President Trump8217s inhouse Clausewitzians clamor for8212 and receive8212ever more delegated authority to do their damnedest and what retired Gen and Vietnam vet Edward Meyeramp160 called foramp160back in 1983 8220a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam8221 In other words more bombs more troops and carte blanche to escalate such conflicts to their hearts8217 content Meanwhile President Trump8217s heartsandminds faction consists of officers who have spent three administrations expanding COINinfluenced missions to approximatelyamp160 70 percentamp160of the world8217s nations Furthermore they8217ve recently fought for and been granted a new 8220minisurge8221 in Afghanistan intended to8212in disturbingly Vietnamesque language82128220 break the deadlock8221 8220reverse the decline8221 and 8220 end the stalemate8221 there Never mind that neither 100000 US troops when I was thereamp160in 2011 nor 16 full years of combat could in the term of the trade 8220stabilize8221 Afghanistan The cando revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump that8212despite his original instincts82124000 or 5000 oramp160 6000amp160or 7000 more troops and yet moreamp160 dronesamp160 planesamp160and other equipment will do the trick This represents tragedy bordering on farce The heartsandminders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 911 are never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today that is they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fightingamp160None of today8217s acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington couldn8217t have won in Vietnam because as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak whoamp160 flew 269amp160combat missions over that countryamp160 notedamp160in the recent Ken Burns documentary series 8220We were fighting on the wrong side8221 Today8217s leaders don8217t even pretend that the post911 wars will ever endamp160In an interview last June Petraeus8212still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment8212disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as 8220 generational8221 Eerily enough to cite a Vietnamera precedent Gen Creighton Abrams predicted something similar speaking to the White House as the war in Southeast Asia was winding down Even as President Richard Nixon slowly withdrew US forces handing over their duties to the South Vietnamese Army ARVN8212a process known then as 8220Vietnamization82218212the general warnedamp160that despite ARVN improvements continued US support 8220would be required indefinitelyamp160to maintain an effective force8221amp160Vietnam too had its 8220generational8221 side until of course it didn8217t That war and its illfated lessons will undoubtedly continue to influence US commanders until a new set of myths explaining away a new set of failures in Iraq Afghanistan and elsewhere take over possibly thanks to books by veterans of these conflicts about how Washington could have won the war on terror It8217s not that our generals don8217t read They do They just doggedly continue to read the wrong books In 1986 Gen Petraeus ended his influentialamp160 Parameters articleamp160with a quote from historian George Herring 8220Each historical situation is unique and the use of analogy is at best misleading at worst dangerous8221amp160When it comes to Vietnam and a cohort of officers shaped in its shadow and even now convinced it could have been won 8220dangerous8221 hardly describes the results They8217ve helped bring us generational war and for today8217s young soldiers ceaseless tragedy

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<p>By Michael T. Klare / <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176207/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_whose_finger_on_the_nuclear_button/#more" type="external">TomDispatch</a></p> <p>Once upon a time, when choosing a new president, a factor for many voters was the perennial question: &#8220;Whose finger do you want on the nuclear button?&#8221; Of all the responsibilities of America&#8217;s top executive, none may be more momentous than deciding whether, and under what circumstances, to activate the &#8220;nuclear codes&#8221; &#8212; the secret alphanumeric messages that would inform missile officers in silos and submarines that the fearful moment had finally arrived to launch their intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) toward a foreign adversary, igniting a thermonuclear war.</p> <p>Until recently in the post-Cold War world, however, nuclear weapons seemed to drop from sight, and that question along with it. Not any longer. In 2016, the nuclear issue is back big time, thanks both to the rise of Donald Trump ( <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scarborough-trump-nukes_us_57a1e47ae4b0693164c347d0" type="external">including</a> various <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176194/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_the_national_security_void/" type="external">unsettling comments</a> he&#8217;s made about nuclear weapons) and actual changes in the global nuclear landscape.</p> <p>With passions running high on both sides in this year&#8217;s election and rising fears about Donald Trump&#8217;s impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton&#8217;s hawkish one, it&#8217;s hardly surprising that the &#8220;nuclear button&#8221; question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. &amp;#160;In one of the more pointed exchanges of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure for the job.&amp;#160; &#8220;A man who can be provoked by a tweet,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/26/the-first-trump-clinton-presidential-debate-transcript-annotated/" type="external">commented</a>, &#8220;should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.&#8221;&amp;#160; Donald Trump has reciprocated by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. &#8220;You&#8217;re going to end up in World War III over Syria,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37766786" type="external">told</a> reporters in Florida last month.</p> <p /> <p>For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes.&amp;#160; There is, however, a more important reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment, for a variety of reasons, the &#8220;nuclear threshold&#8221; &#8212; the point at which some party to a &#8220;conventional&#8221; (non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons &#8212; seems to be <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-is-risking-lowering-the-nuclear-threshold-2016-2" type="external">moving</a> dangerously lower.</p> <p>Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power &#8212; the United States, Russia, or China &#8212; would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario.&amp;#160; No longer.&amp;#160; Worse yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have thought possible just a year or two ago &#8212; with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all.</p> <p>No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/science/atom-bomb-nuclear-weapons-hgv-arms-race-russia-china.html" type="external">acquiring</a> new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still.&amp;#160; These include a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in &#8220;limited&#8221; nuclear wars &#8212; atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate.&amp;#160; The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington&#8217;s likely adversaries.</p> <p>Lowering the Nuclear Threshold</p> <p>During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat to, in the end, the use of &#8220;battlefield&#8221; nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same to avert defeat.&amp;#160; In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding &#8220;tactical&#8221; or battlefield weaponry &#8212; nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or Moscow &#8212; and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but still sub-apocalyptic level.&amp;#160; (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.)&amp;#160; Eventually, leaders on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents to the use of such weaponry by the other side.&amp;#160; This was, of course, the concept of &#8220; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction" type="external">mutually assured destruction</a>,&#8221; or &#8212; in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD.&amp;#160; It would, in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers.</p> <p>Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the Soviet Union began deploying the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-20_Saber" type="external">SS-20</a> intermediate-range ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pershing_II" type="external">Pershing-II</a> ballistic missile in Europe.&amp;#160; The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe and the United States.&amp;#160; On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty" type="external">Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces</a> (INF) Treaty.</p> <p>That historic agreement &#8212; the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems &#8212; banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and 5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence.&amp;#160; After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR&#8217;s treaty obligations and pledged to uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements.&amp;#160; In the view of most observers, the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others, including the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USRussiaNuclearAgreementsMarch2010" type="external">New START</a>, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010.</p> <p>Today, however, this picture has changed dramatically.&amp;#160; The Obama administration has <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_0102/Features/INF-Treaty-Impasse-Time-for-Russian-Action" type="external">concluded</a> that Russia has violated the INF treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile of prohibited range, and there is reason to believe that, in the not-too-distant future, Moscow might abandon that treaty altogether.&amp;#160; Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable measures in response.&amp;#160; The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly.</p> <p>Much of this is due, it seems, to Russian <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/russia-and-security-of-europe-pub-63990" type="external">fears</a> about its military inferiority vis-&#224;-vis the West.&amp;#160; In the chaotic years following the collapse of the USSR, Russian military spending plummeted and the size and quality of its forces diminished accordingly.&amp;#160; In an effort to restore Russia&#8217;s combat capabilities, President Vladimir Putin launched a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion and modernization program.&amp;#160; The fruits of this effort were apparent in the Crimea and Ukraine in 2014, when Russian forces, however disguised, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/world/europe/new-prowess-for-russians.html" type="external">demonstrated</a> better fighting skills and wielded better weaponry than in the Chechnya wars a decade earlier.&amp;#160; Even Russian analysts acknowledge, however, that their military in its current state would be no match for American and NATO forces in a head-on encounter, given the West&#8217;s superior array of conventional weaponry.&amp;#160; To fill the breach, Russian strategic doctrine now <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/russia-and-security-of-europe-pub-63990" type="external">calls for</a> the early use of nuclear weapons to offset an enemy&#8217;s superior conventional forces.</p> <p>To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence.&amp;#160; They point, in particular, to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-idUSKCN0ZN2NL" type="external">build-up</a> of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html" type="external">promises</a> made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so.&amp;#160; As a result, Russia has been bolstering its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and <a href="https://sputniknews.com/world/201606171041493788-nato-russia-readiness-test/" type="external">training</a> its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there.</p> <p>This is where the nuclear threshold enters the picture.&amp;#160; Fearing that it might be defeated in a future clash, its military strategists have called for the early use of tactical nuclear weapons, some of which no doubt would violate the INF Treaty, in order to decimate NATO forces and compel them to quit fighting.&amp;#160; Paradoxically, in Russia, this is labeled a &#8220; <a href="http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation" type="external">de-escalation</a>&#8221; strategy, as resorting to strategic nuclear attacks on the U.S. under such circumstances would inevitably result in Russia&#8217;s annihilation.&amp;#160; On the other hand, a limited nuclear strike (so the reasoning goes) could potentially achieve success on the battlefield without igniting all-out atomic war.&amp;#160; As Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace explains, this strategy <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/russia-and-security-of-europe-pub-63990" type="external">assumes</a> that such supposedly &#8220;limited&#8221; nuclear strikes &#8220;will have a sobering effect on the enemy, which will then cease and desist.&#8221;</p> <p>To what degree tactical nuclear weapons have been incorporated into Moscow&#8217;s official military doctrine remains unknown, given the degree of secrecy surrounding such matters.&amp;#160; It is apparent, however, that the Russians have been developing the means with which to conduct such &#8220;limited&#8221; strikes.&amp;#160; Of greatest concern to Western analysts in this regard is their deployment of the <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/ss-26.htm" type="external">Iskander-M</a> short-range ballistic missile, a modern version of the infamous Soviet-era <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud#Scud_attacks" type="external">&#8220;Scud&#8221; missile</a> (used by Saddam Hussein&#8217;s forces during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991).&amp;#160; Said to have a range of 500 kilometers (just within the INF limit), the Iskander can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.&amp;#160; As a result, a targeted country or a targeted military could never be sure which type it might be facing (and might simply assume the worst).&amp;#160; Adding to such worries, the Russians have <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/introducing-the-iskander-the-russian-missile-nato-fears-15653" type="external">deployed</a> the Iskander in Kaliningrad, a tiny chunk of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that just happens to put it within range of many western European cities.</p> <p>In response, NATO strategists have <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_06/Features/Just-Leave-It-NATOs-Nuclear-Weapons-Policy-at-the-Warsaw-Summit" type="external">discussed</a> lowering the nuclear threshold themselves, arguing &#8212; ominously enough &#8212; that the Russians will only be fully dissuaded from employing their limited-nuclear-war strategy if they know that NATO has a robust capacity to do the same.&amp;#160; At the very least, what&#8217;s needed, some of them <a href="http://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/nato-must-adapt-to-address-russias-nuclear-brinkmanship_3263.html" type="external">claim</a>, is a more frequent inclusion of nuclear-capable or dual-use aircraft in exercises on Russia&#8217;s frontiers to &#8220;signal&#8221; NATO&#8217;s willingness to resort to limited nuclear strikes, too.&amp;#160; Again, such moves are not yet official NATO strategy, but it&#8217;s clear that senior officials are <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_09/News-Briefs/NATO-Highlights-Role-of-Nuclear-Weapons" type="external">weighing them</a> seriously.</p> <p>Just how all of this might play out in a European crisis is, of course, unknown, but both sides in an increasingly edgy standoff are coming to accept that nuclear weapons might have a future military role, which is, of course, a recipe for almost unimaginable escalation and disaster of an apocalyptic sort.&amp;#160; This danger is likely to become more pronounced in the years ahead because both Washington and Moscow seem remarkably intent on developing and deploying new nuclear weapons designed with just such needs in mind.</p> <p>The New Nuclear Armaments</p> <p>Both countries are already in the midst of ambitious and extremely costly efforts to &#8220; <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162279" type="external">modernize</a>&#8221; their nuclear arsenals.&amp;#160; Of all the weapons now being developed, the two generating the most anxiety in terms of that nuclear threshold are a new Russian ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) and an advanced U.S. air-launched cruise missile (ALCM).&amp;#160; Unlike ballistic missiles, which exit the Earth&#8217;s atmosphere before returning to strike their targets, such <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile" type="external">cruise missiles</a> remain within the atmosphere throughout their flight.</p> <p>American officials claim that the Russian GLCM, reportedly now being deployed, is of a type outlawed by the INF Treaty.&amp;#160; Without providing specifics, the State Department <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_0102/Features/INF-Treaty-Impasse-Time-for-Russian-Action" type="external">indicated</a> in a 2014 memo that it had &#8220;a range capability of 500 km [kilometers] to 5,500 km,&#8221; which would indeed put it in violation of that treaty by allowing Russian combat forces to launch nuclear warheads against cities throughout Europe and the Middle East in a &#8220;limited&#8221; nuclear war.</p> <p>The GLCM is likely to prove one of the most vexing foreign policy issues the next president will face.&amp;#160; So far, the White House has been reluctant to press Moscow too hard, fearing that the Russians might respond by exiting the INF Treaty altogether and so eliminate remaining constraints on its missile program.&amp;#160; But many in Congress and among Washington&#8217;s foreign policy elite are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/world/europe/russia-missiles-inf-treaty.html" type="external">eager to see</a> the next occupant of the Oval Office take a tougher stance if the Russians don&#8217;t halt deployment of the missile, threatening Moscow with more severe economic sanctions or moving toward countermeasures like the deployment of enhanced anti-missile systems in Europe.&amp;#160; The Russians would, in turn, undoubtedly perceive such moves as threats to their strategic deterrent forces and so an invitation for further weapons acquisitions, setting off a fresh round in the long-dormant Cold War nuclear arms race.</p> <p>On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2015_05/News/Air-Force-Wants-Thousand-New-Cruise-Missiles" type="external">new version</a> of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers.&amp;#160; Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what might be heading their way.&amp;#160; In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis, leading to the early use of nuclear weapons.&amp;#160; Put another way, such missiles make for <a href="http://www.ploughshares.org/GhostsoftheColdWar" type="external">twitchy trigger fingers</a> and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust.</p> <p>No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-kill-the-new-cruise-missile/2015/10/15/e3e2807c-6ecd-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html" type="external">called on</a> President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. &#8220;Because they&#8230; come in both nuclear and conventional variants,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon.&#8221; And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president.</p> <p>The New Nuclear Era</p> <p>Whoever is elected on November 8th, we are evidently all headed into a world in which Trumpian-style itchy trigger fingers could be the norm. It already looks like both Moscow and Washington will contribute significantly to this development &#8212; and they may not be alone. In response to Russian and American moves in the nuclear arena, China is reported to be developing a &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/science/atom-bomb-nuclear-weapons-hgv-arms-race-russia-china.html" type="external">hypersonic glide vehicle</a>,&#8221; a new type of nuclear warhead better able to evade anti-missile defenses &#8212; something that, at a moment of heightened crisis, might make a nuclear first strike seem more attractive to Washington. And don&#8217;t forget Pakistan, which is <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/pakistan-s-tactical-nuclear-weapons-and-their-impact-on-stability-pub-6391" type="external">developing</a> its own short-range &#8220;tactical&#8221; nuclear missiles, increasing the risk of the quick escalation of any future Indo-Pakistani confrontation to a nuclear exchange. (To put such &#8220;regional&#8221; dangers in perspective, a local nuclear war in South Asia could cause a global nuclear winter and, according to <a href="http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf" type="external">one study</a>, possibly kill a billion people worldwide, thanks to crop failures and the like.)</p> <p>And don&#8217;t forget North Korea, which is now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/did-north-korea-just-test-missiles-capable-of-hitting-the-us-maybe/2016/10/26/984e8a21-e6a7-4689-81e0-21d7d25c302f_story.html" type="external">testing</a> a nuclear-armed ICBM, the Musudan, intended to strike the Western United States.&amp;#160; That prompted a controversial <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea-thaad-idUSKCN11X2KO" type="external">decision</a> in Washington to deploy <a href="https://www.mda.mil/system/thaad.html" type="external">THAAD</a> (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile batteries in South Korea (something China bitterly opposes), as well as the consideration of other countermeasures, including undoubtedly scenarios involving first strikes against the North Koreans.</p> <p>It&#8217;s clear that we&#8217;re on the threshold of a new nuclear era: a time when the actual use of atomic weapons is being accorded greater plausibility by military and political leaders globally, while war plans are being revised to allow the use of such weapons at an earlier stage in future armed clashes.</p> <p>As a result, the next president will have to grapple with nuclear weapons issues &#8212; and possible nuclear crises &#8212; in a way unknown since the Cold War era.&amp;#160; Above all else, this will require both a cool head and a sufficient command of nuclear matters to navigate competing pressures from allies, the military, politicians, pundits, and the foreign policy establishment without precipitating a nuclear conflagration.&amp;#160; On the face of it, that should disqualify Donald Trump.&amp;#160; When questioned on nuclear issues in the first debate, he <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176194/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_the_national_security_void/" type="external">exhibited</a> a striking ignorance of the most basic aspects of nuclear policy.&amp;#160; But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward Russia.</p> <p>In other words, whoever enters the Oval Office, it may be time for the rest of us to take up those antinuclear signs long left to molder in closets and memories, and put some political pressure on leaders globally to avoid strategies and weapons that would make human life on this planet so much more precarious than it already is.</p> <p>Michael T. Klare, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176186/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_the_rise_of_the_right_and_climate_catastrophe/#more" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Race for What&#8217;s Left</a>. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on <a href="https://twitter.com/TomDispatch" type="external">Twitter</a> and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Next Time They&#8217;ll Come to Count the Dead</a>, and Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2016 Michael T. Klare</p>

Whose Finger on the Nuclear Button?

https://truthdig.com/articles/whose-finger-on-the-nuclear-button/

2016-11-07

4left

By Michael T Klare TomDispatch Once upon a time when choosing a new president a factor for many voters was the perennial question 8220Whose finger do you want on the nuclear button8221 Of all the responsibilities of America8217s top executive none may be more momentous than deciding whether and under what circumstances to activate the 8220nuclear codes8221 8212 the secret alphanumeric messages that would inform missile officers in silos and submarines that the fearful moment had finally arrived to launch their intercontinental ballistic missiles ICBMs toward a foreign adversary igniting a thermonuclear war Until recently in the postCold War world however nuclear weapons seemed to drop from sight and that question along with it Not any longer In 2016 the nuclear issue is back big time thanks both to the rise of Donald Trump including various unsettling comments he8217s made about nuclear weapons and actual changes in the global nuclear landscape With passions running high on both sides in this year8217s election and rising fears about Donald Trump8217s impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton8217s hawkish one it8217s hardly surprising that the 8220nuclear button8221 question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign amp160In one of the more pointed exchanges of the first presidential debate Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure for the jobamp160 8220A man who can be provoked by a tweet8221 she commented 8220should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes8221amp160 Donald Trump has reciprocated by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad 8220You8217re going to end up in World War III over Syria8221 he told reporters in Florida last month For most election observers however the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated discussions of the nuclear issue with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codesamp160 There is however a more important reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around at this very moment for a variety of reasons the 8220nuclear threshold8221 8212 the point at which some party to a 8220conventional8221 nonnuclear conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons 8212 seems to be moving dangerously lower Not so long ago it was implausible that a major nuclear power 8212 the United States Russia or China 8212 would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenarioamp160 No longeramp160 Worse yet this is likely to be our reality for years to come which means that the next president will face a world in which a nuclear decisionmaking point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have thought possible just a year or two ago 8212 with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all No less worrisome the major nuclear powers and some smaller ones are all in the process of acquiring new nuclear arms which could in theory push that threshold lower stillamp160 These include a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in 8220limited8221 nuclear wars 8212 atomic conflicts that in theory at least could be confined to just a single country or one area of the world say Eastern Europe and so might be even easier for decisionmakers to initiateamp160 The next president will have to decide whether the US should actually produce weapons of this type and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington8217s likely adversaries Lowering the Nuclear Threshold During the dark days of the Cold War nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and their allies might lead from say minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to fullscale tank combat to in the end the use of 8220battlefield8221 nuclear weapons and then citybusting versions of the same to avert defeatamp160 In some of these scenarios strategists hypothesized about wielding 8220tactical8221 or battlefield weaponry 8212 nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation but not Paris or Moscow 8212 and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but still subapocalyptic levelamp160 Henry Kissinger for instance made his reputation by preaching this lunatic doctrine in his first book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policyamp160 Eventually leaders on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents to the use of such weaponry by the other sideamp160 This was of course the concept of 8220 mutually assured destruction8221 or 8212 in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times MADamp160 It would in the end form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the Soviet Union began deploying the SS20 intermediaterange ballistic missile capable of striking cities in Europe but not the US and Washington responded with plans to deploy nucleararmed groundlaunched cruise missiles and the PershingII ballistic missile in Europeamp160 The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe and the United Statesamp160 On December 8 1987 at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear conflagration in Europe might trigger an allout nuclear exchange between the superpowers President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces INF Treaty That historic agreement 8212 the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems 8212 banned the deployment of groundbased cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and 5500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existenceamp160 After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Russian Federation inherited the USSR8217s treaty obligations and pledged to uphold the INF along with other USSoviet arms control agreementsamp160 In the view of most observers the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others including the New START the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010 Today however this picture has changed dramaticallyamp160 The Obama administration has concluded that Russia has violated the INF treaty by testing a groundlaunched cruise missile of prohibited range and there is reason to believe that in the nottoodistant future Moscow might abandon that treaty altogetheramp160 Even more troubling Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war and NATO is considering comparable measures in responseamp160 The nuclear threshold in other words is dropping rapidly Much of this is due it seems to Russian fears about its military inferiority vis224vis the Westamp160 In the chaotic years following the collapse of the USSR Russian military spending plummeted and the size and quality of its forces diminished accordinglyamp160 In an effort to restore Russia8217s combat capabilities President Vladimir Putin launched a multiyear multibilliondollar expansion and modernization programamp160 The fruits of this effort were apparent in the Crimea and Ukraine in 2014 when Russian forces however disguised demonstrated better fighting skills and wielded better weaponry than in the Chechnya wars a decade earlieramp160 Even Russian analysts acknowledge however that their military in its current state would be no match for American and NATO forces in a headon encounter given the West8217s superior array of conventional weaponryamp160 To fill the breach Russian strategic doctrine now calls for the early use of nuclear weapons to offset an enemy8217s superior conventional forces To put this in perspective Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a USled drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influenceamp160 They point in particular to the buildup of NATO forces in the Baltic countries involving the semipermanent deployment of combat battalions in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union and in apparent violation of promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do soamp160 As a result Russia has been bolstering its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states and training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there This is where the nuclear threshold enters the pictureamp160 Fearing that it might be defeated in a future clash its military strategists have called for the early use of tactical nuclear weapons some of which no doubt would violate the INF Treaty in order to decimate NATO forces and compel them to quit fightingamp160 Paradoxically in Russia this is labeled a 8220 deescalation8221 strategy as resorting to strategic nuclear attacks on the US under such circumstances would inevitably result in Russia8217s annihilationamp160 On the other hand a limited nuclear strike so the reasoning goes could potentially achieve success on the battlefield without igniting allout atomic waramp160 As Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace explains this strategy assumes that such supposedly 8220limited8221 nuclear strikes 8220will have a sobering effect on the enemy which will then cease and desist8221 To what degree tactical nuclear weapons have been incorporated into Moscow8217s official military doctrine remains unknown given the degree of secrecy surrounding such mattersamp160 It is apparent however that the Russians have been developing the means with which to conduct such 8220limited8221 strikesamp160 Of greatest concern to Western analysts in this regard is their deployment of the IskanderM shortrange ballistic missile a modern version of the infamous Sovietera 8220Scud8221 missile used by Saddam Hussein8217s forces during the IranIraq war of 19801988 and the Persian Gulf War of 19901991amp160 Said to have a range of 500 kilometers just within the INF limit the Iskander can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warheadamp160 As a result a targeted country or a targeted military could never be sure which type it might be facing and might simply assume the worstamp160 Adding to such worries the Russians have deployed the Iskander in Kaliningrad a tiny chunk of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that just happens to put it within range of many western European cities In response NATO strategists have discussed lowering the nuclear threshold themselves arguing 8212 ominously enough 8212 that the Russians will only be fully dissuaded from employing their limitednuclearwar strategy if they know that NATO has a robust capacity to do the sameamp160 At the very least what8217s needed some of them claim is a more frequent inclusion of nuclearcapable or dualuse aircraft in exercises on Russia8217s frontiers to 8220signal8221 NATO8217s willingness to resort to limited nuclear strikes tooamp160 Again such moves are not yet official NATO strategy but it8217s clear that senior officials are weighing them seriously Just how all of this might play out in a European crisis is of course unknown but both sides in an increasingly edgy standoff are coming to accept that nuclear weapons might have a future military role which is of course a recipe for almost unimaginable escalation and disaster of an apocalyptic sortamp160 This danger is likely to become more pronounced in the years ahead because both Washington and Moscow seem remarkably intent on developing and deploying new nuclear weapons designed with just such needs in mind The New Nuclear Armaments Both countries are already in the midst of ambitious and extremely costly efforts to 8220 modernize8221 their nuclear arsenalsamp160 Of all the weapons now being developed the two generating the most anxiety in terms of that nuclear threshold are a new Russian groundlaunched cruise missile GLCM and an advanced US airlaunched cruise missile ALCMamp160 Unlike ballistic missiles which exit the Earth8217s atmosphere before returning to strike their targets such cruise missiles remain within the atmosphere throughout their flight American officials claim that the Russian GLCM reportedly now being deployed is of a type outlawed by the INF Treatyamp160 Without providing specifics the State Department indicated in a 2014 memo that it had 8220a range capability of 500 km kilometers to 5500 km8221 which would indeed put it in violation of that treaty by allowing Russian combat forces to launch nuclear warheads against cities throughout Europe and the Middle East in a 8220limited8221 nuclear war The GLCM is likely to prove one of the most vexing foreign policy issues the next president will faceamp160 So far the White House has been reluctant to press Moscow too hard fearing that the Russians might respond by exiting the INF Treaty altogether and so eliminate remaining constraints on its missile programamp160 But many in Congress and among Washington8217s foreign policy elite are eager to see the next occupant of the Oval Office take a tougher stance if the Russians don8217t halt deployment of the missile threatening Moscow with more severe economic sanctions or moving toward countermeasures like the deployment of enhanced antimissile systems in Europeamp160 The Russians would in turn undoubtedly perceive such moves as threats to their strategic deterrent forces and so an invitation for further weapons acquisitions setting off a fresh round in the longdormant Cold War nuclear arms race On the American side the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM86B airlaunched cruise missile usually carried by B52 bombersamp160 Also known as the LongRange Standoff Weapon LRSO it is like the IskanderM expected to be deployed in both nuclear and conventional versions leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what might be heading their wayamp160 In other words as with the IskanderM the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis leading to the early use of nuclear weaponsamp160 Put another way such missiles make for twitchy trigger fingers and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war which once started might in turn take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post oped piece 8220Because they8230 come in both nuclear and conventional variants8221 he wrote 8220cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon8221 And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president The New Nuclear Era Whoever is elected on November 8th we are evidently all headed into a world in which Trumpianstyle itchy trigger fingers could be the norm It already looks like both Moscow and Washington will contribute significantly to this development 8212 and they may not be alone In response to Russian and American moves in the nuclear arena China is reported to be developing a 8220 hypersonic glide vehicle8221 a new type of nuclear warhead better able to evade antimissile defenses 8212 something that at a moment of heightened crisis might make a nuclear first strike seem more attractive to Washington And don8217t forget Pakistan which is developing its own shortrange 8220tactical8221 nuclear missiles increasing the risk of the quick escalation of any future IndoPakistani confrontation to a nuclear exchange To put such 8220regional8221 dangers in perspective a local nuclear war in South Asia could cause a global nuclear winter and according to one study possibly kill a billion people worldwide thanks to crop failures and the like And don8217t forget North Korea which is now testing a nucleararmed ICBM the Musudan intended to strike the Western United Statesamp160 That prompted a controversial decision in Washington to deploy THAAD Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile batteries in South Korea something China bitterly opposes as well as the consideration of other countermeasures including undoubtedly scenarios involving first strikes against the North Koreans It8217s clear that we8217re on the threshold of a new nuclear era a time when the actual use of atomic weapons is being accorded greater plausibility by military and political leaders globally while war plans are being revised to allow the use of such weapons at an earlier stage in future armed clashes As a result the next president will have to grapple with nuclear weapons issues 8212 and possible nuclear crises 8212 in a way unknown since the Cold War eraamp160 Above all else this will require both a cool head and a sufficient command of nuclear matters to navigate competing pressures from allies the military politicians pundits and the foreign policy establishment without precipitating a nuclear conflagrationamp160 On the face of it that should disqualify Donald Trumpamp160 When questioned on nuclear issues in the first debate he exhibited a striking ignorance of the most basic aspects of nuclear policyamp160 But even Hillary Clinton for all her experience as secretary of state is likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise in the years ahead especially given that her inclination is to toughen US policy toward Russia In other words whoever enters the Oval Office it may be time for the rest of us to take up those antinuclear signs long left to molder in closets and memories and put some political pressure on leaders globally to avoid strategies and weapons that would make human life on this planet so much more precarious than it already is Michael T Klare a TomDispatch regular is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author most recently of The Race for What8217s Left A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation Follow him on Twitter at mklare1 Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook Check out the newest Dispatch Book Nick Turse8217samp160 Next Time They8217ll Come to Count the Dead and Tom Engelhardt8217s latest book Shadow Government Surveillance Secret Wars and a Global Security State in a SingleSuperpower World Copyright 2016 Michael T Klare

By/ADP Michael/PROPN T/PROPN Klare/PROPN TomDispatch/PROPN Once/ADV upon/SCONJ a/DET time/NOUN when/SCONJ choosing/VERB a/DET new/ADJ president/NOUN a/DET factor/NOUN for/ADP many/ADJ voters/NOUN was/AUX the/DET perennial/ADJ question/NOUN 8220Whose/NUM finger/NOUN do/AUX you/PRON want/VERB on/ADP the/DET nuclear/ADJ button8221/NOUN Of/ADP all/DET the/DET responsibilities/NOUN of/ADP America8217s/ADJ top/ADJ executive/NOUN none/NOUN may/AUX be/AUX more/ADV momentous/ADJ than/ADP deciding/VERB whether/SCONJ and/CCONJ under/ADP what/DET circumstances/NOUN to/PART activate/VERB the/DET 8220nuclear/PROPN codes8221/NOUN 8212/NUM the/DET secret/ADJ alphanumeric/ADJ messages/NOUN that/PRON would/AUX inform/VERB missile/NOUN officers/NOUN in/ADP silos/NOUN and/CCONJ submarines/NOUN that/SCONJ the/DET fearful/ADJ moment/NOUN had/AUX finally/ADV arrived/VERB to/PART launch/VERB their/PRON intercontinental/ADJ ballistic/ADJ missiles/NOUN ICBMs/NOUN toward/ADP a/DET foreign/ADJ adversary/NOUN 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<p>Towey: VHA manual tells veterans to "hurry-up-and-die." In an August 18 Wall Street Journal column headlined, "The Death Book for Veterans," Towey, director of faith-based initiatives under President Bush, asserted that "government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care." Towey continued:</p> <p>Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."</p> <p>[...]</p> <p>When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel? [The Wall Street Journal, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html" type="external">8/18/09</a>]</p> <p>"Your Life, Your Choices" is not a "death book." The booklet <a href="/research/2009/08/24/death-book-distortions-abound-on-fox-news-sunda/153719" type="external">emphasizes</a> that "your wishes will direct future health care decisions" and presents preserving one's life "using any means possible" as an option to consider. An August 23 <a href="http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=E92C3115AEF3222434DA520E0B436AF0?diaryId=3084" type="external">post</a> by VoteVets.org blogger Richard Smith criticized Towey's assertion that "Your Life, Your Choices" presents "end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions," writing: "Really, if the document was really trying to get veterans to pull the plug on themselves, then first suggesting to them that their life should be prolonged at all costs is a pretty stupid way to do it."</p> <p>Towey's organization is selling "Five Wishes" booklet on end-of-life issues. As Media Matters for America <a href="/research/2009/08/24/ny-times-reports-on-toweys-attack-on-your-life/153711" type="external">noted</a>, the organization Towey <a href="http://www.agingwithdignity.org/founder.php" type="external">founded</a>, Aging with Dignity, sells " <a href="http://www.agingwithdignity.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=28" type="external">Five Wishes</a>," a booklet that, like " <a href="http://www.ethics.va.gov/YLYC/YLYC_First_edition_20001001.pdf" type="external">Your Life, Your Choices</a>," is designed to guide people in the creation of a living will. Huffington Post news editor Marcus Baram <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/22/how-conservatives-got-the_n_266275.html" type="external">reported</a> on August 22 that "Towey seems to have his own axe to grind" in criticizing "Your Life, Your Choices" in that Towey "has repeatedly tried to get the government to spend millions to purchase his 'Five Wishes' book," citing "VA sources."</p> <p>NRO: Towey op-ed a "must-read." An August 19 <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmI2NDAzMGQyNTZmNDdjMDQ0NWU2NTZkMjExZWJmMDU" type="external">post</a> on National Review Online's blog The Corner, titled, "Would You Like Some Hemlock with Your Jello? -- Government-run 'End-of-Life' Counseling at the VA," called the op-ed a "must-read."</p> <p>Hannity: Is document "equivalent of a death panel?" On his August 20 Fox News show, Sean Hannity said during an interview with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele: "[A]pparently, they've got this document that they show veterans at all our VA hospitals, and they asked -- there's a section in which it says, have you ever heard anyone say, I'm a vegetable, pull the plug; I'm a severe burden financially on my family; I'm causing severe emotional damage to my family?" Hannity asked Steele if the manual is "the equivalent of a death panel," and Steele replied that "in my view, it very well could be."</p> <p>Palin: VHA "encourages veterans to forego care as they make end-of-life decisions." In an August 20 <a href="http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=24718773587&amp;amp;share_id=124856271147&amp;amp;comments=1#s124856271147" type="external">post</a> on her Facebook page, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin linked to Towey's op-ed, adding that "Jim Towey writes in The Wall Street Journal that the Veterans Administration encourages veterans to forego care as they make end-of-life decisions."</p> <p>Limbaugh: Obama asking veterans to volunteer to die. On the August 21 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh <a href="/video/2009/08/21/limbaugh-claims-obama-asking-veterans-to-volunt/153640" type="external">used the term</a> "death book" to describe the booklet and asserted that Obama is "asking veterans to basically say, 'You know what? I want to check out. The hell with this. I live in a nursing home. Screw it. Pull the plug. Where's Doctor Kevorkian?' This thing is obsessed with death. It's obsessed with you deciding -- or with some -- maybe some influence -- that your life isn't worth living. It's -- there's nothing positive in this."</p> <p>Wallace: "[W]e're going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book, and you'll find out why he calls this the death book." On the August 21 edition of Fox News' Fox &amp;amp; Friends, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace promoted his August 23 interview with Towey:</p> <p>WALLACE: I want to tell you about Sunday, because we actually have something that isn't a joke, that I think is a very serious story. There has been a lot of talk, of course, about the death panels, and some people have said that is overstated. We're going to tell you on Sunday about this book. This is a book that is being currently used by the Veterans Administration for end-of-life counseling on -- to veterans, either those returning -- oftentimes with terrible injuries -- or veterans up to the end of their life.</p> <p>It is a book that is being used on end-of-life counseling, and I think you're going to be shocked when you find what it is that health care providers and the Veterans Administration right now are telling, advising, asking veterans. And which certainly seems to lead in the direction of pulling the plug, if you ever get to that situation at the end of life. And we're going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book, and you'll find out why he calls this the death book. This is current Veterans Administration policy -- the kind of end-of-life counseling that is going on VA hospitals across the country right now.</p> <p>Wallace, Towey advance "death book," "death panel" smears. From Towey's August 23 Fox News Sunday interview:</p> <p>WALLACE: We're going to do something different here today. Usually we discuss the news, but today we're going to tell you about something you may never have heard about -- what critics are calling the "death book."</p> <p>[...]</p> <p>WALLACE: Let's start with an overview. What's wrong with this material, "Your Life, Your Choices," that the VA is using for end-of-life counseling right now?</p> <p>In the article that you wrote in The Wall Street Journal, in which you disclosed this, you say that the message is clear: hurry up and die.</p> <p>TOWEY: Well, the message that they want to communicate, I think, is that if you have a stroke or if you have a coma situation, that somehow your life has lost a little value and it may not be worth living anymore.</p> <p>My problem with the document, Chris, is that the author of it is a proponent of assisted suicide; he's way out there on that issue. And the VA has been using this -- a new directive just came out in July urging providers to refer patients to it. So, in my view, there should be a balanced treatment. And this is a slippery slope that kind of makes people -- when you look at the document, it makes people feel like they're a burden and that they should do the decent thing and die.</p> <p>WALLACE: All right. We're going to get to the specifics in this book in a second, but I want to ask you another general question.</p> <p>President Obama calls talk of a government-run death panel a, quote, "extraordinary lie." But I want to put up what you said in your Wall Street Journal article this week. You said the following: "When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?" [Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, <a href="/research/2009/08/24/death-book-distortions-abound-on-fox-news-sunda/153719" type="external">08/23/09</a>]</p> <p>Wallace, Towey misrepresented passage that says, "If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug." Prompted by Wallace, Towey cited a passage in "Your Life, Your Choices" that reads, "I'm a vegetable, pull the plug," as an example of why he thinks "the document is so fundamentally flawed that the VA ought to throw it out." In his op-ed, Towey suggested that language was "aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political 'push poll.' " As Media Matters <a href="/research/2009/08/24/death-book-distortions-abound-on-fox-news-sunda/153719" type="external">noted</a>, however, the context of that passage was an explanation of the importance of being very specific regarding your end-of-life preferences. "Your Life, Your Choices" says that statements like, "If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug," can mean different things to different people.</p> <p>Wallace, Towey falsely claimed Bush suspended purported "death book" use. During the interview, Towey claimed that the Bush administration "pulled" the document in 2007, and Wallace claimed that "President Bush suspended the use of this document" and that the Obama administration "reinstate[d] it." In reality, Bush's VA promoted the document throughout his presidency, as <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/23/771489/-Foxs-death-book-lie" type="external">documented</a> by Daily Kos blogger Jed Lewison. Indeed, an online document on the VA's website labeled, " <a href="http://www1.va.gov/pugetsound/page.cfm?pg=68" type="external">Reviewed/Updated Date: December 29, 2008</a>," states, "To learn about a Living Will, read 'Your Life, Your Choices.' "</p> <p>Wallace falsely claimed VHA document directs VA doctors "to refer all veterans" to "Your Life, Your Choices." During his interview with Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth on the August 23 edition of Fox News Sunday, Wallace claimed that "more than a month ago -- VA health practitioners were told to refer all veterans -- not just end-of-life veterans, but all 24 million veterans -- to this document, 'Your Life, Your Choices.' " <a href="/research/2009/08/23/wallace-crops-vha-doc-to-falsely-suggest-obama/153685" type="external">In fact</a>, as Media Matters documented, the VHA document to which Wallace was referring actually directs patients to " 'Your Life, Your Choices' ... or other published resources." [Fox News Sunday, <a href="/research/2009/08/23/wallace-crops-vha-doc-to-falsely-suggest-obama/153685" type="external">8/23/09</a>]</p> <p>Bream: "[C]ontroversy" over "death book." On the August 23 edition of Fox News' America's News HQ, Fox News legal analyst Shannon Bream hosted Wallace to talk about his interview with Towey and repeatedly promoted the idea of a "death book." Bream said that a "controversy that is brewing around what is being called the death book," prompting Wallace to respond that "it seems to at the very least raise and some would say even steer veterans at the end of their life to pulling the plug."</p> <p>Goldberg: Duckworth "defended this irretrievably gross book on the merits and attacked the messenger to boot." In an August 23 NRO <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjIzNzYzMjU2YTNhZmI1YjE2MGJhM2QwMmZlNGY3YmU" type="external">post</a>, editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg adopted "death book" and "death panels" while attacking Duckworth's "very lame" "talking points." From Goldberg's post:</p> <p>I just watched Tammy Duckworth try her best to defend the V.A. " <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html" type="external">death book</a>" on Fox News Sunday. The Iraq War veteran was severely wounded as an army aviator, losing both her legs, and is currently an assistant secretary at the V.A. The administration sent her out to defend the book and to push back against Jim Towey, who first raised the issue. While she admirably held her own, her talking points were often very, very lame (she kept insinuating that Towey's bitter his $5 book isn't free of charge to vets). The upshot was she defended this irretrievably gross book on the merits and attacked the messenger to boot. And here's the thing: The death book is doomed, doomed. It's obvious Obama will pull the thing, because it's the right thing to do and because it's a political no-brainer while he's trying to shake off the "death panel" albatross. So they sent out Duckworth to stake a position that will be reversed, making her look like a fool. Just give it time.</p> <p>Goldberg: "Metaphysically grotesque document" is "telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized." On the August 24 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Goldberg claimed that "[t]here's no way Obama can be trying to sell a massive new health care plan that has this sort of specter of death panels hovering around it, and at the same time support this really sort of metaphysically grotesque document, which is telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized." Host Megyn Kelly also <a href="/research/2009/08/23/wallace-crops-vha-doc-to-falsely-suggest-obama/153685" type="external">falsely claimed</a> that the administration "requires physicians at VAs to at least refer their patients to this." From the segment:</p> <p>KELLY: Let me ask you about that, because Tammy Duckworth said, look, it hasn't -- she maintains it hasn't been in effect. Now, the facts appear to belie that, because this has been up on their website since July 2, and requires physicians at VAs to at least refer their patients to this booklet. So, put aside that fact. Shouldn't the Obama administration just take this down? Maybe they inherited it from the Bush administration -- shouldn't it just come down off the website? End of controversy?</p> <p>GOLDBERG: Of course they should. I mean, I think the politics are obvious, the morality is obvious. And that's one of the reasons why it's so outrageous to send poor Tammy Duckworth out there, not armed with the facts, who's going to get thrown under the bus in two weeks time anyway, because there's no way Obama can be trying to sell a massive new health care plan that has this sort of specter of death panels hovering around it, and at the same time support this really sort of metaphysically grotesque document, which is telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized. [America's Newsroom, <a href="/video/2009/08/24/on-fox-jonah-goldberg-claims-va-pamphlet-tells/153704" type="external">08/24/09</a>]</p> <p>Conservative media also promoted false "death panel" term. After serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey <a href="/research/2009/07/31/media-echo-serial-misinformer-mccaugheys-false/152759" type="external">falsely claimed</a> that the House health care reform bill instituted "mandatory" end-of-life counseling sessions for seniors, Palin wrote in a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434" type="external">post</a> on her Facebook page: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." Numerous media outlets -- <a href="/research/2009/08/14/doocy-ignores-fox-personalities-role-in-advanci/153327" type="external">including Fox News</a> -- promoted Palin's "death panel" smear and the related claim -- initiated by McCaughey -- that the bill would "absolutely require" that seniors on Medicare undergo end-of-life counseling "that will tell them how to end their life sooner," even though those claims had been debunked in the media <a href="/research/2009/08/15/report-the-media-have-debunked-the-death-panels/153367" type="external">40 times over</a>.</p> <p>From the August 20 edition of Fox News' Hannity:</p> <p>HANNITY: Well, I want to ask you this. There was an article in The Wall Street Journal, and it talks about, quote, "the death books" for veterans. Have you -- I don't know if you had an opportunity to read this, because we've talked a lot about these death panels. Governor Palin -- Democrats, denied it existed then they pulled it out.</p> <p>But among the many things, apparently they've got this document that they show veterans at all our VA hospitals, and they asked -- there's a section in which it says, have you ever heard anyone say, I'm a vegetable, pull the plug; I'm a severe burden financially on my family; I'm causing severe emotional damage to my family?</p> <p>Now that exists and was eliminated in the Bush years and brought back under President Obama.</p> <p>STEELE: Yeah.</p> <p>HANNITY: Is that the equivalent of a death panel?</p> <p>STEELE: I -- in my view, it very well could be. And that's the problem here. No one is laying out with any clarity exactly what these panels -- what this composition of medical professionals are going to do.</p> <p>From the August 21 edition of Fox News' Fox &amp;amp; Friends:</p> <p>WALLACE: I want to tell you about Sunday, because we actually have something that isn't a joke, that I think is a very serious story. There has been a lot of talk, of course, about the death panels, and some people have said that is overstated. We're going to tell you on Sunday about this book. This is a book that is being currently used by the Veterans Administration for end-of-life counseling on -- to veterans, either those returning -- oftentimes with terrible injuries -- or veterans up to the end of their life.</p> <p>It is a book that is being used on end-of-life counseling, and I think you're going to be shocked when you find what it is that health care providers and the Veterans Administration right now are telling, advising, asking veterans. And which certainly seems to lead in the direction of pulling the plug, if you ever get to that situation at the end of life. And we're going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book, and you'll find out why he calls this the death book. This is current Veterans Administration policy -- the kind of end-of-life counseling that is going on VA hospitals across the country right now.</p> <p>From the August 23 edition of Fox News' America's News HQ:</p> <p>BREAM: Hurricane Bill sweeps past New England, hampering the first family's vacation plans. But as President Obama plans for some downtime in Martha's Vineyard, the health care debate rages. Word today from leading -- excuse me. A controversy that is brewing around what is being called the death book. Earlier today I sat down with Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, to talk all about it.</p> <p>[begin video clip]</p> <p>BREAM: A fascinating show today on Fox News Sunday -- they're always great -- but today some brand new information I had never heard before about these so-called death books that involve veterans. What is that all about?</p> <p>WALLACE: Well, here it is -- 51 pages. Let me -- there you go -- and it's called "Your Life, Your Choices." And this is an end-of-life counseling book that is given to all 24 million veterans in the U.S. It has been in existence since 1997, but it was killed by the Bush administration and just last month reinstated by the Obama administration, and doctors are told to refer veterans to it.</p> <p>What is troubling about it, and why a fellow named Jim Towey, who was an official -- an adviser in the Bush administration, broke the story in an article in The Wall Street Journal late this week -- is it seems to at the very least raise and some would say even steer veterans at the end of their life to pulling the plug.</p> <p>[end video clip]</p>

Fox News, NRO, Limbaugh run with "death book" smears

http://mediamatters.org/research/200908240121

2009-08-24

4left

Towey VHA manual tells veterans to hurryupanddie In an August 18 Wall Street Journal column headlined The Death Book for Veterans Towey director of faithbased initiatives under President Bush asserted that government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care Towey continued Last year bureaucrats at the VAs National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52page endoflife planning document Your Life Your Choices It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VAs preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues the VA suspended its use Unfortunately under President Obama the VA has now resuscitated Your Life Your Choices When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living who needs a death panel The Wall Street Journal 81809 Your Life Your Choices is not a death book The booklet emphasizes that your wishes will direct future health care decisions and presents preserving ones life using any means possible as an option to consider An August 23 post by VoteVetsorg blogger Richard Smith criticized Toweys assertion that Your Life Your Choices presents endoflife choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions writing Really if the document was really trying to get veterans to pull the plug on themselves then first suggesting to them that their life should be prolonged at all costs is a pretty stupid way to do it Toweys organization is selling Five Wishes booklet on endoflife issues As Media Matters for America noted the organization Towey founded Aging with Dignity sells Five Wishes a booklet that like Your Life Your Choices is designed to guide people in the creation of a living will Huffington Post news editor Marcus Baram reported on August 22 that Towey seems to have his own axe to grind in criticizing Your Life Your Choices in that Towey has repeatedly tried to get the government to spend millions to purchase his Five Wishes book citing VA sources NRO Towey oped a mustread An August 19 post on National Review Onlines blog The Corner titled Would You Like Some Hemlock with Your Jello Governmentrun EndofLife Counseling at the VA called the oped a mustread Hannity Is document equivalent of a death panel On his August 20 Fox News show Sean Hannity said during an interview with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele Apparently theyve got this document that they show veterans at all our VA hospitals and they asked theres a section in which it says have you ever heard anyone say Im a vegetable pull the plug Im a severe burden financially on my family Im causing severe emotional damage to my family Hannity asked Steele if the manual is the equivalent of a death panel and Steele replied that in my view it very well could be Palin VHA encourages veterans to forego care as they make endoflife decisions In an August 20 post on her Facebook page former Alaska Gov Sarah Palin linked to Toweys oped adding that Jim Towey writes in The Wall Street Journal that the Veterans Administration encourages veterans to forego care as they make endoflife decisions Limbaugh Obama asking veterans to volunteer to die On the August 21 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show Rush Limbaugh used the term death book to describe the booklet and asserted that Obama is asking veterans to basically say You know what I want to check out The hell with this I live in a nursing home Screw it Pull the plug Wheres Doctor Kevorkian This thing is obsessed with death Its obsessed with you deciding or with some maybe some influence that your life isnt worth living Its theres nothing positive in this Wallace Were going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book and youll find out why he calls this the death book On the August 21 edition of Fox News Fox ampamp Friends Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace promoted his August 23 interview with Towey WALLACE I want to tell you about Sunday because we actually have something that isnt a joke that I think is a very serious story There has been a lot of talk of course about the death panels and some people have said that is overstated Were going to tell you on Sunday about this book This is a book that is being currently used by the Veterans Administration for endoflife counseling on to veterans either those returning oftentimes with terrible injuries or veterans up to the end of their life It is a book that is being used on endoflife counseling and I think youre going to be shocked when you find what it is that health care providers and the Veterans Administration right now are telling advising asking veterans And which certainly seems to lead in the direction of pulling the plug if you ever get to that situation at the end of life And were going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book and youll find out why he calls this the death book This is current Veterans Administration policy the kind of endoflife counseling that is going on VA hospitals across the country right now Wallace Towey advance death book death panel smears From Toweys August 23 Fox News Sunday interview WALLACE Were going to do something different here today Usually we discuss the news but today were going to tell you about something you may never have heard about what critics are calling the death book WALLACE Lets start with an overview Whats wrong with this material Your Life Your Choices that the VA is using for endoflife counseling right now In the article that you wrote in The Wall Street Journal in which you disclosed this you say that the message is clear hurry up and die TOWEY Well the message that they want to communicate I think is that if you have a stroke or if you have a coma situation that somehow your life has lost a little value and it may not be worth living anymore My problem with the document Chris is that the author of it is a proponent of assisted suicide hes way out there on that issue And the VA has been using this a new directive just came out in July urging providers to refer patients to it So in my view there should be a balanced treatment And this is a slippery slope that kind of makes people when you look at the document it makes people feel like theyre a burden and that they should do the decent thing and die WALLACE All right Were going to get to the specifics in this book in a second but I want to ask you another general question President Obama calls talk of a governmentrun death panel a quote extraordinary lie But I want to put up what you said in your Wall Street Journal article this week You said the following When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living who needs a death panel Fox Broadcasting Cos Fox News Sunday 082309 Wallace Towey misrepresented passage that says If Im a vegetable pull the plug Prompted by Wallace Towey cited a passage in Your Life Your Choices that reads Im a vegetable pull the plug as an example of why he thinks the document is so fundamentally flawed that the VA ought to throw it out In his oped Towey suggested that language was aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions much like a political push poll As Media Matters noted however the context of that passage was an explanation of the importance of being very specific regarding your endoflife preferences Your Life Your Choices says that statements like If Im a vegetable pull the plug can mean different things to different people Wallace Towey falsely claimed Bush suspended purported death book use During the interview Towey claimed that the Bush administration pulled the document in 2007 and Wallace claimed that President Bush suspended the use of this document and that the Obama administration reinstated it In reality Bushs VA promoted the document throughout his presidency as documented by Daily Kos blogger Jed Lewison Indeed an online document on the VAs website labeled ReviewedUpdated Date December 29 2008 states To learn about a Living Will read Your Life Your Choices Wallace falsely claimed VHA document directs VA doctors to refer all veterans to Your Life Your Choices During his interview with Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth on the August 23 edition of Fox News Sunday Wallace claimed that more than a month ago VA health practitioners were told to refer all veterans not just endoflife veterans but all 24 million veterans to this document Your Life Your Choices In fact as Media Matters documented the VHA document to which Wallace was referring actually directs patients to Your Life Your Choices or other published resources Fox News Sunday 82309 Bream Controversy over death book On the August 23 edition of Fox News Americas News HQ Fox News legal analyst Shannon Bream hosted Wallace to talk about his interview with Towey and repeatedly promoted the idea of a death book Bream said that a controversy that is brewing around what is being called the death book prompting Wallace to respond that it seems to at the very least raise and some would say even steer veterans at the end of their life to pulling the plug Goldberg Duckworth defended this irretrievably gross book on the merits and attacked the messenger to boot In an August 23 NRO post editoratlarge Jonah Goldberg adopted death book and death panels while attacking Duckworths very lame talking points From Goldbergs post I just watched Tammy Duckworth try her best to defend the VA death book on Fox News Sunday The Iraq War veteran was severely wounded as an army aviator losing both her legs and is currently an assistant secretary at the VA The administration sent her out to defend the book and to push back against Jim Towey who first raised the issue While she admirably held her own her talking points were often very very lame she kept insinuating that Toweys bitter his 5 book isnt free of charge to vets The upshot was she defended this irretrievably gross book on the merits and attacked the messenger to boot And heres the thing The death book is doomed doomed Its obvious Obama will pull the thing because its the right thing to do and because its a political nobrainer while hes trying to shake off the death panel albatross So they sent out Duckworth to stake a position that will be reversed making her look like a fool Just give it time Goldberg Metaphysically grotesque document is telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized On the August 24 edition of Fox News Americas Newsroom Goldberg claimed that theres no way Obama can be trying to sell a massive new health care plan that has this sort of specter of death panels hovering around it and at the same time support this really sort of metaphysically grotesque document which is telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized Host Megyn Kelly also falsely claimed that the administration requires physicians at VAs to at least refer their patients to this From the segment KELLY Let me ask you about that because Tammy Duckworth said look it hasnt she maintains it hasnt been in effect Now the facts appear to belie that because this has been up on their website since July 2 and requires physicians at VAs to at least refer their patients to this booklet So put aside that fact Shouldnt the Obama administration just take this down Maybe they inherited it from the Bush administration shouldnt it just come down off the website End of controversy GOLDBERG Of course they should I mean I think the politics are obvious the morality is obvious And thats one of the reasons why its so outrageous to send poor Tammy Duckworth out there not armed with the facts whos going to get thrown under the bus in two weeks time anyway because theres no way Obama can be trying to sell a massive new health care plan that has this sort of specter of death panels hovering around it and at the same time support this really sort of metaphysically grotesque document which is telling veterans that maybe they should be euthanized Americas Newsroom 082409 Conservative media also promoted false death panel term After serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey falsely claimed that the House health care reform bill instituted mandatory endoflife counseling sessions for seniors Palin wrote in a post on her Facebook page The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obamas death panel so his bureaucrats can decide based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society whether they are worthy of health care Such a system is downright evil Numerous media outlets including Fox News promoted Palins death panel smear and the related claim initiated by McCaughey that the bill would absolutely require that seniors on Medicare undergo endoflife counseling that will tell them how to end their life sooner even though those claims had been debunked in the media 40 times over From the August 20 edition of Fox News Hannity HANNITY Well I want to ask you this There was an article in The Wall Street Journal and it talks about quote the death books for veterans Have you I dont know if you had an opportunity to read this because weve talked a lot about these death panels Governor Palin Democrats denied it existed then they pulled it out But among the many things apparently theyve got this document that they show veterans at all our VA hospitals and they asked theres a section in which it says have you ever heard anyone say Im a vegetable pull the plug Im a severe burden financially on my family Im causing severe emotional damage to my family Now that exists and was eliminated in the Bush years and brought back under President Obama STEELE Yeah HANNITY Is that the equivalent of a death panel STEELE I in my view it very well could be And thats the problem here No one is laying out with any clarity exactly what these panels what this composition of medical professionals are going to do From the August 21 edition of Fox News Fox ampamp Friends WALLACE I want to tell you about Sunday because we actually have something that isnt a joke that I think is a very serious story There has been a lot of talk of course about the death panels and some people have said that is overstated Were going to tell you on Sunday about this book This is a book that is being currently used by the Veterans Administration for endoflife counseling on to veterans either those returning oftentimes with terrible injuries or veterans up to the end of their life It is a book that is being used on endoflife counseling and I think youre going to be shocked when you find what it is that health care providers and the Veterans Administration right now are telling advising asking veterans And which certainly seems to lead in the direction of pulling the plug if you ever get to that situation at the end of life And were going to talk exclusively to the man who uncovered this book and youll find out why he calls this the death book This is current Veterans Administration policy the kind of endoflife counseling that is going on VA hospitals across the country right now From the August 23 edition of Fox News Americas News HQ BREAM Hurricane Bill sweeps past New England hampering the first familys vacation plans But as President Obama plans for some downtime in Marthas Vineyard the health care debate rages Word today from leading excuse me A controversy that is brewing around what is being called the death book Earlier today I sat down with Chris Wallace host of Fox News Sunday to talk all about it begin video clip BREAM A fascinating show today on Fox News Sunday theyre always great but today some brand new information I had never heard before about these socalled death books that involve veterans What is that all about WALLACE Well here it is 51 pages Let me there you go and its called Your Life Your Choices And this is an endoflife counseling book that is given to all 24 million veterans in the US It has been in existence since 1997 but it was killed by the Bush administration and just last month reinstated by the Obama administration and doctors are told to refer veterans to it What is troubling about it and why a fellow named Jim Towey who was an official an adviser in the Bush administration broke the story in an article in The Wall Street Journal late this week is it seems to at the very least raise and some would say even steer veterans at the end of their life to pulling the plug end video clip

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<p>By Peter Van Buren, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176059/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren%2C_the_great_war_in_the_middle_east/" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq in 2003? How would things be different in the Middle East today? Was Iraq, in the words of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the &#8220; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/14/bernie-sanders-said-iraq-was-the-worst-foreign-policy-blunder-in-u-s-history-really/" type="external">worst foreign policy blunder</a>&#8221; in American history? Let&#8217;s take a big-picture tour of the Middle East and try to answer those questions. But first, a request: after each paragraph that follows, could you make sure to add the question &#8220;What could possibly go wrong?&#8221;</p> <p>Let the History Begin</p> <p>In March 2003, when the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq, the region, though simmering as ever, looked like this: Libya was stable, ruled by the same strongman for 42 years; in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak had been in power since 1983; Syria had been run by the Assad family since 1971; Saddam Hussein had essentially been in charge of Iraq since 1969, formally becoming president in 1979; the Turks and Kurds had an uneasy but functional ceasefire; and Yemen was quiet enough, other than the terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Relations between the U.S. and most of these nations were so warm that Washington was routinely rendering &#8220;terrorists&#8221; to their dungeons for some outsourced torture.</p> <p /> <p>Soon after March 2003, when U.S. troops invaded Iraq, neighboring Iran faced two American armies at the peak of their strength. To the east, the U.S. military had effectively destroyed the Taliban and significantly weakened al-Qaeda, both enemies of Iran, but had replaced them as an occupying force. To the west, Iran&#8217;s decades-old enemy, Saddam, was gone, but similarly replaced by another massive occupying force. From this position of weakness, Iran&#8217;s leaders, no doubt terrified that the Americans would pour across its borders, sought real diplomatic <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175746" type="external">rapprochement</a> with Washington for the first time since 1979. The Iranian efforts were <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/articles/2008/10/summer-iran-maloney/summer_iran_maloney.pdf" type="external">rebuffed</a> by the Bush administration.</p> <p>The Precipitating Event</p> <p>Nailing down causation is a tricky thing. But like the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-franz-ferdinand-assassinated" type="external">kicked off</a> the Great War, the one to end all others, America&#8217;s 2003 invasion was what novelists refer to as &#8220;the precipitating event,&#8221; the thing that may not actively cause every plot twist to come, but that certainly sets them in motion.</p> <p>There hadn&#8217;t been such an upset in the balance of power in the Middle East since, well, World War I, when Great Britain and France secretly reached the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-conclude-sykes-picot-agreement" type="external">Sykes-Picot</a> Agreement, which, among other things, divided up most of the Arab lands that had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Because the national boundaries created then did not respect on-the-ground tribal, political, ethnic, and religious realities, they could be said to have set the stage for much that was to come.</p> <p>Now, fast forward to 2003, as the Middle East we had come to know began to unravel. Those U.S. troops had rolled into Baghdad only to find themselves standing there, slack-jawed, gazing at the chaos. Now, fast forward one more time to 2015 and let the grand tour of the unraveling begin!</p> <p>The Sick Men of the Middle East: It&#8217;s easy enough to hustle through three countries in the region in various states of decay before heading into the heart of the chaos: Libya is a <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21638122-another-font-global-mayhem-emergingnot-helped-regional-meddling-and-western" type="external">failed</a> state, bleeding mayhem into northern Africa; Egypt <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/america-doubling-down-dictatorship-middle-east" type="external">failed</a> its Arab Spring test and relies on the United States to support its anti-democratic (as well as anti-Islamic fundamentalist) militarized government; and Yemen is a disastrously <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/yemen-then-and-now-the-sad-chronicle-of-a-failed-state" type="external">failed</a> state, now the scene of a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/how-yemens-civil-conflict-turned-regional-proxy-war/" type="external">proxy war</a> between U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels (with a thriving al-Qaeda outfit and a small but growing arm of the Islamic State [ISIS] thrown into the bargain).</p> <p>Iraq: Obama is now the fourth American president in a row to have ordered the bombing of Iraq and his successor will almost certainly be the fifth. If ever a post-Vietnam American adventure deserved to inherit the moniker of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/06/11/iraq_is_obamas_quagmire_now_his_unauthorized_war_hasnt_worked_but_hes_escalating_it_anyway/" type="external">quagmire</a>, Iraq is it.</p> <p>And here&#8217;s the saddest part of the tale: the forces loosed there in 2003 have yet to reach their natural end point. Your money should be on the Shias, but imagining that there is only one Shia horse to bet on means missing just how broad the field really is. What passes for a Shia &#8220;government&#8221; in Baghdad today is a collection of interest groups, each with its own <a href="http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-militia-groups/p8175#p1" type="external">militia</a>. Having replaced the old strongman prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, with a weak one, Haider al-Abadi, and with ISIS chased from the gates of Baghdad, each Shia faction is now free to jockey for position. The full impact of the cleaving of Iraq has yet to be felt. At some point expect a civil war inside a civil war.</p> <p>Iran: If there is any unifying authority left in Iraq, it is Iran. After the initial 2003 blitzkrieg, the Bush administration&#8217;s version of neocolonial management in Iraq resulted in the rise of Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, and an influx of determined foreign fighters. Tehran rushed into the power vacuum, and, in 2011, in an agreement brokered by the departing Bush administration and carried out by President Obama, the Americans ran for the exits. The Iranians stayed. Now, they have entered an odd-couple marriage with the U.S. against what Washington pretends is a common foe &#8212; ISIS &#8212; but which the Iranians and their allies in Baghdad see as a war against the Sunnis in general. At this point, Washington has all but ceded Iraq to the new Persian Empire; everyone is just waiting for the paperwork to clear.</p> <p>The Iranians continue to meddle in Syria as well, supporting Bashar al-Assad. Under Russian air cover, Iran is increasing its troop presence there, too. According to a recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/14/iran-troop-deployment-syria-anti-rebel-offensive-revolutionary-guards-assad?CMP=twt_a-world_b-gdnworld" type="external">report</a>, Tehran is sending 2,000 troops to Syria, along with 5,000 Iraqi and Afghan Shia fighters. Perhaps they&#8217;re already calling it &#8220;the Surge&#8221; in Farsi.</p> <p>The Kurds: The idea of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/kurds/" type="external">creating</a> a &#8220;Kurdistan&#8221; was crossed off the post-World War I &#8220;to do&#8221; list. The 1920 <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Sevres" type="external">Treaty of S&#232;vres</a> at first left an opening for a referendum on whether the Kurds wanted to remain part of what remained of the Ottoman Empire or become independent. Problem one: the referendum did not include plans for the Kurds in what became Syria and Iraq. Problem two: the referendum <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Kurdistan-become-a-nation-after-World-War-1" type="external">never</a> happened, a victim of the so-called Turkish War of Independence. The result: some 20 million angry Kurds scattered across parts of modern Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.</p> <p>That American invasion of 2003, however, opened the way for the Kurds to form a virtual independent statelet, a confederacy if you will, even if still confined within Iraq&#8217;s borders. At the time, the Kurds were labeled America&#8217;s only true friends in Iraq and rewarded with many weapons and much looking the other way, even as Bush administration officials blathered on about the goal of a united Iraq.</p> <p>In 2014, the Kurds benefited from U.S. power a second time. Desperate for someone to fight ISIS after Iraq&#8217;s American-trained army <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states" type="external">turned tail</a> (and before the Iranians and the Shia militias entered the fight in significant force), the Obama administration once again began sending arms and equipment to the Kurds while flying close air support for their militia, the peshmerga. The Kurds responded by fighting well, at least in what they considered the Kurdish part of Iraq. However, their interest in getting involved in the greater Sunni-Shia civil war was minimal. In a good turn for them, the U.S. military helped Kurdish forces move into northern Syria, right along the Turkish border. While fighting ISIS, the Kurds also began retaking territory they traditionally considered their own. They may yet be the true winners in all this, unless Turkey stands in their way.</p> <p>Turkey: Relations between the Turks and the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/feb99/kurdprofile.htm" type="external">Kurds</a> have never been rosy, both inside Turkey and along the Iraqi-Turkish border.</p> <p>Inside Turkey, the primary Kurdish group calling for an independent state is the Kurdistan Workers party (also known as the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20971100" type="external">PKK</a>). Its first <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&amp;amp;n=history-for-the-pkk-in-turkey-2009-09-14" type="external">insurgency</a> ran from 1984 until 1999,&amp;#160;when the PKK declared a unilateral cease-fire. The armed conflict broke out again in 2004, ending in a ceasefire in 2013, which was, in turn, broken recently. Over the years, the Turkish military also carried out repeated ground incursions and artillery strikes against the PKK inside Iraq.</p> <p>As for ISIS, the Turks long had a kind of one-way &#8220;open-door policy&#8221; on their border with Syria, allowing Islamic State fighters and foreign volunteers to transit into that country. ISIS also brokered significant amounts of black market oil in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/isis-syria-turkey-us?CMP=share_btn_tw" type="external">Turkey</a> to fund itself, <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/turkey-iraq-syria-krg-isis-oil-hostages.html" type="external">perhaps</a> with the tacit support, or at least the willful ignorance, of the Turkish authorities. While the Turks claimed to see ISIS as an anti-Assad force, <a href="http://time.com/3971161/turkey-isis-war/" type="external">some</a> felt Turkey&#8217;s generous stance toward the movement reflected the government&#8217;s preference for having anything but an expanded Kurdish presence on its border. In June of this year, Turkish President Recep Erdogan went as far as to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150807173243/http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21656692-turkey-and-jordan-are-considering-setting-up-buffer-zones-war-scorched" type="external">say</a> that he would &#8220;never allow the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria.&#8221;</p> <p>In light of all that, it&#8217;s hardly surprising that early Obama administration <a href="http://theweek.com/speedreads/444703/heres-why-turkey-isnt-helping-save-syrias-kobani-from-isis" type="external">efforts</a> to draw Turkey into the fight against ISIS were unsuccessful. Things changed in August 2015, when a supposedly anti-ISIS cooperation deal was reached with Washington. The Turks agreed to allow the Americans to fly <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/08/turkey-united-states-syria-iraq-isis-incirlik-air-base-jets.html" type="external">strike</a> missions from two air bases in Turkey against ISIS in Syria. However, there appeared to be an unpublicized quid pro quo: the U.S. would turn a <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/turkey-fighting-isil-isis-erdogan-long-game-chess-121603#.VdeKvnUVhBc" type="external">blind</a> eye to Turkish military action against its allies the Kurds. On the same day that Turkey announced that it would&amp;#160;fight the Islamic State in earnest, it also began an air campaign <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/12/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-isis.html" type="external">against</a> the PKK.</p> <p>Washington, for its part, claimed that it had been &#8220; <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/senior-us-military-official-turkey-131000220.html" type="external">tricked</a>&#8221; by the wily Turks, while <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/12/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-isis.html?_r=0" type="external">adding</a>, &#8220;We fully respect our ally Turkey&#8217;s right to self-defense.&#8221; In the process, the Kurds found themselves supported by the U.S. in the struggle with ISIS, even as they were being thrown to the (Turkish) wolves. There is a Kurdish expression suggesting that Kurds have &#8220;no friends but the mountains.&#8221; Should they ever achieve a trans-border Kurdistan, they will certainly have earned it.</p> <p>Syria: Through a series of events almost impossible to sort out, having essentially supported the Arab Spring nowhere else, the Obama administration chose to do so in Syria, attempting to use it to turn President Bashar al-Assad out of office. In the process, the Obama administration found itself ever deeper in a conflict it couldn&#8217;t control and eternally in search of that unicorn, the <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/war-islamic-state-new-cold-war-fiction-1608242142" type="external">moderate</a> Syrian rebel who could be <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176055/" type="external">trained</a> to push Assad out without allowing Islamic fundamentalists in. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda spin-offs, including the Islamic State, found haven in the dissolving borderlands between Iraq and Syria, and in that country&#8217;s Sunni heartlands.</p> <p>An indecisive Barack Obama allowed America&#8217;s involvement in Syria to ebb and flow. In September 2013, on the verge of a massive strike against the forces of the Assad regime, Obama suddenly <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175746" type="external">punted</a> the decision to Congress, which, of course, proved capable of deciding nothing at all. In November 2013, again on the verge of attacking Syria, the president allowed himself to be talked down after a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175767/tomgram:_peter_van_buren,_america's_top_diplomat_is_lost_in_space/" type="external">gaffe</a> by Secretary of State John Kerry opened the door to Russian diplomatic intercession. In September 2014, in a relatively sudden reversal, Obama launched a war against ISIS in Syria, which has proved at best indecisive.</p> <p>Russia: That brings us to Vladimir Putin, the Syrian game-changer of the moment. In September, the Russian president sent a small but powerful military force into a neglected airfield in Latakia, Syria. With &#8220;fighting ISIS&#8221; little more than their cover story, the Russians are now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/officials-before-russian-bombs-cia-rebels-had-syrian-gains/2015/10/10/2cc70522-6f20-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html" type="external">serving</a> as Assad&#8217;s air force, as well as his chief weapons supplier and possible source of &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/world/europe/nato-russia-warplane-turkey.html" type="external">volunteer</a>&#8221; soldiers.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The thing that matters most, however, is those Russian planes. They have essentially been given a guarantee of immunity to being shot down by the more powerful U.S. Air Force presence in the region (as Washington has nothing to gain and much to worry about when it comes to entering into open conflict with the Russians). That allows them near-impunity to strike when and where they wish in support of whom they wish. It also negates any chance of the U.S. setting up a no-fly zone in parts of Syria.</p> <p>The Russians have little incentive to depart, given the free pass handed them by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Russian military is growing closer to the Iranians with whom they share common cause in Syria, and also the Shia government in Baghdad, which may soon invite them to join the fight there against ISIS. One can almost hear Putin chortling. He may not, in fact, be the most skilled strategist in the world, but he&#8217;s certainly the luckiest. When someone hands you the keys, you take the car.</p> <p>World War I</p> <p>As in imperial Europe in the period leading up to the First World War, the collapse of an entire order in the Middle East is in process, while forces long held in check are being released. In response, the former superpowers of the Cold War era have once again mobilized, at least modestly, even though both are fearful of a spark that could push them into direct conflict. Each has entangling regional relationships that could easily exacerbate the fight: Russia with Syria, the U.S. with Saudi Arabia and Israel, plus NATO obligations to Turkey. (The Russians have already <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34453739" type="external">probed</a> Turkish airspace and the Turks recently <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-shoots-down-air-vehicle-close-syria-border-105731070.html" type="external">shot</a> down a drone coyly labeled of &#8220;unknown origin.&#8221;)</p> <p>Imagine a scenario that pulls any of those allies deeper into the mess: some Iranian move in Syria, which prompts a response by Israel in the Golan Heights, which prompts a Russian move in relation to Turkey, which prompts a call to NATO for help&#8230; you get the picture. Or imagine another scenario: with nearly every candidate running for president in the United States growling about the chance to <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-14/clinton-wants-obama-to-confront-putin-in-syria" type="external">confront</a> Putin, what would happen if the Russians accidentally shot down an American plane? Could Obama resist calls for retaliation?</p> <p>As before World War I, the risk of setting something in motion that can&#8217;t be stopped does exist.</p> <p>What Is This All About Again?</p> <p>What if the U.S. hadn&#8217;t invaded Iraq in 2003? Things would undoubtedly be very different in the Middle East today. America&#8217;s war in Afghanistan was unlikely to have been a big enough spark to set off the range of changes Iraq let loose. There were only some <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf" type="external">10,000</a> America soldiers in Afghanistan in 2003 (5,200 in 2002) and there had not been any Abu Ghraib-like indiscriminate torture, no equivalent to the scorched earth policy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, nothing to spark a trans-border Sunni-Shia-Kurd struggle, no room for Iran to meddle. The Americans were killing Muslims in Afghanistan, but they were not killing Arabs, and they were not occupying Arab lands.</p> <p>The invasion of Iraq, however, did happen. Now, some 12 years later, the most troubling thing about the current war in the Middle East, from an American perspective, is that no one here really knows why the country is still fighting. The commonly stated reason &#8212; &#8220;defeat ISIS&#8221; &#8212; is hardly either convincing or self-explanatory. Defeat ISIS why?</p> <p>The best Washington can come up with are the same vague threats of terrorism against the homeland that have fueled its <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_a_record_of_unparalleled_failure/" type="external">disastrous wars</a> since 9/11. The White House can stipulate that Assad is a bad guy and that the ISIS crew are really, really bad guys, but bad guys are hardly in short supply, including in countries the U.S. supports. In reality, the U.S. has few clear goals in the region, but is escalating anyway.</p> <p>Whatever world order the U.S. may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire or two out of date. Washington refuses to admit to itself that the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism resonate with vast numbers of people. At this point, even as U.S. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/world/middleeast/syria-russia-airstrikes.html" type="external">TOW</a> missiles are becoming as ubiquitous as iPads in the region, American military power can only delay changes, not stop them. Unless a rebalancing of power that would likely favor some version of Islamic fundamentalism takes hold and creates some measure of stability in the Middle East, count on one thing: the U.S. will be fighting the sons of ISIS years from now.</p> <p>Back to World War I. The last time Russia and the U.S. both had a powerful presence in the Middle East, the fate of their proxies in the 1973 Yom Kippur War almost brought on a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/opinion/the-last-nuclear-moment.html" type="external">nuclear</a> exchange. No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria. However, like those final days before the Great War, one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox.</p> <p>Now, all together: What could possibly go wrong?</p> <p>Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805096817/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People</a>. A <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176028/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_washington_and_tehran_come_in_from_the_cold/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176028/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_washington_and_tehran_come_in_from_the_cold/" type="external">regular</a> he writes about current events at <a href="http://www.wemeantwell.com/" type="external">We Meant Well</a>. His latest book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935462911/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent</a>. His next work will be a novel, <a href="http://www.hooperswar.com/" type="external">Hooper&#8217;s War</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on <a href="https://twitter.com/TomDispatch" type="external">Twitter</a> and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Tomorrow&#8217;s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa</a>, and Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2015, Peter Van Buren</p>

What If They Gave a War and Everyone Came?

https://truthdig.com/articles/what-if-they-gave-a-war-and-everyone-came/

2015-10-24

4left

By Peter Van Buren TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch Read Tom Engelhardt8217s introduction here What if the US had not invaded Iraq in 2003 How would things be different in the Middle East today Was Iraq in the words of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders the 8220 worst foreign policy blunder8221 in American history Let8217s take a bigpicture tour of the Middle East and try to answer those questions But first a request after each paragraph that follows could you make sure to add the question 8220What could possibly go wrong8221 Let the History Begin In March 2003 when the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq the region though simmering as ever looked like this Libya was stable ruled by the same strongman for 42 years in Egypt Hosni Mubarak had been in power since 1983 Syria had been run by the Assad family since 1971 Saddam Hussein had essentially been in charge of Iraq since 1969 formally becoming president in 1979 the Turks and Kurds had an uneasy but functional ceasefire and Yemen was quiet enough other than the terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000 Relations between the US and most of these nations were so warm that Washington was routinely rendering 8220terrorists8221 to their dungeons for some outsourced torture Soon after March 2003 when US troops invaded Iraq neighboring Iran faced two American armies at the peak of their strength To the east the US military had effectively destroyed the Taliban and significantly weakened alQaeda both enemies of Iran but had replaced them as an occupying force To the west Iran8217s decadesold enemy Saddam was gone but similarly replaced by another massive occupying force From this position of weakness Iran8217s leaders no doubt terrified that the Americans would pour across its borders sought real diplomatic rapprochement with Washington for the first time since 1979 The Iranian efforts were rebuffed by the Bush administration The Precipitating Event Nailing down causation is a tricky thing But like the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that kicked off the Great War the one to end all others America8217s 2003 invasion was what novelists refer to as 8220the precipitating event8221 the thing that may not actively cause every plot twist to come but that certainly sets them in motion There hadn8217t been such an upset in the balance of power in the Middle East since well World War I when Great Britain and France secretly reached the SykesPicot Agreement which among other things divided up most of the Arab lands that had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire Because the national boundaries created then did not respect ontheground tribal political ethnic and religious realities they could be said to have set the stage for much that was to come Now fast forward to 2003 as the Middle East we had come to know began to unravel Those US troops had rolled into Baghdad only to find themselves standing there slackjawed gazing at the chaos Now fast forward one more time to 2015 and let the grand tour of the unraveling begin The Sick Men of the Middle East It8217s easy enough to hustle through three countries in the region in various states of decay before heading into the heart of the chaos Libya is a failed state bleeding mayhem into northern Africa Egypt failed its Arab Spring test and relies on the United States to support its antidemocratic as well as antiIslamic fundamentalist militarized government and Yemen is a disastrously failed state now the scene of a proxy war between USbacked Saudi Arabia and Iranianbacked Houthi rebels with a thriving alQaeda outfit and a small but growing arm of the Islamic State ISIS thrown into the bargain Iraq Obama is now the fourth American president in a row to have ordered the bombing of Iraq and his successor will almost certainly be the fifth If ever a postVietnam American adventure deserved to inherit the moniker of quagmire Iraq is it And here8217s the saddest part of the tale the forces loosed there in 2003 have yet to reach their natural end point Your money should be on the Shias but imagining that there is only one Shia horse to bet on means missing just how broad the field really is What passes for a Shia 8220government8221 in Baghdad today is a collection of interest groups each with its own militia Having replaced the old strongman prime minister Nouri alMaliki with a weak one Haider alAbadi and with ISIS chased from the gates of Baghdad each Shia faction is now free to jockey for position The full impact of the cleaving of Iraq has yet to be felt At some point expect a civil war inside a civil war Iran If there is any unifying authority left in Iraq it is Iran After the initial 2003 blitzkrieg the Bush administration8217s version of neocolonial management in Iraq resulted in the rise of Sunni insurgents Shia militias and an influx of determined foreign fighters Tehran rushed into the power vacuum and in 2011 in an agreement brokered by the departing Bush administration and carried out by President Obama the Americans ran for the exits The Iranians stayed Now they have entered an oddcouple marriage with the US against what Washington pretends is a common foe 8212 ISIS 8212 but which the Iranians and their allies in Baghdad see as a war against the Sunnis in general At this point Washington has all but ceded Iraq to the new Persian Empire everyone is just waiting for the paperwork to clear The Iranians continue to meddle in Syria as well supporting Bashar alAssad Under Russian air cover Iran is increasing its troop presence there too According to a recent report Tehran is sending 2000 troops to Syria along with 5000 Iraqi and Afghan Shia fighters Perhaps they8217re already calling it 8220the Surge8221 in Farsi The Kurds The idea of creating a 8220Kurdistan8221 was crossed off the postWorld War I 8220to do8221 list The 1920 Treaty of S232vres at first left an opening for a referendum on whether the Kurds wanted to remain part of what remained of the Ottoman Empire or become independent Problem one the referendum did not include plans for the Kurds in what became Syria and Iraq Problem two the referendum never happened a victim of the socalled Turkish War of Independence The result some 20 million angry Kurds scattered across parts of modern Iran Iraq Turkey and Syria That American invasion of 2003 however opened the way for the Kurds to form a virtual independent statelet a confederacy if you will even if still confined within Iraq8217s borders At the time the Kurds were labeled America8217s only true friends in Iraq and rewarded with many weapons and much looking the other way even as Bush administration officials blathered on about the goal of a united Iraq In 2014 the Kurds benefited from US power a second time Desperate for someone to fight ISIS after Iraq8217s Americantrained army turned tail and before the Iranians and the Shia militias entered the fight in significant force the Obama administration once again began sending arms and equipment to the Kurds while flying close air support for their militia the peshmerga The Kurds responded by fighting well at least in what they considered the Kurdish part of Iraq However their interest in getting involved in the greater SunniShia civil war was minimal In a good turn for them the US military helped Kurdish forces move into northern Syria right along the Turkish border While fighting ISIS the Kurds also began retaking territory they traditionally considered their own They may yet be the true winners in all this unless Turkey stands in their way Turkey Relations between the Turks and the Kurds have never been rosy both inside Turkey and along the IraqiTurkish border Inside Turkey the primary Kurdish group calling for an independent state is the Kurdistan Workers party also known as the PKK Its first insurgency ran from 1984 until 1999amp160when the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire The armed conflict broke out again in 2004 ending in a ceasefire in 2013 which was in turn broken recently Over the years the Turkish military also carried out repeated ground incursions and artillery strikes against the PKK inside Iraq As for ISIS the Turks long had a kind of oneway 8220opendoor policy8221 on their border with Syria allowing Islamic State fighters and foreign volunteers to transit into that country ISIS also brokered significant amounts of black market oil in Turkey to fund itself perhaps with the tacit support or at least the willful ignorance of the Turkish authorities While the Turks claimed to see ISIS as an antiAssad force some felt Turkey8217s generous stance toward the movement reflected the government8217s preference for having anything but an expanded Kurdish presence on its border In June of this year Turkish President Recep Erdogan went as far as to say that he would 8220never allow the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria8221 In light of all that it8217s hardly surprising that early Obama administration efforts to draw Turkey into the fight against ISIS were unsuccessful Things changed in August 2015 when a supposedly antiISIS cooperation deal was reached with Washington The Turks agreed to allow the Americans to fly strike missions from two air bases in Turkey against ISIS in Syria However there appeared to be an unpublicized quid pro quo the US would turn a blind eye to Turkish military action against its allies the Kurds On the same day that Turkey announced that it wouldamp160fight the Islamic State in earnest it also began an air campaign against the PKK Washington for its part claimed that it had been 8220 tricked8221 by the wily Turks while adding 8220We fully respect our ally Turkey8217s right to selfdefense8221 In the process the Kurds found themselves supported by the US in the struggle with ISIS even as they were being thrown to the Turkish wolves There is a Kurdish expression suggesting that Kurds have 8220no friends but the mountains8221 Should they ever achieve a transborder Kurdistan they will certainly have earned it Syria Through a series of events almost impossible to sort out having essentially supported the Arab Spring nowhere else the Obama administration chose to do so in Syria attempting to use it to turn President Bashar alAssad out of office In the process the Obama administration found itself ever deeper in a conflict it couldn8217t control and eternally in search of that unicorn the moderate Syrian rebel who could be trained to push Assad out without allowing Islamic fundamentalists in Meanwhile alQaeda spinoffs including the Islamic State found haven in the dissolving borderlands between Iraq and Syria and in that country8217s Sunni heartlands An indecisive Barack Obama allowed America8217s involvement in Syria to ebb and flow In September 2013 on the verge of a massive strike against the forces of the Assad regime Obama suddenly punted the decision to Congress which of course proved capable of deciding nothing at all In November 2013 again on the verge of attacking Syria the president allowed himself to be talked down after a gaffe by Secretary of State John Kerry opened the door to Russian diplomatic intercession In September 2014 in a relatively sudden reversal Obama launched a war against ISIS in Syria which has proved at best indecisive Russia That brings us to Vladimir Putin the Syrian gamechanger of the moment In September the Russian president sent a small but powerful military force into a neglected airfield in Latakia Syria With 8220fighting ISIS8221 little more than their cover story the Russians are now serving as Assad8217s air force as well as his chief weapons supplier and possible source of 8220 volunteer8221 soldiersamp160 The thing that matters most however is those Russian planes They have essentially been given a guarantee of immunity to being shot down by the more powerful US Air Force presence in the region as Washington has nothing to gain and much to worry about when it comes to entering into open conflict with the Russians That allows them nearimpunity to strike when and where they wish in support of whom they wish It also negates any chance of the US setting up a nofly zone in parts of Syria The Russians have little incentive to depart given the free pass handed them by the Obama administration Meanwhile the Russian military is growing closer to the Iranians with whom they share common cause in Syria and also the Shia government in Baghdad which may soon invite them to join the fight there against ISIS One can almost hear Putin chortling He may not in fact be the most skilled strategist in the world but he8217s certainly the luckiest When someone hands you the keys you take the car World War I As in imperial Europe in the period leading up to the First World War the collapse of an entire order in the Middle East is in process while forces long held in check are being released In response the former superpowers of the Cold War era have once again mobilized at least modestly even though both are fearful of a spark that could push them into direct conflict Each has entangling regional relationships that could easily exacerbate the fight Russia with Syria the US with Saudi Arabia and Israel plus NATO obligations to Turkey The Russians have already probed Turkish airspace and the Turks recently shot down a drone coyly labeled of 8220unknown origin8221 Imagine a scenario that pulls any of those allies deeper into the mess some Iranian move in Syria which prompts a response by Israel in the Golan Heights which prompts a Russian move in relation to Turkey which prompts a call to NATO for help8230 you get the picture Or imagine another scenario with nearly every candidate running for president in the United States growling about the chance to confront Putin what would happen if the Russians accidentally shot down an American plane Could Obama resist calls for retaliation As before World War I the risk of setting something in motion that can8217t be stopped does exist What Is This All About Again What if the US hadn8217t invaded Iraq in 2003 Things would undoubtedly be very different in the Middle East today America8217s war in Afghanistan was unlikely to have been a big enough spark to set off the range of changes Iraq let loose There were only some 10000 America soldiers in Afghanistan in 2003 5200 in 2002 and there had not been any Abu Ghraiblike indiscriminate torture no equivalent to the scorched earth policy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah nothing to spark a transborder SunniShiaKurd struggle no room for Iran to meddle The Americans were killing Muslims in Afghanistan but they were not killing Arabs and they were not occupying Arab lands The invasion of Iraq however did happen Now some 12 years later the most troubling thing about the current war in the Middle East from an American perspective is that no one here really knows why the country is still fighting The commonly stated reason 8212 8220defeat ISIS8221 8212 is hardly either convincing or selfexplanatory Defeat ISIS why The best Washington can come up with are the same vague threats of terrorism against the homeland that have fueled its disastrous wars since 911 The White House can stipulate that Assad is a bad guy and that the ISIS crew are really really bad guys but bad guys are hardly in short supply including in countries the US supports In reality the US has few clear goals in the region but is escalating anyway Whatever world order the US may be fighting for in the Middle East it seems at least an empire or two out of date Washington refuses to admit to itself that the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism resonate with vast numbers of people At this point even as US TOW missiles are becoming as ubiquitous as iPads in the region American military power can only delay changes not stop them Unless a rebalancing of power that would likely favor some version of Islamic fundamentalism takes hold and creates some measure of stability in the Middle East count on one thing the US will be fighting the sons of ISIS years from now Back to World War I The last time Russia and the US both had a powerful presence in the Middle East the fate of their proxies in the 1973 Yom Kippur War almost brought on a nuclear exchange No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria However like those final days before the Great War one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox Now all together What could possibly go wrong Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in We Meant Well How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People A TomDispatch regular he writes about current events at We Meant Well His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad A Story of the 99Percent His next work will be a novel Hooper8217s War Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook Check out the newest Dispatch Book Nick Turse8217samp160 Tomorrow8217s Battlefield US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa and Tom Engelhardt8217s latest book Shadow Government Surveillance Secret Wars and a Global Security State in a SingleSuperpower World Copyright 2015 Peter Van Buren

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Defense.gov_News_Photo_091203-F-9891G-156.jpg"&amp;gt;Tech. Sgt. Francisco V. Govea II, US Air Force&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Wikimedia Commons</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175754/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Will the US still be meddling in Afghanistan 30 years from now?&amp;#160;If history is any guide, the answer is yes.&amp;#160;And if history is any guide, three decades from now most Americans will have only the haziest idea why.</p> <p>Since the 1950s, the US has been trying to mold that remote land to its own desires, first through an <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/07/03/156114613/a-cautionary-tale-about-transforming-afghanistan" type="external">aid &#8220;war&#8221;</a> in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union; then, starting as the 1970s ended, an increasingly bitter and brutally hot <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7883532.stm" type="external">proxy war</a> with the Soviets meant to <a href="http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html" type="external">pay them back</a> for supporting America&#8217;s enemies during the war in Vietnam.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;One bad war leads to another.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />From then until the early 1990s, Washington put weapons in the hands of Islamic fundamentalist extremists of all sorts&#8212;thought to be natural, devoutly religious allies in the war against &#8220;godless communism&#8221;&#8212;gloated over the Red Army&#8217;s defeat and the surprising implosion of the Soviet empire, and then experienced its own <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1984/" type="external">catastrophic blowback</a> from Afghanistan on September 11, 2001.&amp;#160;After 50 years of scheming behind the scenes, the US put boots on the ground in 2001 and now, 12 years later, is still fighting there&#8212;against some Afghans on behalf of other Afghans while <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20130922/NEWS/309220008/U-S-military-shake-up-command-structure-Afghanistan" type="external">training</a> Afghan troops to take over and fight their countrymen, and others, on their own.</p> <p>Through it all, the US has always claimed to have the best interests of Afghans at heart&#8212;waving at various opportune moments the bright flags of <a href="http://agonist.org/counterinsurgency_and_modernization_in_afghanistan/" type="external">modernization</a>, <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2009/03/09/5706/building-democracy-in-afghanistan/" type="external">democracy</a>, <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/education" type="external">education</a>, or the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/transcript/george-w-bush-empowering-women-afghanistan-lays-039foundation-lasting-peace039" type="external">rights of women</a>. Yet today, how many Afghans would choose to roll back the clock to <a href="http://www.coolpicturegallery.us/2011/07/afghanistan-in-1950s-and-1960s.html" type="external">1950</a>, before the Americans ever dropped in?&amp;#160;After 12 years of direct combat, after 35 years of arming and funding one faction or another, after 60 years of trying to remake Afghanistan to serve American aims, what has it all meant?&amp;#160;If we ever knew, we&#8217;ve forgotten. Weary of official reports of progress, Americans tuned out long ago.</p> <p>Back in 1991, as Steve Coll reports in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143034669/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Ghost Wars</a>, an unnamed CIA agent mentioned the war in Afghanistan to President George H.W. Bush.&amp;#160;Not long before, he had okayed the shipment of Iraqi weaponry captured in the first Gulf War&#8212;worth $30 million&#8212;to multiple factions of Islamist extremists then battling each other and probably using those secondhand Iraqi arms to destroy Afghanistan&#8217;s capital, Kabul. &amp;#160;Still, Bush seemed puzzled by the CIA man&#8217;s question about the war.&amp;#160;He reportedly asked, &#8220;Is that thing still going on?&#8221;</p> <p>Such forgetfulness about wars has, it seems, become an all-American skill.&amp;#160;Certainly, the country has had little trouble forgetting the war in Iraq, and why should Afghanistan be any different?&amp;#160;Sure, the <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-26/world/36015607_1_afghanistan-materiel-withdrawal-plans" type="external">exit</a> from that country is going to take more time and effort. No seacoast, no ships, bad roads, high tolls, IEDs.&amp;#160;Trucking stuff out is problematic; flying it out, wildly expensive, especially since a lot of the things are really, really big. Take MRAPs, for example&#8212;that&#8217;s Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles&#8212;11,000 of them, weighing 14 tons or more apiece. For that workhorse transport plane, the C-17, a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/25/us-bill-equipment-home-afghanistan" type="external">full load</a> of MRAPs numbers only four.</p> <p>The equipment inventory keeps changing, but estimates run to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/25/us-bill-equipment-home-afghanistan" type="external">100,000</a> shipping containers and about <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-26/world/36015607_1_afghanistan-materiel-withdrawal-plans" type="external">50,000</a> vehicles to be removed by the end of 2014, adding up to more than $36 billion worth of equipment now classified as &#8220;retrograde.&#8221;&amp;#160;The estimated shipping bill has quickly risen to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/25/us-bill-equipment-home-afghanistan" type="external">$6 billion</a>, and like the overall cost of the war, it is sure to keep rising.&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-militar-destroys-billions-equipment-in-afghanistan-2013-6" type="external">Seven billion dollars</a> worth of equipment&#8212;about 20% of what the US sent in to that distant land&#8212;is simply being torn up, chopped down, split, shredded, stomped, and, when possible, sold off for scrap at pennies a pound.&amp;#160;Toughest to break up are the weighty MRAPs.&amp;#160;Introduced in 2007 at a cost of $1 million apiece to counteract deadly roadside bombs, they were later discovered to be no better at protecting American soldiers than the cheaper vehicles they replaced.&amp;#160;Of the 11,000 shipped to Afghanistan, 2,000 are on the chopping block, leaving a mere 9,000 to be flown to Kuwait, four at a time, and shipped home or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/us/armys-plans-to-relocate-gear-offer-roadmap-to-future-roles.html" type="external">&#8220;repositioned&#8221;</a> elsewhere to await some future enemy.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The military is not exaggerating when it calls this <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/scrapping-equipment-key-to-afghan-drawdown/2013/06/19/9d435258-d83f-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html" type="external">colossal destruction</a> of surplus equipment historic.&amp;#160;A disposal effort on this scale is unprecedented in the annals of the Pentagon. The centerpiece of this demolition derby may be the brand-new, 64,000-square-foot, $34-million, state-of-the art <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-09/world/40477367_1_camp-leatherneck-afghanistan-helmand" type="external">command center</a> completed in Helmand Province just as most US troops left, and now likely to be demolished.&amp;#160;Or the new $45 million facility in Kandahar built as a repair center for armored vehicles, now used for their demolition, and probably destined to follow them. Taxpayers may one day want to ask some questions about such profligate and historic waste, but it&#8217;s sure to keep arms manufacturers happy, resupplying the military until we can get ourselves into another full-scale war.</p> <p>So this exit is a really big job, and that&#8217;s without even mentioning the paperwork.&amp;#160;All those exit plans, all the <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-17/world/40633671_1_u-s-contractors-u-s-funds-customs" type="external">documents</a> to be filed with the Afghan government for permission to export our own equipment, all the fines assessed for missing customs forms (already running to $70 million), all the export fees to be paid, and the bribes to be offered, and the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Afghanistan/united-states-military-funding-taliban-afghanistan/story?id=10980527&amp;amp;page=2" type="external">protection money</a> to be slipped to the Taliban so our enemies won&#8217;t shoot at the stuff being trucked out.&amp;#160;All that takes time.</p> <p>But when it comes right down to it, the United States has a surefire way of ending a war, no matter when it actually ends (or doesn&#8217;t).&amp;#160;When we say it&#8217;s over, it&#8217;s over.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Enduring Operation Enduring Freedom</p> <p>As it happens, things probably won&#8217;t be quite so decisively &#8220;over&#8221; for everybody. Look at Iraq, for example.&amp;#160;The <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/17/world/meast/iraq-troops-leave/index.html" type="external">last American troops</a> drove out of Iraq in December 2011, leaving behind a staff of at least 16,000, including 5,000 private security contractors, assigned to the vast $750 million fortress of a <a href="http://rt.com/usa/us-embassy-american-iraq-853/" type="external">US Embassy</a> in Baghdad.&amp;#160;That war has now been over for almost two years, the embassy staff is being trimmed, and yet, the drumbeat of news about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/iraq-car-bombs-baghdad" type="external">car bombs</a>, <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/iraq/article3854247.ece" type="external">suicide bombers</a>, and the latest rounds of sectarian cleansing has not slackened. Nearly <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-09-25/news/sns-rt-us-iraq-violence-20130627_1_sunni-islamist-kareem-raheem-police-and-medical-sources" type="external">6,000</a> Iraqis have been killed so far this year, <a href="http://aljazeerah.info/News/2013/August/11%20n/80%20Iraqis%20Killed%20in%20Bomb%20Attacks,%20August%2010,%202013.htm" type="external">1,000</a> in July alone, making it the deadliest month in Iraq since 2008.&amp;#160;Even Iraqis who lived through the war in their own homes are now fleeing, like millions of Iraqis before them&#8212;many the victims of <a href="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?id=109316" type="external">sectarian cleansing</a> practiced during the American-led &#8220;surge&#8221; of 2007 and now polished to a fine art.&amp;#160;From the foreign diplomatic corps in Baghdad come informal messages that include the words &#8220;worse than ever.&#8221;</p> <p>In Afghanistan, too, as the end of a longer war supposedly draws near, the rate at which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/afghan-civilian-casualties-rise-quarter-2013" type="external">civilians</a> are being killed has actually picked up, and the numbers of women and children among the civilian dead have risen dramatically.&amp;#160;This week, as the Nation magazine devotes a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/afghanistan" type="external">special issue</a> to a comprehensive study of the civilian death toll in Afghanistan&#8212;the painstaking work of Bob Dreyfuss and Nick Turse&#8212;the pace of civilian death seems only to be gaining momentum as if in some morbid race to the finish.</p> <p>Like Iraqis, Afghans, too, are in flight&#8212;fearing the unknown end game to come.&amp;#160;The number of Afghans filing applications for <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9030969/Afghan-asylum-seekers-at-highest-numbers-for-a-decade.html" type="external">asylum</a> in other countries, rising sharply since 2010, reached 30,000 in 2012. Undocumented thousands flee the country illegally in all sorts of dangerous ways.&amp;#160;Their desperate journeys by land and sea spark controversy in countries they&#8217;re aiming for.&amp;#160;It was Afghan boat people who roused the <a href="http://www.tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/world-news/item/18949-australian-presidential-election-rivals-clash-in-debate.html" type="external">anti-immigrant rhetoric</a> of candidates in the recent Australian elections, revealing a dark side of the national character even as Afghans and others <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/asylum-seekers-drown-on-way-to-australia-20120202-1qv6m.html" type="external">drowned</a> off their shores.&amp;#160;War reverberates, even where you least expect it.</p> <p>Afghans who remain at home are on edge.&amp;#160;Their immediate focus: the presidential election scheduled for April 5, 2014.&amp;#160;It&#8217;s already common knowledge that the number of existing voter cards <a href="http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/warning-bells-over-slow-electoral-reform-and-voter-registration-for-2014" type="external">far exceeds</a> the number of eligible voters, and millions more are being issued to new registrants, making it likely that this presidential contest will be as fraudulent as the last, in 2009, when voter cards were sold by the handful.&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />With President Hamid Karzai constitutionally barred from a third term, the presidential race is either wide open, or&#8212;as many believe&#8212;already a done deal. In August, Afghan news services reported that Karzai had chaired a meeting with a few of the country&#8217;s most powerful warlords to call for the <a href="http://tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/11561-nca-karzai-seeks-support-for-sayyaf-for-presidency-" type="external">candidacy</a> of <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2013/09/24/former-warlord-primed-for-afghan-presidency/" type="external">Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf</a>, intimidator of women in parliament, longtime pal of Osama bin Laden, mentor of al-Qaeda&#8217;s Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, likely collaborator in the assassination two days before 9/11 of the Taliban&#8217;s greatest opponent, Ahmad Shah Massoud&#8212;in short the quintessential untouchable jihadi.&amp;#160;</p> <p>There&#8217;s an irony so ludicrous as to be terrible in the thought that while the US supposedly fought this interminable war to insure that al-Qaeda would never again find a haven in Afghanistan, the country&#8217;s next president could be the very guy who invited bin Laden to Afghanistan in the first place and became his partner in building al-Qaeda training camps.</p> <p>Even Karzai, who likes to poke his finger in American eyes, quickly <a href="http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2013/08/15/karzai-backs-no-particular-presidential-candidate" type="external">backed away</a> from that insult.&amp;#160;Within hours of the news reports, he announced that he would remain &#8220;neutral.&#8221;&amp;#160;Americans scarcely seemed to notice, but Afghans noted what Karzai had done in the first place. Now, as Sayyaf and other potential candidates do backroom deals, jockeying for position, Afghans wait anxiously to learn which ones will actually register to run before the October 6th deadline.</p> <p>The names bandied about are those of the usual suspects: familiar militia commanders from times past, former jihadis, and political hacks. At this writing, a coalition of some of the most powerful are said to be aligning behind former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/abdullah-drops-out-of-runoff-election/article41694.ece" type="external">came in second</a> to Karzai&#8217;s overstuffed ballot boxes in 2009 and declined to take part in a runoff likely to be just as fixed by fraud. One Afghan politico, surveying a recent gathering of likely candidates, <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/world/41572843_1_candidates-ahmed-zia-massoud-political-consensus" type="external">expressed</a> to the Washington Post an opinion widely held by Afghans: &#8220;These are the people who destroyed our country.&amp;#160;They should all be thrown down a well.&#8221;&amp;#160;Beleaguered Afghans have lived through all of this with all of them before.&amp;#160;Sometimes it ends in a crooked election.&amp;#160;Sometimes in a coup.&amp;#160;Once in recent memory, in a civil war that could go into reruns.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Karzai has also been tampering with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), a government body headed by <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2009/10/15/meet-dr-sima-samar-the-person-obama-beat-for-the-nobel-prize/" type="external">Nobel Peace Prize nominee</a> Dr. Sima Samar, and the most respected public body in the country precisely because it has maintained its independence from government politics. In December 2011, Karzai <a href="http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/what-next-for-the-aihrc-2-civil-society-responses" type="external">blocked</a> the AIHRC&#8217;s nonpartisan work by allowing the terms of three of its most effective members to expire. Another respected member had been killed earlier in 2011, together with her husband and four children, by a Taliban suicide-bomber reportedly aiming for officials of Xe (formerly Blackwater, now Academi) in a Kabul supermarket. The members Karzai cut loose included Ahmad Nader Nadery, an assiduous researcher of war crimes, largely responsible for a &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/world/asia/key-afghans-tied-to-mass-killings-in-90s-civil-war.html%20" type="external">Mapping Project</a>,&#8221; never officially released, that reportedly names prominent warlords and members of Karzai&#8217;s government.</p> <p>After stalling for 18 months, last July Karzai <a href="http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/aihrc-commissioners-finally-announced" type="external">stacked</a> the AIHRC staff with five political cronies unqualified in human rights.&amp;#160;They include an Army general, a member of an Islamist fundamentalist political party, and a mullah who served in the Taliban government, spent three years in the US military prison at Bagram (without being charged), considers Shariah law the best source of human rights legislation, and opposes laws currently on the books that aim to protect women from violence.</p> <p>In September Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made a rare personal visit to Kabul to urge Karzai to <a href="http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/dismantling-human-rights-in-afghanistan-the-aihrc-facing-a-possible-downgrading-of-status" type="external">reconsider</a> his appointments before the AIHRC lost its international &#8220;A&#8221; rating and donor nations were forced to rethink their aid to a repressive government.&amp;#160;She left with no assurances, repeating her concern that &#8220;improvement in human rights&#8221; had not merely &#8220;peaked&#8221; in Afghanistan, but was &#8220;in reality waning.&#8221;</p> <p>Down and Out in Afghanistan&amp;#160;</p> <p>Now that the end of the international occupation approaches, the story of its success is undergoing a peculiar revision. The stunning advances Washington claimed in Afghanistan seem somehow much smaller and so much less impressive.&amp;#160;Education, health care, and human rights, just like the fabled MRAP, have not lived up to their publicity.&amp;#160;</p> <p>For example, Western leaders have taken particular pride in supposed advances in Afghan education since the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, in schools built and students enrolled by the millions. (The US Agency for International Development alone spent $934 million on Afghan education in the last 12 years.)&amp;#160;But UNICEF <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/world/asia/despite-education-advances-a-host-of-afghan-school-woes.html" type="external">reports</a> that almost half the &#8220;schools&#8221; supposedly built or opened have no actual buildings, and in those that do, students double up on seats and share antiquated texts. Teachers are scarce and fewer than a quarter of those now teaching are considered &#8220;qualified,&#8221; even by Afghanistan&#8217;s minimal standards.&amp;#160;Impressive school enrollment figures determine how much money a school gets from the government, but don&#8217;t reveal the much smaller numbers of enrollees who actually attend. No more than 10% of students, mostly boys, finish high school. In 2012, according to UNICEF, only half of school-age children went to school at all.</p> <p>Advances in Afghan health care have been another source of Western donors&#8217; pride. But <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/1208/An-inflated-claim-of-health-success-in-Afghanistan-exposed" type="external">dramatic claims</a> that 85% of Afghans now have access to basic health care turn out to mean only that something called a &#8220;health care facility&#8221; exists in 85% of Afghan districts, many of which are enormous.&amp;#160;Tens of thousands of Afghans now have &#8220;access&#8221; to health care facilities only because they fled their war-torn provinces for refugee camps on the fringes of major cities. The country&#8217;s high rates of maternal and infant mortality have slightly improved but remain <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15942940" type="external">among the worst</a> in the world. You have to wonder if Washington couldn&#8217;t have turned all that MRAP money to better purpose.</p> <p>As for the advancement of the human rights of women, much ballyhooed by American politicians and others, a report filed by the independent Afghan Rights Monitor in December 2012 tells a more accurate tale.&amp;#160;It describes merely 10 of the many women assassinated in recent years because of their &#8220;work and ideals&#8221;: &#8220;women&#8217;s development activists, a doctor, two journalists, a provincial lawmaker, a teacher, and a police officer.&#8221; &amp;#160;</p> <p>Assassinated <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/16/afghanistan-policewoman-nigara-assassinated-taliban" type="external">only two weeks ago</a> was a courageous veteran police lieutenant named Nigara, who once stopped a suicide bomber by grabbing him in a bear hug.&amp;#160;Men on a motorcycle shot her in the neck from behind as she stood waiting for a government bus to take her to work.&amp;#160;She was the senior policewoman in Helmand Province, having taken over the duties of her predecessor Islam Bibi, assassinated only three months earlier in the same popular drive-by style.</p> <p>No Afghan has ever been brought to trial for any of these assassinations, nor does President Karzai ever speak out against them. The government keeps no record of its women employees slain in the course of duty.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Good neighbor Pakistan chose this moment to release from detention at an &#8220;undisclosed location&#8221; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/21/us-pakistan-baradar-idUSBRE98K02S20130921" type="external">Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar</a>, longtime pal of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and formerly his second-in-command.&amp;#160;Karzai campaigned for his release to facilitate the Afghan &#8220;peace process,&#8221; but now that Baradar is free, his whereabouts are officially unknown.&amp;#160;How do you suppose women in Afghanistan, or girls in Pakistan&#8217;s Swat Valley, receive that news?</p> <p>So that&#8217;s the way the war is ending&#8212;in waste, destruction, anxiety, conspiracy, and the evaporation of illusory achievements. A thousand diminutions mark the waning of Afghanistan, punctuated by the sudden violent death of women.</p> <p>But even when the war &#8220;ends&#8221; and Americans have forgotten it altogether, it won&#8217;t be over in Afghanistan. Obama and Karzai continue negotiations toward a <a href="http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/legalities-of-the-post-2014-landscape-the-us-afghan-bilateral-security-agreement" type="external">bilateral security agreement</a> to allow the US to keep at least 9 of the biggest bases it built and several thousand &#8220;trainers&#8221; (and undoubtedly special operations forces) in Afghanistan seemingly forever.</p> <p>It won&#8217;t be over in the US either. For American soldiers who took part in it and returned with catastrophic physical and mental injuries, and for their families, the battles are just beginning.&amp;#160;</p> <p>For American taxpayers, the war will continue at least until midcentury. Think of all the families of the dead soldiers to be compensated for their loss, all the wounded with their health care bills, all the brain damaged veterans at the VA.&amp;#160;Think of the ongoing cost of their drugs and prosthetics and benefits. Medical and disability costs alone are <a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary" type="external">projected</a> to reach $754 billion. Not to mention the hefty retirement pay of all those generals who issued all those reports of progress as they so ambitiously fought more than one war leading nowhere.</p> <p>Then there&#8217;s the urgent need to replace all that retrograde equipment, so efficiently trashed, and recruit a whole new army, so that any month now we can start the next war.&amp;#160;Let&#8217;s not forget about that.</p> <p>Ann Jones, who has reported from Afghanistan since 2002, is the author of Kabul in Winter (Metropolitan 2006) and War Is Not Over When It&#8217;s Over (Metropolitan 2010), among other books. She wraps up a trilogy on war with publication next month of a Dispatch Books project in cooperation with Haymarket Books: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America&#8217;s Wars&#8212;the Untold Story</a>, which Andrew Bacevich has already described this way: &#8220;Read this unsparing, scathingly direct, and gut-wrenching account&#8212;the war Washington doesn&#8217;t want you to see. Then see if you still believe that Americans &#8216;support the troops.'&#8221; o stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Why Americans Can’t Remember Afghanistan

https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/americans-cant-remember-afghanistan-war/

2013-10-01

4left

amplta hrefhttpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileDefensegov_News_Photo_091203F9891G156jpgampgtTech Sgt Francisco V Govea II US Air ForceampltaampgtWikimedia Commons This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Will the US still be meddling in Afghanistan 30 years from nowamp160If history is any guide the answer is yesamp160And if history is any guide three decades from now most Americans will have only the haziest idea why Since the 1950s the US has been trying to mold that remote land to its own desires first through an aid 8220war8221 in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union then starting as the 1970s ended an increasingly bitter and brutally hot proxy war with the Soviets meant to pay them back for supporting America8217s enemies during the war in Vietnamamp160amp160One bad war leads to another From then until the early 1990s Washington put weapons in the hands of Islamic fundamentalist extremists of all sorts8212thought to be natural devoutly religious allies in the war against 8220godless communism82218212gloated over the Red Army8217s defeat and the surprising implosion of the Soviet empire and then experienced its own catastrophic blowback from Afghanistan on September 11 2001amp160After 50 years of scheming behind the scenes the US put boots on the ground in 2001 and now 12 years later is still fighting there8212against some Afghans on behalf of other Afghans while training Afghan troops to take over and fight their countrymen and others on their own Through it all the US has always claimed to have the best interests of Afghans at heart8212waving at various opportune moments the bright flags of modernization democracy education or the rights of women Yet today how many Afghans would choose to roll back the clock to 1950 before the Americans ever dropped inamp160After 12 years of direct combat after 35 years of arming and funding one faction or another after 60 years of trying to remake Afghanistan to serve American aims what has it all meantamp160If we ever knew we8217ve forgotten Weary of official reports of progress Americans tuned out long ago Back in 1991 as Steve Coll reports in Ghost Wars an unnamed CIA agent mentioned the war in Afghanistan to President George HW Bushamp160Not long before he had okayed the shipment of Iraqi weaponry captured in the first Gulf War8212worth 30 million8212to multiple factions of Islamist extremists then battling each other and probably using those secondhand Iraqi arms to destroy Afghanistan8217s capital Kabul amp160Still Bush seemed puzzled by the CIA man8217s question about the waramp160He reportedly asked 8220Is that thing still going on8221 Such forgetfulness about wars has it seems become an allAmerican skillamp160Certainly the country has had little trouble forgetting the war in Iraq and why should Afghanistan be any differentamp160Sure the exit from that country is going to take more time and effort No seacoast no ships bad roads high tolls IEDsamp160Trucking stuff out is problematic flying it out wildly expensive especially since a lot of the things are really really big Take MRAPs for example8212that8217s MineResistant AmbushProtected vehicles821211000 of them weighing 14 tons or more apiece For that workhorse transport plane the C17 a full load of MRAPs numbers only four The equipment inventory keeps changing but estimates run to 100000 shipping containers and about 50000 vehicles to be removed by the end of 2014 adding up to more than 36 billion worth of equipment now classified as 8220retrograde8221amp160The estimated shipping bill has quickly risen to 6 billion and like the overall cost of the war it is sure to keep risingamp160 Seven billion dollars worth of equipment8212about 20 of what the US sent in to that distant land8212is simply being torn up chopped down split shredded stomped and when possible sold off for scrap at pennies a poundamp160Toughest to break up are the weighty MRAPsamp160Introduced in 2007 at a cost of 1 million apiece to counteract deadly roadside bombs they were later discovered to be no better at protecting American soldiers than the cheaper vehicles they replacedamp160Of the 11000 shipped to Afghanistan 2000 are on the chopping block leaving a mere 9000 to be flown to Kuwait four at a time and shipped home or 8220repositioned8221 elsewhere to await some future enemyamp160 The military is not exaggerating when it calls this colossal destruction of surplus equipment historicamp160A disposal effort on this scale is unprecedented in the annals of the Pentagon The centerpiece of this demolition derby may be the brandnew 64000squarefoot 34million stateofthe art command center completed in Helmand Province just as most US troops left and now likely to be demolishedamp160Or the new 45 million facility in Kandahar built as a repair center for armored vehicles now used for their demolition and probably destined to follow them Taxpayers may one day want to ask some questions about such profligate and historic waste but it8217s sure to keep arms manufacturers happy resupplying the military until we can get ourselves into another fullscale war So this exit is a really big job and that8217s without even mentioning the paperworkamp160All those exit plans all the documents to be filed with the Afghan government for permission to export our own equipment all the fines assessed for missing customs forms already running to 70 million all the export fees to be paid and the bribes to be offered and the protection money to be slipped to the Taliban so our enemies won8217t shoot at the stuff being trucked outamp160All that takes time But when it comes right down to it the United States has a surefire way of ending a war no matter when it actually ends or doesn8217tamp160When we say it8217s over it8217s overamp160 Enduring Operation Enduring Freedom As it happens things probably won8217t be quite so decisively 8220over8221 for everybody Look at Iraq for exampleamp160The last American troops drove out of Iraq in December 2011 leaving behind a staff of at least 16000 including 5000 private security contractors assigned to the vast 750 million fortress of a US Embassy in Baghdadamp160That war has now been over for almost two years the embassy staff is being trimmed and yet the drumbeat of news about car bombs suicide bombers and the latest rounds of sectarian cleansing has not slackened Nearly 6000 Iraqis have been killed so far this year 1000 in July alone making it the deadliest month in Iraq since 2008amp160Even Iraqis who lived through the war in their own homes are now fleeing like millions of Iraqis before them8212many the victims of sectarian cleansing practiced during the Americanled 8220surge8221 of 2007 and now polished to a fine artamp160From the foreign diplomatic corps in Baghdad come informal messages that include the words 8220worse than ever8221 In Afghanistan too as the end of a longer war supposedly draws near the rate at which civilians are being killed has actually picked up and the numbers of women and children among the civilian dead have risen dramaticallyamp160This week as the Nation magazine devotes a special issue to a comprehensive study of the civilian death toll in Afghanistan8212the painstaking work of Bob Dreyfuss and Nick Turse8212the pace of civilian death seems only to be gaining momentum as if in some morbid race to the finish Like Iraqis Afghans too are in flight8212fearing the unknown end game to comeamp160The number of Afghans filing applications for asylum in other countries rising sharply since 2010 reached 30000 in 2012 Undocumented thousands flee the country illegally in all sorts of dangerous waysamp160Their desperate journeys by land and sea spark controversy in countries they8217re aiming foramp160It was Afghan boat people who roused the antiimmigrant rhetoric of candidates in the recent Australian elections revealing a dark side of the national character even as Afghans and others drowned off their shoresamp160War reverberates even where you least expect it Afghans who remain at home are on edgeamp160Their immediate focus the presidential election scheduled for April 5 2014amp160It8217s already common knowledge that the number of existing voter cards far exceeds the number of eligible voters and millions more are being issued to new registrants making it likely that this presidential contest will be as fraudulent as the last in 2009 when voter cards were sold by the handfulamp160 With President Hamid Karzai constitutionally barred from a third term the presidential race is either wide open or8212as many believe8212already a done deal In August Afghan news services reported that Karzai had chaired a meeting with a few of the country8217s most powerful warlords to call for the candidacy of Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf intimidator of women in parliament longtime pal of Osama bin Laden mentor of alQaeda8217s Khalid Sheikh Mohammed likely collaborator in the assassination two days before 911 of the Taliban8217s greatest opponent Ahmad Shah Massoud8212in short the quintessential untouchable jihadiamp160 There8217s an irony so ludicrous as to be terrible in the thought that while the US supposedly fought this interminable war to insure that alQaeda would never again find a haven in Afghanistan the country8217s next president could be the very guy who invited bin Laden to Afghanistan in the first place and became his partner in building alQaeda training camps Even Karzai who likes to poke his finger in American eyes quickly backed away from that insultamp160Within hours of the news reports he announced that he would remain 8220neutral8221amp160Americans scarcely seemed to notice but Afghans noted what Karzai had done in the first place Now as Sayyaf and other potential candidates do backroom deals jockeying for position Afghans wait anxiously to learn which ones will actually register to run before the October 6th deadline The names bandied about are those of the usual suspects familiar militia commanders from times past former jihadis and political hacks At this writing a coalition of some of the most powerful are said to be aligning behind former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah who came in second to Karzai8217s overstuffed ballot boxes in 2009 and declined to take part in a runoff likely to be just as fixed by fraud One Afghan politico surveying a recent gathering of likely candidates expressed to the Washington Post an opinion widely held by Afghans 8220These are the people who destroyed our countryamp160They should all be thrown down a well8221amp160Beleaguered Afghans have lived through all of this with all of them beforeamp160Sometimes it ends in a crooked electionamp160Sometimes in a coupamp160Once in recent memory in a civil war that could go into reruns Meanwhile Karzai has also been tampering with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission AIHRC a government body headed by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Sima Samar and the most respected public body in the country precisely because it has maintained its independence from government politics In December 2011 Karzai blocked the AIHRC8217s nonpartisan work by allowing the terms of three of its most effective members to expire Another respected member had been killed earlier in 2011 together with her husband and four children by a Taliban suicidebomber reportedly aiming for officials of Xe formerly Blackwater now Academi in a Kabul supermarket The members Karzai cut loose included Ahmad Nader Nadery an assiduous researcher of war crimes largely responsible for a 8220 Mapping Project8221 never officially released that reportedly names prominent warlords and members of Karzai8217s government After stalling for 18 months last July Karzai stacked the AIHRC staff with five political cronies unqualified in human rightsamp160They include an Army general a member of an Islamist fundamentalist political party and a mullah who served in the Taliban government spent three years in the US military prison at Bagram without being charged considers Shariah law the best source of human rights legislation and opposes laws currently on the books that aim to protect women from violence In September Navi Pillay the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights made a rare personal visit to Kabul to urge Karzai to reconsider his appointments before the AIHRC lost its international 8220A8221 rating and donor nations were forced to rethink their aid to a repressive governmentamp160She left with no assurances repeating her concern that 8220improvement in human rights8221 had not merely 8220peaked8221 in Afghanistan but was 8220in reality waning8221 Down and Out in Afghanistanamp160 Now that the end of the international occupation approaches the story of its success is undergoing a peculiar revision The stunning advances Washington claimed in Afghanistan seem somehow much smaller and so much less impressiveamp160Education health care and human rights just like the fabled MRAP have not lived up to their publicityamp160 For example Western leaders have taken particular pride in supposed advances in Afghan education since the defeat of the Taliban in 2001 in schools built and students enrolled by the millions The US Agency for International Development alone spent 934 million on Afghan education in the last 12 yearsamp160But UNICEF reports that almost half the 8220schools8221 supposedly built or opened have no actual buildings and in those that do students double up on seats and share antiquated texts Teachers are scarce and fewer than a quarter of those now teaching are considered 8220qualified8221 even by Afghanistan8217s minimal standardsamp160Impressive school enrollment figures determine how much money a school gets from the government but don8217t reveal the much smaller numbers of enrollees who actually attend No more than 10 of students mostly boys finish high school In 2012 according to UNICEF only half of schoolage children went to school at all Advances in Afghan health care have been another source of Western donors8217 pride But dramatic claims that 85 of Afghans now have access to basic health care turn out to mean only that something called a 8220health care facility8221 exists in 85 of Afghan districts many of which are enormousamp160Tens of thousands of Afghans now have 8220access8221 to health care facilities only because they fled their wartorn provinces for refugee camps on the fringes of major cities The country8217s high rates of maternal and infant mortality have slightly improved but remain among the worst in the world You have to wonder if Washington couldn8217t have turned all that MRAP money to better purpose As for the advancement of the human rights of women much ballyhooed by American politicians and others a report filed by the independent Afghan Rights Monitor in December 2012 tells a more accurate taleamp160It describes merely 10 of the many women assassinated in recent years because of their 8220work and ideals8221 8220women8217s development activists a doctor two journalists a provincial lawmaker a teacher and a police officer8221 amp160 Assassinated only two weeks ago was a courageous veteran police lieutenant named Nigara who once stopped a suicide bomber by grabbing him in a bear hugamp160Men on a motorcycle shot her in the neck from behind as she stood waiting for a government bus to take her to workamp160She was the senior policewoman in Helmand Province having taken over the duties of her predecessor Islam Bibi assassinated only three months earlier in the same popular driveby style No Afghan has ever been brought to trial for any of these assassinations nor does President Karzai ever speak out against them The government keeps no record of its women employees slain in the course of dutyamp160 Good neighbor Pakistan chose this moment to release from detention at an 8220undisclosed location8221 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar longtime pal of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and formerly his secondincommandamp160Karzai campaigned for his release to facilitate the Afghan 8220peace process8221 but now that Baradar is free his whereabouts are officially unknownamp160How do you suppose women in Afghanistan or girls in Pakistan8217s Swat Valley receive that news So that8217s the way the war is ending8212in waste destruction anxiety conspiracy and the evaporation of illusory achievements A thousand diminutions mark the waning of Afghanistan punctuated by the sudden violent death of women But even when the war 8220ends8221 and Americans have forgotten it altogether it won8217t be over in Afghanistan Obama and Karzai continue negotiations toward a bilateral security agreement to allow the US to keep at least 9 of the biggest bases it built and several thousand 8220trainers8221 and undoubtedly special operations forces in Afghanistan seemingly forever It won8217t be over in the US either For American soldiers who took part in it and returned with catastrophic physical and mental injuries and for their families the battles are just beginningamp160 For American taxpayers the war will continue at least until midcentury Think of all the families of the dead soldiers to be compensated for their loss all the wounded with their health care bills all the brain damaged veterans at the VAamp160Think of the ongoing cost of their drugs and prosthetics and benefits Medical and disability costs alone are projected to reach 754 billion Not to mention the hefty retirement pay of all those generals who issued all those reports of progress as they so ambitiously fought more than one war leading nowhere Then there8217s the urgent need to replace all that retrograde equipment so efficiently trashed and recruit a whole new army so that any month now we can start the next waramp160Let8217s not forget about that Ann Jones who has reported from Afghanistan since 2002 is the author of Kabul in Winter Metropolitan 2006 and War Is Not Over When It8217s Over Metropolitan 2010 among other books She wraps up a trilogy on war with publication next month of a Dispatch Books project in cooperation with Haymarket Books They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return from America8217s Wars8212the Untold Story which Andrew Bacevich has already described this way 8220Read this unsparing scathingly direct and gutwrenching account8212the war Washington doesn8217t want you to see Then see if you still believe that Americans 8216support the troops8221 o stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

amplta/NOUN hrefhttpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileDefensegov_News_Photo_091203F9891G156jpgampgtTech/PROPN Sgt/PROPN Francisco/PROPN V/NOUN Govea/PROPN II/PROPN US/PROPN Air/PROPN ForceampltaampgtWikimedia/PROPN Commons/PROPN This/DET story/NOUN first/ADV appeared/VERB on/ADP the/DET TomDispatch/PROPN website/NOUN Will/AUX the/DET US/PROPN still/ADV be/AUX meddling/VERB in/ADP Afghanistan/PROPN 30/NUM years/NOUN from/ADP nowamp160If/ADJ history/NOUN is/AUX any/DET guide/NOUN the/DET answer/NOUN is/AUX yesamp160And/ADP if/SCONJ history/NOUN is/AUX any/DET guide/NOUN three/NUM decades/NOUN from/ADP now/ADV most/ADJ Americans/PROPN will/AUX have/VERB only/ADV the/DET haziest/ADJ idea/NOUN why/SCONJ Since/SCONJ the/DET 1950s/NOUN the/DET US/PROPN has/AUX been/AUX trying/VERB to/PART mold/VERB that/DET remote/ADJ land/NOUN to/ADP its/PRON own/ADJ desires/NOUN first/ADV through/ADP an/DET aid/NOUN 8220war8221/NUM in/ADP the/DET midst/NOUN of/ADP the/DET Cold/PROPN War/PROPN with/ADP the/DET 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<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar&#8217;s drop to three-year lows this week after prolonged weakness in 2017 is expected to further boost profits at big U.S. companies when investor optimism is already high over corporate tax cuts.</p> FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Dollar note is seen in this June 22, 2017 illustration photo. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo <p>Investors are keeping an eye out for signs of the dollar's impact on company earnings as fourth quarter reporting ramps up next week. (GRAPHIC-World FX rates in 2018: <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh</a>)</p> <p>U.S. multinationals, especially energy and technology companies that have a significant portion of their sales overseas, could benefit the most from the currency effect, while other sectors like telecommunications benefit less.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC-Overseas sales by sector: <a href="http://reut.rs/2DhadR2" type="external">reut.rs/2DhadR2</a>)</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-dollar-explainer/the-u-s-dollars-slide-and-what-lies-ahead-idUSKBN1F82AS" type="external">The U.S. dollar's slide and what lies ahead</a> <a href="http://reut.rs/2DhadR2" type="external" /> <p>The greenback was headed for its fifth week of losses on Friday. The U.S. dollar index&#8217;s =USD average in the fourth quarter fell about 6 percent from its average in the year-ago quarter.</p> <p>Its nearly 10 percent fall in 2017 was its worst annual performance since 2003.</p> <p>The dollar has fallen on expectations central banks besides the Federal Reserve are seeking to end their policy of ultra-low, even negative, rates adopted to combat the 2008 global financial crisis. Analysts said that if U.S. inflation remains below the Fed&#8217;s target, while overseas central banks raise rates and reduce bond purchases, the dollar could fall further.</p> <p>Though it is still early days in the fourth-quarter earnings season, there are examples of how the weak dollar is affecting companies&#8217; bottom lines.</p> <p>International Business Machines ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=IBM.N" type="external">IBM.N</a>) late Thursday cited a currency boost in its results. IBM&#8217;s sales rise of 3.5 percent last quarter would have been only 1 percent if currency impact were excluded. American Express ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AXP.N" type="external">AXP.N</a>), also on Thursday, said fees and commissions grew 17 percent and 12 percent on a currency-adjusted basis, noting that &#8220;the weaker dollar had a larger impact on this line.&#8221;</p> <p>The effects may not be as headline grabbing as those from the changes to the U.S. tax law that were enacted last month by U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump.</p> <p>Changes to the law, which are prompting many companies to take one-time charges in fourth-quarter reports, include a cut in the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. The expected boon to earnings has helped stocks rally so far this year, while the weak dollar has added to the enthusiasm.</p> <p>&#8220;You look at the big-cap stocks and with that weakening dollar, that just makes everything so much better for them as far as overseas,&#8221; said Peter Costa, president at Empire Executions Inc in New York.</p> <p>A weaker dollar likely added about 50 basis points to fourth-quarter earnings growth, Credit Suisse strategists wrote in a note. Analysts are forecasting earnings for all S&amp;amp;P 500 companies of 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=IBM.N" type="external">International Business Machines Corp</a> 154.12 IBM.N New York Stock Exchange +4.27 (+2.85%) IBM.N AXP.N JWa.N PRGS.O ATU.N <p>(GRAPHIC-Dollar Stuck on Worst Losing Streak since 2015: <a href="http://reut.rs/2DP4e71" type="external">reut.rs/2DP4e71</a>)</p> <a href="http://reut.rs/2DP4e71" type="external" /> <p>The dollar&#8217;s weakness had also helped third-quarter results. Among other companies that have cited currency benefits in reports since the start of December are John Wiley &amp;amp; Sons ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JWa.N" type="external">JWa.N</a>), Progress Software ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRGS.O" type="external">PRGS.O</a>) and Actuant ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ATU.N" type="external">ATU.N</a>).</p> <p>&#8220;If you couple global demand with a weaker U.S. dollar, it&#8217;s a positive underpinning for the industrials in particular,&#8221; said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.</p> <p>U.S.-based multinationals can benefit the most from declines in the dollar, which makes overseas sales more valuable when translated back into U.S. currency. Global economic demand continues to pick up and was one of the biggest boosts to earnings in 2017, strategists said.</p> <p>S&amp;amp;P 500 companies with 50 percent or more of sales coming from outside the United States have estimated profit growth of 15.2 percent for the fourth quarter, compared with 12.3 percent for companies with less than 50 percent of non-U.S. sales, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p> <p>Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Alden Bentley and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - As equity markets show increasing fragility, investors are looking for any sign that selling pressure will wane. Some of those markers could be found in the charts favored by technical analysts - although they suggest investors still face considerable risk.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> Traders react as they work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S., April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson <p>With the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> closing on Monday below its 200-Day Moving Average for the first time since the June 2016 Brexit panic, investors worried that an important indicator of the bull market trend has been broken.</p> <p>Stocks have traded below that key level now for three consecutive days on fears of an escalating trade war with China and the potential for tougher oversight of the technology companies that have supported the market. On Wednesday, stocks opened sharply in the red, but later recovered some equilibrium.</p> <p>The following charts reflect the technical vulnerabilities of the market.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: S&amp;amp;P - <a href="https://reut.rs/2q6HKZy" type="external">reut.rs/2q6HKZy</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2q6HKZy" type="external" /> <p>Investors see the 200-day moving average as a proxy for the long-term trend, underpinning the market&#8217;s advance. It has been broken only twice since 2016 and the lower close in June 2016 lasted just one day.</p> <p>Spending much time below the 200-day moving average, as occurred in late 2015, could coincide with a more severe period of market weakness. That said, the S&amp;amp;P 500 has yet to reach a &#8220;failure swing&#8221; by violating its early February trough at 2,532.69. Market players may look for the index to reclaim its 50-day moving average - a proxy for the intermediate-term trend - to suggest the recent damage is being repaired.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: DJ Industrial Average - <a href="https://reut.rs/2GxECMI" type="external">reut.rs/2GxECMI</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2GxECMI" type="external" /> <p>While the Dow <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> is showing similar action, the blue-chip average has not recorded a closing violation of its 200-day moving average during its recent weakness. Even so, the index is also down about 10 percent for the year.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: Nasdaq Composite - <a href="https://reut.rs/2q3JOl3" type="external">reut.rs/2q3JOl3</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2q3JOl3" type="external" /> <p>While the Nasdaq <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> surpassed its January peak to reach a record high in March, the index is now down about 9 percent from that top and threatening support at a trend line from its late-June 2016 trough, as well as its 200-day moving average.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: Tech Titans - <a href="https://reut.rs/2q4DyK2" type="external">reut.rs/2q4DyK2</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2q4DyK2" type="external" /> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">Standard &amp;amp; Poor's Corp</a> 2644.69 .SPX Chicago Board Options Exchange +30.24 (+1.16%) .SPX .DJI .IXIC <p>Technology stocks, which have been a driver for the market, handily outperformed the S&amp;amp;P 500 last year, gaining 37 percent vs. the broader index&#8217;s 19 percent rise.</p> <p>Now a price-weighted composite of Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Facebook - five of the six largest- capitalized stocks in the S&amp;amp;P 500 - is down close to 12 percent over the past four calendar weeks and on track for the worst such decline in its six-year history. These tech titans account for more than $3.3 trillion in market capitalization, or more than 14 percent of the S&amp;amp;P 500&#8217;s total value. Thus, in the absence of a major rotation, action in these key tech stocks may be critical to the market&#8217;s next major move.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: NYSE Advance/Decline Line - <a href="https://reut.rs/2GxzQ5I" type="external">reut.rs/2GxzQ5I</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2GxzQ5I" type="external" /> <p>However, there are some positive indicators: The NYSE daily advance/decline line (A/D), a measure of the overall participation in an advance, peaked in January just a few days prior to the tops in the S&amp;amp;P 500 and Dow. The A/D moved above its 200-day moving average in early 2016, and remains there, which is a positive indicator for market breadth and shows that not all technical signs are negative.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: NYSE New High/New Low - <a href="https://reut.rs/2Gw8rkB" type="external">reut.rs/2Gw8rkB</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2Gw8rkB" type="external" /> <p>Additionally, another internal measure, the NYSE New High/New Low Index, has fallen below 20 percent and is flirting with its February low of 17.1 percent. Although this reading reflects the weakness that the market has endured, it is potentially reaching washed-out levels, from which a surprise reversal may develop. Thus, despite the market&#8217;s decline, there may be some silver linings under the surface.</p> <p>Reporting by Terence Gabriel, Editing by Megan Davies and Dan Grebler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar fell and global stock markets edged higher on Wednesday after China retaliated in a trade dispute with the United States, but Wall Street rebounded from a steeply lower opening on the notion a tariff war has not begun and any impact is too early to foresee.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson <p>Oil prices slipped to a two-week low as the speed with which Beijing responded to U.S. measures, within 11 hours, raised the prospect of a quickly spiraling dispute that could crimp the global economy, including the demand for crude.</p> <p>Gold hit a one-week high, while prices of U.S. Treasury securities and German bunds gained on safe-haven buying.</p> <p>Boeing and Caterpillar led a slide in big U.S. manufacturers and technology companies that bore the brunt of the U.S.-Chinese dispute, while Germany&#8217;s exporter-heavy DAX index fell more than its large European market counterparts.</p> <p>Still, stocks on Wall Street and in Europe pulled back from more than 1 percent declines, with the FTSE in London closing higher and the three major U.S. indexes later turned positive.</p> <p>&#8220;The market is overreacting to this trade news,&#8221; said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston.</p> <p>&#8220;These tariffs won&#8217;t be implemented for a little while. It gives both sides time to negotiate, which I think is the strategy for both the U.S. and China.&#8221;</p> <p>Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab Investment Management, said the fact fixed income and currency markets did not sell off on the news was potentially a sign that equity investors over-reacted.</p> <p>&#8220;If they&#8217;re not concerned that tells you a lot about what the implications might be,&#8221; Aguilar said.</p> <p>Publication of Washington&#8217;s list of tariffs starts a period of public comment and consultation expected to last around two months, while the effective date of China&#8217;s moves depends on when the U.S. action takes effect.</p> <p>China&#8217;s retaliation came after trading hours for Japan&#8217;s Nikkei, which added 0.2 percent in thin volume, while Chinese blue chips ended down 0.2 percent.</p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s all-country world index of stock performance in 47 countries traded little changed after tumbling about 1 percent. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares fell 0.43 percent.</p> <p>The FTSE index in London closed up 0.05 percent, while the DAX closed down 0.37 percent and France&#8217;s CAC 40 index fell 0.2 percent.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 109.13 points, or 0.45 percent, to 24,142.49. The S&amp;amp;P 500 gained 17.72 points, or 0.68 percent, to 2,632.17 and the Nasdaq Composite added 54.37 points, or 0.78 percent, to 6,995.65.</p> <p>Shares of Boeing, the single largest U.S. exporter to China, fell 2.0 percent. Caterpillar slid 0.8 percent.</p> <p>The likelihood that China and the United States will hold prolonged negotiations on trade leads investors to recognize equity fundamentals remain strong as the results of first-quarter corporate earnings will show in coming weeks, Arone said.</p> FILE PHOTO: U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo <p>&#8220;My view is this is more trade poker than it is trade policy,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Marc Chandler, chief global currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman &amp;amp; Co in New York, said he did not believe a trade war had started yet.</p> <p>&#8220;I think of a trade war as an escalation ladder, and these moves are still low rungs on the ladder,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>There could be further ramifications of this trade war or roll backs, said Anindya Chatterjee, lead portfolio manager of emerging markets at Fiera Capital, but &#8220;we maintain that an escalation of a tariff war is unlikely.&#8221;</p> <p>The dollar index fell 0.07 percent, with the euro up 0.09 percent at $1.228. The Japanese yen weakened 0.13 percent versus the greenback to 106.76 per dollar.</p> <p>Oil bounced off session lows after U.S. data showed a weekly decline in crude stocks, instead of the increase analysts had expected. U.S. crude settled down 14 cents at $63.37 per barrel and Brent slid 10 cents to settle at $68.02.</p> China trade war fears spark U.S. stock sell-off <p>Borrowing costs nudged lower in Europe even as the first March reading on euro zone inflation, important data for markets as the European Central Bank looks to wind down its massive monetary stimulus, came in firm at 1.4 percent.</p> <p>U.S. benchmark 10-year notes fell 2/32 in price to yield 2.7917 percent. Germany&#8217;s benchmark 10-year bond yield dipped back below 0.50 percent and toward 2-1/2 month lows hit last week.</p> <p>U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled up $2.90 at $1,340.20 an ounce.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney, Helen Reid and Dhara Ranasinghe in London; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Steve Orlofsky</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Spotify Technology SA ended up 12.9 percent on their first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange, a smooth debut that could pave the way for other companies looking to go public without the aid of Wall Street underwriters.</p> <p>Spotify shares opened at $165.90, up nearly 26 percent from a reference price of $132 set by the NYSE late on Monday. The stock ended the session at $149.01, valuing the world&#8217;s largest streaming music service at $26.5 billion.</p> <p>The direct listing was seen as a test case for other companies tempted to list without selling new shares, and for bankers that could lose out on millions of dollars in underwriting fees for future initial public offerings.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a fair market price. It&#8217;s not manipulated or set by any puts and takes by banks or institutional investors,&#8221; said Chi-Hua Chien, an early investor in Spotify who is now at San Mateo, California-based venture capital firm Goodwater Capital.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-spotify-ipo-flag/nyse-spotifys-market-debut-and-the-swiss-miss-idUSKCN1HA2N2" type="external">NYSE, Spotify's market debut, and the Swiss miss</a> <a href="/article/us-spotify-tech-ipo-sony/spotify-listing-to-land-986-million-windfall-for-sony-in-first-quarter-idUSKCN1HB02W" type="external">Spotify listing to land $986 million windfall for Sony in first quarter</a> <a href="/article/us-spotify-ipo-techipos-factbox/factbox-spotify-spike-follows-a-mixed-bag-for-recent-tech-ipos-idUSKCN1HA2FB" type="external">FACTBOX - Spotify spike follows a mixed bag for recent tech IPOs</a> <p>Some market-watchers cautioned investors not to read too much into the first day of trading, given the mixed performance of recent tech IPOs and an increasingly competitive music streaming landscape.</p> HEMORRHAGING COSTS <p>The direct listing by the Stockholm-founded company was the largest on record. Spotify now has a higher market value than Snapchat owner Snap Inc, which went public last year. Facebook Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd remain the largest tech stock listings in recent years.</p> <p>Since launching its service a decade ago, Spotify has overcome resistance from big record labels and some major music artists to transform how people listen to music. But it still does not make a profit and faces intense competition from Apple Inc and others.</p> <p>&#8220;Investors are right to have some reservations. Spotify is from the costs of licensing content,&#8221; said Michael Carvin, chief executive of personal finance technology firm SmartAsset. &#8220;Even though Spotify&#8217;s scale is about twice that of Apple Music, Apple has a huge ecosystem of products to market to.&#8221;</p> <p>Spotify has 71 million so-called premium subscribers, including users who have given the company a credit card number for a free trial. On a comparable basis the Apple Music service has 46 million subscribers.</p> <p>Amazon Music Unlimited has an estimated 16 million paying subscribers and Pandora has 5.48 million total subscribers. Alphabet Inc&#8217;s Google does not release paid subscriber numbers for Google Play Music.</p> HEAVY TRADE <p>After the listing, Spotify has an enterprise value - which takes into account cash and debt on the company&#8217;s balance sheet - of about five times its 2017 revenue of $5 billion.</p> <p>That represents a premium to smaller rival Pandora Media Inc, which has an enterprise value-to-sales ratio of one, but is far less than a comparable ratio above 10 for Netflix Inc and Dropbox Inc.</p> Pedestrians walk past a banner with the Spotify logo on it as the company lists its stock on the New York Stock Exchange with a direct listing in New York, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson <p>Analysts had worried ahead of Spotify&#8217;s direct listing that forgoing underwriters and traditional promotional events designed to stimulate interest from institutional investors could mean volatility once formal trading kicked off.</p> <p>The NYSE set Spotify&#8217;s reference price late on Monday to be in line with informal, private trading of Spotify shares, giving an early estimate of the level at which supply and demand could be balanced.</p> <p>The opening public price was determined by buy and sell orders collected by the NYSE from broker-dealers and a designated market maker&#8217;s determination of where buy orders could be matched with sell orders.</p> <p>Nearly 30 million shares had changed hands by the end of regular trading hours. Some 91 percent of Spotify&#8217;s 178 million shares were tradable, a much higher percentage than typical in a traditional IPO.</p> Slideshow (4 Images) <p>While Chief Executive Daniel Ek skipped NYSE rituals such as opening bell-ringing and trading floor interviews to tout the stock, the front of the 115-year-old Greek Revival exchange building was draped in a vast green-and-black Spotify banner.</p> <p>The only visible hiccup came when the NYSE also briefly flew a Swiss flag in honor of the Swedish company, which the NYSE later described on Twitter as a &#8220;momentary ode to our neutral role in the process of price discovery.&#8221;</p> <p>Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in London, Helena Soderpalm in Stockholm, Joshua Franklin in New York and Stephen Nellis and Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco; Writing by Meredith Mazzilli; Editing by Bill Rigby</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Weaker dollar adds to optimism over U.S. earnings Peering over the cliff: U.S. equity market fragility in six charts Dollar, shares recovered as China retaliates in trade row Spotify shares jump in record-setting direct listing

https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-results-dollar/weaker-dollar-adds-to-optimism-over-us-earnings-idUSKBN1F82KX

2018-01-19

2least

NEW YORK Reuters The dollar8217s drop to threeyear lows this week after prolonged weakness in 2017 is expected to further boost profits at big US companies when investor optimism is already high over corporate tax cuts FILE PHOTO A US Dollar note is seen in this June 22 2017 illustration photo REUTERSThomas WhiteIllustrationFile Photo Investors are keeping an eye out for signs of the dollars impact on company earnings as fourth quarter reporting ramps up next week GRAPHICWorld FX rates in 2018 tmsnrtrs2egbfVh US multinationals especially energy and technology companies that have a significant portion of their sales overseas could benefit the most from the currency effect while other sectors like telecommunications benefit less GRAPHICOverseas sales by sector reutrs2DhadR2 Related Coverage The US dollars slide and what lies ahead The greenback was headed for its fifth week of losses on Friday The US dollar index8217s USD average in the fourth quarter fell about 6 percent from its average in the yearago quarter Its nearly 10 percent fall in 2017 was its worst annual performance since 2003 The dollar has fallen on expectations central banks besides the Federal Reserve are seeking to end their policy of ultralow even negative rates adopted to combat the 2008 global financial crisis Analysts said that if US inflation remains below the Fed8217s target while overseas central banks raise rates and reduce bond purchases the dollar could fall further Though it is still early days in the fourthquarter earnings season there are examples of how the weak dollar is affecting companies8217 bottom lines International Business Machines IBMN late Thursday cited a currency boost in its results IBM8217s sales rise of 35 percent last quarter would have been only 1 percent if currency impact were excluded American Express AXPN also on Thursday said fees and commissions grew 17 percent and 12 percent on a currencyadjusted basis noting that 8220the weaker dollar had a larger impact on this line8221 The effects may not be as headline grabbing as those from the changes to the US tax law that were enacted last month by US Congress and President Donald Trump Changes to the law which are prompting many companies to take onetime charges in fourthquarter reports include a cut in the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent The expected boon to earnings has helped stocks rally so far this year while the weak dollar has added to the enthusiasm 8220You look at the bigcap stocks and with that weakening dollar that just makes everything so much better for them as far as overseas8221 said Peter Costa president at Empire Executions Inc in New York A weaker dollar likely added about 50 basis points to fourthquarter earnings growth Credit Suisse strategists wrote in a note Analysts are forecasting earnings for all SampampP 500 companies of 124 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago according to Thomson Reuters data International Business Machines Corp 15412 IBMN New York Stock Exchange 427 285 IBMN AXPN JWaN PRGSO ATUN GRAPHICDollar Stuck on Worst Losing Streak since 2015 reutrs2DP4e71 The dollar8217s weakness had also helped thirdquarter results Among other companies that have cited currency benefits in reports since the start of December are John Wiley ampamp Sons JWaN Progress Software PRGSO and Actuant ATUN 8220If you couple global demand with a weaker US dollar it8217s a positive underpinning for the industrials in particular8221 said Quincy Krosby chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark New Jersey USbased multinationals can benefit the most from declines in the dollar which makes overseas sales more valuable when translated back into US currency Global economic demand continues to pick up and was one of the biggest boosts to earnings in 2017 strategists said SampampP 500 companies with 50 percent or more of sales coming from outside the United States have estimated profit growth of 152 percent for the fourth quarter compared with 123 percent for companies with less than 50 percent of nonUS sales according to Thomson Reuters data Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak Editing by Alden Bentley and Nick Zieminski Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters As equity markets show increasing fragility investors are looking for any sign that selling pressure will wane Some of those markers could be found in the charts favored by technical analysts although they suggest investors still face considerable riskamp160amp160 Traders react as they work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York US April 4 2018 REUTERSLucas Jackson With the SampampP 500 SPX closing on Monday below its 200Day Moving Average for the first time since the June 2016 Brexit panic investors worried that an important indicator of the bull market trend has been broken Stocks have traded below that key level now for three consecutive days on fears of an escalating trade war with China and the potential for tougher oversight of the technology companies that have supported the market On Wednesday stocks opened sharply in the red but later recovered some equilibrium The following charts reflect the technical vulnerabilities of the market GRAPHIC SampampP reutrs2q6HKZy Investors see the 200day moving average as a proxy for the longterm trend underpinning the market8217s advance It has been broken only twice since 2016 and the lower close in June 2016 lasted just one day Spending much time below the 200day moving average as occurred in late 2015 could coincide with a more severe period of market weakness That said the SampampP 500 has yet to reach a 8220failure swing8221 by violating its early February trough at 253269 Market players may look for the index to reclaim its 50day moving average a proxy for the intermediateterm trend to suggest the recent damage is being repaired GRAPHIC DJ Industrial Average reutrs2GxECMI While the Dow DJI is showing similar action the bluechip average has not recorded a closing violation of its 200day moving average during its recent weakness Even so the index is also down about 10 percent for the year GRAPHIC Nasdaq Composite reutrs2q3JOl3 While the Nasdaq IXIC surpassed its January peak to reach a record high in March the index is now down about 9 percent from that top and threatening support at a trend line from its lateJune 2016 trough as well as its 200day moving average GRAPHIC Tech Titans reutrs2q4DyK2 Standard ampamp Poors Corp 264469 SPX Chicago Board Options Exchange 3024 116 SPX DJI IXIC Technology stocks which have been a driver for the market handily outperformed the SampampP 500 last year gaining 37 percent vs the broader index8217s 19 percent rise Now a priceweighted composite of Apple Alphabet Microsoft Amazoncom and Facebook five of the six largest capitalized stocks in the SampampP 500 is down close to 12 percent over the past four calendar weeks and on track for the worst such decline in its sixyear history These tech titans account for more than 33 trillion in market capitalization or more than 14 percent of the SampampP 5008217s total value Thus in the absence of a major rotation action in these key tech stocks may be critical to the market8217s next major move GRAPHIC NYSE AdvanceDecline Line reutrs2GxzQ5I However there are some positive indicators The NYSE daily advancedecline line AD a measure of the overall participation in an advance peaked in January just a few days prior to the tops in the SampampP 500 and Dow The AD moved above its 200day moving average in early 2016 and remains there which is a positive indicator for market breadth and shows that not all technical signs are negative GRAPHIC NYSE New HighNew Low reutrs2Gw8rkB Additionally another internal measure the NYSE New HighNew Low Index has fallen below 20 percent and is flirting with its February low of 171 percent Although this reading reflects the weakness that the market has endured it is potentially reaching washedout levels from which a surprise reversal may develop Thus despite the market8217s decline there may be some silver linings under the surface Reporting by Terence Gabriel Editing by Megan Davies and Dan Grebler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters The dollar fell and global stock markets edged higher on Wednesday after China retaliated in a trade dispute with the United States but Wall Street rebounded from a steeply lower opening on the notion a tariff war has not begun and any impact is too early to foresee Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York US April 4 2018 REUTERSLucas Jackson Oil prices slipped to a twoweek low as the speed with which Beijing responded to US measures within 11 hours raised the prospect of a quickly spiraling dispute that could crimp the global economy including the demand for crude Gold hit a oneweek high while prices of US Treasury securities and German bunds gained on safehaven buying Boeing and Caterpillar led a slide in big US manufacturers and technology companies that bore the brunt of the USChinese dispute while Germany8217s exporterheavy DAX index fell more than its large European market counterparts Still stocks on Wall Street and in Europe pulled back from more than 1 percent declines with the FTSE in London closing higher and the three major US indexes later turned positive 8220The market is overreacting to this trade news8221 said Michael Arone chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston 8220These tariffs won8217t be implemented for a little while It gives both sides time to negotiate which I think is the strategy for both the US and China8221 Omar Aguilar chief investment officer at Charles Schwab Investment Management said the fact fixed income and currency markets did not sell off on the news was potentially a sign that equity investors overreacted 8220If they8217re not concerned that tells you a lot about what the implications might be8221 Aguilar said Publication of Washington8217s list of tariffs starts a period of public comment and consultation expected to last around two months while the effective date of China8217s moves depends on when the US action takes effect China8217s retaliation came after trading hours for Japan8217s Nikkei which added 02 percent in thin volume while Chinese blue chips ended down 02 percent MSCI8217s allcountry world index of stock performance in 47 countries traded little changed after tumbling about 1 percent The panEuropean FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares fell 043 percent The FTSE index in London closed up 005 percent while the DAX closed down 037 percent and France8217s CAC 40 index fell 02 percent The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 10913 points or 045 percent to 2414249 The SampampP 500 gained 1772 points or 068 percent to 263217 and the Nasdaq Composite added 5437 points or 078 percent to 699565 Shares of Boeing the single largest US exporter to China fell 20 percent Caterpillar slid 08 percent The likelihood that China and the United States will hold prolonged negotiations on trade leads investors to recognize equity fundamentals remain strong as the results of firstquarter corporate earnings will show in coming weeks Arone said FILE PHOTO US dollar notes are seen in this November 7 2016 picture illustration REUTERSDado RuvicIllustrationFile Photo 8220My view is this is more trade poker than it is trade policy8221 he said Marc Chandler chief global currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman ampamp Co in New York said he did not believe a trade war had started yet 8220I think of a trade war as an escalation ladder and these moves are still low rungs on the ladder8221 he said There could be further ramifications of this trade war or roll backs said Anindya Chatterjee lead portfolio manager of emerging markets at Fiera Capital but 8220we maintain that an escalation of a tariff war is unlikely8221 The dollar index fell 007 percent with the euro up 009 percent at 1228 The Japanese yen weakened 013 percent versus the greenback to 10676 per dollar Oil bounced off session lows after US data showed a weekly decline in crude stocks instead of the increase analysts had expected US crude settled down 14 cents at 6337 per barrel and Brent slid 10 cents to settle at 6802 China trade war fears spark US stock selloff Borrowing costs nudged lower in Europe even as the first March reading on euro zone inflation important data for markets as the European Central Bank looks to wind down its massive monetary stimulus came in firm at 14 percent US benchmark 10year notes fell 232 in price to yield 27917 percent Germany8217s benchmark 10year bond yield dipped back below 050 percent and toward 212 month lows hit last week US gold futures for June delivery settled up 290 at 134020 an ounce Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney Helen Reid and Dhara Ranasinghe in London Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Steve Orlofsky Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORKSAN FRANCISCO Reuters Shares of Spotify Technology SA ended up 129 percent on their first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange a smooth debut that could pave the way for other companies looking to go public without the aid of Wall Street underwriters Spotify shares opened at 16590 up nearly 26 percent from a reference price of 132 set by the NYSE late on Monday The stock ended the session at 14901 valuing the world8217s largest streaming music service at 265 billion The direct listing was seen as a test case for other companies tempted to list without selling new shares and for bankers that could lose out on millions of dollars in underwriting fees for future initial public offerings 8220It8217s a fair market price It8217s not manipulated or set by any puts and takes by banks or institutional investors8221 said ChiHua Chien an early investor in Spotify who is now at San Mateo Californiabased venture capital firm Goodwater Capital Related Coverage NYSE Spotifys market debut and the Swiss miss Spotify listing to land 986 million windfall for Sony in first quarter FACTBOX Spotify spike follows a mixed bag for recent tech IPOs Some marketwatchers cautioned investors not to read too much into the first day of trading given the mixed performance of recent tech IPOs and an increasingly competitive music streaming landscape HEMORRHAGING COSTS The direct listing by the Stockholmfounded company was the largest on record Spotify now has a higher market value than Snapchat owner Snap Inc which went public last year Facebook Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd remain the largest tech stock listings in recent years Since launching its service a decade ago Spotify has overcome resistance from big record labels and some major music artists to transform how people listen to music But it still does not make a profit and faces intense competition from Apple Inc and others 8220Investors are right to have some reservations Spotify is from the costs of licensing content8221 said Michael Carvin chief executive of personal finance technology firm SmartAsset 8220Even though Spotify8217s scale is about twice that of Apple Music Apple has a huge ecosystem of products to market to8221 Spotify has 71 million socalled premium subscribers including users who have given the company a credit card number for a free trial On a comparable basis the Apple Music service has 46 million subscribers Amazon Music Unlimited has an estimated 16 million paying subscribers and Pandora has 548 million total subscribers Alphabet Inc8217s Google does not release paid subscriber numbers for Google Play Music HEAVY TRADE After the listing Spotify has an enterprise value which takes into account cash and debt on the company8217s balance sheet of about five times its 2017 revenue of 5 billion That represents a premium to smaller rival Pandora Media Inc which has an enterprise valuetosales ratio of one but is far less than a comparable ratio above 10 for Netflix Inc and Dropbox Inc Pedestrians walk past a banner with the Spotify logo on it as the company lists its stock on the New York Stock Exchange with a direct listing in New York US April 3 2018 REUTERSLucas Jackson Analysts had worried ahead of Spotify8217s direct listing that forgoing underwriters and traditional promotional events designed to stimulate interest from institutional investors could mean volatility once formal trading kicked off The NYSE set Spotify8217s reference price late on Monday to be in line with informal private trading of Spotify shares giving an early estimate of the level at which supply and demand could be balanced The opening public price was determined by buy and sell orders collected by the NYSE from brokerdealers and a designated market maker8217s determination of where buy orders could be matched with sell orders Nearly 30 million shares had changed hands by the end of regular trading hours Some 91 percent of Spotify8217s 178 million shares were tradable a much higher percentage than typical in a traditional IPO Slideshow 4 Images While Chief Executive Daniel Ek skipped NYSE rituals such as opening bellringing and trading floor interviews to tout the stock the front of the 115yearold Greek Revival exchange building was draped in a vast greenandblack Spotify banner The only visible hiccup came when the NYSE also briefly flew a Swiss flag in honor of the Swedish company which the NYSE later described on Twitter as a 8220momentary ode to our neutral role in the process of price discovery8221 Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in London Helena Soderpalm in Stockholm Joshua Franklin in New York and Stephen Nellis and Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco Writing by Meredith Mazzilli Editing by Bill Rigby Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Asta Funding Inc:</p> <p>* ASTA FUNDING INC-ON JAN. 12, ASFI PEGASUS HOLDINGS, LLC, UNIT CO ENTERED INTO A MEMBERSHIP INTEREST PURCHASE AGREEMENT WITH PEGASUS LEGAL FUNDING, LLC&#8203;</p> <p>* ASTA FUNDING-UNDER AGREEMENT, ASFI BOUGHT SELLER S OWNERSHIP INTERESTS OF PEGASUS, WHICH WAS 20% OF ISSUED AND OUTSTANDING LLC INTERESTS OF PEGASUS&#8203;</p> <p>* ASTA FUNDING INC - &#8205; ASFI BOUGHT SELLER S OWNERSHIP INTERESTS OF PEGASUS FUNDING, LLC FOR AN AGGREGATE PURCHASE PRICE OF $1.8 MILLION - SEC FILING</p> <p>* ASTA FUNDING INC - &#8205;AS A RESULT OF EXECUTION OF PURCHASE AGREEMENT, ASFI BECAME OWNER OF 100% OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY INTERESTS OF PEGASUS&#8203; Source text: ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2riUGid" type="external">bit.ly/2riUGid</a>) Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked U.S. regulators for exemptions to the nation&#8217;s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress, according to sources familiar with the matter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, in this April 25, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo <p>The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard - a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into the nation&#8217;s fuel supply, or buy government-awarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending.</p> <p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months, according to an agency source, driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs.</p> <p>But the agency won&#8217;t name the firms receiving the exemptions, citing a concern over disclosing private company information.</p> <p>Both Chevron ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>) and Exxon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM.N" type="external">XOM.N</a>), among the world&#8217;s most profitable energy companies, have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities - Chevron&#8217;s 54,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Utah and the Exxon&#8217;s 60,000 bpd refinery in Montana, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.</p> <p>The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017, which came due this year, the sources said.</p> <p>The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications, which have not been previously reported, follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ANDV.N" type="external">ANDV.N</a>), one of the biggest U.S. refining companies.</p> <p>The waivers could save Andeavor $50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company&#8217;s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law.</p> <p>Husky Energy - a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire - will also be seeking an exemption, this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior, Wisconsin plant, spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters, disclosing the waiver for the first time.</p> <p>Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50,000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CLMT.O" type="external">CLMT.O</a>) for $435 million in November.</p> <p>The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them &#8220;disproportionate economic hardship.&#8221;</p> <p>A spokesman for Chevron, Braden Reddall, declined to confirm or deny the application, but said waivers provide an edge.</p> <p>&#8220;Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS,&#8221; he said in a written statement to Reuters. &#8220;If true, any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment.</p> <p>The exceptions and the EPA&#8217;s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby, which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny,&#8221; five Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa, wrote in a joint statement Thursday.</p> <p>&#8220;This looks like just another backdoor attempt by (EPA) Administrator (Scott) Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent.&#8221;</p> <p>Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing &#8216;small&#8217; about Exxon and Chevron, both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100.</p> <p>&#8220;For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hard-working farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS,&#8221; Dinneen said.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>It&#8217;s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions.</p> <p>She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75,000 bpd - regardless of the size of the company that owns it.</p> <p>&#8220;EPA decisions on waivers are based on refinery-specific information,&#8221; she said in an email. &#8220;We continue to work through petitions received for 2017.&#8221;</p> <p>Exxon reported net profits of $19.7 billion last year. Chevron reported earning $9.2 billion.</p> <p>Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies, and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>Republican Senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, home to several small refineries, praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday. He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation&#8217;s largest refiners.</p> <p>&#8220;I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program. They know that we can&#8217;t allow it to hurt our nation&#8217;s small refineries,&#8221; Barrasso said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">Chevron Corp</a> 119.23 CVX.N New York Stock Exchange -0.02 (-0.02%) CVX.N XOM.N ANDV.N CLMT.O PSX.N &#8216;DEMAND DESTRUCTION&#8217; <p>The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to U.S. refineries, according to a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A current EPA official, however, said the number reached 20 for 2016.</p> <p>The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past. A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of &#8220;economic hardship&#8221; - opening the door for more facilities to be eligible.</p> <p>The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs - which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications.</p> <p>Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand. The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives.</p> <p>Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways: they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits, called RINs, to prove compliance, and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market. That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars.</p> <p>Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PSX.N" type="external">PSX.N</a>) also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver, as does CVR Energy ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVI.N" type="external">CVI.N</a>) which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn.</p> <p>Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions.</p> <p>Icahn&#8217;s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program - while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues - drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns.</p> <p>Biofuels proponents including U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as &#8220;demand destruction&#8221; for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war.</p> <p>The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron, has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past, arguing for a level competitive playing field.</p> <p>Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Global stocks recovered to three-week highs on Friday as anticipated strong earnings season took center stage after U.S. President Donald Trump backtracked on his suggestion of an imminent missile attack on Syria.</p> FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato <p>MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS ticked up 0.1 percent while Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> gained 0.8 percent.</p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s broadest gauge of the world&#8217;s stock markets .MIWD00000PUS also edged up 0.1 percent after hitting a three-week high on Thursday.</p> <p>In New York, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 0.83 percent, led by a 1.83 percent gain in financials .SPSY after strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) boosted optimism for corporate earnings.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>The mood improved also after Trump tweeted an attack on Syria &#8220;could be very soon or not so soon at all,&#8221; allaying fears of an immediate military action that investors fear could lead to wider conflict between Washington and Moscow.</p> <p>In another change of tack, Trump has asked his trade advisers to look at re-joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets have been pushed around by Trump. His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his re-election. If protectionism doesn&#8217;t work, he may switch to international trade,&#8221; said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial Holdings.</p> <p>&#8220;Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the U.S. is really re-joining the TPP. But if it does, it&#8217;s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>The improved sentiment drove up U.S. bond yields. The 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield US10YT=RR rose to 2.843 percent, its highest level since March 27.</p> <p>In the currency market, the dollar rose to 107.27 yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a>, edging near a five-week high of 107.49 touched on Apr. 5.</p> <p>The yen has become litmus test for risk sentiment, sought when investors turn risk averse because Japan&#8217;s hefty current surplus gives protection to any capital outflows deficit-running countries are vulnerable to.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 21771.69 .N225 Nikkei Index +111.41 (+0.51%) .N225 BLK.N JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>The euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> eased to $1.2327, though on the week it has kept gains of 0.4 percent.</p> <p>The Hong Kong dollar stood at 7.8498 to the dollar <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=HKD&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">HKD=D4</a>, near the lower end of its 7.75-7.85 trading band, a day after Hong Kong's de facto central bank intervened to support the currency for the first time since 2015.</p> <p>The Singapore dollar gained slightly after Singapore&#8217;s central bank tightened monetary policy for the first time in six years as expected.</p> <p>Oil prices remained close to highs last reached in late 2014 on tensions in the oil-rich Middle East and shrinking global oil inventories.</p> <p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 traded at $71.90 a barrel, a tad below Thursday close but not far from Wednesday&#8217;s high of $73.09. U.S. WTI crude futures CLc1 stood at $66.87.</p> <p>Elsewhere, bitcoin <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=BTC&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">BTC=BTSP</a> fetched $7,968.5 after 14.2 percent gains on Thursday, its biggest gain in four months.</p> <p>Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year.</p> <p>Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur &#8220;very soon or not so soon at all,&#8221; easing fears of confrontation with Russia.</p> <p>That lifted U.S. Treasury yields US10YT=RR, leading to a 1.8 percent increase in financial stocks .SPSY, which had the biggest percentage advance among the S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s 11 major sectors.</p> <p>The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.3 percent, adding the most gains to the S&amp;amp;P.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war,&#8221; said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. &#8220;Earnings are coming up and expectations are high.&#8221;</p> <p>Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) and Delta Air Lines Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAL.N" type="external">DAL.N</a>) added to the sanguine mood.</p> <p>Delta topped profit estimates, sending its shares 2.9 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks.</p> <p>BlackRock gained 1.5 percent after the asset manager&#8217;s quarterly profit rose more than expected.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> Slideshow (3 Images) <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>&#8220;People are looking forward to earnings season,&#8221; said Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. &#8220;Market participants are not wanting to miss out if (earnings are) as good as the forecasts say they will be.&#8221;</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 293.6 points, or 1.21 percent, to 24,483.05, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 21.8 points, or 0.83 percent, to 2,663.99, and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 71.22 points, or 1.01 percent, to 7,140.25.</p> <p>Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly U.S. initial jobless claims report, which pointed to sustained labor market strength.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BlackRock Inc</a> 533.01 BLK.N New York Stock Exchange +7.70 (+1.47%) BLK.N DAL.N JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) was a notable laggard among technology stocks, falling 1.5 percent following a 5.3 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network&#8217;s data security.</p> <p>Bed Bath &amp;amp; Beyond Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBBY.O" type="external">BBBY.O</a>) shares dived 20.0 percent after the company&#8217;s full-year profit forecast missed estimates.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 1.20-to-1 ratio and on the Nasdaq, for a 1.84-to-1 ratio.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.12 billion shares, compared to the 7.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain&#8217;s takeover regulator said Walt Disney ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires Twenty-First Century Fox&#8217;s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch&#8217;s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European pay-TV company itself.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London, Britain June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo <p>Fox ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FOXA.O" type="external">FOXA.O</a>) agreed an offer to buy all of Sky ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SKYB.L" type="external">SKYB.L</a>) 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval, while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets, including its stake in Sky, in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance.</p> <p>The ruling means that if Fox&#8217;s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch&#8217;s media influence, Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox&#8217;s assets.</p> <p>Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox&#8217;s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets, but Britain&#8217;s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox&#8217;s 10.75 pounds-a-share price.</p> A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid - RC1277BFE810 <p>Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox.</p> <p>The Takeover Panel, however, said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney&#8217;s acquiring control of Fox, and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">Walt Disney Co</a> 100.39 DIS.N New York Stock Exchange -0.41 (-0.41%) DIS.N FOXA.O SKYB.L CMCSA.O FOX COMMITTED <p>The Panel&#8217;s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets, or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky.</p> <p>U.S. cable company Comcast ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CMCSA.O" type="external">CMCSA.O</a>) said on Feb. 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky.</p> <p>Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel&#8217;s ruling, and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time.</p> <p>Twenty-First Century Fox said that under the ruling, any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney&#8217;s acquisition of Fox is completed, which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox&#8217;s offer for Sky.</p> <p>&#8220;21CF (Fox) remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 2016,&#8221; it said.</p> <p>The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority, it added.</p> <p>Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Asta Funding - ASFI Pegasus Holdings Entered Membership Interest Purchase Agreement With Pegasus Legal Funding Exclusive: Chevron, Exxon seek 'small refinery' waivers from U.S. biofuels law Stocks bounce as Trump changes tack on Syria, earnings hopes Wall Street gains on earnings optimism, waning Syria jitters Disney must offer to buy all of Sky, Britain's takeover regulator rules

https://reuters.com/article/brief-asta-funding-asfi-pegasus-holdings/brief-asta-funding-asfi-pegasus-holdings-entered-membership-interest-purchase-agreement-with-pegasus-legal-funding-idUSFWN1PD1GJ

2018-01-18

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Jan 18 Reuters Asta Funding Inc ASTA FUNDING INCON JAN 12 ASFI PEGASUS HOLDINGS LLC UNIT CO ENTERED INTO A MEMBERSHIP INTEREST PURCHASE AGREEMENT WITH PEGASUS LEGAL FUNDING LLC8203 ASTA FUNDINGUNDER AGREEMENT ASFI BOUGHT SELLER S OWNERSHIP INTERESTS OF PEGASUS WHICH WAS 20 OF ISSUED AND OUTSTANDING LLC INTERESTS OF PEGASUS8203 ASTA FUNDING INC 8205 ASFI BOUGHT SELLER S OWNERSHIP INTERESTS OF PEGASUS FUNDING LLC FOR AN AGGREGATE PURCHASE PRICE OF 18 MILLION SEC FILING ASTA FUNDING INC 8205AS A RESULT OF EXECUTION OF PURCHASE AGREEMENT ASFI BECAME OWNER OF 100 OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY INTERESTS OF PEGASUS8203 Source text bitly2riUGid Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked US regulators for exemptions to the nation8217s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress according to sources familiar with the matter FILE PHOTO A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar California in this April 25 2013 file photo REUTERSMike BlakeFile Photo The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the US Renewable Fuel Standard a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as cornbased ethanol into the nation8217s fuel supply or buy governmentawarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending The US Environmental Protection Agency EPA has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months according to an agency source driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs But the agency won8217t name the firms receiving the exemptions citing a concern over disclosing private company information Both Chevron CVXN and Exxon XOMN among the world8217s most profitable energy companies have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities Chevron8217s 54500 barrelperday refinery in Utah and the Exxon8217s 60000 bpd refinery in Montana two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017 which came due this year the sources said The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications which have not been previously reported follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor ANDVN one of the biggest US refining companies The waivers could save Andeavor 50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company8217s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law Husky Energy a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire will also be seeking an exemption this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior Wisconsin plant spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters disclosing the waiver for the first time Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners CLMTO for 435 million in November The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75000 barrels per day bpd that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them 8220disproportionate economic hardship8221 A spokesman for Chevron Braden Reddall declined to confirm or deny the application but said waivers provide an edge 8220Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS8221 he said in a written statement to Reuters 8220If true any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage8221 Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment The exceptions and the EPA8217s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits 8220EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny8221 five Republican senators including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa wrote in a joint statement Thursday 8220This looks like just another backdoor attempt by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent8221 Bob Dinneen head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing 8216small8217 about Exxon and Chevron both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100 8220For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hardworking farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS8221 Dinneen said Slideshow 2 Images It8217s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75000 bpd regardless of the size of the company that owns it 8220EPA decisions on waivers are based on refineryspecific information8221 she said in an email 8220We continue to work through petitions received for 20178221 Exxon reported net profits of 197 billion last year Chevron reported earning 92 billion Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming home to several small refineries praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation8217s largest refiners 8220I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program They know that we can8217t allow it to hurt our nation8217s small refineries8221 Barrasso said Chevron Corp 11923 CVXN New York Stock Exchange 002 002 CVXN XOMN ANDVN CLMTO PSXN 8216DEMAND DESTRUCTION8217 The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to US refineries according to a former US official who spoke on condition of anonymity A current EPA official however said the number reached 20 for 2016 The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of 8220economic hardship8221 opening the door for more facilities to be eligible The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits called RINs to prove compliance and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 PSXN also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver as does CVR Energy CVIN which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions Icahn8217s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns Biofuels proponents including US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as 8220demand destruction8221 for cornbased ethanol Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war The American Petroleum Institute which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past arguing for a level competitive playing field Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles TOKYO Reuters Global stocks recovered to threeweek highs on Friday as anticipated strong earnings season took center stage after US President Donald Trump backtracked on his suggestion of an imminent missile attack on Syria FILE PHOTO A pedestrian casts a shadow in front of an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo Japan November 9 2016 REUTERSIssei Kato MSCIs broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS ticked up 01 percent while Japans Nikkei N225 gained 08 percent MSCI8217s broadest gauge of the world8217s stock markets MIWD00000PUS also edged up 01 percent after hitting a threeweek high on Thursday In New York the SampampP 500 SPX gained 083 percent led by a 183 percent gain in financials SPSY after strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc BLKN boosted optimism for corporate earnings The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES The mood improved also after Trump tweeted an attack on Syria 8220could be very soon or not so soon at all8221 allaying fears of an immediate military action that investors fear could lead to wider conflict between Washington and Moscow In another change of tack Trump has asked his trade advisers to look at rejoining the Trans Pacific Partnership a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year 8220Markets have been pushed around by Trump His modus operandi seems to do anything that seems to be good for his reelection If protectionism doesn8217t work he may switch to international trade8221 said Hiroshi Watanabe economist at Sony Financial Holdings 8220Markets are still not yet convinced yet if the US is really rejoining the TPP But if it does it8217s very positive for the global economy and stock markets will like it8221 he added The improved sentiment drove up US bond yields The 10year US Treasuries yield US10YTRR rose to 2843 percent its highest level since March 27 In the currency market the dollar rose to 10727 yen JPY edging near a fiveweek high of 10749 touched on Apr 5 The yen has become litmus test for risk sentiment sought when investors turn risk averse because Japan8217s hefty current surplus gives protection to any capital outflows deficitrunning countries are vulnerable to Nikkei Inc 2177169 N225 Nikkei Index 11141 051 N225 BLKN JPMN CN WFCN The euro EUR eased to 12327 though on the week it has kept gains of 04 percent The Hong Kong dollar stood at 78498 to the dollar HKDD4 near the lower end of its 775785 trading band a day after Hong Kongs de facto central bank intervened to support the currency for the first time since 2015 The Singapore dollar gained slightly after Singapore8217s central bank tightened monetary policy for the first time in six years as expected Oil prices remained close to highs last reached in late 2014 on tensions in the oilrich Middle East and shrinking global oil inventories Brent crude futures LCOc1 traded at 7190 a barrel a tad below Thursday close but not far from Wednesday8217s high of 7309 US WTI crude futures CLc1 stood at 6687 Elsewhere bitcoin BTCBTSP fetched 79685 after 142 percent gains on Thursday its biggest gain in four months Editing by Shri Navaratnam Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters US stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as US President Donald Trump8217s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries The SampampP 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur 8220very soon or not so soon at all8221 easing fears of confrontation with Russia That lifted US Treasury yields US10YTRR leading to a 18 percent increase in financial stocks SPSY which had the biggest percentage advance among the SampampP8217s 11 major sectors The technology sector SPLRCT rose 13 percent adding the most gains to the SampampP 8220We8217re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war8221 said Michael Antonelli managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee 8220Earnings are coming up and expectations are high8221 Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc BLKN and Delta Air Lines Inc DALN added to the sanguine mood Delta topped profit estimates sending its shares 29 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks BlackRock gained 15 percent after the asset manager8217s quarterly profit rose more than expected The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Slideshow 3 Images Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES 8220People are looking forward to earnings season8221 said Tracie McMillion head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in WinstonSalem North Carolina 8220Market participants are not wanting to miss out if earnings are as good as the forecasts say they will be8221 The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 2936 points or 121 percent to 2448305 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 218 points or 083 percent to 266399 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 7122 points or 101 percent to 714025 Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly US initial jobless claims report which pointed to sustained labor market strength BlackRock Inc 53301 BLKN New York Stock Exchange 770 147 BLKN DALN JPMN CN WFCN Facebook Inc FBO was a notable laggard among technology stocks falling 15 percent following a 53 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network8217s data security Bed Bath ampamp Beyond Inc BBBYO shares dived 200 percent after the company8217s fullyear profit forecast missed estimates Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 120to1 ratio and on the Nasdaq for a 184to1 ratio Volume on US exchanges was 612 billion shares compared to the 727 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Britain8217s takeover regulator said Walt Disney DISN must offer to buy all of Sky if it acquires TwentyFirst Century Fox8217s 39 percent stake and if Rupert Murdoch8217s Fox is prevented from purchasing all of the European payTV company itself FILE PHOTO The Sky logo is seen on outside of an entrance to offices and studios in west London Britain June 29 2017 REUTERSToby MelvilleFile Photo Fox FOXAO agreed an offer to buy all of Sky SKYBL 17 months ago but is still waiting regulatory approval while Disney has agreed to buy Fox assets including its stake in Sky in a separate deal subject to its own regulatory clearance The ruling means that if Fox8217s bid to buy Sky is blocked by the government in June because of Murdoch8217s media influence Disney will have to step in to make the same offer to shareholders if and when it becomes the owner of Fox8217s assets Disney had said it should not be required to make a bid for the whole of Sky in line with Fox8217s existing offer if it bought the Fox assets but Britain8217s Takeover Panel ruled on Thursday that it must match Fox8217s 1075 poundsashare price A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US December 14 2017 REUTERSBrendan McDermid RC1277BFE810 Analysts had said Disney wanted a special dispensation to give it more flexibility on whether or when it would bid for the rest of Sky if it only bought the 39 percent stake from Fox The Takeover Panel however said it considered that securing control of Sky might reasonably be considered to be a significant purpose of Disney8217s acquiring control of Fox and it must make an offer within 28 days of buying the Fox assets Walt Disney Co 10039 DISN New York Stock Exchange 041 041 DISN FOXAO SKYBL CMCSAO FOX COMMITTED The Panel8217s ruling will not stand if Fox has acquired 100 percent of Sky by the time Disney buys the Fox assets or if Comcast Corp or any other third party has acquired a stake of more than 50 percent in Sky US cable company Comcast CMCSAO said on Feb 27 that it was considering making an offer for Sky Sky said it noted the Takeover Panel8217s ruling and it advised shareholders to take no further action at this time TwentyFirst Century Fox said that under the ruling any mandatory offer by Disney would only be required after Disney8217s acquisition of Fox is completed which Fox currently expects to occur after completion of Fox8217s offer for Sky 822021CF Fox remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky announced on 15th December 20168221 it said The offer was supported by revised remedies it had offered to Britain8217s Competition and Markets Authority it added Reporting by Paul Sandle Editing by Kate Holton and Alexander Smith Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p /> <p><a href="#one" type="external">Never Mind the Torture</a> Islam Karimov may be a dictator with a lousy human rights record, but to the right wing he&#8217;s a hero.</p> <p><a href="#two" type="external">Abizaid Calls It Like He Sees It</a> The new top brass in Iraq, going by the book, thinks we have a guerrilla war on our hands. Sorry, Rummy.</p> <p><a href="#three" type="external">Tenet&#8217;s Hari Kari</a> Tenet fell on his sword for the president. But will that save Bush from the fallout?</p> <p><a href="#four" type="external">Clark Beats Around the Bush</a> The decorated former general Wesley Clark is many things that many Democrats want in a president. He might even be able to win. That is, if he decides to run.</p> <p /> <p><a type="external" href="">Never Mind the Torture</a> These must be proud days for <a href="/news/warwatch/2003/22/we_424_04.html#%20one" type="external">Islam Karimov</a>, dictator of Uzbekistan and newly-anointed defender of freedom and democracy in Central Asia.</p> <p>Indeed, in the eyes of some on the right wing, Karimov appears to have joined the pantheon of distinguished international freedom fighters. In his commitment to the war on terror, the central Asian tyrant has proved himself the equal of right-wing heroes like Angolan warlord and conflict diamond smuggler <a href="http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0202savimbi_body.html" type="external">Jonas Savimbi</a>, who &#8212; with CIA backing and apartheid South Africa&#8217;s help &#8212; prolonged his country&#8217;s civil war for decades. Or perhaps he&#8217;s more like Nicaragua&#8217;s thuggish <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html" type="external">Contras</a>, whom Ronald Reagan compared to America&#8217;s Founding Fathers. Back then, of course, our unsavory allies abroad were fighting communism. Now they&#8217;re battling Islamic terrorists &#8212; or in Karimov&#8217;s case, any political opposition at all, Islamic or not.</p> <p>Karimov, an ex-Communist party boss, has worked tirelessly to crush all domestic dissent in Uzbekistan. He <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18400.htm" type="external">imprisons entire families</a> to punish one member. He <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/s661687.htm" type="external">boils opponents to death</a>. Yes, that&#8217;s as in immersing victims in boiling water. His elections, the State Department itself declared, are &#8220; <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18400.htm" type="external">neither free nor fair</a>.&#8221; Even the Secretary General of NATO <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10387071.htm" type="external">criticized</a> Karimov&#8217;s habit of indiscriminately locking people up.</p> <p>But there stands Karimov, a cornerstone in the White House&#8217;s war on terror, <a href="/news/dailymojo/2003/07/51.jpg" type="external">palling around</a> with Donald Rumsfeld and collecting more than <a href="http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/15683.htm" type="external">$500 million</a> in US aid last year.</p> <p>All of this is as it should be, says Stephen Schwartz, a member of the right-wing Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (which counts among its <a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies.htm" type="external">advisors</a> such neoconservative luminaries as accused war-profiteer <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact" type="external">Richard Perle</a>, disgraced House leader <a href="http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.16992,filter./news_detail.asp" type="external">Newt Gingrich</a>, and former CIA director <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war/" type="external">James Woolsey</a>). Writing in the Weekly Standard, Schwartz assures us that <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/00%202/900ekuvo.asp" type="external">Karimov&#8217;s sins are nothing to worry about</a> &#8212; just the growing pains that all &#8220;aspiring democracies&#8221; go through. Furthermore, Schwartz declares, human rights groups that dare to criticize Karimov&#8217;s overly broad definition of &#8220;terrorist&#8221; are modern-day Neville Chamberlains.</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;The campaign against terrorism is undermined by weakness, irresolution, and apologetics, not by identifying the enemy.</p> <p>&#8230;</p> <p>The United States, which has entered into a military alliance with Uzbekistan, must support the Uzbeks in their internal as well as their external combat, and must repudiate the blandishments of the human rights industry.&#8221;</p> <p>America&#8217;s central mission, Schwartz opines, should be &#8220;[p]rotecting Uzbekistan&#8217;s young democracy from radical Islamists and the human rights groups who defend them,&#8221; not hemming and hawing over a few (undoubtedly deserving) dissidents who were boiled to death in defense of democracy.</p> <p>Karimov couldn&#8217;t have said it better himself. Oh wait, <a href="http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/03/karimovprof.htm" type="external">he did</a>, in 1998, in a warning to his parliament about the dangers of Islamic extremists.</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;&#8216;Such people must be shot in the forehead! If necessary, I&#8217;ll shoot them myself &#8230; !'&#8221;</p> <p /> <p /> <p><a type="external" href="">Abizaid Calls It Like He Sees It</a> Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld&#8217;s words may be coming back to haunt him. Amidst <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0707/p02s01-woiq.html" type="external">plummeting troop morale</a>, General John Abizaid &#8212; in his first <a href="http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030716-0401.html" type="external">Pentagon briefing</a> since he took charge of the US central command last week &#8212; directly contradicted his boss by calling the current situation in Iraq a &#8220;guerrilla war.&#8221; The sophistication of the attacks against US soldiers has been generated &#8220;at a regional level in a cellular structure,&#8221; said Abizaid. &#8220;I would describe [it] as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It&#8217;s low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it&#8217;s war, however you describe it.&#8221; Sorry, Rummy.</p> <p>Abizaid&#8217;s comments couldn&#8217;t have come at a worse time for Bush and Rummy who, just last week, assured us that we were not, in fact, engaged in a guerrilla war with Iraq &#8212; and wasn&#8217;t it just a little over two months ago that Bush stood in front of an aircraft carrier heralding a banner reading, &#8220; <a href="http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/nyc-henn0716,0,4979.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists" type="external">Mission Accomplished</a>&#8220;?</p> <p>In a press conference last week, Bush minimized the conflict situation in Iraq, calling it merely a &#8220;security issue,&#8221; and taunted the insurgents there saying &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1617-2003Jul2.html?nav=hptop_ts" type="external">Bring &#8217;em on</a>&#8221; (much to the dismay of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/13/1058034865130.html%20target=" type="external">some soldiers</a>, who felt that was easy for the president to say, far from the action). And according to The Age&#8217;s Vernon Loeb, Rumsfeld said on Sunday that the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/17/1058035132841.html" type="external">fighting</a> in Iraq did not fit the definition of a guerrilla war.</p> <p>But now, for the first time, a senior US commander has <a href="http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6769510%255E912,00.html" type="external">acknowledged</a> that, given the usual definitions, in &#8220;doctrinal terms,&#8221; there really isn&#8217;t another way to describe what&#8217;s developping in Iraq. The Advertiser&#8217;s Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay report:</p> <p>&#8220;It was the first time a senior US commander had acknowledged that daily attacks on US troops nearly three months after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations were more than uncoordinated strikes by separate groups of former regime members, criminals or foreigners.&#8221;</p> <p>Roy Eccleston, writing for The Australian, argues that Abizaid&#8217;s comments are a more pragmatic evaluation of what the US troops are <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6770121%255E2703,00.html" type="external">dealing with</a> in Iraq:</p> <p>&#8220;The comments appeared to be a more clinical and realistic assessment of the serious problems now facing US forces in post-Hussein Iraq than the Pentagon has been willing to make to date.&#8221;</p> <p>As for the need for more troops, according to the Guardian, Abizaid sees <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1000053,00.html" type="external">no need</a> right now to deploy more ground troops &#8212; that is, if the situation doesn&#8217;t worsen:</p> <p>&#8220;The US has about 148,000 troops in Iraq, up from the 115,000 in position at the beginning of the conflict. Gen Abizaid said he thought that was the right number for the next few weeks but added that if the situation got worse he would not hesitate to ask for more.&#8221;</p> <p>Should Abizaid request more troops, The Guardian notes, he would be, again, directly contradicting Rumsfeld&#8217;s previous statements. Rumsfeld attempted to use the Iraq war to show the world that Washington didn&#8217;t need massive manpower to win conflicts.</p> <p>And although Abizaid sees no need for further ground troops right now, he did say &#8212; in direct opposition, yet again, to the recent pronouncements of the Bush camp &#8212; that the Iraqi attacks are becoming more <a href="http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030716-0401.html" type="external">organized</a>:</p> <p>&#8220;[T]he level of resistance &#8212; I&#8217;m not so sure that I would characterize it as escalating in terms of number of incidents. But it is getting more organized, and it is learning. It is adapting.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p /> <p><a type="external" href="">Tenet&#8217;s Hari Kari</a> CIA Director George Tenet is soaking up the blame for President Bush&#8217;s erroneous sixteen words in January&#8217;s State of the Union like he&#8217;s sunbathing. But according to the right, it&#8217;s <a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20030714.shtml" type="external">not really Tenet&#8217;s fault</a>. In fact, Bob Novak writes in Townhall, the CIA director never knew a thing about that <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030706_918.html" type="external">insidious study</a> by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the report that rejected claims of Niger&#8217;s sale of uranium to Iraq and plunged the White House into full damage-control mode.</p> <p>In a four-and-a-half hour grilling Wednesday, Tenet told the Senate that it was a <a href="http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAP9RMP8ID.html" type="external">senior White House official</a> that insisted the State of the Union address include unsubstantiated information. That, of course, doesn&#8217;t square with the official White House version of the story &#8212; or at least the most recent version (it&#8217;s so hard to keep them straight). And the White House line, at the moment, runs something like this: &#8220;We heard it all from the British &#8212; and since we&#8217;ve always been such good pals with the Brits, we overlooked the funny accents and took their word for it. How were we to know the uranium claims came from forged documents?&#8221;</p> <p>Wilson&#8217;s study, based on his CIA-initiated mission to Niger, determined that there was no evidence that Niger tried to sell uranium to Iraq. But even though Wilson says the CIA requested he make the trip (some sources say at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney), the White House is now <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465137,00.html" type="external">trying to wash its hands</a> of Wilson&#8217;s report entirely. In defiance of all the available evidence, the administration now claims that Wilson was merely recruited by low-level CIA officials and that his findings were inconclusive. Novak spells it out:</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;Wilson&#8217;s report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government.&#8221;</p> <p>So the administration and its doberman-pincer pundits are not only downplaying the significance of Wilson&#8217;s findings, they&#8217;re also alleging that Wilson really just wanted an excuse to visit Niger, and his wife arranged for it. Wilson&#8217;s wife, according to Novak, is a CIA official:</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson&#8217;s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.&#8221;</p> <p>It&#8217;s an interesting theory, and a tidy smear against both Wilson and his wife, but it ignores Wilson&#8217;s record of distinguished service. He served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad, and later took charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until he retired in 1998. Anyway, whoever thought that boy George&#8217;s supporters would be slinging accusations of nepotism?</p> <p>Adamant that his wife be left alone, Wilson stands firm by his version of the story. He says he was asked to meet with CIA officials and told them he was ready to make the trip if they needed him. Apparently, they needed him then. But in the aftermath of his going public with accusations of &#8220;twisted intelligence,&#8221; the administration hit Wilson with a sucker punch. By outing Plame&#8217;s top-secret position, the Nation&#8216;s David Corn writes, Novak&#8217;s secret sources have threatened national security, jeopardizing her career and &#8212; given the terrorist climate the administration can&#8217;t seem to quit yelling about &#8212; maybe even her life.</p> <p>What&#8217;s more, if the &#8220;senior officials&#8221; that leaked the story to Novak are telling the truth, they&#8217;re also <a href="http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&amp;amp;pid=823" type="external">breaking the law</a> &#8212; committing a crime that calls for a $50,000 fine and/or up to 10 years in prison if convicted:</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent.&#8221;</p> <p>Leave it to the White House. It&#8217;s not acceptable for the public to know who served on Cheney&#8217;s energy commission, but the names and spouses of CIA operatives may as well be written in lights.</p> <p /> <p><a type="external" href="">Clark Beats Around the Bush</a> The question for many Democratic voters, as they begin the process of choosing their favorite of <a href="http://www.democrats.org/whitehouse/index.html" type="external">nine presidential wanna-bes</a>, is who will actually be able to defeat the incumbent commander-in-chief? Some are placing their bets on Howard Dean, others John Kerry, but some pundits are worried that none of the candidates will be able to de-throne Bush. And then there&#8217;s a dark horse, fresh from the battlefield, who has gotten more than a few Democrats feeling hopeful.</p> <p>For months General Wesley Clark &#8212; now retired &#8212; has been dropping subtle hints that he is considering running. He told Newsweek that he is considering candidacy because <a href="http://msnbc.com/news/934709.asp?0sl=-41" type="external">the American people have asked him to</a>. And in fact, some Washington politicos have even begun a Web campaign to <a href="http://www.DraftWesleyClark.com/" type="external">convince Clark he should run</a>. It&#8217;s not just that people are hoping that Clark is their man, many actually like his ideas. In addition to Clark&#8217;s liberal stances on abortion rights, taxation, affirmative action, his nuanced approach to foreign policy and his criticism of the Iraq war evidence &#8212; Clark is a man who is interested in ideas. This week he told Newsweek:</p> <p>&#8220;On the other hand, I&#8217;ve always liked the battle of ideas. And to me, competing in the political arena should be first and foremost about the ideas and perspectives that candidates would bring to the tasks, then following through on what&#8217;s been promised.&#8221;</p> <p>His Southern accent and his brave man-in-uniform status paired with the fact that he&#8217;s a Rhodes Scholar and good public speaker are making the Dems swoon with joy. While generals do not often get the Democratic electorate excited, many are at the point where they will lay certain assumptions aside if it&#8217;ll help oust Dubya. But those who pay attention to Clark&#8217;s remarks on the war in Iraq know that he is one of few in the armed service who have gone after Bush&#8217;s shaky WMD-evidence. In June, Clark was featured on NBC&#8217;s Meet the Press, and instead of shooting the breeze with host Tim Russert, Clark described a little-known <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0306/S00320.htm" type="external">phone call he received on September 11th</a>.</p> <p>Clark: &#8220;There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.&#8221;</p> <p>Russert: &#8220;By who? Who did that?&#8221;</p> <p>Clark: &#8220;Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, &#8216;You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.&#8217; I said, &#8216;But&#8211;I&#8217;m willing to say it, but what&#8217;s your evidence?&#8217; And I never got any evidence.&#8221;</p> <p>Such sure sounding statements have an impact when they come from a man who has been fighting and planning wars for thirty-four years. Clark served as the Commander in Chief for the US in NATO during the war in Kosovo. He came home and wrote a book about his experiences, &#8221; <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/jan-june01/clark_06-15.html" type="external">Waging Modern War</a>&#8220;. Aside from his checklist of career accomplishments, Clark seems to have a personal integrity that helped him earn Defense Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, and a Purple Heart. After being seriously injured in Vietnam Clark taught himself to walk again, managed to lose his limp and now regularly swims and runs. As Tom Junod of Esquire puts it, Clark is a man with <a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030801_mfe_clark_1.html" type="external">an impressive resume and a rare political freshness</a>.</p> <p>&#8220;Wesley Clark is neither scary nor ridiculous, so he&#8217;s starting with a leg up. He&#8217;s also smart, handsome, well-spoken, personable, driven, organized, disciplined, passionate, courageous, fair-minded, loyal, and fairly well-known from his job as a commentator on CNN&#8217;s war beat. He looks good on TV. He weighs his judgments carefully. He speaks four languages and wrote his own book. He was on the debate team at West Point. He has been married to the same woman since 1967. He has a son. He plays golf. He has succeeded in nearly everything he has ever done; he has beaten nearly everyone he has ever competed against. He has never held elective office, which is both a plus and a minus.</p> <p>He won a war but lost his job because people at the Pentagon, well, hated him. He was considered too political for the military, but in the end he was a military success and a political failure. Right now, he has mystique both as a general and as an outsider, but he loses some of each as soon as he becomes another scrounging candidate. So far, he has outlined his principles but not his platform, and his principles &#8212; shorn of mystique &#8212; are not so different from Howard Dean&#8217;s&#8221;</p> <p>Clark fought for US intervention in Bosnia and will now tell you that the US did nothing, that he &#8220;watched as we stood by as eight hundred thousand people were hacked to death by machete.&#8221; Although Clark has led many troops into battle he doesn&#8217;t think the US&#8217; current approach to the war on terror is going to last. He told the American Prospect that <a href="http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/3/tomasky-m.html" type="external">our current strategy in the war on terror is doomed to fail</a>.</p> <p>&#8220;Terrorism is a multilateral problem [&#8230;] You cannot defeat it in one nation. You need international police work, teamwork, international harmonization of laws against terror, a whole series of things. You act unilaterally, you lose the commitment of your allies to make it work. That&#8217;s the one thing that will kill you in the war on terrorism.&#8221;</p> <p>That kind of direct hit at Bush&#8217;s go-it-alone doctrine has additional power when it comes from a decorated and experienced general, and the Dems who support Clark know it. Clark continues:</p> <p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t have a democracy when people don&#8217;t get the facts and when people don&#8217;t get the chance to agree or disagree. We&#8217;ve got to have a dialogue in this country . . . that is premised on an understanding that asking questions, demanding evidence, and holding people accountable is not unpatriotic, it&#8217;s the duty of every American.&#8221;</p> <p>The question on the tip of every Democrat&#8217;s tongue: what would Bush do with questions like that from a man like General Clark? More than a few Dems are crossing their fingers and hoping for a Clark/Bush debate on national television to give them the answer. But with no campaign money in the bank and no official candidacy, as of yet, Clark for President is little more than wishful thinking.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p />

Daily MoJo

https://motherjones.com/politics/2003/07/daily-mojo-13/

2003-07-18

4left

Never Mind the Torture Islam Karimov may be a dictator with a lousy human rights record but to the right wing he8217s a hero Abizaid Calls It Like He Sees It The new top brass in Iraq going by the book thinks we have a guerrilla war on our hands Sorry Rummy Tenet8217s Hari Kari Tenet fell on his sword for the president But will that save Bush from the fallout Clark Beats Around the Bush The decorated former general Wesley Clark is many things that many Democrats want in a president He might even be able to win That is if he decides to run Never Mind the Torture These must be proud days for Islam Karimov dictator of Uzbekistan and newlyanointed defender of freedom and democracy in Central Asia Indeed in the eyes of some on the right wing Karimov appears to have joined the pantheon of distinguished international freedom fighters In his commitment to the war on terror the central Asian tyrant has proved himself the equal of rightwing heroes like Angolan warlord and conflict diamond smuggler Jonas Savimbi who 8212 with CIA backing and apartheid South Africa8217s help 8212 prolonged his country8217s civil war for decades Or perhaps he8217s more like Nicaragua8217s thuggish Contras whom Ronald Reagan compared to America8217s Founding Fathers Back then of course our unsavory allies abroad were fighting communism Now they8217re battling Islamic terrorists 8212 or in Karimov8217s case any political opposition at all Islamic or not Karimov an exCommunist party boss has worked tirelessly to crush all domestic dissent in Uzbekistan He imprisons entire families to punish one member He boils opponents to death Yes that8217s as in immersing victims in boiling water His elections the State Department itself declared are 8220 neither free nor fair8221 Even the Secretary General of NATO criticized Karimov8217s habit of indiscriminately locking people up But there stands Karimov a cornerstone in the White House8217s war on terror palling around with Donald Rumsfeld and collecting more than 500 million in US aid last year All of this is as it should be says Stephen Schwartz a member of the rightwing Foundation for the Defense of Democracies which counts among its advisors such neoconservative luminaries as accused warprofiteer Richard Perle disgraced House leader Newt Gingrich and former CIA director James Woolsey Writing in the Weekly Standard Schwartz assures us that Karimov8217s sins are nothing to worry about 8212 just the growing pains that all 8220aspiring democracies8221 go through Furthermore Schwartz declares human rights groups that dare to criticize Karimov8217s overly broad definition of 8220terrorist8221 are modernday Neville Chamberlains 8220The campaign against terrorism is undermined by weakness irresolution and apologetics not by identifying the enemy 8230 The United States which has entered into a military alliance with Uzbekistan must support the Uzbeks in their internal as well as their external combat and must repudiate the blandishments of the human rights industry8221 America8217s central mission Schwartz opines should be 8220protecting Uzbekistan8217s young democracy from radical Islamists and the human rights groups who defend them8221 not hemming and hawing over a few undoubtedly deserving dissidents who were boiled to death in defense of democracy Karimov couldn8217t have said it better himself Oh wait he did in 1998 in a warning to his parliament about the dangers of Islamic extremists 82208216Such people must be shot in the forehead If necessary I8217ll shoot them myself 8230 8221 Abizaid Calls It Like He Sees It Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld8217s words may be coming back to haunt him Amidst plummeting troop morale General John Abizaid 8212 in his first Pentagon briefing since he took charge of the US central command last week 8212 directly contradicted his boss by calling the current situation in Iraq a 8220guerrilla war8221 The sophistication of the attacks against US soldiers has been generated 8220at a regional level in a cellular structure8221 said Abizaid 8220I would describe it as a classical guerrillatype campaign against us It8217s lowintensity conflict in our doctrinal terms but it8217s war however you describe it8221 Sorry Rummy Abizaid8217s comments couldn8217t have come at a worse time for Bush and Rummy who just last week assured us that we were not in fact engaged in a guerrilla war with Iraq 8212 and wasn8217t it just a little over two months ago that Bush stood in front of an aircraft carrier heralding a banner reading 8220 Mission Accomplished8220 In a press conference last week Bush minimized the conflict situation in Iraq calling it merely a 8220security issue8221 and taunted the insurgents there saying 8220 Bring 8217em on8221 much to the dismay of some soldiers who felt that was easy for the president to say far from the action And according to The Age8217s Vernon Loeb Rumsfeld said on Sunday that the fighting in Iraq did not fit the definition of a guerrilla war But now for the first time a senior US commander has acknowledged that given the usual definitions in 8220doctrinal terms8221 there really isn8217t another way to describe what8217s developping in Iraq The Advertiser8217s Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S Landay report 8220It was the first time a senior US commander had acknowledged that daily attacks on US troops nearly three months after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations were more than uncoordinated strikes by separate groups of former regime members criminals or foreigners8221 Roy Eccleston writing for The Australian argues that Abizaid8217s comments are a more pragmatic evaluation of what the US troops are dealing with in Iraq 8220The comments appeared to be a more clinical and realistic assessment of the serious problems now facing US forces in postHussein Iraq than the Pentagon has been willing to make to date8221 As for the need for more troops according to the Guardian Abizaid sees no need right now to deploy more ground troops 8212 that is if the situation doesn8217t worsen 8220The US has about 148000 troops in Iraq up from the 115000 in position at the beginning of the conflict Gen Abizaid said he thought that was the right number for the next few weeks but added that if the situation got worse he would not hesitate to ask for more8221 Should Abizaid request more troops The Guardian notes he would be again directly contradicting Rumsfeld8217s previous statements Rumsfeld attempted to use the Iraq war to show the world that Washington didn8217t need massive manpower to win conflicts And although Abizaid sees no need for further ground troops right now he did say 8212 in direct opposition yet again to the recent pronouncements of the Bush camp 8212 that the Iraqi attacks are becoming more organized 8220The level of resistance 8212 I8217m not so sure that I would characterize it as escalating in terms of number of incidents But it is getting more organized and it is learning It is adapting8221 Tenet8217s Hari Kari CIA Director George Tenet is soaking up the blame for President Bush8217s erroneous sixteen words in January8217s State of the Union like he8217s sunbathing But according to the right it8217s not really Tenet8217s fault In fact Bob Novak writes in Townhall the CIA director never knew a thing about that insidious study by former ambassador Joseph Wilson the report that rejected claims of Niger8217s sale of uranium to Iraq and plunged the White House into full damagecontrol mode In a fourandahalf hour grilling Wednesday Tenet told the Senate that it was a senior White House official that insisted the State of the Union address include unsubstantiated information That of course doesn8217t square with the official White House version of the story 8212 or at least the most recent version it8217s so hard to keep them straight And the White House line at the moment runs something like this 8220We heard it all from the British 8212 and since we8217ve always been such good pals with the Brits we overlooked the funny accents and took their word for it How were we to know the uranium claims came from forged documents8221 Wilson8217s study based on his CIAinitiated mission to Niger determined that there was no evidence that Niger tried to sell uranium to Iraq But even though Wilson says the CIA requested he make the trip some sources say at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney the White House is now trying to wash its hands of Wilson8217s report entirely In defiance of all the available evidence the administration now claims that Wilson was merely recruited by lowlevel CIA officials and that his findings were inconclusive Novak spells it out 8220Wilson8217s report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it Certainly President Bush did not prior to his 2003 State of the Union address when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government8221 So the administration and its dobermanpincer pundits are not only downplaying the significance of Wilson8217s findings they8217re also alleging that Wilson really just wanted an excuse to visit Niger and his wife arranged for it Wilson8217s wife according to Novak is a CIA official 8220Wilson never worked for the CIA but his wife Valerie Plame is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction Two senior administration officials told me Wilson8217s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report8221 It8217s an interesting theory and a tidy smear against both Wilson and his wife but it ignores Wilson8217s record of distinguished service He served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad and later took charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until he retired in 1998 Anyway whoever thought that boy George8217s supporters would be slinging accusations of nepotism Adamant that his wife be left alone Wilson stands firm by his version of the story He says he was asked to meet with CIA officials and told them he was ready to make the trip if they needed him Apparently they needed him then But in the aftermath of his going public with accusations of 8220twisted intelligence8221 the administration hit Wilson with a sucker punch By outing Plame8217s topsecret position the Nation8216s David Corn writes Novak8217s secret sources have threatened national security jeopardizing her career and 8212 given the terrorist climate the administration can8217t seem to quit yelling about 8212 maybe even her life What8217s more if the 8220senior officials8221 that leaked the story to Novak are telling the truth they8217re also breaking the law 8212 committing a crime that calls for a 50000 fine andor up to 10 years in prison if convicted 8220This is not only a possible breach of national security it is a potential violation of law Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent8221 Leave it to the White House It8217s not acceptable for the public to know who served on Cheney8217s energy commission but the names and spouses of CIA operatives may as well be written in lights Clark Beats Around the Bush The question for many Democratic voters as they begin the process of choosing their favorite of nine presidential wannabes is who will actually be able to defeat the incumbent commanderinchief Some are placing their bets on Howard Dean others John Kerry but some pundits are worried that none of the candidates will be able to dethrone Bush And then there8217s a dark horse fresh from the battlefield who has gotten more than a few Democrats feeling hopeful For months General Wesley Clark 8212 now retired 8212 has been dropping subtle hints that he is considering running He told Newsweek that he is considering candidacy because the American people have asked him to And in fact some Washington politicos have even begun a Web campaign to convince Clark he should run It8217s not just that people are hoping that Clark is their man many actually like his ideas In addition to Clark8217s liberal stances on abortion rights taxation affirmative action his nuanced approach to foreign policy and his criticism of the Iraq war evidence 8212 Clark is a man who is interested in ideas This week he told Newsweek 8220On the other hand I8217ve always liked the battle of ideas And to me competing in the political arena should be first and foremost about the ideas and perspectives that candidates would bring to the tasks then following through on what8217s been promised8221 His Southern accent and his brave maninuniform status paired with the fact that he8217s a Rhodes Scholar and good public speaker are making the Dems swoon with joy While generals do not often get the Democratic electorate excited many are at the point where they will lay certain assumptions aside if it8217ll help oust Dubya But those who pay attention to Clark8217s remarks on the war in Iraq know that he is one of few in the armed service who have gone after Bush8217s shaky WMDevidence In June Clark was featured on NBC8217s Meet the Press and instead of shooting the breeze with host Tim Russert Clark described a littleknown phone call he received on September 11th Clark 8220There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 911 to pin 911 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein8221 Russert 8220By who Who did that8221 Clark 8220Well it came from the White House it came from people around the White House It came from all over I got a call on 911 I was on CNN and I got a call at my home saying 8216You got to say this is connected This is statesponsored terrorism This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein8217 I said 8216But8211I8217m willing to say it but what8217s your evidence8217 And I never got any evidence8221 Such sure sounding statements have an impact when they come from a man who has been fighting and planning wars for thirtyfour years Clark served as the Commander in Chief for the US in NATO during the war in Kosovo He came home and wrote a book about his experiences 8221 Waging Modern War8220 Aside from his checklist of career accomplishments Clark seems to have a personal integrity that helped him earn Defense Distinguished Service Medal a Silver Star and a Purple Heart After being seriously injured in Vietnam Clark taught himself to walk again managed to lose his limp and now regularly swims and runs As Tom Junod of Esquire puts it Clark is a man with an impressive resume and a rare political freshness 8220Wesley Clark is neither scary nor ridiculous so he8217s starting with a leg up He8217s also smart handsome wellspoken personable driven organized disciplined passionate courageous fairminded loyal and fairly wellknown from his job as a commentator on CNN8217s war beat He looks good on TV He weighs his judgments carefully He speaks four languages and wrote his own book He was on the debate team at West Point He has been married to the same woman since 1967 He has a son He plays golf He has succeeded in nearly everything he has ever done he has beaten nearly everyone he has ever competed against He has never held elective office which is both a plus and a minus He won a war but lost his job because people at the Pentagon well hated him He was considered too political for the military but in the end he was a military success and a political failure Right now he has mystique both as a general and as an outsider but he loses some of each as soon as he becomes another scrounging candidate So far he has outlined his principles but not his platform and his principles 8212 shorn of mystique 8212 are not so different from Howard Dean8217s8221 Clark fought for US intervention in Bosnia and will now tell you that the US did nothing that he 8220watched as we stood by as eight hundred thousand people were hacked to death by machete8221 Although Clark has led many troops into battle he doesn8217t think the US8217 current approach to the war on terror is going to last He told the American Prospect that our current strategy in the war on terror is doomed to fail 8220Terrorism is a multilateral problem 8230 You cannot defeat it in one nation You need international police work teamwork international harmonization of laws against terror a whole series of things You act unilaterally you lose the commitment of your allies to make it work That8217s the one thing that will kill you in the war on terrorism8221 That kind of direct hit at Bush8217s goitalone doctrine has additional power when it comes from a decorated and experienced general and the Dems who support Clark know it Clark continues 8220You can8217t have a democracy when people don8217t get the facts and when people don8217t get the chance to agree or disagree We8217ve got to have a dialogue in this country that is premised on an understanding that asking questions demanding evidence and holding people accountable is not unpatriotic it8217s the duty of every American8221 The question on the tip of every Democrat8217s tongue what would Bush do with questions like that from a man like General Clark More than a few Dems are crossing their fingers and hoping for a ClarkBush debate on national television to give them the answer But with no campaign money in the bank and no official candidacy as of yet Clark for President is little more than wishful thinking

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<p>&#8220;Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have already caused immense carnage, and destroyed much of the country&#8217;s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure.&#8221;</p> <p>A version of this post <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176222/" type="external">first appeared</a> at TomDispatch.</p> <p>The long national nightmare that was the 2016 presidential election is finally over. Now, we&#8217;re facing a worse terror: the reality of a Trump presidency. Donald Trump has already promised to nominate a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/fighting-one-segregationist-jeff-sessions-backed-another/508526/" type="external">segregationist</a>&amp;#160;attorney general, a national security adviser who is a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/michael-flynn-national-security-adviser-donald-trump.html" type="external">raging Islamophobe,</a>&amp;#160;a secretary of education who&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/1/public_school_enemy_no_1_billionaire" type="external">doesn&#8217;t believe</a>&amp;#160;in public schools, and a secretary of defense whose sobriquet is &#8220;Mad Dog.&#8221; How worried should we be that General James &#8220;Mad Dog&#8221; Mattis may well be&amp;#160; <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/01/18/the-obama-administrations-inexplicable-mishandling-of-marine-gen-james-mattis-2/" type="external">the soberest</a>&amp;#160;among them?</p> <p>Along with a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/opinion/blow-a-nation-divided-against-itself.html" type="external">deeply divided country</a>, the worst&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/" type="external">income inequality</a>&amp;#160;since at least the 1920s, and a&amp;#160; <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/washington-d-c-s-metro-catches-fire-more-than-four-times-a-week/" type="external">crumbling infrastructure</a>, Trump will inherit a 15-year-old, apparently never-ending worldwide war. While the named enemy may be a mere emotion (&#8220;terror&#8221;) or an incendiary strategy (&#8220;terrorism&#8221;), the victims couldn&#8217;t be more real, and as in all modern wars, the majority&amp;#160;of them are civilians.</p> <p>On how many countries is U.S. ordnance falling at the moment? Some put the total at&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-reminder-of-the-permanent-wars-dozens-of-us-airstrikes-in-six-countries/2016/09/08/77cde914-7514-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html" type="external">six</a>; others,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&amp;amp;v=NNIKQM6E4pk" type="external">seven</a>. For the record, those seven would be Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and, oh yes, Yemen.</p> <p>The United States has been directing drone strikes against what it calls al-Qaeda targets in Yemen&amp;#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Yemen#US_air_attacks" type="external">since 2002</a>, but our military involvement in that country increased dramatically in 2015 when U.S. ally Saudi Arabia inserted itself into a civil war there. Since then, the United States has been supplying intelligence and mid-air refueling for Saudi bombers (many of them American-made F-15s sold to that country). The State Department has also&amp;#160; <a href="http://securityassistance.org/fact_sheet/us-arms-transfers-saudi-arabia-and-war-yemen" type="external">approved sales</a>&amp;#160;to the Saudis of $1.29 billion worth of bombs&#8212;&#8220;smart&#8221; and otherwise&#8212;together with $1.15 billion worth of tanks, and half a billion dollars of ammunition. And that, in total, is only a small part of the&amp;#160; <a href="http://securityassistance.org/fact_sheet/us-arms-transfers-saudi-arabia-and-war-yemen" type="external">$115 billion</a>&amp;#160;total in military sales the United States has offered Saudi Arabia since President Obama took power in 2009. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>On Tuesday, Reuters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudiarabia-yemen-exclusive-idUSKBN1421UK" type="external">reported</a> that the United States would stop selling precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia&amp;#160;out of concerns over civilian casualties. However, most of our support for the Saudi military will continue. So, why are American bombs being dropped on Yemen by&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/2011316131230188238.html" type="external">American-trained pilots</a>&amp;#160;from American-made planes? I&#8217;ll get to that in a moment. But first, a glimpse of the results.</p> <p>The&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/yemen-famine-feared-as-starving-children-fight-for-lives-in-hospital" type="external">photographs</a>&amp;#160;are&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.hngn.com/articles/121250/20150820/yemen-famine-continues-un-says%E2%80%A8.htm" type="external">devastating</a>: tiny, large-eyed children with sticks for limbs&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/yemen-on-brink-of-famine-as-civil-war-rages-35037590.html" type="external">stare</a>&amp;#160;out at the viewer. In some, their mothers touch them gently, tentatively, as if a stronger embrace would snap their bones. These are just a few victims of the famine that war has brought to Yemen, which was already the poorest country in the Arab world before the present civil war and Saudi bombing campaign even began. UNICEF spokesman Mohammed Al-Asaadi&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/yemen-war-children-starving-death-161011092610430.html" type="external">told</a>&amp;#160;al-Jazeera&amp;#160;that, by August 2016, the agency had counted 370,000 children &#8220;suffering from severe acute malnutrition,&#8221; and the U.N. World Food Program (WFP)&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/yemen/" type="external">says</a>&amp;#160;14.4 million people in Yemen are &#8220;food insecure,&#8221; seven million of them&#8212;one fifth of the country&#8217;s population&#8212;&#8220;in desperate need of food assistance.&#8221; Before the war began, Yemen&amp;#160; <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/08/15/doctors-without-borders-hospital-bombing-in-yemen-earns-rare-saudi-rebuke-at-state-department/" type="external">imported</a> 90% of its food.&amp;#160; Since April 2015, however, Saudi Arabia has blockaded the country&#8217;s ports. Today, 80% of Yemenis depend on some kind of U.N. food aid for survival, and the war has made the situation immeasurably worse.</p> <p>As the WFP reports:</p> <p>The nutrition situation continues to deteriorate. According to WFP market analysis, prices of food items spiked in September as a result of the escalation of the conflict. The national average price of wheat flour last month was 55 percent higher compared to the pre-crisis period.</p> <p>The rising price of wheat matters, because in many famines, the problem isn&#8217;t that there&#8217;s no food, it&#8217;s that what food there is people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/16/africa-famine-food-prices-world-bank" type="external">can&#8217;t afford</a>&amp;#160;to buy.</p> <p>And that was before the cholera outbreak. In October, medical workers began to see cases of that water-borne diarrheal disease, which is easily transmitted and kills quickly, especially when people are malnourished. By the end of the month,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.emro.who.int/surveillance-forecasting-response/surveillance-news/update-on-the-cholera-situation-in-yemen-30-october-2016.html" type="external">according</a>&amp;#160;to the World Health Organization, there were 1,410 confirmed cases of cholera, and 45 known deaths from it in the country. ( <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/7000-killed-37000-wounded-yemen-conflict-161107142503485.html" type="external">Other estimates</a>&amp;#160;put the number of cases at more than 2,200.)</p> <p>Both these health emergencies have been exacerbated by the ongoing Saudi air war, which has&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.unocha.org/yemen/crisis-overview" type="external">destroyed</a>&amp;#160;or otherwise forced the closure of more than 600 healthcare centers, including four hospitals operated by Doctors Without Borders, along with 1,400 schools. More than half of all health facilities in the country have either&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/7000-killed-37000-wounded-yemen-conflict-161107142503485.html" type="external">closed</a>&amp;#160;or are only partially functional.</p> <p>The day before the U.S. election, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the U.N.&#8217;s envoy on Yemen,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/7000-killed-37000-wounded-yemen-conflict-161107142503485.html" type="external">described</a>&amp;#160;the situation this way: &#8220;People are dying &#8230;&amp;#160;the infrastructure is falling apart &#8230;&amp;#160;and the economy is on the brink of abyss.&#8221; Every time it seems the crisis can&#8217;t get any worse, it does. A recent&amp;#160;Washington Post&amp;#160;story&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemens-war-trapped-families-ask-which-child-should-we-save/2016/11/30/c2240cf4-7d60-4132-989f-2128b077efbb_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_yemenhunger-735pm:homepage/story&amp;amp;utm_term=.ad5641e1ee20" type="external">describes</a>&amp;#160;such &#8220;wrenching&#8221; choices now commonly faced by Yemeni families as whether to spend the little money they have to take one dying child to a hospital or to buy food for the rest of the family.</p> <p>The Saudi-led coalition includes Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Between March 2015 and the end of August 2016,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/sep/16/how-saudi-arabias-airstrikes-have-hit-civilian-life-in-yemen" type="external">according to</a>&amp;#160;the Yemen Data Project, an independent, nonpartisan group of academics and human rights organizations, the coalition launched more than 8,600 air strikes. At least a third of them struck civilian targets, including, the&amp;#160;Guardian&amp;#160;reports, &#8220;school buildings, hospitals, markets, mosques and economic infrastructure.&#8221; Gatherings like&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-wedding-bombing-15-year-old-survivor-tells-of-devastation-wreaked-on-family-party-a6697331.html" type="external">weddings</a>&amp;#160;and&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/13/yemen-saudi-led-funeral-attack-apparent-war-crime" type="external">funerals</a>&amp;#160;have come under attack, too. To get a sense of the scale and focus of the air war, consider that one market in the town of Sirwah about 50 miles east of the capital, Sana&#8217;a, has already been hit 24 separate times.</p> <p>Casualty estimates vary, but the World Health Organization&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/yemen-war-death-toll-surpasses-7000-who" type="external">says</a>&amp;#160;that, as of October 25th, &#8220;more than 7,070 people have been killed and over 36,818 injured.&#8221; As early as last January, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4c907a4a9.html" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;that 2.4 million people (nearly one-tenth of the population) were already internally displaced&#8212;that is, uprooted from their homes by the war. Another 170,000 have fled the country, including Somali and Ethiopian refugees, who had sought asylum from their own countries in Yemen, mistakenly believing that the war there had died down. Leaving Yemen has, however, gotten harder for the desperate and uprooted since the Saudis and Egypt began blockading the country&#8217;s ports. Yemen shares land borders with Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman&#8212;the only Arab monarchy that is not part of the Saudi-led coalition&#8212;to the east.</p> <p>In early October, Saudi planes attacked a funeral hall in Sana&#8217;a where the father of the country&#8217;s interior minister was being memorialized, killing at least 135 people and wounding more than 500. Gathered at the funeral,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/13/yemen-saudi-led-funeral-attack-apparent-war-crime" type="external">according</a>&amp;#160;to Human Rights Watch (HRW), were a wide range of Yemenis, including journalists, government officials, and some military men. HRW&#8217;s on-the-ground report on the incident claims that the attack, which intentionally targeted civilians and involved an initial air strike followed by a second one after rescuers had begun to arrive 30 minutes later, constitutes a war crime. The Saudi-led coalition&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/15/saudi-led-coalition-admits-to-bombing-yemen-funeral" type="external">acknowledged</a>&amp;#160;responsibility for the bombing, blaming the attack on &#8220;wrong information.&#8221;&amp;#160;</p> <p>U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon was horrified and called for a full investigation. &#8220;Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition,&#8221; he&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55255#.WCKDpdzLPgd" type="external">said</a>, &#8220;have already caused immense carnage, and destroyed much of the country&#8217;s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure.&#8221;</p> <p>For once in this forgotten war, the international outcry was sufficient to force the Obama administration to say something vaguely negative about its ally. &#8220;U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia,&#8221; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/08/middleeast/yemen-airstrikes/" type="external">commented</a> National Security Council Spokesman Ned Price, &#8220;is not a blank check.&#8221; He added:</p> <p>In light of this and other recent incidents, we have initiated an immediate review of our already significantly reduced support to the Saudi-led coalition and are prepared to adjust our support so as to better align with U.S. principles, values&amp;#160;and interests, including achieving an immediate and durable end to Yemen's tragic conflict.</p> <p>That &#8220;check&#8221; from Washington did at least include the bombs used in the funeral attack. According to HRW&#8217;s on-the-ground reporters, U.S.-manufactured, air-dropped GBU-12 Paveway II 500-pound laser-guided bombs were used.</p> <p>Why is Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, aided by the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, fighting in Yemen? That country has&amp;#160; <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/03/26/why-does-yemen-matter-to-the-worlds-oil-market-the-short-answer/" type="external">little oil</a>, although petroleum products are its largest export, followed by among other things &#8220;non-fillet fresh fish.&#8221; It does lie along one of the world&#8217;s main oil trading routes on the Bab el-Mandeb strait between the Suez Canal at the north end of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the south. But neither Saudi nor U.S. access to the canal is threatened by the forces Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen.</p> <p>The Saudis have specifically targeted the&amp;#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis" type="external">Houthis</a>, a political movement named for its founder Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, a Zaidi Shi&#8217;a Muslim religious and political leader who died in 2004. The Zaidis are an ancient branch of Shi&#8217;a Islam, most of whose adherents live in Yemen.</p> <p>Officially known as Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), the Houthi movement&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/yemen-houthis-hadi-protests-201482132719818986.html" type="external">began</a>&amp;#160;in the 1990s as a religious revival among young people, who described it as a vehicle for their commitment to peace and justice. Ansar Allah soon adopted a series of slogans opposing the United States and Israel, along with any Arab countries collaborating with them, presumably including Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. As Zaidi Muslims, the movement also opposed any significant role for Salafists (fundamentalist Sunnis) in Yemeni life and held demonstrations at mosques, including in the capital, Sana&#8217;a.</p> <p>In 2004, this led to armed confrontations when Yemeni security forces, commanded by then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, attacked the demonstrators. Badreddin al-Houthi, the movement&#8217;s founder, was killed in the intermittent civil war that followed and officially&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2014/02/98466.html" type="external">ended</a>&amp;#160;in 2010.&amp;#160;Al-Jazeera, the Qatar government&#8217;s news agency,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2014/02/98466.html" type="external">has suggested</a>&amp;#160;that President Saleh may have used his war with the Houthis unsuccessfully to get at his real&amp;#160;rival, a cousin and general in the Yemeni army named Ali Mohsen.</p> <p>During the Arab Spring in 2011, the Houthis supported a successful effort to oust President Saleh, and as a reward,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2014/02/98466.html" type="external">according to</a>&amp;#160;al-Jazeera, that same General Mohsen gave them control of the state of Saadra, an area where many Houthi tribespeople live. Having helped unseat Saleh, the Houthis&#8212;and much of the rest of Yemen&#8212;soon&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29319423" type="external">fell out</a>&amp;#160;with his Saudi-supported replacement, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. In January 2015, the Houthis took over Sana&#8217;a and placed Hadi under effective house arrest. He later fled to Saudi Arabia and is believed to be living in the Saudi capital Riyadh. The Houthis for their part have now allied with their old enemy Saleh.</p> <p>So, once again, why do the Saudis (and their Sunni Gulf State allies) care so much about the roiling internal politics and conflicts of their desperately poor neighbor to the south? It&#8217;s true that the Houthis have managed to lob some rockets into Saudi Arabia and conduct a few cross-border raids, but they hardly represent an existential threat to that country.</p> <p>The Saudis firmly believe, however, that Iran represents such a threat. As Saudi diplomatic documents&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/world/middleeast/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-iran.html" type="external">described</a>&amp;#160;in the&amp;#160;New York Times&amp;#160;suggest, that country has &#8220;a near obsession with Iran.&#8221; They see the hand of that Shi&#8217;a nation everywhere, and certainly everywhere that Shi&#8217;a minorities have challenged Sunni or secular rulers, including Iraq.</p> <p>There seems to be little evidence that Iran supported the Houthis (who represent a minority variant of Shi&#8217;a Islam) in any serious way&#8212;at least until the Saudis got into the act. Even now,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/16/contrary-to-popular-belief-houthis-arent-iranian-proxies/" type="external">according to</a>&amp;#160;a report in the&amp;#160;Washington Post, the Houthis &#8220;are not Iranian puppets.&#8221; Their fight is local and the support they get from Iran remains &#8220;limited and far from sufficient to make more than a marginal difference to the balance of forces in Yemen, a country awash with weapons. There is therefore no supporting evidence to the claim that Iran has bought itself any significant measure of influence over Houthi decision-making.&#8221;</p> <p>So to return to where we began: why exactly has Washington supported the Saudi war in Yemen so fully and with such clout? The best guess is that it&#8217;s a make-up present to Saudi Arabia, a gesture to help heal the rift that opened when the Obama administration concluded its July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. Under that agreement&#8217;s terms, Iran vowed &#8220;that it will under no circumstances ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons&#8221; in return for the United States lifting years of economic sanctions.</p> <p>The munitions the United States has supplied to the Saudis for their war in Yemen include&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/opinion/obama-saudi-arabia-trade-cluster-bombs.html" type="external">cluster bombs</a>, which sprinkle hundreds of miniature bomblets around an area as big as several football fields. Unexploded bomblets can go off years later, one reason why their use is now generally considered to violate the laws of war. In fact, 119 countries have signed a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.clusterconvention.org/" type="external">treaty</a>&amp;#160;to outlaw cluster bombs, although not the United States. (As it happens, Saudi Arabia isn't the only U.S. ally to favor cluster bombs. Israel has also used them, for instance&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/idf-commander-we-fired-more-than-a-million-cluster-bombs-in-lebanon-1.197099" type="external">deploying</a>&amp;#160;&#8220;more than a million&#8221; bomblets in its 2006 war against Lebanon, according to an Israel Defense Forces commander.)</p> <p>We know that U.S.-made cluster bombs have already&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/a-cluster-bomb-made-in-america-shattered-lives-in-yemens-capital/2016/07/08/e3b722cc-283d-11e6-8329-6104954928d2_story.html" type="external">killed</a>&amp;#160;civilians in Yemen, and in June 2016, many Democratic members of Congress tried to outlaw their sale to Saudi Arabia. They lost in a close 216-204 vote. Only 16 Democrats backed President Obama&#8217;s request to continue supplying cluster bombs to the Saudis. Congressional Republicans and the Defense Department, however, fought back fiercely, as the&amp;#160;Intercept&amp;#160;has&amp;#160; <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs-house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/" type="external">reported</a>:</p> <p>&#8220;The Department of Defense strongly opposes this amendment,&#8221;&amp;#160;said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the House Committee on Defense Appropriations, during floor debate. &#8220;They advise us that it would stigmatize cluster munitions, which are legitimate weapons with clear military utility.&#8221;</p> <p>Perhaps some weapons deserve to be stigmatized.</p> <p>These days it&#8217;s not just American bombs that are landing in Yemen. U.S. Special Operations forces&amp;#160; <a href="https://news.vice.com/story/what-are-us-special-operations-forces-doing-in-yemen" type="external">have landed</a>&amp;#160;there, too, ostensibly to fight al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the local terror outfit that has been expanding its operations amid the chaos of the war in that country. If anything, the air war has actually strengthened AQAP&#8217;s position, allowing it to seize more territory in the chaos of the ongoing conflict. In the ever-shifting set of alliances that is Yemeni reality, those U.S. special ops troops find themselves allied with the United Arab Emirates against AQAP and the local branch of the Islamic State, or ISIS, and also, at least temporarily, with a thriving movement of southern Yemeni separatists, who would like to see a return to the pre-1990 moment when there were two Yemens, north and south.</p> <p>In the beginning, the White House claimed that the special ops deployment was temporary. But by June 2016, the&amp;#160;Washington Post&amp;#160;was&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/17/u-s-special-operations-forces-shift-to-long-term-mission-in-yemen/" type="external">reporting</a>&amp;#160;that &#8220;the U.S. military now plans to keep a small force of Special Operations advisers in Yemen &#8230;&amp;#160;for the foreseeable future.&#8221; And that has yet to change, so consider us now directly involved in an undeclared land war in that country.</p> <p>Compared to the horrors of Iraq and Syria, the slaughter, displacement, and starvation in Yemen may seem like small potatoes&#8212;except, of course, to the people living and dying there. But precisely because there are no U.S. economic or military interests in Yemen, perhaps it could be the first arena in Washington&#8217;s endless war on terror to be abandoned.</p> <p>I vividly recall a political cartoon of the 1980s that appeared at a moment when Congress was once again voting to send U.S. aid to the Contra&amp;#160;forces fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Having witnessed firsthand the effects of the Contra war there, with its intentional military strategy of attacking civilians and public services as well as its use of torture,&amp;#160;kidnapping&amp;#160;and mutilation, I found those Congressional debates on sending money, weapons&amp;#160;and CIA trainers to the Contras frustrating. The cartoon&#8217;s single panel caught my mood exactly.&amp;#160; It was set in the cloakroom of the House of Representatives. Suspended from each hanger was a backbone. A blob-like creature in a suit could just be seen slithering out of the frame. The point was clear: Congress had checked its spine at the door.</p> <p>In fact, in every war the United States has fought since World War II, Congress has effectively abdicated its constitutional right to declare war, repeatedly rolling over and playing dead for the executive branch. During the last 50 years, from the Reagan administration&#8217;s illegal Contra war to the &#8220;war on terror,&#8221; this version of a presidential power grab has only accelerated. By now, we&#8217;ve become so used to all of this that the term &#8220;commander-in-chief&#8221; has become&amp;#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/the-administration/235517-the-president-is-not-our-commander-in-chief" type="external">synonymous</a>&amp;#160;with &#8220;president&#8221;&#8212;even in domestic contexts. With a Trump administration on the horizon, it should be easier to see just what an irresponsible folly it&#8217;s been to allow the power of the presidency and the national security state to balloon in such an uncontrolled, unchecked way.</p> <p>I wish I had the slightest hope that our newly elected Republican Congress would find its long-lost spine in the age of Donald Trump and reassert its right and duty to decide whether to commit the country to war, starting in Yemen. Today, more than ever, the world needs our system of checks and balances to work again. The alternative, unthinkable as it might be, is looming.</p> <p>It&#8217;s 2016. We know where our bombs are. Isn&#8217;t it time to bring them home?</p> <p>Like what you&#8217;ve read? <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/itt-subscription-offer?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;amp;noskip=true" type="external">Subscribe to In These Times magazine</a>, or <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/support-in-these-times?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;amp;noskip=true" type="external">make a tax-deductible donation to fund this reporting</a>.</p> <p>Rebecca Gordon is the author of Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States. She teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is a member of the War Times/Tiempo de Guerras collective.</p>

The Saudi-Led War on Yemen Has Been Devastating. Why is the U.S. Helping?

http://inthesetimes.com/article/19720/yemen-saudi-arabia-war-united-states-cluster-bombs

2016-12-15

4left

8220Aerial attacks by the Saudiled coalition have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country8217s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure8221 A version of this post first appeared at TomDispatch The long national nightmare that was the 2016 presidential election is finally over Now we8217re facing a worse terror the reality of a Trump presidency Donald Trump has already promised to nominate aamp160 segregationistamp160attorney general a national security adviser who is aamp160 raging Islamophobeamp160a secretary of education whoamp160 doesn8217t believeamp160in public schools and a secretary of defense whose sobriquet is 8220Mad Dog8221 How worried should we be that General James 8220Mad Dog8221 Mattis may well beamp160 the soberestamp160among them Along with aamp160 deeply divided country the worstamp160 income inequalityamp160since at least the 1920s and aamp160 crumbling infrastructure Trump will inherit a 15yearold apparently neverending worldwide war While the named enemy may be a mere emotion 8220terror8221 or an incendiary strategy 8220terrorism8221 the victims couldn8217t be more real and as in all modern wars the majorityamp160of them are civilians On how many countries is US ordnance falling at the moment Some put the total atamp160 six othersamp160 seven For the record those seven would be Afghanistan Iraq Libya Pakistan Somalia Syria and oh yes Yemen The United States has been directing drone strikes against what it calls alQaeda targets in Yemenamp160 since 2002 but our military involvement in that country increased dramatically in 2015 when US ally Saudi Arabia inserted itself into a civil war there Since then the United States has been supplying intelligence and midair refueling for Saudi bombers many of them Americanmade F15s sold to that country The State Department has alsoamp160 approved salesamp160to the Saudis of 129 billion worth of bombs82128220smart8221 and otherwise8212together with 115 billion worth of tanks and half a billion dollars of ammunition And that in total is only a small part of theamp160 115 billionamp160total in military sales the United States has offered Saudi Arabia since President Obama took power in 2009 amp160amp160 On Tuesday Reuters reported that the United States would stop selling precisionguided munitions to Saudi Arabiaamp160out of concerns over civilian casualties However most of our support for the Saudi military will continue So why are American bombs being dropped on Yemen byamp160 Americantrained pilotsamp160from Americanmade planes I8217ll get to that in a moment But first a glimpse of the results Theamp160 photographsamp160areamp160 devastating tiny largeeyed children with sticks for limbsamp160 stareamp160out at the viewer In some their mothers touch them gently tentatively as if a stronger embrace would snap their bones These are just a few victims of the famine that war has brought to Yemen which was already the poorest country in the Arab world before the present civil war and Saudi bombing campaign even began UNICEF spokesman Mohammed AlAsaadiamp160 toldamp160alJazeeraamp160that by August 2016 the agency had counted 370000 children 8220suffering from severe acute malnutrition8221 and the UN World Food Program WFPamp160 saysamp160144 million people in Yemen are 8220food insecure8221 seven million of them8212one fifth of the country8217s population82128220in desperate need of food assistance8221 Before the war began Yemenamp160 imported 90 of its foodamp160 Since April 2015 however Saudi Arabia has blockaded the country8217s ports Today 80 of Yemenis depend on some kind of UN food aid for survival and the war has made the situation immeasurably worse As the WFP reports The nutrition situation continues to deteriorate According to WFP market analysis prices of food items spiked in September as a result of the escalation of the conflict The national average price of wheat flour last month was 55 percent higher compared to the precrisis period The rising price of wheat matters because in many famines the problem isn8217t that there8217s no food it8217s that what food there is people can8217t affordamp160to buy And that was before the cholera outbreak In October medical workers began to see cases of that waterborne diarrheal disease which is easily transmitted and kills quickly especially when people are malnourished By the end of the monthamp160 accordingamp160to the World Health Organization there were 1410 confirmed cases of cholera and 45 known deaths from it in the country Other estimatesamp160put the number of cases at more than 2200 Both these health emergencies have been exacerbated by the ongoing Saudi air war which hasamp160 destroyedamp160or otherwise forced the closure of more than 600 healthcare centers including four hospitals operated by Doctors Without Borders along with 1400 schools More than half of all health facilities in the country have eitheramp160 closedamp160or are only partially functional The day before the US election Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed the UN8217s envoy on Yemenamp160 describedamp160the situation this way 8220People are dying 8230amp160the infrastructure is falling apart 8230amp160and the economy is on the brink of abyss8221 Every time it seems the crisis can8217t get any worse it does A recentamp160Washington Postamp160storyamp160 describesamp160such 8220wrenching8221 choices now commonly faced by Yemeni families as whether to spend the little money they have to take one dying child to a hospital or to buy food for the rest of the family The Saudiled coalition includes Egypt Morocco Jordan Sudan the United Arab Emirates Kuwait Qatar and Bahrain Between March 2015 and the end of August 2016amp160 according toamp160the Yemen Data Project an independent nonpartisan group of academics and human rights organizations the coalition launched more than 8600 air strikes At least a third of them struck civilian targets including theamp160Guardianamp160reports 8220school buildings hospitals markets mosques and economic infrastructure8221 Gatherings likeamp160 weddingsamp160andamp160 funeralsamp160have come under attack too To get a sense of the scale and focus of the air war consider that one market in the town of Sirwah about 50 miles east of the capital Sana8217a has already been hit 24 separate times Casualty estimates vary but the World Health Organizationamp160 saysamp160that as of October 25th 8220more than 7070 people have been killed and over 36818 injured8221 As early as last January the UN High Commission for Refugeesamp160 reportedamp160that 24 million people nearly onetenth of the population were already internally displaced8212that is uprooted from their homes by the war Another 170000 have fled the country including Somali and Ethiopian refugees who had sought asylum from their own countries in Yemen mistakenly believing that the war there had died down Leaving Yemen has however gotten harder for the desperate and uprooted since the Saudis and Egypt began blockading the country8217s ports Yemen shares land borders with Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman8212the only Arab monarchy that is not part of the Saudiled coalition8212to the east In early October Saudi planes attacked a funeral hall in Sana8217a where the father of the country8217s interior minister was being memorialized killing at least 135 people and wounding more than 500 Gathered at the funeralamp160 accordingamp160to Human Rights Watch HRW were a wide range of Yemenis including journalists government officials and some military men HRW8217s ontheground report on the incident claims that the attack which intentionally targeted civilians and involved an initial air strike followed by a second one after rescuers had begun to arrive 30 minutes later constitutes a war crime The Saudiled coalitionamp160 acknowledgedamp160responsibility for the bombing blaming the attack on 8220wrong information8221amp160 UN General Secretary Ban KiMoon was horrified and called for a full investigation 8220Aerial attacks by the Saudiled coalition8221 heamp160 said 8220have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country8217s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure8221 For once in this forgotten war the international outcry was sufficient to force the Obama administration to say something vaguely negative about its ally 8220US security cooperation with Saudi Arabia8221 commented National Security Council Spokesman Ned Price 8220is not a blank check8221 He added In light of this and other recent incidents we have initiated an immediate review of our already significantly reduced support to the Saudiled coalition and are prepared to adjust our support so as to better align with US principles valuesamp160and interests including achieving an immediate and durable end to Yemens tragic conflict That 8220check8221 from Washington did at least include the bombs used in the funeral attack According to HRW8217s ontheground reporters USmanufactured airdropped GBU12 Paveway II 500pound laserguided bombs were used Why is Saudi Arabia along with its allies aided by the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom fighting in Yemen That country hasamp160 little oil although petroleum products are its largest export followed by among other things 8220nonfillet fresh fish8221 It does lie along one of the world8217s main oil trading routes on the Bab elMandeb strait between the Suez Canal at the north end of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the south But neither Saudi nor US access to the canal is threatened by the forces Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen The Saudis have specifically targeted theamp160 Houthis a political movement named for its founder Hussein Badreddin alHouthi a Zaidi Shi8217a Muslim religious and political leader who died in 2004 The Zaidis are an ancient branch of Shi8217a Islam most of whose adherents live in Yemen Officially known as Ansar Allah Partisans of God the Houthi movementamp160 beganamp160in the 1990s as a religious revival among young people who described it as a vehicle for their commitment to peace and justice Ansar Allah soon adopted a series of slogans opposing the United States and Israel along with any Arab countries collaborating with them presumably including Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states As Zaidi Muslims the movement also opposed any significant role for Salafists fundamentalist Sunnis in Yemeni life and held demonstrations at mosques including in the capital Sana8217a In 2004 this led to armed confrontations when Yemeni security forces commanded by thenPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh attacked the demonstrators Badreddin alHouthi the movement8217s founder was killed in the intermittent civil war that followed and officiallyamp160 endedamp160in 2010amp160AlJazeera the Qatar government8217s news agencyamp160 has suggestedamp160that President Saleh may have used his war with the Houthis unsuccessfully to get at his realamp160rival a cousin and general in the Yemeni army named Ali Mohsen During the Arab Spring in 2011 the Houthis supported a successful effort to oust President Saleh and as a rewardamp160 according toamp160alJazeera that same General Mohsen gave them control of the state of Saadra an area where many Houthi tribespeople live Having helped unseat Saleh the Houthis8212and much of the rest of Yemen8212soonamp160 fell outamp160with his Saudisupported replacement Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi In January 2015 the Houthis took over Sana8217a and placed Hadi under effective house arrest He later fled to Saudi Arabia and is believed to be living in the Saudi capital Riyadh The Houthis for their part have now allied with their old enemy Saleh So once again why do the Saudis and their Sunni Gulf State allies care so much about the roiling internal politics and conflicts of their desperately poor neighbor to the south It8217s true that the Houthis have managed to lob some rockets into Saudi Arabia and conduct a few crossborder raids but they hardly represent an existential threat to that country The Saudis firmly believe however that Iran represents such a threat As Saudi diplomatic documentsamp160 describedamp160in theamp160New York Timesamp160suggest that country has 8220a near obsession with Iran8221 They see the hand of that Shi8217a nation everywhere and certainly everywhere that Shi8217a minorities have challenged Sunni or secular rulers including Iraq There seems to be little evidence that Iran supported the Houthis who represent a minority variant of Shi8217a Islam in any serious way8212at least until the Saudis got into the act Even nowamp160 according toamp160a report in theamp160Washington Post the Houthis 8220are not Iranian puppets8221 Their fight is local and the support they get from Iran remains 8220limited and far from sufficient to make more than a marginal difference to the balance of forces in Yemen a country awash with weapons There is therefore no supporting evidence to the claim that Iran has bought itself any significant measure of influence over Houthi decisionmaking8221 So to return to where we began why exactly has Washington supported the Saudi war in Yemen so fully and with such clout The best guess is that it8217s a makeup present to Saudi Arabia a gesture to help heal the rift that opened when the Obama administration concluded its July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran Under that agreement8217s terms Iran vowed 8220that it will under no circumstances ever seek develop or acquire any nuclear weapons8221 in return for the United States lifting years of economic sanctions The munitions the United States has supplied to the Saudis for their war in Yemen includeamp160 cluster bombs which sprinkle hundreds of miniature bomblets around an area as big as several football fields Unexploded bomblets can go off years later one reason why their use is now generally considered to violate the laws of war In fact 119 countries have signed aamp160 treatyamp160to outlaw cluster bombs although not the United States As it happens Saudi Arabia isnt the only US ally to favor cluster bombs Israel has also used them for instanceamp160 deployingamp1608220more than a million8221 bomblets in its 2006 war against Lebanon according to an Israel Defense Forces commander We know that USmade cluster bombs have alreadyamp160 killedamp160civilians in Yemen and in June 2016 many Democratic members of Congress tried to outlaw their sale to Saudi Arabia They lost in a close 216204 vote Only 16 Democrats backed President Obama8217s request to continue supplying cluster bombs to the Saudis Congressional Republicans and the Defense Department however fought back fiercely as theamp160Interceptamp160hasamp160 reported 8220The Department of Defense strongly opposes this amendment8221amp160said Rep Rodney Frelinghuysen RNJ chairman of the House Committee on Defense Appropriations during floor debate 8220They advise us that it would stigmatize cluster munitions which are legitimate weapons with clear military utility8221 Perhaps some weapons deserve to be stigmatized These days it8217s not just American bombs that are landing in Yemen US Special Operations forcesamp160 have landedamp160there too ostensibly to fight alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP the local terror outfit that has been expanding its operations amid the chaos of the war in that country If anything the air war has actually strengthened AQAP8217s position allowing it to seize more territory in the chaos of the ongoing conflict In the evershifting set of alliances that is Yemeni reality those US special ops troops find themselves allied with the United Arab Emirates against AQAP and the local branch of the Islamic State or ISIS and also at least temporarily with a thriving movement of southern Yemeni separatists who would like to see a return to the pre1990 moment when there were two Yemens north and south In the beginning the White House claimed that the special ops deployment was temporary But by June 2016 theamp160Washington Postamp160wasamp160 reportingamp160that 8220the US military now plans to keep a small force of Special Operations advisers in Yemen 8230amp160for the foreseeable future8221 And that has yet to change so consider us now directly involved in an undeclared land war in that country Compared to the horrors of Iraq and Syria the slaughter displacement and starvation in Yemen may seem like small potatoes8212except of course to the people living and dying there But precisely because there are no US economic or military interests in Yemen perhaps it could be the first arena in Washington8217s endless war on terror to be abandoned I vividly recall a political cartoon of the 1980s that appeared at a moment when Congress was once again voting to send US aid to the Contraamp160forces fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua Having witnessed firsthand the effects of the Contra war there with its intentional military strategy of attacking civilians and public services as well as its use of tortureamp160kidnappingamp160and mutilation I found those Congressional debates on sending money weaponsamp160and CIA trainers to the Contras frustrating The cartoon8217s single panel caught my mood exactlyamp160 It was set in the cloakroom of the House of Representatives Suspended from each hanger was a backbone A bloblike creature in a suit could just be seen slithering out of the frame The point was clear Congress had checked its spine at the door In fact in every war the United States has fought since World War II Congress has effectively abdicated its constitutional right to declare war repeatedly rolling over and playing dead for the executive branch During the last 50 years from the Reagan administration8217s illegal Contra war to the 8220war on terror8221 this version of a presidential power grab has only accelerated By now we8217ve become so used to all of this that the term 8220commanderinchief8221 has becomeamp160 synonymousamp160with 8220president82218212even in domestic contexts With a Trump administration on the horizon it should be easier to see just what an irresponsible folly it8217s been to allow the power of the presidency and the national security state to balloon in such an uncontrolled unchecked way I wish I had the slightest hope that our newly elected Republican Congress would find its longlost spine in the age of Donald Trump and reassert its right and duty to decide whether to commit the country to war starting in Yemen Today more than ever the world needs our system of checks and balances to work again The alternative unthinkable as it might be is looming It8217s 2016 We know where our bombs are Isn8217t it time to bring them home Like what you8217ve read Subscribe to In These Times magazine or make a taxdeductible donation to fund this reporting Rebecca Gordon is the author of Mainstreaming Torture Ethical Approaches in the Post911 United States She teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco She is a member of the War TimesTiempo de Guerras collective

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<p>By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175773/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_a_climate_change-fueled_revolution/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>A week after the most powerful &#8220;super typhoon&#8221; ever recorded pummeled the Philippines, killing <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24954011" type="external">thousands</a> in a single province, and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating &#8220; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-pollution-northeastern-china-20131022,0,5024464.story#axzz2kOIplREj" type="external">airpocalypse</a>,&#8221; suffocating the city with coal-plant pollution, government leaders beware!&amp;#160; Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change, they are the type of disasters that, scientists tell us, will become a pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive consumption of carbon-based fuels.&amp;#160; If, as is now the case, governments across the planet back an <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175734/michael_klare_entering_the_third_carbon_age" type="external">extension of the carbon age</a> and ever increasing reliance on <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/05/03/understanding-unconventional-oil/ao4f" type="external">&#8220;unconventional&#8221; fossil fuels</a> like tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble.&amp;#160; In fact, we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.</p> <p>None of us can predict the future, but when it comes to a mass rebellion against the perpetrators of global destruction, we can see a glimmer of the coming upheaval in events of the present moment.&amp;#160; Take a look and you will see that the assorted environmental protests that have long bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and support.&amp;#160; With an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57609494/" type="external">floods</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/31/2312591/climate-change-wildfires/" type="external">fires</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-parched-20130806-dto,0,5922502.htmlstory#axzz2kOIplREj" type="external">droughts</a>, and <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/typhoon-haiyan-climate-change-continues-2710436" type="external">storms</a> become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet, more people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly bold protest actions.&amp;#160; Sooner or later, government leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in the end, be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside.</p> <p>In fact, it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to others.&amp;#160; Because climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human populations, the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain in strength across the planet.&amp;#160; While circumstances may vary, the ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable forms of energy.&amp;#160; And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation in others.</p> <p /> <p>A wave of serial eruptions of this sort would not be without precedent.&amp;#160; In the early years of twentieth-first century, for example, one government after another in disparate parts of the former Soviet Union was swept away in what were called the &#8220; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution" type="external">color revolutions</a>&#8221; &#8212; populist upheavals against old-style authoritarian regimes.&amp;#160; These included the &#8220;Rose Revolution&#8221; in Georgia (2003), the &#8220;Orange Revolution&#8221; in Ukraine (2004), and the &#8220;Pink&#8221; or &#8220;Tulip Revolution&#8221; in Kyrgyzstan (2005).&amp;#160; In 2011, a similar wave of protests erupted in North Africa, culminating in what we call the Arab Spring.</p> <p>Like these earlier upheavals, a &#8220;green revolution&#8221; is <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175737/" type="external">unlikely</a> to arise from a highly structured political campaign with clearly identified leaders. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;In all likelihood, it will erupt spontaneously, after a cascade of climate-change induced disasters provokes an outpouring of public fury.&amp;#160; Once ignited, however, it will undoubtedly ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broad-ranging, systemic transformations of their energy and climate policies.&amp;#160; In this sense, any such upheaval &#8212; whatever form it takes &#8212; will prove &#8220;revolutionary&#8221; by seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with transformative implications.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Foreshadowings of such a process can already be found around the globe.&amp;#160; Take the mass environmental protests that erupted in Turkey this June.&amp;#160; Though sparked by a far smaller concern than planetary devastation via climate change, for a time they actually posed a significant threat to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing party.&amp;#160; Although his forces eventually succeeded in crushing the protests &#8212; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/europe/development-project-in-istanbul-focus-of-violent-protests-is-stopped-by-court.html" type="external">leaving</a> four dead, 8,000 injured, and 11 blinded by tear-gas canisters &#8212; his reputation as a moderate Islamist was <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-defends-right-peaceful-protest-turkey" type="external">badly damaged</a> by the episode.</p> <p>Like so many surprising upheavals on this planet, the Turkish uprising had the most modest of beginnings: on May 27th, a handful of environmental activists <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/world/europe/istanbul-protests-started-over-trees.html" type="external">blocked</a> bulldozers sent by the government to level Gezi Park, a tiny oasis of greenery in the heart of Istanbul, and prepare the way for the construction of an upscale mall.&amp;#160; The government responded to this small-scale, non-violent action by sending in riot police and clearing the area, a move that enraged many Turks and prompted tens of thousands of them to occupy nearby Taksim Square. &amp;#160;This move, in turn, led to an even more brutal <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-16/turkish-police-block-off-taksim-after-street-battles-overnight.html" type="external">police crackdown</a> and then to huge demonstrations in Istanbul and around the country.&amp;#160; In the end, mass protests <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey" type="external">erupted</a> in 70 cities, the largest display of anti-government sentiment since Erdogan&#8217;s Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002.</p> <p>This was, in the most literal sense possible, a &#8220;green&#8221; revolution, ignited by the government&#8217;s assault on the last piece of greenery in central Istanbul.&amp;#160; But once the police intervened in full strength, it became a wide-ranging rebuke to Erdogan&#8217;s <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-defends-right-peaceful-protest-turkey" type="external">authoritarian impulses</a> and his drive to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/world/europe/in-istanbuls-taksim-square-an-achilles-heel.html" type="external">remake</a> the city as a neo-Ottoman showplace &#8212; replete with fancy malls and high-priced condominiums &#8212; while eliminating poor neighborhoods and freewheeling public spaces like Taksim Square.&amp;#160; &#8220;It&#8217;s all about superiority, and ruling over the people like sultans,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html" type="external">declared</a> one protestor.&amp;#160; It&#8217;s not just about the trees in Gezi Park, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/police-attack-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square.html" type="external">said</a> another: &#8220;We are here to stand up against those who are trying to make a profit from our land.&#8221;&amp;#160;</p> <p>The Ningbo Rebellion</p> <p>The same trajectory of events &#8212; a small-scale environmental protest evolving into a full-scale challenge to governmental authority &#8212; can be seen in other mass protests of recent years.</p> <p>Take a Chinese example: in October 2012, students and middle class people joined with poor farmers to protest the construction of an $8.8 billion petrochemical facility in Ningbo, a city of 3.4 million people south of Shanghai.&amp;#160; In a country where environmental pollution has reached nearly unprecedented levels, these protests were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/world/asia/protests-against-sinopec-plant-in-china-reach-third-day.html" type="external">touched off</a> by fears that the plant, to be built by the state-owned energy company Sinopec with local government support, would produce <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraxylene" type="external">paraxylene</a>, a toxic substance used in plastics, paints, and cleaning solvents.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Here, too, the initial spark that led to the protests was small-scale.&amp;#160; On October 22nd, some 200 farmers obstructed a road near the district government&#8217;s office in an attempt to block the plant&#8217;s construction.&amp;#160; After the police were called in to clear the blockade, students from nearby Ningbo University joined the protests.&amp;#160; Using social media, the protestors quickly enlisted support from middle-class residents of the city who converged in their thousands on downtown Ningbo.&amp;#160; When riot police moved in to break up the crowds, the protestors <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world/asia/protests-against-expansion-of-china-chemical-plant-turn-violent.html" type="external">fought back</a>, attacking police cars and throwing bricks and water bottles.&amp;#160; While the police eventually gained the upper hand after several days of pitched battles, the Chinese government concluded that mass action of this sort, occurring in the heart of a major city and featuring an alliance of students, farmers, and young professionals, was too great a threat.&amp;#160; After five days of fighting, the government gave in, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/28/chinese-factory-plan-ditched-protests" type="external">announcing</a> the cancellation of the petrochemical project.</p> <p>The Ningbo demonstrations were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/06/business/Protests-Over-Large-Projects.html" type="external">hardly the first</a> such upheavals to erupt in China.&amp;#160; They did, however, highlight a growing governmental vulnerability to mass environmental protest.&amp;#160; For decades, the reigning Chinese Communist Party has justified its monopolistic hold on power by citing its success in generating rapid economic growth.&amp;#160; But that growth means the use of ever more fossil fuels and petrochemicals, which, in turn, means increased carbon emissions and disastrous atmospheric pollution, including one &#8220; <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/169305324/beijings-air-quality-reaches-hazardous-levels" type="external">airpocalypse</a>&#8221; after another.</p> <p>Until recently, most Chinese seemed to accept such conditions as the inevitable consequences of growth, but it seems that tolerance of environmental degradation is rapidly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/asia/beijing-journal-anger-grows-over-air-pollution-in-china.html" type="external">diminishing</a>.&amp;#160; As a result, the party finds itself in a terrible bind: it can slow development as a step toward cleaning up the environment, incurring a risk of growing economic discontent, or it can continue its growth-at-all-costs policy, and find itself embroiled in a firestorm of Ningbo-style environmental protests.&amp;#160;</p> <p>This dilemma &#8212; the environment versus the economy &#8212; has proven to be at the heart of similar mass eruptions elsewhere on the planet.</p> <p>After Fukushima</p> <p>Two of the largest protests of this sort were sparked by the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants on March 11, 2011, after a massive tsunami struck northern Japan.&amp;#160; In both of these actions &#8212; the first in Germany, the second in Japan &#8212; the future of nuclear power and the survival of governments were placed in doubt.</p> <p>The biggest protests occurred in Germany.&amp;#160; On March 26th, 15 days after the Fukushima explosions, an estimated <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12872339" type="external">250,000</a> people participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations across the country &#8212; 100,000 in Berlin, and up to 40,000 each in Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne.&amp;#160; &#8220;Today&#8217;s demonstrations are just the prelude to a new, strong, anti-nuclear movement,&#8221; <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12872339" type="external">declared</a> Jochen Stay, a protest leader.&amp;#160; &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to let up until the plants are finally mothballed.&#8221;</p> <p>At issue was the fate of Germany&#8217;s remaining nuclear power plants.&amp;#160; Although touted as an attractive alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear power is seen by most Germans as a dangerous and unwelcome energy option.&amp;#160; Several months prior to Fukushima, German Chancellor Angela Merkel <a href="http://www.dw.de/merkel-hails-contentious-new-power-policy-as-greenest-in-the-world/a-5978792-1" type="external">insisted</a> that Germany would keep its 17 operating reactors until 2040, allowing a smooth transition from the country&#8217;s historic reliance on coal to renewable energy for generating electricity. &amp;#160;Immediately after Fukushima, she ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany&#8217;s seven oldest reactors for safety inspections but refused to close the others, provoking an outpouring of protest.</p> <p>Witnessing the scale of the demonstrations, and after suffering an electoral defeat in the key state of Baden-W&#252;rttemberg, Merkel evidently came to the conclusion that clinging to her position would be the equivalent of political suicide.&amp;#160; On May 30th, she <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208" type="external">announced</a> that the seven reactors undergoing inspections would be closed permanently and the remaining 10 would be phased out by 2022, almost 20 years earlier than in her original plan.</p> <p>By all accounts, the decision to phase out nuclear power almost two decades early will have significant repercussions for the German economy. &amp;#160; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nuclear-power-germany-renewable-energy" type="external">Shutting down</a> the reactors and replacing them with wind and solar energy will cost an estimated $735 billion and take several decades, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html" type="external">producing</a> soaring electricity bills and periodic energy shortages.&amp;#160; However, such is the strength of <a href="http://pri.org/stories/2011-07-20/germanys-anti-nuclear-shift" type="external">anti-nuclear sentiment</a> in Germany that Merkel felt she had no choice but to close the reactors anyway.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The anti-nuclear protests in Japan occurred considerably later, but were no less momentous.&amp;#160; On July 16, 2012, 16 months after the Fukushima disaster, an estimated <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/world/asia/thousands-gather-in-tokyo-to-protest-nuclear-restart.html" type="external">170,000 people</a> assembled in Tokyo to protest a government plan to restart the country&#8217;s nuclear reactors, idled after the disaster.&amp;#160; This was not only Japan&#8217;s largest antinuclear demonstration in many years, but the largest of any sort to occur in recent memory.</p> <p>For the government, the July 16th action was particularly significant. Prior to Fukushima, most Japanese had embraced the country&#8217;s growing reliance on nuclear power, putting their trust in the government to ensure its safety.&amp;#160; After Fukushima and the disastrous attempts of the reactors&#8217; owner, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company" type="external">Tokyo Electric Power Company</a> (TEPCO), to deal with the situation, public support for nuclear power <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/world/asia/japans-prime-minister-orders-restart-of-2-nuclear-reactors.html" type="external">plummeted</a>.&amp;#160; As it became increasingly evident that the government had <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201301050037" type="external">mishandled</a> the crisis, people lost faith in its ability to exercise effective control over the nuclear industry.&amp;#160; Repeated promises that nuclear reactors could be made safe lost all credibility when it became known that government officials had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/world/asia/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-a-man-made-disaster-report-says.html" type="external">long collaborated</a> with TEPCO executives in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/asia/tepco-admits-failure-in-acknowledging-risks-at-nuclear-plant.html" type="external">covering up</a> safety concerns at Fukushima and, once the meltdowns occurred, in <a href="http://nuclear-news.net/2013/09/02/tepcos-deliberate-lies-to-conceal-true-level-of-fukushima-radiation/" type="external">concealing</a> information about the true scale of the disaster and its medical implications.</p> <p>The July 16th protest and others like it should be seen as a public vote against the government&#8217;s energy policy and oversight capabilities.&amp;#160; &#8220;Japanese have not spoken out against the national government,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/world/asia/thousands-in-tokyo-protest-the-restarting-of-a-nuclear-plant.html" type="external">said</a> one protestor, a 29-year-old homemaker who brought her one-year-old son.&amp;#160; &#8220;Now, we have to speak out, or the government will endanger us all.&#8221;</p> <p>Skepticism about the government, rare for twenty-first-century Japan, has proved a major obstacle to its desire to <a href="http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=JA" type="external">restart</a> the country&#8217;s 50 idled reactors.&amp;#160; While most Japanese oppose nuclear power, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains determined to get the rectors running again in order to reduce Japan&#8217;s heavy reliance on imported energy and promote economic growth.&amp;#160; &#8220;I think it is impossible to promise zero [nuclear power plants] at this stage,&#8221; he <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201310250045" type="external">declared</a> this October.&amp;#160; &#8220;From the government&#8217;s standpoint, [nuclear plants] are extremely important for a stable energy supply and economic activities.&#8221;</p> <p>Despite such sentiments, Abe is finding it extremely difficult to garner support for his plans, and it is doubtful that significant numbers of those reactors will be coming online anytime soon.</p> <p>The Explosions Ahead</p> <p>What these episodes tell us is that people around the world are becoming ever more concerned about energy policy as it affects their lives and are prepared &#8212; often on short notice &#8212; to engage in mass protests.&amp;#160; At the same time, governments globally, with rare exceptions, are deeply wedded to existing energy policies.&amp;#160; These almost invariably turn them into targets, no matter what the original spark for mass opposition.&amp;#160; As the results of climate change become ever more disruptive, government officials will find themselves repeatedly choosing between long-held energy plans and the possibility of losing their grip on power.</p> <p>Because few governments are as yet prepared to launch the sorts of efforts that might even begin to effectively address the peril of climate change, they will increasingly be seen as obstacles to essential action and so as entities that need to be removed.&amp;#160; In short, climate rebellion &#8212; spontaneous protests that may at any moment evolve into unquenchable mass movements &#8212; is on the horizon.&amp;#160; Faced with such rebellions, recalcitrant governments will respond with some combination of accommodation to popular demands and harsh repression.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Many governments will be at risk from such developments, but the Chinese leadership appears to be especially vulnerable.&amp;#160; The ruling party has staked its future viability on an endless carbon-fueled growth agenda that is steadily destroying the country&#8217;s environment.&amp;#160; It has already faced half-a-dozen environmental upheavals like the one in Ningbo, and has responded to them by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/world/asia/chinese-officials-cancel-plant-project-amid-protests.html" type="external">agreeing</a> to protestors&#8217; demands or by employing brute force.&amp;#160; The question is: How long can this go on?&amp;#160;</p> <p>Environmental conditions are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2013/jun/07/chinas-environmental-problems-grim-ministry-report" type="external">bound to worsen</a>, especially as China continues to rely on coal for home heating and electrical power, and yet there is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/business/energy-environment/chinas-clean-air-drive-likely-to-take-a-long-time.html" type="external">no indication</a> that the ruling Communist Party is prepared to take the radical steps required to significantly reduce domestic coal consumption.&amp;#160; This translates into the possibility of mass protests erupting at any time and on a potentially unprecedented scale.&amp;#160; And these, in turn, could bring the Party&#8217;s very survival into question &#8212; a <a href="http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2011/05/04/china-political-stability-amid-jasmine-revolutions/" type="external">scenario</a> guaranteed to produce immense anxiety among the country&#8217;s top leaders.</p> <p>And what about the United States?&amp;#160; At this point, it would be ludicrous to say that, as a result of popular disturbances, the nation&#8217;s political leadership is at any risk of being swept away or even forced to take serious steps to scale back reliance on fossil fuels.&amp;#160; There are, however, certainly signs of a growing nationwide campaign against aspects of fossil fuel reliance, including <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175618/" type="external">vigorous protests</a> against hydraulic fracturing (&#8220;fracking&#8221;) and the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175648/michael_klare_a_presidential_decision" type="external">Keystone XL tar sands pipeline</a>.</p> <p>For environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben, all this adds up to an incipient mass movement against the continued consumption of fossil fuels.&amp;#160; &#8220;In the last few years,&#8221; he has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175737/" type="external">written</a>, this movement &#8220;has blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swath of American institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks, and challenged practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking for natural gas.&#8221;&amp;#160; It may not have achieved the success of the drive for gay marriage, he observed, but it &#8220;continues to grow quickly, and it&#8217;s starting to claim some victories.&#8221;</p> <p>If it&#8217;s still too early to gauge the future of this anti-carbon movement, it does seem, at least, to be gaining momentum.&amp;#160; In the 2013 elections, for example, three cities in energy-rich Colorado &#8212; Boulder, Fort Collins, and Lafayette &#8212; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/us/colorado-cities-rejection-of-fracking-poses-political-test-for-natural-gas-industry.html" type="external">voted</a> to ban or place moratoriums on fracking within their boundaries, while protests against Keystone XL and similar projects are on the rise.</p> <p>Nobody can say that a green energy revolution is a sure thing, but who can deny that energy-oriented environmental protests in the U.S. and elsewhere have the potential to expand into something far greater?&amp;#160; Like China, the United States will experience genuine damage from climate change and its unwavering commitment to fossil fuels in the years ahead.&amp;#160; Americans are not, for the most part, passive people.&amp;#160; Expect them, like the Chinese, to respond to these perils with increased ire and a determination to alter government policy.</p> <p>So don&#8217;t be surprised if that green energy revolution erupts in your neighborhood as part of humanity&#8217;s response to the greatest danger we&#8217;ve ever faced.&amp;#160; If governments won&#8217;t take the lead on an imperiled planet, someone will.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Race for What&#8217;s Left</a>.&amp;#160; A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from <a href="http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&amp;amp;key=124" type="external">the Media Education Foundation</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America&#8217;s Wars &#8212; The Untold Story</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2013 Michael T. Klare</p>

Is a Green Energy Revolution on the Global Agenda?

https://truthdig.com/articles/is-a-green-energy-revolution-on-the-global-agenda/

2013-11-18

4left

By Michael T Klare TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch Read Tom Engelhardt8217s introduction here A week after the most powerful 8220super typhoon8221 ever recorded pummeled the Philippines killing thousands in a single province and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating 8220 airpocalypse8221 suffocating the city with coalplant pollution government leaders bewareamp160 Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change they are the type of disasters that scientists tell us will become a pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive consumption of carbonbased fuelsamp160 If as is now the case governments across the planet back an extension of the carbon age and ever increasing reliance on 8220unconventional8221 fossil fuels like tar sands and shale gas we should all expect troubleamp160 In fact we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution None of us can predict the future but when it comes to a mass rebellion against the perpetrators of global destruction we can see a glimmer of the coming upheaval in events of the present momentamp160 Take a look and you will see that the assorted environmental protests that have long bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and supportamp160 With an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying floods fires droughts and storms become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet more people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly bold protest actionsamp160 Sooner or later government leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may in the end be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside In fact it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to othersamp160 Because climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human populations the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain in strength across the planetamp160 While circumstances may vary the ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable forms of energyamp160 And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation in others A wave of serial eruptions of this sort would not be without precedentamp160 In the early years of twentiethfirst century for example one government after another in disparate parts of the former Soviet Union was swept away in what were called the 8220 color revolutions8221 8212 populist upheavals against oldstyle authoritarian regimesamp160 These included the 8220Rose Revolution8221 in Georgia 2003 the 8220Orange Revolution8221 in Ukraine 2004 and the 8220Pink8221 or 8220Tulip Revolution8221 in Kyrgyzstan 2005amp160 In 2011 a similar wave of protests erupted in North Africa culminating in what we call the Arab Spring Like these earlier upheavals a 8220green revolution8221 is unlikely to arise from a highly structured political campaign with clearly identified leaders amp160amp160In all likelihood it will erupt spontaneously after a cascade of climatechange induced disasters provokes an outpouring of public furyamp160 Once ignited however it will undoubtedly ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broadranging systemic transformations of their energy and climate policiesamp160 In this sense any such upheaval 8212 whatever form it takes 8212 will prove 8220revolutionary8221 by seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with transformative implicationsamp160 Foreshadowings of such a process can already be found around the globeamp160 Take the mass environmental protests that erupted in Turkey this Juneamp160 Though sparked by a far smaller concern than planetary devastation via climate change for a time they actually posed a significant threat to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing partyamp160 Although his forces eventually succeeded in crushing the protests 8212 leaving four dead 8000 injured and 11 blinded by teargas canisters 8212 his reputation as a moderate Islamist was badly damaged by the episode Like so many surprising upheavals on this planet the Turkish uprising had the most modest of beginnings on May 27th a handful of environmental activists blocked bulldozers sent by the government to level Gezi Park a tiny oasis of greenery in the heart of Istanbul and prepare the way for the construction of an upscale mallamp160 The government responded to this smallscale nonviolent action by sending in riot police and clearing the area a move that enraged many Turks and prompted tens of thousands of them to occupy nearby Taksim Square amp160This move in turn led to an even more brutal police crackdown and then to huge demonstrations in Istanbul and around the countryamp160 In the end mass protests erupted in 70 cities the largest display of antigovernment sentiment since Erdogan8217s Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002 This was in the most literal sense possible a 8220green8221 revolution ignited by the government8217s assault on the last piece of greenery in central Istanbulamp160 But once the police intervened in full strength it became a wideranging rebuke to Erdogan8217s authoritarian impulses and his drive to remake the city as a neoOttoman showplace 8212 replete with fancy malls and highpriced condominiums 8212 while eliminating poor neighborhoods and freewheeling public spaces like Taksim Squareamp160 8220It8217s all about superiority and ruling over the people like sultans8221 declared one protestoramp160 It8217s not just about the trees in Gezi Park said another 8220We are here to stand up against those who are trying to make a profit from our land8221amp160 The Ningbo Rebellion The same trajectory of events 8212 a smallscale environmental protest evolving into a fullscale challenge to governmental authority 8212 can be seen in other mass protests of recent years Take a Chinese example in October 2012 students and middle class people joined with poor farmers to protest the construction of an 88 billion petrochemical facility in Ningbo a city of 34 million people south of Shanghaiamp160 In a country where environmental pollution has reached nearly unprecedented levels these protests were touched off by fears that the plant to be built by the stateowned energy company Sinopec with local government support would produce paraxylene a toxic substance used in plastics paints and cleaning solventsamp160 Here too the initial spark that led to the protests was smallscaleamp160 On October 22nd some 200 farmers obstructed a road near the district government8217s office in an attempt to block the plant8217s constructionamp160 After the police were called in to clear the blockade students from nearby Ningbo University joined the protestsamp160 Using social media the protestors quickly enlisted support from middleclass residents of the city who converged in their thousands on downtown Ningboamp160 When riot police moved in to break up the crowds the protestors fought back attacking police cars and throwing bricks and water bottlesamp160 While the police eventually gained the upper hand after several days of pitched battles the Chinese government concluded that mass action of this sort occurring in the heart of a major city and featuring an alliance of students farmers and young professionals was too great a threatamp160 After five days of fighting the government gave in announcing the cancellation of the petrochemical project The Ningbo demonstrations were hardly the first such upheavals to erupt in Chinaamp160 They did however highlight a growing governmental vulnerability to mass environmental protestamp160 For decades the reigning Chinese Communist Party has justified its monopolistic hold on power by citing its success in generating rapid economic growthamp160 But that growth means the use of ever more fossil fuels and petrochemicals which in turn means increased carbon emissions and disastrous atmospheric pollution including one 8220 airpocalypse8221 after another Until recently most Chinese seemed to accept such conditions as the inevitable consequences of growth but it seems that tolerance of environmental degradation is rapidly diminishingamp160 As a result the party finds itself in a terrible bind it can slow development as a step toward cleaning up the environment incurring a risk of growing economic discontent or it can continue its growthatallcosts policy and find itself embroiled in a firestorm of Ningbostyle environmental protestsamp160 This dilemma 8212 the environment versus the economy 8212 has proven to be at the heart of similar mass eruptions elsewhere on the planet After Fukushima Two of the largest protests of this sort were sparked by the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants on March 11 2011 after a massive tsunami struck northern Japanamp160 In both of these actions 8212 the first in Germany the second in Japan 8212 the future of nuclear power and the survival of governments were placed in doubt The biggest protests occurred in Germanyamp160 On March 26th 15 days after the Fukushima explosions an estimated 250000 people participated in antinuclear demonstrations across the country 8212 100000 in Berlin and up to 40000 each in Hamburg Munich and Cologneamp160 8220Today8217s demonstrations are just the prelude to a new strong antinuclear movement8221 declared Jochen Stay a protest leaderamp160 8220We8217re not going to let up until the plants are finally mothballed8221 At issue was the fate of Germany8217s remaining nuclear power plantsamp160 Although touted as an attractive alternative to fossil fuels nuclear power is seen by most Germans as a dangerous and unwelcome energy optionamp160 Several months prior to Fukushima German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that Germany would keep its 17 operating reactors until 2040 allowing a smooth transition from the country8217s historic reliance on coal to renewable energy for generating electricity amp160Immediately after Fukushima she ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany8217s seven oldest reactors for safety inspections but refused to close the others provoking an outpouring of protest Witnessing the scale of the demonstrations and after suffering an electoral defeat in the key state of BadenW252rttemberg Merkel evidently came to the conclusion that clinging to her position would be the equivalent of political suicideamp160 On May 30th she announced that the seven reactors undergoing inspections would be closed permanently and the remaining 10 would be phased out by 2022 almost 20 years earlier than in her original plan By all accounts the decision to phase out nuclear power almost two decades early will have significant repercussions for the German economy amp160 Shutting down the reactors and replacing them with wind and solar energy will cost an estimated 735 billion and take several decades producing soaring electricity bills and periodic energy shortagesamp160 However such is the strength of antinuclear sentiment in Germany that Merkel felt she had no choice but to close the reactors anywayamp160 The antinuclear protests in Japan occurred considerably later but were no less momentousamp160 On July 16 2012 16 months after the Fukushima disaster an estimated 170000 people assembled in Tokyo to protest a government plan to restart the country8217s nuclear reactors idled after the disasteramp160 This was not only Japan8217s largest antinuclear demonstration in many years but the largest of any sort to occur in recent memory For the government the July 16th action was particularly significant Prior to Fukushima most Japanese had embraced the country8217s growing reliance on nuclear power putting their trust in the government to ensure its safetyamp160 After Fukushima and the disastrous attempts of the reactors8217 owner the Tokyo Electric Power Company TEPCO to deal with the situation public support for nuclear power plummetedamp160 As it became increasingly evident that the government had mishandled the crisis people lost faith in its ability to exercise effective control over the nuclear industryamp160 Repeated promises that nuclear reactors could be made safe lost all credibility when it became known that government officials had long collaborated with TEPCO executives in covering up safety concerns at Fukushima and once the meltdowns occurred in concealing information about the true scale of the disaster and its medical implications The July 16th protest and others like it should be seen as a public vote against the government8217s energy policy and oversight capabilitiesamp160 8220Japanese have not spoken out against the national government8221 said one protestor a 29yearold homemaker who brought her oneyearold sonamp160 8220Now we have to speak out or the government will endanger us all8221 Skepticism about the government rare for twentyfirstcentury Japan has proved a major obstacle to its desire to restart the country8217s 50 idled reactorsamp160 While most Japanese oppose nuclear power Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains determined to get the rectors running again in order to reduce Japan8217s heavy reliance on imported energy and promote economic growthamp160 8220I think it is impossible to promise zero nuclear power plants at this stage8221 he declared this Octoberamp160 8220From the government8217s standpoint nuclear plants are extremely important for a stable energy supply and economic activities8221 Despite such sentiments Abe is finding it extremely difficult to garner support for his plans and it is doubtful that significant numbers of those reactors will be coming online anytime soon The Explosions Ahead What these episodes tell us is that people around the world are becoming ever more concerned about energy policy as it affects their lives and are prepared 8212 often on short notice 8212 to engage in mass protestsamp160 At the same time governments globally with rare exceptions are deeply wedded to existing energy policiesamp160 These almost invariably turn them into targets no matter what the original spark for mass oppositionamp160 As the results of climate change become ever more disruptive government officials will find themselves repeatedly choosing between longheld energy plans and the possibility of losing their grip on power Because few governments are as yet prepared to launch the sorts of efforts that might even begin to effectively address the peril of climate change they will increasingly be seen as obstacles to essential action and so as entities that need to be removedamp160 In short climate rebellion 8212 spontaneous protests that may at any moment evolve into unquenchable mass movements 8212 is on the horizonamp160 Faced with such rebellions recalcitrant governments will respond with some combination of accommodation to popular demands and harsh repressionamp160 Many governments will be at risk from such developments but the Chinese leadership appears to be especially vulnerableamp160 The ruling party has staked its future viability on an endless carbonfueled growth agenda that is steadily destroying the country8217s environmentamp160 It has already faced halfadozen environmental upheavals like the one in Ningbo and has responded to them by agreeing to protestors8217 demands or by employing brute forceamp160 The question is How long can this go onamp160 Environmental conditions are bound to worsen especially as China continues to rely on coal for home heating and electrical power and yet there is no indication that the ruling Communist Party is prepared to take the radical steps required to significantly reduce domestic coal consumptionamp160 This translates into the possibility of mass protests erupting at any time and on a potentially unprecedented scaleamp160 And these in turn could bring the Party8217s very survival into question 8212 a scenario guaranteed to produce immense anxiety among the country8217s top leaders And what about the United Statesamp160 At this point it would be ludicrous to say that as a result of popular disturbances the nation8217s political leadership is at any risk of being swept away or even forced to take serious steps to scale back reliance on fossil fuelsamp160 There are however certainly signs of a growing nationwide campaign against aspects of fossil fuel reliance including vigorous protests against hydraulic fracturing 8220fracking8221 and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline For environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben all this adds up to an incipient mass movement against the continued consumption of fossil fuelsamp160 8220In the last few years8221 he has written this movement 8220has blocked the construction of dozens of coalfired power plants fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline convinced a wide swath of American institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks and challenged practices like mountaintopremoval coal mining and fracking for natural gas8221amp160 It may not have achieved the success of the drive for gay marriage he observed but it 8220continues to grow quickly and it8217s starting to claim some victories8221 If it8217s still too early to gauge the future of this anticarbon movement it does seem at least to be gaining momentumamp160 In the 2013 elections for example three cities in energyrich Colorado 8212 Boulder Fort Collins and Lafayette 8212 voted to ban or place moratoriums on fracking within their boundaries while protests against Keystone XL and similar projects are on the rise Nobody can say that a green energy revolution is a sure thing but who can deny that energyoriented environmental protests in the US and elsewhere have the potential to expand into something far greateramp160 Like China the United States will experience genuine damage from climate change and its unwavering commitment to fossil fuels in the years aheadamp160 Americans are not for the most part passive peopleamp160 Expect them like the Chinese to respond to these perils with increased ire and a determination to alter government policy So don8217t be surprised if that green energy revolution erupts in your neighborhood as part of humanity8217s response to the greatest danger we8217ve ever facedamp160 If governments won8217t take the lead on an imperiled planet someone willamp160 Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Hampshire College and the author most recently of The Race for What8217s Leftamp160 A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch Book Ann Jones8217s They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return From America8217s Wars 8212 The Untold Story Copyright 2013 Michael T Klare

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scientists/NOUN tell/VERB us/PRON will/AUX become/VERB a/DET pervasive/ADJ part/NOUN of/ADP life/NOUN on/ADP a/DET planet/NOUN being/AUX transformed/VERB by/ADP the/DET massive/ADJ consumption/NOUN of/ADP carbonbased/VERB fuelsamp160/PUNCT If/SCONJ as/SCONJ is/AUX now/ADV the/DET case/NOUN governments/NOUN across/ADP the/DET planet/NOUN back/ADV an/DET extension/NOUN of/ADP the/DET carbon/NOUN age/NOUN and/CCONJ ever/ADV increasing/VERB reliance/NOUN on/ADP 8220unconventional8221/NUM fossil/NOUN fuels/NOUN like/ADP tar/NOUN sands/NOUN and/CCONJ shale/NOUN gas/NOUN we/PRON should/AUX all/PRON expect/VERB troubleamp160/NOUN In/ADP fact/NOUN we/PRON should/AUX expect/VERB mass/ADJ upheavals/NOUN leading/VERB to/ADP a/DET green/ADJ energy/NOUN revolution/NOUN None/PROPN of/ADP us/PRON can/AUX predict/VERB the/DET future/NOUN but/CCONJ when/SCONJ it/PRON comes/VERB to/ADP a/DET mass/ADJ rebellion/NOUN against/ADP the/DET perpetrators/NOUN of/ADP global/ADJ destruction/NOUN we/PRON can/AUX 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may/AUX in/ADP the/DET end/NOUN be/AUX forced/VERB to/PART make/VERB radical/ADJ adjustments/NOUN in/ADP energy/NOUN policy/NOUN or/CCONJ risk/NOUN being/AUX swept/VERB aside/ADV In/ADP fact/NOUN it/PRON is/AUX possible/ADJ to/PART imagine/VERB such/DET a/DET green/ADJ energy/NOUN revolution/NOUN erupting/VERB in/ADP one/NUM part/NOUN of/ADP the/DET world/NOUN and/CCONJ spreading/VERB like/ADP wildfire/NOUN to/ADP othersamp160/NUM Because/SCONJ climate/NOUN change/NOUN is/AUX going/VERB to/PART inflict/VERB increasingly/ADV severe/ADJ harm/NOUN on/ADP human/ADJ populations/NOUN the/DET impulse/NOUN to/PART rebel/VERB is/AUX only/ADV likely/ADJ to/PART gain/VERB in/ADP strength/NOUN across/ADP the/DET planetamp160/NUM While/SCONJ circumstances/NOUN may/AUX vary/VERB the/DET ultimate/ADJ goal/NOUN of/ADP these/DET uprisings/NOUN will/AUX be/AUX to/PART terminate/VERB the/DET reign/NOUN of/ADP fossil/ADJ fuels/NOUN while/SCONJ emphasizing/VERB investment/NOUN in/ADP and/CCONJ 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or/CCONJ 8220Tulip/NUM Revolution8221/PROPN in/ADP Kyrgyzstan/PROPN 2005amp160/NUM In/ADP 2011/NUM a/DET similar/ADJ wave/NOUN of/ADP protests/NOUN erupted/VERB in/ADP North/PROPN Africa/PROPN culminating/VERB in/ADP what/PRON we/PRON call/VERB the/DET Arab/PROPN Spring/PROPN Like/ADP these/DET earlier/ADJ upheavals/VERB a/DET 8220green/NUM revolution8221/PROPN is/AUX unlikely/ADJ to/PART arise/VERB from/ADP a/DET highly/ADV structured/ADJ political/ADJ campaign/NOUN with/ADP clearly/ADV identified/VERB leaders/NOUN amp160amp160In/PROPN all/PRON likelihood/VERB it/PRON will/AUX erupt/VERB spontaneously/ADV after/SCONJ a/DET cascade/NOUN of/ADP climatechange/NOUN induced/VERB disasters/NOUN provokes/VERB an/DET outpouring/NOUN of/ADP public/ADJ furyamp160/PUNCT Once/ADV ignited/VERB however/ADV it/PRON will/AUX undoubtedly/ADV ratchet/VERB up/ADP the/DET pressure/NOUN for/SCONJ governments/NOUN to/PART seek/VERB broadranging/VERB systemic/ADJ transformations/NOUN of/ADP their/PRON energy/NOUN and/CCONJ climate/NOUN policiesamp160/PUNCT In/ADP this/DET sense/NOUN any/DET such/ADJ upheaval/NOUN 8212/NUM whatever/DET form/NOUN it/PRON takes/VERB 8212/NUM will/AUX prove/VERB 8220revolutionary8221/NUM by/ADP seeking/VERB policy/NOUN shifts/NOUN of/ADP such/ADJ magnitude/NOUN as/SCONJ to/PART challenge/VERB the/DET survival/NOUN of/ADP incumbent/ADJ governments/NOUN or/CCONJ force/VERB them/PRON to/PART enact/VERB measures/NOUN with/ADP transformative/ADJ implicationsamp160/NOUN Foreshadowings/NOUN of/ADP such/DET a/DET process/NOUN can/AUX already/ADV be/AUX found/VERB around/ADP the/DET globeamp160/NOUN Take/VERB the/DET mass/ADJ environmental/ADJ protests/NOUN that/PRON erupted/VERB in/ADP Turkey/PROPN this/DET Juneamp160/PROPN Though/SCONJ sparked/VERB by/ADP a/DET far/ADV smaller/ADJ concern/NOUN than/ADP planetary/ADJ devastation/NOUN via/ADP climate/NOUN change/NOUN for/ADP a/DET time/NOUN they/PRON actually/ADV posed/VERB a/DET significant/ADJ threat/NOUN 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<p>* Australia shares on track to end week lower</p> <p>* Weak gold prices drag material stocks down</p> <p>* New Zealand shares little changed by weak manufacturing data</p> <p>By Christina Martin</p> <p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - Australian shares inched down on Friday, following Wall Street which took a breather after a stretch of record highs, while gains in healthcare and consumer staples stocks kept the index afloat.</p> <p>Wall Street fell on Thursday after a run of strong performances from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&amp;amp;P 500 index.</p> <p>Australia&#8217;s S&amp;amp;P/ASX 200 index inched down 0.1 percent, or 5.4 points, to 6009.2 by 0113 GMT, on track to mark its second weekly loss. The benchmark ended flat in the previous session.</p> <p>The materials sector was the biggest drag on the index, weighed down by gold stocks, which slipped for a fourth straight session, down as much as 1.5 percent.</p> <p>While base metal prices were up on an upbeat performance from China&#8217;s industrial sector, gold prices were flat in a narrow range and under pressure from higher U.S. Treasury yields.</p> <p>Newcrest Mining Ltd lost as much as 2.2 percent and hit its lowest in more than three weeks, while fellow gold miner Saracen Mineral Holdings Ltd touched its lowest in more than five weeks, falling as much as 3.9 percent.</p> <p>Output at BHP Billiton PLC&#8217;s Escondida mine in Chile, the largest copper mine in the world, fell 7.8 percent in 2017 versus the prior year because of a prolonged strike.</p> <p>Rio Tinto also has a stake in the mine. BHP was flat, while Rio fell as much as 0.8 percent to the lowest in more than a week.</p> <p>Real estate stocks also pulled the benchmark index down, with Gateway Lifestyle Group sliding as much as 2.9 percent and Iron Mountain Inc hitting its lowest in more than five months, sliding by as much as 2.7 percent.</p> <p>U.S. home building fell more than expected in December, recording the biggest drop in just over a year, but the steep drop in groundbreaking activity will probably be temporary against the backdrop of a tightening labour market.</p> <p>Financial stocks slipped, with three of the &#8216;Big Four&#8217; banks losing between 0.2 percent and 0.4 percent. Commonwealth Bank of Australia inched up 0.2 percent.</p> <p>Healthcare stocks and consumer staples kept the index afloat.</p> <p>CSL Ltd added as much as 1.5 percent, hitting its highest in more than six weeks, while Wesfarmers Ltd rose as much as 1 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;We had a negative Wall Street, a soft commodity complex, but this may be counterbalanced by a nice set of China GDP numbers and December Aussie labour market numbers yesterday,&#8221; said Emmanuel Ng, FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd.</p> <p>&#8220;In addition, global risk appetite remains in risk-on territory. Overall, interest towards cyclicals look to remain intact.&#8221;</p> <p>China&#8217;s gross domestic product grew 6.8 percent in fourth-quarter 2017 from a year earlier.</p> <p>Australian job growth in December topped expectations to match the longest run of monthly gains on record, yet unemployment still edged up as more people looked for work -putting an unwelcome brake on wages and inflation.</p> <p>New Zealand&#8217;s benchmark S&amp;amp;P/NZX 50 index also traded flat, slightly dipping at 0.023 percent, or 1.93 points to 8274.6, but was on track to end the week higher.</p> <p>Markets remained little changed after a survey showed manufacturing activity in New Zealand grew in December at its slowest pace in five years.</p> <p>Material and telecom shares pulled on the index but were offset by industrials and healthcare stocks.</p> <p>Reporting by Christina Martin in Bengaluru; Editing by Eric Meijer</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Genuine Parts Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">GPC.N</a>) said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business S.P. Richards and merge it with Essendant ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ESND.O" type="external">ESND.O</a>) in a tax-free transaction for shareholders, as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses.</p> <p>The combined company will have more products and resources, giving its customers - mainly independent dealers - a one-stop shop as they grapple with intense competition from e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and big-box stores.</p> <p>&#8220;This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry,&#8221; Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts.</p> <p>Essendant&#8217;s shares jumped 18 percent to $10.00, while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at $90.17 in morning trading.</p> <p>Illinois-based Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies, while Atlanta, Georgia-based S.P. Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies.</p> <p>The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips. S.P. Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company. Essendant had a market capitalization of about $323.5 million as of Wednesday&#8217;s close.</p> <p>Genuine Parts, one of the leading U.S. car parts distributors, said the deal implied a valuation of about $680 million for S.P. Richards.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">Genuine Parts Co</a> 90.13 GPC.N New York Stock Exchange +0.47 (+0.52%) GPC.N ESND.O AMZN.O <p>Genuine Parts will get $347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newly-formed combined company. Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal, the transaction will be tax-free for the companies&#8217; shareholders.</p> <p>The company has been evaluating options for the S.P. Richards business, which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies.</p> <p>Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers. Its net sales declined 6.2 percent to $5.04 billion in 2017, while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent.</p> <p>Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses. Last year, the company completed a deal to buy London-based Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australia&#8217;s Inenco Group.</p> <p>Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant, while J.P. Morgan advised Genuine Parts.</p> <p>Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year.</p> <p>Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur &#8220;very soon or not so soon at all,&#8221; easing fears of confrontation with Russia.</p> <p>That lifted U.S. Treasury yields US10YT=RR, leading to a 1.8 percent increase in financial stocks .SPSY, which had the biggest percentage advance among the S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s 11 major sectors.</p> <p>The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.3 percent, adding the most gains to the S&amp;amp;P.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war,&#8221; said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. &#8220;Earnings are coming up and expectations are high.&#8221;</p> <p>Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) and Delta Air Lines Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAL.N" type="external">DAL.N</a>) added to the sanguine mood.</p> <p>Delta topped profit estimates, sending its shares 2.9 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks.</p> <p>BlackRock gained 1.5 percent after the asset manager&#8217;s quarterly profit rose more than expected.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> Slideshow (3 Images) <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>&#8220;People are looking forward to earnings season,&#8221; said Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. &#8220;Market participants are not wanting to miss out if (earnings are) as good as the forecasts say they will be.&#8221;</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 293.6 points, or 1.21 percent, to 24,483.05, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 21.8 points, or 0.83 percent, to 2,663.99, and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 71.22 points, or 1.01 percent, to 7,140.25.</p> <p>Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly U.S. initial jobless claims report, which pointed to sustained labor market strength.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BlackRock Inc</a> 533.01 BLK.N New York Stock Exchange +7.70 (+1.47%) BLK.N DAL.N JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) was a notable laggard among technology stocks, falling 1.5 percent following a 5.3 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network&#8217;s data security.</p> <p>Bed Bath &amp;amp; Beyond Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBBY.O" type="external">BBBY.O</a>) shares dived 20.0 percent after the company&#8217;s full-year profit forecast missed estimates.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 1.20-to-1 ratio and on the Nasdaq, for a 1.84-to-1 ratio.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.12 billion shares, compared to the 7.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>HONG KONG/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Walmart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>) is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian e-commerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the U.S. retail giant&#8217;s biggest acquisition of an online business, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.</p> <p>Reuters reported last week that Walmart completed its due diligence on Flipkart and had made a proposal to buy 51 percent or more of the Indian company for between $10 billion to $12 billion.</p> <p>A deal with Flipkart would step up Walmart&#8217;s battle with Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) for a bigger share of India&#8217;s fledgling e-commerce market, which Morgan Stanley estimates will be worth $200 billion in a decade. Local media have reported that Amazon is exploring a possible counter offer for Flipkart.</p> <p>Both sources declined to be named as the talks are private.</p> <p>Walmart will buy both new and existing Flipkart shares, with the new shares expected to value the Bengaluru-based firm at at least $18 billion, the sources said. The price for existing shares would value the firm at about $12 billion, one of the people said.</p> <p>Japan&#8217;s SoftBank Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9984.T" type="external">9984.T</a>), which owns roughly one-fifth of Flipkart via its Vision Fund, is unlikely to sell any of its shares due to the low price being offered for the existing shares, this source said.</p> <p>Reuters has previously reported that early investors such as Tiger Global, Accel and Naspers will likely sell their entire stakes in Flipkart to Walmart if a deal is reached.</p> <p>A deal is not yet finalised, and talks between Walmart, Flipkart and its investors are ongoing, one of the people said.</p> <p>Flipkart also counts eBay ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EBAY.O" type="external">EBAY.O</a>), Tencent Holdings ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0700.HK" type="external">0700.HK</a>) and Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) among its investors.</p> <p>Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment, a representative for Walmart in India declined comment while SoftBank said it doesn&#8217;t comment on speculation.</p> BIG INDIAN BATTLE <p>For Walmart, the world&#8217;s largest retailer known for its superstores, a deal with Flipkart would open up the vast Indian market.</p> <p>Walmart has for years tried to enter India but has remained confined to a &#8216;cash-and-carry&#8217; wholesale business amid tough restrictions on foreign investment. It currently operates 21 such stores in India.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>By comparison, Amazon closely trails Flipkart, which along with its fashion units controls nearly 40 percent of India&#8217;s online retail market, according to estimates by researcher Forrester.</p> <p>Flipkart&#8217;s investors are concerned that any deal with Amazon would run into regulatory hurdles as a combination would have more than 70 percent of India&#8217;s online retail market, one of the sources said.</p> <p>Walmart&#8217;s push into e-commerce comes as Amazon has embraced offline retail, with an affiliate of the Seattle-based company picking up a $27.6 million stake in Indian retailer Shopper&#8217;s Stop Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SHOP.NS" type="external">SHOP.NS</a>).</p> <p>In the United States, Amazon also bought high-end grocer Whole Foods Market Inc for $13.7 billion last year.</p> <p>Walmart&#8217;s investment would give Flipkart not just additional funds to fight Amazon, but also arm it with a formidable ally with extensive experience in retailing, logistics and supply chain management.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">Walmart Inc</a> 85.43 WMT.N New York Stock Exchange -0.48 (-0.56%) WMT.N AMZN.O 9984.T EBAY.O 0700.HK <p>Former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in 2007 in India&#8217;s tech hub of Bengaluru.</p> <p>Like Amazon&#8217;s founder Jeff Bezos, they began by selling books, but have diversified rapidly, including by selling smartphones, such as those made by China&#8217;s Xiaomi, through exclusive flash sales, and now compete with Amazon in almost all product categories.</p> <p>Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Martin Howell</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) is targeting November 2019 as the start of production for its Model Y sport utility vehicle, with production in China to begin two years later, two sources told Reuters this week, shedding some light on the electric vehicle maker&#8217;s next project that could tax its resources and capacity.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo <p>Reuters has learned the Silicon Valley company led by Chief Executive Elon Musk is accepting preliminary bids for supplier contracts on the Model Y, a compact crossover companion to the Model 3 sedan. Tesla has given suppliers scant details about the program and had not provided a production time frame, but has now indicated the vehicle would begin to be built at its Fremont, California, plant in November of next year, the two sources with knowledge of the supply chain said.</p> <p>Tesla declined to comment.</p> <p>The new Model Y details show that Tesla is pushing ahead on plans to build a new vehicle even as it struggles to produce the Model 3, which launched in July. Despite initially attracting about 500,000 advance orders in the form of refundable deposits, the sedan&#8217;s launch has been plagued by delays and manufacturing bottlenecks, postponing Tesla&#8217;s anticipated revenue stream and exacerbating a cash crunch for the money-losing company.</p> <p>Earlier this month, Tesla tried to reassure investors, saying its weekly Model 3 output had doubled during the first quarter and that production rates would accelerate through the second quarter to 5,000 units per week, or about 250,000 vehicles per year.</p> <p>Competitive bidding is a crucial early step in the complicated process of automotive manufacturing. After the automaker discloses its plans, suppliers compete based on factors including cost and technology.</p> <p>Tesla issued to suppliers what is known as a &#8220;request for information,&#8221; or RFI, which gives a directional view of what will be needed.</p> <p>With a new car model, automakers normally choose parts suppliers two to two-and-a-half years before the start of production. At about one-and-a-half years away, a November 2019 start date for the Model Y would be considered &#8220;aggressive, but possible,&#8221; said one of the sources. A shorter timeline is potentially feasible, the source said, as the Model Y will be built on the same platform as the Model 3.</p> <p>Tesla is known for its aggressive timelines and high risk-tolerance in order to get cars to market quicker. To save time and cost, Tesla made the risky bet to skip a pre-production testing phase for the Model 3 in order to advance straight to production tooling, which is harder to fix if problems arise, as Reuters first reported last year.</p> <p>1 MILLION MODEL Ys?</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">Tesla Inc</a> 294.08 TSLA.O Nasdaq -6.85 (-2.28%) TSLA.O <p>The Model Y is just one of many projects in the pipeline for Tesla, which also launched a Tesla Semi and a new Roadster in recent months. It is spending to build out its Gigafactory battery factory in Nevada, where battery module assembly issues have contributed to Model 3 delays, and also expects to build a factory in China in the near future.</p> <p>Tesla has said it will not need to raise additional funds this year. But Moody&#8217;s cited the likelihood of a capital raise of more than $2 billion in its downgrade of the company last month, spurred by concerns about cash reserves and Tesla&#8217;s ability to meet production targets. The company burned through $3.4 billion last year.</p> <p>Without giving a time frame, Musk in February told analysts the company would aim for production capacity of 1 million Model Ys per year.</p> <p>The two sources said suppliers could be estimating an annual production of 500,000 vehicles in the United States, with much lower volume in China, likely in the tens of thousands. Building 500,000 Model Ys per year would be the equivalent of what Musk has planned for total production in Fremont by the end of this year, although the company is nowhere near that volume.</p> <p>Suppliers generally use automakers&#8217; production targets to formulate a good guess on how many vehicles will actually be built, based on the individual automaker&#8217;s capability to execute and consumer demand. One of the sources said Tesla&#8217;s RFI was light on details compared with other automakers, and did not provide volume estimates for the Model Y.</p> <p>Musk said in February that capital investments related to the SUV would begin toward the end of 2018. Tesla has said its current factory in Fremont could produce 10,000 vehicles a week - what the company hopes it will build in the Model 3 alone some time in 2018 - without the need for a new building, although some in the industry believe there is not enough room at the plant to support that volume.</p> <p>Any major Model Y program would likely require a new facility, although low volume of the Model Y could be built on the existing Model 3 line, the sources said.</p> <p>Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Australian shares slip slightly on Wall Street pause; NZ little changed Genuine Parts to merge S.P. Richards business with Essendant Wall Street gains on earnings optimism, waning Syria jitters Exclusive: Walmart close to buying majority of India's Flipkart Exclusive: Tesla targets November 2019 for start of Model Y production - sources

https://reuters.com/article/australia-stocks-midday/australian-shares-slip-slightly-on-wall-street-pause-nz-little-changed-idUSL3N1PE162

2018-01-19

2least

Australia shares on track to end week lower Weak gold prices drag material stocks down New Zealand shares little changed by weak manufacturing data By Christina Martin Jan 19 Reuters Australian shares inched down on Friday following Wall Street which took a breather after a stretch of record highs while gains in healthcare and consumer staples stocks kept the index afloat Wall Street fell on Thursday after a run of strong performances from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the SampampP 500 index Australia8217s SampampPASX 200 index inched down 01 percent or 54 points to 60092 by 0113 GMT on track to mark its second weekly loss The benchmark ended flat in the previous session The materials sector was the biggest drag on the index weighed down by gold stocks which slipped for a fourth straight session down as much as 15 percent While base metal prices were up on an upbeat performance from China8217s industrial sector gold prices were flat in a narrow range and under pressure from higher US Treasury yields Newcrest Mining Ltd lost as much as 22 percent and hit its lowest in more than three weeks while fellow gold miner Saracen Mineral Holdings Ltd touched its lowest in more than five weeks falling as much as 39 percent Output at BHP Billiton PLC8217s Escondida mine in Chile the largest copper mine in the world fell 78 percent in 2017 versus the prior year because of a prolonged strike Rio Tinto also has a stake in the mine BHP was flat while Rio fell as much as 08 percent to the lowest in more than a week Real estate stocks also pulled the benchmark index down with Gateway Lifestyle Group sliding as much as 29 percent and Iron Mountain Inc hitting its lowest in more than five months sliding by as much as 27 percent US home building fell more than expected in December recording the biggest drop in just over a year but the steep drop in groundbreaking activity will probably be temporary against the backdrop of a tightening labour market Financial stocks slipped with three of the 8216Big Four8217 banks losing between 02 percent and 04 percent Commonwealth Bank of Australia inched up 02 percent Healthcare stocks and consumer staples kept the index afloat CSL Ltd added as much as 15 percent hitting its highest in more than six weeks while Wesfarmers Ltd rose as much as 1 percent 8220We had a negative Wall Street a soft commodity complex but this may be counterbalanced by a nice set of China GDP numbers and December Aussie labour market numbers yesterday8221 said Emmanuel Ng FX strategist at OverseaChinese Banking Corporation Ltd 8220In addition global risk appetite remains in riskon territory Overall interest towards cyclicals look to remain intact8221 China8217s gross domestic product grew 68 percent in fourthquarter 2017 from a year earlier Australian job growth in December topped expectations to match the longest run of monthly gains on record yet unemployment still edged up as more people looked for work putting an unwelcome brake on wages and inflation New Zealand8217s benchmark SampampPNZX 50 index also traded flat slightly dipping at 0023 percent or 193 points to 82746 but was on track to end the week higher Markets remained little changed after a survey showed manufacturing activity in New Zealand grew in December at its slowest pace in five years Material and telecom shares pulled on the index but were offset by industrials and healthcare stocks Reporting by Christina Martin in Bengaluru Editing by Eric Meijer Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Genuine Parts Co GPCN said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business SP Richards and merge it with Essendant ESNDO in a taxfree transaction for shareholders as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses The combined company will have more products and resources giving its customers mainly independent dealers a onestop shop as they grapple with intense competition from ecommerce giant Amazoncom Inc AMZNO and bigbox stores 8220This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry8221 Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts Essendant8217s shares jumped 18 percent to 1000 while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at 9017 in morning trading Illinoisbased Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies while Atlanta Georgiabased SP Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips SP Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company Essendant had a market capitalization of about 3235 million as of Wednesday8217s close Genuine Parts one of the leading US car parts distributors said the deal implied a valuation of about 680 million for SP Richards Genuine Parts Co 9013 GPCN New York Stock Exchange 047 052 GPCN ESNDO AMZNO Genuine Parts will get 347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newlyformed combined company Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal the transaction will be taxfree for the companies8217 shareholders The company has been evaluating options for the SP Richards business which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers Its net sales declined 62 percent to 504 billion in 2017 while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses Last year the company completed a deal to buy Londonbased Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australia8217s Inenco Group Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant while JP Morgan advised Genuine Parts Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters US stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as US President Donald Trump8217s suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries The SampampP 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur 8220very soon or not so soon at all8221 easing fears of confrontation with Russia That lifted US Treasury yields US10YTRR leading to a 18 percent increase in financial stocks SPSY which had the biggest percentage advance among the SampampP8217s 11 major sectors The technology sector SPLRCT rose 13 percent adding the most gains to the SampampP 8220We8217re hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war8221 said Michael Antonelli managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee 8220Earnings are coming up and expectations are high8221 Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc BLKN and Delta Air Lines Inc DALN added to the sanguine mood Delta topped profit estimates sending its shares 29 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks BlackRock gained 15 percent after the asset manager8217s quarterly profit rose more than expected The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Slideshow 3 Images Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES 8220People are looking forward to earnings season8221 said Tracie McMillion head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in WinstonSalem North Carolina 8220Market participants are not wanting to miss out if earnings are as good as the forecasts say they will be8221 The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 2936 points or 121 percent to 2448305 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 218 points or 083 percent to 266399 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 7122 points or 101 percent to 714025 Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly US initial jobless claims report which pointed to sustained labor market strength BlackRock Inc 53301 BLKN New York Stock Exchange 770 147 BLKN DALN JPMN CN WFCN Facebook Inc FBO was a notable laggard among technology stocks falling 15 percent following a 53 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network8217s data security Bed Bath ampamp Beyond Inc BBBYO shares dived 200 percent after the company8217s fullyear profit forecast missed estimates Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 120to1 ratio and on the Nasdaq for a 184to1 ratio Volume on US exchanges was 612 billion shares compared to the 727 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles HONG KONGMUMBAI Reuters Walmart Inc WMTN is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian ecommerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the US retail giant8217s biggest acquisition of an online business two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Reuters reported last week that Walmart completed its due diligence on Flipkart and had made a proposal to buy 51 percent or more of the Indian company for between 10 billion to 12 billion A deal with Flipkart would step up Walmart8217s battle with Amazoncom AMZNO for a bigger share of India8217s fledgling ecommerce market which Morgan Stanley estimates will be worth 200 billion in a decade Local media have reported that Amazon is exploring a possible counter offer for Flipkart Both sources declined to be named as the talks are private Walmart will buy both new and existing Flipkart shares with the new shares expected to value the Bengalurubased firm at at least 18 billion the sources said The price for existing shares would value the firm at about 12 billion one of the people said Japan8217s SoftBank Group 9984T which owns roughly onefifth of Flipkart via its Vision Fund is unlikely to sell any of its shares due to the low price being offered for the existing shares this source said Reuters has previously reported that early investors such as Tiger Global Accel and Naspers will likely sell their entire stakes in Flipkart to Walmart if a deal is reached A deal is not yet finalised and talks between Walmart Flipkart and its investors are ongoing one of the people said Flipkart also counts eBay EBAYO Tencent Holdings 0700HK and Microsoft Corp MSFTO among its investors Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment a representative for Walmart in India declined comment while SoftBank said it doesn8217t comment on speculation BIG INDIAN BATTLE For Walmart the world8217s largest retailer known for its superstores a deal with Flipkart would open up the vast Indian market Walmart has for years tried to enter India but has remained confined to a 8216cashandcarry8217 wholesale business amid tough restrictions on foreign investment It currently operates 21 such stores in India Slideshow 2 Images By comparison Amazon closely trails Flipkart which along with its fashion units controls nearly 40 percent of India8217s online retail market according to estimates by researcher Forrester Flipkart8217s investors are concerned that any deal with Amazon would run into regulatory hurdles as a combination would have more than 70 percent of India8217s online retail market one of the sources said Walmart8217s push into ecommerce comes as Amazon has embraced offline retail with an affiliate of the Seattlebased company picking up a 276 million stake in Indian retailer Shopper8217s Stop Ltd SHOPNS In the United States Amazon also bought highend grocer Whole Foods Market Inc for 137 billion last year Walmart8217s investment would give Flipkart not just additional funds to fight Amazon but also arm it with a formidable ally with extensive experience in retailing logistics and supply chain management Walmart Inc 8543 WMTN New York Stock Exchange 048 056 WMTN AMZNO 9984T EBAYO 0700HK Former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in 2007 in India8217s tech hub of Bengaluru Like Amazon8217s founder Jeff Bezos they began by selling books but have diversified rapidly including by selling smartphones such as those made by China8217s Xiaomi through exclusive flash sales and now compete with Amazon in almost all product categories Writing by Miyoung Kim Editing by Martin Howell Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Tesla Inc TSLAO is targeting November 2019 as the start of production for its Model Y sport utility vehicle with production in China to begin two years later two sources told Reuters this week shedding some light on the electric vehicle maker8217s next project that could tax its resources and capacity FILE PHOTO A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton just outside London Britain February 7 2018 REUTERSHannah McKayFile Photo Reuters has learned the Silicon Valley company led by Chief Executive Elon Musk is accepting preliminary bids for supplier contracts on the Model Y a compact crossover companion to the Model 3 sedan Tesla has given suppliers scant details about the program and had not provided a production time frame but has now indicated the vehicle would begin to be built at its Fremont California plant in November of next year the two sources with knowledge of the supply chain said Tesla declined to comment The new Model Y details show that Tesla is pushing ahead on plans to build a new vehicle even as it struggles to produce the Model 3 which launched in July Despite initially attracting about 500000 advance orders in the form of refundable deposits the sedan8217s launch has been plagued by delays and manufacturing bottlenecks postponing Tesla8217s anticipated revenue stream and exacerbating a cash crunch for the moneylosing company Earlier this month Tesla tried to reassure investors saying its weekly Model 3 output had doubled during the first quarter and that production rates would accelerate through the second quarter to 5000 units per week or about 250000 vehicles per year Competitive bidding is a crucial early step in the complicated process of automotive manufacturing After the automaker discloses its plans suppliers compete based on factors including cost and technology Tesla issued to suppliers what is known as a 8220request for information8221 or RFI which gives a directional view of what will be needed With a new car model automakers normally choose parts suppliers two to twoandahalf years before the start of production At about oneandahalf years away a November 2019 start date for the Model Y would be considered 8220aggressive but possible8221 said one of the sources A shorter timeline is potentially feasible the source said as the Model Y will be built on the same platform as the Model 3 Tesla is known for its aggressive timelines and high risktolerance in order to get cars to market quicker To save time and cost Tesla made the risky bet to skip a preproduction testing phase for the Model 3 in order to advance straight to production tooling which is harder to fix if problems arise as Reuters first reported last year 1 MILLION MODEL Ys Tesla Inc 29408 TSLAO Nasdaq 685 228 TSLAO The Model Y is just one of many projects in the pipeline for Tesla which also launched a Tesla Semi and a new Roadster in recent months It is spending to build out its Gigafactory battery factory in Nevada where battery module assembly issues have contributed to Model 3 delays and also expects to build a factory in China in the near future Tesla has said it will not need to raise additional funds this year But Moody8217s cited the likelihood of a capital raise of more than 2 billion in its downgrade of the company last month spurred by concerns about cash reserves and Tesla8217s ability to meet production targets The company burned through 34 billion last year Without giving a time frame Musk in February told analysts the company would aim for production capacity of 1 million Model Ys per year The two sources said suppliers could be estimating an annual production of 500000 vehicles in the United States with much lower volume in China likely in the tens of thousands Building 500000 Model Ys per year would be the equivalent of what Musk has planned for total production in Fremont by the end of this year although the company is nowhere near that volume Suppliers generally use automakers8217 production targets to formulate a good guess on how many vehicles will actually be built based on the individual automaker8217s capability to execute and consumer demand One of the sources said Tesla8217s RFI was light on details compared with other automakers and did not provide volume estimates for the Model Y Musk said in February that capital investments related to the SUV would begin toward the end of 2018 Tesla has said its current factory in Fremont could produce 10000 vehicles a week what the company hopes it will build in the Model 3 alone some time in 2018 without the need for a new building although some in the industry believe there is not enough room at the plant to support that volume Any major Model Y program would likely require a new facility although low volume of the Model Y could be built on the existing Model 3 line the sources said Reporting by Alexandria Sage Editing by Matthew Lewis Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>DUBAI (Reuters) - Deposits by foreigners in Qatari banks rose in December for the first time since other Arab countries imposed an embargo on Doha last June, data from Qatar&#8217;s central bank showed on Tuesday.</p> <p>Banks and investors from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt began pulling deposits and other funds out of Qatar in June, when those four nations cut diplomatic and trade ties with Doha.</p> <p>But in December, deposits in Qatari banks by customers located abroad rose by 2.2 billion riyals ($606 million) from the previous month to 137.1 billion riyals, the data showed. They stood at 184.6 billion riyals in May, before the embargo.</p> <p>Bankers say the vast majority of the four countries&#8217; deposits in Qatar have now been pulled out, leaving little money left to withdraw. Meanwhile, the Qatari economy&#8217;s stability since the embargo was imposed has helped banks attract money from other foreign depositors.</p> <p>To protect the banks from deposit outflows, Qatar&#8217;s government has been pumping some of its own money into the banks. The Qatari public sector boosted its deposits in local banks by 7.1 billion riyals in December to 315.4 billion riyals.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Qatari banks owed banks outside the country 177.3 billion riyals in December, up from 176.7 billion riyals in November.</p> <p>Qatari banks&#8217; borrowing from foreign banks fell sharply in the initial months of the embargo as institutions from the four Arab countries stopped extending loans. But borrowing has started to edge up again as Qatari banks find other sources of loans in Asia and Europe.</p> <p>Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Steve Wynn, the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd, has disposed his entire 11.8 percent stake in the firm for $2.1 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago.</p> <p>In an unexpected separate move, Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 5.3 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at $175 per share, giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau.</p> <p>Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world&#8217;s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China, MGM China and Melco Resorts.</p> <p>The casino mogul&#8217;s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn, who has a 9.26 percent stake, had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes.</p> <p>Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegas-based company last month, following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances. He has denied the accusations.</p> <p>In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday, Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to &#8220;acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline.&#8221;</p> <p>A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future.</p> <p>Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core &#8220;operating philosophies and values.&#8221;</p> <p>The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation.</p> <p>Wynn said two long-term institutional investors, currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts, have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at $175 a share.</p> <p>A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 4.1 million shares of Wynn Resorts at $180 per share - effectively exiting his entire 12.1 million shares, or 11.8 percent stake in the firm, for a total of $2.14 billion.</p> Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake WYNN IMPACT <p>Wynn, who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s, created some of Las Vegas&#8217; most iconic landmarks &#8211; the Mirage, Bellagio and Treasure Island.</p> <p>He was forced to sell his multi-billion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000. Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his ex-wife in 2002.</p> An exterior view Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Steve Marcus <p>The 76 year old businessman, whose signature denotes the company&#8217;s logo, had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos.</p> <p>Vitaly Umansky, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong, said the implications of the Galaxy&#8217;s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage.</p> <p>&#8220;Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia, with Japan being the critical development initiative.&#8221;</p> <p>Galaxy&#8217;s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo, one of Asia&#8217;s wealthiest billionaires, has a net wealth of $22 billion according to Forbes. Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau&#8217;s biggest operators over the past decade.</p> <p>&#8220;There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau, but who desperately want to be in Macau, and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too,&#8221; said Grant Govertsen, analyst at Union Gaming in Macau.</p> <p>While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos, it this week received a license to operate a roughly $500 million resort in Boracay, the Philippines most famous holiday island.</p> <p>Wynn, which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau&#8217;s main peninsula, focuses on premium and VIP customers, while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass. Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit.</p> <p>Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 3.9 percent and 2.9 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 3.1 percent.</p> <p>Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">BAC.N</a>) will pay a $42 million fine and admitted wrongdoing to settle claims by New York&#8217;s attorney general that it fraudulently routed clients&#8217; stock trades to outside firms, including one run by swindler Bernard Madoff.</p> FILE PHOTO: A customer leaves a Bank of America ATM kiosk in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder <p>New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlement on Friday, and called the fine the largest collected by the state to resolve an electronic trading probe.</p> <p>The attorney general said Bank of America Merrill Lynch had undisclosed agreements with several electronic trading firms from March 2008 to May 2013 to handle client trades.</p> <p>He said the bank told clients it was processing the trades in-house, even going so far as to alter trade confirmations, as part of an effort to make its electronic trading services appear safer and more sophisticated than they were.</p> <p>Schneiderman said the &#8220;masking&#8221; scheme affected more than 16 million trade orders and 4 billion shares, benefiting such firms as Madoff Securities, Citadel Securities, D.E. Shaw, Knight Capital and Two Sigma Securities.</p> <p>The bank also admitted to having told traders in its &#8220;dark pool,&#8221; a private venue where they expected protection from high-speed traders, that up to 30 percent of orders came from retail traders, when the percentage was closer to 5 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;Bank of America Merrill Lynch went to astonishing lengths to defraud its own institutional clients about who was seeing and filling their orders, who was trading in its dark pool, and the capabilities of its electronic trading services,&#8221; Schneiderman said in a statement.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">Bank of America Corp</a> 29.17 BAC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.38 (-4.52%) BAC.N BARC.L CSGN.S DBKGn.DE <p>Bill Halldin, a bank spokesman, said in an email: &#8220;At all times we met our obligation to deliver the best prices to clients. About five years ago, we addressed the issues concerning communicating to clients about where their trades were executed.&#8221;</p> <p>The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank also admitted that its masking activity violated New York&#8217;s powerful securities fraud law, the Martin Act.</p> <p>In 2016, Barclays Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BARC.L" type="external">BARC.L</a>), Credit Suisse Group AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CSGN.S" type="external">CSGN.S</a>) and Deutsche Bank AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>) settled separate electronic and high-speed trading probes by Schneiderman&#8217;s office for a respective $35 million, $30 million and $18.5 million. They also reached related settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term for running a huge Ponzi scheme involving his investment advisory business.</p> <p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) re-elected its board of directors on Friday with weak support from shareholders, who grilled the U.S. chipmaker over its strategy following its successful defense against a $117-billion hostile bid from Broadcom Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AVGO.O" type="external">AVGO.O</a>).</p> FILE PHOTO: A sign on the Qualcomm campus is seen in San Diego, California, U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo <p>Qualcomm has been under pressure to defend its decision to take Broadcom&#8217;s bid to a U.S. national security panel for review. This resulted in U.S. President Donald Trump blocking the deal earlier this month over concerns the acquisition would set the United States back in its race against China to develop 5G wireless technology.</p> <p>The re-election of Qualcomm&#8217;s directors was not in doubt on Friday given that Trump had ordered Broadcom to drop its challenge to Qualcomm&#8217;s board and withdraw its nominees. However, the investor support the Qualcomm directors received was lower than in most cases where directors run for election unopposed.</p> <p>Some of the directors were elected with more than 50 percent of the vote. The rest, including Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf, received support in the range of 40 percent to 50 percent, according to sources familiar with preliminary results of the shareholder vote.</p> <p>&#8220;Anything below 80 percent to 90 percent of votes cast is kind of questionable, 40 percent is very questionable. (Trump)has created some breathing room for Qualcomm. Hopefully, they will use it wisely and improve both their Board and company,&#8221; said Kevin McManus, vice president and director of proxy services for Egan-Jones Proxy Services.</p> <p>Ahead of Friday&#8217;s meeting, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc, a shareholder advisory firm, had urged investors to lodge protest votes for Broadcom&#8217;s withdrawn board nominees, even though they would not be counted under the company&#8217;s rules.</p> <p>Mollenkopf told investors following the company&#8217;s rejection of Broadcom&#8217;s bid that he could achieve earnings per share of $6.75 to $7.50 in fiscal 2019, through a number of measures, including a $1-billion cost reduction program and the resolution of licensing disputes, including with Apple Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">AAPL.O</a>).</p> <p>One shareholder at the meeting asked whether Qualcomm planned to return some or all of its offshore cash to shareholders &#8220;who have seen the shares go up to $80 and now is at $55&#8221; but &#8220;have been faithful. How about a little of that (cash)?&#8221;</p> <p>Qualcomm CFO George Davis said the company&#8217;s offshore cash was already earmarked for use in the company&#8217;s $44-billion acquisition of chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NXPI.O" type="external">NXPI.O</a>), which is pending clearance from Chinese regulator MOFCOM.</p> <p>&#8220;That doesn&#8217;t sound close to $80,&#8221; the shareholder responded. Davis pointed to the company&#8217;s earnings goal for its fiscal 2019. &#8220;That probably sounds more like $80,&#8221; Davis said.</p> SMALLER BOARD <p>Qualcomm last week said its board would shrink to 10 directors from 11 because former chairman Paul Jacobs, the son of Qualcomm&#8217;s co-founder, would not be renominated for the board after disclosing his intention to pursue a long-shot bid to take the company private.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">Qualcomm Inc</a> 53.66 QCOM.O Nasdaq -1.92 (-3.45%) QCOM.O AVGO.O AAPL.O NXPI.O <p>Qualcomm shares closed down 1.9 percent on Friday at $53.66. NXP shares ended down 0.7 percent at $120.19, their lowest level since Qualcomm revised its NXP bid last week, amid investor concerns that China will block the deal.</p> <p>In response to a shareholder question about MOFCOM&#8217;s delay in approving the NXP deal, Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm&#8217;s legal chief, said that Qualcomm had been &#8220;actively engaged&#8221; with Chinese regulators &#8220;as recently as this week.&#8221;</p> <p>Mollenkopf said he believed the company would close the NXP deal on schedule and noted he was headed to China for a conference immediately after the shareholder meeting. But in response to separate shareholder question about U.S.-China relations, he said Qualcomm has little visibility into broader trends between the two nations.</p> <p>&#8220;This is a little bit of uncharted territory for all of us,&#8221; Mollenkopf said. &#8220;We have developed a strong China-friendly, U.S.-friendly business model.&#8221;</p> <p>On Friday, Broadcom said its shareholders had voted to redomicile the company from Singapore to the United States. The company is hoping this will make its future acquisitions exempt from reviews from the U.S. security panel, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.</p> <p>However, Trump&#8217;s order prohibiting a Broadcom bid for Qualcomm continues to apply even after the redomiciling to the United States.</p> <p>Reporting by Stephen Nellis; editing by Bill Rigby and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) has quit the race to buy Pfizer&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PFE.N" type="external">PFE.N</a>) consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.</p> <p>It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business, which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins, following this week&#8217;s deadline for binding bids.</p> <p>GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which announced its withdrawal on Friday, was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RB.L" type="external">RB.L</a>) left the race late on Wednesday. Johnson &amp;amp; Johnson ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JNJ.N" type="external">JNJ.N</a>) stepped away from the auction in January.</p> <p>A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end.</p> <p>&#8220;While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy, they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation,&#8221; GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement.</p> <p>GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent, as investors&#8217; concerns about a potential dividend cut eased.</p> <p>Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business, which include a spin-off, sale or other transaction, as well as retaining it.</p> <p>&#8220;We have not yet made a decision, but continue to expect to make one in 2018,&#8221; a spokesman said.</p> <p>Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids. On Friday, a source said that if not, Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds.</p> <p>Pfizer is the world&#8217;s fifth-largest player in consumer health with 2.5 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness.</p> <p>The business, which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements, is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time. GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline, while other potential suitors, such as Bayer ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAYGn.DE" type="external">BAYGn.DE</a>) and Sanofi ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SASY.PA" type="external">SASY.PA</a>) are busy with other projects.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York, U.S., April 28, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo <p>What is more, the global consumer health market has slowed, from 4-6 percent like-for-like sales growth to 0-3 percent growth, Morgan Stanley analysts said in December. Major players in the over-the-counter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and private label competitors.</p> <p>Pfizer&#8217;s hope of fetching around $20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit&#8217;s core earnings, according to Bernstein analysts, in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times.</p> <p>Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MRCG.DE" type="external">MRCG.DE</a>) attempts to sell its consumer products unit, where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros ($5 billion) deterred initial suitors such as Nestle ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NESN.S" type="external">NESN.S</a>), Perrigo ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRGO.N" type="external">PRGO.N</a>) and a private-equity consortium.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GlaxoSmithKline PLC</a> 1315.6 GSK.L London Stock Exchange +41.80 (+3.28%) GSK.L PFE.N RB.L JNJ.N BAYGn.DE <p>Reckitt&#8217;s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum.</p> SPLIT OPINION <p>Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley, who took over at GSK last April. But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors, with some worried about the risk to the company&#8217;s dividend.</p> <p>Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings, since scale is key in over-the-counter remedies, but it could have distracted from fixing GSK&#8217;s core pharma division.</p> <p>That is a particular headache for Walmsley - a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L&#8217;Oreal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OREP.PA" type="external">OREP.PA</a>) - since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain&#8217;s top pharmaceuticals company.</p> <p>Last month, in a bid to reassure investors, she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs, followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions.</p> <p>The overhaul of the drugs business, which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years, is underway in both the commercial and research fields.</p> <p>GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NOVN.S" type="external">NOVN.S</a>), which complicates any acquisitions. Novartis has the right to sell down its 36.5 percent stake, valued at around $10 billion, from this month, although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Foreign deposits in Qatar banks resume rising as embargo impact eases Steve Wynn sells stake in company he founded, Macau casino Galaxy buys in Bank of America pays $42 million fine in New York 'masking' probe Qualcomm re-elects board of directors with tepid support GSK pulls out of $20 billion race for Pfizer consumer assets

https://reuters.com/article/us-qatar-deposits/foreign-deposits-in-qatar-banks-resume-rising-as-embargo-impact-eases-idUSKBN1FC2NL

2018-01-23

2least

DUBAI Reuters Deposits by foreigners in Qatari banks rose in December for the first time since other Arab countries imposed an embargo on Doha last June data from Qatar8217s central bank showed on Tuesday Banks and investors from Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates Bahrain and Egypt began pulling deposits and other funds out of Qatar in June when those four nations cut diplomatic and trade ties with Doha But in December deposits in Qatari banks by customers located abroad rose by 22 billion riyals 606 million from the previous month to 1371 billion riyals the data showed They stood at 1846 billion riyals in May before the embargo Bankers say the vast majority of the four countries8217 deposits in Qatar have now been pulled out leaving little money left to withdraw Meanwhile the Qatari economy8217s stability since the embargo was imposed has helped banks attract money from other foreign depositors To protect the banks from deposit outflows Qatar8217s government has been pumping some of its own money into the banks The Qatari public sector boosted its deposits in local banks by 71 billion riyals in December to 3154 billion riyals Meanwhile Qatari banks owed banks outside the country 1773 billion riyals in December up from 1767 billion riyals in November Qatari banks8217 borrowing from foreign banks fell sharply in the initial months of the embargo as institutions from the four Arab countries stopped extending loans But borrowing has started to edge up again as Qatari banks find other sources of loans in Asia and Europe Reporting by Andrew Torchia Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Steve Wynn the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd has disposed his entire 118 percent stake in the firm for 21 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago In an unexpected separate move Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 53 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at 175 per share giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world8217s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China MGM China and Melco Resorts The casino mogul8217s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn who has a 926 percent stake had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegasbased company last month following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances He has denied the accusations In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to 8220acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline8221 A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core 8220operating philosophies and values8221 The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation Wynn said two longterm institutional investors currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at 175 a share A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 41 million shares of Wynn Resorts at 180 per share effectively exiting his entire 121 million shares or 118 percent stake in the firm for a total of 214 billion Steve Wynn Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills California US May 3 2017 REUTERSMike Blake WYNN IMPACT Wynn who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s created some of Las Vegas8217 most iconic landmarks 8211 the Mirage Bellagio and Treasure Island He was forced to sell his multibillion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000 Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his exwife in 2002 An exterior view Wynn hotelcasino in Las Vegas Nevada US February 7 2018 REUTERSSteve Marcus The 76 year old businessman whose signature denotes the company8217s logo had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos Vitaly Umansky analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in Hong Kong said the implications of the Galaxy8217s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage 8220Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia with Japan being the critical development initiative8221 Galaxy8217s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo one of Asia8217s wealthiest billionaires has a net wealth of 22 billion according to Forbes Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau8217s biggest operators over the past decade 8220There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau but who desperately want to be in Macau and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too8221 said Grant Govertsen analyst at Union Gaming in Macau While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos it this week received a license to operate a roughly 500 million resort in Boracay the Philippines most famous holiday island Wynn which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau8217s main peninsula focuses on premium and VIP customers while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 39 percent and 29 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 31 percent Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru Editing by Shri Navaratnam Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Bank of America Corp BACN will pay a 42 million fine and admitted wrongdoing to settle claims by New York8217s attorney general that it fraudulently routed clients8217 stock trades to outside firms including one run by swindler Bernard Madoff FILE PHOTO A customer leaves a Bank of America ATM kiosk in Boston Massachusetts US October 11 2017 REUTERSBrian Snyder New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlement on Friday and called the fine the largest collected by the state to resolve an electronic trading probe The attorney general said Bank of America Merrill Lynch had undisclosed agreements with several electronic trading firms from March 2008 to May 2013 to handle client trades He said the bank told clients it was processing the trades inhouse even going so far as to alter trade confirmations as part of an effort to make its electronic trading services appear safer and more sophisticated than they were Schneiderman said the 8220masking8221 scheme affected more than 16 million trade orders and 4 billion shares benefiting such firms as Madoff Securities Citadel Securities DE Shaw Knight Capital and Two Sigma Securities The bank also admitted to having told traders in its 8220dark pool8221 a private venue where they expected protection from highspeed traders that up to 30 percent of orders came from retail traders when the percentage was closer to 5 percent 8220Bank of America Merrill Lynch went to astonishing lengths to defraud its own institutional clients about who was seeing and filling their orders who was trading in its dark pool and the capabilities of its electronic trading services8221 Schneiderman said in a statement Bank of America Corp 2917 BACN New York Stock Exchange 138 452 BACN BARCL CSGNS DBKGnDE Bill Halldin a bank spokesman said in an email 8220At all times we met our obligation to deliver the best prices to clients About five years ago we addressed the issues concerning communicating to clients about where their trades were executed8221 The Charlotte North Carolinabased bank also admitted that its masking activity violated New York8217s powerful securities fraud law the Martin Act In 2016 Barclays Plc BARCL Credit Suisse Group AG CSGNS and Deutsche Bank AG DBKGnDE settled separate electronic and highspeed trading probes by Schneiderman8217s office for a respective 35 million 30 million and 185 million They also reached related settlements with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Madoff is serving a 150year prison term for running a huge Ponzi scheme involving his investment advisory business Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SAN DIEGO Reuters Qualcomm Inc QCOMO reelected its board of directors on Friday with weak support from shareholders who grilled the US chipmaker over its strategy following its successful defense against a 117billion hostile bid from Broadcom Ltd AVGOO FILE PHOTO A sign on the Qualcomm campus is seen in San Diego California US November 6 2017 REUTERSMike BlakeFile Photo Qualcomm has been under pressure to defend its decision to take Broadcom8217s bid to a US national security panel for review This resulted in US President Donald Trump blocking the deal earlier this month over concerns the acquisition would set the United States back in its race against China to develop 5G wireless technology The reelection of Qualcomm8217s directors was not in doubt on Friday given that Trump had ordered Broadcom to drop its challenge to Qualcomm8217s board and withdraw its nominees However the investor support the Qualcomm directors received was lower than in most cases where directors run for election unopposed Some of the directors were elected with more than 50 percent of the vote The rest including Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf received support in the range of 40 percent to 50 percent according to sources familiar with preliminary results of the shareholder vote 8220Anything below 80 percent to 90 percent of votes cast is kind of questionable 40 percent is very questionable Trumphas created some breathing room for Qualcomm Hopefully they will use it wisely and improve both their Board and company8221 said Kevin McManus vice president and director of proxy services for EganJones Proxy Services Ahead of Friday8217s meeting Institutional Shareholder Services Inc a shareholder advisory firm had urged investors to lodge protest votes for Broadcom8217s withdrawn board nominees even though they would not be counted under the company8217s rules Mollenkopf told investors following the company8217s rejection of Broadcom8217s bid that he could achieve earnings per share of 675 to 750 in fiscal 2019 through a number of measures including a 1billion cost reduction program and the resolution of licensing disputes including with Apple Inc AAPLO One shareholder at the meeting asked whether Qualcomm planned to return some or all of its offshore cash to shareholders 8220who have seen the shares go up to 80 and now is at 558221 but 8220have been faithful How about a little of that cash8221 Qualcomm CFO George Davis said the company8217s offshore cash was already earmarked for use in the company8217s 44billion acquisition of chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV NXPIO which is pending clearance from Chinese regulator MOFCOM 8220That doesn8217t sound close to 808221 the shareholder responded Davis pointed to the company8217s earnings goal for its fiscal 2019 8220That probably sounds more like 808221 Davis said SMALLER BOARD Qualcomm last week said its board would shrink to 10 directors from 11 because former chairman Paul Jacobs the son of Qualcomm8217s cofounder would not be renominated for the board after disclosing his intention to pursue a longshot bid to take the company private Qualcomm Inc 5366 QCOMO Nasdaq 192 345 QCOMO AVGOO AAPLO NXPIO Qualcomm shares closed down 19 percent on Friday at 5366 NXP shares ended down 07 percent at 12019 their lowest level since Qualcomm revised its NXP bid last week amid investor concerns that China will block the deal In response to a shareholder question about MOFCOM8217s delay in approving the NXP deal Don Rosenberg Qualcomm8217s legal chief said that Qualcomm had been 8220actively engaged8221 with Chinese regulators 8220as recently as this week8221 Mollenkopf said he believed the company would close the NXP deal on schedule and noted he was headed to China for a conference immediately after the shareholder meeting But in response to separate shareholder question about USChina relations he said Qualcomm has little visibility into broader trends between the two nations 8220This is a little bit of uncharted territory for all of us8221 Mollenkopf said 8220We have developed a strong Chinafriendly USfriendly business model8221 On Friday Broadcom said its shareholders had voted to redomicile the company from Singapore to the United States The company is hoping this will make its future acquisitions exempt from reviews from the US security panel known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States However Trump8217s order prohibiting a Broadcom bid for Qualcomm continues to apply even after the redomiciling to the United States Reporting by Stephen Nellis editing by Bill Rigby and Nick Zieminski Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters GlaxoSmithKline GSKL has quit the race to buy Pfizer8217s PFEN consumer healthcare business endangering an auction the US drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as 20 billion It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins following this week8217s deadline for binding bids GlaxoSmithKline GSK which announced its withdrawal on Friday was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser RBL left the race late on Wednesday Johnson ampamp Johnson JNJN stepped away from the auction in January A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end 8220While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation8221 GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent as investors8217 concerns about a potential dividend cut eased Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business which include a spinoff sale or other transaction as well as retaining it 8220We have not yet made a decision but continue to expect to make one in 20188221 a spokesman said Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids On Friday a source said that if not Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds Pfizer is the world8217s fifthlargest player in consumer health with 25 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness The business which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline while other potential suitors such as Bayer BAYGnDE and Sanofi SASYPA are busy with other projects FILE PHOTO The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York US April 28 2014 REUTERSAndrew KellyFile Photo What is more the global consumer health market has slowed from 46 percent likeforlike sales growth to 03 percent growth Morgan Stanley analysts said in December Major players in the overthecounter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon AMZNO and private label competitors Pfizer8217s hope of fetching around 20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit8217s core earnings according to Bernstein analysts in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA8217s MRCGDE attempts to sell its consumer products unit where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros 5 billion deterred initial suitors such as Nestle NESNS Perrigo PRGON and a privateequity consortium GlaxoSmithKline PLC 13156 GSKL London Stock Exchange 4180 328 GSKL PFEN RBL JNJN BAYGnDE Reckitt8217s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum SPLIT OPINION Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley who took over at GSK last April But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors with some worried about the risk to the company8217s dividend Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings since scale is key in overthecounter remedies but it could have distracted from fixing GSK8217s core pharma division That is a particular headache for Walmsley a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L8217Oreal OREPPA since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain8217s top pharmaceuticals company Last month in a bid to reassure investors she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions The overhaul of the drugs business which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years is underway in both the commercial and research fields GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis NOVNS which complicates any acquisitions Novartis has the right to sell down its 365 percent stake valued at around 10 billion from this month although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>pxhidalgo/Thinkstock</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things&#8212;especially when it comes to the US military in Africa. For years, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">veil</a> of secrecy about much of the command&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa" type="external">activities</a> and mission <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">locations</a>, consistently downplaying the size, scale, and scope of its efforts. At a recent Pentagon press conference, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra, assuring the assembled reporters that the United States &#8220;has little forward presence&#8221; on that continent. Just days earlier, however, the men building the Pentagon&#8217;s presence there were telling a very different story&#8212;but they weren&#8217;t speaking with the media. They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet. They were planning for the future and the talk was of war.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />I recently experienced this phenomenon myself during a media roundtable with Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick, commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers. When I asked the general to tell me just what his people were building for US forces in Africa, he paused and said in a low voice to the man next to him, &#8220;Can you help me out with that?&#8221; Lloyd Caldwell, the Corps&#8217;s director of military programs, whispered back, &#8220;Some of that would be close hold&#8221;&#8212;in other words, information too sensitive to reveal.</p> <p>The only thing Bostick seemed eager to tell me about were vague plans to someday test a prototype &#8220;structural insulated panel-hut,&#8221; a new energy-efficient type of barracks being <a href="http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Media/NewsStories/tabid/9219/Article/9420/usma-wp-cadets-sip-hut-work-completes-first-term.aspx" type="external">developed</a> by cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point. He also assured me that his people would get back to me with answers. What I got instead was an &#8220;interview&#8221; with a spokesman for the Corps who offered little of substance when it came to construction on the African continent. Not much information was available, he said, the projects were tiny, only small amounts of money had been spent so far this year, much of it funneled into humanitarian projects. In short, it seemed as if Africa was a construction backwater, a sleepy place, a vast landmass on which little of interest was happening.</p> <p>Fast forward a few weeks and Captain Rick Cook, the chief of US Africa Command&#8217;s Engineer Division, was addressing an audience of more than 50 representatives of some of the largest military engineering firms on the planet&#8212;and this reporter. The contractors were interested in jobs and he wasn&#8217;t pulling any punches. &#8220;The eighteen months or so that I&#8217;ve been here, we&#8217;ve been at war the whole time,&#8221; Cook told them. &#8220;We are trying to provide opportunities for the African people to fix their own African challenges. Now, unfortunately, operations in Libya, South Sudan, and Mali, over the last two years, have proven there&#8217;s always something going on in Africa.&#8221;</p> <p>Cook was one of three US military construction officials who, earlier this month, spoke candidly about the Pentagon&#8217;s efforts in Africa to men and women from URS Corporation, AECOM, CH2M Hill, and other top firms. During a paid-access web seminar, the three of them insisted that they were seeking industry &#8220;partners&#8221; because the military has &#8220;big plans&#8221; for the continent. They foretold a future marked by expansion, including the building up of a &#8220;permanent footprint&#8221; in Djibouti for the next decade or more, a possible new compound in Niger, and a string of bases devoted to surveillance activities spreading across the northern tier of Africa. They even let slip mention of a small, previously unacknowledged US compound in Mali.</p> <p>The Master Plan</p> <p>After my brush off by General Bostick, I interviewed an Army Corps of Engineers Africa expert, Chris Gatz, about construction projects for Special Operations Command Africa in 2013. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be totally frank with you,&#8221; he said, &#8220;as far as the scopes of these projects go, I don&#8217;t have good insights.&#8221;</p> <p>What about two projects in Senegal I had stumbled across? Well, yes, he did, in fact, have information about a firing range and a &#8220;shoot house&#8221; that happened to be under construction there. When pressed, he also knew about plans I had noted in previously classified documents obtained by TomDispatch for the Corps to build a multipurpose facility in Cameroon. And on we went. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got better information than I do,&#8221; he said at one point, but it seemed like he had plenty of information, too. He just wasn&#8217;t volunteering much of it to me.</p> <p>Later, I asked if there were 2013 projects that had been funded with counter-narco-terrorism (CNT) money. &#8220;No, actually there was not,&#8221; he told me. So I specifically asked about Niger.</p> <p>Last year, AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that the US was conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, drone operations from Base A&#233;rienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger. In the months since, air operations there have only <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/africa/drones-in-niger-reflect-new-us-approach-in-terror-fight.html?pagewanted=all&amp;amp;_r=0" type="external">increased</a>. In addition, documents recently obtained by TomDispatch indicated that the Army Corps of Engineers has been working on two counter-narco-terrorism projects in Arlit and Tahoua, Niger. So I told Gatz what I had uncovered. Only then did he locate the right paperwork. &#8220;Oh, okay, I&#8217;m sorry,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;You&#8217;re right, we have two of them&#8230; Both were actually awarded to construction.&#8221;</p> <p>Those two CNT construction projects have been undertaken on behalf of Niger&#8217;s security forces, but in his talk to construction industry representatives, AFRICOM&#8217;s Rick Cook spoke about another project there: a possible US facility still to be built. &#8220;Lately, one of our biggest focus areas is in the country of Niger. We have gotten indications from the country of Niger that they are willing to be a partner of ours,&#8221; he said. The country, he added, &#8220;is in a nice strategic location that allows us to get to many other places reasonably quickly, so we are working very hard with the Nigeriens to come up with, I wouldn&#8217;t necessarily call it a base, but a place we can operate out of on a frequent basis.&#8221;</p> <p>Cook offered no information on the possible location of that facility, but recent contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that the US Air Force is seeking to purchase large quantities of jet fuel to be delivered to Niger&#8217;s Mano Dayak International Airport.</p> <p>Multiple requests for further information sent to AFRICOM&#8217;s media chief Benjamin Benson went unanswered, as had prior queries about activities at Base A&#233;rienne 101. But Colonel Aaron Benson, Chief of the Readiness Division at Air Forces Africa, did offer further details about the Nigerien mini-base. &#8220;There is the potential to construct MILCON aircraft parking aprons at the proposed future site in Niger,&#8221; he wrote, mentioning a specific type of military construction funding dedicated to use for &#8220;enduring&#8221; bases rather than transitory facilities. In response to further questions, Cook referred to the possible site as a &#8220;base-like facility&#8221; that would be &#8220;semi-permanent&#8221; and &#8220;capable of air operations.&#8221;</p> <p>Pay to Play</p> <p>It turns out that, if you want to know what the US military is doing in Africa, it&#8217;s advantageous to be connected to a large engineering or construction firm looking for business. Then you&#8217;re privy to quite a different type of insider assessment of the future of the US presence there, one far more detailed than the modest official pronouncements that US Africa Command offers to journalists. Asked at a recent Pentagon press briefing if there were plans for a West African analog to Djibouti&#8217;s Camp Lemonnier, the only &#8220;official&#8221; US base on the continent, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez was typically guarded. Such a &#8220;forward-operating site&#8221; was just &#8220;one of the options&#8221; the command was mulling over, he said, before launching into the sort of fuzzy language typical of official answers. &#8220;What we&#8217;re really looking at doing is putting contingency locating sites, which really have some just expeditionary infrastructure that can be expanded with tents,&#8221; was the <a href="http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5412&amp;amp;utm_source=April+9+2014+EN&amp;amp;utm_campaign=4%2F09%2F2014&amp;amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">way he put it</a>. He never once mentioned Niger, or airfield improvements, or the possibility of a semi-permanent &#8220;presence.&#8221;</p> <p>Here, however, is the reality as we know it today. Over the last several years, the US has been building a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story.html" type="external">constellation</a> of drone bases across Africa, <a href="http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140402/NEWS04/304020047" type="external">flying</a> intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions out of not only Niger, but also Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the island nation of the Seychelles. Meanwhile, an airbase in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">serves</a> as the home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, as well as of the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative. According to military documents, that &#8220;initiative&#8221; supports &#8220;high-risk activities&#8221; carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. US Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch also <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">mention</a> the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team. And according to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency, the US military has 29 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/gaomali_large.jpg" type="external">Click here to see a larger version</a>US Facility near Gao, Mali. This austere compound is thought to have been overrun by Islamist forces in 2012. Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers.</p> <p>As part of the webinar for industry representatives, Wayne Uhl, chief of the International Engineering Center for the Europe District of the Army Corps of Engineers, shed light on <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mysterious-fatal-crash-provides-rare-glimpse-of-us-commandos-in-mali/2012/07/08/gJQAGO71WW_story.html" type="external">shadowy</a> US operations in Mali before (and possibly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mysterious-fatal-crash-provides-rare-glimpse-of-us-commandos-in-mali/2012/07/08/gJQAGO71WW_story.html" type="external">after</a>) the elected government there was overthrown in a 2012 coup led by a US-trained officer. Documents prepared by Uhl reveal that an American compound was constructed near Gao, a major city in the north of Mali. Gao is the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-31/news/sns-rt-mali-rebelsbases-urgentl6e8ev0ei-20120331_1_reporting-by-cheick-dioura-rebel-assault-bases" type="external">site</a> of multiple Malian military bases and a &#8220;strategic&#8221; airport <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/world/africa/france-mali-intervention.html" type="external">captured</a> by Islamist militants in 2012 and retaken by French and Malian troops early last year.</p> <p>AFRICOM&#8217;s Benjamin Benson failed to respond to multiple requests for comment about the Gao compound, but Uhl offered additional details. The project was completed before the 2012 uprising and &#8220;included a vehicle maintenance facility, a small admin building, toilet facilities with water tank, a diesel generator with a fuel storage tank, and a perimeter fence,&#8221; he told me in a written response to my questions. &#8220;I imagine the site was overrun during the coup and is no longer used by US forces.&#8221;</p> <p>America&#8217;s lone official base on the African continent, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/" type="external">Camp Lemonnier</a>, a former French Foreign Legion post in Djibouti, has been on a decade-plus growth spurt and serves a key role for the US mission. &#8220;Camp Lemonnier is the only permanent footprint that we have on the continent and until such time as AFRICOM may establish a headquarters location in Africa, Camp Lemonnier will be the center of their activities here,&#8221; Greg Wilderman, the Military Construction Program Manager for Naval Facilities Engineering Command, explained.</p> <p>&#8220;In 2013, we had a big jump in the amount of program projects,&#8221; he noted, specifically mentioning a large &#8220;task force&#8221; construction effort, an oblique reference to a $220 million Special Operations compound at the base that TomDispatch first <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">reported</a> on in 2013.</p> <p>According to documents provided by Wilderman, five contracts worth more than $322 million (to be paid via MILCON funds) were awarded for Camp Lemonnier in late 2013. These included deals for a $25.5 million fitness center and a $41 million Joint Headquarters Facility in addition to the Special Operations Compound. This year, Wilderman noted, there are two contracts&#8212;valued at $35 million&#8212;already slated to be awarded, and Captain Rick Cook specifically mentioned deals for an armory and new barracks in 2014.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Cook&#8217;s presentation also indicated that a number of long-running construction projects at Camp Lemonnier were set to be completed this year, including roads, a &#8220;fuel farm,&#8221; an aircraft logistics apron, and &#8220;taxiway enhancements,&#8221; while construction of a new aircraft maintenance hangar, a telecommunications facility, and a &#8220;combat aircraft loading area&#8221; are slated to be finished in 2015. &#8220;There&#8217;s a tremendous amount of work going on,&#8221; Cook said, noting that there were 22 current projects underway there, more than at any other Navy base anywhere in the world.</p> <p>And this, it turns out, is only the beginning.</p> <p>&#8220;In the master plan,&#8221; Cook said, &#8220;there is close to three quarters of a billion dollars worth of construction projects that we still would like to do at Camp Lemonnier over the next 10 to 15 years.&#8221; That base, in turn, would be just one of a constellation of camps and compounds used by the US in Africa. &#8220;Many of the places that we are trying to stand up or trying to get into are air missions. A lot of ISR&#8230; is going on in different parts of the continent. Generally speaking, the Air Force is probably going to be assigned to do much of that,&#8221; he told the contractors. &#8220;The Air Force is going to be doing a great deal of work on these bases&#8230; that are going to be built across the northern tier of Africa.&#8221;</p> <p>Hearts and Minds</p> <p>When I spoke with Chris Gatz of the Army Corps of Engineers, the first projects he mentioned and the only ones he seemed eager to talk about were those for African nations. This year, $6.5 million in projects had been funded when we spoke and of that, the majority were for &#8220;humanitarian assistance&#8221; or HA construction projects, mostly in Togo and Tunisia, and &#8220;peacekeeping&#8221; operations in Ghana and Djibouti.</p> <p>Uhl talked about humanitarian projects, too. &#8220;HA projects are small, difficult, challenging for the Corps of Engineers to accomplish at a low, in-house cost&#8230; but despite all this, HA projects are extremely rewarding,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The appreciation expressed by the locals is fantastic.&#8221; He then drew attention to another added benefit: &#8220;Each successful project is a photo opportunity.&#8221;</p> <p>Uhl wasn&#8217;t the only official to touch on the importance of public perception in Africa or the need to curry favor with military &#8220;partners&#8221; on the continent. Cook spoke to the contractors, for instance, about the challenges of work in austere locations, about how bureaucratic shakedowns by members of African governments could cause consternation and construction delays, about learning to work with the locals, and about how important such efforts were for &#8220;winning hearts and minds of folks in the area.&#8221;</p> <p>The Naval Facilities Engineering Command&#8217;s Wildeman talked up the challenges of working in an environment in which the availability of resources was limited, the dangers of terrorism were real, and there was &#8220;competition for cooperation with [African] countries from some other world powers.&#8221; This was no doubt a reference to increasing Chinese <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2014/0319/China-s-trade-with-Africa-at-record-high" type="external">trade</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/apr/29/china-critics-aid-package-africa" type="external">aid</a>, <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/chinese-investment-in-africa-boosts-economies-but-worries-many-a-934826.html" type="external">investment</a>, and <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21574012-chinese-trade-africa-keeps-growing-fears-neocolonialism-are-overdone-more" type="external">economic ties</a> across the continent.</p> <p>He also left no doubt about US plans. &#8220;We will be in Africa for some time to come,&#8221; he told the contractors. &#8220;There&#8217;s lots more to do there.&#8221;</p> <p>Cook expanded on this theme. &#8220;It&#8217;s a big, big place,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We know we can&#8217;t do it alone. So we&#8217;re going to need partners in industry, we&#8217;re going to need&#8230; local nationals and even third country nationals.&#8221;</p> <p>AFRICOM at War</p> <p>For years, senior AFRICOM officers and spokesmen have downplayed the scope of US operations on the continent, stressing that the command has only a single base and a very light footprint there. At the same time, they have limited access to journalists and refused to disclose the number and tempo of the command&#8217;s operations, as well as the locations of its deployments and of bases that go by other names. AFRICOM&#8217;S public persona remains one of humanitarian missions and benign-sounding support for local partners.</p> <p>&#8220;Our core mission of assisting African states and regional organizations to strengthen their defense capabilities better enables Africans to address their security threats and reduces threats to US interests,&#8221; says the command. &#8220;We concentrate our efforts on contributing to the development of capable and professional militaries that respect human rights, adhere to the rule of law, and more effectively contribute to stability in Africa.&#8221; Efforts like sniper training for proxy forces and black ops missions hardly come up. Bases are mostly ignored. The word &#8220;war&#8221; is rarely mentioned.</p> <p>TomDispatch&#8217;s recent investigations have, however, revealed that the US military is indeed pivoting to Africa. It now averages far more than a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa/" type="external">mission a day</a> on the continent, conducting <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">operations</a> with almost every African military force, in almost every <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa/" type="external">African country</a>, while building or building up camps, compounds, and &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">contingency security locations</a>.&#8221; The US has taken an active role in wars from <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/30/america-s-secret-libya-war-u-s-spent-1-billion-on-covert-ops-helping-nato.html" type="external">Libya</a> to the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">Central African Republic</a>, sent special ops forces into countries from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/us-special-forces-libya-somalia" type="external">Somalia</a> to <a href="http://www.navytimes.com/article/20131227/NEWS/312270010/3-SEALs-wounded-South-Sudan-back-U-S-" type="external">South Sudan</a>, conducted <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/26/world/africa/somalia-us-airstrike/" type="external">airstrikes</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/video-shows-us-abduction-of-accused-al-qaeda-terrorist-on-trial-for-embassy-bombings/2014/02/10/7f84927a-8f6b-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html" type="external">abduction missions</a>, even put boots on the ground in countries where it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-deploys-small-number-of-troops-to-war-torn-mali/2013/04/30/2b02c928-b1a0-11e2-bc39-65b0a67147df_story.html" type="external">pledged</a> it would not.</p> <p>&#8220;We have shifted from our original intent of being a more congenial combatant command to an actual war-fighting combatant command,&#8221; AFRICOM&#8217;s Rick Cook explained to the audience of big-money defense contractors. He was unequivocal: the US has been &#8220;at war&#8221; on the continent for the last two and half years. It remains to be seen when AFRICOM will pass this news on to the American public.</p> <p>Nick Turse is the managing editor of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a> and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014 <a href="http://www.ithaca.edu/news/releases/journalists-glenn-greenwald-and-jeremy-scahill-named-to-i.f.-stone-hall-of-fame:-john-carlos-frey-and-nick-turse-share-annual-izzy-award-36968/#.UxyUHYVl7Kf" type="external">Izzy Award</a> winner, his pieces have appeared in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/opinion/for-america-life-was-cheap-in-vietnam.html?_r=0" type="external">New York Times</a>, the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/24/opinion/la-oe-turse-afghanistan-and-vietnam-20120424" type="external">Los Angeles Times</a>, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/afghanistan" type="external">the Nation</a>, at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23427726" type="external">BBC</a>, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175635/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_war_victim%27s_question_only_you_can_answer/" type="external">regularly</a> at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam</a> (just out in paperback).</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America&#8217;s Wars&#8212;The Untold Story</a>.To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Behind the Veil of Secrecy Over US Military Operations in Africa

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/us-military-africa-secrecy-operations/

2014-04-14

4left

pxhidalgoThinkstock This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things8212especially when it comes to the US military in Africa For years US Africa Command AFRICOM has maintained a veil of secrecy about much of the command8217s activities and mission locations consistently downplaying the size scale and scope of its efforts At a recent Pentagon press conference AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra assuring the assembled reporters that the United States 8220has little forward presence8221 on that continent Just days earlier however the men building the Pentagon8217s presence there were telling a very different story8212but they weren8217t speaking with the media They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet They were planning for the future and the talk was of war I recently experienced this phenomenon myself during a media roundtable with Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers When I asked the general to tell me just what his people were building for US forces in Africa he paused and said in a low voice to the man next to him 8220Can you help me out with that8221 Lloyd Caldwell the Corps8217s director of military programs whispered back 8220Some of that would be close hold82218212in other words information too sensitive to reveal The only thing Bostick seemed eager to tell me about were vague plans to someday test a prototype 8220structural insulated panelhut8221 a new energyefficient type of barracks being developed by cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point He also assured me that his people would get back to me with answers What I got instead was an 8220interview8221 with a spokesman for the Corps who offered little of substance when it came to construction on the African continent Not much information was available he said the projects were tiny only small amounts of money had been spent so far this year much of it funneled into humanitarian projects In short it seemed as if Africa was a construction backwater a sleepy place a vast landmass on which little of interest was happening Fast forward a few weeks and Captain Rick Cook the chief of US Africa Command8217s Engineer Division was addressing an audience of more than 50 representatives of some of the largest military engineering firms on the planet8212and this reporter The contractors were interested in jobs and he wasn8217t pulling any punches 8220The eighteen months or so that I8217ve been here we8217ve been at war the whole time8221 Cook told them 8220We are trying to provide opportunities for the African people to fix their own African challenges Now unfortunately operations in Libya South Sudan and Mali over the last two years have proven there8217s always something going on in Africa8221 Cook was one of three US military construction officials who earlier this month spoke candidly about the Pentagon8217s efforts in Africa to men and women from URS Corporation AECOM CH2M Hill and other top firms During a paidaccess web seminar the three of them insisted that they were seeking industry 8220partners8221 because the military has 8220big plans8221 for the continent They foretold a future marked by expansion including the building up of a 8220permanent footprint8221 in Djibouti for the next decade or more a possible new compound in Niger and a string of bases devoted to surveillance activities spreading across the northern tier of Africa They even let slip mention of a small previously unacknowledged US compound in Mali The Master Plan After my brush off by General Bostick I interviewed an Army Corps of Engineers Africa expert Chris Gatz about construction projects for Special Operations Command Africa in 2013 8220I8217ll be totally frank with you8221 he said 8220as far as the scopes of these projects go I don8217t have good insights8221 What about two projects in Senegal I had stumbled across Well yes he did in fact have information about a firing range and a 8220shoot house8221 that happened to be under construction there When pressed he also knew about plans I had noted in previously classified documents obtained by TomDispatch for the Corps to build a multipurpose facility in Cameroon And on we went 8220You8217ve got better information than I do8221 he said at one point but it seemed like he had plenty of information too He just wasn8217t volunteering much of it to me Later I asked if there were 2013 projects that had been funded with counternarcoterrorism CNT money 8220No actually there was not8221 he told me So I specifically asked about Niger Last year AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that the US was conducting intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance or ISR drone operations from Base A233rienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey the capital of Niger In the months since air operations there have only increased In addition documents recently obtained by TomDispatch indicated that the Army Corps of Engineers has been working on two counternarcoterrorism projects in Arlit and Tahoua Niger So I told Gatz what I had uncovered Only then did he locate the right paperwork 8220Oh okay I8217m sorry8221 he replied 8220You8217re right we have two of them8230 Both were actually awarded to construction8221 Those two CNT construction projects have been undertaken on behalf of Niger8217s security forces but in his talk to construction industry representatives AFRICOM8217s Rick Cook spoke about another project there a possible US facility still to be built 8220Lately one of our biggest focus areas is in the country of Niger We have gotten indications from the country of Niger that they are willing to be a partner of ours8221 he said The country he added 8220is in a nice strategic location that allows us to get to many other places reasonably quickly so we are working very hard with the Nigeriens to come up with I wouldn8217t necessarily call it a base but a place we can operate out of on a frequent basis8221 Cook offered no information on the possible location of that facility but recent contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that the US Air Force is seeking to purchase large quantities of jet fuel to be delivered to Niger8217s Mano Dayak International Airport Multiple requests for further information sent to AFRICOM8217s media chief Benjamin Benson went unanswered as had prior queries about activities at Base A233rienne 101 But Colonel Aaron Benson Chief of the Readiness Division at Air Forces Africa did offer further details about the Nigerien minibase 8220There is the potential to construct MILCON aircraft parking aprons at the proposed future site in Niger8221 he wrote mentioning a specific type of military construction funding dedicated to use for 8220enduring8221 bases rather than transitory facilities In response to further questions Cook referred to the possible site as a 8220baselike facility8221 that would be 8220semipermanent8221 and 8220capable of air operations8221 Pay to Play It turns out that if you want to know what the US military is doing in Africa it8217s advantageous to be connected to a large engineering or construction firm looking for business Then you8217re privy to quite a different type of insider assessment of the future of the US presence there one far more detailed than the modest official pronouncements that US Africa Command offers to journalists Asked at a recent Pentagon press briefing if there were plans for a West African analog to Djibouti8217s Camp Lemonnier the only 8220official8221 US base on the continent AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez was typically guarded Such a 8220forwardoperating site8221 was just 8220one of the options8221 the command was mulling over he said before launching into the sort of fuzzy language typical of official answers 8220What we8217re really looking at doing is putting contingency locating sites which really have some just expeditionary infrastructure that can be expanded with tents8221 was the way he put it He never once mentioned Niger or airfield improvements or the possibility of a semipermanent 8220presence8221 Here however is the reality as we know it today Over the last several years the US has been building a constellation of drone bases across Africa flying intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance missions out of not only Niger but also Djibouti Ethiopia and the island nation of the Seychelles Meanwhile an airbase in Ouagadougou the capital of Burkina Faso serves as the home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment as well as of the TransSahara Short TakeOff and Landing Airlift Support initiative According to military documents that 8220initiative8221 supports 8220highrisk activities8221 carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task ForceTrans Sahara US Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch also mention the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team And according to Sam Cooks a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency the US military has 29 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers Click here to see a larger versionUS Facility near Gao Mali This austere compound is thought to have been overrun by Islamist forces in 2012 Credit US Army Corps of Engineers As part of the webinar for industry representatives Wayne Uhl chief of the International Engineering Center for the Europe District of the Army Corps of Engineers shed light on shadowy US operations in Mali before and possibly after the elected government there was overthrown in a 2012 coup led by a UStrained officer Documents prepared by Uhl reveal that an American compound was constructed near Gao a major city in the north of Mali Gao is the site of multiple Malian military bases and a 8220strategic8221 airport captured by Islamist militants in 2012 and retaken by French and Malian troops early last year AFRICOM8217s Benjamin Benson failed to respond to multiple requests for comment about the Gao compound but Uhl offered additional details The project was completed before the 2012 uprising and 8220included a vehicle maintenance facility a small admin building toilet facilities with water tank a diesel generator with a fuel storage tank and a perimeter fence8221 he told me in a written response to my questions 8220I imagine the site was overrun during the coup and is no longer used by US forces8221 America8217s lone official base on the African continent Camp Lemonnier a former French Foreign Legion post in Djibouti has been on a decadeplus growth spurt and serves a key role for the US mission 8220Camp Lemonnier is the only permanent footprint that we have on the continent and until such time as AFRICOM may establish a headquarters location in Africa Camp Lemonnier will be the center of their activities here8221 Greg Wilderman the Military Construction Program Manager for Naval Facilities Engineering Command explained 8220In 2013 we had a big jump in the amount of program projects8221 he noted specifically mentioning a large 8220task force8221 construction effort an oblique reference to a 220 million Special Operations compound at the base that TomDispatch first reported on in 2013 According to documents provided by Wilderman five contracts worth more than 322 million to be paid via MILCON funds were awarded for Camp Lemonnier in late 2013 These included deals for a 255 million fitness center and a 41 million Joint Headquarters Facility in addition to the Special Operations Compound This year Wilderman noted there are two contracts8212valued at 35 million8212already slated to be awarded and Captain Rick Cook specifically mentioned deals for an armory and new barracks in 2014 Cook8217s presentation also indicated that a number of longrunning construction projects at Camp Lemonnier were set to be completed this year including roads a 8220fuel farm8221 an aircraft logistics apron and 8220taxiway enhancements8221 while construction of a new aircraft maintenance hangar a telecommunications facility and a 8220combat aircraft loading area8221 are slated to be finished in 2015 8220There8217s a tremendous amount of work going on8221 Cook said noting that there were 22 current projects underway there more than at any other Navy base anywhere in the world And this it turns out is only the beginning 8220In the master plan8221 Cook said 8220there is close to three quarters of a billion dollars worth of construction projects that we still would like to do at Camp Lemonnier over the next 10 to 15 years8221 That base in turn would be just one of a constellation of camps and compounds used by the US in Africa 8220Many of the places that we are trying to stand up or trying to get into are air missions A lot of ISR8230 is going on in different parts of the continent Generally speaking the Air Force is probably going to be assigned to do much of that8221 he told the contractors 8220The Air Force is going to be doing a great deal of work on these bases8230 that are going to be built across the northern tier of Africa8221 Hearts and Minds When I spoke with Chris Gatz of the Army Corps of Engineers the first projects he mentioned and the only ones he seemed eager to talk about were those for African nations This year 65 million in projects had been funded when we spoke and of that the majority were for 8220humanitarian assistance8221 or HA construction projects mostly in Togo and Tunisia and 8220peacekeeping8221 operations in Ghana and Djibouti Uhl talked about humanitarian projects too 8220HA projects are small difficult challenging for the Corps of Engineers to accomplish at a low inhouse cost8230 but despite all this HA projects are extremely rewarding8221 he said 8220The appreciation expressed by the locals is fantastic8221 He then drew attention to another added benefit 8220Each successful project is a photo opportunity8221 Uhl wasn8217t the only official to touch on the importance of public perception in Africa or the need to curry favor with military 8220partners8221 on the continent Cook spoke to the contractors for instance about the challenges of work in austere locations about how bureaucratic shakedowns by members of African governments could cause consternation and construction delays about learning to work with the locals and about how important such efforts were for 8220winning hearts and minds of folks in the area8221 The Naval Facilities Engineering Command8217s Wildeman talked up the challenges of working in an environment in which the availability of resources was limited the dangers of terrorism were real and there was 8220competition for cooperation with African countries from some other world powers8221 This was no doubt a reference to increasing Chinese trade aid investment and economic ties across the continent He also left no doubt about US plans 8220We will be in Africa for some time to come8221 he told the contractors 8220There8217s lots more to do there8221 Cook expanded on this theme 8220It8217s a big big place8221 he said 8220We know we can8217t do it alone So we8217re going to need partners in industry we8217re going to need8230 local nationals and even third country nationals8221 AFRICOM at War For years senior AFRICOM officers and spokesmen have downplayed the scope of US operations on the continent stressing that the command has only a single base and a very light footprint there At the same time they have limited access to journalists and refused to disclose the number and tempo of the command8217s operations as well as the locations of its deployments and of bases that go by other names AFRICOM8217S public persona remains one of humanitarian missions and benignsounding support for local partners 8220Our core mission of assisting African states and regional organizations to strengthen their defense capabilities better enables Africans to address their security threats and reduces threats to US interests8221 says the command 8220We concentrate our efforts on contributing to the development of capable and professional militaries that respect human rights adhere to the rule of law and more effectively contribute to stability in Africa8221 Efforts like sniper training for proxy forces and black ops missions hardly come up Bases are mostly ignored The word 8220war8221 is rarely mentioned TomDispatch8217s recent investigations have however revealed that the US military is indeed pivoting to Africa It now averages far more than a mission a day on the continent conducting operations with almost every African military force in almost every African country while building or building up camps compounds and 8220 contingency security locations8221 The US has taken an active role in wars from Libya to the Central African Republic sent special ops forces into countries from Somalia to South Sudan conducted airstrikes and abduction missions even put boots on the ground in countries where it pledged it would not 8220We have shifted from our original intent of being a more congenial combatant command to an actual warfighting combatant command8221 AFRICOM8217s Rick Cook explained to the audience of bigmoney defense contractors He was unequivocal the US has been 8220at war8221 on the continent for the last two and half years It remains to be seen when AFRICOM will pass this news on to the American public Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatchcom and a fellow at the Nation Institute A 2014 Izzy Award winner his pieces have appeared in the New York Times the Los Angeles Times the Nation at the BBC and regularly at TomDispatch He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves The Real American War in Vietnam just out in paperback Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook and Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch Book Ann Jones8217s They Were Soldiers How the Wounded Return From America8217s Wars8212The Untold StoryTo stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Heavy investor trading in blockchain and cannabis stocks in December helped push TD Ameritrade Holding Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMTD.O" type="external">AMTD.O</a>) quarterly profit higher, the online broker&#8217;s chief executive said on Tuesday.</p> The sign for a TD Ameritrade branch is seen in New York, U.S., October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton <p>&#8220;Everybody was talking just before Christmas and at holiday parties about, &#8216;Blockchain - what do you think?&#8217;&#8221; Hockey said in an interview. &#8220;That drove a significant level of activity.&#8221;</p> <p>Daily average trades were 726,000 for the quarter ending Dec. 31, up 49 percent from a year earlier, with trades related to the blockchain and cannabis sectors feeding between 6 percent and 9 percent of daily activity, Hockey said.</p> <p>The surge of interest and wild price moves in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies supported by blockchain has spurred a corresponding rush of investors into funds with exposure to the technology.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the debut of a U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund tracking the nascent marijuana industry, ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJX.P, drew attention to the sector during the typically slow trading period between Christmas and New Year&#8217;s.</p> <p>TD Ameritrade said on Monday evening that its fiscal first-quarter profit rose to $297 million, from $216 million a year earlier, on strong client activity and revenue as well as new accounts brought on by the acquisition of Scottrade.</p> <p>General investor enthusiasm rolled over into 2018, with the online broker averaging 975,000 trades daily so far in January.</p> <p>But the share of trades in blockchain have dropped by a few percentage points, Hockey said, as the price of bitcoin <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=BTC&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">BTC=BTSP</a> has fallen from nearly $17,235 on Jan. 6 to a low of $9,222 on Jan. 17.</p> <p>New accounts from clients aged 35 or younger spiked 72 percent last quarter.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMTD.O" type="external">TD Ameritrade Holding Corp</a> 56.77 AMTD.O Nasdaq -1.65 (-2.82%) AMTD.O SCHW.N ETFC.O <p>Hockey said one driver behind January&#8217;s high engagement has been that those new clients, who may have joined based on their interest in bitcoin and blockchain, continue to invest and are making trades this month broadly across markets.</p> <p>Hockey said he is not worried about an eventual drop off in client activity.</p> <p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t need to maintain (this high client activity), nor do we plan to maintain it,&#8221; Hockey said. &#8220;It&#8217;s at an extraordinary level.&#8221;</p> <p>TD Ameritrade has around 11 million client accounts and $1 trillion in assets. It has the highest average daily retail trades of any discount broker, a category that also includes Charles Schwab Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SCHW.N" type="external">SCHW.N</a>) and E*TRADE Financial Corp. ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ETFC.O" type="external">ETFC.O</a>)</p> <p>E*Trade is expected to report earnings on Thursday after U.S. markets close.</p> <p>Reporting By Elizabeth Dilts; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Steve Wynn, the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd, has disposed his entire 11.8 percent stake in the firm for $2.1 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago.</p> <p>In an unexpected separate move, Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 5.3 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at $175 per share, giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau.</p> <p>Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world&#8217;s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China, MGM China and Melco Resorts.</p> <p>The casino mogul&#8217;s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn, who has a 9.26 percent stake, had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes.</p> <p>Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegas-based company last month, following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances. He has denied the accusations.</p> <p>In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday, Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to &#8220;acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline.&#8221;</p> <p>A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future.</p> <p>Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core &#8220;operating philosophies and values.&#8221;</p> <p>The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation.</p> <p>Wynn said two long-term institutional investors, currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts, have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at $175 a share.</p> <p>A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 4.1 million shares of Wynn Resorts at $180 per share - effectively exiting his entire 12.1 million shares, or 11.8 percent stake in the firm, for a total of $2.14 billion.</p> Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake WYNN IMPACT <p>Wynn, who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s, created some of Las Vegas&#8217; most iconic landmarks &#8211; the Mirage, Bellagio and Treasure Island.</p> <p>He was forced to sell his multi-billion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000. Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his ex-wife in 2002.</p> An exterior view Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Steve Marcus <p>The 76 year old businessman, whose signature denotes the company&#8217;s logo, had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos.</p> <p>Vitaly Umansky, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong, said the implications of the Galaxy&#8217;s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage.</p> <p>&#8220;Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia, with Japan being the critical development initiative.&#8221;</p> <p>Galaxy&#8217;s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo, one of Asia&#8217;s wealthiest billionaires, has a net wealth of $22 billion according to Forbes. Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau&#8217;s biggest operators over the past decade.</p> <p>&#8220;There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau, but who desperately want to be in Macau, and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too,&#8221; said Grant Govertsen, analyst at Union Gaming in Macau.</p> <p>While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos, it this week received a license to operate a roughly $500 million resort in Boracay, the Philippines most famous holiday island.</p> <p>Wynn, which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau&#8217;s main peninsula, focuses on premium and VIP customers, while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass. Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit.</p> <p>Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 3.9 percent and 2.9 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 3.1 percent.</p> <p>Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">BAC.N</a>) will pay a $42 million fine and admitted wrongdoing to settle claims by New York&#8217;s attorney general that it fraudulently routed clients&#8217; stock trades to outside firms, including one run by swindler Bernard Madoff.</p> FILE PHOTO: A customer leaves a Bank of America ATM kiosk in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder <p>New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlement on Friday, and called the fine the largest collected by the state to resolve an electronic trading probe.</p> <p>The attorney general said Bank of America Merrill Lynch had undisclosed agreements with several electronic trading firms from March 2008 to May 2013 to handle client trades.</p> <p>He said the bank told clients it was processing the trades in-house, even going so far as to alter trade confirmations, as part of an effort to make its electronic trading services appear safer and more sophisticated than they were.</p> <p>Schneiderman said the &#8220;masking&#8221; scheme affected more than 16 million trade orders and 4 billion shares, benefiting such firms as Madoff Securities, Citadel Securities, D.E. Shaw, Knight Capital and Two Sigma Securities.</p> <p>The bank also admitted to having told traders in its &#8220;dark pool,&#8221; a private venue where they expected protection from high-speed traders, that up to 30 percent of orders came from retail traders, when the percentage was closer to 5 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;Bank of America Merrill Lynch went to astonishing lengths to defraud its own institutional clients about who was seeing and filling their orders, who was trading in its dark pool, and the capabilities of its electronic trading services,&#8221; Schneiderman said in a statement.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">Bank of America Corp</a> 29.17 BAC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.38 (-4.52%) BAC.N BARC.L CSGN.S DBKGn.DE <p>Bill Halldin, a bank spokesman, said in an email: &#8220;At all times we met our obligation to deliver the best prices to clients. About five years ago, we addressed the issues concerning communicating to clients about where their trades were executed.&#8221;</p> <p>The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank also admitted that its masking activity violated New York&#8217;s powerful securities fraud law, the Martin Act.</p> <p>In 2016, Barclays Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BARC.L" type="external">BARC.L</a>), Credit Suisse Group AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CSGN.S" type="external">CSGN.S</a>) and Deutsche Bank AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>) settled separate electronic and high-speed trading probes by Schneiderman&#8217;s office for a respective $35 million, $30 million and $18.5 million. They also reached related settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term for running a huge Ponzi scheme involving his investment advisory business.</p> <p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) has quit the race to buy Pfizer&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PFE.N" type="external">PFE.N</a>) consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.</p> <p>It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business, which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins, following this week&#8217;s deadline for binding bids.</p> <p>GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which announced its withdrawal on Friday, was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RB.L" type="external">RB.L</a>) left the race late on Wednesday. Johnson &amp;amp; Johnson ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JNJ.N" type="external">JNJ.N</a>) stepped away from the auction in January.</p> <p>A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end.</p> <p>&#8220;While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy, they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation,&#8221; GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement.</p> <p>GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent, as investors&#8217; concerns about a potential dividend cut eased.</p> <p>Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business, which include a spin-off, sale or other transaction, as well as retaining it.</p> <p>&#8220;We have not yet made a decision, but continue to expect to make one in 2018,&#8221; a spokesman said.</p> <p>Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids. On Friday, a source said that if not, Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds.</p> <p>Pfizer is the world&#8217;s fifth-largest player in consumer health with 2.5 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness.</p> <p>The business, which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements, is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time. GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline, while other potential suitors, such as Bayer ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAYGn.DE" type="external">BAYGn.DE</a>) and Sanofi ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SASY.PA" type="external">SASY.PA</a>) are busy with other projects.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York, U.S., April 28, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo <p>What is more, the global consumer health market has slowed, from 4-6 percent like-for-like sales growth to 0-3 percent growth, Morgan Stanley analysts said in December. Major players in the over-the-counter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and private label competitors.</p> <p>Pfizer&#8217;s hope of fetching around $20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit&#8217;s core earnings, according to Bernstein analysts, in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times.</p> <p>Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MRCG.DE" type="external">MRCG.DE</a>) attempts to sell its consumer products unit, where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros ($5 billion) deterred initial suitors such as Nestle ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NESN.S" type="external">NESN.S</a>), Perrigo ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRGO.N" type="external">PRGO.N</a>) and a private-equity consortium.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GlaxoSmithKline PLC</a> 1315.6 GSK.L London Stock Exchange +41.80 (+3.28%) GSK.L PFE.N RB.L JNJ.N BAYGn.DE <p>Reckitt&#8217;s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum.</p> SPLIT OPINION <p>Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley, who took over at GSK last April. But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors, with some worried about the risk to the company&#8217;s dividend.</p> <p>Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings, since scale is key in over-the-counter remedies, but it could have distracted from fixing GSK&#8217;s core pharma division.</p> <p>That is a particular headache for Walmsley - a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L&#8217;Oreal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OREP.PA" type="external">OREP.PA</a>) - since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain&#8217;s top pharmaceuticals company.</p> <p>Last month, in a bid to reassure investors, she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs, followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions.</p> <p>The overhaul of the drugs business, which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years, is underway in both the commercial and research fields.</p> <p>GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NOVN.S" type="external">NOVN.S</a>), which complicates any acquisitions. Novartis has the right to sell down its 36.5 percent stake, valued at around $10 billion, from this month, although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street tumbled on Friday with more than 1,000 points knocked off the Dow in two days as investors, increasingly nervous about a potential U.S. trade war with China, shied away from risk ahead of the weekend and sought shelter from further losses.</p> <p>In a volatile session, the S&amp;amp;P 500 came within a hair of its 200-day moving average, a key technical level. The benchmark index also nudged closer to its February low, which marked a correction, ending 9.9 percent lower than its Jan. 26 record.</p> <p>&#8220;There is concern what the trade war could look like. Investors want to manage their risk. If it escalates rapidly, it could be a major headwind for the market,&#8221; said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York.</p> <p>President Donald Trump&#8217;s plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world&#8217;s two largest economies closer to a trade war as China declared plans to levy duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports including fruit and wine even as it urged the United States to &#8220;pull back from the brink.&#8221;</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 424.69 points, or 1.77 percent, to 23,533.2, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 55.43 points, or 2.10 percent, to 2,588.26 after hitting an intraday low that was barely above its 200-day moving average of 2585.22.</p> <p>The Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 174.01 points, or 2.43 percent, to 6,992.67.</p> <p>For the week, the Dow was down 5.67 percent, the S&amp;amp;P 500 was down 5.95 percent and the Nasdaq was down 6.54 percent, marking their biggest weekly percentage falls since January 2016.</p> <p>The Dow was down 11.6 percent since its Jan. 26 high, and hit its lowest close since confirming a correction in February.</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 22, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>The Cboe Volatility Index .VIX, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility in the S&amp;amp;P 500, finished up 1.53 points at 24.87, its highest close since Feb. 13.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s financial sector .SPSY was the S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s biggest percentage loser, at 3 percent, after a volatile session in which it was whip-sawed by volatile Treasury yields.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">Dow Jones &amp;amp; Company Inc</a> 23533.2 .DJI Dow Jones Indexes -424.69 (-1.77%) .DJI .SPX .IXIC FB.O AMZN.O <p>Bloomberg News cited China&#8217;s ambassador to the United States saying that the country is &#8220;looking at all options&#8221; in response to tariffs, which could include scaling back purchases of U.S. Treasuries.</p> <p>Nasdaq was weighed down by declines in momentum stocks such as Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Microsoft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) and Google&#8217;s parent Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>).</p> <p>The semiconductor sector took a fall after Micron Technology&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MU.O" type="external">MU.O</a>) quarterly report stoked fears about falling NAND prices. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index .SOX slumped 3.3 percent.</p> <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.96-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.72-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 posted two new 52-week highs and 42 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 23 new highs and 93 new lows.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.11 billion shares, above the 7.3 billion average for the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and April Joyner in New York and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

TD Ameritrade says blockchain, cannabis shares help drive trading surge Steve Wynn sells stake in company he founded, Macau casino Galaxy buys in Bank of America pays $42 million fine in New York 'masking' probe GSK pulls out of $20 billion race for Pfizer consumer assets Wall Street nosedives as investors flee on trade war fears

https://reuters.com/article/us-td-ameritrade-results/td-ameritrade-says-blockchain-cannabis-shares-help-drive-trading-surge-idUSKBN1FC2NN

2018-01-23

2least

NEW YORK Reuters Heavy investor trading in blockchain and cannabis stocks in December helped push TD Ameritrade Holding Corp8217s AMTDO quarterly profit higher the online broker8217s chief executive said on Tuesday The sign for a TD Ameritrade branch is seen in New York US October 24 2016 REUTERSShannon Stapleton 8220Everybody was talking just before Christmas and at holiday parties about 8216Blockchain what do you think82178221 Hockey said in an interview 8220That drove a significant level of activity8221 Daily average trades were 726000 for the quarter ending Dec 31 up 49 percent from a year earlier with trades related to the blockchain and cannabis sectors feeding between 6 percent and 9 percent of daily activity Hockey said The surge of interest and wild price moves in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies supported by blockchain has spurred a corresponding rush of investors into funds with exposure to the technology Meanwhile the debut of a USlisted exchangetraded fund tracking the nascent marijuana industry ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJXP drew attention to the sector during the typically slow trading period between Christmas and New Year8217s TD Ameritrade said on Monday evening that its fiscal firstquarter profit rose to 297 million from 216 million a year earlier on strong client activity and revenue as well as new accounts brought on by the acquisition of Scottrade General investor enthusiasm rolled over into 2018 with the online broker averaging 975000 trades daily so far in January But the share of trades in blockchain have dropped by a few percentage points Hockey said as the price of bitcoin BTCBTSP has fallen from nearly 17235 on Jan 6 to a low of 9222 on Jan 17 New accounts from clients aged 35 or younger spiked 72 percent last quarter TD Ameritrade Holding Corp 5677 AMTDO Nasdaq 165 282 AMTDO SCHWN ETFCO Hockey said one driver behind January8217s high engagement has been that those new clients who may have joined based on their interest in bitcoin and blockchain continue to invest and are making trades this month broadly across markets Hockey said he is not worried about an eventual drop off in client activity 8220We don8217t need to maintain this high client activity nor do we plan to maintain it8221 Hockey said 8220It8217s at an extraordinary level8221 TD Ameritrade has around 11 million client accounts and 1 trillion in assets It has the highest average daily retail trades of any discount broker a category that also includes Charles Schwab Corp SCHWN and ETRADE Financial Corp ETFCO ETrade is expected to report earnings on Thursday after US markets close Reporting By Elizabeth Dilts Editing by Meredith Mazzilli Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Steve Wynn the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd has disposed his entire 118 percent stake in the firm for 21 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago In an unexpected separate move Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 53 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at 175 per share giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world8217s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China MGM China and Melco Resorts The casino mogul8217s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn who has a 926 percent stake had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegasbased company last month following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances He has denied the accusations In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to 8220acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline8221 A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core 8220operating philosophies and values8221 The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation Wynn said two longterm institutional investors currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at 175 a share A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 41 million shares of Wynn Resorts at 180 per share effectively exiting his entire 121 million shares or 118 percent stake in the firm for a total of 214 billion Steve Wynn Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills California US May 3 2017 REUTERSMike Blake WYNN IMPACT Wynn who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s created some of Las Vegas8217 most iconic landmarks 8211 the Mirage Bellagio and Treasure Island He was forced to sell his multibillion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000 Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his exwife in 2002 An exterior view Wynn hotelcasino in Las Vegas Nevada US February 7 2018 REUTERSSteve Marcus The 76 year old businessman whose signature denotes the company8217s logo had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos Vitaly Umansky analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in Hong Kong said the implications of the Galaxy8217s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage 8220Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia with Japan being the critical development initiative8221 Galaxy8217s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo one of Asia8217s wealthiest billionaires has a net wealth of 22 billion according to Forbes Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau8217s biggest operators over the past decade 8220There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau but who desperately want to be in Macau and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too8221 said Grant Govertsen analyst at Union Gaming in Macau While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos it this week received a license to operate a roughly 500 million resort in Boracay the Philippines most famous holiday island Wynn which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau8217s main peninsula focuses on premium and VIP customers while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 39 percent and 29 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 31 percent Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru Editing by Shri Navaratnam Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Bank of America Corp BACN will pay a 42 million fine and admitted wrongdoing to settle claims by New York8217s attorney general that it fraudulently routed clients8217 stock trades to outside firms including one run by swindler Bernard Madoff FILE PHOTO A customer leaves a Bank of America ATM kiosk in Boston Massachusetts US October 11 2017 REUTERSBrian Snyder New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlement on Friday and called the fine the largest collected by the state to resolve an electronic trading probe The attorney general said Bank of America Merrill Lynch had undisclosed agreements with several electronic trading firms from March 2008 to May 2013 to handle client trades He said the bank told clients it was processing the trades inhouse even going so far as to alter trade confirmations as part of an effort to make its electronic trading services appear safer and more sophisticated than they were Schneiderman said the 8220masking8221 scheme affected more than 16 million trade orders and 4 billion shares benefiting such firms as Madoff Securities Citadel Securities DE Shaw Knight Capital and Two Sigma Securities The bank also admitted to having told traders in its 8220dark pool8221 a private venue where they expected protection from highspeed traders that up to 30 percent of orders came from retail traders when the percentage was closer to 5 percent 8220Bank of America Merrill Lynch went to astonishing lengths to defraud its own institutional clients about who was seeing and filling their orders who was trading in its dark pool and the capabilities of its electronic trading services8221 Schneiderman said in a statement Bank of America Corp 2917 BACN New York Stock Exchange 138 452 BACN BARCL CSGNS DBKGnDE Bill Halldin a bank spokesman said in an email 8220At all times we met our obligation to deliver the best prices to clients About five years ago we addressed the issues concerning communicating to clients about where their trades were executed8221 The Charlotte North Carolinabased bank also admitted that its masking activity violated New York8217s powerful securities fraud law the Martin Act In 2016 Barclays Plc BARCL Credit Suisse Group AG CSGNS and Deutsche Bank AG DBKGnDE settled separate electronic and highspeed trading probes by Schneiderman8217s office for a respective 35 million 30 million and 185 million They also reached related settlements with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Madoff is serving a 150year prison term for running a huge Ponzi scheme involving his investment advisory business Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters GlaxoSmithKline GSKL has quit the race to buy Pfizer8217s PFEN consumer healthcare business endangering an auction the US drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as 20 billion It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins following this week8217s deadline for binding bids GlaxoSmithKline GSK which announced its withdrawal on Friday was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser RBL left the race late on Wednesday Johnson ampamp Johnson JNJN stepped away from the auction in January A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end 8220While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation8221 GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent as investors8217 concerns about a potential dividend cut eased Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business which include a spinoff sale or other transaction as well as retaining it 8220We have not yet made a decision but continue to expect to make one in 20188221 a spokesman said Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids On Friday a source said that if not Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds Pfizer is the world8217s fifthlargest player in consumer health with 25 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness The business which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline while other potential suitors such as Bayer BAYGnDE and Sanofi SASYPA are busy with other projects FILE PHOTO The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York US April 28 2014 REUTERSAndrew KellyFile Photo What is more the global consumer health market has slowed from 46 percent likeforlike sales growth to 03 percent growth Morgan Stanley analysts said in December Major players in the overthecounter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon AMZNO and private label competitors Pfizer8217s hope of fetching around 20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit8217s core earnings according to Bernstein analysts in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA8217s MRCGDE attempts to sell its consumer products unit where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros 5 billion deterred initial suitors such as Nestle NESNS Perrigo PRGON and a privateequity consortium GlaxoSmithKline PLC 13156 GSKL London Stock Exchange 4180 328 GSKL PFEN RBL JNJN BAYGnDE Reckitt8217s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum SPLIT OPINION Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley who took over at GSK last April But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors with some worried about the risk to the company8217s dividend Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings since scale is key in overthecounter remedies but it could have distracted from fixing GSK8217s core pharma division That is a particular headache for Walmsley a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L8217Oreal OREPPA since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain8217s top pharmaceuticals company Last month in a bid to reassure investors she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions The overhaul of the drugs business which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years is underway in both the commercial and research fields GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis NOVNS which complicates any acquisitions Novartis has the right to sell down its 365 percent stake valued at around 10 billion from this month although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street tumbled on Friday with more than 1000 points knocked off the Dow in two days as investors increasingly nervous about a potential US trade war with China shied away from risk ahead of the weekend and sought shelter from further losses In a volatile session the SampampP 500 came within a hair of its 200day moving average a key technical level The benchmark index also nudged closer to its February low which marked a correction ending 99 percent lower than its Jan 26 record 8220There is concern what the trade war could look like Investors want to manage their risk If it escalates rapidly it could be a major headwind for the market8221 said Peter Kenny senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group in New York President Donald Trump8217s plans for tariffs on up to 60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world8217s two largest economies closer to a trade war as China declared plans to levy duties on up to 3 billion of US imports including fruit and wine even as it urged the United States to 8220pull back from the brink8221 The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 42469 points or 177 percent to 235332 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 5543 points or 210 percent to 258826 after hitting an intraday low that was barely above its 200day moving average of 258522 The Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 17401 points or 243 percent to 699267 For the week the Dow was down 567 percent the SampampP 500 was down 595 percent and the Nasdaq was down 654 percent marking their biggest weekly percentage falls since January 2016 The Dow was down 116 percent since its Jan 26 high and hit its lowest close since confirming a correction in February FILE PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 22 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid The Cboe Volatility Index VIX the most widely followed barometer of expected nearterm volatility in the SampampP 500 finished up 153 points at 2487 its highest close since Feb 13 The SampampP8217s financial sector SPSY was the SampampP8217s biggest percentage loser at 3 percent after a volatile session in which it was whipsawed by volatile Treasury yields Dow Jones ampamp Company Inc 235332 DJI Dow Jones Indexes 42469 177 DJI SPX IXIC FBO AMZNO Bloomberg News cited China8217s ambassador to the United States saying that the country is 8220looking at all options8221 in response to tariffs which could include scaling back purchases of US Treasuries Nasdaq was weighed down by declines in momentum stocks such as Facebook FBO Amazoncom AMZNO Microsoft MSFTO and Google8217s parent Alphabet GOOGLO The semiconductor sector took a fall after Micron Technology8217s MUO quarterly report stoked fears about falling NAND prices The Philadelphia Semiconductor index SOX slumped 33 percent Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 396to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 372to1 ratio favored decliners The SampampP 500 posted two new 52week highs and 42 new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 23 new highs and 93 new lows Volume on US exchanges was 811 billion shares above the 73 billion average for the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and April Joyner in New York and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>By Matt Bivens, TomDispatchThis article was originally published by <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175122" type="external">TomDispatch</a>.</p> <p>With up to <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/16/americans-cool-on-afghanistan-war/" type="external">61%</a> of Americans, according to a recent poll, convinced that things are going badly indeed in Afghanistan and an official <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/02/AR2009100200833.html?hpid=topnews" type="external">9.8%</a> of Americans unemployed, Congress is set to respond. This week, it&#8217;s slated to pass a $636 billion appropriations bill for the Pentagon that will include another <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/01/politics/washingtonpost/main5355535.shtml" type="external">$128 billion</a> for our Afghan and Iraq Wars. Meanwhile, the president and his advisors are about to consider the latest plan by our Afghan War commander, General Stanley McChrystal, to gainfully employ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/asia/03mcchrystal.html" type="external">up to 40,000</a> more Americans in Afghanistan.</p> <p>By the way, as in the Bush years, all dollar figures associated with the Pentagon budget and our wars should be considered underestimates. Various military expenses like the upkeep of our nuclear arsenal aren&#8217;t even in that budget. Depending on who is doing the figuring, estimates of all U.S. defense-related expenditures &#8212; and this first budget of the Obama era is already larger than the last monster one from the Bush era &#8212; can <a href="http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941" type="external">run upwards</a> of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174884" type="external">a trillion dollars</a>. As for the war expenses, they invariably prove short of the mark and end up having to be supplemented.</p> <p>When it comes to the Afghan War, this is practically guaranteed. Being prosecuted many thousands of miles from home over <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2009/08/are-taliban-surrounding-nato-armies-and.html" type="external">long</a>, often embattled, supply lines, it is proving staggeringly expensive. According to one recent estimate, for instance, it costs <a href="http://www.fox4kc.com/news/politics/sns-200910011252tmsbpresstt--m-a20091001oct01,0,1212834.story" type="external">more than $750,000</a> a year simply to keep a single U.S. soldier in the field, while the cost of delivering a single gallon of gas to the war zone is estimated at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/13/us-marines-afghanistan-fuel-efficiency" type="external">up to $100</a>.</p> <p /> <p>And then, don&#8217;t forget the Afghan army. Its U.S.-NATO upgrade program is already costing an <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP461644" type="external">estimated $8 billion</a> a year and is clearly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/02/AR2009100201894_pf.html" type="external">about to be expanded</a> by the Obama administration. As the Afghan government is essentially poverty-stricken, that means its army is going to be U.S. property for years to come.</p> <p>Consider this a small introduction to TomDispatch newcomer Matt Bivens&#8217;s striking analysis of American investment practices. Tom</p> <p>Cure Millions of Leprosy &#8212; or Just Give Hank Paulson a Tax Break?</p> <p>By Matt Bivens</p> <p>There are many possible responses to <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32010841/ns/business-us_business" type="external">the news</a> that we have committed more than four trillion public dollars to Wall Street.</p> <p>Mine is a roar of admiration.</p> <p>Four trillion dollars! Holy hell! I didn&#8217;t even know that was possible!</p> <p>U.S.A.! U.S.A.!</p> <p>After all, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/11/nation/na-iraq-vietnam11" type="external">the cost</a> of World War II in inflation-adjusted dollars was $4 trillion. This bailout thing is just getting started, and already we&#8217;ve burned through that.</p> <p>Without even noticing.</p> <p>Certainly without rationing sugar or collecting scrap rubber or any of that nonsense.</p> <p>Who&#8217;s the Greatest Generation now, baby?</p> <p>Admit it. You feel it too. Just imagine someone snatching your laptop off a table and throwing it, Olympic-discus style, hundreds&#8230; and hundreds&#8230; and hundreds of feet. Sure, you&#8217;d be upset (and stuck with the bill). But however briefly, you&#8217;d feel admiration for the physical feat: Look at that thing fly!</p> <p>So it goes with our bailouts, wild tax cuts, and war budgets. The money in play is staggering, but everyone acts like that&#8217;s something to mope about. Where&#8217;s the excitement?</p> <p>Often, after reading an incomprehensible dollar figure, I&#8217;ll Google &#8220;What does a trillion dollars look like?&#8221; to get myself fired up. <a href="http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html" type="external">One example</a> of where this takes you shows a million dollars (pathetic, wouldn&#8217;t fill a grocery bag), a billion (interesting, I could fit it in a truck), and then a trillion. (Wow, it spreads for acres! Look at that tiny human included for scale!)</p> <p>It turns out that the United States can pick up that sort of weight and just smash it down on whatever the hell we want. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Prime" type="external">Optimus Prime</a> with giant square green paper fists. Slam! Slam!</p> <p>Yet we&#8217;ve committed not one trillion dollars to the incompetent and/or corrupt, but more than four trillion dollars. That&#8217;s <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32010841/ns/business-us_business" type="external">according to</a> a report to Congress from special inspector general Neil Barofsky, the overseer of the bank bailout program.</p> <p>Technically, Barofsky adds, Wall Street&#8217;s IOU to you and me is at about three trillion dollars these days, since some of it&#8217;s been paid back. Relieved? Don&#8217;t be. As these tsunamis of public wealth pour out, ignore the slosh and focus on the order of magnitude. The entire Gross Domestic Product &#8212; the <a href="http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm" type="external">number reflecting</a> all wealth generated in this nation for this year &#8212; is only $14.1 trillion. So whether the sum of our money that&#8217;s now their money is $3 trillion (1/5th of all wealth generated in America in a year) or $4.7 trillion (1/3rd of all wealth generated in America in a year), it still means that, for a big chunk of the year, every single one of us was working for Goldman Sachs et al.</p> <p>Barofsky&#8217;s report also suggests that Wall Street&#8217;s tab might ultimately work out to $24 trillion, which would be $80,000 per American, or $320,000 for a family of four. But that&#8217;s, like, totally the worst-case scenario. (Still, wouldn&#8217;t it be impressive? I envision huge, five-foot-cubed, shrink-wrapped pallets of dollars dropping from the sky onto my neighborhood, smashing houses, crushing cars, killing beloved pets, blasting craters into asphalt streets. Yeah!)</p> <p>Smallpox and Bikinis</p> <p>And yet could we employ this financial muscle in a more constructive way?</p> <p>For an illuminating example, consider how we dealt with smallpox. That airborne virus, with its fevers reaching 106 F and signature pus-filled skin eruptions, was the greatest killer of man ever known.</p> <p>In the 20th century, smallpox <a href="http://events.caltech.edu/events/event-6361.html" type="external">killed more people</a> than all of that bloody century&#8217;s wars combined.</p> <p>In fact, if you tally the worldwide death tolls for World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Iran-Iraq war and the Mexican Revolution, the civil wars in China and Russia and Spain, and all the other wars of the last century, from Afghanistan to Zaire, the total is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Viruses-Plagues-History-Michael-Oldstone/dp/0195134222/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1254550102&amp;amp;sr=8-1-spell" type="external">less than one-third</a> of the smallpox death toll.</p> <p>And that&#8217;s just a single 100-year period, for a disease that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4072392.stm" type="external">disfigured Egyptian pharaohs</a>, allied with Hernando Cortes to rout the Aztecs, left a young George Washington <a href="http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/life/chronology.html" type="external">scarred</a>, later <a href="http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/237/" type="external">stalked</a> his Continental Army, and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17551612?ordinalpos=14&amp;amp;itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum" type="external">left Abraham Lincoln</a> pale, weak, and dizzy as he delivered his Gettysburg Address.</p> <p>And yet, in the 1960s, smallpox was targeted by <a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_628484.html" type="external">visionary</a> public health experts &#8212; and in <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/index.html" type="external">just 10 years</a> it was gone. An excellent new book by D.A. Henderson, the doctor who led the effort, tells the story: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591027225/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Smallpox: The Death of a Disease</a>.</p> <p>This was a signature achievement, up there with defeating the Nazis or walking on the moon. To track down a virus in every corner of the planet, encircle it with vaccinations and kill it&#8230; I began to wonder how many five-foot-cubed pallets of Benjamins the world had brought to bear. After all, this was mankind&#8217;s greatest killer &#8212; the Joker to our Batman, Lex Luthor to our Superman. The amounts of cash flung about must have been awe-inspiring.</p> <p>Chasing down the cost of the 10-year eradication campaign was not easy. Eventually, Dr. Henderson himself steered me to a 1,450-page official history of smallpox maintained as <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/smallpox/9241561106.pdf" type="external">a PDF</a> in a sleepy corner of the website of the World Health Organization (WHO). The answer, hidden away <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/smallpox/9241561106_chp31.pdf" type="external">on page 1,366</a>: $300 million.</p> <p>Three hundred million?</p> <p>Not trillion? Not even billion?</p> <p>Such a tiny sum of money for such a tremendous feat? It&#8217;s like hitting a home run at Fenway Park using a chopstick for a bat.</p> <p>The price paid to defeat humanity&#8217;s greatest foe <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/" type="external">wouldn&#8217;t cover</a> a 24-hour day of Iraqi combat operations. In Wall Street bailout terms, there&#8217;s no way to even talk about sums this tiny. To do that, we have to go the level of overcompensated individuals. So, sure, $300 million could eradicate history&#8217;s greatest killer of humans &#8212; yet the same sum <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/05/aig-revises-bonus-total-m/" type="external">wouldn&#8217;t cover</a> the bonus pool for the executives of the insurance company AIG after its great meltdown. It&#8217;s less than what just one man, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/12/lead_bestbosses08_Richard-S-Fuld-Jr_A9P0.html" type="external">pulled down</a> over the past 5 years.</p> <p>It&#8217;s even more striking if you remember that this was a price tag for a worldwide program whose cost was shared by multiple governments; and also a total cost over a 10-year period. To think about it in annual budgeting terms, it works out to $30 million a year. Which is approaching the ridiculous. Hell, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue for 2006 <a href="http://www.jamesallen.com/news/DiamondFashion/30MM-Diamond-bikini-03-29-2006.html" type="external">featured</a> a blond in a bikini of diamonds worth $30 million.</p> <p>We Fight Over There So We Don&#8217;t Have to Fight Here</p> <p>These are sad economic times, sadder still when you consider the tsunamis of wealth going to waste: four trillion dollars for Wall Street welfare queens; somewhere <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/07/recovery-v-bush-tax-cuts/" type="external">from one</a> to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/reforming-healthcare-is-cheaper-than-bushs-tax-cuts-2009-9" type="external">three trillion</a> for anyone affluent enough to own a top hat and a monocle; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/13/hidden.war.costs/" type="external">another trillion</a> or so (and counting) for our current military escapades abroad.</p> <p>But it&#8217;s also just damned exciting. Because, frankly, it&#8217;s a helluva lot of money we have to play with! Even now, at one of our darkest economic hours, we could be performing miracles with the spare change left behind the national couch cushions.</p> <p>If you&#8217;re an engineering type, you might prefer that those miracles involve <a href="http://pubs.asce.org/magazines/ascenews/2009/Issue_02-09/article1.htm" type="external">shoring up</a> our creaking national infrastructure. Good! Go write your own article.</p> <p>I&#8217;m a doctor so I&#8217;ll stick with medical possibilities. Since the smallpox triumph, public health experts have been inspired to target other diseases for eradication. One is polio, a virus known for paralyzing a minority of its unluckiest victims, <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/howpolio/fdr.htm" type="external">among them</a> former president Franklin D. Roosevelt; two others are Guinea worm and leprosy, plagues dating back to the Bible.</p> <p>The World Health Organization and the volunteer service organization Rotary International have spent two decades tracking down and vaccinating billions of people against polio. They calculate that they&#8217;ve <a href="http://www.rotary.org/en/Endpolio/Pages/learn.aspx" type="external">prevented</a> the paralysis of five million children worldwide.</p> <p>Just this May, a 10-day frenzy saw the immunization of <a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/content/general/LatestNews200906.asp#02" type="external">more than 222 million children</a> in Africa and Asia. It was possible to watch the campaigners&#8217; march through Africa on Google Maps. Among the foot soldiers in that vaccine war: <a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/content/pressreleases/20080319press.asp" type="external">Ali Mao Moallim</a>, who more than three decades ago became the last person on Earth to contract wild smallpox. (Others have caught smallpox <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/smallpox/en/index.html" type="external">in the laboratory</a> since.)</p> <p>Think about that: inoculating 222 million children in 10 days. For comparison, there are <a href="http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=&amp;amp;geo_id=01000US&amp;amp;_geoContext=01000US&amp;amp;_street=&amp;amp;_county=&amp;amp;_cityTown=&amp;amp;_state=&amp;amp;_zip=&amp;amp;_lang=en&amp;amp;_sse=on&amp;amp;ActiveGeoDiv=&amp;amp;_useEV=&amp;amp;pctxt=fph&amp;amp;pgsl=010&amp;amp;_submenuId=factsheet_1&amp;amp;ds_name=null&amp;amp;_ci_nbr=null&amp;amp;qr_name=null%C2%AE=null%3Anull&amp;amp;_keyword=&amp;amp;_industry=" type="external">only about</a> 80 million children in the entire United States.</p> <p>Imagine inoculating every child in America in 10 days. In 10 days, we couldn&#8217;t even get every voter in Florida to figure out whom they chose for president.</p> <p>Not so long ago, polio roamed the globe, and each day would paralyze 1,000 children. Today, there are only some hundreds of cases each year, mostly in underdeveloped areas of Africa and Asia.</p> <p>The entire 21-year slog has so far cost <a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/history.asp" type="external">five billion dollars</a>. By comparison, Wall Street executive bonuses last year &#8212; not salaries, but bonuses, for a single year that saw the whole mess collapse and the taxpayers handed the broom &#8212; <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/30/nation/na-obama-wall-street30" type="external">came to</a> $18 billion.</p> <p>If you look at the polio campaign costs on an annual basis, it&#8217;s about $240 million a year, or less per year than it has cost to occupy Iraq <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/iraq_war_hearing/index.htm" type="external">per day</a>.</p> <p>The United States has been polio-free since 1994. But if the polio campaign falters, the virus could return. This, unlike Iraqi military operations, truly is a case of having to fight them overseas so as not to face them at home.</p> <p>And why would the polio campaign falter? Because there are huge demands on the public purse and we must spend judiciously; otherwise, Wall Street CEOs would have to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&amp;amp;sid=aFcrG8er4FRw&amp;amp;refer=home" type="external">pay for</a> their own $87,000 area rugs and $68,000 credenzas. (What&#8217;s a credenza? I had to look it up. Turns out it&#8217;s that sideboard thing you only see in the movies, where Wall Street villains keep their decanters of fine whiskey for toasting the paralysis of small children.)</p> <p>Casting Out the Fiery Serpent</p> <p>Consider another life-saving success-for-pennies program that&#8217;s evolving right now, in fact racing against polio to be the next public health triumph. We are on verge of <a href="http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html" type="external">eradicating</a> Guinea worm, a parasite believed to be the &#8220;fiery serpent&#8221; that torments the Hebrews during the Exodus. Go read your Bible, it&#8217;s in there.</p> <p>A female Guinea worm matures in its victim&#8217;s gut, growing two feet long. Then, over a year marked by cramping, nausea, and fevers, it burrows out of the intestines, down through a leg, and to the skin surface. A blister forms accompanied by a burning sensation &#8212; hence the &#8220;fiery serpent.&#8221; The agonized victim immerses the leg in water for relief; on cue, the worm releases a cloud of larvae. Others drink downstream, and the cycle repeats itself.</p> <p>Treatment involves digging into a blister to seize the worm&#8217;s head, then extracting it over days to weeks by wrapping it around a stick &#8212; a therapeutic image that some argue may have inspired the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius#Confusion_with_the_Caduceus" type="external">Rod of Asclepius</a>, the physician&#8217;s symbol of a snake coiled around a staff.</p> <p>Guinea worm still plagued millions when former President Jimmy Carter organized a charitable foundation and challenged his advisers to suggest a disease to stamp out. They nominated Guinea worm: Humans are its only host, so if the cycle is broken in people, the parasite will be gone.</p> <p>Thanks to larvicides, nylon water filters, and education, we are almost there. Today, there are <a href="http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html" type="external">fewer than 5,000</a> recorded Guinea worm cases in six African countries. The total cost of this 23-year campaign <a href="http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Press-releases/2008/Guinea-worm-cases-hit-all-time-low/" type="external">to date</a> has been $225 million. Or less than $10 million a year.</p> <p>This sort of chump change is so small, you can&#8217;t even talk outsize salaries; you have to focus on the tax breaks on those outsize salaries. So, consider that the following celebrities have saved the following <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/03/19/bush-bonus-for-celebs/" type="external">estimated sums</a> each year on their taxes, courtesy of Bush-era tax cuts: movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer, $5.8 million; L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant, $1.6 million; rapper 50 Cent, $6 million; real estate mogul Donald Trump, $1.2 million.</p> <p>Imagine a sort of a Congressional reverse earmark &#8212; one that canceled the Bush tax cuts only for Bruckheimer, out of punishment for Armageddon and Pearl Harbor &#8212; and steered the resulting millions to disease control efforts. Really, would any of these men notice the slightest changes in their lives if they returned to paying Clinton-era tax rates?</p> <p>When Curing Millions of Leprosy Is &#8220;Failure&#8221;</p> <p>But wait. Aren&#8217;t some of these public health campaigns wasteful failures? Sure they are. Let&#8217;s look at one public health failure: The drive to eliminate leprosy.</p> <p>Caught early enough, leprosy can be cured today with the antibiotics dapsone, rifampicin, and clofazimine. Over 25 years &#8212; courtesy of Novartis pharmaceuticals and the Japanese Nippon Foundation &#8212; these medicines have been handed out for free, and have cured more than 14 million people of the disease. They work so well that the WHO now recommends integrating the world&#8217;s 250,000 known leprosy patients into primary-care settings, just like those with any other illness.</p> <p>Treatment is so effective, in fact, that several years ago the WHO launched a campaign to eliminate leprosy entirely. Ultimately it sank 15 years and about $200 million into the project. (I cannot find a link for the $200 million figure, provided to me by WHO officials in e-mail correspondence.)</p> <p>But there&#8217;s a logistical nightmare when trying to eliminate leprosy. Other targets such as smallpox, polio, and Guinea worm exist in one reservoir only: sick humans.</p> <p>Not so with Mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium that attacks skin and nerve cells. Even today, we don&#8217;t know everywhere this bug lives. It has been found in the oddest places: in armadillos in Louisiana and Texas, in the noses of healthy people in some parts of the world, and even in some soil samples.</p> <p>Such a bug was never an easy target. Even so, in 1991, the World Health Organization vowed its &#8220;elimination&#8221; &#8212; and then defined &#8220;elimination&#8221; to mean less than 1 case per 10,000 people. At such a low background level, it was hoped, the disease might dwindle into irrelevance. It hasn&#8217;t worked. That 1-in-10,000 target was arrived at via politics and hopeful thinking. It was achieved worldwide in 2000, putting the WHO in the risible position of claiming &#8220;elimination!&#8221; and then seeking more money to, like, eliminate it some more.</p> <p>The organization was bitterly criticized. Earnest, indignant treatises have been written noting that there is too little money to go around, and accusing the WHO of risking the credit of the more promising drives against polio and Guinea worm.</p> <p>So, the anti-leprosy push was a $200 million failure.</p> <p>Because it didn&#8217;t eradicate leprosy.</p> <p>It only cured 14 million people.</p> <p>Of leprosy.</p> <p>For half the price of <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E7D81F3AF931A1575AC0A9619C8B63" type="external">an Alaskan bridge to nowhere</a>.</p> <p>Oddly enough, $200 million is reportedly <a href="http://www.theracetothebottom.org/executive-comp/henry-paulson-and-government-service-the-ultimate-tax-shelte.html" type="external">the tax deferral</a> enjoyed by former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson &#8212; he of bailout infamy &#8212; when he joined the Bush cabinet as treasury secretary.</p> <p>So there you have it, finally: For $200 million of public money we can take a walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ himself, curing millions of leprosy. A truly inspiring future is, as always, easily within reach, if we choose it.</p> <p>Or we can just give Hank Paulson a tax break. Maybe throw in a credenza by way of thanks.</p> <p>Matt Bivens is in his intern year at a Harvard-affiliated <a href="http://www.bidmc.org/MedicalEducation/Departments/EmergencyMedicine/Residency/MeetourResidents.aspx" type="external">emergency medicine residency</a> at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a former editor of the Moscow Times who lived for years in Russia, and who covered the war in Chechnya for the Los Angeles Times. His journalism has appeared in Harper&#8217;s, Playboy, the Nation, and many other publications.</p> <p>Copyright 2009 Matt Bivens</p>

Pox Americana: The Real Cost of Bailing Out Wall Street

https://truthdig.com/articles/pox-americana-the-real-cost-of-bailing-out-wall-street/

2009-10-05

4left

By Matt Bivens TomDispatchThis article was originally published by TomDispatch With up to 61 of Americans according to a recent poll convinced that things are going badly indeed in Afghanistan and an official 98 of Americans unemployed Congress is set to respond This week it8217s slated to pass a 636 billion appropriations bill for the Pentagon that will include another 128 billion for our Afghan and Iraq Wars Meanwhile the president and his advisors are about to consider the latest plan by our Afghan War commander General Stanley McChrystal to gainfully employ up to 40000 more Americans in Afghanistan By the way as in the Bush years all dollar figures associated with the Pentagon budget and our wars should be considered underestimates Various military expenses like the upkeep of our nuclear arsenal aren8217t even in that budget Depending on who is doing the figuring estimates of all US defenserelated expenditures 8212 and this first budget of the Obama era is already larger than the last monster one from the Bush era 8212 can run upwards of a trillion dollars As for the war expenses they invariably prove short of the mark and end up having to be supplemented When it comes to the Afghan War this is practically guaranteed Being prosecuted many thousands of miles from home over long often embattled supply lines it is proving staggeringly expensive According to one recent estimate for instance it costs more than 750000 a year simply to keep a single US soldier in the field while the cost of delivering a single gallon of gas to the war zone is estimated at up to 100 And then don8217t forget the Afghan army Its USNATO upgrade program is already costing an estimated 8 billion a year and is clearly about to be expanded by the Obama administration As the Afghan government is essentially povertystricken that means its army is going to be US property for years to come Consider this a small introduction to TomDispatch newcomer Matt Bivens8217s striking analysis of American investment practices Tom Cure Millions of Leprosy 8212 or Just Give Hank Paulson a Tax Break By Matt Bivens There are many possible responses to the news that we have committed more than four trillion public dollars to Wall Street Mine is a roar of admiration Four trillion dollars Holy hell I didn8217t even know that was possible USA USA After all the cost of World War II in inflationadjusted dollars was 4 trillion This bailout thing is just getting started and already we8217ve burned through that Without even noticing Certainly without rationing sugar or collecting scrap rubber or any of that nonsense Who8217s the Greatest Generation now baby Admit it You feel it too Just imagine someone snatching your laptop off a table and throwing it Olympicdiscus style hundreds8230 and hundreds8230 and hundreds of feet Sure you8217d be upset and stuck with the bill But however briefly you8217d feel admiration for the physical feat Look at that thing fly So it goes with our bailouts wild tax cuts and war budgets The money in play is staggering but everyone acts like that8217s something to mope about Where8217s the excitement Often after reading an incomprehensible dollar figure I8217ll Google 8220What does a trillion dollars look like8221 to get myself fired up One example of where this takes you shows a million dollars pathetic wouldn8217t fill a grocery bag a billion interesting I could fit it in a truck and then a trillion Wow it spreads for acres Look at that tiny human included for scale It turns out that the United States can pick up that sort of weight and just smash it down on whatever the hell we want Like Optimus Prime with giant square green paper fists Slam Slam Yet we8217ve committed not one trillion dollars to the incompetent andor corrupt but more than four trillion dollars That8217s according to a report to Congress from special inspector general Neil Barofsky the overseer of the bank bailout program Technically Barofsky adds Wall Street8217s IOU to you and me is at about three trillion dollars these days since some of it8217s been paid back Relieved Don8217t be As these tsunamis of public wealth pour out ignore the slosh and focus on the order of magnitude The entire Gross Domestic Product 8212 the number reflecting all wealth generated in this nation for this year 8212 is only 141 trillion So whether the sum of our money that8217s now their money is 3 trillion 15th of all wealth generated in America in a year or 47 trillion 13rd of all wealth generated in America in a year it still means that for a big chunk of the year every single one of us was working for Goldman Sachs et al Barofsky8217s report also suggests that Wall Street8217s tab might ultimately work out to 24 trillion which would be 80000 per American or 320000 for a family of four But that8217s like totally the worstcase scenario Still wouldn8217t it be impressive I envision huge fivefootcubed shrinkwrapped pallets of dollars dropping from the sky onto my neighborhood smashing houses crushing cars killing beloved pets blasting craters into asphalt streets Yeah Smallpox and Bikinis And yet could we employ this financial muscle in a more constructive way For an illuminating example consider how we dealt with smallpox That airborne virus with its fevers reaching 106 F and signature pusfilled skin eruptions was the greatest killer of man ever known In the 20th century smallpox killed more people than all of that bloody century8217s wars combined In fact if you tally the worldwide death tolls for World Wars I and II the Korean and Vietnam wars the IranIraq war and the Mexican Revolution the civil wars in China and Russia and Spain and all the other wars of the last century from Afghanistan to Zaire the total is less than onethird of the smallpox death toll And that8217s just a single 100year period for a disease that disfigured Egyptian pharaohs allied with Hernando Cortes to rout the Aztecs left a young George Washington scarred later stalked his Continental Army and left Abraham Lincoln pale weak and dizzy as he delivered his Gettysburg Address And yet in the 1960s smallpox was targeted by visionary public health experts 8212 and in just 10 years it was gone An excellent new book by DA Henderson the doctor who led the effort tells the story Smallpox The Death of a Disease This was a signature achievement up there with defeating the Nazis or walking on the moon To track down a virus in every corner of the planet encircle it with vaccinations and kill it8230 I began to wonder how many fivefootcubed pallets of Benjamins the world had brought to bear After all this was mankind8217s greatest killer 8212 the Joker to our Batman Lex Luthor to our Superman The amounts of cash flung about must have been aweinspiring Chasing down the cost of the 10year eradication campaign was not easy Eventually Dr Henderson himself steered me to a 1450page official history of smallpox maintained as a PDF in a sleepy corner of the website of the World Health Organization WHO The answer hidden away on page 1366 300 million Three hundred million Not trillion Not even billion Such a tiny sum of money for such a tremendous feat It8217s like hitting a home run at Fenway Park using a chopstick for a bat The price paid to defeat humanity8217s greatest foe wouldn8217t cover a 24hour day of Iraqi combat operations In Wall Street bailout terms there8217s no way to even talk about sums this tiny To do that we have to go the level of overcompensated individuals So sure 300 million could eradicate history8217s greatest killer of humans 8212 yet the same sum wouldn8217t cover the bonus pool for the executives of the insurance company AIG after its great meltdown It8217s less than what just one man Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld pulled down over the past 5 years It8217s even more striking if you remember that this was a price tag for a worldwide program whose cost was shared by multiple governments and also a total cost over a 10year period To think about it in annual budgeting terms it works out to 30 million a year Which is approaching the ridiculous Hell the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue for 2006 featured a blond in a bikini of diamonds worth 30 million We Fight Over There So We Don8217t Have to Fight Here These are sad economic times sadder still when you consider the tsunamis of wealth going to waste four trillion dollars for Wall Street welfare queens somewhere from one to three trillion for anyone affluent enough to own a top hat and a monocle another trillion or so and counting for our current military escapades abroad But it8217s also just damned exciting Because frankly it8217s a helluva lot of money we have to play with Even now at one of our darkest economic hours we could be performing miracles with the spare change left behind the national couch cushions If you8217re an engineering type you might prefer that those miracles involve shoring up our creaking national infrastructure Good Go write your own article I8217m a doctor so I8217ll stick with medical possibilities Since the smallpox triumph public health experts have been inspired to target other diseases for eradication One is polio a virus known for paralyzing a minority of its unluckiest victims among them former president Franklin D Roosevelt two others are Guinea worm and leprosy plagues dating back to the Bible The World Health Organization and the volunteer service organization Rotary International have spent two decades tracking down and vaccinating billions of people against polio They calculate that they8217ve prevented the paralysis of five million children worldwide Just this May a 10day frenzy saw the immunization of more than 222 million children in Africa and Asia It was possible to watch the campaigners8217 march through Africa on Google Maps Among the foot soldiers in that vaccine war Ali Mao Moallim who more than three decades ago became the last person on Earth to contract wild smallpox Others have caught smallpox in the laboratory since Think about that inoculating 222 million children in 10 days For comparison there are only about 80 million children in the entire United States Imagine inoculating every child in America in 10 days In 10 days we couldn8217t even get every voter in Florida to figure out whom they chose for president Not so long ago polio roamed the globe and each day would paralyze 1000 children Today there are only some hundreds of cases each year mostly in underdeveloped areas of Africa and Asia The entire 21year slog has so far cost five billion dollars By comparison Wall Street executive bonuses last year 8212 not salaries but bonuses for a single year that saw the whole mess collapse and the taxpayers handed the broom 8212 came to 18 billion If you look at the polio campaign costs on an annual basis it8217s about 240 million a year or less per year than it has cost to occupy Iraq per day The United States has been poliofree since 1994 But if the polio campaign falters the virus could return This unlike Iraqi military operations truly is a case of having to fight them overseas so as not to face them at home And why would the polio campaign falter Because there are huge demands on the public purse and we must spend judiciously otherwise Wall Street CEOs would have to pay for their own 87000 area rugs and 68000 credenzas What8217s a credenza I had to look it up Turns out it8217s that sideboard thing you only see in the movies where Wall Street villains keep their decanters of fine whiskey for toasting the paralysis of small children Casting Out the Fiery Serpent Consider another lifesaving successforpennies program that8217s evolving right now in fact racing against polio to be the next public health triumph We are on verge of eradicating Guinea worm a parasite believed to be the 8220fiery serpent8221 that torments the Hebrews during the Exodus Go read your Bible it8217s in there A female Guinea worm matures in its victim8217s gut growing two feet long Then over a year marked by cramping nausea and fevers it burrows out of the intestines down through a leg and to the skin surface A blister forms accompanied by a burning sensation 8212 hence the 8220fiery serpent8221 The agonized victim immerses the leg in water for relief on cue the worm releases a cloud of larvae Others drink downstream and the cycle repeats itself Treatment involves digging into a blister to seize the worm8217s head then extracting it over days to weeks by wrapping it around a stick 8212 a therapeutic image that some argue may have inspired the Rod of Asclepius the physician8217s symbol of a snake coiled around a staff Guinea worm still plagued millions when former President Jimmy Carter organized a charitable foundation and challenged his advisers to suggest a disease to stamp out They nominated Guinea worm Humans are its only host so if the cycle is broken in people the parasite will be gone Thanks to larvicides nylon water filters and education we are almost there Today there are fewer than 5000 recorded Guinea worm cases in six African countries The total cost of this 23year campaign to date has been 225 million Or less than 10 million a year This sort of chump change is so small you can8217t even talk outsize salaries you have to focus on the tax breaks on those outsize salaries So consider that the following celebrities have saved the following estimated sums each year on their taxes courtesy of Bushera tax cuts movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer 58 million LA Laker Kobe Bryant 16 million rapper 50 Cent 6 million real estate mogul Donald Trump 12 million Imagine a sort of a Congressional reverse earmark 8212 one that canceled the Bush tax cuts only for Bruckheimer out of punishment for Armageddon and Pearl Harbor 8212 and steered the resulting millions to disease control efforts Really would any of these men notice the slightest changes in their lives if they returned to paying Clintonera tax rates When Curing Millions of Leprosy Is 8220Failure8221 But wait Aren8217t some of these public health campaigns wasteful failures Sure they are Let8217s look at one public health failure The drive to eliminate leprosy Caught early enough leprosy can be cured today with the antibiotics dapsone rifampicin and clofazimine Over 25 years 8212 courtesy of Novartis pharmaceuticals and the Japanese Nippon Foundation 8212 these medicines have been handed out for free and have cured more than 14 million people of the disease They work so well that the WHO now recommends integrating the world8217s 250000 known leprosy patients into primarycare settings just like those with any other illness Treatment is so effective in fact that several years ago the WHO launched a campaign to eliminate leprosy entirely Ultimately it sank 15 years and about 200 million into the project I cannot find a link for the 200 million figure provided to me by WHO officials in email correspondence But there8217s a logistical nightmare when trying to eliminate leprosy Other targets such as smallpox polio and Guinea worm exist in one reservoir only sick humans Not so with Mycobacterium leprae a bacterium that attacks skin and nerve cells Even today we don8217t know everywhere this bug lives It has been found in the oddest places in armadillos in Louisiana and Texas in the noses of healthy people in some parts of the world and even in some soil samples Such a bug was never an easy target Even so in 1991 the World Health Organization vowed its 8220elimination8221 8212 and then defined 8220elimination8221 to mean less than 1 case per 10000 people At such a low background level it was hoped the disease might dwindle into irrelevance It hasn8217t worked That 1in10000 target was arrived at via politics and hopeful thinking It was achieved worldwide in 2000 putting the WHO in the risible position of claiming 8220elimination8221 and then seeking more money to like eliminate it some more The organization was bitterly criticized Earnest indignant treatises have been written noting that there is too little money to go around and accusing the WHO of risking the credit of the more promising drives against polio and Guinea worm So the antileprosy push was a 200 million failure Because it didn8217t eradicate leprosy It only cured 14 million people Of leprosy For half the price of an Alaskan bridge to nowhere Oddly enough 200 million is reportedly the tax deferral enjoyed by former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson 8212 he of bailout infamy 8212 when he joined the Bush cabinet as treasury secretary So there you have it finally For 200 million of public money we can take a walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ himself curing millions of leprosy A truly inspiring future is as always easily within reach if we choose it Or we can just give Hank Paulson a tax break Maybe throw in a credenza by way of thanks Matt Bivens is in his intern year at a Harvardaffiliated emergency medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center He is a former editor of the Moscow Times who lived for years in Russia and who covered the war in Chechnya for the Los Angeles Times His journalism has appeared in Harper8217s Playboy the Nation and many other publications Copyright 2009 Matt Bivens

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<p /> <p>Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America, and Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.</p> ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore. And welcome to another edition of The Ratner Report. <p /> <p />Now joining us is Michael Ratner. He's the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and he's also a board member of The Real News Network. <p /> <p />Thanks for joining us, Michael. <p /> <p />MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: It's good to be with you always with The Real News. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: So what do you have for us this week? <p /> <p />RATNER: Well, I want to talk about a case that the Center for Constitutional Rights and I was deeply involved in, and it has to do, of course, with Guantanamo--not of course, but that's what it does, and which, of course, still has 149 people at Guantanamo. Eighty-eight have been cleared for release, not released yet. And I'm talking about it today in particular because we're coming up on the tenth anniversary. On June 28, 2014, is the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court case that the Center for Constitutional Rights brought in an effort to give some rights to Guantanamo detainees. People may recall when Guantanamo was opened George Bush said they have no right to test their detention, no right to habeas corpus, they can be held incommunicado. The Center thought that was offensive, unconstitutional, immoral, inhuman, etc. <p /> <p />We went to court, and the case that we won on June 28 was called Rasul v. Bush. It was named after an English Muslim who was in Guantanamo along with some other plaintiffs that we had. And it was a significant case. It said that the people at Guantanamo had the right to test their detention in a court. <p /> <p />Ten years have now passed since that victory, 12 years since Guantanamo was opened. And despite our winning this right of habeas corpus for the people at Guantanamo, as I just said, it remains open with 149 people there. <p /> <p />What the case did for us, of course: we got hundreds of people out in the last ten years, not all because of litigation, but I think the threat of litigation is what did it. What it also gave us was the right for attorneys, who started to visit Guantanamo in September 2004, to go to Guantanamo, find out about the torture that was occurring there routinely, what we call the Donald Rumsfeld techniques, everything from stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, dogs, the whole gamut of stuff that we've seen in torture under the Bush administration. So we were able to at least limit that, if not stop it, because we got attorneys in under that litigation. <p /> <p />When we won the case in 2004, The New York Times called it the most important civil rights victory in 50 years. Really, that's going back to Brown v. Board, the case of the Supreme Court that desegregated the U.S. school system. <p /> <p />Many of the attorneys I was working with--and there were the work that many in the early days. A lot started after that. Half a dozen of us, a dozen of us, some of those attorneys thought that winning that Rasul v. Bush case would be the end of Guantanamo, the administration couldn't sustain Guantanamo if we could get into courts, etc. Unfortunately, those people who predicted that were wrong. I was never that optimistic. My political experience tells me in this country that the government never gives up, that it fights for its draconian measures relentlessly. <p /> <p />And what happened in this case is that all three branches essentially have conspired together, if you want to call it that, to keep Guantanamo open. <p /> <p />After 2004, Congress kept passing laws to try and reverse that decision. Finally, in 2008, the Supreme Court again struck down Congress and said, what you're doing is unconstitutional, people have a right to test their detention in court. It goes back to the Magna Carta, of which we're coming up on, actually, the 800th anniversary, from the year 1215, the English charter of our liberties. So they struck down Congress. Despite that, Congress has continued to try and cut off funds, and I'll talk about that as we get to the end of this piece. So Congress tried to stymie the decision, and did successfully for a number of years. <p /> <p />The courts have done nothing since 2008 to remedy Guantanamo, and they have allowed the lower courts to simply keep people there, despite our winning victories in the courts releasing people. So the courts have been terrible. Supreme Court hasn't touched it for the last five years. <p /> <p />And the presidents. Of course, Bush did let some people out, but of course again fought us all the way on getting the place closed. President Obama, despite many words, you know, written in many speeches and many orders, has failed to carry out the will that he claimed he would have. He's been basically a person of clay feet and you'd have to say spineless. <p /> <p />So all three branches of our government have come together to make sure that the decision we won ten years ago in Rasul would never, never be implemented in full. <p /> <p />I want to give people some sense of what it took to bring that first case, the odds and the mood. And I want to recall I spent 12 years on Guantanamo, along with a handful of other lawyers who began. I was in my late 50s when I started. You can do the math. I'm much older right now. And I think in that 12 years how hard the struggle has been for all of us, but at the same time I've had a life to live. I've seen my children grow up. I've seen them go to college. I've seen them choose careers. I've seen them choose partners. Other attorneys that I work with have done the same. Think about the people who've been through Guantanamo or remain there. They spent the 12 years not being able to hug their children, not being able to see them grow up, not being able to hug their partners, not being able to participate in their families as fathers, as brothers, as children. So whatever we've done the 12 years, you know, it's nothing compared to the suffering that this country and these three branches of our government have inflicted on hundreds of people at Guantanamo and continue to inflict on the 149 who remain there. <p /> <p />Yesterday, in honor of the anniversary, I actually--we came together with some 70 of our attorneys who now work with us--there was actually 600 altogether, or there were at the height--and it was an incredibly moving meeting to see these attorneys from the, you know, biggest law firms, you know, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, all over the place politically, willing to understand that it's a fundamental right to go to court and test your detention. It's been a remarkable, a remarkable experience in terms of building that lawyers movement to try and close that prison. They even formed what's called the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association, and they have this hat, which I think you can see here. It says Guantanamo Bay Bar Association. And the people who were involved in this are part of that really heroic page in legal history, a movement of lawyers to actually shut the place down. <p /> <p />I want to give a brief history of how we began. I remember like yesterday, November 13, 2001, President Bush issues an executive or military order saying that he was taking to himself the right to pick up any person anywhere in the world, take them anywhere he wanted, not give out their names, give them no right to go to court, and hold them incommunicado. What I didn't realize the time of the order, of course: incommunicado detention is basically saying, we're going to torture you, which is of course what happened. <p /> <p />We looked at that order at the center and we said, this is outrageous. Even if it says, or Rumsfeld, these are the worst of the worst, you can't just take away those kind of rights from people. Everybody has a right to be free from the anathema of executive detention, which is what this was and what it remains. We were shocked and outraged. We were determined at the Center for Constitutional Rights to represent the first of the Guantanamo detainees. <p /> <p />We reached out to find other human rights allies. Amazingly and shockingly, we found no other human rights organization, litigation human rights organization, that was willing to join us--remember the time, two months after 9/11--willing to join us in taking on these cases. We were out there completely alone. And, you know, when I think about, yes, those organizations have come back now and they're all helping and representing people, but, you know, the time that counts is the time of crisis. The time that counts is when you think, when you take this yes, we may lose our funding, yes, people in the country going to hate us, yes, we may not win this case at all, but there's hundreds of people sitting in a prison incommunicado, tortured, etc., and we have no choice but to take it, despite the risks to our own organization, reputation, etc. And that's the moment that it counts. <p /> <p />So, yes, am I thankful that other human rights groups have joined us now? Sure I am. But am I disappointed and dismayed for what happened two months after 9/11? Sure I am. We did get some individual lawyers to join us--Joseph Margulies, Clive Stafford Smith, two people who were death penalty lawyers, who played a very important role as wentt forward. We also had a big law firm, surprisingly: Shearman &amp;amp; Sterling and a man named Tom Wilner represented the Kuwaitis and joined the few case a few months later. I was quite amazed by that. Quite remarkable that they were willing to do that. <p /> <p />In any case, jumping forward, January 11, 2002, a few months after 9/11, the first plane goes to Guantanamo. We've all seen the pictures, the people chained down in the plane, you know, the masks, their hoods, put into Camp X-Ray, etc., incommunicado. We eventually, because some lawyers from various countries said they had been told by their countries that some of their citizens were at Guantanamo, they wound up getting David Hicks, an Australian, three people from the U.K., the Tipton Three, and we went to court with them. <p /> <p />What was interesting is we couldn't--it was such a scary time. When we went to court, the District of Columbia, we had to get another lawyer who was admitted into the district to sign the papers. And actually the lawyers were too scared to even sign our legal papers that we were going to file in the District of Columbia. Finally we got lawyers to do that. Some courageous lawyers did that. But at the beginning, that's what it was like. <p /> <p />We lost the first two cases. We lost the district court, we lost the court of appeals. We never expected the Supreme Court to take it. In late 2003, the <p /> Supreme Court takes the case. Even at that point, we have a handful of lawyers, half a dozen of us. We have only one bar association joining us in the Supreme Court, the New York City Association of the Bar. Very slim chance, we thought. In fact, we won the case in the Supreme Court, June 28, 2004. We won it six to three. Shocked all of us. In part we won it because it was the time of the revelations about torture, and the very week we had the arguments, Abu Ghraib torture came up, and the government kept saying, trust us, we're treating people well. But the court wasn't willing to say, we're never going to look at what's going on at Guantanamo; we're going to look at it. And so they said, yes, you have a right to habeas corpus--a fancy word for saying you have a right to go to court and test your detention. <p /> <p />At that point, 2004, we put out a call to lawyers. Hundreds of lawyers joined us. Eventually, 600 lawyers came to work on the Guantanamo cases, perhaps at that point, I would say, the bars' or the attorneys' finest hour that we probably ever had in this country. And it remains so. <p /> <p />So where are we today? As I said, 149 people remain there. Eighty-eight--I want to stress that--more than half have been cleared for release by the United States government, cleared for release, and they're still at Guantanamo. Why is that? I gave some of the reasons--a week-kneed Obama, Congress, the courts, etc. <p /> <p />But, of course, and I as I once said on this program a few weeks ago, the trade of the, quote, Taliban, of the Taliban for Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, had this huge backlash among, you know, all kinds of people who simply want to, you know, make points and be political in a negative way, not really that they probably cared very much. And as a result of that, our wonderful House of Representatives (of course, it's Republican, but Democrats went along, some of them) passed two pieces of legislation--not legislation yet, but so far in the House they've passed--prohibiting transfers from Guantanamo to Yemen. The majority of people of the 149 are from Yemen and there's been no transfers to Yemen. And then they also in the House prohibited all transfers from Guantanamo for a period of a year. Whether that will be put into the final legislation I can't say, but it doesn't look promising to me that we'll beat all of that back, because the Senate then voted to prohibit Guantanamo detainees' transfers to the United States and put restrictions also on sending Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries. They have to reconcile these bills, etc. And the president has threatened to veto, but Obama always has threatened to veto these, quote, restrictions on his ability to close Guantanamo. He never has. He always says, despite what you do, I can do it anyway. And, of course, that's what he did with the Taliban Bergdahl transfers. He didn't care what the legislation says. I just wish you would say that for the 149 who are there, either get them out of there, the cleared ones to other countries, the ones he doesn't think he can release. Then he should just get them tried, charged and tried. Hasn't done it. Think about it: ten to 12 years. I'm pessimistic, particularly before the November elections. We'll see what happens after that. <p /> <p />At the same time, as this group of lawyers who I met with yesterday at this reception to sort of honor the people who made such strides in fighting for the Guantanamo rights, they're fighting on. And I remember when I spoke to them yesterday, I recall I talked about the myth of Sisyphus. We all know that. You take a big rock, you get it up the hill and you get near the top; the rock rolls back down on you. And I said, in some way it's like the myth of Sisyphus, the struggle to close Guantanamo, but with this difference: each time we push the rock up the hill a bit, get a release, we make a gain, some releases, and we move forward, and we begin the next phase of our struggle closer to the top of the hill, and our goal of course to get the last 149 out of there and to close Guantanamo. <p /> <p />So I feel that we're still fighting in a very strong way. It's been years of fights. But as I said, think about the people at Guantanamo, think about one of the people who I know about, Shaker Aamer. He's a U.K. civilian--a U.K. resident. And he's been there now almost 12 years. He has kids he's never been able to see grow up, a wife he's never been able to hug for that period. So when you think about closing Guantanamo and you think about the struggle we've all put in, think about Shaker Aamer and the others who have been put into this--you would call it utter legal limbo, in which certainly no one in our government seems to care about them. But we fight on. <p /> <p />So we hope by next year that Guantanamo will no longer be really the immoral, illegal, and completely unconstitutional hellhole that it remains. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: Okay. Michael Ratner, thank you so much for that report. <p /> <p />RATNER: Thank you for having me on The Real News. <p /> <p />WORONCZUK: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

10 Years Since Historic Legal Victory Protecting Rights of Guantanamo Detainees

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D12038

2014-06-25

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Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights CCR in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo He taught at Yale Law School and Columbia Law School and was President of the National Lawyers Guild His current books include Hell No Your Right to Dissent in the TwentyFirst Century America and Who Killed Che How the CIA Got Away With Murder NOTE Mr Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated ANTON WORONCZUK TRNN PRODUCER Welcome to The Real News Network Im Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore And welcome to another edition of The Ratner Report Now joining us is Michael Ratner Hes the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City and hes also a board member of The Real News Network Thanks for joining us Michael MICHAEL RATNER PRESIDENT EMERITUS CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Its good to be with you always with The Real News WORONCZUK So what do you have for us this week RATNER Well I want to talk about a case that the Center for Constitutional Rights and I was deeply involved in and it has to do of course with Guantanamonot of course but thats what it does and which of course still has 149 people at Guantanamo Eightyeight have been cleared for release not released yet And Im talking about it today in particular because were coming up on the tenth anniversary On June 28 2014 is the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court case that the Center for Constitutional Rights brought in an effort to give some rights to Guantanamo detainees People may recall when Guantanamo was opened George Bush said they have no right to test their detention no right to habeas corpus they can be held incommunicado The Center thought that was offensive unconstitutional immoral inhuman etc We went to court and the case that we won on June 28 was called Rasul v Bush It was named after an English Muslim who was in Guantanamo along with some other plaintiffs that we had And it was a significant case It said that the people at Guantanamo had the right to test their detention in a court Ten years have now passed since that victory 12 years since Guantanamo was opened And despite our winning this right of habeas corpus for the people at Guantanamo as I just said it remains open with 149 people there What the case did for us of course we got hundreds of people out in the last ten years not all because of litigation but I think the threat of litigation is what did it What it also gave us was the right for attorneys who started to visit Guantanamo in September 2004 to go to Guantanamo find out about the torture that was occurring there routinely what we call the Donald Rumsfeld techniques everything from stress positions sleep deprivation sexual humiliation dogs the whole gamut of stuff that weve seen in torture under the Bush administration So we were able to at least limit that if not stop it because we got attorneys in under that litigation When we won the case in 2004 The New York Times called it the most important civil rights victory in 50 years Really thats going back to Brown v Board the case of the Supreme Court that desegregated the US school system Many of the attorneys I was working withand there were the work that many in the early days A lot started after that Half a dozen of us a dozen of us some of those attorneys thought that winning that Rasul v Bush case would be the end of Guantanamo the administration couldnt sustain Guantanamo if we could get into courts etc Unfortunately those people who predicted that were wrong I was never that optimistic My political experience tells me in this country that the government never gives up that it fights for its draconian measures relentlessly And what happened in this case is that all three branches essentially have conspired together if you want to call it that to keep Guantanamo open After 2004 Congress kept passing laws to try and reverse that decision Finally in 2008 the Supreme Court again struck down Congress and said what youre doing is unconstitutional people have a right to test their detention in court It goes back to the Magna Carta of which were coming up on actually the 800th anniversary from the year 1215 the English charter of our liberties So they struck down Congress Despite that Congress has continued to try and cut off funds and Ill talk about that as we get to the end of this piece So Congress tried to stymie the decision and did successfully for a number of years The courts have done nothing since 2008 to remedy Guantanamo and they have allowed the lower courts to simply keep people there despite our winning victories in the courts releasing people So the courts have been terrible Supreme Court hasnt touched it for the last five years And the presidents Of course Bush did let some people out but of course again fought us all the way on getting the place closed President Obama despite many words you know written in many speeches and many orders has failed to carry out the will that he claimed he would have Hes been basically a person of clay feet and youd have to say spineless So all three branches of our government have come together to make sure that the decision we won ten years ago in Rasul would never never be implemented in full I want to give people some sense of what it took to bring that first case the odds and the mood And I want to recall I spent 12 years on Guantanamo along with a handful of other lawyers who began I was in my late 50s when I started You can do the math Im much older right now And I think in that 12 years how hard the struggle has been for all of us but at the same time Ive had a life to live Ive seen my children grow up Ive seen them go to college Ive seen them choose careers Ive seen them choose partners Other attorneys that I work with have done the same Think about the people whove been through Guantanamo or remain there They spent the 12 years not being able to hug their children not being able to see them grow up not being able to hug their partners not being able to participate in their families as fathers as brothers as children So whatever weve done the 12 years you know its nothing compared to the suffering that this country and these three branches of our government have inflicted on hundreds of people at Guantanamo and continue to inflict on the 149 who remain there Yesterday in honor of the anniversary I actuallywe came together with some 70 of our attorneys who now work with usthere was actually 600 altogether or there were at the heightand it was an incredibly moving meeting to see these attorneys from the you know biggest law firms you know Jewish Christian Muslim all over the place politically willing to understand that its a fundamental right to go to court and test your detention Its been a remarkable a remarkable experience in terms of building that lawyers movement to try and close that prison They even formed whats called the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association and they have this hat which I think you can see here It says Guantanamo Bay Bar Association And the people who were involved in this are part of that really heroic page in legal history a movement of lawyers to actually shut the place down I want to give a brief history of how we began I remember like yesterday November 13 2001 President Bush issues an executive or military order saying that he was taking to himself the right to pick up any person anywhere in the world take them anywhere he wanted not give out their names give them no right to go to court and hold them incommunicado What I didnt realize the time of the order of course incommunicado detention is basically saying were going to torture you which is of course what happened We looked at that order at the center and we said this is outrageous Even if it says or Rumsfeld these are the worst of the worst you cant just take away those kind of rights from people Everybody has a right to be free from the anathema of executive detention which is what this was and what it remains We were shocked and outraged We were determined at the Center for Constitutional Rights to represent the first of the Guantanamo detainees We reached out to find other human rights allies Amazingly and shockingly we found no other human rights organization litigation human rights organization that was willing to join usremember the time two months after 911willing to join us in taking on these cases We were out there completely alone And you know when I think about yes those organizations have come back now and theyre all helping and representing people but you know the time that counts is the time of crisis The time that counts is when you think when you take this yes we may lose our funding yes people in the country going to hate us yes we may not win this case at all but theres hundreds of people sitting in a prison incommunicado tortured etc and we have no choice but to take it despite the risks to our own organization reputation etc And thats the moment that it counts So yes am I thankful that other human rights groups have joined us now Sure I am But am I disappointed and dismayed for what happened two months after 911 Sure I am We did get some individual lawyers to join usJoseph Margulies Clive Stafford Smith two people who were death penalty lawyers who played a very important role as wentt forward We also had a big law firm surprisingly Shearman ampamp Sterling and a man named Tom Wilner represented the Kuwaitis and joined the few case a few months later I was quite amazed by that Quite remarkable that they were willing to do that In any case jumping forward January 11 2002 a few months after 911 the first plane goes to Guantanamo Weve all seen the pictures the people chained down in the plane you know the masks their hoods put into Camp XRay etc incommunicado We eventually because some lawyers from various countries said they had been told by their countries that some of their citizens were at Guantanamo they wound up getting David Hicks an Australian three people from the UK the Tipton Three and we went to court with them What was interesting is we couldntit was such a scary time When we went to court the District of Columbia we had to get another lawyer who was admitted into the district to sign the papers And actually the lawyers were too scared to even sign our legal papers that we were going to file in the District of Columbia Finally we got lawyers to do that Some courageous lawyers did that But at the beginning thats what it was like We lost the first two cases We lost the district court we lost the court of appeals We never expected the Supreme Court to take it In late 2003 the Supreme Court takes the case Even at that point we have a handful of lawyers half a dozen of us We have only one bar association joining us in the Supreme Court the New York City Association of the Bar Very slim chance we thought In fact we won the case in the Supreme Court June 28 2004 We won it six to three Shocked all of us In part we won it because it was the time of the revelations about torture and the very week we had the arguments Abu Ghraib torture came up and the government kept saying trust us were treating people well But the court wasnt willing to say were never going to look at whats going on at Guantanamo were going to look at it And so they said yes you have a right to habeas corpusa fancy word for saying you have a right to go to court and test your detention At that point 2004 we put out a call to lawyers Hundreds of lawyers joined us Eventually 600 lawyers came to work on the Guantanamo cases perhaps at that point I would say the bars or the attorneys finest hour that we probably ever had in this country And it remains so So where are we today As I said 149 people remain there EightyeightI want to stress thatmore than half have been cleared for release by the United States government cleared for release and theyre still at Guantanamo Why is that I gave some of the reasonsa weekkneed Obama Congress the courts etc But of course and I as I once said on this program a few weeks ago the trade of the quote Taliban of the Taliban for Bergdahl the US soldier in Afghanistan had this huge backlash among you know all kinds of people who simply want to you know make points and be political in a negative way not really that they probably cared very much And as a result of that our wonderful House of Representatives of course its Republican but Democrats went along some of them passed two pieces of legislationnot legislation yet but so far in the House theyve passedprohibiting transfers from Guantanamo to Yemen The majority of people of the 149 are from Yemen and theres been no transfers to Yemen And then they also in the House prohibited all transfers from Guantanamo for a period of a year Whether that will be put into the final legislation I cant say but it doesnt look promising to me that well beat all of that back because the Senate then voted to prohibit Guantanamo detainees transfers to the United States and put restrictions also on sending Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries They have to reconcile these bills etc And the president has threatened to veto but Obama always has threatened to veto these quote restrictions on his ability to close Guantanamo He never has He always says despite what you do I can do it anyway And of course thats what he did with the Taliban Bergdahl transfers He didnt care what the legislation says I just wish you would say that for the 149 who are there either get them out of there the cleared ones to other countries the ones he doesnt think he can release Then he should just get them tried charged and tried Hasnt done it Think about it ten to 12 years Im pessimistic particularly before the November elections Well see what happens after that At the same time as this group of lawyers who I met with yesterday at this reception to sort of honor the people who made such strides in fighting for the Guantanamo rights theyre fighting on And I remember when I spoke to them yesterday I recall I talked about the myth of Sisyphus We all know that You take a big rock you get it up the hill and you get near the top the rock rolls back down on you And I said in some way its like the myth of Sisyphus the struggle to close Guantanamo but with this difference each time we push the rock up the hill a bit get a release we make a gain some releases and we move forward and we begin the next phase of our struggle closer to the top of the hill and our goal of course to get the last 149 out of there and to close Guantanamo So I feel that were still fighting in a very strong way Its been years of fights But as I said think about the people at Guantanamo think about one of the people who I know about Shaker Aamer Hes a UK civiliana UK resident And hes been there now almost 12 years He has kids hes never been able to see grow up a wife hes never been able to hug for that period So when you think about closing Guantanamo and you think about the struggle weve all put in think about Shaker Aamer and the others who have been put into thisyou would call it utter legal limbo in which certainly no one in our government seems to care about them But we fight on So we hope by next year that Guantanamo will no longer be really the immoral illegal and completely unconstitutional hellhole that it remains WORONCZUK Okay Michael Ratner thank you so much for that report RATNER Thank you for having me on The Real News WORONCZUK And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>By Bob Dreyfuss, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Nick Turse&#8217;s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175768/tomgram%3A_bob_dreyfuss%2C_american_death_spiral_in_the_middle_east/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>Put in context, the&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/us-special-forces-libya-somalia" type="external">simultaneous raids</a>&amp;#160;in Libya and Somalia last month, targeting an alleged al-Qaeda fugitive and an alleged kingpin of the al-Shabab Islamist movement, were less a sign of America&#8217;s awesome might than two minor exceptions that proved an emerging rule: namely, that the power, prestige, and influence of the United States in the broader Middle East and its ability to shape events there is in a death spiral.</p> <p>Twelve years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq &#8212; both designed to consolidate and expand America&#8217;s regional clout by removing adversaries &#8212; Washington&#8217;s actual standing in country after country, including its chief allies in the region, has never been weaker. Though President Obama can order raids virtually anywhere using Special Operations forces, and though he can strike willy-nilly in&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/176783/amnesty-hrw-document-civilian-deaths-drone-attacks" type="external">targeted killing actions</a>&amp;#160;by calling in the Predator and Reaper drones, he has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East. Not only does no one there respect the United States, but no one really fears it, either &#8212; and increasingly, no one pays it any mind at all.</p> <p>There are plenty of reasons why America&#8217;s previously unchallenged hegemony in the Middle East is in free fall. The disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq generated anti-American fervor in the streets and in the elites. America&#8217;s economic crisis since 2008 has convinced many that the United States no longer has the wherewithal to sustain an imperial presence. The Arab Spring, for all its ups and downs, has challenged the status quo everywhere, leading to enormous uncertainty while empowering political forces unwilling to march in lockstep with Washington. In addition, oil-consuming nations like China and India have become more engaged with their suppliers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. The result: throughout the region, things are fast becoming unglued for the United States.</p> <p /> <p>Its two closest allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are sullenly hostile, routinely ignore Obama&#8217;s advice, and openly oppose American policies. Iraq and Afghanistan, one formerly occupied and one about to be evacuated, are led, respectively, by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an inflexible sectarian Shiite closely tied to Iran, and President Hamid Karzai, a corrupt, mercurial leader who periodically threatens to join the Taliban. In Egypt, three successive regimes &#8212; those of President Hosni Mubarak, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the chieftains of the July 2013 military coup &#8212; have insouciantly flouted U.S. wishes.</p> <p>Turkey, ostensibly a NATO ally but led by a quirky Islamist, is miffed over Obama&#8217;s back-and-forth policy in Syria and has <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Oct-24/235621-us-talking-to-turkey-about-china-missile-deal.ashx#axzz2ieYoVYCW" type="external">shocked</a> the U.S. by deciding to buy a non-NATO-compatible missile defense system from China. Libya, Somalia, and Yemen have little or no government at all. They have essentially devolved into a mosaic of armed gangs, many implacably opposed to the United States.</p> <p>This downward spiral has hardly escaped attention. In a <a href="http://mepc.org/articles-commentary/speeches/coping-kaleidoscopic-change-middle-east" type="external">recent address</a> to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, Chas Freeman, the former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, described it in some detail. &#8220;We have lost intellectual command and practical control of the many situations unfolding there,&#8221; said Freeman, whose nomination by Obama in 2009 to serve as head of the National Intelligence Council was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/10/chas-freeman-slams-israel_n_173740.html" type="external">shot down</a> by the Israel Lobby. &#8220;We must acknowledge the reality that we no longer have or can expect to have the clout we once did in the region.&#8221;</p> <p>In an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/opinion/allies-in-revolt.html?hp&amp;amp;rref=opinion&amp;amp;_r=0" type="external">editorial</a> on October 29th, the New York Times ruefully concluded: &#8220;It is not every day that America finds itself facing open rebellion from its allies, yet that is what is happening with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel.&#8221; And in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/world/middleeast/rice-offers-a-more-modest-strategy-for-mideast.html" type="external">front-page story</a> on the administration&#8217;s internal deliberations, the Times&#8217;s Mark Landler reported that, over the summer, the White House had decided to scale back its role in the Middle East because many objectives &#8220;lie outside [its] reach,&#8221; and henceforth would adopt a &#8220;more modest strategy&#8221; in the region.</p> <p>Perhaps the most profound irony embedded in Washington&#8217;s current predicament is this: Iran, for decades the supposed epicenter of anti-Americanism in the region, is the country where the United States has perhaps its last opportunity to salvage its position. If Washington and Tehran can negotiate a d&#233;tente &#8212; and it&#8217;s a big if, given the domestic political power of hawks in both countries &#8212; that accord might go a long way toward stabilizing Washington&#8217;s regional credibility.</p> <p>Debacle in Syria</p> <p>Let&#8217;s begin our survey of America&#8217;s Greater Middle Eastern fecklessness with Exhibit A: Syria. It is there, where a movement to oust President Bashar al-Assad devolved into a civil war, that the United States has demonstrated its utter inability to guide events. Back in the summer of 2011 &#8212; at the very dawn of the conflict &#8212; Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/world/middleeast/19Obama-Statement-on-Syria.html" type="external">demanded</a> that Assad step down.&amp;#160; There was only one problem: short of an Iraq-style invasion of Syria, he had no power to make that happen. Assad promptly called his bluff, escalated the conflict, and rallied support from Russia and Iran. Obama&#8217;s clarion call for his resignation only made things worse by convincing Syrian rebels that the United States would come to their aid.</p> <p>A year later, Obama <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/06/president-obama-and-the-red-line-on-syrias-chemical-weapons/" type="external">drew</a> a &#8220;red line&#8221; in the sand, suggesting that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces would precipitate a U.S. military response. Again Assad ignored him, and many hundreds of civilians were gassed to death in multiple uses of the dreaded weapons.</p> <p>The crowning catastrophe of Obama&#8217;s Syria policy came when he <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.543350" type="external">threatened</a>a devastating strike on Assad&#8217;s military facilities using Tomahawk cruise missiles and other weaponry. Instead of finding himself leading a George W. Bush-style &#8220;coalition of the willing&#8221; with domestic support, Obama watched as allies scattered, including <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783" type="external">the usually reliable British</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/world/middleeast/arab-league-rejects-attack-against-syria.html" type="external">the Arab League</a>. At home, political support was nearly nil and evaporated from there. Polls showed Americans overwhelmingly opposed to a war with or attack on Syria.</p> <p>When, in desperation, the president <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/09/wh-narrows-syria-pitch-saying-evidence-irrefutable-iran-is-watching/" type="external">appealed to Congress</a> for a resolution to authorize the use of military force against that country, the White House found (to its surprise) that Congress, which normally rubber-stamps such proposals, <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/09/11/congress_privately_thrilled_theres_no_syria_vote" type="external">would have none of it</a>. Paralyzed, reluctant to choose between backing down and striking Syria by presidential fiat, Obama was rescued in humiliating fashion by a proposal from Syria&#8217;s chief ally, Russia, to dismantle and destroy that country&#8217;s chemical weapons arsenal.</p> <p>Adding insult to injury, as Secretary of State John Kerry scrambles to organize a long-postponed peace conference in Geneva aimed at reaching a political settlement of the civil war, he is faced with a sad paradox: while the Syrian government has agreed to attend the Geneva meeting, also sponsored by Russia, America&#8217;s allies, the anti-Assad rebels, have <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/176771/us-uk-are-having-trouble-finding-moderates-attend-syria-peace-talks" type="external">flatly refused</a> to go.</p> <p>Laughingstock in Egypt</p> <p>Don&#8217;t think for a second that Washington&#8217;s ineffectiveness stops with the ongoing Syrian fiasco.</p> <p>Next door, in a country whose government was installed by the United States after the 2003 invasion, the Obama administration <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/middleeast/united-states-and-iraq-had-not-expected-troops-would-have-to-leave.html?ref=statusofforcesagreement" type="external">notoriously failed</a> to convince the Iraqis to allow even a small contingent of American troops to remain there past 2011. Since then, that country has moved ever more firmly into Iran&#8217;s orbit and has virtually broken with Washington over Syria.</p> <p>Since the start of the civil war in Syria, Shiite-led Iraq has joined Shiite Iran in supporting Assad, whose ruling minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiism. There have been <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/09/iraq-shiite-leaders-pan-shiite-project.html" type="external">widespread reports</a> that pro-Assad Iraqi Shiite militias are traveling to Syria, presumably with the support or at least acquiescence of the government. Ignoring <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/world/middleeast/us-is-stumbling-in-effort-to-cut-syria-arms-flow.html" type="external">Washington&#8217;s entreaties</a>, it has also <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.535529" type="external">allowed</a> Iran to conduct a virtual Berlin Airlift-style aerial resupply effort for Syria&#8217;s armed forces through Iraqi air space. Last month, in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York during the United Nations General Assembly session, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari undiplomatically <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/176364/iraq-warns-us-dont-arm-syrian-rebels" type="external">warned</a> Obama that his government stands against the U.S. decision &#8212; taken in a secret presidential finding in April and only made public last summer &#8212; to provide arms to Syria&#8217;s rebels. (&#8220;We oppose providing military assistance to any [Syrian] rebel groups.&#8221;)</p> <p>Meanwhile, Washington is also flailing in its policy toward Egypt, where the Obama administration has been singularly hapless.&amp;#160; In a rare feat, it has managed to anger and alienate every conceivable faction in that politically divided country. In July, when Egypt&#8217;s military ousted President Mohammad Morsi and violently clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration made itself look ridiculous to Egyptians (and to the rest of the Middle East) by refusing to call what happened a coup d&#8217;&#233;tat, since under U.S. law that would have meant suspending aid to the Egyptian military.</p> <p>As it happened, however, American aid figured little in the calculations of Egypt&#8217;s new military leaders. The reason was simple enough: Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, bitter opponents of the Morsi government, applauded the coup and poured <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/kuwait-egypt-aid-pushes-gulf-pledges-to-12-billion-in-24-hours.html" type="external">at least $12 billion in cash</a> into the country&#8217;s near-empty coffers.&amp;#160; In the end, making no one happy, the administration tried to split the difference: Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/world/middleeast/obama-military-aid-to-egypt.html?_r=0" type="external">declared</a> that he would suspend the delivery of some big-ticket military items like Apache attack helicopters, Harpoon missiles, M1-A1 tank parts, and F-16 fighter planes, but let other aid to the military continue, including counterterrorism assistance and the sale of border security items. Such a split decision only served to underscore the administration&#8217;s lack of leverage in Cairo. Meanwhile, there are <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/10/egypt-us-military-aid-reduction-russia.html" type="external">reports</a> that Egypt&#8217;s new rulers may turn <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-looking-to-russia-for-arms-after-us-aid-freeze/" type="external">to Russia</a> for arms in open defiance of a horrified Washington&#8217;s wishes.</p> <p>Saudi and Israeli Punching Bag</p> <p>The most surprising defection from the pro-American coalition in the Middle East is, however, Saudi Arabia. In part, that kingdom&#8217;s erratic behavior may result from a growing awareness among its ultraconservative, kleptocratic princelings that they face an increasingly uncertain future. Christopher Davidson&#8217;s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/dec/28/after-the-sheikhs-christopher-m-davidson-review" type="external">new book</a>, After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies, outlines the many pressures building on the country.</p> <p>One significant cause of instability, <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140096/christopher-davidson/the-arab-sunset" type="external">claims Davidson</a>, is the &#8220;existence of substantial Western military bases on the Arabian Peninsula, [which are considered] an affront to Islam and to national sovereignty.&#8221; For decades, such an American military presence in the region provided a security blanket for the Saudi royals, making the country a virtual U.S. protectorate. Now, amid the turmoil that has followed the war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the rise of an assertive Iran, Saudi Arabia isn&#8217;t sure which way to turn, or whether the United States is friend or foe.</p> <p>Since 2003, the Saudi rulers have found themselves increasingly unhappy with American policy. Riyadh, the area&#8217;s chief Sunni power, was apoplectic when the United States toppled Iraq&#8217;s Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and allowed Iran to vastly increase its influence in Baghdad. In 2011, the Saudi royal family blamed Washington for not doing more to prevent the collapse of the conservative and pro-Saudi Mubarak government in Egypt.</p> <p>Now, the Saudis are on the verge of a complete break over Washington&#8217;s policies toward Syria and Iran. As the chief backers of the rebels in Syria, they were dismayed when Obama chose not to bomb military sites around Damascus. Because it views Iran through the lens of a regional Sunni-Shiite struggle for dominance, it is no less dismayed by the possible emergence of a U.S.-Iran accord from renewed negotiations over that country&#8217;s nuclear program.</p> <p>To express its pique, its foreign minister abruptly canceled his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/world/middleeast/in-a-first-saudis-cancel-a-speech-at-the-un.html?ref=syria" type="external">shocking U.N. members</a>. Then, adding insult to injury, Saudi Arabia <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-rejects-security-council-seat.html?ref=syria" type="external">turned down</a> a prestigious seat on the Security Council, a post for which it had long campaigned. &#8220;Upset at President Barack Obama&#8217;s policies on Iran and Syria,&#8221; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/23/us-saudi-usa-idUSBRE99L0K120131023" type="external">reported Reuters</a>, &#8220;members of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years.&#8221;</p> <p>That news service quoted Saudi Arabia&#8217;s intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as saying that his country was on the verge of a &#8220;major shift&#8221; in its relations with the U.S. Former head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki al-Faisal lambasted America&#8217;s Syria policy this way: &#8220;The current charade of international control over Bashar&#8217;s chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. [It is] designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down [from military strikes], but also to help Assad to butcher his people.&#8221;</p> <p>This is shocking stuff from America&#8217;s second most reliable ally in the region. As for reliable ally number one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visibly decided to be anything but a cooperative partner in the region, making Obama&#8217;s job more difficult at every turn. Since 2009, he has gleefully defied the American president, starting with his refusal to impose a freeze on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank when specifically asked to do so by the president at the start of his first term. Meanwhile, most of the world has spent the past half-decade on tenterhooks over the possibility that his country might actually launch a much-threatened military strike on Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities.</p> <p>Since Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran and indicated his interest in reorienting policy to make a deal with the Western powers over its nuclear program, Israeli statements have become ever more shrill. In a September <a href="http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Speeches/Pages/speechUN011013.aspx" type="external">speech</a> to the U.N. General Assembly, for instance, Netanyahu rolled out extreme rhetoric, claiming that Israel is &#8220;challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks our destruction.&#8221; This despite the fact that Iran possesses no nuclear weapons, has enriched not an ounce of uranium to weapons-grade level, and has probably not mastered the technology to manufacture a bomb. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html" type="external">American intelligence reports</a>, it has not yet even militarized its nuclear research.</p> <p>Netanyahu&#8217;s speech was so full of hyperbole that observers concluded Israel was isolating itself from the rest of the world. &#8220;He was so anxious to make everything look as negative as possible he actually pushed the limits of credibility,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/world/middleeast/israel-iran-netanyahu-speech.html?_r=0" type="external">said Gary Sick</a>, a former senior official in the Carter administration and an Iran expert. &#8220;He did himself harm by his exaggerations.&#8221;</p> <p>Iran: Obama&#8217;s Ironic Beacon of Hope</p> <p>Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are fearful that the Middle Eastern balance of power could be tipped against them if the United States and Iran are able to strike a deal. Seeking to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the talks between Iran, the U.S., and the P5+1 powers (the permanent members of the U.N. security Council plus Germany), Israel has put forward a series of demands that go far beyond anything Iran would accept, or that the other countries would go along with. Before supporting the removal of international economic sanctions against Iran, Israel <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/world/middleeast/kerry-reassures-israel-on-iran-but-divisions-remain.html?pagewanted=2&amp;amp;ref=nuclearprogram" type="external">wants</a> that country to suspend all enrichment of uranium, shut down its nuclear facilities, not be allowed any centrifuges to enrich uranium, abandon the heavy-water plant it is constructing to produce plutonium, permanently close its fortified underground installation at Fordo, and ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country.</p> <p>In contrast, it&#8217;s widely believed that the United States is ready to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium, maintain some of its existing facilities, and retain a partial stockpile of enriched uranium for fuel under stricter and more intrusive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.</p> <p>Ironically, a U.S.-Iran d&#233;tente is the one thing that could slow down or reverse the death spiral of American influence in the region. Iran, for instance, could be helpful in convincing President Assad of Syria to leave office in 2014, in advance of elections there, if radical Sunni Islamic organizations, including allies of al-Qaeda, are suppressed. Enormously influential in Afghanistan, Iran could also help stabilize that country after the departure of U.S. combat forces in 2014. And it could be enlisted to work alongside the United States and regional powers to stabilize Iraq.</p> <p>More broadly, a U.S.-Iran entente might lead to a gradual de-escalation of the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, including its huge naval forces, bases, and other facilities in Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. It&#8217;s even conceivable that Iran could be persuaded to join other regional and global powers in seeking a just and lasting negotiated deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The United States and Iran have a number of common interests, including opposing al-Qaeda-style terrorism and cracking down on drug smuggling.</p> <p>Of course, such a deal will be exceedingly difficult to nail down, if for no other reason than that the hardliners in both countries are determined to prevent it.</p> <p>Right now, imagine the Obama administration as one of those vaudeville acts that keep a dozen plates spinning atop vibrating poles.&amp;#160; At just this moment in the Middle East, those &#8220;plates&#8221; are tipping in every direction. There&#8217;s still time to prevent them all from crashing to the ground, but it would take a masterful effort from the White House &#8212; and it&#8217;s far from clear that anyone there is up to the task.</p> <p>Bob Dreyfuss is an independent investigative journalist based in Cape May, New Jersey, specializing in politics and national security. He is a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/bob-dreyfuss" type="external">contributing editor</a> at the Nation, and <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/176964/its-not-americas-job-fix-iraq" type="external">his blog</a> appears daily at TheNation.com. In the past, he has written extensively for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the American Prospect, the New Republic, and many other magazines. He is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805081372/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Devil&#8217;s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam</a>.</p> <p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Face-Empire-Cyberwarfare/dp/1608463109/" type="external">The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2013 Bob Dreyfuss</p>

Losing Friends, Influencing No One, and Alienating the Middle East

https://truthdig.com/articles/losing-friends-influencing-no-one-and-alienating-the-middle-east/

2013-11-07

4left

By Bob Dreyfuss TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch Read Nick Turse8217s introduction here Put in context theamp160 simultaneous raidsamp160in Libya and Somalia last month targeting an alleged alQaeda fugitive and an alleged kingpin of the alShabab Islamist movement were less a sign of America8217s awesome might than two minor exceptions that proved an emerging rule namely that the power prestige and influence of the United States in the broader Middle East and its ability to shape events there is in a death spiral Twelve years after the US invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq 8212 both designed to consolidate and expand America8217s regional clout by removing adversaries 8212 Washington8217s actual standing in country after country including its chief allies in the region has never been weaker Though President Obama can order raids virtually anywhere using Special Operations forces and though he can strike willynilly inamp160 targeted killing actionsamp160by calling in the Predator and Reaper drones he has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East Not only does no one there respect the United States but no one really fears it either 8212 and increasingly no one pays it any mind at all There are plenty of reasons why America8217s previously unchallenged hegemony in the Middle East is in free fall The disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq generated antiAmerican fervor in the streets and in the elites America8217s economic crisis since 2008 has convinced many that the United States no longer has the wherewithal to sustain an imperial presence The Arab Spring for all its ups and downs has challenged the status quo everywhere leading to enormous uncertainty while empowering political forces unwilling to march in lockstep with Washington In addition oilconsuming nations like China and India have become more engaged with their suppliers including Saudi Arabia Iran and Iraq The result throughout the region things are fast becoming unglued for the United States Its two closest allies Israel and Saudi Arabia are sullenly hostile routinely ignore Obama8217s advice and openly oppose American policies Iraq and Afghanistan one formerly occupied and one about to be evacuated are led respectively by Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki an inflexible sectarian Shiite closely tied to Iran and President Hamid Karzai a corrupt mercurial leader who periodically threatens to join the Taliban In Egypt three successive regimes 8212 those of President Hosni Mubarak Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and the chieftains of the July 2013 military coup 8212 have insouciantly flouted US wishes Turkey ostensibly a NATO ally but led by a quirky Islamist is miffed over Obama8217s backandforth policy in Syria and has shocked the US by deciding to buy a nonNATOcompatible missile defense system from China Libya Somalia and Yemen have little or no government at all They have essentially devolved into a mosaic of armed gangs many implacably opposed to the United States This downward spiral has hardly escaped attention In a recent address to the National Council on USArab Relations Chas Freeman the former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia described it in some detail 8220We have lost intellectual command and practical control of the many situations unfolding there8221 said Freeman whose nomination by Obama in 2009 to serve as head of the National Intelligence Council was shot down by the Israel Lobby 8220We must acknowledge the reality that we no longer have or can expect to have the clout we once did in the region8221 In an editorial on October 29th the New York Times ruefully concluded 8220It is not every day that America finds itself facing open rebellion from its allies yet that is what is happening with Saudi Arabia Turkey and Israel8221 And in a frontpage story on the administration8217s internal deliberations the Times8217s Mark Landler reported that over the summer the White House had decided to scale back its role in the Middle East because many objectives 8220lie outside its reach8221 and henceforth would adopt a 8220more modest strategy8221 in the region Perhaps the most profound irony embedded in Washington8217s current predicament is this Iran for decades the supposed epicenter of antiAmericanism in the region is the country where the United States has perhaps its last opportunity to salvage its position If Washington and Tehran can negotiate a d233tente 8212 and it8217s a big if given the domestic political power of hawks in both countries 8212 that accord might go a long way toward stabilizing Washington8217s regional credibility Debacle in Syria Let8217s begin our survey of America8217s Greater Middle Eastern fecklessness with Exhibit A Syria It is there where a movement to oust President Bashar alAssad devolved into a civil war that the United States has demonstrated its utter inability to guide events Back in the summer of 2011 8212 at the very dawn of the conflict 8212 Obama demanded that Assad step downamp160 There was only one problem short of an Iraqstyle invasion of Syria he had no power to make that happen Assad promptly called his bluff escalated the conflict and rallied support from Russia and Iran Obama8217s clarion call for his resignation only made things worse by convincing Syrian rebels that the United States would come to their aid A year later Obama drew a 8220red line8221 in the sand suggesting that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces would precipitate a US military response Again Assad ignored him and many hundreds of civilians were gassed to death in multiple uses of the dreaded weapons The crowning catastrophe of Obama8217s Syria policy came when he threateneda devastating strike on Assad8217s military facilities using Tomahawk cruise missiles and other weaponry Instead of finding himself leading a George W Bushstyle 8220coalition of the willing8221 with domestic support Obama watched as allies scattered including the usually reliable British and the Arab League At home political support was nearly nil and evaporated from there Polls showed Americans overwhelmingly opposed to a war with or attack on Syria When in desperation the president appealed to Congress for a resolution to authorize the use of military force against that country the White House found to its surprise that Congress which normally rubberstamps such proposals would have none of it Paralyzed reluctant to choose between backing down and striking Syria by presidential fiat Obama was rescued in humiliating fashion by a proposal from Syria8217s chief ally Russia to dismantle and destroy that country8217s chemical weapons arsenal Adding insult to injury as Secretary of State John Kerry scrambles to organize a longpostponed peace conference in Geneva aimed at reaching a political settlement of the civil war he is faced with a sad paradox while the Syrian government has agreed to attend the Geneva meeting also sponsored by Russia America8217s allies the antiAssad rebels have flatly refused to go Laughingstock in Egypt Don8217t think for a second that Washington8217s ineffectiveness stops with the ongoing Syrian fiasco Next door in a country whose government was installed by the United States after the 2003 invasion the Obama administration notoriously failed to convince the Iraqis to allow even a small contingent of American troops to remain there past 2011 Since then that country has moved ever more firmly into Iran8217s orbit and has virtually broken with Washington over Syria Since the start of the civil war in Syria Shiiteled Iraq has joined Shiite Iran in supporting Assad whose ruling minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiism There have been widespread reports that proAssad Iraqi Shiite militias are traveling to Syria presumably with the support or at least acquiescence of the government Ignoring Washington8217s entreaties it has also allowed Iran to conduct a virtual Berlin Airliftstyle aerial resupply effort for Syria8217s armed forces through Iraqi air space Last month in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York during the United Nations General Assembly session Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari undiplomatically warned Obama that his government stands against the US decision 8212 taken in a secret presidential finding in April and only made public last summer 8212 to provide arms to Syria8217s rebels 8220We oppose providing military assistance to any Syrian rebel groups8221 Meanwhile Washington is also flailing in its policy toward Egypt where the Obama administration has been singularly haplessamp160 In a rare feat it has managed to anger and alienate every conceivable faction in that politically divided country In July when Egypt8217s military ousted President Mohammad Morsi and violently clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood the Obama administration made itself look ridiculous to Egyptians and to the rest of the Middle East by refusing to call what happened a coup d8217233tat since under US law that would have meant suspending aid to the Egyptian military As it happened however American aid figured little in the calculations of Egypt8217s new military leaders The reason was simple enough Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf bitter opponents of the Morsi government applauded the coup and poured at least 12 billion in cash into the country8217s nearempty coffersamp160 In the end making no one happy the administration tried to split the difference Obama declared that he would suspend the delivery of some bigticket military items like Apache attack helicopters Harpoon missiles M1A1 tank parts and F16 fighter planes but let other aid to the military continue including counterterrorism assistance and the sale of border security items Such a split decision only served to underscore the administration8217s lack of leverage in Cairo Meanwhile there are reports that Egypt8217s new rulers may turn to Russia for arms in open defiance of a horrified Washington8217s wishes Saudi and Israeli Punching Bag The most surprising defection from the proAmerican coalition in the Middle East is however Saudi Arabia In part that kingdom8217s erratic behavior may result from a growing awareness among its ultraconservative kleptocratic princelings that they face an increasingly uncertain future Christopher Davidson8217s new book After the Sheikhs The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies outlines the many pressures building on the country One significant cause of instability claims Davidson is the 8220existence of substantial Western military bases on the Arabian Peninsula which are considered an affront to Islam and to national sovereignty8221 For decades such an American military presence in the region provided a security blanket for the Saudi royals making the country a virtual US protectorate Now amid the turmoil that has followed the war in Iraq the Arab Spring and the rise of an assertive Iran Saudi Arabia isn8217t sure which way to turn or whether the United States is friend or foe Since 2003 the Saudi rulers have found themselves increasingly unhappy with American policy Riyadh the area8217s chief Sunni power was apoplectic when the United States toppled Iraq8217s Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and allowed Iran to vastly increase its influence in Baghdad In 2011 the Saudi royal family blamed Washington for not doing more to prevent the collapse of the conservative and proSaudi Mubarak government in Egypt Now the Saudis are on the verge of a complete break over Washington8217s policies toward Syria and Iran As the chief backers of the rebels in Syria they were dismayed when Obama chose not to bomb military sites around Damascus Because it views Iran through the lens of a regional SunniShiite struggle for dominance it is no less dismayed by the possible emergence of a USIran accord from renewed negotiations over that country8217s nuclear program To express its pique its foreign minister abruptly canceled his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September shocking UN members Then adding insult to injury Saudi Arabia turned down a prestigious seat on the Security Council a post for which it had long campaigned 8220Upset at President Barack Obama8217s policies on Iran and Syria8221 reported Reuters 8220members of Saudi Arabia8217s ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years8221 That news service quoted Saudi Arabia8217s intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan as saying that his country was on the verge of a 8220major shift8221 in its relations with the US Former head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki alFaisal lambasted America8217s Syria policy this way 8220The current charade of international control over Bashar8217s chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious It is designed not only to give Mr Obama an opportunity to back down from military strikes but also to help Assad to butcher his people8221 This is shocking stuff from America8217s second most reliable ally in the region As for reliable ally number one Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visibly decided to be anything but a cooperative partner in the region making Obama8217s job more difficult at every turn Since 2009 he has gleefully defied the American president starting with his refusal to impose a freeze on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank when specifically asked to do so by the president at the start of his first term Meanwhile most of the world has spent the past halfdecade on tenterhooks over the possibility that his country might actually launch a muchthreatened military strike on Iran8217s nuclear facilities Since Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran and indicated his interest in reorienting policy to make a deal with the Western powers over its nuclear program Israeli statements have become ever more shrill In a September speech to the UN General Assembly for instance Netanyahu rolled out extreme rhetoric claiming that Israel is 8220challenged by a nucleararmed Iran that seeks our destruction8221 This despite the fact that Iran possesses no nuclear weapons has enriched not an ounce of uranium to weaponsgrade level and has probably not mastered the technology to manufacture a bomb According to American intelligence reports it has not yet even militarized its nuclear research Netanyahu8217s speech was so full of hyperbole that observers concluded Israel was isolating itself from the rest of the world 8220He was so anxious to make everything look as negative as possible he actually pushed the limits of credibility8221 said Gary Sick a former senior official in the Carter administration and an Iran expert 8220He did himself harm by his exaggerations8221 Iran Obama8217s Ironic Beacon of Hope Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are fearful that the Middle Eastern balance of power could be tipped against them if the United States and Iran are able to strike a deal Seeking to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the talks between Iran the US and the P51 powers the permanent members of the UN security Council plus Germany Israel has put forward a series of demands that go far beyond anything Iran would accept or that the other countries would go along with Before supporting the removal of international economic sanctions against Iran Israel wants that country to suspend all enrichment of uranium shut down its nuclear facilities not be allowed any centrifuges to enrich uranium abandon the heavywater plant it is constructing to produce plutonium permanently close its fortified underground installation at Fordo and ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country In contrast it8217s widely believed that the United States is ready to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium maintain some of its existing facilities and retain a partial stockpile of enriched uranium for fuel under stricter and more intrusive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency Ironically a USIran d233tente is the one thing that could slow down or reverse the death spiral of American influence in the region Iran for instance could be helpful in convincing President Assad of Syria to leave office in 2014 in advance of elections there if radical Sunni Islamic organizations including allies of alQaeda are suppressed Enormously influential in Afghanistan Iran could also help stabilize that country after the departure of US combat forces in 2014 And it could be enlisted to work alongside the United States and regional powers to stabilize Iraq More broadly a USIran entente might lead to a gradual deescalation of the US military presence in the Persian Gulf including its huge naval forces bases and other facilities in Qatar Bahrain and Kuwait It8217s even conceivable that Iran could be persuaded to join other regional and global powers in seeking a just and lasting negotiated deal between Israel and the Palestinians The United States and Iran have a number of common interests including opposing alQaedastyle terrorism and cracking down on drug smuggling Of course such a deal will be exceedingly difficult to nail down if for no other reason than that the hardliners in both countries are determined to prevent it Right now imagine the Obama administration as one of those vaudeville acts that keep a dozen plates spinning atop vibrating polesamp160 At just this moment in the Middle East those 8220plates8221 are tipping in every direction There8217s still time to prevent them all from crashing to the ground but it would take a masterful effort from the White House 8212 and it8217s far from clear that anyone there is up to the task Bob Dreyfuss is an independent investigative journalist based in Cape May New Jersey specializing in politics and national security He is a contributing editor at the Nation and his blog appears daily at TheNationcom In the past he has written extensively for Rolling Stone Mother Jones the American Prospect the New Republic and many other magazines He is the author of Devil8217s Game How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr Check out the newest Dispatch book Nick Turse8217s The Changing Face of Empire Special Ops Drones Proxy Fighters Secret Bases and Cyberwarfare Copyright 2013 Bob Dreyfuss

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<p>Since coming to power in September 2007, the new Parliamentary Majority Alliance (AMP) government of East Timor has made rice a central instrument of state policy. The government has spent millions of dollars on the purchase of imported rice. Free rice has been distributed to civil servants, a constituency recruited under the previous Fretilin government and hence of questionable loyalty. Free rice is part of the incentive offered to encourage the tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) to vacate the camps and return to their places of residence. Subsidized rice is being sold to the populace at large. Lacking a distribution mechanism, the government has also granted the right to sell this subsidized rice to selected veterans, who represent another politically sensitive group.</p> <p>Intended to address East Timor&#8217;s chronic food insecurity, these side-payments, triggered a host of accusations and scandals. There are widespread allegations that government rice contracts were granted without proper tendering processes and involved collusion. The opposition Fretilin bench in parliament questioned the wisdom of providing free rice to civil servants, arguing this would place an additional strain on markets. The sale of subsidized rice has raised questions about overall government expenditures, inflation, and the impact on domestic food production. The sale of subsidized rice via selected veterans has led to charges of profiteering, prompting Prime Minister Xanana Gusm&#227;o to instruct the police to seize subsidized rice sold above the set price of $16 for a 38 kilogram sack.</p> <p>In the face of these allegations, on 9 July Prime Minister Gusm&#227;o held a press conference presenting &#8220;the facts&#8221; about food security and a blistering attack on his critics. But while the political opposition and media have focused on symptoms, the real story lies elsewhere. This article traces the politics of the Gusm&#227;o government rice contracts from September 2007 until the present.</p> <p>Transitional budget rice contracts</p> <p>The transitional budget passed by the new AMP controlled parliament to cover the period from July-December 2007 included $6,088,000 for food security. How was this money spent? Government contracts for the import of rice can be divided into three categories: (1) rice to be distributed to civil servants; (2) rice for IDPs; and (3) rice for national reserves and/or for sale to the public.</p> <p>The first piece of legislation passed by the government in September 2007 was a bill to distribute 30 kilograms of rice per month to each of the 16,969 public servants for a period of six months. To this end, in late 2007 the government signed a contract with Oriental Food, a company headed by Germano da Silva. With no prior experience importing rice, Oriental Food turned to a company called Nabilan Food, owned by Singaporean Gerry Kou. A January 2008 news article reported that Oriental and Nabilan had imported 2,790 and 490 metric tons of rice respectively for provision to civil servants. <a href="#_edn1" type="external" /> One informant in Dili suggested that the contract awarded to Oriental Food was actually only for 2,000 metric tons of rice at a price of about $420 per ton. Although the exact tonnage and value of the contract are not known, based on the lower figure of 2,000 metric tons at an estimated price of $420 per metric ton, this contract would be worth $840,000.</p> <p>The government also faced the ongoing problem of providing humanitarian assistance to IDPs. Much of this assistance came from international agencies, led by the World Food Programme. However, the government also sought to secure rice for this purpose. According to sources the government granted a contract to the Timor Food Company, owned by Mr. Jong Fu Kong (alias James Jong and Jaime dos Santos). <a href="#_edn2" type="external" /> It has not been possible to obtain specific information about either the total volume of rice or the price for this contract. However, according to informants in late March 2008 Timor Food received a shipment of 4,000 metric tons of rice, approximately half of which was to fill the government contract for humanitarian assistance and the other half for sale on the open market. Again assuming a contract for 2,000 metric tons of rice and a price between US$400-450 per ton, the Timor Food contract would have also been worth about $840,000.</p> <p>The third category of contracts was for the purchase of rice for national reserves and/or the sale of subsidized rice to the public. Granted without an open tender process, three contracts were signed in November 2007. <a href="#_edn3" type="external" /> Star King, headed by Lay Siu Hing, is reported to have been awarded a contract for 3,615 tons of rice at a price of about $400 per ton. People Food Company, headed by Julio Alfaro and Kathleen Gon&#231;alves (the wife of Minister of Economics and Development Jo&#227;o Gon&#231;alves) is reported to have received a contract for 4,000 tons at a price just over $400 per ton. Gerry Kou&#8217;s Nabilan Food is reported to have received a contract for 3,000 metric tons at a price of $420 per ton. Taken together, these contracts are for an estimated 10,600 metric tons of rice at an average price of $420 per ton, bringing the total value of the three contracts to $4,452,000.</p> <p>The estimated value of all three categories of contract &#8211; rice for civil servants, rice for IDPs, and rice for national reserves and sale &#8212; comes to $6,132,000, a figure that is extremely close to the budget line of $6,088,000 allocated for rice. But cronyism and ersatz importers were only the beginning.</p> <p>The 2008 rice contracts</p> <p>In the national budget for the 2008 calendar year, the Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industry is allocated $4,864,000 for food security goods and services. <a href="#_edn4" type="external" /> With national food security reserves running low, on 29 January Minister of Tourism, Commerce and Industry Gil Alves invited rice importers to a meeting. The following day a second meeting, attended by Prime Minister Xanana Gusm&#227;o, was held with both rice and cement importers to announce that the government sought bids for the import of 16,000 metric tons of rice. <a href="#_edn5" type="external" /> In the wake of these meetings, Germano da Silva of the Tr&#234;s Amigos company, an apparent new-comer to the rice business, submitted a bid to the government to supply rice at a price of $510 per metric ton. The two other &#8220;amigos&#8221; were Kathleen Gon&#231;alves (director of the People Food Company), and Indonesian businessman Frans Holiwono (who had built his construction business, which includes the import of cement, during the Indonesian occupation). <a href="#_edn6" type="external" /> During the rice tender meeting, Da Silva and Holiwono convinced the government that only Tr&#234;s Amigos had the capacity to store the large amount of rice required. According to Prime Minister Gusm&#227;o&#8217;s account:</p> <p>The Government decided to accept this bid on three deciding factors: 1) The market search by way of the meetings held with the suppliers of rice indicated lack of ability to import; 2) the bid from Mr. Da Silva was reasonable, represented value for money and offered favourable payment conditions, 3) the country&#8217;s need for rice stocks was becoming an urgent issue.</p> <p>As a consequence on February 29th the Government signed a contract with the Tr&#234;s Amigos Company regarding the purchase of 8,000 tons of rice, at a price of US$510.00 per ton, totaling US$4,080 million (Attachment 3). The balance of 8.000 tons would be bought at the contractor&#8217;s risk and paid only after the mid year review (MYR) budget.</p> <p>The government purchase order, which was leaked, contains several curious features. First, the original quantity of rice has been crossed out, the figure of 10,000 tons has been written in by hand, and this figure has also been crossed out and replaced by a total order for 8,000 tons. Second, although various sources including the UN have stated that this order was supposed to be delivered between April and June, the delivery date on the contract is for the period between 30 June and 30 August 2008. Third, despite the fact that the purchase of rice for food security falls under the budget of the Minister of Tourism, Commerce and Industry, this purchase order was signed by Prime Minister Gusm&#227;o. <a href="#_edn8" type="external" /></p> <p>Sometime in April, according to the Prime Minister&#8217;s account, &#8220;the contracting company was informed by the Vietnamese supplier that it could no longer supply rice at the price of US$510 as previously agreed. The supplier requested a new price of $800 at origin, with the Tr&#234;s Amigos Company adding US$100 more for transportation costs (adjustments considering rising fuel prices), insurance, operational costs and profit. Therefore the price for the government became US$900 per ton. (Attachment 4)&#8221; <a href="#_edn9" type="external" /> Concerned about soaring international rice prices, on 7 May the government amended the original 29 February Tr&#234;s Amigos rice contract, increasing the tonnage from 8,000 to 16,000 tons and the price from $510 to $900 per ton with delivery to be made by 30 June 2008. This amended contract worth $14.4 million is signed by Germano da Silva and Prime Minister Gusm&#227;o. <a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>Reassessing Gusm&#227;o&#8217;s &#8220;facts&#8221;</p> <p>What actually happened during the 68 days between the time the first contract was signed on 29 February and the amended contract was signed on 7 May? The only experience Germano da Silva and Kathleen Gon&#231;alves had importing rice was a few months before when each had received a contract under the transitional budget; they had filled those orders by sub-contracting to others who knew the business. In 2008 Tr&#234;s Amigos again turned to the experienced Gerry Kou of Nabilan Food. The next step was for the parties involved to visit the supplier in Vietnam. During the third week of March a delegation consisting of Germano da Silva, Frans Holiwono, and Minister of Tourism, Commerce, and Industry Gil Alves (and , presumably, Gerry Kou) traveled to Vietnam to meet with a supplier. <a href="#_edn11" type="external" /> In late March the supplier and Tr&#234;s Amigos/Nabilan Food agreed to a contract for 8,000 tons of rice at a price of $430 per ton. Several sources noted that after insurance, transport, stevedoring, and other operational costs, this left a profit of $30 per ton. When the shipment was due to depart from Vietnam, however, the supplier is reported to have informed Tr&#234;s Amigos that it could only provide 2,700 metric tons of rice and that an additional $50 per metric ton would have to be added. Tr&#234;s Amigos, it seemed, would take a loss on the contract.</p> <p>Then something strange happened. On 7 May, the government of Timor-Leste amended the Tr&#234;s Amigos rice contract: the original price of $510 per ton was changed to $900 per ton and the total tonnage was doubled from 8,000 to 16,000. <a href="#_edn12" type="external" /> This led to heated charges of corruption. But where? One key lies in the date of arrival for the first shipment of 2,700 tons of rice. On 16 April, Timor Post reported that 8,000 tons of rice ordered by People Food (German da Silva&#8217;s own company, not Tr&#234;s Amigos) would arrive at the end of the month. <a href="#_edn13" type="external" /> On 14 May, the Suara Timor Lorosae daily reported that the ships carrying the rice for the government contract were on the way to East Timor. <a href="#_edn14" type="external" /> On the same day, however, the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste held a press conference at which Acting Senior Representative of the Secretary General Finn Reske-Nielsen stated: &#8220;Currently there are 7,500 tonnes of rice in stock in Timor-Leste and a further 16,000 tonnes are being imported. 2,500 tonnes [sic, 2,700] have arrived from Vietnam and a further 2,500 tonnes are expected this week. The remainder is due in the near future.&#8221; <a href="#_edn15" type="external" /> So had some of the rice already arrived in Timor or not?</p> <p>On 24 July I walked across the street from Landmark Plaza to an unmarked lot strewn with old construction equipment and asked if Gerry Kou of Nabilan Food was there. He was away in Singapore. Employees explained that the rice in the warehouse is only a fraction of what was purchased; the warehouse had been absolutely full. They said that this rice was &#8220;for the government contract.&#8221; When I commented on the size of the warehouse, the employees said that the warehouse is one of the reasons Germano da Silva had used Nabilan Food to fill his contract with the government. They said about 3,000 metric tons of rice had arrived several months ago. So the first shipment of 2,700 tons had arrived. Given the UN statement about the arrival of rice before 14 May and shipping time from Vietnam to Dili (10-11 days), this shipment had to have departed from Vietnam before the government amended the Tr&#234;s Amigos contract on 7 May.</p> <p>But this raises more puzzling questions. First, was the first ship from Vietnam carrying 2,700 tons of rice sent on the understanding that after receiving an amended contract from the government of East Timor, Tr&#234;s Amigos would also agree to pay the supplier a higher price for this shipment? Or, as it appears, was this rice sold and sent at the price of $430 plus $50 reportedly agreed to in April? If that is the case, then the government was defrauded and/or culpable in corruption to the tune of $1 million for the first shipment alone. A far worse scenario, supported by two well placed sources in Dili, is that the price from the supplier for the entire order of 16,000 tons was not in fact the $800 per ton reported to the government. Any difference between the actual price from the supplier and the $900 per ton (which provided the basis for the amended contract), is either fraud or corruption. If, as sources suggest, the actual price paid for the entire order of 16,000 tons was the original $435 per ton plus the additional $50 demanded by the supplier in Vietnam, and adding an additional $100 per ton for operating expenses and profit margin (which is what the government readily agreed to in the amended contract), then the actual cost to Tr&#234;s Amigos was $585. That would mean a &#8220;mark-up&#8221; of $315 per ton, which comes to a total of $5,040,000 for the contract.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>East Timor&#8217;s parliament recently concluded debates concerning the amended budget proposed by Prime Minister Gusm&#227;o that calls for a 122% increase in the 2008 budget from the current total of $347.7 million to $773.8. This includes a modest $15,355,000 for food security, of which $11,867,000 is for goods and services. Serious attention to food security in East Timor is absolutely essential. However, it must be carried out with transparency, efficiency, and to serve the best interests of the East Timorese, a people who know hunger all too well. The possible loss of between $1 million and $5 million in a single contract for food security raises serious questions about the ability and even the willingness of the current government of East Timor to manage the enormous new budget now under debate. That discussion &#8211; and indeed all political discussions in Timor &#8211; should begin with and be based on one simple question: who eats what?</p> <p>DOUGLAS KAMMEN is Assistant Professor in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He would like to thank the many individuals (most of whom requested anonymity) who shared their time and provided information used in this article. <a href="#_ednref1" type="external" /> &#8220;Fos 3280 Toneladas Ba Funsionario To&#8217;o TL,&#8221; Suara Timor Lorosae, 19 January 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref2" type="external" /> He carries three passports &#8211; one from Timor-Leste, one from Australia, and a third from China (Macau?). In February 2007 Mr. dos Santos told the author that he is &#8220;Fretilin stand-by.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="#_ednref3" type="external" /> An email dated 6 December 2007 that circulated widely reported that Germano da Silva, Kathleen Gon&#231;alves, and Antonio Seisal were each granted contracts for 2,500,000 tons. This grossly inflated figure is presumably the result of the mistranslation of the Portuguese word &#8220;mil&#8221; meaning thousand. See &#8220;Politika Fahe Foos iha Governo AMP &#8211; Korrupsaun!!!,&#8221; sent by Tatoli, 6 December 2007.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref4" type="external" /> See &#8220;Decreto n.o 3/II sobre o Or&#231;amento Geral do Estado da Rep&#250;blica Democr&#225;tica de Timor-Leste para 2008,&#8221; promulgated 29 December 2007, p. 28.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref5" type="external" /> The following discussion draws on the account provided by Prime Minister Xanana Gusm&#227;o, &#8220;Press Conference: Food Security &#8211; The Facts,&#8221; dated 9 July 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref6" type="external" /> Information kindly provided by an AMP member of parliament, 27 July 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref7" type="external" /> &#8220;Press Conference: Food Security &#8211; The Facts,&#8221; p. 3.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref8" type="external" /> Rep&#250;blica Democr&#225;tica de Timor-Leste, Servi&#231;os de Aprovisionamento, Ordem do Compra/Purchase Order number 81586.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref9" type="external" /> &#8220;Press Conference: Food Security &#8211; The Facts,&#8221; p. 3. $510 per ton was the price of the contract between the government and Tr&#234;s Amigos, not the price from the supplier, as Gusm&#227;o claims. The attachments cited were not in fact provided with the press release.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /> Rep&#250;blica Democr&#225;tica de Timor-Leste, Minist&#233;rio do Finan&#231;as, Servic&#227;o de Aprovisionamento, &#8220;Amendment to Contract RDTL &#8211; 81586, &#8216;The supply and warehousing of white rice&#8217;,&#8221; number 080508, dated 7 May 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref11" type="external" /> Frans Holiwono of BTK is said to have paid Gil Alves&#8217; travel expenses.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref12" type="external" /> Rep&#250;blica Democr&#225;tica de Timor-Leste, Minist&#233;rio do Finan&#231;as, &#8220;Amendment to Contract RDTL &#8211; 81586, &#8216;The supply and warehousing of white rice&#8217;,&#8221; number 080508, dated 7 May 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref13" type="external" /> &#8220;Presu Fos Sae: Governu Pronto Halo Prevensaun.&#8221; Timor Post, 16 April 2008. This article, based on an interview with the head of the food security department within the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry, suggests that in mid-April the ministry still expected fulfillment of the total order for 8,000 tons.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref14" type="external" /> See &#8220;Pemerintah Sediakan 4.000 Ton Beras,&#8221; Suara Timor Lorosae, 14 May 2008.</p> <p><a href="#_ednref15" type="external" /> &#8220;UNMIT Press Conference &#8211; 14 May 2008 &#8211; Near Verbatim Transcript,&#8221; on <a href="mailto:east-timor@lists.riseup.net" type="external">east-timor@lists.riseup.net</a>, dated 14 May 2008. Many of the &#8220;facts&#8221; presented in an accompanying WFP/FAO/UNMIT &#8220;Fact Sheet&#8221; (distributed by <a href="mailto:east-timor@lists.riseup.et" type="external">east-timor@lists.riseup.et</a>, dated 14 may 2008) are incorrect. A source who requested anonymity was certain that the first shipment of 2,700 tons of rice had arrived in April or early May.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Your Ad Here</a> &amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Rice and Circus in East Timor

https://counterpunch.org/2008/08/11/rice-and-circus-in-east-timor/

2008-08-11

4left

Since coming to power in September 2007 the new Parliamentary Majority Alliance AMP government of East Timor has made rice a central instrument of state policy The government has spent millions of dollars on the purchase of imported rice Free rice has been distributed to civil servants a constituency recruited under the previous Fretilin government and hence of questionable loyalty Free rice is part of the incentive offered to encourage the tens of thousands of internally displaced people IDPs to vacate the camps and return to their places of residence Subsidized rice is being sold to the populace at large Lacking a distribution mechanism the government has also granted the right to sell this subsidized rice to selected veterans who represent another politically sensitive group Intended to address East Timor8217s chronic food insecurity these sidepayments triggered a host of accusations and scandals There are widespread allegations that government rice contracts were granted without proper tendering processes and involved collusion The opposition Fretilin bench in parliament questioned the wisdom of providing free rice to civil servants arguing this would place an additional strain on markets The sale of subsidized rice has raised questions about overall government expenditures inflation and the impact on domestic food production The sale of subsidized rice via selected veterans has led to charges of profiteering prompting Prime Minister Xanana Gusm227o to instruct the police to seize subsidized rice sold above the set price of 16 for a 38 kilogram sack In the face of these allegations on 9 July Prime Minister Gusm227o held a press conference presenting 8220the facts8221 about food security and a blistering attack on his critics But while the political opposition and media have focused on symptoms the real story lies elsewhere This article traces the politics of the Gusm227o government rice contracts from September 2007 until the present Transitional budget rice contracts The transitional budget passed by the new AMP controlled parliament to cover the period from JulyDecember 2007 included 6088000 for food security How was this money spent Government contracts for the import of rice can be divided into three categories 1 rice to be distributed to civil servants 2 rice for IDPs and 3 rice for national reserves andor for sale to the public The first piece of legislation passed by the government in September 2007 was a bill to distribute 30 kilograms of rice per month to each of the 16969 public servants for a period of six months To this end in late 2007 the government signed a contract with Oriental Food a company headed by Germano da Silva With no prior experience importing rice Oriental Food turned to a company called Nabilan Food owned by Singaporean Gerry Kou A January 2008 news article reported that Oriental and Nabilan had imported 2790 and 490 metric tons of rice respectively for provision to civil servants One informant in Dili suggested that the contract awarded to Oriental Food was actually only for 2000 metric tons of rice at a price of about 420 per ton Although the exact tonnage and value of the contract are not known based on the lower figure of 2000 metric tons at an estimated price of 420 per metric ton this contract would be worth 840000 The government also faced the ongoing problem of providing humanitarian assistance to IDPs Much of this assistance came from international agencies led by the World Food Programme However the government also sought to secure rice for this purpose According to sources the government granted a contract to the Timor Food Company owned by Mr Jong Fu Kong alias James Jong and Jaime dos Santos It has not been possible to obtain specific information about either the total volume of rice or the price for this contract However according to informants in late March 2008 Timor Food received a shipment of 4000 metric tons of rice approximately half of which was to fill the government contract for humanitarian assistance and the other half for sale on the open market Again assuming a contract for 2000 metric tons of rice and a price between US400450 per ton the Timor Food contract would have also been worth about 840000 The third category of contracts was for the purchase of rice for national reserves andor the sale of subsidized rice to the public Granted without an open tender process three contracts were signed in November 2007 Star King headed by Lay Siu Hing is reported to have been awarded a contract for 3615 tons of rice at a price of about 400 per ton People Food Company headed by Julio Alfaro and Kathleen Gon231alves the wife of Minister of Economics and Development Jo227o Gon231alves is reported to have received a contract for 4000 tons at a price just over 400 per ton Gerry Kou8217s Nabilan Food is reported to have received a contract for 3000 metric tons at a price of 420 per ton Taken together these contracts are for an estimated 10600 metric tons of rice at an average price of 420 per ton bringing the total value of the three contracts to 4452000 The estimated value of all three categories of contract 8211 rice for civil servants rice for IDPs and rice for national reserves and sale 8212 comes to 6132000 a figure that is extremely close to the budget line of 6088000 allocated for rice But cronyism and ersatz importers were only the beginning The 2008 rice contracts In the national budget for the 2008 calendar year the Ministry of Trade Commerce and Industry is allocated 4864000 for food security goods and services With national food security reserves running low on 29 January Minister of Tourism Commerce and Industry Gil Alves invited rice importers to a meeting The following day a second meeting attended by Prime Minister Xanana Gusm227o was held with both rice and cement importers to announce that the government sought bids for the import of 16000 metric tons of rice In the wake of these meetings Germano da Silva of the Tr234s Amigos company an apparent newcomer to the rice business submitted a bid to the government to supply rice at a price of 510 per metric ton The two other 8220amigos8221 were Kathleen Gon231alves director of the People Food Company and Indonesian businessman Frans Holiwono who had built his construction business which includes the import of cement during the Indonesian occupation During the rice tender meeting Da Silva and Holiwono convinced the government that only Tr234s Amigos had the capacity to store the large amount of rice required According to Prime Minister Gusm227o8217s account The Government decided to accept this bid on three deciding factors 1 The market search by way of the meetings held with the suppliers of rice indicated lack of ability to import 2 the bid from Mr Da Silva was reasonable represented value for money and offered favourable payment conditions 3 the country8217s need for rice stocks was becoming an urgent issue As a consequence on February 29th the Government signed a contract with the Tr234s Amigos Company regarding the purchase of 8000 tons of rice at a price of US51000 per ton totaling US4080 million Attachment 3 The balance of 8000 tons would be bought at the contractor8217s risk and paid only after the mid year review MYR budget The government purchase order which was leaked contains several curious features First the original quantity of rice has been crossed out the figure of 10000 tons has been written in by hand and this figure has also been crossed out and replaced by a total order for 8000 tons Second although various sources including the UN have stated that this order was supposed to be delivered between April and June the delivery date on the contract is for the period between 30 June and 30 August 2008 Third despite the fact that the purchase of rice for food security falls under the budget of the Minister of Tourism Commerce and Industry this purchase order was signed by Prime Minister Gusm227o Sometime in April according to the Prime Minister8217s account 8220the contracting company was informed by the Vietnamese supplier that it could no longer supply rice at the price of US510 as previously agreed The supplier requested a new price of 800 at origin with the Tr234s Amigos Company adding US100 more for transportation costs adjustments considering rising fuel prices insurance operational costs and profit Therefore the price for the government became US900 per ton Attachment 48221 Concerned about soaring international rice prices on 7 May the government amended the original 29 February Tr234s Amigos rice contract increasing the tonnage from 8000 to 16000 tons and the price from 510 to 900 per ton with delivery to be made by 30 June 2008 This amended contract worth 144 million is signed by Germano da Silva and Prime Minister Gusm227o Reassessing Gusm227o8217s 8220facts8221 What actually happened during the 68 days between the time the first contract was signed on 29 February and the amended contract was signed on 7 May The only experience Germano da Silva and Kathleen Gon231alves had importing rice was a few months before when each had received a contract under the transitional budget they had filled those orders by subcontracting to others who knew the business In 2008 Tr234s Amigos again turned to the experienced Gerry Kou of Nabilan Food The next step was for the parties involved to visit the supplier in Vietnam During the third week of March a delegation consisting of Germano da Silva Frans Holiwono and Minister of Tourism Commerce and Industry Gil Alves and presumably Gerry Kou traveled to Vietnam to meet with a supplier In late March the supplier and Tr234s AmigosNabilan Food agreed to a contract for 8000 tons of rice at a price of 430 per ton Several sources noted that after insurance transport stevedoring and other operational costs this left a profit of 30 per ton When the shipment was due to depart from Vietnam however the supplier is reported to have informed Tr234s Amigos that it could only provide 2700 metric tons of rice and that an additional 50 per metric ton would have to be added Tr234s Amigos it seemed would take a loss on the contract Then something strange happened On 7 May the government of TimorLeste amended the Tr234s Amigos rice contract the original price of 510 per ton was changed to 900 per ton and the total tonnage was doubled from 8000 to 16000 This led to heated charges of corruption But where One key lies in the date of arrival for the first shipment of 2700 tons of rice On 16 April Timor Post reported that 8000 tons of rice ordered by People Food German da Silva8217s own company not Tr234s Amigos would arrive at the end of the month On 14 May the Suara Timor Lorosae daily reported that the ships carrying the rice for the government contract were on the way to East Timor On the same day however the United Nations Integrated Mission in TimorLeste held a press conference at which Acting Senior Representative of the Secretary General Finn ReskeNielsen stated 8220Currently there are 7500 tonnes of rice in stock in TimorLeste and a further 16000 tonnes are being imported 2500 tonnes sic 2700 have arrived from Vietnam and a further 2500 tonnes are expected this week The remainder is due in the near future8221 So had some of the rice already arrived in Timor or not On 24 July I walked across the street from Landmark Plaza to an unmarked lot strewn with old construction equipment and asked if Gerry Kou of Nabilan Food was there He was away in Singapore Employees explained that the rice in the warehouse is only a fraction of what was purchased the warehouse had been absolutely full They said that this rice was 8220for the government contract8221 When I commented on the size of the warehouse the employees said that the warehouse is one of the reasons Germano da Silva had used Nabilan Food to fill his contract with the government They said about 3000 metric tons of rice had arrived several months ago So the first shipment of 2700 tons had arrived Given the UN statement about the arrival of rice before 14 May and shipping time from Vietnam to Dili 1011 days this shipment had to have departed from Vietnam before the government amended the Tr234s Amigos contract on 7 May But this raises more puzzling questions First was the first ship from Vietnam carrying 2700 tons of rice sent on the understanding that after receiving an amended contract from the government of East Timor Tr234s Amigos would also agree to pay the supplier a higher price for this shipment Or as it appears was this rice sold and sent at the price of 430 plus 50 reportedly agreed to in April If that is the case then the government was defrauded andor culpable in corruption to the tune of 1 million for the first shipment alone A far worse scenario supported by two well placed sources in Dili is that the price from the supplier for the entire order of 16000 tons was not in fact the 800 per ton reported to the government Any difference between the actual price from the supplier and the 900 per ton which provided the basis for the amended contract is either fraud or corruption If as sources suggest the actual price paid for the entire order of 16000 tons was the original 435 per ton plus the additional 50 demanded by the supplier in Vietnam and adding an additional 100 per ton for operating expenses and profit margin which is what the government readily agreed to in the amended contract then the actual cost to Tr234s Amigos was 585 That would mean a 8220markup8221 of 315 per ton which comes to a total of 5040000 for the contract Conclusion East Timor8217s parliament recently concluded debates concerning the amended budget proposed by Prime Minister Gusm227o that calls for a 122 increase in the 2008 budget from the current total of 3477 million to 7738 This includes a modest 15355000 for food security of which 11867000 is for goods and services Serious attention to food security in East Timor is absolutely essential However it must be carried out with transparency efficiency and to serve the best interests of the East Timorese a people who know hunger all too well The possible loss of between 1 million and 5 million in a single contract for food security raises serious questions about the ability and even the willingness of the current government of East Timor to manage the enormous new budget now under debate That discussion 8211 and indeed all political discussions in Timor 8211 should begin with and be based on one simple question who eats what DOUGLAS KAMMEN is Assistant Professor in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore He would like to thank the many individuals most of whom requested anonymity who shared their time and provided information used in this article 8220Fos 3280 Toneladas Ba Funsionario To8217o TL8221 Suara Timor Lorosae 19 January 2008 He carries three passports 8211 one from TimorLeste one from Australia and a third from China Macau In February 2007 Mr dos Santos told the author that he is 8220Fretilin standby8221 An email dated 6 December 2007 that circulated widely reported that Germano da Silva Kathleen Gon231alves and Antonio Seisal were each granted contracts for 2500000 tons This grossly inflated figure is presumably the result of the mistranslation of the Portuguese word 8220mil8221 meaning thousand See 8220Politika Fahe Foos iha Governo AMP 8211 Korrupsaun8221 sent by Tatoli 6 December 2007 See 8220Decreto no 3II sobre o Or231amento Geral do Estado da Rep250blica Democr225tica de TimorLeste para 20088221 promulgated 29 December 2007 p 28 The following discussion draws on the account provided by Prime Minister Xanana Gusm227o 8220Press Conference Food Security 8211 The Facts8221 dated 9 July 2008 Information kindly provided by an AMP member of parliament 27 July 2008 8220Press Conference Food Security 8211 The Facts8221 p 3 Rep250blica Democr225tica de TimorLeste Servi231os de Aprovisionamento Ordem do CompraPurchase Order number 81586 8220Press Conference Food Security 8211 The Facts8221 p 3 510 per ton was the price of the contract between the government and Tr234s Amigos not the price from the supplier as Gusm227o claims The attachments cited were not in fact provided with the press release Rep250blica Democr225tica de TimorLeste Minist233rio do Finan231as Servic227o de Aprovisionamento 8220Amendment to Contract RDTL 8211 81586 8216The supply and warehousing of white rice82178221 number 080508 dated 7 May 2008 Frans Holiwono of BTK is said to have paid Gil Alves8217 travel expenses Rep250blica Democr225tica de TimorLeste Minist233rio do Finan231as 8220Amendment to Contract RDTL 8211 81586 8216The supply and warehousing of white rice82178221 number 080508 dated 7 May 2008 8220Presu Fos Sae Governu Pronto Halo Prevensaun8221 Timor Post 16 April 2008 This article based on an interview with the head of the food security department within the Ministry of Tourism Commerce and Industry suggests that in midApril the ministry still expected fulfillment of the total order for 8000 tons See 8220Pemerintah Sediakan 4000 Ton Beras8221 Suara Timor Lorosae 14 May 2008 8220UNMIT Press Conference 8211 14 May 2008 8211 Near Verbatim Transcript8221 on easttimorlistsriseupnet dated 14 May 2008 Many of the 8220facts8221 presented in an accompanying WFPFAOUNMIT 8220Fact Sheet8221 distributed by easttimorlistsriseupet dated 14 may 2008 are incorrect A source who requested anonymity was certain that the first shipment of 2700 tons of rice had arrived in April or early May amp160 Your Ad Here amp160 amp160 amp160

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<p>After a decade of fiery public debate and bare-knuckle partisan brawling, the United States has stumbled toward an&amp;#160;ad hoc&amp;#160;bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies: impunity at home and rendition abroad.</p> <p>President Obama has closed the CIA&#8217;s &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">black sites,</a>&#8221; its secret prisons where American agents once dirtied their hands with waterboarding and&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">wall slamming</a>. But via rendition &#8212; the sending of terrorist suspects to the prisons of countries that torture &#8212; and related policies, his administration has outsourced human rights abuse to Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere.&amp;#160; In this way, he has avoided the political stigma of torture, while tacitly tolerating such abuses and harvesting whatever intelligence can be gained from them.</p> <p>This &#8220;resolution&#8221; of the torture issue may meet the needs of this country&#8217;s deeply divided politics. It cannot, however, long satisfy an international community determined to prosecute human rights abuses through universal jurisdiction. It also runs the long-term risk of another sordid torture scandal that will further damage U.S. standing with allies worldwide.</p> <p>Perfecting a New Form of Torture</p> <p>The modern American urge to use torture did not, of course, begin on September 12, 2001.&amp;#160; It has roots that reach back to the beginning of the Cold War and a human rights policy riven with contradictions.&amp;#160;Publicly, Washington opposed torture and led the world in drafting the United Nation&#8217;s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1949. Simultaneously and secretly, however, the Central Intelligence Agency began developing ingenious new torture techniques in contravention of these same international conventions.</p> <p>From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led a secret research effort to crack the code of human consciousness, a veritable Manhattan project of the mind with two findings foundational to a new form of psychological torture. In the early 1950s, while collaborating with the CIA, famed Canadian psychologist Dr. Donald Hebb&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">discovered</a>&amp;#160;that, using goggles, gloves, and earmuffs, he could induce a state akin to psychosis among student volunteers by depriving them of sensory stimulation. Simultaneously, two eminent physicians at Cornell University Medical Center, also working with the Agency,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">found</a>&amp;#160;that the most devastating torture technique used by the KGB, the Soviet secret police, involved simply forcing victims to stand for days at a time, while legs swelled painfully and hallucinations began.</p> <p>In 1963, after a decade of mind-control research, the CIA codified these findings in a succinct, secret instructional handbook, the&amp;#160; <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/KUBARK_Counterintelligence_Interrogation" type="external">KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual</a>. It became the basis for&amp;#160;a new method of psychological torture disseminated worldwide and within the U.S. intelligence community. Avoiding direct involvement in torture, the CIA instead trained allied agencies to do its dirty work in prisons throughout the Third World, like South Vietnam&#8217;s notorious &#8220; <a href="http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/resources/torture/luce.html" type="external">tiger cages</a>.&#8221;</p> <p>The Korean War added a defensive dimension to this mind-control research. After harsh North Korean psychological torture forced American POWs to accuse their own country of war crimes, President Dwight Eisenhower&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59249#axzz1ZwwbuVnm" type="external">ordered</a>that any serviceman subject to capture be given resistance training, which the Air Force soon dubbed with the acronym SERE (for survival, evasion, resistance, escape).</p> <p>Once the Cold War ended in 1990, Washington resumed its advocacy of human rights, ratifying the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, which <a href="http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html" type="external">banned</a>&amp;#160;the infliction of &#8220;severe&#8221; psychological and physical pain. The CIA ended its torture training in the Third World, and the Defense Department recalled Latin American counterinsurgency manuals that contained instructions for using harsh interrogation techniques. On the surface, then, Washington had resolved the tension between its anti-torture principles and its torture practices.</p> <p>But when President Bill Clinton sent the U.N. Convention to Congress for ratification in 1994, he&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">included language</a>&amp;#160;(drafted six years earlier by the Reagan administration) that contained diplomatic &#8220;reservations.&#8221; &amp;#160;In effect, these addenda accepted the banning of physical abuse, but exempted psychological torture.</p> <p>A year later, when the Clinton administration&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm" type="external">launched</a>&amp;#160;its covert campaign against al-Qaeda, the CIA avoided direct involvement in human rights violations by sending 70 terror suspects to allied nations notorious for physical torture.&amp;#160; This practice, called &#8220;extraordinary rendition,&#8221; had supposedly been banned by the U.N. convention and so a new contradiction between Washington&#8217;s human rights principles and its practices was buried like a political land mine ready to detonate with&amp;#160;phenomenal force, just 10 years later, in the Abu Ghraib scandal.</p> <p>Normalizing Torture</p> <p>Right after his first public address to a shaken nation on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave his White House staff expansive secret orders for the use of harsh interrogation,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/27771/the_torture_test" type="external">adding</a>, &#8220;I don&#8217;t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Soon after, the CIA began opening &#8220;black sites&#8221; that would in the coming years stretch from <a href="" type="internal">Thailand</a>&amp;#160;to&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Poland</a>.&amp;#160; It also&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">leased</a>&amp;#160;a fleet of executive jets for the rendition of detained terrorist suspects to allied nations, and revived psychological tortures abandoned since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the agency&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">hired</a>former Air Force psychologists to reverse engineer SERE training techniques, flipping them from defense to offense and thereby creating the psychological tortures that would henceforth travel far under the euphemistic label &#8220;enhanced interrogation techniques.&#8221;</p> <p>In a parallel move in late 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed General Geoffrey Miller to head the new prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, and gave him broad authority to develop a total three-phase attack on the sensory receptors, cultural identity, and individual psyches of his new prisoners. After General Miller visited Abu Ghraib prison in September 2003, the U.S. commander for Iraq&amp;#160; <a href="http://archive.truthout.org/article/gen-ricardo-sanchez-orders-torture-iraq-his-memo" type="external">issued orders</a>&amp;#160;for the use of psychological torture in U.S. prisons in that country, including sensory disorientation, self-inflicted pain, and a recent innovation, cultural humiliation through exposure to dogs (which American believed would be psychologically devastating for Arabs). It is no accident that Private Lynndie England, a military guard at Abu Ghraib prison, was&amp;#160; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England" type="external">famously photographed</a>&amp;#160;leading a naked Iraqi detainee leashed like a dog.</p> <p>Just two months after CBS News broadcast those notorious photos from Abu Ghraib in April 2004,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">35%</a>&amp;#160;of Americans polled still felt torture was acceptable. Why were so many tolerant of torture?</p> <p>One partial explanation would be that, in the years after 9/11, the mass media filled screens large and small across America with enticing images of abuse. Amid this torrent of torture simulations, two media icons served to normalize abuse for many Americans &#8212; the fantasy of the &#8220;ticking time bomb scenario&#8221; and the fictional hero of the Fox Television show &#8220;24,&#8221; counterterror agent Jack Bauer.</p> <p>In the months after 9/11, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">launched</a>&amp;#160;a multimedia campaign arguing that torture would be necessary in the event U.S. intelligence agents discovered that a terrorist had planted a ticking nuclear bomb in New York&#8217;s Times Square. Although this scenario was a fantasy whose sole foundation was an obscure academic philosophy article published back in 1973, such ticking bombs soon enough became a media trope and a persuasive reality for many Americans &#8212; particularly thanks to &#8220;24,&#8221; every segment of which began with an oversized clock ticking menacingly.</p> <p>In 67 torture scenes during its first five seasons, the show portrayed agent Jack Bauer&#8217;s recourse to abuse as timely, effective, and often seductive. By its last broadcast in May 2010, the simple invocation of agent Bauer&#8217;s name had become a persuasive argument for torture used by everyone from Supreme Court Justice&amp;#160; <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=NzI2NDYxOA%3D%3D" type="external">Antonin Scalia</a>&amp;#160;to ex-President Bill Clinton.</p> <p>While campaigning for his wife Hillary in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Clinton typically cited &#8220;24&#8221; as a justification for allowing CIA agents, acting outside the law, to torture in extreme emergencies. &#8220;When Bauer goes out there on his own and is prepared to live with the consequences,&#8221; Clinton&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">told</a>&amp;#160;Meet the Press, &#8220;it always seems to work better.&#8221;</p> <p>Impunity in America</p> <p>Such a normalization of &#8220;enhanced interrogation techniques&#8221; created public support for an impunity achieved by immunizing all those culpable of crimes of torture. During President Obama&#8217;s first two years in office, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">made</a>&amp;#160;dozens of television appearances accusing his administration of weakening America&#8217;s security by investigating CIA interrogators who had used such techniques under Bush.</p> <p>Ironically, Obama&#8217;s assassination of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 provided an opening for neoconservatives to move the nation toward impunity. Forming an&amp;#160;a cappella&amp;#160;media chorus, former Bush administration officials appeared on television to&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">claim</a>, without any factual basis, that torture had somehow led the Navy SEALs to Bin Laden. Within weeks, Attorney General Eric Holder <a href="" type="internal">announced</a>&amp;#160;an end to any investigation of harsh CIA interrogations and to the possibility of bringing any of the CIA torturers to court.&amp;#160; (Consider it striking, then, that the only &#8220;torture&#8221; case brought to court by the administration <a href="" type="internal">involved</a>&amp;#160;a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, who had leaked the names of some torturers.)</p> <p>Starting on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the country took the next step toward full impunity via a radical rewriting of the past. In a memoir published on August 30, 2011, Dick Cheney&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">claimed</a>&amp;#160;the CIA&#8217;s use of &#8220;enhanced interrogation techniques&#8221; on an al-Qaeda leader named Abu Zubaydah had turned this hardened terrorist into a &#8220;fount of information&#8221; and saved &#8220;thousands of lives.&#8221;</p> <p>Just two weeks later, on September 12, 2011, former FBI counterterror agent Ali Soufan released his own memoirs,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/the-interrogator/transcript-7/" type="external">stating</a>&amp;#160;that he was the one who started the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah back in 2002, using empathetic, non-torture techniques that quickly gained &#8220;important actionable intelligence&#8221; about &#8220;the role of KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.&#8221;</p> <p>Angered by the FBI&#8217;s success, CIA director George Tenet dispatched his own interrogators from Washington led by Dr. James Mitchell, the former SERE psychologist who had developed the agency&#8217;s harsh &#8220;enhanced techniques.&#8221; As the CIA team moved up the &#8220;force continuum&#8221; from &#8220;low-level sleep deprivation&#8221; to nudity, noise barrage, and the use of a claustrophobic confinement box, Dr. Mitchell&#8217;s harsh methods got &#8220;no information.&#8221;</p> <p>By contrast, at each step in this escalating abuse, Ali Soufan was brought back for more quiet questioning in Arabic that&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">coaxed</a>&amp;#160;out all the valuable intelligence Zubaydah had to offer. The results of this&amp;#160;ad hoc&amp;#160;scientific test were blindingly clear: FBI empathy was consistently effective, while CIA coercion proved counterproductive.</p> <p>But this fundamental yet fragile truth has been obscured by CIA censorship and neoconservative casuistry. Cheney&#8217;s secondhand account completely omitted the FBI presence. Moreover, the CIA&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">demanded</a>&amp;#160;181 pages of excisions from Ali Soufan&#8217;s memoirs that reduced his chapters about this interrogation experience to a maze of blackened lines no regular reader can understand.</p> <p>The agency&#8217;s attempt to rewrite the past has continued into the present. Just last April, Jose Rodriguez, former chief of CIA Clandestine Services, published his uncensored memoirs under the provocative title&amp;#160;Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives. In a promotional television interview, he&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">called</a>&amp;#160;FBI claims of success with empathetic methods &#8220;bullshit.&#8221;</p> <p>With the past largely rewritten to assure Americans that the CIA&#8217;s &#8220;enhanced interrogation&#8221; had worked, the perpetrators of torture were home free and the process of impunity and immunity established for future use.</p> <p>Rendition Under Obama</p> <p>Apart from these Republican pressures, President Obama&#8217;s own aggressive views on national security have contributed to an undeniable continuity with many of his predecessor&#8217;s most controversial policies. Not only has he <a href="" type="internal">preserved</a>&amp;#160;the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo and&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">fought</a>the courts to block civil suits against torture perpetrators, he has, above all, authorized continuing CIA rendition flights.</p> <p>During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama went beyond any other candidate in&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">offering unqualified opposition</a>&amp;#160;to both direct and indirect U.S. involvement in torture. &#8220;We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;That will be my position as president. That includes, by the way, renditions.&#8221;</p> <p>Only days after his January 2009 inauguration, Obama issued a dramatic executive order ending the CIA&#8217;s coercive techniques, but it turned out to include a large loophole that preserved the agency&#8217;s role in extraordinary renditions. Amid his order&#8217;s ringing rhetoric about compliance with the Geneva conventions and assuring &#8220;humane treatment of individuals in United States custody,&#8221; the president issued a clear and unequivocal order that &#8220;the CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.&#8221; But when the CIA&#8217;s counsel&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">objected</a>&amp;#160;that this blanket prohibition would also &#8220;take us out of the rendition business,&#8221; Obama&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations" type="external">added a footnote</a>&amp;#160;with a small but significant qualification: &#8220;The terms &#8216;detention facilities&#8217; and &#8216;detention facility&#8217; in&#8230; this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.&#8221; Through the slippery legalese of this definition, Obama thus allowed the CIA continue its rendition flights of terror suspects to allied nations for possible torture.</p> <p>Moreover, in February 2009, Obama&#8217;s incoming CIA director Leon Panetta <a href="" type="internal">announced</a>&amp;#160;that the agency would indeed continue the practice &#8220;in renditions where we returned an individual to the jurisdiction of another country, and they exercised their rights&#8230; to prosecute him under their laws. I think,&#8221; he added, ignoring the U.N. anti-torture convention&#8217;s strict conditions for this practice, &#8220;that is an appropriate use of rendition.&#8221;</p> <p>As the CIA expanded covert operations inside Somalia under Obama, its renditions of terror suspects from neighboring East African nations&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/161936/cias-secret-sites-somalia" type="external">continued</a>just as they had under Bush. &amp;#160;In July 2009, for example, Kenyan police snatched an al-Qaeda suspect, Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan, from a Nairobi slum and delivered him to that city&#8217;s airport for a CIA flight to Mogadishu. There he joined dozens of prisoners grabbed off the streets of Kenya inside &#8220;The Hole&#8221; &#8212; a filthy underground prison buried in the windowless basement of Somalia&#8217;s National Security Agency. While Somali guards (paid for with U.S. funds) ran the prison, CIA operatives, reported the&amp;#160;Nation&#8217;s&amp;#160;Jeremy Scahill, have open access for extended interrogation.</p> <p>Obama also allowed the continuation of a policy adopted after the Abu Ghraib scandal: outsourcing incarceration to local allies in Afghanistan and Iraq while ignoring human rights abuses there. Although the U.S. military&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">received</a>&amp;#160;1,365 reports about the torture of detainees by Iraqi forces&amp;#160;between May 2004 and December 2009, a period that included Obama&#8217;s first full year in office, American officers&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">refused to take action</a>, even though the abuses reported were often extreme.</p> <p>Simultaneously, Washington&#8217;s Afghan allies increasingly turned to torture after the Abu Ghraib scandal prompted U.S. officials to transfer most interrogation to local authorities. After interviewing 324 detainees held by Afghanistan&#8217;s National Directorate of Security (NDS) in 2011, the U.N.&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">found</a>&amp;#160;that &#8220;torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.&#8221; At the Directorate&#8217;s prison in Kandahar one interrogator told a detainee before starting to torture him, &#8220;You should confess what you have done in the past as Taliban; even stones confess here.&#8221;</p> <p>Although such reports prompted both British and Canadian forces to curtail prisoner transfers, the U.S. military continues to turn over detainees to Afghan authorities &#8212; a policy that,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">commented</a>&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;New York Times, &#8220;raises serious questions about potential complicity of American officials.&#8221;</p> <p>How to Unclog the System of Justice One Drone at a Time</p> <p>After a decade of intense public debate over torture, in the last two years the United States has arrived at a questionable default political compromise: impunity at home, rendition abroad.</p> <p>This resolution does not bode well for future U.S. leadership of an international community determined to end the scourge of torture.&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Italy&#8217;s prosecution</a>&amp;#160;of two-dozen CIA agents for rendition in 2009, Poland&#8217;s recent&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">indictment</a>&amp;#160;of its former security chief for facilitating a CIA black site, and Britain&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">ongoing criminal investigation</a>&amp;#160;of intelligence officials who collaborated with alleged torture at Guantanamo are harbingers of continuing pressures on the U.S. to comply with international standards for human rights.</p> <p>Meanwhile, unchecked by any domestic or international sanction, Washington has slid down torture&#8217;s slippery slope to find, just as the French did in Algeria during the 1950s, that at its bottom lies the moral abyss of extrajudicial execution. The systematic French torture of thousands during the Battle of Algiers in 1957 also generated over 3,000 &#8220;summary executions&#8221; to insure, as one French general&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">put it</a>, that &#8220;the machine of justice&#8221; not be &#8220;clogged with cases.&#8221;</p> <p>In an eerie parallel, Washington has reacted to the torture scandals of the Bush era by generally forgoing arrests and opting for no-fuss aerial assassinations. From 2005 to 2012, U.S. drone killings inside Pakistan&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php" type="external">rose</a>&amp;#160;from zero to a total of 2,400 (and still going up) &#8212; a figure disturbingly close to those 3,000 French assassinations in Algeria. In addition, it has now been revealed that the president himself&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175551/engelhardt_assassin_in_chief" type="external">regularly orders</a>&amp;#160;specific assassinations by drone in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia off a secret &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">kill list</a>.&#8221;&amp;#160; Simultaneously, his administration <a href="" type="internal">has taken</a>&amp;#160;just one terror suspect into U.S. custody and has not added any new prisoners to Guantanamo, thereby avoiding any more clogging of the machinery of American justice.</p> <p>Absent any searching inquiry or binding reforms, assassination is now the everyday American way of war while extraordinary renditions remain a tool of state.&amp;#160; Make no mistake: some future torture scandal is sure to arise from another iconic dungeon in the dismal, ever-lengthening historical procession leading from the &#8220;tiger cages&#8221; of South Vietnam to &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">the salt pit</a>&#8221; in Afghanistan and &#8220;The Hole&#8221; in Somalia. Next time, the world might not be so forgiving. Next time, with those images from Abu Ghraib prison etched in human memory, the damage to America&#8217;s moral authority as world leader could prove even more deep and lasting.</p> <p>Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror</a>, which provided documentation for the Oscar-winning documentary feature film&amp;#160;Taxi to the Darkside. His recent book,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation</a>&amp;#160;(University of Wisconsin, 2012) explores the American experience of torture during the past decade.</p> <p>This essay was originally published by <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a>.</p>

Normalizing Torture

https://counterpunch.org/2012/08/14/normalizing-torture-2/

2012-08-14

4left

After a decade of fiery public debate and bareknuckle partisan brawling the United States has stumbled toward anamp160ad hocamp160bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies impunity at home and rendition abroad President Obama has closed the CIA8217s 8220 black sites8221 its secret prisons where American agents once dirtied their hands with waterboarding andamp160 wall slamming But via rendition 8212 the sending of terrorist suspects to the prisons of countries that torture 8212 and related policies his administration has outsourced human rights abuse to Afghanistan Somalia and elsewhereamp160 In this way he has avoided the political stigma of torture while tacitly tolerating such abuses and harvesting whatever intelligence can be gained from them This 8220resolution8221 of the torture issue may meet the needs of this country8217s deeply divided politics It cannot however long satisfy an international community determined to prosecute human rights abuses through universal jurisdiction It also runs the longterm risk of another sordid torture scandal that will further damage US standing with allies worldwide Perfecting a New Form of Torture The modern American urge to use torture did not of course begin on September 12 2001amp160 It has roots that reach back to the beginning of the Cold War and a human rights policy riven with contradictionsamp160Publicly Washington opposed torture and led the world in drafting the United Nation8217s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1949 Simultaneously and secretly however the Central Intelligence Agency began developing ingenious new torture techniques in contravention of these same international conventions From 1950 to 1962 the CIA led a secret research effort to crack the code of human consciousness a veritable Manhattan project of the mind with two findings foundational to a new form of psychological torture In the early 1950s while collaborating with the CIA famed Canadian psychologist Dr Donald Hebbamp160 discoveredamp160that using goggles gloves and earmuffs he could induce a state akin to psychosis among student volunteers by depriving them of sensory stimulation Simultaneously two eminent physicians at Cornell University Medical Center also working with the Agencyamp160 foundamp160that the most devastating torture technique used by the KGB the Soviet secret police involved simply forcing victims to stand for days at a time while legs swelled painfully and hallucinations began In 1963 after a decade of mindcontrol research the CIA codified these findings in a succinct secret instructional handbook theamp160 KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual It became the basis foramp160a new method of psychological torture disseminated worldwide and within the US intelligence community Avoiding direct involvement in torture the CIA instead trained allied agencies to do its dirty work in prisons throughout the Third World like South Vietnam8217s notorious 8220 tiger cages8221 The Korean War added a defensive dimension to this mindcontrol research After harsh North Korean psychological torture forced American POWs to accuse their own country of war crimes President Dwight Eisenhoweramp160 orderedthat any serviceman subject to capture be given resistance training which the Air Force soon dubbed with the acronym SERE for survival evasion resistance escape Once the Cold War ended in 1990 Washington resumed its advocacy of human rights ratifying the UN Convention Against Torture in 1994 which bannedamp160the infliction of 8220severe8221 psychological and physical pain The CIA ended its torture training in the Third World and the Defense Department recalled Latin American counterinsurgency manuals that contained instructions for using harsh interrogation techniques On the surface then Washington had resolved the tension between its antitorture principles and its torture practices But when President Bill Clinton sent the UN Convention to Congress for ratification in 1994 heamp160 included languageamp160drafted six years earlier by the Reagan administration that contained diplomatic 8220reservations8221 amp160In effect these addenda accepted the banning of physical abuse but exempted psychological torture A year later when the Clinton administrationamp160 launchedamp160its covert campaign against alQaeda the CIA avoided direct involvement in human rights violations by sending 70 terror suspects to allied nations notorious for physical tortureamp160 This practice called 8220extraordinary rendition8221 had supposedly been banned by the UN convention and so a new contradiction between Washington8217s human rights principles and its practices was buried like a political land mine ready to detonate withamp160phenomenal force just 10 years later in the Abu Ghraib scandal Normalizing Torture Right after his first public address to a shaken nation on September 11 2001 President George W Bush gave his White House staff expansive secret orders for the use of harsh interrogationamp160 adding 8220I don8217t care what the international lawyers say we are going to kick some ass8221 Soon after the CIA began opening 8220black sites8221 that would in the coming years stretch from Thailandamp160toamp160 Polandamp160 It alsoamp160 leasedamp160a fleet of executive jets for the rendition of detained terrorist suspects to allied nations and revived psychological tortures abandoned since the end of the Cold War Indeed the agencyamp160 hiredformer Air Force psychologists to reverse engineer SERE training techniques flipping them from defense to offense and thereby creating the psychological tortures that would henceforth travel far under the euphemistic label 8220enhanced interrogation techniques8221 In a parallel move in late 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed General Geoffrey Miller to head the new prison at Guantanamo Cuba and gave him broad authority to develop a total threephase attack on the sensory receptors cultural identity and individual psyches of his new prisoners After General Miller visited Abu Ghraib prison in September 2003 the US commander for Iraqamp160 issued ordersamp160for the use of psychological torture in US prisons in that country including sensory disorientation selfinflicted pain and a recent innovation cultural humiliation through exposure to dogs which American believed would be psychologically devastating for Arabs It is no accident that Private Lynndie England a military guard at Abu Ghraib prison wasamp160 famously photographedamp160leading a naked Iraqi detainee leashed like a dog Just two months after CBS News broadcast those notorious photos from Abu Ghraib in April 2004amp160 35amp160of Americans polled still felt torture was acceptable Why were so many tolerant of torture One partial explanation would be that in the years after 911 the mass media filled screens large and small across America with enticing images of abuse Amid this torrent of torture simulations two media icons served to normalize abuse for many Americans 8212 the fantasy of the 8220ticking time bomb scenario8221 and the fictional hero of the Fox Television show 8220248221 counterterror agent Jack Bauer In the months after 911 Harvard professor Alan Dershowitzamp160 launchedamp160a multimedia campaign arguing that torture would be necessary in the event US intelligence agents discovered that a terrorist had planted a ticking nuclear bomb in New York8217s Times Square Although this scenario was a fantasy whose sole foundation was an obscure academic philosophy article published back in 1973 such ticking bombs soon enough became a media trope and a persuasive reality for many Americans 8212 particularly thanks to 8220248221 every segment of which began with an oversized clock ticking menacingly In 67 torture scenes during its first five seasons the show portrayed agent Jack Bauer8217s recourse to abuse as timely effective and often seductive By its last broadcast in May 2010 the simple invocation of agent Bauer8217s name had become a persuasive argument for torture used by everyone from Supreme Court Justiceamp160 Antonin Scaliaamp160to exPresident Bill Clinton While campaigning for his wife Hillary in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary Clinton typically cited 8220248221 as a justification for allowing CIA agents acting outside the law to torture in extreme emergencies 8220When Bauer goes out there on his own and is prepared to live with the consequences8221 Clintonamp160 toldamp160Meet the Press 8220it always seems to work better8221 Impunity in America Such a normalization of 8220enhanced interrogation techniques8221 created public support for an impunity achieved by immunizing all those culpable of crimes of torture During President Obama8217s first two years in office former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Lizamp160 madeamp160dozens of television appearances accusing his administration of weakening America8217s security by investigating CIA interrogators who had used such techniques under Bush Ironically Obama8217s assassination of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 provided an opening for neoconservatives to move the nation toward impunity Forming anamp160a cappellaamp160media chorus former Bush administration officials appeared on television toamp160 claim without any factual basis that torture had somehow led the Navy SEALs to Bin Laden Within weeks Attorney General Eric Holder announcedamp160an end to any investigation of harsh CIA interrogations and to the possibility of bringing any of the CIA torturers to courtamp160 Consider it striking then that the only 8220torture8221 case brought to court by the administration involvedamp160a former CIA agent John Kiriakou who had leaked the names of some torturers Starting on the 10th anniversary of 911 the country took the next step toward full impunity via a radical rewriting of the past In a memoir published on August 30 2011 Dick Cheneyamp160 claimedamp160the CIA8217s use of 8220enhanced interrogation techniques8221 on an alQaeda leader named Abu Zubaydah had turned this hardened terrorist into a 8220fount of information8221 and saved 8220thousands of lives8221 Just two weeks later on September 12 2011 former FBI counterterror agent Ali Soufan released his own memoirsamp160 statingamp160that he was the one who started the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah back in 2002 using empathetic nontorture techniques that quickly gained 8220important actionable intelligence8221 about 8220the role of KSM Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the 911 attacks8221 Angered by the FBI8217s success CIA director George Tenet dispatched his own interrogators from Washington led by Dr James Mitchell the former SERE psychologist who had developed the agency8217s harsh 8220enhanced techniques8221 As the CIA team moved up the 8220force continuum8221 from 8220lowlevel sleep deprivation8221 to nudity noise barrage and the use of a claustrophobic confinement box Dr Mitchell8217s harsh methods got 8220no information8221 By contrast at each step in this escalating abuse Ali Soufan was brought back for more quiet questioning in Arabic thatamp160 coaxedamp160out all the valuable intelligence Zubaydah had to offer The results of thisamp160ad hocamp160scientific test were blindingly clear FBI empathy was consistently effective while CIA coercion proved counterproductive But this fundamental yet fragile truth has been obscured by CIA censorship and neoconservative casuistry Cheney8217s secondhand account completely omitted the FBI presence Moreover the CIAamp160 demandedamp160181 pages of excisions from Ali Soufan8217s memoirs that reduced his chapters about this interrogation experience to a maze of blackened lines no regular reader can understand The agency8217s attempt to rewrite the past has continued into the present Just last April Jose Rodriguez former chief of CIA Clandestine Services published his uncensored memoirs under the provocative titleamp160Hard Measures How Aggressive CIA Actions after 911 Saved American Lives In a promotional television interview heamp160 calledamp160FBI claims of success with empathetic methods 8220bullshit8221 With the past largely rewritten to assure Americans that the CIA8217s 8220enhanced interrogation8221 had worked the perpetrators of torture were home free and the process of impunity and immunity established for future use Rendition Under Obama Apart from these Republican pressures President Obama8217s own aggressive views on national security have contributed to an undeniable continuity with many of his predecessor8217s most controversial policies Not only has he preservedamp160the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo andamp160 foughtthe courts to block civil suits against torture perpetrators he has above all authorized continuing CIA rendition flights During the 2008 presidential campaign Obama went beyond any other candidate inamp160 offering unqualified oppositionamp160to both direct and indirect US involvement in torture 8220We have to be clear and unequivocal We do not torture period8221 he said adding 8220That will be my position as president That includes by the way renditions8221 Only days after his January 2009 inauguration Obama issued a dramatic executive order ending the CIA8217s coercive techniques but it turned out to include a large loophole that preserved the agency8217s role in extraordinary renditions Amid his order8217s ringing rhetoric about compliance with the Geneva conventions and assuring 8220humane treatment of individuals in United States custody8221 the president issued a clear and unequivocal order that 8220the CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future8221 But when the CIA8217s counselamp160 objectedamp160that this blanket prohibition would also 8220take us out of the rendition business8221 Obamaamp160 added a footnoteamp160with a small but significant qualification 8220The terms 8216detention facilities8217 and 8216detention facility8217 in8230 this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a shortterm transitory basis8221 Through the slippery legalese of this definition Obama thus allowed the CIA continue its rendition flights of terror suspects to allied nations for possible torture Moreover in February 2009 Obama8217s incoming CIA director Leon Panetta announcedamp160that the agency would indeed continue the practice 8220in renditions where we returned an individual to the jurisdiction of another country and they exercised their rights8230 to prosecute him under their laws I think8221 he added ignoring the UN antitorture convention8217s strict conditions for this practice 8220that is an appropriate use of rendition8221 As the CIA expanded covert operations inside Somalia under Obama its renditions of terror suspects from neighboring East African nationsamp160 continuedjust as they had under Bush amp160In July 2009 for example Kenyan police snatched an alQaeda suspect Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan from a Nairobi slum and delivered him to that city8217s airport for a CIA flight to Mogadishu There he joined dozens of prisoners grabbed off the streets of Kenya inside 8220The Hole8221 8212 a filthy underground prison buried in the windowless basement of Somalia8217s National Security Agency While Somali guards paid for with US funds ran the prison CIA operatives reported theamp160Nation8217samp160Jeremy Scahill have open access for extended interrogation Obama also allowed the continuation of a policy adopted after the Abu Ghraib scandal outsourcing incarceration to local allies in Afghanistan and Iraq while ignoring human rights abuses there Although the US militaryamp160 receivedamp1601365 reports about the torture of detainees by Iraqi forcesamp160between May 2004 and December 2009 a period that included Obama8217s first full year in office American officersamp160 refused to take action even though the abuses reported were often extreme Simultaneously Washington8217s Afghan allies increasingly turned to torture after the Abu Ghraib scandal prompted US officials to transfer most interrogation to local authorities After interviewing 324 detainees held by Afghanistan8217s National Directorate of Security NDS in 2011 the UNamp160 foundamp160that 8220torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan8221 At the Directorate8217s prison in Kandahar one interrogator told a detainee before starting to torture him 8220You should confess what you have done in the past as Taliban even stones confess here8221 Although such reports prompted both British and Canadian forces to curtail prisoner transfers the US military continues to turn over detainees to Afghan authorities 8212 a policy thatamp160 commentedamp160theamp160New York Times 8220raises serious questions about potential complicity of American officials8221 How to Unclog the System of Justice One Drone at a Time After a decade of intense public debate over torture in the last two years the United States has arrived at a questionable default political compromise impunity at home rendition abroad This resolution does not bode well for future US leadership of an international community determined to end the scourge of tortureamp160 Italy8217s prosecutionamp160of twodozen CIA agents for rendition in 2009 Poland8217s recentamp160 indictmentamp160of its former security chief for facilitating a CIA black site and Britain8217samp160 ongoing criminal investigationamp160of intelligence officials who collaborated with alleged torture at Guantanamo are harbingers of continuing pressures on the US to comply with international standards for human rights Meanwhile unchecked by any domestic or international sanction Washington has slid down torture8217s slippery slope to find just as the French did in Algeria during the 1950s that at its bottom lies the moral abyss of extrajudicial execution The systematic French torture of thousands during the Battle of Algiers in 1957 also generated over 3000 8220summary executions8221 to insure as one French generalamp160 put it that 8220the machine of justice8221 not be 8220clogged with cases8221 In an eerie parallel Washington has reacted to the torture scandals of the Bush era by generally forgoing arrests and opting for nofuss aerial assassinations From 2005 to 2012 US drone killings inside Pakistanamp160 roseamp160from zero to a total of 2400 and still going up 8212 a figure disturbingly close to those 3000 French assassinations in Algeria In addition it has now been revealed that the president himselfamp160 regularly ordersamp160specific assassinations by drone in Pakistan Yemen and Somalia off a secret 8220 kill list8221amp160 Simultaneously his administration has takenamp160just one terror suspect into US custody and has not added any new prisoners to Guantanamo thereby avoiding any more clogging of the machinery of American justice Absent any searching inquiry or binding reforms assassination is now the everyday American way of war while extraordinary renditions remain a tool of stateamp160 Make no mistake some future torture scandal is sure to arise from another iconic dungeon in the dismal everlengthening historical procession leading from the 8220tiger cages8221 of South Vietnam to 8220 the salt pit8221 in Afghanistan and 8220The Hole8221 in Somalia Next time the world might not be so forgiving Next time with those images from Abu Ghraib prison etched in human memory the damage to America8217s moral authority as world leader could prove even more deep and lasting Alfred W McCoy is the JRW Smail Professor of History at the University of WisconsinMadison He is the author ofamp160 A Question of Torture CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror which provided documentation for the Oscarwinning documentary feature filmamp160Taxi to the Darkside His recent bookamp160 Torture and Impunity The US Doctrine of Coercive Interrogationamp160University of Wisconsin 2012 explores the American experience of torture during the past decade This essay was originally published by TomDispatch

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<p>MILAN (Reuters) - Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air is interested in Italy&#8217;s struggling carrier Alitalia but only regarding short and medium-haul routes, Chief Executive Jozsef Varadi told La Repubblica newspaper in an interview.</p> Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Wizz Air, talks during a news conference onboard a flight over Warsaw, Poland, May 19, 2015. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo <p>Alitalia, which has made a profit only a few times in its 70-year history, was put under special administration last year after staff rejected a plan to cut jobs and salaries.</p> <p>&#8220;We are interested in the Italian market ... as far as Alitalia is concerned, we are only looking at the parts that are of interest to us, the short and medium haul; certainly not for the intercontinental flights,&#8221; Varadi told the paper, adding he would be visiting Italy in the coming weeks.</p> <p>Germany&#8217;s Lufthansa, British low-cost carrier easyJet and U.S. private equity fund Cerberus are among companies that have expressed an interest in Alitalia.</p> <p>Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>ULSAN, South Korea (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=005380.KS" type="external">005380.KS</a>) union chief warned its workers may face a similar crisis to the one hitting General Motors&#8217; ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) South Korean unit as sales in key markets slide, adding that electric cars were &#8216;evil&#8217; and will destroy jobs.</p> Ha Bu-young, Hyundai Motor's South Korean union chief speaks during an interview with Reuters in Ulsan, South Korea, March 23, 2018. Picture taken March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Hyunjoo Jin <p>South Korea&#8217;s auto industry, known for its robust unions whose workers tend to be paid more and have better benefits than their compatriots in other sectors, has come to a crossroads.</p> <p>Blaming high labor costs and falling sales, General Motors ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) plans to close one of its plants in the country by May and is weighing options for its three other factories.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re feeling job anxiety. We&#8217;re feeling a sense of crisis,&#8221; Ha Bu-young, the head of the Hyundai Motor union, South Korea&#8217;s biggest and most powerful union, told Reuters in an interview late last week.</p> <p>He said that at three of Hyundai&#8217;s five plants in Ulsan, the world&#8217;s biggest car factory complex, some workers had been asked to take longer holidays as sales of sedans and older model SUVs like the Santa Fe slow in the United States and other markets.</p> <p>Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=000270.KS" type="external">000270.KS</a>) were also hit by diplomatic tensions between Seoul and Beijing last year, leading to a slump in sales in the world&#8217;s biggest auto market. The two automakers have flagged only modest global sales growth in 2018. &amp;#160;</p> <p>Longer term, Ha worries about the advent of electric cars, which when they go mainstream could wreak havoc on traditional auto jobs as they don&#8217;t require engines and transmissions.</p> <p>Hyundai&#8217;s union has predicted a drastic shift into electric cars could lead to a loss of 70 percent of Hyundai jobs in a worst case scenario.</p> <p>&#8220;Electric cars are disasters. They are evil. We are very nervous,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Ha said the union is studying how cars of the future might be built without slashing headcount and has proposed the automaker revive a committee to review the impact of new vehicles and new technology on jobs.</p> <p>He also noted that some 30,000 workers out of 50,000 union members will retire in 15 years, which could cushion the impact that cars of the future could have on staffing levels.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=005380.KS" type="external">Hyundai Motor Co</a> 154000.0 005380.KS Korea Stock Exchange +4,500.00 (+3.01%) 005380.KS GM.N 000270.KS FREE TRIPS TO EUROPE <p>At GM&#8217;s South Korean unit, the threat of potential plant closures has led its union to offer to freeze wages and skip bonuses while about 15 percent of its employees have applied for a voluntary redundancy package.</p> <p>While there is a sense of crisis at Hyundai&#8217;s union, the situation is not that dire.</p> <p>Hyundai&#8217;s management has proposed the scaling back of some benefits such as free week-long trips to Europe for 500 workers annually as well as support for some employees&#8217; sporting events - a proposal that the union plans to oppose, a union official said.</p> <p>But the union will for the first time seek pay raises for temporary workers this year that are higher than those of full-time auto workers, responding to criticism that regular auto works are generously paid.</p> <p>It will ask for a 7.4 percent wage increase for temporary workers versus a 5.3 percent wage raise for regular workers, Ha said, in line with a policy advocated by the umbrella union for South Korea&#8217;s metal workers.</p> <p>Last year Hyundai&#8217;s union initially demanded annual wage increases of 7 percent for its full-time workers and won a raise of less than 5 percent after tense negotiations that involved strikes.</p> <p>The shift towards improving pay for non-full time workers could invite opposition within the union, said Ha, adding that he was trying to right old wrongs.</p> <p>Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Edwina Gibbs</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>FRANKFURT/ZURICH (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) is buying Novartis ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NOVN.S" type="external">NOVN.S</a>) out of their consumer healthcare joint venture for $13 billion, taking full control of products including Sensodyne toothpaste, Panadol headache tablets, muscle gel Voltaren, and Nicotinell patches.</p> <p>GSK&#8217;s biggest move since Emma Walmsley became chief executive last year follows the British drugmaker&#8217;s decision last week to quit the race to buy Pfizer&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PFE.N" type="external">PFE.N</a>) consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. company hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.</p> <p>Consumer remedies sold over the counter have lower margins than prescription drugs, but they are typically well-known brands with customers.</p> <p>&#8220;The proposed transaction addresses one of our key capital allocation priorities and will allow GSK shareholders to capture the full value of one of the world&#8217;s leading consumer healthcare businesses,&#8221; Walmsley said in a statement on Tuesday.</p> <p>Although some pharmaceuticals groups have been keen to hold consumer care products, intense price competition online, mainly from Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), as well as cheaper store-brand products, have led others to doubt their stable returns longer-term.</p> <p>The British group&#8217;s shares jumped 6.1 percent, outperforming a 2 percent gain in the STOXX Europe 600 Health Care .SXDP.</p> <p>GSK said that as well as ending the Novartis venture it would start a strategic review of Horlicks and other consumer nutrition products, sparking another potential industry shake-up. The review will include an assessment of its majority stake in India-listed GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GLSM.NS" type="external">GLSM.NS</a>).</p> <p>&#8220;The decision not to pay up for Pfizer&#8217;s consumer assets will have led GSK CEO Emma Walmsley to remove uncertainty by bringing all the consumer revenues in-house and assisting toward efficient capital allocation,&#8221; said Ketan Patel, co-manager of the Amity UK Fund at EdenTree Investment Management, who holds GSK shares.</p> <p>&#8220;Long-term investors will welcome the greater clarity this brings to both companies.&#8221;</p> <p>GSK said that the purchase would boost adjusted earnings and cash flows.</p> <p>Pfizer has been struggling to sell its consumer healthcare business after GSK and Reckitt Benckiser ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RB.L" type="external">RB.L</a>) both dropped out of the bidding, while differences in price expectations have also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MRCG.DE" type="external">MRCG.DE</a>) attempts to sell its consumer products unit.</p> <p>And GSK&#8217;s call for bids for its consumer healthcare nutrition brands - with a regional focus on India - could detract attention from Merck&#8217;s asset, which relies heavily on sales of vitamins and dietary supplements in emerging markets.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) NOVARTIS SHARES RISE <p>Barclays analysts said Glaxo was paying less than 17 times expected 2018 core earnings for the joint venture stake, while sources have told Reuters that both Merck and Pfizer had asked for up to 20 times for their respective assets.</p> <p>Yet analysts at Baader Helvea welcomed the cash price fetched by Novartis as &#8220;excellent news&#8221; for the Swiss company, whose shares opened 1.9 percent higher.</p> <p>Deutsche Bank analysts said the move decluttered Novartis&#8217;s portfolio, but cautioned that the Swiss group was being too vague about what it would do with the cash.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GlaxoSmithKline PLC</a> 1351.0 GSK.L London Stock Exchange +62.80 (+4.88%) GSK.L NOVN.S PFE.N AMZN.O GLSM.NS <p>&#8220;The time&amp;#160;is&amp;#160;right for Novartis to divest&amp;#160;a&amp;#160;non-core asset at an&amp;#160;attractive price,&#8221; Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said.</p> <p>Novartis said the money would be used by Novartis to expand its business organically as well as for bolt-on acquisitions.</p> <p>In an interview before the deal was announced, Narasimhan ruled out large acquisitions by the Basel-based company.</p> <p>&#8220;We want to focus our M&amp;amp;A efforts on bolt on acquisitions that have either new technologies or products that fit into our core therapeutic areas,&#8221; he told CNBC in an interview recorded on Sunday.</p> <p>For Narasimhan, a Harvard trained medical doctor, the disposal is among his first moves as CEO, a role he took on less than two months ago when he replaced Joe Jimenez.</p> <p>He is now emphasizing the use of technology to boost returns on research investment but Novartis is currently also reviewing its Alcon eye care unit for a possible spinoff to shareholders, which could come in early 2019.</p> <p>Under the 2014 deal to pool their consumer assets, Novartis had the right so sell its 36.5 percent stake to Glaxo from this month. The transaction is set to complete in the second quarter, subject to necessary approvals.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-novartis-gsk-margins/gsk-says-very-confident-about-consumer-margin-goal-of-at-least-20-percent-idUSKBN1H317X" type="external">GSK says very confident about consumer margin goal of at least 20 percent</a> <p>($1 = 0.7029 pounds)</p> <p>additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London, Michael Shields in Zurich; editing by Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - U.S. gunmaker Remington Outdoor Co has obtained commitments for nearly $300 million from its existing lenders, including some of the biggest U.S. banks, after new sources of funding dried up in the months leading up to its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.</p> <p>During that time, the company&#8217;s investment bank, Lazard Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=LAZ.N" type="external">LAZ.N</a>), approached more than 30 possible lenders, according to court documents.</p> <p>&#8220;The vast majority of lenders contacted, however, indicated they were reluctant to provide financing to firearms manufacturers,&#8221; said Lazard banker Ari Lefkovits in the papers.</p> <p>Most of the banks providing the bankruptcy funding were lenders to Remington before its current financial problems, according to court records. Without the funds, Remington may have been forced to go out of business and the banks could have seen their investment crash in value.</p> <p>The company and its investors have been under heightened scrutiny after 17 were killed in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida in February.</p> <p>Remington filed for bankruptcy one day after hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to demand tighter gun control measures.</p> <p>Banks often sell troubled loans to hedge funds when a borrower is heading into bankruptcy, but one source told Reuters that even as the Remington loans were heavily discounted, buyers were scarce.</p> <p>The company&#8217;s bankruptcy lenders include Bank of America Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">BAC.N</a>), Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>), JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) and Deutsche Bank AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>), according to court documents.</p> <p>Remington disclosed the loan details in its Sunday bankruptcy filing, which the company said will allow it to cancel $775 million of debt and bring it out of Chapter 11 as soon as May.</p> <p>Smaller banks Regions Financial Corporation ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RF.N" type="external">RF.N</a>), BB&amp;amp;T Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBT.N" type="external">BBT.N</a>), Synovus Financial Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNV.N" type="external">SNV.N</a>) and Fifth Third Bancorp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FITB.O" type="external">FITB.O</a>) have also committed to help fund Remington&#8217;s bankruptcy loans, court documents show. An affiliate of investment manager Franklin Templeton Investments, another lender, is also providing funds.</p> <p>Bank of America, Regions, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Synovus declined to comment.</p> <p>BB&amp;amp;T declined to comment on its lending relationships. The bank said part of its consideration is to listen to its clients and stakeholders, who have a wide range of opinions.</p> FILE PHOTO: A man walks with his Remington 870 Express 12 gauge shotgun during a pro-gun and Second Amendment protest outside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., January 19, 2013. REUTERS/Joshua Lott/File Photo <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re deeply concerned with the increasing amount of gun violence in our schools and communities,&#8221; the bank said.</p> <p>The others, along with Remington, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p> <p>The company ran into trouble after borrowing to ramp up production in 2016 in anticipation of greater industry demand, according to court filings.</p> <p>The expectation of higher sales was in part driven by fears of a Hillary Clinton presidency and tighter gun controls. With the election of Donald Trump, who has said he strongly supports gun ownership, the firearms industry was stuck with a glut of weapons and higher levels of debt.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=LAZ.N" type="external">Lazard Ltd</a> 52.71 LAZ.N New York Stock Exchange +0.17 (+0.32%) LAZ.N BAC.N WFC.N JPM.N DBKGn.DE <p>Remington, which said in January it was nearly out of cash, plans to tap the loans from the banks to help pay corporate expenses, including payroll, during its bankruptcy filing.</p> <p>Remington&#8217;s bondholders are also providing some of the bankruptcy loan and will receive a stake in the company when it exits bankruptcy.</p> <p>Their identities were redacted in court documents.</p> <p>The company also asked the court to seal the letters detailing the fees the lenders will earn from the loans, saying that the sums are commercially sensitive, according to filings in the bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware.</p> <p>The court records also showed that Remington&#8217;s business faces new hurdles in the wake of the Florida shooting.</p> <p>The company cited a risk to its business from restrictions placed on gun sales by retailers such Walmart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>), Dick&#8217;s Sporting Goods Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DKS.N" type="external">DKS.N</a>) and Kroger Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KR.N" type="external">KR.N</a>).</p> <p>Walmart accounted for 11 percent of Remington sales in 2017, according to court documents.</p> <p>Remington also said sales could be hurt by more government regulation, including enhanced background checks and a broader definition of &#8220;dealer&#8221; under current gun laws. Remington said if the 1994 federal assault weapons ban were re-enacted it would have an adverse effect on the business.</p> <p>Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Jessica DiNapoli in New York</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and Russia are working on a historic long-term pact that could extend controls over world crude supplies by major exporters for many years to come.</p> Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman attends the Annual Horse Race ceremony, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 30, 2017. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS <p>Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters that Riyadh and Moscow were considering a longer deal to extend a short-term alliance on oil curbs that began in January 2017 after a crash in crude prices.</p> <p>&#8220;We are working to shift from a year-to-year agreement to a 10-20 year agreement,&#8221; the crown prince told Reuters in an interview in New York late on Monday.</p> <p>&#8220;We have agreement on the big picture, but not yet on the detail.&#8221;&amp;#160;</p> <p>Russia, never a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has worked alongside the 14-member cartel during previous oil gluts, but a 10-20 year deal between the two would be unprecedented.</p> <p>Top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia recruited Russia and other non-OPEC countries to help drain a glut when oil prices collapsed from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to below $30 in 2016.</p> <p>Crude has since recovered to $70 but fast-rising output from U.S. shale producers has capped prices.</p> <p>&#8220;This is all about whether the arrangement is a short-term expedient to deal with this particular crisis in the oil market, or whether it reflects a realignment in world oil,&#8221; said oil historian Daniel Yergin, vice-chairman at consultancy IHS Markit.</p> <p>&#8220;OPEC countries want to find a way to institutionalize this relationship rather than to have it be a one-shot deal.&#8221;</p> The Russian flag and the OPEC logo are seen before a news conference in Vienna, Austria, October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger ALLIANCE DESPITE SYRIA DIFFERENCES <p>News of the potential oil alliance comes at a time when Riyadh and Moscow have worked to cement an economic relationship despite being at odds over the conflict in Syria, where they back opposing sides.</p> <p>Riyadh supports rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s army, while Russian and Iranian forces have backed Assad &#8211; meaning that Russia effectively sides with Iran, Riyadh&#8217;s regional arch-foe.</p> <p>Last October, Saudi King Salman became the first sitting Saudi monarch ever to visit Russia. He led a delegation to Moscow that agreed joint investment deals worth several billion dollars, providing much-needed investment for a Russian economy battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions.</p> <p>Despite their differences in the Middle East, Russia and Saudi Arabia have been drawn together by a common interest in propping up flagging world oil prices, and by the fact that Moscow, since its military intervention in Syria, has clout in the Middle East that other countries in the region cannot ignore.</p> ARAMCO IPO LATE 2018, EARLY 2019 <p>The crown prince predicted that world oil demand would not peak until 2040, despite advances in renewable energy technologies and the electric vehicle.</p> <p>In an attempt to end Saudi Arabia&#8217;s reliance on oil, he is leading a push to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil and gas by 2030.</p> <p>Riyadh plans to raise funds through the flotation of a 5 percent stake in state Saudi oil company Aramco. Time is running out for an initial public offering this year but the crown prince said the IPO could still take place at the end of 2018 or in early 2019, depending on financial market conditions.</p> <p>Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih said last week that documentation was ready but that a venue for the IPO had not yet been decided. The New York stock exchange is still in the running for the IPO, alongside London and Hong Kong, but Falih said there was a risk of a &#8220;frivolous&#8221; legal action if Aramco were listed in the United States.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Stephen Adler; Editing by Frances Kerry</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Wizz Air keen on Alitalia but only for short, medium-haul routes: CEO to paper Hyundai union head fears GM-like crisis; says electric cars destroy jobs GSK buys out Novartis in $13 billion consumer healthcare shake-up U.S. banks provide rescue financing for gunmaker Remington Exclusive: OPEC, Russia consider 10-20 year oil alliance - Saudi Crown Prince

https://reuters.com/article/us-alitalia-m-a/wizz-air-keen-on-alitalia-but-only-for-short-medium-haul-routes-ceo-to-paper-idUSKBN1FC0M2

2018-01-23

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MILAN Reuters Hungarian lowcost airline Wizz Air is interested in Italy8217s struggling carrier Alitalia but only regarding short and mediumhaul routes Chief Executive Jozsef Varadi told La Repubblica newspaper in an interview Jozsef Varadi CEO of Wizz Air talks during a news conference onboard a flight over Warsaw Poland May 19 2015 REUTERSBernadett Szabo Alitalia which has made a profit only a few times in its 70year history was put under special administration last year after staff rejected a plan to cut jobs and salaries 8220We are interested in the Italian market as far as Alitalia is concerned we are only looking at the parts that are of interest to us the short and medium haul certainly not for the intercontinental flights8221 Varadi told the paper adding he would be visiting Italy in the coming weeks Germany8217s Lufthansa British lowcost carrier easyJet and US private equity fund Cerberus are among companies that have expressed an interest in Alitalia Reporting by Agnieszka Flak Editing by Gopakumar Warrier Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles ULSAN South Korea Reuters Hyundai Motor8217s 005380KS union chief warned its workers may face a similar crisis to the one hitting General Motors8217 GMN South Korean unit as sales in key markets slide adding that electric cars were 8216evil8217 and will destroy jobs Ha Buyoung Hyundai Motors South Korean union chief speaks during an interview with Reuters in Ulsan South Korea March 23 2018 Picture taken March 23 2018 REUTERSHyunjoo Jin South Korea8217s auto industry known for its robust unions whose workers tend to be paid more and have better benefits than their compatriots in other sectors has come to a crossroads Blaming high labor costs and falling sales General Motors GMN plans to close one of its plants in the country by May and is weighing options for its three other factories 8220We8217re feeling job anxiety We8217re feeling a sense of crisis8221 Ha Buyoung the head of the Hyundai Motor union South Korea8217s biggest and most powerful union told Reuters in an interview late last week He said that at three of Hyundai8217s five plants in Ulsan the world8217s biggest car factory complex some workers had been asked to take longer holidays as sales of sedans and older model SUVs like the Santa Fe slow in the United States and other markets Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors 000270KS were also hit by diplomatic tensions between Seoul and Beijing last year leading to a slump in sales in the world8217s biggest auto market The two automakers have flagged only modest global sales growth in 2018 amp160 Longer term Ha worries about the advent of electric cars which when they go mainstream could wreak havoc on traditional auto jobs as they don8217t require engines and transmissions Hyundai8217s union has predicted a drastic shift into electric cars could lead to a loss of 70 percent of Hyundai jobs in a worst case scenario 8220Electric cars are disasters They are evil We are very nervous8221 he said Ha said the union is studying how cars of the future might be built without slashing headcount and has proposed the automaker revive a committee to review the impact of new vehicles and new technology on jobs He also noted that some 30000 workers out of 50000 union members will retire in 15 years which could cushion the impact that cars of the future could have on staffing levels Hyundai Motor Co 1540000 005380KS Korea Stock Exchange 450000 301 005380KS GMN 000270KS FREE TRIPS TO EUROPE At GM8217s South Korean unit the threat of potential plant closures has led its union to offer to freeze wages and skip bonuses while about 15 percent of its employees have applied for a voluntary redundancy package While there is a sense of crisis at Hyundai8217s union the situation is not that dire Hyundai8217s management has proposed the scaling back of some benefits such as free weeklong trips to Europe for 500 workers annually as well as support for some employees8217 sporting events a proposal that the union plans to oppose a union official said But the union will for the first time seek pay raises for temporary workers this year that are higher than those of fulltime auto workers responding to criticism that regular auto works are generously paid It will ask for a 74 percent wage increase for temporary workers versus a 53 percent wage raise for regular workers Ha said in line with a policy advocated by the umbrella union for South Korea8217s metal workers Last year Hyundai8217s union initially demanded annual wage increases of 7 percent for its fulltime workers and won a raise of less than 5 percent after tense negotiations that involved strikes The shift towards improving pay for nonfull time workers could invite opposition within the union said Ha adding that he was trying to right old wrongs Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin Editing by Soyoung Kim and Edwina Gibbs Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles FRANKFURTZURICH Reuters GlaxoSmithKline GSKL is buying Novartis NOVNS out of their consumer healthcare joint venture for 13 billion taking full control of products including Sensodyne toothpaste Panadol headache tablets muscle gel Voltaren and Nicotinell patches GSK8217s biggest move since Emma Walmsley became chief executive last year follows the British drugmaker8217s decision last week to quit the race to buy Pfizer8217s PFEN consumer healthcare business endangering an auction the US company hoped would bring in as much as 20 billion Consumer remedies sold over the counter have lower margins than prescription drugs but they are typically wellknown brands with customers 8220The proposed transaction addresses one of our key capital allocation priorities and will allow GSK shareholders to capture the full value of one of the world8217s leading consumer healthcare businesses8221 Walmsley said in a statement on Tuesday Although some pharmaceuticals groups have been keen to hold consumer care products intense price competition online mainly from Amazon AMZNO as well as cheaper storebrand products have led others to doubt their stable returns longerterm The British group8217s shares jumped 61 percent outperforming a 2 percent gain in the STOXX Europe 600 Health Care SXDP GSK said that as well as ending the Novartis venture it would start a strategic review of Horlicks and other consumer nutrition products sparking another potential industry shakeup The review will include an assessment of its majority stake in Indialisted GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare GLSMNS 8220The decision not to pay up for Pfizer8217s consumer assets will have led GSK CEO Emma Walmsley to remove uncertainty by bringing all the consumer revenues inhouse and assisting toward efficient capital allocation8221 said Ketan Patel comanager of the Amity UK Fund at EdenTree Investment Management who holds GSK shares 8220Longterm investors will welcome the greater clarity this brings to both companies8221 GSK said that the purchase would boost adjusted earnings and cash flows Pfizer has been struggling to sell its consumer healthcare business after GSK and Reckitt Benckiser RBL both dropped out of the bidding while differences in price expectations have also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA8217s MRCGDE attempts to sell its consumer products unit And GSK8217s call for bids for its consumer healthcare nutrition brands with a regional focus on India could detract attention from Merck8217s asset which relies heavily on sales of vitamins and dietary supplements in emerging markets Slideshow 2 Images NOVARTIS SHARES RISE Barclays analysts said Glaxo was paying less than 17 times expected 2018 core earnings for the joint venture stake while sources have told Reuters that both Merck and Pfizer had asked for up to 20 times for their respective assets Yet analysts at Baader Helvea welcomed the cash price fetched by Novartis as 8220excellent news8221 for the Swiss company whose shares opened 19 percent higher Deutsche Bank analysts said the move decluttered Novartis8217s portfolio but cautioned that the Swiss group was being too vague about what it would do with the cash GlaxoSmithKline PLC 13510 GSKL London Stock Exchange 6280 488 GSKL NOVNS PFEN AMZNO GLSMNS 8220The timeamp160isamp160right for Novartis to divestamp160aamp160noncore asset at anamp160attractive price8221 Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said Novartis said the money would be used by Novartis to expand its business organically as well as for bolton acquisitions In an interview before the deal was announced Narasimhan ruled out large acquisitions by the Baselbased company 8220We want to focus our MampampA efforts on bolt on acquisitions that have either new technologies or products that fit into our core therapeutic areas8221 he told CNBC in an interview recorded on Sunday For Narasimhan a Harvard trained medical doctor the disposal is among his first moves as CEO a role he took on less than two months ago when he replaced Joe Jimenez He is now emphasizing the use of technology to boost returns on research investment but Novartis is currently also reviewing its Alcon eye care unit for a possible spinoff to shareholders which could come in early 2019 Under the 2014 deal to pool their consumer assets Novartis had the right so sell its 365 percent stake to Glaxo from this month The transaction is set to complete in the second quarter subject to necessary approvals Related Coverage GSK says very confident about consumer margin goal of at least 20 percent 1 07029 pounds additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London Michael Shields in Zurich editing by Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters US gunmaker Remington Outdoor Co has obtained commitments for nearly 300 million from its existing lenders including some of the biggest US banks after new sources of funding dried up in the months leading up to its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy During that time the company8217s investment bank Lazard Ltd LAZN approached more than 30 possible lenders according to court documents 8220The vast majority of lenders contacted however indicated they were reluctant to provide financing to firearms manufacturers8221 said Lazard banker Ari Lefkovits in the papers Most of the banks providing the bankruptcy funding were lenders to Remington before its current financial problems according to court records Without the funds Remington may have been forced to go out of business and the banks could have seen their investment crash in value The company and its investors have been under heightened scrutiny after 17 were killed in a school shooting in Parkland Florida in February Remington filed for bankruptcy one day after hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to demand tighter gun control measures Banks often sell troubled loans to hedge funds when a borrower is heading into bankruptcy but one source told Reuters that even as the Remington loans were heavily discounted buyers were scarce The company8217s bankruptcy lenders include Bank of America Corp BACN Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN and Deutsche Bank AG DBKGnDE according to court documents Remington disclosed the loan details in its Sunday bankruptcy filing which the company said will allow it to cancel 775 million of debt and bring it out of Chapter 11 as soon as May Smaller banks Regions Financial Corporation RFN BBampampT Corp BBTN Synovus Financial Corp SNVN and Fifth Third Bancorp FITBO have also committed to help fund Remington8217s bankruptcy loans court documents show An affiliate of investment manager Franklin Templeton Investments another lender is also providing funds Bank of America Regions Deutsche Bank JPMorgan and Synovus declined to comment BBampampT declined to comment on its lending relationships The bank said part of its consideration is to listen to its clients and stakeholders who have a wide range of opinions FILE PHOTO A man walks with his Remington 870 Express 12 gauge shotgun during a progun and Second Amendment protest outside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix Arizona US January 19 2013 REUTERSJoshua LottFile Photo 8220We8217re deeply concerned with the increasing amount of gun violence in our schools and communities8221 the bank said The others along with Remington did not immediately respond to a request for comment The company ran into trouble after borrowing to ramp up production in 2016 in anticipation of greater industry demand according to court filings The expectation of higher sales was in part driven by fears of a Hillary Clinton presidency and tighter gun controls With the election of Donald Trump who has said he strongly supports gun ownership the firearms industry was stuck with a glut of weapons and higher levels of debt Lazard Ltd 5271 LAZN New York Stock Exchange 017 032 LAZN BACN WFCN JPMN DBKGnDE Remington which said in January it was nearly out of cash plans to tap the loans from the banks to help pay corporate expenses including payroll during its bankruptcy filing Remington8217s bondholders are also providing some of the bankruptcy loan and will receive a stake in the company when it exits bankruptcy Their identities were redacted in court documents The company also asked the court to seal the letters detailing the fees the lenders will earn from the loans saying that the sums are commercially sensitive according to filings in the bankruptcy court in Wilmington Delaware The court records also showed that Remington8217s business faces new hurdles in the wake of the Florida shooting The company cited a risk to its business from restrictions placed on gun sales by retailers such Walmart Inc WMTN Dick8217s Sporting Goods Inc DKSN and Kroger Co KRN Walmart accounted for 11 percent of Remington sales in 2017 according to court documents Remington also said sales could be hurt by more government regulation including enhanced background checks and a broader definition of 8220dealer8221 under current gun laws Remington said if the 1994 federal assault weapons ban were reenacted it would have an adverse effect on the business Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington Delaware and Jessica DiNapoli in New York Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Saudi Arabia and Russia are working on a historic longterm pact that could extend controls over world crude supplies by major exporters for many years to come Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman attends the Annual Horse Race ceremony in Riyadh Saudi Arabia December 30 2017 Bandar AlgaloudCourtesy of Saudi Royal CourtHandout via REUTERS Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters that Riyadh and Moscow were considering a longer deal to extend a shortterm alliance on oil curbs that began in January 2017 after a crash in crude prices 8220We are working to shift from a yeartoyear agreement to a 1020 year agreement8221 the crown prince told Reuters in an interview in New York late on Monday 8220We have agreement on the big picture but not yet on the detail8221amp160 Russia never a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has worked alongside the 14member cartel during previous oil gluts but a 1020 year deal between the two would be unprecedented Top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia recruited Russia and other nonOPEC countries to help drain a glut when oil prices collapsed from over 100 a barrel in 2014 to below 30 in 2016 Crude has since recovered to 70 but fastrising output from US shale producers has capped prices 8220This is all about whether the arrangement is a shortterm expedient to deal with this particular crisis in the oil market or whether it reflects a realignment in world oil8221 said oil historian Daniel Yergin vicechairman at consultancy IHS Markit 8220OPEC countries want to find a way to institutionalize this relationship rather than to have it be a oneshot deal8221 The Russian flag and the OPEC logo are seen before a news conference in Vienna Austria October 24 2016 REUTERSLeonhard Foeger ALLIANCE DESPITE SYRIA DIFFERENCES News of the potential oil alliance comes at a time when Riyadh and Moscow have worked to cement an economic relationship despite being at odds over the conflict in Syria where they back opposing sides Riyadh supports rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar alAssad8217s army while Russian and Iranian forces have backed Assad 8211 meaning that Russia effectively sides with Iran Riyadh8217s regional archfoe Last October Saudi King Salman became the first sitting Saudi monarch ever to visit Russia He led a delegation to Moscow that agreed joint investment deals worth several billion dollars providing muchneeded investment for a Russian economy battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions Despite their differences in the Middle East Russia and Saudi Arabia have been drawn together by a common interest in propping up flagging world oil prices and by the fact that Moscow since its military intervention in Syria has clout in the Middle East that other countries in the region cannot ignore ARAMCO IPO LATE 2018 EARLY 2019 The crown prince predicted that world oil demand would not peak until 2040 despite advances in renewable energy technologies and the electric vehicle In an attempt to end Saudi Arabia8217s reliance on oil he is leading a push to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil and gas by 2030 Riyadh plans to raise funds through the flotation of a 5 percent stake in state Saudi oil company Aramco Time is running out for an initial public offering this year but the crown prince said the IPO could still take place at the end of 2018 or in early 2019 depending on financial market conditions Saudi Oil Minister Khalid alFalih said last week that documentation was ready but that a venue for the IPO had not yet been decided The New York stock exchange is still in the running for the IPO alongside London and Hong Kong but Falih said there was a risk of a 8220frivolous8221 legal action if Aramco were listed in the United States Additional reporting by Stephen Adler Editing by Frances Kerry Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Once during a video chat with another intersex person, I saw the word &#8220;Obama&#8221; scribbled on a white sheet of paper hanging up on the wall behind their head. When I asked them about it, they laughingly replied, &#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s my kill list.&#8221;</p> <p>It was a joke she said. I didn&#8217;t see the humor. She was white.</p> <p>Racism runs deep in this country, and as such, it&#8217;s present in white spaces such as my <a href="" type="internal">intersex community</a>.</p> <p>This article is my attempt at exploring the effects of whiteness, and it&#8217;s counterpart anti-Black racism, on the few Black folks in the intersex movement.</p> <p>But how did I end up on a video chat like that, and now here writing an article like this? To answer that, let&#8217;s go back, way back to a time when I was 19 and at my first intersex support group for people with my particular intersex variation known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or AIS.</p> <p>When I received my conference name badge, inscribed were the words &#8220;Women&#8217;s Support Group.&#8221; Not intersex. Not even AIS. Just, women.</p> <p>I found that interesting since I had just discovered that people with AIS, like all of us at that conference, were born with XY chromosomes.</p> <p>During the opening keynote, I looked around the room and saw almost all white faces.</p> <p>Before the first session officially began, a person from our group hastily stood up and tightly shut the doors, while another volunteered to close the shutters.</p> <p>Prior to attending, I spent most my life in hiding. In 5th grade, the reality sunk in that I wasn&#8217;t like the other kids. I had to go to the doctor every 6 months and take pills to go through puberty.</p> <p>I was also made to feel different by the others because I was a mustached, hairy, flat chested, part-Mexican, no period having girl.</p> <p>I became obsessed with normality. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of confusing normal with the white girls in school, and their white femininity, that I could never completely attain.</p> <p>I attended the intersex conference to realize what it could feel like to finally stop hiding. Instead, our collective fear of someone finding out who, and what we really were, had me feeling trapped &#8211; again.</p> <p>When I got home, I kept thinking about how <a href="" type="internal">heteronormative</a>, white, and claustrophobic the space felt. Why were we so afraid to put the truth on our name badges? Perhaps like I &#8212; who in 5th grade hoped that white girl normality could save me &#8212; our group believed our salvation was found in assimilation.</p> <p>If my (at the time) <a href="" type="internal">thin bodied</a>, light-skinned, gender conforming, straight-passing, college student self felt uncomfortable, how would it feel to be Black and intersex in that all-white space?</p> <p>To examine the impact of our movement&#8217;s whiteness, and give our movement an opportunity to reflect on the ways we may have inadvertently contributed to <a href="" type="internal">anti-blackness</a>, I called up and interviewed two of my friends, who are Black intersex activists named Lynnell Stephani Long and Sean Saifa Wall.</p> <p>I wanted to capture and present their experiences in order to assist us in thinking about ways we can become better comrades to Black intersex people in our community.</p> <p>The intersex movement has been mostly white since day one. Consequently, it&#8217;s necessary to ask ourselves if we&#8217;ve inadvertently created an atmosphere that urges Black intersex people to put aside their Blackness &#8212; and the oppression linked to it &#8212; in order to focus on our collective goals.</p> <p>In creating this type of environment, it appears our community hasn&#8217;t yet been able to connect the dots between Black and intersex people&#8217;s oppression &#8212; which Saifa reminded me are both rooted in state violence &#8212; and our liberation.</p> <p>Black intersex folks who&#8217;ve lived in isolation and have dealt with segregation in their daily lives shouldn&#8217;t have to contend with similar experiences once they&#8217;ve finally found, and entered our community.</p> <p>I&#8217;m not talking about highly visible institutionalized segregation like the Jim Crow era when Saifa&#8217;s uncle, who was also intersex, was forced to sleep outside on the porch of his hospital after a surgery.</p> <p>I&#8217;m talking about the low-key, harder to detect, segregation.</p> <p>The kind that just takes for granted that the majority of people in the room will always be white. The type that may have a few Black and Brown faces sprinkled here and there, but on a vanilla frosted cake. Is there a path forward?</p> <p>Sean Saifa Wall, a <a href="http://saifaemerges.com/" type="external">Black trans intersex activist</a> and collage artist based in Atlanta, reflected on this question by looking back on his time spent as the former board president of an intersex non-profit. Saifa captured why increasing representation shouldn&#8217;t be the endgame.</p> <p>&#8220;I think I made the mistake of thinking we need more people of color&#8230; but what does institutionalized <a href="" type="internal">white supremacy</a> do? It brings in Black or Brown faces who won&#8217;t challenge white supremacy &#8212; and that&#8217;s how white supremacy perpetuates itself. You don&#8217;t need white folks to perpetuate it, you just need folks who are invested in white supremacy.&#8221;</p> <p>When I was younger and mistakenly believing that whiteness was the norm to strive towards, I ended up internalizing racist ideologies and, as a result, never fully connected on a truly deep BFF level with my Black friends. Perhaps our movement, and its longstanding quest for acceptance, has created a similar divide.</p> <p>The global intersex activist network consists, to my knowledge, of less than only 5 Black intersex activists. One of them is Saifa.</p> <p>Born amidst racist flames that attempted to <a href="http://decadeoffire.com" type="external">level his neighborhood</a>, Saifa was brought up whilst his borough, The Bronx, was attempting to rebuild itself.</p> <p>&#8220;When I was younger,&#8221; Saifa recounted, &#8220;I realized I had a different body. Then, due to interactions with NYPD, I was made to know that I was <a href="http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices" type="external">different in another way as well.</a>&#8221;</p> <p>As he got older, Saifa came out as queer, intersex, and trans to a mother &#8212; and a world &#8212; who wasn&#8217;t always ready or eager to respect his <a href="" type="internal">intersecting identities</a>. Regardless, his Blackness, sexuality, and intersex identity were always interwoven.</p> <p>&#8220;I cannot separate my intersex identity from my Black identity,&#8221; Saifa said. And he shouldn&#8217;t have to.</p> <p>Unfortunately, I&#8217;m afraid our community hasn&#8217;t figured out ways yet to allow people to show up as their whole selves.</p> <p>For instance, on the international level, it&#8217;s become a known issue that intersex activists from African countries don&#8217;t get similar amounts of representation, or speaking time at gatherings. And nationally, our support group meetings rarely, if ever, have been led by Black intersex folks or had sessions dedicated solely for Black intersex community members to come together.</p> <p>It&#8217;s only in the past few years that single Black folks are sitting on boards, or in staff positions of our organizations. There&#8217;s also never been, to my knowledge, any Black clinicians present at our Continuing Medical Education (CME) sessions that happen before our support group conferences each year.</p> <p>Race, especially as it relates to anti-blackness, feels as though it&#8217;s at times an elephant in the room.</p> <p>For me, this elephant peeped its head out when I realized it had become a tradition for one of our non-Black community members, who I love and cherish dearly, to sing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEQ0l_m3Xm0" type="external">Macy Gray&#8217;s &#8220;I Try&#8221;</a> &#8212; in Gray&#8217;s uniquely raspy voice &#8212; at the annual talent show, which is supposed to provide a fun contrast to the rest of the conference.</p> <p>The audience, if it&#8217;s a diverse year, might have a handful of Black folks. This year, there was only one person. I can&#8217;t imagine how isolating that experience might have been for them.</p> <p>And this bring me back to the story I shared at the beginning, about the person who had Obama on a hit list.</p> <p>Often, racism perpetuates itself by wearing the mask of a &#8220;joke&#8221; or &#8220;fun,&#8221; but racism is never a joke and the mask just presents one more hurdle in calling racism out.</p> <p>It&#8217;s time us non-Black intersex people become more aware of our whiteness problem.</p> <p>We need to keep having difficult conversations about race and oppression every step of the way.</p> <p>Most importantly, we need to show up the few Black intersex people we do have in our small community, and check in with them to see if there&#8217;s anything else we could be doing to have their back.</p> <p>We can challenge white supremacy in our movement just by asking Black intersex folks in our community what they need to feel safer in our collective spaces.</p> <p>For our movement to be successful, it&#8217;s imperative that Black intersex folks feels they can participate as whole persons.</p> <p>The list of atrocities against people of color, especially Black folks, carried out by the medical industrial complex and other agents includes: <a href="http://jme.bmj.com/content/19/1/28.full.pdf" type="external">&#8220;the father of gynecology&#8221;</a>using enslaved Black people as surgical research subjects, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/all/eugenic-sterilization-victims-belated-justice" type="external">being disproportionately targeted</a> by the US&#8217;s eugenic sterilization program that served as a catalyst for Nazi Germany&#8217;s and today&#8217;s <a href="http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/The-Color-of-Choice----Public-Version-with-footnotes-1.pdf" type="external">&#8220;population control&#8221;</a> policies, and the <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/cc_Incarcerated_Women_Factsheet_Sep24sp.pdf" type="external">shackling of pregnant women inmates</a>&#8212; who are disproportionately Black &#8212; in labor delivering children whom they most likely will be immediately separated from.</p> <p>Likewise, intersex people have been rendered hermaphrodites and featured in freak shows, gawked at as <a href="http://decider.com/2014/10/16/american-horror-story-freak-show-recap-episode-2/" type="external">monsters</a> to at on TV, disproportionately put up for adoption, pumped with artificial hormones, robbed of their reproductive organs and genitalia, <a href="http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/2014/04/on-eugenic-abortion-of-intersex.html" type="external">selectively aborted</a>, raped, and <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/muhadh-ishmael/" type="external">brutally murdered</a>.</p> <p>Lynnell, a Black intersex lesbian activist, was born intersex but raised male by a single mother in a low-income household. She grew up in Chicago&#8217;s mostly Black, <a href="http://www.wbez.org/series/race-out-loud/chicagos-segregation-seen-time-lapse-cta-red-line-100540" type="external">hypersegregated</a>, South Side where her family &#8212; unlike mine on the North Side &#8212; was forced to deal with the effects of the city&#8217;s <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/" type="external">racist public policy</a> and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/578079" type="external">divestment</a> responsible for the destruction of <a href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-night-chicago-burned/Content?oid=872662" type="external">local economies</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/08/26/3695432/why-are-these-parents-going-on-a-hunger-strike-for-a-chicago-high-school/" type="external">public schools</a> and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/125056/rahm-emanuels-next-scandal-chicagos-public-housing" type="external">affordable housing</a>.</p> <p>Hyde Park, a pocket of wealth and whiteness on the South Side and home to the University of Chicago (UofC) Hospital, is where Lynnell&#8217;s mother took her as a child for doctor appointments.</p> <p>Lynnell shared memories of that time stating, &#8220;My mom wasn&#8217;t given the tools she needed to make informed decisions.&#8221; As Lynnell grew older, she also &#8220;wasn&#8217;t taken seriously at first by [her doctors] either.&#8221;</p> <p>Low-income and single mothers of color, labelled unfit by society, experience discrimination. Lynnell&#8217;s mother went to U of C seeking care, not charity, for her child. Seeing a golden opportunity, Lynnell&#8217;s doctors manipulated her mother&#8217;s financial status and turned the situation into a charity case anyway.&amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8220;They told my mom they were doing her a favor because they weren&#8217;t charging her.&#8221; In the doctor&#8217;s mind, they were participating in an equal trade with Lynnell and her mother.</p> <p>To Lynnell, it was torture. &#8220;For eight years, every summer, for at least a month, I was put on different drugs, experimented on, given unnecessary procedures and manipulated.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/the-spectrum-of-sex-development-eric-vilain-and-the-intersex-controversy-1.19873" type="external">Exploitation of marginalized people</a> by the MIC for their gains, especially in teaching environments, has been well- <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123232331/henrietta-lacks-a-donors-immortal-legacy" type="external">documented</a>. Exploitation specific to Black intersex patients has yet to be researched. Lynnell&#8217;s doctors, I imagine, took one look at Lynnell&#8217;s mother and decided a poor Black woman wasn&#8217;t powerful enough stop what they had in store for Lynnell.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know many white people that were used as <a href="http://intersexroadshow.tumblr.com/" type="external">guinea pigs</a> like me,&#8221; Lynnell said.</p> <p>Intersex people are pretty familiar with secrecy, shame and stigma thanks to the pathologization of our bodies. As such, it&#8217;s important we have spaces to process our stories with each other. Yet, it&#8217;s important to note that as oppressed people, we are still capable of participating in the oppressing others.</p> <p>The few times I&#8217;ve witnessed our community attempt to break down white supremacy and talk about racism, white intersex people successfully shifted the conversation, almost immediately, back to a conversation that centers them and their experience with intersex oppression.</p> <p>Spaces where intersex people get together and talk are rare, so it makes sense why someone would want to relate and process, but in doing so, we are inadvertently preventing Black intersex folks in our community from expressing their unique experiences.</p> <p>Saifa recounted a time when he &#8220;was trying to bring up the topics of anti-oppression, racism, etc., in the movement and people lost their damn minds. People were like, &#8216;we cannot hear it.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>He also shared, &#8220;Anti-black racism showed up when I went to South Carolina on behalf of the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/born-in-between" type="external">MC case</a> [a lawsuit involving the parents of a young Black intersex boy and his doctors] and one of the lawyers was condescending, talking down to me as the only Black person in the room. I was constantly pushing back against his patriarchy and racism.&#8221;</p> <p>He continued, &#8220;I feel like people don&#8217;t care about issues related to anti-black racism in the intersex community.</p> <p>&#8220;I think there&#8217;s some intersex people who really see those intersections, who really are affirming of people of color, but for the large part I feel that the level of anti-black racism awareness ranges from hostility to apathy.&#8221;</p> <p>I asked if people ever seemed to care and he replied, &#8220;When funding is involved. That&#8217;s when people start to care more. Or, when a group wants some representation of diversity&#8212;but I found they wanted a Black face, but weren&#8217;t necessarily committed to issues around anti-Black racism.&#8221;</p> <p>As a movement, we can&#8217;t only focus on these issues when funding dollars are at stake. That tokenizes Black folks.</p> <p>Instead, we have to stitch anti-Black racism training, and education around white supremacy, into the fabric of our work together.</p> <p>Saifa pointed out, &#8220;In the world, I&#8217;m confronted with anti-Blackness, and it&#8217;s par for the course, but it&#8217;s particularly more devastating when it&#8217;s from intersex people. Why? Because I think, &#8216;Oh, you understand.&#8217;</p> <p>&#8220;Or at least I think they understand, until they say or do things that&#8217;s really racist and are unapologetic about their racism.&#8221;</p> <p>One of the white people present at Lynnell&#8217;s first intersex support group meeting recently told her that she was &#8220;afraid&#8221; of her at first, &#8220;because [Lynnell] had on leather and dark sunglasses.&#8221;</p> <p>I asked Lynnell why she entered that support group meeting dressed in leather, sunglasses, and the rest of her leather daddy alter ego outfit. She responded, &#8220;Because I was the only Black intersex person there.&#8221;</p> <p>Lynnell shouldn&#8217;t have to feel the need to protect herself like that in a room that was supposed to feel like home, a room where she was supposed to be able to let her guard down amongst people with similar experiences.</p> <p>Unfortunately, this is the type of thing that can happen when a community doesn&#8217;t have a firm commitment to <a href="" type="internal">operating with an intersectional lens</a> &#8212; one that places its most marginalized folks at the center.</p> <p>Lynnell needed to protect herself at a support group, and in doing so, made a white person feel afraid, circles back to my main point.</p> <p>We need to place Black intersex folks and their particular needs, struggles and desires at the front and center of our intersex activism.</p> <p>If we don&#8217;t, we risk ostracizing Black intersex folks, again, within spaces meant to be a reprieve from shame and stigma.</p> <p><a href="http://www.dawnjaburris.info/mediatheory_f14/?p=502" type="external">Disembodiment,</a> or feeling detached from your body, often happens as a coping mechanism in response to intense trauma. Intersex activist, Mani Mitchell, once described it as feeling like a <a href="http://alchetron.com/Mani-Mitchell-258887-W" type="external">&#8220;floating head tugging around a body.&#8221;</a></p> <p>Saifa, someone I admire for their commitment <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_Experiencing" type="external">to somatic healing work</a>, believes that white supremacy is rooted in disembodiment &#8220;because you have to be disembodied in order to not allow your self to be impacted by the inequity or suffering of others.&#8221;</p> <p>Regardless, Saifa thinks it&#8217;s &#8220;imperative that white intersex activists feel their feelings regarding any shame they may have as they interrogate white supremacy and its brutal history.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s only fair that white intersex activists start to acknowledge, as much as their embodiment can hold, the shameful and disgusting emotions that come up after hearing the bitter truth and realities of Black folks and people of color.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Doing this work is difficult,&#8221; he acknowledged, &#8220;and it can bring up things we&#8217;d rather not have to face about ourselves.&#8221;</p> <p>Still, non-Black intersex folks need to &#8220;confront those feelings and allow themselves to be impacted, then hopefully they can be motivated to action, and allow that empowerment to impact others.&#8221;</p> <p>In taking Saifa&#8217;s advice, we can create positive ripple effects throughout our whole community. Doing the work to steer our movement towards becoming an intersectional, anti-racist, intersex movement is a win-win for everyone involved!</p> <p>***</p> <p>I fear our movement may have fallen into the trap of falsely believing that racism is a thing of the past.</p> <p>While our struggles are not always the same, there are important overlaps to take into account, such as our joint history of exploitation by the MIC and discrimination based on how we were born.</p> <p>Our movement could benefit from taking a deep hard look at our support groups, activist meetings, organizations, and other community and advocacy spaces, and ask ourselves what it means that our movement has attracted so few Black folks throughout the years.</p> <p>The intersex community still says Black in a hushed voice. Ironic, since one of our movements best chances at seeing its goals realized hinges on the life of a young Black intersex child named <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/mark-pam-crawford-intersex-child_n_3280353.html" type="external">MC</a>. When his case wins, and he grows older, we need to have nurtured a movement and community that doesn&#8217;t ask him to be anyone other than who he is &#8212; and fully embraced as such.</p> <p>That will be an even greater victory.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Pidgeon Pagonis a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. They are an intersex activist based in Chicago, working to help create a world in which every intersex baby that&#8217;s born has the right to bodily autonomy.</p> <p>Filed Under: <a href="" type="internal">Articles</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Posts</a> Tagged With: <a href="" type="internal">LGBTQIA</a></p>

6 Things Intersex Folks Need to Know About How We Perpetuate Anti-Black Racism

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/06/intersex-anti-black-racism/

2016-06-03

4left

Once during a video chat with another intersex person I saw the word 8220Obama8221 scribbled on a white sheet of paper hanging up on the wall behind their head When I asked them about it they laughingly replied 8220Oh that8217s my kill list8221 It was a joke she said I didn8217t see the humor She was white Racism runs deep in this country and as such it8217s present in white spaces such as my intersex community This article is my attempt at exploring the effects of whiteness and it8217s counterpart antiBlack racism on the few Black folks in the intersex movement But how did I end up on a video chat like that and now here writing an article like this To answer that let8217s go back way back to a time when I was 19 and at my first intersex support group for people with my particular intersex variation known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or AIS When I received my conference name badge inscribed were the words 8220Women8217s Support Group8221 Not intersex Not even AIS Just women I found that interesting since I had just discovered that people with AIS like all of us at that conference were born with XY chromosomes During the opening keynote I looked around the room and saw almost all white faces Before the first session officially began a person from our group hastily stood up and tightly shut the doors while another volunteered to close the shutters Prior to attending I spent most my life in hiding In 5th grade the reality sunk in that I wasn8217t like the other kids I had to go to the doctor every 6 months and take pills to go through puberty I was also made to feel different by the others because I was a mustached hairy flat chested partMexican no period having girl I became obsessed with normality Unfortunately I made the mistake of confusing normal with the white girls in school and their white femininity that I could never completely attain I attended the intersex conference to realize what it could feel like to finally stop hiding Instead our collective fear of someone finding out who and what we really were had me feeling trapped 8211 again When I got home I kept thinking about how heteronormative white and claustrophobic the space felt Why were we so afraid to put the truth on our name badges Perhaps like I 8212 who in 5th grade hoped that white girl normality could save me 8212 our group believed our salvation was found in assimilation If my at the time thin bodied lightskinned gender conforming straightpassing college student self felt uncomfortable how would it feel to be Black and intersex in that allwhite space To examine the impact of our movement8217s whiteness and give our movement an opportunity to reflect on the ways we may have inadvertently contributed to antiblackness I called up and interviewed two of my friends who are Black intersex activists named Lynnell Stephani Long and Sean Saifa Wall I wanted to capture and present their experiences in order to assist us in thinking about ways we can become better comrades to Black intersex people in our community The intersex movement has been mostly white since day one Consequently it8217s necessary to ask ourselves if we8217ve inadvertently created an atmosphere that urges Black intersex people to put aside their Blackness 8212 and the oppression linked to it 8212 in order to focus on our collective goals In creating this type of environment it appears our community hasn8217t yet been able to connect the dots between Black and intersex people8217s oppression 8212 which Saifa reminded me are both rooted in state violence 8212 and our liberation Black intersex folks who8217ve lived in isolation and have dealt with segregation in their daily lives shouldn8217t have to contend with similar experiences once they8217ve finally found and entered our community I8217m not talking about highly visible institutionalized segregation like the Jim Crow era when Saifa8217s uncle who was also intersex was forced to sleep outside on the porch of his hospital after a surgery I8217m talking about the lowkey harder to detect segregation The kind that just takes for granted that the majority of people in the room will always be white The type that may have a few Black and Brown faces sprinkled here and there but on a vanilla frosted cake Is there a path forward Sean Saifa Wall a Black trans intersex activist and collage artist based in Atlanta reflected on this question by looking back on his time spent as the former board president of an intersex nonprofit Saifa captured why increasing representation shouldn8217t be the endgame 8220I think I made the mistake of thinking we need more people of color8230 but what does institutionalized white supremacy do It brings in Black or Brown faces who won8217t challenge white supremacy 8212 and that8217s how white supremacy perpetuates itself You don8217t need white folks to perpetuate it you just need folks who are invested in white supremacy8221 When I was younger and mistakenly believing that whiteness was the norm to strive towards I ended up internalizing racist ideologies and as a result never fully connected on a truly deep BFF level with my Black friends Perhaps our movement and its longstanding quest for acceptance has created a similar divide The global intersex activist network consists to my knowledge of less than only 5 Black intersex activists One of them is Saifa Born amidst racist flames that attempted to level his neighborhood Saifa was brought up whilst his borough The Bronx was attempting to rebuild itself 8220When I was younger8221 Saifa recounted 8220I realized I had a different body Then due to interactions with NYPD I was made to know that I was different in another way as well8221 As he got older Saifa came out as queer intersex and trans to a mother 8212 and a world 8212 who wasn8217t always ready or eager to respect his intersecting identities Regardless his Blackness sexuality and intersex identity were always interwoven 8220I cannot separate my intersex identity from my Black identity8221 Saifa said And he shouldn8217t have to Unfortunately I8217m afraid our community hasn8217t figured out ways yet to allow people to show up as their whole selves For instance on the international level it8217s become a known issue that intersex activists from African countries don8217t get similar amounts of representation or speaking time at gatherings And nationally our support group meetings rarely if ever have been led by Black intersex folks or had sessions dedicated solely for Black intersex community members to come together It8217s only in the past few years that single Black folks are sitting on boards or in staff positions of our organizations There8217s also never been to my knowledge any Black clinicians present at our Continuing Medical Education CME sessions that happen before our support group conferences each year Race especially as it relates to antiblackness feels as though it8217s at times an elephant in the room For me this elephant peeped its head out when I realized it had become a tradition for one of our nonBlack community members who I love and cherish dearly to sing Macy Gray8217s 8220I Try8221 8212 in Gray8217s uniquely raspy voice 8212 at the annual talent show which is supposed to provide a fun contrast to the rest of the conference The audience if it8217s a diverse year might have a handful of Black folks This year there was only one person I can8217t imagine how isolating that experience might have been for them And this bring me back to the story I shared at the beginning about the person who had Obama on a hit list Often racism perpetuates itself by wearing the mask of a 8220joke8221 or 8220fun8221 but racism is never a joke and the mask just presents one more hurdle in calling racism out It8217s time us nonBlack intersex people become more aware of our whiteness problem We need to keep having difficult conversations about race and oppression every step of the way Most importantly we need to show up the few Black intersex people we do have in our small community and check in with them to see if there8217s anything else we could be doing to have their back We can challenge white supremacy in our movement just by asking Black intersex folks in our community what they need to feel safer in our collective spaces For our movement to be successful it8217s imperative that Black intersex folks feels they can participate as whole persons The list of atrocities against people of color especially Black folks carried out by the medical industrial complex and other agents includes 8220the father of gynecology8221using enslaved Black people as surgical research subjects being disproportionately targeted by the US8217s eugenic sterilization program that served as a catalyst for Nazi Germany8217s and today8217s 8220population control8221 policies and the shackling of pregnant women inmates8212 who are disproportionately Black 8212 in labor delivering children whom they most likely will be immediately separated from Likewise intersex people have been rendered hermaphrodites and featured in freak shows gawked at as monsters to at on TV disproportionately put up for adoption pumped with artificial hormones robbed of their reproductive organs and genitalia selectively aborted raped and brutally murdered Lynnell a Black intersex lesbian activist was born intersex but raised male by a single mother in a lowincome household She grew up in Chicago8217s mostly Black hypersegregated South Side where her family 8212 unlike mine on the North Side 8212 was forced to deal with the effects of the city8217s racist public policy and divestment responsible for the destruction of local economies public schools and affordable housing Hyde Park a pocket of wealth and whiteness on the South Side and home to the University of Chicago UofC Hospital is where Lynnell8217s mother took her as a child for doctor appointments Lynnell shared memories of that time stating 8220My mom wasn8217t given the tools she needed to make informed decisions8221 As Lynnell grew older she also 8220wasn8217t taken seriously at first by her doctors either8221 Lowincome and single mothers of color labelled unfit by society experience discrimination Lynnell8217s mother went to U of C seeking care not charity for her child Seeing a golden opportunity Lynnell8217s doctors manipulated her mother8217s financial status and turned the situation into a charity case anywayamp160 8220They told my mom they were doing her a favor because they weren8217t charging her8221 In the doctor8217s mind they were participating in an equal trade with Lynnell and her mother To Lynnell it was torture 8220For eight years every summer for at least a month I was put on different drugs experimented on given unnecessary procedures and manipulated8221 Exploitation of marginalized people by the MIC for their gains especially in teaching environments has been well documented Exploitation specific to Black intersex patients has yet to be researched Lynnell8217s doctors I imagine took one look at Lynnell8217s mother and decided a poor Black woman wasn8217t powerful enough stop what they had in store for Lynnell 8220I don8217t know many white people that were used as guinea pigs like me8221 Lynnell said Intersex people are pretty familiar with secrecy shame and stigma thanks to the pathologization of our bodies As such it8217s important we have spaces to process our stories with each other Yet it8217s important to note that as oppressed people we are still capable of participating in the oppressing others The few times I8217ve witnessed our community attempt to break down white supremacy and talk about racism white intersex people successfully shifted the conversation almost immediately back to a conversation that centers them and their experience with intersex oppression Spaces where intersex people get together and talk are rare so it makes sense why someone would want to relate and process but in doing so we are inadvertently preventing Black intersex folks in our community from expressing their unique experiences Saifa recounted a time when he 8220was trying to bring up the topics of antioppression racism etc in the movement and people lost their damn minds People were like 8216we cannot hear it82178221 He also shared 8220Antiblack racism showed up when I went to South Carolina on behalf of the MC case a lawsuit involving the parents of a young Black intersex boy and his doctors and one of the lawyers was condescending talking down to me as the only Black person in the room I was constantly pushing back against his patriarchy and racism8221 He continued 8220I feel like people don8217t care about issues related to antiblack racism in the intersex community 8220I think there8217s some intersex people who really see those intersections who really are affirming of people of color but for the large part I feel that the level of antiblack racism awareness ranges from hostility to apathy8221 I asked if people ever seemed to care and he replied 8220When funding is involved That8217s when people start to care more Or when a group wants some representation of diversity8212but I found they wanted a Black face but weren8217t necessarily committed to issues around antiBlack racism8221 As a movement we can8217t only focus on these issues when funding dollars are at stake That tokenizes Black folks Instead we have to stitch antiBlack racism training and education around white supremacy into the fabric of our work together Saifa pointed out 8220In the world I8217m confronted with antiBlackness and it8217s par for the course but it8217s particularly more devastating when it8217s from intersex people Why Because I think 8216Oh you understand8217 8220Or at least I think they understand until they say or do things that8217s really racist and are unapologetic about their racism8221 One of the white people present at Lynnell8217s first intersex support group meeting recently told her that she was 8220afraid8221 of her at first 8220because Lynnell had on leather and dark sunglasses8221 I asked Lynnell why she entered that support group meeting dressed in leather sunglasses and the rest of her leather daddy alter ego outfit She responded 8220Because I was the only Black intersex person there8221 Lynnell shouldn8217t have to feel the need to protect herself like that in a room that was supposed to feel like home a room where she was supposed to be able to let her guard down amongst people with similar experiences Unfortunately this is the type of thing that can happen when a community doesn8217t have a firm commitment to operating with an intersectional lens 8212 one that places its most marginalized folks at the center Lynnell needed to protect herself at a support group and in doing so made a white person feel afraid circles back to my main point We need to place Black intersex folks and their particular needs struggles and desires at the front and center of our intersex activism If we don8217t we risk ostracizing Black intersex folks again within spaces meant to be a reprieve from shame and stigma Disembodiment or feeling detached from your body often happens as a coping mechanism in response to intense trauma Intersex activist Mani Mitchell once described it as feeling like a 8220floating head tugging around a body8221 Saifa someone I admire for their commitment to somatic healing work believes that white supremacy is rooted in disembodiment 8220because you have to be disembodied in order to not allow your self to be impacted by the inequity or suffering of others8221 Regardless Saifa thinks it8217s 8220imperative that white intersex activists feel their feelings regarding any shame they may have as they interrogate white supremacy and its brutal history8221 8220It8217s only fair that white intersex activists start to acknowledge as much as their embodiment can hold the shameful and disgusting emotions that come up after hearing the bitter truth and realities of Black folks and people of color8221 8220Doing this work is difficult8221 he acknowledged 8220and it can bring up things we8217d rather not have to face about ourselves8221 Still nonBlack intersex folks need to 8220confront those feelings and allow themselves to be impacted then hopefully they can be motivated to action and allow that empowerment to impact others8221 In taking Saifa8217s advice we can create positive ripple effects throughout our whole community Doing the work to steer our movement towards becoming an intersectional antiracist intersex movement is a winwin for everyone involved I fear our movement may have fallen into the trap of falsely believing that racism is a thing of the past While our struggles are not always the same there are important overlaps to take into account such as our joint history of exploitation by the MIC and discrimination based on how we were born Our movement could benefit from taking a deep hard look at our support groups activist meetings organizations and other community and advocacy spaces and ask ourselves what it means that our movement has attracted so few Black folks throughout the years The intersex community still says Black in a hushed voice Ironic since one of our movements best chances at seeing its goals realized hinges on the life of a young Black intersex child named MC When his case wins and he grows older we need to have nurtured a movement and community that doesn8217t ask him to be anyone other than who he is 8212 and fully embraced as such That will be an even greater victory Pidgeon Pagonis a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism They are an intersex activist based in Chicago working to help create a world in which every intersex baby that8217s born has the right to bodily autonomy Filed Under Articles Posts Tagged With LGBTQIA

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<p>MILAN (Reuters) - Yoox Net-a-Porter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=YNAP.MI" type="external">YNAP.MI</a>) shareholder Renzo Rosso believes Richemont&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CFR.S" type="external">CFR.S</a>) bid for full control of the online retailer is of great value, even though he is sorry to see another renowned Italian brand pass under foreign control.</p> <p>The Swiss group on Monday offered up to 2.8 billion euros to takeover YNAP in order to better compete in an expanding online market for luxury goods.</p> <p>Rosso, who owns 5.7 percent of YNAP&#8217;s ordinary shares, declined to comment on whether he would tender his shares in the offer, but his comments suggested the deal would go through.</p> <p>The Richemont bid is &#8220;fantastic&#8221; for YNAP and would allow the Italian firm to become part of a larger company that has always believed and invested in its strategy, said Rosso, founder of the Diesel brand and owner of fashion group OTB.</p> <p>Richemont owns 49 percent of YNAP but only 25 percent of its voting rights.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=YNAP.MI" type="external">Yoox Net-A-Porter Group SpA</a> 37.81 YNAP.MI Milan Stock Exchange +0.04 (+0.11%) YNAP.MI CFR.S <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a bit disappointed because I was the first major investor in Yoox, I saw it grow and evolve under my eyes,&#8221; Rosso told Reuters in emailed comments. &#8220;It&#8217;s another beautiful Italian company that falls into foreign hands, but it&#8217;s also proof that Italian entrepreneurship is alive and well.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Claudia Cristoferi, writing by Agnieszka Flak, editing by Giulia Segreti</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Remington Outdoor Co Inc [FREDM.UL], one of the largest U.S. makers of firearms, filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday to carry out a debt-cutting deal with creditors amid mounting public pressure for greater gun control.</p> <p>The company&#8217;s chief financial officer, Stephen Jackson, said in court papers that Remington&#8217;s sales fell significantly in the year before its bankruptcy, and that the company was having difficulty meeting requirements from its lenders.</p> <p>Remington, America&#8217;s oldest gunmaker, announced in February it would reduce its $950 million debtload in a deal that will transfer control of the company to creditors. The company plans to wrap up its bankruptcy as soon as May 3, according to court papers.</p> <p>The filing comes after a Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school that killed 17 and spurred an intense campaign for gun control by activists.</p> <p>The massacre led to huge U.S. anti-gun rallies by hundreds of thousands of young Americans on Saturday.</p> <p>In some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations for decades, protesters called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue. Voter registration activists fanned out in the crowds, signing up thousands of the nation&#8217;s newest voters.</p> <p>Major U.S. companies and retailers have taken some steps to restrict firearm sales.</p> <p>Citigroup Inc said last week it will require new retail-sector clients to sell firearms only to customers who passed background checks and to bar sales of high-capacity magazines.</p> <p>Citi also said it was restricting sales for buyers under 21, a move adopted by other large retailers, while Kroger Co&#8217;s superstore chain Fred Meyer said it will stop selling firearms entirely.</p> CERBERUS TO LOSE OWNERSHIP <p>Cerberus Capital Management LP, the private equity firm that controls Remington, will lose ownership in the bankruptcy.</p> <p>Remington&#8217;s creditors, which sources told Reuters include Franklin Templeton Investments and JPMorgan Asset Management, will exchange their debt holdings for Remington equity.</p> <p>The creditors inked the debt-cutting deal prior to the Parkland shooting, and it is unclear if any have exited. The restructuring support agreement allows creditors to sell their holdings, but the buyer is bound by the deal.</p> <p>One investor told IFR, a Thomson Reuters news provider, that his firm had contemplated buying the Remington loans that will be exchanged into equity, which were offered at as low as 25 cents on the dollar.</p> <p>&#8220;We bowed out because we were uncomfortable,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>After a Remington Bushmaster rifle was used in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Connecticut in 2012 that killed 20 children and six adults, Cerberus tried unsuccessfully to sell Remington, then known as Freedom Group.</p> <p>Katie-Mesner Hage, an attorney representing Sandy Hook families in a lawsuit against Remington, said in a prepared statement that she did not expect the gunmaker&#8217;s bankruptcy would affect their case.</p> <p>Remington and other gunmakers have suffered from slumping sales in the past year as fears of stricter gun laws have faded.</p> <p>The chief executive of American Outdoor Brands Corp, maker of the Smith &amp;amp; Wesson gun used in the Parkland shooting, said on March 1 that some gun retailers reported increased sales after the Florida school shooting.</p> <p>Remington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.</p> <p>Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Jessica DiNapoli in New York and Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Gopakumar Warrier</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States and South Korea agreed to revise a trade pact sharply criticized by U.S. President Donald Trump, Seoul said on Monday, with U.S. automakers winning improved market access and Korean steelmakers hit with quotas but avoiding hefty tariffs.</p> FILE PHOTO: Rolled steel are seen at a Hyundai Steel plant in Dangjin, about 130 km (81 miles) southwest of Seoul June 15, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won/File Photo <p>The planned changes in the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) come as Trump seeks to strike a balance between his domestic agenda and the need to work closely with Seoul to try to contain a nuclear-armed North Korea.</p> <p>In April, Trump told Reuters he would either renegotiate or terminate what he called a &#8220;horrible&#8221; trade deal that has doubled the U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea since 2012.</p> <p>The agreement means South Korea will be forced to cut its steel exports to the U.S. by 30 percent of past three years&#8217; average, in exchange for becoming the first U.S. ally to receive an indefinite exemption on steel tariffs imposed by Trump.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s action on steel and aluminum, along with plans to slap tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods had fueled concerns of a damaging global trade war.</p> <p>&#8220;We had heated discussions,&#8221; South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong said at a media briefing in Seoul. &#8220;The latest agreement removed two uncertainties,&#8221; he said, referring to steel tariff exemptions and KORUS renegotiation.</p> <p>Last week, Trump temporarily excluded six trade partners, including Canada and Mexico, Australia and the European Union from higher U.S. import duties on steel and aluminum which came into effect on Friday.</p> <p>The import duties, of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, were mainly aimed at curbing imports from China.</p> <p>South Korea has received a quota of about 2.68 million tonnes of steel exports, or 70 percent of the annual average Korean steel exports to the United States between 2015-2017, which will be exempt from the new tariffs, the ministry said in a statement.</p> <p>South Korea is not allowed to export steel products exceeding that quota to the U.S. market, a ministry official said.</p> <p>&#8220;This leaves a bad precedent of exchanging steel tariffs - which is a breach of international trade law - for a legitimate free trade agreement, in negotiations,&#8221; said Wonmog Choi, professor of law at Ewha Womans University.</p> TRADE WAR FEARS <p>South Korea is the third-largest steel exporter to the United States and the world&#8217;s top importer of Chinese steel, leading to concerns it was a conduit for China&#8217;s excess capacity.</p> <p>Trump was elected in 2016 after promising to punish what he saw as unfair trade practices by other countries, particularly China.</p> <p>Alarm over a possible trade war between the world&#8217;s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors foresee dire consequences should trade barriers go up.</p> <p>While Trump was adamant the KORUS deal needed renegotiating, the trade spat risked undermining relations between Seoul and Washington at a crucial time.</p> <p>&#8220;We are at a time when U.S.-South Korea cooperation is needed more than ever ahead of the inter-Korean summit and the summit between North Korea and the United States,&#8221; said a senior official at South Korea&#8217;s presidential Blue House, who was not authorized to speak to media.</p> <p>South Korean officials said that while the deal agreed was the best they could hope for, further pressure on trade was likely under Trump&#8217;s presidency.</p> <p>&#8220;If President Trump becomes a two-term president ... I believe there will be continuous (trade) risks during that time,&#8221; Trade Minister Kim said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=016380.KS" type="external">Dongbu Steel Co Ltd</a> 11550.0 016380.KS Korea Stock Exchange +750.00 (+6.94%) 016380.KS 005380.KS F.N GM.N <p>Shares in South Korean steelmakers rallied on Monday, with Dongbu Steel ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=016380.KS" type="external">016380.KS</a>) leading gains as tariff exemptions were confirmed.</p> <p>&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&amp;#160; South Korea&#8217;s steel association said in a statement it was a &#8220;relief&#8221; that South Korea has been excluded from U.S. steel tariffs, but regrettable it was unable to secure higher quotas.</p> AUTOS CONCESSION <p>As part of the KORUS revision, the countries agreed to extend U.S. tariffs on Korean pickup trucks by 20 years until 2041.</p> <p>No South Korean automakers currently export pickup trucks to the United States, but Hyundai Motor ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=005380.KS" type="external">005380.KS</a>) said last year it planned to launch a model there to catch up with a shift away from sedans.</p> <p>Under KORUS revisions, U.S. automakers will be able to bring into South Korea 50,000 vehicles per automaker per year that meet U.S. safety standards, not necessarily Korean standards, up from 25,000 vehicles previously.</p> <p>Kim said no automakers previously exceeded the 25,000-vehicle threshold. Ford Motor Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=F.N" type="external">F.N</a>) and General Motors ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) each shipped fewer than 10,000 vehicles last year.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see a high chance of automakers expanding U.S. imports,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Kim Jong-hoon, a former chief negotiator for the KORUS FTA, said South Korea had fared relatively well in negotiations.</p> <p>&#8220;South Korea gave concessions in autos in return for steel tariff exemptions,&#8221; he told Reuters. &#8220;This is not a free trade, but a managed trade.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Lincoln Feast</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares were hammered again on Monday as fears of a trade war between the United States and China took their toll, but the safe haven yen came off its highs and U.S. stock futures climbed as investors saw some light at the end of the tunnel.</p> People walk past an electronic board showing Japan's Nikkei average outside a brokerage at a business district in Tokyo, Japan August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon <p>Global markets were shaken when U.S. President Donald Trump moved to slap tariffs on Chinese goods, on top of import duties on steel and aluminum, prompting a defiant response from Beijing.</p> <p>But E-Mini futures for the S&amp;amp;P 500 .ESc1 brushed off the gloom on Monday to leap 0.6 percent on reports the United States and China have quietly started negotiating to improve U.S. access to Chinese markets.</p> <p>The United States also agreed to exempt South Korea from steel tariffs, imposing instead a quota on steel imports as the two countries renegotiate their trade deal.</p> <p>&#8220;If we do start to hear more favorable news from the U.S. administration and indeed from the Chinese side over the next few trading sessions, then we may see a sharp reversal of the recent moves in the market,&#8221; said Nick Twidale, chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities Australia.</p> <p>The positive headlines were little consolation for Asian shares which were left nursing their wounds.</p> <p>Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> trimmed early losses but were still down 0.4 percent. Chinese shares declined about 1.7 percent. SSEC <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.CSI300" type="external">.CSI300</a></p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.4 percent for its fourth consecutive day in the red.</p> <p>The index is headed for its first quarterly decline since late 2016 as the risk of faster U.S. rate rises and a trade war spooked investors who had enjoyed a multi-year bull run.</p> <p>South Korea's benchmark share index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.KS11" type="external">.KS11</a> rose 0.3 percent, one of only three markets in positive territory. "Protectionism remains a source of volatility and downside risk for equities," analysts at JPMorgan said in a note.</p> <p>&#8220;Asia ex-Japan equity outperformance is in part a function of faster growth and capital inflows - both clearly at risk in a trade war.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 20766.1 .N225 Nikkei Index +148.24 (+0.72%) .N225 .CSI300 .KS11 IN SEARCH OF SAFETY <p>In the uncertain global economic climate, investors looked to pile into the Japanese yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a>, traditionally a safe haven asset thanks to the country's massive current account surplus.</p> <p>Speculators added short dollar bets to their portfolios, taking the net short position to its highest in more than a year, according to calculations by Reuters and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for the week to March 20.Short yen positions were cut to the smallest since November 2016.</p> <p>By late Asian trade, the yen had eased slightly from near 16-month highs to 104.90 per dollar while the Australian and New Zealand dollars, a liquid proxy for China plays, staged a welcome rebound.</p> <p>The Aussie <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=AUD&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">AUD=</a> was up 0.3 percent while the kiwi <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=NZD&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">NZD=</a> gained 0.6 percent.</p> <p>The dollar index .DXY tracking the greenback against six other major currencies was near a one-month low at 89.423.</p> <p>In commodities, international Brent crude futures LCOcv1 opened above $70 per barrel for the first time since January but the gains could not be sustained as the ongoing trade disputes weighed on global markets. [O/R]</p> <p>Spot gold XAU= was flat at $1,346.8199 an ounce.</p> <p>Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Eric Meijer</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States asked China in a letter last week to cut the tariff on U.S. autos, buy more U.S.-made semiconductors and give U.S. firms greater access to the Chinese financial sector, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources.</p> FILE PHOTO - A man rides a vehicle past containers at a port in Shanghai, China, February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo <p>Alarm over a possible trade war between the world&#8217;s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors foresee dire consequences should trade barriers go up due to President Donald Trump&#8217;s bid to cut the U.S. deficit with China.</p> <p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer listed steps that Washington wants China to take in a letter to Liu He, a newly appointed vice premier who oversees China&#8217;s economy, the Journal said, quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.</p> <p>The newspaper reported that Mnuchin was considering a visit to Beijing to pursue negotiations.</p> <p>Fears of a trade war mounted earlier this month after Trump first slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and then on Thursday specifically targeted China by announcing plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods.</p> <p>On Friday, China fired a warning shot in response to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum by declaring plans to levy additional duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports.</p> <p>Beijing could also inflict pain on U.S. multinationals that rely on China for a substantial - and growing - portion of their total revenues, said Alex Wolf, senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.</p> <p>&#8220;This could put U.S. companies such as Apple ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">AAPL.O</a>), Microsoft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>), Starbucks ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBUX.O" type="external">SBUX.O</a>), GM ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>), Nike ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NKE.N" type="external">NKE.N</a>), etc. in the firing line,&#8221; Wolf said.</p> <p>China can increase the regulatory burden on U.S companies through new inspections and rules; ban travel; stop providing export licenses of key intermediate goods; raise the tax burden on U.S. multinationals in China; or block U.S. companies from the government procurement market, he said.</p> FLOUTED RULES <p>Trump unveiled the planned tariffs targeting Chinese goods after a U.S. inquiry found China guilty of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices, by forcing U.S. investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms.</p> <p>On Saturday, Liu told Mnuchin in a telephone call the U.S. inquiry violated international trade rules and Beijing would defend its interests, the official Xinhua news agency reported.</p> <p>A U.S. Treasury spokesman confirmed the call, but declined to comment on the content of any letter or on a possible visit by Mnuchin to Beijing.</p> <p>&#8220;Secretary Mnuchin called Liu He to congratulate him on the official announcement of his new role,&#8221; the spokesman told Reuters. &#8220;They also discussed the trade deficit between our two countries and committed to continuing the dialogue to find a mutually agreeable way to reduce it.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">Apple Inc</a> 164.94 AAPL.O Nasdaq -- (--%) AAPL.O MSFT.O SBUX.O GM.N NKE.N <p>The Trump administration has demanded that China immediately cut its staggering $375 billion trade surplus with the United States by $100 billion.</p> <p>&#8220;The U.S. has been wielding sticks worldwide over the past year. Washington needs to be taught a real lesson and such a lesson can only be taught by China, the world&#8217;s second-largest economy,&#8221; Global Times said in an editorial.</p> <p>The widely-read tabloid is run by the ruling Communist Party&#8217;s official People&#8217;s Daily, although its stance does not necessarily equate with government policy.</p> <p>&#8220;What we have to recognize is China hasn&#8217;t measured up to the things we expected of them, in terms of the trade relationship,&#8221; said William Cohen, chairman of Cohen Group, a Washington-based advisory firm.</p> <p>&#8220;My hope is that they will see this is not the way to go, that we do have to sit and work out an arrangement where the Chinese understand you can&#8217;t do business the way they&#8217;ve been doing business,&#8221; the former U.S. defense secretary told Reuters on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing on Sunday.</p> <p>A commentary published by Xinhua warned the United States against provoking retaliation by China.</p> <p>&#8220;Washington should take Beijing&#8217;s stance seriously and do not be penny wise and pound foolish, which will hurt itself and others as well,&#8221; Xinhua said.</p> <p>Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington and Matthew Miller in Beijing; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

YNAP shareholder Renzo Rosso says Richemont bid 'fantastic' U.S. gunmaker Remington files for bankruptcy U.S., South Korea revise trade deal, Korean steel faces quota Asian shares battered as trade war fears sap sentiment U.S. sends China to-do list to reduce trade imbalance: WSJ

https://reuters.com/article/ynap-ma-cmpne-financiere-rosso/ynap-shareholder-renzo-rosso-says-richemont-bid-fantastic-idUSI6N1OK027

2018-01-23

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MILAN Reuters Yoox NetaPorter YNAPMI shareholder Renzo Rosso believes Richemont8217s CFRS bid for full control of the online retailer is of great value even though he is sorry to see another renowned Italian brand pass under foreign control The Swiss group on Monday offered up to 28 billion euros to takeover YNAP in order to better compete in an expanding online market for luxury goods Rosso who owns 57 percent of YNAP8217s ordinary shares declined to comment on whether he would tender his shares in the offer but his comments suggested the deal would go through The Richemont bid is 8220fantastic8221 for YNAP and would allow the Italian firm to become part of a larger company that has always believed and invested in its strategy said Rosso founder of the Diesel brand and owner of fashion group OTB Richemont owns 49 percent of YNAP but only 25 percent of its voting rights Yoox NetAPorter Group SpA 3781 YNAPMI Milan Stock Exchange 004 011 YNAPMI CFRS 8220I8217m a bit disappointed because I was the first major investor in Yoox I saw it grow and evolve under my eyes8221 Rosso told Reuters in emailed comments 8220It8217s another beautiful Italian company that falls into foreign hands but it8217s also proof that Italian entrepreneurship is alive and well8221 Reporting by Claudia Cristoferi writing by Agnieszka Flak editing by Giulia Segreti Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Remington Outdoor Co Inc FREDMUL one of the largest US makers of firearms filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday to carry out a debtcutting deal with creditors amid mounting public pressure for greater gun control The company8217s chief financial officer Stephen Jackson said in court papers that Remington8217s sales fell significantly in the year before its bankruptcy and that the company was having difficulty meeting requirements from its lenders Remington America8217s oldest gunmaker announced in February it would reduce its 950 million debtload in a deal that will transfer control of the company to creditors The company plans to wrap up its bankruptcy as soon as May 3 according to court papers The filing comes after a Feb 14 shooting at a Parkland Florida high school that killed 17 and spurred an intense campaign for gun control by activists The massacre led to huge US antigun rallies by hundreds of thousands of young Americans on Saturday In some of the biggest US youth demonstrations for decades protesters called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue Voter registration activists fanned out in the crowds signing up thousands of the nation8217s newest voters Major US companies and retailers have taken some steps to restrict firearm sales Citigroup Inc said last week it will require new retailsector clients to sell firearms only to customers who passed background checks and to bar sales of highcapacity magazines Citi also said it was restricting sales for buyers under 21 a move adopted by other large retailers while Kroger Co8217s superstore chain Fred Meyer said it will stop selling firearms entirely CERBERUS TO LOSE OWNERSHIP Cerberus Capital Management LP the private equity firm that controls Remington will lose ownership in the bankruptcy Remington8217s creditors which sources told Reuters include Franklin Templeton Investments and JPMorgan Asset Management will exchange their debt holdings for Remington equity The creditors inked the debtcutting deal prior to the Parkland shooting and it is unclear if any have exited The restructuring support agreement allows creditors to sell their holdings but the buyer is bound by the deal One investor told IFR a Thomson Reuters news provider that his firm had contemplated buying the Remington loans that will be exchanged into equity which were offered at as low as 25 cents on the dollar 8220We bowed out because we were uncomfortable8221 he said After a Remington Bushmaster rifle was used in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Connecticut in 2012 that killed 20 children and six adults Cerberus tried unsuccessfully to sell Remington then known as Freedom Group KatieMesner Hage an attorney representing Sandy Hook families in a lawsuit against Remington said in a prepared statement that she did not expect the gunmaker8217s bankruptcy would affect their case Remington and other gunmakers have suffered from slumping sales in the past year as fears of stricter gun laws have faded The chief executive of American Outdoor Brands Corp maker of the Smith ampamp Wesson gun used in the Parkland shooting said on March 1 that some gun retailers reported increased sales after the Florida school shooting Remington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington Delaware Jessica DiNapoli in New York and Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Gopakumar Warrier Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SEOUL Reuters The United States and South Korea agreed to revise a trade pact sharply criticized by US President Donald Trump Seoul said on Monday with US automakers winning improved market access and Korean steelmakers hit with quotas but avoiding hefty tariffs FILE PHOTO Rolled steel are seen at a Hyundai Steel plant in Dangjin about 130 km 81 miles southwest of Seoul June 15 2011 REUTERSLee JaeWonFile Photo The planned changes in the USKorea Free Trade Agreement KORUS come as Trump seeks to strike a balance between his domestic agenda and the need to work closely with Seoul to try to contain a nucleararmed North Korea In April Trump told Reuters he would either renegotiate or terminate what he called a 8220horrible8221 trade deal that has doubled the US goods trade deficit with South Korea since 2012 The agreement means South Korea will be forced to cut its steel exports to the US by 30 percent of past three years8217 average in exchange for becoming the first US ally to receive an indefinite exemption on steel tariffs imposed by Trump Trump8217s action on steel and aluminum along with plans to slap tariffs on up to 60 billion in Chinese goods had fueled concerns of a damaging global trade war 8220We had heated discussions8221 South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyunchong said at a media briefing in Seoul 8220The latest agreement removed two uncertainties8221 he said referring to steel tariff exemptions and KORUS renegotiation Last week Trump temporarily excluded six trade partners including Canada and Mexico Australia and the European Union from higher US import duties on steel and aluminum which came into effect on Friday The import duties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum were mainly aimed at curbing imports from China South Korea has received a quota of about 268 million tonnes of steel exports or 70 percent of the annual average Korean steel exports to the United States between 20152017 which will be exempt from the new tariffs the ministry said in a statement South Korea is not allowed to export steel products exceeding that quota to the US market a ministry official said 8220This leaves a bad precedent of exchanging steel tariffs which is a breach of international trade law for a legitimate free trade agreement in negotiations8221 said Wonmog Choi professor of law at Ewha Womans University TRADE WAR FEARS South Korea is the thirdlargest steel exporter to the United States and the world8217s top importer of Chinese steel leading to concerns it was a conduit for China8217s excess capacity Trump was elected in 2016 after promising to punish what he saw as unfair trade practices by other countries particularly China Alarm over a possible trade war between the world8217s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors foresee dire consequences should trade barriers go up While Trump was adamant the KORUS deal needed renegotiating the trade spat risked undermining relations between Seoul and Washington at a crucial time 8220We are at a time when USSouth Korea cooperation is needed more than ever ahead of the interKorean summit and the summit between North Korea and the United States8221 said a senior official at South Korea8217s presidential Blue House who was not authorized to speak to media South Korean officials said that while the deal agreed was the best they could hope for further pressure on trade was likely under Trump8217s presidency 8220If President Trump becomes a twoterm president I believe there will be continuous trade risks during that time8221 Trade Minister Kim said Dongbu Steel Co Ltd 115500 016380KS Korea Stock Exchange 75000 694 016380KS 005380KS FN GMN Shares in South Korean steelmakers rallied on Monday with Dongbu Steel 016380KS leading gains as tariff exemptions were confirmed amp160amp160amp160 South Korea8217s steel association said in a statement it was a 8220relief8221 that South Korea has been excluded from US steel tariffs but regrettable it was unable to secure higher quotas AUTOS CONCESSION As part of the KORUS revision the countries agreed to extend US tariffs on Korean pickup trucks by 20 years until 2041 No South Korean automakers currently export pickup trucks to the United States but Hyundai Motor 005380KS said last year it planned to launch a model there to catch up with a shift away from sedans Under KORUS revisions US automakers will be able to bring into South Korea 50000 vehicles per automaker per year that meet US safety standards not necessarily Korean standards up from 25000 vehicles previously Kim said no automakers previously exceeded the 25000vehicle threshold Ford Motor Co FN and General Motors GMN each shipped fewer than 10000 vehicles last year 8220I don8217t see a high chance of automakers expanding US imports8221 he said Kim Jonghoon a former chief negotiator for the KORUS FTA said South Korea had fared relatively well in negotiations 8220South Korea gave concessions in autos in return for steel tariff exemptions8221 he told Reuters 8220This is not a free trade but a managed trade8221 Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin Additional reporting by Christine Kim Editing by Lincoln Feast Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SYDNEY Reuters Asian shares were hammered again on Monday as fears of a trade war between the United States and China took their toll but the safe haven yen came off its highs and US stock futures climbed as investors saw some light at the end of the tunnel People walk past an electronic board showing Japans Nikkei average outside a brokerage at a business district in Tokyo Japan August 9 2017 REUTERSKim KyungHoon Global markets were shaken when US President Donald Trump moved to slap tariffs on Chinese goods on top of import duties on steel and aluminum prompting a defiant response from Beijing But EMini futures for the SampampP 500 ESc1 brushed off the gloom on Monday to leap 06 percent on reports the United States and China have quietly started negotiating to improve US access to Chinese markets The United States also agreed to exempt South Korea from steel tariffs imposing instead a quota on steel imports as the two countries renegotiate their trade deal 8220If we do start to hear more favorable news from the US administration and indeed from the Chinese side over the next few trading sessions then we may see a sharp reversal of the recent moves in the market8221 said Nick Twidale chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities Australia The positive headlines were little consolation for Asian shares which were left nursing their wounds Japans Nikkei N225 trimmed early losses but were still down 04 percent Chinese shares declined about 17 percent SSEC CSI300 MSCI8217s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 04 percent for its fourth consecutive day in the red The index is headed for its first quarterly decline since late 2016 as the risk of faster US rate rises and a trade war spooked investors who had enjoyed a multiyear bull run South Koreas benchmark share index KS11 rose 03 percent one of only three markets in positive territory Protectionism remains a source of volatility and downside risk for equities analysts at JPMorgan said in a note 8220Asia exJapan equity outperformance is in part a function of faster growth and capital inflows both clearly at risk in a trade war8221 Nikkei Inc 207661 N225 Nikkei Index 14824 072 N225 CSI300 KS11 IN SEARCH OF SAFETY In the uncertain global economic climate investors looked to pile into the Japanese yen JPY traditionally a safe haven asset thanks to the countrys massive current account surplus Speculators added short dollar bets to their portfolios taking the net short position to its highest in more than a year according to calculations by Reuters and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for the week to March 20Short yen positions were cut to the smallest since November 2016 By late Asian trade the yen had eased slightly from near 16month highs to 10490 per dollar while the Australian and New Zealand dollars a liquid proxy for China plays staged a welcome rebound The Aussie AUD was up 03 percent while the kiwi NZD gained 06 percent The dollar index DXY tracking the greenback against six other major currencies was near a onemonth low at 89423 In commodities international Brent crude futures LCOcv1 opened above 70 per barrel for the first time since January but the gains could not be sustained as the ongoing trade disputes weighed on global markets OR Spot gold XAU was flat at 13468199 an ounce Reporting by Swati Pandey Editing by Eric Meijer Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters The United States asked China in a letter last week to cut the tariff on US autos buy more USmade semiconductors and give US firms greater access to the Chinese financial sector the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday citing unnamed sources FILE PHOTO A man rides a vehicle past containers at a port in Shanghai China February 17 2016 REUTERSAly SongFile Photo Alarm over a possible trade war between the world8217s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors foresee dire consequences should trade barriers go up due to President Donald Trump8217s bid to cut the US deficit with China Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer listed steps that Washington wants China to take in a letter to Liu He a newly appointed vice premier who oversees China8217s economy the Journal said quoting sources with knowledge of the matter The newspaper reported that Mnuchin was considering a visit to Beijing to pursue negotiations Fears of a trade war mounted earlier this month after Trump first slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and then on Thursday specifically targeted China by announcing plans for tariffs on up to 60 billion of Chinese goods On Friday China fired a warning shot in response to the US tariffs on steel and aluminum by declaring plans to levy additional duties on up to 3 billion of US imports Beijing could also inflict pain on US multinationals that rely on China for a substantial and growing portion of their total revenues said Alex Wolf senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments 8220This could put US companies such as Apple AAPLO Microsoft MSFTO Starbucks SBUXO GM GMN Nike NKEN etc in the firing line8221 Wolf said China can increase the regulatory burden on US companies through new inspections and rules ban travel stop providing export licenses of key intermediate goods raise the tax burden on US multinationals in China or block US companies from the government procurement market he said FLOUTED RULES Trump unveiled the planned tariffs targeting Chinese goods after a US inquiry found China guilty of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices by forcing US investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms On Saturday Liu told Mnuchin in a telephone call the US inquiry violated international trade rules and Beijing would defend its interests the official Xinhua news agency reported A US Treasury spokesman confirmed the call but declined to comment on the content of any letter or on a possible visit by Mnuchin to Beijing 8220Secretary Mnuchin called Liu He to congratulate him on the official announcement of his new role8221 the spokesman told Reuters 8220They also discussed the trade deficit between our two countries and committed to continuing the dialogue to find a mutually agreeable way to reduce it8221 Apple Inc 16494 AAPLO Nasdaq AAPLO MSFTO SBUXO GMN NKEN The Trump administration has demanded that China immediately cut its staggering 375 billion trade surplus with the United States by 100 billion 8220The US has been wielding sticks worldwide over the past year Washington needs to be taught a real lesson and such a lesson can only be taught by China the world8217s secondlargest economy8221 Global Times said in an editorial The widelyread tabloid is run by the ruling Communist Party8217s official People8217s Daily although its stance does not necessarily equate with government policy 8220What we have to recognize is China hasn8217t measured up to the things we expected of them in terms of the trade relationship8221 said William Cohen chairman of Cohen Group a Washingtonbased advisory firm 8220My hope is that they will see this is not the way to go that we do have to sit and work out an arrangement where the Chinese understand you can8217t do business the way they8217ve been doing business8221 the former US defense secretary told Reuters on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing on Sunday A commentary published by Xinhua warned the United States against provoking retaliation by China 8220Washington should take Beijing8217s stance seriously and do not be penny wise and pound foolish which will hurt itself and others as well8221 Xinhua said Reporting by Ryan Woo Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington and Matthew Miller in Beijing Editing by Simon CameronMoore Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p /> <p>Photo by Fibonacci Blue | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>+ In his acrid little book&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Studies in Classic American Literature</a>, DH Lawrence wrote that &#8220;the American is a killer.&#8221; He may have underestimated the depths of the country&#8217;s cultural psychosis.</p> <p>+ This week came the news that three of the Baltimore cops who took Freddie Gray on a fatal torture ride were feted at a black tie gala hosted by the Media Research Council, a right-wing smog machine based in Virginia. The three killer cops&#8211;Brian Rice, Edward Nero and Garrett Miller&#8211;were hailed as &#8220;heroes&#8221; by columnist Cal Thomas.</p> <p>Miller spoke to the worshipful crowd, begging them to keep the cops in their prayers. &#8220;Our profession is hurting,&#8221; Miller whined. &#8220;We&#8217;re losing officers at an incredible rate. Not just from gunfire but because they&#8217;re tired of it. They quit. Our department is short. Everywhere is short. Nobody wants to be a police officer anymore.&#8221;</p> <p>+ Call it the Sick Blue Line. Cops portray themselves as victims even after they&#8217;ve killed defenseless citizens and the Police Industrial Complex rallies to their aid. The innocent dead are slimed and slandered, their lives distorted beyond all recognition. Tyre King, a 13-year old with a toy gun, was shot multiple times by Columbus police&amp;#160;and then&amp;#160;smeared as a gang-banger and thug before his corpse had even cooled. They didn&#8217;t pause for a moment to&amp;#160;contemplate the young life they had prematurely foreclosed, as if young Tyre were merely&amp;#160;a future problem pre-empted.</p> <p>On Tuesday, El Cajon police, in southern California, responded to a call from the sister of&amp;#160;Alfred&amp;#160;Okwera Olango, who said her brother was sick, unarmed and needed help. It took the cops 50 minutes to get there and when they arrived they almost immediately&amp;#160;shot&amp;#160;Olango to death, claiming that he had pulled a gun them. The killing was live-streamed on Facebook, where Olango&#8217;s sister can be heard screaming as her brother is&amp;#160;slain before her eyes:&amp;#160;&#8220;You guys killed my brother in front of me!&amp;#160;Why couldn&#8217;t you guys Tase him? Why? Why? Why? Why?&#8221;</p> <p>The object in Olango&#8217;s&amp;#160;hand turned out to be a vaporizer. Any object is now considered a lethal weapon, any posture a mortal threat.</p> <p>+ I get the sense that many cops get off on watching these kill shots. They screen them like snuff films, a sadistic kind of &#8220;blue&#8221; movie, where they derive a sick psychic charge from images of their own lethal power, immune from any moral or legal accounting.</p> <p>+ Being black in America means that you can&#8217;t drive, can&#8217;t walk, can&#8217;t shop, can&#8217;t even park without risk of being shot by cops.</p> <p>+ Marijuana busts have declined by steeply&amp;#160;nationwide since the Clinton Crime bill got to work in 1997.&amp;#160;According to the FBI&#8217;s&amp;#160;Uniform Crime Report, police made 643,122 arrests for marijuana-related offenses in 2015. Of those arrested, 574,641 were charged with marijuana possession only, not cultivation or trafficking.&amp;#160;The annual arrest total represents more than a 25 percent decline since 2007, when police arrested a record 872,721. &amp;#160;Welcome news, naturally. But in North Carolina you can still got shot for smoking a blunt in your own parking lot.</p> <p>+ Pot busts still&amp;#160;account for&amp;#160;89 percent of all drug-related arrests. Blacks are four-times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, even though similar percentages of blacks and white partake of&amp;#160;the herb.</p> <p>+ Chelsea Clinton, the mentally-challenged offspring of a power mad couple with the blood of millions on their hands, believes that pot is the real killer. &amp;#160;&#8220;We also have anecdotal evidence now from Colorado where some of the people who were taking marijuana for those purposes [chemotherapy, epilepsy, autism], the coroner believes, after they died, there was drug interactions with other things they were taking.&#8221; If only Bill had inhaled&#8230;</p> <p>+One of the prerequisites for being taken seriously as a presidential candidate is&amp;#160;&amp;#160;pledging that you possess&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;necessary moral numbness to&amp;#160;&#8220;strike first&#8221; with nuclear weapons, even if it means destroying life on Earth. Cockburn used to tell&amp;#160;the story of the great&amp;#160;Fred Harris, the feisty Democrat from Oklahoma, who was running, what today would be called an &#8220;outsider campaign,&#8221; in 1976. Before the Iowa caucuses, Harris went on Meet the Press early in the campaign and vowed to end the First Strike doctrine. Fierce denunciations of Harris&#8217;s &#8220;naivet&#233;&#8221; were immediately launched from think-tank silos on K Street in DC. His campaign was in ruins&amp;#160;within hours.</p> <p>+ Consider Trump. In one of the most fascinating exchanges of the first debate, the testy tycoon&amp;#160;announced &#8220;I would certainly not do first strike&#8230;Once the nuclear alternative happens, it&#8217;s all over.&#8221; This is a perfectly rational statement and a refreshing one for a presidential candidate. Then Trump, sensing that he might have just said something that could land him on some CIA hit list, retreated and sought refuge in the chilling &#8220;all options are on the table&#8221; bromide.</p> <p>+ A <a href="" type="internal">new poll</a> probes the minds of Trump supporters and reveals the obvious. Most Trumpeters view blacks and women has having too much power over the government. Trump&#8217;s&amp;#160;campaign that preys on these feelings of white male impotence. It should come with an advisory notice: &#8220;If your erection lasts for more than four hours after voting for Trump, call your doctor&#8211;or your mother.&#8221;</p> <p>+ For the first time in its 136 years of publication, the&amp;#160;Arizona Republic has&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">endorsed</a> a Democrat for president. The paper hasn&#8217;t changed his vile political views for more than a century. What does that say about Hillary Clinton&#8217;s?</p> <p>+ The Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson appeared on MS-DNC&#8217;s Hardball this week. I thought he held up pretty well under&amp;#160;the hostile and impertinent questioning. Johnson has suddenly become a threat, as polls show him outpacing Clinton among millennials. The Johnson surge has brought once safe states, such as New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire, into play. Thus the guns have been turned on him.</p> <p>+ The liberal press and the Clinton Twitterchoir are trying to make a big deal of Johnson&#8217;s answer to a silly question from Matthews, asking him to name a current head of state that he admired. Johnson&#8217;s answer was clear and simple: &#8220;I can&#8217;t think of one.&#8221; This statement is being ridiculed by the political class as evidence of the triviality of the Johnson campaign. But isn&#8217;t it an accurate reflection of the world as it exists?</p> <p>+ After snickering at Johnson&amp;#160;for saying he couldn&#8217;t think of any world leader that he admired,&amp;#160;Hillary disclosed her choice&#8230;.Angela Merkel. Trump, showing his feminine side, quickly followed suit. Both major candidates are admirers of the grim enforcer of Euro-Austerity. Goodbye pensions! Goodbye Social Security!! I&#8217;m with Gary.</p> <p>+ Johnson made a very important statement during the Matthews interview. Unlike Trump and Clinton, who want to see Edward Snowden brought home in chains and tried for treason, Johnson said, &#8220;Based on what I know about the case, I would pardon Edward Snowden.&#8221;</p> <p>+ This strong statement of solidarity from a leading political figure in the country (which synchs with&amp;#160;Jill Stein&#8217;s own position on Snowden) was met with derision, even on the far Left. I quote just a few comments from our Facebook page:</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure he knows as much about Snowden as he does about Aleppo.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;It does leave open the question of what Mr. Libertarian &#8220;doesn&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Er, Aleppo? What&#8217;s Aleppo? Snowden? Some place in Maine, isn&#8217;t it? It snows a lot there, doesn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;What is Snowden?&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;That is the first intelligent thing he&#8217;s said.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Impressive, considering the depth of his knowledge.&#8221;</p> <p>+Even the&amp;#160;boutique-radical magazine Jacobin joined the gang-bang, publishing&amp;#160;a <a href="" type="internal">lengthy hit piece</a> on Johnson, treating the Lib as if he had a real shot of becoming president instead of roving the country as an anti-war, pro civil liberties gadfly. In effect, Jacobin is running interference for the Charlotte Corday of this election, the woman who knifed Marat/Sanders. Perhaps they should change their name to Girondin?</p> <p>+ The Jacobin painter&amp;#160;David refused to depict her in &#8220; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Marat#/media/File:Jacques-Louis_David_-_Marat_assassinated_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg" type="external">Marat Assassin&#233;</a>.&#8221; Here&#8217;s Baudry&#8217;s painting of the <a href="http://francerevisited.com/wp-content/uploads/Charlotte-Corday-by-Baudry.jpg" type="external">bloody scene</a>. Perhaps Girondin&#8217;s new logo could be a profile of Corday&#8217;s head, which was said, by Camus (I believe), to have blushed at&amp;#160;the executioner&#8217;s touch.</p> <p>+ The knee-jerk Left cares more about staying inside the strict enclosures of its own ideology than finding unity with libertarians and anarchists on matters of state power, civil liberties and militarism. It&#8217;s a self-defeating posture.&amp;#160;Dissing Johnson in such smug ways makes Leftist feel temporarily elevated, but does nothing to help the perilous circumstances facing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, end the drug war or stop the next regime change intervention.</p> <p>+ I&#8217;ve always admired Michel Foucault&#8217;s statement that &#8220;Resistance unites us.&#8221; Foucault and Sartre, who despised each other, stood <a href="" type="internal">arm-in-arm</a> on the streets of Paris during the street protests of 1971 over the censorship of the Maoist newspaper&amp;#160;La cause du peuple. Too often the American Left, such as it is, seems united only by its own sense of isolation and alienation.</p> <p>+ In a glorious, if belated, rebuke to Obama, the Senate voted 97-1 to override the President&#8217;s veto of the bill allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for complicity in the attacks. It was the first time an Obama veto had ever been over-turned.</p> <p>+ The vote would have sent a much more forceful message if it had been unanimous, but Harry Reid voted against it (for procedural reasons) and Tim Kaine was campaigning. But what about Bernie Sanders? Even Marco Rubio showed up to cast his vote and he never votes on anything. What&#8217;s your excuse Bernie? Didn&#8217;t want to alienate the Kingdom that you want to prosecute a proxy war in Syria? Or did you feel obligated to go out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire with Hillary? Priorities, priorities&#8230;</p> <p>+ The great Mark Ames, editor of The eXiled, reports that the CIA intense&amp;#160;pressure on Harper &amp;amp; Row to censor Alfred McCoy&#8217;s classic text, The Politics of Heroin, which conclusively documented the CIA&#8217;s historical complicity in the drug trade. McCoy&#8217;s book was a crucial source for our own volume Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press. Ames and Gary Brecher discuss the importance of McCoy&#8217;s book on their <a href="" type="internal">WarNerd podcast</a>.</p> <p>+ For Rachel Maddow a &#8220;big scoop&#8221; is getting an advance copy of a story appearing in the morning&#8217;s papers. She&#8217;s not exactly the Seymour Hersh of MS-DNC. This week Maddow breathlessly announced that a new story by disgraced journalist Kurt Eichenwald was going to rock the Trump campaign and probably cost the mogul the state of&amp;#160;Florida. What was the big revelation? That Trump&#8217;s organization had negotiated a couple of deals with the Castro government in violation of the beastly Cuban embargo. Shouldn&#8217;t Trump have been given a medal for breaching such a malign policy?</p> <p>+ The Democrats&#8217; red scare tactics have now expanded from Putin to Fidel.</p> <p>+&amp;#160;You can see why the Clintons are pissed at Trump for violating the Cuban embargo. After all, Bill signed the dreadful Helms-Burton Act into law to appease Miami&#8217;s noxious tribe of Cuban exiles.</p> <p>+ Democrats love sanctions. They are the quiet killers. Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria. You can kill millions of people, inflict starvation and misery across an entire population of civilians, and leave no trace of your own culpability.</p> <p>+ Here&#8217;s an excerpt from Diane Blair&#8217;s diary about her decades long relationship with the Clintons. She is describing her&amp;#160;conversation&amp;#160;Hillary about Bill&#8217;s &#8220;relationship&#8221; with Monica Lewinsky, a few weeks after Bubba confessed to having &#8220;a relationship with &#8216;that woman.'&#8221;&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&#8220;She thinks she was not smart enough, not sensitive enough, not free enough of her own concerns and struggles,&#8221; Diane Blair wrote. &#8220;It was a lapse, but she says to his credit he tried to break it off, tried to pull away, tried to manage someone who was clearly a &#8216;narcissistic loony toon;&#8217; but it was beyond control.&#8221;</p> <p>I&#8217;m confused. Who is the &#8220;narcissistic looney tune&#8221; here? Monica, Hillary or Bill?</p> <p>+ Morbidly obese philandering moron &#8220;weighs-in&#8221; on Miss Universe-gate. Which one, you ask? Good question. This episode in misogyny features <a href="" type="internal">Newt Gingrich</a>.</p> <p>+&amp;#160;Just weeks ago, the Liberals were gleefully body shaming Trump for his <a href="" type="internal">bulging gut and micro penis</a>. Now the same people are aghast that Trump is body shaming a former beauty contestant!&amp;#160;Both will, of course, greedily consume the fat of the land.</p> <p>+&amp;#160;What do you do when your candidate is a mendacious, neoliberal hawk with nothing to recommend for her? <a href="" type="internal">Demonize&amp;#160;Jill Stein</a>, naturally&#8230;</p> <p>+ Speaking of demonization, it was heartening to see that Jeremy Corbyn crushed the Blairite insurrection to maintain his position as leader of the Labour Party. Since the Brexit vote, Corbyn has been subjected to vile histrionics from Britain&#8217;s neoliberals, both inside his party and in the press. As the vote neared, the insurgents became unhinged. Take&amp;#160;Nicholas Lezard, a literary critic for the Guardian, who a few days before the election erupted in a bizarre Facebook rant where he called for <a href="" type="internal">crowdsourcing an assassination plot</a>against Corbyn. He later said he was merely joking.</p> <p>What&#8217;s next? A columnist at The&amp;#160;Nation magazine&amp;#160;(ahem, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/your-vote-for-jill-stein-is-a-wasted-vote/" type="external">Joshua Holland</a>) calling for the rendition of&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jill.stein.733" type="external">Jill Stein</a>&amp;#160;to a CIA black site in Uzbekistan?</p> <p>+&amp;#160;When Samantha &#8220;Smarty-Pants&#8221; Power speaks, you&#8217;d better run for the nearest hardened bunker.</p> <p>+ This just in from Peter Lee: &#8220;The deep state has already voted. Hillary Clinton for president.&#8221;</p> <p>+&amp;#160;Hot off the Twitter wire:</p> <p>&#8220;BernieSanders: RT HillaryClinton: &#8220;Thank you, BernieSanders. Thank you for your leadership and your support in this campaign.&#8221; &#8212;Hillary&#8221;</p> <p>Love blooms amid the ruins&#8230;.</p> <p>+ When a war criminal on friendly terms with the western powers dies, you can be assured that he&#8217;ll eulogized as a peacemaker. Thus did&amp;#160;Bill Clinton praise the loathsome Shimon Peres, the butcher of Qana, as &#8220;My brilliant and eloquent friend. His life was a blessing to all who strive for peace.&#8221; The Clintons are all about peace and the children, except when those children are Palestinian refugees, who must be pre-emptively executed before they grow up to be terrorists. 108 were killed&amp;#160;in Peres&#8217;s politically-motivated raid on UN camp in Qana, Lebanon: 56 of them children.</p> <p>+ Politico reports that the Clinton campaign is in high anxiety over the lack of enthusiasm shown for HRC by black voters. The panic is especially acute in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, where blacks voters, uninspired by the woman who labeled black youth &#8220;super-predators,&#8221; are 20 percent less likely to vote this year than in 2012.</p> <p>You heard it here first: If Clinton loses, Hillary will&amp;#160;blame blacks. If she wins, she&#8217;ll reward Wall Street.</p> <p>+ Watch this terrific <a href="" type="internal">short interview</a>with one of the greatest Oregonians, the fearless and crafty George Atiyeh, on how to take on a savage industry and its bureaucratic automatons and win&#8211;WIN BIG. Against all odds and a great personal risk, Atiyeh saved the Opal Creek Wilderness from chainsaws and logging roads, one of the last intact groves of ancient forest in the Pacific Northwest.</p> <p>+With a thick Oregon fog enwrapping the house,&amp;#160;Zen St. Clair&amp;#160;and I sat before the fire and watched the Binoche/Fiennes 1992 version of &#8216;Wuthering Heights&#8217; this week. It sticks unnervingly close to Emily&#8217;s text, unlike the celebrated Olivier / Oberon version. Every social convention and moral norm is enthusiastically overturned, if not annihilated. It&#8217;s the equivalent of the French Revolution for English literature. I remember Cockburn saying, &#8220;How could that young, sickly girl have written the greatest English novel of the 19th century?&#8221;</p> <p>Binoche is hauntingly, fatally beautiful; Fiennes&#8217;s Heathcliff is an obsessive fiend&#8211;repulsive, feral and irresistable. The film is enhanced, for me at least, by my old nemesis (we&#8217;ve since kissed and made up) Sinead O&#8217;Connor, who narrates and briefly appears all swaddled up in a bonnet and wind-blown cape as Emily, giving just a hint of the ferocious mind Bront&#235;&amp;#160;must have possessed. The Yorkshire Moors have never looked more intoxicating or treacherous. Highly recommended for doomed Romantics. That said, I have no clue&amp;#160;what the hell Kate Bush is doing in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs" type="external">this video</a>. If anyone has an idea, please explicate.</p> <p>+ &amp;#160;You may have noticed. We are running our annual fundraiser. You scrolled right past it, eh? Please don&#8217;t. Week after week we give you the best writers on the international left: Michael Hudson, Diana Johnstone, Robin DG Kelley, Paul Street, Mike Whitney, Margaret Kimberley, Henry Giroux. Writers who are knowledgeable, penetrating and funny.</p> <p>To single out these writers out is not to belittle our other regular contributors. And if you&#8217;re a regular reader you&#8217;ll know them and you&#8217;ll also know all the surprising new voices you meet on our site every day of every week. They come from every quarter, because they&#8217;re aware, like you, that this is where interesting radical and independent minds meet and where they combine in the true spirit of resistance to the dead grip of conventional thought and politics-as-usual.</p> <p>We need your donation, whatever you can afford. If we don&#8217;t make our target, we&#8217;ll have to cut back our operations. Do you want that to happen, just on the edge of a treacherous new era?</p> <p>So, if you like what we do, <a href="http://store.counterpunch.org" type="external">donate now</a>.</p> <p>Sound Grammar</p> <p>What I&#8217;m listening to this week:</p> <p>1/ Julia Holter: <a href="" type="internal">Have You in My Wilderness</a> 2/ Grimes: <a href="" type="internal">Art Angels</a> 3/ Gov&#8217;t. Mule: <a href="" type="internal">The Tel-Star Sessions</a> 4/ Lisa Hannigan: <a href="" type="internal">At Swim</a> 5/ Kenny Garrett: <a href="" type="internal">Do Your Dance</a></p> <p>Booked Up</p> <p>What I&#8217;m reading this week:</p> <p>1/ John Gray:&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Soul of the Marionette: a Short Inquiry into Human Freedom</a> 2/ James Baldwin:&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Evidence of Things Not Seen</a> 3/ Wilkie Collins: <a href="" type="internal">No Name</a></p> <p>Selling Dead Souls</p> <p>Alexander Cockburn: &#8220;Shades of Gogol, who was born 200 years ago. The motor of his great novel is the economic use of &#8220;dead souls&#8221;&#8211;deceased serfs listed by the state as assets of the landlords. The novel&#8217;s central character, Chichikov, goes around buying them up. New York State could take Gogol&#8217;s hint and start auctioning its &#8220;living dead&#8221; as income generators to other states in need. Looking at our criminal justice system here, Gogol would surely use the line carved his gravestone: &#8216;And I shall laugh my bitter laugh.'&#8221;</p> <p>&#8212; <a href="https://store.counterpunch.org/product/a-colossal-wreck/" type="external">A Colossal Wreck</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Roaming Charges: the Sick Blue Line

https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/30/roaming-charges-the-sick-blue-line/

2016-09-30

4left

Photo by Fibonacci Blue CC BY 20 amp160 In his acrid little bookamp160 Studies in Classic American Literature DH Lawrence wrote that 8220the American is a killer8221 He may have underestimated the depths of the country8217s cultural psychosis This week came the news that three of the Baltimore cops who took Freddie Gray on a fatal torture ride were feted at a black tie gala hosted by the Media Research Council a rightwing smog machine based in Virginia The three killer cops8211Brian Rice Edward Nero and Garrett Miller8211were hailed as 8220heroes8221 by columnist Cal Thomas Miller spoke to the worshipful crowd begging them to keep the cops in their prayers 8220Our profession is hurting8221 Miller whined 8220We8217re losing officers at an incredible rate Not just from gunfire but because they8217re tired of it They quit Our department is short Everywhere is short Nobody wants to be a police officer anymore8221 Call it the Sick Blue Line Cops portray themselves as victims even after they8217ve killed defenseless citizens and the Police Industrial Complex rallies to their aid The innocent dead are slimed and slandered their lives distorted beyond all recognition Tyre King a 13year old with a toy gun was shot multiple times by Columbus policeamp160and thenamp160smeared as a gangbanger and thug before his corpse had even cooled They didn8217t pause for a moment toamp160contemplate the young life they had prematurely foreclosed as if young Tyre were merelyamp160a future problem preempted On Tuesday El Cajon police in southern California responded to a call from the sister ofamp160Alfredamp160Okwera Olango who said her brother was sick unarmed and needed help It took the cops 50 minutes to get there and when they arrived they almost immediatelyamp160shotamp160Olango to death claiming that he had pulled a gun them The killing was livestreamed on Facebook where Olango8217s sister can be heard screaming as her brother isamp160slain before her eyesamp1608220You guys killed my brother in front of meamp160Why couldn8217t you guys Tase him Why Why Why Why8221 The object in Olango8217samp160hand turned out to be a vaporizer Any object is now considered a lethal weapon any posture a mortal threat I get the sense that many cops get off on watching these kill shots They screen them like snuff films a sadistic kind of 8220blue8221 movie where they derive a sick psychic charge from images of their own lethal power immune from any moral or legal accounting Being black in America means that you can8217t drive can8217t walk can8217t shop can8217t even park without risk of being shot by cops Marijuana busts have declined by steeplyamp160nationwide since the Clinton Crime bill got to work in 1997amp160According to the FBI8217samp160Uniform Crime Report police made 643122 arrests for marijuanarelated offenses in 2015 Of those arrested 574641 were charged with marijuana possession only not cultivation or traffickingamp160The annual arrest total represents more than a 25 percent decline since 2007 when police arrested a record 872721 amp160Welcome news naturally But in North Carolina you can still got shot for smoking a blunt in your own parking lot Pot busts stillamp160account foramp16089 percent of all drugrelated arrests Blacks are fourtimes more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession even though similar percentages of blacks and white partake ofamp160the herb Chelsea Clinton the mentallychallenged offspring of a power mad couple with the blood of millions on their hands believes that pot is the real killer amp1608220We also have anecdotal evidence now from Colorado where some of the people who were taking marijuana for those purposes chemotherapy epilepsy autism the coroner believes after they died there was drug interactions with other things they were taking8221 If only Bill had inhaled8230 One of the prerequisites for being taken seriously as a presidential candidate isamp160amp160pledging that you possessamp160theamp160necessary moral numbness toamp1608220strike first8221 with nuclear weapons even if it means destroying life on Earth Cockburn used to tellamp160the story of the greatamp160Fred Harris the feisty Democrat from Oklahoma who was running what today would be called an 8220outsider campaign8221 in 1976 Before the Iowa caucuses Harris went on Meet the Press early in the campaign and vowed to end the First Strike doctrine Fierce denunciations of Harris8217s 8220naivet2338221 were immediately launched from thinktank silos on K Street in DC His campaign was in ruinsamp160within hours Consider Trump In one of the most fascinating exchanges of the first debate the testy tycoonamp160announced 8220I would certainly not do first strike8230Once the nuclear alternative happens it8217s all over8221 This is a perfectly rational statement and a refreshing one for a presidential candidate Then Trump sensing that he might have just said something that could land him on some CIA hit list retreated and sought refuge in the chilling 8220all options are on the table8221 bromide A new poll probes the minds of Trump supporters and reveals the obvious Most Trumpeters view blacks and women has having too much power over the government Trump8217samp160campaign that preys on these feelings of white male impotence It should come with an advisory notice 8220If your erection lasts for more than four hours after voting for Trump call your doctor8211or your mother8221 For the first time in its 136 years of publication theamp160Arizona Republic hasamp160 endorsed a Democrat for president The paper hasn8217t changed his vile political views for more than a century What does that say about Hillary Clinton8217s The Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson appeared on MSDNC8217s Hardball this week I thought he held up pretty well underamp160the hostile and impertinent questioning Johnson has suddenly become a threat as polls show him outpacing Clinton among millennials The Johnson surge has brought once safe states such as New Mexico Colorado and New Hampshire into play Thus the guns have been turned on him The liberal press and the Clinton Twitterchoir are trying to make a big deal of Johnson8217s answer to a silly question from Matthews asking him to name a current head of state that he admired Johnson8217s answer was clear and simple 8220I can8217t think of one8221 This statement is being ridiculed by the political class as evidence of the triviality of the Johnson campaign But isn8217t it an accurate reflection of the world as it exists After snickering at Johnsonamp160for saying he couldn8217t think of any world leader that he admiredamp160Hillary disclosed her choice8230Angela Merkel Trump showing his feminine side quickly followed suit Both major candidates are admirers of the grim enforcer of EuroAusterity Goodbye pensions Goodbye Social Security I8217m with Gary Johnson made a very important statement during the Matthews interview Unlike Trump and Clinton who want to see Edward Snowden brought home in chains and tried for treason Johnson said 8220Based on what I know about the case I would pardon Edward Snowden8221 This strong statement of solidarity from a leading political figure in the country which synchs withamp160Jill Stein8217s own position on Snowden was met with derision even on the far Left I quote just a few comments from our Facebook page 8220I8217m sure he knows as much about Snowden as he does about Aleppo8221 8220It does leave open the question of what Mr Libertarian 8220doesn8217t know8221 8220Er Aleppo What8217s Aleppo Snowden Some place in Maine isn8217t it It snows a lot there doesn8217t it8221 8220What is Snowden8221 8220That is the first intelligent thing he8217s said8221 8220Impressive considering the depth of his knowledge8221 Even theamp160boutiqueradical magazine Jacobin joined the gangbang publishingamp160a lengthy hit piece on Johnson treating the Lib as if he had a real shot of becoming president instead of roving the country as an antiwar pro civil liberties gadfly In effect Jacobin is running interference for the Charlotte Corday of this election the woman who knifed MaratSanders Perhaps they should change their name to Girondin The Jacobin painteramp160David refused to depict her in 8220 Marat Assassin2338221 Here8217s Baudry8217s painting of the bloody scene Perhaps Girondin8217s new logo could be a profile of Corday8217s head which was said by Camus I believe to have blushed atamp160the executioner8217s touch The kneejerk Left cares more about staying inside the strict enclosures of its own ideology than finding unity with libertarians and anarchists on matters of state power civil liberties and militarism It8217s a selfdefeating postureamp160Dissing Johnson in such smug ways makes Leftist feel temporarily elevated but does nothing to help the perilous circumstances facing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning end the drug war or stop the next regime change intervention I8217ve always admired Michel Foucault8217s statement that 8220Resistance unites us8221 Foucault and Sartre who despised each other stood arminarm on the streets of Paris during the street protests of 1971 over the censorship of the Maoist newspaperamp160La cause du peuple Too often the American Left such as it is seems united only by its own sense of isolation and alienation In a glorious if belated rebuke to Obama the Senate voted 971 to override the President8217s veto of the bill allowing the families of 911 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for complicity in the attacks It was the first time an Obama veto had ever been overturned The vote would have sent a much more forceful message if it had been unanimous but Harry Reid voted against it for procedural reasons and Tim Kaine was campaigning But what about Bernie Sanders Even Marco Rubio showed up to cast his vote and he never votes on anything What8217s your excuse Bernie Didn8217t want to alienate the Kingdom that you want to prosecute a proxy war in Syria Or did you feel obligated to go out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire with Hillary Priorities priorities8230 The great Mark Ames editor of The eXiled reports that the CIA intenseamp160pressure on Harper ampamp Row to censor Alfred McCoy8217s classic text The Politics of Heroin which conclusively documented the CIA8217s historical complicity in the drug trade McCoy8217s book was a crucial source for our own volume Whiteout the CIA Drugs and the Press Ames and Gary Brecher discuss the importance of McCoy8217s book on their WarNerd podcast For Rachel Maddow a 8220big scoop8221 is getting an advance copy of a story appearing in the morning8217s papers She8217s not exactly the Seymour Hersh of MSDNC This week Maddow breathlessly announced that a new story by disgraced journalist Kurt Eichenwald was going to rock the Trump campaign and probably cost the mogul the state ofamp160Florida What was the big revelation That Trump8217s organization had negotiated a couple of deals with the Castro government in violation of the beastly Cuban embargo Shouldn8217t Trump have been given a medal for breaching such a malign policy The Democrats8217 red scare tactics have now expanded from Putin to Fidel amp160You can see why the Clintons are pissed at Trump for violating the Cuban embargo After all Bill signed the dreadful HelmsBurton Act into law to appease Miami8217s noxious tribe of Cuban exiles Democrats love sanctions They are the quiet killers Cuba Iran Iraq North Korea Syria You can kill millions of people inflict starvation and misery across an entire population of civilians and leave no trace of your own culpability Here8217s an excerpt from Diane Blair8217s diary about her decades long relationship with the Clintons She is describing heramp160conversationamp160Hillary about Bill8217s 8220relationship8221 with Monica Lewinsky a few weeks after Bubba confessed to having 8220a relationship with 8216that woman8221amp160amp1608220She thinks she was not smart enough not sensitive enough not free enough of her own concerns and struggles8221 Diane Blair wrote 8220It was a lapse but she says to his credit he tried to break it off tried to pull away tried to manage someone who was clearly a 8216narcissistic loony toon8217 but it was beyond control8221 I8217m confused Who is the 8220narcissistic looney tune8221 here Monica Hillary or Bill Morbidly obese philandering moron 8220weighsin8221 on Miss Universegate Which one you ask Good question This episode in misogyny features Newt Gingrich amp160Just weeks ago the Liberals were gleefully body shaming Trump for his bulging gut and micro penis Now the same people are aghast that Trump is body shaming a former beauty contestantamp160Both will of course greedily consume the fat of the land amp160What do you do when your candidate is a mendacious neoliberal hawk with nothing to recommend for her Demonizeamp160Jill Stein naturally8230 Speaking of demonization it was heartening to see that Jeremy Corbyn crushed the Blairite insurrection to maintain his position as leader of the Labour Party Since the Brexit vote Corbyn has been subjected to vile histrionics from Britain8217s neoliberals both inside his party and in the press As the vote neared the insurgents became unhinged Takeamp160Nicholas Lezard a literary critic for the Guardian who a few days before the election erupted in a bizarre Facebook rant where he called for crowdsourcing an assassination plotagainst Corbyn He later said he was merely joking What8217s next A columnist at Theamp160Nation magazineamp160ahem Joshua Holland calling for the rendition ofamp160 Jill Steinamp160to a CIA black site in Uzbekistan amp160When Samantha 8220SmartyPants8221 Power speaks you8217d better run for the nearest hardened bunker This just in from Peter Lee 8220The deep state has already voted Hillary Clinton for president8221 amp160Hot off the Twitter wire 8220BernieSanders RT HillaryClinton 8220Thank you BernieSanders Thank you for your leadership and your support in this campaign8221 8212Hillary8221 Love blooms amid the ruins8230 When a war criminal on friendly terms with the western powers dies you can be assured that he8217ll eulogized as a peacemaker Thus didamp160Bill Clinton praise the loathsome Shimon Peres the butcher of Qana as 8220My brilliant and eloquent friend His life was a blessing to all who strive for peace8221 The Clintons are all about peace and the children except when those children are Palestinian refugees who must be preemptively executed before they grow up to be terrorists 108 were killedamp160in Peres8217s politicallymotivated raid on UN camp in Qana Lebanon 56 of them children Politico reports that the Clinton campaign is in high anxiety over the lack of enthusiasm shown for HRC by black voters The panic is especially acute in Florida Ohio and North Carolina where blacks voters uninspired by the woman who labeled black youth 8220superpredators8221 are 20 percent less likely to vote this year than in 2012 You heard it here first If Clinton loses Hillary willamp160blame blacks If she wins she8217ll reward Wall Street Watch this terrific short interviewwith one of the greatest Oregonians the fearless and crafty George Atiyeh on how to take on a savage industry and its bureaucratic automatons and win8211WIN BIG Against all odds and a great personal risk Atiyeh saved the Opal Creek Wilderness from chainsaws and logging roads one of the last intact groves of ancient forest in the Pacific Northwest With a thick Oregon fog enwrapping the houseamp160Zen St Clairamp160and I sat before the fire and watched the BinocheFiennes 1992 version of 8216Wuthering Heights8217 this week It sticks unnervingly close to Emily8217s text unlike the celebrated Olivier Oberon version Every social convention and moral norm is enthusiastically overturned if not annihilated It8217s the equivalent of the French Revolution for English literature I remember Cockburn saying 8220How could that young sickly girl have written the greatest English novel of the 19th century8221 Binoche is hauntingly fatally beautiful Fiennes8217s Heathcliff is an obsessive fiend8211repulsive feral and irresistable The film is enhanced for me at least by my old nemesis we8217ve since kissed and made up Sinead O8217Connor who narrates and briefly appears all swaddled up in a bonnet and windblown cape as Emily giving just a hint of the ferocious mind Bront235amp160must have possessed The Yorkshire Moors have never looked more intoxicating or treacherous Highly recommended for doomed Romantics That said I have no clueamp160what the hell Kate Bush is doing in this video If anyone has an idea please explicate amp160You may have noticed We are running our annual fundraiser You scrolled right past it eh Please don8217t Week after week we give you the best writers on the international left Michael Hudson Diana Johnstone Robin DG Kelley Paul Street Mike Whitney Margaret Kimberley Henry Giroux Writers who are knowledgeable penetrating and funny To single out these writers out is not to belittle our other regular contributors And if you8217re a regular reader you8217ll know them and you8217ll also know all the surprising new voices you meet on our site every day of every week They come from every quarter because they8217re aware like you that this is where interesting radical and independent minds meet and where they combine in the true spirit of resistance to the dead grip of conventional thought and politicsasusual We need your donation whatever you can afford If we don8217t make our target we8217ll have to cut back our operations Do you want that to happen just on the edge of a treacherous new era So if you like what we do donate now Sound Grammar What I8217m listening to this week 1 Julia Holter Have You in My Wilderness 2 Grimes Art Angels 3 Gov8217t Mule The TelStar Sessions 4 Lisa Hannigan At Swim 5 Kenny Garrett Do Your Dance Booked Up What I8217m reading this week 1 John Grayamp160 The Soul of the Marionette a Short Inquiry into Human Freedom 2 James Baldwinamp160 The Evidence of Things Not Seen 3 Wilkie Collins No Name Selling Dead Souls Alexander Cockburn 8220Shades of Gogol who was born 200 years ago The motor of his great novel is the economic use of 8220dead souls82218211deceased serfs listed by the state as assets of the landlords The novel8217s central character Chichikov goes around buying them up New York State could take Gogol8217s hint and start auctioning its 8220living dead8221 as income generators to other states in need Looking at our criminal justice system here Gogol would surely use the line carved his gravestone 8216And I shall laugh my bitter laugh8221 8212 A Colossal Wreck amp160

Photo/NOUN by/ADP Fibonacci/PROPN Blue/PROPN CC/PROPN BY/ADP 20/NUM amp160/NOUN In/ADP his/PRON acrid/ADJ little/ADJ bookamp160/X Studies/PROPN in/ADP Classic/PROPN American/PROPN Literature/PROPN DH/PROPN Lawrence/PROPN wrote/VERB that/SCONJ 8220the/DET American/PROPN is/AUX a/DET killer8221/NOUN He/PRON may/AUX have/AUX underestimated/VERB the/DET depths/NOUN of/ADP the/DET country8217s/PROPN cultural/ADJ psychosis/NOUN This/DET week/NOUN came/VERB the/DET news/NOUN that/SCONJ three/NUM of/ADP the/DET Baltimore/PROPN cops/NOUN who/PRON took/VERB Freddie/PROPN Gray/PROPN on/ADP a/DET fatal/ADJ torture/NOUN ride/NOUN were/AUX feted/VERB at/ADP a/DET black/ADJ tie/NOUN gala/NOUN hosted/VERB by/ADP the/DET Media/PROPN Research/PROPN Council/PROPN a/DET rightwing/VERB smog/NOUN machine/NOUN based/VERB in/ADP Virginia/PROPN The/DET three/NUM killer/NOUN cops8211Brian/NUM Rice/PROPN Edward/PROPN Nero/PROPN and/CCONJ Garrett/PROPN Miller8211were/VERB hailed/VERB as/ADP 8220heroes8221/NUM 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and/CCONJ slandered/VERB their/PRON lives/NOUN distorted/VERB beyond/ADP all/DET recognition/NOUN Tyre/PROPN King/PROPN a/DET 13year/NOUN old/ADJ with/ADP a/DET toy/NOUN gun/NOUN was/AUX shot/VERB multiple/ADJ times/NOUN by/ADP Columbus/PROPN policeamp160and/CCONJ thenamp160smeared/VERB as/ADP a/DET gangbanger/NOUN and/CCONJ thug/NOUN before/SCONJ his/PRON corpse/NOUN had/AUX even/ADV cooled/VERB They/PRON didn8217/NOUN t/NOUN pause/NOUN for/ADP a/DET moment/NOUN toamp160contemplate/NUM the/DET young/ADJ life/NOUN they/PRON had/AUX prematurely/ADV foreclosed/VERB as/SCONJ if/SCONJ young/ADJ Tyre/PROPN were/AUX merelyamp160a/PROPN future/ADJ problem/NOUN preempted/VERB On/ADP Tuesday/PROPN El/PROPN Cajon/PROPN police/NOUN in/ADP southern/ADJ California/PROPN responded/VERB to/ADP a/DET call/NOUN from/ADP the/DET sister/NOUN ofamp160Alfredamp160Okwera/NOUN Olango/PROPN who/PRON said/VERB her/PRON brother/NOUN was/AUX sick/ADJ unarmed/ADJ and/CCONJ needed/VERB help/NOUN It/PRON took/VERB the/DET cops/NOUN 50/NUM minutes/NOUN to/PART get/VERB there/ADV and/CCONJ when/SCONJ they/PRON arrived/VERB they/PRON almost/ADV immediatelyamp160shotamp160Olango/X to/ADP death/NOUN claiming/VERB that/SCONJ he/PRON had/AUX pulled/VERB a/DET gun/NOUN them/PRON The/DET killing/NOUN was/AUX livestreamed/VERB on/ADP Facebook/PROPN where/SCONJ Olango8217s/ADJ sister/NOUN can/AUX be/AUX heard/VERB screaming/VERB as/SCONJ her/PRON brother/NOUN isamp160slain/NUM before/SCONJ her/PRON eyesamp1608220You/X guys/NOUN killed/VERB my/PRON brother/NOUN in/ADP front/NOUN of/ADP meamp160Why/X couldn8217/ADJ t/NOUN you/PRON guys/NOUN Tase/VERB him/PRON Why/SCONJ Why/SCONJ Why/SCONJ Why8221/VERB The/DET object/NOUN in/ADP Olango8217samp160hand/CCONJ turned/VERB out/ADP to/PART be/AUX a/DET vaporizer/NOUN Any/DET object/NOUN is/AUX now/ADV considered/VERB a/DET lethal/ADJ weapon/NOUN any/DET posture/NOUN a/DET mortal/ADJ threat/NOUN I/PRON get/VERB the/DET sense/NOUN that/SCONJ many/ADJ cops/NOUN get/VERB off/ADP on/ADP watching/VERB these/DET kill/NOUN shots/NOUN They/PRON screen/VERB them/PRON like/ADP snuff/NOUN films/NOUN a/DET sadistic/ADJ kind/NOUN of/ADP 8220blue8221/ADJ movie/NOUN where/SCONJ they/PRON derive/VERB a/DET sick/ADJ psychic/ADJ charge/NOUN from/ADP images/NOUN of/ADP their/PRON own/ADJ lethal/ADJ power/NOUN immune/ADJ from/ADP any/DET moral/ADJ or/CCONJ legal/ADJ accounting/NOUN Being/AUX black/ADJ in/ADP America/PROPN means/VERB that/SCONJ you/PRON can8217/VERB t/NOUN drive/NOUN can8217/NOUN t/NOUN walk/NOUN can8217/NOUN t/PROPN shop/PROPN can8217/NOUN t/NOUN even/ADV park/NOUN without/ADP risk/NOUN of/ADP being/AUX shot/VERB by/ADP cops/NOUN Marijuana/PROPN busts/NOUN have/AUX declined/VERB by/ADP steeplyamp160nationwide/NOUN since/SCONJ the/DET Clinton/PROPN Crime/PROPN bill/NOUN got/VERB to/PART work/VERB in/ADP 1997amp160According/VERB to/ADP the/DET FBI8217samp160Uniform/NOUN Crime/PROPN Report/PROPN police/NOUN made/VERB 643122/NUM arrests/NOUN 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<p>TOKYO, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Japanese government bond prices were steady to slightly firmer on Friday after the results of the Bank of Japan&#8217;s bond purchase showed limited selling interest.</p> <p>The price of the 10-year JGB futures ended up 0.01 point at 150.38, while the yield on the cash benchmark 10-year JGBs was flat at 0.075 percent.</p> <p>The BOJ offered to buy 80 billion yen ($0.72 billion) of JGBs with more than 25 years to maturity, 190 billion yen ($1.71 billion) of those with 10-25 years to maturity and 410 billion yen ($3.7 billion) of 5- to 10-year bonds. The amounts offered were the same as in previous operations.</p> <p>In all three categories, the quantum of sales by traders was the smallest so far this month, suggesting few investors are eager to sell JGBs at current levels.</p> <p>With the 10-year JGB yield not far from 0.11 percent, the BOJ&#8217;s defence line since it started the yield curve control policy, few market players are eager to sell JGBs at current levels.</p> <p>The five-year yield dipped 1.0 basis point to minus 0.135 percent while the 20-year yield also dropped 1.0 basis point to minus 0.590 percent.</p> <p>$1 = 110.87 yen Reporting by Tokyo Markets Team; Editing by Sunil Nair</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves rose slightly in March as broad U.S. dollar weakness continued and escalating trade tensions between the world&#8217;s two largest economies bolstered expectations of a firmer Chinese currency.</p> U.S. Dollar and China Yuan notes are seen in this picture illustration June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration <p>Reserves rose $9 billion in March to $3.143 trillion, compared with a drop of $27 billion in February, central bank data showed on Sunday.</p> <p>Economists polled by Reuters had expected reserves to increase by around $6 billion in March to $3.14 trillion.</p> <p>Capital flight was seen as a major risk for China at the start of 2017, but a combination of tighter capital controls and a faltering dollar helped the yuan stage a strong turnaround, bolstering confidence in the economy.</p> <p>Last year China&#8217;s reserves rose for the first time since 2014 and its cross-border capital flows went from net outflows to basically stable.</p> <p>China&#8217;s foreign exchange regulator said in late March it expected cross-border capital flows to remain basically stable this year.</p> <p>The Chinese currency rose 0.8 percent versus the U.S. dollar in March and posted its biggest quarterly gain in a decade during the January-March period.</p> <p>Caitong International attributed the recent yuan strength partly to the newly launched crude oil futures in Shanghai, which the brokerage said triggered demand for the yuan from foreign investors.</p> <p>In 2017, the yuan rose around 6.8 percent against the greenback, reversing three straight years of depreciation.</p> <p>The Trump administration slapped hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports last week and then announced 25 percent tariffs on some 1,300 Chinese industrial technology, transport and medical products this week in an attempt to force changes in Beijing&#8217;s intellectual property practices.</p> <p>In response, China has slapped extra tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products including frozen pork, as well as on wine and certain fruits and nuts, and said it would soon announce more measures of equal intensity and scale against U.S. goods.</p> <p>The looming specter of a trade war between the two countries fueled expectations that Beijing may be happy to see a stronger yuan at this stage to defuse tensions with Washington.</p> <p>The value of China&#8217;s gold reserves rose to $78.419 billion at the end of March, from $78.064 billion at the end of February.</p> <p>Reporting by Cate Cadell</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Christian Sewing, currently co-deputy chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>), is to become the new CEO of Germany&#8217;s biggest lender, replacing John Cryan, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday.</p> Christian Sewing, member of the board of Germany's Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski <p>Sewing, a German national, would replace Cryan, a Briton, at a time when the bank is trying to strengthen its brand in its home market. Cryan has been in office less than three years but investors have lost faith that he can return the bank to profitability after three consecutive years of losses.</p> <p>The promotion of Sewing, 47, with a background in retail banking, auditing and risk, comes as Deutsche Bank and its major shareholders debate the path forward for the investment banking unit where revenues have slowed and key staff defected.</p> <p>His appointment could signal a shift in emphasis away from Deutsche Bank&#8217;s strategy of seeking profit growth through the investment bank and giving investment bankers greater influence.</p> <p>Marcus Schenck, currently Sewing&#8217;s fellow co-deputy CEO who also helps oversee the investment bank, is close to leaving the bank, the people familiar with the matter said.</p> <p>Sewing tops a list of candidates as the preferred option to be presented by Chairman Paul Achleitner at a hastily arranged board call for Sunday evening, the people familiar with the matter said. A second external candidate is also being proposed though that person&#8217;s chances for the top spot are slim, the second person said.</p> <p>Sewing would assume the helm at the company&#8217;s annual general meeting in May, German magazine Der Spiegel said on its website. Der Spiegel was first to report on Sunday that Sewing would likely become the bank&#8217;s next CEO.</p> <p>Deutsche Bank said late on Saturday that the board would discuss the CEO position and make a decision.</p> <p>A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment on Sunday.</p> BLOW TO SCHENCK <p>In picking up the baton, Sewing would also face challenges including further cost cutting, intense competition at home and abroad, and increased regulation.</p> <p>Sewing, a member of the management board since 2015, currently oversees the bank&#8217;s private and commercial bank division, which includes the Postbank retail banking unit.</p> <p>He joined Deutsche Bank in 1989 and has worked in Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Toronto, according to the bank&#8217;s website.</p> <p>&#8220;Our view is that Sewing seems to be an OK candidate,&#8221; said a major investor who spoke on condition of anonymity.</p> <p>Sewing&#8217;s appointment would be a blow to Schenck, a former Goldman Sachs ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GS.N" type="external">GS.N</a>) investment banker long considered a future CEO at Deutsche.</p> <p>Schenck had signaled he was looking for opportunities outside the bank. Garth Ritchie would stay on as sole head of the investment bank, said the first person familiar with the matter. There is still internal debate on the outcome, said the second person.</p> John Cryan, CEO of Germany's Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski <p>Achleitner had begun a search last month to replace Cryan following a flurry of negative headlines after the bank reported a third consecutive annual loss.</p> <p>Cryan has said he is &#8220;absolutely committed&#8221; to the bank. But Achleitner has remained silent, to the disappointment of major investors seeking clarity. Sunday&#8217;s board call is intended to provide that clarity.</p> &#8220;DYSFUNCTIONAL COMPANY&#8221; <p>The leadership debate also parallels concern about the direction of Deutsche&#8217;s investment bank, whose swift expansion in the years leading up to the financial crisis is blamed for many of the bank&#8217;s current woes.</p> <p>The investment bank&#8217;s revenue in 2017 was down 25 percent compared with 2015, a steeper fall than those suffered by its rivals. The division employed more than 41,000 staff at the end of 2017, up 4 percent from 2015, but key staff have left.</p> <p>The bank is conducting a global review of the investment bank, known internally as Project Colombo, a person with direct knowledge of the matter has said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">Deutsche Bank AG</a> 11.352 DBKGn.DE Xetra -0.31 (-2.64%) DBKGn.DE GS.N <p>Octavio Marenzi, CEO of consultancy Opimas said Sewing&#8217;s appointment would mean more focus on commercial and retail banking and wealth management.</p> <p>&#8220;It looks like the board of directors is capitulating on the investment banking front,&#8221; Marenzi said.</p> <p>Cryan, the son of a jazz musician, married into the wealthy Du Pont family of the United States. He took charge at Deutsche in 2015 to overhaul the bank after years of rapid growth under investment bankers.</p> <p>But his tumultuous tenure as CEO highlights many of the bank&#8217;s underlying issues.</p> <p>Early on, Cryan quickly announced thousands of job cuts to trim costs but reversed the bank&#8217;s plans to sell its Postbank retail business after tepid interest from buyers.</p> <p>Some of Germany&#8217;s most senior politicians criticized Cryan for paying 2.3 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in staff bonuses, four times higher than the previous year, after the bank had made losses in 2017.</p> <p>The bank&#8217;s chief operating officer Kim Hammonds, told a colleagues recently that the bank was &#8220;the most dysfunctional company&#8221; she had ever worked for, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.</p> <p>Over the past weeks, a number of names have surfaced as possible replacements for Cryan. But some analysts wonder whether anyone will be able to do a better job on turning the bank around.</p> <p>&#8220;There has been actually a disciplined execution in a tough environment by this team,&#8221; said Peter Nerby, who analyses the bank for Moody&#8217;s. &#8220;I wonder if anyone really has a better way to get there. It&#8217;s not obvious to me what that way would be.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Andreas Framke, Tom Sims, Edward Taylor, and Hans Seidenstuecker; Editing by Christoph Steitz, Susan Fenton and Jane Merriman</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(This April 6 story repeats to add a graphic.)</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>By Lewis Krauskopf</p> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The rockiest U.S. stock market in two years will meet a major test in the coming weeks as first-quarter earnings pour in, with expectations that tax cuts will help Corporate America show its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years. Any disappointments could further upset the fragile market.</p> <p>Hopes among stock investors are running high for corporate earnings season, which kicks off in earnest on Thursday and Friday with reports from several large financial institutions including BlackRock ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) and JP Morgan ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>).</p> <p>Investors have counted on corporate profits to provide bedrock support as the market endured sharp swings in recent weeks over concerns about a trade war with China and tougher regulations for high-flying technology companies.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> has recovered some after swooning more than 10 percent in February from its Jan. 26 record high, confirming a market correction for the first time in just over two years. The benchmark index remains more than 7 percent off its all-time peak.</p> <p>&#8220;There is an awful lot of pressure for corporate profits in this first quarter and especially the guidance the companies are going to give to really get this market back on its upward track,&#8221; said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.</p> <p>Analysts expect S&amp;amp;P 500 profits to rise 18.4 percent in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, the first full quarter since passage of President Donald Trump's tax cuts, which slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. That would be the biggest profit rise since the first quarter of 2011. ( <a href="https://tmsnrt.rs/2H0PB4A" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2H0PB4A</a>)</p> <p>Credit Suisse analysts calculated that more than one third of that growth in the first quarter can be attributed to tax benefits.</p> <p>To view a graphic on Big first quarter seen for Corporate America, click: <a href="https://reut.rs/2q8lxdE" type="external">reut.rs/2q8lxdE</a></p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2q8lxdE" type="external" /> <p>Given the tendency of companies to report results above Wall Street estimates, those numbers might be expected to come in even higher. For example, first-quarter profits should rise by 24 percent if results achieve the median out-performance of the past eight quarters, according to Thomson Reuters analyst David Aurelio.</p> <p>&#8220;A downside risk is that everyone is hoping for the earnings to come through and that is really a main pillar for the bull case,&#8221; said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist with SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta. &#8220;And if earnings surprise to the downside then you have to say, what is the bull case hanging onto at this point?&#8221;</p> <p>Expectations for first quarter profits have risen from an expectation of 12.2 percent growth on Jan. 1 to 18.4 percent now, an increase of 6.2 percentage points as analysts have factored in the new tax law.</p> <p>That is unusual: In general, estimates decline by about 4 percentage points from the start of a quarter to the beginning of earnings season, according to Thomson Reuters data, which strategists say tends to help companies to post earnings &#8220;beats&#8221; when they ultimately report results.</p> <p>&#8220;The expectation bar is a little bit higher this quarter because you didn&#8217;t see that cut ahead of time,&#8221; Lerner said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BlackRock Inc</a> 519.92 BLK.N New York Stock Exchange -18.48 (-3.43%) BLK.N JPM.N .SPX C.N WFC.N <p>The very early returns indicate first-quarter results show similar positive surprises to past quarters. Of 23 S&amp;amp;P 500 companies reported so far, 74 percent have reported profits ahead of estimates, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p> <p>Historically, 64 percent of companies beat estimates in a quarter. More recently, performance versus expectations has been better: over the past four quarters, 75 percent of companies beat earnings estimates.</p> <p>To view a graphic on sector strength in Q1, click: <a href="https://reut.rs/2uUJZ7n" type="external">reut.rs/2uUJZ7n</a></p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2uUJZ7n" type="external" /> <p>Seven more S&amp;amp;P 500 companies are expected to report next week including BlackRock, which is the world&#8217;s largest asset manager, and three big banks: JP Morgan, Citigroup ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>). More than 60 S&amp;amp;P 500 reports are due the following week.</p> <p>One cushion for investors is that stocks are generally trading at less expensive valuations following the market&#8217;s slide. The S&amp;amp;P 500 recently traded at 16.3 times earnings estimates for the next 12 months, down from 18.6 times in January, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.</p> <p>S&amp;amp;P 500 companies are expected to increase profits by 19.7 percent in 2018, which would be the biggest annual rise since 2010. In their quarterly reports, corporate executives will give forecasts or insight into prospects for the year. Some strategists said recent policy and market turbulence could lead companies to temper their views.</p> <p>&#8220;Given the uncertainty that is in the market, especially regarding trade and potential tech regulation, we could see management teams be a little more cautious,&#8221; said Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York.</p> <p>Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by David Gregorio</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>HOUSTON (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco took the first steps to integrating a petrochemicals business into the United States&#8217; biggest oil refinery, which is operated by its subsidiary Motiva Enterprises.</p> FILE PHOTO - Logo of Saudi Aramco is seen at the 20th Middle East Oil &amp;amp; Gas Show and Conference (MOES 2017) in Manama, Bahrain, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo <p>Aramco&#8217;s Chief Executive Amin Nasser signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) worth $8 billion-$10 billion with Honeywell UOP ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HON.N" type="external">HON.N</a>) and Technip FMC ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FTI.N" type="external">FTI.N</a>) to study petrochemical production technology for use in a chemical plant the company is considering building at the Port Arthur refinery.</p> <p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was winding up a two-week visit to the United States, was present at the signing in Houston, Texas, on Saturday along with Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry.</p> <p>&#8220;These agreements signal our plans for expansion into petrochemicals,&#8221; Motiva&#8217;s Chief Executive Brian Coffman said.</p> <p>Aramco, which wants to develop its downstream business as the government prepares to sell up to 5 percent of the world&#8217;s largest oil firm in an initial public offering (IPO) this year, wants to use oil as a major petrochemicals feedstock.</p> <p>Coffman also said Motiva was evaluating boosting the 603,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur refinery&#8217;s capacity to 1 million or 1.5 million bpd, which would make it the largest in the world.</p> <p>The aromatics unit for which Honeywell UOP&#8217;s technology is being considered under one of the MoUs, would convert benzene and paraxylene, byproducts of gasoline production, into 2 million tons annually of feedstocks for chemicals and plastics.</p> FILE PHOTO - Chief Executive Officer of ARAMCO, Amin Nasser speaks during an interview with REUTERS in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed <p>The other MoU would allow Aramco to use Technip FMC&#8217;s mixed-feed ethylene production technologies in the United States. The technology would produce 2 million tons a year of ethylene, which is used to make plastics, Motiva said.</p> <p>The final investment decision on setting up a multi-billion-dollar petrochemical plant at Port Arthur is not expected until 2019, and is &#8220;dependent on strong economics, competitive incentives, and regulatory support,&#8221; Aramco said in a statement.</p> <p>Coffman did not provide a timeline for the possible expansion of the Port Arthur refinery&#8217;s crude oil processing capacity.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HON.N" type="external">Honeywell International Inc</a> 142.74 HON.N New York Stock Exchange -3.66 (-2.50%) HON.N FTI.N RELI.NS CVX.N PSX.N <p>&#8220;That&#8217;s something we&#8217;re evaluating, we&#8217;re studying for in the future,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>The 1.2-million bpd Reliance Industries ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RELI.NS" type="external">RELI.NS</a>) refinery in Jamnagar, India, has the world&#8217;s largest crude oil processing capacity.</p> <p>Aramco said last year that it would invest $18 billion in Motiva to expand the refinery and move into petrochemical production.</p> <p>Other U.S. companies, including Chevron Phillips Chemical Co CHEPH.UL - a joint venture of Chevron Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>) and Phillips 66 ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PSX.N" type="external">PSX.N</a>) - and Exxon Mobil Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM.N" type="external">XOM.N</a>), have recently opened plants, like the one Motiva is considering, to process ethane into ethylene.</p> <p>Chevron Phillips is considering building a second ethane cracker on the Gulf Coast of Texas.</p> <p>The price tag for a large ethane cracker is typically over $6 billion, according to analysts. In addition to taking refining byproducts, ethane crackers provide hydrogen for refineries to use in making motor fuels.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

JGBs steady to slightly firmer as BOJ operations draw limited interest China forex reserves rise slightly as U.S. dollar weakness continues Deutsche Bank picks insider Christian Sewing as new CEO: sources High stakes, high expectations as earnings season heats up Aramco takes step to integrating petrochems into United States' biggest refinery

https://reuters.com/article/japan-bonds/jgbs-steady-to-slightly-firmer-as-boj-operations-draw-limited-interest-idUSL3N1PE2J0

2018-01-19

2least

TOKYO Jan 19 Reuters Japanese government bond prices were steady to slightly firmer on Friday after the results of the Bank of Japan8217s bond purchase showed limited selling interest The price of the 10year JGB futures ended up 001 point at 15038 while the yield on the cash benchmark 10year JGBs was flat at 0075 percent The BOJ offered to buy 80 billion yen 072 billion of JGBs with more than 25 years to maturity 190 billion yen 171 billion of those with 1025 years to maturity and 410 billion yen 37 billion of 5 to 10year bonds The amounts offered were the same as in previous operations In all three categories the quantum of sales by traders was the smallest so far this month suggesting few investors are eager to sell JGBs at current levels With the 10year JGB yield not far from 011 percent the BOJ8217s defence line since it started the yield curve control policy few market players are eager to sell JGBs at current levels The fiveyear yield dipped 10 basis point to minus 0135 percent while the 20year yield also dropped 10 basis point to minus 0590 percent 1 11087 yen Reporting by Tokyo Markets Team Editing by Sunil Nair Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters China8217s foreign exchange reserves rose slightly in March as broad US dollar weakness continued and escalating trade tensions between the world8217s two largest economies bolstered expectations of a firmer Chinese currency US Dollar and China Yuan notes are seen in this picture illustration June 2 2017 REUTERSThomas WhiteIllustration Reserves rose 9 billion in March to 3143 trillion compared with a drop of 27 billion in February central bank data showed on Sunday Economists polled by Reuters had expected reserves to increase by around 6 billion in March to 314 trillion Capital flight was seen as a major risk for China at the start of 2017 but a combination of tighter capital controls and a faltering dollar helped the yuan stage a strong turnaround bolstering confidence in the economy Last year China8217s reserves rose for the first time since 2014 and its crossborder capital flows went from net outflows to basically stable China8217s foreign exchange regulator said in late March it expected crossborder capital flows to remain basically stable this year The Chinese currency rose 08 percent versus the US dollar in March and posted its biggest quarterly gain in a decade during the JanuaryMarch period Caitong International attributed the recent yuan strength partly to the newly launched crude oil futures in Shanghai which the brokerage said triggered demand for the yuan from foreign investors In 2017 the yuan rose around 68 percent against the greenback reversing three straight years of depreciation The Trump administration slapped hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports last week and then announced 25 percent tariffs on some 1300 Chinese industrial technology transport and medical products this week in an attempt to force changes in Beijing8217s intellectual property practices In response China has slapped extra tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 US products including frozen pork as well as on wine and certain fruits and nuts and said it would soon announce more measures of equal intensity and scale against US goods The looming specter of a trade war between the two countries fueled expectations that Beijing may be happy to see a stronger yuan at this stage to defuse tensions with Washington The value of China8217s gold reserves rose to 78419 billion at the end of March from 78064 billion at the end of February Reporting by Cate Cadell Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles FRANKFURT Reuters Christian Sewing currently codeputy chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank DBKGnDE is to become the new CEO of Germany8217s biggest lender replacing John Cryan two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday Christian Sewing member of the board of Germanys Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt Germany February 2 2018 REUTERSRalph Orlowski Sewing a German national would replace Cryan a Briton at a time when the bank is trying to strengthen its brand in its home market Cryan has been in office less than three years but investors have lost faith that he can return the bank to profitability after three consecutive years of losses The promotion of Sewing 47 with a background in retail banking auditing and risk comes as Deutsche Bank and its major shareholders debate the path forward for the investment banking unit where revenues have slowed and key staff defected His appointment could signal a shift in emphasis away from Deutsche Bank8217s strategy of seeking profit growth through the investment bank and giving investment bankers greater influence Marcus Schenck currently Sewing8217s fellow codeputy CEO who also helps oversee the investment bank is close to leaving the bank the people familiar with the matter said Sewing tops a list of candidates as the preferred option to be presented by Chairman Paul Achleitner at a hastily arranged board call for Sunday evening the people familiar with the matter said A second external candidate is also being proposed though that person8217s chances for the top spot are slim the second person said Sewing would assume the helm at the company8217s annual general meeting in May German magazine Der Spiegel said on its website Der Spiegel was first to report on Sunday that Sewing would likely become the bank8217s next CEO Deutsche Bank said late on Saturday that the board would discuss the CEO position and make a decision A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment on Sunday BLOW TO SCHENCK In picking up the baton Sewing would also face challenges including further cost cutting intense competition at home and abroad and increased regulation Sewing a member of the management board since 2015 currently oversees the bank8217s private and commercial bank division which includes the Postbank retail banking unit He joined Deutsche Bank in 1989 and has worked in Frankfurt London Singapore Tokyo and Toronto according to the bank8217s website 8220Our view is that Sewing seems to be an OK candidate8221 said a major investor who spoke on condition of anonymity Sewing8217s appointment would be a blow to Schenck a former Goldman Sachs GSN investment banker long considered a future CEO at Deutsche Schenck had signaled he was looking for opportunities outside the bank Garth Ritchie would stay on as sole head of the investment bank said the first person familiar with the matter There is still internal debate on the outcome said the second person John Cryan CEO of Germanys Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt Germany February 2 2018 REUTERSRalph Orlowski Achleitner had begun a search last month to replace Cryan following a flurry of negative headlines after the bank reported a third consecutive annual loss Cryan has said he is 8220absolutely committed8221 to the bank But Achleitner has remained silent to the disappointment of major investors seeking clarity Sunday8217s board call is intended to provide that clarity 8220DYSFUNCTIONAL COMPANY8221 The leadership debate also parallels concern about the direction of Deutsche8217s investment bank whose swift expansion in the years leading up to the financial crisis is blamed for many of the bank8217s current woes The investment bank8217s revenue in 2017 was down 25 percent compared with 2015 a steeper fall than those suffered by its rivals The division employed more than 41000 staff at the end of 2017 up 4 percent from 2015 but key staff have left The bank is conducting a global review of the investment bank known internally as Project Colombo a person with direct knowledge of the matter has said Deutsche Bank AG 11352 DBKGnDE Xetra 031 264 DBKGnDE GSN Octavio Marenzi CEO of consultancy Opimas said Sewing8217s appointment would mean more focus on commercial and retail banking and wealth management 8220It looks like the board of directors is capitulating on the investment banking front8221 Marenzi said Cryan the son of a jazz musician married into the wealthy Du Pont family of the United States He took charge at Deutsche in 2015 to overhaul the bank after years of rapid growth under investment bankers But his tumultuous tenure as CEO highlights many of the bank8217s underlying issues Early on Cryan quickly announced thousands of job cuts to trim costs but reversed the bank8217s plans to sell its Postbank retail business after tepid interest from buyers Some of Germany8217s most senior politicians criticized Cryan for paying 23 billion euros 28 billion in staff bonuses four times higher than the previous year after the bank had made losses in 2017 The bank8217s chief operating officer Kim Hammonds told a colleagues recently that the bank was 8220the most dysfunctional company8221 she had ever worked for according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter Over the past weeks a number of names have surfaced as possible replacements for Cryan But some analysts wonder whether anyone will be able to do a better job on turning the bank around 8220There has been actually a disciplined execution in a tough environment by this team8221 said Peter Nerby who analyses the bank for Moody8217s 8220I wonder if anyone really has a better way to get there It8217s not obvious to me what that way would be8221 Reporting by Andreas Framke Tom Sims Edward Taylor and Hans Seidenstuecker Editing by Christoph Steitz Susan Fenton and Jane Merriman Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles This April 6 story repeats to add a graphic FILE PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 29 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid By Lewis Krauskopf NEW YORK Reuters The rockiest US stock market in two years will meet a major test in the coming weeks as firstquarter earnings pour in with expectations that tax cuts will help Corporate America show its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years Any disappointments could further upset the fragile market Hopes among stock investors are running high for corporate earnings season which kicks off in earnest on Thursday and Friday with reports from several large financial institutions including BlackRock BLKN and JP Morgan JPMN Investors have counted on corporate profits to provide bedrock support as the market endured sharp swings in recent weeks over concerns about a trade war with China and tougher regulations for highflying technology companies The SampampP 500 SPX has recovered some after swooning more than 10 percent in February from its Jan 26 record high confirming a market correction for the first time in just over two years The benchmark index remains more than 7 percent off its alltime peak 8220There is an awful lot of pressure for corporate profits in this first quarter and especially the guidance the companies are going to give to really get this market back on its upward track8221 said Chuck Carlson chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond Indiana Analysts expect SampampP 500 profits to rise 184 percent in the first quarter according to Thomson Reuters IBES the first full quarter since passage of President Donald Trumps tax cuts which slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent That would be the biggest profit rise since the first quarter of 2011 tmsnrtrs2H0PB4A Credit Suisse analysts calculated that more than one third of that growth in the first quarter can be attributed to tax benefits To view a graphic on Big first quarter seen for Corporate America click reutrs2q8lxdE Given the tendency of companies to report results above Wall Street estimates those numbers might be expected to come in even higher For example firstquarter profits should rise by 24 percent if results achieve the median outperformance of the past eight quarters according to Thomson Reuters analyst David Aurelio 8220A downside risk is that everyone is hoping for the earnings to come through and that is really a main pillar for the bull case8221 said Keith Lerner chief market strategist with SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta 8220And if earnings surprise to the downside then you have to say what is the bull case hanging onto at this point8221 Expectations for first quarter profits have risen from an expectation of 122 percent growth on Jan 1 to 184 percent now an increase of 62 percentage points as analysts have factored in the new tax law That is unusual In general estimates decline by about 4 percentage points from the start of a quarter to the beginning of earnings season according to Thomson Reuters data which strategists say tends to help companies to post earnings 8220beats8221 when they ultimately report results 8220The expectation bar is a little bit higher this quarter because you didn8217t see that cut ahead of time8221 Lerner said BlackRock Inc 51992 BLKN New York Stock Exchange 1848 343 BLKN JPMN SPX CN WFCN The very early returns indicate firstquarter results show similar positive surprises to past quarters Of 23 SampampP 500 companies reported so far 74 percent have reported profits ahead of estimates according to Thomson Reuters data Historically 64 percent of companies beat estimates in a quarter More recently performance versus expectations has been better over the past four quarters 75 percent of companies beat earnings estimates To view a graphic on sector strength in Q1 click reutrs2uUJZ7n Seven more SampampP 500 companies are expected to report next week including BlackRock which is the world8217s largest asset manager and three big banks JP Morgan Citigroup CN and Wells Fargo WFCN More than 60 SampampP 500 reports are due the following week One cushion for investors is that stocks are generally trading at less expensive valuations following the market8217s slide The SampampP 500 recently traded at 163 times earnings estimates for the next 12 months down from 186 times in January according to Thomson Reuters Datastream SampampP 500 companies are expected to increase profits by 197 percent in 2018 which would be the biggest annual rise since 2010 In their quarterly reports corporate executives will give forecasts or insight into prospects for the year Some strategists said recent policy and market turbulence could lead companies to temper their views 8220Given the uncertainty that is in the market especially regarding trade and potential tech regulation we could see management teams be a little more cautious8221 said Lindsey Bell investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf Editing by David Gregorio Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles HOUSTON Reuters Saudi Aramco took the first steps to integrating a petrochemicals business into the United States8217 biggest oil refinery which is operated by its subsidiary Motiva Enterprises FILE PHOTO Logo of Saudi Aramco is seen at the 20th Middle East Oil ampamp Gas Show and Conference MOES 2017 in Manama Bahrain March 7 2017 REUTERSHamad I MohammedFile Photo Aramco8217s Chief Executive Amin Nasser signed memoranda of understanding MoUs worth 8 billion10 billion with Honeywell UOP HONN and Technip FMC FTIN to study petrochemical production technology for use in a chemical plant the company is considering building at the Port Arthur refinery Saudi Arabia8217s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who was winding up a twoweek visit to the United States was present at the signing in Houston Texas on Saturday along with Saudi Energy Minister Khalid alFalih and US Energy Secretary Rick Perry 8220These agreements signal our plans for expansion into petrochemicals8221 Motiva8217s Chief Executive Brian Coffman said Aramco which wants to develop its downstream business as the government prepares to sell up to 5 percent of the world8217s largest oil firm in an initial public offering IPO this year wants to use oil as a major petrochemicals feedstock Coffman also said Motiva was evaluating boosting the 603000 barrelperday bpd Port Arthur refinery8217s capacity to 1 million or 15 million bpd which would make it the largest in the world The aromatics unit for which Honeywell UOP8217s technology is being considered under one of the MoUs would convert benzene and paraxylene byproducts of gasoline production into 2 million tons annually of feedstocks for chemicals and plastics FILE PHOTO Chief Executive Officer of ARAMCO Amin Nasser speaks during an interview with REUTERS in Dhahran Saudi Arabia December 13 2017 REUTERSHamad I Mohammed The other MoU would allow Aramco to use Technip FMC8217s mixedfeed ethylene production technologies in the United States The technology would produce 2 million tons a year of ethylene which is used to make plastics Motiva said The final investment decision on setting up a multibilliondollar petrochemical plant at Port Arthur is not expected until 2019 and is 8220dependent on strong economics competitive incentives and regulatory support8221 Aramco said in a statement Coffman did not provide a timeline for the possible expansion of the Port Arthur refinery8217s crude oil processing capacity Honeywell International Inc 14274 HONN New York Stock Exchange 366 250 HONN FTIN RELINS CVXN PSXN 8220That8217s something we8217re evaluating we8217re studying for in the future8221 he said The 12million bpd Reliance Industries RELINS refinery in Jamnagar India has the world8217s largest crude oil processing capacity Aramco said last year that it would invest 18 billion in Motiva to expand the refinery and move into petrochemical production Other US companies including Chevron Phillips Chemical Co CHEPHUL a joint venture of Chevron Corp CVXN and Phillips 66 PSXN and Exxon Mobil Corp XOMN have recently opened plants like the one Motiva is considering to process ethane into ethylene Chevron Phillips is considering building a second ethane cracker on the Gulf Coast of Texas The price tag for a large ethane cracker is typically over 6 billion according to analysts In addition to taking refining byproducts ethane crackers provide hydrogen for refineries to use in making motor fuels Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal Editing by Susan Fenton Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>CHICAGO/CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Top U.S. grain merchant Archer Daniels Midland Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADM.N" type="external">ADM.N</a>) has proposed a takeover of Bunge Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BG.N" type="external">BG.N</a>), according to a person familiar with the approach, which could set up a bidding war with Swiss-based rival Glencore Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GLEN.L" type="external">GLEN.L</a>).</p> The world's largest corn mill of global grain company Archer Daniels Midland is pictured in Decatur, Illinois March 16, 2015. REUTERS/Karl Plume <p>Large grain traders that make money by buying, selling, storing and shipping crops have struggled in recent years with global oversupplies. Thin margins have squeezed core commodity trading operations, including those of ADM, Bunge, Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Louis Dreyfus Co [AKIRAU.UL], which together are known as the &#8220;ABCDs&#8221; and dominate the industry.</p> <p>Consolidation is seen as one remedy. Glencore last year sought a tie-up with Bunge in what was viewed as a start of a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry.</p> <p>Bunge, which rebuffed an acquisition offer from Glencore last year, might not follow up on ADM&#8217;s proposal, the source said, requesting anonymity because the approach is confidential. A standstill agreement prevents Glencore from making a new offer until next month, and Bunge is keeping its options open for now, the source added.</p> <p>White Plains, New York-based Bunge operates in more than 40 countries and is Brazil&#8217;s largest exporter of agricultural products, while Chicago-based ADM says it has customers in 160 countries.</p> <p>Bunge, which has a market capitalization of $9.79 billion, closed up 11.4 percent at $77.56 on Friday. ADM has a market cap of $22.64 billion.</p> <p>ADM said it does not comment on &#8220;rumors or speculation,&#8221; while Bunge did not respond to requests for comment. Glencore was not immediately available for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported on ADM&#8217;s interest in Bunge.</p> STRATEGY SHIFT? <p>Grain companies in recent years have expanded into higher-margin sectors, such as food ingredients and aquaculture, to offset weak results and wild swings in their traditional business of handling crops.</p> <p>In 2014, ADM bought natural ingredient company Wild Flavors for about $3 billion in its biggest deal ever. The company has also expanded into handling healthy ingredients such as fruits, nuts and &#8220;ancient grains.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;News of the ADM bid is a bit surprising given that ADM had been indicating the company&#8217;s strategic direction was more towards value-added rather the traditional commodities,&#8221; said Stephens Inc analyst Farha Aslam.</p> <p>ADM is the most U.S.-focused of the major grain companies and a takeover would help it grow in South America, where Bunge is a major agricultural force.</p> <p>ADM, which dates back to 1902, has tried to expand its international operations, in part to take advantage of growing demand from China. In 2013, Australia rejected its attempted $2.55 billion takeover of Sydney-based grain handler GrainCorp Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GNC.AX" type="external">GNC.AX</a>) on concerns it could reduce competition.</p> <p>Bunge was founded in Amsterdam 200 years ago. It moved its headquarters to South America as its operations grew in the region and relocated to New York ahead of an initial public offering in 2001.</p> HURDLES LOOM <p>Aslam estimated that fair value for Bunge in a takeover would be $90 to $95 per share, but Morningstar said the price could exceed $100.</p> <p>Any tie-up would probably face stiff scrutiny from regulators and opposition from farmers who fear handing more market control to ADM could hurt wheat, corn and soybean prices.</p> <p>The biggest overlap between ADM and Bunge in the United States is in grain origination and oilseeds processing, Aslam said. The companies would probably need to divest facilities in North America and also possibly in Europe, she added.</p> <p>Aslam raised the possibility that ADM and Glencore could partner in a bid for Bunge to split up its operations.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADM.N" type="external">Archer Daniels Midland Co</a> 43.12 ADM.N New York Stock Exchange -- (--%) ADM.N BG.N GLEN.L GNC.AX DWDP.N <p>&#8220;ADM would take the more value-added downstream businesses, and Glencore would own the more ag commodity businesses,&#8221; she said.</p> FARMERS&#8217; WORRIES <p>An ADM-Bunge merger would also face opposition from farmer groups in key agricultural markets, including the United States, European Union, China, India and Brazil, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan&#8217;s Ross School of Business.</p> <p>The companies&#8217; relatively late move into the big-agriculture merger game, behind DowDuPont ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DWDP.N" type="external">DWDP.N</a>), Nutrien Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NTR.TO" type="external">NTR.TO</a>) and others, would make gaining regulators&#8217; approval even tougher, Gordon said.</p> <p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re the first one, there&#8217;s still more competition,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Once they&#8217;ve let a few through, they may have second thoughts.&#8221;</p> <p>Grain farmers need five or six active buyers to get fair prices for their goods, but there are already only a handful, said Peter Carstensen, who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.</p> <p>&#8220;This is the kind of transaction that will screw farmers,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Illinois farmer Dan Henebry, who delivers corn and soybeans to ADM&#8217;s North American headquarters in Decatur, Illinois, said he was worried a takeover of Bunge could lead grain handlers to pay farmers less for their crops.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve had so many mergers,&#8221; Henebry said. &#8220;Less competition is not good.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by John Benny in Bengaluru, Rod Nickel in Calgary, Alberta, Tom Polansek in Chicago, Chris Prentice and Greg Roumeliotis in New York and Diane Bartz in Washington; Writing by Peter Henderson and Anna Driver; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Von Ahn</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China will impose additional tariffs of 25 percent on 106 U.S. goods including soybeans, autos, chemicals, some types of aircraft and corn products, among other agricultural goods, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A combine drives over stalks of soft red winter wheat during the harvest on a farm in Dixon, Illinois, July 16, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo <p>The products targeted by the tariffs were worth $50 billion in 2017, according to a separate statement from the commerce ministry.</p> <p>Extra tariffs will also be slapped on products such as whisky, cigars and tobacco, some types of beef, lubricants, and propane and other plastic products, the finance ministry said in its statement.</p> <p>U.S. orange juice, certain sorghum products, cotton, some types of wheat, as well as trucks, some SUVs, certain electric vehicles, will also be subject to the new duties, the finance ministry said.</p> <p>Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - U.S. aerospace companies, automakers, grain merchants and chipmakers were the early casualties on Wednesday after China and the United States announced tariffs on $50 billion of imports, cementing fears they were spiraling towards a trade war.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>The speed with which the trade spat between Washington and Beijing is ratcheting up &#8211; the Chinese government took less than 11 hours to respond with its own measures &#8211; led to a sharp sell-off in global stock markets and commodities. [MKTS/GLOB]</p> <p>At 6:22 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMc1 were down 568 points, S&amp;amp;P 500 e-minis ESc1 fell 48 points and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 dropped 148.25 points.</p> <p>The stock futures implied the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> would not only open below its 200-day moving average, a key support level, but also challenge its 2018 low from Feb. 9.</p> <p>The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> would come close to their 200-day marks.</p> <p>China levied 25 percent additional tariffs on U.S. goods, but unlike Washington&#8217;s list that covers many obscure industrial items, Beijing&#8217;s covers 106 key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.</p> <p>As has been the case since the trade war fears surfaced, industrials were the worst hit.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">Standard &amp;amp; Poor's Corp</a> 2614.45 .SPX Chicago Board Options Exchange +0.00 (+0.00%) .SPX .DJI .IXIC BA.N CAT.N <p>Shares of Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>), whose older 737 narrowbody jet would likely be covered by China&#8217;s list, tumbled about 6 percent in premarket trading. Caterpillar ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CAT.N" type="external">CAT.N</a>) fell 4.5 percent.</p> <p>Automakers Ford ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FORD.O" type="external">FORD.O</a>), General Motors ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) and Fiat Chrysler ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FCAU.N" type="external">FCAU.N</a>) fell between 3.5 percent and 4 percent. Tesla ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) was down 4.7 percent, following a near 6 percent gain on Tuesday after saying it need not raise more capital as its Model 3 output increases.</p> <p>Grain merchant Archer Daniels ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADM.N" type="external">ADM.N</a>) was down 3.3 percent, while Bunge ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BG.N" type="external">BG.N</a>) slipped 2.7 percent.</p> <p>The malaise was broad based. Twenty-four of the 30 Dow components were trading premarket, with all of them in the red. About 185 of the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> components were trading premarket, with only nine of them flat to slightly higher.</p> <p>Among them was Lennar ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=LEN.N" type="external">LEN.N</a>), which gained 2.2 percent after the homebuilder reported a higher quarterly profit as it sold more homes at higher prices.</p> <p>Investors headed for safer bets, sending gold prices nearly 1 percent higher. U.S. 10-year Treasury yield US10YT=RR was last down 2.5 basis points at 2.76 percent.</p> <p>Economic data due includes the ADP National Employment Report that is expected to show U.S. private employers added 205,000 jobs in March, compared to 235,000 jobs in February. That comes ahead of the more comprehensive March payrolls data on Friday.</p> <p>Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> &amp;#160; <p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese government officials are bracing for Donald Trump to get tough in trade talks, and are particularly anxious that the U.S. president could target Prime Minister Shinzo Abe&#8217;s weak-yen policies.</p> FILE PHOTO: U.S. Dollar and Japan Yen notes are seen in this picture illustration June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo <p>The deal Trump clinched with South Korea last month, which was reached in unusually quick negotiations and included a side deal to deter competitive currency devaluation, was the kind of agreement Tokyo fears most.</p> <p>The officials told Reuters that they worry that similar tactics could be used against Tokyo when Trump meets Abe for a summit at Mar-a-Lago, the president&#8217;s Florida resort, later this month.</p> <p>If Trump forces Bank of Japan and currency policy into discussions, Japanese policymakers don&#8217;t have an obvious way to appease him, especially given the unpredictable nature of his attacks.</p> <p>The biggest risk is if Trump links trade with currency policy and accuses Japan of keeping the yen artificially weak through ultra-easy monetary policy, especially as he seeks to appeal to voters ahead of November&#8217;s mid-term U.S. congressional elections. Back in January 2017, Trump alleged that Japan used its &#8220;money supply&#8221; to weaken the yen and give exporters an unfair advantage.</p> <p>Any such concerted pressure could bind Tokyo&#8217;s hands in dealing with a climb in the yen, which would hurt the nation&#8217;s export-reliant economy that has been growing but may not be resilient to such a sideswipe.</p> <p>&#8220;As mid-term elections draw near, it&#8217;s possible Washington could put Japan&#8217;s currency policy to notice,&#8221; said a Japanese government official with knowledge of the negotiations.</p> <p>Another official said: &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to predict what Trump would say, so the BOJ&#8217;s policy could come under fire. It&#8217;s not an immediate risk but something in everyone&#8217;s mind.&#8221;</p> WARY OF SENDING SIGNAL <p>To be sure, the side agreement on the won that South Korea agreed to is not binding and focuses on what Japan already does &#8211; disclose details on currency intervention such as how much was spent and when. Still, Japan is wary of sending out any signal to markets that Trump is attacking Japan&#8217;s currency policy and that this could in any way prevent Tokyo from acting to restrain excessive yen gains.</p> <p>When Abe and Trump met in February 2017, they kicked off a bilateral economic dialogue led by their deputies to discuss a series of issues, including trade, infrastructure and technical aid.</p> <p>By broadening the agenda, Japan has managed so far to avert direct U.S. demands for negotiations over a bilateral trade pact, known as a free trade agreement (FTA).</p> <p>Japan has long upheld a multilateral framework as its export-reliant economy has benefited greatly from global free trade. This approach helps Japan diffuse direct pressure from countries like the United States to open up its politically sensitive markets, such as agriculture.</p> <p>Japanese officials say they will resist two-way trade deals with the United States at the summit, even if that reduces the chance of gaining exemptions for Washington&#8217;s recently introduced steel and aluminum tariffs. Trump temporarily excluded six trade partners, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union from these import duties. South Korea avoided tariffs but at a cost of agreeing to export quotas.</p> <p>There are now major questions about whether the Japanese multilateral approach will be good enough for Trump.</p> <p>The U.S. Trade Representative last week criticized what it said were non-tariff barriers to the Japanese car market and called for greater access to Japan for American beef and rice.</p> <p>&#8220;The United States is only interested in a bilateral deal and probably won&#8217;t listen to Japanese calls for a multilateral approach on trade,&#8221; said Naoyuki Shinohara, Japan&#8217;s former top currency diplomat who retains close contact with incumbent policymakers.</p> <p>&#8220;Japan will eventually have to enter FTA talks&#8221; and face U.S. pressure to open up its auto and farm markets, he said.</p> BOJ&#8217;S COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE <p>Some officials say Japan is in a stronger position than South Korea and won&#8217;t have to compromise as much. That is because it still does not have a bilateral FTA, is transparent on currency policy and hasn&#8217;t intervened in the currency market since northeastern Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami in 2011.</p> <p>&#8220;Japan has far more to lose from a bilateral FTA. It doesn&#8217;t make sense to do this to avoid tariffs,&#8221; said a third government official directly involved in bilateral negotiations. &#8220;We&#8217;ll never allow currency issues be tied to trade. That&#8217;s absolutely unacceptable.&#8221;</p> <p>A renewed attack on Japan&#8217;s currency policy will be damaging particularly since Tokyo has hardly any ammunition left to fight another yen spike.</p> <p>Fears of a trade war have boosted investors&#8217; demand for the safe-haven yen and pushed up the Japanese currency to around 106 against the dollar, significantly stronger than the 109-level on which many exporters base their earnings forecasts for the current fiscal year to March 2019.</p> <p>Japanese policymakers have warned that the yen&#8217;s 7 percent gain against the dollar this year is too volatile a move, though such verbal warnings have had little effect in keeping yen rises in check.</p> <p>While currency intervention hasn&#8217;t been ruled out if the yen spikes to less than 100 to the dollar, gaining U.S. consent for such a move would be extremely hard, the officials say.</p> <p>That leaves monetary policy as a last resort, though the BOJ too has barely any tools left to fight a currency gain or another recession after BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda&#8217;s &#8220;bazooka&#8221; stimulus that started in 2013.</p> <p>The BOJ&#8217;s huge buying has dried up bond market liquidity and years of near-zero interest rates have eroded bank profits, raising concern that more easing could do more harm than good.</p> <p>Even maintaining the current policy, which pegs Japanese government bond yields at zero even as U.S. interest rates rise, could draw U.S. heat if Washington perceives it as intended to weaken the yen, some analysts say.</p> <p>&#8220;The BOJ&#8217;s current framework is clearly a weak-yen policy. Japan would struggle to explain otherwise if it comes under heat by the United States,&#8221; said Yasuhide Yajima, chief economist at NLI Research Institute.</p> <p>Hiroshi Watanabe, a former top Japanese currency diplomat, said Tokyo could face criticism if the dollar rises to around 115 yen and the U.S.-Japan interest rate gap widens to around 350 basis points.</p> <p>&#8220;The BOJ should be mindful that at some point, the United States could argue that it&#8217;s using monetary policy&#8221; to keep the yen weak, he said.</p> <p>Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Martin Howell</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China will take counter-measures of the &#8220;same proportion&#8221; and scale if the United States imposes further tariffs on Chinese goods, China&#8217;s ambassador to Washington said, amid growing fears of an impending trade war.</p> <p>Cui Tiankai made the comments ahead of what is expected to be the announcement this week of U.S. tariffs on $50 billion to $60 billion in Chinese imports following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china/china-formally-notifies-the-wto-of-retaliatory-tariffs-against-u-s-idUSKCN1HA1YV" type="external">China formally notifies the WTO of retaliatory tariffs against U.S.</a> <p>&#8220;If they do, we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion, and the same scale, same intensity,&#8221; Cui said in an interview posted on the website of China Global Television Network (CGTN) and broadcast on state television on Tuesday.</p> <p>The U.S. tariffs are expected to target products benefiting from Beijing&#8217;s &#8220;Made in China 2025&#8221; industrial development program, although it may be more than two months before the import curbs take effect, U.S. officials have said.</p> <p>China on Sunday announced tariffs on $3 billion in imports of U.S. food and other goods in response to U.S. tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel, a skirmish that investors fear is a prelude to a broader trade war.</p> <p>&#8220;China does not provoke a trade war, and doesn&#8217;t want to fight a trade war, but we also aren&#8217;t afraid of a trade war,&#8221; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing.</p> Carmelo Morillo fills a shipping container with almonds at Capay Canyon Ranch in Esparto, California, U.S. April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage <p>The Section 301 investigation initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump is focused on accusations of theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer by China, charges Beijing denies.</p> <p>Cui said China has been bolstering its protection of intellectual property rights.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>&#8220;China has been strengthening its efforts and strengthening our legal system on this particular issue, and we are making good progress,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Reporting by Lusha Zhang, Tony Munroe and Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

ADM pursues big ag merger with grain trader Bunge: source China announces additional tariffs on $50 billion of U.S. goods Boeing, Ford lead list of casualties in China-U.S. trade spat Japan braces for Trump assault on trade, yen policy as summit looms China ready for proportionate response to U.S. tariffs: envoy

https://reuters.com/article/bunge-ma-archer-daniels/update-6-adm-pursues-big-ag-merger-with-grain-trader-bunge-source-idUSL1N1PF02S

2018-01-19

2least

CHICAGOCALGARY Alberta Reuters Top US grain merchant Archer Daniels Midland Co ADMN has proposed a takeover of Bunge Ltd BGN according to a person familiar with the approach which could set up a bidding war with Swissbased rival Glencore Plc GLENL The worlds largest corn mill of global grain company Archer Daniels Midland is pictured in Decatur Illinois March 16 2015 REUTERSKarl Plume Large grain traders that make money by buying selling storing and shipping crops have struggled in recent years with global oversupplies Thin margins have squeezed core commodity trading operations including those of ADM Bunge Cargill Inc CARGUL and Louis Dreyfus Co AKIRAUUL which together are known as the 8220ABCDs8221 and dominate the industry Consolidation is seen as one remedy Glencore last year sought a tieup with Bunge in what was viewed as a start of a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry Bunge which rebuffed an acquisition offer from Glencore last year might not follow up on ADM8217s proposal the source said requesting anonymity because the approach is confidential A standstill agreement prevents Glencore from making a new offer until next month and Bunge is keeping its options open for now the source added White Plains New Yorkbased Bunge operates in more than 40 countries and is Brazil8217s largest exporter of agricultural products while Chicagobased ADM says it has customers in 160 countries Bunge which has a market capitalization of 979 billion closed up 114 percent at 7756 on Friday ADM has a market cap of 2264 billion ADM said it does not comment on 8220rumors or speculation8221 while Bunge did not respond to requests for comment Glencore was not immediately available for comment The Wall Street Journal first reported on ADM8217s interest in Bunge STRATEGY SHIFT Grain companies in recent years have expanded into highermargin sectors such as food ingredients and aquaculture to offset weak results and wild swings in their traditional business of handling crops In 2014 ADM bought natural ingredient company Wild Flavors for about 3 billion in its biggest deal ever The company has also expanded into handling healthy ingredients such as fruits nuts and 8220ancient grains8221 8220News of the ADM bid is a bit surprising given that ADM had been indicating the company8217s strategic direction was more towards valueadded rather the traditional commodities8221 said Stephens Inc analyst Farha Aslam ADM is the most USfocused of the major grain companies and a takeover would help it grow in South America where Bunge is a major agricultural force ADM which dates back to 1902 has tried to expand its international operations in part to take advantage of growing demand from China In 2013 Australia rejected its attempted 255 billion takeover of Sydneybased grain handler GrainCorp Ltd GNCAX on concerns it could reduce competition Bunge was founded in Amsterdam 200 years ago It moved its headquarters to South America as its operations grew in the region and relocated to New York ahead of an initial public offering in 2001 HURDLES LOOM Aslam estimated that fair value for Bunge in a takeover would be 90 to 95 per share but Morningstar said the price could exceed 100 Any tieup would probably face stiff scrutiny from regulators and opposition from farmers who fear handing more market control to ADM could hurt wheat corn and soybean prices The biggest overlap between ADM and Bunge in the United States is in grain origination and oilseeds processing Aslam said The companies would probably need to divest facilities in North America and also possibly in Europe she added Aslam raised the possibility that ADM and Glencore could partner in a bid for Bunge to split up its operations Archer Daniels Midland Co 4312 ADMN New York Stock Exchange ADMN BGN GLENL GNCAX DWDPN 8220ADM would take the more valueadded downstream businesses and Glencore would own the more ag commodity businesses8221 she said FARMERS8217 WORRIES An ADMBunge merger would also face opposition from farmer groups in key agricultural markets including the United States European Union China India and Brazil said Erik Gordon a professor at the University of Michigan8217s Ross School of Business The companies8217 relatively late move into the bigagriculture merger game behind DowDuPont DWDPN Nutrien Ltd NTRTO and others would make gaining regulators8217 approval even tougher Gordon said 8220When you8217re the first one there8217s still more competition8221 he said 8220Once they8217ve let a few through they may have second thoughts8221 Grain farmers need five or six active buyers to get fair prices for their goods but there are already only a handful said Peter Carstensen who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison 8220This is the kind of transaction that will screw farmers8221 he said Illinois farmer Dan Henebry who delivers corn and soybeans to ADM8217s North American headquarters in Decatur Illinois said he was worried a takeover of Bunge could lead grain handlers to pay farmers less for their crops 8220We8217ve had so many mergers8221 Henebry said 8220Less competition is not good8221 Reporting by John Benny in Bengaluru Rod Nickel in Calgary Alberta Tom Polansek in Chicago Chris Prentice and Greg Roumeliotis in New York and Diane Bartz in Washington Writing by Peter Henderson and Anna Driver Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Von Ahn Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters China will impose additional tariffs of 25 percent on 106 US goods including soybeans autos chemicals some types of aircraft and corn products among other agricultural goods the finance ministry said on Wednesday FILE PHOTO A combine drives over stalks of soft red winter wheat during the harvest on a farm in Dixon Illinois July 16 2013 REUTERSJim YoungFile Photo The products targeted by the tariffs were worth 50 billion in 2017 according to a separate statement from the commerce ministry Extra tariffs will also be slapped on products such as whisky cigars and tobacco some types of beef lubricants and propane and other plastic products the finance ministry said in its statement US orange juice certain sorghum products cotton some types of wheat as well as trucks some SUVs certain electric vehicles will also be subject to the new duties the finance ministry said Reporting by Ryan Woo Editing by Jacqueline Wong Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters US aerospace companies automakers grain merchants and chipmakers were the early casualties on Wednesday after China and the United States announced tariffs on 50 billion of imports cementing fears they were spiraling towards a trade war Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 29 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid The speed with which the trade spat between Washington and Beijing is ratcheting up 8211 the Chinese government took less than 11 hours to respond with its own measures 8211 led to a sharp selloff in global stock markets and commodities MKTSGLOB At 622 am ET Dow eminis 1YMc1 were down 568 points SampampP 500 eminis ESc1 fell 48 points and Nasdaq 100 eminis NQc1 dropped 14825 points The stock futures implied the SampampP 500 SPX would not only open below its 200day moving average a key support level but also challenge its 2018 low from Feb 9 The bluechip Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI and the techheavy Nasdaq Composite IXIC would come close to their 200day marks China levied 25 percent additional tariffs on US goods but unlike Washington8217s list that covers many obscure industrial items Beijing8217s covers 106 key US imports including soybeans planes cars whiskey and chemicals As has been the case since the trade war fears surfaced industrials were the worst hit Standard ampamp Poors Corp 261445 SPX Chicago Board Options Exchange 000 000 SPX DJI IXIC BAN CATN Shares of Boeing BAN whose older 737 narrowbody jet would likely be covered by China8217s list tumbled about 6 percent in premarket trading Caterpillar CATN fell 45 percent Automakers Ford FORDO General Motors GMN and Fiat Chrysler FCAUN fell between 35 percent and 4 percent Tesla TSLAO was down 47 percent following a near 6 percent gain on Tuesday after saying it need not raise more capital as its Model 3 output increases Grain merchant Archer Daniels ADMN was down 33 percent while Bunge BGN slipped 27 percent The malaise was broad based Twentyfour of the 30 Dow components were trading premarket with all of them in the red About 185 of the SampampP 500 SPX components were trading premarket with only nine of them flat to slightly higher Among them was Lennar LENN which gained 22 percent after the homebuilder reported a higher quarterly profit as it sold more homes at higher prices Investors headed for safer bets sending gold prices nearly 1 percent higher US 10year Treasury yield US10YTRR was last down 25 basis points at 276 percent Economic data due includes the ADP National Employment Report that is expected to show US private employers added 205000 jobs in March compared to 235000 jobs in February That comes ahead of the more comprehensive March payrolls data on Friday Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Savio DSouza Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles amp160 TOKYO Reuters Japanese government officials are bracing for Donald Trump to get tough in trade talks and are particularly anxious that the US president could target Prime Minister Shinzo Abe8217s weakyen policies FILE PHOTO US Dollar and Japan Yen notes are seen in this picture illustration June 2 2017 REUTERSThomas WhiteIllustrationFile Photo The deal Trump clinched with South Korea last month which was reached in unusually quick negotiations and included a side deal to deter competitive currency devaluation was the kind of agreement Tokyo fears most The officials told Reuters that they worry that similar tactics could be used against Tokyo when Trump meets Abe for a summit at MaraLago the president8217s Florida resort later this month If Trump forces Bank of Japan and currency policy into discussions Japanese policymakers don8217t have an obvious way to appease him especially given the unpredictable nature of his attacks The biggest risk is if Trump links trade with currency policy and accuses Japan of keeping the yen artificially weak through ultraeasy monetary policy especially as he seeks to appeal to voters ahead of November8217s midterm US congressional elections Back in January 2017 Trump alleged that Japan used its 8220money supply8221 to weaken the yen and give exporters an unfair advantage Any such concerted pressure could bind Tokyo8217s hands in dealing with a climb in the yen which would hurt the nation8217s exportreliant economy that has been growing but may not be resilient to such a sideswipe 8220As midterm elections draw near it8217s possible Washington could put Japan8217s currency policy to notice8221 said a Japanese government official with knowledge of the negotiations Another official said 8220It8217s hard to predict what Trump would say so the BOJ8217s policy could come under fire It8217s not an immediate risk but something in everyone8217s mind8221 WARY OF SENDING SIGNAL To be sure the side agreement on the won that South Korea agreed to is not binding and focuses on what Japan already does 8211 disclose details on currency intervention such as how much was spent and when Still Japan is wary of sending out any signal to markets that Trump is attacking Japan8217s currency policy and that this could in any way prevent Tokyo from acting to restrain excessive yen gains When Abe and Trump met in February 2017 they kicked off a bilateral economic dialogue led by their deputies to discuss a series of issues including trade infrastructure and technical aid By broadening the agenda Japan has managed so far to avert direct US demands for negotiations over a bilateral trade pact known as a free trade agreement FTA Japan has long upheld a multilateral framework as its exportreliant economy has benefited greatly from global free trade This approach helps Japan diffuse direct pressure from countries like the United States to open up its politically sensitive markets such as agriculture Japanese officials say they will resist twoway trade deals with the United States at the summit even if that reduces the chance of gaining exemptions for Washington8217s recently introduced steel and aluminum tariffs Trump temporarily excluded six trade partners including Canada Mexico and the European Union from these import duties South Korea avoided tariffs but at a cost of agreeing to export quotas There are now major questions about whether the Japanese multilateral approach will be good enough for Trump The US Trade Representative last week criticized what it said were nontariff barriers to the Japanese car market and called for greater access to Japan for American beef and rice 8220The United States is only interested in a bilateral deal and probably won8217t listen to Japanese calls for a multilateral approach on trade8221 said Naoyuki Shinohara Japan8217s former top currency diplomat who retains close contact with incumbent policymakers 8220Japan will eventually have to enter FTA talks8221 and face US pressure to open up its auto and farm markets he said BOJ8217S COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE Some officials say Japan is in a stronger position than South Korea and won8217t have to compromise as much That is because it still does not have a bilateral FTA is transparent on currency policy and hasn8217t intervened in the currency market since northeastern Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami in 2011 8220Japan has far more to lose from a bilateral FTA It doesn8217t make sense to do this to avoid tariffs8221 said a third government official directly involved in bilateral negotiations 8220We8217ll never allow currency issues be tied to trade That8217s absolutely unacceptable8221 A renewed attack on Japan8217s currency policy will be damaging particularly since Tokyo has hardly any ammunition left to fight another yen spike Fears of a trade war have boosted investors8217 demand for the safehaven yen and pushed up the Japanese currency to around 106 against the dollar significantly stronger than the 109level on which many exporters base their earnings forecasts for the current fiscal year to March 2019 Japanese policymakers have warned that the yen8217s 7 percent gain against the dollar this year is too volatile a move though such verbal warnings have had little effect in keeping yen rises in check While currency intervention hasn8217t been ruled out if the yen spikes to less than 100 to the dollar gaining US consent for such a move would be extremely hard the officials say That leaves monetary policy as a last resort though the BOJ too has barely any tools left to fight a currency gain or another recession after BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda8217s 8220bazooka8221 stimulus that started in 2013 The BOJ8217s huge buying has dried up bond market liquidity and years of nearzero interest rates have eroded bank profits raising concern that more easing could do more harm than good Even maintaining the current policy which pegs Japanese government bond yields at zero even as US interest rates rise could draw US heat if Washington perceives it as intended to weaken the yen some analysts say 8220The BOJ8217s current framework is clearly a weakyen policy Japan would struggle to explain otherwise if it comes under heat by the United States8221 said Yasuhide Yajima chief economist at NLI Research Institute Hiroshi Watanabe a former top Japanese currency diplomat said Tokyo could face criticism if the dollar rises to around 115 yen and the USJapan interest rate gap widens to around 350 basis points 8220The BOJ should be mindful that at some point the United States could argue that it8217s using monetary policy8221 to keep the yen weak he said Reporting by Leika Kihara Editing by Martin Howell Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters China will take countermeasures of the 8220same proportion8221 and scale if the United States imposes further tariffs on Chinese goods China8217s ambassador to Washington said amid growing fears of an impending trade war Cui Tiankai made the comments ahead of what is expected to be the announcement this week of US tariffs on 50 billion to 60 billion in Chinese imports following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act Related Coverage China formally notifies the WTO of retaliatory tariffs against US 8220If they do we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion and the same scale same intensity8221 Cui said in an interview posted on the website of China Global Television Network CGTN and broadcast on state television on Tuesday The US tariffs are expected to target products benefiting from Beijing8217s 8220Made in China 20258221 industrial development program although it may be more than two months before the import curbs take effect US officials have said China on Sunday announced tariffs on 3 billion in imports of US food and other goods in response to US tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel a skirmish that investors fear is a prelude to a broader trade war 8220China does not provoke a trade war and doesn8217t want to fight a trade war but we also aren8217t afraid of a trade war8221 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing Carmelo Morillo fills a shipping container with almonds at Capay Canyon Ranch in Esparto California US April 2 2018 REUTERSElijah Nouvelage The Section 301 investigation initiated by US President Donald Trump is focused on accusations of theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer by China charges Beijing denies Cui said China has been bolstering its protection of intellectual property rights Slideshow 2 Images 8220China has been strengthening its efforts and strengthening our legal system on this particular issue and we are making good progress8221 he said Reporting by Lusha Zhang Tony Munroe and Michael Martina Editing by Nick Macfie Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin doesn&#8217;t exactly come across as the guy you&#8217;d want in your corner in a playground tussle. In the Trump administration, he&#8217;s been more like the kid trying to cop favor with the school bully. That, at least, is the role he seems to have taken in the Trump White House. When he isn&#8217;t circling the Sunday shows stooging for the president, he regularly plays the willing fall guy for tax policies guaranteed to <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/352126-mnuchin-on-if-there-will-be-no-absolute-tax-cut-for-upper-class-it-was-never-a" type="external">stoke further inequality</a> in America and for legislation that will <a href="" type="internal">remove</a> just about any consumer protections against Wall Street.</p> <p>Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner, arrived in Washington with a distinct reputation.&amp;#160; Back in 2009, he had corralled a bundle of rich financiers to take over California&#8217;s IndyMac bank, shut down amid the 2008 foreclosure crisis by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).&amp;#160; Bought for $ <a href="" type="internal">13.9 billion</a> (but only <a href="" type="internal">$1.3 billion</a> in actual cash), Mnuchin turned it into a genuine foreclosure machine, in the process sealing his own fate when it came to his future reputation. At the time, he didn&#8217;t appear concerned about public approval. Something far more valuable was at stake: the $200 million that, <a href="" type="internal">according to</a> Bloomberg News, he raked in personally, thanks to the deal.</p> <p>No such luck, of course, for the bank&#8217;s ordinary borrowers. During Mnuchin&#8217;s reign, IndyMac carried out more than <a href="" type="internal">36,000</a> foreclosures, tossing former homeowners (including active <a href="" type="internal">duty military</a> servicemen and women) onto the street without hesitation or pity by any means necessary. According to a memo obtained by investigative reporter <a href="" type="internal">David Dayen</a>, OneWest, the new name that Mnuchin and his <a href="" type="internal">billionaire posse</a> coined for Indybank, of which Mnuchin was now <a href="" type="internal">CEO</a> and chairman, &#8220;rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions.&#8221;</p> <p>Now, Mnuchin <a href="" type="internal">remains bitter</a> and frustrated that he can&#8217;t kick the reputation he got in those days.&amp;#160; As he told a House Financial Services Committee Congressional hearing this July, &#8220;I take great offense to anybody who calls me the foreclosure king.&#8221; &amp;#160;Such indignation would ring truer if, in May, one of Mnuchin&#8217;s banking units, a company called Financial Freedom, hadn&#8217;t <a href="" type="internal">agreed to pay</a> a more than $89 million settlement to the government for taking unreasonable advantage of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-treasury-pick-excelled-at-kicking-elderly-out-of-their-homes" type="external">thousands</a> of seniors through <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/university/finances-actual-retirement/reverse-mortgages-other-home-loan.asp#ixzz4wfLlnDCY" type="external">reverse mortgages</a> which convert equity in a home into a loan. (A few months later, in August, a watchdog group, <a href="https://campaignforaccountability.org/mnuchin-false-statements-to-congress/" type="external">Campaign for Accountability</a>, <a href="" type="internal">called upon</a> the Justice Department to investigate Mnuchin for allegedly making false statements under oath to Congress about his actions at OneWest between 2009 and 2015.)</p> <p>Like Donald Trump, Mnuchin is a man intent on making the rich richer and to hell with everyone else. Continually channeling Trump&#8217;s ego, whatever his smoldering resentments may be, he soldiers on &#8212; and in the context of the Trump White House successfully indeed. After all, this administration has <a href="" type="internal">lost 14</a>key people in less than a year, including an FBI director, a national security adviser, a White House chief of staff, and a White House communications director. Through it all, Mnuchin has remained in place, one of the relatively few members of The Donald&#8217;s original team not related by blood or marriage who is seemingly thriving. (Admittedly, he and the president were linked in what CNN once called a &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">business capacity</a>&#8221; even before he became Trump&#8217;s campaign finance director in May 2016.)</p> <p>Hamilton, Trump, and a Playbill for the Economy</p> <p>There&#8217;s a history of Treasury secretaries having a special rapport with presidents that snakes back to the founding of the Republic. Alexander Hamilton, the first of them, had the full confidence of the first president, George Washington. With <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568584792/counterpunchmaga" type="external" />such backing, he established federal taxes and came up with plans for real <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/about/history/pages/ahamilton.aspx" type="external">economic development</a>. He understood federal taxes to be essential to building America. In contrast, Mnuchin thinks the stock market is the ultimate arbiter of economic health and appears to consider taxation without representation (by the wealthy) the order of the day.</p> <p>Since Mnuchin bagged one of the most influential economic positions on the planet, he&#8217;s been remarkably consistent on just one thing: making sure he lends a helping hand to the world of big finance, his former universe. He has, for instance, pushed hard for more <a href="" type="internal">bank deregulation</a> by claiming that it will help the smaller banks. Don&#8217;t believe it for a second.&amp;#160; His disdain for reenacting the Glass-Steagall Act, which once made the merging of commercial and investment banking operations illegal and so curtailed the too-big-to-fail status of the largest banks, tells you all you need to know.&amp;#160; It reflects his real thinking when it comes to banks and the stability of the economy. Emblematic of this has been the way he steered the <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/fsoc/Pages/home.aspx" type="external">Financial Stability Oversight Council</a> that he chairs to give AIG, the insurance company at the core of the 2008 financial meltdown, a gateway back to prominence by <a href="" type="internal">removing</a> its too-big-to-fail label.</p> <p>He&#8217;s proven adept at blurring the lines between what effective banking regulation would actually involve and how he can wordsmith out of pushing for it. In May, <a href="" type="internal">testifying</a> before the Senate Banking Committee, for example, he noted that &#8220;we do not support [the] separation of banks and investment banks.&#8221; When Senator Elizabeth Warren <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;amp;id=1613" type="external">pointed out</a> that this was hardly the position Donald Trump and his team had taken during campaign 2016 (or of the <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf" type="external">Republican platform</a>, which had explicitly called for the reinstitution of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933), he promptly <a href="" type="internal">waffled</a>: &#8220;We, during the campaign&#8230; specifically came out and said we do support a twenty-first-century Glass-Steagall&#8230; That means there are aspects of it that we think may make sense, but we never said before that we supported a full separation of banks and investment banks.&#8221;</p> <p>In June, when <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/finance/337618-sanders-and-mnuchin-clash-over-glass-stegall" type="external">pressed</a> on the matter by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Treasury secretary <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/finance/337618-sanders-and-mnuchin-clash-over-glass-stegall" type="external">argued</a> that Trump was not responsible for the language in the Republican party platform and remained opposed to breaking up the big banks. He added, &#8220;We think that that would hurt the economy, that would ruin liquidity in the market. What we are focused on is safe and prudent regulation for the large banks so we don&#8217;t have taxpayer risk.&#8221;</p> <p>In other words, this is a man who has a real sense of the opportunity that&#8217;s embedded in this moment &#8212; for the large banks and their CEOs to make a bundle of money &#8212; but no appropriate sense of the risks involved or fear for a future in which he and his president might find themselves bailing out such banks, 2008-style.</p> <p>Lessons unlearned? If that isn&#8217;t the Trump administration, what is?</p> <p>Threatening the Market</p> <p>Mnuchin may have little grasp of what constitutes real risk, but he can still make threats about it. In an October <a href="" type="internal">interview</a> with Politico Money, he credited the stock market&#8217;s postelection rally to positive expectations that Congress would pass a major tax &#8220;reform&#8221; bill. &amp;#160;If that bill doesn&#8217;t go through, he warned, the markets will suffer big time &#8212; and so will everyone else.</p> <p>Coming from a Goldman Sachs alum, that should have rung a few bells. After all, in the fall of 2008, with the stock market tanking and banks imploding, then-Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson took a similar position with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Following that chamber&#8217;s initial rejection of a $700 billion bank bailout bill that sent the markets into a tailspin, he warned that, if she didn&#8217;t get it through, the big banks would stop providing money to the American public.&amp;#160; Sure enough, Congress complied. With 91 Republicans joining 172 Democrats, the bill passed by a vote of <a href="" type="internal">263 to 171</a>.</p> <p>Nine years and a plethora of big bank subsidies later, Mnuchin conflated market levels with legislation in a similarly threatening manner. As he told Politico, &#8220;There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done.&#8221; He then added, &#8220;To the extent we get the tax deal done, the stock market will go up higher.&#8221; But with that, of course, went a warning: &#8220;There&#8217;s no question in my mind that if we don&#8217;t get it done you&#8217;re going to see a reversal of a significant amount of these gains.&#8221;</p> <p>And speaking of reversals, the &#8220;Mnuchin Rule,&#8221; as it was dubbed in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4655518/wyden-mnuchin-rule" type="external">January, 2017</a>, underscored the then-prevailing Trump administration position that the wealthy should not be afforded tax cuts. By October, however, Mnuchin had changed his rule. &#8220;When you&#8217;re cutting taxes across the board,&#8221; he <a href="" type="internal">explained</a> to Politico, &#8220;it&#8217;s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class. The math, given how much you are collecting, is just hard to do.&#8221;</p> <p>Actually, the math isn&#8217;t hard to do at all. My eight-year-old niece could do it.&amp;#160; If you make more than a certain amount, your tax rates shouldn&#8217;t get cut. That&#8217;s the only math that makes sense. But in the land of tax subterfuge, even if you leave a top tax bracket rate as it is, you can still ensure that the wealthy get all the breaks in other ways.</p> <p>On November 2nd, the Republicans finally released their &#8220; <a href="https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text.pdf" type="external">Tax Cuts and Job Act</a>,&#8221; which contained new blows to middle-class wellbeing, including the elimination of deductions for medical expenses, student loan interest, and state and local taxes. For corporations, already flush with cash,&amp;#160;the plan calls for a significant, not to say staggering, tax break.&amp;#160; Their tax rate would be slashed from 35% to 20%.</p> <p>And don&#8217;t forget repealing the estate tax, that other classic benefit for &#8220;the masses.&#8221; Count on one thing: there will be no reversals from Mnuchin or Trump on that because the math couldn&#8217;t be clearer.&amp;#160; Only the hyper-wealthy have estates big enough to reap rewards from such a change. At an Institute for International Finance conference, even Mnuchin had to agree that this was a benefit of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich: &#8220;Obviously, the estate tax, I will concede, disproportionately helps rich people.&#8221; Indeed, the heirs to the estates of <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pay-estate-tax" type="external">fewer than</a> 1 in 500 Americans who die each year would benefit in any way from such a repeal, though the children or other relatives of <a href="" type="internal">13</a>&amp;#160;of the 24 members of Donald Trump&#8217;s cabinet and the president himself would <a href="" type="internal">bag</a> a collective estate tax break of about <a href="" type="internal">$1.5 billion</a>.</p> <p>Still, don&#8217;t think that everything&#8217;s coming up roses for our latest secretary of the Treasury.&amp;#160; Wall Street may now be king in Washington, but Mnuchin is not (though he is clearly a prince to the one man who truly matters right now, Donald Trump). In his efforts to promote the Trump vision (whatever that might be), the Treasury secretary seems to be coming up distinctly short, even <a href="" type="internal">with Republicans</a> in Congress who have described his approach to lawmaking in terms ranging from &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">uncomfortable</a>&#8221; to &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">intellectually insulting</a>.&#8221;</p> <p>Donald Trump, of course, campaigned as an anti-establishment candidate who would offer a hand to regular people, drain the Washington swamp, and have our backs. Then he promptly began filling his administration, especially when it came to the economy, with the richest of the rich, figures guaranteed to promote the dismantling of whatever tepid regulations remained to protect citizens from economic disaster while enriching the usual .01%.</p> <p>Mnuchin has yet to even do something as simple and seemingly straightforward as posting a full-scale explanation of the tax plan he&#8217;s plugging so hard at the <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">Treasury Department&#8217;s web page</a>. Even though until November 2nd it remained a chimera, that hasn&#8217;t stopped him from rushing to its defense &#8212; the defense that is, of giving the extremely wealthy yet more of their money back. Welcome to the twenty-first-century American politics of the .01%.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Mnuchin has noted that he&#8217;s a <a href="" type="internal">big fan</a> of biographies, though his schedule doesn&#8217;t allow much time for &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">pleasure reading</a>.&#8221; When asked about Alexander Hamilton, he said, &#8220;I have a beautiful painting of him in my office. He stares at me every day and I look at him for great advice.&#8221;</p> <p>But Hamilton understood that, without adequate taxation, you couldn&#8217;t run a country, or pay its debts, a stance that informed how he implemented federal taxes in the new nation. As he <a href="" type="internal">said</a> in 1801, &#8220;As to taxes, they are evidently inseparable from government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.&#8221; He also believed that those with more money should pay more taxes. His excise tax plan, for example, required the taxation of luxury items, bastions of the rich.</p> <p>This government has, in fact, received <a href="" type="internal">more than $2.96 trillion</a> in total tax revenues so far in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2017. That figure comes with a budget deficit of <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary" type="external">$673.7 billion</a>, which means that if the rich or corporations were to cease to pay various taxes (at least at present rates), money would still have to come from somewhere. To begin to make up for the shortfall, the less wealthy will simply have to pay more in some fashion, as will states and cities, and cuts in social spending will undoubtedly follow as night does day.</p> <p>The High-Flying Treasury Secretary Covers Trump&#8217;s Back</p> <p>Mnuchin himself knows a situation ripe for the picking when he sees it, in government or out.&amp;#160; Take, for instance, his prodigious use of military planes for his personal travel, both on government business and for pleasure.&amp;#160; These flights have pushed the boundaries of judgement, if not legality. &amp;#160;According to a <a href="" type="internal">report</a> from Rich Delmar, the counsel to the Treasury Department&#8217;s inspector general, Mnuchin took military aircraft on at least seven occasions without obtaining appropriate authorization, skirting a &#8220;rigorous&#8221; preapproval process established to avoid undue use of such expensive amenities.&amp;#160; And though he withdrew a request to take his wife on their honeymoon to Europe last summer by military aircraft, he did <a href="" type="internal">use</a> an Air Force jet to fly to Kentucky with her to watch the solar eclipse and &#8212; he carefully added &#8212; to &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">review the gold</a>&#8221; at Fort Knox. Unlike Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whose government aircraft fetish cost him his job, Fort Knox covered the solar eclipse for Mnuchin.</p> <p>He classified each of those trips as a &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">White House support mission</a>,&#8221; which sounds dramatic and is a category technically reserved for situations in which commercial flights aren&#8217;t available or there is a national security or other emergency. I checked, however.&amp;#160; There are several $200 economy flights from Washington to Kentucky, which more than beats the $10,000 per hour the <a href="" type="internal">Pentagon</a> charges as its official aircraft expense when its planes are used in this way.</p> <p>In addition to those flights, Mnuchin has been flying high as a kind of second <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway" type="external">Kellyanne Conway</a> on all sorts of non-Treasury-related topics that threaten to eclipse his boss. With Trump embroiled in a bitter war of words with National Football League players <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176237/tomgram%3A_robert_lipsyte%2C_donald_trump%2C_colin_kaepernick%2C_and_me_on_super_bowl_sunday/" type="external">taking a knee</a> over racism, Mnuchin saw an opportunity and <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/352118-mnuchin-nfl-players-can-do-free-speech-on-their-own-time" type="external">cruised</a> the Sunday <a href="" type="internal">talk-show circuit</a> attacking the players. He used his platform to insist that they should &#8220;do free speech on their own time&#8221; &#8212; &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">off the field</a>,&#8221; not on it.</p> <p>About a week later, he responded to the flak over the president&#8217;s lackluster support for Puerto Rican recovery after Hurricane Maria devastated that island. Defending his boss and his tweets in another circuit of those talk shows, he doubled down on White House criticisms of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz.&amp;#160; &#8220;When the president gets attacked, he attacks back,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/steven-mnuchin-defends-trumps-feud-with-san-juan-mayor-when-the-president-gets-attacked-he-attacks-back/article/2636213" type="external">told</a> Chuck Todd on NBC&#8217;s Meet the Press, adding, &#8220;I think the mayor&#8217;s comments were unfair given what the government has done.&#8221;</p> <p>While the head of the Treasury isn&#8217;t an elected official, his words do hold considerable weight &#8212; and he is, after all, fifth in the line of succession for the presidency. The value, insights, and credibility of the Treasury Department impact economies, markets, investors, and confidence the world over.</p> <p>Simply Swampy</p> <p>Call it lying, misleading, flip-flopping, or the invocation of the &#8220;rights&#8221; of privilege, but Mnuchin has already amassed quite a catalogue of questionable statements in his brief career in public office and, while he&#8217;s been at it, he&#8217;s even made <a href="" type="internal">extra money</a> along the way: at least $15 million and possibly as much as $53 million, reports Fortune, from &#8220;entertainment and real estate interests that he sold to comply with federal conflict of interest rules.&#8221;</p> <p>For him, as for his boss, whatever anyone says, the bottom line and their allegiance remains simple and clear: it&#8217;s not to the middle class; it&#8217;s to their class, the half-billion and up folks.</p> <p>Alexander Hamilton was no stranger to wealth either, but he understood that the nation&#8217;s wealth should be shared more evenly.&amp;#160; He attempted to use his office as a national unifier and a place to coordinate efforts to pay off debts from the Revolutionary War. Mnuchin&#8217;s doctrine is one of returning to a world of fewer rules for Wall Street and fewer taxes on corporations and the wealthy, which, in translation, means greater risks and costs for the rest of us and for the country as a whole. While President Trump isn&#8217;t exactly the cannot-tell-a-lie inheritor of the Washingtonian tradition, his Treasury Secretary, the foreclosure king of America, is distinctly no Alexander Hamilton.</p> <p>Nomi Prins&amp;#160;is the author of six books. Her most recent is&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584792/counterpunchmaga" type="external">All the Presidents&#8217; Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power</a>&amp;#160;(Nation Books). She is a former Wall Street executive. Special thanks go to researcher Craig Wilson for his superb work on this piece.</p> <p>This essay originally appeared on &amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">TomDispatch.</a></p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Steven Mnuchin, Foreclosure King of America

https://counterpunch.org/2017/11/10/steven-mnuchin-foreclosure-king-of-america/

2017-11-10

4left

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin doesn8217t exactly come across as the guy you8217d want in your corner in a playground tussle In the Trump administration he8217s been more like the kid trying to cop favor with the school bully That at least is the role he seems to have taken in the Trump White House When he isn8217t circling the Sunday shows stooging for the president he regularly plays the willing fall guy for tax policies guaranteed to stoke further inequality in America and for legislation that will remove just about any consumer protections against Wall Street Mnuchin a former Goldman Sachs partner arrived in Washington with a distinct reputationamp160 Back in 2009 he had corralled a bundle of rich financiers to take over California8217s IndyMac bank shut down amid the 2008 foreclosure crisis by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDICamp160 Bought for 139 billion but only 13 billion in actual cash Mnuchin turned it into a genuine foreclosure machine in the process sealing his own fate when it came to his future reputation At the time he didn8217t appear concerned about public approval Something far more valuable was at stake the 200 million that according to Bloomberg News he raked in personally thanks to the deal No such luck of course for the bank8217s ordinary borrowers During Mnuchin8217s reign IndyMac carried out more than 36000 foreclosures tossing former homeowners including active duty military servicemen and women onto the street without hesitation or pity by any means necessary According to a memo obtained by investigative reporter David Dayen OneWest the new name that Mnuchin and his billionaire posse coined for Indybank of which Mnuchin was now CEO and chairman 8220rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes illegally backdated key documents and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions8221 Now Mnuchin remains bitter and frustrated that he can8217t kick the reputation he got in those daysamp160 As he told a House Financial Services Committee Congressional hearing this July 8220I take great offense to anybody who calls me the foreclosure king8221 amp160Such indignation would ring truer if in May one of Mnuchin8217s banking units a company called Financial Freedom hadn8217t agreed to pay a more than 89 million settlement to the government for taking unreasonable advantage of thousands of seniors through reverse mortgages which convert equity in a home into a loan A few months later in August a watchdog group Campaign for Accountability called upon the Justice Department to investigate Mnuchin for allegedly making false statements under oath to Congress about his actions at OneWest between 2009 and 2015 Like Donald Trump Mnuchin is a man intent on making the rich richer and to hell with everyone else Continually channeling Trump8217s ego whatever his smoldering resentments may be he soldiers on 8212 and in the context of the Trump White House successfully indeed After all this administration has lost 14key people in less than a year including an FBI director a national security adviser a White House chief of staff and a White House communications director Through it all Mnuchin has remained in place one of the relatively few members of The Donald8217s original team not related by blood or marriage who is seemingly thriving Admittedly he and the president were linked in what CNN once called a 8220 business capacity8221 even before he became Trump8217s campaign finance director in May 2016 Hamilton Trump and a Playbill for the Economy There8217s a history of Treasury secretaries having a special rapport with presidents that snakes back to the founding of the Republic Alexander Hamilton the first of them had the full confidence of the first president George Washington With such backing he established federal taxes and came up with plans for real economic development He understood federal taxes to be essential to building America In contrast Mnuchin thinks the stock market is the ultimate arbiter of economic health and appears to consider taxation without representation by the wealthy the order of the day Since Mnuchin bagged one of the most influential economic positions on the planet he8217s been remarkably consistent on just one thing making sure he lends a helping hand to the world of big finance his former universe He has for instance pushed hard for more bank deregulation by claiming that it will help the smaller banks Don8217t believe it for a secondamp160 His disdain for reenacting the GlassSteagall Act which once made the merging of commercial and investment banking operations illegal and so curtailed the toobigtofail status of the largest banks tells you all you need to knowamp160 It reflects his real thinking when it comes to banks and the stability of the economy Emblematic of this has been the way he steered the Financial Stability Oversight Council that he chairs to give AIG the insurance company at the core of the 2008 financial meltdown a gateway back to prominence by removing its toobigtofail label He8217s proven adept at blurring the lines between what effective banking regulation would actually involve and how he can wordsmith out of pushing for it In May testifying before the Senate Banking Committee for example he noted that 8220we do not support the separation of banks and investment banks8221 When Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out that this was hardly the position Donald Trump and his team had taken during campaign 2016 or of the Republican platform which had explicitly called for the reinstitution of the GlassSteagall Act of 1933 he promptly waffled 8220We during the campaign8230 specifically came out and said we do support a twentyfirstcentury GlassSteagall8230 That means there are aspects of it that we think may make sense but we never said before that we supported a full separation of banks and investment banks8221 In June when pressed on the matter by Senator Bernie Sanders the Treasury secretary argued that Trump was not responsible for the language in the Republican party platform and remained opposed to breaking up the big banks He added 8220We think that that would hurt the economy that would ruin liquidity in the market What we are focused on is safe and prudent regulation for the large banks so we don8217t have taxpayer risk8221 In other words this is a man who has a real sense of the opportunity that8217s embedded in this moment 8212 for the large banks and their CEOs to make a bundle of money 8212 but no appropriate sense of the risks involved or fear for a future in which he and his president might find themselves bailing out such banks 2008style Lessons unlearned If that isn8217t the Trump administration what is Threatening the Market Mnuchin may have little grasp of what constitutes real risk but he can still make threats about it In an October interview with Politico Money he credited the stock market8217s postelection rally to positive expectations that Congress would pass a major tax 8220reform8221 bill amp160If that bill doesn8217t go through he warned the markets will suffer big time 8212 and so will everyone else Coming from a Goldman Sachs alum that should have rung a few bells After all in the fall of 2008 with the stock market tanking and banks imploding thenTreasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson took a similar position with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Following that chamber8217s initial rejection of a 700 billion bank bailout bill that sent the markets into a tailspin he warned that if she didn8217t get it through the big banks would stop providing money to the American publicamp160 Sure enough Congress complied With 91 Republicans joining 172 Democrats the bill passed by a vote of 263 to 171 Nine years and a plethora of big bank subsidies later Mnuchin conflated market levels with legislation in a similarly threatening manner As he told Politico 8220There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done8221 He then added 8220To the extent we get the tax deal done the stock market will go up higher8221 But with that of course went a warning 8220There8217s no question in my mind that if we don8217t get it done you8217re going to see a reversal of a significant amount of these gains8221 And speaking of reversals the 8220Mnuchin Rule8221 as it was dubbed in January 2017 underscored the thenprevailing Trump administration position that the wealthy should not be afforded tax cuts By October however Mnuchin had changed his rule 8220When you8217re cutting taxes across the board8221 he explained to Politico 8220it8217s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class The math given how much you are collecting is just hard to do8221 Actually the math isn8217t hard to do at all My eightyearold niece could do itamp160 If you make more than a certain amount your tax rates shouldn8217t get cut That8217s the only math that makes sense But in the land of tax subterfuge even if you leave a top tax bracket rate as it is you can still ensure that the wealthy get all the breaks in other ways On November 2nd the Republicans finally released their 8220 Tax Cuts and Job Act8221 which contained new blows to middleclass wellbeing including the elimination of deductions for medical expenses student loan interest and state and local taxes For corporations already flush with cashamp160the plan calls for a significant not to say staggering tax breakamp160 Their tax rate would be slashed from 35 to 20 And don8217t forget repealing the estate tax that other classic benefit for 8220the masses8221 Count on one thing there will be no reversals from Mnuchin or Trump on that because the math couldn8217t be cleareramp160 Only the hyperwealthy have estates big enough to reap rewards from such a change At an Institute for International Finance conference even Mnuchin had to agree that this was a benefit of the rich by the rich and for the rich 8220Obviously the estate tax I will concede disproportionately helps rich people8221 Indeed the heirs to the estates of fewer than 1 in 500 Americans who die each year would benefit in any way from such a repeal though the children or other relatives of 13amp160of the 24 members of Donald Trump8217s cabinet and the president himself would bag a collective estate tax break of about 15 billion Still don8217t think that everything8217s coming up roses for our latest secretary of the Treasuryamp160 Wall Street may now be king in Washington but Mnuchin is not though he is clearly a prince to the one man who truly matters right now Donald Trump In his efforts to promote the Trump vision whatever that might be the Treasury secretary seems to be coming up distinctly short even with Republicans in Congress who have described his approach to lawmaking in terms ranging from 8220 uncomfortable8221 to 8220 intellectually insulting8221 Donald Trump of course campaigned as an antiestablishment candidate who would offer a hand to regular people drain the Washington swamp and have our backs Then he promptly began filling his administration especially when it came to the economy with the richest of the rich figures guaranteed to promote the dismantling of whatever tepid regulations remained to protect citizens from economic disaster while enriching the usual 01 Mnuchin has yet to even do something as simple and seemingly straightforward as posting a fullscale explanation of the tax plan he8217s plugging so hard at the Treasury Department8217s web page Even though until November 2nd it remained a chimera that hasn8217t stopped him from rushing to its defense 8212 the defense that is of giving the extremely wealthy yet more of their money back Welcome to the twentyfirstcentury American politics of the 01 Meanwhile Mnuchin has noted that he8217s a big fan of biographies though his schedule doesn8217t allow much time for 8220 pleasure reading8221 When asked about Alexander Hamilton he said 8220I have a beautiful painting of him in my office He stares at me every day and I look at him for great advice8221 But Hamilton understood that without adequate taxation you couldn8217t run a country or pay its debts a stance that informed how he implemented federal taxes in the new nation As he said in 1801 8220As to taxes they are evidently inseparable from government It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation to protect it from foreign danger or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine8221 He also believed that those with more money should pay more taxes His excise tax plan for example required the taxation of luxury items bastions of the rich This government has in fact received more than 296 trillion in total tax revenues so far in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2017 That figure comes with a budget deficit of 6737 billion which means that if the rich or corporations were to cease to pay various taxes at least at present rates money would still have to come from somewhere To begin to make up for the shortfall the less wealthy will simply have to pay more in some fashion as will states and cities and cuts in social spending will undoubtedly follow as night does day The HighFlying Treasury Secretary Covers Trump8217s Back Mnuchin himself knows a situation ripe for the picking when he sees it in government or outamp160 Take for instance his prodigious use of military planes for his personal travel both on government business and for pleasureamp160 These flights have pushed the boundaries of judgement if not legality amp160According to a report from Rich Delmar the counsel to the Treasury Department8217s inspector general Mnuchin took military aircraft on at least seven occasions without obtaining appropriate authorization skirting a 8220rigorous8221 preapproval process established to avoid undue use of such expensive amenitiesamp160 And though he withdrew a request to take his wife on their honeymoon to Europe last summer by military aircraft he did use an Air Force jet to fly to Kentucky with her to watch the solar eclipse and 8212 he carefully added 8212 to 8220 review the gold8221 at Fort Knox Unlike Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whose government aircraft fetish cost him his job Fort Knox covered the solar eclipse for Mnuchin He classified each of those trips as a 8220 White House support mission8221 which sounds dramatic and is a category technically reserved for situations in which commercial flights aren8217t available or there is a national security or other emergency I checked howeveramp160 There are several 200 economy flights from Washington to Kentucky which more than beats the 10000 per hour the Pentagon charges as its official aircraft expense when its planes are used in this way In addition to those flights Mnuchin has been flying high as a kind of second Kellyanne Conway on all sorts of nonTreasuryrelated topics that threaten to eclipse his boss With Trump embroiled in a bitter war of words with National Football League players taking a knee over racism Mnuchin saw an opportunity and cruised the Sunday talkshow circuit attacking the players He used his platform to insist that they should 8220do free speech on their own time8221 8212 8220 off the field8221 not on it About a week later he responded to the flak over the president8217s lackluster support for Puerto Rican recovery after Hurricane Maria devastated that island Defending his boss and his tweets in another circuit of those talk shows he doubled down on White House criticisms of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruzamp160 8220When the president gets attacked he attacks back8221 he told Chuck Todd on NBC8217s Meet the Press adding 8220I think the mayor8217s comments were unfair given what the government has done8221 While the head of the Treasury isn8217t an elected official his words do hold considerable weight 8212 and he is after all fifth in the line of succession for the presidency The value insights and credibility of the Treasury Department impact economies markets investors and confidence the world over Simply Swampy Call it lying misleading flipflopping or the invocation of the 8220rights8221 of privilege but Mnuchin has already amassed quite a catalogue of questionable statements in his brief career in public office and while he8217s been at it he8217s even made extra money along the way at least 15 million and possibly as much as 53 million reports Fortune from 8220entertainment and real estate interests that he sold to comply with federal conflict of interest rules8221 For him as for his boss whatever anyone says the bottom line and their allegiance remains simple and clear it8217s not to the middle class it8217s to their class the halfbillion and up folks Alexander Hamilton was no stranger to wealth either but he understood that the nation8217s wealth should be shared more evenlyamp160 He attempted to use his office as a national unifier and a place to coordinate efforts to pay off debts from the Revolutionary War Mnuchin8217s doctrine is one of returning to a world of fewer rules for Wall Street and fewer taxes on corporations and the wealthy which in translation means greater risks and costs for the rest of us and for the country as a whole While President Trump isn8217t exactly the cannottellalie inheritor of the Washingtonian tradition his Treasury Secretary the foreclosure king of America is distinctly no Alexander Hamilton Nomi Prinsamp160is the author of six books Her most recent isamp160 All the Presidents8217 Bankers The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Poweramp160Nation Books She is a former Wall Street executive Special thanks go to researcher Craig Wilson for his superb work on this piece This essay originally appeared on amp160 TomDispatch amp160

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<p>DETROIT (Reuters) - Japanese luxury auto brands Lexus and Infiniti are using the Detroit auto show to test new ways to regain momentum against Germany&#8217;s prestige automakers and Silicon Valley&#8217;s Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>).</p> FILE PHOTO: A car with the Lexus logo is seen on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst <p>Toyota Motor Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=7203.T" type="external">7203.T</a>) Lexus brand unveiled at Detroit its &#8220;LF-1 Limitless&#8221; concept SUV model, signaling that Lexus may start to focus more on SUVs than its traditional large sedans.</p> <p>The LF-1 proposed a blend of an aggressive, sleek profile with a system called &#8220;Chauffeur mode&#8221; which allows the driver to take hands off the wheel and let the SUV handle most of the driving.</p> <p>The LF-1&#8217;s also previews a futuristic navigation technology that anticipates where the driver is going based on driving habits and history, and provides hotel recommendations or other concierge services.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Infiniti booth displays the company logo at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst <p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to be the &#8216;race car&#8217; brand; we don&#8217;t want to be the &#8216;quiet ride&#8217; brand. We want to be the brand which is emotionally connected with the customer,&#8221; said Cooper Ericksen, vice president of U.S. marketing for Lexus.</p> <p>The Japanese luxury brands are fighting to gain ground in the U.S. luxury market as Volkswagen AG&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">VOWG_p.DE</a>) Audi brand and Mercedes-Benz have expanded sales, and Tesla has provided a fresh alternative to the established brands.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">Tesla Inc</a> 300.34 TSLA.O Nasdaq +6.26 (+2.13%) TSLA.O 7203.T VOWG_p.DE 7267.T 7201.T <p>Last year the Lexus brand suffered a 7.6 percent slide in U.S. sales last year. At Honda Motor Co Ltd&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=7267.T" type="external">7267.T</a>) Acura luxury brand, 2017 sales fell 3.9 percent from 2016. Nissan Motor Co Ltd&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=7201.T" type="external">7201.T</a>) Infiniti pushed up sales by 11.3 percent, mainly by selling almost twice as many sport utility vehicles as cars. However, Infiniti&#8217;s total 2017 sales of 153,415 vehicles put it behind the leading Germany luxury car brands, as well as Acura, Lexus and General Motors Co&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) Cadillac brand.</p> <p>Lexus, Infiniti and Acura launched in the U.S. market in the late 1980s and took advantage of quality problems at Audi and a lack of innovation at the then-leading luxury brands in the market, General Motors Co&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) Cadillac and Ford Motor Co&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=F.N" type="external">F.N</a>) Lincoln brand.</p> <p>Now, the structure of the U.S. luxury vehicle market has changed. Four brands - Daimler AG&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAIGn.DE" type="external">DAIGn.DE</a>) Mercedes-Benz, BMW AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BMWG.DE" type="external">BMWG.DE</a>), Volkswagen&#8217;s Audi brand and Lexus dominate sales in the U.S. luxury market.</p> <p>Tesla, meanwhile, has gathered more than 400,000 orders for its Model 3 sedan, which is just starting to reach customers as the automaker tries to iron out production problems.</p> <p>In Detroit, Infiniti showed a future sedan powered by a high efficiency gasoline engine. While the prototype is not electric, its exterior might appeal to customers of the Tesla Model S.</p> <p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t look at Tesla and try to do the same idea of luxury, but there has been a natural evolution of luxury,&#8221; Infiniti&#8217;s executive design director Karim Habib said at the North American International Auto Show earlier this week.</p> <p>Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) will be profitable in the third and fourth quarters of this year and will not have to raise any money from investors, billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday, driving shares in the electric carmaker higher.</p> FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk, founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla, speaks at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein <p>Tesla has already sought this month to play down widespread Wall Street speculation that it would need to return to capital markets this year to raise more funds for the money-losing company as it ramps up production of the Model 3 sedan seen as crucial to its long-term profitability.</p> <p>The Silicon Valley car maker, which has consistently fallen short of promised production targets and is fighting bad publicity over a fatal crash of a car using its Autopilot system, said 10 days ago it would have positive cash flow from the third quarter.</p> <p>Musk went further on Friday in a tweeted response to a story in The Economist which cited estimates Tesla would need $2.5 billion to $3 billion this year in additional funding.</p> <p>&#8220;The Economist used to be boring, but smart with a wicked dry wit. Now it&#8217;s just boring (sigh). Tesla will be profitable &amp;amp; cash flow+ in Q3 &amp;amp; Q4, so obv no need to raise money,&#8221; Musk wrote.</p> <p>Tesla shares, which have gained nearly 10 percent since disclosing the Model 3 production numbers on April 3, were up 1.8 percent in afternoon trading on Wall Street.</p> <p>Musk&#8217;s claim about profit and cash flow hinges on a rapid rise in production of the Model 3 sedan, Tesla&#8217;s latest vehicle to have experienced production delays. That has postponed revenue from reaching Tesla&#8217;s bottom line from cars being delivered to customers.</p> <p>An unprecedented level of robots used in the Model 3&#8217;s final assembly, in a break with automotive manufacturing norms, has added complexity and delays, which Musk acknowledged on Friday.</p> <p>&#8220;Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake,&#8221; Musk tweeted. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.&#8221;</p> <p>Thomson Reuters consensus of analyst estimates predicts Tesla&#8217;s free cash flow to be negative well into 2019, thanks in part to heavy investments. Only one of 19 analysts covering the stock see positive adjusted earnings per share in the third quarter, with that number growing to four for the fourth quarter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo <p>Wall Street brokerage Jefferies, which provided the funding estimate cited by The Economist, said in a note last week it expects refinancing risk to remain high for Tesla until it can consistently produce 10,000 Model 3s a week.</p> <p>The company again missed its own 2,500 target for weekly production at the end of the first quarter, and analysts and fund managers doubt Tesla&#8217;s ability to keep production growing to a promised 5,000 Model 3s per week in three months time.</p> <p>Musk in July said Tesla was going through &#8220;manufacturing hell&#8221; in ramping up production of the Model 3.</p> <p>He told &#8220;CBS News&#8221; in an interview that aired Friday the company &#8220;got complacent&#8221; and &#8220;put too much new technology into the Model 3 all at once.&#8221; Part of the interview took place in a Tesla Model 3 Musk was driving with Autopilot activated at times.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">Tesla Inc</a> 300.34 TSLA.O Nasdaq +6.26 (+2.13%) TSLA.O <p>Musk told CBS Tesla is currently producing 2,000 Model 3 cars a week.</p> <p>Last month, Moody&#8217;s Investors Service downgraded Tesla&#8217;s credit rating to B3 from B2, reflecting &#8220;the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company&#8217;s Model 3.&#8221;</p> <p>Moody&#8217;s added that its negative outlook for Tesla &#8220;reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.&#8221;</p> <p>On Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board said that after a series of public disclosures by Tesla it had taken the unusual step of revoking Tesla&#8217;s status as a formal party to its investigation of a March 23 crash in California that killed a driver who was using Autopilot. The NTSB is also investigating two other Tesla crashes.</p> <p>Tesla lashed out at the NTSB and said it planned to complain to Congress.</p> <p>Asked by CBS if there was a defect with Autopilot, Musk responded: &#8220;The system worked as described, which is that it is a hands-on system. It is not a self-driving system.&#8221;</p> <p>At one point during the interview, Musk did not have his hands on the wheel and the car beeped at him to retake the wheel.</p> <p>Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Dan Burns and Alexandria Sage; editing by Phil Berlowitz</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">RR.L</a>) will bid to provide engines for a new wide-body jetliner that China is developing with Russia, the China Daily newspaper reported on Saturday, citing the British engineering company.</p> <p>The newspaper, citing Rolls-Royce&#8217;s chief technology officer Paul Stein, said the first round of bidding to supply the CR929 liner with engines was expected to begin in May.</p> <p>Chinese state planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), which is developing the jet with Russia&#8217;s United Aircraft Corp, issued the request for a proposal to engine makers in December.</p> <p>&#8220;We are taking it very seriously. We want to be the engine provider. The CR929 will invite a lot of positive competition and innovative opportunities to the aviation industry,&#8221; Stein was quoted as saying in Beijing.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC</a> 866.8 RR.L London Stock Exchange -14.40 (-1.63%) RR.L GE.N BA.N AIR.PA <p>The newspaper also said that Rolls-Royce, the world&#8217;s second-largest maker of aircraft engines behind U.S. group General Electric ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>), has been in talks about potential cooperation opportunities with Chinese firms, including aero engine manufacturers, without providing further details.</p> <p>Rolls-Royce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</p> <p>China has been plowing billions of dollars into developing jets to raise its profile in global aviation and to disrupt the current Boeing Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>) and Airbus SE ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AIR.PA" type="external">AIR.PA</a>) duopoly.</p> <p>The company, which sent its C919 narrowbody jet on its maiden flights last year, has established a joint venture for the C929 wide-body with an aim to eventually take 10 percent of a market dominated by the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350.</p> <p>Reporting by Brenda Goh; editing by Richard Pullin</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services on Saturday recommended investors vote against the re-election of five Equifax Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EFX.N" type="external">EFX.N</a>) directors who served on the company&#8217;s audit and technology committees prior to a 2017 data breach.</p> Credit reporting company Equifax Inc. corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Tami Chappell <p>The Atlanta-based consumer credit company last fall said hackers had stolen personally identifiable information of U.S., British and Canadian consumers, including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver&#8217;s license and credit card numbers. Over time, Equifax has increased the number affected to more than 147 million people.</p> <p>ISS said in a report to shareholders sent to Reuters by a spokesman that the company&#8217;s reputation and shareholder value had been damaged by the extent of the breach and the company&#8217;s slow response to it, placing a cloud over the company.</p> <p>In response, it recommended against voting for directors Mark L. Feidler, G. Thomas Hough, John A. McKinley, Elane B. Stock and Mark B. Templeton, who served on the two committees with relevant oversight duties. It recommended votes in support of the remaining five director candidates at the company, including Siri S. Marshall, head of the governance committee.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EFX.N" type="external">Equifax Inc</a> 116.0 EFX.N New York Stock Exchange -0.91 (-0.78%) EFX.N <p>An Equifax spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the recommendations.</p> <p>Equifax has said breach-related costs could reach $439 million through year-end, potentially making it the most costly U.S. hack yet disclosed. The company has lost 19 percent of its market value since the massive cybertheft was disclosed. Its shares traded at $116 on Friday. [L2N1QK1Q1]</p> <p>The credit reporting company is facing 100s of lawsuits by consumers, financial institutions and even the city of Chicago relating to the cybersecurity breach. The company disputes the claims and has said it intends to defend against them.</p> <p>ISS also recommended &#8220;cautionary support&#8221; for the company&#8217;s say-on-pay resolution, noting the compensation committee&#8217;s decision to not pay annual incentives, steps to adjust incentive metrics and strengthen clawback provisions. However, it said there are ongoing questions about former Chief Executive Richard F. Smith&#8217;s pay and &#8220;the issue warrants continued monitoring.&#8221;</p> <p>It also recommended a vote in favor of a shareholder resolution seeking a report on political contributions by the company, saying holders would benefit from more disclosure of the company&#8217;s political spending, payments to trade groups, its management of related risks.</p> <p>The company&#8217;s annual general meeting is scheduled for May 3.</p> <p>Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Alistair Bell</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Wall Street is hoping that first-quarter earnings growth and corporate forecasts are strong enough to bring the FAANG group of stocks back into favor and take the spotlight off worries that caused the recent sell-off in the high-flying group.</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>With valuations below recent peaks, the group - comprised of Facebook, Amazon.com, Apple Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">AAPL.O</a>), Netflix ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>) and Google parent Alphabet Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) - could get some relief if the companies beat, or at least meet, Wall Street estimates.</p> <p>Shares in the group, which led the S&amp;amp;P 500 to record highs in January, often trade together. They were pummeled late in the quarter on worries about a data privacy scandal at Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s public criticism of Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>). On top of this, fears of a trade war with China escalated during the quarter.</p> <p>For the group, analysts expect average first-quarter year-over-year earnings growth of 25.8 percent, up from 12.4 percent growth in the fourth quarter and a 12.8 percent increase a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p> <p>&#8220;All we&#8217;re getting now is negative news ... once we start to see the numbers, you&#8217;re going to see a bigger spotlight on the success these companies are having,&#8221; said Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta, which holds shares in the FAANG stocks.</p> <p>Morgan says he is in a wait-and-see mode until after the first report from Netflix, which is due to be issued on Monday. Analysts expect Netflix earnings growth of 59 percent and revenue growth of 39 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p> <p>The entire group was hurt by fears that Facebook and other internet firms including Google would face onerous regulations or slowing advertising revenue growth after Facebook said nearly 87 million of its members&#8217; personal data was improperly leaked.</p> <p>Facebook fell almost 24 percent below its early February record to hit $149.02 on March 26, its lowest point since July last year, due to the scandal. Google had fallen almost 18 percent below its late January record by March 28.</p> <p>Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia said the $76-million Chase Growth fund cut its Facebook investments to 1.8 percent from 3.1 percent of its portfolio due to the scandal. Tuz may stay on the sidelines until there is more clarity on Facebook&#8217;s prospects.</p> <p>&#8220;If fundamentals remain strong with usage staying strong and the company doesn&#8217;t get hit with any severe fines or regulations we might very well buy again,&#8221; said Tuz, whose firm also owns Amazon.com, Apple and Google shares.</p> <p>&#8220;We feel good about three out of the five FAANGs- Amazon, Apple, Google,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Amazon.com stock was hurt by criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he would take a serious look at what he claimed were the online retailer&#8217;s unfair advantages with taxes and shipping rates. It fell 16.3 percent between March 13 and April 4.</p> <p>The broader technology sector was also hammered by fears of a trade war with China, a big source of revenue. Apple derived about 20 percent of its revenue from China in its fiscal year 2017. Investors seek details how big the financial risks are in the face of events such as a trade war, new regulations or a stronger dollar.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">Apple Inc</a> 174.73 AAPL.O Nasdaq +0.59 (+0.34%) AAPL.O NFLX.O GOOGL.O FB.O AMZN.O <p>&#8220;The guidance will be more important,&#8221; said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, referring to comments on quarterly conference calls about the potential financial impact of all these issues.</p> <p>But Patrick Palfrey, equity Strategist at Credit-Suisse in New York is mainly focused on strong estimates for the sector, which has posted impressive growth &#8220;time and time again.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t help but look at the group and have a positive outlook even with the current uncertainties,&#8221; said Palfrey.</p> <p>Fund flow data shows investors were warming up to the sector again. Science and technology funds showed inflows of $152 million on the week ending April 11 after outflows of $610.9 million the previous week, which had marked the first weekly retreat since early February, according to Thomson Reuters Lipper data.</p> <p>Facebook has risen about 11 percent from its most recent low while Google has climbed 5 percent above its recent trough; Apple is roughly 6 percent higher than its early April low, as is Amazon.com. Netflix has gained about 15 percent in the last 7 sessions.</p> <p>Options trading flows suggest that much of the fear of the recent sell-off has faded. But while bears have been exiting positions, bulls have yet to make a big move into the space.</p> <p>Open options contracts on key sector exchange-traded funds, PowerShares QQQ Trust ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QQQ.O" type="external">QQQ.O</a>) and Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XLK.P" type="external">XLK.P</a>), show investor preferences for puts at or close to multi-month lows, according to Trade Alert data. Put options give investors the right to sell shares at a certain price in the future and are often used as a hedge.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8220;Investors have been buying the dip a little bit, but in very small sizes, without very large conviction, until they see the earnings,&#8221; said Ilya Feygin, senior strategist at WallachBeth Capital LLC, in Jersey City, New Jersey.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Lexus, Infiniti luxury car brands test ways to fight Tesla, German rivals Musk insists Tesla does not need more capital, predicts profit soon Rolls-Royce to bid for engines for China-Russia wide body jet: China Daily Proxy adviser ISS recommends against five Equifax directors over cyberbreach Wall Street eyes earnings stabilizer after FAANG stocks wobble

https://reuters.com/article/us-autoshow-detroit-luxury/lexus-infiniti-luxury-car-brands-test-ways-to-fight-tesla-german-rivals-idUSKBN1F71KS

2018-01-18

2least

DETROIT Reuters Japanese luxury auto brands Lexus and Infiniti are using the Detroit auto show to test new ways to regain momentum against Germany8217s prestige automakers and Silicon Valley8217s Tesla Inc TSLAO FILE PHOTO A car with the Lexus logo is seen on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Michigan US January 16 2018 REUTERSJonathan Ernst Toyota Motor Corp8217s 7203T Lexus brand unveiled at Detroit its 8220LF1 Limitless8221 concept SUV model signaling that Lexus may start to focus more on SUVs than its traditional large sedans The LF1 proposed a blend of an aggressive sleek profile with a system called 8220Chauffeur mode8221 which allows the driver to take hands off the wheel and let the SUV handle most of the driving The LF18217s also previews a futuristic navigation technology that anticipates where the driver is going based on driving habits and history and provides hotel recommendations or other concierge services FILE PHOTO The Infiniti booth displays the company logo at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Michigan US January 16 2018 REUTERSJonathan Ernst 8220We don8217t want to be the 8216race car8217 brand we don8217t want to be the 8216quiet ride8217 brand We want to be the brand which is emotionally connected with the customer8221 said Cooper Ericksen vice president of US marketing for Lexus The Japanese luxury brands are fighting to gain ground in the US luxury market as Volkswagen AG8217s VOWG_pDE Audi brand and MercedesBenz have expanded sales and Tesla has provided a fresh alternative to the established brands Tesla Inc 30034 TSLAO Nasdaq 626 213 TSLAO 7203T VOWG_pDE 7267T 7201T Last year the Lexus brand suffered a 76 percent slide in US sales last year At Honda Motor Co Ltd8217s 7267T Acura luxury brand 2017 sales fell 39 percent from 2016 Nissan Motor Co Ltd8217s 7201T Infiniti pushed up sales by 113 percent mainly by selling almost twice as many sport utility vehicles as cars However Infiniti8217s total 2017 sales of 153415 vehicles put it behind the leading Germany luxury car brands as well as Acura Lexus and General Motors Co8217s GMN Cadillac brand Lexus Infiniti and Acura launched in the US market in the late 1980s and took advantage of quality problems at Audi and a lack of innovation at the thenleading luxury brands in the market General Motors Co8217s GMN Cadillac and Ford Motor Co8217s FN Lincoln brand Now the structure of the US luxury vehicle market has changed Four brands Daimler AG8217s DAIGnDE MercedesBenz BMW AG BMWGDE Volkswagen8217s Audi brand and Lexus dominate sales in the US luxury market Tesla meanwhile has gathered more than 400000 orders for its Model 3 sedan which is just starting to reach customers as the automaker tries to iron out production problems In Detroit Infiniti showed a future sedan powered by a high efficiency gasoline engine While the prototype is not electric its exterior might appeal to customers of the Tesla Model S 8220We don8217t look at Tesla and try to do the same idea of luxury but there has been a natural evolution of luxury8221 Infiniti8217s executive design director Karim Habib said at the North American International Auto Show earlier this week Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu Editing by Lisa Shumaker Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Tesla Inc TSLAO will be profitable in the third and fourth quarters of this year and will not have to raise any money from investors billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday driving shares in the electric carmaker higher FILE PHOTO Elon Musk founder CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and cofounder of Tesla speaks at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington US July 19 2017 REUTERSAaron P Bernstein Tesla has already sought this month to play down widespread Wall Street speculation that it would need to return to capital markets this year to raise more funds for the moneylosing company as it ramps up production of the Model 3 sedan seen as crucial to its longterm profitability The Silicon Valley car maker which has consistently fallen short of promised production targets and is fighting bad publicity over a fatal crash of a car using its Autopilot system said 10 days ago it would have positive cash flow from the third quarter Musk went further on Friday in a tweeted response to a story in The Economist which cited estimates Tesla would need 25 billion to 3 billion this year in additional funding 8220The Economist used to be boring but smart with a wicked dry wit Now it8217s just boring sigh Tesla will be profitable ampamp cash flow in Q3 ampamp Q4 so obv no need to raise money8221 Musk wrote Tesla shares which have gained nearly 10 percent since disclosing the Model 3 production numbers on April 3 were up 18 percent in afternoon trading on Wall Street Musk8217s claim about profit and cash flow hinges on a rapid rise in production of the Model 3 sedan Tesla8217s latest vehicle to have experienced production delays That has postponed revenue from reaching Tesla8217s bottom line from cars being delivered to customers An unprecedented level of robots used in the Model 38217s final assembly in a break with automotive manufacturing norms has added complexity and delays which Musk acknowledged on Friday 8220Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake8221 Musk tweeted To be precise my mistake Humans are underrated8221 Thomson Reuters consensus of analyst estimates predicts Tesla8217s free cash flow to be negative well into 2019 thanks in part to heavy investments Only one of 19 analysts covering the stock see positive adjusted earnings per share in the third quarter with that number growing to four for the fourth quarter FILE PHOTO A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton just outside London Britain February 7 2018 REUTERSHannah McKayFile Photo Wall Street brokerage Jefferies which provided the funding estimate cited by The Economist said in a note last week it expects refinancing risk to remain high for Tesla until it can consistently produce 10000 Model 3s a week The company again missed its own 2500 target for weekly production at the end of the first quarter and analysts and fund managers doubt Tesla8217s ability to keep production growing to a promised 5000 Model 3s per week in three months time Musk in July said Tesla was going through 8220manufacturing hell8221 in ramping up production of the Model 3 He told 8220CBS News8221 in an interview that aired Friday the company 8220got complacent8221 and 8220put too much new technology into the Model 3 all at once8221 Part of the interview took place in a Tesla Model 3 Musk was driving with Autopilot activated at times Tesla Inc 30034 TSLAO Nasdaq 626 213 TSLAO Musk told CBS Tesla is currently producing 2000 Model 3 cars a week Last month Moody8217s Investors Service downgraded Tesla8217s credit rating to B3 from B2 reflecting 8220the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company8217s Model 38221 Moody8217s added that its negative outlook for Tesla 8220reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large nearterm capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall8221 On Thursday the National Transportation Safety Board said that after a series of public disclosures by Tesla it had taken the unusual step of revoking Tesla8217s status as a formal party to its investigation of a March 23 crash in California that killed a driver who was using Autopilot The NTSB is also investigating two other Tesla crashes Tesla lashed out at the NTSB and said it planned to complain to Congress Asked by CBS if there was a defect with Autopilot Musk responded 8220The system worked as described which is that it is a handson system It is not a selfdriving system8221 At one point during the interview Musk did not have his hands on the wheel and the car beeped at him to retake the wheel Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington additional reporting by Dan Burns and Alexandria Sage editing by Phil Berlowitz Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SHANGHAI Reuters RollsRoyce Holdings Plc RRL will bid to provide engines for a new widebody jetliner that China is developing with Russia the China Daily newspaper reported on Saturday citing the British engineering company The newspaper citing RollsRoyce8217s chief technology officer Paul Stein said the first round of bidding to supply the CR929 liner with engines was expected to begin in May Chinese state planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corp of China COMAC which is developing the jet with Russia8217s United Aircraft Corp issued the request for a proposal to engine makers in December 8220We are taking it very seriously We want to be the engine provider The CR929 will invite a lot of positive competition and innovative opportunities to the aviation industry8221 Stein was quoted as saying in Beijing RollsRoyce Holdings PLC 8668 RRL London Stock Exchange 1440 163 RRL GEN BAN AIRPA The newspaper also said that RollsRoyce the world8217s secondlargest maker of aircraft engines behind US group General Electric GEN has been in talks about potential cooperation opportunities with Chinese firms including aero engine manufacturers without providing further details RollsRoyce did not immediately respond to requests for comment China has been plowing billions of dollars into developing jets to raise its profile in global aviation and to disrupt the current Boeing Co BAN and Airbus SE AIRPA duopoly The company which sent its C919 narrowbody jet on its maiden flights last year has established a joint venture for the C929 widebody with an aim to eventually take 10 percent of a market dominated by the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 Reporting by Brenda Goh editing by Richard Pullin Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services on Saturday recommended investors vote against the reelection of five Equifax Inc EFXN directors who served on the company8217s audit and technology committees prior to a 2017 data breach Credit reporting company Equifax Inc corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta Georgia US September 8 2017 REUTERSTami Chappell The Atlantabased consumer credit company last fall said hackers had stolen personally identifiable information of US British and Canadian consumers including names Social Security numbers birth dates addresses driver8217s license and credit card numbers Over time Equifax has increased the number affected to more than 147 million people ISS said in a report to shareholders sent to Reuters by a spokesman that the company8217s reputation and shareholder value had been damaged by the extent of the breach and the company8217s slow response to it placing a cloud over the company In response it recommended against voting for directors Mark L Feidler G Thomas Hough John A McKinley Elane B Stock and Mark B Templeton who served on the two committees with relevant oversight duties It recommended votes in support of the remaining five director candidates at the company including Siri S Marshall head of the governance committee Equifax Inc 1160 EFXN New York Stock Exchange 091 078 EFXN An Equifax spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the recommendations Equifax has said breachrelated costs could reach 439 million through yearend potentially making it the most costly US hack yet disclosed The company has lost 19 percent of its market value since the massive cybertheft was disclosed Its shares traded at 116 on Friday L2N1QK1Q1 The credit reporting company is facing 100s of lawsuits by consumers financial institutions and even the city of Chicago relating to the cybersecurity breach The company disputes the claims and has said it intends to defend against them ISS also recommended 8220cautionary support8221 for the company8217s sayonpay resolution noting the compensation committee8217s decision to not pay annual incentives steps to adjust incentive metrics and strengthen clawback provisions However it said there are ongoing questions about former Chief Executive Richard F Smith8217s pay and 8220the issue warrants continued monitoring8221 It also recommended a vote in favor of a shareholder resolution seeking a report on political contributions by the company saying holders would benefit from more disclosure of the company8217s political spending payments to trade groups its management of related risks The company8217s annual general meeting is scheduled for May 3 Reporting by Gary McWilliams Editing by Alistair Bell Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Wall Street is hoping that firstquarter earnings growth and corporate forecasts are strong enough to bring the FAANG group of stocks back into favor and take the spotlight off worries that caused the recent selloff in the highflying group FILE PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US April 10 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid With valuations below recent peaks the group comprised of Facebook Amazoncom Apple Inc AAPLO Netflix NFLXO and Google parent Alphabet Inc GOOGLO could get some relief if the companies beat or at least meet Wall Street estimates Shares in the group which led the SampampP 500 to record highs in January often trade together They were pummeled late in the quarter on worries about a data privacy scandal at Facebook FBO and US President Donald Trump8217s public criticism of Amazoncom AMZNO On top of this fears of a trade war with China escalated during the quarter For the group analysts expect average firstquarter yearoveryear earnings growth of 258 percent up from 124 percent growth in the fourth quarter and a 128 percent increase a year ago according to Thomson Reuters data 8220All we8217re getting now is negative news once we start to see the numbers you8217re going to see a bigger spotlight on the success these companies are having8221 said Daniel Morgan portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta which holds shares in the FAANG stocks Morgan says he is in a waitandsee mode until after the first report from Netflix which is due to be issued on Monday Analysts expect Netflix earnings growth of 59 percent and revenue growth of 39 percent according to Thomson Reuters data The entire group was hurt by fears that Facebook and other internet firms including Google would face onerous regulations or slowing advertising revenue growth after Facebook said nearly 87 million of its members8217 personal data was improperly leaked Facebook fell almost 24 percent below its early February record to hit 14902 on March 26 its lowest point since July last year due to the scandal Google had fallen almost 18 percent below its late January record by March 28 Peter Tuz president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville Virginia said the 76million Chase Growth fund cut its Facebook investments to 18 percent from 31 percent of its portfolio due to the scandal Tuz may stay on the sidelines until there is more clarity on Facebook8217s prospects 8220If fundamentals remain strong with usage staying strong and the company doesn8217t get hit with any severe fines or regulations we might very well buy again8221 said Tuz whose firm also owns Amazoncom Apple and Google shares 8220We feel good about three out of the five FAANGs Amazon Apple Google8221 he said Amazoncom stock was hurt by criticism from US President Donald Trump who said he would take a serious look at what he claimed were the online retailer8217s unfair advantages with taxes and shipping rates It fell 163 percent between March 13 and April 4 The broader technology sector was also hammered by fears of a trade war with China a big source of revenue Apple derived about 20 percent of its revenue from China in its fiscal year 2017 Investors seek details how big the financial risks are in the face of events such as a trade war new regulations or a stronger dollar Apple Inc 17473 AAPLO Nasdaq 059 034 AAPLO NFLXO GOOGLO FBO AMZNO 8220The guidance will be more important8221 said Robert Phipps a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin referring to comments on quarterly conference calls about the potential financial impact of all these issues But Patrick Palfrey equity Strategist at CreditSuisse in New York is mainly focused on strong estimates for the sector which has posted impressive growth 8220time and time again8221 8220I can8217t help but look at the group and have a positive outlook even with the current uncertainties8221 said Palfrey Fund flow data shows investors were warming up to the sector again Science and technology funds showed inflows of 152 million on the week ending April 11 after outflows of 6109 million the previous week which had marked the first weekly retreat since early February according to Thomson Reuters Lipper data Facebook has risen about 11 percent from its most recent low while Google has climbed 5 percent above its recent trough Apple is roughly 6 percent higher than its early April low as is Amazoncom Netflix has gained about 15 percent in the last 7 sessions Options trading flows suggest that much of the fear of the recent selloff has faded But while bears have been exiting positions bulls have yet to make a big move into the space Open options contracts on key sector exchangetraded funds PowerShares QQQ Trust QQQO and Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund XLKP show investor preferences for puts at or close to multimonth lows according to Trade Alert data Put options give investors the right to sell shares at a certain price in the future and are often used as a hedgeamp160amp160amp160 8220Investors have been buying the dip a little bit but in very small sizes without very large conviction until they see the earnings8221 said Ilya Feygin senior strategist at WallachBeth Capital LLC in Jersey City New Jersey Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175717/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_how_to_act_like_a_billionaire/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>Finally, journalists have started criticizing in earnest the leviathans of Silicon Valley, notably Google, now the world&#8217;s third-largest company in market value. The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency, or maybe <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/technology/silicon-valley-and-spy-agency-bound-by-strengthening-web.html" type="external">merging</a> with it. Simultaneously another set of journalists, apparently unaware that the weather has changed, is still sneering at San Francisco, my hometown, for not lying down and loving Silicon Valley&#8217;s looming presence.</p> <p>The criticism of Silicon Valley is long overdue and some of the critiques are both thoughtful and scathing. The New Yorker, for example, has explored how <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/silicon-valley-start-ups-and-the-end-of-stanford.html" type="external">start-ups</a> are undermining the purpose of education at Stanford University, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_packer" type="external">addressed</a> the Valley&#8217;s messianic delusions and political meddling, and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/apple-tax-hearings-tim-cook-public-outrage.html" type="external">considered</a> Apple&#8217;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2013/05/28/how-does-apple-avoid-taxes/" type="external">massive tax avoidance</a>.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The New York Times recently published an opinion piece that startled me, especially when I checked the byline. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the fugitive in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banality-of-googles-dont-be-evil.html" type="external">focused on</a> The New Digital Age, a book by top Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen that to him exemplifies the melding of the technology corporation and the state.&amp;#160; It is, he claimed, a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of our leading &#8220;witch doctors who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the twenty-first century.&#8221;&amp;#160; He added, &#8220;This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>What do the U.S. government and Silicon Valley <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_you_are_our_secret/" type="external">already have</a> in common? Above all, they want to remain opaque while making the rest of us entirely transparent through the capture of our data. What is arising is simply a new form of government, involving vast entities with the reach and power of government and little accountability to anyone.</p> <p>Google, the company with the motto &#8220;Don&#8217;t be evil,&#8221; is rapidly becoming an empire. Not an empire of territory, as was Rome or the Soviet Union, but an empire controlling our access to data and our data itself. Antitrust lawsuits proliferating around the company demonstrate its quest for monopoly control over information in the information age. Its search engine has become indispensable for most of us, and as Google critic and media professor Siva Vaidhyanathan puts it in his 2012 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520258827/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Googlization of Everything</a>, &#8220;[W]e now allow Google to determine what is important, relevant, and true on the Web and in the world. We trust and believe that Google acts in our best interest. But we have surrendered control over the values, methods, and processes that make sense of our information ecosystem.&#8221; And that&#8217;s just the search engine.</p> <p>About three-quarters of a billion people use Gmail, which conveniently gives Google access to the content of their communications (scanned in such a way that they can target ads at you). Google tried and failed to claim proprietary control of digital versions of every book ever published; librarians and publishers fought back on that one. As the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/technology/google-and-publishers-settle-over-digital-books.html" type="external">reported</a> last fall, Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, summed the situation up this way: &#8220;Google continues to profit from its use of millions of copyright-protected books without regard to authors&#8217; rights, and our class-action lawsuit on behalf of U.S. authors continues.&#8221;</p> <p>The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog <a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/cltrdojwaze061213.pdf" type="external">wrote</a> to the attorney general on June 12th urging him &#8220;to block Google&#8217;s just announced $1 billion acquisition of Waze, developers of a mobile mapping application, on antitrust grounds&#8230; Google already dominates the online mapping business with Google Maps. The Internet giant was able to muscle its way to dominance by unfairly favoring its own service ahead of such competitors as Mapquest in its online search results. Now with the proposed Waze acquisition, the Internet giant would remove the most viable competitor to Google Maps in the mobile space. Moreover it will allow Google access to even more data about online activity in a way that will increase its dominant position on the Internet.&#8221;</p> <p>The company seems to be cornering the online mapping business, seems in fact to be cornering so many things that eventually they may have us cornered.</p> <p>In Europe, there&#8217;s an antitrust lawsuit over Google&#8217;s Android phone apps.&amp;#160; In many ways, you can map Google&#8217;s rise by the litter of antitrust lawsuits it crushed en route. By the way, Google bought Motorola. You know it owns YouTube, right? That makes Google possessor of the second and third most visited Websites on earth. (Facebook is first, and two more of the top six are also in Silicon Valley.)</p> <p>Imagine that it&#8217;s 1913 and the post office, the phone company, the public library, printing houses, the U.S. Geological Survey mapping operations, movie houses, and all atlases are largely controlled by a secretive corporation unaccountable to the public. Jump a century and see that in the online world that&#8217;s more or less where we are. A New York venture capitalist <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/05/running-the-table.html" type="external">wrote</a> that Google is trying to take over &#8220;the entire fucking Internet&#8221; and asked the question of the day: &#8220;Who will stop Google?&#8221; &amp;#160;</p> <p>The Tipping Point</p> <p>We ask that question all the time in San Francisco, because here Google isn&#8217;t just on our computers, it&#8217;s on our streets. I wrote earlier this year about &#8220; <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary" type="external">the Google bus</a>&#8221; &#8212; the armadas of private Wi-Fi-equipped luxury buses that run through our streets and use our <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/14/those-infuriating-private-buses" type="external">public bus stops</a>, often blocking city buses and public transit passengers while they load or unload the employees taking the long ride down the peninsula to their corporation of choice. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Genentech run some of the bigger fleets, and those mostly unmarked white buses have become a symbol of the transformation of the city.</p> <p>Carl Nolte, the old native son who writes a column for the (dying) San Francisco Chronicle, <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/Nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-in-SF-4603169.php" type="external">said</a> this month of the future inhabitants of 22,000 high-priced apartments under construction, &#8220;These new apartment dwellers will all be new San Franciscans, with different values. In a couple of years we&#8217;ll think of the progressive politicians, circa 2012, as quaint antiques, like the old waterfront Commies your grandfather used to worry about. This is already a high-tech city, an expensive city, a city where middle-class families can&#8217;t afford to live. It is a city where the African American population has dropped precipitously, where the Latino Mission District is gentrifying more every day. You think it&#8217;s expensive here now? Just you wait. These are the good old days, but it won&#8217;t last. We are at a tipping point.&#8221;</p> <p>Mr. Nolte, you can tell, doesn&#8217;t particularly like this. A guy named Ilan Greenberg at the New Republic popped up to tell us that we must like it &#8212; or face his ridicule. He <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112886/san-franciscos-gentrification-problem-isnt-gentrification" type="external">writes</a>, &#8220;Ironically, the anti-gentrifiers themselves undermine San Francisco&#8217;s liberal ethos. Opposed to newcomers? Wary of people whose values you don&#8217;t understand? Critical of young people for not living up to an older generation&#8217;s ideals? It all sounds very reactionary and close-minded.&#8221; The problem is that we <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/america-s-new-oligarchs-fwd-us-and-silicon-valley-s-shady-1-percenters.html" type="external">understand Silicon Valley&#8217;s values</a> all too well, and a lot of us don&#8217;t like them.</p> <p>Adding newcomers might not be so bad if it didn&#8217;t mean subtracting a lot of those of us who are already here. By us I mean everyone who doesn&#8217;t work for a gigantic technology corporation or one of the smaller companies hoping to become a global monolith. Greenberg (who is, incidentally, writing for a publication quietly bought up by a Facebook billionaire) sneers at us for defending middle-class people, but &#8220;middle class&#8221; is just a word for those of us who get paid decently for our work. People at various income levels in a diversity of fields here in San Francisco are being replaced by those who work in one field and get paid extremely well.&amp;#160; Small, alternative, and nonprofit institutions are also struggling and going down. It&#8217;s like watching a meadow being plowed under for, say, Monsanto genetically modified soybeans.</p> <p>Speaking of meadows, one of Silicon Valley&#8217;s billionaires, Napster founder and Spotify billionaire Sean Parker, just threw himself a $10 million wedding on environmentally sensitive land in Big Sur. In the course of <a href="http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2013/06/05/13898/elves-wouldn-t-have-done-this-the-coastal-commissi/" type="external">building</a> a massive fantasy set for the event, &#8220;including grading, change in use from campground to private event, construction of multiple structures including a gateway and arch, an artificial pond, a stone bridge, multiple event platforms with elevated floors, rock walls, artificially created ruins of cottages and castle walls,&#8221; he reportedly did <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Sean-Parker-buys-a-slide-from-Coastal-Commission-4580753.php" type="external">significant environmental damage</a> and violated regulations.</p> <p>Apparently paying $2.5 million in fines after the fact didn&#8217;t bother him. Napster and Spotify are, incidentally, online technologies that have reduced musicians&#8217; profits from their recordings to almost nothing. There are tremendously wealthy musicians, of course, but a lot of them are at best, yes, middle class. Thanks to Parker, maybe a little less so.</p> <p>Teachers, civil servants, bus drivers, librarians, firefighters &#8212; consider them representatives of the middle class under siege, as well as the people who keep a city viable and diverse. Friends of mine &#8212; a painter, a poet, a filmmaker, a photographer, all of whom have contributed to San Francisco&#8217;s culture &#8212; have been evicted so that more affluent people may replace them. There&#8217;s a widespread tendency to think that defending culture means defending privileged white people, but that assumes that people of color and poor people aren&#8217;t artists. Here, they are.</p> <p>Everyone here understands that if a musician &#8212; hip-hop or symphony &#8212; can&#8217;t afford a home, neither can a janitor and her family. And competition for those apartments is fierce, so fierce that these days no one I know can find a rental on the open market. I couldn&#8217;t when I moved in 2011; neither could a physician friend earlier this year. The tech kids come in and offer a year in cash up front or raise the asking price or both, and the housing supply continues to wither, while rents skyrocket. So while Greenberg might like you to think that we&#8217;re selfishly not offering a seat at the table, it&#8217;s more like old people and working families and people whose careers were shaped by idealism are objecting to being thrown under the, well, bus.</p> <p>Like Gandhi, Only With Guns</p> <p>Enough minions of Silicon Valley&#8217;s mighty corporations could arrive to create a monoculture.&amp;#160; In some parts of town, it already is the dominant culture. A guy who made a fortune in the dot-com boom and moved to the Mission District (the partly Latino, formerly blue-collar eye of the housing hurricane) got locals&#8217; attention recently with a blog post titled &#8220; <a href="http://christacy.blogspot.com/2013/06/dont-be-fucking-douchebag-part-one.html" type="external">Douchebags Like You are Ruining San Francisco</a>.&#8221; In it, he described the churlish and sometimes predatory behavior of the very young and very wealthy toward the elderly, the poor, and the nonwhite.</p> <p>He <a href="http://christacy.blogspot.com/2013/06/dont-be-fucking-douchebag-part-three.html" type="external">wrote</a>, &#8220;You&#8217;re on MUNI [the city bus system] and watch a 20-something guy reluctantly give up his seat to an elderly woman and then say loudly to his friends, &#8216;I don&#8217;t know why old people ride MUNI. If I were old I&#8217;d just take Uber.&#8217;&#8221; Yeah, I had to look it up, too: Uber.com, a limousine taxi service you access via a smartphone app. A friend of mine overheard a young techie in line to buy coffee say to someone on his phone that he was working on an app that would be &#8220;like Food Not Bombs, to distribute food, only for profit.&#8221; Saying you&#8217;re going to be like a group dedicated to free food, only for profit, is about as deranged as saying you&#8217;re going to be like Gandhi, only with guns.</p> <p>&#8220;An influx of techies will mean more patrons for the arts,&#8221; <a href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/" type="external">trilled</a> an article at the Silicon Valley news site Pando, but as of yet those notable patrons have not made an appearance. As a local alternative weekly <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-bacon-wrapped-economy/Content?oid=3494301&amp;amp;showFullText=true" type="external">reported</a>, &#8220;The tech world in general is notoriously uncharitable: According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, only four of 2011&#8217;s 50 most generous U.S. donors worked in tech, despite the fact that 13 of Forbes 50 Richest Americans in 2012 had made some or all of their fortunes in tech.&#8221; Medici in their machinations, they are not Medici-style patrons. There is no noticeable trickle-down in the Bay Area, no significant benevolence toward the needy or good causes or culture from the new tech fortunes.</p> <p>Instead, we get <a href="http://uptownalmanac.com/2013/02/did-mark-zuckerberg-pay-10-million-move-mission" type="external">San Francisco newcomer</a>, Facebook CEO, and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg pursuing his own interest with ruthless disregard for life on Earth. This year, Zuckerberg formed a politically active nonprofit, FWD.us, that sought to influence the immigration debate to make it easier for Silicon Valley corporations to import tech workers. There has been no ideology involved, only expediency, in how FWD.us pursued its ends. It decided to put its massive financial clout to work giving politicians whatever they wanted in hopes that this would lead to an advantageous quid pro quo arrangement. Toward that end, the group began <a href="http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Mark_Zuckerberg_s_Fwd_us_Fail_No_Surprise_11359.html" type="external">running ads</a> in favor of the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175648/michael_klare_keystone_xl_pipeline" type="external">Keystone XL pipeline</a> (that will bring particularly carbon-dirty tar sands from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast) to support a Republican senator and other ads in favor of drilling in Alaska&#8217;s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to support an Alaskan Democrat.</p> <p>The takeaway message seemed to be that nothing is off limits in pursuing self-interest, and that the actual meaning and consequences of these climate-impacting projects was not of concern at least to that 29-year-old who&#8217;s also the 25th richest person in the United States. (To give credit where it&#8217;s due: Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk, Paypal cofounder and electric car mogul, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/net-us-usa-immigration-technology-idUSBRE94910K20130510" type="external">quit</a> FWD.us.) Zuckerberg and his Valley associates were pushing things they didn&#8217;t care about and demonstrating that they didn&#8217;t care about much except what makes their corporations run and their profits rise. Here, where the Sierra Club was founded in 1892 and many are environmentally minded, this didn&#8217;t go over well. Protests ensued at Facebook headquarters and on Facebook itself.</p> <p>Rising hostility to the tech surge in San Francisco is met with fury and bewilderment by many Silicon Valley employees. They tend to sound like Bush-era strategists dumbfounded that the Iraqis didn&#8217;t welcome their invasion with flowers.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s something else you should know about Silicon Valley: <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/silicon-valley-race-gender-problem-income-inequality" type="external">according to</a> Mother Jones, 89% of the founding teams of these companies are all male; 82% are all white (the other 18% Asian/Pacific Islander); and women there make 49 cents to the male dollar. Silicon Valley female powerhouses like Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg get a lot of attention because they&#8217;re unusual, black swans in a lake full of white swans. As Catherine Bracy, on whose research Mother Jones based its charts, <a href="http://cbracy.tumblr.com" type="external">put it</a>, &#8220;The current research I&#8217;ve seen shows that wealth creation from the tech industry is extremely unequally distributed, and current venture capital is going overwhelmingly to a small, homogeneous elite.&#8221; That&#8217;s what&#8217;s encroaching on San Francisco.</p> <p>That <a href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/" type="external">Pando article</a> chastises us this way: &#8220;San Francisco can become a world capital.&amp;#160; First it needs to get over itself.&#8221; But maybe we don&#8217;t want to be a world capital or more like New York and Tokyo. The logic of more-is-better seems unassailable to San Francisco&#8217;s detractors, but inside their more is a lot of less: less diversity, less affordability, less culture, less continuity, less community, less equitable distribution of wealth. What&#8217;s called wealth in these calculations is for the few; for the many, it&#8217;s impoverishment. &amp;#160;</p> <p>The Armada of the .0001%&amp;#160;</p> <p>If Google represents the global menace of Silicon Valley, and Zuckerberg represents its amorality, then Oracle CEO Larry Ellison might best represent its crassness. The fifth richest man in the world, he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/how-larry-ellison-is-destroying-the-america-s-cup.html" type="external">win</a> the America&#8217;s Cup yacht race a few years back. The winner gets to choose the next venue for the race and the type of boat to be used. So for this summer&#8217;s races, Ellison chose San Francisco Bay and a giant catamaran that appears to be exceptionally unstable. Last month, an Olympic-medal-winning sailor <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/05/andrew_simpson_dead_did_the_british_sailor_drown_because_the_america_s_cup.html" type="external">drowned</a> when a boat he was training on capsized in San Francisco Bay, pinning him under its sail.</p> <p>Part of Ellison&#8217;s strategy for winning again evidently involves making the boats so expensive that almost no one can compete. A race that once had seven to 15 competitors now has four, and one may drop out. Business Insider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-has-screwed-up-americas-cup-2013-6" type="external">headlined</a> a piece, &#8220;Larry Ellison Has Completely Screwed Up The America&#8217;s Cup.&#8221; It went on to say, &#8220;Each team, with the exception of New Zealand&#8217;s, is backed by an individual billionaire, and each has spent between $65 million and $100 million so far.&#8221; In typical Silicon Valley-fashion, Ellison also figured out how to <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/02/27/dramatic-change-americas-cup-deal" type="external">stick</a> San Francisco for a significant part of the tab and in the process even caused the <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/americas-cup-will-force-evictions-of-waterfront-businesses/Content?oid=2167899" type="external">eviction</a> of a few dozen small businesses, though in the end the city did not give him a valuable stretch of waterfront he wanted.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s what San Francisco is now: a front row seat on the most powerful corporations on Earth and the people who run them. So we know what you may not yet: they are not your friends and their vision is not your vision, but your data is their data, and your communications are in their hands, and they seem to be rising to become an arm of or a part-owner of the government or a law unto themselves, and no one has yet figured out what we can do about it.</p> <p>Rebecca Solnit is just winding up several months as a research fellow at Stanford Libraries and Stanford&#8217;s Bill Lane Center for the American West. Her work there will lead to a book about California history, but her new book, out this month, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670025968/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Faraway Nearby</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2013 Rebecca Solnit</p>

Welcome to the (Don’t Be) Evil Empire

https://truthdig.com/articles/welcome-to-the-dont-be-evil-empire/

2013-06-26

4left

By Rebecca Solnit TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch Read Tom Engelhardt8217s introduction here Finally journalists have started criticizing in earnest the leviathans of Silicon Valley notably Google now the world8217s thirdlargest company in market value The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency or maybe merging with it Simultaneously another set of journalists apparently unaware that the weather has changed is still sneering at San Francisco my hometown for not lying down and loving Silicon Valley8217s looming presence The criticism of Silicon Valley is long overdue and some of the critiques are both thoughtful and scathing The New Yorker for example has explored how startups are undermining the purpose of education at Stanford University addressed the Valley8217s messianic delusions and political meddling and considered Apple8217s massive tax avoidanceamp160 The New York Times recently published an opinion piece that startled me especially when I checked the byline WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the fugitive in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London focused on The New Digital Age a book by top Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen that to him exemplifies the melding of the technology corporation and the stateamp160 It is he claimed a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism from two of our leading 8220witch doctors who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the twentyfirst century8221amp160 He added 8220This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley8221 What do the US government and Silicon Valley already have in common Above all they want to remain opaque while making the rest of us entirely transparent through the capture of our data What is arising is simply a new form of government involving vast entities with the reach and power of government and little accountability to anyone Google the company with the motto 8220Don8217t be evil8221 is rapidly becoming an empire Not an empire of territory as was Rome or the Soviet Union but an empire controlling our access to data and our data itself Antitrust lawsuits proliferating around the company demonstrate its quest for monopoly control over information in the information age Its search engine has become indispensable for most of us and as Google critic and media professor Siva Vaidhyanathan puts it in his 2012 book The Googlization of Everything 8220We now allow Google to determine what is important relevant and true on the Web and in the world We trust and believe that Google acts in our best interest But we have surrendered control over the values methods and processes that make sense of our information ecosystem8221 And that8217s just the search engine About threequarters of a billion people use Gmail which conveniently gives Google access to the content of their communications scanned in such a way that they can target ads at you Google tried and failed to claim proprietary control of digital versions of every book ever published librarians and publishers fought back on that one As the New York Times reported last fall Paul Aiken executive director of the Authors Guild summed the situation up this way 8220Google continues to profit from its use of millions of copyrightprotected books without regard to authors8217 rights and our classaction lawsuit on behalf of US authors continues8221 The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog wrote to the attorney general on June 12th urging him 8220to block Google8217s just announced 1 billion acquisition of Waze developers of a mobile mapping application on antitrust grounds8230 Google already dominates the online mapping business with Google Maps The Internet giant was able to muscle its way to dominance by unfairly favoring its own service ahead of such competitors as Mapquest in its online search results Now with the proposed Waze acquisition the Internet giant would remove the most viable competitor to Google Maps in the mobile space Moreover it will allow Google access to even more data about online activity in a way that will increase its dominant position on the Internet8221 The company seems to be cornering the online mapping business seems in fact to be cornering so many things that eventually they may have us cornered In Europe there8217s an antitrust lawsuit over Google8217s Android phone appsamp160 In many ways you can map Google8217s rise by the litter of antitrust lawsuits it crushed en route By the way Google bought Motorola You know it owns YouTube right That makes Google possessor of the second and third most visited Websites on earth Facebook is first and two more of the top six are also in Silicon Valley Imagine that it8217s 1913 and the post office the phone company the public library printing houses the US Geological Survey mapping operations movie houses and all atlases are largely controlled by a secretive corporation unaccountable to the public Jump a century and see that in the online world that8217s more or less where we are A New York venture capitalist wrote that Google is trying to take over 8220the entire fucking Internet8221 and asked the question of the day 8220Who will stop Google8221 amp160 The Tipping Point We ask that question all the time in San Francisco because here Google isn8217t just on our computers it8217s on our streets I wrote earlier this year about 8220 the Google bus8221 8212 the armadas of private WiFiequipped luxury buses that run through our streets and use our public bus stops often blocking city buses and public transit passengers while they load or unload the employees taking the long ride down the peninsula to their corporation of choice Google Apple Facebook and Genentech run some of the bigger fleets and those mostly unmarked white buses have become a symbol of the transformation of the city Carl Nolte the old native son who writes a column for the dying San Francisco Chronicle said this month of the future inhabitants of 22000 highpriced apartments under construction 8220These new apartment dwellers will all be new San Franciscans with different values In a couple of years we8217ll think of the progressive politicians circa 2012 as quaint antiques like the old waterfront Commies your grandfather used to worry about This is already a hightech city an expensive city a city where middleclass families can8217t afford to live It is a city where the African American population has dropped precipitously where the Latino Mission District is gentrifying more every day You think it8217s expensive here now Just you wait These are the good old days but it won8217t last We are at a tipping point8221 Mr Nolte you can tell doesn8217t particularly like this A guy named Ilan Greenberg at the New Republic popped up to tell us that we must like it 8212 or face his ridicule He writes 8220Ironically the antigentrifiers themselves undermine San Francisco8217s liberal ethos Opposed to newcomers Wary of people whose values you don8217t understand Critical of young people for not living up to an older generation8217s ideals It all sounds very reactionary and closeminded8221 The problem is that we understand Silicon Valley8217s values all too well and a lot of us don8217t like them Adding newcomers might not be so bad if it didn8217t mean subtracting a lot of those of us who are already here By us I mean everyone who doesn8217t work for a gigantic technology corporation or one of the smaller companies hoping to become a global monolith Greenberg who is incidentally writing for a publication quietly bought up by a Facebook billionaire sneers at us for defending middleclass people but 8220middle class8221 is just a word for those of us who get paid decently for our work People at various income levels in a diversity of fields here in San Francisco are being replaced by those who work in one field and get paid extremely wellamp160 Small alternative and nonprofit institutions are also struggling and going down It8217s like watching a meadow being plowed under for say Monsanto genetically modified soybeans Speaking of meadows one of Silicon Valley8217s billionaires Napster founder and Spotify billionaire Sean Parker just threw himself a 10 million wedding on environmentally sensitive land in Big Sur In the course of building a massive fantasy set for the event 8220including grading change in use from campground to private event construction of multiple structures including a gateway and arch an artificial pond a stone bridge multiple event platforms with elevated floors rock walls artificially created ruins of cottages and castle walls8221 he reportedly did significant environmental damage and violated regulations Apparently paying 25 million in fines after the fact didn8217t bother him Napster and Spotify are incidentally online technologies that have reduced musicians8217 profits from their recordings to almost nothing There are tremendously wealthy musicians of course but a lot of them are at best yes middle class Thanks to Parker maybe a little less so Teachers civil servants bus drivers librarians firefighters 8212 consider them representatives of the middle class under siege as well as the people who keep a city viable and diverse Friends of mine 8212 a painter a poet a filmmaker a photographer all of whom have contributed to San Francisco8217s culture 8212 have been evicted so that more affluent people may replace them There8217s a widespread tendency to think that defending culture means defending privileged white people but that assumes that people of color and poor people aren8217t artists Here they are Everyone here understands that if a musician 8212 hiphop or symphony 8212 can8217t afford a home neither can a janitor and her family And competition for those apartments is fierce so fierce that these days no one I know can find a rental on the open market I couldn8217t when I moved in 2011 neither could a physician friend earlier this year The tech kids come in and offer a year in cash up front or raise the asking price or both and the housing supply continues to wither while rents skyrocket So while Greenberg might like you to think that we8217re selfishly not offering a seat at the table it8217s more like old people and working families and people whose careers were shaped by idealism are objecting to being thrown under the well bus Like Gandhi Only With Guns Enough minions of Silicon Valley8217s mighty corporations could arrive to create a monocultureamp160 In some parts of town it already is the dominant culture A guy who made a fortune in the dotcom boom and moved to the Mission District the partly Latino formerly bluecollar eye of the housing hurricane got locals8217 attention recently with a blog post titled 8220 Douchebags Like You are Ruining San Francisco8221 In it he described the churlish and sometimes predatory behavior of the very young and very wealthy toward the elderly the poor and the nonwhite He wrote 8220You8217re on MUNI the city bus system and watch a 20something guy reluctantly give up his seat to an elderly woman and then say loudly to his friends 8216I don8217t know why old people ride MUNI If I were old I8217d just take Uber82178221 Yeah I had to look it up too Ubercom a limousine taxi service you access via a smartphone app A friend of mine overheard a young techie in line to buy coffee say to someone on his phone that he was working on an app that would be 8220like Food Not Bombs to distribute food only for profit8221 Saying you8217re going to be like a group dedicated to free food only for profit is about as deranged as saying you8217re going to be like Gandhi only with guns 8220An influx of techies will mean more patrons for the arts8221 trilled an article at the Silicon Valley news site Pando but as of yet those notable patrons have not made an appearance As a local alternative weekly reported 8220The tech world in general is notoriously uncharitable According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy only four of 20118217s 50 most generous US donors worked in tech despite the fact that 13 of Forbes 50 Richest Americans in 2012 had made some or all of their fortunes in tech8221 Medici in their machinations they are not Medicistyle patrons There is no noticeable trickledown in the Bay Area no significant benevolence toward the needy or good causes or culture from the new tech fortunes Instead we get San Francisco newcomer Facebook CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg pursuing his own interest with ruthless disregard for life on Earth This year Zuckerberg formed a politically active nonprofit FWDus that sought to influence the immigration debate to make it easier for Silicon Valley corporations to import tech workers There has been no ideology involved only expediency in how FWDus pursued its ends It decided to put its massive financial clout to work giving politicians whatever they wanted in hopes that this would lead to an advantageous quid pro quo arrangement Toward that end the group began running ads in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring particularly carbondirty tar sands from Canada to the US Gulf Coast to support a Republican senator and other ads in favor of drilling in Alaska8217s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to support an Alaskan Democrat The takeaway message seemed to be that nothing is off limits in pursuing selfinterest and that the actual meaning and consequences of these climateimpacting projects was not of concern at least to that 29yearold who8217s also the 25th richest person in the United States To give credit where it8217s due Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk Paypal cofounder and electric car mogul quit FWDus Zuckerberg and his Valley associates were pushing things they didn8217t care about and demonstrating that they didn8217t care about much except what makes their corporations run and their profits rise Here where the Sierra Club was founded in 1892 and many are environmentally minded this didn8217t go over well Protests ensued at Facebook headquarters and on Facebook itself Rising hostility to the tech surge in San Francisco is met with fury and bewilderment by many Silicon Valley employees They tend to sound like Bushera strategists dumbfounded that the Iraqis didn8217t welcome their invasion with flowers Here8217s something else you should know about Silicon Valley according to Mother Jones 89 of the founding teams of these companies are all male 82 are all white the other 18 AsianPacific Islander and women there make 49 cents to the male dollar Silicon Valley female powerhouses like Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg get a lot of attention because they8217re unusual black swans in a lake full of white swans As Catherine Bracy on whose research Mother Jones based its charts put it 8220The current research I8217ve seen shows that wealth creation from the tech industry is extremely unequally distributed and current venture capital is going overwhelmingly to a small homogeneous elite8221 That8217s what8217s encroaching on San Francisco That Pando article chastises us this way 8220San Francisco can become a world capitalamp160 First it needs to get over itself8221 But maybe we don8217t want to be a world capital or more like New York and Tokyo The logic of moreisbetter seems unassailable to San Francisco8217s detractors but inside their more is a lot of less less diversity less affordability less culture less continuity less community less equitable distribution of wealth What8217s called wealth in these calculations is for the few for the many it8217s impoverishment amp160 The Armada of the 0001amp160 If Google represents the global menace of Silicon Valley and Zuckerberg represents its amorality then Oracle CEO Larry Ellison might best represent its crassness The fifth richest man in the world he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to win the America8217s Cup yacht race a few years back The winner gets to choose the next venue for the race and the type of boat to be used So for this summer8217s races Ellison chose San Francisco Bay and a giant catamaran that appears to be exceptionally unstable Last month an Olympicmedalwinning sailor drowned when a boat he was training on capsized in San Francisco Bay pinning him under its sail Part of Ellison8217s strategy for winning again evidently involves making the boats so expensive that almost no one can compete A race that once had seven to 15 competitors now has four and one may drop out Business Insider headlined a piece 8220Larry Ellison Has Completely Screwed Up The America8217s Cup8221 It went on to say 8220Each team with the exception of New Zealand8217s is backed by an individual billionaire and each has spent between 65 million and 100 million so far8221 In typical Silicon Valleyfashion Ellison also figured out how to stick San Francisco for a significant part of the tab and in the process even caused the eviction of a few dozen small businesses though in the end the city did not give him a valuable stretch of waterfront he wanted Here8217s what San Francisco is now a front row seat on the most powerful corporations on Earth and the people who run them So we know what you may not yet they are not your friends and their vision is not your vision but your data is their data and your communications are in their hands and they seem to be rising to become an arm of or a partowner of the government or a law unto themselves and no one has yet figured out what we can do about it Rebecca Solnit is just winding up several months as a research fellow at Stanford Libraries and Stanford8217s Bill Lane Center for the American West Her work there will lead to a book about California history but her new book out this month is The Faraway Nearby Copyright 2013 Rebecca Solnit

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<p>According to Pope Francis, fake news, rather than a recent phenomenon, has plagued society since the beginning of the human race. &amp;#160;In a World Communications Day message on &#8220;Fake news and journalism for peace,&#8221; Francis states that &#8220;the first fake news&#8221; was &#8220;employed by the &#8216;crafty serpent&#8217; in the Book of Genesis . . . at the dawn of humanity . . . (cf. Gen. 3: 1-15),&#8221; marking the beginning of &#8220;the tragic history of human sin . . . against God, neighbor, society and creation.&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">(&#8216;MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY,&#8217;</a> w2.vatican.va, Jan. 24, 2018)</p> <p>In the Genesis creation story, the first human being, Adam, had a good deal in the Garden of Eden paradise God created for him..&amp;#160; He was provided with &#8220;every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food,&#8221; with a flowing river to water the Garden.&amp;#160; God also made &#8220;every animal of the field and every bird of the air,&#8221; and even allowed Adam to name &#8220;every living creature.&#8221; &amp;#160;&amp;#160;And to top it off: so that Adam would not be alone, &amp;#160;God made a woman &#8211; from Adam&#8217;s own rib &#8211; as a partner, and also allowed Adam to name her, which he did, calling her &#8220;Woman, because she was taken out of &#8220;Man.&#8221;&amp;#160; There was only one catch: God told Adam, &#8220;You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.&#8221; ( <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A15-25&amp;amp;version=NIV" type="external">Genesis 2: 15-25</a>)</p> <p>As Pope Francis tells the creation story, fake news started with the serpent enticing the first woman, Eve, to commit the first sin, which is disobedience to God.&amp;#160; Francis says the original sin is about &#8220;the tempter&#8221; setting up Eve with, &#8220;Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?&#8221;&amp;#160; Eve allows herself to engage his &#8220;provocation,&#8221; explaining that God said she and Adam could eat the fruit of any tree, except &#8220;the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden,&#8221; which they are not even to &#8221;touch under . . .&amp;#160; pain of death.&#8221; &amp;#160;The serpent leads her on with the reassurance, &#8220; &#8216;You will not die!&#8217; (Gen 3: 4)&#8221;&amp;#160; He then adds this enticement: &#8220; &#8216;God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.&#8217; (Gen. 3: 5)&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">(&#8216;MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR WORLD COMMUNICATIOND DAY,&#8217;</a> Ibid)</p> <p>Pope Francis automatically gives credence to the Genesis creation story&#8217;s lesson on disobedience as the cardinal sin of humankind.&amp;#160; He moralizes: &amp;#160;&#8220;God&#8217;s paternal command, meant for their good, is discredited by the seductive enticement of the enemy: &#8216;The woman saw the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye and desirable.&#8217;(Gen 3: 6)&#8221; &amp;#160;Francis omits the Genesis story&#8217;s next phrase:&amp;#160; . . . &#8220; &#8216;and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.&#8217; <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A6&amp;amp;version=RSVCE" type="external">(Gen 3: 6</a>).&#8221;&amp;#160; Instead, he continues to moralize: &#8220;This biblical episode brings to light an essential element for our reflection: there is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences.&#8221; (Ibid)</p> <p>How, as Pope Francis presumes, is &#8220;God&#8217;s paternal command meant for their good&#8221; and why is &#8220;the seductive enticement&#8221; of the serpent bad?&amp;#160; What is so sinful about wanting to take a bite and see the light?&amp;#160; Where is the falsehood in desiring to open one&#8217;s eyes and become wise, knowing the difference between good and evil, like God?&amp;#160; What is wrong about the wish to move from a womb-like-Garden-of-Eden- dependency on God &#8212; or Church or State &#8212; to moral clarity and self-determination and solidarity with others?&amp;#160; What is so evil about saying no to obedience to a religious or political status quo and yes to inquisitiveness, which is the avenue of self-development and the inspiration for community building?&amp;#160; &amp;#160;&amp;#160;Adam and Eve model the rise, not the fall, of humankind.&amp;#160; Any questioning that enables people to open their eyes and become wise enough to know the difference between good and evil is to be encouraged, not moralized as evil.&amp;#160; Desperately needed today is moral clarity, not conformity to biblically-interpreted beliefs.</p> <p>Not that Pope Francis&#8217;s message on fake news contains no moral clarity.&amp;#160; He offers telling advice.&amp;#160; Like, fake news &#8220;thrives in the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue.&#8221;&amp;#160; Similarly, &#8220;The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict . . . spread[ing] arrogance and hatred.&#8221;&amp;#160; Also, &#8220;The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen; people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge.&#8221;&amp;#160; And this much needed wisdom:&amp;#160; &#8220;I would like, then, to invite everyone to promote a journalism of peace . . . a journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes.&#8221; (Ibid)</p> <p>But Pope Francis flirts with fake news himself in identifying truth with &#8220;the living God&#8221; and the Bible &#8211; and by extension Christianity.&amp;#160; He states that &#8220;the most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is purification by the truth.&amp;#160; In Christianity,&#8221; he continues, &#8220; truth is not just a conceptual reality that regards how we judge things . . . as true or false.&#8221;&amp;#160; Nor is truth &#8220;just bringing to light things that are concealed.&amp;#160; . . .&amp;#160;&amp;#160; Truth,&#8221; Francis explains, &#8220;involves our whole life.&#8221;&amp;#160; He then equates truth with the Bible &#8211; and by inference with the Church, saying, &#8220;In the Bible, it [truth] carries with it the sense of support, solidarity, and trust, as implied by the root &#8216;aman, the source of our liturgical expression Amen.&#8221; (Ibid)</p> <p>Pope Francis then binds truth, the Bible and God together into a trinity: &#8220;Truth is something you can lean on, so as not to fall.&amp;#160; In this relational sense,&#8221; Francis explains, &#8220;the only truly reliable trustworthy One &#8211; the One on whom we can count &#8211; is the living God.&amp;#160; Hence, Jesus can say, &#8216;I am the truth.&#8217; (Jn 14: 6)&#8221;&amp;#160; Thus for Francis, &#8220;This alone can liberate us: &#8216;The truth will set you free.&#8217; (Jn 8: 32)&#8221; (Ibid) &amp;#160;The message: truth comes from God, is contained in the Bible, revealed by Jesus, and preserved and perpetuated by The Church.</p> <p>Pope Francis treats the Genesis creation story as though it were true, when, in fact, the story itself is used by Christians to spread fake news.&amp;#160; &amp;#160;Consider the story: all human beings are born with an hereditarily sinful nature because Adan and Eve, the presumed first parents of the human race, disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit so that they could become wise, like God, and know the difference between good and evil.&amp;#160; This fake news provides the foundation for another Christian falsehood: that God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world and allowed him to be crucified on the cross as atonement for sinful humanity.&amp;#160; Thus, for all people, being saved from eternal damnation in hell requires believing that Jesus died for their sins and confessing him as their savior.&amp;#160; This is the doorway to salvation from everlasting punishment, and Christianity holds the key.</p> <p>Consider the spiritual catch 22 facing Christians in certain denominations.&amp;#160; The <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm" type="external">&#8220;Catechism of the Catholic Church&#8221;</a> puts it this way: &#8220;389 The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the &#8216;reverse side&#8217; of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ.&#8221;&amp;#160; And, &#8220;The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.&#8221; &amp;#160;( <a href="http://www.vatican.va" type="external">www.vatican.va</a>)</p> <p>Here the truth is a matter of divine revelation that is surrounded by &#8220;mystery&#8221; and not to be &#8220;tampered with.&#8221;</p> <p>The United Methodist Church has a similar view of human sinfulness and salvation.&amp;#160; &#8221;Yes, we do believe that babies, at birth, are contaminated with sin,&#8221; writes the Rev. Dan Benedict of the Church&#8217;s General Board of Discipleship.&amp;#160; He then quotes the Church&#8217;s Book of Discipline&#8217;s Articles of Religion: &#8220;Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam . . . but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered in the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.&#8221;&amp;#160; There is not even a &#8220;tiny spark of goodness at our core . . . we are without merit or claim upon God on our own.&#8221;&amp;#160; Salvation is about &#8220;simply accept[ing] the deepest need we are in from the beginning&#8221; and being washed &#8220;in baptism where God claims us as God&#8217;s own in union with Christ.&#8221; <a href="http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/does-the-united-methodist-church-believe-that-babies-are-born-in-sin" type="external">(&#8220;Does The United Methodist Church believe that babies are born in sin?,&#8221;</a> <a href="http://www.umc.org" type="external">www.umc.org</a>)</p> <p>Anglican/Episcopal, Assembly of God, Baptist, Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches also believe that &#8220;all men are sinners already at birth.&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">(&#8220;Compare the Beliefs of Christian Denominations,&#8221;</a> by Mary Fairchild, www.thoughtco.com, Sept. 25, 2017)&amp;#160; These Christian denominations&#8217; repeated use of the word &#8220;man&#8221; in referencing the Bible&#8217;s creation story betrays an embedded patriarchy, which is an insidious form of fake news that makes women and girls invisible &#8211; and vulnerable.</p> <p>Being punished for wanting to become wise and know the difference between good and evil.&amp;#160; The Christian interpretation of the creation story is about right belief, not just behavior.&amp;#160; It is about the exclusivity of faith, not the inclusivity of love.&amp;#160; It is about evangelism, not empathy.&amp;#160; It is about obedience to the biblical Word of God as interpreted by priests, pastors and evangelists.&amp;#160; Foremost, it is about gaining power over and controlling believers.</p> <p>Thus President Donald Trump, a serial sexual abuser of women, pathological liar and warmonger, gets a &#8220;mulligan&#8221; from white evangelical Christian leaders.&amp;#160; Why?&amp;#160;&amp;#160; Because he accommodates their biblically-based beliefs: appointing a pro-life Supreme Court justice, promising them the &#8220;religious freedom&#8221; to discriminate against LGBTQ persons, and hyping the return of America to its white-perceived biblical &#8220;city set on a hill.&#8221; (See <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;Tony Perkins: Trump Gets &#8220;a Mulligan&#8221; on Life, Stormy Daniels,&#8221;</a> By Edward-Isaac Dovere, POLITICO, Jan. 234, 2018)</p> <p>&#8220;Babies are contaminated with sin?&#8221;&amp;#160; All children are born human, predisposed to respond to nurture and love with trust and love in return.&amp;#160; What is sinful is a gospel of self-hatred that makes them feel unworthy and in need of a church&#8217;s biblical dispensation to alleviate their guilt and make them feel acceptable.&amp;#160; Babies can, however, be contaminated by religious belief.</p> <p>While countless people find security in believing that Christ died for their sins, countless others live life and face death fearing that divine retribution hangs over their heads.&amp;#160; Like the patient I visited while a hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center.&amp;#160; An older, terminally ill black man, he said that he was going to be &#8220;shoveling a lot of coal&#8221; when he died.&amp;#160; Why?&amp;#160; &#8220;Because of a number of bad things I have done in my life,&#8221; &amp;#160;he said. &amp;#160;I did not pursue the &#8220;bad things&#8221; he had done because of his weakened condition and difficulty in speaking..&amp;#160; Instead, I asked if anyone had ever done any &#8220;bad things&#8221; to him, &#8220;growing up and in your life?&#8221;&amp;#160; &#8220;Yes, a lot,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Never mind him being born with a sinful nature.&amp;#160; Having researched and written about America&#8217;s white-controlled hierarchy of access to economic, political and legal power, I assumed he probably had two racial strikes waiting for him when he was born.&amp;#160; One invisible strike could be seen in a study that found, <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;Blacks Suffer Heart Failure More Than Whites .</a> . . at a rate 20 times higher than did whites, even dying of it decades before the condition typically strikes whites . . . researchers reported.&#8221; (The New York Times, Mar. 19, 2009) The second unseen strike against this patient may be found in another study that showed: &amp;#160;&#8220;Chronic distress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leaving children with impairment in at least one key area &#8211; working memory.&#8221;&amp;#160; The &#8220;bad things&#8221; here:&amp;#160; &#8220;Children raised in poverty suffer many ill effects: they often have health problems and tend to struggle in school, which can create a cycle of poverty across generations.&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">(&#8220;Data tie stress of poverty to brain,&#8221;</a> By Rob Stein, The Boston Globe, April 7, 2009)</p> <p>Sadly the patient had a self-loathing heart.&amp;#160; A white-dominated hierarchy with him at the bottom where &#8220;bad&#8221; economic political and legal &#8220;things&#8221; happen to poor people of color especially &#8212; and also to economically strapped white persons.&amp;#160; &#8220;Bad things&#8221; legitimized by a theology of self-hated, which was the third strike that apparently led this patient to believe he would be &#8220;shoveling coal&#8221; when he died.</p> <p>What seemed to especially reassure this patient was not so much my saying that Jesus revealed a &#8220;God of love&#8221; who loved him.&amp;#160; Nor the prayer that I offered, though prayer to a loving god is often a powerful way to affirm and reassure a patient.&amp;#160; What seemed to especially connect with this patient was my telling him, &#8220;Wherever you are I will see you there.&#8221;&amp;#160; &#8220;You will?,&#8221; he asked.&amp;#160; &#8220;Yes, I&#8217;ll be there.&amp;#160; And neither of us will be shoveling coal.&#8221;&amp;#160; &#8220;I hope you&#8217;re right,&#8221; he said.&amp;#160; Before his discharge to a hospice, I saw him again and repeated, &#8220;Wherever you go, I&#8217;ll be there.&amp;#160; I&#8217;ll look for you until I find you.&#8221;&amp;#160; &#8220;Okay,&#8221; he replied.&amp;#160; &#8220;That&#8217;s a promise.&#8221;&amp;#160; &#8220;That&#8217;s a promise,&#8221; I said.&amp;#160; The patient seemed to find reassurance in hearing someone not only voice caring about whether he lived or died but caring about him even after he died.&#8221; (See Alberts, <a href="" type="internal">A Hospital Chaplain at the Crossroads of Humanity)&amp;#160; The humanness i</a></p> <p>Pope Francis did not &#8220;tamper with&#8221; the complexity of what people are born into in his message on fake news.. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;Nor did he reference an important part of the Bible&#8217;s creation story.</p> <p>The God of the Garden of Eden comes across as jealous and vindictive.&amp;#160; When God found out that Adam and Eve disobeyed him, he said to Adam, &#8220;Have you eaten of the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?&amp;#160; Adam passed the buck, saying, &#8220;The woman you put here with me- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.&#8221;&amp;#160; God turned to Eve and demanded, &#8220;What is this that you have done?&#8221;&amp;#160; Eve&amp;#160;passed the buck to the serpent, saying, &#8220;The serpent deceived me, and I ate.&#8221;&amp;#160; And the poor serpent couldn&#8217;t wiggle of it because he didn&#8217;t have a leg to stand on.&amp;#160; So, God cursed the serpent and condemned him to snakehood, and from that day on the serpent has received bad press. ( <a href="" type="internal">Genesis 3: 8-15</a>)</p> <p>Eve fared far worse.&amp;#160; God sentenced her &#8212; and all women thereafter &#8212; to pain in childbearing, putting her in a catch 22 with: &#8220;I will make your pangs in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.&#8221;&amp;#160; And then this catch 22: &#8220;Your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you.&#8221; ( <a href="" type="internal">Genesis 3: 16</a>)&amp;#160; Thus the veneration of patriarchy: with men biblically licensed to rule over women in the family and Church &#8211; with the sexual abuse of women &#8211; and children &#8211; encouraged by patriarchally-controlled relationships</p> <p>Then it was Adam&#8217;s turn.&amp;#160; God condemned him &#8211; and the human race thereafter &#8211; &#8220;cursing the ground&#8221; because of Adam, filling it with &#8220;thorns and thistles,&#8221; and requiring him to toil for food by &#8220;the sweat of your brow.&#8221;&amp;#160; Never mind that Adam was supposedly created in the image of God.&amp;#160; His unpardonable sin was wanting to become like God.&amp;#160; As &#8220;the Lord God said, &#8220;The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.&#8221; &amp;#160;Evidently only one person can be god.&amp;#160; Or were there two?&amp;#160; Or more? &amp;#160;The thirst for personal knowledge of good and evil is indispensable for human development.&amp;#160; But that thirst got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden. ( <a href="" type="internal">Genesis 3: 17-24</a>)</p> <p>Actually, in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve cut the &#8220;umbiblical&#8221; cord of a god created in the image of man and gave birth to themselves.&amp;#160; They represent, not a theology of self-hatred, but one of self-empowerment and moral sensitivity.</p> <p>What is the difference between good and evil?&amp;#160; Good is whatever makes life more human for people.&amp;#160; Evil is whatever diminishes and destroys people&#8217;s lives.&amp;#160; Good is recognizing that people themselves have the capacity and the right to decide what makes life more human for them.&amp;#160; Evil is sitting in the shade of one&#8217;s own tree of the knowledge of good and evil and deciding what is right and wrong for everyone else.&amp;#160; Good is being secure enough in one&#8217;s own identity to affirm and protect the right of others to be different.&amp;#160; Evil is the failure to recognize that to be different is not to be evil but merely to be different.&amp;#160; Good is the attempt to use democracy to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.&amp;#160; Evil is the attempt to capitalize on democracy to secure more power, privilege and profit at the expense of the common good of all people.</p> <p>Living in community and in peace with others depends on knowing the difference between good and evil &#8211; and acting on the basis of that difference.&amp;#160; Take a bite and see the light.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Take a Bite and See the Light

https://counterpunch.org/2018/02/02/take-a-bite-and-see-the-light/

2018-02-02

4left

According to Pope Francis fake news rather than a recent phenomenon has plagued society since the beginning of the human race amp160In a World Communications Day message on 8220Fake news and journalism for peace8221 Francis states that 8220the first fake news8221 was 8220employed by the 8216crafty serpent8217 in the Book of Genesis at the dawn of humanity cf Gen 3 1158221 marking the beginning of 8220the tragic history of human sin against God neighbor society and creation8221 8216MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY8217 w2vaticanva Jan 24 2018 In the Genesis creation story the first human being Adam had a good deal in the Garden of Eden paradise God created for himamp160 He was provided with 8220every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food8221 with a flowing river to water the Gardenamp160 God also made 8220every animal of the field and every bird of the air8221 and even allowed Adam to name 8220every living creature8221 amp160amp160And to top it off so that Adam would not be alone amp160God made a woman 8211 from Adam8217s own rib 8211 as a partner and also allowed Adam to name her which he did calling her 8220Woman because she was taken out of 8220Man8221amp160 There was only one catch God told Adam 8220You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it you will certainly die8221 Genesis 2 1525 As Pope Francis tells the creation story fake news started with the serpent enticing the first woman Eve to commit the first sin which is disobedience to Godamp160 Francis says the original sin is about 8220the tempter8221 setting up Eve with 8220Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden8221amp160 Eve allows herself to engage his 8220provocation8221 explaining that God said she and Adam could eat the fruit of any tree except 8220the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden8221 which they are not even to 8221touch under amp160 pain of death8221 amp160The serpent leads her on with the reassurance 8220 8216You will not die8217 Gen 3 48221amp160 He then adds this enticement 8220 8216God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods knowing good and evil8217 Gen 3 58221 8216MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR WORLD COMMUNICATIOND DAY8217 Ibid Pope Francis automatically gives credence to the Genesis creation story8217s lesson on disobedience as the cardinal sin of humankindamp160 He moralizes amp1608220God8217s paternal command meant for their good is discredited by the seductive enticement of the enemy 8216The woman saw the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye and desirable8217Gen 3 68221 amp160Francis omits the Genesis story8217s next phraseamp160 8220 8216and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise8217 Gen 3 68221amp160 Instead he continues to moralize 8220This biblical episode brings to light an essential element for our reflection there is no such thing as harmless disinformation on the contrary trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences8221 Ibid How as Pope Francis presumes is 8220God8217s paternal command meant for their good8221 and why is 8220the seductive enticement8221 of the serpent badamp160 What is so sinful about wanting to take a bite and see the lightamp160 Where is the falsehood in desiring to open one8217s eyes and become wise knowing the difference between good and evil like Godamp160 What is wrong about the wish to move from a womblikeGardenofEden dependency on God 8212 or Church or State 8212 to moral clarity and selfdetermination and solidarity with othersamp160 What is so evil about saying no to obedience to a religious or political status quo and yes to inquisitiveness which is the avenue of selfdevelopment and the inspiration for community buildingamp160 amp160amp160Adam and Eve model the rise not the fall of humankindamp160 Any questioning that enables people to open their eyes and become wise enough to know the difference between good and evil is to be encouraged not moralized as evilamp160 Desperately needed today is moral clarity not conformity to biblicallyinterpreted beliefs Not that Pope Francis8217s message on fake news contains no moral clarityamp160 He offers telling adviceamp160 Like fake news 8220thrives in the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue8221amp160 Similarly 8220The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others presenting them as enemies to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict spreading arrogance and hatred8221amp160 Also 8220The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies but people people who are not greedy but ready to listen people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge8221amp160 And this much needed wisdomamp160 8220I would like then to invite everyone to promote a journalism of peace a journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes8221 Ibid But Pope Francis flirts with fake news himself in identifying truth with 8220the living God8221 and the Bible 8211 and by extension Christianityamp160 He states that 8220the most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is purification by the truthamp160 In Christianity8221 he continues 8220 truth is not just a conceptual reality that regards how we judge things as true or false8221amp160 Nor is truth 8220just bringing to light things that are concealedamp160 amp160amp160 Truth8221 Francis explains 8220involves our whole life8221amp160 He then equates truth with the Bible 8211 and by inference with the Church saying 8220In the Bible it truth carries with it the sense of support solidarity and trust as implied by the root 8216aman the source of our liturgical expression Amen8221 Ibid Pope Francis then binds truth the Bible and God together into a trinity 8220Truth is something you can lean on so as not to fallamp160 In this relational sense8221 Francis explains 8220the only truly reliable trustworthy One 8211 the One on whom we can count 8211 is the living Godamp160 Hence Jesus can say 8216I am the truth8217 Jn 14 68221amp160 Thus for Francis 8220This alone can liberate us 8216The truth will set you free8217 Jn 8 328221 Ibid amp160The message truth comes from God is contained in the Bible revealed by Jesus and preserved and perpetuated by The Church Pope Francis treats the Genesis creation story as though it were true when in fact the story itself is used by Christians to spread fake newsamp160 amp160Consider the story all human beings are born with an hereditarily sinful nature because Adan and Eve the presumed first parents of the human race disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit so that they could become wise like God and know the difference between good and evilamp160 This fake news provides the foundation for another Christian falsehood that God sent his only Son Jesus Christ into the world and allowed him to be crucified on the cross as atonement for sinful humanityamp160 Thus for all people being saved from eternal damnation in hell requires believing that Jesus died for their sins and confessing him as their savioramp160 This is the doorway to salvation from everlasting punishment and Christianity holds the key Consider the spiritual catch 22 facing Christians in certain denominationsamp160 The 8220Catechism of the Catholic Church8221 puts it this way 8220389 The doctrine of original sin is so to speak the 8216reverse side8217 of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ8221amp160 And 8220The Church which has the mind of Christ knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ8221 amp160 wwwvaticanva Here the truth is a matter of divine revelation that is surrounded by 8220mystery8221 and not to be 8220tampered with8221 The United Methodist Church has a similar view of human sinfulness and salvationamp160 8221Yes we do believe that babies at birth are contaminated with sin8221 writes the Rev Dan Benedict of the Church8217s General Board of Discipleshipamp160 He then quotes the Church8217s Book of Discipline8217s Articles of Religion 8220Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam but it is the corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered in the offspring of Adam whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness and of his own nature inclined to evil and that continually8221amp160 There is not even a 8220tiny spark of goodness at our core we are without merit or claim upon God on our own8221amp160 Salvation is about 8220simply accepting the deepest need we are in from the beginning8221 and being washed 8220in baptism where God claims us as God8217s own in union with Christ8221 8220Does The United Methodist Church believe that babies are born in sin8221 wwwumcorg AnglicanEpiscopal Assembly of God Baptist Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches also believe that 8220all men are sinners already at birth8221 8220Compare the Beliefs of Christian Denominations8221 by Mary Fairchild wwwthoughtcocom Sept 25 2017amp160 These Christian denominations8217 repeated use of the word 8220man8221 in referencing the Bible8217s creation story betrays an embedded patriarchy which is an insidious form of fake news that makes women and girls invisible 8211 and vulnerable Being punished for wanting to become wise and know the difference between good and evilamp160 The Christian interpretation of the creation story is about right belief not just behavioramp160 It is about the exclusivity of faith not the inclusivity of loveamp160 It is about evangelism not empathyamp160 It is about obedience to the biblical Word of God as interpreted by priests pastors and evangelistsamp160 Foremost it is about gaining power over and controlling believers Thus President Donald Trump a serial sexual abuser of women pathological liar and warmonger gets a 8220mulligan8221 from white evangelical Christian leadersamp160 Whyamp160amp160 Because he accommodates their biblicallybased beliefs appointing a prolife Supreme Court justice promising them the 8220religious freedom8221 to discriminate against LGBTQ persons and hyping the return of America to its whiteperceived biblical 8220city set on a hill8221 See 8220Tony Perkins Trump Gets 8220a Mulligan8221 on Life Stormy Daniels8221 By EdwardIsaac Dovere POLITICO Jan 234 2018 8220Babies are contaminated with sin8221amp160 All children are born human predisposed to respond to nurture and love with trust and love in returnamp160 What is sinful is a gospel of selfhatred that makes them feel unworthy and in need of a church8217s biblical dispensation to alleviate their guilt and make them feel acceptableamp160 Babies can however be contaminated by religious belief While countless people find security in believing that Christ died for their sins countless others live life and face death fearing that divine retribution hangs over their headsamp160 Like the patient I visited while a hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Centeramp160 An older terminally ill black man he said that he was going to be 8220shoveling a lot of coal8221 when he diedamp160 Whyamp160 8220Because of a number of bad things I have done in my life8221 amp160he said amp160I did not pursue the 8220bad things8221 he had done because of his weakened condition and difficulty in speakingamp160 Instead I asked if anyone had ever done any 8220bad things8221 to him 8220growing up and in your life8221amp160 8220Yes a lot8221 he said Never mind him being born with a sinful natureamp160 Having researched and written about America8217s whitecontrolled hierarchy of access to economic political and legal power I assumed he probably had two racial strikes waiting for him when he was bornamp160 One invisible strike could be seen in a study that found 8220Blacks Suffer Heart Failure More Than Whites at a rate 20 times higher than did whites even dying of it decades before the condition typically strikes whites researchers reported8221 The New York Times Mar 19 2009 The second unseen strike against this patient may be found in another study that showed amp1608220Chronic distress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain leaving children with impairment in at least one key area 8211 working memory8221amp160 The 8220bad things8221 hereamp160 8220Children raised in poverty suffer many ill effects they often have health problems and tend to struggle in school which can create a cycle of poverty across generations8221 8220Data tie stress of poverty to brain8221 By Rob Stein The Boston Globe April 7 2009 Sadly the patient had a selfloathing heartamp160 A whitedominated hierarchy with him at the bottom where 8220bad8221 economic political and legal 8220things8221 happen to poor people of color especially 8212 and also to economically strapped white personsamp160 8220Bad things8221 legitimized by a theology of selfhated which was the third strike that apparently led this patient to believe he would be 8220shoveling coal8221 when he died What seemed to especially reassure this patient was not so much my saying that Jesus revealed a 8220God of love8221 who loved himamp160 Nor the prayer that I offered though prayer to a loving god is often a powerful way to affirm and reassure a patientamp160 What seemed to especially connect with this patient was my telling him 8220Wherever you are I will see you there8221amp160 8220You will8221 he askedamp160 8220Yes I8217ll be thereamp160 And neither of us will be shoveling coal8221amp160 8220I hope you8217re right8221 he saidamp160 Before his discharge to a hospice I saw him again and repeated 8220Wherever you go I8217ll be thereamp160 I8217ll look for you until I find you8221amp160 8220Okay8221 he repliedamp160 8220That8217s a promise8221amp160 8220That8217s a promise8221 I saidamp160 The patient seemed to find reassurance in hearing someone not only voice caring about whether he lived or died but caring about him even after he died8221 See Alberts A Hospital Chaplain at the Crossroads of Humanityamp160 The humanness i Pope Francis did not 8220tamper with8221 the complexity of what people are born into in his message on fake news amp160amp160Nor did he reference an important part of the Bible8217s creation story The God of the Garden of Eden comes across as jealous and vindictiveamp160 When God found out that Adam and Eve disobeyed him he said to Adam 8220Have you eaten of the tree that I commanded you not to eat fromamp160 Adam passed the buck saying 8220The woman you put here with me she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it8221amp160 God turned to Eve and demanded 8220What is this that you have done8221amp160 Eveamp160passed the buck to the serpent saying 8220The serpent deceived me and I ate8221amp160 And the poor serpent couldn8217t wiggle of it because he didn8217t have a leg to stand onamp160 So God cursed the serpent and condemned him to snakehood and from that day on the serpent has received bad press Genesis 3 815 Eve fared far worseamp160 God sentenced her 8212 and all women thereafter 8212 to pain in childbearing putting her in a catch 22 with 8220I will make your pangs in childbearing very severe with painful labor you will give birth to children8221amp160 And then this catch 22 8220Your desire shall be for your husband and he will rule over you8221 Genesis 3 16amp160 Thus the veneration of patriarchy with men biblically licensed to rule over women in the family and Church 8211 with the sexual abuse of women 8211 and children 8211 encouraged by patriarchallycontrolled relationships Then it was Adam8217s turnamp160 God condemned him 8211 and the human race thereafter 8211 8220cursing the ground8221 because of Adam filling it with 8220thorns and thistles8221 and requiring him to toil for food by 8220the sweat of your brow8221amp160 Never mind that Adam was supposedly created in the image of Godamp160 His unpardonable sin was wanting to become like Godamp160 As 8220the Lord God said 8220The man has now become like one of us knowing good and evilamp160amp160 He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever8221 amp160Evidently only one person can be godamp160 Or were there twoamp160 Or more amp160The thirst for personal knowledge of good and evil is indispensable for human developmentamp160 But that thirst got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden Genesis 3 1724 Actually in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve cut the 8220umbiblical8221 cord of a god created in the image of man and gave birth to themselvesamp160 They represent not a theology of selfhatred but one of selfempowerment and moral sensitivity What is the difference between good and evilamp160 Good is whatever makes life more human for peopleamp160 Evil is whatever diminishes and destroys people8217s livesamp160 Good is recognizing that people themselves have the capacity and the right to decide what makes life more human for themamp160 Evil is sitting in the shade of one8217s own tree of the knowledge of good and evil and deciding what is right and wrong for everyone elseamp160 Good is being secure enough in one8217s own identity to affirm and protect the right of others to be differentamp160 Evil is the failure to recognize that to be different is not to be evil but merely to be differentamp160 Good is the attempt to use democracy to secure life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all peopleamp160 Evil is the attempt to capitalize on democracy to secure more power privilege and profit at the expense of the common good of all people Living in community and in peace with others depends on knowing the difference between good and evil 8211 and acting on the basis of that differenceamp160 Take a bite and see the light amp160

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own/ADJ tree/NOUN of/ADP the/DET knowledge/NOUN of/ADP good/ADJ and/CCONJ evil/ADJ and/CCONJ deciding/VERB what/PRON is/AUX right/ADJ and/CCONJ wrong/ADJ for/SCONJ everyone/PRON elseamp160/PROPN Good/PROPN is/AUX being/AUX secure/ADJ enough/ADV in/ADP one8217s/PROPN own/ADJ identity/NOUN to/PART affirm/VERB and/CCONJ protect/VERB the/DET right/NOUN of/ADP others/NOUN to/PART be/AUX differentamp160/PROPN Evil/PROPN is/AUX the/DET failure/NOUN to/PART recognize/VERB that/PRON to/PART be/AUX different/ADJ is/AUX not/PART to/PART be/AUX evil/ADJ but/CCONJ merely/ADV to/PART be/AUX differentamp160/PROPN Good/PROPN is/AUX the/DET attempt/NOUN to/PART use/VERB democracy/NOUN to/PART secure/VERB life/NOUN liberty/NOUN and/CCONJ the/DET pursuit/NOUN of/ADP happiness/NOUN for/ADP all/DET peopleamp160/NOUN Evil/PROPN is/AUX the/DET attempt/NOUN to/PART capitalize/VERB on/ADP democracy/NOUN to/PART secure/VERB more/ADJ power/NOUN privilege/NOUN and/CCONJ profit/NOUN at/ADP the/DET expense/NOUN 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<p>Protestors on the first anniversary of OWS in New York. Byron Smith / ZUMA Press</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175593/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Occupy is now a year old. A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters: at one year old, Georgia O&#8217;Keeffe was not a great painter, and Bessie Smith wasn&#8217;t much of a singer. One year into the Civil Rights Movement, the <a href="http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/" type="external">Montgomery Bus Boycott</a> was still in progress, catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta&#8212;by, that is, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Occupy, our bouncing baby, was born with such struggle and joy a year ago, and here we are, 12 long months later.</p> <p>See more coverage of OWS&#8217; 1-year anniversary.</p> <p><a href="#" type="external" /></p> <p /> <p>Occupy didn&#8217;t seem remarkable on September 17, 2011, and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan&#8217;s Zuccotti Park. But its most remarkable aspect turned out to be its staying power: it didn&#8217;t declare victory or defeat and go home. It decided it was home and settled in for two catalytic months.</p> <p /> <p>Tents and general assemblies and the acts, tools, and ideas of Occupy exploded across the nation and the western world from Alaska to New Zealand, and some parts of the eastern world&#8212;Occupy Hong Kong was going strong until <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/business/global/occupy-hong-kong-protesters-evicted.html" type="external">last week</a>. For a while, it was easy to see that this baby was something big, but then most, though not all, of the urban encampments were busted, and the movement became something subtler. But don&#8217;t let them tell you it went away.</p> <p>The most startling question anyone asked me last year was, &#8220;What is Occupy&#8217;s 10-year plan?&#8221;</p> <p>Who takes the long view? Americans have a tendency to think of activism like a slot machine, and if it doesn&#8217;t come up three jailed bankers or three clear victories fast, you&#8217;ve wasted your quarters. And yet hardly any activists ever define what victory would really look like, so who knows if we&#8217;ll ever get there?</p> <p>Sometimes we do get three clear victories, but because it took a while or because no one was sure what victory consisted of, hardly anyone realizes a celebration is in order, or sometimes even notices. We get more victories than anyone imagines, but they are usually indirect, incomplete, slow to arrive, and situations where our influence can be assumed but not proven&#8212;and yet each of them is worth counting.</p> <p>More Than a Handful of Victories</p> <p>For the first anniversary of Occupy, large demonstrations have been planned in <a href="http://www.nycga.net/events/" type="external">New York</a> and <a href="http://occupyactionsf.org/?p=1" type="external">San Francisco</a> and a host of smaller actions <a href="http://interoccupy.net/s17nyc/events_tags/solidarity/" type="external">around the country</a>, but some of the people who came together under the Occupy banner have been working steadily in quiet ways all along, largely unnoticed. From Occupy Chattanooga to Occupy London, people are meeting weekly, sometimes just to have a forum, sometimes to plan foreclosure defenses, public demonstrations, or engage in other forms of organizing. On August 22nd, for instance, a foreclosure on Kim Mitchell&#8217;s house in a low-income part of San Francisco was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GfqXsW099k" type="external">prevented</a> by a coalition made up of Occupy Bernal and Occupy Noe Valley (two San Francisco neighborhoods) along with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/accesf" type="external">ACCE</a>, the group that succeeded the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2009/09/18/acorn_2/" type="external">Republican-destroyed</a> ACORN.</p> <p>It was a little victory in itself&#8212;and another that such an economically and ethnically diverse group was working together so beautifully. Demonstrations and victories like it are happening regularly across the country, including in Minnesota, thanks to <a href="http://www.occupyhomesmn.org/" type="external">Occupy Homes</a>. Earlier this month, Occupy Wall Street helped Manhattan restaurant workers defeat a lousy boss and a worker lock-out to <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/09/hot_and_crusty.php" type="external">unionize</a> a restaurant in the Hot and Crusty chain. (While shut out, the employees occupied the sidewalk and ran the Worker Justice Caf&#233; there.)</p> <p>In Providence, Rhode Island, the <a href="http://www.occupyprovidence.com/" type="external">Occupy encampment</a> broke up late last January, but only on the condition that the city open a daytime shelter for homeless people. At Princeton University, big banks are no longer invited to recruit on campus, most likely thanks to <a href="http://www.occupyprinceton.net/banks-not-to-recruit-on-campus-this-fall/" type="external">Occupy Princeton</a>.</p> <p>There have been thousands of little victories like these and some big ones as well: the impact of the <a href="http://www.moveourmoneyusa.org/" type="external">Move Your Money</a> initiative, the growing revolt against student-loan-debt peonage, and more indirectly the passing of a California law <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/11/business/la-fi-mo-foreclosure-laws-20120711" type="external">protecting homeowners</a> from the abuse of the foreclosure process (undoubtedly due in part to Occupy&#8217;s highlighting of the brutality and corruption of that process).</p> <p>But don&#8217;t get bogged down in the tangible achievements, except as a foundation. The less tangible spirit of Occupy and the new associations it sparked are what matters for whatever comes next, for that 10-year-plan. Occupy was first of all a great meeting ground. People who live too much in the virtual world with its talent for segregation and isolation suddenly met each other face-to-face in public space. There, they found common ground in a passion for economic justice and real democracy and a recognition of the widespread suffering capitalism has created.</p> <p>Bonds were formed across the usual divides of age and race and class, between the housed and the homeless as well as the employed and jobless, and some of those bonds still exist. There was tremendous emotion around it&#8212;the joy of finding you were not alone, the shame that was shed as the prisoners of debt stepped out of the shadows, the ferocity of solidarity when so many of us were attacked by the police, the dizzying hope that everything could be different, and the exhilaration in those moments when it already was.</p> <p>People learned how direct democracy works; they tasted power; they found something in common with strangers; they lived in public. All those things mattered and matter still. They are a great foundation for the future; they are a great way to live in the present.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143118072/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Maybe Occupy was too successful a brand in that it sometimes disguised how much this movement was part of popular surges going on around the world: the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175369/rebecca_solnit_the_butterfly_and_the_boiling_point" type="external">Arab Spring</a> (including the three successful revolutions, the ongoing Syrian civil war, uprisings in Yemen, and more); the student uprisings in Montreal, Mexico, and Chile that have continued to develop and broaden; the economic revolts in Spain, Greece, and Britain; the ongoing demonstrations and insurrections around Africa; even various acts of resistance in India, Japan, China, and Tibet, some large and powerful. Because, in case you hadn&#8217;t noticed, these days a lot of the world is in some form of rebellion, insurrection, or protest.</p> <p>And the family resemblances matter. If you add them all up, you see a similar fury at greed, political corruption, economic inequality, environmental devastation, and a dimming, shrinking future.</p> <p>The Heroic Age</p> <p>Nevertheless, the one-year anniversary is likely to produce a lot of mainstream media stories that will assure you Occupy was only a bunch of tents that came down last year, that it was na&#239;ve, and that&#8217;s that. Don&#8217;t buy it. Don&#8217;t be reasonable, don&#8217;t be realistic, and don&#8217;t be defeated. A year is nothing and the mainstream media is oblivious to where power lies and how change works, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you need to be.</p> <p>That same media will tell you 99 ways from Tuesday how powerless you are and how all power is made by men in suits who won or bought elections, but don&#8217;t buy that either. Instead, notice how <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-punk-putin-editorial" type="external">terrified</a> Vladimir Putin was of three young performers in bright-colored balaclavas, and how <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/occupy-wall-street-critics-betray-fear/2011/10/19/gIQAOK1FyL_blog.html" type="external">equally frightened</a> Wall Street is of us. They remember something we tend to forget: together we are capable of being remarkably powerful. We can make history, and we have, and we will, but only when we keep our eyes on the prize, pitch a big tent, and don&#8217;t stop until we get there.</p> <p>We live in the heroic age itself, the age of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, of the Zapatistas in Mexico, of the Civil Rights Movement&#8217;s key organizers, including <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2012/9/7/rep_john_lewis_civil_rights_icon" type="external">John Lewis</a> and <a href="http://thegrio.com/2012/05/12/civil-rights-leaders-commend-obamas-gay-marriage-stance/" type="external">Reverend Joseph Lowery</a>, and of so many nameless heroines and heroes from <a href="http://www.possible-futures.org/2012/01/09/horizontalism-and-territory/" type="external">Argentina</a> to <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175031/rebecca_solnit_a_new_era_of_people_power_in_the_streets_" type="external">Iceland</a>. Their praises are often sung, and the kinds of courage, integrity, generosity of spirit, and vision they exhibited all matter, but I want to talk about another virtue we don&#8217;t think about much: it&#8217;s the one we call patience when we like it or it appears to be gentle, and stubbornness when we don&#8217;t or it doesn&#8217;t.</p> <p>After all, Suu Kyi was steadfast during many years of house arrest and intimidation after a military junta stole the 1990 election she had won and only this year did the situation <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/12/aung-san-suu-kyi-burma-president-talks" type="external">shift</a> a little. The goals of the stubborn often seem impossible at inception, as did some of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement, or for that matter the early <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1190/adam_hochschild_history_to_the_rescue" type="external">nineteenth century abolitionist movement</a> in the United States, which set out to eradicate the atrocity of slavery more than 30 years before victory&#8212;a lot faster than the contemporaneous women&#8217;s movement got basic rights like the vote. Change happens, but it can take decades; and it takes people who remain steadfast, patient (or stubborn) for those same decades, along with infusions of new energy.</p> <p>I suspect the steadfastness of the heroes of the great movements of our time came not only from facts but from faith. They had faith that their cause was just, that this was the right way to live on Earth, that what they did mattered, and they had those things decades before the results were in. You had to be unrealistic about the odds to go up against the Burmese generals or the Apartheid regime in South Africa or Jim Crow or 5,000 years of patriarchy or centuries of homophobia, and the unrealistic among us drew on their faith and did just that, with tremendous consequences.</p> <p>Realism is overrated, but the fact is that the Occupy movement has already had extraordinary results. We changed the national debate early on and brought into the open what was previously hiding in plain sight: both the violence of Wall Street and the yearning for community, justice, truth, power, and hope that possesses most of the rest of us. We found out something that mattered about who we are: we found out just how many of us are furious about the debt peonage settled onto millions of &#8220;underwater&#8221; homeowners, people destroyed by medical debts, and students shackled by subprime educations that no future salaries will ever dig them out of.</p> <p>And here was Occupy&#8217;s other signal achievement: we articulated, clearly, loudly, incontrovertably, how appalling and destructive the current economic system is. To name something is a powerful action. To speak the truth changes reality, and this has everything to do with why electoral politics runs the spectrum from euphemism and parallel-universe formulations to astonishing lies and complete evasions. Wily Occupy brought a Trojan horse loaded with truth to the citadel of Wall Street. Even the <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/wall_streets_charging_bull_sta.html" type="external">bronze bull</a> couldn&#8217;t face that down.</p> <p>Meeting the Possibilities Down the Road</p> <p>A 10-year plan would function like a map: we could see where we had been, where we are, and where we want to go. In San Francisco, participants in the one-year anniversary events will burn student loan and mortgage contracts to symbolically free the prisoners of debt. In New York, Occupy Wall Street itself is focusing on debtor&#8217;s assemblies and debt burnings for the one-year anniversary. This September 17th, practical goals will be announced, a Debt Resistors&#8217; Operations Manual will debut&#8212;and who knows, in 10 years&#8217; time some of those goals could even be fully realized.</p> <p>This will require unwavering determination, even when there are no results. It means not being sour about interim and incomplete victories, as well as actual defeats along the way. In 10 years, we could see some exciting things: the reversal of the harsh new bankruptcy laws, the transformation of educational financing, and maybe even a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/05/could-national-debt-forgiveness-help-kickstart-the-american-economy/" type="external">debt jubilee</a>, along with major changes in banking and mortgage laws.</p> <p>The victories, when they come, won&#8217;t be perfect. They might not even look like victories or like anything we ever expected, and there will be lots of steps along the way that purists will deplore as &#8220;compromise.&#8221; Just as anything you make from a cake to a book never quite resembles the Platonic ideal in your head, victories may not look like their templates, but you should celebrate them, however imperfect they may be, as further steps along the road and never believe that the road ends or that you should stop walking.</p> <p>Still, if you&#8217;re talking about results, I&#8217;m convinced that pressure from Occupy and the student activists around it was what put student debt in the Democratic platform and has made it a major talking point of the Obama campaign. I worry that if, 10 years from now, the landscape of educational finance has been transformed for the better, no one will remember why or how it happened, or who started it all, so no one will celebrate or feel how powerful we really can be.</p> <p>It will be taken for granted the way, say, voting rights are for those of us so long disenfranchised. Most people will forget the world was ever different, just as most people will never know that more than 100 <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506/" type="external">coal-fired plants</a> were not built in this country thanks to climate and environmental activists and few note that the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175468/bill_mckibben_puncturing_the_pipeline" type="external">Keystone XL pipeline</a> would have been finished by now, were it not for <a href="http://www.350.org/" type="external">350.org</a> and the <a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/" type="external">rest of the opposition</a>. This is why stories matter, especially the stories of our power, our victories, and our history.</p> <p>Looking Back with Gratitude, Looking Forward With Fierceness</p> <p>Once there was a great antinuclear movement in this country, first focusing on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175371" type="external">dangers and follies</a> of &#8220;peaceful&#8221; nuclear power, then on the evil of nuclear weapons, and it won many forgotten victories. Ever notice that we haven&#8217;t actually built a reactor since the 1970s, partly because safety standards got so much higher? Who now remembers the <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Oct-03-Mon-2005/news/3636155.html" type="external">Great Basin MX</a> missile installations that were never built, the nuclear waste dumps&#8212;at Sierra Blanca, Ward Valley, and Yucca Mountain, among other places&#8212;that never opened?</p> <p>Who still even thinks about some of the arms-reduction treaties? And yet little of this would have happened if those antinuclear movements hadn&#8217;t existed. So thank an activist, and thank specifically the visionaries who showed up early and the stubborn ones who stayed to work on the issue long after the millions involved in the early 1980s nuclear-freeze movement had given up and gone home. Some of them are <a href="http://www.wslfweb.org/" type="external">still</a> at <a href="http://www.nirs.org/" type="external">work</a>, and we&#8217;re all beneficiaries.</p> <p>One of the first groups in the round of antinuclear activism that began in the 1970s was the <a href="http://clamshellalliance.org/" type="external">Clamshell Alliance</a> created in 1976 to oppose New Hampshire&#8217;s proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. One reactor was built and is still operating at Seabrook; one was cancelled due to opposition. Building the first reactor cost five times the initial estimate and led its owner, Public Service of New Hampshire, to what was then the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. history when it was unable to make ratepayers pick up the bill. You can read that as a partial victory, but Clamshell did so much more.</p> <p>Their spirit and their creative new approach inspired activists around the country and helped generate a movement. Sixty-six nuclear power plants were cancelled in the wake of Clamshell. Keep in mind as well that the Clamshell Alliance and many of the antinuclear groups that followed developed non-hierarchical, direct-democracy methods of organizing since used by activists and movements throughout the U.S. and beyond, including Occupy Wall Street, whose consensus-based general assemblies owed a lot to a bunch of hippies no one remembers.</p> <p>Activist Bill Moyer met with Clamshell Alliance members in 1978, when he thought they were beginning to be victorious in inspiring a national movement and they thought they were failing. What he said is still <a href="http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.html" type="external">worth quoting</a>:</p> <p>&#8220;That Friday night, I expected to meet a spirited, upbeat group that was proud of its accomplishments. I was shocked when the Clamshell activists arrived with heads bowed, dispirited, and depressed, saying their efforts had been in vain. The Clamshell experience of discouragement and collapse is far from unusual. Within a few years after achieving the goals of &#8216;take-off,&#8217; every major social movement of the past 20 years has undergone a significant collapse, in which activists believed that their movements had failed, the powerful institutions were too powerful, and their own efforts were futile. This has happened even when movements were actually progressing reasonably well along the normal path taken by past successful movements!&#8221;</p> <p>With Occupy, remarkable things have already happened, and more remarkable systemic change could be ahead. Don&#8217;t forget that this was a movement that spread to thousands of cities, towns, and even rural outposts across the country and overseas, from Occupy Tucson to Occupy Bangor. Remember that many of the effects of what has already happened are incalculable, and more of what is being accomplished will only be clear further down the road.</p> <p>Go out into the streets and celebrate the one-year anniversary and start dreaming and planning for 2021, when we could&#8212;if we are steadfast, if we are inclusive, if we keep our eyes on the prize, if we define that prize and recognize progress toward it and remember where we started&#8212;be celebrating something much bigger. It&#8217;s a long road to travel, but we can get there from here.</p> <p>Rebecca Solnit was an antinuclear activist in the 1980s and 1990s, as her 1994 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520220668/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Savage Dreams</a> recounts. The author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143118072/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster</a>, she is currently speaking about disaster, civil society, and utopia in programs with the <a href="http://freeuniversitynyc.org/schedule/" type="external">Free University of New York</a>, the San Francisco Public Library&#8217;s <a href="http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000352501" type="external">One City One Book program</a>, and <a href="http://www.calhum.org/programs/searching-for-democracy/california-reads/" type="external">Cal Humanities</a>.</p>

Occupying Your Victories on OWS’s First Anniversary

https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/occupy-wall-street-ows-anniversary-rebecca-solnit/

2012-09-18

4left

Protestors on the first anniversary of OWS in New York Byron Smith ZUMA Press This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Occupy is now a year old A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters at one year old Georgia O8217Keeffe was not a great painter and Bessie Smith wasn8217t much of a singer One year into the Civil Rights Movement the Montgomery Bus Boycott was still in progress catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta8212by that is Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr Occupy our bouncing baby was born with such struggle and joy a year ago and here we are 12 long months later See more coverage of OWS8217 1year anniversary Occupy didn8217t seem remarkable on September 17 2011 and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan8217s Zuccotti Park But its most remarkable aspect turned out to be its staying power it didn8217t declare victory or defeat and go home It decided it was home and settled in for two catalytic months Tents and general assemblies and the acts tools and ideas of Occupy exploded across the nation and the western world from Alaska to New Zealand and some parts of the eastern world8212Occupy Hong Kong was going strong until last week For a while it was easy to see that this baby was something big but then most though not all of the urban encampments were busted and the movement became something subtler But don8217t let them tell you it went away The most startling question anyone asked me last year was 8220What is Occupy8217s 10year plan8221 Who takes the long view Americans have a tendency to think of activism like a slot machine and if it doesn8217t come up three jailed bankers or three clear victories fast you8217ve wasted your quarters And yet hardly any activists ever define what victory would really look like so who knows if we8217ll ever get there Sometimes we do get three clear victories but because it took a while or because no one was sure what victory consisted of hardly anyone realizes a celebration is in order or sometimes even notices We get more victories than anyone imagines but they are usually indirect incomplete slow to arrive and situations where our influence can be assumed but not proven8212and yet each of them is worth counting More Than a Handful of Victories For the first anniversary of Occupy large demonstrations have been planned in New York and San Francisco and a host of smaller actions around the country but some of the people who came together under the Occupy banner have been working steadily in quiet ways all along largely unnoticed From Occupy Chattanooga to Occupy London people are meeting weekly sometimes just to have a forum sometimes to plan foreclosure defenses public demonstrations or engage in other forms of organizing On August 22nd for instance a foreclosure on Kim Mitchell8217s house in a lowincome part of San Francisco was prevented by a coalition made up of Occupy Bernal and Occupy Noe Valley two San Francisco neighborhoods along with ACCE the group that succeeded the Republicandestroyed ACORN It was a little victory in itself8212and another that such an economically and ethnically diverse group was working together so beautifully Demonstrations and victories like it are happening regularly across the country including in Minnesota thanks to Occupy Homes Earlier this month Occupy Wall Street helped Manhattan restaurant workers defeat a lousy boss and a worker lockout to unionize a restaurant in the Hot and Crusty chain While shut out the employees occupied the sidewalk and ran the Worker Justice Caf233 there In Providence Rhode Island the Occupy encampment broke up late last January but only on the condition that the city open a daytime shelter for homeless people At Princeton University big banks are no longer invited to recruit on campus most likely thanks to Occupy Princeton There have been thousands of little victories like these and some big ones as well the impact of the Move Your Money initiative the growing revolt against studentloandebt peonage and more indirectly the passing of a California law protecting homeowners from the abuse of the foreclosure process undoubtedly due in part to Occupy8217s highlighting of the brutality and corruption of that process But don8217t get bogged down in the tangible achievements except as a foundation The less tangible spirit of Occupy and the new associations it sparked are what matters for whatever comes next for that 10yearplan Occupy was first of all a great meeting ground People who live too much in the virtual world with its talent for segregation and isolation suddenly met each other facetoface in public space There they found common ground in a passion for economic justice and real democracy and a recognition of the widespread suffering capitalism has created Bonds were formed across the usual divides of age and race and class between the housed and the homeless as well as the employed and jobless and some of those bonds still exist There was tremendous emotion around it8212the joy of finding you were not alone the shame that was shed as the prisoners of debt stepped out of the shadows the ferocity of solidarity when so many of us were attacked by the police the dizzying hope that everything could be different and the exhilaration in those moments when it already was People learned how direct democracy works they tasted power they found something in common with strangers they lived in public All those things mattered and matter still They are a great foundation for the future they are a great way to live in the present Maybe Occupy was too successful a brand in that it sometimes disguised how much this movement was part of popular surges going on around the world the Arab Spring including the three successful revolutions the ongoing Syrian civil war uprisings in Yemen and more the student uprisings in Montreal Mexico and Chile that have continued to develop and broaden the economic revolts in Spain Greece and Britain the ongoing demonstrations and insurrections around Africa even various acts of resistance in India Japan China and Tibet some large and powerful Because in case you hadn8217t noticed these days a lot of the world is in some form of rebellion insurrection or protest And the family resemblances matter If you add them all up you see a similar fury at greed political corruption economic inequality environmental devastation and a dimming shrinking future The Heroic Age Nevertheless the oneyear anniversary is likely to produce a lot of mainstream media stories that will assure you Occupy was only a bunch of tents that came down last year that it was na239ve and that8217s that Don8217t buy it Don8217t be reasonable don8217t be realistic and don8217t be defeated A year is nothing and the mainstream media is oblivious to where power lies and how change works but that doesn8217t mean you need to be That same media will tell you 99 ways from Tuesday how powerless you are and how all power is made by men in suits who won or bought elections but don8217t buy that either Instead notice how terrified Vladimir Putin was of three young performers in brightcolored balaclavas and how equally frightened Wall Street is of us They remember something we tend to forget together we are capable of being remarkably powerful We can make history and we have and we will but only when we keep our eyes on the prize pitch a big tent and don8217t stop until we get there We live in the heroic age itself the age of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma of the Zapatistas in Mexico of the Civil Rights Movement8217s key organizers including John Lewis and Reverend Joseph Lowery and of so many nameless heroines and heroes from Argentina to Iceland Their praises are often sung and the kinds of courage integrity generosity of spirit and vision they exhibited all matter but I want to talk about another virtue we don8217t think about much it8217s the one we call patience when we like it or it appears to be gentle and stubbornness when we don8217t or it doesn8217t After all Suu Kyi was steadfast during many years of house arrest and intimidation after a military junta stole the 1990 election she had won and only this year did the situation shift a little The goals of the stubborn often seem impossible at inception as did some of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement or for that matter the early nineteenth century abolitionist movement in the United States which set out to eradicate the atrocity of slavery more than 30 years before victory8212a lot faster than the contemporaneous women8217s movement got basic rights like the vote Change happens but it can take decades and it takes people who remain steadfast patient or stubborn for those same decades along with infusions of new energy I suspect the steadfastness of the heroes of the great movements of our time came not only from facts but from faith They had faith that their cause was just that this was the right way to live on Earth that what they did mattered and they had those things decades before the results were in You had to be unrealistic about the odds to go up against the Burmese generals or the Apartheid regime in South Africa or Jim Crow or 5000 years of patriarchy or centuries of homophobia and the unrealistic among us drew on their faith and did just that with tremendous consequences Realism is overrated but the fact is that the Occupy movement has already had extraordinary results We changed the national debate early on and brought into the open what was previously hiding in plain sight both the violence of Wall Street and the yearning for community justice truth power and hope that possesses most of the rest of us We found out something that mattered about who we are we found out just how many of us are furious about the debt peonage settled onto millions of 8220underwater8221 homeowners people destroyed by medical debts and students shackled by subprime educations that no future salaries will ever dig them out of And here was Occupy8217s other signal achievement we articulated clearly loudly incontrovertably how appalling and destructive the current economic system is To name something is a powerful action To speak the truth changes reality and this has everything to do with why electoral politics runs the spectrum from euphemism and paralleluniverse formulations to astonishing lies and complete evasions Wily Occupy brought a Trojan horse loaded with truth to the citadel of Wall Street Even the bronze bull couldn8217t face that down Meeting the Possibilities Down the Road A 10year plan would function like a map we could see where we had been where we are and where we want to go In San Francisco participants in the oneyear anniversary events will burn student loan and mortgage contracts to symbolically free the prisoners of debt In New York Occupy Wall Street itself is focusing on debtor8217s assemblies and debt burnings for the oneyear anniversary This September 17th practical goals will be announced a Debt Resistors8217 Operations Manual will debut8212and who knows in 10 years8217 time some of those goals could even be fully realized This will require unwavering determination even when there are no results It means not being sour about interim and incomplete victories as well as actual defeats along the way In 10 years we could see some exciting things the reversal of the harsh new bankruptcy laws the transformation of educational financing and maybe even a debt jubilee along with major changes in banking and mortgage laws The victories when they come won8217t be perfect They might not even look like victories or like anything we ever expected and there will be lots of steps along the way that purists will deplore as 8220compromise8221 Just as anything you make from a cake to a book never quite resembles the Platonic ideal in your head victories may not look like their templates but you should celebrate them however imperfect they may be as further steps along the road and never believe that the road ends or that you should stop walking Still if you8217re talking about results I8217m convinced that pressure from Occupy and the student activists around it was what put student debt in the Democratic platform and has made it a major talking point of the Obama campaign I worry that if 10 years from now the landscape of educational finance has been transformed for the better no one will remember why or how it happened or who started it all so no one will celebrate or feel how powerful we really can be It will be taken for granted the way say voting rights are for those of us so long disenfranchised Most people will forget the world was ever different just as most people will never know that more than 100 coalfired plants were not built in this country thanks to climate and environmental activists and few note that the Keystone XL pipeline would have been finished by now were it not for 350org and the rest of the opposition This is why stories matter especially the stories of our power our victories and our history Looking Back with Gratitude Looking Forward With Fierceness Once there was a great antinuclear movement in this country first focusing on the dangers and follies of 8220peaceful8221 nuclear power then on the evil of nuclear weapons and it won many forgotten victories Ever notice that we haven8217t actually built a reactor since the 1970s partly because safety standards got so much higher Who now remembers the Great Basin MX missile installations that were never built the nuclear waste dumps8212at Sierra Blanca Ward Valley and Yucca Mountain among other places8212that never opened Who still even thinks about some of the armsreduction treaties And yet little of this would have happened if those antinuclear movements hadn8217t existed So thank an activist and thank specifically the visionaries who showed up early and the stubborn ones who stayed to work on the issue long after the millions involved in the early 1980s nuclearfreeze movement had given up and gone home Some of them are still at work and we8217re all beneficiaries One of the first groups in the round of antinuclear activism that began in the 1970s was the Clamshell Alliance created in 1976 to oppose New Hampshire8217s proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant One reactor was built and is still operating at Seabrook one was cancelled due to opposition Building the first reactor cost five times the initial estimate and led its owner Public Service of New Hampshire to what was then the fourth largest bankruptcy in US history when it was unable to make ratepayers pick up the bill You can read that as a partial victory but Clamshell did so much more Their spirit and their creative new approach inspired activists around the country and helped generate a movement Sixtysix nuclear power plants were cancelled in the wake of Clamshell Keep in mind as well that the Clamshell Alliance and many of the antinuclear groups that followed developed nonhierarchical directdemocracy methods of organizing since used by activists and movements throughout the US and beyond including Occupy Wall Street whose consensusbased general assemblies owed a lot to a bunch of hippies no one remembers Activist Bill Moyer met with Clamshell Alliance members in 1978 when he thought they were beginning to be victorious in inspiring a national movement and they thought they were failing What he said is still worth quoting 8220That Friday night I expected to meet a spirited upbeat group that was proud of its accomplishments I was shocked when the Clamshell activists arrived with heads bowed dispirited and depressed saying their efforts had been in vain The Clamshell experience of discouragement and collapse is far from unusual Within a few years after achieving the goals of 8216takeoff8217 every major social movement of the past 20 years has undergone a significant collapse in which activists believed that their movements had failed the powerful institutions were too powerful and their own efforts were futile This has happened even when movements were actually progressing reasonably well along the normal path taken by past successful movements8221 With Occupy remarkable things have already happened and more remarkable systemic change could be ahead Don8217t forget that this was a movement that spread to thousands of cities towns and even rural outposts across the country and overseas from Occupy Tucson to Occupy Bangor Remember that many of the effects of what has already happened are incalculable and more of what is being accomplished will only be clear further down the road Go out into the streets and celebrate the oneyear anniversary and start dreaming and planning for 2021 when we could8212if we are steadfast if we are inclusive if we keep our eyes on the prize if we define that prize and recognize progress toward it and remember where we started8212be celebrating something much bigger It8217s a long road to travel but we can get there from here Rebecca Solnit was an antinuclear activist in the 1980s and 1990s as her 1994 book Savage Dreams recounts The author of A Paradise Built in Hell The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster she is currently speaking about disaster civil society and utopia in programs with the Free University of New York the San Francisco Public Library8217s One City One Book program and Cal Humanities

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<p /> <p>Gregory Bull / AP</p> <p>Donald Trump railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during his presidential campaign. But he failed to mention how the measure forced vast swaths of Mexico&#8217;s farm population off their land and into the United States by flooding the country with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/under-nafta-mexico-suffered-and-the-united-states-felt-its-pain" type="external">cheap, subsidized, U.S. agricultural imports</a>.</p> <p>It was a curious deletion, given Trump&#8217;s immigrant-demonizing pledge to &#8220;build a [southern U.S. border] wall and make Mexico pay for it.&#8221; For Trump, the point of the wall is to stop the flow of supposedly dangerous and criminal Latinos into the U.S.</p> <p /> <p>Another thing Trump left out is that the southern U.S. border wall is not new. It has been under construction since the Bill Clinton administration, thanks in no small part to NAFTA. As Todd Miller, author of &#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Border-Patrol-Nation-Dispatches-Homeland/dp/0872866319" type="external">Border Patrol Nation</a>,&#8221; noted last summer in Mother Jones, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/tomdispatch-operation-streamline-immigration-enforcement-donald-trump-wall" type="external">border barriers already exist</a>:</p> <p>In 1994 &#8230; the call for more hardened, militarized borders &#8230; came from US officials who <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/20/joseph_nevins_on_dying_to_live" type="external">anticipated</a> the displacement of millions of Mexicans after the implementation of NAFTA. &#8230;</p> <p>The expectations of those officials proved well justified. The ensuing <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/how-us-policies-fueled-mexicos-great-migration/" type="external">upheavals</a> in Mexico &#8230; were like the aftermath of a war or natural disaster. Small farmers couldn&#8217;t compete against highly subsidized US agribusiness giants like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. Mexican small-business owners were bankrupted by the likes of [Wal-Mart], Sam&#8217;s Club, and other corporate powers. Mining by foreign companies extended across vast swaths of Mexico, causing territorial conflicts and poisoning the land. The unprecedented and desperate migration that followed came up against what might be considered the other side of the Clinton doctrine of open trade: walls, increased border agents, increased patrolling, and new surveillance technologies meant to cut off traditional crossing spots in urban areas like El Paso, San Diego, Brownsville, and Nogales. &#8230;</p> <p>Over the next 20 years, that border apparatus would expand immensely in terms of personnel, resources, and geographic reach, but the central strategy of the 1990s (&#8220; <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520282759" type="external">Prevention Through Deterrence</a>&#8221;) remained the same. The ever-increasing border policing and militarization funneled desperate migrants into remote locations like the Arizona desert, where temperatures can soar to 120 degrees in the summer.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s nationalist indifference to Washington&#8217;s responsibility for generating the migration the nation frets over is commonplace in the U.S. When tens of thousands of Central American children piled up on the U.S. southern border in the summer of 2014, I heard numerous white &#8220;native&#8221; Americans say that their hearts went out to the &#8220;unaccompanied minors&#8221; trying to reach the U.S. &#8220;But,&#8221; the narrative went, &#8220;it&#8217;s not our problem. We&#8217;ve got nothing to do with it. It&#8217;s not our job to fix it.&#8221;</p> <p>Such reflexive disassociation omits Uncle Sam&#8217;s critical role in the devastation of lives and communities abroad. Latino immigration to the U.S. has everything to do with Washington, D.C., and NAFTA is just one part of how. The 2005 U.S.-led Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has brought the same misery NAFTA spread in Mexico to campesino communities in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.</p> <p>The neoliberal &#8220;free trade&#8221; deals (really, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-sorscher/free-trade-was-never-real_b_3427477.html" type="external">investor rights</a>) that Trump lambasted for costing &#8220;forgotten Americans&#8221; their jobs have undermined the livelihoods of Central Americans, helping push them to attempt ever more dangerous crossings into the wealthy superpower up north.</p> <p>READ: <a href="" type="internal">Bill Clinton Laid the Groundwork for Trump&#8217;s Ugly Immigration Policies</a></p> <p>It isn&#8217;t just about agricultural exports. In Mexico and Central America, as in the world over, U.S.-led &#8220;free trade&#8221; agreements have resulted in government enterprises being privatized, the deregulation of corporations and steep cuts in social spending and environmental oversight. &#8220;Add to this the displacement of communities by foreign mining projects and the drastic U.S.-led militarization of the War on Drugs with accompanying violence,&#8221; <a href="https://williamblum.org/aer/read/130" type="external">historian William Blum noted</a> nearly three years ago, and you have a &#8220;perfect storm of suffering followed by the attempt to escape from suffering.&#8221;</p> <p>The racist, mass-incarcerationist <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1501260235" type="external">U.S. drug war</a> is also part of what generates the gang carnage that compels so many Mexicans and Central Americans to take desperate measures to escape&#8212;or at least to get their children out.</p> <p>Another key U.S.-led push factor is <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/41912/Climate%20change%20in%20CA%20and%20SA%20final_.pdf?sequence=2" type="external">climate change</a>, which is negatively affecting the production of coffee and other crops in Central America. Here again, the superpower&#8217;s fingerprint (or perhaps its footprint) is clear. Among large nations, the U.S. remains far and away the <a href="http://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/" type="external">world&#8217;s biggest carbon emitter</a> on a per-capita basis. No nation has spewed more carbon into earth&#8217;s atmosphere than the <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/532316/the-united-states-is-far-and-away-the-leader-in-carbon-dioxide-emissions/" type="external">United States</a>. No nation has invested more heavily and powerfully in the political, ideological and military promotion and defense of the global carbon- and growth-addicted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Grand-Strategy-Corporate-Networks/dp/0415844983" type="external">profits system</a>. U.S.-led &#8220;free trade&#8221; agreements restrict the ability of governments to protect <a href="http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wto/environment" type="external">livable ecology</a>. And no national government has done more to deep-six serious international efforts to reduce global carbon emissions than the one in Washington, D.C.</p> <p>There is also the long and ugly U.S. history of enforcing and sustaining the impoverishment and torture of Latin America by backing and allying with right-wing regimes that crush movements for democracy and social justice. As historian Greg Grandin explains in &#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Empires-Workshop-America-Imperialism-American/dp/0805083235" type="external">Empire&#8217;s Workshop</a>,&#8221; &#8220;U.S. allies in Central America during Reagan&#8217;s two terms [in the 1980s] killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands, and drove millions into exile.&#8221; Lavish funding, training and equipment from Washington fueled this epic bloodshed. Victims were murdered and maimed as punishment for&#8212;and warnings against&#8212;participation in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Deterring-Democracy-Noam-Chomsky/dp/0374523495" type="external">popular struggles</a> to redistribute land and improve working and social conditions for peasants and workers in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.</p> <p>In 2008 and early 2009, Manuel Zelaya, Honduras&#8217; democratically elected president, irked Washington by raising the hated specter of <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/14/right-out-in-plain-sight-dona-hillary-and-the-clinton-cartel/" type="external">national self-determination and social justice</a>. He provoked the U.S. empire by doing things like increasing the minimum wage, giving subsidies to small farmers and instituting free education. A graduate from the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) led the coup that overthrew him in 2009. The hope-killing Honduran junta was <a href="https://www.akpress.org/queen-of-chaos.html" type="external">backed by the &#8220;change&#8221;-promising Obama administration</a>, which funded, equipped and worked with the bloody and repressive coup regime in subsequent years.</p> <p>If not for this long and ongoing record of U.S. intervention on behalf of savage inequality, mass poverty, violence, environmental degradation and authoritarian rule in Central America, tens of thousands of severely distressed juveniles from the region would not have fled in desperation to the Yankee empire&#8217;s southern border in the summer of 2014.</p> <p>Capitalists Like Cheap, Outwardly Obedient Labor</p> <p>Along with the U.S. &#8220;push&#8221; factors behind Mexican and Central American immigration, there is also the &#8220;pull&#8221; factor of capitalists&#8217; desire for cheap labor. Trump&#8217;s immigrant-bashing bombast bizarrely frames Mexican migration as a big rip-off of the U.S. by its southern neighbor, which sends what Trump calls its &#8220;worst people&#8221; (criminals and rapists) up to steal money, property and jobs.</p> <p>You&#8217;d never know from the president&#8217;s nativist rhetoric that the U.S. employer class profits from immigrant laborers, who are willing to work largely without protest for low wages in difficult and low-status jobs in factories, fields, construction sites, homes, hotels, restaurants and packing plants across the nation.</p> <p>Immigrants aren&#8217;t unnaturally obedient or authority-honoring people. But even a difficult, dirty and poorly paid U.S. job is a ticket out of developing-world misery and terror for many. That fact, and the fear of being detected and outed as an &#8220;illegal&#8221; in the case of undocumented workers, combines with language and cultural barriers to labor organizing to make Mexican and Central American workers unlikely to enlist in working-class struggles. It&#8217;s no great secret that capitalist bosses like that.</p> <p>Debating Immigration&#8217;s Impact on the U.S.</p> <p>There is a considerable and seemingly permanent argument among policy intellectuals about the effects of immigration on the United States. The right-wing, Republican-affiliated and white-nationalist side of this debate harps that immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy and taxpayer&#8212;that they are deadening burdens who strain government services expenditure without contributing tax dollars or economic stimulus. The nativists also tend to argue that immigrant labor significantly reduces the wages of &#8220;native&#8221; U.S. workers. And with Trump&#8217;s ascendancy, the claim that many immigrants are criminals has gained special new currency in right-wing political culture.</p> <p>Taxes and New Business Formation</p> <p>Liberal and centrist researchers and activists counter these assertions, showing, for example, that:</p> <p>&#9679; Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. <a href="http://www.itep.org/pdf/immigration2016.pdf%20" type="external">contribute nearly $12 billion</a> each year to state and local tax coffers in the form of income taxes, property taxes and sales or excise taxes.</p> <p>&#9679; The average tax rate for undocumented immigrants in the country (8 percent) is higher than the rate paid by America&#8217;s top 1 percent (5.4 percent).</p> <p>&#9679; Three-fourths of the &#8220;illegal&#8221; population <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-undocumented-immigrants-pay-billions-in-taxes" type="external">pays into Social Security</a>&#8212;a system they aren&#8217;t eligible to benefit from.</p> <p>&#9679; Immigrants <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2016/06/22/140124/how-immigrants-positively-affect-the-business-community-and-the-u-s-economy/" type="external">added $1.6 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product</a> in 2013.</p> <p>&#9679; Immigrants started 28 percent of <a href="http://www.as-coa.org/sites/default/files/ImmigrantBusinessReport.pdf" type="external">all new U.S. businesses</a>, despite accounting for only 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2011.No Immigrant Crime Wave</p> <p>There is no basis for the claim that undocumented immigrants&#8212;or any other part of the immigrant population&#8212;are disproportionately prone to criminal activity. A recent study by the venerable criminal and social justice research and advocacy group The Sentencing Project <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/immigration-public-safety/" type="external">showed that the opposite is true</a>: &#8220;Foreign-born residents of the United States commit crime less often than native-born citizens.&#8221; The report even suggests that &#8220;higher levels of immigration in recent decades may have contributed to [a] historic drop in [U.S.] crime rates.&#8221;</p> <p>Wages: Correlation Is Not Causation</p> <p>What about the claim that immigration depresses wages? It finds little support in serious social science research. A <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/bp255/" type="external">study</a> conducted by the Economic Policy Institute seven years ago found solid evidence backing what the EPI called &#8220;broad agreement among academic economists&#8221; that &#8220;immigration has a small but positive impact on the wages of native-born workers overall.&#8221; Except for male U.S.-born workers with no high school degree in California (where immigrant competition caused a 2.9 percent relative real-wage decline between 1994 and 2007), the EPI found minimal justification for the idea that recent immigration has had a significant negative impact on U.S.-born workers&#8217; incomes. Immigration, in fact, shows a modestly positive effect on &#8220;native&#8221; U.S. workers&#8217; wages, the EPI determined.</p> <p>The finding is less counterintuitive than it might at first seem. It is true that new immigrant workers add to local &#8220;unskilled&#8221; labor supplies. They feed what Karl Marx called the reserve army of labor, exercising downward pressure on wages at the bottom of the labor market. But those workers also consume goods and services, which creates jobs. Job creation tightens the job market and thereby increases the marketplace bargaining power of U.S.-born (and other) workers.</p> <p>To say that immigrant workers are &#8220;stealing&#8221; jobs that would otherwise be available for U.S.-born workers is misleading. As labor economist <a href="https://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/1185" type="external">Kim Moody has noted</a>, many jobs immigrant workers &#8220;take&#8221; exist because &#8220;natural&#8221; U.S. population growth is too weak to fill them, because &#8220;racism blocks &#8216;native&#8217; blacks, particularly young black men from some of them,&#8221; and because many &#8220;native&#8221; whites and blacks are unwilling to do jobs immigrants willingly perform.</p> <p>Recent immigrant influxes to the U.S. have been correlated with wage stagnation and other forms of declining job quality. But correlation is not causation. A number of factors aside from immigration have combined to erode working and living standards for the U.S. working class over the last four decades. The culprits include the drastic decline of unionization, automation (technical displacement), the falling value of the minimum wage, the shredding of the social welfare safety net, and global trade and investment practices that &#8220;expose U.S. workers with low levels of education to competition from much lower wage workers around the globe.&#8221; As economist <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Failure-Design-Americas-Economic-Institute/dp/0801450152" type="external">Joe Bivens has shown</a>, these and other neoliberal developments reflect policy &#8220; <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/11734-the-1-and-the-47" type="external">failure by design</a>.&#8221; They are part of a determined and many-sided, top-down effort to suppress U.S. wages at the bottom and concentrate wealth at the top.</p> <p>Immigrant labor would have less or no depressive impact on &#8220;native&#8221; U.S. workers&#8217; bargaining power if immigrant workers were accorded full civil and economic rights and if U.S. unions were strong and willing to aggressively organize them.</p> <p>Deportation as Anti-Worker Sadism</p> <p>For those who care about the work and living standards of the entire global working class, not just U.S.-born or naturalized workers, it is important to note that wage, job and living condition improvements experienced by workers who move from poor to wealthy countries are massive compared with any reductions native workers experience as a result.</p> <p>The call to deport immigrants back to their lands of origin carries more than a hint of sadism. It amounts to sending people back to regions where it is impossible to make a decent living and where violence and terror are a constant threat. Should we send ex-offenders back to prison for an indefinite period because they become members of the reserve army of labor upon release? A better approach would be to end the <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/theviciouscircle.pdf" type="external">ruthless &#8220;new Jim Crow&#8221; discrimination</a> imposed on felons, organize them into unions and encourage and empower the criminal underclass to join with those not saddled by a criminal record and prison histories in fights for decent wages and conditions inside the U.S.</p> <p>Americans who oppose immigration look ridiculous as well as mean-spirited when they fail to acknowledge the critical role their nation&#8217;s policies&#8212;and the broader world capitalist system those policies back&#8212;have played in the creating immigration. Those policies have forced millions of people in the global south to flee their homelands in search of minimally decent lives in rich nations that have grown wealthy largely through the exploitation of the <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/product/dependent_accumulation_and_underdevelopment/" type="external">vast, poor global periphery</a>. &#8220;Immigration,&#8221; one Truthdig reader recently observed, &#8220;does not happen in a vacuum. It is not people just deciding to come here for a better life for themselves and their families. Our foreign policy has much to do with why people come here from countries below our southern border. &#8230; Unless you look at the economic and political policy of the US, you end up blaming victims and giving the perpetrators a free pass.&#8221;</p> <p>As <a href="https://williamblum.org/aer/read/148" type="external">Blum explained</a>: &#8220;It&#8217;s not that all these [Mexican and Central American] immigrants prefer to live in the United States. They&#8217;d much rather remain with their families and friends, be able to speak their native language at all times, and avoid the hardships imposed on them by American police and other right-wingers.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8216;This Whole Immigration Thing Is Not About Immigration&#8217;</p> <p>The ultimate perpetrator is the profits system, at home and abroad. In a recent lecture on and against <a href="https://urpe.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/richard-wolff-nationalism-and-scapegoating-foreigners/" type="external">nationalism and scapegoating foreigners</a>, renowned Marxist economist Richard Wolff cautions against wading too far into the weeds of the Trump-instigated immigration debate. Noting the indispensability of Mexican labor to the functioning of the U.S. economy, Wolff argues that the real function of the right-wing nativist demonization and scapegoating of immigrants in the U.S. is to deflect discussion and policy away from the fundamental question that most demands attention and remedy&#8212;capitalism&#8217;s underlying war on democracy, working people and the common good. It&#8217;s actually got nothing to do with whether immigration is good or bad for the U.S.</p> <p>Do you really want to send all these people back? Mexicans in our culture do an incredible amount of work. Our construction industry is unthinkable without undocumented workers. &#8230; Who&#8217;s gonna do all the work in New York City? And at what rate of pay? If you have to pay Americans who aren&#8217;t of Mexican origin the kind of wage that those Americans think they ought to get, the price of everything is going to go nuts &#8230; [and] you&#8217;ll be real sorry that the Mexicans aren&#8217;t here anymore. And the businesses that depend on those Mexicans and the housing stock that&#8217;s gonna sit there empty with the rents not coming &#8230; and the loans that are based on those rents. &#8230;</p> <p>None of this has been worked out. Mr. Trump has no clue &#8230; let alone a plan to deal with any of it. Because &#8230; this whole immigration thing is not about immigration. &#8230; Immigration became exciting [in the U.S. as in Europe] not because it is the key to our economic situation. &#8230; What&#8217;s [really] going on here is that the American economy is in trouble. Capitalism isn&#8217;t working for the majority of American people &#8230; and that&#8217;s true of the British people, and the French people and the Greek people, etc. These societies are not working real well. And when societies begin to break down, when their problem gets to the point where we are at, you face a kind of existential crisis. There are gonna be voices raised, saying, &#8220;It&#8217;s the system.&#8221; That&#8217;s what I do. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m here. To tell you it&#8217;s the system. And I&#8217;m not the only one.</p> <p>When you have a moment when a system is in crisis, it&#8217;s got to come up with an explanation for its problems that lead to actions that can be taken that leave the system out of the conversation. That&#8217;s what immigration is for. &#8230;</p> <p>It&#8217;s easy to show that immigrants do as many good things as they do any kind of problem. &#8230; Like anybody else, they&#8217;re a mixed bag. But are they the problem that&#8217;s gonna fix our situation? Not even close. If they stay or don&#8217;t stay, our problems will remain.</p> <p>Building on a richly bipartisan policy record of nativist border control, Trump and his Republican cohorts are using the immigration issue like a matador&#8217;s cape to distract, divert and divide U.S. citizens and workers while the ruling class continues to gore them with murderous impunity. While defense of immigrant worker rights is essential, those of us on the left would do well to remember that, at the end of the day, it&#8217;s the capitalism, stupid.</p>

U.S. Policies Created the Immigration Problem. Scapegoating Immigrants Makes It Worse.

https://truthdig.com/articles/u-s-policies-created-the-immigration-problem-scapegoating-immigrants-makes-it-worse/

2017-04-09

4left

Gregory Bull AP Donald Trump railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA during his presidential campaign But he failed to mention how the measure forced vast swaths of Mexico8217s farm population off their land and into the United States by flooding the country with cheap subsidized US agricultural imports It was a curious deletion given Trump8217s immigrantdemonizing pledge to 8220build a southern US border wall and make Mexico pay for it8221 For Trump the point of the wall is to stop the flow of supposedly dangerous and criminal Latinos into the US Another thing Trump left out is that the southern US border wall is not new It has been under construction since the Bill Clinton administration thanks in no small part to NAFTA As Todd Miller author of 8220 Border Patrol Nation8221 noted last summer in Mother Jones border barriers already exist In 1994 8230 the call for more hardened militarized borders 8230 came from US officials who anticipated the displacement of millions of Mexicans after the implementation of NAFTA 8230 The expectations of those officials proved well justified The ensuing upheavals in Mexico 8230 were like the aftermath of a war or natural disaster Small farmers couldn8217t compete against highly subsidized US agribusiness giants like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland Mexican smallbusiness owners were bankrupted by the likes of WalMart Sam8217s Club and other corporate powers Mining by foreign companies extended across vast swaths of Mexico causing territorial conflicts and poisoning the land The unprecedented and desperate migration that followed came up against what might be considered the other side of the Clinton doctrine of open trade walls increased border agents increased patrolling and new surveillance technologies meant to cut off traditional crossing spots in urban areas like El Paso San Diego Brownsville and Nogales 8230 Over the next 20 years that border apparatus would expand immensely in terms of personnel resources and geographic reach but the central strategy of the 1990s 8220 Prevention Through Deterrence8221 remained the same The everincreasing border policing and militarization funneled desperate migrants into remote locations like the Arizona desert where temperatures can soar to 120 degrees in the summer Trump8217s nationalist indifference to Washington8217s responsibility for generating the migration the nation frets over is commonplace in the US When tens of thousands of Central American children piled up on the US southern border in the summer of 2014 I heard numerous white 8220native8221 Americans say that their hearts went out to the 8220unaccompanied minors8221 trying to reach the US 8220But8221 the narrative went 8220it8217s not our problem We8217ve got nothing to do with it It8217s not our job to fix it8221 Such reflexive disassociation omits Uncle Sam8217s critical role in the devastation of lives and communities abroad Latino immigration to the US has everything to do with Washington DC and NAFTA is just one part of how The 2005 USled Central American Free Trade Agreement CAFTA has brought the same misery NAFTA spread in Mexico to campesino communities in Honduras El Salvador and Guatemala The neoliberal 8220free trade8221 deals really investor rights that Trump lambasted for costing 8220forgotten Americans8221 their jobs have undermined the livelihoods of Central Americans helping push them to attempt ever more dangerous crossings into the wealthy superpower up north READ Bill Clinton Laid the Groundwork for Trump8217s Ugly Immigration Policies It isn8217t just about agricultural exports In Mexico and Central America as in the world over USled 8220free trade8221 agreements have resulted in government enterprises being privatized the deregulation of corporations and steep cuts in social spending and environmental oversight 8220Add to this the displacement of communities by foreign mining projects and the drastic USled militarization of the War on Drugs with accompanying violence8221 historian William Blum noted nearly three years ago and you have a 8220perfect storm of suffering followed by the attempt to escape from suffering8221 The racist massincarcerationist US drug war is also part of what generates the gang carnage that compels so many Mexicans and Central Americans to take desperate measures to escape8212or at least to get their children out Another key USled push factor is climate change which is negatively affecting the production of coffee and other crops in Central America Here again the superpower8217s fingerprint or perhaps its footprint is clear Among large nations the US remains far and away the world8217s biggest carbon emitter on a percapita basis No nation has spewed more carbon into earth8217s atmosphere than the United States No nation has invested more heavily and powerfully in the political ideological and military promotion and defense of the global carbon and growthaddicted profits system USled 8220free trade8221 agreements restrict the ability of governments to protect livable ecology And no national government has done more to deepsix serious international efforts to reduce global carbon emissions than the one in Washington DC There is also the long and ugly US history of enforcing and sustaining the impoverishment and torture of Latin America by backing and allying with rightwing regimes that crush movements for democracy and social justice As historian Greg Grandin explains in 8220 Empire8217s Workshop8221 8220US allies in Central America during Reagan8217s two terms in the 1980s killed over 300000 people tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile8221 Lavish funding training and equipment from Washington fueled this epic bloodshed Victims were murdered and maimed as punishment for8212and warnings against8212participation in popular struggles to redistribute land and improve working and social conditions for peasants and workers in Guatemala El Salvador and Honduras In 2008 and early 2009 Manuel Zelaya Honduras8217 democratically elected president irked Washington by raising the hated specter of national selfdetermination and social justice He provoked the US empire by doing things like increasing the minimum wage giving subsidies to small farmers and instituting free education A graduate from the notorious US Army School of the Americas now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation led the coup that overthrew him in 2009 The hopekilling Honduran junta was backed by the 8220change8221promising Obama administration which funded equipped and worked with the bloody and repressive coup regime in subsequent years If not for this long and ongoing record of US intervention on behalf of savage inequality mass poverty violence environmental degradation and authoritarian rule in Central America tens of thousands of severely distressed juveniles from the region would not have fled in desperation to the Yankee empire8217s southern border in the summer of 2014 Capitalists Like Cheap Outwardly Obedient Labor Along with the US 8220push8221 factors behind Mexican and Central American immigration there is also the 8220pull8221 factor of capitalists8217 desire for cheap labor Trump8217s immigrantbashing bombast bizarrely frames Mexican migration as a big ripoff of the US by its southern neighbor which sends what Trump calls its 8220worst people8221 criminals and rapists up to steal money property and jobs You8217d never know from the president8217s nativist rhetoric that the US employer class profits from immigrant laborers who are willing to work largely without protest for low wages in difficult and lowstatus jobs in factories fields construction sites homes hotels restaurants and packing plants across the nation Immigrants aren8217t unnaturally obedient or authorityhonoring people But even a difficult dirty and poorly paid US job is a ticket out of developingworld misery and terror for many That fact and the fear of being detected and outed as an 8220illegal8221 in the case of undocumented workers combines with language and cultural barriers to labor organizing to make Mexican and Central American workers unlikely to enlist in workingclass struggles It8217s no great secret that capitalist bosses like that Debating Immigration8217s Impact on the US There is a considerable and seemingly permanent argument among policy intellectuals about the effects of immigration on the United States The rightwing Republicanaffiliated and whitenationalist side of this debate harps that immigrants are a drain on the US economy and taxpayer8212that they are deadening burdens who strain government services expenditure without contributing tax dollars or economic stimulus The nativists also tend to argue that immigrant labor significantly reduces the wages of 8220native8221 US workers And with Trump8217s ascendancy the claim that many immigrants are criminals has gained special new currency in rightwing political culture Taxes and New Business Formation Liberal and centrist researchers and activists counter these assertions showing for example that 9679 Undocumented immigrants in the US contribute nearly 12 billion each year to state and local tax coffers in the form of income taxes property taxes and sales or excise taxes 9679 The average tax rate for undocumented immigrants in the country 8 percent is higher than the rate paid by America8217s top 1 percent 54 percent 9679 Threefourths of the 8220illegal8221 population pays into Social Security8212a system they aren8217t eligible to benefit from 9679 Immigrants added 16 trillion to the US gross domestic product in 2013 9679 Immigrants started 28 percent of all new US businesses despite accounting for only 13 percent of the US population in 2011No Immigrant Crime Wave There is no basis for the claim that undocumented immigrants8212or any other part of the immigrant population8212are disproportionately prone to criminal activity A recent study by the venerable criminal and social justice research and advocacy group The Sentencing Project showed that the opposite is true 8220Foreignborn residents of the United States commit crime less often than nativeborn citizens8221 The report even suggests that 8220higher levels of immigration in recent decades may have contributed to a historic drop in US crime rates8221 Wages Correlation Is Not Causation What about the claim that immigration depresses wages It finds little support in serious social science research A study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute seven years ago found solid evidence backing what the EPI called 8220broad agreement among academic economists8221 that 8220immigration has a small but positive impact on the wages of nativeborn workers overall8221 Except for male USborn workers with no high school degree in California where immigrant competition caused a 29 percent relative realwage decline between 1994 and 2007 the EPI found minimal justification for the idea that recent immigration has had a significant negative impact on USborn workers8217 incomes Immigration in fact shows a modestly positive effect on 8220native8221 US workers8217 wages the EPI determined The finding is less counterintuitive than it might at first seem It is true that new immigrant workers add to local 8220unskilled8221 labor supplies They feed what Karl Marx called the reserve army of labor exercising downward pressure on wages at the bottom of the labor market But those workers also consume goods and services which creates jobs Job creation tightens the job market and thereby increases the marketplace bargaining power of USborn and other workers To say that immigrant workers are 8220stealing8221 jobs that would otherwise be available for USborn workers is misleading As labor economist Kim Moody has noted many jobs immigrant workers 8220take8221 exist because 8220natural8221 US population growth is too weak to fill them because 8220racism blocks 8216native8217 blacks particularly young black men from some of them8221 and because many 8220native8221 whites and blacks are unwilling to do jobs immigrants willingly perform Recent immigrant influxes to the US have been correlated with wage stagnation and other forms of declining job quality But correlation is not causation A number of factors aside from immigration have combined to erode working and living standards for the US working class over the last four decades The culprits include the drastic decline of unionization automation technical displacement the falling value of the minimum wage the shredding of the social welfare safety net and global trade and investment practices that 8220expose US workers with low levels of education to competition from much lower wage workers around the globe8221 As economist Joe Bivens has shown these and other neoliberal developments reflect policy 8220 failure by design8221 They are part of a determined and manysided topdown effort to suppress US wages at the bottom and concentrate wealth at the top Immigrant labor would have less or no depressive impact on 8220native8221 US workers8217 bargaining power if immigrant workers were accorded full civil and economic rights and if US unions were strong and willing to aggressively organize them Deportation as AntiWorker Sadism For those who care about the work and living standards of the entire global working class not just USborn or naturalized workers it is important to note that wage job and living condition improvements experienced by workers who move from poor to wealthy countries are massive compared with any reductions native workers experience as a result The call to deport immigrants back to their lands of origin carries more than a hint of sadism It amounts to sending people back to regions where it is impossible to make a decent living and where violence and terror are a constant threat Should we send exoffenders back to prison for an indefinite period because they become members of the reserve army of labor upon release A better approach would be to end the ruthless 8220new Jim Crow8221 discrimination imposed on felons organize them into unions and encourage and empower the criminal underclass to join with those not saddled by a criminal record and prison histories in fights for decent wages and conditions inside the US Americans who oppose immigration look ridiculous as well as meanspirited when they fail to acknowledge the critical role their nation8217s policies8212and the broader world capitalist system those policies back8212have played in the creating immigration Those policies have forced millions of people in the global south to flee their homelands in search of minimally decent lives in rich nations that have grown wealthy largely through the exploitation of the vast poor global periphery 8220Immigration8221 one Truthdig reader recently observed 8220does not happen in a vacuum It is not people just deciding to come here for a better life for themselves and their families Our foreign policy has much to do with why people come here from countries below our southern border 8230 Unless you look at the economic and political policy of the US you end up blaming victims and giving the perpetrators a free pass8221 As Blum explained 8220It8217s not that all these Mexican and Central American immigrants prefer to live in the United States They8217d much rather remain with their families and friends be able to speak their native language at all times and avoid the hardships imposed on them by American police and other rightwingers8221 8216This Whole Immigration Thing Is Not About Immigration8217 The ultimate perpetrator is the profits system at home and abroad In a recent lecture on and against nationalism and scapegoating foreigners renowned Marxist economist Richard Wolff cautions against wading too far into the weeds of the Trumpinstigated immigration debate Noting the indispensability of Mexican labor to the functioning of the US economy Wolff argues that the real function of the rightwing nativist demonization and scapegoating of immigrants in the US is to deflect discussion and policy away from the fundamental question that most demands attention and remedy8212capitalism8217s underlying war on democracy working people and the common good It8217s actually got nothing to do with whether immigration is good or bad for the US Do you really want to send all these people back Mexicans in our culture do an incredible amount of work Our construction industry is unthinkable without undocumented workers 8230 Who8217s gonna do all the work in New York City And at what rate of pay If you have to pay Americans who aren8217t of Mexican origin the kind of wage that those Americans think they ought to get the price of everything is going to go nuts 8230 and you8217ll be real sorry that the Mexicans aren8217t here anymore And the businesses that depend on those Mexicans and the housing stock that8217s gonna sit there empty with the rents not coming 8230 and the loans that are based on those rents 8230 None of this has been worked out Mr Trump has no clue 8230 let alone a plan to deal with any of it Because 8230 this whole immigration thing is not about immigration 8230 Immigration became exciting in the US as in Europe not because it is the key to our economic situation 8230 What8217s really going on here is that the American economy is in trouble Capitalism isn8217t working for the majority of American people 8230 and that8217s true of the British people and the French people and the Greek people etc These societies are not working real well And when societies begin to break down when their problem gets to the point where we are at you face a kind of existential crisis There are gonna be voices raised saying 8220It8217s the system8221 That8217s what I do That8217s why I8217m here To tell you it8217s the system And I8217m not the only one When you have a moment when a system is in crisis it8217s got to come up with an explanation for its problems that lead to actions that can be taken that leave the system out of the conversation That8217s what immigration is for 8230 It8217s easy to show that immigrants do as many good things as they do any kind of problem 8230 Like anybody else they8217re a mixed bag But are they the problem that8217s gonna fix our situation Not even close If they stay or don8217t stay our problems will remain Building on a richly bipartisan policy record of nativist border control Trump and his Republican cohorts are using the immigration issue like a matador8217s cape to distract divert and divide US citizens and workers while the ruling class continues to gore them with murderous impunity While defense of immigrant worker rights is essential those of us on the left would do well to remember that at the end of the day it8217s the capitalism stupid

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<p>The 2020 presidential campaign is more than 1,200 days away, but President Donald Trump held yet another Make America Great Again rally &#8212; this time in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And, as he did in past campaign speeches, Trump spoke for a long time and reeled off numerous false and misleading claims:</p> <p>The president visited Iowa on June 21, making an official stop first at <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/22/remarks-president-trump-agricultural-innovation-cedar-rapids-ia" type="external">Kirkwood Community College</a>&amp;#160;in Cedar Rapids&amp;#160;to talk about agriculture. Later that evening, Trump spoke to a large crowd in the nearby U.S. Cellular Center at a <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/rallies/cedar-rapids-ia/" type="external">political rally</a>&amp;#160;organized by his campaign.</p> <p>At his rally, Trump exaggerated when he claimed that his administration had deported MS-13 gang members &#8220;by the thousands.&#8221; It is by the hundreds, not thousands.</p> <p>Trump, June 21:&amp;#160;The other thing that I have to tell you. You have a gang called MS-13. &#8230;&amp;#160;These are true animals. We are moving them out of the country by the thousands, by the thousands.</p> <p>Trump is referring to the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang that was formed by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles in the 1980s. In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4666617/sessions-ms-13" type="external">said</a>&amp;#160;that there are 10,000 MS-13 gang members in the United States. That made us skeptical of the claim that &#8220;thousands&#8221; already had been deported.</p> <p>We asked the White House how many gang members have been removed under the Trump administration, but it declined to comment.</p> <p>However, the&amp;#160;Washington Post&amp;#160;on May 24&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/trump-wants-to-deport-ms-13-gang-members-el-salvador-is-dreading-their-return/2017/05/24/1e0ec5ae-39bf-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html?utm_term=.3b3620c81de2" type="external">wrote</a>&amp;#160;that this year the U.S. has deported 398 gang members to El Salvador &#8220;compared with 534 in all of 2016, according to Salvadoran government statistics.&#8221; Those figures represent members of all El Salvador gangs, such as MS-13 and the 18th Street gang.&amp;#160;MS-13 is &#8220;primarily El Salvadoran,&#8221; according to a&amp;#160; <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/national-gang-threat-assessment/2005/2005-part-01-of-01" type="external">2005 National Gang Threat Assessment</a>&amp;#160;report by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association, though it&#8217;s possible there are members from other countries.</p> <p>Danielle Bennett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told us in an email that so far in fiscal year 2017 &#8212; from Oct. 1, 2016, to June 4, 2017 &#8212; ICE has removed 2,798 gang members. But that includes all gang members, not just MS-13 members. She said ICE &#8220;does not track gang removals by specific gang,&#8221; so it does not know how many of the 2,798 were MS-13 members. The 2,798 removals also span both the Obama and Trump administrations, so not all of the FY 2017 deportations occurred under Trump.</p> <p>By contrast, there were 2,057 gang members deported in fiscal 2016, so there has been an increase this fiscal year. We don&#8217;t know how much of that is attributable to Trump&#8217;s policies, but Bennett said that ICE under the Trump administration &#8220;does specifically target MS-13 members for arrest and removal.&#8221; That appears to be corroborated by the statistics from El Salvador published in the Post.</p> <p>Bennett&amp;#160;also said that ICE Homeland Security Investigations has made 602 criminal arrests and 170 administrative immigration arrests of MS-13 members so far in fiscal year 2017, as of June 4. But those figures include arrests made under both administrations, and the criminal arrests include citizens and noncitizens alike. For example, ICE&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-led-gang-surge-nets-1378-arrests-nationwide" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;last month that it arrested 104 MS-13 gang members as part of a six-week anti-gang enforcement operation that resulted in 1,378 arrests from March 26 to May 6. But nearly two-thirds of all those arrested were U.S. citizens, so most would not have been eligible for deportation.</p> <p>Trump can take credit perhaps for cracking down on gang members and increasing the deportation rate of gang members from El Salvador. But he exaggerates when he says he is deporting MS-13 gang members &#8220;by the thousands.&#8221;</p> <p>Update, July 5: The U.S. has deported 580 gang members to El Salvador in the first half of 2017, from Jan. 1 to June 30,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">according to</a>&amp;#160;the Salvadoran government. That figure includes all gang members, not just those with MS-13.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>In the farming state of Iowa, Trump repeatedly played on the mythical claim that the federal estate tax is keeping family farms from being passed on to the next generation of farmers.</p> <p>First, in his&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/22/remarks-president-trump-agricultural-innovation-cedar-rapids-ia" type="external">speech at Kirkwood Community College</a>&amp;#160;in Cedar Rapids, the president said:</p> <p>Trump:&amp;#160;I want to make sure the next generation of Americans has that opportunity [to live on a farm] as well. &amp;#160;And, in particular, that includes your children and your grandchildren, and [we are] working very hard to get rid of the death tax so that those farms can be passed on.</p> <p>And at his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqYG2SVpaac" type="external">rally</a> later that evening, he said the estate tax should go because, &#8220;You should have a right to pass your farm onto your children and onto your grandchildren.&#8221;</p> <p>The fact is, however, that more than 99 percent of all farms are expected to be passed on without paying any estate tax at all. Repeal of the federal estate tax would benefit only the very wealthiest multimillionaires. And even the few who owe any tax may spread payments out over more than a decade.</p> <p>A&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/federal-tax-issues/federal-estate-taxes/" type="external">March 15 study by the Economic Research Service</a>&amp;#160;of the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 38,328 farms would become part of estates in 2016, of which only 0.42 percent &#8212; 161 estates &#8212; would owe any estate tax at all.</p> <p>All of those would be multimillion-dollar farms; only estates worth $5.45 million or more must file a return, and most of them don&#8217;t owe any tax. For those who do owe tax, the study estimated that the average effective rate would be 20 percent &#8212; with the option of spreading payments over 14 years.</p> <p>Separate research by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/briefing-book/briefing_book_-_chapter_4.pdf" type="external">puts the number even lower</a>. TPC estimates that only 50 farms and closely held businesses will pay any estate tax in 2017.</p> <p>And regardless of whether the number is 161 or 50, those farm estates that owe any tax at all have the option to spread installments over 14 years at reduced interest rates.</p> <p>When <a href="" type="internal">we wrote</a>&amp;#160;about this estate-tax myth in 2015, we reached out to&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.econ.iastate.edu/%7Eharl/" type="external">Neil Harl</a>, an Iowa State University professor of economics and agriculture, who has been studying the estate tax&#8217;s impact on small businesses and farms for decades.</p> <p>&#8220;I have been involved in this area since 1958&amp;#160;and I have never seen land that had to be sold to pay the federal estate tax&amp;#160;and I have conducted more than 3,400 seminars in 43 states which included federal estate tax planning,&#8221; Harl wrote to us in an email. The italics were his. And for this article, we checked back with him, and he said that is still the case.</p> <p>&#8220;The lobbyists early on, I am told, concluded farmers as a group are more highly respected than billionaires, at least on this issue,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Trump wrongly claimed that &#8220;all&#8221; insurance companies have left the individual market in Iowa. In fact, Medica Health announced on Monday that it would stay in the market statewide.</p> <p>The president further claimed that insurers are &#8220;leaving all of the states.&#8221; There are currently 44 counties in three states&amp;#160;with no insurer for 2018,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.kff.org/interactive/counties-at-risk-of-having-no-insurer-on-the-marketplace-exchange-in-2018/" type="external">according to the Kaiser Family Foundation</a>.</p> <p>Trump:&amp;#160;In fact, I was just told by your great governor and ex-governor that your insurance companies have all fled the state of Iowa. Pretty sad, isn&#8217;t it? Well, they&#8217;re &#8212; I&#8217;ll tell you what, they&#8217;re going from every state. They&#8217;re leaving all of the states.</p> <p>Iowa&#8217;s individual insurance marketplace &#8212; where those who get Affordable Care Act subsidies buy their own insurance &#8212; has had a shaky outlook for 2018. Before Medica&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/obamacare/medica-will-sell-aca-plans-statewide-in-iowa-next-year/article_040f1078-5625-5d86-9e71-df5b633b0d90.html" type="external">announcement on Monday</a>, the state&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2017/05/03/medica-last-insurer-selling-individual-health-policies-most-iowa-likely-exit/309664001/" type="external">was unsure</a>&amp;#160;if the insurance carrier would participate next year. Two other insurers &#8212;&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/iowa/articles/2017-04-06/health-insurer-to-stop-selling-individual-policies-in-iowa" type="external">Aetna and Wellmark</a>&amp;#160;&#8212; had already said they wouldn&#8217;t sell plans on the state marketplace in 2018, leaving Medica as potentially the sole statewide insurer. (Gundersen Health Plan sells policies in five of the state&#8217;s 99 counties, Iowa&#8217;s Insurance Division&amp;#160; <a href="https://iid.iowa.gov/documents/the-state-of-iowa%E2%80%99s-proposed-stopgap-measure-for-the-individual-health-insurance-market" type="external">says</a>.)</p> <p>Iowa&#8217;s Insurance Division said it was &#8220;unlikely these carriers will remain&#8221; in 2018 and&amp;#160; <a href="https://iid.iowa.gov/press-releases/iowa-seeks-federal-approval-of-health-insurance-stopgap-measure" type="external">proposed</a>&amp;#160;on June 12 to the federal Centers for Medicare &amp;amp; Medicaid Services a &#8220;stopgap measure&#8221; to retool the state&#8217;s ACA marketplace, where 72,000 Iowans now get coverage. That stopgap measure would change the income-based tax credits to age- and income-based assistance; create one plan rather than the metal levels of the ACA (bronze, silver, gold, platinum); and add funding to a state reinsurance program to help insurers cover high-cost individuals.</p> <p>Iowa&#8217;s Insurance Division confirmed to FactCheck.org that Medica was the only insurer to file 2018 proposed rates by this week&#8217;s deadline; Gundersen did not.</p> <p>Medica&#8217;s announcement&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/iowa/articles/2017-06-20/health-insurer-medica-seeks-435-percent-increase-in-iowa" type="external">was</a>&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2017/06/19/medica-intends-stay-iowas-health-insurance-market-43-higher-price/408694001/" type="external">widely</a>&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/obamacare/medica-will-sell-aca-plans-statewide-in-iowa-next-year/article_040f1078-5625-5d86-9e71-df5b633b0d90.html" type="external">reported</a>, and it said its 2018 plans would come with a 43 percent average premium increase. Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen&amp;#160; <a href="https://iid.iowa.gov/press-releases/iowa-insurance-division-response-to-medicas-individual-market-decision" type="external">said</a>&amp;#160;the state would still move forward with the stopgap proposal, and he expressed concern about Medica&#8217;s average rate increase driving away younger and healthier policyholders.</p> <p>Medica CEO John Naylor&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/the-last-obamacare-insurer-in-iowa-and-nebraska-intends-to-stay-on-the-exchanges.html" type="external">told CNBC</a>&amp;#160;on June 16 that the company wanted certainty from the federal government on whether cost-sharing subsidies for low-income individuals would continue. In late May, the Trump administration and House of Representatives asked for a 90-day delay to the federal lawsuit on the matter,&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/white-house-to-seek-90-day-delay-in-obamacare-subsidy-suit-238674" type="external">according to Politico</a>.</p> <p>&#8220;When the federal government set out certain rules, our expectations are that these rules are followed,&#8221; Naylor told CNBC. &#8220;So as we look at pricing we need to know are those rules going to be enforced in 2018.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump greatly exaggerated when he claimed that insurance companies are &#8220;leaving all of the states.&#8221; As of June 21, there were 44 counties, with 31,268 insurance enrollees, at risk of having no&amp;#160;insurance carrier for 2018, according to&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.kff.org/interactive/counties-at-risk-of-having-no-insurer-on-the-marketplace-exchange-in-2018/" type="external">an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation</a>, which relied on state rate filings and media reports. Those counties are in three states: Ohio, Missouri and Washington. However, the analysis notes that the insurer Centene&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/key-insurer-centene-plans-to-expand-health-exchange-presence/2017/06/13/d266a3e8-506a-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html?utm_term=.f7bb38d74cfd" type="external">said</a>&amp;#160;it would expand its insurance business in several states, including those three, but hasn&#8217;t detailed exactly where.</p> <p>&#8220;Insurer participation in 2018 will not be finalized until fall of 2017,&#8221; KFF says.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Trump again claimed he has reversed the trend of coal mining job losses, and misleadingly pointed to the opening of a new coal mine in Western Pennsylvania as evidence that his policies have led to a resurgence in coal mining. Neither of those is true.</p> <p>Trump, June 21: And we&#8217;ve ended the war on clean, beautiful coal. And we&#8217;re putting our miners back to work. In fact, you read about it, last week a brand new coal mine just opened in the state of Pennsylvania, first time in decades, decades. We&#8217;ve reversed &#8211; and 33,000 mining jobs have been added since my inauguration.</p> <p>In fact, there has been an increase of about 1,000 coal mining jobs since January, <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES1021210001" type="external">according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. For some perspective, there has been a total loss of nearly 40,000 coal mining jobs over the last five years.</p> <p /> <p>How does Trump get to 33,000? After talking specifically about coal mining, Trump cites a figure for all mining jobs &#8211; including gas, oil, metal ores, coal and nonmetallic mineral mining and quarrying. There have been <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES1021000001" type="external">32,600 total mining jobs</a> added since January.&amp;#160;We wrote about this issue <a href="" type="internal">once before</a> when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tried a similar sleight of hand.</p> <p>As for the grand opening of the Corsa Coal Company&#8217;s Acosta Deep Mine near Pittsburgh on June 8, that had nothing to do with Trump&#8217;s efforts to roll back coal regulations. As <a href="" type="internal">we wrote</a> when Trump made similar boasts earlier this month, development of the Acosta mine <a href="http://www.corsacoal.com/news/index.php?content_id=159" type="external">began in September</a>, two months before Trump&#8217;s election victory.</p> <p>Industry experts also tell us it is not emblematic of a resurgence of coal mining.</p> <p>The Acosta mine produces a particular type of coal that is used to make steel. That&#8217;s a bit of a niche market in the coal industry, accounting for just 10 percent of coal production in the U.S. There has been a surge in demand for this kind of coal because of production problems overseas.</p> <p>However, the vast majority of coal produced in the U.S. is thermal coal, the kind used to generate electricity. Consumption of that kind of coal has declined by nearly 18 percent between 2012 and 2016, mostly due to the surge in cheaper natural gas production driven by the shale revolution and to competition from renewable energy.</p> <p>Environmental regulations &#8212; which Trump has targeted &#8212; also hurt coal mining, but according to an <a href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/Center%20on%20Global%20Energy%20Policy%20Can%20Coal%20Make%20a%20Comeback%20April%202017.pdf" type="external">April report</a> from Columbia University&#8217;s Center on Global Energy Policy, those regulations were a &#8220;significantly smaller factor&#8221; in the shrinking of the coal industry. Industry experts say Trump&#8217;s efforts to roll back those regulations might stem the decline in coal consumption, but would not bring coal mining jobs back to levels seen even a few years ago.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Trump touted his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which he said would have been an economic &#8220;catastrophe&#8221; for the U.S. The&amp;#160; <a href="http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf" type="external">agreement</a>, which took effect&amp;#160; <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php" type="external">last year</a>, was signed by 195 countries and primarily aims to keep warming &#8220;well below 2&#176;C above pre-industrial levels&#8221; and to pursue &#8220;efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5&#176;C.&#8221;</p> <p>The president pushed back at critics who said the pact is nonbinding.</p> <p>&#8220;And they all say it&#8217;s nonbinding,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Like hell it&#8217;s nonbinding. When we get sued by everybody because we thought it was nonbinding, then you can tell me it was nonbinding.&#8221;</p> <p>There are aspects of the agreement that are legally binding. Todd Stern, a former U.S. special envoy for climate change,&amp;#160; <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/climate/releases/2015/250305.htm" type="external">explained</a>&amp;#160;in a press conference shortly before the agreement was reached that countries must submit &#8220; <a href="http://unfccc.int/focus/ndc_registry/items/9433.php" type="external">nationally determined contributions</a>&#8221; that outline their emissions targets and report actions taken to meet those targets. But meeting emissions targets wasn&#8217;t&amp;#160;one of the legal requirements.</p> <p>Stern, Dec. 2, 2015:&amp;#160;We&#8217;ve made our position clear all year long that we support an agreement that&#8217;s legally binding in many respects, including the elements of accountability of the agreement, the requirement to put forward a target, to do it with information that clarifies it, the obligation to report and be reviewed on your inventories and the actions you&#8217;re taking in order to meet your target. Any number of rules and so forth.&amp;#160;So a whole number of elements that are legally binding, but not the target itself.</p> <p>Stern&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-stay-in-the-paris-agreement-youll-regret-it-if-you-dont/2017/05/08/c2cc9f78-337d-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?utm_term=.a2be347022fd" type="external">wrote</a>&amp;#160;a May 8 op-ed for the&amp;#160;Washington Post&amp;#160;urging Trump to stay in the Paris Agreement. He said the president should &#8220;keep in mind that &#8212; as much as I would be sorry to see any retrenchment &#8212; countries can adjust their emissions targets downward. The agreement permits it, and I know because I helped negotiate that flexibility.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Trump said he was promoting legislation that would bar new immigrants from receiving welfare for five years, but a 20-year-old law already does that. He introduced his proposal after promising to preserve the &#8220;safety net&#8221; for people who &#8220;truly need help.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump, June 21: But others don&#8217;t treat us fairly. That&#8217;s why I believe the time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years. And we&#8217;ll be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly.</p> <p>But as&amp;#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/338901-trumps-suggests-creating-law-that-has-been-enacted-since-1996" type="external">The Hill&amp;#160;</a>pointed out, such a law already exists. The&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ193/PLAW-104publ193.pdf" type="external">Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act</a>, signed into law in 1996 by then-President Bill Clinton, states that immigrants are &#8220;not eligible for any Federal means-tested public benefit for a period of 5 years beginning on the date of the alien&#8217;s entry into the United States.&#8221; That would include such benefits as food stamps, Medicaid and Social Security.</p> <p>As&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/22/trump-proposes-immigration-law-already-exists/420014001/" type="external">USA Today&amp;#160;noted</a>, there are some exceptions in the law for children and pregnant women, refugees, and active duty military or veterans. It&#8217;s possible, the story notes, that Trump is seeking to toughen the restrictions, or to eliminate some exceptions. Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/budget.pdf" type="external">proposed FY 2018 budget</a> notes that refugees are exempt from the five-year waiting period, and stresses the need to control the cost of benefits paid to immigrant-headed households. But it offered no details on how that would be accomplished beyond reducing the number of refugees, curbing illegal immigration and increasing merit-based legal immigration.</p> <p>We reached out to Trump&#8217;s press office for clarification, but it declined to provide any information on the record.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Trump also repeated the claim that the U.S. already has spent $6 trillion in the Middle East since 2001. It hasn&#8217;t.</p> <p>Trump, June 21:&amp;#160;After decades of rebuilding foreign nations all over the world, we are now rebuilding our nation. As of a few months ago, our country has spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, wasted. &#8230;&amp;#160;We started 16 years ago and it&#8217;s in far worse shape than it was 16 years ago by many times over. So, we spent all of this money, all of these lives.</p> <p>Actually, the U.S. has spent about $1.7 trillion through fiscal year 2016, which ended Sept. 30, 2016,&amp;#160; <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44519.pdf" type="external">according to a February report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service</a>.</p> <p>During the campaign, Trump&amp;#160;made the $6 trillion figure a talking point. For example, in Philadelphia, he gave&amp;#160; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161102005649/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-remarks-at-the-philadelphia-health-care-event" type="external">a speech</a>&amp;#160;in which he said, &#8220;We must declare our independence from a failed establishment that has squandered $6 trillion on foreign wars in the Middle East that never end and that we never win and that have made us less safe.&#8221;</p> <p>His campaign at the time <a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/50TopFactsAboutHillaryClintonEconomicAndPoliticalCorruption.pdf" type="external">cited</a>&amp;#160;a&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314" type="external">Reuters news article</a>&amp;#160;about a study that projected the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the U.S. $6 trillion &#8220;over the next four decades.&#8221; The story said the cost estimate included &#8220;future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.&#8221;</p> <p>It may be that the wars eventually will cost the U.S. $6 trillion. However, Trump said the U.S. &#8220;has spent $6 trillion&#8221; (past tense) as of &#8220;a few months ago.&#8221; That&#8217;s not accurate.</p>

FactChecking Trump’s Iowa Rally

https://factcheck.org/2017/06/factchecking-trumps-iowa-rally/

2017-06-22

2least

The 2020 presidential campaign is more than 1200 days away but President Donald Trump held yet another Make America Great Again rally 8212 this time in Cedar Rapids Iowa And as he did in past campaign speeches Trump spoke for a long time and reeled off numerous false and misleading claims The president visited Iowa on June 21 making an official stop first at Kirkwood Community Collegeamp160in Cedar Rapidsamp160to talk about agriculture Later that evening Trump spoke to a large crowd in the nearby US Cellular Center at a political rallyamp160organized by his campaign At his rally Trump exaggerated when he claimed that his administration had deported MS13 gang members 8220by the thousands8221 It is by the hundreds not thousands Trump June 21amp160The other thing that I have to tell you You have a gang called MS13 8230amp160These are true animals We are moving them out of the country by the thousands by the thousands Trump is referring to the Mara Salvatrucha or MS13 a gang that was formed by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles in the 1980s In April Attorney General Jeff Sessionsamp160 saidamp160that there are 10000 MS13 gang members in the United States That made us skeptical of the claim that 8220thousands8221 already had been deported We asked the White House how many gang members have been removed under the Trump administration but it declined to comment However theamp160Washington Postamp160on May 24amp160 wroteamp160that this year the US has deported 398 gang members to El Salvador 8220compared with 534 in all of 2016 according to Salvadoran government statistics8221 Those figures represent members of all El Salvador gangs such as MS13 and the 18th Street gangamp160MS13 is 8220primarily El Salvadoran8221 according to aamp160 2005 National Gang Threat Assessmentamp160report by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association though it8217s possible there are members from other countries Danielle Bennett a spokeswoman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement told us in an email that so far in fiscal year 2017 8212 from Oct 1 2016 to June 4 2017 8212 ICE has removed 2798 gang members But that includes all gang members not just MS13 members She said ICE 8220does not track gang removals by specific gang8221 so it does not know how many of the 2798 were MS13 members The 2798 removals also span both the Obama and Trump administrations so not all of the FY 2017 deportations occurred under Trump By contrast there were 2057 gang members deported in fiscal 2016 so there has been an increase this fiscal year We don8217t know how much of that is attributable to Trump8217s policies but Bennett said that ICE under the Trump administration 8220does specifically target MS13 members for arrest and removal8221 That appears to be corroborated by the statistics from El Salvador published in the Post Bennettamp160also said that ICE Homeland Security Investigations has made 602 criminal arrests and 170 administrative immigration arrests of MS13 members so far in fiscal year 2017 as of June 4 But those figures include arrests made under both administrations and the criminal arrests include citizens and noncitizens alike For example ICEamp160 reportedamp160last month that it arrested 104 MS13 gang members as part of a sixweek antigang enforcement operation that resulted in 1378 arrests from March 26 to May 6 But nearly twothirds of all those arrested were US citizens so most would not have been eligible for deportation Trump can take credit perhaps for cracking down on gang members and increasing the deportation rate of gang members from El Salvador But he exaggerates when he says he is deporting MS13 gang members 8220by the thousands8221 Update July 5 The US has deported 580 gang members to El Salvador in the first half of 2017 from Jan 1 to June 30amp160 according toamp160the Salvadoran government That figure includes all gang members not just those with MS13 amp160 In the farming state of Iowa Trump repeatedly played on the mythical claim that the federal estate tax is keeping family farms from being passed on to the next generation of farmers First in hisamp160 speech at Kirkwood Community Collegeamp160in Cedar Rapids the president said Trumpamp160I want to make sure the next generation of Americans has that opportunity to live on a farm as well amp160And in particular that includes your children and your grandchildren and we are working very hard to get rid of the death tax so that those farms can be passed on And at his rally later that evening he said the estate tax should go because 8220You should have a right to pass your farm onto your children and onto your grandchildren8221 The fact is however that more than 99 percent of all farms are expected to be passed on without paying any estate tax at all Repeal of the federal estate tax would benefit only the very wealthiest multimillionaires And even the few who owe any tax may spread payments out over more than a decade Aamp160 March 15 study by the Economic Research Serviceamp160of the US Department of Agriculture estimated that 38328 farms would become part of estates in 2016 of which only 042 percent 8212 161 estates 8212 would owe any estate tax at all All of those would be multimilliondollar farms only estates worth 545 million or more must file a return and most of them don8217t owe any tax For those who do owe tax the study estimated that the average effective rate would be 20 percent 8212 with the option of spreading payments over 14 years Separate research by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Centeramp160 puts the number even lower TPC estimates that only 50 farms and closely held businesses will pay any estate tax in 2017 And regardless of whether the number is 161 or 50 those farm estates that owe any tax at all have the option to spread installments over 14 years at reduced interest rates When we wroteamp160about this estatetax myth in 2015 we reached out toamp160 Neil Harl an Iowa State University professor of economics and agriculture who has been studying the estate tax8217s impact on small businesses and farms for decades 8220I have been involved in this area since 1958amp160and I have never seen land that had to be sold to pay the federal estate taxamp160and I have conducted more than 3400 seminars in 43 states which included federal estate tax planning8221 Harl wrote to us in an email The italics were his And for this article we checked back with him and he said that is still the case 8220The lobbyists early on I am told concluded farmers as a group are more highly respected than billionaires at least on this issue8221 he added amp160 Trump wrongly claimed that 8220all8221 insurance companies have left the individual market in Iowa In fact Medica Health announced on Monday that it would stay in the market statewide The president further claimed that insurers are 8220leaving all of the states8221 There are currently 44 counties in three statesamp160with no insurer for 2018amp160 according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Trumpamp160In fact I was just told by your great governor and exgovernor that your insurance companies have all fled the state of Iowa Pretty sad isn8217t it Well they8217re 8212 I8217ll tell you what they8217re going from every state They8217re leaving all of the states Iowa8217s individual insurance marketplace 8212 where those who get Affordable Care Act subsidies buy their own insurance 8212 has had a shaky outlook for 2018 Before Medica8217samp160 announcement on Monday the stateamp160 was unsureamp160if the insurance carrier would participate next year Two other insurers 8212amp160 Aetna and Wellmarkamp1608212 had already said they wouldn8217t sell plans on the state marketplace in 2018 leaving Medica as potentially the sole statewide insurer Gundersen Health Plan sells policies in five of the state8217s 99 counties Iowa8217s Insurance Divisionamp160 says Iowa8217s Insurance Division said it was 8220unlikely these carriers will remain8221 in 2018 andamp160 proposedamp160on June 12 to the federal Centers for Medicare ampamp Medicaid Services a 8220stopgap measure8221 to retool the state8217s ACA marketplace where 72000 Iowans now get coverage That stopgap measure would change the incomebased tax credits to age and incomebased assistance create one plan rather than the metal levels of the ACA bronze silver gold platinum and add funding to a state reinsurance program to help insurers cover highcost individuals Iowa8217s Insurance Division confirmed to FactCheckorg that Medica was the only insurer to file 2018 proposed rates by this week8217s deadline Gundersen did not Medica8217s announcementamp160 wasamp160 widelyamp160 reported and it said its 2018 plans would come with a 43 percent average premium increase Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommenamp160 saidamp160the state would still move forward with the stopgap proposal and he expressed concern about Medica8217s average rate increase driving away younger and healthier policyholders Medica CEO John Nayloramp160 told CNBCamp160on June 16 that the company wanted certainty from the federal government on whether costsharing subsidies for lowincome individuals would continue In late May the Trump administration and House of Representatives asked for a 90day delay to the federal lawsuit on the matteramp160 according to Politico 8220When the federal government set out certain rules our expectations are that these rules are followed8221 Naylor told CNBC 8220So as we look at pricing we need to know are those rules going to be enforced in 20188221 Trump greatly exaggerated when he claimed that insurance companies are 8220leaving all of the states8221 As of June 21 there were 44 counties with 31268 insurance enrollees at risk of having noamp160insurance carrier for 2018 according toamp160 an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation which relied on state rate filings and media reports Those counties are in three states Ohio Missouri and Washington However the analysis notes that the insurer Centeneamp160 saidamp160it would expand its insurance business in several states including those three but hasn8217t detailed exactly where 8220Insurer participation in 2018 will not be finalized until fall of 20178221 KFF says amp160 Trump again claimed he has reversed the trend of coal mining job losses and misleadingly pointed to the opening of a new coal mine in Western Pennsylvania as evidence that his policies have led to a resurgence in coal mining Neither of those is true Trump June 21 And we8217ve ended the war on clean beautiful coal And we8217re putting our miners back to work In fact you read about it last week a brand new coal mine just opened in the state of Pennsylvania first time in decades decades We8217ve reversed 8211 and 33000 mining jobs have been added since my inauguration In fact there has been an increase of about 1000 coal mining jobs since January according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics For some perspective there has been a total loss of nearly 40000 coal mining jobs over the last five years How does Trump get to 33000 After talking specifically about coal mining Trump cites a figure for all mining jobs 8211 including gas oil metal ores coal and nonmetallic mineral mining and quarrying There have been 32600 total mining jobs added since Januaryamp160We wrote about this issue once before when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tried a similar sleight of hand As for the grand opening of the Corsa Coal Company8217s Acosta Deep Mine near Pittsburgh on June 8 that had nothing to do with Trump8217s efforts to roll back coal regulations As we wrote when Trump made similar boasts earlier this month development of the Acosta mine began in September two months before Trump8217s election victory Industry experts also tell us it is not emblematic of a resurgence of coal mining The Acosta mine produces a particular type of coal that is used to make steel That8217s a bit of a niche market in the coal industry accounting for just 10 percent of coal production in the US There has been a surge in demand for this kind of coal because of production problems overseas However the vast majority of coal produced in the US is thermal coal the kind used to generate electricity Consumption of that kind of coal has declined by nearly 18 percent between 2012 and 2016 mostly due to the surge in cheaper natural gas production driven by the shale revolution and to competition from renewable energy Environmental regulations 8212 which Trump has targeted 8212 also hurt coal mining but according to an April report from Columbia University8217s Center on Global Energy Policy those regulations were a 8220significantly smaller factor8221 in the shrinking of the coal industry Industry experts say Trump8217s efforts to roll back those regulations might stem the decline in coal consumption but would not bring coal mining jobs back to levels seen even a few years ago amp160 Trump touted his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement which he said would have been an economic 8220catastrophe8221 for the US Theamp160 agreement which took effectamp160 last year was signed by 195 countries and primarily aims to keep warming 8220well below 2176C above preindustrial levels8221 and to pursue 8220efforts to limit the temperature increase to 15176C8221 The president pushed back at critics who said the pact is nonbinding 8220And they all say it8217s nonbinding8221 he said 8220Like hell it8217s nonbinding When we get sued by everybody because we thought it was nonbinding then you can tell me it was nonbinding8221 There are aspects of the agreement that are legally binding Todd Stern a former US special envoy for climate changeamp160 explainedamp160in a press conference shortly before the agreement was reached that countries must submit 8220 nationally determined contributions8221 that outline their emissions targets and report actions taken to meet those targets But meeting emissions targets wasn8217tamp160one of the legal requirements Stern Dec 2 2015amp160We8217ve made our position clear all year long that we support an agreement that8217s legally binding in many respects including the elements of accountability of the agreement the requirement to put forward a target to do it with information that clarifies it the obligation to report and be reviewed on your inventories and the actions you8217re taking in order to meet your target Any number of rules and so forthamp160So a whole number of elements that are legally binding but not the target itself Sternamp160 wroteamp160a May 8 oped for theamp160Washington Postamp160urging Trump to stay in the Paris Agreement He said the president should 8220keep in mind that 8212 as much as I would be sorry to see any retrenchment 8212 countries can adjust their emissions targets downward The agreement permits it and I know because I helped negotiate that flexibility8221 amp160 Trump said he was promoting legislation that would bar new immigrants from receiving welfare for five years but a 20yearold law already does that He introduced his proposal after promising to preserve the 8220safety net8221 for people who 8220truly need help8221 Trump June 21 But others don8217t treat us fairly That8217s why I believe the time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years And we8217ll be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly But asamp160 The Hillamp160pointed out such a law already exists Theamp160 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act signed into law in 1996 by thenPresident Bill Clinton states that immigrants are 8220not eligible for any Federal meanstested public benefit for a period of 5 years beginning on the date of the alien8217s entry into the United States8221 That would include such benefits as food stamps Medicaid and Social Security Asamp160 USA Todayamp160noted there are some exceptions in the law for children and pregnant women refugees and active duty military or veterans It8217s possible the story notes that Trump is seeking to toughen the restrictions or to eliminate some exceptions Trump8217s proposed FY 2018 budget notes that refugees are exempt from the fiveyear waiting period and stresses the need to control the cost of benefits paid to immigrantheaded households But it offered no details on how that would be accomplished beyond reducing the number of refugees curbing illegal immigration and increasing meritbased legal immigration We reached out to Trump8217s press office for clarification but it declined to provide any information on the record amp160 Trump also repeated the claim that the US already has spent 6 trillion in the Middle East since 2001 It hasn8217t Trump June 21amp160After decades of rebuilding foreign nations all over the world we are now rebuilding our nation As of a few months ago our country has spent 6 trillion in the Middle East wasted 8230amp160We started 16 years ago and it8217s in far worse shape than it was 16 years ago by many times over So we spent all of this money all of these lives Actually the US has spent about 17 trillion through fiscal year 2016 which ended Sept 30 2016amp160 according to a February report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service During the campaign Trumpamp160made the 6 trillion figure a talking point For example in Philadelphia he gaveamp160 a speechamp160in which he said 8220We must declare our independence from a failed establishment that has squandered 6 trillion on foreign wars in the Middle East that never end and that we never win and that have made us less safe8221 His campaign at the time citedamp160aamp160 Reuters news articleamp160about a study that projected the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the US 6 trillion 8220over the next four decades8221 The story said the cost estimate included 8220future commitments such as the medical and disability claims of US war veterans8221 It may be that the wars eventually will cost the US 6 trillion However Trump said the US 8220has spent 6 trillion8221 past tense as of 8220a few months ago8221 That8217s not accurate

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<p>Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Eric Von Seggern</p> <p>A few months ago, fourth-grader Joey Furlong was lying in a hospital bed, undergoing a pre-brain surgery screening, when a teacher&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">walked in the room</a>&amp;#160;with a standardized test. Shocked, Joey&#8217;s father, who was in the room, told the teacher to leave.</p> <p>Joey&#8217;s mother, Tami Furlong, later said, &#8220;I would like to hope she would not have taken his arm that has an IV and oximeter on it and put a No. 2 pencil in it.&#8221;</p> <p>Joey&#8217;s story serves as one example of just how absurdly enforced standardized testing has become. Since George W. Bush&#8217;s No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2002, testing in the United States has skyrocketed. Before NCLB, under Bill Clinton&#8217;s Improving America&#8217;s Schools Act, the federal government <a href="//www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/education/no_child/before.html" type="external">required</a> students to take six tests total &#8212; a reading and math test in elementary, middle and high school. Under NCLB, in order to receive federal funding, schools are required to make students take 14 tests total &#8212; a reading and math test from grades 3-8 and once in high school, plus a science test in elementary, middle and high school. But some districts require even more tests.</p> <p>Barack Obama&#8217;s $500 million competitive grant program Race to the Top, enacted in 2009, chiefly inspired school districts to give more tests. Amidst the recession, state budgets were hit hard, and government officials were willing to do whatever they could to receive money. Now, at least 25 states mandate one formal assessment test in kindergarten. Race to the Top&#8217;s 2011 Early Learning Challenge awarded schools that could prove their students' &#8220;readiness&#8221; to begin school &#8212; meaning how well four-year-olds did on &#8220;entry assessments.&#8221;</p> <p>In order to execute these policies that significantly expanded testing, school districts needed test providers. This, in turn, made some educational corporations very rich. Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to prevent the misuse of standardized testing, said he is inclined to blame politicians, rather than corporations, for the testing boom.</p> <p>He said, &#8220;In a capitalist society, if there&#8217;s a market, somebody will figure out how to serve it. But the corporations reinforce the stupidity of the bad policies of politicians.&#8221;</p> <p>Pearson is the largest corporation serving this testing market. Pearson is the world&#8217;s largest education company and book publisher, bringing in more than $9 billion annually.</p> <p>But Pearson wasn&#8217;t always so big. In fact, Pearson, a British multinational corporation, was just starting out in the early 2000s. But &#8220;Pearson looked at NCLB as its business plan,&#8221; Schaeffer said. Pearson began rapidly buying up U.S. companies.</p> <p>Currently, Pearson has partnered with 18 states in the U.S., as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, to produce pricey testing materials. For a five-year contract, Pearson was paid $32 million to produce standardized tests for New York. Its contract in Texas was worth $500 million. Pearson also owns Connections Academy, a company that runs for-profit, virtual charter schools. It also owns the GED program, although competitors have been&amp;#160; <a href="//www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/16/ged-faces-competition-states-weigh-two-new-entrants" type="external">creating alternatives</a>&amp;#160;in order to combat Pearson&#8217;s expensive tests. By and large, the massive corporation has far-reaching control over the education industry.</p> <p>Noted educator Diane Ravitch&amp;#160; <a href="//dianeravitch.net/2012/06/07/pearsonization/" type="external">wrote</a>, &#8220;Truly, the reach of Pearson across all of American education is astonishing.&#8221;</p> <p>While Pearson is the major player in the rise of standardized testing, other corporations have a stake in testing as well. CTB/McGraw-Hill is probably Pearson&#8217;s main competitor, with several states across the country using its standardized tests. CTB/McGraw, with revenues of more than $2 billion, is best know for its TerraNova and California Achievement Tests. Other players include Education Testing Services, as well as Riverside Publishing and its parent company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.</p> <p>But while the corporations enjoy large profits, their products continue to damage our education system. Here are eight things you need to understand about these corporations and their tests.</p> <p>1. The tests are full of errors.</p> <p>At least the corporations that make these tests are able to score them properly. Right?</p> <p>Wrong &#8212; and by a long shot.</p> <p>Most recently, hundreds of New York City high school seniors had to anxiously await their diplomas because McGraw-Hill Education made quite a blunder of scoring their Regents exams. The computer system used to score the exams that determine if a student can graduate broke down. The scoring computer system was part of a&amp;#160; <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/nyregion/grading-problems-with-regents-exams-delay-some-diplomas.html?_r=2&amp;amp;" type="external">$9.6 million contract</a>&amp;#160;with the city.&amp;#160;</p> <p>CTB/McGraw-Hill is also under fire for not having enough computer memory while students in Indiana took their tests, causing 80,000 students to experience&amp;#160; <a href="//www.indystar.com/article/20130621/NEWS/306210024/State-Department-Education-will-seek-least-613-000-ISTEP-testing-problems-McGraw-Hill-president-apologizes" type="external">interruptions</a>&amp;#160;during test-taking. While the state owes the corporation $24 million for this year&#8217;s tests, the state&#8217;s education department is hoping to seek more than $600,000 in damages.</p> <p>In Oklahoma, students experienced similar glitches this year, prompting the Oklahoma Education Association to&amp;#160; <a href="//www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/oklahoma-standardized-tests_n_3504730.html" type="external">demand</a>&amp;#160;the tests be disregarded. According to their report, students &#8220;were left waiting for hours to finish tests, arrived at school day after day expecting to be tested only to experience additional delays, and had to take the same tests multiple times. &#8230; Consequently, thousands of students were left exhausted, frustrated, demoralized and incapable of giving their best effort."</p> <p>A few months ago, Pearson&amp;#160; <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/education/score-corrections-qualify-nearly-2700-more-pupils-for-gifted-programs.html?_r=0" type="external">erroneously scored</a>&amp;#160;New York City students&#8217; tests used for entry into its gifted and talented programs. Thirteen percent of students K-3 (yes, kindergarteners take these tests), who were qualified for the programs, were wrongly rejected.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Last year, researchers&amp;#160; <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texass-standardized-tests-flawed-researchers-say/2012/07/30/gJQAD4jVKX_blog.html" type="external">found a design flaw</a>&amp;#160;in Pearson&#8217;s standardized tests for Texas students. Pearson's&amp;#160; <a href="//www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/pearson-problems-nothing-new-testing-world" type="external">long history</a>&amp;#160;of delaying scores and wrongly scoring goes on and on.</p> <p>2. The corporations encourage new standards, to make new tests, to make new money.</p> <p>One of the best ways a standardized testing corporation can make more money is by coming up with new standards, which is why it&#8217;s not surprising that Pearson has&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">played a role</a>&amp;#160;in crafting the new Common Core State Standards, a new set of standards set to be implemented in&amp;#160; <a href="//www.corestandards.org/in-the-states" type="external">most states</a>&amp;#160;this coming school year. Advocates argue these new standards will increase but not improve testing &#8212;which will now be done on computers many schools don&#8217;t even have.</p> <p>Its website states: &#8220;Pearson&#8217;s close association with key authors and architects of the Common Core State Standards ensures that the spirit and pedagogical approach of the initiative is embodied in our professional development.&#8221;</p> <p>Assessment experts and academics were the&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">main writers</a>&amp;#160;of the Common Core standards, while few of its consultants were classroom teachers, and parents played no role. The tests are expected to be much harder than current tests. They are supposed to be able to determine &#8220;college readiness,&#8221; although many&amp;#160; <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/07/principal-to-parents-dont-buy-the-bunk-about-new-common-core-tests/" type="external">realize</a>&amp;#160;&#8212; including Pearson researchers &#8212; that testing this is a complex matter.</p> <p>But whether or not these new standards are well designed, effective or useful doesn&#8217;t matter much when schools get more points from the federal Race to the Top program for implementing them. Pearson, then, acts as a national aid, ready to assist in the new profitable standards by&amp;#160; <a href="//www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/protest-builds-against-pe_b_1586573.html" type="external">developing</a>&amp;#160;the curriculum and assessments.</p> <p>Peter Cohen, CEO of Pearson's K-12 division,&amp;#160; <a href="//www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/protest-builds-against-pe_b_1586573.html" type="external">said</a>: &#8220;It's a really big deal. The Common Core standards are affecting literally every part of the business we're involved in."</p> <p>The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, estimates implementing the new standards will cost the nation between $1 billion and $8 billion. Nearly all the profits will go to book publishers and test creators like Pearson and CTB/McGraw-Hill.</p> <p>Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer of New York City schools, has&amp;#160; <a href="//www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/protest-builds-against-pe_b_1586573.html" type="external">warned</a>: "There's lots and lots of books that have got fancy, pretty stickers on them saying 'Common Core,' but they actually haven't changed anything in the inside."</p> <p>3. They profit from testing teachers, too.</p> <p>As corporations have found they can profit from turning students into unimaginative machines, they are newly discovering they can profit from standardizing teachers as well. Pearson&#8217;s new edTPA standardized assessments will determine teacher certification. Seven states have already adopted edTPA, with New York set to implement the program in May 2014.</p> <p>The standard requires those pursuing a teaching career to complete the assessment during student teaching. Pearson requires these student teachers to complete a written examination and submit at least 20-minute videos of themselves teaching, which the corporation will then own. The test costs prospective teachers $300. And instead of a teacher or supervisor assessing the instruction, Pearson will pay anonymous, current or retired teachers or administrators $75 to evaluate them.</p> <p>This type of teaching assessment completely tears down the imaginative art and craft of teaching by standardizing it, which can only leave students to be less excited about school, with less personal connection to teachers.</p> <p>One prospective student relayed his fears of edTPA to his teacher:</p> <p>Joel &#8230; was excited because the teacher he had been assigned to for Fieldwork I, where students spend 35 hours observing and participating in secondary settings, had invited him to student teach with her. Because he had tremendous respect and admiration for this teacher, Joel was thrilled by the opportunity. But he was also worried, so worried that he hesitated to accept the offer.</p> <p>Joel was apprehensive about completing the edTPA in this school. It is an urban environment in a community noted for poverty and gang activity. He had forged relationships with the young people in the school, as well as several faculty members, but the judgment of an objective scorer who might not understand if the classroom was not filled with compliant, well-behaved learners had made my student hesitate.</p> <p>4. They have lobbying power.</p> <p>Not only are these corporations cheering on additional testing from the sidelines, they are also flexing their money muscle via lobbying. One 2011&amp;#160; <a href="//www.republicreport.org/2012/testing-company-pearson-spending-millions-to-influence-schools/" type="external">report</a>&amp;#160;found Pearson spent close to $700,000 lobbying in four key states.</p> <p>But most of its lobbying is much more implicit. The&amp;#160;New York Times&amp;#160; <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/education/new-york-attorney-general-is-investigating-pearson-education.html?_r=0" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;that in 2011, Pearson Foundation underwent investigation for paying for state officials trips to education conferences overseas. The foundation, which is a non-profit and tax-exempt, was charged with using its resources to benefit the Pearson for-profit company.</p> <p>Possibly the most egregious activity was uncovered in a recent&amp;#160; <a href="//www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/emails-show-corporate-influence-conflict-interest-education-reform" type="external">report</a>&amp;#160;published by&amp;#160;In the Public Interest,&amp;#160;which found that Pearson helps fund Foundation for Excellence in Education and its partner Chiefs for Change &#8212; both Jeb Bush-founded, conservative education policy advocacy organizations. In turn, the foundation crafts policy that profits Pearson. The report&amp;#160; <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/30/e-mails-link-bush-foundation-corporations-and-education-officials/" type="external">disclosed emails</a>&amp;#160;between the two organizations that show they are working on writing state laws benefiting their corporate funders. The organizations have already written education policies that benefit its funders in Florida, Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island.</p> <p>5. Their test content is absurd.</p> <p>If you haven&#8217;t heard of &#8220;Pineapplegate,&#8221; be sure to check out Pearson&#8217;s&amp;#160; <a href="//www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/%E2%80%9Cpineapples-don%E2%80%99t-have-sleeves%E2%80%9D-this-is-an-actual-passage-given-to-eighth-graders-" type="external">absurd passage</a>&amp;#160;about a race between a hare and a pineapple, given to New York eighth-graders last year, and see if you can answer the bizarre questions. Perhaps the worst part about Pineapplegate was Pearson&#8217;s defense of the passage and its questions by offering&amp;#160; <a href="//www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/%E2%80%9Cpineapples-don%E2%80%99t-have-sleeves%E2%80%9D-this-is-an-actual-passage-given-to-eighth-graders-" type="external">nonsensical explanations</a>&amp;#160;to the &#8220;correct&#8221; answers.</p> <p>Aside from illogical content, tests often include questions that require skills not yet taught to the students. For example, New York had to&amp;#160; <a href="//www.wnyc.org/blogs/schoolbook/2012/may/02/state-officials-throw-out-another-pearson-test-question/" type="external">toss</a>&amp;#160;a math question because it required students to understand mathematical concepts not taught until middle or high school.</p> <p>Meanwhile, bilingual students have to take tests in English before they have mastered the language. It takes five to seven years to master a language. Students with special needs are also required to take these tests and receive few accommodations.</p> <p>6. They give students with the &#8216;proper&#8217; textbooks an advantage.</p> <p>Besides making sure students are graded properly, how else can you ensure they do well on Pearson&#8217;s tests? By making sure your school buys Pearson&#8217;s books. In a&amp;#160; <a href="//dianeravitch.net/2013/04/18/how-pearson-cheats-on-state-tests/" type="external">blog post</a>&amp;#160;titled &#8220;How Pearson Cheats on State Tests,&#8221; Diane Ravitch writes that an upstate New York teacher alerted her to the fact that her student&#8217;s standardized tests contained a story her students read a week earlier from their textbooks.</p> <p>The teacher wrote:</p> <p>On Day 1 of the NYS ELA 8 Exam, I discovered what I believe to be a huge ethical flaw in the State test. The state test included a passage on why leaves change color that is included in the Pearson-generated NYS ELA 8 text. I taught it in my class just last week. In a test with 6 passages and questions to complete in 90 minutes, it was a huge advantage to students fortunate enough to use a Pearson text and not that of a rival publisher. It may very well have an impact on student test scores.</p> <p>7. They make students take additional tests for their company research.</p> <p>How does Pearson attempt to fine-tune its tests? Not by using paid research or paying students to take tests. Instead, it administers &#8220;field tests&#8221; to certain schools and subjects students to even further testing during the school year.</p> <p>Last year, parents in NYC were fed up, and&amp;#160; <a href="//gothamschools.org/2012/05/22/with-field-tests-approaching-parents-are-reprising-protests/" type="external">protested</a>&amp;#160;against administering what some called &#8220;free pilot studies&#8221; for Pearson. Meanwhile, teachers were sent a memo from the NY State Education&#8217;s Office telling them to lie to students and pretend that these&amp;#160; <a href="//nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2012/05/deception-by-nysed-about-state-field.html" type="external">field tests were real</a>.</p> <p>A few months later, Pearson decided to try bribery as an approach to continuing its field-testing. If principals&amp;#160; <a href="//dianeravitch.net/2012/08/30/will-you-give-your-students-to-pearson-for-an-ipad/" type="external">decided</a>&amp;#160;to use their students as guinea pigs, they would get a free Kindle, Nook, iPad, or iPod Touch.</p> <p>8. They use product placement.</p> <p>Mug&#8482; Root Beer, IBM&#8482;, Lego&#174;, FIFA&#174; and Mindstorms&#8482; &#8212; what do all these corporate brands have in common? They were all found in&amp;#160;this year&#8217;s New York State English exam. Pearson denies receiving money from these corporations, though some&amp;#160; <a href="//perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/05/nysedpearson-should-be-investigated.html" type="external">say</a>&amp;#160;there should be further investigation.</p> <p>Eighth-grader Isaiah Schrader wrote a&amp;#160; <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/08/eighth-grader-what-bothered-me-most-about-new-common-core-test/" type="external">piece</a>&amp;#160;about how he &#8220;found the trademark references and their associated footnotes very distracting and troubling.&#8221; Schrader argued that even if they weren&#8217;t paid, Pearson should not advertise to children, who are especially susceptible to advertising. He wrote:</p> <p>No students should be required, however, to take tests that subject them to hidden advertising. Clearly the trademarked products mentioned throughout the exam had no relevance to the stated goals of testing students&#8217; reading comprehension and analytical skills. Surely Pearson can afford to edit standardized tests and remove all mention of trademarked products.</p> <p>***</p> <p>The goal of NCLB was to improve overall achievement in education, to surpass some of the U.S.&#8217;s international competitors, and to close the race gap. Yet, after 11 years, research has found no significant improvement in test scores. One <a href="//fairtest.org/sites/default/files/NCLB_Report_Final_Layout.pdf" type="external">report</a> by FairTest, revealed that scores actually increased more rapidly prior to NCLB. There was also no evidence of the race gap narrowing. A National Research Council report <a href="//www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/report-school-testing_n_868083.html" type="external">showed</a> similar results. And no significant improvement has been made concerning the country&#8217;s ranking in reading and math scores compared with other countries.</p> <p>Because Race to the Top ties teacher evaluations to these test scores and NCLB puts sanctions on schools that fail, both teachers and administrators have also suffered in various ways from these programs. Teachers have had to teach to the test and put other classroom learning aside, which researchers believe is the cause of <a href="//www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/stories/why-are-us-children-becoming-less-creative" type="external">decreased creativity</a> among children. A 2011 teacher survey revealed that 66 percent of teachers said the NCLB&#8217;s focus on reading and math has led to reduced time for art, science and social studies.</p> <p>Meanwhile, many administrators have reacted by taking students&#8217; scores into their own hands &#8212; and cheating. Cheating scandals have been <a href="//fairtest.org/sites/default/files/CheatingReportsList.pdf" type="external">documented</a> in more than 37 states, with the largest and most recent <a href="//www.cnn.com/2013/04/02/justice/georgia-cheating-scandal" type="external">scandal</a> in Atlanta, GA. One superintendant in El Paso is currently serving jail time for cheating and even <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/education/el-paso-rattled-by-scandal-of-disappeared-students.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">forcing</a> low-scoring students to drop out of school.</p> <p>For charter schools, forcing low-scorers out has been common practice. Students with disabilities, bilingual students and students with various behavioral issues are routinely <a href="" type="internal">denied</a> access to charter schools for fear of lowering the schools&#8217; test scores, which charters rely on in an attempt to appear superior.</p> <p>And as testing has become more high-stakes &#8212; determining promotion, graduation (for 26 states), teachers&#8217; jobs and schools&#8217; very existence &#8212; students are facing insurmountable <a href="//esheninger.blogspot.com/2012/03/children-stressed-to-breaking-point-due.html" type="external">stress and anxiety</a>. (One California standardized test even came with an instruction packet on what to do with a test booklet if a student vomits on it.) Perhaps, more damaging, a new <a href="//therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;task=view&amp;amp;id=31&amp;amp;Itemid=74&amp;amp;jumival=10458" type="external">study</a> has found a relationship between high-stakes testing and the school-to-prison pipeline, with students who fail high stakes testing exams 12 percent more likely to face incarceration.</p> <p>Testing, however, doesn&#8217;t have to be this way. Instead, it can be helpful if used to gauge students&#8217; abilities.</p> <p>As Bob Schaeffer writes:</p> <p>&#8220;Standardized tests can be a portion of an assessment system. They are an okay tool to measure factual recall in a real quick way. &#8230; The purpose of testing is to improve learning and teaching, which means it should be primarily a feedback tool not a label and punish tool.&#8221;</p> <p>But for now, Pearson and other educational corporations profit off of Bush and Obama&#8217;s policies that made standardized tests one of the main forms of assessment, tied to severe consequences. And while students, teachers and schools suffer the consequences of these profitable standardized tests, Sandy Kress, one of the key architects of No Child Left Behind&#8212;and now a lobbyist for Pearson&#8212; <a href="//jasonstanford.org/2012/07/let-them-eat-tests/" type="external">sends</a>&amp;#160;his son to a private Latin school that doesn&#8217;t give the tests.</p> <p>Schaeffer said Obama&#8217;s children also go to a private school where standardized testing isn&#8217;t emphasized. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>He said, &#8220;Well to-do parents can buy their way out of the test prep insanity by moving to well to-do districts where there&#8217;s not much test prep going on in schools.&#8221;</p> <p>Fortunately, the increase in standardized testing has been&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">met with resistance</a>. Across the country, teachers are refusing to give the tests and students are refusing to take them. Parents are also speaking out and are part of the grassroots fight to remind corporations, politicians and school boards that our education is not for sale.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Alyssa Figueroa is an associate editor at AlterNet.&amp;#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/alyssa_fig" type="external">Follow @alyssa_fig</a></p>

8 Things You Should Know About Corporations Like Pearson that Make Huge Profits from Standardized Tests

http://alternet.org/education/corporations-profit-standardized-tests

2013-08-06

4left

Photo Credit ShutterstockcomEric Von Seggern A few months ago fourthgrader Joey Furlong was lying in a hospital bed undergoing a prebrain surgery screening when a teacheramp160 walked in the roomamp160with a standardized test Shocked Joey8217s father who was in the room told the teacher to leave Joey8217s mother Tami Furlong later said 8220I would like to hope she would not have taken his arm that has an IV and oximeter on it and put a No 2 pencil in it8221 Joey8217s story serves as one example of just how absurdly enforced standardized testing has become Since George W Bush8217s No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2002 testing in the United States has skyrocketed Before NCLB under Bill Clinton8217s Improving America8217s Schools Act the federal government required students to take six tests total 8212 a reading and math test in elementary middle and high school Under NCLB in order to receive federal funding schools are required to make students take 14 tests total 8212 a reading and math test from grades 38 and once in high school plus a science test in elementary middle and high school But some districts require even more tests Barack Obama8217s 500 million competitive grant program Race to the Top enacted in 2009 chiefly inspired school districts to give more tests Amidst the recession state budgets were hit hard and government officials were willing to do whatever they could to receive money Now at least 25 states mandate one formal assessment test in kindergarten Race to the Top8217s 2011 Early Learning Challenge awarded schools that could prove their students 8220readiness8221 to begin school 8212 meaning how well fouryearolds did on 8220entry assessments8221 In order to execute these policies that significantly expanded testing school districts needed test providers This in turn made some educational corporations very rich Bob Schaeffer public education director of FairTest a nonprofit advocacy organization working to prevent the misuse of standardized testing said he is inclined to blame politicians rather than corporations for the testing boom He said 8220In a capitalist society if there8217s a market somebody will figure out how to serve it But the corporations reinforce the stupidity of the bad policies of politicians8221 Pearson is the largest corporation serving this testing market Pearson is the world8217s largest education company and book publisher bringing in more than 9 billion annually But Pearson wasn8217t always so big In fact Pearson a British multinational corporation was just starting out in the early 2000s But 8220Pearson looked at NCLB as its business plan8221 Schaeffer said Pearson began rapidly buying up US companies Currently Pearson has partnered with 18 states in the US as well as Washington DC and Puerto Rico to produce pricey testing materials For a fiveyear contract Pearson was paid 32 million to produce standardized tests for New York Its contract in Texas was worth 500 million Pearson also owns Connections Academy a company that runs forprofit virtual charter schools It also owns the GED program although competitors have beenamp160 creating alternativesamp160in order to combat Pearson8217s expensive tests By and large the massive corporation has farreaching control over the education industry Noted educator Diane Ravitchamp160 wrote 8220Truly the reach of Pearson across all of American education is astonishing8221 While Pearson is the major player in the rise of standardized testing other corporations have a stake in testing as well CTBMcGrawHill is probably Pearson8217s main competitor with several states across the country using its standardized tests CTBMcGraw with revenues of more than 2 billion is best know for its TerraNova and California Achievement Tests Other players include Education Testing Services as well as Riverside Publishing and its parent company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt But while the corporations enjoy large profits their products continue to damage our education system Here are eight things you need to understand about these corporations and their tests 1 The tests are full of errors At least the corporations that make these tests are able to score them properly Right Wrong 8212 and by a long shot Most recently hundreds of New York City high school seniors had to anxiously await their diplomas because McGrawHill Education made quite a blunder of scoring their Regents exams The computer system used to score the exams that determine if a student can graduate broke down The scoring computer system was part of aamp160 96 million contractamp160with the cityamp160 CTBMcGrawHill is also under fire for not having enough computer memory while students in Indiana took their tests causing 80000 students to experienceamp160 interruptionsamp160during testtaking While the state owes the corporation 24 million for this year8217s tests the state8217s education department is hoping to seek more than 600000 in damages In Oklahoma students experienced similar glitches this year prompting the Oklahoma Education Association toamp160 demandamp160the tests be disregarded According to their report students 8220were left waiting for hours to finish tests arrived at school day after day expecting to be tested only to experience additional delays and had to take the same tests multiple times 8230 Consequently thousands of students were left exhausted frustrated demoralized and incapable of giving their best effort A few months ago Pearsonamp160 erroneously scoredamp160New York City students8217 tests used for entry into its gifted and talented programs Thirteen percent of students K3 yes kindergarteners take these tests who were qualified for the programs were wrongly rejectedamp160 Last year researchersamp160 found a design flawamp160in Pearson8217s standardized tests for Texas students Pearsonsamp160 long historyamp160of delaying scores and wrongly scoring goes on and on 2 The corporations encourage new standards to make new tests to make new money One of the best ways a standardized testing corporation can make more money is by coming up with new standards which is why it8217s not surprising that Pearson hasamp160 played a roleamp160in crafting the new Common Core State Standards a new set of standards set to be implemented inamp160 most statesamp160this coming school year Advocates argue these new standards will increase but not improve testing 8212which will now be done on computers many schools don8217t even have Its website states 8220Pearson8217s close association with key authors and architects of the Common Core State Standards ensures that the spirit and pedagogical approach of the initiative is embodied in our professional development8221 Assessment experts and academics were theamp160 main writersamp160of the Common Core standards while few of its consultants were classroom teachers and parents played no role The tests are expected to be much harder than current tests They are supposed to be able to determine 8220college readiness8221 although manyamp160 realizeamp1608212 including Pearson researchers 8212 that testing this is a complex matter But whether or not these new standards are well designed effective or useful doesn8217t matter much when schools get more points from the federal Race to the Top program for implementing them Pearson then acts as a national aid ready to assist in the new profitable standards byamp160 developingamp160the curriculum and assessments Peter Cohen CEO of Pearsons K12 divisionamp160 said 8220Its a really big deal The Common Core standards are affecting literally every part of the business were involved in The Thomas B Fordham Institute a conservative think tank estimates implementing the new standards will cost the nation between 1 billion and 8 billion Nearly all the profits will go to book publishers and test creators like Pearson and CTBMcGrawHill Shael PolakowSuransky the chief academic officer of New York City schools hasamp160 warned Theres lots and lots of books that have got fancy pretty stickers on them saying Common Core but they actually havent changed anything in the inside 3 They profit from testing teachers too As corporations have found they can profit from turning students into unimaginative machines they are newly discovering they can profit from standardizing teachers as well Pearson8217s new edTPA standardized assessments will determine teacher certification Seven states have already adopted edTPA with New York set to implement the program in May 2014 The standard requires those pursuing a teaching career to complete the assessment during student teaching Pearson requires these student teachers to complete a written examination and submit at least 20minute videos of themselves teaching which the corporation will then own The test costs prospective teachers 300 And instead of a teacher or supervisor assessing the instruction Pearson will pay anonymous current or retired teachers or administrators 75 to evaluate them This type of teaching assessment completely tears down the imaginative art and craft of teaching by standardizing it which can only leave students to be less excited about school with less personal connection to teachers One prospective student relayed his fears of edTPA to his teacher Joel 8230 was excited because the teacher he had been assigned to for Fieldwork I where students spend 35 hours observing and participating in secondary settings had invited him to student teach with her Because he had tremendous respect and admiration for this teacher Joel was thrilled by the opportunity But he was also worried so worried that he hesitated to accept the offer Joel was apprehensive about completing the edTPA in this school It is an urban environment in a community noted for poverty and gang activity He had forged relationships with the young people in the school as well as several faculty members but the judgment of an objective scorer who might not understand if the classroom was not filled with compliant wellbehaved learners had made my student hesitate 4 They have lobbying power Not only are these corporations cheering on additional testing from the sidelines they are also flexing their money muscle via lobbying One 2011amp160 reportamp160found Pearson spent close to 700000 lobbying in four key states But most of its lobbying is much more implicit Theamp160New York Timesamp160 reportedamp160that in 2011 Pearson Foundation underwent investigation for paying for state officials trips to education conferences overseas The foundation which is a nonprofit and taxexempt was charged with using its resources to benefit the Pearson forprofit company Possibly the most egregious activity was uncovered in a recentamp160 reportamp160published byamp160In the Public Interestamp160which found that Pearson helps fund Foundation for Excellence in Education and its partner Chiefs for Change 8212 both Jeb Bushfounded conservative education policy advocacy organizations In turn the foundation crafts policy that profits Pearson The reportamp160 disclosed emailsamp160between the two organizations that show they are working on writing state laws benefiting their corporate funders The organizations have already written education policies that benefit its funders in Florida Louisiana Maine New Mexico Oklahoma and Rhode Island 5 Their test content is absurd If you haven8217t heard of 8220Pineapplegate8221 be sure to check out Pearson8217samp160 absurd passageamp160about a race between a hare and a pineapple given to New York eighthgraders last year and see if you can answer the bizarre questions Perhaps the worst part about Pineapplegate was Pearson8217s defense of the passage and its questions by offeringamp160 nonsensical explanationsamp160to the 8220correct8221 answers Aside from illogical content tests often include questions that require skills not yet taught to the students For example New York had toamp160 tossamp160a math question because it required students to understand mathematical concepts not taught until middle or high school Meanwhile bilingual students have to take tests in English before they have mastered the language It takes five to seven years to master a language Students with special needs are also required to take these tests and receive few accommodations 6 They give students with the 8216proper8217 textbooks an advantage Besides making sure students are graded properly how else can you ensure they do well on Pearson8217s tests By making sure your school buys Pearson8217s books In aamp160 blog postamp160titled 8220How Pearson Cheats on State Tests8221 Diane Ravitch writes that an upstate New York teacher alerted her to the fact that her student8217s standardized tests contained a story her students read a week earlier from their textbooks The teacher wrote On Day 1 of the NYS ELA 8 Exam I discovered what I believe to be a huge ethical flaw in the State test The state test included a passage on why leaves change color that is included in the Pearsongenerated NYS ELA 8 text I taught it in my class just last week In a test with 6 passages and questions to complete in 90 minutes it was a huge advantage to students fortunate enough to use a Pearson text and not that of a rival publisher It may very well have an impact on student test scores 7 They make students take additional tests for their company research How does Pearson attempt to finetune its tests Not by using paid research or paying students to take tests Instead it administers 8220field tests8221 to certain schools and subjects students to even further testing during the school year Last year parents in NYC were fed up andamp160 protestedamp160against administering what some called 8220free pilot studies8221 for Pearson Meanwhile teachers were sent a memo from the NY State Education8217s Office telling them to lie to students and pretend that theseamp160 field tests were real A few months later Pearson decided to try bribery as an approach to continuing its fieldtesting If principalsamp160 decidedamp160to use their students as guinea pigs they would get a free Kindle Nook iPad or iPod Touch 8 They use product placement Mug8482 Root Beer IBM8482 Lego174 FIFA174 and Mindstorms8482 8212 what do all these corporate brands have in common They were all found inamp160this year8217s New York State English exam Pearson denies receiving money from these corporations though someamp160 sayamp160there should be further investigation Eighthgrader Isaiah Schrader wrote aamp160 pieceamp160about how he 8220found the trademark references and their associated footnotes very distracting and troubling8221 Schrader argued that even if they weren8217t paid Pearson should not advertise to children who are especially susceptible to advertising He wrote No students should be required however to take tests that subject them to hidden advertising Clearly the trademarked products mentioned throughout the exam had no relevance to the stated goals of testing students8217 reading comprehension and analytical skills Surely Pearson can afford to edit standardized tests and remove all mention of trademarked products The goal of NCLB was to improve overall achievement in education to surpass some of the US8217s international competitors and to close the race gap Yet after 11 years research has found no significant improvement in test scores One report by FairTest revealed that scores actually increased more rapidly prior to NCLB There was also no evidence of the race gap narrowing A National Research Council report showed similar results And no significant improvement has been made concerning the country8217s ranking in reading and math scores compared with other countries Because Race to the Top ties teacher evaluations to these test scores and NCLB puts sanctions on schools that fail both teachers and administrators have also suffered in various ways from these programs Teachers have had to teach to the test and put other classroom learning aside which researchers believe is the cause of decreased creativity among children A 2011 teacher survey revealed that 66 percent of teachers said the NCLB8217s focus on reading and math has led to reduced time for art science and social studies Meanwhile many administrators have reacted by taking students8217 scores into their own hands 8212 and cheating Cheating scandals have been documented in more than 37 states with the largest and most recent scandal in Atlanta GA One superintendant in El Paso is currently serving jail time for cheating and even forcing lowscoring students to drop out of school For charter schools forcing lowscorers out has been common practice Students with disabilities bilingual students and students with various behavioral issues are routinely denied access to charter schools for fear of lowering the schools8217 test scores which charters rely on in an attempt to appear superior And as testing has become more highstakes 8212 determining promotion graduation for 26 states teachers8217 jobs and schools8217 very existence 8212 students are facing insurmountable stress and anxiety One California standardized test even came with an instruction packet on what to do with a test booklet if a student vomits on it Perhaps more damaging a new study has found a relationship between highstakes testing and the schooltoprison pipeline with students who fail high stakes testing exams 12 percent more likely to face incarceration Testing however doesn8217t have to be this way Instead it can be helpful if used to gauge students8217 abilities As Bob Schaeffer writes 8220Standardized tests can be a portion of an assessment system They are an okay tool to measure factual recall in a real quick way 8230 The purpose of testing is to improve learning and teaching which means it should be primarily a feedback tool not a label and punish tool8221 But for now Pearson and other educational corporations profit off of Bush and Obama8217s policies that made standardized tests one of the main forms of assessment tied to severe consequences And while students teachers and schools suffer the consequences of these profitable standardized tests Sandy Kress one of the key architects of No Child Left Behind8212and now a lobbyist for Pearson8212 sendsamp160his son to a private Latin school that doesn8217t give the tests Schaeffer said Obama8217s children also go to a private school where standardized testing isn8217t emphasized amp160amp160 He said 8220Well todo parents can buy their way out of the test prep insanity by moving to well todo districts where there8217s not much test prep going on in schools8221 Fortunately the increase in standardized testing has beenamp160 met with resistance Across the country teachers are refusing to give the tests and students are refusing to take them Parents are also speaking out and are part of the grassroots fight to remind corporations politicians and school boards that our education is not for saleamp160 Alyssa Figueroa is an associate editor at AlterNetamp160 Follow alyssa_fig

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<p>Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. With the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many people have been looking at the history of all of this. One of those people is Gareth Porter. He's an investigative journalist and a writer. And he's come to the conclusion that the United States has not been very interested in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, at least not up until now. And he now joins us from our other studio in Washington. Thanks for joining us, Gareth. <p /> <p />GARETH PORTER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Thanks very much, Paul. <p /> <p />JAY: So talk a little bit about what you found. <p /> <p />PORTER: My story, published this week after the killing of bin Laden, is really about how the George W. Bush administration had no interest whatsoever in capturing bin Laden, had no plan in mind when they went into Afghanistan after 9/11. And at the same time, Bush turned down a proposal from the Taliban foreign minister at that time to basically turn bin Laden over to an international Islamic organization called the Organization of Islamic Conference. And that organization, which represents all of the Islamic countries in the world, is a moderate organization, obviously, and it was based in Saudi Arabia. And, arguably, if the Bush administration had taken them up on that offer and could make it work, that would have been the best of all possible ways of dealing with bin Laden, because he would then have been tried by Islamic jurists with a great deal of credibility behind it, whereas if the United States had been able--had they been able to get a hold of bin Laden, they would not have had the credibility in whatever they did to bin Laden on their own. <p /> <p />JAY: So--just to be clear, so in 2001 there's a deal to be had for bin Laden to be arrested, handed over to an Islamic court, and the United States turned it down. So how do we know this story? How do we know this took place? <p /> <p />PORTER: This is what I had confirmed to me directly by then foreign minister of the Taliban Muttawakil, who was later incarcerated in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after the US went in militarily, and after 18 months was released, went back to Kabul, and is now living in Kabul as a private citizen, but is one of those former Taliban officials who has been an intermediary between President Karzai and the Taliban. So for the first time, he actually told the story of the new proposal--actually, two different proposals that he made in Islamabad at a meeting with Pakistani and American officials on October 15, 2001. Before that, Taliban had said, "We won't give up bin Laden unless you provide proof of his guilt in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But after the Americans began the bombing of Afghanistan on October 7, the Taliban quickly changed their mind and they dropped the condition and offered for the first time to turn bin Laden over to the Islamic conference organization and have him be tried by that organization. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. This goes along with a piece of the story I know of through work, when I made the film Return to Kandahar. We interviewed a member of the Taliban central council who had been a member of the central council up to and just after 9/11 and the beginnings of the negotiations about bin Laden. And he told me that in the first vote, the Taliban central council actually voted in favor of exactly this proposal to hand bin Laden over to Islamic court, and then later reversed the vote after a Pakistani official came to their meeting and told them not to do it. The Pakistani--in fact, in the interview he called him the foreign minister. I'm not sure I rely on the translation. But a senior Pakistani official came and told him, don't hand over bin Laden. And later we were told by a colleague who we think is a good source, who talked to Hamid Gul, who's the former head of the Pakistani ISI, and he confirmed all of this and said it was the Americans who had asked Pakistan to intervene to stop any process of handing him over to an Islamic court. So the two stories do kind of jive. <p /> <p />PORTER: Well, yeah, and I think that's a perfectly credible account. I think what happened, however, as I suggested, is that once the Americans began the bombing of Afghanistan, obviously, of Taliban targets in Afghanistan,-- <p /> <p />JAY: They go back to this proposal again. <p /> <p />PORTER: --they then change their view. And I think at that point they were really no longer willing to rely on the Pakistani advice, which may well have been, as you suggest, to tell them not to turn bin Laden over to any foreign country or group of countries. But, you know, at that point I think the Taliban understood that they really--their own regime was on the line and they had to do something different. <p /> <p />JAY: The other point you made in your article is how little planning or effort went into killing or capturing bin Laden at that time. <p /> <p />PORTER: Well, it's absolutely clear from the historical record, and there are many sources supporting this, some of whom I've interviewed, that the Bush administration not only did not have a plan to capture or kill bin Laden after 9/11. In fact, they were simply not interested in that. That was simply not a priority interest of the George W. Bush administration. That's because his main national security advisors, that is, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were absolutely adamantly opposed to the United States trying to do anything about al-Qaeda and bin Laden, because they did not believe that that group represented any threat to the United States. They refused, even after the 9/11 attacks and after the CIA had concluded that bin Laden was behind it, those two and Paul Wolfowitz just simply refused to accept that al-Qaeda could have been behind it. But it's well known that they did, the CIA did get information that bin Laden had left Kandahar and was on his way to Tora Bora. And so there was no real doubt about that. The question was what was the United States going to do about it. And they did have no military plan. They were eventually forced to ask the Pakistanis--and when I say they, I mean the US military. Tommy Franks, who was planning the Afghanistan and commanding the Afghanistan operation, was forced to ask the Pakistani army and Musharraf to intervene and to block the exits, so to speak, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, that was like asking, you know, the fox to guard the exit of the hens from the hen house. <p /> <p />JAY: No, I think it would have been--that's asking the fox to guard the exit of the other fox from the hen house. <p /> <p />PORTER: Well, I mean, basically, the Pakistanis had no intention of helping the United States to intercept and to kill or capture bin Laden and al-Qaeda. I mean, they were obviously longtime allies and supporters of not just the Taliban but bin Laden and al-Qaeda as well. And this was well known within the Bush administration. It was not news to them that that was the case. So, basically, there was a charade going on here, certainly at the level of the cabinet, cabinet-level officials and their advisors. <p /> <p />JAY: And, of course, there's been many, many stories in books and newspaper articles that even the attack on Tora Bora made no sense, that they were asking Afghans to do it and they were essentially Afghan-paid mercenaries. They weren't--certainly weren't very motivated. And the United States just wouldn't commit any serious forces of its own to attack what they thought was bin Laden in Tora Bora. So, as you say, the whole thing seems to be either lack of planning or by design to let bin Laden make it to Pakistan. <p /> <p />PORTER: It was both. It was lack of planning by design. And I think, really, the point that people need to focus on here is that this was perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the way in which the national security state, if you will, of the United States has on one hand sort of presented themselves as being devoted to counterterrorism and to dealing with the threat from al-Qaeda, while at the same time really having a very different set of priorities, where al-Qaeda terrorism was never really the primary priority. I mean, and that's perfectly explainable, because these were people, particularly in the George W. Bush administration, whose primary interest was to have big military budgets. To be able to justify those budgets, they needed to have state enemies like Iraq and Iran who they could focus on. And they were deathly afraid of having the US military be bogged down in Afghanistan trying to do something about bin Laden when they wanted them to be available to fight in Iraq, of course. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah. Now, we are talking about the neocons here particularly, and there may have been quite different perceptions of all this from other parts of the American state. There's something else that kind of confirms what you're talking about, though. There's a book by Richard Perle and David Frum called End of Evil. And when you pick it up, you assume it's going to be a book about al-Qaeda. And al-Qaeda's--in fact, I don't think it's actually mentioned once. If it is, it's barely mentioned in the book. It's all about other issues like the Iraqis and the Iranians, and even the Saudis. It's all about how to re-divide up the world in American interest. And al-Qaeda barely mentions a footnote in all of it [sic]. <p /> <p />PORTER: That's absolutely true. But, of course, one has to also take into account the fact that the key officials here, the ones who really had the clout with the president, were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who were not neoconservatives but, rather, Republican national security politicos who aligned themselves with the neocons for their own interests, which again I would suggest were primarily the interests of, you know, big ticket items for the military budget such as Star Wars and expensive systems having to do with the Air Force. They were very closely aligned with the Air Force, which is why we had an Air Force war in Iraq. So I think that there is a broader set of issues, a broader set of interests involved in this. And, by the way, I found that the US military leadership at that point were actually supporting the position of Cheney and Rumsfeld. What they were interested in was a big war in Iraq, which would then give them the military position with which to play a dominant role in the Middle East from that time on. You had Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, as well as Abizaid, who went on to become CENTCOM commander, who approved and in fact participated in the drafting of the plan that the Pentagon put before George Bush, which represented a plan to go into Iraq and really not to do anything about bin Laden. <p /> <p />JAY: But there was a real effort to counter al-Qaeda level terrorism. It's just that it's one small factor in a much bigger game. Does that--would you agree with that? <p /> <p />PORTER: Well, what I would say is that there were some interests within the national security state of the United States, specifically the counterterrorism office of the CIA and some of their superiors at higher levels of the CIA, plus the counterterrorism people left over from the Clinton administration in the National Security Council staff of the George W. Bush administration. But the people who were pushing for military action against bin Laden were not the ones who had the power in the national security team of George W. Bush. That was, of course, again, vice president and secretary of defense. And so, in fact, the people who wanted to do something about bin Laden really were not the ones who had any power to make it happen. <p /> <p />JAY: Now, we should say that bin Laden was on the FBI Most Wanted list, I think, at least for five years prior to 9/11. I mean, it wasn't like he came out of the blue, and it wasn't like he wasn't on the radar already, although after being on the Most Wanted list for five years, they hadn't caught him for five years, so one asks again how hard were they trying to. And, again, there are so many unanswered questions about the Saudi Role in 9/11. It goes on and on. I mentioned this in a previous interview with Eric Margolis. But there's another point that should--people should be reminded about and we shouldn't let disappear into the amnesia, which is The LA Times reported not long after 9/11 that--I think within a year or two of 9/11, one of the congressional committees looking into 9/11 had a document that actually named names of members of the Saudi royal family that had been directly financing members of the 9/11 conspiracy, and that all the names and most of the pertinent information was redacted from the document when it went public. But a LA Times reporter, who I later phoned and asked if he would confirm this--this is two or three years after he wrote the piece, and he confirmed that not only does he confirm it, but the whole LA Times editorial board stands by the fact that he talked to someone who saw the document before it was blacked out, redacted, and there were many names of prominent members of the Saudi royal family. So I don't think we should try to reach all kinds of conclusions in this interview, but there are so many unanswered questions about this. I think I would agree with those who say there needs to be some kind of independent commission to look into all of this stuff. What do you think of that? <p /> <p />PORTER: I absolutely agree. And I would go one step further and say that there's no question that there was a massive coverup, both by the Bush administration itself, to cover its own, really, guilt in not having done anything about bin Laden, but also by the 9/11 Commission, which essentially did cover up the complicity of the Pakistani government, as well as of the Saudi government, in what happened in 9/11. I mean, for example, I think it was well known--certainly I've been told that people within the State Department under the Bush administration were convinced that the ISI had a role in the killing of the Northern Alliance leader, and on the eve of 9/11, that that was a job that the ISI almost certainly was involved in directly. <p /> <p />JAY: And this is because it's--a lot of people predicted that in the chaos after 9/11--. His name was Massoud. Am I--do I have the name correct? <p /> <p />PORTER: Ahmed Shah Massoud. Right. <p /> <p />JAY: Yeah, that Massoud was probably the person that could have emerged as the new leader of Afghanistan after that. They killed him before any of that could happen. <p /> <p />PORTER: Exactly. And so my point is that it was well known, certainly within parts of the Bush administration, that ISI was very closely involved with bin Laden and al-Qaeda. And this was one of the things that, of course, was expunged from the record by the Bush administration. They did their best to make sure that that did not come out at all. <p /> <p />JAY: And we should--just to close the loop on this piece of it, we should not forget how close Pakistani intelligence and military is to Saudi intelligence and military. And, in fact, when the Saudis were in trouble recently with some demonstrators in Saudi Arabia, they asked for support from the Pakistani military. There's a very close relationship there. So, again, many, many unanswered questions here. Anything else you want to add quickly to this story? <p /> <p />PORTER: The general point here behind the coverup, I think, is a more important point, which is to understand that the national security state of this country is devoted to its own interests, its own interests in continuing to have very high military budgets, you know, way beyond the level, for example, of the Eisenhower era, despite the fact that they can only justify that if they can continue to have wars--or the threat of war, as they would like to pose it--with major state enemies such as Iraq and Iran. And that means that there's a constant lie being told to the American people that we're really here to protect you from terrorism, whereas in fact what they really want is to continue to have a military budget that would justify or to have wars that would justify the kind of military budgets that keep them in business. <p /> <p />JAY: Thanks for joining us, Gareth. <p /> <p />PORTER: Thank you very much. <p /> <p />JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. <p /> <p />End of Transcript <p /> <p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Bush Admin Didn't Pursue Bin Laden Post 9/11

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D6718

2011-05-06

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Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran Author of four books the latest of which is Perils of Dominance Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam PAUL JAY SENIOR EDITOR TRNN Welcome to The Real News Network Im Paul Jay in Washington With the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan many people have been looking at the history of all of this One of those people is Gareth Porter Hes an investigative journalist and a writer And hes come to the conclusion that the United States has not been very interested in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden at least not up until now And he now joins us from our other studio in Washington Thanks for joining us Gareth GARETH PORTER INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST Thanks very much Paul JAY So talk a little bit about what you found PORTER My story published this week after the killing of bin Laden is really about how the George W Bush administration had no interest whatsoever in capturing bin Laden had no plan in mind when they went into Afghanistan after 911 And at the same time Bush turned down a proposal from the Taliban foreign minister at that time to basically turn bin Laden over to an international Islamic organization called the Organization of Islamic Conference And that organization which represents all of the Islamic countries in the world is a moderate organization obviously and it was based in Saudi Arabia And arguably if the Bush administration had taken them up on that offer and could make it work that would have been the best of all possible ways of dealing with bin Laden because he would then have been tried by Islamic jurists with a great deal of credibility behind it whereas if the United States had been ablehad they been able to get a hold of bin Laden they would not have had the credibility in whatever they did to bin Laden on their own JAY Sojust to be clear so in 2001 theres a deal to be had for bin Laden to be arrested handed over to an Islamic court and the United States turned it down So how do we know this story How do we know this took place PORTER This is what I had confirmed to me directly by then foreign minister of the Taliban Muttawakil who was later incarcerated in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after the US went in militarily and after 18 months was released went back to Kabul and is now living in Kabul as a private citizen but is one of those former Taliban officials who has been an intermediary between President Karzai and the Taliban So for the first time he actually told the story of the new proposalactually two different proposals that he made in Islamabad at a meeting with Pakistani and American officials on October 15 2001 Before that Taliban had said We wont give up bin Laden unless you provide proof of his guilt in the 911 terrorist attacks But after the Americans began the bombing of Afghanistan on October 7 the Taliban quickly changed their mind and they dropped the condition and offered for the first time to turn bin Laden over to the Islamic conference organization and have him be tried by that organization JAY Yeah This goes along with a piece of the story I know of through work when I made the film Return to Kandahar We interviewed a member of the Taliban central council who had been a member of the central council up to and just after 911 and the beginnings of the negotiations about bin Laden And he told me that in the first vote the Taliban central council actually voted in favor of exactly this proposal to hand bin Laden over to Islamic court and then later reversed the vote after a Pakistani official came to their meeting and told them not to do it The Pakistaniin fact in the interview he called him the foreign minister Im not sure I rely on the translation But a senior Pakistani official came and told him dont hand over bin Laden And later we were told by a colleague who we think is a good source who talked to Hamid Gul whos the former head of the Pakistani ISI and he confirmed all of this and said it was the Americans who had asked Pakistan to intervene to stop any process of handing him over to an Islamic court So the two stories do kind of jive PORTER Well yeah and I think thats a perfectly credible account I think what happened however as I suggested is that once the Americans began the bombing of Afghanistan obviously of Taliban targets in Afghanistan JAY They go back to this proposal again PORTER they then change their view And I think at that point they were really no longer willing to rely on the Pakistani advice which may well have been as you suggest to tell them not to turn bin Laden over to any foreign country or group of countries But you know at that point I think the Taliban understood that they reallytheir own regime was on the line and they had to do something different JAY The other point you made in your article is how little planning or effort went into killing or capturing bin Laden at that time PORTER Well its absolutely clear from the historical record and there are many sources supporting this some of whom Ive interviewed that the Bush administration not only did not have a plan to capture or kill bin Laden after 911 In fact they were simply not interested in that That was simply not a priority interest of the George W Bush administration Thats because his main national security advisors that is Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were absolutely adamantly opposed to the United States trying to do anything about alQaeda and bin Laden because they did not believe that that group represented any threat to the United States They refused even after the 911 attacks and after the CIA had concluded that bin Laden was behind it those two and Paul Wolfowitz just simply refused to accept that alQaeda could have been behind it But its well known that they did the CIA did get information that bin Laden had left Kandahar and was on his way to Tora Bora And so there was no real doubt about that The question was what was the United States going to do about it And they did have no military plan They were eventually forced to ask the Pakistanisand when I say they I mean the US military Tommy Franks who was planning the Afghanistan and commanding the Afghanistan operation was forced to ask the Pakistani army and Musharraf to intervene and to block the exits so to speak between Afghanistan and Pakistan Of course that was like asking you know the fox to guard the exit of the hens from the hen house JAY No I think it would have beenthats asking the fox to guard the exit of the other fox from the hen house PORTER Well I mean basically the Pakistanis had no intention of helping the United States to intercept and to kill or capture bin Laden and alQaeda I mean they were obviously longtime allies and supporters of not just the Taliban but bin Laden and alQaeda as well And this was well known within the Bush administration It was not news to them that that was the case So basically there was a charade going on here certainly at the level of the cabinet cabinetlevel officials and their advisors JAY And of course theres been many many stories in books and newspaper articles that even the attack on Tora Bora made no sense that they were asking Afghans to do it and they were essentially Afghanpaid mercenaries They werentcertainly werent very motivated And the United States just wouldnt commit any serious forces of its own to attack what they thought was bin Laden in Tora Bora So as you say the whole thing seems to be either lack of planning or by design to let bin Laden make it to Pakistan PORTER It was both It was lack of planning by design And I think really the point that people need to focus on here is that this was perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the way in which the national security state if you will of the United States has on one hand sort of presented themselves as being devoted to counterterrorism and to dealing with the threat from alQaeda while at the same time really having a very different set of priorities where alQaeda terrorism was never really the primary priority I mean and thats perfectly explainable because these were people particularly in the George W Bush administration whose primary interest was to have big military budgets To be able to justify those budgets they needed to have state enemies like Iraq and Iran who they could focus on And they were deathly afraid of having the US military be bogged down in Afghanistan trying to do something about bin Laden when they wanted them to be available to fight in Iraq of course JAY Yeah Now we are talking about the neocons here particularly and there may have been quite different perceptions of all this from other parts of the American state Theres something else that kind of confirms what youre talking about though Theres a book by Richard Perle and David Frum called End of Evil And when you pick it up you assume its going to be a book about alQaeda And alQaedasin fact I dont think its actually mentioned once If it is its barely mentioned in the book Its all about other issues like the Iraqis and the Iranians and even the Saudis Its all about how to redivide up the world in American interest And alQaeda barely mentions a footnote in all of it sic PORTER Thats absolutely true But of course one has to also take into account the fact that the key officials here the ones who really had the clout with the president were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who were not neoconservatives but rather Republican national security politicos who aligned themselves with the neocons for their own interests which again I would suggest were primarily the interests of you know big ticket items for the military budget such as Star Wars and expensive systems having to do with the Air Force They were very closely aligned with the Air Force which is why we had an Air Force war in Iraq So I think that there is a broader set of issues a broader set of interests involved in this And by the way I found that the US military leadership at that point were actually supporting the position of Cheney and Rumsfeld What they were interested in was a big war in Iraq which would then give them the military position with which to play a dominant role in the Middle East from that time on You had Richard Myers chairman of the Joint Chiefs as well as Abizaid who went on to become CENTCOM commander who approved and in fact participated in the drafting of the plan that the Pentagon put before George Bush which represented a plan to go into Iraq and really not to do anything about bin Laden JAY But there was a real effort to counter alQaeda level terrorism Its just that its one small factor in a much bigger game Does thatwould you agree with that PORTER Well what I would say is that there were some interests within the national security state of the United States specifically the counterterrorism office of the CIA and some of their superiors at higher levels of the CIA plus the counterterrorism people left over from the Clinton administration in the National Security Council staff of the George W Bush administration But the people who were pushing for military action against bin Laden were not the ones who had the power in the national security team of George W Bush That was of course again vice president and secretary of defense And so in fact the people who wanted to do something about bin Laden really were not the ones who had any power to make it happen JAY Now we should say that bin Laden was on the FBI Most Wanted list I think at least for five years prior to 911 I mean it wasnt like he came out of the blue and it wasnt like he wasnt on the radar already although after being on the Most Wanted list for five years they hadnt caught him for five years so one asks again how hard were they trying to And again there are so many unanswered questions about the Saudi Role in 911 It goes on and on I mentioned this in a previous interview with Eric Margolis But theres another point that shouldpeople should be reminded about and we shouldnt let disappear into the amnesia which is The LA Times reported not long after 911 thatI think within a year or two of 911 one of the congressional committees looking into 911 had a document that actually named names of members of the Saudi royal family that had been directly financing members of the 911 conspiracy and that all the names and most of the pertinent information was redacted from the document when it went public But a LA Times reporter who I later phoned and asked if he would confirm thisthis is two or three years after he wrote the piece and he confirmed that not only does he confirm it but the whole LA Times editorial board stands by the fact that he talked to someone who saw the document before it was blacked out redacted and there were many names of prominent members of the Saudi royal family So I dont think we should try to reach all kinds of conclusions in this interview but there are so many unanswered questions about this I think I would agree with those who say there needs to be some kind of independent commission to look into all of this stuff What do you think of that PORTER I absolutely agree And I would go one step further and say that theres no question that there was a massive coverup both by the Bush administration itself to cover its own really guilt in not having done anything about bin Laden but also by the 911 Commission which essentially did cover up the complicity of the Pakistani government as well as of the Saudi government in what happened in 911 I mean for example I think it was well knowncertainly Ive been told that people within the State Department under the Bush administration were convinced that the ISI had a role in the killing of the Northern Alliance leader and on the eve of 911 that that was a job that the ISI almost certainly was involved in directly JAY And this is because itsa lot of people predicted that in the chaos after 911 His name was Massoud Am Ido I have the name correct PORTER Ahmed Shah Massoud Right JAY Yeah that Massoud was probably the person that could have emerged as the new leader of Afghanistan after that They killed him before any of that could happen PORTER Exactly And so my point is that it was well known certainly within parts of the Bush administration that ISI was very closely involved with bin Laden and alQaeda And this was one of the things that of course was expunged from the record by the Bush administration They did their best to make sure that that did not come out at all JAY And we shouldjust to close the loop on this piece of it we should not forget how close Pakistani intelligence and military is to Saudi intelligence and military And in fact when the Saudis were in trouble recently with some demonstrators in Saudi Arabia they asked for support from the Pakistani military Theres a very close relationship there So again many many unanswered questions here Anything else you want to add quickly to this story PORTER The general point here behind the coverup I think is a more important point which is to understand that the national security state of this country is devoted to its own interests its own interests in continuing to have very high military budgets you know way beyond the level for example of the Eisenhower era despite the fact that they can only justify that if they can continue to have warsor the threat of war as they would like to pose itwith major state enemies such as Iraq and Iran And that means that theres a constant lie being told to the American people that were really here to protect you from terrorism whereas in fact what they really want is to continue to have a military budget that would justify or to have wars that would justify the kind of military budgets that keep them in business JAY Thanks for joining us Gareth PORTER Thank you very much JAY Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network End of Transcript DISCLAIMER Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy

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<p>Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that her decision to use a private email account and server for government business while secretary of state was &#8220;allowed&#8221; by the State Department. She has said &#8220;my predecessors did the same thing,&#8221; and insisted she &#8220;fully complied with every rule&#8221; in preserving her work emails.</p> <p>We have taken issue with those claims, and now so does the State Department Office of Inspector General, which issued a <a href="https://oig.state.gov/reports/9926" type="external">report</a> on May 26 that&amp;#160;contradicts several of Clinton&#8217;s claims about her emails:</p> <p>The IG report also said the only other secretary of state to use personal email &#8220;exclusively&#8221; for government business was Colin Powell, contrary to Clinton&#8217;s claim that her &#8220;predecessors&#8221; &#8212; plural &#8212; &#8220;did the same thing.&#8221; The IG also said that, like Clinton, Powell did not comply with policies on preserving work-related emails.</p> <p>But the IG report said the comparison to Powell &#8212; who did not use a private server &#8212; only goes so far. It said during Clinton&#8217;s tenure, the rules governing personal email and the use of nongovernment systems were &#8220;considerably more detailed and more sophisticated,&#8221; citing specific memos that warned department employees about the security risks of not using the government system.</p> <p>&#8220;Secretary Clinton&#8217;s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives,&#8221; the report said.</p> <p>Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman, told us that even though the IG report contradicts Clinton&#8217;s past statements, that &#8220;doesn&#8217;t make her statements untruthful.&#8221; He said&amp;#160;Clinton, who declined to be interviewed by the inspector general&#8217;s staff, &#8220;believed &#8212; past tense&#8221; that her use of a private server was allowed, that it was no different than Powell using a commercial email account to conduct government business. She no longer believes that, he said, although she continues to say &#8212; as she did in an ABC News interview on May 26 after the IG report came out &#8212; that the use of personal email was allowed.</p> <p>&#8220;It did not occur to her that having it on a personal server could be so distinct that it would be unapproved,&#8221; Fallon said. &#8220;We&#8217;re not intending to say post the IG report that her server was allowed. We don&#8217;t contest that. We&#8217;re saying &#8230; the use of personal email was widespread.&#8221;</p> <p>On&amp;#160;March 2, 2015, the New York Times&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html?ref=topics" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;that Clinton exclusively used a private email account to conduct government business while secretary of state from <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/clinton-hillary-rodham" type="external">January 2009 to February 2013</a>. The Associated Press followed with a <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b78ba433af3a45209668f745158d994c/clinton-ran-homebrew-computer-system-official-emails" type="external">report</a>&amp;#160;that Clinton&#8217;s email account was hosted on a private server at her home in New York.</p> <p>The disclosures triggered a series of actions,&amp;#160;most importantly an <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/politics/hillary-clinton-email-probe/" type="external">FBI investigation</a>&amp;#160;into the handling of <a href="http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/" type="external">classified government material</a>. The investigation is ongoing, and may or may not be completed before the Nov. 8 presidential election.</p> <p>Separately, the State Department Office of Inspector General &#8212; which is headed by&amp;#160; <a href="https://oig.state.gov/about/IG" type="external">Steve A. Linick</a>, an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/27/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts" type="external">appointee</a> of President Obama &#8212; conducted a review of the Office of the Secretary&#8217;s &#8220;email records management and cybersecurity requirements&#8221; since 1997, covering the tenures of five secretaries of state and their staffs. The result is a 79-page report that identified &#8220;systemic weaknesses &#8230; that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of&amp;#160;State.&#8221; It made eight recommendations to the department.</p> <p>For our purposes, we reviewed the report in the context of statements that Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made about her unusual email arrangement since it was first disclosed more than a year ago.</p> <p>As we have <a href="" type="internal">written</a> <a href="" type="internal">before</a>, Clinton has said her email arrangement was &#8220;allowed&#8221; by her department and &#8220;fully above board.&#8221; Even after the report came out, Clinton continued to make this claim, saying in <a href="https://youtu.be/w7-FIld_HYM" type="external">an ABC News interview</a>on May 26 that &#8220;it was allowed.&#8221;</p> <p>The IG report says that that was not the case.</p> <p>Clinton, Sept. 4, 2015: I know why the American people have questions about it. And I want to make sure I answer those questions, starting with the fact that my personal email use was fully above board. It was allowed by the State Department, as they have confirmed.</p> <p>Clinton, Sept. 7, 2015:&amp;#160;What I did was allowed by the State Department. It was fully above board.</p> <p>Clinton, May 8: Well, as I have said many times, there was &#8212; I was absolutely permitted, and I did it.</p> <p>Clinton, May 26: Well, it was allowed and the rules have been clarified since I left about the practice.</p> <p>The IG report said that it has been department policy since 2005 &#8212; four years before Clinton took office &#8212; that&amp;#160;&#8220;normal day-to-day operations&#8221; be conducted on government servers.</p> <p>The report also said that in 2007 the department adopted additional policies requiring &#8220;non-Departmental information systems&#8221; used to &#8220;process or store department information&#8221; to meet the same security controls as the department&#8217;s systems, and requiring that they be registered with the department. Clinton did not adhere to either policy.</p> <p>State Department Inspector General, May 26: The Department&#8217;s current policy, implemented in 2005, is that normal day-to-day operations should be conducted on an authorized Automated Information System (AIS), which &#8220;has the proper level of security control to &#8230; ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the&amp;#160;resident information.&#8221; The FAM [Foreign Affairs Manual] defines an AIS as an assembly of hardware, software, and firmware used to electronically input, process, store, and/or output data. Examples include: mainframes, servers, desktop workstations, and mobile devices (such as laptops, e-readers, smartphones, and tablets).</p> <p>This policy comports with FISMA [Federal Information Security Management Act], which was enacted in December 2002 and requires Federal agencies to ensure information security for the systems that support the agency&#8217;s operations and assets, including information security protections for information systems used by a contractor of an agency or other organization on behalf of an agency. FISMA defines information security as protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to provide for the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the information and systems. In 2006, as required by FISMA, NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] promulgated minimum security requirements that apply to all information within the Federal Government and to Federal information systems. Among these are requirements for certifying and accrediting information systems, retaining system audit records for monitoring purposes, conducting risk assessments, and ensuring the protection of communications.</p> <p>In 2007, the Department adopted additional policies to implement these requirements, including numerous provisions intended to ensure that non-Departmental information systems that process or store Department information maintain the same minimum security controls.</p> <p>Further, non-Departmental systems that are sponsored by the Department to process information on its behalf must be registered with the Department.</p> <p>The IG report said Clinton &#8220;had an obligation&#8221; to discuss her email system with the department, but it could find &#8220;no evidence&#8221; that Clinton sought approval for her unusual email arrangement. If she did, the report says her request would have been denied by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Information Resource Management.</p> <p>State Department Inspector General, May 26: Secretary Clinton used mobile devices to conduct official business using the personal email account on her private server extensively, as illustrated by the 55,000 pages of material making up the approximately 30,000 emails she provided to the Department in December 2014.</p> <p>Throughout Secretary Clinton&#8217;s tenure, the FAM stated that normal day-to-day operations should be conducted on an authorized AIS, yet OIG found no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email&amp;#160;account on her private server. According to the current CIO [chief information officer] and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, Secretary Clinton had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices, who in turn would have attempted to&amp;#160;provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs. However, according to these officials, DS [Bureau of Diplomatic Security] and IRM [Bureau of Information Resource Management] did not &#8212; and would not &#8212; approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business, because of the restrictions in the FAM and the security risks in doing so.</p> <p>The Clinton campaign has <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2015/07/13/email-facts/" type="external">cited</a>&amp;#160;a National Archives and Records Administration <a href="https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2015/nr15-65.html" type="external">regulation</a>&amp;#160;adopted in 2009 as evidence that Clinton was allowed to send and receive work-related emails &#8220;using a system not operated by the agency,&#8221; as the rule states. That&#8217;s true, as far as it goes. The IG report says it found &#8220;many examples of staff using personal email accounts to conduct official&amp;#160;business.&#8221; But the report also made a distinction between occasional use and exclusive use of personal email.</p> <p>The report said it found only three department employees in 19 years who&amp;#160;&#8220;used non-Departmental&amp;#160;systems on an exclusive basis,&#8221; and two of them were secretaries of state (Clinton and Powell). The other was Jonathan Scott Gration, a former ambassador to Kenya, who ignored instructions in July 2011 not to use commercial email for government businesses and resigned in mid-2012 when the department initiated disciplinary action against him.</p> <p>The IG report cited the Gration report as an example of how the process should work.&amp;#160;&#8220;[T]he Department&#8217;s&amp;#160;response to his actions demonstrates how such usage is normally handled when Department&amp;#160;cybersecurity officials become aware of it,&#8221; the report said.</p> <p>The 2009 NARA rule that the Clinton campaign cites does allow for the occasional use of personal email, as we just said, but it also requires that the department &#8220;ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton has insisted that she complied with that records requirement, too, because she sent emails to department staffers who had government email addresses. At a <a href="http://time.com/3739541/transcript-hillary-clinton-email-press-conference/" type="external">March 10 press conference</a>, when she first took questions about her unusual email arrangement, Clinton said &#8220;the vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department.&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton, March 10: I fully complied with every rule that I was governed by.</p> <p>The IG report said that is not the case. It said Clinton&#8217;s method of preserving work-related emails was insufficient under the Federal Records Act.</p> <p>State Department Inspector General, May 26: As previously discussed, however, sending emails from a personal account to other employees at their Department accounts is not an appropriate method of preserving any such emails that would constitute a Federal record. Therefore, Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary. At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department&#8217;s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.</p> <p>Fallon, the Clinton spokesman, said &#8220;we agree in retrospect&#8221; with the IG finding that &#8220;her practice of copying aides on her emails did not end up producing a full record since State&#8217;s IT systems didn&#8217;t save everything. But that doesn&#8217;t mean she didn&#8217;t take steps to comply.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Our goal was to explain her state of mind at the time, because she was copying and sending&#8221; emails to people within the State Department,&#8221; Fallon said. &#8220;She believed that all those emails were captured,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>On multiple occasions, Clinton has said she was not alone in using personal email for government business. That is correct, but she distorts the facts when saying that what she did was the same as other secretaries of state, as she did in a <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/07/07/cnn-exclusive-hillary-clintons-first-national-interview-of-2016-race/" type="external">CNN interview</a> on July 7, 2015, in&amp;#160;a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/09/transcript-the-post-univision-democratic-debate-annotated/" type="external">March 9 debate</a>, and again in the ABC interview on May 26 after the report came out.</p> <p>Clinton, July 7, 2015:&amp;#160;There was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate. Previous secretaries of state have said they did the same thing. &#8230;&amp;#160;And as I said, prior secretaries of state &#8212; I mean, Secretary Powell has admitted he did exactly the same thing.</p> <p>Clinton, March 9:&amp;#160;I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed. And as I have said and as now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government.</p> <p>Clinton, May 26: This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state.</p> <p>She was wrong to say &#8220;my predecessors did the same thing,&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">as we have pointed out before</a>. The IG report confirms that among Clinton&#8217;s predecessors only Powell used personal email for government business.&amp;#160;Madeleine Albright did not use email at all, and Condoleezza Rice did not use personal email to conduct government business, the IG report says.</p> <p>Secretary of State John Kerry, who followed Clinton, told the inspector general&#8217;s office that he &#8220;infrequently&#8221; used personal email for government business &#8220;when responding to a sender&amp;#160;who emailed him on his personal account.&#8221;</p> <p>Even now Clinton twists the facts when she claims, as she did in the ABC News interview, that &#8220;personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state&#8221; &#8212; meaning Powell and Kerry. It was the practice for Powell, but it was the exception for Kerry, so the plural use of &#8220;secretaries&#8221; is misleading &#8212; especially in light of the IG report.</p> <p>In what reads like a direct rebuttal to Clinton&#8217;s claim that other secretaries of state have done the same thing, the IG report&amp;#160;notes that the department&#8217;s policies on the use of personal email and nongovernment computer systems were &#8220;considerably more detailed and more sophisticated&#8221; during Clinton&#8217;s tenure. It said she should be &#8220;evaluated&#8221; differently than her predecessors.</p> <p>&#8220;Beginning in late 2005 and continuing through 2011, the Department revised the FAM [Foreign Affairs Manual] and issued various memoranda specifically discussing the obligation to use Department [computer] systems in most circumstances and identifying the risks of not doing so,&#8221; the report says. &#8220;Secretary Clinton&#8217;s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives.&#8221;</p> <p>In addition to the policies we outlined from the mid-2000s, the report noted specific instances in which State Department officials acted to discourage the use of&amp;#160;personal email for government business.</p> <p>For example, on March 11, 2011, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security sent a memo to Clinton that said there has been &#8220;a dramatic increase since January 2011 in attempts by [redacted] cyber actors to compromise the private home e-mail accounts of senior Department officials.&#8221; That was followed by two high-level meetings in April and May 2011 on cybersecurity that were attended by &#8220;the Secretary&#8217;s immediate staff.&#8221;</p> <p>What followed was a cable that went out under Clinton&#8217;s name that &#8220;recommended best practices for Department users and their family members to follow, including &#8216;avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts,&#8217;&#8221; the report said, quoting from Clinton&#8217;s cable.</p> <p>The report also addressed some other notable issues:</p> <p>Clinton admits she made a mistake when she decided to use a personal email and server to conduct public business. But she has been less than forthright as she has tried to spin the facts in an attempt to minimize her admitted mistake.</p> <p>The IG report makes it clear that occasional use of personal email for government business would have been acceptable as long as Clinton&#8217;s emails were preserved by the department before she left office. But the department policies at the time prevented her or anyone else from using a personal account exclusively for government business &#8212; let alone a personal server, which should have been registered with the department but was not.</p> <p>Updated, May 27: This article was revised to clarify Fallon&#8217;s comments on the IG&#8217;s finding that Clinton &#8220;did not comply with the Department&#8217;s&amp;#160;policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.&#8221; We added that Fallon said the Clinton campaign agrees with the IG finding that &#8220;her practice of copying aides on her emails did not end up producing a full record since State&#8217;s IT systems didn&#8217;t save everything. But that doesn&#8217;t mean she didn&#8217;t take steps to comply.&#8221;</p> <p>For all of our stories on Clinton&#8217;s emails click <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>U.S. State Department, Office of the Inspector General. &#8220; <a href="https://oig.state.gov/system/files/esp-16-03.pdf" type="external">Office of the Secretary: Evaluation of&amp;#160;Email Records Management and&amp;#160;Cybersecurity Requirements</a>.&#8221; 26 May 2016.</p> <p>Schmidt, Michael S. &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html?ref=topics&amp;amp;_r=0" type="external">Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules</a>.&#8221; New York Times. 2 Mar 2015.</p> <p>U.S. State Department. &#8220; <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/clinton-hillary-rodham" type="external">Biographies of the Secretaries of State: Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947&#8211;)</a>.&#8221; Accessed 26 May 2016.</p> <p>Gillum, Jack and Ted Bridis. &#8220; <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b78ba433af3a45209668f745158d994c/clinton-ran-homebrew-computer-system-official-emails" type="external">House committee subpoenas Clinton emails in Benghazi probe</a>.&#8221; Associated Press. 5 Mar 2015.</p> <p>Bruer, Wesley. &#8220; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/politics/hillary-clinton-email-probe/" type="external">FBI&#8217;s Comey: No rush on Clinton email probe</a>.&#8221; CNN. 5 Apr 2016.</p> <p>Calabresi, Massimo. &#8220; <a href="http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/" type="external">Inside the FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s E-Mail</a>.&#8221; Time. 31 Mar 2016.</p> <p>U.S. State Department, Office of the Inspector General. &#8220; <a href="https://oig.state.gov/about/IG" type="external">About&amp;#160;Steve A. Linick, Inspector General</a>.&#8221;&amp;#160;Accessed 26 May 2016.</p> <p>White House. &#8220; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/27/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts" type="external">President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts</a>.&#8221; 27 Jun 2013.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">More Spin on Clinton Emails</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 8 Sep 2015.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="https://youtu.be/w7-FIld_HYM" type="external">Hillary Clinton Defends Email Use, Discusses Potential Sanders/Trump Debate</a>.&#8221; ABC News. 26 May 2016.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2015/nr15-65.html" type="external">National Archives Releases State Department Letter re: Email Recordkeeping</a>.&#8221; Press release. The&amp;#160;National Archives and Records Administration. 9 Apr 2015.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="http://time.com/3739541/transcript-hillary-clinton-email-press-conference/" type="external">Transcript: Everything Hillary Clinton said on the Email Controversy</a>.&#8221; Time. 10 Mar 2015.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/07/07/cnn-exclusive-hillary-clintons-first-national-interview-of-2016-race/" type="external">CNN Exclusive: Hillary Clinton&#8217;s first national interview of 2016 Race</a>.&#8221; CNN. 7 Jul 2015.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/09/transcript-the-post-univision-democratic-debate-annotated/" type="external">Transcript: The Post-Univision Democratic debate, annotated</a>.&#8221; Washington Post. 9 Mar 2016.</p> <p>Kiely, Eugene et al. &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">FactChecking the Eighth Democratic Debate</a>.&#8221; FactCheck.org. 10 Mar 2016.</p> <p>&#8220; <a href="http://www.rove.com/appearance/no-record-of-former-sec-of-state-clinton-signing-separation-agreement-19860" type="external">Lou Dobbs Tonight</a>.&#8221; Interview with Karl Rove. Video via rove.com. 17 Mar 2015.</p> <p>Tapscott, Mark. &#8220; <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/did-clinton-sign-or-not/article/2561407" type="external">Clinton was required to sign document claiming she turned over emails in 2013</a>.&#8221; Washington Examiner. 11 Mar 2015.</p>

IG Report on Clinton’s Emails

https://factcheck.org/2016/05/ig-report-on-clintons-emails/

2016-05-27

2least

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that her decision to use a private email account and server for government business while secretary of state was 8220allowed8221 by the State Department She has said 8220my predecessors did the same thing8221 and insisted she 8220fully complied with every rule8221 in preserving her work emails We have taken issue with those claims and now so does the State Department Office of Inspector General which issued a report on May 26 thatamp160contradicts several of Clinton8217s claims about her emails The IG report also said the only other secretary of state to use personal email 8220exclusively8221 for government business was Colin Powell contrary to Clinton8217s claim that her 8220predecessors8221 8212 plural 8212 8220did the same thing8221 The IG also said that like Clinton Powell did not comply with policies on preserving workrelated emails But the IG report said the comparison to Powell 8212 who did not use a private server 8212 only goes so far It said during Clinton8217s tenure the rules governing personal email and the use of nongovernment systems were 8220considerably more detailed and more sophisticated8221 citing specific memos that warned department employees about the security risks of not using the government system 8220Secretary Clinton8217s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives8221 the report said Brian Fallon a Clinton campaign spokesman told us that even though the IG report contradicts Clinton8217s past statements that 8220doesn8217t make her statements untruthful8221 He saidamp160Clinton who declined to be interviewed by the inspector general8217s staff 8220believed 8212 past tense8221 that her use of a private server was allowed that it was no different than Powell using a commercial email account to conduct government business She no longer believes that he said although she continues to say 8212 as she did in an ABC News interview on May 26 after the IG report came out 8212 that the use of personal email was allowed 8220It did not occur to her that having it on a personal server could be so distinct that it would be unapproved8221 Fallon said 8220We8217re not intending to say post the IG report that her server was allowed We don8217t contest that We8217re saying 8230 the use of personal email was widespread8221 Onamp160March 2 2015 the New York Timesamp160 reportedamp160that Clinton exclusively used a private email account to conduct government business while secretary of state from January 2009 to February 2013 The Associated Press followed with a reportamp160that Clinton8217s email account was hosted on a private server at her home in New York The disclosures triggered a series of actionsamp160most importantly an FBI investigationamp160into the handling of classified government material The investigation is ongoing and may or may not be completed before the Nov 8 presidential election Separately the State Department Office of Inspector General 8212 which is headed byamp160 Steve A Linick an appointee of President Obama 8212 conducted a review of the Office of the Secretary8217s 8220email records management and cybersecurity requirements8221 since 1997 covering the tenures of five secretaries of state and their staffs The result is a 79page report that identified 8220systemic weaknesses 8230 that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary ofamp160State8221 It made eight recommendations to the department For our purposes we reviewed the report in the context of statements that Clinton the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination has made about her unusual email arrangement since it was first disclosed more than a year ago As we have written before Clinton has said her email arrangement was 8220allowed8221 by her department and 8220fully above board8221 Even after the report came out Clinton continued to make this claim saying in an ABC News interviewon May 26 that 8220it was allowed8221 The IG report says that that was not the case Clinton Sept 4 2015 I know why the American people have questions about it And I want to make sure I answer those questions starting with the fact that my personal email use was fully above board It was allowed by the State Department as they have confirmed Clinton Sept 7 2015amp160What I did was allowed by the State Department It was fully above board Clinton May 8 Well as I have said many times there was 8212 I was absolutely permitted and I did it Clinton May 26 Well it was allowed and the rules have been clarified since I left about the practice The IG report said that it has been department policy since 2005 8212 four years before Clinton took office 8212 thatamp1608220normal daytoday operations8221 be conducted on government servers The report also said that in 2007 the department adopted additional policies requiring 8220nonDepartmental information systems8221 used to 8220process or store department information8221 to meet the same security controls as the department8217s systems and requiring that they be registered with the department Clinton did not adhere to either policy State Department Inspector General May 26 The Department8217s current policy implemented in 2005 is that normal daytoday operations should be conducted on an authorized Automated Information System AIS which 8220has the proper level of security control to 8230 ensure confidentiality integrity and availability of theamp160resident information8221 The FAM Foreign Affairs Manual defines an AIS as an assembly of hardware software and firmware used to electronically input process store andor output data Examples include mainframes servers desktop workstations and mobile devices such as laptops ereaders smartphones and tablets This policy comports with FISMA Federal Information Security Management Act which was enacted in December 2002 and requires Federal agencies to ensure information security for the systems that support the agency8217s operations and assets including information security protections for information systems used by a contractor of an agency or other organization on behalf of an agency FISMA defines information security as protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access use disclosure disruption modification or destruction in order to provide for the integrity confidentiality and availability of the information and systems In 2006 as required by FISMA NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology promulgated minimum security requirements that apply to all information within the Federal Government and to Federal information systems Among these are requirements for certifying and accrediting information systems retaining system audit records for monitoring purposes conducting risk assessments and ensuring the protection of communications In 2007 the Department adopted additional policies to implement these requirements including numerous provisions intended to ensure that nonDepartmental information systems that process or store Department information maintain the same minimum security controls Further nonDepartmental systems that are sponsored by the Department to process information on its behalf must be registered with the Department The IG report said Clinton 8220had an obligation8221 to discuss her email system with the department but it could find 8220no evidence8221 that Clinton sought approval for her unusual email arrangement If she did the report says her request would have been denied by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Information Resource Management State Department Inspector General May 26 Secretary Clinton used mobile devices to conduct official business using the personal email account on her private server extensively as illustrated by the 55000 pages of material making up the approximately 30000 emails she provided to the Department in December 2014 Throughout Secretary Clinton8217s tenure the FAM stated that normal daytoday operations should be conducted on an authorized AIS yet OIG found no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal emailamp160account on her private server According to the current CIO chief information officer and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Secretary Clinton had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices who in turn would have attempted toamp160provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs However according to these officials DS Bureau of Diplomatic Security and IRM Bureau of Information Resource Management did not 8212 and would not 8212 approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business because of the restrictions in the FAM and the security risks in doing so The Clinton campaign has citedamp160a National Archives and Records Administration regulationamp160adopted in 2009 as evidence that Clinton was allowed to send and receive workrelated emails 8220using a system not operated by the agency8221 as the rule states That8217s true as far as it goes The IG report says it found 8220many examples of staff using personal email accounts to conduct officialamp160business8221 But the report also made a distinction between occasional use and exclusive use of personal email The report said it found only three department employees in 19 years whoamp1608220used nonDepartmentalamp160systems on an exclusive basis8221 and two of them were secretaries of state Clinton and Powell The other was Jonathan Scott Gration a former ambassador to Kenya who ignored instructions in July 2011 not to use commercial email for government businesses and resigned in mid2012 when the department initiated disciplinary action against him The IG report cited the Gration report as an example of how the process should workamp1608220The Department8217samp160response to his actions demonstrates how such usage is normally handled when Departmentamp160cybersecurity officials become aware of it8221 the report said The 2009 NARA rule that the Clinton campaign cites does allow for the occasional use of personal email as we just said but it also requires that the department 8220ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system8221 Clinton has insisted that she complied with that records requirement too because she sent emails to department staffers who had government email addresses At a March 10 press conference when she first took questions about her unusual email arrangement Clinton said 8220the vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department8221 Clinton March 10 I fully complied with every rule that I was governed by The IG report said that is not the case It said Clinton8217s method of preserving workrelated emails was insufficient under the Federal Records Act State Department Inspector General May 26 As previously discussed however sending emails from a personal account to other employees at their Department accounts is not an appropriate method of preserving any such emails that would constitute a Federal record Therefore Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary At a minimum Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and because she did not do so she did not comply with the Department8217s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act Fallon the Clinton spokesman said 8220we agree in retrospect8221 with the IG finding that 8220her practice of copying aides on her emails did not end up producing a full record since State8217s IT systems didn8217t save everything But that doesn8217t mean she didn8217t take steps to comply8221 8220Our goal was to explain her state of mind at the time because she was copying and sending8221 emails to people within the State Department8221 Fallon said 8220She believed that all those emails were captured8221 he said On multiple occasions Clinton has said she was not alone in using personal email for government business That is correct but she distorts the facts when saying that what she did was the same as other secretaries of state as she did in a CNN interview on July 7 2015 inamp160a March 9 debate and again in the ABC interview on May 26 after the report came out Clinton July 7 2015amp160There was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate Previous secretaries of state have said they did the same thing 8230amp160And as I said prior secretaries of state 8212 I mean Secretary Powell has admitted he did exactly the same thing Clinton March 9amp160I made a mistake It was not prohibited It was not in any way disallowed And as I have said and as now has come out my predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government Clinton May 26 This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state She was wrong to say 8220my predecessors did the same thing8221 as we have pointed out before The IG report confirms that among Clinton8217s predecessors only Powell used personal email for government businessamp160Madeleine Albright did not use email at all and Condoleezza Rice did not use personal email to conduct government business the IG report says Secretary of State John Kerry who followed Clinton told the inspector general8217s office that he 8220infrequently8221 used personal email for government business 8220when responding to a senderamp160who emailed him on his personal account8221 Even now Clinton twists the facts when she claims as she did in the ABC News interview that 8220personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state8221 8212 meaning Powell and Kerry It was the practice for Powell but it was the exception for Kerry so the plural use of 8220secretaries8221 is misleading 8212 especially in light of the IG report In what reads like a direct rebuttal to Clinton8217s claim that other secretaries of state have done the same thing the IG reportamp160notes that the department8217s policies on the use of personal email and nongovernment computer systems were 8220considerably more detailed and more sophisticated8221 during Clinton8217s tenure It said she should be 8220evaluated8221 differently than her predecessors 8220Beginning in late 2005 and continuing through 2011 the Department revised the FAM Foreign Affairs Manual and issued various memoranda specifically discussing the obligation to use Department computer systems in most circumstances and identifying the risks of not doing so8221 the report says 8220Secretary Clinton8217s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives8221 In addition to the policies we outlined from the mid2000s the report noted specific instances in which State Department officials acted to discourage the use ofamp160personal email for government business For example on March 11 2011 the assistant secretary for diplomatic security sent a memo to Clinton that said there has been 8220a dramatic increase since January 2011 in attempts by redacted cyber actors to compromise the private home email accounts of senior Department officials8221 That was followed by two highlevel meetings in April and May 2011 on cybersecurity that were attended by 8220the Secretary8217s immediate staff8221 What followed was a cable that went out under Clinton8217s name that 8220recommended best practices for Department users and their family members to follow including 8216avoid conducting official Department business from your personal email accounts82178221 the report said quoting from Clinton8217s cable The report also addressed some other notable issues Clinton admits she made a mistake when she decided to use a personal email and server to conduct public business But she has been less than forthright as she has tried to spin the facts in an attempt to minimize her admitted mistake The IG report makes it clear that occasional use of personal email for government business would have been acceptable as long as Clinton8217s emails were preserved by the department before she left office But the department policies at the time prevented her or anyone else from using a personal account exclusively for government business 8212 let alone a personal server which should have been registered with the department but was not Updated May 27 This article was revised to clarify Fallon8217s comments on the IG8217s finding that Clinton 8220did not comply with the Department8217samp160policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act8221 We added that Fallon said the Clinton campaign agrees with the IG finding that 8220her practice of copying aides on her emails did not end up producing a full record since State8217s IT systems didn8217t save everything But that doesn8217t mean she didn8217t take steps to comply8221 For all of our stories on Clinton8217s emails click here US State Department Office of the Inspector General 8220 Office of the Secretary Evaluation ofamp160Email Records Management andamp160Cybersecurity Requirements8221 26 May 2016 Schmidt Michael S 8220 Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept Possibly Breaking Rules8221 New York Times 2 Mar 2015 US State Department 8220 Biographies of the Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton 194782118221 Accessed 26 May 2016 Gillum Jack and Ted Bridis 8220 House committee subpoenas Clinton emails in Benghazi probe8221 Associated Press 5 Mar 2015 Bruer Wesley 8220 FBI8217s Comey No rush on Clinton email probe8221 CNN 5 Apr 2016 Calabresi Massimo 8220 Inside the FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton8217s EMail8221 Time 31 Mar 2016 US State Department Office of the Inspector General 8220 Aboutamp160Steve A Linick Inspector General8221amp160Accessed 26 May 2016 White House 8220 President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts8221 27 Jun 2013 Kiely Eugene 8220 More Spin on Clinton Emails8221 FactCheckorg 8 Sep 2015 8220 Hillary Clinton Defends Email Use Discusses Potential SandersTrump Debate8221 ABC News 26 May 2016 8220 National Archives Releases State Department Letter re Email Recordkeeping8221 Press release Theamp160National Archives and Records Administration 9 Apr 2015 8220 Transcript Everything Hillary Clinton said on the Email Controversy8221 Time 10 Mar 2015 8220 CNN Exclusive Hillary Clinton8217s first national interview of 2016 Race8221 CNN 7 Jul 2015 8220 Transcript The PostUnivision Democratic debate annotated8221 Washington Post 9 Mar 2016 Kiely Eugene et al 8220 FactChecking the Eighth Democratic Debate8221 FactCheckorg 10 Mar 2016 8220 Lou Dobbs Tonight8221 Interview with Karl Rove Video via rovecom 17 Mar 2015 Tapscott Mark 8220 Clinton was required to sign document claiming she turned over emails in 20138221 Washington Examiner 11 Mar 2015

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<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - Napec Inc:</p> <p>* NAPEC INC. ANNOUNCES THE ACQUISITION OF THE ASSETS OF H.T. SWEENEY &amp;amp; SON, INC.</p> <p>* NAPEC INC - US$18 MILLION ACQUISITION WILL BE FINANCED BY CASH AND ADDITIONAL CREDIT FACILITIES Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street&#8217;s three major indexes staged a comeback to close around 1 percent higher on Wednesday as investors turned their focus to earnings and away from a trade conflict between the United States and China that wreaked havoc in earlier trading.</p> <p>After investors fled equities in the morning due to proposed retaliatory tariffs from China, their concerns about a potential trade war eased by the afternoon after Trump&#8217;s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the administration was in a &#8220;negotiation&#8221; with China rather than a trade war.</p> <p>Investors said they were comforted by the fact that any tariffs would not take effect immediately, if at all. Strategists also cited the S&amp;amp;P&#8217;s bounce above a key technical support level and said they expect equities to rise further around the first quarter earnings season, due to start in mid-April.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re starting to feel that while markets hate uncertainty, Trump&#8217;s bark is worse than his bite when it comes to trade,&#8221; said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s earnings that&#8217;s going to lift us off this bottom. It wouldn&#8217;t shock me if we chopped around sideways for a little bit before earnings season ... The trade stuff is really a side show. We&#8217;re waiting for real economic data like the jobs report Friday and for earnings. For now it&#8217;s going to be all about the technicals,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P opened below its 200-day moving average, a key technical level, but inched above it as the session progressed, and by afternoon was in positive territory.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 230.94 points, or 0.96 percent, to close at 24,264.30, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 30.24 points, or 1.16 percent, to 2,644.69 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 100.83 points, or 1.45 percent, to 7,042.11.</p> <p>The turnaround marked the first time the S&amp;amp;P had showed gains for two consecutive days since early March.</p> <p>Despite big swings in stocks, trading activity in U.S. equity options was muted as expectations for strong corporate earnings quelled the urge to load up on contracts that benefit from a surge in market volatility. The Cboe Volatility Index .VIX, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility for the S&amp;amp;P 500, closed down 1.04 points at 20.06.</p> <p>The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.4 percent with only two of its stocks ending the day in negative territory including Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), which was pummeled after news its chief executive would testify in Congress over a data privacy scandal. It too closed well off its session low with a 0.6 percent drop to $155.10.</p> Slideshow (7 Images) <p>Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>) was the biggest drag on the Dow due to its exposure to China, and ended the day well off its session lows with a 1 percent decline to $327.44 after falling as low as $311.88.</p> <p>Farm machinery company Deere &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DE.N" type="external">DE.N</a>) ended down 2.9 percent at $148.57 as it could be hurt by China tariffs if its customers&#8217; exports are curbed.</p> <p>After being a laggard for much of the session, the S&amp;amp;P 500&#8217;s industrials sector .SPLRCI turned positive late in the day to close 0.4 percent higher.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.95-to-1 ratio favored advancers.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">Dow Jones &amp;amp; Company Inc</a> 24264.3 .DJI Dow Jones Indexes +230.94 (+0.96%) .DJI .SPX .IXIC FB.O BA.N <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 posted one new 52-week high and eight new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 40 new highs and 94 new lows.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.04 billion shares, compared with the 7.3 billion average for the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Herbert Lash in New York and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - It took China just 11 hours to retaliate against the United States for proposing tariffs on some 1,300 Chinese products, but Chinese officials are holding back on taking aim at their largest American import: government debt.</p> <p>In a tit-for-tat response to the Trump administration&#8217;s plan for 25 percent duties on $50 billion of Chinese imports, China hit back with its own list of similar duties on key American imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals. But officials signaled no interest for now in bringing their vast holdings of U.S. Treasuries to the fight.</p> <p>China held around $1.17 trillion of Treasuries as of the end of January, making it the largest of America's foreign creditors and the No. 2 overall owner of U.S. government bonds after the Federal Reserve. Any move by China to chop its Treasury portfolio could inflict significant harm on U.S. finances and global investors, driving bond yields higher and making it more costly to finance the federal government.(Graphic: Top U.S. trade partners &amp;amp; foreign holders of Treasuries - <a href="http://reut.rs/2CUqQB0" type="external">reut.rs/2CUqQB0</a>)</p> <a href="http://reut.rs/2CUqQB0" type="external" /> <p>Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive of DoubleLine Capital LP, said China can use its Treasury holdings as leverage, but only if they keep holding them.</p> <p>&#8220;It is more effective as a threat. If they sell, they have no threat,&#8221; said Gundlach, known as Wall Street&#8217;s Bond King.</p> <p>&#8220;It would only escalate the situation and eliminate their leverage.&#8221;</p> <p>Prices on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes slipped on Wednesday, giving back earlier gains on the trade news. Their yield edged up to about 2.81 percent Wednesday afternoon.</p> <p>China&#8217;s Treasury holdings have dipped in recent months, declining by about $30 billion from $1.20 trillion last August, and they are down about 11 percent from their record high above $1.3 trillion in late 2013, according to U.S government data. In all, foreign governments own $4 trillion, or more than a quarter, of the $14.7 trillion in Treasury securities outstanding.</p> <p>Asked by a reporter on Wednesday if China would reduce its U.S. Treasury holdings in retaliation, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao reiterated China&#8217;s long-standing policy regarding its foreign exchange reserves, saying it is a responsible investor and that it will safeguard their value.</p> <p>China&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves, the world&#8217;s largest, stood at about $3.13 trillion at the end of February, with roughly a third of it held in Treasuries.</p> <p>&#8220;If they wanted to pull the nuclear switch, if they committed to dumping Treasuries, it would have an immediate and temporary impact on money markets in the United States,&#8221; said Jeff Klingelhofer, a portfolio manager who oversees more than $6 billion at Thornburg Investment Management Inc. &#8220;But I think it is a bigger hit to the sustainability of what they&#8217;re trying to accomplish.&#8221;</p> <p>Brad Setser, senior fellow for international economics&amp;#160;at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said China can sell Treasuries and buy lower-yielding European or Japanese debt.</p> <p>But the effect would likely be to strengthen the yuan against the dollar, weakening the relative desirability of its exports, analysts said. The sale could also tank the value of the Treasuries China retains, with nothing to show for the aggression.</p> <p>More likely, if China wanted to turn up the heat it would let the yuan depreciate against the U.S. dollar, according to CFR&#8217;s Setser, a move that could kneecap the Trump administration&#8217;s goal of jump-starting U.S. manufacturing. The yuan weakened by about 0.25 percent on Wednesday but remains near its strongest in two and a half years.</p> <p>Even if the likelihood of a change in Chinese policy regarding its Treasuries portfolio remains low, investors are sensitive to the risk any big shift would pose to world financial markets, where Treasuries are a global benchmark asset.</p> <p>A January report that China might halt its purchases of Treasuries forced yields higher, but China disputed the news and said it was only diversifying its foreign exchange reserves to safeguard their value.</p> <p>Reporting by Kate Duguid and Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Dan Burns and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SAO PAULO (Reuters) - China&#8217;s move to slap tariffs on U.S. farm products sent Brazil soy premiums surging to historic highs on expectations of higher export demand on Wednesday, but traders and analysts warned that Latin America could not entirely replace U.S. production.</p> FILE PHOTO: Workers harvest soybeans in a farm in the city of Primavera do Leste in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso January 29, 2013. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File photo <p>China responded to U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s plans to impose $50 billion in tariffs on its goods by announcing tariffs of equal value on U.S. imports, including a wide range of agricultural products.</p> <p>Goods produced in South America made the list, including soy, beef, tobacco, cotton and frozen orange juice.</p> <p>That raised the prospect that China would seek to shift large parts of its agricultural sourcing from the United States to the region. Alternate global suppliers of goods ranging from televisions to vaccines could be unexpected beneficiaries of Trump&#8217;s policies.</p> FILE PHOTO: A truck is loaded with soybeans in a farm in the city of Primavera do Leste in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso February 7, 2013. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File photo <p>Already record high premiums for Brazilian soy over Chicago prices were driven up 37 percent in response, the biggest one-day increase since January 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;I have never seen a premium this high in history, this in a way will more than compensate for the bloodbath in Chicago,&#8221; said Aedson Pereira, an analyst at IEG-FNP, a subsidiary of Informa Economics.</p> <p>Chicago soybeans futures contracts for May delivery fell 2 percent, closing at around $10.15 per bushel, retracing some losses after a 5 percent plunge.</p> <p>But Latin America does not produce enough to compensate fully for U.S. output - and that may help push China and the United States to settle the dispute, according to Pereira and other analysts.</p> <p>Brazil already sells roughly 75 percent of its soybean exports to China and with increasing domestic demand is unlikely to be able to free up much more for export.</p> <p>&#8220;Even if Brazil sells its entire export volume to China, the Asian country would be short of 30 million tonnes,&#8221; said one Brazil-based analyst, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.</p> FILE PHOTO: A close-up photo shows soy plants in a farm in Sao Desiderio, Bahia state, Brazil March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Roberto Samora <p>South America&#8217;s other top producer Argentina already sent almost 90 percent of its 7.3 million soybeans to China last year, while smaller Paraguay does not have diplomatic relations with China.</p> <p>The outlook for soybean prices was already robust after Argentina supplies took a hit from drought, while China&#8217;s demand has continued to rise.</p> <p>Rodrigo Oliveira, chief strategist of Agro Financeira, a small trading and hedging firm based in the state of Tocantins, said his firm was looking to take advantage, buying up more Brazilian soybeans compared to last year.</p> <p>&#8220;When China is going to buy from Brazilian trading (firms), they will have to pay us the Brazilian premium,&#8221; said Oliveira. &#8220;This is going to be huge for Brazilian soybean prices.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Ana Mano and Roberto Samora; Additional reporting by Maximilian Heath and Nicolas Misculin in BUENOS AIRES, Daniela Desantis in ASUNCION, Karl Plume in CHICAGO and Jose Roberto Gomes in SAO PAULO; Writing by Jake Spring, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday raised the stakes in a growing trade showdown with China, targeting 25 percent tariffs on some 1,300 industrial technology, transport and medical products to try to force changes in Beijing&#8217;s intellectual property practices.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a joint news conference with Latvia's President Raimonds Vejonis, Estonia's President Kersti Kaljulaid and Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria <p>The U.S. tariff unveiling, representing about $50 billion of estimated 2018 imports and aimed at dealing a setback to China&#8217;s efforts to upgrade its manufacturing base, drew an immediate condemnation from Beijing, along with a threat of retaliatory action.</p> <p>China&#8217;s Ministry of Commerce said it &#8220;will soon take measure of equal intensity and scale against U.S. goods.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;We have the confidence and ability to respond to any protectionist measures by the United States,&#8221; the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.</p> <p>The ministry did not reveal any specific countermeasures, but economists widely view imports of U.S. soybeans, aircraft and machinery as prime targets for trade retaliation.</p> <p>The tariff list from the U.S. Trade Representative&#8217;s office followed China&#8217;s imposition of tariffs on $3 billion worth of U.S. fruits, nuts, pork and wine to protest new U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last month by U.S. President Donald Trump.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-tradebody/chinese-trade-body-says-u-s-investigation-has-no-factual-basis-idUSKCN1HB0DC" type="external">Chinese trade body says U.S. investigation has 'no factual basis'</a> <a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-ambassaor/china-diplomat-says-latest-u-s-tariffs-a-further-step-in-wrong-direction-media-idUSKCN1HB0BX" type="external">China diplomat says latest U.S. tariffs a further step in wrong direction: media</a> <a href="/article/us-china-trade-antidumping-chemicals/china-raises-anti-dumping-tariffs-on-ethylene-glycol-diethylene-glycol-commerce-ministry-idUSKCN1HB09T" type="external">China raises anti-dumping tariffs on ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol: commerce ministry</a> <p>The standoff between the world&#8217;s two largest economies has sparked market fears that they could spiral into a trade war that could crush global growth.</p> <p>Asian share markets were mixed amid trade tension concerns, with Japan's Nikkei 225 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> off 0.1 percent but Shanghai's main index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SSEC" type="external">.SSEC</a> poised to open 0.3 percent higher.</p> MANY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS EXCLUDED <p>The USTR list ranged from chemicals to light-emitting diodes to machine parts, but U.S. industry groups warned it would still hit supply chains that rely on Chinese components and would ultimately raise costs for consumers.</p> <p>Many consumer electronics products such as cellphones made by Apple Inc. ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">AAPL.O</a>) and laptops made by Dell were excluded, as were footwear and clothing, drawing a sigh of relief from retailers who had feared higher costs for American consumers.</p> <p>But the USTR did include some key consumer products from China, including flat-panel television sets and motor vehicles, both electric and gasoline-powered with engines of 3 liters or less.</p> <p>A Reuters analysis that compared listed products with 2017 Census Bureau import data showed $3.9 billion in flat-panel television imports, and $1.4 billion in vehicle imports from China.</p> <p>Among vehicles likely to be hit with tariffs is General Motors Co&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) Buick Envision sport-utility vehicle, which is assembled in China and sold in the United States. Volvo, owned by China&#8217;s Geely Motors, also exports Chinese-built vehicles to the United States.</p> <p>More than 200 products on the list saw no U.S. imports last year, including large aircraft and communication satellites, while some categories were highly unlikely to ever be imported, such as artillery weapons.</p> <p>Publication of the tariff lists starts a public comment and consultation period expected to last around two months, after which USTR said it would issue a &#8220;final determination&#8221; on the product list. It has scheduled a May 15 public hearing on the tariffs.</p> <p>China ran a $375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017, a figure that Trump has demanded be cut by $100 billion.</p> ALGORITHM SHIELDS U.S. CONSUMERS <p>USTR developed the tariff targets using a computer algorithm designed to choose products that would inflict maximum pain on Chinese exporters, but limit the damage to U.S. consumers.</p> <p>A USTR official said the product list got an initial scrub by removing products identified as likely to cause disruptions to the U.S. economy and those that needed to be excluded for legal reasons.</p> <p>&#8220;The remaining products were ranked according to the likely impact on U.S. consumers, based on available trade data involving alternative country sources for each product,&#8221; the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.</p> <p>USTR said the China tariffs announced on Tuesday were proposed &#8220;in response to China&#8217;s policies that coerce American companies into transferring their technology and intellectual property to domestic Chinese enterprises.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 21645.42 .N225 Nikkei Index +325.87 (+1.53%) .N225 .SSEC AAPL.O GM.N <p>The agency added that such policies &#8220;bolster China&#8217;s stated intention of seizing economic leadership in advanced technology as set forth in its industrial plans.&#8221;</p> <p>China has denied that its laws require technology transfers and has threatened to retaliate against any U.S. tariffs with trade sanctions of its own, with potential targets such as U.S. soybeans, aircraft or heavy equipment.</p> 2025 PROGRAM TARGETED <p>A USTR official said the tariff list targeted products that benefit from China&#8217;s industrial policies, including the &#8220;Made in China 2025&#8221; program, which aims to replace advanced technology imports with domestic products and build a dominant position in future industries.</p> <p>The state-led 2025 program targets 10 strategic industries: advanced information technology, robotics, aircraft, new energy vehicles, pharmaceuticals, electric power equipment, advanced materials, agricultural machinery, shipbuilding and marine engineering and advanced rail equipment.</p> <p>Many products in those segments appear on the list, including antibiotics and industrial robots and aircraft parts.</p> <p>U.S. business groups reacted cautiously, saying they agreed with Trump&#8217;s efforts to stop the theft of U.S. intellectual property, but questioning whether tariffs were the right approach.</p> <p>&#8220;Tariffs are one proposed response, but they are likely to create new challenges in the form of significant added costs for manufacturers and American consumers,&#8221; National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons said in a statement.</p> <p>U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said in a letter to Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he was glad to see &#8220;bold&#8221; action against China.</p> <p>&#8220;These necessary actions constitute an important break with the appeasement of previous administrations, and provide an opportunity to chart a new course for America&#8217;s relationship with this strategic competitor,&#8221; Rubio wrote.</p> <p>Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Jason Lange, Ginger Gibson, Steve Holland and David Chance in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Napec Announces Acquisition Of Assets Of H.T. Sweeney & Son Wall Street closes higher as China tariff fears ease China, holding Treasuries, keeps 'nuclear option' in U.S. trade war Brazil soy exporters set to win big from U.S.-China trade spat U.S. escalates China trade showdown with tariffs on $50 billion in imports

https://reuters.com/article/brief-napec-announces-acquisition-of-ass/brief-napec-announces-acquisition-of-assets-of-ht-sweeney-son-idUSASB0C1ME

2018-01-19

2least

Jan 19 Reuters Napec Inc NAPEC INC ANNOUNCES THE ACQUISITION OF THE ASSETS OF HT SWEENEY ampamp SON INC NAPEC INC US18 MILLION ACQUISITION WILL BE FINANCED BY CASH AND ADDITIONAL CREDIT FACILITIES Source text for Eikon Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street8217s three major indexes staged a comeback to close around 1 percent higher on Wednesday as investors turned their focus to earnings and away from a trade conflict between the United States and China that wreaked havoc in earlier trading After investors fled equities in the morning due to proposed retaliatory tariffs from China their concerns about a potential trade war eased by the afternoon after Trump8217s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the administration was in a 8220negotiation8221 with China rather than a trade war Investors said they were comforted by the fact that any tariffs would not take effect immediately if at all Strategists also cited the SampampP8217s bounce above a key technical support level and said they expect equities to rise further around the first quarter earnings season due to start in midApril 8220We8217re starting to feel that while markets hate uncertainty Trump8217s bark is worse than his bite when it comes to trade8221 said Robert Phipps a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin Texas 8220It8217s earnings that8217s going to lift us off this bottom It wouldn8217t shock me if we chopped around sideways for a little bit before earnings season The trade stuff is really a side show We8217re waiting for real economic data like the jobs report Friday and for earnings For now it8217s going to be all about the technicals8221 he said The SampampP opened below its 200day moving average a key technical level but inched above it as the session progressed and by afternoon was in positive territory The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 23094 points or 096 percent to close at 2426430 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 3024 points or 116 percent to 264469 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 10083 points or 145 percent to 704211 The turnaround marked the first time the SampampP had showed gains for two consecutive days since early March Despite big swings in stocks trading activity in US equity options was muted as expectations for strong corporate earnings quelled the urge to load up on contracts that benefit from a surge in market volatility The Cboe Volatility Index VIX the most widely followed barometer of expected nearterm volatility for the SampampP 500 closed down 104 points at 2006 The technology sector SPLRCT rose 14 percent with only two of its stocks ending the day in negative territory including Facebook Inc FBO which was pummeled after news its chief executive would testify in Congress over a data privacy scandal It too closed well off its session low with a 06 percent drop to 15510 Slideshow 7 Images Boeing BAN was the biggest drag on the Dow due to its exposure to China and ended the day well off its session lows with a 1 percent decline to 32744 after falling as low as 31188 Farm machinery company Deere ampamp Co DEN ended down 29 percent at 14857 as it could be hurt by China tariffs if its customers8217 exports are curbed After being a laggard for much of the session the SampampP 5008217s industrials sector SPLRCI turned positive late in the day to close 04 percent higher Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 219to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 295to1 ratio favored advancers Dow Jones ampamp Company Inc 242643 DJI Dow Jones Indexes 23094 096 DJI SPX IXIC FBO BAN The SampampP 500 posted one new 52week high and eight new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 40 new highs and 94 new lows Volume on US exchanges was 704 billion shares compared with the 73 billion average for the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Herbert Lash in New York and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Patrick Graham and James Dalgleish Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters It took China just 11 hours to retaliate against the United States for proposing tariffs on some 1300 Chinese products but Chinese officials are holding back on taking aim at their largest American import government debt In a titfortat response to the Trump administration8217s plan for 25 percent duties on 50 billion of Chinese imports China hit back with its own list of similar duties on key American imports including soybeans planes cars beef and chemicals But officials signaled no interest for now in bringing their vast holdings of US Treasuries to the fight China held around 117 trillion of Treasuries as of the end of January making it the largest of Americas foreign creditors and the No 2 overall owner of US government bonds after the Federal Reserve Any move by China to chop its Treasury portfolio could inflict significant harm on US finances and global investors driving bond yields higher and making it more costly to finance the federal governmentGraphic Top US trade partners ampamp foreign holders of Treasuries reutrs2CUqQB0 Jeffrey Gundlach the chief executive of DoubleLine Capital LP said China can use its Treasury holdings as leverage but only if they keep holding them 8220It is more effective as a threat If they sell they have no threat8221 said Gundlach known as Wall Street8217s Bond King 8220It would only escalate the situation and eliminate their leverage8221 Prices on benchmark 10year US Treasury notes slipped on Wednesday giving back earlier gains on the trade news Their yield edged up to about 281 percent Wednesday afternoon China8217s Treasury holdings have dipped in recent months declining by about 30 billion from 120 trillion last August and they are down about 11 percent from their record high above 13 trillion in late 2013 according to US government data In all foreign governments own 4 trillion or more than a quarter of the 147 trillion in Treasury securities outstanding Asked by a reporter on Wednesday if China would reduce its US Treasury holdings in retaliation Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao reiterated China8217s longstanding policy regarding its foreign exchange reserves saying it is a responsible investor and that it will safeguard their value China8217s foreign exchange reserves the world8217s largest stood at about 313 trillion at the end of February with roughly a third of it held in Treasuries 8220If they wanted to pull the nuclear switch if they committed to dumping Treasuries it would have an immediate and temporary impact on money markets in the United States8221 said Jeff Klingelhofer a portfolio manager who oversees more than 6 billion at Thornburg Investment Management Inc 8220But I think it is a bigger hit to the sustainability of what they8217re trying to accomplish8221 Brad Setser senior fellow for international economicsamp160at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York said China can sell Treasuries and buy loweryielding European or Japanese debt But the effect would likely be to strengthen the yuan against the dollar weakening the relative desirability of its exports analysts said The sale could also tank the value of the Treasuries China retains with nothing to show for the aggression More likely if China wanted to turn up the heat it would let the yuan depreciate against the US dollar according to CFR8217s Setser a move that could kneecap the Trump administration8217s goal of jumpstarting US manufacturing The yuan weakened by about 025 percent on Wednesday but remains near its strongest in two and a half years Even if the likelihood of a change in Chinese policy regarding its Treasuries portfolio remains low investors are sensitive to the risk any big shift would pose to world financial markets where Treasuries are a global benchmark asset A January report that China might halt its purchases of Treasuries forced yields higher but China disputed the news and said it was only diversifying its foreign exchange reserves to safeguard their value Reporting by Kate Duguid and Trevor Hunnicutt Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan Editing by Dan Burns and James Dalgleish Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SAO PAULO Reuters China8217s move to slap tariffs on US farm products sent Brazil soy premiums surging to historic highs on expectations of higher export demand on Wednesday but traders and analysts warned that Latin America could not entirely replace US production FILE PHOTO Workers harvest soybeans in a farm in the city of Primavera do Leste in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso January 29 2013 REUTERSPaulo WhitakerFile photo China responded to US President Donald Trump8217s plans to impose 50 billion in tariffs on its goods by announcing tariffs of equal value on US imports including a wide range of agricultural products Goods produced in South America made the list including soy beef tobacco cotton and frozen orange juice That raised the prospect that China would seek to shift large parts of its agricultural sourcing from the United States to the region Alternate global suppliers of goods ranging from televisions to vaccines could be unexpected beneficiaries of Trump8217s policies FILE PHOTO A truck is loaded with soybeans in a farm in the city of Primavera do Leste in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso February 7 2013 REUTERSPaulo WhitakerFile photo Already record high premiums for Brazilian soy over Chicago prices were driven up 37 percent in response the biggest oneday increase since January 2017 8220I have never seen a premium this high in history this in a way will more than compensate for the bloodbath in Chicago8221 said Aedson Pereira an analyst at IEGFNP a subsidiary of Informa Economics Chicago soybeans futures contracts for May delivery fell 2 percent closing at around 1015 per bushel retracing some losses after a 5 percent plunge But Latin America does not produce enough to compensate fully for US output and that may help push China and the United States to settle the dispute according to Pereira and other analysts Brazil already sells roughly 75 percent of its soybean exports to China and with increasing domestic demand is unlikely to be able to free up much more for export 8220Even if Brazil sells its entire export volume to China the Asian country would be short of 30 million tonnes8221 said one Brazilbased analyst who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media FILE PHOTO A closeup photo shows soy plants in a farm in Sao Desiderio Bahia state Brazil March 21 2018 REUTERSRoberto Samora South America8217s other top producer Argentina already sent almost 90 percent of its 73 million soybeans to China last year while smaller Paraguay does not have diplomatic relations with China The outlook for soybean prices was already robust after Argentina supplies took a hit from drought while China8217s demand has continued to rise Rodrigo Oliveira chief strategist of Agro Financeira a small trading and hedging firm based in the state of Tocantins said his firm was looking to take advantage buying up more Brazilian soybeans compared to last year 8220When China is going to buy from Brazilian trading firms they will have to pay us the Brazilian premium8221 said Oliveira 8220This is going to be huge for Brazilian soybean prices8221 Reporting by Ana Mano and Roberto Samora Additional reporting by Maximilian Heath and Nicolas Misculin in BUENOS AIRES Daniela Desantis in ASUNCION Karl Plume in CHICAGO and Jose Roberto Gomes in SAO PAULO Writing by Jake Spring Editing by Rosalba OBrien Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles WASHINGTON Reuters The Trump administration on Tuesday raised the stakes in a growing trade showdown with China targeting 25 percent tariffs on some 1300 industrial technology transport and medical products to try to force changes in Beijing8217s intellectual property practices US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint news conference with Latvias President Raimonds Vejonis Estonias President Kersti Kaljulaid and Lithuanias President Dalia Grybauskaite at the White House in Washington US April 3 2018 REUTERSCarlos Barria The US tariff unveiling representing about 50 billion of estimated 2018 imports and aimed at dealing a setback to China8217s efforts to upgrade its manufacturing base drew an immediate condemnation from Beijing along with a threat of retaliatory action China8217s Ministry of Commerce said it 8220will soon take measure of equal intensity and scale against US goods8221 8220We have the confidence and ability to respond to any protectionist measures by the United States8221 the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official Xinhua news agency The ministry did not reveal any specific countermeasures but economists widely view imports of US soybeans aircraft and machinery as prime targets for trade retaliation The tariff list from the US Trade Representative8217s office followed China8217s imposition of tariffs on 3 billion worth of US fruits nuts pork and wine to protest new US steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last month by US President Donald Trump Related Coverage Chinese trade body says US investigation has no factual basis China diplomat says latest US tariffs a further step in wrong direction media China raises antidumping tariffs on ethylene glycol diethylene glycol commerce ministry The standoff between the world8217s two largest economies has sparked market fears that they could spiral into a trade war that could crush global growth Asian share markets were mixed amid trade tension concerns with Japans Nikkei 225 N225 off 01 percent but Shanghais main index SSEC poised to open 03 percent higher MANY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS EXCLUDED The USTR list ranged from chemicals to lightemitting diodes to machine parts but US industry groups warned it would still hit supply chains that rely on Chinese components and would ultimately raise costs for consumers Many consumer electronics products such as cellphones made by Apple Inc AAPLO and laptops made by Dell were excluded as were footwear and clothing drawing a sigh of relief from retailers who had feared higher costs for American consumers But the USTR did include some key consumer products from China including flatpanel television sets and motor vehicles both electric and gasolinepowered with engines of 3 liters or less A Reuters analysis that compared listed products with 2017 Census Bureau import data showed 39 billion in flatpanel television imports and 14 billion in vehicle imports from China Among vehicles likely to be hit with tariffs is General Motors Co8217s GMN Buick Envision sportutility vehicle which is assembled in China and sold in the United States Volvo owned by China8217s Geely Motors also exports Chinesebuilt vehicles to the United States More than 200 products on the list saw no US imports last year including large aircraft and communication satellites while some categories were highly unlikely to ever be imported such as artillery weapons Publication of the tariff lists starts a public comment and consultation period expected to last around two months after which USTR said it would issue a 8220final determination8221 on the product list It has scheduled a May 15 public hearing on the tariffs China ran a 375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017 a figure that Trump has demanded be cut by 100 billion ALGORITHM SHIELDS US CONSUMERS USTR developed the tariff targets using a computer algorithm designed to choose products that would inflict maximum pain on Chinese exporters but limit the damage to US consumers A USTR official said the product list got an initial scrub by removing products identified as likely to cause disruptions to the US economy and those that needed to be excluded for legal reasons 8220The remaining products were ranked according to the likely impact on US consumers based on available trade data involving alternative country sources for each product8221 the official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters USTR said the China tariffs announced on Tuesday were proposed 8220in response to China8217s policies that coerce American companies into transferring their technology and intellectual property to domestic Chinese enterprises8221 Nikkei Inc 2164542 N225 Nikkei Index 32587 153 N225 SSEC AAPLO GMN The agency added that such policies 8220bolster China8217s stated intention of seizing economic leadership in advanced technology as set forth in its industrial plans8221 China has denied that its laws require technology transfers and has threatened to retaliate against any US tariffs with trade sanctions of its own with potential targets such as US soybeans aircraft or heavy equipment 2025 PROGRAM TARGETED A USTR official said the tariff list targeted products that benefit from China8217s industrial policies including the 8220Made in China 20258221 program which aims to replace advanced technology imports with domestic products and build a dominant position in future industries The stateled 2025 program targets 10 strategic industries advanced information technology robotics aircraft new energy vehicles pharmaceuticals electric power equipment advanced materials agricultural machinery shipbuilding and marine engineering and advanced rail equipment Many products in those segments appear on the list including antibiotics and industrial robots and aircraft parts US business groups reacted cautiously saying they agreed with Trump8217s efforts to stop the theft of US intellectual property but questioning whether tariffs were the right approach 8220Tariffs are one proposed response but they are likely to create new challenges in the form of significant added costs for manufacturers and American consumers8221 National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons said in a statement US Senator Marco Rubio said in a letter to Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he was glad to see 8220bold8221 action against China 8220These necessary actions constitute an important break with the appeasement of previous administrations and provide an opportunity to chart a new course for America8217s relationship with this strategic competitor8221 Rubio wrote Reporting by David Lawder Additional reporting by Jason Lange Ginger Gibson Steve Holland and David Chance in Washington Editing by Peter Cooney Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar edged higher against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said talks to renegotiate NAFTA were going well and as oil prices rose.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Canada Dollar note is seen in this June 22, 2017 illustration photo. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo <p>At 4 p.m. (2100 GMT), the Canadian dollar <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=CAD&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">CAD=D4</a> was trading 0.1 percent higher at C$1.2426 to the greenback, or 80.48 U.S. cents.</p> <p>The currency traded in a range of C$1.2422 to C$1.2490.</p> <p>&#8220;Oil has returned as a driver, it has helped push USD-CAD lower in today&#8217;s session,&#8221; said Greg Anderson, global head of foreign exchange strategy in New York. &#8220;We also got a nice little move on the Trump headlines.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump previously threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which could hurt Canada&#8217;s economy. The country sends 75 percent of its goods exports to the United States.</p> <p>It has helped the Canadian dollar that Trump was not issuing more threats, Anderson said.</p> <p>The sixth and penultimate round of talks on renegotiating NAFTA among Canada, the United States and Mexico opened in Montreal on Tuesday. Trump, who has blamed NAFTA for the loss of U.S. jobs, told reporters the talks were going &#8220;pretty well.&#8221;</p> <p>Canada has responded to the lack of clarity over the future of the 1994 agreement by attempting to diversify its trade. Earlier on Tuesday, it and 10 other nations agreed to sign a reworked Asia-Pacific trade pact.</p> <p>The price of oil, one of Canada&#8217;s major exports, was lifted by healthy world economic growth prospects and production curbs by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and their allies.</p> <p>U.S. crude CLc1 prices settled 1.4 percent higher at $64.47 a barrel.</p> <p>The U.S. dollar .DXY extended recent weakness against a basket of major currencies to hit a three-year low. Canadian government bond prices were mixed across the yield curve, with the two-year CA2YT=RR flat to yield 1.803 percent and the 10-year CA10YT=RR rising 5 Canadian cents to yield 2.233 percent.</p> <p>On Monday, the 10-year yield touched its highest intraday in more than three years at 2.249 percent.</p> <p>Canadian retail sales data for November is due on Thursday and the December inflation report is due on Friday.</p> <p>Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China urged the United States on Friday to &#8220;pull back from the brink&#8221; as President Donald Trump&#8217;s plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world&#8217;s two largest economies closer to a trade war.</p> <p>The escalating tensions sent shivers through financial markets as investors foresaw dire consequences for the global economy if trade barriers start going up.</p> <p>Trump is planning to impose the tariffs for what he says is misappropriation of U.S. intellectual property. A probe was launched last year under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.</p> <p>&#8220;China doesn&#8217;t hope to be in a trade war, but is not afraid of engaging in one,&#8221; the Chinese commerce ministry responded in a statement.</p> <p>&#8220;China hopes the United States will pull back from the brink, make prudent decisions, and avoid dragging bilateral trade relations to a dangerous place.&#8221;</p> <p>In a presidential memorandum signed by Trump on Thursday, there will be a 30-day consultation period that only starts once a list of Chinese goods is published. That effectively creates room for potential talks to address Trump&#8217;s allegations on intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers.</p> <p>Though the White House has said the planned tariffs were a response to China&#8217;s &#8220;economic aggression&#8221;, Trump said he views China as &#8220;a friend&#8221; and the two sides are in negotiations.</p> <p>A Chinese commerce ministry official said both sides were in touch.</p> <p>Still, it is unclear under what terms China and the U.S. are willing to talk, with Beijing adamant that the U.S. tariffs constitute a unilateral move that it rejects.</p> <p>China has always said it will not hold talks with the U.S. within the framework of the Section 301 probe, Chen Fuli, director-general of the commerce ministry&#8217;s department of treaty and law, told reporters.</p> <p>&#8220;Currently, we are not looking to get in a negotiation again,&#8221; a senior U.S. official told reporters in Beijing.</p> <p>If China wants to avoid U.S. tariffs, it needs to start taking concrete action, the official said, adding that Washington has not given Beijing any to-do list to remedy trade ties.</p> <p>(U.S. imports from China: <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q</a>)</p> <p>(U.S. trade in goods with China: <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2GcOZIH" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2GcOZIH</a>)</p> READY TO RETALIATE <p>China showed readiness to retaliate by declaring plans to levy additional duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports including fruit and wine in response to U.S. import tariffs on steel and aluminum, which were due to go into effect on Friday.</p> <p>The inevitable fall in demand from a full-blown trade war would spell trouble for all economies supplying the United States and China.</p> <p>Feeling the chill, MSCI&#8217;s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 2.5 percent, tracking heavy losses on Wall Street. China&#8217;s main indexes tumbled the most in six weeks, skidding up to 3.6 percent.</p> FILE PHOTO - A worker checks steel wires at a warehouse in Dalian, Liaoning province, China May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer <p>&#8220;Today&#8217;s (U.S.) tariffs amount to no more than a slap on the wrist for China,&#8221; Mark Williams, Chief Asia Economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note. &#8220;China won&#8217;t change its ways. Worries about escalation therefore won&#8217;t go away.&#8221;</p> <p>Williams estimated that the $506 billion that China exported to the United States drove around 2.5 percent of its total gross domestic product, and the $50-60 billion targeted by the U.S. tariffs contributed just around 0.25 percent.</p> <p>Trump, however, appears intent on fulfilling election promises to reduce the record U.S. trade deficit with China. A commentary published by the official Xinhua news agency said the United States had adopted a &#8220;Cold War mentality&#8221;, and &#8220;panic&#8221; over China&#8217;s economic rise was driving Washington&#8217;s confrontational approach.</p> <p>U.S. multi-nationals at a business gathering in Shanghai were warned by Stephen Roach, a Yale University economist, &#8220;to prepare for the worst&#8221; and make contingency plans until calmer heads prevail.</p> <p>Roach said he could foresee &#8220;the Chinese government moving to restrict, in some form or another, the financial as well as the supply chain activities of American companies operating in this country.&#8221;</p> <p>Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China would not hold back in retaliating.</p> Slideshow (4 Images) <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s impolite not to give as good as one gets,&#8221; Hua told reporters.</p> LOW HANGING FRUIT <p>Alarm over Trump&#8217;s protectionist leanings mounted earlier this month after he imposed hefty import tariffs on steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the 1962 U.S. Trade Expansion Act, which allows safeguards based on &#8220;national security&#8221;.</p> <p>On Friday, Trump gave Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Korea and the European Union temporary exemptions. China was not exempted even though it was a far smaller supplier than Canada or South Korea.</p> <p>Also omitted from the exemption list was U.S. ally Japan, though a government spokesman said Tokyo would press to be included. And Finance Minister Taro Aso expressed empathy with Washington over protecting intellectual property.</p> <p>China&#8217;s retaliation against the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum appeared restrained.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-trade-southkorea/trump-ross-say-u-s-south-korea-close-to-trade-deal-idUSKBN1GZ2P9" type="external">Trump, Ross say U.S., South Korea close to trade deal</a> <p>China has drawn a list of 128 U.S. products that could be hit with tariffs if the two countries are unable to reach an agreement on trade issues, the ministry said.</p> <p>Without giving a timeframe, the commerce ministry said China was considering implementing measures in two stages: first a 15 percent tariff on 120 products including steel pipes, dried fruit and wine worth $977 million, and later, a 25 percent tariff on $1.99 billion of pork and recycled aluminum.</p> <p>U.S. wine exports to China last year were $79 million, according to the U.S. Wine Institute, which represents Californian wine makers.</p> <p>Fruit growers in California, Florida, Michigan and Washington all stood to lose as China&#8217;s list also included close to 80 fruit and nut products. The U.S. exported $669 million of fruit, frozen juice and nuts to China last year, and it was the top supplier of apples, cherries, walnuts and almonds.</p> <p>&#8220;With the restrained response, China hopes Trump can realize his errors and mend his ways,&#8221; said Xu Hongcai, deputy chief economist at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, a Beijing think tank.</p> <p>&#8220;If we really want to counter, the strongest response would be to target soybean and automobiles. China is drawing its bow but not firing. We still have some cards to play.&#8221;</p> <p>Additional reporting by John Ruwitch, Elias Glenn, Dominique Patton, Josephine Mason, Ben Blanchard, Christian Shepherd, Meng Meng, Tom Daly, Wang Jing and Lusha Zhang; Editing By Simon Cameron-Moore</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) has quit the race to buy Pfizer&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PFE.N" type="external">PFE.N</a>) consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.</p> <p>It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business, which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins, following this week&#8217;s deadline for binding bids.</p> <p>GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which announced its withdrawal on Friday, was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RB.L" type="external">RB.L</a>) left the race late on Wednesday. Johnson &amp;amp; Johnson ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JNJ.N" type="external">JNJ.N</a>) stepped away from the auction in January.</p> <p>A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end.</p> <p>&#8220;While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy, they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation,&#8221; GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement.</p> <p>GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent, as investors&#8217; concerns about a potential dividend cut eased.</p> <p>Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business, which include a spin-off, sale or other transaction, as well as retaining it.</p> <p>&#8220;We have not yet made a decision, but continue to expect to make one in 2018,&#8221; a spokesman said.</p> <p>Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids. On Friday, a source said that if not, Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds.</p> <p>Pfizer is the world&#8217;s fifth-largest player in consumer health with 2.5 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness.</p> <p>The business, which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements, is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time. GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline, while other potential suitors, such as Bayer ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAYGn.DE" type="external">BAYGn.DE</a>) and Sanofi ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SASY.PA" type="external">SASY.PA</a>) are busy with other projects.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York, U.S., April 28, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo <p>What is more, the global consumer health market has slowed, from 4-6 percent like-for-like sales growth to 0-3 percent growth, Morgan Stanley analysts said in December. Major players in the over-the-counter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and private label competitors.</p> <p>Pfizer&#8217;s hope of fetching around $20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit&#8217;s core earnings, according to Bernstein analysts, in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times.</p> <p>Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MRCG.DE" type="external">MRCG.DE</a>) attempts to sell its consumer products unit, where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros ($5 billion) deterred initial suitors such as Nestle ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NESN.S" type="external">NESN.S</a>), Perrigo ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRGO.N" type="external">PRGO.N</a>) and a private-equity consortium.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GlaxoSmithKline PLC</a> 1315.6 GSK.L London Stock Exchange +41.80 (+3.28%) GSK.L PFE.N RB.L JNJ.N BAYGn.DE <p>Reckitt&#8217;s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum.</p> SPLIT OPINION <p>Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley, who took over at GSK last April. But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors, with some worried about the risk to the company&#8217;s dividend.</p> <p>Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings, since scale is key in over-the-counter remedies, but it could have distracted from fixing GSK&#8217;s core pharma division.</p> <p>That is a particular headache for Walmsley - a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L&#8217;Oreal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OREP.PA" type="external">OREP.PA</a>) - since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain&#8217;s top pharmaceuticals company.</p> <p>Last month, in a bid to reassure investors, she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs, followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions.</p> <p>The overhaul of the drugs business, which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years, is underway in both the commercial and research fields.</p> <p>GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NOVN.S" type="external">NOVN.S</a>), which complicates any acquisitions. Novartis has the right to sell down its 36.5 percent stake, valued at around $10 billion, from this month, although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Steve Wynn, the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd, has disposed his entire 11.8 percent stake in the firm for $2.1 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago.</p> <p>In an unexpected separate move, Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 5.3 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at $175 per share, giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau.</p> <p>Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world&#8217;s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China, MGM China and Melco Resorts.</p> <p>The casino mogul&#8217;s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn, who has a 9.26 percent stake, had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes.</p> <p>Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegas-based company last month, following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances. He has denied the accusations.</p> <p>In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday, Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to &#8220;acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline.&#8221;</p> <p>A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future.</p> <p>Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core &#8220;operating philosophies and values.&#8221;</p> <p>The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation.</p> <p>Wynn said two long-term institutional investors, currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts, have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at $175 a share.</p> <p>A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 4.1 million shares of Wynn Resorts at $180 per share - effectively exiting his entire 12.1 million shares, or 11.8 percent stake in the firm, for a total of $2.14 billion.</p> Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake WYNN IMPACT <p>Wynn, who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s, created some of Las Vegas&#8217; most iconic landmarks &#8211; the Mirage, Bellagio and Treasure Island.</p> <p>He was forced to sell his multi-billion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000. Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his ex-wife in 2002.</p> An exterior view Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Steve Marcus <p>The 76 year old businessman, whose signature denotes the company&#8217;s logo, had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos.</p> <p>Vitaly Umansky, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong, said the implications of the Galaxy&#8217;s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage.</p> <p>&#8220;Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia, with Japan being the critical development initiative.&#8221;</p> <p>Galaxy&#8217;s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo, one of Asia&#8217;s wealthiest billionaires, has a net wealth of $22 billion according to Forbes. Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau&#8217;s biggest operators over the past decade.</p> <p>&#8220;There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau, but who desperately want to be in Macau, and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too,&#8221; said Grant Govertsen, analyst at Union Gaming in Macau.</p> <p>While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos, it this week received a license to operate a roughly $500 million resort in Boracay, the Philippines most famous holiday island.</p> <p>Wynn, which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau&#8217;s main peninsula, focuses on premium and VIP customers, while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass. Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit.</p> <p>Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 3.9 percent and 2.9 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 3.1 percent.</p> <p>Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

Canadian dollar firms as Trump avoids NAFTA threats, oil rises China urges U.S. away from 'brink' as Trump picks trade weapons GSK pulls out of $20 billion race for Pfizer consumer assets Steve Wynn sells stake in company he founded, Macau casino Galaxy buys in

https://reuters.com/article/canada-forex/canada-fx-debt-c-firms-as-trump-avoids-nafta-threats-oil-rises-idUSL2N1PI25N

2018-01-23

2least

TORONTO Reuters The Canadian dollar edged higher against its US counterpart on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said talks to renegotiate NAFTA were going well and as oil prices rose FILE PHOTO A Canada Dollar note is seen in this June 22 2017 illustration photo REUTERSThomas WhiteIllustrationFile Photo At 4 pm 2100 GMT the Canadian dollar CADD4 was trading 01 percent higher at C12426 to the greenback or 8048 US cents The currency traded in a range of C12422 to C12490 8220Oil has returned as a driver it has helped push USDCAD lower in today8217s session8221 said Greg Anderson global head of foreign exchange strategy in New York 8220We also got a nice little move on the Trump headlines8221 Trump previously threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement which could hurt Canada8217s economy The country sends 75 percent of its goods exports to the United States It has helped the Canadian dollar that Trump was not issuing more threats Anderson said The sixth and penultimate round of talks on renegotiating NAFTA among Canada the United States and Mexico opened in Montreal on Tuesday Trump who has blamed NAFTA for the loss of US jobs told reporters the talks were going 8220pretty well8221 Canada has responded to the lack of clarity over the future of the 1994 agreement by attempting to diversify its trade Earlier on Tuesday it and 10 other nations agreed to sign a reworked AsiaPacific trade pact The price of oil one of Canada8217s major exports was lifted by healthy world economic growth prospects and production curbs by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Russia and their allies US crude CLc1 prices settled 14 percent higher at 6447 a barrel The US dollar DXY extended recent weakness against a basket of major currencies to hit a threeyear low Canadian government bond prices were mixed across the yield curve with the twoyear CA2YTRR flat to yield 1803 percent and the 10year CA10YTRR rising 5 Canadian cents to yield 2233 percent On Monday the 10year yield touched its highest intraday in more than three years at 2249 percent Canadian retail sales data for November is due on Thursday and the December inflation report is due on Friday Reporting by Fergal Smith Editing by Bernadette Baum and Peter Cooney Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJINGSHANGHAI Reuters China urged the United States on Friday to 8220pull back from the brink8221 as President Donald Trump8217s plans for tariffs on up to 60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world8217s two largest economies closer to a trade war The escalating tensions sent shivers through financial markets as investors foresaw dire consequences for the global economy if trade barriers start going up Trump is planning to impose the tariffs for what he says is misappropriation of US intellectual property A probe was launched last year under Section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act 8220China doesn8217t hope to be in a trade war but is not afraid of engaging in one8221 the Chinese commerce ministry responded in a statement 8220China hopes the United States will pull back from the brink make prudent decisions and avoid dragging bilateral trade relations to a dangerous place8221 In a presidential memorandum signed by Trump on Thursday there will be a 30day consultation period that only starts once a list of Chinese goods is published That effectively creates room for potential talks to address Trump8217s allegations on intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers Though the White House has said the planned tariffs were a response to China8217s 8220economic aggression8221 Trump said he views China as 8220a friend8221 and the two sides are in negotiations A Chinese commerce ministry official said both sides were in touch Still it is unclear under what terms China and the US are willing to talk with Beijing adamant that the US tariffs constitute a unilateral move that it rejects China has always said it will not hold talks with the US within the framework of the Section 301 probe Chen Fuli directorgeneral of the commerce ministry8217s department of treaty and law told reporters 8220Currently we are not looking to get in a negotiation again8221 a senior US official told reporters in Beijing If China wants to avoid US tariffs it needs to start taking concrete action the official said adding that Washington has not given Beijing any todo list to remedy trade ties US imports from China tmsnrtrs2FMsz1Q US trade in goods with China tmsnrtrs2GcOZIH READY TO RETALIATE China showed readiness to retaliate by declaring plans to levy additional duties on up to 3 billion of US imports including fruit and wine in response to US import tariffs on steel and aluminum which were due to go into effect on Friday The inevitable fall in demand from a fullblown trade war would spell trouble for all economies supplying the United States and China Feeling the chill MSCI8217s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan fell 25 percent tracking heavy losses on Wall Street China8217s main indexes tumbled the most in six weeks skidding up to 36 percent FILE PHOTO A worker checks steel wires at a warehouse in Dalian Liaoning province China May 15 2017 REUTERSStringer 8220Today8217s US tariffs amount to no more than a slap on the wrist for China8221 Mark Williams Chief Asia Economist at Capital Economics wrote in a note 8220China won8217t change its ways Worries about escalation therefore won8217t go away8221 Williams estimated that the 506 billion that China exported to the United States drove around 25 percent of its total gross domestic product and the 5060 billion targeted by the US tariffs contributed just around 025 percent Trump however appears intent on fulfilling election promises to reduce the record US trade deficit with China A commentary published by the official Xinhua news agency said the United States had adopted a 8220Cold War mentality8221 and 8220panic8221 over China8217s economic rise was driving Washington8217s confrontational approach US multinationals at a business gathering in Shanghai were warned by Stephen Roach a Yale University economist 8220to prepare for the worst8221 and make contingency plans until calmer heads prevail Roach said he could foresee 8220the Chinese government moving to restrict in some form or another the financial as well as the supply chain activities of American companies operating in this country8221 Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China would not hold back in retaliating Slideshow 4 Images 8220It8217s impolite not to give as good as one gets8221 Hua told reporters LOW HANGING FRUIT Alarm over Trump8217s protectionist leanings mounted earlier this month after he imposed hefty import tariffs on steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the 1962 US Trade Expansion Act which allows safeguards based on 8220national security8221 On Friday Trump gave Canada Mexico Argentina Australia Brazil and South Korea and the European Union temporary exemptions China was not exempted even though it was a far smaller supplier than Canada or South Korea Also omitted from the exemption list was US ally Japan though a government spokesman said Tokyo would press to be included And Finance Minister Taro Aso expressed empathy with Washington over protecting intellectual property China8217s retaliation against the US tariffs on steel and aluminum appeared restrained Related Coverage Trump Ross say US South Korea close to trade deal China has drawn a list of 128 US products that could be hit with tariffs if the two countries are unable to reach an agreement on trade issues the ministry said Without giving a timeframe the commerce ministry said China was considering implementing measures in two stages first a 15 percent tariff on 120 products including steel pipes dried fruit and wine worth 977 million and later a 25 percent tariff on 199 billion of pork and recycled aluminum US wine exports to China last year were 79 million according to the US Wine Institute which represents Californian wine makers Fruit growers in California Florida Michigan and Washington all stood to lose as China8217s list also included close to 80 fruit and nut products The US exported 669 million of fruit frozen juice and nuts to China last year and it was the top supplier of apples cherries walnuts and almonds 8220With the restrained response China hopes Trump can realize his errors and mend his ways8221 said Xu Hongcai deputy chief economist at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges a Beijing think tank 8220If we really want to counter the strongest response would be to target soybean and automobiles China is drawing its bow but not firing We still have some cards to play8221 Additional reporting by John Ruwitch Elias Glenn Dominique Patton Josephine Mason Ben Blanchard Christian Shepherd Meng Meng Tom Daly Wang Jing and Lusha Zhang Editing By Simon CameronMoore Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters GlaxoSmithKline GSKL has quit the race to buy Pfizer8217s PFEN consumer healthcare business endangering an auction the US drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as 20 billion It was not immediately clear whether there were other offers for the business which includes Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins following this week8217s deadline for binding bids GlaxoSmithKline GSK which announced its withdrawal on Friday was seen as the frontrunner to buy the assets after Reckitt Benckiser RBL left the race late on Wednesday Johnson ampamp Johnson JNJN stepped away from the auction in January A source familiar with the matter said GSK declined to make a final bid for the assets in the end 8220While we will continue to review opportunities that may accelerate our strategy they must meet our criteria for returns and not compromise our priorities for capital allocation8221 GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement GSK shares rose nearly 4 percent as investors8217 concerns about a potential dividend cut eased Pfizer said on Friday it continued to evaluate potential alternatives for the business which include a spinoff sale or other transaction as well as retaining it 8220We have not yet made a decision but continue to expect to make one in 20188221 a spokesman said Sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday it was possible there were other bids On Friday a source said that if not Pfizer could try to tap private equity funds Pfizer is the world8217s fifthlargest player in consumer health with 25 percent of a market bolstered by aging populations and growing interest in health and wellness The business which also includes Chapstick lip balm and Caltrate supplements is seen as attractive but has come to market at a bad time GSK and Reckitt are under shareholder pressure to exercise financial discipline while other potential suitors such as Bayer BAYGnDE and Sanofi SASYPA are busy with other projects FILE PHOTO The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York US April 28 2014 REUTERSAndrew KellyFile Photo What is more the global consumer health market has slowed from 46 percent likeforlike sales growth to 03 percent growth Morgan Stanley analysts said in December Major players in the overthecounter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon AMZNO and private label competitors Pfizer8217s hope of fetching around 20 billion translated to a multiple of about 20 times the unit8217s core earnings according to Bernstein analysts in line with past deals in the sector during faster growing times Differences in price expectations also hobbled German drugmaker Merck KGaA8217s MRCGDE attempts to sell its consumer products unit where a price tag of up to 4 billion euros 5 billion deterred initial suitors such as Nestle NESNS Perrigo PRGON and a privateequity consortium GlaxoSmithKline PLC 13156 GSKL London Stock Exchange 4180 328 GSKL PFEN RBL JNJN BAYGnDE Reckitt8217s early interest in the Merck assets also waned as the Pfizer auction gained momentum SPLIT OPINION Buying the Pfizer business would have been the boldest move to date for Walmsley who took over at GSK last April But the wisdom of a deal split opinion among investors with some worried about the risk to the company8217s dividend Acquiring additional consumer health assets at a reasonable price could have been a fairly safe way to boost earnings since scale is key in overthecounter remedies but it could have distracted from fixing GSK8217s core pharma division That is a particular headache for Walmsley a consumer products veteran who worked for 17 years at L8217Oreal OREPPA since she has her work cut out to persuade the market she is the right person to lead Britain8217s top pharmaceuticals company Last month in a bid to reassure investors she spelt out that her first priority was improving performance in prescription drugs followed by dividend payments and only after that acquisitions The overhaul of the drugs business which has produced fewer blockbuster medicines than rivals in recent years is underway in both the commercial and research fields GSK runs its consumer healthcare business via a joint venture with Novartis NOVNS which complicates any acquisitions Novartis has the right to sell down its 365 percent stake valued at around 10 billion from this month although it has previously indicated it is in no rush to do so Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Ben Hirschler Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Steve Wynn the former chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd has disposed his entire 118 percent stake in the firm for 21 billion in a dramatic exit of the casino and hotel enterprise he founded over 16 years ago In an unexpected separate move Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment said it has agreed to buy 53 million primary shares of Wynn Resorts at 175 per share giving them around a 5 percent stake in the operator which has resorts in Las Vegas and Macau Galaxy is one of six licensed operators in the world8217s largest gambling hub of Macau and competes with Wynn along with Sands China MGM China and Melco Resorts The casino mogul8217s share sale comes a week after Wynn Resorts said Steve and Elaine Wynn who has a 926 percent stake had scrapped a shareholder agreement that prevented them from selling their stakes Steve Wynn resigned as CEO of the Las Vegasbased company last month following claims he subjected women who worked for him to unwanted advances He has denied the accusations In a joint statement by Galaxy and Wynn on Wednesday Galaxy Vice Chairman Francis Lui said it was a unique opportunity to 8220acquire an investment in a globally recognised entertainment corporation with exceptionally high quality assets and a significant development pipeline8221 A Galaxy spokeswoman could not comment further on whether Galaxy would look to increase its holding in the future Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said Galaxy shared many of the same core 8220operating philosophies and values8221 The announcement also follows the settlement two weeks ago of long standing litigation between Wynn Resorts and Universal Entertainment Corporation Wynn said two longterm institutional investors currently holding stakes in Wynn Resorts have agreed to purchase the remaining eight million shares held by Steve Wynn also at 175 a share A Thursday filing showed the embattled founder sold 41 million shares of Wynn Resorts at 180 per share effectively exiting his entire 121 million shares or 118 percent stake in the firm for a total of 214 billion Steve Wynn Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills California US May 3 2017 REUTERSMike Blake WYNN IMPACT Wynn who started in Las Vegas casinos in the 1960s created some of Las Vegas8217 most iconic landmarks 8211 the Mirage Bellagio and Treasure Island He was forced to sell his multibillion dollar operation Mirage Resorts to tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in a hostile takeover in 2000 Kerkorian then created MGM Mirage and Wynn went on to create Wynn Resorts with his exwife in 2002 An exterior view Wynn hotelcasino in Las Vegas Nevada US February 7 2018 REUTERSSteve Marcus The 76 year old businessman whose signature denotes the company8217s logo had built two lavish resorts in the former Portuguese colony of Macau where only six firms have licenses to operate casinos Vitaly Umansky analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in Hong Kong said the implications of the Galaxy8217s investment goes beyond what looks like a passive move at this stage 8220Wynn and Galaxy may be looking at collaborating on future development opportunities in Asia with Japan being the critical development initiative8221 Galaxy8217s octogenarian founder Lui Che Woo one of Asia8217s wealthiest billionaires has a net wealth of 22 billion according to Forbes Lui who started his career in construction has grown his casino company into one of Macau8217s biggest operators over the past decade 8220There are other large gaming companies who do not have a presence in Macau but who desperately want to be in Macau and we would not be surprised to see them angling for a seat at the acquisition table too8221 said Grant Govertsen analyst at Union Gaming in Macau While Galaxy has been primarily focused on Macau with its three casinos it this week received a license to operate a roughly 500 million resort in Boracay the Philippines most famous holiday island Wynn which operates a resort on Cotai and Macau8217s main peninsula focuses on premium and VIP customers while Galaxy targets both the high end segment and the broader mass Both companies have reported strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter with Galaxy posting a 67 percent surge in 2017 profit Shares in Wynn Macau and Galaxy dropped 39 percent and 29 percent respectively on Friday against the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 31 percent Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and Philip George in Bengaluru Editing by Shri Navaratnam Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p /> <p>* Since Friday of last week, I&#8217;ve been in Las Vegas, Nevada working with <a href="http://dustinstockton.com/" type="external">Dustin Stockton.com</a> and <a href="https://westernpac.org/" type="external">Western Representation PAC</a>, both of which have been doing a final get-out-the-vote push to try to get the GOP over-the-top in the state.</p> <p>Today, I&#8217;m still in Vegas, but I&#8217;m covering the election for <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/09/25/7_incredible_personal_stories_about_mitt_romney_that_you_may_not_know/page/full/" type="external">The Tea Party News Network</a>. You&#8217;ll be able to watch a live feed of our broadcast right here and follow our tweets at the hashtag #TeaPartyVotes.</p> <p /> <p>Make sure to check out the broadcast and head back to Right Wing News all day for the latest information.</p> <p>* Here are the poll closing times for the key states tonight in the presidential race. Unless it&#8217;s really close, you should start to see these states called an hour or two after polls close.</p> <p>7:00 PM EST: Virginia. 7:30 PM EST: North Carolina, Ohio 8:00 PM EST: Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania 9:00 PM EST: Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin 10:00 PM EST: Iowa, Nevada 11:00 PM EST: Oregon</p> <p>* Here are some indicators to watch for that could give you an idea of which way it&#8217;s leaning.</p> <p>&#8212; If Romney loses Virginia, North Carolina, or Florida, odds are that Obama is going to pull this race out. &#8212; If Obama loses Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Minnesota, then Romney probably has it in the bag. &#8212; If both candidates win all the above states, then it COULD come down to Ohio.</p> <p>Also, since the big polling dispute is over whether Democrats are being dramatically oversampled, watch the margins. If Mitt wins North Carolina by 6-7 points or either Florida or Virginia, it could be a strong indication that he&#8217;s going to have a really big night across the board.</p> <p>* Can Romney win without Ohio? Yes, absolutely &#8212; but the path is more torturous. If Romney wins all of the states he&#8217;s expected to win, plus Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia &#8212; which most people expect him to win, that gets him to 248 out of the 270 that he needs with New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (20), Colorado (9), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (6) and Nevada (6) likely still in play.</p> <p>* This is a VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER: Early exit polls are almost always HEAVILY SLANTED towards the Democrats. In 2004, for example, you&#8217;d have thought Kerry was on track to win in a walk &#8212; if you believed the early <a href="" type="internal">exit polls</a>. Don&#8217;t be surprised if you hear exit poll numbers this afternoon and since they&#8217;re hard to confirm, you shouldn&#8217;t even be surprised if they&#8217;re made up (which is also something that happened in 2004). Point being: Don&#8217;t freak out or think there&#8217;s no point in voting because of any exit poll data you hear today.</p> <p>* Four sets of exit poll numbers to keep in mind.</p> <p>Obama wins big in 2008 39D/31R/29I. The GOP has its best year in half century with 36D/36R/28I. Rasmussen is projecting a Romney win this year with 39D/37R/24I The latest CNN poll projects a tie 41D/30R/29I.</p> <p>Gallup&#8217;s numbers are a little better than Rasmussen&#8217;s breakdown this time around. Most pollsters on the state level are assuming numbers at a range that goes from a little below those 2008 numbers to the stats you see in the CNN poll there.</p> <p>The winner today depends on who&#8217;s right.</p> <p>* I am on the same page as Josh Jordan over at <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332549/return-independents-josh-jordan#" type="external">The Corner</a> on independents.</p> <p>Over the last few days the independents have been returning back to Romney, however, indicating that the final vote Tuesday might revert back to polling from the days just before Sandy made landfall. Rasmussen has seen Romney&#8217;s lead with independents jump from three points to fifteen. The Washington Post tracking poll moved from a tie with independents on Saturday to a three-point lead for Romney on Sunday.</p> <p>In the national non-tracking polls, Romney has continued to enjoy leads with independents as well. The Pew poll taken in the days after Sandy has Romney up three among independents while the NBC/WSJ poll released yesterday that showed Obama up one point overall has Romney up seven with independents. A CNN national poll released last night has a tied race, but Romney is up 22 points with independents.</p> <p>One of the keys to victory for Romney tomorrow is to win big with independents. In 2008, Obama beat McCain among independents by eight points. If Romney wins independents by eight points this year, Obama&#8217;s win in 2008 drops from 7.2 points to 2.6 points, even with a repeat wave-election turnout for Democrats. If the crowds Romney drew in Ohio and Pennsylvania are any indication, GOP enthusiasm is going to surprise a lot of pundits tomorrow, and they should they erase the seven-point turnout advantage Democrats had in 2008. If both of those things happen, Romney is not only in position to win, but has a chance to win big.</p> <p>* At the state level, most pollsters seem to be expecting Democrats to achieve the sort of advantage over Republicans that you&#8217;d see in a once every 50 years wave election. This is despite the fact that Republicans were the ones who had that sort of advantage in the 2010 elections, independents are going strongly in the other direction, and there is little if any anecdotal evidence that suggests Democrats have any sort of significant (if any at all) enthusiasm advantage over Republicans.</p> <p>This is why people have a legitimate reason to be deeply suspicious of the polling data that they&#8217;re seeing.</p> <p>* <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/332318/middle-cheese-everybodys-ending-campaign-blue-states#" type="external">Jim Geraghty</a> points out that BOTH CAMPAIGNS are spending the final week-end of the campaign in what were not so long ago considered solid blue gimmies for Obama. That should be a hint about how both campaigns REALLY view the race.</p> <p>Obama is in big trouble in Wisconsin. He is spending his last weekend in a state that last went Republican in the 1984 Reagan landslide.</p> <p>Team Romney is going hard after Pennsylvania because both internal and public polling show significant movement toward Romney in recent days. Yesterday, Rep. Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio drew large and enthusiastic crowds in Pennsylvania. On Sunday, Romney will hold a campaign rally in the Philadelphia suburbs. Who would have thought that Obama would spend the last days of the campaign defending a solidly blue state, while Romney makes a play for another one?</p> <p>* Last night, while compiling election predictions, it was amusing to note that for the most part, the Republicans were predicting Mitt will win, while the Dems were saying Obama is going to come out on top. In other words, the polling isn&#8217;t reliable and most people are just making educated guesses shaped more by their own partisan leaning than they probably realized.</p> <p>* Well, this certainly sounds like it&#8217;s on the up-and-up and there is absolutely <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/philly-gop-poll-inspectors-being-ousted-for-dems/article/2512714#.UJlVRm_R6z6" type="external">no cheating being planned in Philadelphia whatsoever</a>.</p> <p>Court-appointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers, according to GOP officials.</p> <p>* <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/332727/early-vote-volusia-shifted-15-points-gop-2008" type="external">Jim Geraghty</a> is checking a number of key counties today to compare how they did in 2008 to today. Here&#8217;s one of them:</p> <p>Early Vote in Volusia Shifted 15 Points to the GOP From 2008</p> <p>&#8230;Four years ago, registered Democrats made up 52.3 percent of the early voters (35,902 votes) and Republicans made up just 26.8 percent (18,424 votes), with independents making up 20.8 percent (14,304 votes).</p> <p>In short, the registered-Democrat early vote dropped by 8,779 votes and the registered-Republican early vote increased by 1,732 votes.</p> <p>Four years ago, the Election Day vote went well enough for John McCain to shift from getting squashed in the early vote by 25 points to losing by 6 points. A similar 19-point shift in this cycle would put Romney ahead by 6 percentage points.</p> <p>* For whatever it&#8217;s worth, I asked my best Romney campaign source if Romney is going to win today. That person gave me a &#8220;Yes.&#8221; No qualifiers.</p> <p>* Per Bethany Mandel, one of her friends has this creepy pseudo-North Korean Obama mural on the wall of her polling place.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>* Voter fraud denied. GOP poll workers <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/06/judge-issuing-order-to-reinstate-booted-philadelphia-election-officials/" type="external">reinstated in Philly</a>.</p> <p>A Pennsylvania judge also issued an order Tuesday to reinstate Republican election officials across Philadelphia who allegedly were ejected or refused entry by on-site Democratic voting chief judges.</p> <p>One Republican official claimed that &#8220;just under 70&#8221; Republican election officials were blocked from Philadelphia polling sites Tuesday morning by Democrats on site. One of them, the official claimed, &#8220;was shoved out of the polling place.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;For this many inspectors to be ejected from polling places is rare, even for Philadelphia,&#8221; the official told FoxNews.com.</p> <p>Well, rejected assuming that they haven&#8217;t already stuffed the ballot box.</p> <p>* There&#8217;s not a lot of hard data out today, but <a href="http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334702.php" type="external">the info that&#8217;s out looks good for Romney</a>. For example&#8230;</p> <p>&#8230;Pasco County, Florida, is providing real time information on who&#8217;s voted, as far as R/D/I. Thusfar, Republicans are swamping Democrats 82,000 to 66,000.</p> <p>In 2008, McCain won but fairly narrowly &#8212; 110,000 to 104,000, or 51.2% to 47.7%.</p> <p>* Romney has done <a href="http://disreport.net/2012/11/06/ohio-forecast/" type="external">considerably better than expected in the early voting</a> in Ohio.</p> <p>John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.</p> <p>Late Monday night the Ohio Secretary of State released the &#8220;final&#8221; early voting results from Ohio&#8217;s counties. The results got the attention &#8211; and slight consternation &#8211; of the New York Times&#8217; Nate Silver. Dave Wasserman kindly put the data into a spreadsheet here, which tabulates early voting results by county and compares that data to early voting results from 2008. Wasserman&#8217;s spreadsheet also notes Kerry&#8217;s 2004 margins and Obama&#8217;s 2008 margins, allowing one to effectively deduce the partisan-leanings of each county.</p> <p>In a discussion on Twitter, Silver and Wasserman focused largely on the surprise changes in turnout in many of Ohio&#8217;s counties. While total early voting in Ohio only increased by 2.44% from 2008, early voting in counties that voted heavily for Kerry/Obama declined 4.1% while counties that voted heavily Bush/McCain increased their early voting by a shocking 14.39%. Wasserman, while still predicting an Obama victory, suggested that trend meant a tighter race in Ohio than expected and suggested it might undercut Nate Silver&#8217;s famous forecast. Nate Silver&#8217;s response: &#8220;I&#8217;ll stick with the 538 forecast in OH. I disagree that the early voting data there provides much reason to doubt the polls.&#8221;</p> <p>Seemingly overlooked by Silver, however, during the discussion of county-by-county results was the simple number of total reported early votes: a meager 1,787,346. As stated above, this number shows a 2.44% increase in early voting from 2008 &#8211; but the number is still surprisingly low. Virtually every Ohio poll this cycle was weighted on the basis that early voting would occupy a massive chunk of the total Ohio vote. Rasmussen&#8217;s final poll ceded 40% of the total vote to early voters (EVs). PPP gave EV&#8217;s a more reasonable 35%. The Columbus Dispatch calculated early voting to take up an astounding 47% of the total Ohio vote. Almost every other Ohio poll seems to have weighted early voting between 35% and 45% of the total vote.</p> <p>The reported early voting numbers, however, show that virtually every single Ohio poll overestimated the amount of early votes cast. If early voting is calculated at 1,787,346, in order for total voter turnout to rival 2004 numbers, early voting cannot occupy more than 32% of the total votes cast &#8211; and even in that scenario, that high of a percentage means that total voter turnout will be lower than it was in 2008. In order for turnout to match 2008 levels, early voting can only account for 31% of total votes cast.</p> <p>The next important piece of data is what the polls consistently report: Obama leads by huge margins among early voters but trails Romney among those who say they will vote on election day. This inverse in voting segments is why the proportion of early votes in the total votes &#8211; and that virtually every poll overestimated this proportion &#8211; is so tantamount. In most polls (which usually only have Obama leading by a small margin, although some give him a more comfortable ~+5%), lowering the percentage of early votes in the polling sample means lowering Obama&#8217;s lead drastically. And when Obama&#8217;s lead is only one or two percentage points, that can mean handing the election to Mitt Romney.</p> <p>* <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/early-voting-in-gop-butler-county-outside-cincinnati-sees-121-gain-over-2008/" type="external">Early Voting in GOP Butler County (Outside Cincinnati) Sees 121% Gain Over 2008</a>.</p> <p>* Another couple of Ohio counties. <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/big-ohio-update-gop-turnout-is-way-up-dem-turnout-way-down/" type="external">One is up for Romney and another is down for Obama</a>.</p> <p>turnout is up in GOP Geauga County, Ohio where McCain won with 57% of the vote and down in Athens County, the home of Ohio University and where Obama won with 67% in 2008. Early vote in Geauga? 125% of 2008. Athens? Down 10% from 2008</p> <p>* Drudge has out exit polls.</p> <p>EXIT POLL BOOM FOR O R: NC, FL O: NH, PA, MI, NV TOSS UP: OH, VA, CO, IA</p> <p>Let me just reiterate what I wrote early in the AM today&#8230;</p> <p>This is a VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER: Early exit polls are almost always HEAVILY SLANTED towards the Democrats. In 2004, for example, you&#8217;d have thought Kerry was on track to win in a walk &#8212; if you believed the early <a href="" type="internal">exit polls</a>. Don&#8217;t be surprised if you hear exit poll numbers this afternoon and since they&#8217;re hard to confirm, you shouldn&#8217;t even be surprised if they&#8217;re made up (which is also something that happened in 2004). Point being: Don&#8217;t freak out or think there&#8217;s no point in voting because of any exit poll data you hear today.</p> <p>* <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2512744#.UJmh1G_R6z6" type="external">Joseph Lowery</a></p> <p>* Indiana has been called for Romney early. That was a state Obama won in 2008, but it was a given for Mitt this time around. Hopefully, the early call means a big margin for Mitt in the state that will help Richard Mourdock win his Senate race.</p> <p>* Here&#8217;s a breakdown of the <a href="http://dustinstockton.com/2012/11/a-final-2012-senate-breakdown-the-key-races-to-watch/#more-3125" type="external">key Senate races to watch tonight.</a></p> <p>* More good news out of Ohio. Cuyahoga County is the key county for Democrats in the state and their numbers <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/332798/how-much-will-cuyahogas-vote-drop-2008" type="external">are way down from 2008</a>.</p> <p>Data from the Secretary of State showed 253,000 early votes already cast in Cuyahoga County.</p> <p>23% of in-person voting using total registered Cuyahoga County voters from 2008 would be 255,595 votes for a total of around 508,000 votes.</p> <p>In 2008, Cuyahoga ended up casting a little more than 678,000 votes.</p> <p>That means that as of 5:00pm, Cuyahoga County is approximately 170,000 votes short of its 2008 total.</p> <p>* It&#8217;s 8:05 PM EST and states are being called, but no swing states yet. The exit polls show Obama doing really well, but they always do that. We&#8217;re still waiting for the swing states to break.</p> <p>* AP has called the Florida Senate race for Bill Nelson over Connie Mack. That was expected.</p> <p>* Richard Mourdock looks like <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332801/indiana-henry-olsen" type="external">he&#8217;s in deep trouble</a>.</p> <p>Mourdock running eleven percentage points behind Mitt, has lost the lead, and the Dem cities haven&#8217;t started to come in.</p> <p>* Angus King wins in Maine. Independent who may caucus with either party, takes Olympia Snowe&#8217;s seat.</p> <p>* Dick Morris is looking at the Florida numbers and saying Romney is going to win in a walk.</p> <p>* 8:37 EST: CNN is saying Romney will win both Florida and Virginia. but no call yet. If this is so, Romney only needs to win NC &#8212; which should happen &#8212; and he has all the early swing states he needed. Excellent start!</p> <p>* Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy has defeated Republican Linda McMahon in the Connecticut Senate race &#8212; that was expected</p> <p>* Bob Casey (D) Holds Senate Seat in PA, Defeats Tom Smith</p> <p>* Obama wins Michigan. That was a state I was hoping Mitt could make competitive, although I don&#8217;t think the campaign put much effort into it.</p> <p>* NBC is calling Mass for Elizabeth Warren. That&#8217;s definitely disappointing.</p> <p>* Romney loses PA. That&#8217;s also disappointing because it was a potential swing state. It also PROBABLY means that this is going to be a close election and Mitt will likely need Ohio to win.</p> <p>* Alan Grayson won. It was expected in his district, but still, Ugh: Grayson is just a horrible human being.</p> <p>* Obama is projected to win Wisconsin. Again, disappointing.</p> <p>* Here&#8217;s where we are at 9:39 PM EST: Romney has 191 safe. If he wins NC (15), Va (13), and Fl (29) , that gets him to 248. He needs another 22. So, Ohio (18) and one of these Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Colorado (9). That&#8217;s his path to victory.</p> <p>* 9:43 EST. MA HAS NOT been called for Warren, but Richard Mourdock has gone down to defeat and so has Tommy Thompson. Retaking the Senate is definitely out of reach for the GOP now.</p> <p>* 9:54 EST. New Hampshire called for Obama. Mass called officially now for Warren. Poor Brown. He was a great candidate who ran an excellent race, but the state is just too blue for him.</p> <p>* Jesse Jackson Jr. wins his seat from the Mayo Clinic! Lol&#8230;</p> <p>* 10:28 PM EST: Down to NC, VA, FL, OH, IA, NV, &amp;amp; Colorado. Mitt needs the first four and one of the last 3. Still doable.</p> <p>* This one stings. Tim Kaine (D) beats George Allen (R).</p> <p>* We have NC. Now, we need Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and probably Colorado. Still doable. #TeaPartyVotes</p> <p>* GOP pick-up. Expected victory. Deb Fischer wins Senate seat in NE</p> <p>* NBC calls Ohio for Obama. Well, since Mitt noted that he didn&#8217;t write a concession speech, he&#8217;s going to have to wing it.</p> <p>* <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/gop-grabs-30-governor-seats-highest-party-12/story?id=17650799#.UJnm7m_R6z6" type="external">GOP Grabs 30 Governor Seats, Highest for Either Party in Over a Decade</a></p>

An All Day Long, Rolling Election 2012 Liveblog

http://rightwingnews.com/liveblogging/an-all-day-long-rolling-election-2012-liveblog/

2018-11-20

0right

Since Friday of last week I8217ve been in Las Vegas Nevada working with Dustin Stocktoncom and Western Representation PAC both of which have been doing a final getoutthevote push to try to get the GOP overthetop in the state Today I8217m still in Vegas but I8217m covering the election for The Tea Party News Network You8217ll be able to watch a live feed of our broadcast right here and follow our tweets at the hashtag TeaPartyVotes Make sure to check out the broadcast and head back to Right Wing News all day for the latest information Here are the poll closing times for the key states tonight in the presidential race Unless it8217s really close you should start to see these states called an hour or two after polls close 700 PM EST Virginia 730 PM EST North Carolina Ohio 800 PM EST Florida New Hampshire Pennsylvania 900 PM EST Arizona Colorado Michigan Minnesota Wisconsin 1000 PM EST Iowa Nevada 1100 PM EST Oregon Here are some indicators to watch for that could give you an idea of which way it8217s leaning 8212 If Romney loses Virginia North Carolina or Florida odds are that Obama is going to pull this race out 8212 If Obama loses Pennsylvania Michigan or Minnesota then Romney probably has it in the bag 8212 If both candidates win all the above states then it COULD come down to Ohio Also since the big polling dispute is over whether Democrats are being dramatically oversampled watch the margins If Mitt wins North Carolina by 67 points or either Florida or Virginia it could be a strong indication that he8217s going to have a really big night across the board Can Romney win without Ohio Yes absolutely 8212 but the path is more torturous If Romney wins all of the states he8217s expected to win plus Ohio North Carolina and Virginia 8212 which most people expect him to win that gets him to 248 out of the 270 that he needs with New Hampshire 4 Pennsylvania 20 Colorado 9 Michigan 16 Minnesota 10 Wisconsin 10 Iowa 6 and Nevada 6 likely still in play This is a VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER Early exit polls are almost always HEAVILY SLANTED towards the Democrats In 2004 for example you8217d have thought Kerry was on track to win in a walk 8212 if you believed the early exit polls Don8217t be surprised if you hear exit poll numbers this afternoon and since they8217re hard to confirm you shouldn8217t even be surprised if they8217re made up which is also something that happened in 2004 Point being Don8217t freak out or think there8217s no point in voting because of any exit poll data you hear today Four sets of exit poll numbers to keep in mind Obama wins big in 2008 39D31R29I The GOP has its best year in half century with 36D36R28I Rasmussen is projecting a Romney win this year with 39D37R24I The latest CNN poll projects a tie 41D30R29I Gallup8217s numbers are a little better than Rasmussen8217s breakdown this time around Most pollsters on the state level are assuming numbers at a range that goes from a little below those 2008 numbers to the stats you see in the CNN poll there The winner today depends on who8217s right I am on the same page as Josh Jordan over at The Corner on independents Over the last few days the independents have been returning back to Romney however indicating that the final vote Tuesday might revert back to polling from the days just before Sandy made landfall Rasmussen has seen Romney8217s lead with independents jump from three points to fifteen The Washington Post tracking poll moved from a tie with independents on Saturday to a threepoint lead for Romney on Sunday In the national nontracking polls Romney has continued to enjoy leads with independents as well The Pew poll taken in the days after Sandy has Romney up three among independents while the NBCWSJ poll released yesterday that showed Obama up one point overall has Romney up seven with independents A CNN national poll released last night has a tied race but Romney is up 22 points with independents One of the keys to victory for Romney tomorrow is to win big with independents In 2008 Obama beat McCain among independents by eight points If Romney wins independents by eight points this year Obama8217s win in 2008 drops from 72 points to 26 points even with a repeat waveelection turnout for Democrats If the crowds Romney drew in Ohio and Pennsylvania are any indication GOP enthusiasm is going to surprise a lot of pundits tomorrow and they should they erase the sevenpoint turnout advantage Democrats had in 2008 If both of those things happen Romney is not only in position to win but has a chance to win big At the state level most pollsters seem to be expecting Democrats to achieve the sort of advantage over Republicans that you8217d see in a once every 50 years wave election This is despite the fact that Republicans were the ones who had that sort of advantage in the 2010 elections independents are going strongly in the other direction and there is little if any anecdotal evidence that suggests Democrats have any sort of significant if any at all enthusiasm advantage over Republicans This is why people have a legitimate reason to be deeply suspicious of the polling data that they8217re seeing Jim Geraghty points out that BOTH CAMPAIGNS are spending the final weekend of the campaign in what were not so long ago considered solid blue gimmies for Obama That should be a hint about how both campaigns REALLY view the race Obama is in big trouble in Wisconsin He is spending his last weekend in a state that last went Republican in the 1984 Reagan landslide Team Romney is going hard after Pennsylvania because both internal and public polling show significant movement toward Romney in recent days Yesterday Rep Ryan and Sen Marco Rubio drew large and enthusiastic crowds in Pennsylvania On Sunday Romney will hold a campaign rally in the Philadelphia suburbs Who would have thought that Obama would spend the last days of the campaign defending a solidly blue state while Romney makes a play for another one Last night while compiling election predictions it was amusing to note that for the most part the Republicans were predicting Mitt will win while the Dems were saying Obama is going to come out on top In other words the polling isn8217t reliable and most people are just making educated guesses shaped more by their own partisan leaning than they probably realized Well this certainly sounds like it8217s on the upandup and there is absolutely no cheating being planned in Philadelphia whatsoever Courtappointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers according to GOP officials Jim Geraghty is checking a number of key counties today to compare how they did in 2008 to today Here8217s one of them Early Vote in Volusia Shifted 15 Points to the GOP From 2008 8230Four years ago registered Democrats made up 523 percent of the early voters 35902 votes and Republicans made up just 268 percent 18424 votes with independents making up 208 percent 14304 votes In short the registeredDemocrat early vote dropped by 8779 votes and the registeredRepublican early vote increased by 1732 votes Four years ago the Election Day vote went well enough for John McCain to shift from getting squashed in the early vote by 25 points to losing by 6 points A similar 19point shift in this cycle would put Romney ahead by 6 percentage points For whatever it8217s worth I asked my best Romney campaign source if Romney is going to win today That person gave me a 8220Yes8221 No qualifiers Per Bethany Mandel one of her friends has this creepy pseudoNorth Korean Obama mural on the wall of her polling place Voter fraud denied GOP poll workers reinstated in Philly A Pennsylvania judge also issued an order Tuesday to reinstate Republican election officials across Philadelphia who allegedly were ejected or refused entry by onsite Democratic voting chief judges One Republican official claimed that 8220just under 708221 Republican election officials were blocked from Philadelphia polling sites Tuesday morning by Democrats on site One of them the official claimed 8220was shoved out of the polling place8221 8220For this many inspectors to be ejected from polling places is rare even for Philadelphia8221 the official told FoxNewscom Well rejected assuming that they haven8217t already stuffed the ballot box There8217s not a lot of hard data out today but the info that8217s out looks good for Romney For example8230 8230Pasco County Florida is providing real time information on who8217s voted as far as RDI Thusfar Republicans are swamping Democrats 82000 to 66000 In 2008 McCain won but fairly narrowly 8212 110000 to 104000 or 512 to 477 Romney has done considerably better than expected in the early voting in Ohio John Hawkinss book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life Gleaned from a lifetime of trial error and writing it down Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short digestible chapters Late Monday night the Ohio Secretary of State released the 8220final8221 early voting results from Ohio8217s counties The results got the attention 8211 and slight consternation 8211 of the New York Times8217 Nate Silver Dave Wasserman kindly put the data into a spreadsheet here which tabulates early voting results by county and compares that data to early voting results from 2008 Wasserman8217s spreadsheet also notes Kerry8217s 2004 margins and Obama8217s 2008 margins allowing one to effectively deduce the partisanleanings of each county In a discussion on Twitter Silver and Wasserman focused largely on the surprise changes in turnout in many of Ohio8217s counties While total early voting in Ohio only increased by 244 from 2008 early voting in counties that voted heavily for KerryObama declined 41 while counties that voted heavily BushMcCain increased their early voting by a shocking 1439 Wasserman while still predicting an Obama victory suggested that trend meant a tighter race in Ohio than expected and suggested it might undercut Nate Silver8217s famous forecast Nate Silver8217s response 8220I8217ll stick with the 538 forecast in OH I disagree that the early voting data there provides much reason to doubt the polls8221 Seemingly overlooked by Silver however during the discussion of countybycounty results was the simple number of total reported early votes a meager 1787346 As stated above this number shows a 244 increase in early voting from 2008 8211 but the number is still surprisingly low Virtually every Ohio poll this cycle was weighted on the basis that early voting would occupy a massive chunk of the total Ohio vote Rasmussen8217s final poll ceded 40 of the total vote to early voters EVs PPP gave EV8217s a more reasonable 35 The Columbus Dispatch calculated early voting to take up an astounding 47 of the total Ohio vote Almost every other Ohio poll seems to have weighted early voting between 35 and 45 of the total vote The reported early voting numbers however show that virtually every single Ohio poll overestimated the amount of early votes cast If early voting is calculated at 1787346 in order for total voter turnout to rival 2004 numbers early voting cannot occupy more than 32 of the total votes cast 8211 and even in that scenario that high of a percentage means that total voter turnout will be lower than it was in 2008 In order for turnout to match 2008 levels early voting can only account for 31 of total votes cast The next important piece of data is what the polls consistently report Obama leads by huge margins among early voters but trails Romney among those who say they will vote on election day This inverse in voting segments is why the proportion of early votes in the total votes 8211 and that virtually every poll overestimated this proportion 8211 is so tantamount In most polls which usually only have Obama leading by a small margin although some give him a more comfortable 5 lowering the percentage of early votes in the polling sample means lowering Obama8217s lead drastically And when Obama8217s lead is only one or two percentage points that can mean handing the election to Mitt Romney Early Voting in GOP Butler County Outside Cincinnati Sees 121 Gain Over 2008 Another couple of Ohio counties One is up for Romney and another is down for Obama turnout is up in GOP Geauga County Ohio where McCain won with 57 of the vote and down in Athens County the home of Ohio University and where Obama won with 67 in 2008 Early vote in Geauga 125 of 2008 Athens Down 10 from 2008 Drudge has out exit polls EXIT POLL BOOM FOR O R NC FL O NH PA MI NV TOSS UP OH VA CO IA Let me just reiterate what I wrote early in the AM today8230 This is a VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER Early exit polls are almost always HEAVILY SLANTED towards the Democrats In 2004 for example you8217d have thought Kerry was on track to win in a walk 8212 if you believed the early exit polls Don8217t be surprised if you hear exit poll numbers this afternoon and since they8217re hard to confirm you shouldn8217t even be surprised if they8217re made up which is also something that happened in 2004 Point being Don8217t freak out or think there8217s no point in voting because of any exit poll data you hear today Joseph Lowery Indiana has been called for Romney early That was a state Obama won in 2008 but it was a given for Mitt this time around Hopefully the early call means a big margin for Mitt in the state that will help Richard Mourdock win his Senate race Here8217s a breakdown of the key Senate races to watch tonight More good news out of Ohio Cuyahoga County is the key county for Democrats in the state and their numbers are way down from 2008 Data from the Secretary of State showed 253000 early votes already cast in Cuyahoga County 23 of inperson voting using total registered Cuyahoga County voters from 2008 would be 255595 votes for a total of around 508000 votes In 2008 Cuyahoga ended up casting a little more than 678000 votes That means that as of 500pm Cuyahoga County is approximately 170000 votes short of its 2008 total It8217s 805 PM EST and states are being called but no swing states yet The exit polls show Obama doing really well but they always do that We8217re still waiting for the swing states to break AP has called the Florida Senate race for Bill Nelson over Connie Mack That was expected Richard Mourdock looks like he8217s in deep trouble Mourdock running eleven percentage points behind Mitt has lost the lead and the Dem cities haven8217t started to come in Angus King wins in Maine Independent who may caucus with either party takes Olympia Snowe8217s seat Dick Morris is looking at the Florida numbers and saying Romney is going to win in a walk 837 EST CNN is saying Romney will win both Florida and Virginia but no call yet If this is so Romney only needs to win NC 8212 which should happen 8212 and he has all the early swing states he needed Excellent start Democratic Rep Chris Murphy has defeated Republican Linda McMahon in the Connecticut Senate race 8212 that was expected Bob Casey D Holds Senate Seat in PA Defeats Tom Smith Obama wins Michigan That was a state I was hoping Mitt could make competitive although I don8217t think the campaign put much effort into it NBC is calling Mass for Elizabeth Warren That8217s definitely disappointing Romney loses PA That8217s also disappointing because it was a potential swing state It also PROBABLY means that this is going to be a close election and Mitt will likely need Ohio to win Alan Grayson won It was expected in his district but still Ugh Grayson is just a horrible human being Obama is projected to win Wisconsin Again disappointing Here8217s where we are at 939 PM EST Romney has 191 safe If he wins NC 15 Va 13 and Fl 29 that gets him to 248 He needs another 22 So Ohio 18 and one of these Iowa 6 Nevada 6 New Hampshire 4 Colorado 9 That8217s his path to victory 943 EST MA HAS NOT been called for Warren but Richard Mourdock has gone down to defeat and so has Tommy Thompson Retaking the Senate is definitely out of reach for the GOP now 954 EST New Hampshire called for Obama Mass called officially now for Warren Poor Brown He was a great candidate who ran an excellent race but the state is just too blue for him Jesse Jackson Jr wins his seat from the Mayo Clinic Lol8230 1028 PM EST Down to NC VA FL OH IA NV ampamp Colorado Mitt needs the first four and one of the last 3 Still doable This one stings Tim Kaine D beats George Allen R We have NC Now we need Florida Virginia Ohio and probably Colorado Still doable TeaPartyVotes GOP pickup Expected victory Deb Fischer wins Senate seat in NE NBC calls Ohio for Obama Well since Mitt noted that he didn8217t write a concession speech he8217s going to have to wing it GOP Grabs 30 Governor Seats Highest for Either Party in Over a Decade

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<p>DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Davos is the conference everyone loves to hate.</p> <p>Not me.</p> <p>As a financial columnist with an unabashedly globalist remit (sorry Steve Bannon)&amp;#160;the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland is the most efficient few days of my entire year.</p> <p>Starting in December, I line up meetings with sources, some of whom I have known for years and others that are totally new to me, from all parts of the world.</p> <p>Without exaggeration, a typical three hours in Davos for me will include off-the-record chats with the head of a large Spanish bank, a senior official from Saudi Arabia&#8217;s government, a cosmetics entrepreneur from Mexico, the CEO of a Japanese food company and the founder of yet-another fintech startup from Finland.</p> <p>Since I am based in New York, I tend to concentrate on international contacts and people from places that are a bit more difficult to get to like Africa and the Middle East.</p> <p>This is no substitute for getting on a plane, visiting these countries regularly and meeting folks on the ground. So getting together in Davos helps me to prioritize coverage for our three-dozen columnists at Reuters Breakingviews who are tasked every day with making sense of global markets, economies and corporate finance for financial professionals from Toronto to Timbuktu.</p> <p>While it may sound as if I spend lots of time in bilateral discussions outside the Congress Centre in Davos, the WEF&#8217;s programming is essential to bringing the right mix of people up to the mountains and helps to shape the tenor of every background interview in my diary. I certainly go into the meetings with an agenda, but invariably some topic curated by the forum&#8217;s organizers finds its way into the discussion.</p> <p>Looking at this year&#8217;s schedule, for example, I have no doubt that many people will want to discuss the extraordinary reforms taking place in India, where I was fortunate to spend two weeks in December.</p> <p>Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s keynote address will be must-see Davos programming for every CEO, banker or policymaker on the ground. Similarly, the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump will be on everyone&#8217;s minds, no matter how polarizing a figure he has been on the world stage.</p> The logo of the town is seen in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland, January 11, 2018 REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann <p>Of course, it would be disingenuous of me to omit the softer side of Davos. The parties in the evenings are a fantastic way to catch up less formally with existing contacts and make new ones. While this sounds plutocratic to the uninitiated, and it is indeed ironic to chat with billionaires about income inequality over canap&#233;s, for a journalist dependent on gathering perspectives, it&#8217;s nothing but helpful.</p> <p>And when the whole week is done, I try to carve a few turns on the ski slopes before heading home. &amp;#160;</p> <a href="" type="internal">To our readers, from the Editor-in-Chief Read about Reuters Backstory and the Trust Principles</a> <p>Rob Cox is the global editor of Reuters Breakingviews. Sign up for a free trial of the full service at <a href="https://www.breakingviews.com/trial" type="external">www.breakingviews.com/trial</a> and follow on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com.</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) shares slumped 5 percent on Monday as investors awaited production numbers for the closely watched Model 3, a cheaper vehicle that analysts see as crucial to the luxury electric automaker&#8217;s long-term profitability.</p> <p>A recent crash involving Tesla&#8217;s autopilot technology and concerns about the company&#8217;s ability to raise new capital also took a toll.</p> <p>Tesla, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, declined to comment on production numbers for the Model 3, which are expected to be released this week.</p> <p>The stock briefly pared losses after auto industry blogs - citing an unverified memo - reported that production of the Model 3 passed the 2,000 per week production rate. That would be short of Tesla&#8217;s own target of 2,500 per week for the end of March but far above the 793 Model 3s built in the final week of last year.</p> <p>&#8220;Musk himself is focusing time on Model 3 production because it is the &#8220;highest priority,&#8221; a Tesla spokesman said on Monday, saying that engineering chief Doug Field was focused on vehicle engineering.</p> <p>The company&#8217;s statement followed a report that Musk had taken charge of Model 3 production after several missed production deadlines.</p> <p>In a series of tweets Musk said he had asked Field to manage both engineering and production to better align both businesses, a year earlier.</p> <p>&#8220;Right now, tho(ugh), better to divide &amp;amp; conquer, so I&#8217;m back to sleeping at factory,&#8221; he tweeted.</p> <p>Some buy-side Tesla watchers questioned whether the company could sustain such numbers - if they prove to be true - and also worried about profitability.</p> <p>&#8220;There&#8217;s been a number of things combined to impact the stock,&#8221; said Tony Boase, senior research analyst with Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis. In addition to the Model 3 production rate, he cited a recent Moody&#8217;s downgrade of Tesla&#8217;s credit rating and the crash of a Tesla Model X and the company&#8217;s comments since the crash.</p> <p>&#8220;It comes down to the Model 3. That&#8217;s the key,&#8221; Boase said. &#8220;If they can profitably build those cars that would be a huge step in the right direction.</p> <p>&#8220;If you couldn&#8217;t do (2,000) without using all the resources and at a decent margin level, what have you really achieved?&#8221; he added.</p> <p>Another investor who said he has profitably sold Tesla shares short four times in the last 18 months was also skeptical.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>&#8220;Are they really at 2,000 or did they just stuff their system to achieve 2,000 for last week?&#8221; said David Kudla, chief executive and chief investment strategist at Mainstay Capital Management, who said he currently has no bets on Tesla.</p> <p>&#8220;The only position I&#8217;d have on it is short because they aren&#8217;t making any money. Their operating losses are growing. The stock&#8217;s been overvalued for months,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Tesla said on Friday that the Model X involved in a fatal crash in California last week had activated its Autopilot system, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks.</p> <p>Tesla&#8217;s shares closed down $13.65 at $252.48 on Monday, after earlier hitting their lowest level in just over a year. So far in 2018, the shares are down 19 percent, at a time when technology shares have suffered particularly as stock prices fall across the board.</p> <p>Tesla has said it had about 500,000 advance reservations from customers for the Model 3, but manufacturing bottlenecks since last July have delayed production and deliveries to customers, exacerbating the company&#8217;s need for cash.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">Tesla Inc</a> 267.53 TSLA.O Nasdaq +15.05 (+5.96%) TSLA.O <p>Failure to meet targets and pressures on funding prompted Moody&#8217;s downgrade last week, saying that Tesla was likely to raise more than $2 billion in new capital, partly to cover about $1.2 billion in convertible bonds due by March 2019.</p> <p>Tesla still has loyal investors, including Zevenbergen Capital Investments in Seattle, which has owned the stock since the company&#8217;s initial public offering.</p> <p>&#8220;Historically, volatility has provided good entry points. Looking at it today we believe the demand outlook remains robust and unchanged,&#8221; said Joseph Dennison, portfolio manager at Zevenbergen. &#8220;I still believe their product targets and outlook they&#8217;ve given in the past. While they&#8217;ve been optimistic on the timing they&#8217;ve always followed through.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York; Sonam Rai and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The three major U.S. stock indexes ended higher after a choppy session on Tuesday as investors looked forward to earnings season while the S&amp;amp;P 500 pushed above a key support level and Amazon.com shares jumped on hopes that criticism from President Donald Trump would not translate to policy changes.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 389.17 points, or 1.65 percent, to 24,033.36, the S&amp;amp;P 500 gained 32.57 points, or 1.26 percent, to 2,614.45 and the Nasdaq Composite added 71.16 points, or 1.04 percent, to 6,941.28.</p> <p>Reporting by Sin&#233;ad Carew; Editing by James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China will take counter-measures of the &#8220;same proportion&#8221; and scale if the United States imposes further tariffs on Chinese goods, China&#8217;s ambassador to Washington said, amid growing fears of an impending trade war.</p> <p>Cui Tiankai made the comments ahead of what is expected to be the announcement this week of U.S. tariffs on $50 billion to $60 billion in Chinese imports following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china/china-formally-notifies-the-wto-of-retaliatory-tariffs-against-u-s-idUSKCN1HA1YV" type="external">China formally notifies the WTO of retaliatory tariffs against U.S.</a> <p>&#8220;If they do, we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion, and the same scale, same intensity,&#8221; Cui said in an interview posted on the website of China Global Television Network (CGTN) and broadcast on state television on Tuesday.</p> <p>The U.S. tariffs are expected to target products benefiting from Beijing&#8217;s &#8220;Made in China 2025&#8221; industrial development program, although it may be more than two months before the import curbs take effect, U.S. officials have said.</p> <p>China on Sunday announced tariffs on $3 billion in imports of U.S. food and other goods in response to U.S. tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel, a skirmish that investors fear is a prelude to a broader trade war.</p> <p>&#8220;China does not provoke a trade war, and doesn&#8217;t want to fight a trade war, but we also aren&#8217;t afraid of a trade war,&#8221; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing.</p> Carmelo Morillo fills a shipping container with almonds at Capay Canyon Ranch in Esparto, California, U.S. April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage <p>The Section 301 investigation initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump is focused on accusations of theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer by China, charges Beijing denies.</p> <p>Cui said China has been bolstering its protection of intellectual property rights.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>&#8220;China has been strengthening its efforts and strengthening our legal system on this particular issue, and we are making good progress,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Reporting by Lusha Zhang, Tony Munroe and Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency has exempted one of the nation&#8217;s largest oil refining companies, Andeavor ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ANDV.N" type="external">ANDV.N</a>), from complying with U.S. biofuels regulations - a waiver historically reserved for tiny operations in danger of going belly up, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.</p> FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on his proposed changes to the tax code during an event with energy workers at the Andeavor Refinery in Mandan, North Dakota, U.S. September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo <p>The exemption, which applies to the three smallest of Andeavor&#8217;s ten refineries, marks the first evidence of the EPA freeing a highly profitable multi-billion dollar company from the costly mandates of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard. The law requires refiners to blend biofuels such as ethanol into gasoline or purchase credits from those who do such blending.</p> <p>The decision, which has not been previously reported, raises the question of whether other big and profitable oil firms with small refineries - such as Exxon Mobil Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM" type="external">XOM</a>), Chevron Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>) and Phillips 66 ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PSX.N" type="external">PSX.N</a>) - also have or could receive the waivers, which are granted by the EPA in secret.</p> <p>Such waivers were designed for refineries producing less than 75,000 barrels per day that can demonstrate that they suffer a &#8220;disproportionate economic hardship&#8221; from the costs of RFS compliance.</p> <p>Andeavor posted net profits of about $1.5 billion last year.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-usa-biofules-epa-refineries/u-s-biofuel-credits-fall-on-refiner-exemption-report-traders-idUSKCN1HA27R" type="external">U.S. biofuel credits fall on refiner exemption report: traders</a> <p>The EPA exemption, granted about a month ago, could reduce Andeavor&#8217;s regulatory costs by more than $50 million this year, based on the number of biofuels credits that two brokers say the refiner recently sold into the market, along with previous disclosures by firms that own refineries of a similar size.</p> <p>Biofuels credit prices tied to ethanol dropped by 6 cents, to 38 cents each, after Reuters reported Andeavor&#8217;s exemption, traders said. Andeavor shares jumped by more than 1 percent on the news, hitting a session high of $102.78.</p> <p>The exemption releases the firm of its obligation to provide the EPA with biofuels credits proving compliance at the three refineries - two located in North Dakota and one in Utah - for the year 2016, which would have come due this year, the sources said. Andeavor is also asking EPA for a waiver for its 2017 obligations for the same refineries, but has not yet received a decision, the sources said.</p> <p>Andeavor spokeswoman Destin Singleton declined to comment. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman did not immediately comment in response to Reuters inquiries on Monday and Tuesday.</p> <p>As a matter of policy, the agency refuses to release any information on the waivers, or to name their recipients, citing concerns over disclosing private business information. The EPA denied a Freedom of Information Act request from Reuters seeking information on companies receiving the waivers.</p> <p>Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Phillips 66 also own refineries small enough to meet the barrel-per-day standard, as does billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn - whose efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program drew scrutiny from federal investigators.</p> <p>Icahn, majority owner of refiner CVR Energy ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVI.N" type="external">CVI.N</a>), had served as an advisor to Trump on regulatory issues during his push to reform biofuels regulations early last year, but he resigned amid allegations that the role gave him a conflict of interest.</p> <p>Spokespeople for all four companies declined to comment on whether they had applied for or received any exemptions.</p> <p>The lucrative waivers are typically only reported if a publicly-traded firm considers them to be material to their financial or operational performance, in which case they must disclose the information through Securities and Exchange Commission filings.</p> <p>The RFS has long been a lightning rod of conflict between the corn lobby, which supports the policy as an engine for demand, and refiners who say it costs them a fortune.</p> <p>The White House has sought to broker a deal between two of its key political constituencies in a series of meetings, but the effort has failed to yield policy changes acceptable to both sides.</p> <p>Ethanol industry advocates argue exemptions for refiners undermine the intent of the law, originally designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost farm economies.</p> <p>While the EPA&#8217;s motives in providing hardship waivers are unclear, the exemptions are one of the tools at the administration&#8217;s disposal to ease financial pressure on refiners without undertaking a reform of the RFS policy.</p> FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives in his motorcade to deliver remarks on his proposed changes to the tax code during an event with energy workers at the Andeavor Refinery in Mandan, North Dakota, U.S. September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo <p>EPA chief Scott Pruitt, appointed by Trump, has repeatedly said the RFS is too costly to oil refiners and should be overhauled. But Trump&#8217;s Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, told an agriculture conference in February that Trump &#8220;stands with corn farmers, biofuels farmers and the RFS,&#8221; according to a recording heard by Reuters.</p> <p>White House spokeswoman Kelly Love did not respond to a question about whether the administration was expanding the use of the RFS waivers to help refiners. Bowman, of the EPA, also did not comment on the question.</p> LAWSUIT OVER &#8216;HARDSHIP&#8217; STANDARD <p>Andeavor&#8217;s waiver follows a successful lawsuit by another refiner, Sinclair Oil, last year challenging the strict standard the EPA has used under past administrations for determining financial hardship.</p> <p>&#8220;The EPA&#8217;s interpretation takes the statutory language too far,&#8221; wrote Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. &#8220;A &#8216;hardship&#8217; is something that makes one&#8217;s life hard or difficult - not just something that makes continued existence impossible.&#8221;</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ANDV.N" type="external">Andeavor</a> 102.72 ANDV.N New York Stock Exchange +2.22 (+2.21%) ANDV.N XOM CVX.N PSX.N CVI.N <p>The lawsuit - along with a perception that the Trump administration might be more sympathetic to refiners - has sparked a big increase in applications from refining firms for he exemptions this year. More than 30 refineries have sought the waivers, according to sources familiar with the matter.</p> <p>In a typical year, the EPA would receive about 12 to 15 requests for hardship exemptions and would grant about half of them, a former official familiar with the program told Reuters.</p> EXEMPTIONS SAVE REFINERS BIG BUCKS <p>Andeavor sold some 100 million of those credits to its competitors in recent weeks, according to two brokers in the biofuels credit market. The company otherwise would have needed to provide those credits to the EPA to prove compliance with the RFS.</p> <p>Those credits would be worth about $58 million based on&amp;#160;a Reuters calculation of&amp;#160;average&amp;#160;renewable fuel RIN&amp;#160;prices this year.</p> <p>In the past, other companies have said the exemptions they were granted saved them tens of millions of dollars, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.</p> <p>Last year, for example, HollyFrontier disclosed a reduction of almost $58 million in its costs of credits for two refineries for 2016.</p> <p>Such windfalls for oil firms come at the expense of the corn and ethanol industries, said Renewable Fuels Association Executive Vice President Geoff Cooper.</p> <p>Refiners granted exemptions win in two ways: They no longer have to blend biofuels or buy credits to comply with the law, and they can sell any credits they had previously purchased to use for compliance.</p> <p>The waivers, Cooper said in a post on the RFA web site, &#8220;are destroying demand for ethanol and corn.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice; Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

My Davos: the most efficient reporting trip of the year Tesla shares fall on worries about Model 3 production rate Wall St. climbs as Amazon jumps, S&P rises past key support China ready for proportionate response to U.S. tariffs: envoy Exclusive: EPA gives giant refiner a 'hardship' waiver from regulation

https://reuters.com/article/backstory-davos/my-davos-the-most-efficient-reporting-trip-of-the-year-idUSL1N1PC2I7

2018-01-21

2least

DAVOS Switzerland Reuters Davos is the conference everyone loves to hate Not me As a financial columnist with an unabashedly globalist remit sorry Steve Bannonamp160the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland is the most efficient few days of my entire year Starting in December I line up meetings with sources some of whom I have known for years and others that are totally new to me from all parts of the world Without exaggeration a typical three hours in Davos for me will include offtherecord chats with the head of a large Spanish bank a senior official from Saudi Arabia8217s government a cosmetics entrepreneur from Mexico the CEO of a Japanese food company and the founder of yetanother fintech startup from Finland Since I am based in New York I tend to concentrate on international contacts and people from places that are a bit more difficult to get to like Africa and the Middle East This is no substitute for getting on a plane visiting these countries regularly and meeting folks on the ground So getting together in Davos helps me to prioritize coverage for our threedozen columnists at Reuters Breakingviews who are tasked every day with making sense of global markets economies and corporate finance for financial professionals from Toronto to Timbuktu While it may sound as if I spend lots of time in bilateral discussions outside the Congress Centre in Davos the WEF8217s programming is essential to bringing the right mix of people up to the mountains and helps to shape the tenor of every background interview in my diary I certainly go into the meetings with an agenda but invariably some topic curated by the forum8217s organizers finds its way into the discussion Looking at this year8217s schedule for example I have no doubt that many people will want to discuss the extraordinary reforms taking place in India where I was fortunate to spend two weeks in December Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi8217s keynote address will be mustsee Davos programming for every CEO banker or policymaker on the ground Similarly the arrival of US President Donald Trump will be on everyone8217s minds no matter how polarizing a figure he has been on the world stage The logo of the town is seen in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos Switzerland January 11 2018 REUTERSArnd Wiegmann Of course it would be disingenuous of me to omit the softer side of Davos The parties in the evenings are a fantastic way to catch up less formally with existing contacts and make new ones While this sounds plutocratic to the uninitiated and it is indeed ironic to chat with billionaires about income inequality over canap233s for a journalist dependent on gathering perspectives it8217s nothing but helpful And when the whole week is done I try to carve a few turns on the ski slopes before heading home amp160 To our readers from the EditorinChief Read about Reuters Backstory and the Trust Principles Rob Cox is the global editor of Reuters Breakingviews Sign up for a free trial of the full service at wwwbreakingviewscomtrial and follow on Twitter Breakingviews and at wwwbreakingviewscom Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Tesla Inc TSLAO shares slumped 5 percent on Monday as investors awaited production numbers for the closely watched Model 3 a cheaper vehicle that analysts see as crucial to the luxury electric automaker8217s longterm profitability A recent crash involving Tesla8217s autopilot technology and concerns about the company8217s ability to raise new capital also took a toll Tesla founded by billionaire Elon Musk declined to comment on production numbers for the Model 3 which are expected to be released this week The stock briefly pared losses after auto industry blogs citing an unverified memo reported that production of the Model 3 passed the 2000 per week production rate That would be short of Tesla8217s own target of 2500 per week for the end of March but far above the 793 Model 3s built in the final week of last year 8220Musk himself is focusing time on Model 3 production because it is the 8220highest priority8221 a Tesla spokesman said on Monday saying that engineering chief Doug Field was focused on vehicle engineering The company8217s statement followed a report that Musk had taken charge of Model 3 production after several missed production deadlines In a series of tweets Musk said he had asked Field to manage both engineering and production to better align both businesses a year earlier 8220Right now though better to divide ampamp conquer so I8217m back to sleeping at factory8221 he tweeted Some buyside Tesla watchers questioned whether the company could sustain such numbers if they prove to be true and also worried about profitability 8220There8217s been a number of things combined to impact the stock8221 said Tony Boase senior research analyst with Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis In addition to the Model 3 production rate he cited a recent Moody8217s downgrade of Tesla8217s credit rating and the crash of a Tesla Model X and the company8217s comments since the crash 8220It comes down to the Model 3 That8217s the key8221 Boase said 8220If they can profitably build those cars that would be a huge step in the right direction 8220If you couldn8217t do 2000 without using all the resources and at a decent margin level what have you really achieved8221 he added Another investor who said he has profitably sold Tesla shares short four times in the last 18 months was also skeptical Slideshow 2 Images 8220Are they really at 2000 or did they just stuff their system to achieve 2000 for last week8221 said David Kudla chief executive and chief investment strategist at Mainstay Capital Management who said he currently has no bets on Tesla 8220The only position I8217d have on it is short because they aren8217t making any money Their operating losses are growing The stock8217s been overvalued for months8221 he said Tesla said on Friday that the Model X involved in a fatal crash in California last week had activated its Autopilot system raising new questions about the semiautonomous system that handles some driving tasks Tesla8217s shares closed down 1365 at 25248 on Monday after earlier hitting their lowest level in just over a year So far in 2018 the shares are down 19 percent at a time when technology shares have suffered particularly as stock prices fall across the board Tesla has said it had about 500000 advance reservations from customers for the Model 3 but manufacturing bottlenecks since last July have delayed production and deliveries to customers exacerbating the company8217s need for cash Tesla Inc 26753 TSLAO Nasdaq 1505 596 TSLAO Failure to meet targets and pressures on funding prompted Moody8217s downgrade last week saying that Tesla was likely to raise more than 2 billion in new capital partly to cover about 12 billion in convertible bonds due by March 2019 Tesla still has loyal investors including Zevenbergen Capital Investments in Seattle which has owned the stock since the company8217s initial public offering 8220Historically volatility has provided good entry points Looking at it today we believe the demand outlook remains robust and unchanged8221 said Joseph Dennison portfolio manager at Zevenbergen 8220I still believe their product targets and outlook they8217ve given in the past While they8217ve been optimistic on the timing they8217ve always followed through8221 Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York Sonam Rai and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru Editing by Peter Henderson and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters The three major US stock indexes ended higher after a choppy session on Tuesday as investors looked forward to earnings season while the SampampP 500 pushed above a key support level and Amazoncom shares jumped on hopes that criticism from President Donald Trump would not translate to policy changes Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 26 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 38917 points or 165 percent to 2403336 the SampampP 500 gained 3257 points or 126 percent to 261445 and the Nasdaq Composite added 7116 points or 104 percent to 694128 Reporting by Sin233ad Carew Editing by James Dalgleish Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters China will take countermeasures of the 8220same proportion8221 and scale if the United States imposes further tariffs on Chinese goods China8217s ambassador to Washington said amid growing fears of an impending trade war Cui Tiankai made the comments ahead of what is expected to be the announcement this week of US tariffs on 50 billion to 60 billion in Chinese imports following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act Related Coverage China formally notifies the WTO of retaliatory tariffs against US 8220If they do we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion and the same scale same intensity8221 Cui said in an interview posted on the website of China Global Television Network CGTN and broadcast on state television on Tuesday The US tariffs are expected to target products benefiting from Beijing8217s 8220Made in China 20258221 industrial development program although it may be more than two months before the import curbs take effect US officials have said China on Sunday announced tariffs on 3 billion in imports of US food and other goods in response to US tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel a skirmish that investors fear is a prelude to a broader trade war 8220China does not provoke a trade war and doesn8217t want to fight a trade war but we also aren8217t afraid of a trade war8221 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing Carmelo Morillo fills a shipping container with almonds at Capay Canyon Ranch in Esparto California US April 2 2018 REUTERSElijah Nouvelage The Section 301 investigation initiated by US President Donald Trump is focused on accusations of theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer by China charges Beijing denies Cui said China has been bolstering its protection of intellectual property rights Slideshow 2 Images 8220China has been strengthening its efforts and strengthening our legal system on this particular issue and we are making good progress8221 he said Reporting by Lusha Zhang Tony Munroe and Michael Martina Editing by Nick Macfie Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters The Environmental Protection Agency has exempted one of the nation8217s largest oil refining companies Andeavor ANDVN from complying with US biofuels regulations a waiver historically reserved for tiny operations in danger of going belly up two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters FILE PHOTO US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on his proposed changes to the tax code during an event with energy workers at the Andeavor Refinery in Mandan North Dakota US September 6 2017 REUTERSJonathan ErnstFile Photo The exemption which applies to the three smallest of Andeavor8217s ten refineries marks the first evidence of the EPA freeing a highly profitable multibillion dollar company from the costly mandates of the US Renewable Fuel Standard The law requires refiners to blend biofuels such as ethanol into gasoline or purchase credits from those who do such blending The decision which has not been previously reported raises the question of whether other big and profitable oil firms with small refineries such as Exxon Mobil Corp XOM Chevron Corp CVXN and Phillips 66 PSXN also have or could receive the waivers which are granted by the EPA in secret Such waivers were designed for refineries producing less than 75000 barrels per day that can demonstrate that they suffer a 8220disproportionate economic hardship8221 from the costs of RFS compliance Andeavor posted net profits of about 15 billion last year Related Coverage US biofuel credits fall on refiner exemption report traders The EPA exemption granted about a month ago could reduce Andeavor8217s regulatory costs by more than 50 million this year based on the number of biofuels credits that two brokers say the refiner recently sold into the market along with previous disclosures by firms that own refineries of a similar size Biofuels credit prices tied to ethanol dropped by 6 cents to 38 cents each after Reuters reported Andeavor8217s exemption traders said Andeavor shares jumped by more than 1 percent on the news hitting a session high of 10278 The exemption releases the firm of its obligation to provide the EPA with biofuels credits proving compliance at the three refineries two located in North Dakota and one in Utah for the year 2016 which would have come due this year the sources said Andeavor is also asking EPA for a waiver for its 2017 obligations for the same refineries but has not yet received a decision the sources said Andeavor spokeswoman Destin Singleton declined to comment EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman did not immediately comment in response to Reuters inquiries on Monday and Tuesday As a matter of policy the agency refuses to release any information on the waivers or to name their recipients citing concerns over disclosing private business information The EPA denied a Freedom of Information Act request from Reuters seeking information on companies receiving the waivers Exxon Mobil Chevron and Phillips 66 also own refineries small enough to meet the barrelperday standard as does billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn whose efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program drew scrutiny from federal investigators Icahn majority owner of refiner CVR Energy CVIN had served as an advisor to Trump on regulatory issues during his push to reform biofuels regulations early last year but he resigned amid allegations that the role gave him a conflict of interest Spokespeople for all four companies declined to comment on whether they had applied for or received any exemptions The lucrative waivers are typically only reported if a publiclytraded firm considers them to be material to their financial or operational performance in which case they must disclose the information through Securities and Exchange Commission filings The RFS has long been a lightning rod of conflict between the corn lobby which supports the policy as an engine for demand and refiners who say it costs them a fortune The White House has sought to broker a deal between two of its key political constituencies in a series of meetings but the effort has failed to yield policy changes acceptable to both sides Ethanol industry advocates argue exemptions for refiners undermine the intent of the law originally designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost farm economies While the EPA8217s motives in providing hardship waivers are unclear the exemptions are one of the tools at the administration8217s disposal to ease financial pressure on refiners without undertaking a reform of the RFS policy FILE PHOTO US President Donald Trump arrives in his motorcade to deliver remarks on his proposed changes to the tax code during an event with energy workers at the Andeavor Refinery in Mandan North Dakota US September 6 2017 REUTERSJonathan ErnstFile Photo EPA chief Scott Pruitt appointed by Trump has repeatedly said the RFS is too costly to oil refiners and should be overhauled But Trump8217s Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue told an agriculture conference in February that Trump 8220stands with corn farmers biofuels farmers and the RFS8221 according to a recording heard by Reuters White House spokeswoman Kelly Love did not respond to a question about whether the administration was expanding the use of the RFS waivers to help refiners Bowman of the EPA also did not comment on the question LAWSUIT OVER 8216HARDSHIP8217 STANDARD Andeavor8217s waiver follows a successful lawsuit by another refiner Sinclair Oil last year challenging the strict standard the EPA has used under past administrations for determining financial hardship 8220The EPA8217s interpretation takes the statutory language too far8221 wrote Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver 8220A 8216hardship8217 is something that makes one8217s life hard or difficult not just something that makes continued existence impossible8221 Andeavor 10272 ANDVN New York Stock Exchange 222 221 ANDVN XOM CVXN PSXN CVIN The lawsuit along with a perception that the Trump administration might be more sympathetic to refiners has sparked a big increase in applications from refining firms for he exemptions this year More than 30 refineries have sought the waivers according to sources familiar with the matter In a typical year the EPA would receive about 12 to 15 requests for hardship exemptions and would grant about half of them a former official familiar with the program told Reuters EXEMPTIONS SAVE REFINERS BIG BUCKS Andeavor sold some 100 million of those credits to its competitors in recent weeks according to two brokers in the biofuels credit market The company otherwise would have needed to provide those credits to the EPA to prove compliance with the RFS Those credits would be worth about 58 million based onamp160a Reuters calculation ofamp160averageamp160renewable fuel RINamp160prices this year In the past other companies have said the exemptions they were granted saved them tens of millions of dollars according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings Last year for example HollyFrontier disclosed a reduction of almost 58 million in its costs of credits for two refineries for 2016 Such windfalls for oil firms come at the expense of the corn and ethanol industries said Renewable Fuels Association Executive Vice President Geoff Cooper Refiners granted exemptions win in two ways They no longer have to blend biofuels or buy credits to comply with the law and they can sell any credits they had previously purchased to use for compliance The waivers Cooper said in a post on the RFA web site 8220are destroying demand for ethanol and corn8221 Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice Additional reporting by Jessica ResnickAult Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p /> <p>By Nick Turse</p> <p>When we last left this story, we were knee-deep in <a href="/news/dailymojo/2005/01/homeland_security.html" type="external">the emerging Homeland Security State</a>, a special place where a host of disturbing and mutually reinforcing patterns have emerged &#8212; among them: a virtually unopposed increase in military, intelligence and &#8220;security&#8221; agencies intruding into the civilian sector of American life; federal abridgment of basic rights; denials of civil liberties on flimsy or illegal premises; warrant-less, sneak-and-peek searches; and the undermining of privacy safeguards.</p> <p>But our last cast of characters: NORTHCOM, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, the FBI and the Air Force only represent the usual (if expansive) suspects. To make America a total Homeland Security State will take more than the combined efforts of the military and intelligence establishments. The civilian side of government, the part of the private sector that is deeply enmeshed in the military-corporate complex, and America&#8217;s own citizens will have to pitch in as well if a total-security state is to truly take shape and fire on all cylinders.</p> <p>The good news is &#8212; if, at least, you&#8217;re a Homeland Security bureaucrat &#8212; this process is already well underway, thanks, in large part, to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which brought a dazzling array of agencies together under one roof, including the United States Customs Service (previously part of the Department of Treasury), the enforcement division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Department of Justice), the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (Department of Agriculture), the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (Department of Treasury), the Transportation Security Administration (Department of Transportation), the Federal Protective Service (General Services Administration), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System (Health and Human Services), the Nuclear Incident Response Team (Energy), Domestic Emergency Support Teams (Justice), the National Domestic Preparedness Office (FBI), the CBRN Countermeasures Programs (Energy), the Environmental Measurements Laboratory (Energy), the National Biological Warfare Defense Analysis Center (Defense), the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (Agriculture), the Federal Computer Incident Response Center (General Services Administration), the National Communications System (Defense), the National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI), the Energy Security and Assurance Program (Energy), the Secret Service (Treasury), and the Coast Guard (Defense and Transportation).</p> <p>The DHS is, not surprisingly, the poster-child for the emerging Homeland Security State. But the DHS itself is just the tip of the iceberg &#8212; an archetype for a brave new nation where the lines between what the intelligence community and the military do abroad and what they do in the U.S.A. are increasingly blurred beyond recognition. Today, a host of agencies on the civilian side of the government are also setting up new programs; expanding their powers; gearing up operations and/or creating &#8220;Big Brother&#8221; technologies to more effectively monitor civilians, chill dissent; and bring the war back home to America.</p> <p>Freedom of the Road</p> <p>Recently, it was disclosed that the Department of Homeland Security had deployed an x-ray van, previously used in cargo searches at America&#8217;s borders, in a test run &#8212; taking <a href="http://www.voicesofsept11.org/security_issues/102204.htm" type="external">X-ray pictures of parked cars</a> in Cape May, New Jersey. While, the DHS claimed all X-ray surveillance was conducted on empty cars with their owners&#8217; consent, one wonders how long this will last. After all, American Science &amp;amp; Engineering Inc, the manufacturer of the Z Backscatter Van (ZBV), notes that <a href="http://www.as-e.com/products_solutions/zbv.asp" type="external">&#8220;it maintains</a> the outward appearance of an ordinary van,&#8221; so it can stand unnoticed and peep into cars as they drive past, or with its &#8220;unique &#8216;drive-by&#8217; capability [it] allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past.&#8221; Since we&#8217;re all increasingly suspects (in our &#8220;suspect vehicles&#8221;) in the Homeland Security State, it seems only a matter of time before at least some of us fall victim to a DHS X-ray drive-by.</p> <p>But what happens after a DHS scan-van x-ray shows a dense white mass in your car (which could be any &#8220;organic material&#8221; from explosives or drugs to a puppy, a baby, or a head of lettuce)? Assuming that the DHS folks will be linked up with the Department of Transportation (DOT), soon they might be able to call on DOT&#8217;s proposed Intelligent Transportation Systems&#8217; (ITS) Joint Program Office (JPO)&#8217;s &#8220;Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII)&#8221; system for help.</p> <p>According to Bill Jones, the Technical Director of the ITS JPO, <a href="http://www.nawgits.com/icdn/vii_trb04.html" type="external">&#8220;The concept behind VII</a> is that vehicle manufacturers will install a communications device on the vehicle starting at some future date, and equipment will be installed on the nation&#8217;s transportation system to allow all vehicles to communicate with the infrastructure.&#8221; In other words, the government and manufacturers will team up to track every new automobile (x-rayed or not) in America. &#8220;The whole idea,&#8221; says Jones, &#8220;is that vehicles would transmit this data to the infrastructure. The infrastructure, in turn, would aggregate that data in some kind of a database.&#8221;</p> <p>Imagine it: The federal government tracking you in real time, while compiling a database with information on your speed, route, and destination; where you were when; how many times you went to a certain location; and just about anything else related to your travels in your own car. The DOT project, in fact, sounds remarkably like a civilian update of the &#8220;Combat Zones That See&#8221; program developed by the Pentagon&#8217;s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Noah Shachtman, writing for the <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0328/shachtman.php" type="external">Village Voice</a>, reported in 2003 that DARPA was in the process of instituting a project at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, whose aim was &#8220;to track 90 percent of all of cars within [a] target area for any given 30-minute period. The paths of 1 million vehicles [w]ould be stored and retrievable within three seconds.&#8221; It gives a whole new meaning to &#8220;King of the Road.&#8221;</p> <p>Pssst&#8230; Wanna Hear a Secret (Law)</p> <p>In November 2004, <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65822,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1" type="external">&#8220;the Transportation Security Administration</a> ordered America&#8217;s 72 airlines to turn over their June 2004 domestic passenger flight records.&#8221; With only a murmur of concern over the privacy of passengers&#8217; credit-card numbers, phone numbers and health information, the airlines handed the requested information over so the agency could test its new Secure Flight system &#8212; an expanded version of the much-maligned terrorist watch list.</p> <p>More recently, the Transportation Security Administration has made headlines <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20026-2004Dec22.html" type="external">with a change</a> in its pat-down policies. Following public outcry, airport security screeners have been instructed to no longer grope the breasts of female passengers as an anti-terror measure. Pat downs, however, apparently remain part of TSA airport protocol in some cases, although we have no idea which ones. This is because the Transportation Security Administration has begun to dabble in &#8220;secret law&#8221; by subjecting passengers to special screenings including &#8220;pat-down searches for weapons or unauthorized materials,&#8221; while denying the public the right to know under what law(s) such methods are authorized. As <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2004/11/111404.html" type="external">Steven Aftergood</a> of the Project on Government Secrecy recently observed, &#8220;In a qualitatively new development in U.S. governance, Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know.&#8221;</p> <p>When Big Brother Goes to College</p> <p>Since it was enacted in the rough wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act has enabled the government to undermine privacy safeguards like those once protected by the Family Education Records Privacy Act. The government is now allowed access, without a warrant, to a student&#8217;s personal, library, bookstore, and medical records, and any disclosure that such records have either been sought or turned over is prohibited.</p> <p>Now, the Department of Education has suggested upping the ante with a proposal to create a national registry that would track every one of the estimated 15.9 million college students in America through yet another <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=504914" type="external">&#8220;massive database&#8221;</a> &#8212; this one containing everything from college students&#8217; academic records, tuition payments and financial aid benefits to social security numbers and information on participation in varsity sports.</p> <p><a href="http://www.wilmingtonjournal.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=51359&amp;amp;sID=33" type="external">Right now</a>, students have to give written consent for educational and personally identifiable data to be transferred out of the college. &#8220;With this new proposal, most of that power is given to the federal government,&#8221; says Sarah Flanagan, the vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges &amp;amp; Universities. Moreover, if this new database comes to pass, says Jasmine L. Harris, legislative director at the United States Students Association, it would further erode various remaining privacy safeguards, allowing government agencies other than the Education Department to have greater access to student records.</p> <p>Bright Lights, Big Cities</p> <p>With the federal government casting off the Geneva Conventions as &#8220;quaint,&#8221; employing secret law at home, and tasking average Americans to become Peeping Toms and undercover informants, its little wonder that those in the private sector have now taken up the task of helping the Feds in fashioning a Homeland Security State. After all, with surveillance bureaucracies burgeoning and security budgets growing, there&#8217;s suddenly a fortune to be made. Last year, alone, under the Urban Area Security Initiative, the DHS doled out $675 million <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/UASI_FY04_Allocations.doc" type="external">to 50 large cities</a> across America. This year, the total will jump to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/08/MNGB5AND801.DTL" type="external">$854.6 million.</a></p> <p>With money flowing in and representatives of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, the New York Police Department, and the Los Angeles Police Department, among others, sitting beside operatives from the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI and other defense and intelligence agencies at the DHS&#8217;s Homeland Security Operations Center, its little wonder that major urban centers like <a href="http://www.policeone.com/policeone/frontend/parser.cfm?object=News&amp;amp;operation=full_news&amp;amp;id=92023" type="external">Chicago</a> (which is getting $45 million in Urban Area Security Initiative funds this year), <a href="http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3867430/detail.html" type="external">Los Angeles</a> ($61 million in UASI money) and <a href="http://www.ny1.com/ny/Search/SubTopic/index.html?&amp;amp;contentintid=39441&amp;amp;search_result=1" type="external">New York City</a> (which is raking in a cool $208 million) have moved toward implementing wide-ranging, increasingly sophisticated covert surveillance systems.</p> <p>In Chicago, a program, code-named Operation Disruption, consists of at least 80 street surveillance cameras that send their feed to police officers&#8217; laptop computers in squad cars and <a href="http://www.nbc5.com/news/3959595/detail.html?z=dp&amp;amp;dpswid=2265994&amp;amp;dppid=65193" type="external">&#8220;a central command center</a>, where retired police officers&#8230; monitor activity.&#8221; The ultimate plan, however, is to use a grant from the Department of Homeland Security and city monies to purchase 250 new cameras and link them to <a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/110104/tl_security.html" type="external">&#8220;some 2,000 unnetworked video cameras</a> installed around the Chicago (and at O&#8217;Hare International Airport) to create a network of as many as &#8220;2,250 surveillance cameras throughout the Windy City.&#8221; &#8220;We&#8217;re so far advanced than [sic] any other city,&#8221; said Chicago&#8217;s Mayor Richard M. Daley of the program, &#8220;sometimes the state and federal governments &#8212; they come here to look at the technology.&#8221;</p> <p>In New York, Mayor <a href="http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/newyork/politics/nyc-bloom-text,0,2377126.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breakingheadlines" type="external">Michael Bloomberg</a> recently announced a &#8220;major upgrade&#8221; for the city&#8217;s high-tech crime-tracking system, Compstat, through the creation of a &#8220;Real Time Crime Fighting Center&#8221; to provide &#8220;same-day information&#8221; for tracking and analysis purposes.</p> <p>Private Eyes</p> <p>While the doings of &#8220;private contractors&#8221; still pop up in articles about prisoner abuse in Iraq, what such mercenary outfits are up to on the homefront is hardly ever mentioned. For example, CACI International Inc., whose employees were <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59673-2004Dec12.html" type="external">linked in news accounts</a> to the Abu Ghraib torture scandals, boasts that its customers include not only a <a href="http://www.caci.com/hls.shtml" type="external">&#8220;majority of U.S. defense</a> and civilian agencies and the U.S. intelligence community,&#8221; but &#8220;44 U.S. state governments&#8221; and &#8220;[m]ore than 200 cities, counties and local agencies in North America.&#8221; CACI proclaims that it plays &#8220;many roles in securing our homeland&#8221; and that it &#8220;support[s] law enforcement agencies such as the Department of Justice [and] design[s] and prototype[s] systems that collect intelligence information.&#8221; One of CACI&#8217;s fellow contractors, Titan Corp (which was also linked in news accounts to the Abu Ghraib torture cases) is at work in the &#8220;Defense of the Homeland&#8221; with programs such as <a href="http://www.titan.com/products-services/abstract.html?docID=332" type="external">Data Warehousing and Data Mining for the Intelligence Community</a> and a <a href="http://www.titan.com/products-services/abstract.html?docID=351" type="external">Command and Control Concept for North American Homeland Defense</a> .</p> <p>Of course, these are only two of the many companies helping to secure the homeland (and fat contracts). In 2003 alone, the DHS spent <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040520-homsec-spending.htm" type="external">&#8220;at least $256.6 million</a> in 1,609 separate contracts or amendments to contracts to hire what the [General Services Administration] described as &#8216;security guards and patrol services'&#8221; and doled out $6.73 billion dollars in total. This year the DHS has raked in a cool <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0541.xml" type="external">$28.9 billion</a> in net discretionary spending &#8212; including $67.4 million &#8220;to expand the capabilities of the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD), which implements the public and private sector partnership protecting cyber security&#8221;; $104.7 million for &#8220;Aerial Surveillance and Sensor Technology&#8221; projects; and $340 million for the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program (US &#8211;VISIT) which &#8220;expedites the arrival and departure of legitimate travelers.&#8221;</p> <p>Your Role in the Homeland Security State</p> <p>In the latter years of the Vietnam era, a series of exposures of official lies regarding the FBI&#8217;s various COINTELPROs, a host of surveillance and dirty tricks programs aimed at American activists, and the analogous CIA program known as MHCHAOS; of domestic spying by military intelligence agents and of the Nixon administration&#8217;s various Watergate surveillance and illegal break-in operations brought home to Americans at least some of the abuses committed by their military, intelligence, and security establishments. Congressional bodies like the Church Commission and the Senate Watergate Committee even helped to rein in some of the most egregious of these abuses and to reinforce the barriers between what the CIA and military could do overseas and what was permissible on the homefront.</p> <p>In the 1980s and 1990s, however, oversight and constraints on illegal domestic activities by the military and intelligence community slowly began to drain away; and with the 9/11 attacks, of course, everything changed. Three years later, what was once done on the sly is increasingly public policy &#8212; and done with pride &#8212; though much of it still flies under the mainstream media radar as the Bush administration transforms us into an unabashed Homeland Security State.</p> <p>Today, freedom &#8212; to be spread abroad by force of arms &#8212; is increasingly a privilege that can be rescinded at home when anyone acts a little too free. Today, America is just another area of operations for the Pentagon; while those who say the wrong things; congregate in the wrong places; wear the wrong t-shirts; display the wrong stickers; or just look the wrong way find themselves recast as &#8220;enemies&#8221; and put under the eye of, if not the care of, the state. Today, a growing Homeland Security complex of federal, local, and private partners is hard at work establishing turf rights, garnering budgetary increases, and ramping up a new security culture nationwide. And, unfortunately, the programs and abuses highlighted in this series are but the publicly known tip of the iceberg. For example:</p> <p>It was recently revealed through the Freedom of Information Act that <a href="http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&amp;amp;name=News&amp;amp;file=article&amp;amp;sid=45291" type="external">&#8220;the FBI obtained</a> 257.5 million Passenger Name Records following 9/11, and that the Bureau has permanently incorporated the travel details of tens of millions of innocent people into its law enforcement databases.&#8221;</p> <p>Outgoing DHS chief, Tom Ridge recently called for U.S. passports to include fingerprints in the future. While OTI, a Fort Lee, N.J.-based subsidiary of the Israeli company On Track Innovations was just selected to <a href="http://www.otiglobal.com/content.aspx?id=178" type="external">provide electronic passports</a> which utilize a biometrically-coded <a href="http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050113-014738-3343r.htm" type="external">&#8220;digitized photograph,</a> which is accessed by a proximity reader in the inspection booth and compared automatically to the face of the traveler.&#8221;</p> <p>In November 2004, California passed the Orwellian-sounding &#8220;DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act&#8221; which <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66242-3,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next2" type="external">&#8220;allows authorities</a> to take DNA samples from anyone &#8212; adult or juvenile &#8212; convicted of a felony&#8221; and &#8220;in 2009&#8230; will expand to allow police to collect DNA samples from any suspect arrested for any felony&#8230; whether or not the person is charged or convicted. It&#8217;s expected that genetic data for 1 million people &#8212; including innocent suspects &#8212; will be added to California&#8217;s DNA databank by 2009.&#8221;</p> <p>The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65614,00.html" type="external">&#8220;use the latest in database technologies</a>&#8221; to store information on and count the homeless which, the Electronic Privacy Information Center notes, <a href="http://www.epic.org/privacy/poverty/" type="external">&#8220;lay[s] the groundwork</a> for a national homeless tracking system, placing individuals at risk of government and other privacy invasions.&#8221;</p> <p>According to a recent report in <a href="http://www.c4isrjournal.com/story.php?F=445992" type="external">ISR Journal</a>, &#8220;the publication of record for the global network-centric warfare community,&#8221; a &#8220;high-level advisory panel recently told U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld&#8221; that the Pentagon needs ultra-high-tech tracking tools that &#8220;can identify people by unique physical characteristics &#8212; fingerprint, voice, odor, gait or even pattern of iris&#8221; and that such a system &#8220;must be merged with new means of &#8216;tagging&#8217; so that U.S. forces can find enemies who escape into a crowd or slip into a labyrinthine slum.&#8221;</p> <p>Imagine if this last program were integrated with any of the aforementioned ventures &#8212; in our increasingly brave new (blurred) world. Yet, for all their secret doings, vaunted programs, futuristic technologies and their powerful urge to turn all American citizens into various kinds of tractable database material, our new Homeland Security managers require one critical element: us. They require our &#8220;Eagle Eyes,&#8221; our assent, and &#8212; if not our outright support &#8212; then our ambivalence and acquiescence. They need us to be their dime-store spies; they need us to drive their tracking device-equipped cars; they need us to accede to their revisions of the first amendment.</p> <p>That simple fact makes us powerful. If you don&#8217;t dig the Homeland Security State, do your best to thwart it. Of course, such talk, let alone action, probably won&#8217;t be popular &#8212; but since when has anything worthwhile, from working for peace to fighting for civil rights, been easy? If everyone was for freedom, there would be no need to fight for it. The choice is yours.</p> <p>Nick Turse is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the History &amp;amp; Ethics of Public Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He writes for the Village Voice and regularly for Tomdispatch on the military-corporate complex.</p> <p>Copyright C2005 Nick Turse</p> <p>This piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external">Tomdispatch.com</a>.</p> <p />

Bringing the War Back Home

https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/01/bringing-war-back-home/

2005-01-31

4left

By Nick Turse When we last left this story we were kneedeep in the emerging Homeland Security State a special place where a host of disturbing and mutually reinforcing patterns have emerged 8212 among them a virtually unopposed increase in military intelligence and 8220security8221 agencies intruding into the civilian sector of American life federal abridgment of basic rights denials of civil liberties on flimsy or illegal premises warrantless sneakandpeek searches and the undermining of privacy safeguards But our last cast of characters NORTHCOM the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive the FBI and the Air Force only represent the usual if expansive suspects To make America a total Homeland Security State will take more than the combined efforts of the military and intelligence establishments The civilian side of government the part of the private sector that is deeply enmeshed in the militarycorporate complex and America8217s own citizens will have to pitch in as well if a totalsecurity state is to truly take shape and fire on all cylinders The good news is 8212 if at least you8217re a Homeland Security bureaucrat 8212 this process is already well underway thanks in large part to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security DHS which brought a dazzling array of agencies together under one roof including the United States Customs Service previously part of the Department of Treasury the enforcement division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Department of Justice the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Department of Agriculture the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Department of Treasury the Transportation Security Administration Department of Transportation the Federal Protective Service General Services Administration the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA the Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System Health and Human Services the Nuclear Incident Response Team Energy Domestic Emergency Support Teams Justice the National Domestic Preparedness Office FBI the CBRN Countermeasures Programs Energy the Environmental Measurements Laboratory Energy the National Biological Warfare Defense Analysis Center Defense the Plum Island Animal Disease Center Agriculture the Federal Computer Incident Response Center General Services Administration the National Communications System Defense the National Infrastructure Protection Center FBI the Energy Security and Assurance Program Energy the Secret Service Treasury and the Coast Guard Defense and Transportation The DHS is not surprisingly the posterchild for the emerging Homeland Security State But the DHS itself is just the tip of the iceberg 8212 an archetype for a brave new nation where the lines between what the intelligence community and the military do abroad and what they do in the USA are increasingly blurred beyond recognition Today a host of agencies on the civilian side of the government are also setting up new programs expanding their powers gearing up operations andor creating 8220Big Brother8221 technologies to more effectively monitor civilians chill dissent and bring the war back home to America Freedom of the Road Recently it was disclosed that the Department of Homeland Security had deployed an xray van previously used in cargo searches at America8217s borders in a test run 8212 taking Xray pictures of parked cars in Cape May New Jersey While the DHS claimed all Xray surveillance was conducted on empty cars with their owners8217 consent one wonders how long this will last After all American Science ampamp Engineering Inc the manufacturer of the Z Backscatter Van ZBV notes that 8220it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van8221 so it can stand unnoticed and peep into cars as they drive past or with its 8220unique 8216driveby8217 capability it allows one or two operators to conduct Xray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past8221 Since we8217re all increasingly suspects in our 8220suspect vehicles8221 in the Homeland Security State it seems only a matter of time before at least some of us fall victim to a DHS Xray driveby But what happens after a DHS scanvan xray shows a dense white mass in your car which could be any 8220organic material8221 from explosives or drugs to a puppy a baby or a head of lettuce Assuming that the DHS folks will be linked up with the Department of Transportation DOT soon they might be able to call on DOT8217s proposed Intelligent Transportation Systems8217 ITS Joint Program Office JPO8217s 8220VehicleInfrastructure Integration VII8221 system for help According to Bill Jones the Technical Director of the ITS JPO 8220The concept behind VII is that vehicle manufacturers will install a communications device on the vehicle starting at some future date and equipment will be installed on the nation8217s transportation system to allow all vehicles to communicate with the infrastructure8221 In other words the government and manufacturers will team up to track every new automobile xrayed or not in America 8220The whole idea8221 says Jones 8220is that vehicles would transmit this data to the infrastructure The infrastructure in turn would aggregate that data in some kind of a database8221 Imagine it The federal government tracking you in real time while compiling a database with information on your speed route and destination where you were when how many times you went to a certain location and just about anything else related to your travels in your own car The DOT project in fact sounds remarkably like a civilian update of the 8220Combat Zones That See8221 program developed by the Pentagon8217s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA Noah Shachtman writing for the Village Voice reported in 2003 that DARPA was in the process of instituting a project at Fort Belvoir Virginia whose aim was 8220to track 90 percent of all of cars within a target area for any given 30minute period The paths of 1 million vehicles would be stored and retrievable within three seconds8221 It gives a whole new meaning to 8220King of the Road8221 Pssst8230 Wanna Hear a Secret Law In November 2004 8220the Transportation Security Administration ordered America8217s 72 airlines to turn over their June 2004 domestic passenger flight records8221 With only a murmur of concern over the privacy of passengers8217 creditcard numbers phone numbers and health information the airlines handed the requested information over so the agency could test its new Secure Flight system 8212 an expanded version of the muchmaligned terrorist watch list More recently the Transportation Security Administration has made headlines with a change in its patdown policies Following public outcry airport security screeners have been instructed to no longer grope the breasts of female passengers as an antiterror measure Pat downs however apparently remain part of TSA airport protocol in some cases although we have no idea which ones This is because the Transportation Security Administration has begun to dabble in 8220secret law8221 by subjecting passengers to special screenings including 8220patdown searches for weapons or unauthorized materials8221 while denying the public the right to know under what laws such methods are authorized As Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy recently observed 8220In a qualitatively new development in US governance Americans can now be obligated to comply with legallybinding regulations that are unknown to them and that indeed they are forbidden to know8221 When Big Brother Goes to College Since it was enacted in the rough wake of 911 the Patriot Act has enabled the government to undermine privacy safeguards like those once protected by the Family Education Records Privacy Act The government is now allowed access without a warrant to a student8217s personal library bookstore and medical records and any disclosure that such records have either been sought or turned over is prohibited Now the Department of Education has suggested upping the ante with a proposal to create a national registry that would track every one of the estimated 159 million college students in America through yet another 8220massive database8221 8212 this one containing everything from college students8217 academic records tuition payments and financial aid benefits to social security numbers and information on participation in varsity sports Right now students have to give written consent for educational and personally identifiable data to be transferred out of the college 8220With this new proposal most of that power is given to the federal government8221 says Sarah Flanagan the vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges ampamp Universities Moreover if this new database comes to pass says Jasmine L Harris legislative director at the United States Students Association it would further erode various remaining privacy safeguards allowing government agencies other than the Education Department to have greater access to student records Bright Lights Big Cities With the federal government casting off the Geneva Conventions as 8220quaint8221 employing secret law at home and tasking average Americans to become Peeping Toms and undercover informants its little wonder that those in the private sector have now taken up the task of helping the Feds in fashioning a Homeland Security State After all with surveillance bureaucracies burgeoning and security budgets growing there8217s suddenly a fortune to be made Last year alone under the Urban Area Security Initiative the DHS doled out 675 million to 50 large cities across America This year the total will jump to 8546 million With money flowing in and representatives of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department the New York Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department among others sitting beside operatives from the NSA CIA DIA FBI and other defense and intelligence agencies at the DHS8217s Homeland Security Operations Center its little wonder that major urban centers like Chicago which is getting 45 million in Urban Area Security Initiative funds this year Los Angeles 61 million in UASI money and New York City which is raking in a cool 208 million have moved toward implementing wideranging increasingly sophisticated covert surveillance systems In Chicago a program codenamed Operation Disruption consists of at least 80 street surveillance cameras that send their feed to police officers8217 laptop computers in squad cars and 8220a central command center where retired police officers8230 monitor activity8221 The ultimate plan however is to use a grant from the Department of Homeland Security and city monies to purchase 250 new cameras and link them to 8220some 2000 unnetworked video cameras installed around the Chicago and at O8217Hare International Airport to create a network of as many as 82202250 surveillance cameras throughout the Windy City8221 8220We8217re so far advanced than sic any other city8221 said Chicago8217s Mayor Richard M Daley of the program 8220sometimes the state and federal governments 8212 they come here to look at the technology8221 In New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced a 8220major upgrade8221 for the city8217s hightech crimetracking system Compstat through the creation of a 8220Real Time Crime Fighting Center8221 to provide 8220sameday information8221 for tracking and analysis purposes Private Eyes While the doings of 8220private contractors8221 still pop up in articles about prisoner abuse in Iraq what such mercenary outfits are up to on the homefront is hardly ever mentioned For example CACI International Inc whose employees were linked in news accounts to the Abu Ghraib torture scandals boasts that its customers include not only a 8220majority of US defense and civilian agencies and the US intelligence community8221 but 822044 US state governments8221 and 8220more than 200 cities counties and local agencies in North America8221 CACI proclaims that it plays 8220many roles in securing our homeland8221 and that it 8220supports law enforcement agencies such as the Department of Justice and designs and prototypes systems that collect intelligence information8221 One of CACI8217s fellow contractors Titan Corp which was also linked in news accounts to the Abu Ghraib torture cases is at work in the 8220Defense of the Homeland8221 with programs such as Data Warehousing and Data Mining for the Intelligence Community and a Command and Control Concept for North American Homeland Defense Of course these are only two of the many companies helping to secure the homeland and fat contracts In 2003 alone the DHS spent 8220at least 2566 million in 1609 separate contracts or amendments to contracts to hire what the General Services Administration described as 8216security guards and patrol services8221 and doled out 673 billion dollars in total This year the DHS has raked in a cool 289 billion in net discretionary spending 8212 including 674 million 8220to expand the capabilities of the National Cyber Security Division NCSD which implements the public and private sector partnership protecting cyber security8221 1047 million for 8220Aerial Surveillance and Sensor Technology8221 projects and 340 million for the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program US 8211VISIT which 8220expedites the arrival and departure of legitimate travelers8221 Your Role in the Homeland Security State In the latter years of the Vietnam era a series of exposures of official lies regarding the FBI8217s various COINTELPROs a host of surveillance and dirty tricks programs aimed at American activists and the analogous CIA program known as MHCHAOS of domestic spying by military intelligence agents and of the Nixon administration8217s various Watergate surveillance and illegal breakin operations brought home to Americans at least some of the abuses committed by their military intelligence and security establishments Congressional bodies like the Church Commission and the Senate Watergate Committee even helped to rein in some of the most egregious of these abuses and to reinforce the barriers between what the CIA and military could do overseas and what was permissible on the homefront In the 1980s and 1990s however oversight and constraints on illegal domestic activities by the military and intelligence community slowly began to drain away and with the 911 attacks of course everything changed Three years later what was once done on the sly is increasingly public policy 8212 and done with pride 8212 though much of it still flies under the mainstream media radar as the Bush administration transforms us into an unabashed Homeland Security State Today freedom 8212 to be spread abroad by force of arms 8212 is increasingly a privilege that can be rescinded at home when anyone acts a little too free Today America is just another area of operations for the Pentagon while those who say the wrong things congregate in the wrong places wear the wrong tshirts display the wrong stickers or just look the wrong way find themselves recast as 8220enemies8221 and put under the eye of if not the care of the state Today a growing Homeland Security complex of federal local and private partners is hard at work establishing turf rights garnering budgetary increases and ramping up a new security culture nationwide And unfortunately the programs and abuses highlighted in this series are but the publicly known tip of the iceberg For example It was recently revealed through the Freedom of Information Act that 8220the FBI obtained 2575 million Passenger Name Records following 911 and that the Bureau has permanently incorporated the travel details of tens of millions of innocent people into its law enforcement databases8221 Outgoing DHS chief Tom Ridge recently called for US passports to include fingerprints in the future While OTI a Fort Lee NJbased subsidiary of the Israeli company On Track Innovations was just selected to provide electronic passports which utilize a biometricallycoded 8220digitized photograph which is accessed by a proximity reader in the inspection booth and compared automatically to the face of the traveler8221 In November 2004 California passed the Orwelliansounding 8220DNA Fingerprint Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act8221 which 8220allows authorities to take DNA samples from anyone 8212 adult or juvenile 8212 convicted of a felony8221 and 8220in 20098230 will expand to allow police to collect DNA samples from any suspect arrested for any felony8230 whether or not the person is charged or convicted It8217s expected that genetic data for 1 million people 8212 including innocent suspects 8212 will be added to California8217s DNA databank by 20098221 The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to 8220use the latest in database technologies8221 to store information on and count the homeless which the Electronic Privacy Information Center notes 8220lays the groundwork for a national homeless tracking system placing individuals at risk of government and other privacy invasions8221 According to a recent report in ISR Journal 8220the publication of record for the global networkcentric warfare community8221 a 8220highlevel advisory panel recently told US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld8221 that the Pentagon needs ultrahightech tracking tools that 8220can identify people by unique physical characteristics 8212 fingerprint voice odor gait or even pattern of iris8221 and that such a system 8220must be merged with new means of 8216tagging8217 so that US forces can find enemies who escape into a crowd or slip into a labyrinthine slum8221 Imagine if this last program were integrated with any of the aforementioned ventures 8212 in our increasingly brave new blurred world Yet for all their secret doings vaunted programs futuristic technologies and their powerful urge to turn all American citizens into various kinds of tractable database material our new Homeland Security managers require one critical element us They require our 8220Eagle Eyes8221 our assent and 8212 if not our outright support 8212 then our ambivalence and acquiescence They need us to be their dimestore spies they need us to drive their tracking deviceequipped cars they need us to accede to their revisions of the first amendment That simple fact makes us powerful If you don8217t dig the Homeland Security State do your best to thwart it Of course such talk let alone action probably won8217t be popular 8212 but since when has anything worthwhile from working for peace to fighting for civil rights been easy If everyone was for freedom there would be no need to fight for it The choice is yours Nick Turse is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the History ampamp Ethics of Public Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University He writes for the Village Voice and regularly for Tomdispatch on the militarycorporate complex Copyright C2005 Nick Turse This piece first appeared at Tomdispatchcom

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<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dollar rout intensified on Wednesday after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a lower greenback was &#8220;good for us&#8221; - though a weaker U.S. currency may not prove a long-term economic boost.</p> A teller counts U.S. dollars at a money changer in Jakarta, Indonesia May 18, 2015. REUTERS/Nyimas Laula <p>It was a highly unusual remark for a Treasury secretary, as it is seen as a break from previous White House administrations&#8217; public stance for a stronger U.S. currency, even as they wrangled with trade partners to open up their local markets to U.S. companies.</p> <p>&#8220;Treasury secretaries in the past have always spoken in favour of a stronger dollar, not a weaker dollar,&#8221; said Sireen Harajli, currency strategist at Mizuho in New York.</p> <p>Yet, while a weaker dollar is seen helping American exporters to compete abroad, it may undermine the greenback&#8217;s status as the world&#8217;s top reserve currency and fan concerns about a protectionist trade agenda espoused by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is set to speak in Davos on Friday. On Tuesday, Trump signed into law a steep tariff on import solar panels and washing machines to counter lower-cost products from China and other Asian producers.</p> <p>A weaker dollar could also have repercussions on stocks, corporate bonds and other risky investments.</p> <p>&#8220;If the dollar slide were to accelerate, then foreign capital flows could decline rapidly, which would cause a sudden rise in interest rates which could shock markets and lead to unintended declines in risk assets like stocks which could damage growth,&#8221; said Guggenheimer Partners&#8217; global chief investment officer Scott Minerd in New York.</p> <p>In another unusual move, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross later attempted to dial back Mnuchin&#8217;s remark, telling CNBC television that the Treasury secretary was &#8220;not advocating for a weaker dollar.&#8221;</p> <p>But Ross failed to push back dollar bears.</p> <p>On Wednesday, the index that tracks the dollar against a basket of currencies on a trade-weighted basis =USD fell 0.8 percent to 89.153, the lowest since December 2014.</p> <p>The euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> advanced to a three-year high of $1.2415 per euro on Wednesday, Reuters data showed.</p> <p>The currency of the world's biggest economy also tumbled to a four-month low of 108.97 Japanese yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a> and a two-plus year trough <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=CNY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">CNY=</a> at 6.3646 Chinese yuan per dollar.</p> SKITTISH DOLLAR <p>Prior to Mnuchin&#8217;s comment in Davos, the dollar had fallen on speculation about overseas central banks moving away from the extraordinary measures they adopted to combat the global credit crisis in 2008 and the global recession that followed.</p> <p>Futures markets signalled speculators last week built the most bearish positioning against the dollar since mid-October.</p> <p>Analysts in a Reuters poll published on Jan. 5 anticipated a tough 2018 for the dollar coming off its worst annual performance in 14 years when it lost 10 percent.</p> <p>On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan signalled it would stick with its easy policy stance as inflation remains below its 2-percent goal.</p> <p>European Central Bank policy-makers will meet on Thursday where traders will look for clues on whether the ECB will pave the way to not renew its 2.55 trillion euro ($3.16 trillion) bond purchase programme when it expires in September.</p> <p>The euro&#8217;s year-long rise, some analysts say, would offer ECB officials a reason not to change its course.</p> <p>&#8220;The strength of the euro is not something the ECB wants to exacerbate with the euro knocking on $1.24,&#8221; said Omer Esiner, chief market strategist with Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.</p> <p>Some analysts said the dollar selloff is overdone as the economy remains firm footing and the Federal Reserve is expected to raise rates further in 2018.</p> <p>Moreover, U.S. yields remain low enough that the greenback remains an attractive currency to fund &#8220;carry trades,&#8221; or bets on buying higher returning assets such as emerging market bonds with money raised by selling dollars.</p> DOLLAR&#8217;S STATUS <p>In addition to anxiety about trade friction, Mnuchin&#8217;s dollar remark fuelled further questions about the dollar&#8217;s status among foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds as the world&#8217;s top reserve currency.</p> <p>A severe deterioration in the greenback can end up hurting the U.S. economy by ballooning the trade deficit as a result of higher import costs. It might also spur foreigners to pull money out of the country if a further weakness in the dollar sours investing in the United States.</p> <p>In November, China and Japan, the two largest foreign U.S. creditors, scaled back their holdings of U.S. Treasuries.</p> <p>Last month, the International Monetary Fund said the dollar&#8217;s share of global currency reserves shrank in the third quarter of 2017 to 63.5 percent, its smallest since mid-2014.</p> <p>Despite these developments and possibly more protectionist rhetoric from the White House, the dollar should remain on its perch as the No. 1 reserve currency.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think this will deteriorate the view of the dollar as a reserve currency of that world. That will be radical change,&#8221; said Lennon Sweeting, chief market strategist at XE in Toronto.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Karen Brettell, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jennifer Ablan; editing by Diane Craft</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 250 points, or 1 percent, on Wednesday as industrial stocks tumbled over growing fears of a trade war with China after President Donald Trump sought to impose fresh tariffs.</p> A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly <p>Trump is looking to levy tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports, targeting the technology, telecom and apparel sectors, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.</p> <p>The Trump administration is pressing China to cut its trade surplus with the United States by $100 billion, the White House said Wednesday.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P industrial stocks were again the worst hit, falling 1.02 percent. Boeing tumbled 3.5 percent, leading the losers and wiping off 70 points from the Dow Industrials.</p> <p>The uncertainty over the latest news was weighing on stocks, said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.</p> <p>&#8220;Given the rearrangement that he has made to his cabinet ... it&#8217;s being read as a lot more protectionist now than it was two weeks ago.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump has already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as well as solar panels and washing machines, sparking threats of retaliation from some trade partners.</p> <p>Concerns about a trade war have also been fanned by uncertainty in the White House after the exit of Gary Cohn, a strong free trade proponent and sacking of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a moderate, on Tuesday.</p> Traders work on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly <p>At 12:38 p.m. ET, the Dow was down 225.29 points, or 0.9 percent at 24,781.74 and the S&amp;amp;P 500 fell 0.32 percent at 2,756.56.</p> <p>The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.01 percent at 7,511.56, with a bump in technology stocks helping the index.</p> <p>Also weighing on sentiment was data that showed U.S. retail sales fell for a third straight month in February, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>But the data helped cool concerns of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at a faster pace in 2018.</p> <p>Financial stocks fell 0.7 percent, tracking a decline in U.S. bond yields. [US/]</p> <p>Among stocks, Signet Jewelers fell more than 18 percent after the company gave a disappointing full-year earnings forecast.</p> Related Video <p>Qualcomm fell about 2 percent after Broadcom formally withdrew its bid. Broadcom shares dipped 0.9 percent.</p> <p>Among gainers, Ford rose 3.5 percent after Morgan Stanley double-upgraded the stock to &#8220;overweight&#8221; and raised its earnings estimate on the automaker.</p> <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,585 to 1,215. On the Nasdaq, 1,661 issues fell and 1,148 advanced.</p> <p>Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC on Wednesday raised&amp;#160;its&amp;#160;forecast&amp;#160;for non-member oil&amp;#160;supply&amp;#160;this year to almost double the growth predicted four months ago as higher prices spur U.S. shale drilling, offsetting OPEC-led output cuts and a collapse in Venezuelan production.</p> The logo of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is pictured at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger <p>In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said non-OPEC producers would boost supply by 1.66 million barrels per day in 2018. That was the fourth straight rise from 870,000 bpd forecast in November.</p> <p>&#8220;For 2018, higher growth is expected on the back of the projected increase in U.S. shale production following a better price environment not only for shale producers, but also for other countries such as Canada, the UK, Brazil and China,&#8221; OPEC said of the outlook for non-OPEC supply.</p> <p>This would lead to &#8220;a higher quarterly distribution throughout the year with a record-high level projected for the fourth quarter&#8221;, OPEC said.</p> <p>OPEC, Russia and several other non-OPEC producers, but not the United States, began to cut supply in January 2017 in an effort to erase a global glut of crude that had built up since 2014. They have extended the pact until the end of 2018.</p> <p>The deal has helped boost oil prices LCOc1, which topped $71 a barrel this year for the first time since 2014 and were near $65 on Wednesday. But it has also encouraged a flood of shale, fuelling a debate about the curbs&#8217; effectiveness.</p> <p>Oil pared much of an earlier gain on Wednesday after the release of the OPEC report.</p> <p>The Iranian oil minister said OPEC could agree at its next meeting in June to start easing the curbs in 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported. He also said OPEC should aim for oil around $60 to contain shale growth.</p> <p>Top exporter Saudi Arabia, however, said in February it was premature to discuss an exit strategy.</p> <p>Faster-than-expected growth in demand due to a robust world economy has added a tailwind to the OPEC supply effort.</p> <p>Although OPEC in the report slightly raised its estimate of growth in world demand to 1.6 million bpd, it now projects the expansion in supply outside the group will exceed gains in demand.</p> <p>This brings OPEC&#8217;s view closer to that of the International Energy Agency, which expects a less rosy 2018 supply/demand balance.</p> VENEZUELAN PLUNGE <p>While rivals are pumping more, OPEC&#8217;s production in February fell, according to the report.</p> <p>Total output dropped by 77,000 bpd to 32.186 million bpd, led by declines in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, according to figures OPEC collects from secondary sources.</p> <p>Adherence by the 12 OPEC members with output targets rose to 147 percent, according to a Reuters calculation based on the OPEC figures, higher than 137 percent in January based on last month&#8217;s report.</p> <p>The figures that OPEC members reported themselves showed some deeper declines in production.</p> <p>Venezuela, whose output is dropping amid an economic crisis, told OPEC its production sank by about 183,000 bpd to 1.586 million bpd in February. The number is believed to be the lowest in decades.</p> <p>With outside producers expected to increase supply by more than demand, OPEC cut its estimate of the global requirement for its crude in 2018 by 250,000 bpd to 32.61 million bpd.</p> <p>Should OPEC keep pumping at February&#8217;s level and other things remain equal, the market could move into a deficit of about 420,000 bpd, suggesting inventories will be drawn down. This is less than the deficit of about 560,000 bpd implied last month.</p> <p>The supply cut&#8217;s original aim was to shrink oil inventories in developed economies to their five-year average. The latest figures gave a mixed picture on stock movements.</p> <p>Stocks rose by 13.7 million barrels in January to 2.865 billion barrels, although this was only 50 million above the five-year average, the closest yet OPEC has come to the original target.</p> <p>OPEC is now talking of looking at other metrics to assess the market&#8217;s rate of return to balance.</p> <p>Editing by Dale Hudson and David Evans</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street&#8217;s major indexes fell on Tuesday as the dismissal of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the possibility of additional U.S. import tariffs against China dragged down stocks across sectors.</p> <p>President Donald Trump fired Tillerson after a series of public rifts over issues including North Korea and Russia. Trump has appointed CIA Director Mike Pompeo, seen as loyal to the president, to replace Tillerson. To lead the CIA, the president has tapped Gina Haspel, the agency&#8217;s deputy director.</p> <p>&#8220;Any time there&#8217;s change, investors get nervous,&#8221; said John Carey, portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management in Boston. &#8220;They have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the implications might be.&#8221;</p> <p>Still, Carey said, at least the nominees to lead the State Department and the CIA are familiar names.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think either change will be troubling to the market as people reflect on the qualifications of the people stepping into the roles,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>U.S. stocks added to losses after Politico reported that a package of tariffs targeting $30 billion a year in Chinese imports could be rolled out as soon as next week.</p> <p>&#8220;This may be upsetting the apple cart,&#8221; said Bryan Novak, senior managing director at Astor Investment Management in Chicago. &#8220;When you look at tariffs, you don&#8217;t just look in a vacuum. You look at what follows on top of (them). It&#8217;s worth watching a bit more, to see the follow-through on our side and their side, but there could be some anxiety around it.&#8221;</p> <p>The markets had opened higher after data showed U.S. consumer price growth slowed in February, an indication that an anticipated pickup in inflation probably will be only gradual.</p> Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 171.58 points, or 0.68 percent, to 25,007.03, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 17.71 points, or 0.64 percent, to 2,765.31 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 77.31 points, or 1.02 percent, to 7,511.01.</p> <p>Tech .SPLRCT and financial .SPSY stocks were the biggest laggards among the S&amp;amp;P 500&#8217;s 11 major sectors.</p> <p>Shares of Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>), Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and Alphabet Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) fell between 1.5 percent and 2.4 percent.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">Dow Jones &amp;amp; Company Inc</a> 24757.85 .DJI Dow Jones Indexes -249.18 (-1.00%) .DJI .SPX .IXIC MSFT.O FB.O <p>&#8220;Technology rallied hard yesterday and last week, and there is profit-taking, but it&#8217;s just a short-term pressure,&#8221; said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O&#8217;Neil Securities in New York.</p> <p>Financial stocks were weighed as U.S. Treasury yields fell in response to the CPI data and Tillerson&#8217;s exit.</p> <p>Among individual stocks, General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) fell 4.4 percent after J.P. Morgan cut its price target on the stock to $11 from $14, saying the industrial conglomerate was not a &#8220;safety stock&#8221; in a volatile market.</p> <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.27-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.55-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 posted 43 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 180 new highs and 24 new lows.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.89 billion shares, compared to the 7.13 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, James Dalgleish and Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) said on Wednesday it had created a new unit for its streaming video and international businesses as the company retools its traditional media operation for a world rapidly embracing online video.</p> A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>Kevin Mayer, the company&#8217;s chief strategy officer, was named chairman of the new division, which will oversee the upcoming ESPN+ digital offering and the launch of a family-oriented streaming service in late 2019, Disney said in a statement.</p> <p>The move, effective immediately, comes as Disney is in the process of purchasing film, TV and international businesses from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FOXA.O" type="external">FOXA.O</a>).</p> <p>Regulators are reviewing the deal, which has been complicated by Comcast Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CMCSA.O" type="external">CMCSA.O</a>) offer for one of the assets, Britain&#8217;s Sky Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SKYB.L" type="external">SKYB.L</a>).</p> <p>Disney also combined its theme parks business with the consumer products unit that licenses characters for toys, apparel and other merchandise. Bob Chapek, who heads the parks division, will lead the combined unit.</p> <p>Media networks and the movie studio will remain separate units, Disney said.</p> <p>&#8220;We are strategically positioning our businesses for the future, creating a more effective, global framework to serve consumers worldwide, increase growth, and maximize shareholder value,&#8221; Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said in a statement.</p> <p>Disney&#8217;s largest TV network, ESPN, has been losing subscribers as customers drop pay television subscriptions in favor of streaming services such as Netflix Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>).</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">Walt Disney Co</a> 104.23 DIS.N New York Stock Exchange +0.50 (+0.48%) DIS.N FOXA.O CMCSA.O SKYB.L NFLX.O <p>The company is responding with its own digital push. It is pulling its first-run movies from Netflix in 2019 to offer them on the Disney-branded service.</p> <p>If the Fox deal wins approval, Disney also will expand its programming portfolio and international reach, plus own a majority stake in the Hulu streaming service.</p> <p>Disney expects to switch its financial reporting to reflect the new structure by the beginning of fiscal 2019, the company said.</p> <p>Shares of Disney rose 0.5 percent to $104.33 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.</p> <p>Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bernadette Baum</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

A weak dollar 'good' for the U.S.? It's complicated Dow slides as trade war worries weigh on industrials OPEC sees oil supply surge from rivals, countering its cuts Wall Street slides on Tillerson exit, tariff worries Disney creates streaming video unit for digital future

https://reuters.com/article/uk-global-forex-dollar-analysis/a-weak-dollar-good-for-the-us-its-complicated-idUSKBN1FD302

2018-01-24

2least

NEW YORK Reuters A dollar rout intensified on Wednesday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a lower greenback was 8220good for us8221 though a weaker US currency may not prove a longterm economic boost A teller counts US dollars at a money changer in Jakarta Indonesia May 18 2015 REUTERSNyimas Laula It was a highly unusual remark for a Treasury secretary as it is seen as a break from previous White House administrations8217 public stance for a stronger US currency even as they wrangled with trade partners to open up their local markets to US companies 8220Treasury secretaries in the past have always spoken in favour of a stronger dollar not a weaker dollar8221 said Sireen Harajli currency strategist at Mizuho in New York Yet while a weaker dollar is seen helping American exporters to compete abroad it may undermine the greenback8217s status as the world8217s top reserve currency and fan concerns about a protectionist trade agenda espoused by US President Donald Trump who is set to speak in Davos on Friday On Tuesday Trump signed into law a steep tariff on import solar panels and washing machines to counter lowercost products from China and other Asian producers A weaker dollar could also have repercussions on stocks corporate bonds and other risky investments 8220If the dollar slide were to accelerate then foreign capital flows could decline rapidly which would cause a sudden rise in interest rates which could shock markets and lead to unintended declines in risk assets like stocks which could damage growth8221 said Guggenheimer Partners8217 global chief investment officer Scott Minerd in New York In another unusual move Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross later attempted to dial back Mnuchin8217s remark telling CNBC television that the Treasury secretary was 8220not advocating for a weaker dollar8221 But Ross failed to push back dollar bears On Wednesday the index that tracks the dollar against a basket of currencies on a tradeweighted basis USD fell 08 percent to 89153 the lowest since December 2014 The euro EUR advanced to a threeyear high of 12415 per euro on Wednesday Reuters data showed The currency of the worlds biggest economy also tumbled to a fourmonth low of 10897 Japanese yen JPY and a twoplus year trough CNY at 63646 Chinese yuan per dollar SKITTISH DOLLAR Prior to Mnuchin8217s comment in Davos the dollar had fallen on speculation about overseas central banks moving away from the extraordinary measures they adopted to combat the global credit crisis in 2008 and the global recession that followed Futures markets signalled speculators last week built the most bearish positioning against the dollar since midOctober Analysts in a Reuters poll published on Jan 5 anticipated a tough 2018 for the dollar coming off its worst annual performance in 14 years when it lost 10 percent On Tuesday the Bank of Japan signalled it would stick with its easy policy stance as inflation remains below its 2percent goal European Central Bank policymakers will meet on Thursday where traders will look for clues on whether the ECB will pave the way to not renew its 255 trillion euro 316 trillion bond purchase programme when it expires in September The euro8217s yearlong rise some analysts say would offer ECB officials a reason not to change its course 8220The strength of the euro is not something the ECB wants to exacerbate with the euro knocking on 1248221 said Omer Esiner chief market strategist with Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington Some analysts said the dollar selloff is overdone as the economy remains firm footing and the Federal Reserve is expected to raise rates further in 2018 Moreover US yields remain low enough that the greenback remains an attractive currency to fund 8220carry trades8221 or bets on buying higher returning assets such as emerging market bonds with money raised by selling dollars DOLLAR8217S STATUS In addition to anxiety about trade friction Mnuchin8217s dollar remark fuelled further questions about the dollar8217s status among foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds as the world8217s top reserve currency A severe deterioration in the greenback can end up hurting the US economy by ballooning the trade deficit as a result of higher import costs It might also spur foreigners to pull money out of the country if a further weakness in the dollar sours investing in the United States In November China and Japan the two largest foreign US creditors scaled back their holdings of US Treasuries Last month the International Monetary Fund said the dollar8217s share of global currency reserves shrank in the third quarter of 2017 to 635 percent its smallest since mid2014 Despite these developments and possibly more protectionist rhetoric from the White House the dollar should remain on its perch as the No 1 reserve currency 8220I don8217t think this will deteriorate the view of the dollar as a reserve currency of that world That will be radical change8221 said Lennon Sweeting chief market strategist at XE in Toronto Additional reporting by Karen Brettell Saqib Iqbal Ahmed Jennifer Ablan editing by Diane Craft Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 250 points or 1 percent on Wednesday as industrial stocks tumbled over growing fears of a trade war with China after President Donald Trump sought to impose fresh tariffs A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in Manhattan New York City US March 14 2018 REUTERSAndrew Kelly Trump is looking to levy tariffs on up to 60 billion of Chinese imports targeting the technology telecom and apparel sectors sources told Reuters on Tuesday The Trump administration is pressing China to cut its trade surplus with the United States by 100 billion the White House said Wednesday The SampampP industrial stocks were again the worst hit falling 102 percent Boeing tumbled 35 percent leading the losers and wiping off 70 points from the Dow Industrials The uncertainty over the latest news was weighing on stocks said Paul Nolte portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago 8220Given the rearrangement that he has made to his cabinet it8217s being read as a lot more protectionist now than it was two weeks ago8221 Trump has already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as well as solar panels and washing machines sparking threats of retaliation from some trade partners Concerns about a trade war have also been fanned by uncertainty in the White House after the exit of Gary Cohn a strong free trade proponent and sacking of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a moderate on Tuesday Traders work on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in Manhattan New York City US March 14 2018 REUTERSAndrew Kelly At 1238 pm ET the Dow was down 22529 points or 09 percent at 2478174 and the SampampP 500 fell 032 percent at 275656 The Nasdaq Composite was up 001 percent at 751156 with a bump in technology stocks helping the index Also weighing on sentiment was data that showed US retail sales fell for a third straight month in February pointing to a slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter Slideshow 2 Images But the data helped cool concerns of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at a faster pace in 2018 Financial stocks fell 07 percent tracking a decline in US bond yields US Among stocks Signet Jewelers fell more than 18 percent after the company gave a disappointing fullyear earnings forecast Related Video Qualcomm fell about 2 percent after Broadcom formally withdrew its bid Broadcom shares dipped 09 percent Among gainers Ford rose 35 percent after Morgan Stanley doubleupgraded the stock to 8220overweight8221 and raised its earnings estimate on the automaker Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1585 to 1215 On the Nasdaq 1661 issues fell and 1148 advanced Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Arun Koyyur Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters OPEC on Wednesday raisedamp160itsamp160forecastamp160for nonmember oilamp160supplyamp160this year to almost double the growth predicted four months ago as higher prices spur US shale drilling offsetting OPECled output cuts and a collapse in Venezuelan production The logo of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC is pictured at its headquarters in Vienna Austria September 21 2017 REUTERSLeonhard Foeger In a monthly report the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said nonOPEC producers would boost supply by 166 million barrels per day in 2018 That was the fourth straight rise from 870000 bpd forecast in November 8220For 2018 higher growth is expected on the back of the projected increase in US shale production following a better price environment not only for shale producers but also for other countries such as Canada the UK Brazil and China8221 OPEC said of the outlook for nonOPEC supply This would lead to 8220a higher quarterly distribution throughout the year with a recordhigh level projected for the fourth quarter8221 OPEC said OPEC Russia and several other nonOPEC producers but not the United States began to cut supply in January 2017 in an effort to erase a global glut of crude that had built up since 2014 They have extended the pact until the end of 2018 The deal has helped boost oil prices LCOc1 which topped 71 a barrel this year for the first time since 2014 and were near 65 on Wednesday But it has also encouraged a flood of shale fuelling a debate about the curbs8217 effectiveness Oil pared much of an earlier gain on Wednesday after the release of the OPEC report The Iranian oil minister said OPEC could agree at its next meeting in June to start easing the curbs in 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported He also said OPEC should aim for oil around 60 to contain shale growth Top exporter Saudi Arabia however said in February it was premature to discuss an exit strategy Fasterthanexpected growth in demand due to a robust world economy has added a tailwind to the OPEC supply effort Although OPEC in the report slightly raised its estimate of growth in world demand to 16 million bpd it now projects the expansion in supply outside the group will exceed gains in demand This brings OPEC8217s view closer to that of the International Energy Agency which expects a less rosy 2018 supplydemand balance VENEZUELAN PLUNGE While rivals are pumping more OPEC8217s production in February fell according to the report Total output dropped by 77000 bpd to 32186 million bpd led by declines in Iraq the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela according to figures OPEC collects from secondary sources Adherence by the 12 OPEC members with output targets rose to 147 percent according to a Reuters calculation based on the OPEC figures higher than 137 percent in January based on last month8217s report The figures that OPEC members reported themselves showed some deeper declines in production Venezuela whose output is dropping amid an economic crisis told OPEC its production sank by about 183000 bpd to 1586 million bpd in February The number is believed to be the lowest in decades With outside producers expected to increase supply by more than demand OPEC cut its estimate of the global requirement for its crude in 2018 by 250000 bpd to 3261 million bpd Should OPEC keep pumping at February8217s level and other things remain equal the market could move into a deficit of about 420000 bpd suggesting inventories will be drawn down This is less than the deficit of about 560000 bpd implied last month The supply cut8217s original aim was to shrink oil inventories in developed economies to their fiveyear average The latest figures gave a mixed picture on stock movements Stocks rose by 137 million barrels in January to 2865 billion barrels although this was only 50 million above the fiveyear average the closest yet OPEC has come to the original target OPEC is now talking of looking at other metrics to assess the market8217s rate of return to balance Editing by Dale Hudson and David Evans Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street8217s major indexes fell on Tuesday as the dismissal of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the possibility of additional US import tariffs against China dragged down stocks across sectors President Donald Trump fired Tillerson after a series of public rifts over issues including North Korea and Russia Trump has appointed CIA Director Mike Pompeo seen as loyal to the president to replace Tillerson To lead the CIA the president has tapped Gina Haspel the agency8217s deputy director 8220Any time there8217s change investors get nervous8221 said John Carey portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management in Boston 8220They have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the implications might be8221 Still Carey said at least the nominees to lead the State Department and the CIA are familiar names 8220I don8217t think either change will be troubling to the market as people reflect on the qualifications of the people stepping into the roles8221 he said US stocks added to losses after Politico reported that a package of tariffs targeting 30 billion a year in Chinese imports could be rolled out as soon as next week 8220This may be upsetting the apple cart8221 said Bryan Novak senior managing director at Astor Investment Management in Chicago 8220When you look at tariffs you don8217t just look in a vacuum You look at what follows on top of them It8217s worth watching a bit more to see the followthrough on our side and their side but there could be some anxiety around it8221 The markets had opened higher after data showed US consumer price growth slowed in February an indication that an anticipated pickup in inflation probably will be only gradual Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in Manhattan New York City US March 2 2018 REUTERSAndrew Kelly The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 17158 points or 068 percent to 2500703 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 1771 points or 064 percent to 276531 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 7731 points or 102 percent to 751101 Tech SPLRCT and financial SPSY stocks were the biggest laggards among the SampampP 5008217s 11 major sectors Shares of Microsoft Corp MSFTO Facebook Inc FBO and Alphabet Inc GOOGLO fell between 15 percent and 24 percent Dow Jones ampamp Company Inc 2475785 DJI Dow Jones Indexes 24918 100 DJI SPX IXIC MSFTO FBO 8220Technology rallied hard yesterday and last week and there is profittaking but it8217s just a shortterm pressure8221 said Ken Polcari director of the NYSE floor division at O8217Neil Securities in New York Financial stocks were weighed as US Treasury yields fell in response to the CPI data and Tillerson8217s exit Among individual stocks General Electric Co GEN fell 44 percent after JP Morgan cut its price target on the stock to 11 from 14 saying the industrial conglomerate was not a 8220safety stock8221 in a volatile market Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 127to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 155to1 ratio favored decliners The SampampP 500 posted 43 new 52week highs and no new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 180 new highs and 24 new lows Volume on US exchanges was 689 billion shares compared to the 713 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Arun Koyyur James Dalgleish and Susan Thomas Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LOS ANGELES Reuters Walt Disney Co DISN said on Wednesday it had created a new unit for its streaming video and international businesses as the company retools its traditional media operation for a world rapidly embracing online video A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US December 14 2017 REUTERSBrendan McDermid Kevin Mayer the company8217s chief strategy officer was named chairman of the new division which will oversee the upcoming ESPN digital offering and the launch of a familyoriented streaming service in late 2019 Disney said in a statement The move effective immediately comes as Disney is in the process of purchasing film TV and international businesses from TwentyFirst Century Fox Inc FOXAO Regulators are reviewing the deal which has been complicated by Comcast Corp8217s CMCSAO offer for one of the assets Britain8217s Sky Plc SKYBL Disney also combined its theme parks business with the consumer products unit that licenses characters for toys apparel and other merchandise Bob Chapek who heads the parks division will lead the combined unit Media networks and the movie studio will remain separate units Disney said 8220We are strategically positioning our businesses for the future creating a more effective global framework to serve consumers worldwide increase growth and maximize shareholder value8221 Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said in a statement Disney8217s largest TV network ESPN has been losing subscribers as customers drop pay television subscriptions in favor of streaming services such as Netflix Inc NFLXO Walt Disney Co 10423 DISN New York Stock Exchange 050 048 DISN FOXAO CMCSAO SKYBL NFLXO The company is responding with its own digital push It is pulling its firstrun movies from Netflix in 2019 to offer them on the Disneybranded service If the Fox deal wins approval Disney also will expand its programming portfolio and international reach plus own a majority stake in the Hulu streaming service Disney expects to switch its financial reporting to reflect the new structure by the beginning of fiscal 2019 the company said Shares of Disney rose 05 percent to 10433 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange Reporting by Lisa Richwine Editing by Bernadette Baum Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Jan 24 (Reuters) - Newstrike Resources Ltd:</p> <p>* NEWSTRIKE RESOURCES LTD. ANNOUNCES UPSIZE OF PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED BOUGHT DEAL FINANCING TO $80 MILLION</p> <p>* NEWSTRIKE RESOURCES - ENTERED REVISED AGREEMENT TO INCREASE SIZE OF PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED BOUGHT DEAL FINANCING TO $80 MILLION AGGREGATE GROSS PROCEEDS Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Walmart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>) was sued on Thursday by a former executive who accused the world&#8217;s largest retailer of issuing misleading e-commerce results, amid growing pressure from Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), and firing him for complaining about it.</p> FILE PHOTO - A Walmart store is seen in Encinitas, California, U.S. on April 13, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo <p>Tri Huynh, a former director of business development, accused Walmart of having betrayed the principles of integrity and honesty espoused by founder Sam Walton in its push to show &#8220;meteoric growth&#8221; in e-commerce.</p> <p>The complaint alleges various wrongdoing, including the mislabeling of products, enabling Walmart to charge excessive sales commissions, and failure to properly process customer returns, enabling it to boost results.</p> <p>&#8220;Wal-Mart cut corners and cheated in a race to expand and gain market-share,&#8221; having been &#8220;desperate to gain the ground it had long lost to Amazon,&#8221; Huynh said in his complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.</p> <p>Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the litigation is based on allegations by a disgruntled former employee, who was let go when the business was restructured.</p> <p>&#8220;We take allegations like this seriously and looked into them when they were brought to our attention,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The investigation found nothing to suggest that the company acted improperly.&#8221;</p> <p>Walmart will vigorously defend itself against the claims, Hargrove added.</p> <p>The retailer&#8217;s shares closed down 16 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $87.51, after earlier falling as much as 2 percent.</p> <p>The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer has spent billions of dollars in recent years to compete with Amazon, including through its 2016 purchase of Jet.com, and last month said quarterly online sales, including the December holidays, had risen 23 percent.</p> <p>But Amazon&#8217;s sales in North America grew 40 percent in the same quarter, and analysts have said its price war has weighed on Walmart&#8217;s margins.</p> <p>Huynh accused Walmart of charging higher sales commissions from sellers on its online marketplace, where third-party sellers list and sell products, with commissions rising as high as 15 percent compared with the normal 6 percent to 8 percent.</p> <p>Walmart&#8217;s internal controls allegedly failed to detect the problem, causing the retailer to overstate revenue.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">Walmart Inc</a> 87.51 WMT.N New York Stock Exchange -0.16 (-0.18%) WMT.N AMZN.O <p>Huynh also said Walmart failed to process more than $7 million of customer returns, inflating the total value of merchandise sold from September 2015 to March 2016.</p> <p>The plaintiff, who was born in Vietnam and lives in Washington state, said Walmart abruptly fired him in January 2017 in retaliation for his repeated complaints about its e-commerce reporting and internal controls.</p> <p>Huynh said he was fired not long after raising concerns with U.S. e-commerce chief Marc Lore, and was dismissed under the &#8220;false pretenses&#8221; of a broader workforce reduction and alleged performance issues.</p> <p>He said he had told human resources the prior May of his efforts to deal with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.</p> <p>&#8220;Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its Founder&#8217;s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the E-commerce war at all costs,&#8221; Huynh said. &#8220;In doing this, it realized it must silence any whistleblower who spoke up.&#8221;</p> <p>The lawsuit, which accuses Walmart of violating the federal Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower law and various California state laws, seeks punitive and other damages.</p> <p>The case is Huynh v Wal-Mart Stores Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-01631.</p> <p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Nandita Bose in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Former Qualcomm Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) Chairman Paul Jacobs has informed its board of directors that he will seek to partner with investment firms to make an offer for the U.S. semiconductor company, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.</p> FILE PHOTO - Paul Jacobs attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 20, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich <p>Jacobs&#8217; attempt to put together an offer comes just a few days after Qualcomm fended off a $117 billion hostile bid from Singapore-based rival Broadcom Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AVGO.O" type="external">AVGO.O</a>) thanks to an order by U.S. President Donald Trump prohibiting the deal due to national security concerns.</p> <p>Qualcomm does not view Jacobs&#8217; attempt to put together a buyout bid as credible, the sources said. Jacobs has held talks with several investment firms, including SoftBank Group Corp&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9984.T" type="external">9984.T</a>) Vision Fund, but has so far been unable to secure the necessary financing, the three sources added.</p> <p>Jacobs is attempting to put together the largest leveraged buyout of all time, three times as large as the $45 billion buyout of Texas power utility Energy Future Holdings, which ended in bankruptcy.</p> <p>Even if SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications group with technology investments around the world, wanted to join Jacobs&#8217; bid, it could face conflicts given its ownership of British chip designer ARM Holdings Plc, the sources said. Adding to the potential conflicts, Qualcomm is an investor in the Vision Fund.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>SoftBank&#8217;s deals are also subject to review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the U.S. national security panel that also objected to Broadcom&#8217;s bid for Qualcomm.</p> <p>The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Qualcomm declined to comment, while Jacobs and SoftBank could not be immediately reached for comment. The Financial Times first reported on Jacob&#8217;s buyout efforts earlier on Thursday.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">Qualcomm Inc</a> 59.89 QCOM.O Nasdaq -0.23 (-0.38%) QCOM.O AVGO.O 9984.T <p>Jacobs, who still sits on Qualcomm&#8217;s board, was stripped of his title of executive chairman earlier this month when Jeffrey Henderson, another Qualcomm director, was named non-executive chairman.</p> <p>While Jacobs shared the view of Qualcomm&#8217;s board that Broadcom&#8217;s bid undervalued the company and was fraught with regulatory risks, many on Qualcomm&#8217;s board blamed him for the dissatisfaction of some Qualcomm&#8217;s shareholders with the company&#8217;s handling of Broadcom&#8217;s bid, according to the sources.</p> <p>Jacobs, whose father Irwin co-founded Qualcomm, is up for re-election as board director, alongside other Qualcomm nominees, at the company&#8217;s shareholder meeting on March 23. Proxy advisory firm ISS on Wednesday recommended to Qualcomm shareholders that they vote for Broadcom&#8217;s four nominees on Qualcomm&#8217;s 11-person board, even though their nominations have been withdrawn, as a form of protest.</p> <p>Given that Qualcomm&#8217;s board director slate faces no competition, the re-election of Qualcomm&#8217;s board directors is assured. However, limited support for Qualcomm&#8217;s nominees could put pressure on Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, who was criticized by some investors for inviting CFIUS to review Broadcom&#8217;s bid, to make changes to the company&#8217;s strategy.</p> <p>Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain&#8217;s third biggest company Unilever ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ULVR.L" type="external">ULVR.L</a>) ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=UNc.AS" type="external">UNc.AS</a>) picked Rotterdam over London for its main headquarters on Thursday in a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May&#8217;s government a year before Brexit.</p> <p>The Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove soap, Lipton teas and Ben &amp;amp; Jerry&#8217;s ice cream launched a review of its dual-headed structure in 2017 after fighting off a $143 billion takeover from Kraft Heinz ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KHC.O" type="external">KHC.O</a>), triggering a battle between Britain and the Netherlands.</p> <p>Under the new plan, Unilever will continue to be listed in London, Amsterdam and New York, and will divide into three divisions, keeping two based in Britain. That will enable it to retain its 7,300 staff in the United Kingdom.</p> <p>The company said the decision to end 88 years of two parent-ownership was not linked to Brexit or any form of protectionism, but would simplify its structure and facilitate acquisitions.</p> <p>However, British unions and supporters of EU membership bemoaned what they said was a deterioration in Britain&#8217;s competitiveness at a time when tax code changes and strong anti-takeover laws have made the Netherlands increasingly attractive.</p> <p>&#8220;Let me categorically say that this had nothing to do with Brexit,&#8221; Unilever Chairman Marijn Dekkers told reporters.</p> <p>&#8220;The board takes a 30 to 50 year decision. We think both countries are highly attractive investment climates and we will continue to invest in both countries as a result of this,&#8221; the Dutchman added.</p> <p>It is unclear whether Unilever can remain in the FTSE 100 Index of leading UK stocks, a decision which could hit its shares if tracker funds are forced to sell.</p> BIG CHANGE <p>Forged by the 1930 merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie and British soap maker Lever Brothers, Unilever employs nearly 170,000 people around the world to generate turnover of 53.7 billion euros ($66 billion) in 2017.</p> <p>With a market value of 105 billion pounds ($146 billion), it competes with the likes of P&amp;amp;G, Kraft, Nestle, Colgate Palmolive, Reckitt Benckiser and independent brands.</p> <p>In early 2017, the company - which had been thought to be too big to take over - managed to fight off one of the largest corporate bids ever made, but had to placate investors with a plan to boost profits and reinvigorate the group.</p> <p>The short-lived bid battle has had widespread repercussions.</p> <p>In the weeks after the offer, Chief Executive Paul Polman said Britain, known for promoting one of the most open economies in the world, should do more to protect national champions.</p> <p>Unions in Britain have noted that Dutch companies have stronger powers to fight off unwanted takeovers, as seen last year when paint maker Akzo Nobel ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AKZO.AS" type="external">AKZO.AS</a>) fended off a 26.3 billion euro bid from U.S. rival PGG Industries ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PPG.N" type="external">PPG.N</a>).</p> Slideshow (5 Images) <p>&#8220;This is a tremendous boost,&#8221; Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said. &#8220;Rotterdam is a place that serves the interests of Unilever well as it will be less of a prey for takeovers.&#8221;</p> <p>Chris Bryant, an opposition UK lawmaker and leading supporter of Open Britain which is urging post-Brexit Britain to remain close to the EU, said the choice of Rotterdam over London was a sign the business environment was weakening.</p> THREE DIVISIONS <p>Unilever had held talks with both governments before making its decision, and the move will be seen as a blow to Prime Minister May, who is locked in talks with Brussels over the country&#8217;s departure from the EU on March 29, 2019.</p> <p>Her government welcomed the reassurance on jobs, however.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ULVR.L" type="external">Unilever PLC</a> 3756.0 ULVR.L London Stock Exchange -- (--%) ULVR.L UNc.AS KHC.O AKZO.AS PPG.N <p>In recent months, speculation had grown that Unilever would choose the Netherlands after Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, himself a Unilever veteran, proposed a tax change seen as benefiting Anglo-Dutch multinationals.</p> <p>Unilever said it did not expect any significant tax changes as a result of the deal. It said it had chosen the Netherlands because the Dutch company currently accounted for 55 percent of the group and those shares traded with greater liquidity.</p> <p>As part of the restructuring, Unilever will create three divisions, with Beauty &amp;amp; Personal Care and the Home Care units being headquartered in London. The Foods &amp;amp; Refreshment division will be based in Rotterdam.</p> <p>The company said it would give more authority to the heads of those divisions to set strategy.</p> <p>The long-awaited announcement marks the latest change to the company after it agreed to sell its margarine and spreads business to U.S. private equity firm KKR ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KKR.N" type="external">KKR.N</a>) for 6.83 billion euros in December.</p> <p>Polman was asked how long he would continue as CEO now he has made these changes, but said there was still a lot to be done and he remained energised by the job.</p> <p>The restructuring, he said, would enable Unilever to make changes to its portfolio including major acquisitions, although he stressed he had no immediate plans to do this.</p> <p>Unilever is not the only major company spanning Britain and the Netherlands - with Royal Dutch Shell and publishing group Relx having strong links with both countries.</p> <p>($1 = 0.8104 euros)</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-unilever-structure-britain/uk-says-unilever-headquarters-decision-not-connected-to-brexit-idUSKCN1GR0PT" type="external">UK says Unilever headquarters' decision not connected to Brexit</a> <a href="/article/us-unilever-structure-listing/unilever-says-place-in-ftse-100-index-still-to-be-determined-idUSKCN1GR0TI" type="external">Unilever says place in FTSE 100 Index still to be determined</a> <p>($1 = 0.7168 pounds)</p> <p>Additional reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart H Meijer in Amsterdam; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Keith Weir and Mark Potter</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - When the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41" type="external">securities fraud case</a> against Theranos, its soon-to-be-former CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former president Ramesh Balwani on Wednesday, Enforcement Division co-director Steven Peikin emphasized that the commission is committed to policing private companies, not just those that raise money on public exchanges. &#8220;Investors are entitled to nothing less than complete truth and candor from companies and their executives,&#8221; Peikin said in the SEC&#8217;s press release. &#8220;The charges against Theranos, Holmes and Balwani make clear that there is no exemption from the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws simply because a company is non-public, development-stage or the subject of exuberant media attention.&#8221;</p> <p>The SEC doesn&#8217;t often exercise its power to bust private companies for violating federal securities laws, but its officials said they wanted to send a message to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, whose startups can be valued at more than a billion dollars before they ever go public. Theranos is an especially vivid example. Holmes raised $700 million from investors, according to the SEC, but at its peak, her company was valued at around $9 billion.</p> <p>The SEC&#8217;s <a href="https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-41-theranos-holmes.pdf" type="external">complaint</a> against Theranos and Holmes focused on alleged lies to investors who put money directly into the company. Those insiders were only part of the market for Theranos, though. To the extent the company&#8217;s multibillion-dollar valuation reflected investor demand for a stake in Theranos&#8217; purportedly revolutionary &#8211; and widely publicized &#8211; technology for blood testing, it rested on &#8220;indirect&#8221; investors who bought shares in funds that actually owned Theranos stock.</p> <p>Unlike the SEC, indirect investors can&#8217;t sue under federal securities laws. (Direct investors in private companies, of course, can bring fraud claims if they can show they relied on corporate misrepresentations.) But as I&#8217;ve <a href="" type="internal">previously reported</a>, in the age of unicorn Silicon Valley startups, shareholder lawyers have developed a theory on how indirect investors can band together in class actions based on California&#8217;s corporate code.</p> <p>That theory is about to undergo a critical test in a class action by indirect investors in, you guessed it, Theranos. Last month, shareholder lawyers at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Robbins Geller Rudman &amp;amp; Dowd filed a <a href="" type="internal">motion to certify a class</a> of more than 200 investors who plunked down money in funds that owned shares of Theranos. Theranos, which is represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale &amp;amp; Dorr, filed the company&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">opposition</a> last Friday, days before Theranos and Holmes agreed to settle the SEC&#8217;s charges. The judge overseeing the indirect investors&#8217; case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins of San Jose, has already <a href="" type="internal">denied</a>&amp;#160;Theranos&#8217; motion to dismiss the case outright. Defeating class certification is now the company&#8217;s best hope to evade liability to its indirect investors.</p> <p>As you know, securities fraud class actions depend on the idea of an efficient securities market reacting to significant corporate lies. Indirect investors in a privately-held company like Theranos can&#8217;t argue market efficiency. But they contend that under California corporate law (and the common law of fraud), they can be certified as a class to litigate &#8220;a straightforward overarching inquiry for the court: Should the overwhelming evidence of defendants&#8217; fraud be presented in a single action that adjudicates all common factual and legal issues, or should approximately two hundred defrauded &#8216;indirect shareholder&#8217; investors in the putative class be forced to either forgo recovery or initiate individual actions to present the same evidence and litigate the same factual and legal issues against the same defendants?&#8221;</p> <p>The investors claim that Theranos and Holmes knew and encouraged some of the company&#8217;s direct shareholders to market indirect investments in funds holding Theranos stock. Holmes even tracked these &#8220;indirect shareholders,&#8221; according to the class certification motion.</p> <p>And because all of them, according to shareholder lawyers, bought an stake in Theranos&#8217; future after Holmes and other insiders made false statements, &#8220;each class member suffered financial harm caused by defendants&#8217; actions above, when the truth came out and the value of their securities collapsed.&#8221;</p> <p>Theranos responded that it&#8217;s impossible to discern a common interest in indirect investors who had all sorts of different motivations. &#8220;Theranos has never been a public company. It has never published quarterly or annual reports or prospectuses, announced financial results, held public investor calls, or publicly disseminated information about its business plans or finances,&#8221; the company&#8217;s brief said. &#8220;Class members could have read any of thousands of public references to Theranos &#8212; or none &#8212; and could have received private information &#8212; or not &#8212; but the only way to know is individual fact-finding &#8230; In an inefficient market such as this one, the only way to know whether an alleged misrepresentation affected a purchaser&#8217;s price is to examine each transaction.&#8221;</p> <p>It&#8217;s not clear how, if at all, the Theranos and Holmes settlements with the SEC will affect class certification. I emailed five plaintiffs&#8217; lawyers from Hagens Berman and Robbins Geller and didn&#8217;t hear back from any of them. Theranos lawyer Timothy Perla of Wilmer also didn&#8217;t respond to my email. Holmes and the company did not admit liability in their SEC settlements so there&#8217;s no risk shareholders can claim they&#8217;ve conceded wrongdoing.</p> <p>On the other hand, it&#8217;s not an everyday thing for the SEC to allege &#8220;massive fraud&#8221; at a private company. Theranos reminded Judge Cousins that no court has previously certified a class of indirect investors, arguing that the indirect shareholders had given the court &#8220;no reason to break new ground.&#8221;</p> <p>Maybe Judge Cousins will see the SEC case as a reason.</p> <p>The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News.</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Newstrike Resources Announces Upsize Of Previously Announced Bought Deal Financing To $80 Million Whistleblower says Walmart, eyeing Amazon, cheated on e-commerce Former Qualcomm chairman explores long-shot bid for U.S. chip maker: sources Unilever picks Rotterdam for HQ as Britain loses the battle before Brexit Will the Theranos ‘indirect’ investor lawsuit break new legal ground?

https://reuters.com/article/brief-newstrike-resources-announces-upsi/brief-newstrike-resources-announces-upsize-of-previously-announced-bought-deal-financing-to-80-million-idUSASB0C28W

2018-01-24

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Jan 24 Reuters Newstrike Resources Ltd NEWSTRIKE RESOURCES LTD ANNOUNCES UPSIZE OF PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED BOUGHT DEAL FINANCING TO 80 MILLION NEWSTRIKE RESOURCES ENTERED REVISED AGREEMENT TO INCREASE SIZE OF PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED BOUGHT DEAL FINANCING TO 80 MILLION AGGREGATE GROSS PROCEEDS Source text for Eikon Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Walmart Inc WMTN was sued on Thursday by a former executive who accused the world8217s largest retailer of issuing misleading ecommerce results amid growing pressure from Amazoncom Inc AMZNO and firing him for complaining about it FILE PHOTO A Walmart store is seen in Encinitas California US on April 13 2016 REUTERSMike BlakeFile Photo Tri Huynh a former director of business development accused Walmart of having betrayed the principles of integrity and honesty espoused by founder Sam Walton in its push to show 8220meteoric growth8221 in ecommerce The complaint alleges various wrongdoing including the mislabeling of products enabling Walmart to charge excessive sales commissions and failure to properly process customer returns enabling it to boost results 8220WalMart cut corners and cheated in a race to expand and gain marketshare8221 having been 8220desperate to gain the ground it had long lost to Amazon8221 Huynh said in his complaint filed in US District Court in San Francisco Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the litigation is based on allegations by a disgruntled former employee who was let go when the business was restructured 8220We take allegations like this seriously and looked into them when they were brought to our attention8221 he said 8220The investigation found nothing to suggest that the company acted improperly8221 Walmart will vigorously defend itself against the claims Hargrove added The retailer8217s shares closed down 16 cents or 02 percent at 8751 after earlier falling as much as 2 percent The Bentonville Arkansasbased retailer has spent billions of dollars in recent years to compete with Amazon including through its 2016 purchase of Jetcom and last month said quarterly online sales including the December holidays had risen 23 percent But Amazon8217s sales in North America grew 40 percent in the same quarter and analysts have said its price war has weighed on Walmart8217s margins Huynh accused Walmart of charging higher sales commissions from sellers on its online marketplace where thirdparty sellers list and sell products with commissions rising as high as 15 percent compared with the normal 6 percent to 8 percent Walmart8217s internal controls allegedly failed to detect the problem causing the retailer to overstate revenue Walmart Inc 8751 WMTN New York Stock Exchange 016 018 WMTN AMZNO Huynh also said Walmart failed to process more than 7 million of customer returns inflating the total value of merchandise sold from September 2015 to March 2016 The plaintiff who was born in Vietnam and lives in Washington state said Walmart abruptly fired him in January 2017 in retaliation for his repeated complaints about its ecommerce reporting and internal controls Huynh said he was fired not long after raising concerns with US ecommerce chief Marc Lore and was dismissed under the 8220false pretenses8221 of a broader workforce reduction and alleged performance issues He said he had told human resources the prior May of his efforts to deal with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 8220WalMart sacrificed and betrayed its Founder8217s key principles of integrity and honesty pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the Ecommerce war at all costs8221 Huynh said 8220In doing this it realized it must silence any whistleblower who spoke up8221 The lawsuit which accuses Walmart of violating the federal SarbanesOxley whistleblower law and various California state laws seeks punitive and other damages The case is Huynh v WalMart Stores Inc et al US District Court Northern District of California No 1801631 Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Nandita Bose in New York Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Former Qualcomm Inc QCOMO Chairman Paul Jacobs has informed its board of directors that he will seek to partner with investment firms to make an offer for the US semiconductor company people familiar with the matter said on Thursday FILE PHOTO Paul Jacobs attends the World Economic Forum WEF annual meeting in Davos Switzerland January 20 2017 REUTERSRuben Sprich Jacobs8217 attempt to put together an offer comes just a few days after Qualcomm fended off a 117 billion hostile bid from Singaporebased rival Broadcom Ltd AVGOO thanks to an order by US President Donald Trump prohibiting the deal due to national security concerns Qualcomm does not view Jacobs8217 attempt to put together a buyout bid as credible the sources said Jacobs has held talks with several investment firms including SoftBank Group Corp8217s 9984T Vision Fund but has so far been unable to secure the necessary financing the three sources added Jacobs is attempting to put together the largest leveraged buyout of all time three times as large as the 45 billion buyout of Texas power utility Energy Future Holdings which ended in bankruptcy Even if SoftBank a Japanese telecommunications group with technology investments around the world wanted to join Jacobs8217 bid it could face conflicts given its ownership of British chip designer ARM Holdings Plc the sources said Adding to the potential conflicts Qualcomm is an investor in the Vision Fund Slideshow 2 Images SoftBank8217s deals are also subject to review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States CFIUS the US national security panel that also objected to Broadcom8217s bid for Qualcomm The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential Qualcomm declined to comment while Jacobs and SoftBank could not be immediately reached for comment The Financial Times first reported on Jacob8217s buyout efforts earlier on Thursday Qualcomm Inc 5989 QCOMO Nasdaq 023 038 QCOMO AVGOO 9984T Jacobs who still sits on Qualcomm8217s board was stripped of his title of executive chairman earlier this month when Jeffrey Henderson another Qualcomm director was named nonexecutive chairman While Jacobs shared the view of Qualcomm8217s board that Broadcom8217s bid undervalued the company and was fraught with regulatory risks many on Qualcomm8217s board blamed him for the dissatisfaction of some Qualcomm8217s shareholders with the company8217s handling of Broadcom8217s bid according to the sources Jacobs whose father Irwin cofounded Qualcomm is up for reelection as board director alongside other Qualcomm nominees at the company8217s shareholder meeting on March 23 Proxy advisory firm ISS on Wednesday recommended to Qualcomm shareholders that they vote for Broadcom8217s four nominees on Qualcomm8217s 11person board even though their nominations have been withdrawn as a form of protest Given that Qualcomm8217s board director slate faces no competition the reelection of Qualcomm8217s board directors is assured However limited support for Qualcomm8217s nominees could put pressure on Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf who was criticized by some investors for inviting CFIUS to review Broadcom8217s bid to make changes to the company8217s strategy Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York Editing by Lisa Shumaker Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Britain8217s third biggest company Unilever ULVRL UNcAS picked Rotterdam over London for its main headquarters on Thursday in a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May8217s government a year before Brexit The AngloDutch maker of Dove soap Lipton teas and Ben ampamp Jerry8217s ice cream launched a review of its dualheaded structure in 2017 after fighting off a 143 billion takeover from Kraft Heinz KHCO triggering a battle between Britain and the Netherlands Under the new plan Unilever will continue to be listed in London Amsterdam and New York and will divide into three divisions keeping two based in Britain That will enable it to retain its 7300 staff in the United Kingdom The company said the decision to end 88 years of two parentownership was not linked to Brexit or any form of protectionism but would simplify its structure and facilitate acquisitions However British unions and supporters of EU membership bemoaned what they said was a deterioration in Britain8217s competitiveness at a time when tax code changes and strong antitakeover laws have made the Netherlands increasingly attractive 8220Let me categorically say that this had nothing to do with Brexit8221 Unilever Chairman Marijn Dekkers told reporters 8220The board takes a 30 to 50 year decision We think both countries are highly attractive investment climates and we will continue to invest in both countries as a result of this8221 the Dutchman added It is unclear whether Unilever can remain in the FTSE 100 Index of leading UK stocks a decision which could hit its shares if tracker funds are forced to sell BIG CHANGE Forged by the 1930 merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie and British soap maker Lever Brothers Unilever employs nearly 170000 people around the world to generate turnover of 537 billion euros 66 billion in 2017 With a market value of 105 billion pounds 146 billion it competes with the likes of PampampG Kraft Nestle Colgate Palmolive Reckitt Benckiser and independent brands In early 2017 the company which had been thought to be too big to take over managed to fight off one of the largest corporate bids ever made but had to placate investors with a plan to boost profits and reinvigorate the group The shortlived bid battle has had widespread repercussions In the weeks after the offer Chief Executive Paul Polman said Britain known for promoting one of the most open economies in the world should do more to protect national champions Unions in Britain have noted that Dutch companies have stronger powers to fight off unwanted takeovers as seen last year when paint maker Akzo Nobel AKZOAS fended off a 263 billion euro bid from US rival PGG Industries PPGN Slideshow 5 Images 8220This is a tremendous boost8221 Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said 8220Rotterdam is a place that serves the interests of Unilever well as it will be less of a prey for takeovers8221 Chris Bryant an opposition UK lawmaker and leading supporter of Open Britain which is urging postBrexit Britain to remain close to the EU said the choice of Rotterdam over London was a sign the business environment was weakening THREE DIVISIONS Unilever had held talks with both governments before making its decision and the move will be seen as a blow to Prime Minister May who is locked in talks with Brussels over the country8217s departure from the EU on March 29 2019 Her government welcomed the reassurance on jobs however Unilever PLC 37560 ULVRL London Stock Exchange ULVRL UNcAS KHCO AKZOAS PPGN In recent months speculation had grown that Unilever would choose the Netherlands after Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself a Unilever veteran proposed a tax change seen as benefiting AngloDutch multinationals Unilever said it did not expect any significant tax changes as a result of the deal It said it had chosen the Netherlands because the Dutch company currently accounted for 55 percent of the group and those shares traded with greater liquidity As part of the restructuring Unilever will create three divisions with Beauty ampamp Personal Care and the Home Care units being headquartered in London The Foods ampamp Refreshment division will be based in Rotterdam The company said it would give more authority to the heads of those divisions to set strategy The longawaited announcement marks the latest change to the company after it agreed to sell its margarine and spreads business to US private equity firm KKR KKRN for 683 billion euros in December Polman was asked how long he would continue as CEO now he has made these changes but said there was still a lot to be done and he remained energised by the job The restructuring he said would enable Unilever to make changes to its portfolio including major acquisitions although he stressed he had no immediate plans to do this Unilever is not the only major company spanning Britain and the Netherlands with Royal Dutch Shell and publishing group Relx having strong links with both countries 1 08104 euros Related Coverage UK says Unilever headquarters decision not connected to Brexit Unilever says place in FTSE 100 Index still to be determined 1 07168 pounds Additional reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart H Meijer in Amsterdam Editing by Guy Faulconbridge Keith Weir and Mark Potter Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters When the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its securities fraud case against Theranos its soontobeformer CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former president Ramesh Balwani on Wednesday Enforcement Division codirector Steven Peikin emphasized that the commission is committed to policing private companies not just those that raise money on public exchanges 8220Investors are entitled to nothing less than complete truth and candor from companies and their executives8221 Peikin said in the SEC8217s press release 8220The charges against Theranos Holmes and Balwani make clear that there is no exemption from the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws simply because a company is nonpublic developmentstage or the subject of exuberant media attention8221 The SEC doesn8217t often exercise its power to bust private companies for violating federal securities laws but its officials said they wanted to send a message to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs whose startups can be valued at more than a billion dollars before they ever go public Theranos is an especially vivid example Holmes raised 700 million from investors according to the SEC but at its peak her company was valued at around 9 billion The SEC8217s complaint against Theranos and Holmes focused on alleged lies to investors who put money directly into the company Those insiders were only part of the market for Theranos though To the extent the company8217s multibilliondollar valuation reflected investor demand for a stake in Theranos8217 purportedly revolutionary 8211 and widely publicized 8211 technology for blood testing it rested on 8220indirect8221 investors who bought shares in funds that actually owned Theranos stock Unlike the SEC indirect investors can8217t sue under federal securities laws Direct investors in private companies of course can bring fraud claims if they can show they relied on corporate misrepresentations But as I8217ve previously reported in the age of unicorn Silicon Valley startups shareholder lawyers have developed a theory on how indirect investors can band together in class actions based on California8217s corporate code That theory is about to undergo a critical test in a class action by indirect investors in you guessed it Theranos Last month shareholder lawyers at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Robbins Geller Rudman ampamp Dowd filed a motion to certify a class of more than 200 investors who plunked down money in funds that owned shares of Theranos Theranos which is represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale ampamp Dorr filed the company8217s opposition last Friday days before Theranos and Holmes agreed to settle the SEC8217s charges The judge overseeing the indirect investors8217 case US Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins of San Jose has already deniedamp160Theranos8217 motion to dismiss the case outright Defeating class certification is now the company8217s best hope to evade liability to its indirect investors As you know securities fraud class actions depend on the idea of an efficient securities market reacting to significant corporate lies Indirect investors in a privatelyheld company like Theranos can8217t argue market efficiency But they contend that under California corporate law and the common law of fraud they can be certified as a class to litigate 8220a straightforward overarching inquiry for the court Should the overwhelming evidence of defendants8217 fraud be presented in a single action that adjudicates all common factual and legal issues or should approximately two hundred defrauded 8216indirect shareholder8217 investors in the putative class be forced to either forgo recovery or initiate individual actions to present the same evidence and litigate the same factual and legal issues against the same defendants8221 The investors claim that Theranos and Holmes knew and encouraged some of the company8217s direct shareholders to market indirect investments in funds holding Theranos stock Holmes even tracked these 8220indirect shareholders8221 according to the class certification motion And because all of them according to shareholder lawyers bought an stake in Theranos8217 future after Holmes and other insiders made false statements 8220each class member suffered financial harm caused by defendants8217 actions above when the truth came out and the value of their securities collapsed8221 Theranos responded that it8217s impossible to discern a common interest in indirect investors who had all sorts of different motivations 8220Theranos has never been a public company It has never published quarterly or annual reports or prospectuses announced financial results held public investor calls or publicly disseminated information about its business plans or finances8221 the company8217s brief said 8220Class members could have read any of thousands of public references to Theranos 8212 or none 8212 and could have received private information 8212 or not 8212 but the only way to know is individual factfinding 8230 In an inefficient market such as this one the only way to know whether an alleged misrepresentation affected a purchaser8217s price is to examine each transaction8221 It8217s not clear how if at all the Theranos and Holmes settlements with the SEC will affect class certification I emailed five plaintiffs8217 lawyers from Hagens Berman and Robbins Geller and didn8217t hear back from any of them Theranos lawyer Timothy Perla of Wilmer also didn8217t respond to my email Holmes and the company did not admit liability in their SEC settlements so there8217s no risk shareholders can claim they8217ve conceded wrongdoing On the other hand it8217s not an everyday thing for the SEC to allege 8220massive fraud8221 at a private company Theranos reminded Judge Cousins that no court has previously certified a class of indirect investors arguing that the indirect shareholders had given the court 8220no reason to break new ground8221 Maybe Judge Cousins will see the SEC case as a reason The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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the/DET total/ADJ value/NOUN of/ADP merchandise/NOUN sold/VERB from/ADP September/PROPN 2015/NUM to/ADP March/PROPN 2016/NUM The/DET plaintiff/NOUN who/PRON was/AUX born/VERB in/ADP Vietnam/PROPN and/CCONJ lives/VERB in/ADP Washington/PROPN state/NOUN said/VERB Walmart/PROPN abruptly/ADV fired/VERB him/PRON in/ADP January/PROPN 2017/NUM in/ADP retaliation/NOUN for/ADP his/PRON repeated/VERB complaints/NOUN about/ADP its/PRON ecommerce/NOUN reporting/NOUN and/CCONJ internal/ADJ controls/NOUN Huynh/PROPN said/VERB he/PRON was/AUX fired/VERB not/PART long/ADV after/ADP raising/VERB concerns/NOUN with/ADP US/PROPN ecommerce/NOUN chief/NOUN Marc/PROPN Lore/PROPN and/CCONJ was/AUX dismissed/VERB under/ADP the/DET 8220false/ADJ pretenses8221/NOUN of/ADP a/DET broader/ADJ workforce/NOUN reduction/NOUN and/CCONJ alleged/ADJ performance/NOUN issues/NOUN He/PRON said/VERB he/PRON had/AUX told/VERB human/ADJ resources/NOUN the/DET prior/ADJ May/PROPN of/ADP his/PRON efforts/NOUN to/PART deal/VERB 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<p>&amp;lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/473547877/in/photolist-HR4hz-DPX2C-E2CsW-DPX3e-DcZ5X-92ikKa-4yRwTC-6ncaRM-4uJdrh-4tbYot-4ApC5W-4CmtzQ-MaNUA-3ad9qF-4RRJqx-28e5vY-M1tjR-4rv5TT-2hKEBG-aYjKUv-DPX2M-4tg2M7-2ahxhL-2yQ5gR-Fjbmh-2adbB2-2cQksr-9AWfqy-Q4s89-6vH6Y3-4eDbZJ-4AkkUx-4Cw2wD-Jh1ck-7R5hfC-E7LnP-NYBMH-21ncLh-4rv5oP-ERzYK-4LokUf-2HzjNo-8NHTqN-2bFWZv-4nvFg1-2n9g4A-35agmv-4yRx7S-4oJgsw-Jh1cn"&amp;gt;Stacy L. Pearshall&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175891/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website and was reported in partnership with the <a href="http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/" type="external">Investigative Fund</a> at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer.</p> <p>DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania&#8212;Movie night in Mouloud, Djibouti. Skype lessons in Ethiopia. Veterinary training assistance in Garissa, Kenya. And in this country on the east coast of Africa, work on both primary and secondary schools and a cistern to provide clean water. These are all-American good works, but who is doing them&#8212;and why?</p> <p>As I sit in a room filled with scores of high-ranking military officers resplendent in their dress uniforms&#8212;Kenyans in their khakis, Burundians and Ugandans clad in olive, Tanzanians in deep forest green sporting like-colored berets and red epaulets with crossed rifles on their shoulders&#8212;chances are that the US military is carrying out some mission somewhere on this vast continent. It might be a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/libya-condemns-us-raid-and-capture-of-bombing-suspect/2013/10/06/aad8b7ec-2ea6-11e3-8906-3daa2bcde110_story.html" type="external">kidnapping raid</a> or a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa/" type="external">training exercise</a>. It could be an <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/26/world/africa/somalia-us-airstrike/" type="external">airstrike</a> or the construction of a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22" type="external">drone base</a>. Or, as I wait for the next speaker to approach the lectern at the &#8220;Land Forces East Africa&#8221; conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, it could be a humanitarian operation run not by civilians in the aid business, but by military troops with ulterior motives&#8212;part of a near-continent-wide campaign utilizing the core tenets of counterinsurgency strategy.</p> <p>The US is trying to win a war for the hearts and minds of Africa. But a Pentagon investigation suggests that those mystery projects somewhere out there in Djibouti or Ethiopia or Kenya or here in Tanzania may well be orphaned, ill-planned, and undocumented failures-in-the-making. According to the Department of Defense&#8217;s watchdog agency, US military officials in Africa &#8220;did not adequately plan or execute&#8221; missions designed to win over Africans deemed vulnerable to the lures of violent extremism.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>This evidence of failure in the earliest stages of the US military&#8217;s hearts-and-minds campaign should have an eerie resonance for anyone who has followed its previous efforts to use humanitarian aid and infrastructure projects to sway local populations in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. In each case, the operations failed in spectacular ways, but were only fully acknowledged after years of futility and billions of dollars in waste. In Africa, a war zone about which most Americans are completely unaware, the writing is already on the wall. Or at least it should be. While Pentagon investigators identified a plethora of problems, their report has, in fact, been kept under wraps for almost a year, while the command responsible for the failures has ignored all questions about it from TomDispatch. &amp;#160;</p> <p>Doing a Bad Job at Good Works</p> <p>Today, the US military increasingly confronts Africa as a &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">battlefield</a>&#8221; or &#8220; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/can-general-linders-special-operations-forces-stop-the-next-terrorist-threat.html" type="external">battleground</a>&#8221; or &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22/" type="external">war</a>&#8221; in the words of the men running its operations. To that end, it has built a sophisticated <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175567/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_shadow_wars_in_africa_" type="external">logistics network</a> to service a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-set-to-open-second-drone-base-in-niger-as-it-expands-operations-in-africa/2014/08/31/365489c4-2eb8-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html" type="external">growing number</a> of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">small outposts</a>, camps, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22" type="external">airfields</a>, while <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa" type="external">carrying out</a>, on average, more than one mission each day somewhere on the continent. A significant number of these operations take the form of a textbook hearts-and-minds campaign that harkens back to failed US efforts in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s and more recently in the Greater Middle East.</p> <p>In Vietnam, the so-called civilian half of the war&#8212;building schools, handing out soap, and offering rudimentary medical care&#8212;was obliterated by American heavy firepower that wiped out homes, whole hamlets, and whatever goodwill had been gained. As a result, US counterinsurgency doctrine was tossed into the military&#8217;s dustbin&#8212;only to be resurrected decades later, as the Iraq War raged, by then-general and later CIA director David Petraeus.</p> <p>In 2005-2006, Petraeus oversaw the revision of FM 3-24, the military&#8217;s counterinsurgency (COIN) field manual, and a resulting revolution in military affairs. Soon, American military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan were throwing large sums of money at complex problems, once again with the objective of winning hearts and minds. They bought off Sunni insurgents and poured billions of dollars into nation-building efforts, ranging from a modern chicken processing plant to a fun-in-the-sun water park, trying to refashion the rubble of a failed state into a functioning one.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />As with Petraeus&#8217;s career, which <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-director-david-petraeus-resigns-09-11-2012/" type="external">imploded</a> amidst scandal, the efforts he fostered similarly went down in flames. In Iraq, the chicken processing plant proved a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175448/peter_van_buren_chickening_out_in_iraq" type="external">Potemkin operation</a> and the much ballyhooed Baghdad water park quickly fell into <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/02/AR2011010202491.html" type="external">ruin</a>. The country soon followed. Less than three years after the US withdrawal, Iraq teeters on the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/10/us-iraq-security-yazidis-killings-idUSKBN0GA0FF20140810" type="external">brink</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/OCHAIraq/status/505314197438074880/photo/1" type="external">catastrophe</a> as most of Petraeus&#8217;s Sunni mercenaries <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-sunni-awakening-20140624-story.html#page=1" type="external">stood aside</a> while the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/women-and-teens-suffer-barbaric-rape-islamic-state-fighters-264523" type="external">brutal</a> Islamic State carved a portion of its caliphate from the country, and others, aggrieved with the US-backed government in Baghdad, sided with them. In Afghanistan, the results have been similarly dismal as America&#8217;s hearts-and-minds monies yielded <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203554104576655280219991322?cb=logged0.3344414536043926" type="external">roads to nowhere</a> (where they haven&#8217;t already deteriorated into <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-billions-in-us-investment-afghan-roads-are-falling-apart/2014/01/30/9bd07764-7986-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html" type="external">death traps</a>), <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27715351" type="external">crumbling buildings</a>, over-crowded, underfunded, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/world/asia/despite-education-advances-a-host-of-afghan-school-woes.html" type="external">teacher-less schools</a>, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010305647.html" type="external">billions</a> poured down the <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/us-watchdog-slams-afghan-aid-waste/1728154.html" type="external">drain</a> in one <a href="http://www.armytimes.com/article/20110804/NEWS/108040318/Lawmakers-question-CERP-funds-Afghanistan" type="external">boondoggle</a> after <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/28/war-on-waste-pentagon-auditor-spotlights-us-billions-blown-in-afghanistan/" type="external">another</a>.</p> <p>In Africa, the sums and scale are smaller, but the efforts are from the same counterinsurgency playbook. In fact, to the US military, humanitarian assistance&#8212;from medical care to infrastructure projects&#8212;is a form of &#8220;security cooperation.&#8221; According to the latest edition of FM 3-24, <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=6&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0CEEQFjAF&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Ffas.org%2Firp%2Fdoddir%2Farmy%2Ffm3-24.pdf&amp;amp;ei=G4QAVOLzD9KMNq7ygLgM&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEL31ot31J5iTa3z90MBcdmioB67g&amp;amp;bvm=bv.74115972,d.eXY" type="external">published</a> earlier this year:</p> <p>&#8220;When these activities are used to defeat an insurgency, they are part of a counterinsurgency operation. While not all security cooperation activities are in support of counterinsurgency, security cooperation can be an effective counterinsurgency tool. These activities help the US and the host nation gain credibility and help the host nation build legitimacy. These efforts can help prevent insurgencies&#8230;&#8221;</p> <p>US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its subordinate command, <a href="http://www.africom.mil/about-the-command/subordinate-commands/combined-joint-task-force-horn-of-africa" type="external">Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)</a> based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, have spent years engaged in such COIN-style humanitarian projects. These have been touted in news releases at their websites in lieu of candid <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175743" type="external">information</a> on the true scale and scope of AFRICOM&#8217;s operations, the exponential <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa/" type="external">growth</a> of its activities, its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/contractors-run-us-spying-missions-in-africa/2012/06/14/gJQAvC4RdV_story.html" type="external">spy operations</a>, and shadowy <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22/" type="external">base-building</a> efforts. Take a cursory glance at its official news releases and you&#8217;ll find them crammed with feel-good stories like an effort by CJTF-HOA personnel to <a href="http://www.hoa.africom.mil/story/8120/443rd-ca-bn-making-a-difference-in-djibouti-one-class-at-a-time" type="external">tutor</a> would-be Djiboutian hotel workers in English or a joint effort by the State Department, AFRICOM, and the Army Corps of Engineers to <a href="http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/article/23062/u-s-funds-construction-of-six-schools-in-togo" type="external">build</a> six new schools in Togo. Such acts are never framed in the context of counterinsurgency nor with an explicit link to US efforts to win hearts and minds. And never is there any mention of failings or fiascos.</p> <p>However, an investigation by the Department of Defense&#8217;s Inspector General (IG), completed last October but never publicly <a href="http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/report_printable.cfm?id=5365" type="external">released</a>, found failures in planning, executing, tracking, and documenting such projects. The restricted report, obtained by TomDispatch, describes a flawed system plagued by a variety of deeply embedded problems.</p> <p>In some cases, military officials failed to identify how their projects even supported AFRICOM&#8217;s objectives on the continent; in others, financial documentation was missing; in still others, CJTF-HOA personnel failed to ensure that local populations were equipped to keep the small-scale projects running or effective once the Americans moved on. The risk, the report suggests, is that these signs of Washington&#8217;s goodwill and good intentions will quickly fall into disrepair and become what one American official called &#8220;monuments to US failure&#8221; in Africa.</p> <p>AFRICOM reacted defensively. In an internal memo, Colonel Bruce Nickle, the acting Chief of Staff of US Africa Command, criticized the Inspector General&#8217;s methodology, questioned the IG&#8217;s expertise, and suggested that some of the findings were &#8220;misleading.&#8221; Close to a year after the report&#8217;s release, neither AFRICOM nor CJTF-HOA has announced policy changes based on its recommendations. Repeated requests, over a period of months, by TomDispatch to AFRICOM media chief Benjamin Benson and the CJTF-HOA Public Affairs office for comment, further information, or clarification about the report as well as a request to interview Nickle have all gone unanswered. &amp;#160;</p> <p>COIN and the Fountains</p> <p>Across Africa, the US military is engaged in a panoply of aid projects with an eye toward winning a war of ideas in the minds of Africans and so beating back the lure of extremist ideologies&#8212;from that of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13809501" type="external">Boko Haram</a> in Nigeria to Somalia&#8217;s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15336689" type="external">al Shabab</a>. These so-called civil-military operations, or CMOs, include &#8220; <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/" type="external">humanitarian assistance</a>&#8221; projects like the construction or repair of schools, water wells and waste treatment systems, and &#8220;humanitarian and civic assistance&#8221; (HCA) efforts, like offering dental and veterinary care.</p> <p>Kindness may be its own reward, but in the case of the US military, CMO benevolence is designed to influence foreign governments and civilian populations in order to &#8220;facilitate military operations and achieve US objectives.&#8221; According to the Pentagon, humanitarian assistance efforts are engineered to improve &#8220;US visibility, access, and influence with foreign military and civilian counterparts,&#8221; while HCA projects are designed to &#8220;promote the security and foreign policy interests of the United States.&#8221; In the bureaucratic world of the US military, these small-scale efforts are further divided into &#8220;community relations activities,&#8221; like the distribution of sports equipment, and &#8220;low-cost activities&#8221; such as seminars on solar panel maintenance or English-language discussion groups. Theoretically at least, add all these projects together and you&#8217;ve taken a major step toward winning Africans away from the influence of extremists. But are these projects working at all? Has anyone even bothered to check?</p> <p>In a report titled &#8220;Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Needed Better Guidance and Systems to Adequately Manage Civil-Military Operations,&#8221; the Department of Defense&#8217;s Inspector General found record keeping so abysmal that its officials &#8220;did not have an effective system to manage or report community relations and low cost activities.&#8221; A spreadsheet supposedly tracking community low cost activities during 2012 and 2013 was so incomplete that 43% of such efforts went unmentioned.</p> <p>Nonetheless, the IG did manage to review 49 of 137 identified humanitarian assistance and civic assistance projects, which cost US taxpayers about $9 million, and found that the military officials overseeing CMO &#8220;did not adequately plan or execute&#8221; them in accordance with AFRICOM&#8217;s &#8220;objectives.&#8221; Close to 20% of the time, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa even failed to accurately explain the possible relationship of specific projects to objectives like countering extremist organizations or expanding AFRICOM&#8217;s &#8220;network of partners on the continent.&#8221; Examining 66 community relations and low cost activities, investigators found that CJTF-HOA had failed to accurately identify their strategic objectives for, or maintained limited documentation on, 62% of them.</p> <p>The task force also failed to report or could not provide information on expenditures for four of six projects selected for special review, despite a requirement to do so and the use of a computerized system specifically designed to track such information. These projects&#8212;two schools and a clinic in Djibouti as well as a school in Ethiopia&#8212;cost American taxpayers almost $1.3 million, yet US officials failed to properly account for where all that money actually went. All told, officials were unable to verify whether almost $229,000 in taxpayer dollars spent on such projects were properly accounted for.</p> <p>Investigators only inspected four humanitarian assistance worksites&#8212;two in Djibouti and two here in Tanzania&#8212;but even in this tiny sample found one site where the US military had failed to ensure that the host nation would sustain the project. At the Ali Sabieh Community Water Fountains in Djibouti, renovated by the US in 2010 to minimize waterborne disease, investigators found a scene of utter disrepair. Doors, pipes, and faucets &#8220;had been removed,&#8221; while another faucet &#8220;had a collapsed top,&#8221; leaving the water &#8220;exposed to contaminants.&#8221; Photographs <a href="http://nickturse.tumblr.com/alis" type="external">taken</a> two years after the project was completed display dilapidated, crumbling, and seemingly jerry-rigged structures.</p> <p>One American official assured IG investigators of the necessity of obtaining host nation &#8220;buy-in&#8221; on such projects to achieve success, while another suggested it was crucial that local &#8220;sweat equity&#8221; be invested in such projects, if they weren&#8217;t to become &#8220;monuments to US failure.&#8221; In Djibouti, however, local residents were apparently given no information about upkeep of the Ali Sabieh project. As a result, Djiboutians threw rocks into a well built by Americans, a method that works to raise water in indigenously built wells. In this case, however, it damaged the well so badly that it stopped working.</p> <p>Examining a sample of projects, the Pentagon&#8217;s investigators found that 73% of the time CJTF-HOA personnel failed to collect sufficient data 30 days after completion of projects, to assess whether it achieved the stated objectives. For example, five hours north of here at a medical clinic at Manza Bay, the US built cisterns and a water catchment system. The project was apparently considered a success, but the military had very little data to back up that claim. In Garissa, in neighboring Kenya, a veterinary civic action project was evidently also declared a triumph without anything to prove it beyond vague upbeat claims of success in impressing local residents. &amp;#160;</p> <p>Winning Hearts and Minds or Losing Money and Influence?</p> <p>After reviewing a draft of the Inspector General&#8217;s report last year, AFRICOM Chief of Staff Nickle offered a response clearly meant to undermine the Pentagon watchdog&#8217;s claims. In his September 2013 memorandum, Nickle took particular issue with the Inspector General&#8217;s investigative methodology, decrying its lack of statistical sampling. Since the report is restricted, the IG&#8217;s office refused to discuss the specifics of its analysis with TomDispatch, but Brenda Rolin of its Office of Communications and Congressional Liaison defended the methodology. Non-statistical sampling, she explained, &#8220;can be used to obtain sufficient audit evidence. This method is valid but results may not be projected to the entire population.&#8221; Nickle also complained that the IG&#8217;s team did not include an expert familiar with all the types of humanitarian efforts AFRICOM carried out and that the investigators failed to highlight its successes.</p> <p>Nearly a year has passed since the drafting of the Inspector General&#8217;s report. During that time, neither AFRICOM nor CJTF-HOA has publicly addressed it or announced any changes based upon its recommendations. In the meantime, the hearts and minds of allied African military leaders appear unswayed by AFRICOM&#8217;s efforts. Over two days at the &#8220;Land Forces East Africa&#8221; conference here in Dar es Salaam, I listened to generals and defense analysts from around the region speak on security matters affecting Burundi, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania. They touched on the key issues&#8212;extremism, terrorism, and piracy&#8212;that the American hearts-and-minds campaign is meant to counter, but the United States was hardly mentioned. Tanzanian officers I talked with, for instance, were pleased to be receiving American funds, but less so with direct US interventions of any type on the continent. None I spoke with seemed aware of AFRICOM&#8217;S hearts-and-minds work like clean water projects or school construction in underdeveloped rural areas not so very far from where we&#8217;ve been sitting.</p> <p>Even Egan O&#8217;Reilly, an Army officer attached to the US Embassy here, whose job is to facilitate &#8220;security cooperation&#8221; activities, had little idea about AFRICOM&#8217;s humanitarian efforts. Dual-hatted&#8212;answering to the US ambassador in Tanzania and AFRICOM&#8212;he&#8217;s new to the mission but high on America&#8217;s efforts in the region. &#8220;We&#8217;ve done everything from helping bring down trainers for military intelligence courses to building their own schoolhouse for intelligence work,&#8221; he tells me.</p> <p>What about the building of primary and secondary schools, the humanitarian assistance projects? &#8220;I haven&#8217;t seen a whole lot of AFRICOM work myself,&#8221; replies the West Point graduate and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As O&#8217;Reilly told me, he had heard about the work of the Medical Civil Action Program, or <a href="http://www.africom.mil/what-we-do/security-cooperation-programs/medcap" type="external">MEDCAP</a>&#8212;meant to provide medical care or increase local medical capacity in underserved areas&#8212;but that was about it. And while such programs are &#8220;good and they make people smile,&#8221; he adds, they&#8217;re of limited utility. Logistics training and engineering instruction for African militaries, that&#8217;s &#8220;the important stuff.&#8221;</p> <p>TomDispatch also sought interviews with US defense attach&#233;s in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya for assessments of the humanitarian projects in those respective countries. The latter two embassies failed to respond to the requests, while a spokesperson for the US mission in Ethiopia thanked me for my interest but told me that the defense attach&#233; &#8220;is not currently available for an interview.&#8221; No one, it appears, is eager to talk about the textbook counterinsurgency campaign being carried out by the US military in Africa, let alone the failures chronicled in an IG report that&#8217;s been withheld from the public for almost a year.</p> <p>For the last decade, we&#8217;ve been inundated with disclosures about billions of US tax dollars squandered on counterinsurgency failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, stories of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-billions-in-us-investment-afghan-roads-are-falling-apart/2014/01/30/9bd07764-7986-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html" type="external">ruined roads</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27715351" type="external">busted buildings</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010305647.html" type="external">shoddy schoolhouses</a> and wasteful <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/02/AR2011010202491.html" type="external">water parks</a>, all in the name of winning hearts and minds. Below the radar, similar&#8212;if smaller scale&#8212;efforts are well underway in Africa. Already, the schools are being built, already the water projects are falling to pieces, already the Department of Defense&#8217;s Inspector General has identified a plethora of problems. It&#8217;s just been kept under wraps. But if history is any guide, humanitarian efforts by AFRICOM and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa will grow larger and ever more expensive, until they join the long list of projects that have become &#8220;monuments to US failure&#8221; around the world.</p> <p>Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award winner, he has reported from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. His New York Times bestseller <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam</a> just received an <a href="http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/" type="external">American Book Award</a>. This story was reported in partnership with the <a href="http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/" type="external">Investigative Fund</a> at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

How Not to Win Hearts and Minds in Africa

https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/us-military-hearts-minds-africa-iraq/

2014-09-09

4left

amplta hrefhttpswwwflickrcomphotossoldiersmediacenter473547877inphotolistHR4hzDPX2CE2CsWDPX3eDcZ5X92ikKa4yRwTC6ncaRM4uJdrh4tbYot4ApC5W4CmtzQMaNUA3ad9qF4RRJqx28e5vYM1tjR4rv5TT2hKEBGaYjKUvDPX2M4tg2M72ahxhL2yQ5gRFjbmh2adbB22cQksr9AWfqyQ4s896vH6Y34eDbZJ4AkkUx4Cw2wDJh1ck7R5hfCE7LnPNYBMH21ncLh4rv5oPERzYK4LokUf2HzjNo8NHTqN2bFWZv4nvFg12n9g4A35agmv4yRx7S4oJgswJh1cnampgtStacy L PearshallampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website and was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer DAR ES SALAAM Tanzania8212Movie night in Mouloud Djibouti Skype lessons in Ethiopia Veterinary training assistance in Garissa Kenya And in this country on the east coast of Africa work on both primary and secondary schools and a cistern to provide clean water These are allAmerican good works but who is doing them8212and why As I sit in a room filled with scores of highranking military officers resplendent in their dress uniforms8212Kenyans in their khakis Burundians and Ugandans clad in olive Tanzanians in deep forest green sporting likecolored berets and red epaulets with crossed rifles on their shoulders8212chances are that the US military is carrying out some mission somewhere on this vast continent It might be a kidnapping raid or a training exercise It could be an airstrike or the construction of a drone base Or as I wait for the next speaker to approach the lectern at the 8220Land Forces East Africa8221 conference in Dar es Salaam Tanzania it could be a humanitarian operation run not by civilians in the aid business but by military troops with ulterior motives8212part of a nearcontinentwide campaign utilizing the core tenets of counterinsurgency strategy The US is trying to win a war for the hearts and minds of Africa But a Pentagon investigation suggests that those mystery projects somewhere out there in Djibouti or Ethiopia or Kenya or here in Tanzania may well be orphaned illplanned and undocumented failuresinthemaking According to the Department of Defense8217s watchdog agency US military officials in Africa 8220did not adequately plan or execute8221 missions designed to win over Africans deemed vulnerable to the lures of violent extremism amp160 This evidence of failure in the earliest stages of the US military8217s heartsandminds campaign should have an eerie resonance for anyone who has followed its previous efforts to use humanitarian aid and infrastructure projects to sway local populations in Vietnam Iraq or Afghanistan In each case the operations failed in spectacular ways but were only fully acknowledged after years of futility and billions of dollars in waste In Africa a war zone about which most Americans are completely unaware the writing is already on the wall Or at least it should be While Pentagon investigators identified a plethora of problems their report has in fact been kept under wraps for almost a year while the command responsible for the failures has ignored all questions about it from TomDispatch amp160 Doing a Bad Job at Good Works Today the US military increasingly confronts Africa as a 8220 battlefield8221 or 8220 battleground8221 or 8220 war8221 in the words of the men running its operations To that end it has built a sophisticated logistics network to service a growing number of small outposts camps and airfields while carrying out on average more than one mission each day somewhere on the continent A significant number of these operations take the form of a textbook heartsandminds campaign that harkens back to failed US efforts in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s and more recently in the Greater Middle East In Vietnam the socalled civilian half of the war8212building schools handing out soap and offering rudimentary medical care8212was obliterated by American heavy firepower that wiped out homes whole hamlets and whatever goodwill had been gained As a result US counterinsurgency doctrine was tossed into the military8217s dustbin8212only to be resurrected decades later as the Iraq War raged by thengeneral and later CIA director David Petraeus In 20052006 Petraeus oversaw the revision of FM 324 the military8217s counterinsurgency COIN field manual and a resulting revolution in military affairs Soon American military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan were throwing large sums of money at complex problems once again with the objective of winning hearts and minds They bought off Sunni insurgents and poured billions of dollars into nationbuilding efforts ranging from a modern chicken processing plant to a funinthesun water park trying to refashion the rubble of a failed state into a functioning one As with Petraeus8217s career which imploded amidst scandal the efforts he fostered similarly went down in flames In Iraq the chicken processing plant proved a Potemkin operation and the much ballyhooed Baghdad water park quickly fell into ruin The country soon followed Less than three years after the US withdrawal Iraq teeters on the brink of catastrophe as most of Petraeus8217s Sunni mercenaries stood aside while the brutal Islamic State carved a portion of its caliphate from the country and others aggrieved with the USbacked government in Baghdad sided with them In Afghanistan the results have been similarly dismal as America8217s heartsandminds monies yielded roads to nowhere where they haven8217t already deteriorated into death traps crumbling buildings overcrowded underfunded and teacherless schools and billions poured down the drain in one boondoggle after another In Africa the sums and scale are smaller but the efforts are from the same counterinsurgency playbook In fact to the US military humanitarian assistance8212from medical care to infrastructure projects8212is a form of 8220security cooperation8221 According to the latest edition of FM 324 published earlier this year 8220When these activities are used to defeat an insurgency they are part of a counterinsurgency operation While not all security cooperation activities are in support of counterinsurgency security cooperation can be an effective counterinsurgency tool These activities help the US and the host nation gain credibility and help the host nation build legitimacy These efforts can help prevent insurgencies82308221 US Africa Command AFRICOM and its subordinate command Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa CJTFHOA based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti have spent years engaged in such COINstyle humanitarian projects These have been touted in news releases at their websites in lieu of candid information on the true scale and scope of AFRICOM8217s operations the exponential growth of its activities its spy operations and shadowy basebuilding efforts Take a cursory glance at its official news releases and you8217ll find them crammed with feelgood stories like an effort by CJTFHOA personnel to tutor wouldbe Djiboutian hotel workers in English or a joint effort by the State Department AFRICOM and the Army Corps of Engineers to build six new schools in Togo Such acts are never framed in the context of counterinsurgency nor with an explicit link to US efforts to win hearts and minds And never is there any mention of failings or fiascos However an investigation by the Department of Defense8217s Inspector General IG completed last October but never publicly released found failures in planning executing tracking and documenting such projects The restricted report obtained by TomDispatch describes a flawed system plagued by a variety of deeply embedded problems In some cases military officials failed to identify how their projects even supported AFRICOM8217s objectives on the continent in others financial documentation was missing in still others CJTFHOA personnel failed to ensure that local populations were equipped to keep the smallscale projects running or effective once the Americans moved on The risk the report suggests is that these signs of Washington8217s goodwill and good intentions will quickly fall into disrepair and become what one American official called 8220monuments to US failure8221 in Africa AFRICOM reacted defensively In an internal memo Colonel Bruce Nickle the acting Chief of Staff of US Africa Command criticized the Inspector General8217s methodology questioned the IG8217s expertise and suggested that some of the findings were 8220misleading8221 Close to a year after the report8217s release neither AFRICOM nor CJTFHOA has announced policy changes based on its recommendations Repeated requests over a period of months by TomDispatch to AFRICOM media chief Benjamin Benson and the CJTFHOA Public Affairs office for comment further information or clarification about the report as well as a request to interview Nickle have all gone unanswered amp160 COIN and the Fountains Across Africa the US military is engaged in a panoply of aid projects with an eye toward winning a war of ideas in the minds of Africans and so beating back the lure of extremist ideologies8212from that of Boko Haram in Nigeria to Somalia8217s al Shabab These socalled civilmilitary operations or CMOs include 8220 humanitarian assistance8221 projects like the construction or repair of schools water wells and waste treatment systems and 8220humanitarian and civic assistance8221 HCA efforts like offering dental and veterinary care Kindness may be its own reward but in the case of the US military CMO benevolence is designed to influence foreign governments and civilian populations in order to 8220facilitate military operations and achieve US objectives8221 According to the Pentagon humanitarian assistance efforts are engineered to improve 8220US visibility access and influence with foreign military and civilian counterparts8221 while HCA projects are designed to 8220promote the security and foreign policy interests of the United States8221 In the bureaucratic world of the US military these smallscale efforts are further divided into 8220community relations activities8221 like the distribution of sports equipment and 8220lowcost activities8221 such as seminars on solar panel maintenance or Englishlanguage discussion groups Theoretically at least add all these projects together and you8217ve taken a major step toward winning Africans away from the influence of extremists But are these projects working at all Has anyone even bothered to check In a report titled 8220Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa Needed Better Guidance and Systems to Adequately Manage CivilMilitary Operations8221 the Department of Defense8217s Inspector General found record keeping so abysmal that its officials 8220did not have an effective system to manage or report community relations and low cost activities8221 A spreadsheet supposedly tracking community low cost activities during 2012 and 2013 was so incomplete that 43 of such efforts went unmentioned Nonetheless the IG did manage to review 49 of 137 identified humanitarian assistance and civic assistance projects which cost US taxpayers about 9 million and found that the military officials overseeing CMO 8220did not adequately plan or execute8221 them in accordance with AFRICOM8217s 8220objectives8221 Close to 20 of the time Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa even failed to accurately explain the possible relationship of specific projects to objectives like countering extremist organizations or expanding AFRICOM8217s 8220network of partners on the continent8221 Examining 66 community relations and low cost activities investigators found that CJTFHOA had failed to accurately identify their strategic objectives for or maintained limited documentation on 62 of them The task force also failed to report or could not provide information on expenditures for four of six projects selected for special review despite a requirement to do so and the use of a computerized system specifically designed to track such information These projects8212two schools and a clinic in Djibouti as well as a school in Ethiopia8212cost American taxpayers almost 13 million yet US officials failed to properly account for where all that money actually went All told officials were unable to verify whether almost 229000 in taxpayer dollars spent on such projects were properly accounted for Investigators only inspected four humanitarian assistance worksites8212two in Djibouti and two here in Tanzania8212but even in this tiny sample found one site where the US military had failed to ensure that the host nation would sustain the project At the Ali Sabieh Community Water Fountains in Djibouti renovated by the US in 2010 to minimize waterborne disease investigators found a scene of utter disrepair Doors pipes and faucets 8220had been removed8221 while another faucet 8220had a collapsed top8221 leaving the water 8220exposed to contaminants8221 Photographs taken two years after the project was completed display dilapidated crumbling and seemingly jerryrigged structures One American official assured IG investigators of the necessity of obtaining host nation 8220buyin8221 on such projects to achieve success while another suggested it was crucial that local 8220sweat equity8221 be invested in such projects if they weren8217t to become 8220monuments to US failure8221 In Djibouti however local residents were apparently given no information about upkeep of the Ali Sabieh project As a result Djiboutians threw rocks into a well built by Americans a method that works to raise water in indigenously built wells In this case however it damaged the well so badly that it stopped working Examining a sample of projects the Pentagon8217s investigators found that 73 of the time CJTFHOA personnel failed to collect sufficient data 30 days after completion of projects to assess whether it achieved the stated objectives For example five hours north of here at a medical clinic at Manza Bay the US built cisterns and a water catchment system The project was apparently considered a success but the military had very little data to back up that claim In Garissa in neighboring Kenya a veterinary civic action project was evidently also declared a triumph without anything to prove it beyond vague upbeat claims of success in impressing local residents amp160 Winning Hearts and Minds or Losing Money and Influence After reviewing a draft of the Inspector General8217s report last year AFRICOM Chief of Staff Nickle offered a response clearly meant to undermine the Pentagon watchdog8217s claims In his September 2013 memorandum Nickle took particular issue with the Inspector General8217s investigative methodology decrying its lack of statistical sampling Since the report is restricted the IG8217s office refused to discuss the specifics of its analysis with TomDispatch but Brenda Rolin of its Office of Communications and Congressional Liaison defended the methodology Nonstatistical sampling she explained 8220can be used to obtain sufficient audit evidence This method is valid but results may not be projected to the entire population8221 Nickle also complained that the IG8217s team did not include an expert familiar with all the types of humanitarian efforts AFRICOM carried out and that the investigators failed to highlight its successes Nearly a year has passed since the drafting of the Inspector General8217s report During that time neither AFRICOM nor CJTFHOA has publicly addressed it or announced any changes based upon its recommendations In the meantime the hearts and minds of allied African military leaders appear unswayed by AFRICOM8217s efforts Over two days at the 8220Land Forces East Africa8221 conference here in Dar es Salaam I listened to generals and defense analysts from around the region speak on security matters affecting Burundi Kenya Somalia Uganda and Tanzania They touched on the key issues8212extremism terrorism and piracy8212that the American heartsandminds campaign is meant to counter but the United States was hardly mentioned Tanzanian officers I talked with for instance were pleased to be receiving American funds but less so with direct US interventions of any type on the continent None I spoke with seemed aware of AFRICOM8217S heartsandminds work like clean water projects or school construction in underdeveloped rural areas not so very far from where we8217ve been sitting Even Egan O8217Reilly an Army officer attached to the US Embassy here whose job is to facilitate 8220security cooperation8221 activities had little idea about AFRICOM8217s humanitarian efforts Dualhatted8212answering to the US ambassador in Tanzania and AFRICOM8212he8217s new to the mission but high on America8217s efforts in the region 8220We8217ve done everything from helping bring down trainers for military intelligence courses to building their own schoolhouse for intelligence work8221 he tells me What about the building of primary and secondary schools the humanitarian assistance projects 8220I haven8217t seen a whole lot of AFRICOM work myself8221 replies the West Point graduate and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan As O8217Reilly told me he had heard about the work of the Medical Civil Action Program or MEDCAP8212meant to provide medical care or increase local medical capacity in underserved areas8212but that was about it And while such programs are 8220good and they make people smile8221 he adds they8217re of limited utility Logistics training and engineering instruction for African militaries that8217s 8220the important stuff8221 TomDispatch also sought interviews with US defense attach233s in Ethiopia Djibouti and Kenya for assessments of the humanitarian projects in those respective countries The latter two embassies failed to respond to the requests while a spokesperson for the US mission in Ethiopia thanked me for my interest but told me that the defense attach233 8220is not currently available for an interview8221 No one it appears is eager to talk about the textbook counterinsurgency campaign being carried out by the US military in Africa let alone the failures chronicled in an IG report that8217s been withheld from the public for almost a year For the last decade we8217ve been inundated with disclosures about billions of US tax dollars squandered on counterinsurgency failures in Iraq and Afghanistan stories of ruined roads and busted buildings shoddy schoolhouses and wasteful water parks all in the name of winning hearts and minds Below the radar similar8212if smaller scale8212efforts are well underway in Africa Already the schools are being built already the water projects are falling to pieces already the Department of Defense8217s Inspector General has identified a plethora of problems It8217s just been kept under wraps But if history is any guide humanitarian efforts by AFRICOM and Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa will grow larger and ever more expensive until they join the long list of projects that have become 8220monuments to US failure8221 around the world Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatchcom and a fellow at the Nation Institute A 2014 Izzy Award winner he has reported from the Middle East Southeast Asia and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York Times the Los Angeles Times the Nation and regularly at TomDispatch His New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves The Real American War in Vietnam just received an American Book Award This story was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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from/ADP TomDispatchcom/PROPN here/ADV

<p>Photo by Caravan 4 Peace | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p> <p>Good Timing</p> <p>Let history record that the leading climate change-denier and eco-exterminist, arch-authoritarian petro-capitalist United States President Donald Trump <a href="" type="internal">threatened to shut-down the federal government</a> as the <a href="" type="internal">capitalogenically</a> cooked waters in the Gulf of Mexico swirled on their path to an epic tropical storm that would epically flood Houston and much of southeast Texas in a matter of days.</p> <p>The president&#8217;s moronic threat came at the peak of the hurricane season. &amp;#160;It was made at a white-nationalist campaign-style rally in Phoenix. There Trump heaped praise on a former and recently federally convicted county sheriff who tortured and murdered a moderate Mexican village&#8217;s worth of predominantly Latino jail inmates across a long reign of racist police-state terror in Arizona. At this noxious assembly, Trump <a href="" type="internal">strongly hinted that he would soon pardon the fascist sheriff</a>.&amp;#160; The <a href="" type="internal">Racist Dog Whistler-in-Chief</a> also doubled down on his sickening defense of the frenzied racists who oppose the tearing down of statues honoring &#8220;heroes&#8221; of the Southern Confederacy (1861-1865), which waged a war on Washington &#8211; a war that killed 750,000 Americans in order <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lesson-slavery-white-america/" type="external">to defend the system of Black chattel slavery</a>. Meanwhile. high-tech storm troopers charged, <a href="" type="internal">shooting rubber bullets and &#8220;pepper balls&#8221;</a> at liberal and left protesters outside in the sweltering heat.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s threat to collapse the federal government is presumably on hold in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which has white Texas Republican congressman demanding massive federal assistance for their stricken regions.&amp;#160; Some of these Congressmen were against special federal assistance for the victims of Hurricane Sandy five years ago.&amp;#160; This was for a very simple and sociopathic reason: that also giant and not-so &#8220;natural disaster&#8221; (an earlier attempt by Mother Nature to wake America up to the grave dangers posed by &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">anthropogenic climate change&#8221;</a>) befell the liberal New York City area &#8211; enemy territory in their world view.</p> <p>Republicans are not unaware that the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1175491/" type="external">openly moronic George W. Bush&#8217;s</a> glaringly ham-fisted (non-) response to Hurricane Katrina (an earlier educational effort on Mother Nature&#8217;s part) was part of how even the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Barack-Obama-Future-American-Politics/dp/1594516316" type="external">dismal, dollar-drenched Democrats</a> swept into federal &#8220;power&#8221; in 2006 and 2008.</p> <p>Why did Trump threaten a federal shut-down? To scare Congress into funding the construction his idiotic, criminally racist and unnecessary extension of the U.S. border wall between Mexico and the U.S.</p> <p>You&#8217;d think His Royal Sociopathic Highness would lay off the threat with Houston and other Texas towns and cities underwater, but you&#8217;d be wrong. Just yesterday (I am writing on the morning of Tuesday, August 29th), the orange-tinted beast doubled down on his Wall-warning even as news and images of the epic Texas deluge flooded the airwave and Internet. The wicked racist Asshole-in-Chief <a href="" type="internal">said</a> he doubted that the Wall question would force a shutdown, but he still wouldn&#8217;t swear off the bizarre and chilling tactic. &#8220;I hope that&#8217;s not necessary. If it&#8217;s necessary, we&#8217;ll have to see,&#8221; he vomited.</p> <p>Ruling Class&#8230;Hello?</p> <p>Isn&#8217;t it about time for the United States &#8220;intelligence community&#8221; to show the aberrant ruling class idiot Donald Trump the latest digitally enhanced version of the Zapruder film again and ask for a second time if he has any questions? &amp;#160;The blustering, Twitter-addicted dickhead in the White House is a demented megalomaniac and malignant narcissist who cannot be trusted with the remarkable powers of the U.S. presidency. Absurdly and chillingly enough, he sees himself as a genetically superior uber-being above normal bourgeois law, constitution, party, and morality. &amp;#160;He should be nowhere near the nation&#8217;s nuclear codes and civil emergency command. A recent <a href="" type="internal">Newsweek reflection</a> on the Tyrant&#8217;s widespread unpopularity reflects on developments in the two weeks leading up to Hurricane Harvey, which Trump probably welcomes for the partial news-cycle relief it grants to his unspeakable awfulness:</p> <p>&#8220;There&#8217;s the ongoing investigation into his ties to Russia, the failed Republican plan to gut Obamacare, his threats of nuclear war with North Korea&amp;#160;and, most recently,&amp;#160;Trump&#8217;s insistence on equating Nazi marchers in Virginia to the people counter-protesting the&amp;#160;event, even after a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring many more.&amp;#160; &#8216;I think there is blame on both sides,&#8217;&amp;#160;the president said to reporters. &#8216;You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I&#8217;ll say it right now.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>A serious question: what kind of self-respecting national bourgeoisie and &#8220;power elite&#8221; permits this kind of behavior in the White House?</p> <p>&#8220;Try to Impeach Him, Just Try It&#8221;</p> <p>It is not clear that this <a href="" type="internal">Insane Clown President</a> will accept removal through electoral, legal, or parliamentary means. He is a strong candidate to find, provoke, and/or concoct pretexts for declaring a national emergency requiring the interruption of normal civil liberties. &amp;#160;He might well try to holdup the 2018 and/or 2020 elections, figuring that he could find support for such actions from a significant part of his white nationalist base. A recent <a href="" type="internal">Washington Post poll</a> shows that 56 percent of Republicans would back Trump&#8217;s decision to suspend the 2020 elections if &#8220;necessary&#8221; to block alleged mythical immigrant vote fraud.</p> <p>The Orange Ass-Face sends messages threatening violence to those who might contemplate using the U.S. Constitution to annul his horrific, knuckle-dragging presidency.&amp;#160; One of Trump&#8217;s good friends and political advisors, Roger Stone <a href="" type="internal">, recently told reporters</a> that any Congresspersons who vote for Trump&#8217;s impeachment will be &#8220;killed&#8221; by an outraged populace.</p> <p>Stone is a long-time Trump confidant and former official in Richard Nixon&#8217;s administration.&amp;#160; He told the entertainment website,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">TMZ</a> that impeachment (supported by an <a href="" type="internal">incredible 40% of Americans</a> just eight months into Trump&#8217;s reign) proceedings would lead to an armed uprising among the Orange Beast&#8217;s supporters:</p> <p>&#8220;Try to impeach him, just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, an insurrection like you&#8217;ve never seen. The people will not stand for impeachment. A politician that votes for it would be endangering their own life.&#8221;</p> <p>Asked if he believed there would be &#8220;some sort of civil war&#8221; if Trump was impeached, Stone replied: &#8220;Yes, that&#8217;s what I think will happen. Both sides are heavily armed&#8230; There would be violence on both sides.&#8221;</p> <p>Who would the vanguard of the &#8220;outraged populace&#8221; be? The neo-fascist militia sorts for whom Trump recently gave noxious cover and canine-whistle support in the wake of white-supremacist rallying and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.</p> <p>Imagine Trump BFF Stone&#8217;s fantastic scenario playing out. Would the nation&#8217;s police forces intervene to stop Stone&#8217;s threatened &#8220;insurrection like [we&#8217;ve] never seen&#8221;? That&#8217;s not clear. In a <a href="" type="internal">Police Magazine poll</a> conducted on the eve of the election last year, Donald Trump was the choice of 84% of working police officers surveyed.&amp;#160; Trump won wide support from police unions across the country with his racist &#8220;law and order&#8221; campaign. The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents more than 330,000 law enforcement officers,&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">endorsed</a> presidential candidate Trump, who insanely <a href="" type="internal">called for a &#8220;national stop-and-frisk law&#8221;</a> to stop violence in the nation&#8217;s unmentionably hyper-impoverished and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Racial_Oppression_in_the_Global_Metropol.html?id=ENT62pqg8UEC" type="external">badly oppressed, police-terrorized, and incarceration-ravaged Black ghettoes</a>.</p> <p>Stone&#8217;s absurd claim that liberals and leftists are &#8220;well-armed&#8221; is another high-placed Republican dog whistle to the violent right within and beyond the police state. Along with Trump&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">ridiculous claim that the small left group Antifa</a> was just as responsible as the white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville, it is an ominous green light for cops to crack down viciously on left and liberal protestors.</p> <p>&#8220;Sheriff Joe&#8221;</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s absurd pardon of the former longtime Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio (announced just days after the Phoenix rally) sends a dangerous message of encouragement to racist cops and border patrol agents across the country. Arpaio was recently convicted by a federal judge in connection with his long record of illegally profiling and detaining Latinos. For many years, the diabolical ogre Arpaio headed a racist and fascistic police state that <a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-many-inmates-have-died-sheriff-joe-arpaios-jails-who-knows-its-big-number" type="external">murdered hundreds of jail inmates</a>. The &#8220;great American Sheriff Joe&#8221; (Trump&#8217;s sickening words) killed his mostly Latino victims through heat exhaustion, dehydration, miserable nutrition, medical neglect, labor exploitation, isolation, and induced suicide. Behold to <a href="" type="internal">one Latino&#8217;s recollection</a> of a year he spent in Arpaio&#8217;s infamous sweltering &#8220;tent-city&#8221; jail on a DUI charge:</p> <p>I arrived at one of Arpaio&#8217;s several &#8216;tent cities,&#8217; outdoor jails where inmates shelter in army tents, mostly exposed to the Arizona elements. I was there on a work furlough program, meaning that I was allowed to leave to work during the day. Every day after work, I would return to the jail and spend the night in the tents. Each Sunday was spent entirely in the jail.</p> <p>The rules of the tent city were strict, arbitrary and brutally enforced. There are no newspapers allowed; Arpaio hated newspapers. The only food allowed for those of us in the work furlough program was the food in the vending machines, which was grossly overpriced.</p> <p>During the sweltering summer, the temperature could reach 115 or 120 degrees. I was in the tents when we hit 120. It was impossible to stay cool in the oppressive heat. Everyone would strip down to their underwear. There was no cold water, only water from vending machines; and eventually, the machines would run out. People would faint; some had heatstroke. That summer, ambulances came about three times. One man died in his bed.&#8221;</p> <p>But the winter was even worse. During the winter, there were no heaters. Most jackets and heavily insulated pants weren&#8217;t allowed; they don&#8217;t want you to be comfortable.</p> <p>When the temperatures dropped, we were forced to come up with makeshift ways to keep ourselves warm. The showers were kept scalding hot during both summer and winter. We hated to shower, but we would fill our empty water bottles up with the nearly boiling water and put the bottles between our blankets when it was freezing outside. We also would save the plastic bags we found when we cleaned up the jail yard and wrap our feet with them, tucking hot water bottles inside to keep our feet warm while we slept.</p> <p>Still, it was freezing, achingly cold. I was in so much pain that winter that now, when I&#8217;m cold, it reminds me of being there.</p> <p>Arpaio saved worse abuse for others. Those who were in full detention had to wear pink socks, underwear and flip-flops. They ate peanut butter and bread, and the only other meal they received was baloney and bread. They also had the option of &#8216;slob,&#8217; which was an unknown, disgusting substance that looked like some kind of thick stew and tasted like cardboard. (The poor people in the work furlough program who couldn&#8217;t pay for vending-machine food had no choice but to eat it.)</p> <p>This was Arpaio&#8217;s fascist and racist Hell, fatal for dozens upon dozens of brown-skinned inmates. &amp;#160;&#8220;Sheriff Joe&#8221; <a href="" type="internal">unabashedly called his murderous &#8220;tent-city&#8221; jails as &#8220;concentration camps.&#8221;</a> As NBC commentator and attorney <a href="" type="internal">Raul Reyes noted</a> last Saturday:</p> <p>What Arpaio did amounted to gross violations of human and civil rights&#8230;He denied medical attention to diabetics and people with HIV who were in his care. He had women working in chain gangs. He deliberately humiliated prisoners by making them wear pink underwear, keeping them in these tent cities, also parading them around in front of the news media for his own publicity purposes. He himself referred to these tent cities as a &#8216;concentration camp.&#8217; Those are his own words&#8230;And as bad as this all sounds, these are only the tip of the iceberg.</p> <p>In announcing Trump&#8217;s pardon of the Maricopa Monster, the White House said that Fascist Joe gave &#8220;years of admirable service to our nation.&#8221; The administration called him a &#8220;worthy candidate for a presidential pardon.&#8221; Orange Ass-Face described the jackbooted racist Arpaio &#8220;an American patriot&#8221; in a <a href="" type="internal">tweet later last Friday</a>. &#8220;He kept Arizona safe!&#8221; the president added.</p> <p>The nation&#8217;s many racist police-state operatives walked with a little more pep in their proto-fascistic steps after hearing that.</p> <p>President don&#8217;t generally pardon people until the end of their time in office.&amp;#160; Trump decided to pardon a murderous racist and fascist prior even to sentencing (might that be more obstruction of justice?) in just the eighth month of his malicious presidency.</p> <p>El Donito&#8217;s Ugly Calculation</p> <p>Herr Trump is plagued by the most consistently and epically low approval numbers (now at a <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/" type="external">pathetic 35% approval and a whopping 60% disapproval</a>) of any first-year U.S. president in the history of modern polling. The majority of the populace likely now sees him as unfit for the presidency.</p> <p>Trump has willfully alienated even many of the top Congressional Republicans who signed their name in the Black Book of the TrumpDevil in the hope that he would help pass their radically regressive and reactionary agenda.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the nation awaits a special federal prosecutor&#8217;s report on the Royal Brute&#8217;s real and/or alleged Russian ties &#8211; a report that could spark the beginning of impeachment proceedings.</p> <p>A former National Intelligence Director <a href="" type="internal">James Clapper</a> and a sitting top Republican U.S. Senator ( <a href="" type="internal">Bob Corker</a> of Tennessee) have publicly questioned whether Trump has the competence and stability required for his position &#8211; something that raises the specter of <a href="" type="internal">25th Amendment</a> removal.</p> <p>What could possibly be going on El Donito&#8217;s twisted brain? Certainly, one set of messages flickering around his malevolent neural pathways tells him that he can exploit or concoct some kind of national emergency/shock/crisis that will boost his popularity (remember the openly idiotic George W. Bush&#8217;s skyrocketing public approval numbers after September 11th) and/or allow him to put what&#8217;s left of American democracy on police-state ice.&amp;#160; In an authoritarian pinch, the Clockwork Orangutan likely calculates that he can count on muscle from the nation&#8217;s vast gendarme class, including <a href="" type="internal">431,600 prison guards</a>, <a href="" type="internal">766,000 police officers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces" type="external">1 million plus military enlistees</a>,&amp;#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_the_United_States" type="external">358,000 National Guardsmen</a>, &amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">1 million-plus private security guards</a>, not to mention its untold tens of thousands of private mercenaries, and &amp;#160; <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/armed-militia-groups-surging-across-nation/" type="external">500-plus militia groups</a></p> <p>Exit pollsters reported <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/https:/www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-support-among-those-uniform-matters-here-s-why-n717386" type="external">that 60 percent of Americans</a> with past military records backed NapoleDon BonaTrump in the 2016 election.&amp;#160; Just 34 percent of the nation&#8217;s veterans (92% of whom are male) voted for the <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;lying neoliberal warmonger&#8221;</a> Hillary <a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/my-turn-by-doug-henwood/" type="external">&#8220;My Turn&#8221;</a> Clinton.</p> <p>Military enlistees preferred Trump over Clinton by a nearly 3 to 1 margin in a <a href="" type="internal">Military Times poll</a> last fall.</p> <p>A Very Destructive Ideology</p> <p>Again, and again, the population is told that going into a two-[capitalist-] party ballot box for two minutes once every four years is a great and glorious exercise in popular self-rule. As Howard Zinn reflected on the &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">the election madness</a>&#8221; he saw &#8220;engulfing the entire society including the left&#8221; as fake-progressive Barack Obamania took hold in the spring of 2008: &#8220;the election frenzy&#8230;seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls.&#8221;</p> <p>Under the American religion of voting, Noam &amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Chomsky told Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson</a>&amp;#160;last year, &#8220;Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It&#8217;s a very destructive ideology&#8230; basically, a way of making people passive, submissive objects&#8230;[we] ought to teach kids that elections take place but that&#8217;s not politics.&#8221;</p> <p>What happens when the U.S. ruling-class let&#8217;s one of &#8220;the other guys [who] run the world&#8221; be a vicious and quasi-fascistic, arch-narcissistic thug atop the most powerful and deadly office on Earth? We the People are then compelled like never before to transcend the deadening definition of democratic political participation as a once-every-1460 days 2-minute vote for one of two terrible major party candidates and to figure out how to form a durable popular insurgency beneath and beyond the nation&#8217;s ever more absurd, populace-marginalizing, and time-staggered election spectacles.</p> <p>Along with his perceived backing from the nation&#8217;s giant police state and gendarme class, Trump is smart enough to sense that tens of millions of Americans have been turned <a href="" type="internal">like the proverbial slowly boiling frogs</a> into the empty shell of an ex-citizenry: &#8220;passive, submissive objects.&#8221;</p> <p>Herr Donald is a sadist.&amp;#160; He would relish an opportunity to beat up like no American tyrant before on the defenseless cripple that is &#8220;We the People&#8221; in today&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;corporate-managed democracy&#8221;</a> &#8211; a&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">simultaneously Huxlean and Orwellian</a> nightmare zone of <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9175.html" type="external">&#8220;inverted totalitarianism&#8221;</a> and an <a href="" type="internal">Armed Madhouse</a> to boot. &amp;#160;Think of Trump as a Great White Shark, a big stupid brute who is sufficiently sentient to smell the blood in the murky waters of what&#8217;s left of &#8220;really existing capitalist democracy&#8221; &#8211; what Chomsky darkly and rightly calls &#8220; <a href="http://www.alternet.org/visions/chomsky-us-poses-number-threats-future-humanity-our-youll-never-hear-about-it-our-free-press" type="external">RECD,</a> pronounced as &#8216;wrecked.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>Give</p> <p>Hurricane Harvey is yet another deadly reminder that Nature Bats Clean-Up and will not let homo sapiens off the hook for letting its capitalist &#8220;elite&#8221; drive global temperature to deadly extremes with excessive carbon emissions that are a direct consequence of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Nature-End-Capitalism-World/dp/1842778714" type="external">modern capitalism&#8217;s lethal addiction</a> to endless accumulation, commodification, and quantitative &#8220;growth.&#8221;&amp;#160; It is darkly suggestive that the Earth Mother has now targeted Houston, a leading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Houston" type="external">capital city of corporate and eco-cidal Big Carbon</a> situated in the vanguard petro-capitalist state of Texas.&amp;#160; But, of course, most of the Houstonians and Texans struggling to survive this catastrophe have never been consulted on the nation&#8217;s energy policy and deserve our support in this time of need.&amp;#160; We must demand that our &#8220;democratically elected&#8221; representatives provide essential federal assistance and reconstruction dollars and resist all efforts by corporate-capitalist America to use Harvey as an opportunity for more privatization and repression on the model of Katrina.&amp;#160; In the meantime, as we are stuck with inadequate public services in this noxious neoliberal New Gilded Age and Koch Brother era, it is essential for those who can afford it to contribute to <a href="" type="internal">voluntary associations engaged in humanitarian relief</a> in southeast Texas.</p> <p>Help Paul Street keep writing&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.paulstreet.org/subscribe/" type="external">here</a></p>

Herr Donald, Sheriff Joe, Hurricane Harvey, and the Fate of the Republic

https://counterpunch.org/2017/08/30/herr-donald-sheriff-joe-hurricane-harvey-and-the-fate-of-the-republic/

2017-08-30

4left

Photo by Caravan 4 Peace CC BY 20 Good Timing Let history record that the leading climate changedenier and ecoexterminist archauthoritarian petrocapitalist United States President Donald Trump threatened to shutdown the federal government as the capitalogenically cooked waters in the Gulf of Mexico swirled on their path to an epic tropical storm that would epically flood Houston and much of southeast Texas in a matter of days The president8217s moronic threat came at the peak of the hurricane season amp160It was made at a whitenationalist campaignstyle rally in Phoenix There Trump heaped praise on a former and recently federally convicted county sheriff who tortured and murdered a moderate Mexican village8217s worth of predominantly Latino jail inmates across a long reign of racist policestate terror in Arizona At this noxious assembly Trump strongly hinted that he would soon pardon the fascist sheriffamp160 The Racist Dog WhistlerinChief also doubled down on his sickening defense of the frenzied racists who oppose the tearing down of statues honoring 8220heroes8221 of the Southern Confederacy 18611865 which waged a war on Washington 8211 a war that killed 750000 Americans in order to defend the system of Black chattel slavery Meanwhile hightech storm troopers charged shooting rubber bullets and 8220pepper balls8221 at liberal and left protesters outside in the sweltering heat Trump8217s threat to collapse the federal government is presumably on hold in the wake of Hurricane Harvey which has white Texas Republican congressman demanding massive federal assistance for their stricken regionsamp160 Some of these Congressmen were against special federal assistance for the victims of Hurricane Sandy five years agoamp160 This was for a very simple and sociopathic reason that also giant and notso 8220natural disaster8221 an earlier attempt by Mother Nature to wake America up to the grave dangers posed by 8220 anthropogenic climate change8221 befell the liberal New York City area 8211 enemy territory in their world view Republicans are not unaware that the openly moronic George W Bush8217s glaringly hamfisted non response to Hurricane Katrina an earlier educational effort on Mother Nature8217s part was part of how even the dismal dollardrenched Democrats swept into federal 8220power8221 in 2006 and 2008 Why did Trump threaten a federal shutdown To scare Congress into funding the construction his idiotic criminally racist and unnecessary extension of the US border wall between Mexico and the US You8217d think His Royal Sociopathic Highness would lay off the threat with Houston and other Texas towns and cities underwater but you8217d be wrong Just yesterday I am writing on the morning of Tuesday August 29th the orangetinted beast doubled down on his Wallwarning even as news and images of the epic Texas deluge flooded the airwave and Internet The wicked racist AssholeinChief said he doubted that the Wall question would force a shutdown but he still wouldn8217t swear off the bizarre and chilling tactic 8220I hope that8217s not necessary If it8217s necessary we8217ll have to see8221 he vomited Ruling Class8230Hello Isn8217t it about time for the United States 8220intelligence community8221 to show the aberrant ruling class idiot Donald Trump the latest digitally enhanced version of the Zapruder film again and ask for a second time if he has any questions amp160The blustering Twitteraddicted dickhead in the White House is a demented megalomaniac and malignant narcissist who cannot be trusted with the remarkable powers of the US presidency Absurdly and chillingly enough he sees himself as a genetically superior uberbeing above normal bourgeois law constitution party and morality amp160He should be nowhere near the nation8217s nuclear codes and civil emergency command A recent Newsweek reflection on the Tyrant8217s widespread unpopularity reflects on developments in the two weeks leading up to Hurricane Harvey which Trump probably welcomes for the partial newscycle relief it grants to his unspeakable awfulness 8220There8217s the ongoing investigation into his ties to Russia the failed Republican plan to gut Obamacare his threats of nuclear war with North Koreaamp160and most recentlyamp160Trump8217s insistence on equating Nazi marchers in Virginia to the people counterprotesting theamp160event even after a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters killing one and injuring many moreamp160 8216I think there is blame on both sides8217amp160the president said to reporters 8216You had a group on one side that was bad You had a group on the other side that was also very violent Nobody wants to say that I8217ll say it right now82178221 A serious question what kind of selfrespecting national bourgeoisie and 8220power elite8221 permits this kind of behavior in the White House 8220Try to Impeach Him Just Try It8221 It is not clear that this Insane Clown President will accept removal through electoral legal or parliamentary means He is a strong candidate to find provoke andor concoct pretexts for declaring a national emergency requiring the interruption of normal civil liberties amp160He might well try to holdup the 2018 andor 2020 elections figuring that he could find support for such actions from a significant part of his white nationalist base A recent Washington Post poll shows that 56 percent of Republicans would back Trump8217s decision to suspend the 2020 elections if 8220necessary8221 to block alleged mythical immigrant vote fraud The Orange AssFace sends messages threatening violence to those who might contemplate using the US Constitution to annul his horrific knuckledragging presidencyamp160 One of Trump8217s good friends and political advisors Roger Stone recently told reporters that any Congresspersons who vote for Trump8217s impeachment will be 8220killed8221 by an outraged populace Stone is a longtime Trump confidant and former official in Richard Nixon8217s administrationamp160 He told the entertainment websiteamp160 TMZ that impeachment supported by an incredible 40 of Americans just eight months into Trump8217s reign proceedings would lead to an armed uprising among the Orange Beast8217s supporters 8220Try to impeach him just try it You will have a spasm of violence in this country an insurrection like you8217ve never seen The people will not stand for impeachment A politician that votes for it would be endangering their own life8221 Asked if he believed there would be 8220some sort of civil war8221 if Trump was impeached Stone replied 8220Yes that8217s what I think will happen Both sides are heavily armed8230 There would be violence on both sides8221 Who would the vanguard of the 8220outraged populace8221 be The neofascist militia sorts for whom Trump recently gave noxious cover and caninewhistle support in the wake of whitesupremacist rallying and violence in Charlottesville Virginia Imagine Trump BFF Stone8217s fantastic scenario playing out Would the nation8217s police forces intervene to stop Stone8217s threatened 8220insurrection like we8217ve never seen8221 That8217s not clear In a Police Magazine poll conducted on the eve of the election last year Donald Trump was the choice of 84 of working police officers surveyedamp160 Trump won wide support from police unions across the country with his racist 8220law and order8221 campaign The Fraternal Order of Police which represents more than 330000 law enforcement officersamp160 endorsed presidential candidate Trump who insanely called for a 8220national stopandfrisk law8221 to stop violence in the nation8217s unmentionably hyperimpoverished and badly oppressed policeterrorized and incarcerationravaged Black ghettoes Stone8217s absurd claim that liberals and leftists are 8220wellarmed8221 is another highplaced Republican dog whistle to the violent right within and beyond the police state Along with Trump8217s ridiculous claim that the small left group Antifa was just as responsible as the white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville it is an ominous green light for cops to crack down viciously on left and liberal protestors 8220Sheriff Joe8221 Trump8217s absurd pardon of the former longtime Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced just days after the Phoenix rally sends a dangerous message of encouragement to racist cops and border patrol agents across the country Arpaio was recently convicted by a federal judge in connection with his long record of illegally profiling and detaining Latinos For many years the diabolical ogre Arpaio headed a racist and fascistic police state that murdered hundreds of jail inmates The 8220great American Sheriff Joe8221 Trump8217s sickening words killed his mostly Latino victims through heat exhaustion dehydration miserable nutrition medical neglect labor exploitation isolation and induced suicide Behold to one Latino8217s recollection of a year he spent in Arpaio8217s infamous sweltering 8220tentcity8221 jail on a DUI charge I arrived at one of Arpaio8217s several 8216tent cities8217 outdoor jails where inmates shelter in army tents mostly exposed to the Arizona elements I was there on a work furlough program meaning that I was allowed to leave to work during the day Every day after work I would return to the jail and spend the night in the tents Each Sunday was spent entirely in the jail The rules of the tent city were strict arbitrary and brutally enforced There are no newspapers allowed Arpaio hated newspapers The only food allowed for those of us in the work furlough program was the food in the vending machines which was grossly overpriced During the sweltering summer the temperature could reach 115 or 120 degrees I was in the tents when we hit 120 It was impossible to stay cool in the oppressive heat Everyone would strip down to their underwear There was no cold water only water from vending machines and eventually the machines would run out People would faint some had heatstroke That summer ambulances came about three times One man died in his bed8221 But the winter was even worse During the winter there were no heaters Most jackets and heavily insulated pants weren8217t allowed they don8217t want you to be comfortable When the temperatures dropped we were forced to come up with makeshift ways to keep ourselves warm The showers were kept scalding hot during both summer and winter We hated to shower but we would fill our empty water bottles up with the nearly boiling water and put the bottles between our blankets when it was freezing outside We also would save the plastic bags we found when we cleaned up the jail yard and wrap our feet with them tucking hot water bottles inside to keep our feet warm while we slept Still it was freezing achingly cold I was in so much pain that winter that now when I8217m cold it reminds me of being there Arpaio saved worse abuse for others Those who were in full detention had to wear pink socks underwear and flipflops They ate peanut butter and bread and the only other meal they received was baloney and bread They also had the option of 8216slob8217 which was an unknown disgusting substance that looked like some kind of thick stew and tasted like cardboard The poor people in the work furlough program who couldn8217t pay for vendingmachine food had no choice but to eat it This was Arpaio8217s fascist and racist Hell fatal for dozens upon dozens of brownskinned inmates amp1608220Sheriff Joe8221 unabashedly called his murderous 8220tentcity8221 jails as 8220concentration camps8221 As NBC commentator and attorney Raul Reyes noted last Saturday What Arpaio did amounted to gross violations of human and civil rights8230He denied medical attention to diabetics and people with HIV who were in his care He had women working in chain gangs He deliberately humiliated prisoners by making them wear pink underwear keeping them in these tent cities also parading them around in front of the news media for his own publicity purposes He himself referred to these tent cities as a 8216concentration camp8217 Those are his own words8230And as bad as this all sounds these are only the tip of the iceberg In announcing Trump8217s pardon of the Maricopa Monster the White House said that Fascist Joe gave 8220years of admirable service to our nation8221 The administration called him a 8220worthy candidate for a presidential pardon8221 Orange AssFace described the jackbooted racist Arpaio 8220an American patriot8221 in a tweet later last Friday 8220He kept Arizona safe8221 the president added The nation8217s many racist policestate operatives walked with a little more pep in their protofascistic steps after hearing that President don8217t generally pardon people until the end of their time in officeamp160 Trump decided to pardon a murderous racist and fascist prior even to sentencing might that be more obstruction of justice in just the eighth month of his malicious presidency El Donito8217s Ugly Calculation Herr Trump is plagued by the most consistently and epically low approval numbers now at a pathetic 35 approval and a whopping 60 disapproval of any firstyear US president in the history of modern polling The majority of the populace likely now sees him as unfit for the presidency Trump has willfully alienated even many of the top Congressional Republicans who signed their name in the Black Book of the TrumpDevil in the hope that he would help pass their radically regressive and reactionary agenda Meanwhile the nation awaits a special federal prosecutor8217s report on the Royal Brute8217s real andor alleged Russian ties 8211 a report that could spark the beginning of impeachment proceedings A former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and a sitting top Republican US Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee have publicly questioned whether Trump has the competence and stability required for his position 8211 something that raises the specter of 25th Amendment removal What could possibly be going on El Donito8217s twisted brain Certainly one set of messages flickering around his malevolent neural pathways tells him that he can exploit or concoct some kind of national emergencyshockcrisis that will boost his popularity remember the openly idiotic George W Bush8217s skyrocketing public approval numbers after September 11th andor allow him to put what8217s left of American democracy on policestate iceamp160 In an authoritarian pinch the Clockwork Orangutan likely calculates that he can count on muscle from the nation8217s vast gendarme class including 431600 prison guards 766000 police officers 1 million plus military enlisteesamp160 358000 National Guardsmen amp160 1 millionplus private security guards not to mention its untold tens of thousands of private mercenaries and amp160 500plus militia groups Exit pollsters reported that 60 percent of Americans with past military records backed NapoleDon BonaTrump in the 2016 electionamp160 Just 34 percent of the nation8217s veterans 92 of whom are male voted for the 8220lying neoliberal warmonger8221 Hillary 8220My Turn8221 Clinton Military enlistees preferred Trump over Clinton by a nearly 3 to 1 margin in a Military Times poll last fall A Very Destructive Ideology Again and again the population is told that going into a twocapitalist party ballot box for two minutes once every four years is a great and glorious exercise in popular selfrule As Howard Zinn reflected on the 8220 the election madness8221 he saw 8220engulfing the entire society including the left8221 as fakeprogressive Barack Obamania took hold in the spring of 2008 8220the election frenzy8230seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls8221 Under the American religion of voting Noam amp160 Chomsky told Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacsonamp160last year 8220Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world It8217s a very destructive ideology8230 basically a way of making people passive submissive objects8230we ought to teach kids that elections take place but that8217s not politics8221 What happens when the US rulingclass let8217s one of 8220the other guys who run the world8221 be a vicious and quasifascistic archnarcissistic thug atop the most powerful and deadly office on Earth We the People are then compelled like never before to transcend the deadening definition of democratic political participation as a onceevery1460 days 2minute vote for one of two terrible major party candidates and to figure out how to form a durable popular insurgency beneath and beyond the nation8217s ever more absurd populacemarginalizing and timestaggered election spectacles Along with his perceived backing from the nation8217s giant police state and gendarme class Trump is smart enough to sense that tens of millions of Americans have been turned like the proverbial slowly boiling frogs into the empty shell of an excitizenry 8220passive submissive objects8221 Herr Donald is a sadistamp160 He would relish an opportunity to beat up like no American tyrant before on the defenseless cripple that is 8220We the People8221 in today8217s 8220corporatemanaged democracy8221 8211 aamp160 simultaneously Huxlean and Orwellian nightmare zone of 8220inverted totalitarianism8221 and an Armed Madhouse to boot amp160Think of Trump as a Great White Shark a big stupid brute who is sufficiently sentient to smell the blood in the murky waters of what8217s left of 8220really existing capitalist democracy8221 8211 what Chomsky darkly and rightly calls 8220 RECD pronounced as 8216wrecked82178221 Give Hurricane Harvey is yet another deadly reminder that Nature Bats CleanUp and will not let homo sapiens off the hook for letting its capitalist 8220elite8221 drive global temperature to deadly extremes with excessive carbon emissions that are a direct consequence of modern capitalism8217s lethal addiction to endless accumulation commodification and quantitative 8220growth8221amp160 It is darkly suggestive that the Earth Mother has now targeted Houston a leading capital city of corporate and ecocidal Big Carbon situated in the vanguard petrocapitalist state of Texasamp160 But of course most of the Houstonians and Texans struggling to survive this catastrophe have never been consulted on the nation8217s energy policy and deserve our support in this time of needamp160 We must demand that our 8220democratically elected8221 representatives provide essential federal assistance and reconstruction dollars and resist all efforts by corporatecapitalist America to use Harvey as an opportunity for more privatization and repression on the model of Katrinaamp160 In the meantime as we are stuck with inadequate public services in this noxious neoliberal New Gilded Age and Koch Brother era it is essential for those who can afford it to contribute to voluntary associations engaged in humanitarian relief in southeast Texas Help Paul Street keep writingamp160 here

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<p>* Austrian Power Grid operates 6,971-km network</p> <p>* Remarks confirm strong interest in infrastructure</p> <p>* Also scanning German market for opportunities (Adds comments from CEO, context)</p> <p>BERLIN, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Verbund, Austria&#8217;s largest energy group, has no plans to sell its high-voltage power grid, although it is seeing plenty of buying interest in the regulated infrastructure asset, its chief executive said.</p> <p>Power and gas networks are keenly sought after by pension funds and infrastructure investors, guaranteeing mid-single-digit investment returns in times of ultra-low interest rates.</p> <p>&#8220;(A sale) only makes sense if I can achieve higher margins with the proceeds in a different market,&#8221; Wolfgang Anzengruber told Reuters, adding that Verbund could in theory sell up to 49 percent of Austrian Power Grid AG.</p> <p>The grid operator says it runs a 6,971-kilometre network and generated 2016 sales of 620 million euros ($769.54 million).</p> <p>Overseas companies have already bought into Austria&#8217;s networks. Germany&#8217;s Allianz and Italian gas grid company Snam purchased 49 percent of Gas Connect Austria from OMV for 601 million euros in 2016.</p> <p>And other companies are expecting such businesses to perform well in future. Germany&#8217;s largest energy group E.ON said on Wednesday that it expects networks, the core of its business, to offset a loss of profit from nuclear.</p> <p>Verbund, whose shares are trading at their highest levels since September 2011, last week raised its 2017 core profit guidance thanks to an improvement in water supply and better results in its power grid unit.</p> <p>Anzengruber said water supply, which determines its hydroelectric power output, had also been good in the first few weeks of 2018, but added it was still too early to make predictions for the year as a whole. The group will publish its full-year results on March 14.</p> <p>The CEO also highlighted the growing relevance of flexibility products needed in the European power grid system mainly because Austria&#8217;s neighbour Germany failed to build up networks in time to keep pace with the expansion of renewable energy.</p> <p>They include measures to offset undersupply or excess load on the network as power cannot be stored in large volumes or over a long time. This is a challenge for a new era of volatile green power from variable wind and sunshine supplies.</p> <p>Anzengruber said Verbund was scanning the market for &#8220;reasonable&#8221; opportunities in hydro and onshore wind in Germany, but was under no pressure to buy. ($1 = 0.8057 euros) (Reporting by Christoph Steitz, Vera Eckert and Tom Kaeckenhoff; Editing by Maria Sheahan and Alexander Smith)</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday as strong Chinese factory activity boosted commodity markets and China&#8217;s own crude production fell, but fast-growing U.S. output tempered gains.</p> FILE PHOTO - A pump jack is seen at sunrise near Bakersfield, California October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo <p>China beat forecasts with a 7.2 percent year-on-year rise in industrial output in the first two months of 2018, while data showed Chinese crude output fell 1.9 percent.</p> <p>Brent crude LCOc1 rose 29 cents to $64.93 a barrel at 1156 GMT, climbing from an earlier low of $64.43, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 rose 46 cents to $61.17.</p> <p>ING commodities strategist Oliver Nugent said the Chinese industrial output was &#8220;reinforcing that bullish narrative&#8221; across the commodities market, including oil.</p> <p>China is the world&#8217;s largest importer of commodities.</p> <p>Chinese oil production in January and February slipped to about 3.77 million barrels per day (bpd), while the amount of crude processed by its refineries rose 7.3 percent to 93.4 million bpd, suggesting strong import demand.</p> <p>This offered modest support to the Brent price, which has fallen by about 1 percent so far this week on concerns that coordinated supply cuts by OPEC and its partners might not be enough to offset the relentless rise in U.S. crude production.</p> <p>U.S. oil production C-OUT-T-EIA is expected to top 11 million bpd later this year.</p> <p>Rising U.S. output, as well as seasonally low demand, mean U.S. crude inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels in the week to March 9 to 428 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute said on Tuesday.</p> <p>Seasonal demand patterns for crude and refined products mean the market may only be weeks away from a run of declines.</p> <p>&#8220;We are now only two to four weeks away from when weekly oil inventory data will start to draw again which should be supportive for oil prices,&#8221; SEB commodities strategist Bjarne Schieldrop said.</p> <p>Weekly U.S. crude production figures will be published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) later on Wednesday.</p> <p>Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Tom Hogue and Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - Prudential ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRU.L" type="external">PRU.L</a>) is to spin off its British and European business from its international operations, breaking up the 170-year-old insurer to refocus on faster-growing markets in the sector&#8217;s latest major shake-up.</p> FILE PHOTO: The logo of British life insurer Prudential is seen on their building, in London October 21, 2008. REUTERS/Stephen Hird /File Photo <p>British insurers have been changing tack to cut their exposure to capital-intensive products following the introduction of rigorous European solvency rules, while also seeking ways to deal with growing fee pressure.</p> <p>Prudential said it is splitting off savings and investment-focused M&amp;amp;G Prudential, which will be based in London, leaving Prudential plc focused on life insurance and asset management in the rapidly expanding markets of Asia and Africa as well as the United States, which is less tightly regulated than Europe.</p> <p>The demerger could herald further changes for the group, analysts said. Bernstein analysts pointed to the example of AXA&#8217;s AXAF.PO plans for an IPO in the United States, while RBC said the Asian and U.S. businesses could eventually be split, and that asset manager M&amp;amp;G could separate from UK insurance.</p> <p>Prudential shares were up 6 percent to 19.37 pounds at 1244 GMT on Wednesday, taking it to the top of the FTSE 100 index.</p> <p>The international business will also remain headquartered and listed in London, led by chief executive Mike Wells.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re looking to grow the piece that&#8217;s capital-light,&#8221; Wells said of M&amp;amp;G Prudential, adding that it would be &#8220;competing domestically&#8221; for people and capital.</p> <p>Prudential will also move the legal entity for its Hong Kong insurance subsidiaries to Asia from Britain, further reducing exposure to European capital rules.</p> <p>Prudential&#8217;s move follows Standard Life&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SLA.L" type="external">SLA.L</a>) merger with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017 which led to the sale of the bulk of its insurance business to Phoenix Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PHNX.L" type="external">PHNX.L</a>).</p> <p>And Anglo-South African financial services group Old Mutual ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OML.L" type="external">OML.L</a>) is in the midst of a four-way split.</p> FILE PHOTO: The company logo of Prudential is seen at its headquarters in Hong Kong March 9, 2010. REUTERS/Bobby Yip /File Photo <p>&#8220;Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,&#8221; Old Mutual chairman Patrick O&#8217;Sullivan said of the Prudential move.</p> <p>(Graphic: Britain's largest insurer Prudential outperforms rivals - <a href="http://reut.rs/2Hyvl7j" type="external">reut.rs/2Hyvl7j</a>)</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PRU.L" type="external">Prudential PLC</a> 1948.5 PRU.L London Stock Exchange +123.00 (+6.74%) PRU.L SLA.L PHNX.L OML.L PRUDENTIAL MOVE <p>RBC analysts value the new M&amp;amp;G Prudential business at 9.8 billion pounds ($13.7 billion) and Prudential said it expects both companies to feature on Britain&#8217;s FTSE 100 index.</p> <p>Wells told a media call that the spin-off was not connected with Brexit and Prudential is not planning to sell any of the British business. One banker told Reuters a bid for M&amp;amp;G Prudential was unlikely before the deal completes.</p> <p>Ben Ritchie, senior investment manager at top-15 shareholder Aberdeen Standard Investments, told Reuters that M&amp;amp;G Prudential was likely to have good cashflow and would be capable of paying a reasonably high and recurring dividend.</p> <p>M&amp;amp;G Prudential&#8217;s head John Foley will steer it through the demerger and investors will hold shares in both, although the timing of the spin-off has not yet been set.</p> <p>Prudential, which also disclosed the sale of a 12 billion-pound UK annuities book to Rothesay Life, is not planning to sell more of the around 20 billion pounds in annuities it still has, Foley said.</p> <p>The insurer posted a 6 percent rise in 2017 operating profit to 4.7 billion pounds, beating market expectations of 4.6 billion pounds.</p> <p>Reporting by Ben Martin, additional reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain, editing by Sinead Cruise and Alexander Smith</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street&#8217;s major indexes fell on Tuesday as the dismissal of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the possibility of additional U.S. import tariffs against China dragged down stocks across sectors.</p> <p>President Donald Trump fired Tillerson after a series of public rifts over issues including North Korea and Russia. Trump has appointed CIA Director Mike Pompeo, seen as loyal to the president, to replace Tillerson. To lead the CIA, the president has tapped Gina Haspel, the agency&#8217;s deputy director.</p> <p>&#8220;Any time there&#8217;s change, investors get nervous,&#8221; said John Carey, portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management in Boston. &#8220;They have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the implications might be.&#8221;</p> <p>Still, Carey said, at least the nominees to lead the State Department and the CIA are familiar names.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think either change will be troubling to the market as people reflect on the qualifications of the people stepping into the roles,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>U.S. stocks added to losses after Politico reported that a package of tariffs targeting $30 billion a year in Chinese imports could be rolled out as soon as next week.</p> <p>&#8220;This may be upsetting the apple cart,&#8221; said Bryan Novak, senior managing director at Astor Investment Management in Chicago. &#8220;When you look at tariffs, you don&#8217;t just look in a vacuum. You look at what follows on top of (them). It&#8217;s worth watching a bit more, to see the follow-through on our side and their side, but there could be some anxiety around it.&#8221;</p> <p>The markets had opened higher after data showed U.S. consumer price growth slowed in February, an indication that an anticipated pickup in inflation probably will be only gradual.</p> Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 171.58 points, or 0.68 percent, to 25,007.03, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 17.71 points, or 0.64 percent, to 2,765.31 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 77.31 points, or 1.02 percent, to 7,511.01.</p> <p>Tech .SPLRCT and financial .SPSY stocks were the biggest laggards among the S&amp;amp;P 500&#8217;s 11 major sectors.</p> <p>Shares of Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>), Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and Alphabet Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) fell between 1.5 percent and 2.4 percent.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">Dow Jones &amp;amp; Company Inc</a> 24940.89 .DJI Dow Jones Indexes -66.14 (-0.26%) .DJI .SPX .IXIC MSFT.O FB.O <p>&#8220;Technology rallied hard yesterday and last week, and there is profit-taking, but it&#8217;s just a short-term pressure,&#8221; said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O&#8217;Neil Securities in New York.</p> <p>Financial stocks were weighed as U.S. Treasury yields fell in response to the CPI data and Tillerson&#8217;s exit.</p> <p>Among individual stocks, General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) fell 4.4 percent after J.P. Morgan cut its price target on the stock to $11 from $14, saying the industrial conglomerate was not a &#8220;safety stock&#8221; in a volatile market.</p> <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.27-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.55-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 posted 43 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 180 new highs and 24 new lows.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.89 billion shares, compared to the 7.13 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, James Dalgleish and Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to just float oil giant Saudi Aramco locally as plans for an initial public offering (IPO) on an international exchange such as London or New York hang in the balance, sources close to the process said.</p> <p>The kingdom is counting on being awarded emerging market status by index complier MSCI in June to help Saudi Aramco attract Western funds, in addition to cornerstone investors from China, Japan and South Korea, the sources said.</p> <p>&#8220;I would guess it is about evens that there will be no international IPO,&#8221; said a high-level source familiar with the preparations, saying they were proving to be a disappointment.</p> <p>Saudi Arabia is planning to list up to 5 percent of Saudi Aramco in an initial public offering that could value it at up to $2 trillion and make it the world&#8217;s biggest oil company by market capitalization.</p> <p>Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said last week that Aramco was too important to risk listing in the United States because of litigation concerns, such as existing lawsuits against rival oil companies for their role in climate change.</p> <p>British officials have been told by Saudi counterparts London has a chance to secure the listing but only in 2019 at the earliest, according to the Financial Times, and sources told Reuters the kingdom was now focusing on a listing on the local exchange, or Tadawul.</p> <p>&#8220;The only thing we know today is that Tadawul will be the key listing location as our national exchange,&#8221; Falih told CNN.</p> <p>&#8220;We are waiting for the reforms to be in place and to join MSCI and Aramco listing in Tadawul will be catalytic for that capital market as we bring international capital to the kingdom,&#8221; he told the U.S. channel last week.</p> MSCI FLOWS <p>The initial public offering is the centerpiece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman&#8217;s plan to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil and it would also boost the kingdom&#8217;s budget which has been hit by low oil prices.</p> <p>Initially planned for 2018, preparations have been hit by rows over whether Aramco should list on major Western markets at all. An advisory council to the government asked the securities regulator this year to study the impact of a local listing amid concern a huge IPO could harm the market.</p> <p>MSCI has proposed giving its existing Saudi Arabia stock index emerging market status rather than standalone status following a series of market reforms by the kingdom such as raising caps on foreign ownership of companies.</p> <p>MSCI will give its decision in June and, if positive, the reclassification would be in two steps in May and August 2019.</p> <p>According to an update of the MSCI proposal published in February, Saudi Arabia would have a market capitalization of $124 billion in MSCI&#8217;s Emerging Markets Index, giving it an index weight of 2.3 percent, on a par with Thailand.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Saudi Aramco employee sits in the area of its stand at the Middle East Petrotech 2016, an exhibition and conference for the refining and petrochemical industries, in Manama, Bahrain, September 27, 2016. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo <p>Based on the assumption that another $100 billion would be added through an Aramco initial public offering, the kingdom&#8217;s weighting would rise to about 4 percent, which would be bigger than Russia&#8217;s weighting of 3.4 percent, for example.</p> <p>If MSCI grants Saudi Arabia emerging market status, it could be seen as a reason to push against an international listing, the sources close to the listing process said.</p> <p>Passive investment funds that replicate MSCI indexes would need to put 4 percent of their funds allocated to emerging market indexes into Saudi shares to match the country weighting.</p> <p>According to MSCI, $1.7 trillion of assets were benchmarked against MSCI emerging market indexes at the end of June last year, of which about a fifth was from passive investors.</p> <p>That could mean $13.6 billion could come into Saudi stocks from passive investors and if active investors also increased their Saudi exposure to the weighting following an Aramco IPO the total inflows could be $68 billion.</p> FILE PHOTO: Logo of Saudi Aramco is seen at the 20th Middle East Oil &amp;amp; Gas Show and Conference (MOES 2017) in Manama, Bahrain, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo <p>Data published in March by fund tracking firm EPFR Global Funds found evidence that investors have warmed to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. Looking at single country equity funds, Saudi Arabia attracted record setting flows as investors looked for alternatives to Russia and Turkey, the data showed.</p> LIQUIDITY FEARS <p>With the prospect of a listing in London and New York receding, sources familiar with the IPO told Reuters that Hong Kong was now emerging as an increasingly likely compromise because Riyadh wants to help Asian nations that are expected to become cornerstone investors.</p> <p>While London is preferred over New York, the requirement by both for greater disclosure of sensitive information on Aramco than the Hong Kong exchange is viewed as a drawback by some Saudi officials and advisers, the sources said.</p> <p>Saudi Aramco said on Monday it was still reviewing its options for the initial public offering.</p> <p>A final decision will be made by Mohammed bin Salman, who oversees the kingdom&#8217;s economic and oil policies.</p> <p>Sources have told Reuters it requires a bourse at least six month to prepare for a listing so a decision would need to be taken in April for the IPO to go ahead this year.</p> <p>Tadawul&#8217;s chief said in October that his exchange hoped to be the only venue. But with a total capitalization of about $475 billion, it could struggle to absorb Aramco without the participation of foreign funds.</p> <p>Sources close to the process, however, said even with emerging market status, Aramco would struggle to raise $100 billion locally. Bankers and analysts said an Aramco float risked drowning out other shares listed on Tadawul, given daily turnover now is about $1.6 billion.</p> <p>&#8220;They can do a nominal 2 to 2.5 percent listing,&#8221; one of the sources said.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Karin Strohecker; editing by David Clarke</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

UPDATE 1-Verbund CEO has no plan to sell power grid despite interest Oil gains as Chinese factory data boosts commodities Prudential to split in new world order for British insurers Wall Street slides on Tillerson exit, tariff worries Saudi Aramco international listing looks increasingly difficult: sources

https://reuters.com/article/verbund-ceo/update-1-verbund-ceo-has-no-plan-to-sell-power-grid-despite-interest-idUSL8N1PK2UP

2018-01-25

2least

Austrian Power Grid operates 6971km network Remarks confirm strong interest in infrastructure Also scanning German market for opportunities Adds comments from CEO context BERLIN Jan 25 Reuters Verbund Austria8217s largest energy group has no plans to sell its highvoltage power grid although it is seeing plenty of buying interest in the regulated infrastructure asset its chief executive said Power and gas networks are keenly sought after by pension funds and infrastructure investors guaranteeing midsingledigit investment returns in times of ultralow interest rates 8220A sale only makes sense if I can achieve higher margins with the proceeds in a different market8221 Wolfgang Anzengruber told Reuters adding that Verbund could in theory sell up to 49 percent of Austrian Power Grid AG The grid operator says it runs a 6971kilometre network and generated 2016 sales of 620 million euros 76954 million Overseas companies have already bought into Austria8217s networks Germany8217s Allianz and Italian gas grid company Snam purchased 49 percent of Gas Connect Austria from OMV for 601 million euros in 2016 And other companies are expecting such businesses to perform well in future Germany8217s largest energy group EON said on Wednesday that it expects networks the core of its business to offset a loss of profit from nuclear Verbund whose shares are trading at their highest levels since September 2011 last week raised its 2017 core profit guidance thanks to an improvement in water supply and better results in its power grid unit Anzengruber said water supply which determines its hydroelectric power output had also been good in the first few weeks of 2018 but added it was still too early to make predictions for the year as a whole The group will publish its fullyear results on March 14 The CEO also highlighted the growing relevance of flexibility products needed in the European power grid system mainly because Austria8217s neighbour Germany failed to build up networks in time to keep pace with the expansion of renewable energy They include measures to offset undersupply or excess load on the network as power cannot be stored in large volumes or over a long time This is a challenge for a new era of volatile green power from variable wind and sunshine supplies Anzengruber said Verbund was scanning the market for 8220reasonable8221 opportunities in hydro and onshore wind in Germany but was under no pressure to buy 1 08057 euros Reporting by Christoph Steitz Vera Eckert and Tom Kaeckenhoff Editing by Maria Sheahan and Alexander Smith Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Oil prices rose on Wednesday as strong Chinese factory activity boosted commodity markets and China8217s own crude production fell but fastgrowing US output tempered gains FILE PHOTO A pump jack is seen at sunrise near Bakersfield California October 14 2014 REUTERSLucy NicholsonFile Photo China beat forecasts with a 72 percent yearonyear rise in industrial output in the first two months of 2018 while data showed Chinese crude output fell 19 percent Brent crude LCOc1 rose 29 cents to 6493 a barrel at 1156 GMT climbing from an earlier low of 6443 while US West Texas Intermediate WTI futures CLc1 rose 46 cents to 6117 ING commodities strategist Oliver Nugent said the Chinese industrial output was 8220reinforcing that bullish narrative8221 across the commodities market including oil China is the world8217s largest importer of commodities Chinese oil production in January and February slipped to about 377 million barrels per day bpd while the amount of crude processed by its refineries rose 73 percent to 934 million bpd suggesting strong import demand This offered modest support to the Brent price which has fallen by about 1 percent so far this week on concerns that coordinated supply cuts by OPEC and its partners might not be enough to offset the relentless rise in US crude production US oil production COUTTEIA is expected to top 11 million bpd later this year Rising US output as well as seasonally low demand mean US crude inventories rose by 12 million barrels in the week to March 9 to 428 million barrels the American Petroleum Institute said on Tuesday Seasonal demand patterns for crude and refined products mean the market may only be weeks away from a run of declines 8220We are now only two to four weeks away from when weekly oil inventory data will start to draw again which should be supportive for oil prices8221 SEB commodities strategist Bjarne Schieldrop said Weekly US crude production figures will be published by the Energy Information Administration EIA later on Wednesday Reporting by Henning Gloystein Editing by Tom Hogue and Susan Fenton Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters Prudential PRUL is to spin off its British and European business from its international operations breaking up the 170yearold insurer to refocus on fastergrowing markets in the sector8217s latest major shakeup FILE PHOTO The logo of British life insurer Prudential is seen on their building in London October 21 2008 REUTERSStephen Hird File Photo British insurers have been changing tack to cut their exposure to capitalintensive products following the introduction of rigorous European solvency rules while also seeking ways to deal with growing fee pressure Prudential said it is splitting off savings and investmentfocused MampampG Prudential which will be based in London leaving Prudential plc focused on life insurance and asset management in the rapidly expanding markets of Asia and Africa as well as the United States which is less tightly regulated than Europe The demerger could herald further changes for the group analysts said Bernstein analysts pointed to the example of AXA8217s AXAFPO plans for an IPO in the United States while RBC said the Asian and US businesses could eventually be split and that asset manager MampampG could separate from UK insurance Prudential shares were up 6 percent to 1937 pounds at 1244 GMT on Wednesday taking it to the top of the FTSE 100 index The international business will also remain headquartered and listed in London led by chief executive Mike Wells 8220We8217re looking to grow the piece that8217s capitallight8221 Wells said of MampampG Prudential adding that it would be 8220competing domestically8221 for people and capital Prudential will also move the legal entity for its Hong Kong insurance subsidiaries to Asia from Britain further reducing exposure to European capital rules Prudential8217s move follows Standard Life8217s SLAL merger with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017 which led to the sale of the bulk of its insurance business to Phoenix Group PHNXL And AngloSouth African financial services group Old Mutual OMLL is in the midst of a fourway split FILE PHOTO The company logo of Prudential is seen at its headquarters in Hong Kong March 9 2010 REUTERSBobby Yip File Photo 8220Imitation is the greatest form of flattery8221 Old Mutual chairman Patrick O8217Sullivan said of the Prudential move Graphic Britains largest insurer Prudential outperforms rivals reutrs2Hyvl7j Prudential PLC 19485 PRUL London Stock Exchange 12300 674 PRUL SLAL PHNXL OMLL PRUDENTIAL MOVE RBC analysts value the new MampampG Prudential business at 98 billion pounds 137 billion and Prudential said it expects both companies to feature on Britain8217s FTSE 100 index Wells told a media call that the spinoff was not connected with Brexit and Prudential is not planning to sell any of the British business One banker told Reuters a bid for MampampG Prudential was unlikely before the deal completes Ben Ritchie senior investment manager at top15 shareholder Aberdeen Standard Investments told Reuters that MampampG Prudential was likely to have good cashflow and would be capable of paying a reasonably high and recurring dividend MampampG Prudential8217s head John Foley will steer it through the demerger and investors will hold shares in both although the timing of the spinoff has not yet been set Prudential which also disclosed the sale of a 12 billionpound UK annuities book to Rothesay Life is not planning to sell more of the around 20 billion pounds in annuities it still has Foley said The insurer posted a 6 percent rise in 2017 operating profit to 47 billion pounds beating market expectations of 46 billion pounds Reporting by Ben Martin additional reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain editing by Sinead Cruise and Alexander Smith Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street8217s major indexes fell on Tuesday as the dismissal of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the possibility of additional US import tariffs against China dragged down stocks across sectors President Donald Trump fired Tillerson after a series of public rifts over issues including North Korea and Russia Trump has appointed CIA Director Mike Pompeo seen as loyal to the president to replace Tillerson To lead the CIA the president has tapped Gina Haspel the agency8217s deputy director 8220Any time there8217s change investors get nervous8221 said John Carey portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management in Boston 8220They have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the implications might be8221 Still Carey said at least the nominees to lead the State Department and the CIA are familiar names 8220I don8217t think either change will be troubling to the market as people reflect on the qualifications of the people stepping into the roles8221 he said US stocks added to losses after Politico reported that a package of tariffs targeting 30 billion a year in Chinese imports could be rolled out as soon as next week 8220This may be upsetting the apple cart8221 said Bryan Novak senior managing director at Astor Investment Management in Chicago 8220When you look at tariffs you don8217t just look in a vacuum You look at what follows on top of them It8217s worth watching a bit more to see the followthrough on our side and their side but there could be some anxiety around it8221 The markets had opened higher after data showed US consumer price growth slowed in February an indication that an anticipated pickup in inflation probably will be only gradual Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in Manhattan New York City US March 2 2018 REUTERSAndrew Kelly The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 17158 points or 068 percent to 2500703 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 1771 points or 064 percent to 276531 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 7731 points or 102 percent to 751101 Tech SPLRCT and financial SPSY stocks were the biggest laggards among the SampampP 5008217s 11 major sectors Shares of Microsoft Corp MSFTO Facebook Inc FBO and Alphabet Inc GOOGLO fell between 15 percent and 24 percent Dow Jones ampamp Company Inc 2494089 DJI Dow Jones Indexes 6614 026 DJI SPX IXIC MSFTO FBO 8220Technology rallied hard yesterday and last week and there is profittaking but it8217s just a shortterm pressure8221 said Ken Polcari director of the NYSE floor division at O8217Neil Securities in New York Financial stocks were weighed as US Treasury yields fell in response to the CPI data and Tillerson8217s exit Among individual stocks General Electric Co GEN fell 44 percent after JP Morgan cut its price target on the stock to 11 from 14 saying the industrial conglomerate was not a 8220safety stock8221 in a volatile market Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 127to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 155to1 ratio favored decliners The SampampP 500 posted 43 new 52week highs and no new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 180 new highs and 24 new lows Volume on US exchanges was 689 billion shares compared to the 713 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Arun Koyyur James Dalgleish and Susan Thomas Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles DUBAILONDON Reuters Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to just float oil giant Saudi Aramco locally as plans for an initial public offering IPO on an international exchange such as London or New York hang in the balance sources close to the process said The kingdom is counting on being awarded emerging market status by index complier MSCI in June to help Saudi Aramco attract Western funds in addition to cornerstone investors from China Japan and South Korea the sources said 8220I would guess it is about evens that there will be no international IPO8221 said a highlevel source familiar with the preparations saying they were proving to be a disappointment Saudi Arabia is planning to list up to 5 percent of Saudi Aramco in an initial public offering that could value it at up to 2 trillion and make it the world8217s biggest oil company by market capitalization Saudi Energy Minister Khalid alFalih said last week that Aramco was too important to risk listing in the United States because of litigation concerns such as existing lawsuits against rival oil companies for their role in climate change British officials have been told by Saudi counterparts London has a chance to secure the listing but only in 2019 at the earliest according to the Financial Times and sources told Reuters the kingdom was now focusing on a listing on the local exchange or Tadawul 8220The only thing we know today is that Tadawul will be the key listing location as our national exchange8221 Falih told CNN 8220We are waiting for the reforms to be in place and to join MSCI and Aramco listing in Tadawul will be catalytic for that capital market as we bring international capital to the kingdom8221 he told the US channel last week MSCI FLOWS The initial public offering is the centerpiece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman8217s plan to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil and it would also boost the kingdom8217s budget which has been hit by low oil prices Initially planned for 2018 preparations have been hit by rows over whether Aramco should list on major Western markets at all An advisory council to the government asked the securities regulator this year to study the impact of a local listing amid concern a huge IPO could harm the market MSCI has proposed giving its existing Saudi Arabia stock index emerging market status rather than standalone status following a series of market reforms by the kingdom such as raising caps on foreign ownership of companies MSCI will give its decision in June and if positive the reclassification would be in two steps in May and August 2019 According to an update of the MSCI proposal published in February Saudi Arabia would have a market capitalization of 124 billion in MSCI8217s Emerging Markets Index giving it an index weight of 23 percent on a par with Thailand FILE PHOTO A Saudi Aramco employee sits in the area of its stand at the Middle East Petrotech 2016 an exhibition and conference for the refining and petrochemical industries in Manama Bahrain September 27 2016 REUTERSHamad I MohammedFile Photo Based on the assumption that another 100 billion would be added through an Aramco initial public offering the kingdom8217s weighting would rise to about 4 percent which would be bigger than Russia8217s weighting of 34 percent for example If MSCI grants Saudi Arabia emerging market status it could be seen as a reason to push against an international listing the sources close to the listing process said Passive investment funds that replicate MSCI indexes would need to put 4 percent of their funds allocated to emerging market indexes into Saudi shares to match the country weighting According to MSCI 17 trillion of assets were benchmarked against MSCI emerging market indexes at the end of June last year of which about a fifth was from passive investors That could mean 136 billion could come into Saudi stocks from passive investors and if active investors also increased their Saudi exposure to the weighting following an Aramco IPO the total inflows could be 68 billion FILE PHOTO Logo of Saudi Aramco is seen at the 20th Middle East Oil ampamp Gas Show and Conference MOES 2017 in Manama Bahrain March 7 2017 REUTERSHamad I MohammedFile Photo Data published in March by fund tracking firm EPFR Global Funds found evidence that investors have warmed to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks Looking at single country equity funds Saudi Arabia attracted record setting flows as investors looked for alternatives to Russia and Turkey the data showed LIQUIDITY FEARS With the prospect of a listing in London and New York receding sources familiar with the IPO told Reuters that Hong Kong was now emerging as an increasingly likely compromise because Riyadh wants to help Asian nations that are expected to become cornerstone investors While London is preferred over New York the requirement by both for greater disclosure of sensitive information on Aramco than the Hong Kong exchange is viewed as a drawback by some Saudi officials and advisers the sources said Saudi Aramco said on Monday it was still reviewing its options for the initial public offering A final decision will be made by Mohammed bin Salman who oversees the kingdom8217s economic and oil policies Sources have told Reuters it requires a bourse at least six month to prepare for a listing so a decision would need to be taken in April for the IPO to go ahead this year Tadawul8217s chief said in October that his exchange hoped to be the only venue But with a total capitalization of about 475 billion it could struggle to absorb Aramco without the participation of foreign funds Sources close to the process however said even with emerging market status Aramco would struggle to raise 100 billion locally Bankers and analysts said an Aramco float risked drowning out other shares listed on Tadawul given daily turnover now is about 16 billion 8220They can do a nominal 2 to 25 percent listing8221 one of the sources said Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Karin Strohecker editing by David Clarke Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>(Adds detail, background and quote)</p> <p>By Libby George</p> <p>LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - European trading house Vitol has reached a $530 million deal with Nigeria&#8217;s Shoreline to finance an oilfield in exchange for access to some of the 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil it produces, the Nigerian company said on Thursday.</p> <p>Vitol has done other pre-financing deals for preferential access to oil and refined products in Kazakhstan, Iran and elsewhere.</p> <p>The agreement with Shoreline, finalised on Thursday, will provide the company with cash to refinance existing debt and further develop OML 30 in Nigeria&#8217;s oil-rich Delta region.</p> <p>The field currently produces 50,000 bpd and has an estimated 1 billion barrels of oil reserves. Shoreline has a 45 percent interest in the field.</p> <p>Shoreline chairman Kola Karim said the &#8220;transformational&#8221; deal would enable the company to step up gross production to as much as 100,000 bpd over the next year.</p> <p>Vitol declined to comment on the deal.</p> <p>The financing was arranged with support from Vitol, as well as Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, Union Bank, FCMB and Farallon Capital Management.</p> <p>Nigeria&#8217;s state oil company NNPC is also looking to arrange prepayment deals worth $3.5-$5 billion with commodity traders to fund upstream oil and projects, and has also said it will look to the private sector to revamp its ailing refineries and oil infrastructure. (Additional reporting by Julia Payne; editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman)</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) said on Friday it took a $4.24 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share, figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards.</p> FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo <p>The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the after-tax, non-cash impact would be about $4.2 billion, plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share.</p> <p>The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard, and those will be reflected when GE reports first-quarter results on April 20.</p> <p>The value of GE&#8217;s contract assets are being written down, but that does not change the value of the long-term contracts GE has, nor does it affect GE&#8217;s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018, GE said.</p> <p>The adjustments appear within expectations, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said. &#8220;Now the focus moves to next Friday&#8217;s earnings.&#8221;</p> <p>The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises, including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter, analysts said.</p> <p>GE shares were down 1 percent at $13.35 in aftermarket trading after rising 2.4 percent on Friday.</p> <p>The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from long-term contracts, and is designed to make a company&#8217;s cash flow more closely match its income, accounting experts and analysts said.</p> <p>The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly. The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration, analysts said.</p> <p>Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts, but the process can lead to over- or under-estimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet, experts say.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N <p>GE&#8217;s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to $28.8 billion in 2017, from $16.9 billion in 2014, most of it in its power and aviation units. The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers, which creates the gap between profit and cash flow, according to GE&#8217;s regulatory filings.</p> <p>GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions, cash flow and taxes on Friday.</p> <p>GE&#8217;s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between $1.00 and $1.07 a share.</p> <p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE&#8217;s accounting for contract assets, raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation.</p> <p>GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts.</p> <p>GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings, a more exacting standard under the new rules, because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years.</p> <p>Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial stocks led a drop on Wall Street on Friday as results from big banks failed to enthuse and fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P banks index fell 2.6 percent and the broader S&amp;amp;P financial index lost 1.6 percent, the most among the 11 major S&amp;amp;P sectors.</p> <p>Shares of JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, dropped 2.7 percent after the bank&#8217;s quarterly profit fell slightly short of expectations. JPMorgan shares were the biggest weight on the S&amp;amp;P 500.</p> <p>Wells Fargo sank 3.4 percent after the bank said it may have to pay a penalty of $1 billion to resolve investigations, while Citigroup dropped 1.6 percent despite beating profit estimates.</p> <p>Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares, said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette &amp;amp; Woods in New York.</p> <p>&#8220;If you didn&#8217;t own financials going into the quarter, there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them,&#8221; Grant said.</p> <p>U.S. stocks extended losses on Friday after the State Department said that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma.</p> <p>The renewed possibility of a strike in Syria &#8220;is enough to cause heartburn for the market,&#8221; said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas. &#8220;There&#8217;s a ton of uncertainty right now so investors don&#8217;t want to go into the weekend particularly long.&#8221;</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 122.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,360.14, the S&amp;amp;P 500 lost 7.69 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,656.3 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 33.60 points, or 0.47 percent, to 7,106.65.</p> <p>Still, for the week, the S&amp;amp;P 500 rose 1.99 percent, the Dow gained 1.79 percent, and the Nasdaq added 2.77 percent.</p> <p>Friday&#8217;s bank results kicked off earnings season, with Thomson Reuters data predicting profits at S&amp;amp;P 500 companies increased by 18.6 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, their biggest rise in seven years.</p> <p>While the U.S. economy is performing well, geopolitical issues are weighing on stock markets this year.</p> <p>Senior Russian lawmakers said on Friday that the lower house of parliament would consider draft legislation giving the Kremlin powers to ban or restrict a list of U.S. imports, reacting to new U.S. sanctions on Russian tycoons and officials.</p> <p>Boeing fell 2.4 percent after a Russian lawmaker said the country may stop supplying titanium to the company.</p> <p>Issues with engines for Boeing&#8217;s 787 Dreamliner planes also weighed on the company&#8217;s shares.</p> <p>The top gainer among S&amp;amp;P sectors was energy, up 1.1 percent as oil prices rose.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo <p>Tesla rose 2.1 percent after founder Elon Musk said the electric car maker would be profitable in the third and fourth quarters and would not need to raise any money this year.</p> <p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.28-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.64-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 5.78 billion shares, compared to the 7.22 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Sin&#233;ad Carew in New York; Editing by Patrick Graham and Chizu Nomiyama</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices extended recent gains and a gauge of global stocks eased on Friday as concern over a broader conflict in Syria left investors nervous, while U.S. bank shares led Wall Street lower.</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>The State Department said on Friday that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma.</p> <p>The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East.</p> <p>Oil prices added to recent gains that drove them to highs not seen since late 2014 and posted their biggest weekly gain since July.</p> <p>&#8220;The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more, as we get closer to the moment of the strikes, if there are any,&#8221; said John Kilduff, partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management. He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with powerful oil producers.</p> <p>On Wall Street, fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors, while financial stocks led the day&#8217;s declines.</p> <p>Shares of JPMorgan Chase ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) were down 2.7 percent after its earnings missed estimates, while Citigroup ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) dropped 1.6 percent despite beating profit estimates. An S&amp;amp;P 500 index of bank stocks .SPXBK fell 2.6 percent.</p> <p>Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares, said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette &amp;amp; Woods in New York. &#8220;If you didn&#8217;t own financials going into the quarter, there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them,&#8221; Grant said.</p> <p>The banks&#8217; results kicked off the U.S. earnings reporting period. Tax cuts are expected to help corporate America post its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years. Earnings at S&amp;amp;P 500 companies are estimated to grow by 18.4 percent from a year earlier.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 122.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,360.14, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 7.69 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,656.3 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 33.60 points, or 0.47 percent, to 7,106.65.</p> <p>For the week, the S&amp;amp;P 500 was up 2 percent, the Dow rose 1.8 percent and Nasdaq gained 2.8 percent.</p> <p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">.FTEU3</a> rose 0.10 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 0.15 percent. The MSCI index ended the week with its strongest performance in five.</p> <p>In the oil market, U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 32 cents to settle at $67.39 a barrel, while Brent crude LCOcv1 rose 56 cents to $72.58.</p> <p>The dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders waited for more clarity on a possible Western military intervention in Syria.</p> <p>The dollar index .DXY, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was 0.03 percent higher at 89.78.</p> <p>The Japanese yen weakened 0.01 percent versus the greenback at 107.36 per dollar.</p> <p>Aluminum hit a six-year high on Friday and posted its biggest weekly gain since the current contract was launched after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia&#8217;s UC Rusal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0486.HK" type="external">0486.HK</a>), the world&#8217;s second-biggest producer.</p> <p>London Metal Exchange aluminum CMAL3 hit its highest since March 2012 at $2,340 a ton before retreating to close at $2,285, down 1.7 percent.</p> <p>Spot gold XAU= added 0.7 percent to $1,345.01 an ounce. U.S. gold futures GCcv1 gained 0.50 percent to $1,348.60 an ounce.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co</a> 110.3 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange -3.07 (-2.71%) JPM.N C.N .DJI .SPX .IXIC <p>In the bond market, the U.S. Treasury yield curve hovered at its lowest level in more than decade as short-dated yields have risen more than longer-dated ones this week on expectations of further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.</p> <p>Graphic: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade</p> <p>The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) stepped into the currency market and bought another HK$3.368 billion ($429.08 million) in Hong Kong dollars late in the U.S. session on Friday, as the local currency hit the weaker end of its trading range.</p> <p>Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR last rose 3/32 in price to yield 2.8248 percent, from 2.834 percent late on Thursday.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: World stocks set for best week in a month - <a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external">reut.rs/2IQUDhs</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external" /> <p>(GRAPHIC: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade - <a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external">reut.rs/2CkkWKx</a>)</p> <a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external" /> <p>Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Richard Leong, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Sinead Carew and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York, Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) will be profitable in the third and fourth quarters of this year and will not have to raise any money from investors, billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday, driving shares in the electric carmaker higher.</p> FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk, founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla, speaks at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein <p>Tesla has already sought this month to play down widespread Wall Street speculation that it would need to return to capital markets this year to raise more funds for the money-losing company as it ramps up production of the Model 3 sedan seen as crucial to its long-term profitability.</p> <p>The Silicon Valley car maker, which has consistently fallen short of promised production targets and is fighting bad publicity over a fatal crash of a car using its Autopilot system, said 10 days ago it would have positive cash flow from the third quarter.</p> <p>Musk went further on Friday in a tweeted response to a story in The Economist which cited estimates Tesla would need $2.5 billion to $3 billion this year in additional funding.</p> <p>&#8220;The Economist used to be boring, but smart with a wicked dry wit. Now it&#8217;s just boring (sigh). Tesla will be profitable &amp;amp; cash flow+ in Q3 &amp;amp; Q4, so obv no need to raise money,&#8221; Musk wrote.</p> <p>Tesla shares, which have gained nearly 10 percent since disclosing the Model 3 production numbers on April 3, were up 1.8 percent in afternoon trading on Wall Street.</p> <p>Musk&#8217;s claim about profit and cash flow hinges on a rapid rise in production of the Model 3 sedan, Tesla&#8217;s latest vehicle to have experienced production delays. That has postponed revenue from reaching Tesla&#8217;s bottom line from cars being delivered to customers.</p> <p>An unprecedented level of robots used in the Model 3&#8217;s final assembly, in a break with automotive manufacturing norms, has added complexity and delays, which Musk acknowledged on Friday.</p> <p>&#8220;Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake,&#8221; Musk tweeted. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.&#8221;</p> <p>Thomson Reuters consensus of analyst estimates predicts Tesla&#8217;s free cash flow to be negative well into 2019, thanks in part to heavy investments. Only one of 19 analysts covering the stock see positive adjusted earnings per share in the third quarter, with that number growing to four for the fourth quarter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo <p>Wall Street brokerage Jefferies, which provided the funding estimate cited by The Economist, said in a note last week it expects refinancing risk to remain high for Tesla until it can consistently produce 10,000 Model 3s a week.</p> <p>The company again missed its own 2,500 target for weekly production at the end of the first quarter, and analysts and fund managers doubt Tesla&#8217;s ability to keep production growing to a promised 5,000 Model 3s per week in three months time.</p> <p>Musk in July said Tesla was going through &#8220;manufacturing hell&#8221; in ramping up production of the Model 3.</p> <p>He told &#8220;CBS News&#8221; in an interview that aired Friday the company &#8220;got complacent&#8221; and &#8220;put too much new technology into the Model 3 all at once.&#8221; Part of the interview took place in a Tesla Model 3 Musk was driving with Autopilot activated at times.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">Tesla Inc</a> 300.34 TSLA.O Nasdaq +6.26 (+2.13%) TSLA.O <p>Musk told CBS Tesla is currently producing 2,000 Model 3 cars a week.</p> <p>Last month, Moody&#8217;s Investors Service downgraded Tesla&#8217;s credit rating to B3 from B2, reflecting &#8220;the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company&#8217;s Model 3.&#8221;</p> <p>Moody&#8217;s added that its negative outlook for Tesla &#8220;reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.&#8221;</p> <p>On Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board said that after a series of public disclosures by Tesla it had taken the unusual step of revoking Tesla&#8217;s status as a formal party to its investigation of a March 23 crash in California that killed a driver who was using Autopilot. The NTSB is also investigating two other Tesla crashes.</p> <p>Tesla lashed out at the NTSB and said it planned to complain to Congress.</p> <p>Asked by CBS if there was a defect with Autopilot, Musk responded: &#8220;The system worked as described, which is that it is a hands-on system. It is not a self-driving system.&#8221;</p> <p>At one point during the interview, Musk did not have his hands on the wheel and the car beeped at him to retake the wheel.</p> <p>Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Dan Burns and Alexandria Sage; editing by Phil Berlowitz</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

UPDATE 1-Vitol agrees $530 mln oilfield deal with Nigeria's Shoreline GE books $4.2 billion charge, restates earnings as expected Wall Street falls as bank stocks, Syria conflict weigh Stocks dip, oil gains as Syria fears go on; U.S. bank shares fall Musk insists Tesla does not need more capital, predicts profit soon

https://reuters.com/article/nigeria-oil/update-1-vitol-agrees-530-mln-oilfield-deal-with-nigerias-shoreline-idUSL8N1PD365

2018-01-18

2least

Adds detail background and quote By Libby George LONDON Jan 18 Reuters European trading house Vitol has reached a 530 million deal with Nigeria8217s Shoreline to finance an oilfield in exchange for access to some of the 50000 barrels per day bpd of oil it produces the Nigerian company said on Thursday Vitol has done other prefinancing deals for preferential access to oil and refined products in Kazakhstan Iran and elsewhere The agreement with Shoreline finalised on Thursday will provide the company with cash to refinance existing debt and further develop OML 30 in Nigeria8217s oilrich Delta region The field currently produces 50000 bpd and has an estimated 1 billion barrels of oil reserves Shoreline has a 45 percent interest in the field Shoreline chairman Kola Karim said the 8220transformational8221 deal would enable the company to step up gross production to as much as 100000 bpd over the next year Vitol declined to comment on the deal The financing was arranged with support from Vitol as well as Ecobank Fidelity Bank Union Bank FCMB and Farallon Capital Management Nigeria8217s state oil company NNPC is also looking to arrange prepayment deals worth 355 billion with commodity traders to fund upstream oil and projects and has also said it will look to the private sector to revamp its ailing refineries and oil infrastructure Additional reporting by Julia Payne editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters General Electric Co GEN said on Friday it took a 424 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards FILE PHOTO The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in MontoirdeBretagne near SaintNazaire western France November 21 2016 REUTERSStephane MaheFile Photo The maker of power plants jet engines medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the aftertax noncash impact would be about 42 billion plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard and those will be reflected when GE reports firstquarter results on April 20 The value of GE8217s contract assets are being written down but that does not change the value of the longterm contracts GE has nor does it affect GE8217s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018 GE said The adjustments appear within expectations Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said 8220Now the focus moves to next Friday8217s earnings8221 The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a 62 billion charge in the fourth quarter analysts said GE shares were down 1 percent at 1335 in aftermarket trading after rising 24 percent on Friday The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from longterm contracts and is designed to make a company8217s cash flow more closely match its income accounting experts and analysts said The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration analysts said Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts but the process can lead to over or underestimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet experts say General Electric Co 135 GEN New York Stock Exchange 032 243 GEN GE8217s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to 288 billion in 2017 from 169 billion in 2014 most of it in its power and aviation units The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers which creates the gap between profit and cash flow according to GE8217s regulatory filings GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions cash flow and taxes on Friday GE8217s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between 100 and 107 a share The US Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE8217s accounting for contract assets raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings a more exacting standard under the new rules because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years Reporting by Alwyn Scott Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Financial stocks led a drop on Wall Street on Friday as results from big banks failed to enthuse and fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors The SampampP banks index fell 26 percent and the broader SampampP financial index lost 16 percent the most among the 11 major SampampP sectors Shares of JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co the biggest US bank by assets dropped 27 percent after the bank8217s quarterly profit fell slightly short of expectations JPMorgan shares were the biggest weight on the SampampP 500 Wells Fargo sank 34 percent after the bank said it may have to pay a penalty of 1 billion to resolve investigations while Citigroup dropped 16 percent despite beating profit estimates Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares said RJ Grant head of trading at Keefe Bruyette ampamp Woods in New York 8220If you didn8217t own financials going into the quarter there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them8221 Grant said US stocks extended losses on Friday after the State Department said that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma The renewed possibility of a strike in Syria 8220is enough to cause heartburn for the market8221 said Robert Phipps a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin Texas 8220There8217s a ton of uncertainty right now so investors don8217t want to go into the weekend particularly long8221 The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12291 points or 05 percent to 2436014 the SampampP 500 lost 769 points or 029 percent to 26563 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3360 points or 047 percent to 710665 Still for the week the SampampP 500 rose 199 percent the Dow gained 179 percent and the Nasdaq added 277 percent Friday8217s bank results kicked off earnings season with Thomson Reuters data predicting profits at SampampP 500 companies increased by 186 percent in the first quarter from a year ago their biggest rise in seven years While the US economy is performing well geopolitical issues are weighing on stock markets this year Senior Russian lawmakers said on Friday that the lower house of parliament would consider draft legislation giving the Kremlin powers to ban or restrict a list of US imports reacting to new US sanctions on Russian tycoons and officials Boeing fell 24 percent after a Russian lawmaker said the country may stop supplying titanium to the company Issues with engines for Boeing8217s 787 Dreamliner planes also weighed on the company8217s shares The top gainer among SampampP sectors was energy up 11 percent as oil prices rose Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US April 10 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermidFile Photo Tesla rose 21 percent after founder Elon Musk said the electric car maker would be profitable in the third and fourth quarters and would not need to raise any money this year Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 128to1 ratio on Nasdaq a 164to1 ratio favored decliners Volume on US exchanges was 578 billion shares compared to the 722 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Sin233ad Carew in New York Editing by Patrick Graham and Chizu Nomiyama Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Oil prices extended recent gains and a gauge of global stocks eased on Friday as concern over a broader conflict in Syria left investors nervous while US bank shares led Wall Street lower FILE PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US April 10 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid The State Department said on Friday that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East Oil prices added to recent gains that drove them to highs not seen since late 2014 and posted their biggest weekly gain since July 8220The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more as we get closer to the moment of the strikes if there are any8221 said John Kilduff partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with powerful oil producers On Wall Street fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors while financial stocks led the day8217s declines Shares of JPMorgan Chase JPMN were down 27 percent after its earnings missed estimates while Citigroup CN dropped 16 percent despite beating profit estimates An SampampP 500 index of bank stocks SPXBK fell 26 percent Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares said RJ Grant head of trading at Keefe Bruyette ampamp Woods in New York 8220If you didn8217t own financials going into the quarter there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them8221 Grant said The banks8217 results kicked off the US earnings reporting period Tax cuts are expected to help corporate America post its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years Earnings at SampampP 500 companies are estimated to grow by 184 percent from a year earlier The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 12291 points or 05 percent to 2436014 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 769 points or 029 percent to 26563 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 3360 points or 047 percent to 710665 For the week the SampampP 500 was up 2 percent the Dow rose 18 percent and Nasdaq gained 28 percent The panEuropean FTSEurofirst 300 index FTEU3 rose 010 percent and MSCIs gauge of stocks across the globe MIWD00000PUS shed 015 percent The MSCI index ended the week with its strongest performance in five In the oil market US crude CLcv1 rose 32 cents to settle at 6739 a barrel while Brent crude LCOcv1 rose 56 cents to 7258 The dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders waited for more clarity on a possible Western military intervention in Syria The dollar index DXY which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was 003 percent higher at 8978 The Japanese yen weakened 001 percent versus the greenback at 10736 per dollar Aluminum hit a sixyear high on Friday and posted its biggest weekly gain since the current contract was launched after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia8217s UC Rusal 0486HK the world8217s secondbiggest producer London Metal Exchange aluminum CMAL3 hit its highest since March 2012 at 2340 a ton before retreating to close at 2285 down 17 percent Spot gold XAU added 07 percent to 134501 an ounce US gold futures GCcv1 gained 050 percent to 134860 an ounce JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co 1103 JPMN New York Stock Exchange 307 271 JPMN CN DJI SPX IXIC In the bond market the US Treasury yield curve hovered at its lowest level in more than decade as shortdated yields have risen more than longerdated ones this week on expectations of further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve Graphic US yield curve flattest in a decade The Hong Kong Monetary Authority HKMA stepped into the currency market and bought another HK3368 billion 42908 million in Hong Kong dollars late in the US session on Friday as the local currency hit the weaker end of its trading range Benchmark 10year notes US10YTRR last rose 332 in price to yield 28248 percent from 2834 percent late on Thursday GRAPHIC World stocks set for best week in a month reutrs2IQUDhs GRAPHIC US yield curve flattest in a decade reutrs2CkkWKx Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos additional reporting by Richard Leong Saqib Iqbal Ahmed Sinead Carew and Jessica ResnickAult in New York Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Tesla Inc TSLAO will be profitable in the third and fourth quarters of this year and will not have to raise any money from investors billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday driving shares in the electric carmaker higher FILE PHOTO Elon Musk founder CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and cofounder of Tesla speaks at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington US July 19 2017 REUTERSAaron P Bernstein Tesla has already sought this month to play down widespread Wall Street speculation that it would need to return to capital markets this year to raise more funds for the moneylosing company as it ramps up production of the Model 3 sedan seen as crucial to its longterm profitability The Silicon Valley car maker which has consistently fallen short of promised production targets and is fighting bad publicity over a fatal crash of a car using its Autopilot system said 10 days ago it would have positive cash flow from the third quarter Musk went further on Friday in a tweeted response to a story in The Economist which cited estimates Tesla would need 25 billion to 3 billion this year in additional funding 8220The Economist used to be boring but smart with a wicked dry wit Now it8217s just boring sigh Tesla will be profitable ampamp cash flow in Q3 ampamp Q4 so obv no need to raise money8221 Musk wrote Tesla shares which have gained nearly 10 percent since disclosing the Model 3 production numbers on April 3 were up 18 percent in afternoon trading on Wall Street Musk8217s claim about profit and cash flow hinges on a rapid rise in production of the Model 3 sedan Tesla8217s latest vehicle to have experienced production delays That has postponed revenue from reaching Tesla8217s bottom line from cars being delivered to customers An unprecedented level of robots used in the Model 38217s final assembly in a break with automotive manufacturing norms has added complexity and delays which Musk acknowledged on Friday 8220Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake8221 Musk tweeted To be precise my mistake Humans are underrated8221 Thomson Reuters consensus of analyst estimates predicts Tesla8217s free cash flow to be negative well into 2019 thanks in part to heavy investments Only one of 19 analysts covering the stock see positive adjusted earnings per share in the third quarter with that number growing to four for the fourth quarter FILE PHOTO A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton just outside London Britain February 7 2018 REUTERSHannah McKayFile Photo Wall Street brokerage Jefferies which provided the funding estimate cited by The Economist said in a note last week it expects refinancing risk to remain high for Tesla until it can consistently produce 10000 Model 3s a week The company again missed its own 2500 target for weekly production at the end of the first quarter and analysts and fund managers doubt Tesla8217s ability to keep production growing to a promised 5000 Model 3s per week in three months time Musk in July said Tesla was going through 8220manufacturing hell8221 in ramping up production of the Model 3 He told 8220CBS News8221 in an interview that aired Friday the company 8220got complacent8221 and 8220put too much new technology into the Model 3 all at once8221 Part of the interview took place in a Tesla Model 3 Musk was driving with Autopilot activated at times Tesla Inc 30034 TSLAO Nasdaq 626 213 TSLAO Musk told CBS Tesla is currently producing 2000 Model 3 cars a week Last month Moody8217s Investors Service downgraded Tesla8217s credit rating to B3 from B2 reflecting 8220the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company8217s Model 38221 Moody8217s added that its negative outlook for Tesla 8220reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large nearterm capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall8221 On Thursday the National Transportation Safety Board said that after a series of public disclosures by Tesla it had taken the unusual step of revoking Tesla8217s status as a formal party to its investigation of a March 23 crash in California that killed a driver who was using Autopilot The NTSB is also investigating two other Tesla crashes Tesla lashed out at the NTSB and said it planned to complain to Congress Asked by CBS if there was a defect with Autopilot Musk responded 8220The system worked as described which is that it is a handson system It is not a selfdriving system8221 At one point during the interview Musk did not have his hands on the wheel and the car beeped at him to retake the wheel Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington additional reporting by Dan Burns and Alexandria Sage editing by Phil Berlowitz Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>* MSCI Asia-Pacific index up 0.75 pct, Nikkei adds 1.3 pct</p> <p>* Spreadbetters expect European stocks to open higher</p> <p>* Equities probe fresh highs after U.S. govt shutdown ends</p> <p>* BOJ stands pat as expected, more upbeat on inflation view</p> <p>By Shinichi Saoshiro</p> <p>TOKYO, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Asian stocks advanced on Tuesday after U.S. senators struck a deal to end a three-day government shutdown, sending Wall Street&#8217;s main indexes to record highs, while the dollar inched down against the yen after the Bank of Japan kept policy steady.</p> <p>Spreadbetters expected Britain&#8217;s FTSE to open 0.3 percent higher, Germany&#8217;s DAX 0.5 percent and France&#8217;s CAC 0.3 percent.</p> <p>U.S. lawmakers passed a short-term measure on Monday to fund the federal government through Feb. 8.</p> <p>MSCI&#8217;s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.75 percent to a record peak.</p> <p>Australian stocks climbed 0.75 percent and South Korea&#8217;s KOSPI added 1.1 percent.</p> <p>Japan&#8217;s Nikkei rose to a 26-year peak, Hong Kong&#8217;s Hang Sang scaled a record high and Singapore reached a 10-year top.</p> <p>World equity markets have been on a tear over the past year, buoyed by a synchronised uptick in global economic growth in a boon to corporate profits and stock valuations.</p> <p>The brief U.S. government shutdown put only a minor dent to equities, with Wall Street rallying to all-time highs overnight following the deal to end the impasse in Washington.</p> <p>In currencies, the dollar briefly dipped 0.33 percent to 110.550 yen before pulling back to 110.815 for a loss of 0.1 percent.</p> <p>In a widely expected move, the BOJ maintained its short-term interest rate target at minus 0.1 percent and a pledge to guide 10-year government bond yields around zero percent.</p> <p>The BOJ also said &#8220;inflation expectations have moved sideways recently,&#8221; offering a slightly more upbeat view than three months ago when it said they were on a weak note.</p> <p>Still, the central bank was nowhere near its peers who were looking for ways out of unconventional monetary policies.</p> <p>&#8220;The BOJ kept is policies unchanged and made no real changes to its overall stance. It still remains a step behind other central banks looking to normalise their policies,&#8221; said Shusuke Yamada, chief Japan FX strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.</p> <p>The BOJ caused ripples in the markets earlier in January by slightly reducing the amount of longer-dated Japanese government bonds (JGBs) it buys from the market at its regular debt-purchasing operations.</p> <p>The yen appreciated significantly against the dollar as some interpreted the BOJ&#8217;s move as a step towards eventual policy normalisation.</p> <p>Focus was on BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda&#8217;s post-policy meeting news conference at 0630 GMT and how he responds to questions about where the central bank stands on its projected policy path.</p> <p>The euro was effectively flat at $1.2261 after gaining 0.3 percent overnight. The common currency was within reach of a three-year peak of $1.2323 set on Wednesday.</p> <p>The euro was supported ahead of the outcome of the European Central Bank&#8217;s meeting on Thursday, which could provide clues to future shifts in the central bank&#8217;s monetary policy.</p> <p>The pound was steady at $1.3983 after touching $1.3992, its highest level since June 2016&#8217;s vote for Brexit, on optimism that Britain will reach a favourable divorce deal with the European Union.</p> <p>The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies stood almost unchanged at 90.369.</p> <p>Oil prices rose on Tuesday, lifted by healthy economic growth as well as the ongoing supply restraint by a group of exporters around OPEC and Russia.</p> <p>U.S. crude oil futures rose 0.66 percent to $63.99 per barrel and Brent gained 0.55 percent to $69.40 per barrel .</p> <p>Spot gold tacked on 0.1 percent to $1,336.14 per ounce as the dollar steadied but lacked the momentum to chalk up gains.</p> <p>Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - The S&amp;amp;P 500 and the Dow rose on Tuesday, led by gains in industrial and consumer staple shares, while weakness in technology stocks dragged down the Nasdaq.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>Stocks have been volatile in the session after the main U.S. indexes notched their best day in 2-1/2 years on Monday on waning concerns of a trade war between the United States and China.</p> <p>&#8220;Right now, the biggest driver in the market seems to be around the trade news and it is looking more like some of these tariff discussions are negotiations rather than strong protectionist measures,&#8221; said Lisa Erickson, head of traditional investments at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Helena, Montana.</p> <p>&#8220;But there&#8217;s going to be continued volatility in the short term and a lot of it will depend on how the fundamental news flow comes out.&#8221;</p> <p>U.S. stocks suffered their worst declines of the year last week after President Donald Trump moved to impose tariffs on Chinese imports of up to $60 billion.</p> <p>But the sentiment has improved after reports that the countries were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances.</p> <p>At 13:00 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> was up 0.67 percent at 24,365.61 and the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> rose 0.29 percent to 2,666.16.</p> <p>The Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> fell 0.33 percent at 7,196.70.</p> <p>Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) dropped 2.3 percent as it continued to be weighed down by data privacy issues. The company faces an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to explain how it allowed data of 50 million users get into the hands of a political consultancy.</p> <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">Dow Jones &amp;amp; Company Inc</a> 24297.45 .DJI Dow Jones Indexes +94.85 (+0.39%) .DJI .SPX .IXIC FB.O NVDA.O <p>&#8220;Tech and FANG are still trying to figure out what the way forward is, and the market is dealing with the aftermath of a massive rally. It&#8217;s hard to maintain that kind of momentum,&#8221; said Michael Antonelli, managing director, institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.</p> <p>Another weak spot in the tech space was Nvidia ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NVDA.O" type="external">NVDA.O</a>), which fell 2.8 percent after the company temporarily suspended self-driving tests across the globe.</p> <p>Tesla ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) shares dropped nearly 4 percent after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board opened a field investigation of a fatal Tesla crash and major vehicle fire near Mountain View, California, last week.</p> <p>Twitter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) fell more than 7 percent after short-seller Citron Research said it was short on the stock, adding that the company was &#8220;most vulnerable&#8221; to privacy regulations.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 1.38-to-1 ratio and for a 1.20-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.</p> <p>Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Sweta Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Akzo Nobel will sell its chemicals business in a 10.1 billion euro ($12.6 billion) deal to buyers led by Carlyle Group, the maker of Dulux paints said on Tuesday, making good on a promise made as it fought off a takeover last year.</p> <p>The sale of the Specialty Chemicals operation to Carlyle and Singapore&#8217;s GIC [GIC.UL] sovereign wealth fund for a slightly better than expected price will allow Akzo to focus on its main paints and coatings business.</p> <p>It delivers one of the biggest commitments made by Akzo Nobel in its defense against a 26 billion euro ($32 billion) takeover offer from U.S. rival PPG Industries last year.</p> <p>It may also help to repair strained relationships with shareholders unhappy with the rejection of the bid.</p> <p>Akzo Nobel CEO Thierry Vanlancker, who took charge last July after the bid battle, expects 7.5 billion euros in net proceeds from the sale. The 10.1 billion euro valuation includes debt.</p> <p>The division being sold produces an array of chemicals used in plastic packaging, tissue paper, cleaning materials, pharmaceuticals, food products, salts and adhesives.</p> <p>The 7.5 billion euro total will be returned to shareholders, Vanlancker told Reuters, with the company deciding on the distribution through dividends or share buybacks in the coming months.</p> <p>The deal leaves Akzo as &#8220;one of the top 3 largest paints and coatings companies in the world,&#8221; Vanlancker said.</p> <p>He said Akzo must now deliver on a goal to achieve a 15 percent margin on sales by 2020, after that measure fell to 9.4 percent last year.</p> <p>That goal will mainly be delivered through cost savings and efficiency measures, Vanlancker said, as overall sales growth in the paints and coatings market is expected to remain modest.</p> <p>&#8220;We will be looking at size (acquisition) opportunities as they come along&#8221;, Vanlancker said. &#8220;But size is really not top of mind, it&#8217;s performance of the business.&#8221;</p> <p>The remaining Akzo business will have 35,700 employees, while Speciality Chemicals employs around 10,000.</p> FILE PHOTO: General view of the outside of AkzoNobel's new paint factory in Ashington, Britain September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo DEFENSE PLAN <p>Akzo will try to strengthen its position in promising markets such as powder coatings, which showed 10 percent global growth last year, the CEO said. Akzo also expects its sales of decorative paints in China and Europe to increase.</p> <p>Shares rose 2.9 percent to 77.28 euros by 1300 GMT. That is still well short of the figure of around 95 euros in the cash and share offer from PPG last year.</p> <p>Analyst Wim Hoste of KBC said the sale price for Specialty Chemicals represented a multiple of 9.8 times core earnings, &#8220;which is a bit higher ... than we were banking on.&#8221;</p> <p>Bankers advising potential buyers had said they expected the business to fetch an enterprise value of 8-9 times the unit&#8217;s expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).</p> <p>Carlyle had been vying for the asset with U.S. private equity firm Apollo and its consortium partner, Dutch fund PGGM, as well as Dutch investor Hal Investments, and Advent International partnered with Bain Capital Private Equity, people familiar with the matter had told Reuters.</p> <p>Akzo first announced plans to sell the business last April, when PPG was in full pursuit. Many shareholders were dismayed as Akzo&#8217;s boards appeared uninterested in talks with PPG and when they ultimately rejected the U.S. company&#8217;s best offer.</p> <p>With support from Dutch politicians, Akzo argued a takeover was not in the interest of other stakeholders, including employees.</p> <p>Shareholders sued unsuccessfully to have chairman Antony Burgmans removed. Akzo&#8217;s CEO and chief financial officer both resigned last year on health grounds. Burgmans is due to retire after next month&#8217;s annual meeting, with former Maersk CEO Nils Andersen nominated to take his place.</p> <p>Vanlancker said Akzo had extracted promises from Carlyle to keep the chemicals company&#8217;s head offices in the Netherlands, though it made no commitment to retain all of the business&#8217;s 2,500 employees in the Netherlands.</p> <p>The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be concluded before the end of the year, Akzo said.</p> <p>Lazard, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC advised Akzo Nobel on the sale. ($1 = 0.8023 euros)</p> <p>Reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer; Editing by Jason Neely and Keith Weir</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - When electric carmaker Tesla Inc. launched its first mass market model last summer, it sent a shockwave through the aluminum industry by largely shifting to steel and away from the lighter weight metal it had used in its first two luxury models.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Tesla Model 3 is seen in a showroom in Los Angeles, California, U.S. January 12, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo <p>The switch by Elon Musk&#8217;s Tesla to the heavier-but-cheaper metal highlights how steel is fighting back against aluminum, which had widely been expected to be the bigger beneficiary of the electric vehicle revolution.</p> <p>Aluminum had been seen as the key to offsetting the weight of batteries in order to extend the range of electric vehicles, crucial to increased consumer acceptance.</p> <p>But as makers of battery-powered cars look to tap into bigger markets with cheaper vehicles - and embrace technological developments in batteries and components - many are increasingly looking to steel to cut costs. The price of Tesla&#8217;s mass-market orientated Model 3 is around half of the &#163;70,000 luxury Model S.</p> <p>&#8220;Before the aim was &#8216;Let&#8217;s get the [electric vehicles] developed&#8217;, now it&#8217;s &#8216;Let&#8217;s get them developed at the right price point,&#8217;&#8221; says Mauro Erriquez, a partner at McKinsey &amp;amp; Company in Germany who specializes in the auto sector.</p> <p>It is the latest tussle in a decades-long battle between steel and aluminum for market share among automakers, seeking to cut the weight of vehicles to help slash emissions and meet tough government pollution standards.</p> <p>Steel is also winning back some market share among gasoline vehicles, such as the Audi A8. The latest model abandoned its heavy use of aluminum and shifted to a mix of steel, aluminum, magnesium and carbon fiber.</p> <p>The competition between the metals has intensified amid rapidly growing demand for battery-powered cars.</p> <p>Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles are due to surge to 30 percent of the global auto market by 2030, according to metal consultants CRU, up from 4 percent of the 86 million vehicles sold last year.</p> <p>In China, the world&#8217;s largest auto market, sales of new energy vehicles are due to grow by 40 percent this year to top 1 million vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.</p> <p>Tesla declined to comment, but in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month it said it designed the Model 3 &#8220;with a mix of materials to be lightweight and safe while also increasing cost-effectiveness for this mass-market vehicle&#8221;.</p> <p>Other makers of mass market electric vehicles that have also chosen steel over aluminum include Nissan Motor Co Ltd&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=7201.T" type="external">7201.T</a>) Leaf, the world&#8217;s best-selling all-electric vehicle, and Volkswagen&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">VOWG_p.DE</a>) e-Golf.</p> <p>The e-Golf has 129 kg of aluminum and the Leaf uses 171 kg while Tesla&#8217;s luxury Model S contains 661 kg of the metal, according to A2mac1 Automotive Benchmarking. A detailed breakdown was not available for the Tesla 3.</p> <p>(For a graphic of Metals used in vehicles click <a href="https://tmsnrt.rs/2G9OuvQ" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2G9OuvQ</a>)</p> STEP CHANGE <p>Aluminum is still expected to benefit greatly from the electric vehicle revolution, however, especially from hybrids because they have two engines.</p> <p>Both the combustion engine block and transmission are typically made of aluminum while the metal is also often used for housing the battery and motor in electric vehicles, according to auto metals specialist AluMag in Germany.</p> <p>And, because it is expected to be years before pure electric vehicles become widely used - in part due to the lack of power charging networks - the growth of hybrids in the interim is expected to benefit aluminum.</p> <p>According to CRU Consultant Eoin Dinsmore, demand for aluminum from electric and hybrid vehicles is forecast to increase ten times to nearly 10 million tonnes by 2030.</p> <p>Aluminum was used in the first electric London black cab, which launched last year, spurring the reopening of a UK aluminum plant in Wales owned by Norway&#8217;s aluminum producer Norsk Hydro NYH.OL.</p> Slideshow (9 Images) <p>&#8220;We chose aluminum as a material as it is nearly three times lighter than steel in its raw form, and it absorbs twice as much energy in a crash,&#8221; said Chris Staunton, chief engineer of body structures for the firm that developed the taxi for the London Electric Vehicle Company ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0175.HK" type="external">0175.HK</a>).</p> <p>Both Staunton&#8217;s firm and the London Electric Vehicle Company are owned by China&#8217;s Geely Automotive Holdings Ltd 0175.HK&amp;gt;.</p> <p>(Graphic: Aluminum content climbs in vehicles - <a href="http://reut.rs/2FIHfLl" type="external">reut.rs/2FIHfLl</a>)</p> BETTER BATTERIES <p>But aluminum remains more expensive than steel. Benchmark aluminum futures CMAL3 on the London Metal Exchange are around $2,050 per ton, more than three times the cost of LME steel rebar SRRc1 at $585 a ton.</p> <p>The price gap between the types of aluminum and steel used in autos was not as wide, but still represented significant savings by using steel, industry experts said.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=7201.T" type="external">Nissan Motor Co Ltd</a> 1130.0 7201.T Tokyo Stock Exchange +25.00 (+2.26%) 7201.T VOWG_p.DE 0175.HK TKAG.DE MT.AS <p>Meanwhile, stronger and cheaper batteries for electric vehicles as well as developments in the components that generate power and overall structural design have lessened the need for aluminum to cut weight to extend the range.</p> <p>Since 2010, the cost of batteries have tumbled to as low as $114 per kilowatt hour from $1,000/kwh and are expected to drop further in coming years, according to AluMag.</p> <p>&#8220;I think car makers are finding that as battery costs fall they can achieve their range requirement with an all-steel solution,&#8221; said George Coates, technical director for WorldAutoSteel, the automotive arm of the World Steel Association.</p> <p>Improvements in the powertrain - the main components in a car that generate power - have also had a big impact.</p> <p>The 2017 model of the Nissan Leaf extended its range by nearly 50 percent to 172 km compared to the 2011 version mainly by improving the powertrain, consolidating four separate systems into one, said McKinsey&#8217;s Erriquez.</p> <p>(For a graphic on Aluminum vs Steel prices click <a href="https://reut.rs/2IS9oBr" type="external">reut.rs/2IS9oBr</a>)</p> MATERIAL MIX <p>At the same time, the steel industry has developed Advanced High Strength Steel products, which are stronger and lighter than normal steel, and importantly, cheaper than aluminum.</p> <p>&#8220;(Steel) companies like ThyssenKrupp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TKAG.DE" type="external">TKAG.DE</a>) and ArcelorMittal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MT.AS" type="external">MT.AS</a>), they&#8217;re not going to just give up this market share. There will be a battle for the material,&#8221; said Jost Gaertner, partner at AluMag.</p> <p>Future models will likely contain a complex mix of materials, including various grades of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, magnesium and plastics, automakers and consultants said.</p> <p>BMW, which used large amounts of costly aluminum and carbon fiber in its i3 and i8, told Reuters it was not planning to increase the use of those materials in future electric models.</p> <p>&#8220;There is no &#8216;one material fits all&#8217; solution&#8221; for future electric vehicles, the German carmaker said in an email.</p> <p>&#8220;We will continue to employ each material in a way and in a quantity which brings in its specific advantages.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Eric Onstad; Editing by Veronica Brown and Cassell Bryan-Low</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks scale record highs as US govt shutdown ends, yen inches up after BOJ Wall Street wavers after strong rally, tech stocks struggle Akzo Nobel reshapes business with 10 billion euro sale Aluminum wrestles with steel over electric vehicle market

https://reuters.com/article/global-markets/global-markets-stocks-scale-record-highs-as-us-govt-shutdown-ends-yen-inches-up-after-boj-idUSL4N1PI2MX

2018-01-23

2least

MSCI AsiaPacific index up 075 pct Nikkei adds 13 pct Spreadbetters expect European stocks to open higher Equities probe fresh highs after US govt shutdown ends BOJ stands pat as expected more upbeat on inflation view By Shinichi Saoshiro TOKYO Jan 23 Reuters Asian stocks advanced on Tuesday after US senators struck a deal to end a threeday government shutdown sending Wall Street8217s main indexes to record highs while the dollar inched down against the yen after the Bank of Japan kept policy steady Spreadbetters expected Britain8217s FTSE to open 03 percent higher Germany8217s DAX 05 percent and France8217s CAC 03 percent US lawmakers passed a shortterm measure on Monday to fund the federal government through Feb 8 MSCI8217s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan rose 075 percent to a record peak Australian stocks climbed 075 percent and South Korea8217s KOSPI added 11 percent Japan8217s Nikkei rose to a 26year peak Hong Kong8217s Hang Sang scaled a record high and Singapore reached a 10year top World equity markets have been on a tear over the past year buoyed by a synchronised uptick in global economic growth in a boon to corporate profits and stock valuations The brief US government shutdown put only a minor dent to equities with Wall Street rallying to alltime highs overnight following the deal to end the impasse in Washington In currencies the dollar briefly dipped 033 percent to 110550 yen before pulling back to 110815 for a loss of 01 percent In a widely expected move the BOJ maintained its shortterm interest rate target at minus 01 percent and a pledge to guide 10year government bond yields around zero percent The BOJ also said 8220inflation expectations have moved sideways recently8221 offering a slightly more upbeat view than three months ago when it said they were on a weak note Still the central bank was nowhere near its peers who were looking for ways out of unconventional monetary policies 8220The BOJ kept is policies unchanged and made no real changes to its overall stance It still remains a step behind other central banks looking to normalise their policies8221 said Shusuke Yamada chief Japan FX strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch The BOJ caused ripples in the markets earlier in January by slightly reducing the amount of longerdated Japanese government bonds JGBs it buys from the market at its regular debtpurchasing operations The yen appreciated significantly against the dollar as some interpreted the BOJ8217s move as a step towards eventual policy normalisation Focus was on BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda8217s postpolicy meeting news conference at 0630 GMT and how he responds to questions about where the central bank stands on its projected policy path The euro was effectively flat at 12261 after gaining 03 percent overnight The common currency was within reach of a threeyear peak of 12323 set on Wednesday The euro was supported ahead of the outcome of the European Central Bank8217s meeting on Thursday which could provide clues to future shifts in the central bank8217s monetary policy The pound was steady at 13983 after touching 13992 its highest level since June 20168217s vote for Brexit on optimism that Britain will reach a favourable divorce deal with the European Union The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies stood almost unchanged at 90369 Oil prices rose on Tuesday lifted by healthy economic growth as well as the ongoing supply restraint by a group of exporters around OPEC and Russia US crude oil futures rose 066 percent to 6399 per barrel and Brent gained 055 percent to 6940 per barrel Spot gold tacked on 01 percent to 133614 per ounce as the dollar steadied but lacked the momentum to chalk up gains Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters The SampampP 500 and the Dow rose on Tuesday led by gains in industrial and consumer staple shares while weakness in technology stocks dragged down the Nasdaq Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US March 26 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid Stocks have been volatile in the session after the main US indexes notched their best day in 212 years on Monday on waning concerns of a trade war between the United States and China 8220Right now the biggest driver in the market seems to be around the trade news and it is looking more like some of these tariff discussions are negotiations rather than strong protectionist measures8221 said Lisa Erickson head of traditional investments at US Bank Wealth Management in Helena Montana 8220But there8217s going to be continued volatility in the short term and a lot of it will depend on how the fundamental news flow comes out8221 US stocks suffered their worst declines of the year last week after President Donald Trump moved to impose tariffs on Chinese imports of up to 60 billion But the sentiment has improved after reports that the countries were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances At 1300 pm ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI was up 067 percent at 2436561 and the SampampP 500 SPX rose 029 percent to 266616 The Nasdaq Composite IXIC fell 033 percent at 719670 Facebook FBO dropped 23 percent as it continued to be weighed down by data privacy issues The company faces an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission to explain how it allowed data of 50 million users get into the hands of a political consultancy Dow Jones ampamp Company Inc 2429745 DJI Dow Jones Indexes 9485 039 DJI SPX IXIC FBO NVDAO 8220Tech and FANG are still trying to figure out what the way forward is and the market is dealing with the aftermath of a massive rally It8217s hard to maintain that kind of momentum8221 said Michael Antonelli managing director institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee Another weak spot in the tech space was Nvidia NVDAO which fell 28 percent after the company temporarily suspended selfdriving tests across the globe Tesla TSLAO shares dropped nearly 4 percent after the US National Transportation Safety Board opened a field investigation of a fatal Tesla crash and major vehicle fire near Mountain View California last week Twitter TWTRN fell more than 7 percent after shortseller Citron Research said it was short on the stock adding that the company was 8220most vulnerable8221 to privacy regulations Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 138to1 ratio and for a 120to1 ratio on the Nasdaq Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Sweta Singh in Bengaluru Editing by Anil DSilva Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles AMSTERDAM Reuters Akzo Nobel will sell its chemicals business in a 101 billion euro 126 billion deal to buyers led by Carlyle Group the maker of Dulux paints said on Tuesday making good on a promise made as it fought off a takeover last year The sale of the Specialty Chemicals operation to Carlyle and Singapore8217s GIC GICUL sovereign wealth fund for a slightly better than expected price will allow Akzo to focus on its main paints and coatings business It delivers one of the biggest commitments made by Akzo Nobel in its defense against a 26 billion euro 32 billion takeover offer from US rival PPG Industries last year It may also help to repair strained relationships with shareholders unhappy with the rejection of the bid Akzo Nobel CEO Thierry Vanlancker who took charge last July after the bid battle expects 75 billion euros in net proceeds from the sale The 101 billion euro valuation includes debt The division being sold produces an array of chemicals used in plastic packaging tissue paper cleaning materials pharmaceuticals food products salts and adhesives The 75 billion euro total will be returned to shareholders Vanlancker told Reuters with the company deciding on the distribution through dividends or share buybacks in the coming months The deal leaves Akzo as 8220one of the top 3 largest paints and coatings companies in the world8221 Vanlancker said He said Akzo must now deliver on a goal to achieve a 15 percent margin on sales by 2020 after that measure fell to 94 percent last year That goal will mainly be delivered through cost savings and efficiency measures Vanlancker said as overall sales growth in the paints and coatings market is expected to remain modest 8220We will be looking at size acquisition opportunities as they come along8221 Vanlancker said 8220But size is really not top of mind it8217s performance of the business8221 The remaining Akzo business will have 35700 employees while Speciality Chemicals employs around 10000 FILE PHOTO General view of the outside of AkzoNobels new paint factory in Ashington Britain September 12 2017 REUTERSPhil NobleFile Photo DEFENSE PLAN Akzo will try to strengthen its position in promising markets such as powder coatings which showed 10 percent global growth last year the CEO said Akzo also expects its sales of decorative paints in China and Europe to increase Shares rose 29 percent to 7728 euros by 1300 GMT That is still well short of the figure of around 95 euros in the cash and share offer from PPG last year Analyst Wim Hoste of KBC said the sale price for Specialty Chemicals represented a multiple of 98 times core earnings 8220which is a bit higher than we were banking on8221 Bankers advising potential buyers had said they expected the business to fetch an enterprise value of 89 times the unit8217s expected earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortization EBITDA Carlyle had been vying for the asset with US private equity firm Apollo and its consortium partner Dutch fund PGGM as well as Dutch investor Hal Investments and Advent International partnered with Bain Capital Private Equity people familiar with the matter had told Reuters Akzo first announced plans to sell the business last April when PPG was in full pursuit Many shareholders were dismayed as Akzo8217s boards appeared uninterested in talks with PPG and when they ultimately rejected the US company8217s best offer With support from Dutch politicians Akzo argued a takeover was not in the interest of other stakeholders including employees Shareholders sued unsuccessfully to have chairman Antony Burgmans removed Akzo8217s CEO and chief financial officer both resigned last year on health grounds Burgmans is due to retire after next month8217s annual meeting with former Maersk CEO Nils Andersen nominated to take his place Vanlancker said Akzo had extracted promises from Carlyle to keep the chemicals company8217s head offices in the Netherlands though it made no commitment to retain all of the business8217s 2500 employees in the Netherlands The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be concluded before the end of the year Akzo said Lazard JPMorgan Chase and HSBC advised Akzo Nobel on the sale 1 08023 euros Reporting by Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer Editing by Jason Neely and Keith Weir Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters When electric carmaker Tesla Inc launched its first mass market model last summer it sent a shockwave through the aluminum industry by largely shifting to steel and away from the lighter weight metal it had used in its first two luxury models FILE PHOTO A Tesla Model 3 is seen in a showroom in Los Angeles California US January 12 2018 REUTERSLucy NicholsonFile Photo The switch by Elon Musk8217s Tesla to the heavierbutcheaper metal highlights how steel is fighting back against aluminum which had widely been expected to be the bigger beneficiary of the electric vehicle revolution Aluminum had been seen as the key to offsetting the weight of batteries in order to extend the range of electric vehicles crucial to increased consumer acceptance But as makers of batterypowered cars look to tap into bigger markets with cheaper vehicles and embrace technological developments in batteries and components many are increasingly looking to steel to cut costs The price of Tesla8217s massmarket orientated Model 3 is around half of the 16370000 luxury Model S 8220Before the aim was 8216Let8217s get the electric vehicles developed8217 now it8217s 8216Let8217s get them developed at the right price point82178221 says Mauro Erriquez a partner at McKinsey ampamp Company in Germany who specializes in the auto sector It is the latest tussle in a decadeslong battle between steel and aluminum for market share among automakers seeking to cut the weight of vehicles to help slash emissions and meet tough government pollution standards Steel is also winning back some market share among gasoline vehicles such as the Audi A8 The latest model abandoned its heavy use of aluminum and shifted to a mix of steel aluminum magnesium and carbon fiber The competition between the metals has intensified amid rapidly growing demand for batterypowered cars Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles are due to surge to 30 percent of the global auto market by 2030 according to metal consultants CRU up from 4 percent of the 86 million vehicles sold last year In China the world8217s largest auto market sales of new energy vehicles are due to grow by 40 percent this year to top 1 million vehicles according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers Tesla declined to comment but in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month it said it designed the Model 3 8220with a mix of materials to be lightweight and safe while also increasing costeffectiveness for this massmarket vehicle8221 Other makers of mass market electric vehicles that have also chosen steel over aluminum include Nissan Motor Co Ltd8217s 7201T Leaf the world8217s bestselling allelectric vehicle and Volkswagen8217s VOWG_pDE eGolf The eGolf has 129 kg of aluminum and the Leaf uses 171 kg while Tesla8217s luxury Model S contains 661 kg of the metal according to A2mac1 Automotive Benchmarking A detailed breakdown was not available for the Tesla 3 For a graphic of Metals used in vehicles click tmsnrtrs2G9OuvQ STEP CHANGE Aluminum is still expected to benefit greatly from the electric vehicle revolution however especially from hybrids because they have two engines Both the combustion engine block and transmission are typically made of aluminum while the metal is also often used for housing the battery and motor in electric vehicles according to auto metals specialist AluMag in Germany And because it is expected to be years before pure electric vehicles become widely used in part due to the lack of power charging networks the growth of hybrids in the interim is expected to benefit aluminum According to CRU Consultant Eoin Dinsmore demand for aluminum from electric and hybrid vehicles is forecast to increase ten times to nearly 10 million tonnes by 2030 Aluminum was used in the first electric London black cab which launched last year spurring the reopening of a UK aluminum plant in Wales owned by Norway8217s aluminum producer Norsk Hydro NYHOL Slideshow 9 Images 8220We chose aluminum as a material as it is nearly three times lighter than steel in its raw form and it absorbs twice as much energy in a crash8221 said Chris Staunton chief engineer of body structures for the firm that developed the taxi for the London Electric Vehicle Company 0175HK Both Staunton8217s firm and the London Electric Vehicle Company are owned by China8217s Geely Automotive Holdings Ltd 0175HKampgt Graphic Aluminum content climbs in vehicles reutrs2FIHfLl BETTER BATTERIES But aluminum remains more expensive than steel Benchmark aluminum futures CMAL3 on the London Metal Exchange are around 2050 per ton more than three times the cost of LME steel rebar SRRc1 at 585 a ton The price gap between the types of aluminum and steel used in autos was not as wide but still represented significant savings by using steel industry experts said Nissan Motor Co Ltd 11300 7201T Tokyo Stock Exchange 2500 226 7201T VOWG_pDE 0175HK TKAGDE MTAS Meanwhile stronger and cheaper batteries for electric vehicles as well as developments in the components that generate power and overall structural design have lessened the need for aluminum to cut weight to extend the range Since 2010 the cost of batteries have tumbled to as low as 114 per kilowatt hour from 1000kwh and are expected to drop further in coming years according to AluMag 8220I think car makers are finding that as battery costs fall they can achieve their range requirement with an allsteel solution8221 said George Coates technical director for WorldAutoSteel the automotive arm of the World Steel Association Improvements in the powertrain the main components in a car that generate power have also had a big impact The 2017 model of the Nissan Leaf extended its range by nearly 50 percent to 172 km compared to the 2011 version mainly by improving the powertrain consolidating four separate systems into one said McKinsey8217s Erriquez For a graphic on Aluminum vs Steel prices click reutrs2IS9oBr MATERIAL MIX At the same time the steel industry has developed Advanced High Strength Steel products which are stronger and lighter than normal steel and importantly cheaper than aluminum 8220Steel companies like ThyssenKrupp TKAGDE and ArcelorMittal MTAS they8217re not going to just give up this market share There will be a battle for the material8221 said Jost Gaertner partner at AluMag Future models will likely contain a complex mix of materials including various grades of steel aluminum carbon fiber magnesium and plastics automakers and consultants said BMW which used large amounts of costly aluminum and carbon fiber in its i3 and i8 told Reuters it was not planning to increase the use of those materials in future electric models 8220There is no 8216one material fits all8217 solution8221 for future electric vehicles the German carmaker said in an email 8220We will continue to employ each material in a way and in a quantity which brings in its specific advantages8221 Reporting by Eric Onstad Editing by Veronica Brown and Cassell BryanLow Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Agilent Technologies Inc:</p> <p>* AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC SAYS ON JANUARY 17, BOARD INCREASED ITS SIZE FROM 11 TO 12 MEMBERS -SEC FILING Source text: ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2EVj4Zh" type="external">bit.ly/2EVj4Zh</a>) Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year.</p> <p>Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur "very soon or not so soon at all," easing fears of confrontation with Russia.</p> <p>That lifted U.S. Treasury yields US10YT=RR, leading to a 1.8 percent increase in financial stocks .SPSY, which had the biggest percentage advance among the S&amp;amp;P's 11 major sectors.</p> <p>The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.3 percent, adding the most gains to the S&amp;amp;P.</p> <p>"We're hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war," said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. "Earnings are coming up and expectations are high."</p> <p>Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BLK.N</a>) and Delta Air Lines Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAL.N" type="external">DAL.N</a>) added to the sanguine mood.</p> <p>Delta topped profit estimates, sending its shares 2.9 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks.</p> <p>BlackRock gained 1.5 percent after the asset manager's quarterly profit rose more than expected.</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> Slideshow (3 Images) <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>"People are looking forward to earnings season," said Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "Market participants are not wanting to miss out if (earnings are) as good as the forecasts say they will be."</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 293.6 points, or 1.21 percent, to 24,483.05, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 21.8 points, or 0.83 percent, to 2,663.99, and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 71.22 points, or 1.01 percent, to 7,140.25.</p> <p>Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly U.S. initial jobless claims report, which pointed to sustained labor market strength.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BLK.N" type="external">BlackRock Inc</a> 533.01 BLK.N New York Stock Exchange +7.70 (+1.47%) BLK.N DAL.N JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) was a notable laggard among technology stocks, falling 1.5 percent following a 5.3 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social network's data security.</p> <p>Bed Bath &amp;amp; Beyond Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBBY.O" type="external">BBBY.O</a>) shares dived 20.0 percent after the company's full-year profit forecast missed estimates.</p> <p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 1.20-to-1 ratio and on the Nasdaq, for a 1.84-to-1 ratio.</p> <p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.12 billion shares, compared to the 7.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p> <p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Genuine Parts Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">GPC.N</a>) said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business S.P. Richards and merge it with Essendant ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ESND.O" type="external">ESND.O</a>) in a tax-free transaction for shareholders, as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses.</p> <p>The combined company will have more products and resources, giving its customers - mainly independent dealers - a one-stop shop as they grapple with intense competition from e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and big-box stores.</p> <p>"This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry," Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts.</p> <p>Essendant's shares jumped 18 percent to $10.00, while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at $90.17 in morning trading.</p> <p>Illinois-based Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies, while Atlanta, Georgia-based S.P. Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies.</p> <p>The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips. S.P. Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company. Essendant had a market capitalization of about $323.5 million as of Wednesday's close.</p> <p>Genuine Parts, one of the leading U.S. car parts distributors, said the deal implied a valuation of about $680 million for S.P. Richards.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GPC.N" type="external">Genuine Parts Co</a> 90.13 GPC.N New York Stock Exchange +0.47 (+0.52%) GPC.N ESND.O AMZN.O <p>Genuine Parts will get $347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newly-formed combined company. Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal, the transaction will be tax-free for the companies' shareholders.</p> <p>The company has been evaluating options for the S.P. Richards business, which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies.</p> <p>Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers. Its net sales declined 6.2 percent to $5.04 billion in 2017, while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent.</p> <p>Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses. Last year, the company completed a deal to buy London-based Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australia's Inenco Group.</p> <p>Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant, while J.P. Morgan advised Genuine Parts.</p> <p>Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks and commodities rose on Friday, with stocks set to post their biggest weekly gain in over a month as investors seemed to shrug off the uncertainty over tension in the Middle East and the prospect of a global trade war.</p> The German share price index, DAX board, is seen at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Tilman Blasshofer <p>Global stock markets have had a whipsaw week, largely fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump's tendency to change his mind over key policy and political issues.</p> <p>The MSCI All-Country World Index .MIWO00000PUS, which tracks shares in 47 countries was up nearly 0.1 percent on the day. It has gained nearly 2 percent this week, its best weekly showing since March.</p> <p>European bourses opened positive, with the pan-European STOXX 600 index on track for its third straight week of gains, its longest winning streak since January. The beginnings of European companies' first-quarter results were largely positive, though misses were badly punished. [.EU]</p> <p>Earlier in Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 0.1 percent, still up about 2 percent on the week.</p> <p>Overall, Friday's performance in stocks seemed to suggest investors were relieved at apparent suggestions from Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent. However, the threat of a strike remained after Washington's earlier warnings against the Syrian government for what is said was a suspected poison gas attack on its civilians.</p> <p>"It would be na've in the extreme to suggest that the events of the last 24 hours means that the threat of an escalation of geopolitical factors has passed," said Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets in London.</p> <p>"But for now while the background noise is driving the short-term direction as markets gyrate higher and lower, recent price action might suggest that we could look to head towards the upper end of the trading range in the coming days, particularly if U.S. earnings come in ahead of expectations."</p> <p>The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>), Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) and Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>).</p> <p>Analysts expect quarterly profit for S&amp;amp;P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, in what would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> ADVERTISING <a href="http://teads.tv/inread-outstream/" type="external">inRead invented by Teads</a> ADVERTISING <a href="http://teads.tv/inread-outstream/" type="external">inRead invented by Teads</a> RISK APPETITE <p>Investors had other reasons to fret, however.</p> <p>Mixed data from China showed March exports unexpectedly fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier while imports jumped more than forecast.</p> <p>While the figures pointed to robust demand from the world's top consumer of crude, copper and iron ore, they left the country with a rare trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, the first since last February.</p> <p>Trade tensions also were not far from the surface, with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.</p> <p>In the most recent change of tack, Trump Thursday asked his advisers to look at re-joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co</a> 113.37 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange +2.75 (+2.49%) JPM.N C.N WFC.N <p>But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama.</p> <p>The return of risk appetite also played out in the currencies and commodities complex.</p> <p>The dollar hit a six-week high against the Japanese yen. The yen tends to benefit from geopolitical uncertainty and risk aversion. <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a> [FRX/]</p> <p>The Australian dollar, considered a proxy for risk sentiment, rose to a three-week high. <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=AUD&amp;amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">AUD=D4</a></p> <p>The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.1 percent. .DXY</p> <p>London aluminum slipped on Friday but was on track for its biggest weekly gain on record after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia's UC Rusal, the world's second biggest producer of the metal, raising supply concerns. [MET/L]</p> <p>Spot gold XAU= was up 0.4 percent at $1,340.37 an ounce and was set for a weekly gain of almost 0.4 percent. =XAU</p> <p>Oil prices edged higher and were set for their biggest weekly gains since last July. [O/R]</p> <p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 0.3 percent to $72.21 per barrel. U.S. WTI crude futures CLc1 rose 0.2 percent to $67.19.</p> <p>Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho; additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in TOKYO and Swati Pandey in SYDNEY; Editing by Alison Williams</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>KANE COUNTY, Ill. (Reuters) - Lucas Strom, who runs a century-old family farm in rural Illinois, canceled an order to buy a new $71,000 grain storage bin last month - after the seller raised the price 5 percent in a day.</p> Illinois grain farmer Lucas Strom checks on his tractor inside his barn in unincorporated Kane County, Illinois, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/P.J. Huffstutter <p>The reason: steel prices jumped right after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs.</p> <p>Throughout U.S. farm country, where Trump has enjoyed strong support, tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are boosting costs for equipment and infrastructure and causing some farmers and agricultural firms to scrap purchases and expansion plans, according to Reuters' interviews with farmers, manufacturers, construction firms and food shippers.</p> <p>The impact of rising steel prices on agriculture illustrates the unintended and unpredictable consequences of aggressive protectionism in a global economy. And the blow comes as farmers fear a more direct hit from retaliatory tariffs threatened by China on crops such as sorghum and soybeans, the most valuable U.S. agricultural export.</p> <p>A&amp;amp;P Grain Systems in Maple Park, Illinois - the seller of the storage bin Strom wanted to buy with a neighboring farmer - raised its price two days after Trump announced aluminum and steel tariffs on March 1 to protect U.S. producers of the metals. Strom and his neighbor backed out.</p> <p>"Would that price destroy us? No," Strom said. "But these days, you have to be smart about your expenses."</p> <p>The metals tariffs also hitting makers and sellers of farm equipment, from smaller firms like A&amp;amp;P Grain to global giants such as Deere &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DE.N" type="external">DE.N</a>) and Caterpillar Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CAT.N" type="external">CAT.N</a>). Such firms are struggling with whether and how to pass along their higher raw materials costs to farmers who are already reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut.</p> <p>The world's two largest economies have threatened each other with tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of goods recent weeks.</p> <p>Trump imposed&amp;#160;tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum in a move mainly aimed at curbing imports from China. He&amp;#160;has since temporarily excluded the&amp;#160;European Union and six other allies from the duties and given them until May 1 to negotiate permanent exemptions.</p> <p>A&amp;amp;P Grain President Dave Altepeter said the steel used in their bins is made in the United States, but domestic steel prices also have soared because of the tariffs.</p> <p>U.S. steel mills typically adjust their prices once a year, normally in the first quarter, Altepeter said. But this year, those prices have jumped four times, he said.</p> <p>The price of steel used in A&amp;amp;P's grain bins has jumped about 20 percent since January 1.</p> ADVERTISING <a href="http://teads.tv/inread-outstream/" type="external">inRead invented by Teads</a> ADVERTISING <a href="http://teads.tv/inread-outstream/" type="external">inRead invented by Teads</a> <p>"Any time there's any type of negative talk that affects the steel mill, they've raised the price," said Altepeter.</p> <p>Last year, about 95,000 tons of steel was shipped to the agriculture industry, compared to the 14 million tons for the U.S. auto industry, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry group.</p> <p>Other factors had been driving up steel prices before the recent trade disputes, including&amp;#160;an improving global economy and accelerating manufacturing and construction, particularly in the U.S.</p> <p>The White House referred questions from Reuters to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which did not respond to a request for comment. Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have vowed the U.S. government will protect farmers from China's tariffs, but not explained how.</p> <p>U.S. farmers can ill-afford any loss of sales. Farm income has dropped by more than half since 2013, following years of massive harvests that have depressed prices for staples such as corn and soybeans.</p> <p>U.S. competitors Brazil, Argentina and Russia have all raised grain output in recent years, eating into the U.S. share of global markets. Mexico imported ten times more corn from Brazil last year and is set to buy even more in 2018 on worries that renegotiations of the NAFTA trade pact could disrupt their U.S. supplies.</p> <p>Strom said he has also pushed back plans to build a new metal storage building to house his planter and the combine head he uses for harvesting corn and soybeans. Other farmers, food producers and beer makers have scrambled to finalize deals for steel-based equipment before prices climb more.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) CONSTRUCTION POSTPONED <p>In Riverton, Illinois, farmer Allen Entwistle said he postponed construction of a new $800,000 storage system for grain after AGCO Corp's ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AGCO.N" type="external">AGCO.N</a>) GSI unit increased prices by 15 percent.</p> <p>Entwistle, who voted for Trump, will instead store corn in bags on the ground.</p> <p>"President Trump keeps telling us he's going to get a better deal," Entwistle said. "When are we gonna make it better?"</p> <p>AGCO said Trump's tariffs will raise its costs and make price hikes to customers unavoidable.</p> <p>"As the entire grain storage industry has weathered increased steel prices, AGCO and GSI are constantly looking for new ways to maximize efficiency and minimize the impact to customers," said spokeswoman Kelli Cook.</p> <p>Other companies, including Deere and Caterpillar, are also facing pain from rising steel prices, which account for about 10 percent of equipment manufacturers' direct costs.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DE.N" type="external">Deere &amp;amp; Co</a> 150.26 DE.N New York Stock Exchange +5.85 (+4.05%) DE.N CAT.N AGCO.N <p>Deere CEO Samuel Allen told Reuters last month the company will have to absorb the price increase and cut costs elsewhere. China's threatened tariffs on U.S. crops could hurt the company even more by undermining demand from farmers, he said.</p> <p>"This has a huge effect on livelihood of the farmer right now, and at the same time it has a huge impact on manufacturers," said Dennis Slater, president at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, an industry group.</p> <p>U.S. net farm income is forecast to drop to $59.5 billion in 2018 dollars, down from $64.9 billion in 2017, an 8.3 percent decline, according to the USDA.</p> <p>TARIFF "DOOM-AND-GLOOM"</p> <p>In Sheffield, Iowa, Sukup Manufacturing has seen steel prices soar 40 percent since November, said Brent Hansen, the company's commercial accounts manager.</p> <p>The maker of grain bins and pre-manufactured steel buildings has encouraged customers to buy quickly before prices jump more. But some have already postponed projects, Hansen said.</p> <p>"That's obviously a big price increase for an industry that's a little bit doom-and-gloom over tariffs," Hansen said.</p> <p>Sukup used to give customers up to two months to consider its bids for projects. Now, it allows just a week in some cases because of volatile steel prices, Hansen said.</p> <p>Prices have jumped by 25 percent for thermal insulated panels that keep food cold - which can use either steel, aluminum or both, said Glenn Todd, owner of Todd Construction Services. The company has built food processing and storage facilities for Bumble Bee Seafoods and poultry company Foster Farms.</p> <p>Richard Adkins, director of sales at Discovery Designs Refrigeration in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, thought his company wouldn't have to worry about Trump's tariffs. Most of the metal they use to design industrial refrigeration systems comes from Canada and Mexico, he said, and the president has exempted both countries from the levies.</p> <p>It didn't matter. Price-hike notices from vendors landed in Adkins' mailbox days after Trump announced the duties.</p> <p>"There's this knee-jerk reaction," Adkins said. "We're quoting prices for projects that won't be awarded for another six or eight months, and no one wants to be hung out to dry."</p> <p>Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and PJ Huffstutter in Kane County. Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago.; Editing by David Gaffen, Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Agilent Technologies Board Increases Size From 11 To 12 Members Wall Street gains on earnings optimism, waning Syria jitters Genuine Parts to merge S.P. Richards business with Essendant Stocks set for biggest weekly gain in a month as risk appetite returns Trade war backfire: Steel tariff shrapnel hits U.S. farmers

https://reuters.com/article/brief-agilent-technologies-board-increas/brief-agilent-technologies-board-increases-size-from-11-to-12-members-idUSFWN1PD1D2

2018-01-18

2least

Jan 18 Reuters Agilent Technologies Inc AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC SAYS ON JANUARY 17 BOARD INCREASED ITS SIZE FROM 11 TO 12 MEMBERS SEC FILING Source text bitly2EVj4Zh Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters US stocks climbed on Thursday as investors anticipated a strong earnings season and as US President Donald Trumps suggestion that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent ratcheted down geopolitical worries The SampampP 500 has now recouped nearly all its losses from earlier this year Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that a possible attack on Syria could occur very soon or not so soon at all easing fears of confrontation with Russia That lifted US Treasury yields US10YTRR leading to a 18 percent increase in financial stocks SPSY which had the biggest percentage advance among the SampampPs 11 major sectors The technology sector SPLRCT rose 13 percent adding the most gains to the SampampP Were hearing less talk of firing missiles and less talk of trade war said Michael Antonelli managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee Earnings are coming up and expectations are high Strong quarterly results from BlackRock Inc BLKN and Delta Air Lines Inc DALN added to the sanguine mood Delta topped profit estimates sending its shares 29 percent higher and boosting other airline stocks BlackRock gained 15 percent after the asset managers quarterly profit rose more than expected The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Slideshow 3 Images Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES People are looking forward to earnings season said Tracie McMillion head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in WinstonSalem North Carolina Market participants are not wanting to miss out if earnings are as good as the forecasts say they will be The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 2936 points or 121 percent to 2448305 the SampampP 500 SPX gained 218 points or 083 percent to 266399 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 7122 points or 101 percent to 714025 Investor sentiment was also boosted by the weekly US initial jobless claims report which pointed to sustained labor market strength BlackRock Inc 53301 BLKN New York Stock Exchange 770 147 BLKN DALN JPMN CN WFCN Facebook Inc FBO was a notable laggard among technology stocks falling 15 percent following a 53 percent gain over the past two days when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the social networks data security Bed Bath ampamp Beyond Inc BBBYO shares dived 200 percent after the companys fullyear profit forecast missed estimates Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE for a 120to1 ratio and on the Nasdaq for a 184to1 ratio Volume on US exchanges was 612 billion shares compared to the 727 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Genuine Parts Co GPCN said on Thursday it would spin off its wholesale distribution business SP Richards and merge it with Essendant ESNDO in a taxfree transaction for shareholders as it focuses on its industrial and auto parts businesses The combined company will have more products and resources giving its customers mainly independent dealers a onestop shop as they grapple with intense competition from ecommerce giant Amazoncom Inc AMZNO and bigbox stores This combination of our customer centric companies creates a stronger partner to support those dealers and help them to be more competitive with all the other options available to customers in the industry Essendant Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips said on a call with analysts Essendants shares jumped 18 percent to 1000 while those of Genuine Parts were up about 1 percent at 9017 in morning trading Illinoisbased Essendant is a wholesale distributor of workplace items including janitorial supplies while Atlanta Georgiabased SP Richards distributes products ranging from office furniture to school supplies The combined entity will be called Essendant and headed by Phillips SP Richards CEO Rick Toppin will become chief operating officer of the new company Essendant had a market capitalization of about 3235 million as of Wednesdays close Genuine Parts one of the leading US car parts distributors said the deal implied a valuation of about 680 million for SP Richards Genuine Parts Co 9013 GPCN New York Stock Exchange 047 052 GPCN ESNDO AMZNO Genuine Parts will get 347 million in cash and its shareholders 51 percent of the newlyformed combined company Structured as a Reverse Morris Trust deal the transaction will be taxfree for the companies shareholders The company has been evaluating options for the SP Richards business which has been pressured by weak demand for office supplies Essendant has also been hit as large customers source products directly from manufacturers Its net sales declined 62 percent to 504 billion in 2017 while adjusted profit fell more than 50 percent Genuine Parts has been focusing on its auto parts and industrial businesses Last year the company completed a deal to buy Londonbased Alliance Automotive Group and took a stake in Australias Inenco Group Citigroup Global Markets Inc was the financial adviser for Essendant while JP Morgan advised Genuine Parts Reporting by Arunima Banerjee in Bengaluru editing by Patrick Graham and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles LONDON Reuters World stocks and commodities rose on Friday with stocks set to post their biggest weekly gain in over a month as investors seemed to shrug off the uncertainty over tension in the Middle East and the prospect of a global trade war The German share price index DAX board is seen at the stock exchange in Frankfurt Germany March 21 2018 REUTERSTilman Blasshofer Global stock markets have had a whipsaw week largely fueled by US President Donald Trumps tendency to change his mind over key policy and political issues The MSCI AllCountry World Index MIWO00000PUS which tracks shares in 47 countries was up nearly 01 percent on the day It has gained nearly 2 percent this week its best weekly showing since March European bourses opened positive with the panEuropean STOXX 600 index on track for its third straight week of gains its longest winning streak since January The beginnings of European companies firstquarter results were largely positive though misses were badly punished EU Earlier in Asia MSCIs broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan MIAPJ0000PUS was up a slim 01 percent still up about 2 percent on the week Overall Fridays performance in stocks seemed to suggest investors were relieved at apparent suggestions from Trump that a military strike on Syria may not be imminent However the threat of a strike remained after Washingtons earlier warnings against the Syrian government for what is said was a suspected poison gas attack on its civilians It would be nave in the extreme to suggest that the events of the last 24 hours means that the threat of an escalation of geopolitical factors has passed said Michael Hewson chief markets analyst at CMC Markets in London But for now while the background noise is driving the shortterm direction as markets gyrate higher and lower recent price action might suggest that we could look to head towards the upper end of the trading range in the coming days particularly if US earnings come in ahead of expectations The earnings season begins in earnest on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co JPMN Citigroup Inc CN and Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN Analysts expect quarterly profit for SampampP 500 companies to rise 184 percent from a year ago in what would be the biggest gain in seven years according to Thomson Reuters IBES ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads RISK APPETITE Investors had other reasons to fret however Mixed data from China showed March exports unexpectedly fell 27 percent from a year earlier while imports jumped more than forecast While the figures pointed to robust demand from the worlds top consumer of crude copper and iron ore they left the country with a rare trade deficit of 498 billion for the month the first since last February Trade tensions also were not far from the surface with analysts at Citi noting prolonged uncertainty will likely hurt open Asian economies such as Taiwan Singapore and South Korea In the most recent change of tack Trump Thursday asked his advisers to look at rejoining the Trans Pacific Partnership a multinational trade pact he withdrew the United States from early last year JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co 11337 JPMN New York Stock Exchange 275 249 JPMN CN WFCN But he later tweeted that the United States would only join the TPP if the deal were substantially better than the one offered to former President Barack Obama The return of risk appetite also played out in the currencies and commodities complex The dollar hit a sixweek high against the Japanese yen The yen tends to benefit from geopolitical uncertainty and risk aversion JPY FRX The Australian dollar considered a proxy for risk sentiment rose to a threeweek high AUDD4 The dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was down 01 percent DXY London aluminum slipped on Friday but was on track for its biggest weekly gain on record after the United States imposed sanctions on Russias UC Rusal the worlds second biggest producer of the metal raising supply concerns METL Spot gold XAU was up 04 percent at 134037 an ounce and was set for a weekly gain of almost 04 percent XAU Oil prices edged higher and were set for their biggest weekly gains since last July OR Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 03 percent to 7221 per barrel US WTI crude futures CLc1 rose 02 percent to 6719 Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in TOKYO and Swati Pandey in SYDNEY Editing by Alison Williams Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles KANE COUNTY Ill Reuters Lucas Strom who runs a centuryold family farm in rural Illinois canceled an order to buy a new 71000 grain storage bin last month after the seller raised the price 5 percent in a day Illinois grain farmer Lucas Strom checks on his tractor inside his barn in unincorporated Kane County Illinois US April 10 2018 REUTERSPJ Huffstutter The reason steel prices jumped right after US President Donald Trump announced tariffs Throughout US farm country where Trump has enjoyed strong support tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are boosting costs for equipment and infrastructure and causing some farmers and agricultural firms to scrap purchases and expansion plans according to Reuters interviews with farmers manufacturers construction firms and food shippers The impact of rising steel prices on agriculture illustrates the unintended and unpredictable consequences of aggressive protectionism in a global economy And the blow comes as farmers fear a more direct hit from retaliatory tariffs threatened by China on crops such as sorghum and soybeans the most valuable US agricultural export AampampP Grain Systems in Maple Park Illinois the seller of the storage bin Strom wanted to buy with a neighboring farmer raised its price two days after Trump announced aluminum and steel tariffs on March 1 to protect US producers of the metals Strom and his neighbor backed out Would that price destroy us No Strom said But these days you have to be smart about your expenses The metals tariffs also hitting makers and sellers of farm equipment from smaller firms like AampampP Grain to global giants such as Deere ampamp Co DEN and Caterpillar Inc CATN Such firms are struggling with whether and how to pass along their higher raw materials costs to farmers who are already reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut The worlds two largest economies have threatened each other with tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of goods recent weeks Trump imposedamp160tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum in a move mainly aimed at curbing imports from China Heamp160has since temporarily excluded theamp160European Union and six other allies from the duties and given them until May 1 to negotiate permanent exemptions AampampP Grain President Dave Altepeter said the steel used in their bins is made in the United States but domestic steel prices also have soared because of the tariffs US steel mills typically adjust their prices once a year normally in the first quarter Altepeter said But this year those prices have jumped four times he said The price of steel used in AampampPs grain bins has jumped about 20 percent since January 1 ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads Any time theres any type of negative talk that affects the steel mill theyve raised the price said Altepeter Last year about 95000 tons of steel was shipped to the agriculture industry compared to the 14 million tons for the US auto industry according to the American Iron and Steel Institute an industry group Other factors had been driving up steel prices before the recent trade disputes includingamp160an improving global economy and accelerating manufacturing and construction particularly in the US The White House referred questions from Reuters to the US Department of Agriculture which did not respond to a request for comment Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have vowed the US government will protect farmers from Chinas tariffs but not explained how US farmers can illafford any loss of sales Farm income has dropped by more than half since 2013 following years of massive harvests that have depressed prices for staples such as corn and soybeans US competitors Brazil Argentina and Russia have all raised grain output in recent years eating into the US share of global markets Mexico imported ten times more corn from Brazil last year and is set to buy even more in 2018 on worries that renegotiations of the NAFTA trade pact could disrupt their US supplies Strom said he has also pushed back plans to build a new metal storage building to house his planter and the combine head he uses for harvesting corn and soybeans Other farmers food producers and beer makers have scrambled to finalize deals for steelbased equipment before prices climb more Slideshow 2 Images CONSTRUCTION POSTPONED In Riverton Illinois farmer Allen Entwistle said he postponed construction of a new 800000 storage system for grain after AGCO Corps AGCON GSI unit increased prices by 15 percent Entwistle who voted for Trump will instead store corn in bags on the ground President Trump keeps telling us hes going to get a better deal Entwistle said When are we gonna make it better AGCO said Trumps tariffs will raise its costs and make price hikes to customers unavoidable As the entire grain storage industry has weathered increased steel prices AGCO and GSI are constantly looking for new ways to maximize efficiency and minimize the impact to customers said spokeswoman Kelli Cook Other companies including Deere and Caterpillar are also facing pain from rising steel prices which account for about 10 percent of equipment manufacturers direct costs Deere ampamp Co 15026 DEN New York Stock Exchange 585 405 DEN CATN AGCON Deere CEO Samuel Allen told Reuters last month the company will have to absorb the price increase and cut costs elsewhere Chinas threatened tariffs on US crops could hurt the company even more by undermining demand from farmers he said This has a huge effect on livelihood of the farmer right now and at the same time it has a huge impact on manufacturers said Dennis Slater president at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers an industry group US net farm income is forecast to drop to 595 billion in 2018 dollars down from 649 billion in 2017 an 83 percent decline according to the USDA TARIFF DOOMANDGLOOM In Sheffield Iowa Sukup Manufacturing has seen steel prices soar 40 percent since November said Brent Hansen the companys commercial accounts manager The maker of grain bins and premanufactured steel buildings has encouraged customers to buy quickly before prices jump more But some have already postponed projects Hansen said Thats obviously a big price increase for an industry thats a little bit doomandgloom over tariffs Hansen said Sukup used to give customers up to two months to consider its bids for projects Now it allows just a week in some cases because of volatile steel prices Hansen said Prices have jumped by 25 percent for thermal insulated panels that keep food cold which can use either steel aluminum or both said Glenn Todd owner of Todd Construction Services The company has built food processing and storage facilities for Bumble Bee Seafoods and poultry company Foster Farms Richard Adkins director of sales at Discovery Designs Refrigeration in Mukwonago Wisconsin thought his company wouldnt have to worry about Trumps tariffs Most of the metal they use to design industrial refrigeration systems comes from Canada and Mexico he said and the president has exempted both countries from the levies It didnt matter Pricehike notices from vendors landed in Adkins mailbox days after Trump announced the duties Theres this kneejerk reaction Adkins said Were quoting prices for projects that wont be awarded for another six or eight months and no one wants to be hung out to dry Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and PJ Huffstutter in Kane County Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago Editing by David Gaffen Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>Songbird continued her flight of conquest with a hard-earned victory in a highlight of American weekend racing while Enable, Harry Angel, Shakeel and Roly Poly earned victories on the international front.</p> <p>Hong Kong wound up its longest season with record results and the promise of more to come.</p> <p>There&#8217;s plenty to come, right here:</p> <p>Distaff</p> <p>Songbird flew right to the front in Saturday&#8217;s $750,000 Grade I Delaware Handicap and, despite some relentless pressure from Martini Glass, won her second straight race. The 4-year-old Medaglia d&#8217;Oro filly, with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mike_Smith/" type="external">Mike Smith</a> aboard, ran 1 1/4 miles on a fast track in 2:03.96. Line of Best Fit was third.</p> <p>&#8220;We were a little nervous at the eighth-pole, but we won and that is all that matters,&#8221; said winning owner Richard Porter.</p> <p>&#8220;I feel great and we pulled it off,&#8221; Smith added. &#8220;There is always a little pressure and if there is not, there is something wrong. I take this very seriously. These races are not easy. These are the kind of races you get beat in. If she did not run there would have been a whole lot of doubt, but she responded.&#8221;</p> <p>Songbird has won 13 of 14 starts, losing only by a nose to Beholder in last fall&#8217;s Breeders&#8217; Cup Distaff at Santa Anita. Trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jerry_Hollendorfer/" type="external">Jerry Hollendorfer</a> said her next race is not yet set.</p> <p>Also Saturday, Overture led from the start in the $200,000 Grade III Indiana Oaks at Indiana Grand and held nicely, beating the favorite, Mopotism, by 1 length. Majestic Quality finished third. Overture, a Congrats filly, ran 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:43.79 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Julien_Leparoux/" type="external">Julien Leparoux</a> riding for trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Bill_Mott/" type="external">Bill Mott</a>. Overture was making just her fifth career start and scored her second win.</p> <p>Classic</p> <p>Irap waited behind the early pace in Saturday&#8217;s $500,000 Grade III Indiana Derby at Indiana Grand, came eight-wide into the stretch and quickly put matters to rest, winning off by 5 lengths. Colonelsdarktemper beat the others with Untrapped a further 1 3/4 lengths in arrears. Irap, with Mario Gutierrez up, got 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:42.21. The Tiznow colt won the Grade II Toyota Blue Grass at Keeneland, then finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby. He bounced back from that to win the Grade III Ohio Derby in his previous start.</p> <p>Out west, West Coast found his best stride late in Saturday&#8217;s $200,000 Grade III Los Alamitos Derby, rallying from off the pace to win by 2 3/4 lengths. Klimt, B Squared and Colonist finished behind the winner in that order with less than 1/2 length separating them. West Coast, a Flatter colt, ran 9 furlongs on a fast track in 1:48.65 with Drayden <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Van_Dyke/" type="external">Van Dyke</a> in the irons. Winner of the Easy Goer Stakes at Belmont Park in his previous start, West Coast now has four wins and two seconds from six starts. &#8220;He took off the last eighth of a mile,&#8221; said winning trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Bob_Baffert/" type="external">Bob Baffert</a>. &#8220;He needs to learn how to run like that. Mission accomplished.&#8221; Baffert said he will consider sending West Coast back to the east for the $1.25 million Grade I Travers at Saratoga on Aug. 26. &#8220;I mile and a quarter should suit him,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think it would be a good spot for him.&#8221;</p> <p>At this time last year, Baffert was preparing a little-known colt named Arrogate for a shot at the Travers.</p> <p>Turf</p> <p>Frostmourne waited behind a breakaway leader in Saturday&#8217;s $200,000 Grade III Kent Stakes for 3-year-olds at Delaware Park, reeled that one in at the top of the stretch and kicked away to win by 6 lengths. Master Plan and Adonis Creed filled the trifecta slots. Frostmourne, a Speightstown colt, ran 9 furlongs on good turf in 1:49.95. &#8220;He settled down nicely,&#8221; said winning rider <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Joel_Rosario/" type="external">Joel Rosario</a>. &#8220;The horse pulled away a little bit, but I took my time and I got into his stride. He relaxed and when I asked he responded.&#8221;</p> <p>Disco Partner got clear in the stretch run of Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Forbidden Apple Stakes at Belmont Park and finished well, winning by 3 3/4 lengths. Jet Jets and Bondurant were second and third. Disco Partner, a 5-year-old son of Disco Rico, ran 1 mile on firm turf in 1:33.49 for jockey <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Irad-Ortiz/" type="external">Irad Ortiz</a> Jr. &#8220;We&#8217;ll have to think about putting together a nice summer campaign,&#8221; said winning trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Christophe_Clement/" type="external">Christophe Clement</a>. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s top class. He&#8217;s not Breeders&#8217; Cup eligible, so I&#8217;ll have to speak with (owners) Mr. and Mrs. Generazio and we&#8217;ll try to map out the next two to three starts for him between now and the end of the year and try to do the best we can.&#8221;</p> <p>Turf Sprint</p> <p>Morticia broke on top in Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Stormy Blues Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Laurel Park, took back behind Smiling Causeway, then came again to win by 1 3/4 lengths over that rival. Deer Valley was third, another 1 3/4 lengths back. Morticia, a Twirling Candy filly, ran 5 1/2 furlongs on firm turf in 1:01.29 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jose_Lezcano/" type="external">Jose Lezcano</a> up for trainer Rusty Arnold. She has won four of her last five starts with a second in the Grade III Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland sandwiched in that streak. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been riding her a couple times already and she&#8217;s a very nice filly. She&#8217;s all heart,&#8221; said Lezcano, who has been aboard for all three of Morticia&#8217;s stakes wins. &#8220;She tries hard and she wants to win all the time.&#8221;</p> <p>Sprint</p> <p>Pink Lloyd dueled to the lead in Sunday&#8217;s $140,000 (Canadian) Vigil Stakes on the Woodbine all-weather course and widened the lead down the lane to a 2 1/4 lengths victory. We Deer You was second; Western Elegance, third. Pink Lloyd, the odds-on favorite, ran 7 furlongs in 1:22.18 for jockey Eurico Da Silva. &#8220;He ran very, very hard the last quarter,&#8221; <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/da_Silva/" type="external">da Silva</a> said. &#8220;My horse was running very, very relaxed. You saw the end where he really kicked hard. He&#8217;s a wonderful animal. He&#8217;s amazing. You ride a horse like this and it gives you such a great feeling.&#8221;</p> <p>Juvenile</p> <p>What a Catch led from the start in Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Rockville Center Stakes for New York-bred juveniles and went on to win by 1 length from the favorite, Morning Breeze. Analyze the Odds was 6 lengths farther back in third. What a Catch, a Justin Phillip colt, ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 1:11.21 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_Velazquez/" type="external">John Velazquez</a> up. &#8220;I thought he was very professional,&#8221; said Byron Hughes, assistant to winning trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Todd_Pletcher/" type="external">Todd Pletcher</a>. &#8220;He acted good in the paddock and post parade, broke sharp and fought off the second-place horse. He&#8217;s always been pretty classy, a bit precocious 2-year-old. He&#8217;s been benefitting from that and stepping up every time we&#8217;ve asked him.&#8221; What a Catch is 2-for-2 with both wins at Belmont.</p> <p>Juvenile Fillies</p> <p>Pure Silver was pure gold in Sunday&#8217;s $100,000 Lynbrook Stakes for New York-bred 2-year-old fillies, leading all the way to a 1 1/2-lengths victory over the favorite, I Still Miss You. One Last Cast was third and Northernstreetgal completed the order of finish. Pure Silver, a daughter of Mission Impazible, ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 1:11.40 with John Velazquez in the irons. &#8220;After the last start we knew she had the speed out of the gate and she showed it again today and she was able to hang on,&#8221; said Byron Hughes, assistant to winning trainer Todd Pletcher. &#8220;We will see how she comes out of the race and from there it will be somewhere at Saratoga for sure.&#8221;</p> <p>International</p> <p>England</p> <p>Harry Angel turned the tables on his 3-year-old rival, previously undefeated Caravaggio, in Friday&#8217;s Group 1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket. After tracking the early pace, the Dark Angel colt, running in Godolphin blue, got the lead in the final furlong and held off last year&#8217;s winner, Limato, by a comfortable 1 1/4 lengths. Brando was third and Caravaggio, the favorite, struggled home fourth after a second straight sluggish start. In their last start, the Grade I Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, Harry Angel contested the early lead and had no answer when Caravaggio ran by him for the win. Harry Angel now has three wins and three seconds from six career starts.</p> <p>On Friday at the Newmarket July meeting, Roly Poly rolled over six rivals in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes, winning by 1 1/4 lengths over Wuheida. Arabian Hope was along late to secure third for Godolphin with Josephine Gordon riding. Roly Poly, with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ryan_Moore/" type="external">Ryan Moore</a> up for trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Aidan_O_Brien/" type="external">Aidan O&#8217;Brien</a> and the Coolmore partners, ran 1 mile on good to firm going in 1:36.01. In her two previous starts, the Group 1 Irish 1,000 Guineas and the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, Roly Poly finished second to stablemate Winter, who did not contest the Falmouth.</p> <p>France</p> <p>Shakeel caught pacesetting Permian in the final 100 yards of Friday&#8217;s Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris at Saint-Cloud for 3-year-old colts and geldings and won the 1 1/2-miles fixture by a head bob. Venice Beach was 1 length farther back in third. With William Buick up, Shakeel raced in the middle of the nine-horse field before being asked to improve position 2 furlongs out. He responded and gradually wore down the leader. Shakeel, an Aga Khan homebred Dalakhani colt, scored his second win from six starts for trainer Alain Du Royer-Dupre</p> <p>Ireland</p> <p>Enable completed the &#8220;Oaks double&#8221; with a victory in Saturday&#8217;s Group 1 Irish Oaks at the Curragh, winning every bit as easily as she did in her previous start at Epsom in the Group 1 Investec Oaks. With <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Frankie_Dettori/" type="external">Frankie Dettori</a> up for trainer <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_Gosden/" type="external">John Gosden</a>, the Juddmonte Farms hombred daughter of Nathanial sat just behind the early speed, took over 2 furlongs out and won as she pleased. Rain Goddess, the better of the two Coolmore runners, was up for second, 5 1/2 lengths in arrears. The Aga Khan&#8217;s Eziyra was third. Enable has won all three starts as a 3-year-old.</p> <p>Hong Kong</p> <p>The Hong Kong Jockey Club wound up its 2016-17 season Sunday at Sha Tin with growth so impressive that CEO <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Winfried_Engelbrecht-Bresges/" type="external">Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges</a> said, &#8220;It has surprised me how strong it has been. Following a recession-driving 2 percent drop in handle the previous year, this year&#8217;s total turnover was a record HK$117.456 billion (around US$15 billion), up 10.7 percent.</p> <p>The season was extended by five meetings this term, to 88. But Engelbrecht-Bresches noted that meant only 22 additional races and attributed a big part of the overall growth to a substantial increase in commingled simulcast revenue &#8212; one of the HKJC&#8217;s long-term initiatives.</p> <p>&#8220;If you look at last year, the total turnover from commingling was HK$3.47 billion (US$44 million), which was 3.3% of the total,&#8221; the CEO said. &#8220;This year, with our expanding portfolio of partners, total turnover from commingling was HK$6.5 billion (US$83 million), an astounding increase of 87.1 percent and 5.7 percent of the total.&#8221;</p> <p>Around the ovals:</p> <p>Woodbine</p> <p>Tulsa Queen rallied from last of six to upset Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 (Canadian) Duchess Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, winning by 1/2 length over Just Be Kind. My Arch was third and the favorite, Conquest Vivi, settled for fourth. Tulsa Queen, a Pennsylvania-bred Cactus Ridge filly, ran 7 furlongs on the all-weather track in 1:23.51 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mario_Pino/" type="external">Mario Pino</a> up.</p> <p>Indiana Grand</p> <p>Beauty rallied from last of seven to win Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Indiana General Assembly Distaff by 1/2 length over Linda. The early leader, Sky My Sky, finished 1/2 length farther back in third. Beauty, a British-bred daughter of Sea the Stars, got 1 1/16 miles on firm turf in 1:42.27 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/James_Graham/" type="external">James Graham</a> in the irons.</p> <p>Western Reserve was in command all the way in Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Warrior Veterans Stakes, winning by 3 3/4 lengths from One Mean Man. Special Ops was second with the favorite, Chocolate Ride, fourth after pressing the pace. Western Reserve, a 5-year-old Indian Charlie gelding, finished 1 1/16 miles on the green course in 1:41.83 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Florent-Geroux/" type="external">Florent Geroux</a> up.</p> <p>Tiger Moth rallied five-wide into the lane in Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Mari Hulman George Stakes for fillies and mares and outfinished Mo d&#8217;Amour, winning by 2 1/2 lengths. Big World was third as the even-money favorite. Tiger Moth, a 5-year-old Street Sense mare, ran 1 1/16 miles on the fast main track in 1:43.31 under Geroux.</p> <p>Eagle survived a rough start in Saturday&#8217;s $100,000 Michael G. Schaefer Memorial, took the lead in the lane with a rail move and just lasted, winning by a head over Fear the Cowboy and another nose from Mor Tom. Eagle, a 5-year-old <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Candy_Ride/" type="external">Candy Ride</a> colt, ran 1 1/16 miles on the main track in 1:40.24 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Brian_Hernandez/" type="external">Brian Hernandez</a> Jr. up.</p> <p>Delaware Park</p> <p>No Distortion took charge in the late going in Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 Carl Hansford Memorial, opening a daylight lead and coasting home a 2 1/2-lengths winner. Sea Raven was second, 1 1/2 lengths to the good of Discreet Lover. No Distortion, a 4-year-old <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Distorted_Humor/" type="external">Distorted Humor</a> gelding, ran 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:43.90 under Edwin Gonzalez.</p> <p>Struth battled Always Sunshine into submission in Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 Hockessin Stakes, exiting a tight duel to win by 1 1/2 lengths. Always Sunshine held second, 6 3/4 length ahead of Eighty Three. Struth, a 5-year-old Curlin gelding, ran 6 furlongs in 1:09.64 with Gonzales up.</p> <p>Laurel Park</p> <p>Just Howard got a head in front of Bonus Points at the wire in Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 Caveat Stakes for Maryland-bred 3-year-olds. Good Reasoning was third. Just Howard, an English Channel colt, ran 1 1/16 miles on firm turf in 1:40.87 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Alex_Cintron/" type="external">Alex Cintron</a> up.</p> <p>Gulfstream Park</p> <p>King&#8217;s Ghost and Quebec both rallied by pacesetting Cowgirl Tough in the stretch run in Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 Treasure Coast Handicap for fillies and mares with King&#8217;s Ghost prevailing by a nose. Cowgirl Tough held third. King&#8217;s Ghost, a 5-year-old Ontario-bred mare by Ghostzapper, ran 1 mile on firm turf in 1:36.13 with Jorge Ruiz in the irons.</p> <p>Monmouth Park</p> <p>Lipstick City came four-wide past the leaders to take Saturday&#8217;s $75,000 Boiling Springs Stakes for 3-year-old fillies by 2 1/2 lengths over Majestic Bonnie. Watch Your Six finished third. Lipstick City, a City Zip filly, ran 1 1/16 miles on good turf in 1:45.70 under Nik Juarez.</p> <p>Disco Chick took over the lead in the stretch run in Sunday&#8217;s $60,000 Regret Stakes for fillies and mare and got away to a 2 1/4 lengths victory. Court Dancer was second, 1 1/4 lengths ahead of the favorite, Bustin Out. Disco Chick, a 6-year-old <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jump_Start/" type="external">Jump Start</a> mare, got 6 furlongs on a fast track in 1:09.69 with Hector Caballero in the irons.</p> <p>Hastings</p> <p>He&#8217;s the Reason dueled with Boundary Bay throughout Sunday&#8217;s $50,000 (Canadian) Spaghetti Mouse Stakes for 2-year-olds, gained the narrowest of leads in the stretch and won by a neck over that rival. European was third. He&#8217;s the Reason, a gray gelding by The Factor, ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 1:12.90 with David Lopez riding.</p> <p>Daz Lin Dawn was along late to take Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 (Canadian) Supernatural Handicap for 3-year-old fillies by 1 3/4 lengths over Yukon Belle. Babys Got Track was third. Daz Lin Dawn, a daughter of Popular, was a popular winner as odds-on favorite, finishing 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:45.57 under Richard Hamel.</p> <p>Northlands Park</p> <p>Ruffenuff battled for the lead in Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 (Canadian) Northlands Oaks, then edged away to win by 2 3/4 lengths over Saveitforarainyday. The favorite, Anstrum, finished third. Ruffenuff, a daughter of Dialed In, ran 1 mile on a fast track in 1:39.22 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Quincy_Welch/" type="external">Quincy Welch</a> riding.</p> <p>Trooper John marched well clear of the rest in the stretch run of Saturday&#8217;s $50,000 (Canadian) Count Lathrum Handicap for 3-year-olds, winning by 9 1/2 lengths over Double Bear. Real Quality was third. With Keishan Balgobin in the irons, Trooper John, a Colonel John gelding, ran 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:44.28.</p> <p>Prairie Meadows</p> <p>Sweet Persuasion rallied wide to the lead in Saturday&#8217;s $70,000 Iowa Stallion Stakes for nominated 3-year-olds and kicked clear, winning by 2 lengths over K Kiddo. K Kash was third. Sweet Persuasion, a Discreetly Mine colt, ran 1 mile and 70 yards on a fast track in 1:43.27 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Terry_Thompson/" type="external">Terry Thompson</a> up.</p> <p>In the companion for nominated 3-year-old fillies, Honolulu came from well off the pace to win by 2 lengths over Runfastandloud. Hey Baby was third and the favorite, Jayne&#8217;s Idea, was last of nine after making the early lead. Honolulu, an Oklahoma-bred filly by Maclean&#8217;s Music, ran 1 mile and 70 yards in 1:44.31 with Kevin Roman in the irons.</p> <p>Emerald Downs</p> <p>He&#8217;s Not Grey, the only first-time starter in the field, was up in the final sixteenth to win Sunday&#8217;s $50,000 Emerald Express for 2-year-old colts and geldings by 3 1/2 lengths over Bullet Drill. Brown Tiger was a neck farther back in third. He&#8217;s Not Grey, a Slew&#8217;s Tiznow colt, ran 5 1/2 furlongs on a fast track in 1:05.04 with <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Juan_Gutierrez/" type="external">Juan Gutierrez</a> in the irons.</p> <p>Bella Mia led all the way in Sunday&#8217;s $50,000 Angie C. Stakes for 2-year-old fillies, winning by 2 1/4 lengths over Faith Flys Again. My Aunt Mo was third. Bella Mia, a daughter of Harbor the Gold, got 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:05.06 with Julien Couton up.</p> <p>Citizen Kitty rallied from mid-pack to take Sunday&#8217;s $50,000 Boeing Stakes for fillies and mares by 4 1/2 lengths from Princess Katie. Princess Kennedy was third. Citizen Kitty, a 5-year-old Proud Citizen mare, ran 1 mile in 1:36.84 with Couton in the irons.</p> <p>Mach One Rules drew off in the stretch run to win Sunday&#8217;s $50,000 Mt. Rainier Stakes by 2 lengths over Bistraya. Barkley finished third. Mach One Rules, a 4-year-old Harbor the Gold gelding, finished 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.55 with Isaias Enriquez up.</p>

UPI Horse Racing Roundup: Songbird highlights American racing weekend

https://newsline.com/upi-horse-racing-roundup-songbird-highlights-american-racing-weekend/

2017-07-17

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Songbird continued her flight of conquest with a hardearned victory in a highlight of American weekend racing while Enable Harry Angel Shakeel and Roly Poly earned victories on the international front Hong Kong wound up its longest season with record results and the promise of more to come There8217s plenty to come right here Distaff Songbird flew right to the front in Saturday8217s 750000 Grade I Delaware Handicap and despite some relentless pressure from Martini Glass won her second straight race The 4yearold Medaglia d8217Oro filly with Mike Smith aboard ran 1 14 miles on a fast track in 20396 Line of Best Fit was third 8220We were a little nervous at the eighthpole but we won and that is all that matters8221 said winning owner Richard Porter 8220I feel great and we pulled it off8221 Smith added 8220There is always a little pressure and if there is not there is something wrong I take this very seriously These races are not easy These are the kind of races you get beat in If she did not run there would have been a whole lot of doubt but she responded8221 Songbird has won 13 of 14 starts losing only by a nose to Beholder in last fall8217s Breeders8217 Cup Distaff at Santa Anita Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said her next race is not yet set Also Saturday Overture led from the start in the 200000 Grade III Indiana Oaks at Indiana Grand and held nicely beating the favorite Mopotism by 1 length Majestic Quality finished third Overture a Congrats filly ran 1 116 miles on a fast track in 14379 with Julien Leparoux riding for trainer Bill Mott Overture was making just her fifth career start and scored her second win Classic Irap waited behind the early pace in Saturday8217s 500000 Grade III Indiana Derby at Indiana Grand came eightwide into the stretch and quickly put matters to rest winning off by 5 lengths Colonelsdarktemper beat the others with Untrapped a further 1 34 lengths in arrears Irap with Mario Gutierrez up got 1 116 miles on a fast track in 14221 The Tiznow colt won the Grade II Toyota Blue Grass at Keeneland then finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby He bounced back from that to win the Grade III Ohio Derby in his previous start Out west West Coast found his best stride late in Saturday8217s 200000 Grade III Los Alamitos Derby rallying from off the pace to win by 2 34 lengths Klimt B Squared and Colonist finished behind the winner in that order with less than 12 length separating them West Coast a Flatter colt ran 9 furlongs on a fast track in 14865 with Drayden Van Dyke in the irons Winner of the Easy Goer Stakes at Belmont Park in his previous start West Coast now has four wins and two seconds from six starts 8220He took off the last eighth of a mile8221 said winning trainer Bob Baffert 8220He needs to learn how to run like that Mission accomplished8221 Baffert said he will consider sending West Coast back to the east for the 125 million Grade I Travers at Saratoga on Aug 26 8220I mile and a quarter should suit him8221 he said 8220I think it would be a good spot for him8221 At this time last year Baffert was preparing a littleknown colt named Arrogate for a shot at the Travers Turf Frostmourne waited behind a breakaway leader in Saturday8217s 200000 Grade III Kent Stakes for 3yearolds at Delaware Park reeled that one in at the top of the stretch and kicked away to win by 6 lengths Master Plan and Adonis Creed filled the trifecta slots Frostmourne a Speightstown colt ran 9 furlongs on good turf in 14995 8220He settled down nicely8221 said winning rider Joel Rosario 8220The horse pulled away a little bit but I took my time and I got into his stride He relaxed and when I asked he responded8221 Disco Partner got clear in the stretch run of Saturday8217s 100000 Forbidden Apple Stakes at Belmont Park and finished well winning by 3 34 lengths Jet Jets and Bondurant were second and third Disco Partner a 5yearold son of Disco Rico ran 1 mile on firm turf in 13349 for jockey Irad Ortiz Jr 8220We8217ll have to think about putting together a nice summer campaign8221 said winning trainer Christophe Clement 8220I think he8217s top class He8217s not Breeders8217 Cup eligible so I8217ll have to speak with owners Mr and Mrs Generazio and we8217ll try to map out the next two to three starts for him between now and the end of the year and try to do the best we can8221 Turf Sprint Morticia broke on top in Saturday8217s 100000 Stormy Blues Stakes for 3yearold fillies at Laurel Park took back behind Smiling Causeway then came again to win by 1 34 lengths over that rival Deer Valley was third another 1 34 lengths back Morticia a Twirling Candy filly ran 5 12 furlongs on firm turf in 10129 with Jose Lezcano up for trainer Rusty Arnold She has won four of her last five starts with a second in the Grade III Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland sandwiched in that streak 8220I8217ve been riding her a couple times already and she8217s a very nice filly She8217s all heart8221 said Lezcano who has been aboard for all three of Morticia8217s stakes wins 8220She tries hard and she wants to win all the time8221 Sprint Pink Lloyd dueled to the lead in Sunday8217s 140000 Canadian Vigil Stakes on the Woodbine allweather course and widened the lead down the lane to a 2 14 lengths victory We Deer You was second Western Elegance third Pink Lloyd the oddson favorite ran 7 furlongs in 12218 for jockey Eurico Da Silva 8220He ran very very hard the last quarter8221 da Silva said 8220My horse was running very very relaxed You saw the end where he really kicked hard He8217s a wonderful animal He8217s amazing You ride a horse like this and it gives you such a great feeling8221 Juvenile What a Catch led from the start in Saturday8217s 100000 Rockville Center Stakes for New Yorkbred juveniles and went on to win by 1 length from the favorite Morning Breeze Analyze the Odds was 6 lengths farther back in third What a Catch a Justin Phillip colt ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 11121 with John Velazquez up 8220I thought he was very professional8221 said Byron Hughes assistant to winning trainer Todd Pletcher 8220He acted good in the paddock and post parade broke sharp and fought off the secondplace horse He8217s always been pretty classy a bit precocious 2yearold He8217s been benefitting from that and stepping up every time we8217ve asked him8221 What a Catch is 2for2 with both wins at Belmont Juvenile Fillies Pure Silver was pure gold in Sunday8217s 100000 Lynbrook Stakes for New Yorkbred 2yearold fillies leading all the way to a 1 12lengths victory over the favorite I Still Miss You One Last Cast was third and Northernstreetgal completed the order of finish Pure Silver a daughter of Mission Impazible ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 11140 with John Velazquez in the irons 8220After the last start we knew she had the speed out of the gate and she showed it again today and she was able to hang on8221 said Byron Hughes assistant to winning trainer Todd Pletcher 8220We will see how she comes out of the race and from there it will be somewhere at Saratoga for sure8221 International England Harry Angel turned the tables on his 3yearold rival previously undefeated Caravaggio in Friday8217s Group 1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket After tracking the early pace the Dark Angel colt running in Godolphin blue got the lead in the final furlong and held off last year8217s winner Limato by a comfortable 1 14 lengths Brando was third and Caravaggio the favorite struggled home fourth after a second straight sluggish start In their last start the Grade I Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot Harry Angel contested the early lead and had no answer when Caravaggio ran by him for the win Harry Angel now has three wins and three seconds from six career starts On Friday at the Newmarket July meeting Roly Poly rolled over six rivals in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes winning by 1 14 lengths over Wuheida Arabian Hope was along late to secure third for Godolphin with Josephine Gordon riding Roly Poly with Ryan Moore up for trainer Aidan O8217Brien and the Coolmore partners ran 1 mile on good to firm going in 13601 In her two previous starts the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas and the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot Roly Poly finished second to stablemate Winter who did not contest the Falmouth France Shakeel caught pacesetting Permian in the final 100 yards of Friday8217s Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris at SaintCloud for 3yearold colts and geldings and won the 1 12miles fixture by a head bob Venice Beach was 1 length farther back in third With William Buick up Shakeel raced in the middle of the ninehorse field before being asked to improve position 2 furlongs out He responded and gradually wore down the leader Shakeel an Aga Khan homebred Dalakhani colt scored his second win from six starts for trainer Alain Du RoyerDupre Ireland Enable completed the 8220Oaks double8221 with a victory in Saturday8217s Group 1 Irish Oaks at the Curragh winning every bit as easily as she did in her previous start at Epsom in the Group 1 Investec Oaks With Frankie Dettori up for trainer John Gosden the Juddmonte Farms hombred daughter of Nathanial sat just behind the early speed took over 2 furlongs out and won as she pleased Rain Goddess the better of the two Coolmore runners was up for second 5 12 lengths in arrears The Aga Khan8217s Eziyra was third Enable has won all three starts as a 3yearold Hong Kong The Hong Kong Jockey Club wound up its 201617 season Sunday at Sha Tin with growth so impressive that CEO Winfried EngelbrechtBresges said 8220It has surprised me how strong it has been Following a recessiondriving 2 percent drop in handle the previous year this year8217s total turnover was a record HK117456 billion around US15 billion up 107 percent The season was extended by five meetings this term to 88 But EngelbrechtBresches noted that meant only 22 additional races and attributed a big part of the overall growth to a substantial increase in commingled simulcast revenue 8212 one of the HKJC8217s longterm initiatives 8220If you look at last year the total turnover from commingling was HK347 billion US44 million which was 33 of the total8221 the CEO said 8220This year with our expanding portfolio of partners total turnover from commingling was HK65 billion US83 million an astounding increase of 871 percent and 57 percent of the total8221 Around the ovals Woodbine Tulsa Queen rallied from last of six to upset Saturday8217s 100000 Canadian Duchess Stakes for 3yearold fillies winning by 12 length over Just Be Kind My Arch was third and the favorite Conquest Vivi settled for fourth Tulsa Queen a Pennsylvaniabred Cactus Ridge filly ran 7 furlongs on the allweather track in 12351 with Mario Pino up Indiana Grand Beauty rallied from last of seven to win Saturday8217s 100000 Indiana General Assembly Distaff by 12 length over Linda The early leader Sky My Sky finished 12 length farther back in third Beauty a Britishbred daughter of Sea the Stars got 1 116 miles on firm turf in 14227 with James Graham in the irons Western Reserve was in command all the way in Saturday8217s 100000 Warrior Veterans Stakes winning by 3 34 lengths from One Mean Man Special Ops was second with the favorite Chocolate Ride fourth after pressing the pace Western Reserve a 5yearold Indian Charlie gelding finished 1 116 miles on the green course in 14183 with Florent Geroux up Tiger Moth rallied fivewide into the lane in Saturday8217s 100000 Mari Hulman George Stakes for fillies and mares and outfinished Mo d8217Amour winning by 2 12 lengths Big World was third as the evenmoney favorite Tiger Moth a 5yearold Street Sense mare ran 1 116 miles on the fast main track in 14331 under Geroux Eagle survived a rough start in Saturday8217s 100000 Michael G Schaefer Memorial took the lead in the lane with a rail move and just lasted winning by a head over Fear the Cowboy and another nose from Mor Tom Eagle a 5yearold Candy Ride colt ran 1 116 miles on the main track in 14024 with Brian Hernandez Jr up Delaware Park No Distortion took charge in the late going in Saturday8217s 50000 Carl Hansford Memorial opening a daylight lead and coasting home a 2 12lengths winner Sea Raven was second 1 12 lengths to the good of Discreet Lover No Distortion a 4yearold Distorted Humor gelding ran 1 116 miles on a fast track in 14390 under Edwin Gonzalez Struth battled Always Sunshine into submission in Saturday8217s 50000 Hockessin Stakes exiting a tight duel to win by 1 12 lengths Always Sunshine held second 6 34 length ahead of Eighty Three Struth a 5yearold Curlin gelding ran 6 furlongs in 10964 with Gonzales up Laurel Park Just Howard got a head in front of Bonus Points at the wire in Saturday8217s 50000 Caveat Stakes for Marylandbred 3yearolds Good Reasoning was third Just Howard an English Channel colt ran 1 116 miles on firm turf in 14087 with Alex Cintron up Gulfstream Park King8217s Ghost and Quebec both rallied by pacesetting Cowgirl Tough in the stretch run in Saturday8217s 50000 Treasure Coast Handicap for fillies and mares with King8217s Ghost prevailing by a nose Cowgirl Tough held third King8217s Ghost a 5yearold Ontariobred mare by Ghostzapper ran 1 mile on firm turf in 13613 with Jorge Ruiz in the irons Monmouth Park Lipstick City came fourwide past the leaders to take Saturday8217s 75000 Boiling Springs Stakes for 3yearold fillies by 2 12 lengths over Majestic Bonnie Watch Your Six finished third Lipstick City a City Zip filly ran 1 116 miles on good turf in 14570 under Nik Juarez Disco Chick took over the lead in the stretch run in Sunday8217s 60000 Regret Stakes for fillies and mare and got away to a 2 14 lengths victory Court Dancer was second 1 14 lengths ahead of the favorite Bustin Out Disco Chick a 6yearold Jump Start mare got 6 furlongs on a fast track in 10969 with Hector Caballero in the irons Hastings He8217s the Reason dueled with Boundary Bay throughout Sunday8217s 50000 Canadian Spaghetti Mouse Stakes for 2yearolds gained the narrowest of leads in the stretch and won by a neck over that rival European was third He8217s the Reason a gray gelding by The Factor ran 6 furlongs on a fast track in 11290 with David Lopez riding Daz Lin Dawn was along late to take Saturday8217s 50000 Canadian Supernatural Handicap for 3yearold fillies by 1 34 lengths over Yukon Belle Babys Got Track was third Daz Lin Dawn a daughter of Popular was a popular winner as oddson favorite finishing 1 116 miles on a fast track in 14557 under Richard Hamel Northlands Park Ruffenuff battled for the lead in Saturday8217s 50000 Canadian Northlands Oaks then edged away to win by 2 34 lengths over Saveitforarainyday The favorite Anstrum finished third Ruffenuff a daughter of Dialed In ran 1 mile on a fast track in 13922 with Quincy Welch riding Trooper John marched well clear of the rest in the stretch run of Saturday8217s 50000 Canadian Count Lathrum Handicap for 3yearolds winning by 9 12 lengths over Double Bear Real Quality was third With Keishan Balgobin in the irons Trooper John a Colonel John gelding ran 1 116 miles on a fast track in 14428 Prairie Meadows Sweet Persuasion rallied wide to the lead in Saturday8217s 70000 Iowa Stallion Stakes for nominated 3yearolds and kicked clear winning by 2 lengths over K Kiddo K Kash was third Sweet Persuasion a Discreetly Mine colt ran 1 mile and 70 yards on a fast track in 14327 with Terry Thompson up In the companion for nominated 3yearold fillies Honolulu came from well off the pace to win by 2 lengths over Runfastandloud Hey Baby was third and the favorite Jayne8217s Idea was last of nine after making the early lead Honolulu an Oklahomabred filly by Maclean8217s Music ran 1 mile and 70 yards in 14431 with Kevin Roman in the irons Emerald Downs He8217s Not Grey the only firsttime starter in the field was up in the final sixteenth to win Sunday8217s 50000 Emerald Express for 2yearold colts and geldings by 3 12 lengths over Bullet Drill Brown Tiger was a neck farther back in third He8217s Not Grey a Slew8217s Tiznow colt ran 5 12 furlongs on a fast track in 10504 with Juan Gutierrez in the irons Bella Mia led all the way in Sunday8217s 50000 Angie C Stakes for 2yearold fillies winning by 2 14 lengths over Faith Flys Again My Aunt Mo was third Bella Mia a daughter of Harbor the Gold got 5 12 furlongs in 10506 with Julien Couton up Citizen Kitty rallied from midpack to take Sunday8217s 50000 Boeing Stakes for fillies and mares by 4 12 lengths from Princess Katie Princess Kennedy was third Citizen Kitty a 5yearold Proud Citizen mare ran 1 mile in 13684 with Couton in the irons Mach One Rules drew off in the stretch run to win Sunday8217s 50000 Mt Rainier Stakes by 2 lengths over Bistraya Barkley finished third Mach One Rules a 4yearold Harbor the Gold gelding finished 1 116 miles in 14255 with Isaias Enriquez up

Songbird/PROPN continued/VERB her/PRON flight/NOUN of/ADP conquest/NOUN with/ADP a/DET hardearned/VERB victory/NOUN in/ADP a/DET highlight/NOUN of/ADP American/ADJ weekend/NOUN racing/NOUN while/SCONJ Enable/PROPN Harry/PROPN Angel/PROPN Shakeel/PROPN and/CCONJ Roly/PROPN Poly/PROPN earned/VERB victories/NOUN on/ADP the/DET international/ADJ front/NOUN Hong/PROPN Kong/PROPN wound/VERB up/ADP its/PRON longest/ADJ season/NOUN with/ADP record/NOUN results/NOUN and/CCONJ the/DET promise/NOUN of/ADP more/ADJ to/PART come/VERB There8217s/PROPN plenty/NOUN to/PART come/VERB right/ADV here/ADV Distaff/PROPN Songbird/PROPN flew/VERB right/ADV to/ADP the/DET front/NOUN in/ADP Saturday8217s/PROPN 750000/NUM Grade/PROPN I/PRON Delaware/PROPN Handicap/PROPN and/CCONJ despite/SCONJ some/DET relentless/ADJ pressure/NOUN from/ADP Martini/PROPN Glass/PROPN won/VERB her/PRON second/ADJ straight/ADJ race/NOUN The/DET 4yearold/NUM Medaglia/PROPN d8217Oro/VERB filly/ADV with/ADP Mike/PROPN Smith/PROPN 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<p>March 8th, 2011&#8212;International women day in Egypt. &amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aljazeeraenglish/5509912596/in/photostream/"&amp;gt;Al Jazeera English&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175384/tomgram%3A_shahin_and_juan_cole%2C_the_women%27s_movement_in_the_middle_east_/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>The &#8220;Arab Spring&#8221; has received copious attention in the American media, but one of its crucial elements has been largely overlooked: the striking role of women in the protests sweeping the Arab world. Despite inadequate media coverage of their role, women have been and often remain at the forefront of those protests.</p> <p>As a start, women had a significant place in the Tunisian demonstrations that kicked off the Arab Spring, often marching up Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, the capital, with their husbands and children in tow. Then, the spark for the Egyptian uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office was a January 25th demonstration in Cairo&#8217;s Tahrir Square called by an impassioned young woman via a video posted on Facebook. In Yemen, columns of veiled women have come out in Sanaa and Taiz to force that country&#8217;s autocrat from office, while in Syria, facing armed secret police, women have blockaded roads to demonstrate for the release of their husbands and sons from prison.</p> <p>But with such bold gestures go fears. As women look to the future, they worry that on the road to new, democratic parliamentary regimes, their rights will be discarded in favor of male constituencies, whether patriarchal liberals or Muslim fundamentalists. The collective memory of how women were in the forefront of the Algerian revolution for independence from France from 1954 to 1962, only to be relegated to the margins of politics thereafter, still weighs heavily.</p> <p>Historians will undoubtedly debate the causes of the Arab Spring for decades. Among them certainly are high rates of unemployment for the educated classes, neoliberal policies of privatization and union-busting, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175346/tomgram%3A_juan_cole,_american_policy_on_the_brink" type="external">corruption in high places</a>, soaring food and energy prices, economic hardship caused by the shrinking of employment opportunities in the Gulf oil states and Europe (thanks to the 2008 global financial meltdown), and decades of frustration with petty, authoritarian styles of governing. In their roles as workers and professionals as well as family caregivers, women have suffered directly from all these discontents and more, while watching their children and husbands suffer, too.</p> <p>In late January, freelance journalist Megan Kearns <a href="http://opinionessoftheworld.com/2011/01/31/egyptian-women-take-to-the-streets-alongside-the-men-to-protest-the-government/" type="external">pointed out</a> the relative inattention American television and most print and Internet media gave to women and, by and large, the absence of images of women protesting in Tunisia and Egypt. Yet women couldn&#8217;t have been more visible in the big demonstrations of early to mid-January in the streets of Tunis, whether accompanying their husbands and children or forming distinct protest lines of their own&#8212;and given Western ideas of oppressed Arab women, this should in itself have been news. &amp;#160;</p> <p>Women Take to the Streets from Tunisia to Syria</p> <p>To start with Tunisia, women there have, in fact, been in the vanguard of protest movements and social change since the drive to gain independence from France of the late 1940s. Tunisian women have a relatively high literacy rate (71%), represent more than one-fifth of the country&#8217;s wage earners, and make up 43% of the nearly half-million members of 18 local unions. Most of these unionized women work in the education, textile, health, city services, and tourism industries. The General Union of Tunisian Workers (French acronym: UGTT) had increasingly come into conflict with the country&#8217;s strongman, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and so its rank and file enthusiastically joined the street protests. Today, the UGTT continues to pressure the government formed after Ben Ali fled to move forward with genuine reforms.</p> <p>In all of this, women opinion-leaders played an important part. To take one example, although like most prominent Tunisians movie star <a href="http://www.hend-sabry.com/" type="external">Hend Sabry</a> had been <a href="http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/01/cablegate-and-tunisia-suha-and-laila.html" type="external">coerced</a> into supporting Ben Ali and his mafia-like in-laws, when the anti-government rallies began she broke with the autocrat, warning him <a href="http://presmaroc.info/farah/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=753%3A2011-02-02-11-41-26&amp;amp;catid=44%3Aistotla3&amp;amp;Itemid=174" type="external">in a Facebook post</a> against ordering his security forces to fire on the protesters. Later, she admitted to being terrified at making such a public gesture, lest her relatives in Tunis be harmed or she be permanently exiled from her homeland.</p> <p>In Egypt, the passionate <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/02/02/egypt-the-viral-vlog.html" type="external">video blog</a> or &#8220;vlog&#8221; of Asmaa Mahfouz that called on Egyptians to turn out massively on January 25th in Tahrir Square went viral, playing a significant role in the success of that event. Mahfouz appealed to Egyptians to honor four young men who, following the example of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/20/tunisian-fruit-seller-mohammed-bouazizi" type="external">Mohammed Bouazizi</a> (in an act which sparked the Tunisian uprisings), set themselves afire to protest the Mubarak regime.</p> <p>Although the secret police had already dismissed them as &#8220;psychopaths,&#8221; she insisted otherwise, demanding a country where people could live in dignity, not &#8220;like animals.&#8221; According to estimates, at least 20% of the crowds that thronged Tahrir Square that first week were made up of women, who also turned out in large numbers for protests in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria. Leil-Zahra Mortada&#8217;s <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.493689677675.268523.586357675" type="external">celebrated Facebook album</a> of women&#8217;s participation in the Egyptian revolution gives a sense of just how varied and powerful that turnout was.</p> <p>As in Tunisia, Egyptian women make up a little more than one-fifth of wage-earning workers&#8212;and labor has long been a powerful <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175355/michael_schwartz_weapons_of_mass_disruption" type="external">force for change</a> in that country. Before they began to mobilize around the Tahrir Square protests, Egyptian workers had staged over 3,000 strikes since 2004, with women sometimes <a href="http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/April/11%20o/Women%20Workers%20in%20Egypt,%20Hidden%20Key%20to%20the%20Revolution%20By%20Megan%20Cornish.htm" type="external">taking the lead</a>. During the height of the protests against the rule of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, unionized workers <a href="http://www.egyptworkersolidarity.org/?p=386" type="external">even formed</a> a new, nationwide umbrella trade union.</p> <p>In Libya, women&#8217;s protests proved central to the <a href="http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/02/women-of-derna-come-out-to-protest-against-gaddafi/" type="external">movement of entire cities</a> out of the control of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, as with Dirna in the western part of the country in February. What makes the prominence of women demonstrators there so remarkable is that city&#8217;s reputation as a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalism. The abuse of women, a central issue in countries like Libya, even burst into consciousness when a recent law-school graduate from a middle-class family in Tobruk, Iman al-Obeidi, <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/womens-rallies-in-libya-protest-rape.html" type="external">broke into</a> a government press conference in Tripoli to charge that Gaddafi&#8217;s troops had detained her at a checkpoint and then raped her. Her plight provoked women&#8217;s demonstrations against the regime in the rebel-held cities of Benghazi and Tobruk.</p> <p>On April 15th, Yemeni president for life Ali Abdullah Saleh scolded women for &#8220;inappropriately&#8221; mixing in public with men at the huge demonstrations then being staged in the capital, Sanaa, as well as in the cities of Taiz and Aden. In this way, the issue of women&#8217;s place in the mass protests against decades of autocracy was, for the first time, explicitly broached by a high political figure&#8212;and the response from women couldn&#8217;t have been clearer. They <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-17/world/yemen.women.protest_1_yemeni-women-president-ali-abdullah-saleh-protesters?_s=PM:WORLD" type="external">came out</a> in unprecedented numbers throughout the country, and even in the countryside, day after day, accusing the president of &#8220;besmirching their honor&#8221; by implying that they were behaving brazenly. (It is a longstanding value in the Arab world to avoid impugning the honor of a chaste woman.) In other words, they turned his attempt to invoke Arab mores about women&#8217;s seclusion from the public sphere into a rallying cry against him.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0230102751/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Women of a certain age who lived in the southern part of the country found the president&#8217;s taunt particularly painful, given that they had grown up in the People&#8217;s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), ruled by a communist regime that promoted women&#8217;s rights. They were not subjected to more conservative norms until Saleh united the PDRY with northern Yemen in 1990. Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, only about a quarter of Yemeni women can read and write, only 17% have finished high school, and only 5% are wage earners, though most <a href="http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=100&amp;amp;SubID=1006&amp;amp;MainCat=" type="external">work hard all their lives</a>, many on farms. Still, in urban areas such as Aden, Taiz or Sanaa, middle and upper middle class women have an important place in the professions and business, or as schoolteachers, and more than a quarter of college students are women.</p> <p>Faced with the power of outraged women, Saleh <a href="http://www.yobserver.com/front-page/10021095.html" type="external">quickly backed off</a>, maintaining that, as a secular Arab nationalist, he believed they should be full participants in the political affairs of the nation. He had simply been wondering aloud, he claimed, how members of the opposition Islah Party, a fundamentalist Muslim organization, were so willing to allow women to march in the streets against him when they favored women&#8217;s seclusion on all other occasions.</p> <p>In Syria as well, on several occasions, women have shown their strength and bravery, turning out in forceful demonstrations&#8212;sometimes without men, but with their children in tow. Near the town of Bayda, for instance, thousands of women shouting &#8220;We will not be humiliated!&#8221; <a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20110414/NEWS07/104140449/Women-kids-students-join-protests-against-Syria-s-Assad" type="external">cut off</a> a coastal road to protest a heavy-handed government policy in which the secret police of President Bashar al-Assad had arrested their demonstrating male relatives. On other occasions, Syrian women <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_657604.html" type="external">have staged</a> all-female marches to demand democracy and changes in regime policy.</p> <p>Protecting Women&#8217;s Gains</p> <p>Despite the centrality of women activists to the Arab Spring, they have seldom been recognized as of real significance by most of the male politicians who will undoubtedly benefit from what they have accomplished. It was, for example, striking that women were without representation on the commission appointed to revise the Egyptian constitution in preparation for September elections, and that only one woman (a Mubarak holdover at that) was appointed to the 29-person interim cabinet.</p> <p>In addition, patriarchal forces such as Muslim fundamentalist groups and clergy are determined that women&#8217;s rights should not be expanded in the wake of these political upheavals. As an omen in the wind, when a modest-sized group of 200 women showed up at Tahrir Square on March 8th to commemorate International Women&#8217;s Day, they found themselves <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0308/In-Egypt-s-Tahrir-Square-women-attacked-at-rally-on-International-Women-s-Day" type="external">attacked</a> by militant religious young men who shouted that they should go home and do the laundry.</p> <p>Women&#8217;s groups and progressive movements are understandably <a href="http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2011/04/14/145356.html" type="external">apprehensive</a> about the possibility that, in Tunisia and Egypt, Muslim fundamentalist movements will become more influential in parliament and push through laws to the disadvantage of both women and secularists. Yet they have been remarkably unwilling to let such considerations deter them from embracing democracy, something secular-leaning dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak had warned them against.</p> <p>The likelihood of an actual Muslim fundamentalist takeover in either country remains minimal for the foreseeable future. In Egypt, the military government has so far retained a Mubarak-era ban on the Muslim Brotherhood putting up candidates under its own banner. As a result, its candidates will run as the representatives of other small parties. In addition, the organization has pledged to contest parliamentary seats in only a limited number of electoral districts, so as to allay middle-class fears that their goal is an Iran-style fundamentalist takeover of the country. Admittedly, Muslim conservatism will likely burgeon as a political current more generally in Egypt, whatever the shape of the next parliament, posing a challenge to women&#8217;s rights.</p> <p>For instance, some Brotherhood officials have <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20110417120544.htm" type="external">let slip</a> that they will indeed be working for the implementation of a medieval form of Islamic law, which would include the segregation of women and men in the workplace, while the mufti or chief adviser on Islamic law to the government in Egypt has called for a &#8220;review&#8221; of secular personal status laws that favor women, and which had been supported by Suzanne Mubarak, the fashionable wife of the deposed dictator.</p> <p>In Tunisia, the long years of repression under Ben Ali left the leading fundamentalist group, al-Nahda or the Renaissance Party, weakened. In any case its leader Rashid Ghannouchi <a href="http://www.worldcrunch.com/tunisia%E2%80%99s-islamist-leader-home-after-21-years-exile" type="external">has been speaking</a> of institutionalizing a &#8220;Turkish model&#8221; and says that, unlike the Egyptian Brotherhood, he supports the right of a woman to become the country&#8217;s president.</p> <p>In this, he is looking to former Turkish fundamentalists like Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul who, tired of being imprisoned by and butting heads with the secular Turkish establishment, founded the Justice and Development Party. Since coming to power in 2002, they have fought for a pluralistic system as a way of making a place for more traditional Muslims in society and politics without pushing for the implementation of medieval Muslim legal codes.</p> <p>Still, as backlash reactions like the attack on the International Women&#8217;s Day protest have set in, activists on women&#8217;s issues and progressives are wondering how to ensure that women&#8217;s gains this spring not be rolled back. In Egypt, <a href="http://www.filfan.com/News.asp?newsid=20366" type="external">prominent newscaster</a> and critic of the Mubarak regime Buthaina Kamel has <a href="http://atlantapost.com/2011/04/20/egypts-buthayana-kamil-makes-history-as-the-first-woman-to-run-for-president" type="external">her own idea</a> about how to gain women&#8217;s rights in a new, more democratic environment. She is running for president, something inconceivable in the Mubarak era.</p> <p>Even if her run gets little traction, her candidacy is nevertheless deeply symbolic and historic&#8212;and another strikingly brave act by a woman in this new era in the Arab world. (Her decision is, of course, opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood.) Other Egyptian women are <a href="http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/404087" type="external">hoping</a> that the constitution can be rewritten to strengthen women&#8217;s rights, and that the 64 seats set aside for women in the previous parliament will be retained.</p> <p>Politicians in the transitional government of Tunisia, for decades the most progressive Arab country with regard to women&#8217;s rights, are determined to protect the public role of women by making sure they are well represented in the new legislature. Elections are now planned for July 24th, and a high commission was appointed to set electoral rules. That body has already <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/9851/World/Region/Tunisia-to-give-women-candidates-parity-with-men-i.aspx" type="external">announced</a> that party lists will have to maintain parity between male and female candidates.</p> <p>In such a list system, you don&#8217;t vote for an individual but a party, which has published an ordered list of its candidates. If the list gets 10% of the vote nationally, it is awarded 10 percent of the seats in parliament, and can go down its ordered list until it fills all those seats. Parity for women means that every other candidate on the ordered list should be a woman, ensuring them high representation in the legislature. This procedure is sometimes called a &#8220;zipper&#8221; gender quota. Quotas for female legislators are common in Scandinavia and in the global South.</p> <p>Although the Tunisian requirement for gender parity remains controversial in some quarters, Ghannouchi&#8217;s al-Nahda Party recently came out in support of it. In contrast, Abdelwaheb El Hani, leader of the newly founded right-of-center party al-Majd, <a href="http://www.kapitalis.com/fokus/62-national/3553-tunisie-la-parite-homme-femme-pour-laconstituante-fait-debat.html" type="external">complained</a> that the rule was &#8220;a violation of freedom of electoral choice,&#8221; and insisted that he doubted it would be effective in promoting women&#8217;s representation. In contrast, the leftist al-Tajdid (Renewal) Party praised the move as &#8220;historic&#8221; and pledged to make women&#8217;s equality an &#8220;irreversible accomplishment and an effective reality in Tunisian political life.&#8221; Indeed, al-Tajdid wants an explicit equal rights amendment put into the constitution.</p> <p>Giving Women a Fighting Chance</p> <p>The Arab Spring has proven an epochal period of activism and change for women, recalling the role of early feminists in the 1919 Egyptian movement for independence from Britain, or the important place of women in the Algerian Revolution. The sheer numbers of politically active women in this series of uprisings, however, dwarf their predecessors. That this female element in the Arab Spring has drawn so little comment in the West suggests that our own narratives of, and preoccupations with, the Arab world&#8212;religion, fundamentalism, oil and Israel&#8212;have blinded us to the big social forces that are altering the lives of 300 million people.</p> <p>Women have been aided by this generation&#8217;s advances in education and the professions, by the prominence of articulate women anchors on satellite television networks like Aljazeera, and by the rise of the Internet and social media. Women can assert leadership roles in cyberspace that young men&#8217;s dominance of the public sphere might have hampered in city squares.</p> <p>Their prominence in the labor movements and at the public rallies in Tunisia and Egypt, moreover, underlines how much more of a public role they now have than is usually acknowledged. Even the trend toward wearing a headscarf among women in Egypt during the past two decades has been seen by some social scientists as a step forward. It has been a way for women to enter the public sphere and work outside the home in greater numbers than ever before while maintaining a claim on conservative ideals of chastity and piety.</p> <p>Women activists of the Arab Spring have come from all social classes, since it has been a mass movement. Middle and upper class women often focus their political energies on issues of political representation and on laws affecting women&#8217;s equality. Seeking constitutional guarantees of electoral parity is one possible way of responding to any patriarchal political backlash.</p> <p>Working class women are particularly concerned with wages and workers&#8217; rights. Stronger unions would improve women&#8217;s prospects for greater rights. Women&#8217;s health, literacy, and material wellbeing are concerns of all women. During the age of the dictators, the nation&#8217;s wealth was often usurped by a narrow elite of politically connected families. A democratization of politics could potentially lead to more state resources being devoted to women and the poor.</p> <p>Keep in mind that women such as Buthaina Kamel knew the risks when they called for Mubarak to step down. Whatever their patronizing appeals to feminist themes, authoritarian regimes like Mubarak&#8217;s and Ben Ali&#8217;s politically oppressed and stole from everyone in society, including women, and they had proved increasingly unable to deliver the social services and employment on which women and their families fundamentally depend for a better life. Before, women could be marginalized at will by the dictators whenever they made demands on the regime. Now, at least, they have a fighting chance.</p> <p>Shahin Cole holds an LL.B. from Punjab University Law School in Pakistan and has lived in Egypt and Yemen.</p> <p>Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. His latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0230102751/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Engaging the Muslim World</a>, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the <a href="http://www.juancole.com/" type="external">Informed Comment</a> website.</p>

An Arab Spring for Women

https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/women-in-arab-world/

2011-04-27

4left

March 8th 20118212International women day in Egypt amplta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotosaljazeeraenglish5509912596inphotostreamampgtAl Jazeera EnglishampltaampgtFlickr This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website The 8220Arab Spring8221 has received copious attention in the American media but one of its crucial elements has been largely overlooked the striking role of women in the protests sweeping the Arab world Despite inadequate media coverage of their role women have been and often remain at the forefront of those protests As a start women had a significant place in the Tunisian demonstrations that kicked off the Arab Spring often marching up Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis the capital with their husbands and children in tow Then the spark for the Egyptian uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office was a January 25th demonstration in Cairo8217s Tahrir Square called by an impassioned young woman via a video posted on Facebook In Yemen columns of veiled women have come out in Sanaa and Taiz to force that country8217s autocrat from office while in Syria facing armed secret police women have blockaded roads to demonstrate for the release of their husbands and sons from prison But with such bold gestures go fears As women look to the future they worry that on the road to new democratic parliamentary regimes their rights will be discarded in favor of male constituencies whether patriarchal liberals or Muslim fundamentalists The collective memory of how women were in the forefront of the Algerian revolution for independence from France from 1954 to 1962 only to be relegated to the margins of politics thereafter still weighs heavily Historians will undoubtedly debate the causes of the Arab Spring for decades Among them certainly are high rates of unemployment for the educated classes neoliberal policies of privatization and unionbusting corruption in high places soaring food and energy prices economic hardship caused by the shrinking of employment opportunities in the Gulf oil states and Europe thanks to the 2008 global financial meltdown and decades of frustration with petty authoritarian styles of governing In their roles as workers and professionals as well as family caregivers women have suffered directly from all these discontents and more while watching their children and husbands suffer too In late January freelance journalist Megan Kearns pointed out the relative inattention American television and most print and Internet media gave to women and by and large the absence of images of women protesting in Tunisia and Egypt Yet women couldn8217t have been more visible in the big demonstrations of early to midJanuary in the streets of Tunis whether accompanying their husbands and children or forming distinct protest lines of their own8212and given Western ideas of oppressed Arab women this should in itself have been news amp160 Women Take to the Streets from Tunisia to Syria To start with Tunisia women there have in fact been in the vanguard of protest movements and social change since the drive to gain independence from France of the late 1940s Tunisian women have a relatively high literacy rate 71 represent more than onefifth of the country8217s wage earners and make up 43 of the nearly halfmillion members of 18 local unions Most of these unionized women work in the education textile health city services and tourism industries The General Union of Tunisian Workers French acronym UGTT had increasingly come into conflict with the country8217s strongman Zine elAbidine Ben Ali and so its rank and file enthusiastically joined the street protests Today the UGTT continues to pressure the government formed after Ben Ali fled to move forward with genuine reforms In all of this women opinionleaders played an important part To take one example although like most prominent Tunisians movie star Hend Sabry had been coerced into supporting Ben Ali and his mafialike inlaws when the antigovernment rallies began she broke with the autocrat warning him in a Facebook post against ordering his security forces to fire on the protesters Later she admitted to being terrified at making such a public gesture lest her relatives in Tunis be harmed or she be permanently exiled from her homeland In Egypt the passionate video blog or 8220vlog8221 of Asmaa Mahfouz that called on Egyptians to turn out massively on January 25th in Tahrir Square went viral playing a significant role in the success of that event Mahfouz appealed to Egyptians to honor four young men who following the example of Mohammed Bouazizi in an act which sparked the Tunisian uprisings set themselves afire to protest the Mubarak regime Although the secret police had already dismissed them as 8220psychopaths8221 she insisted otherwise demanding a country where people could live in dignity not 8220like animals8221 According to estimates at least 20 of the crowds that thronged Tahrir Square that first week were made up of women who also turned out in large numbers for protests in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria LeilZahra Mortada8217s celebrated Facebook album of women8217s participation in the Egyptian revolution gives a sense of just how varied and powerful that turnout was As in Tunisia Egyptian women make up a little more than onefifth of wageearning workers8212and labor has long been a powerful force for change in that country Before they began to mobilize around the Tahrir Square protests Egyptian workers had staged over 3000 strikes since 2004 with women sometimes taking the lead During the height of the protests against the rule of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak unionized workers even formed a new nationwide umbrella trade union In Libya women8217s protests proved central to the movement of entire cities out of the control of Col Muammar Gaddafi as with Dirna in the western part of the country in February What makes the prominence of women demonstrators there so remarkable is that city8217s reputation as a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalism The abuse of women a central issue in countries like Libya even burst into consciousness when a recent lawschool graduate from a middleclass family in Tobruk Iman alObeidi broke into a government press conference in Tripoli to charge that Gaddafi8217s troops had detained her at a checkpoint and then raped her Her plight provoked women8217s demonstrations against the regime in the rebelheld cities of Benghazi and Tobruk On April 15th Yemeni president for life Ali Abdullah Saleh scolded women for 8220inappropriately8221 mixing in public with men at the huge demonstrations then being staged in the capital Sanaa as well as in the cities of Taiz and Aden In this way the issue of women8217s place in the mass protests against decades of autocracy was for the first time explicitly broached by a high political figure8212and the response from women couldn8217t have been clearer They came out in unprecedented numbers throughout the country and even in the countryside day after day accusing the president of 8220besmirching their honor8221 by implying that they were behaving brazenly It is a longstanding value in the Arab world to avoid impugning the honor of a chaste woman In other words they turned his attempt to invoke Arab mores about women8217s seclusion from the public sphere into a rallying cry against him Women of a certain age who lived in the southern part of the country found the president8217s taunt particularly painful given that they had grown up in the People8217s Democratic Republic of Yemen PDRY ruled by a communist regime that promoted women8217s rights They were not subjected to more conservative norms until Saleh united the PDRY with northern Yemen in 1990 Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt only about a quarter of Yemeni women can read and write only 17 have finished high school and only 5 are wage earners though most work hard all their lives many on farms Still in urban areas such as Aden Taiz or Sanaa middle and upper middle class women have an important place in the professions and business or as schoolteachers and more than a quarter of college students are women Faced with the power of outraged women Saleh quickly backed off maintaining that as a secular Arab nationalist he believed they should be full participants in the political affairs of the nation He had simply been wondering aloud he claimed how members of the opposition Islah Party a fundamentalist Muslim organization were so willing to allow women to march in the streets against him when they favored women8217s seclusion on all other occasions In Syria as well on several occasions women have shown their strength and bravery turning out in forceful demonstrations8212sometimes without men but with their children in tow Near the town of Bayda for instance thousands of women shouting 8220We will not be humiliated8221 cut off a coastal road to protest a heavyhanded government policy in which the secret police of President Bashar alAssad had arrested their demonstrating male relatives On other occasions Syrian women have staged allfemale marches to demand democracy and changes in regime policy Protecting Women8217s Gains Despite the centrality of women activists to the Arab Spring they have seldom been recognized as of real significance by most of the male politicians who will undoubtedly benefit from what they have accomplished It was for example striking that women were without representation on the commission appointed to revise the Egyptian constitution in preparation for September elections and that only one woman a Mubarak holdover at that was appointed to the 29person interim cabinet In addition patriarchal forces such as Muslim fundamentalist groups and clergy are determined that women8217s rights should not be expanded in the wake of these political upheavals As an omen in the wind when a modestsized group of 200 women showed up at Tahrir Square on March 8th to commemorate International Women8217s Day they found themselves attacked by militant religious young men who shouted that they should go home and do the laundry Women8217s groups and progressive movements are understandably apprehensive about the possibility that in Tunisia and Egypt Muslim fundamentalist movements will become more influential in parliament and push through laws to the disadvantage of both women and secularists Yet they have been remarkably unwilling to let such considerations deter them from embracing democracy something secularleaning dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak had warned them against The likelihood of an actual Muslim fundamentalist takeover in either country remains minimal for the foreseeable future In Egypt the military government has so far retained a Mubarakera ban on the Muslim Brotherhood putting up candidates under its own banner As a result its candidates will run as the representatives of other small parties In addition the organization has pledged to contest parliamentary seats in only a limited number of electoral districts so as to allay middleclass fears that their goal is an Iranstyle fundamentalist takeover of the country Admittedly Muslim conservatism will likely burgeon as a political current more generally in Egypt whatever the shape of the next parliament posing a challenge to women8217s rights For instance some Brotherhood officials have let slip that they will indeed be working for the implementation of a medieval form of Islamic law which would include the segregation of women and men in the workplace while the mufti or chief adviser on Islamic law to the government in Egypt has called for a 8220review8221 of secular personal status laws that favor women and which had been supported by Suzanne Mubarak the fashionable wife of the deposed dictator In Tunisia the long years of repression under Ben Ali left the leading fundamentalist group alNahda or the Renaissance Party weakened In any case its leader Rashid Ghannouchi has been speaking of institutionalizing a 8220Turkish model8221 and says that unlike the Egyptian Brotherhood he supports the right of a woman to become the country8217s president In this he is looking to former Turkish fundamentalists like Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul who tired of being imprisoned by and butting heads with the secular Turkish establishment founded the Justice and Development Party Since coming to power in 2002 they have fought for a pluralistic system as a way of making a place for more traditional Muslims in society and politics without pushing for the implementation of medieval Muslim legal codes Still as backlash reactions like the attack on the International Women8217s Day protest have set in activists on women8217s issues and progressives are wondering how to ensure that women8217s gains this spring not be rolled back In Egypt prominent newscaster and critic of the Mubarak regime Buthaina Kamel has her own idea about how to gain women8217s rights in a new more democratic environment She is running for president something inconceivable in the Mubarak era Even if her run gets little traction her candidacy is nevertheless deeply symbolic and historic8212and another strikingly brave act by a woman in this new era in the Arab world Her decision is of course opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood Other Egyptian women are hoping that the constitution can be rewritten to strengthen women8217s rights and that the 64 seats set aside for women in the previous parliament will be retained Politicians in the transitional government of Tunisia for decades the most progressive Arab country with regard to women8217s rights are determined to protect the public role of women by making sure they are well represented in the new legislature Elections are now planned for July 24th and a high commission was appointed to set electoral rules That body has already announced that party lists will have to maintain parity between male and female candidates In such a list system you don8217t vote for an individual but a party which has published an ordered list of its candidates If the list gets 10 of the vote nationally it is awarded 10 percent of the seats in parliament and can go down its ordered list until it fills all those seats Parity for women means that every other candidate on the ordered list should be a woman ensuring them high representation in the legislature This procedure is sometimes called a 8220zipper8221 gender quota Quotas for female legislators are common in Scandinavia and in the global South Although the Tunisian requirement for gender parity remains controversial in some quarters Ghannouchi8217s alNahda Party recently came out in support of it In contrast Abdelwaheb El Hani leader of the newly founded rightofcenter party alMajd complained that the rule was 8220a violation of freedom of electoral choice8221 and insisted that he doubted it would be effective in promoting women8217s representation In contrast the leftist alTajdid Renewal Party praised the move as 8220historic8221 and pledged to make women8217s equality an 8220irreversible accomplishment and an effective reality in Tunisian political life8221 Indeed alTajdid wants an explicit equal rights amendment put into the constitution Giving Women a Fighting Chance The Arab Spring has proven an epochal period of activism and change for women recalling the role of early feminists in the 1919 Egyptian movement for independence from Britain or the important place of women in the Algerian Revolution The sheer numbers of politically active women in this series of uprisings however dwarf their predecessors That this female element in the Arab Spring has drawn so little comment in the West suggests that our own narratives of and preoccupations with the Arab world8212religion fundamentalism oil and Israel8212have blinded us to the big social forces that are altering the lives of 300 million people Women have been aided by this generation8217s advances in education and the professions by the prominence of articulate women anchors on satellite television networks like Aljazeera and by the rise of the Internet and social media Women can assert leadership roles in cyberspace that young men8217s dominance of the public sphere might have hampered in city squares Their prominence in the labor movements and at the public rallies in Tunisia and Egypt moreover underlines how much more of a public role they now have than is usually acknowledged Even the trend toward wearing a headscarf among women in Egypt during the past two decades has been seen by some social scientists as a step forward It has been a way for women to enter the public sphere and work outside the home in greater numbers than ever before while maintaining a claim on conservative ideals of chastity and piety Women activists of the Arab Spring have come from all social classes since it has been a mass movement Middle and upper class women often focus their political energies on issues of political representation and on laws affecting women8217s equality Seeking constitutional guarantees of electoral parity is one possible way of responding to any patriarchal political backlash Working class women are particularly concerned with wages and workers8217 rights Stronger unions would improve women8217s prospects for greater rights Women8217s health literacy and material wellbeing are concerns of all women During the age of the dictators the nation8217s wealth was often usurped by a narrow elite of politically connected families A democratization of politics could potentially lead to more state resources being devoted to women and the poor Keep in mind that women such as Buthaina Kamel knew the risks when they called for Mubarak to step down Whatever their patronizing appeals to feminist themes authoritarian regimes like Mubarak8217s and Ben Ali8217s politically oppressed and stole from everyone in society including women and they had proved increasingly unable to deliver the social services and employment on which women and their families fundamentally depend for a better life Before women could be marginalized at will by the dictators whenever they made demands on the regime Now at least they have a fighting chance Shahin Cole holds an LLB from Punjab University Law School in Pakistan and has lived in Egypt and Yemen Juan Cole is the Richard P Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan His latest book Engaging the Muslim World is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan He runs the Informed Comment website

March/PROPN 8th/NOUN 20118212International/NUM women/NOUN day/NOUN in/ADP Egypt/PROPN amplta/NOUN hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotosaljazeeraenglish5509912596inphotostreamampgtAl/PROPN Jazeera/PROPN EnglishampltaampgtFlickr/PROPN This/DET story/NOUN first/ADV appeared/VERB on/ADP the/DET TomDispatch/PROPN website/NOUN The/DET 8220Arab/NUM Spring8221/PROPN has/AUX received/VERB copious/ADJ attention/NOUN in/ADP the/DET American/ADJ media/NOUN but/CCONJ one/NUM of/ADP its/PRON crucial/ADJ elements/NOUN has/AUX been/AUX largely/ADV overlooked/VERB the/DET striking/ADJ role/NOUN of/ADP women/NOUN in/ADP the/DET protests/NOUN sweeping/VERB the/DET Arab/ADJ world/NOUN Despite/SCONJ inadequate/ADJ media/NOUN coverage/NOUN of/ADP their/PRON role/NOUN women/NOUN have/AUX been/AUX and/CCONJ often/ADV remain/VERB at/ADP the/DET forefront/NOUN of/ADP those/DET protests/NOUN As/ADP a/DET start/NOUN women/NOUN had/VERB a/DET significant/ADJ place/NOUN in/ADP the/DET Tunisian/ADJ demonstrations/NOUN 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<p>Photo by Gerry &amp;amp; Bonni | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p> <p>&#8220;The situation in Yemen &#8211; today, right now, to the population of the country,&#8221; UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock <a href="" type="internal">told</a> Al Jazeera last month, &#8220;looks like the apocalypse.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">150,000 people</a>are thought to have starved to death in Yemen last year, with one child dying of starvation or preventable diseases <a href="https://www.unicef.ie/stories/yemen-child-dies-every-ten-minutes-preventable-causes/" type="external">every ten minutes</a>, and another falling into extreme malnutrition <a href="" type="internal">every two minutes</a>. The country is undergoing the world&#8217;s biggest cholera epidemic since records began with over one million now having contracted the disease, and new a diptheria epidemic &#8220;is going to spread like wildfire&#8221; according to Lowcock. &#8220;Unless the situation changes,&#8221; he concluded, &#8220;we&#8217;re going to have the world&#8217;s worst humanitarian disaster for 50 years&#8221;.</p> <p>The cause is well known: the Saudi-led coalition&#8217;s bombardment and blockade of the country, with the <a href="https://stopstarvingyemen.org/britains-role-in-yemen/" type="external">full support</a> of the US and UK, has destroyed over 50% of the country&#8217;s healthcare infrastructure, targeted water desalination plants, decimated transport routes and choked off essential imports, whilst the government all this is supposed to reinstall has <a href="" type="internal">blocked salaries of public sector workers</a> across the majority of the country, leaving rubbish to go uncollected and sewage facilities to fall apart, and creating a public health crisis. A further eight million were cut off from clean water when the Saudi-led coalition blocked <a href="" type="internal">all fuel imports</a>last November, forcing pumping stations to close. Oxfam&#8217;s country director in Yemen, Shane Stevenson, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/millions-yemenis-days-away-losing-clean-running-water" type="external">commented</a> at the time that &#8220;The people of Yemen are already being starved to submission &#8211; unless the blockade is lifted quickly they will have their clean water taken away too. Taking clean water from millions of people in a country that is already suffering the world&#8217;s largest cholera outbreak and on the verge of famine would be an act of utmost barbarity.&#8221;</p> <p>Since then, things have been getting worse. As of late January, fuel imports through the country&#8217;s main port Hodeidah were <a href="" type="internal">still</a> being blocked, with cholera cases continuing to climb as a result. And on 23rd January, the UN <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> that there are now 22.2 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance &#8211; 3.4 million more than the previous year &#8211; with eight million on the brink of famine, an increase of one million since 2017.</p> <p>This is unsurprising, as both the bombardment and the blockade have intensified in recent months. For almost a month at the end of last year, the coalition blocked all imports into Hodeidah port, through which 70% of the country&#8217;s imports would otherwise enter. And since the death of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh on 4th December, the air campaign has been stepped up, with massacres occurring on a near-daily basis. On 9th February, the UN <a href="" type="internal">announced</a> that 85,000 had been displaced in ten weeks due to &#8220;surging violence&#8221;, particularly on the Red Sea Coast, where the coalition have mounted a new campaign to capture the country&#8217;s strategically important Hodeidah port.</p> <p>With the Hodeidah campaign now entering a new phase, this war on the Yemeni population is set to escalate still further. Since it <a href="" type="internal">launched in early December</a>, the coalition and their Yemeni assets have taken several towns and villages on Hodeidah province, and are now poised to take the battle to the city itself. On 20th February, Emirati newspaper The National <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> that, in the coming days, &#8220;more forces will be committed to Hodeidah as a new front is to be opened in the next few days by Maj Gen Tariq Mohammed Abdullah,&#8221; nephew of the deceased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. This attack would put the almost completely-import dependent country&#8217;s most essential port out of action for months, leaving millions unable to survive. &#8220;If this attack goes ahead&#8221;, Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring <a href="" type="internal">told the press</a>when a similar attack was proposed earlier last year, &#8220;this will be a deliberate act that will disrupt vital supplies &#8211; the Saudi-led coalition will not only breach International Humanitarian Law, they will be complicit in near certain famine.&#8221; His colleague Suze Vanmeegan <a href="" type="internal">added</a>that &#8220;any attack on Hodeidah has the potential to blast an already alarming crisis into a complete horror show &#8211; and I&#8217;m not using hyperbole.&#8221;</p> <p>There is no doubt the war&#8217;s British and American overseers have given their blessing to this escalation. In late 2016, the &#8220;Yemen Quartet&#8221; was formed by the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to co-ordinate strategy between the the war&#8217;s four main aggressors. Throughout 2017, they met sporadically, but since the end of the year their meetings have become more frequent and higher-level. At the end of November, just before the launch of operations in Hodeidah province, Boris Johnson hosted a meeting of the Quartet in London as Theresa May simultaneously met with King Salman in Riyadh, presumably to give the go-ahead to this new round of devastation for Yemen&#8217;s beleaguered population. They met again two weeks later, and then too <a href="https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1154361/johnson-saudi-arabia-quartet-yemen-meet-february" type="external">on 23rd January</a>, also at Johnson&#8217;s instigation, where the meeting was attended, for the first time, by Rex Tillerson. The &#8220;economic quartet&#8221; &#8211; also attended by officials from the IMF and World Bank &#8211; convened &amp;#160; <a href="http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&amp;amp;newsid=1716258" type="external">on 2nd February</a> in Saudi Arabia, whilst Johnson and Tillerson once again <a href="" type="internal">met</a> with their Saudi and Emirati counterparts to discuss Yemen in Bonn on 15th February. Of course, these meetings do not carry out the nitty-gritty of strategic war planning &#8211; civil servants in the military and intelligence services do that. The purpose of such high level forums is rather for each side to demonstrate to the others that any &amp;#160;strategic developments carry the blessing of each respective government at the highest level. That the &#8220;quartet&#8221; met just days before an announcement that the long-planned attack on Hodeidah port was imminent, then, speaks volumes about US-UK complicity in this coming new premeditated war crime.</p> <p>These military and humanitarian &#8216;developments&#8217; (if such a word can be applied to the deliberate reversal of a country&#8217;s living standards) form the backdrop to the Saudi-led coalition&#8217;s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-comprehensive-humanitarian-operations-ycho-unprecedented-relief-people-yemen" type="external">unveiling</a> on 22nd January of their new plan to deliver &#8220;unprecedented relief to the people of Yemen&#8221;. YCHO &#8211; &#8220;Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations&#8221; &#8211; is a new &#8216;aid&#8217; programme with the ostensible aim of &#8220;addressing immediate aid shortfalls while simultaneously building capacity for long-term improvement of humanitarian aid and commercial goods imports to Yemen&#8221;, primarily through increasing the &#8220;capacities of Yemeni ports to receive humanitarian as well as commercial imports&#8221; &#8211; and all sealed with a whopping $1.5billion in aid contributions. What could possibly be wrong with that?</p> <p>The problem here is not only that the the funding required to meet the needs created by the Saudi-led coalition is estimated by the UN to be <a href="" type="internal">twice</a>that amount. The real problem is that the plan will not, in fact, increase the imports on which Yemen is utterly dependent, but reduce them still further. This is because the much-vaunted &#8216;improvements in port capacity&#8217; will apply solely to &#8220;coalition-controlled ports&#8221;, excluding the ports outside their control &#8211; Hodeidah and Saleef &#8211; which, between them, handle about <a href="" type="internal">80%</a> of Yemen&#8217;s imports. For these, absolutely critical, ports, the plan explicitly states that it wants a reduction in the flow of cargo they handle: by around 200 metric tons per month, compared to mid-2017 levels. Yes, you heard correctly: cargo levels in mid-2017 &#8211; when <a href="https://www.unicef.ie/stories/yemen-child-dies-every-ten-minutes-preventable-causes/" type="external">130 children were dying each day</a> from malnutrition and other preventable diseases largely caused by the limits on imports already in place &#8211; are now deemed in need of further, major, reductions. This plan is nothing less than a systematisation of the starvation politics of which the Saudis were <a href="" type="internal">accused</a> by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen in relation to their closure of Hodeidah and Saleef in November. Back then, noted the panel&#8217;s Final Report, all Yemen&#8217;s ports had been closed following a Houthi missile attack on Riyadh airport. But whilst coalition-controlled ports were quickly reopened, Hodeidah and Saleef remained closed for weeks. &#8220;This had the effect,&#8221; said the panel, &#8220;of using the threat of starvation as an instrument of war.&#8221; Today, the &#8216;Comprehensive Operations&#8217; plan envisages making permanent the juxtaposition of wilful starvation of Houthi-controlled territory (in which the vast majority of Yemenis live) and &#8216;generous&#8217; aid deliveries into coalition-controlled territories. These are the same &#8216; <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/census/events/britain7.htm" type="external">methods of barbarism</a>&#8217; as were employed by the British in the Boer war &#8211; when Boer-controlled territories were subjected to scorched earth policies of torching farms and destroying livestock &#8211; and then revived for Britain&#8217;s colonial wars in Malaya, &amp;#160;Kenya and, indeed, Yemen in the 1950s-60s. Small wonder Britain is so deeply involved today.</p> <p>But such a strategy will surely be hard to sell in this day and age. Certainly, the Saudis seem to think so; which is presumably why they have employed a plethora of the world&#8217;s most notorious PR agencies to help them do so.</p> <p>An exceptional <a href="" type="internal">investigation</a> by the IRIN news agency reported that &#8220;the press release journalists received announcing the [YCHO] plan came neither from the coalition itself nor from Saudi aid officials. It came, along with an invitation to visit Yemen, straight from a British PR agency&#8221;. That agency was Pagefield Global Counsel, one of the successor companies to disgraced PR giant Bell Pottinger (employing over 20 former Pottinger staff).</p> <p>The investigation also revealed that the powerpoint presentation used to introduce the YCHO to high level UN officials was authored by Nicholas Nahas, of Booz Allen Hamilton, a US management consultancy with long-established links to the US state &#8211; including <a href="" type="internal">involvement</a>in the illegal SWIFT and PRISM mass surveillance programmes &#8211; and which currently has, says IRIN &#8220;35 job listings in Riyadh on its <a href="" type="internal">website</a>, including &#8220;military planner&#8221;, a role that requires the applicant to: &#8220;Provide military and planning advice and expertise to support the coordination of Joint counter threat operations executed by coalition member nations and facilitate resourcing to enable operations.&#8221;&#8221;</p> <p>Another PR company involved in &#8216;selling&#8217; the YCHO, long on the Saudi payroll, is Qorvis MSLGROUP, who, says IRIN, &#8220;booked US revenue of more than $6 million from the Saudi Arabian embassy [in the US] over a 12-month period up to September 2017&#8221;.</p> <p>These masters of spin have certainly been busy: their work on the plan has been delivered to &#8220;the offices of major INGOs in the UK as well as to members of the UK parliament&#8221;, and YCHO accounts has been set up on facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube and gmail. The YCHO twitter account has around 10,000 followers; but, says the investigation, &#8220;almost half of YCHO&#8217;s followers have less than 10 followers themselves, while some 1,000 followers were accounts created on the same day in 2016 &#8211; signs that a significant number of bots or fakes are inflating YCHO&#8217;s popularity&#8221;.</p> <p>&#8220;All of this,&#8221; concludes IRIN, &#8220;has fed suspicions that rather than a genuine attempt to help the people of Yemen, the plan is really intended more to gloss over the Hodeidah issue and improve Saudi Arabia&#8217;s battered image, or at least a bit of both.&#8221;</p> <p>You would think a strategy aimed at starving the world&#8217;s most starving population still further would be a hard sell. But, then, money not only talks, it silences. &amp;#160;And $1.5 billion is a lot of money.</p> <p>The UN&#8217;s own &#8216; <a href="" type="internal">Humanitarian Response Plan&#8217; for Yemen</a>, issued just two days before the YCHO, on 20th January, had noted that &#8220;Al Hudaydah port, which accounts for 70-80 per cent of commercial imports in Yemen, remains a critical lifeline, despite operating at reduced capacity after being hit by an airstrike in August 2015&#8221;, adding that &#8220;the extended blockade imposed on Al Hudaydah and Salif ports on 6 November 2017 significantly threatened this lifeline of Yemenis&#8221; and that &#8220;only a sustained flow of imports of essential basic goods can avert further catastrophe&#8221;. Yet the cash-strapped UN, facing dramatic budget cuts from the Trump administration, and presumably nervous of saying anything that might jeopardise Saudi-Emirati money as well, <a href="" type="internal">officially welcomed</a> the announcement, despite its clear commitment to essentially tightening the very blockade of Hodeidah and Saleef ports which the UN had denounced just days earlier.</p> <p>Thankfully, the aid agencies do not seem to have been fooled. A <a href="" type="internal">joint statement</a>on the YCHO by a number of international NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, stated that &#8220;We remain concerned that the blockade on Red Sea ports has still not been fully lifted and about the insufficient volume of fuel reaching these, which has led to an increase in the price of basic goods across the country. As a result, we are seeing families pushed into preventable disease and starvation because they cannot afford to buy food and clean water. Hodeidah port handles the majority of the country&#8217;s imports and cannot be substituted. It is vital that the warring parties commit to keep Hodeidah port fully open and functioning, including unfettered access for both humanitarian and commercial supplies.&#8221; Save the Children&#8217;s Caroline Anning <a href="" type="internal">explained</a> that the plan &#8220;is a misconception &#8211; in the publicity around this new plan they say the blockade around Hodeida port has been fully lifted but actually what we&#8217;re seeing is that fuel is still being blocked coming into that port which is having a really horrendous knock-on effect around the country.&#8221; She added that if &#8220;they want to try and push the delivery of key important commercial supplies through other ports like Aden, Jazan and Saudi Arabia and cut off the Hodeida port, again that could be really problematic and again it means one of the warring parties in the conflict is controlling access routes for goods coming in&#8230;Improved humanitarian access is really important and that&#8217;s been a massive challenge &#8211; but in reality that&#8217;s not going to solve the humanitarian conflict in Yemen. We&#8217;ve seen increased violence, air strikes across the country in the last few months, civilians being killed every day, vital infrastructure like health clinics being hit all the time. While that&#8217;s happening and while the economy is collapsing and public sector salaries aren&#8217;t being paid, the humanitarian crisis is going to continue.&#8221;</p> <p>And the International Rescue Committee (IRC)&#8217;s scathing response &#8211; issued with the title &#8220; <a href="https://www.rescue.org/press-release/yemen-saudi-aid-plan-war-tactic" type="external">Yemen: Saudi &#8216;aid&#8217; plan is war tactic</a>&#8221; &#8211; is worth quoting at length:</p> <p>&#8220;The Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations (YCHO), announced on January 22, 2018, is neither comprehensive, nor reflective of clear, shared humanitarian priorities&#8230;The YCHO politicizes aid by attempting to consolidate control over access and transit points. Rather than endorsing a parallel plan, which was created without broad input from humanitarian actors, the Saudi Led Coalition (SLC) and its supporters, notably the US and UK, should work to ensure the full implementation of the existing UN humanitarian response plan.</p> <p>&#8220;The name in itself is misleading: it is neither comprehensive, nor particularly humanitarian,&#8221; said Amanda Catanzano, senior policy and advocacy director at the International Rescue Committee. &#8220;The Saudi-led coalition is offering to fund a response to address the impact of a crisis it helped to create. The acute crisis in Yemen needs more than what appears to be a logistical operations plan, with token gestures of humanitarian aid&#8221;. The IRC go on to list a number of &#8216;red flags&#8217; about the plan, first and foremost, that it does not end the blockade: &#8220;If the Saudis were serious about addressing the humanitarian crisis,&#8221; they point out, &amp;#160;&#8220;the most valuable step they could take would be to lift the blockade, permanently, which they and the international community should do without delay&#8221;. Furthermore, they add, the YCHO &#8220;severely threatens humanitarian access, endangering the lives of millions more civilians. The plan would move the main hub of the response from Hodeidah port to Aden port and would increase capacity of additional Southern ports of Mokha and Mukalla as additional alternatives. The development of additional Yemeni ports is welcome and laudable, but not at the expense of access to Red Sea ports like Hodeidah and Saleef. The southern ports are neither equipped for, nor well placed to service populations in need: they the lack basic infrastructure and capacity of the northern ports, through which 80% of all imports come into Yemen, and humanitarians would need to go through 70 checkpoints between Sanaa and Aden, complicating delivery and driving up costs&#8221;. They also note that it is precisely the Saudi-led coalition and its Yemeni stooges who have implemented a &amp;#160;policy of cutting off payments to public sector workers, leading to the current public health disaster: &#8220;The acute deprivation in Yemen is as much a function of the blockade as it is the absence of basic public services. The SLC is overfunding the war effort at the expense of governance and service delivery. The vague &#8220;economic stabilization&#8221; clause in the YCHO does not address the restoration of basic public services. These funds should be used to reinstate basic government services and pay government workers.&#8221; It concludes:</p> <p>&#8220;A meaningful response to the world&#8217;s largest humanitarian crisis requires more access &#8211; not less. At best, this plan would shrink access and introduce new inefficiencies that would slow the response and keep aid from the neediest Yemenis, including the over 8 million on the brink of starvation,&#8221; said Catanzano. &#8220;At worst, it would dangerously politicize humanitarian aid by placing far too much control over the response in the hands of an active party to the conflict.&#8221;</p> <p>Essentially, this is a plan to tighten the blockade whilst monopolising access to aid in the hands of the aggressors, presented as a great humanitarian effort, and unveiled just as the coalition begins an attack on the country&#8217;s &#8220;vital lifeline&#8221; which will lead to &#8220;a complete horror show&#8221; and &#8220;near-certain famine&#8221;. In the twisted minds of men like Mohammed bin Salman, Rex Tillerson and Boris Johnson &#8211; for whom even the liquidation of an entire people is a apparently a noble cause in the pursuit of containing Iran &#8211; this is what passes for humanitarianism today.</p> <p>A shorter version of this article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/politics-humanitarian-aid-yemen-646965654" type="external">Middle East Eye</a></p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

The $1.5 Billion Campaign to Whitewash Genocide in Yemen

https://counterpunch.org/2018/03/05/the-1-5-billion-campaign-to-whitewash-genocide-in-yemen/

2018-03-05

4left

Photo by Gerry ampamp Bonni CC BY 20 8220The situation in Yemen 8211 today right now to the population of the country8221 UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told Al Jazeera last month 8220looks like the apocalypse8221 150000 peopleare thought to have starved to death in Yemen last year with one child dying of starvation or preventable diseases every ten minutes and another falling into extreme malnutrition every two minutes The country is undergoing the world8217s biggest cholera epidemic since records began with over one million now having contracted the disease and new a diptheria epidemic 8220is going to spread like wildfire8221 according to Lowcock 8220Unless the situation changes8221 he concluded 8220we8217re going to have the world8217s worst humanitarian disaster for 50 years8221 The cause is well known the Saudiled coalition8217s bombardment and blockade of the country with the full support of the US and UK has destroyed over 50 of the country8217s healthcare infrastructure targeted water desalination plants decimated transport routes and choked off essential imports whilst the government all this is supposed to reinstall has blocked salaries of public sector workers across the majority of the country leaving rubbish to go uncollected and sewage facilities to fall apart and creating a public health crisis A further eight million were cut off from clean water when the Saudiled coalition blocked all fuel importslast November forcing pumping stations to close Oxfam8217s country director in Yemen Shane Stevenson commented at the time that 8220The people of Yemen are already being starved to submission 8211 unless the blockade is lifted quickly they will have their clean water taken away too Taking clean water from millions of people in a country that is already suffering the world8217s largest cholera outbreak and on the verge of famine would be an act of utmost barbarity8221 Since then things have been getting worse As of late January fuel imports through the country8217s main port Hodeidah were still being blocked with cholera cases continuing to climb as a result And on 23rd January the UN reported that there are now 222 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance 8211 34 million more than the previous year 8211 with eight million on the brink of famine an increase of one million since 2017 This is unsurprising as both the bombardment and the blockade have intensified in recent months For almost a month at the end of last year the coalition blocked all imports into Hodeidah port through which 70 of the country8217s imports would otherwise enter And since the death of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh on 4th December the air campaign has been stepped up with massacres occurring on a neardaily basis On 9th February the UN announced that 85000 had been displaced in ten weeks due to 8220surging violence8221 particularly on the Red Sea Coast where the coalition have mounted a new campaign to capture the country8217s strategically important Hodeidah port With the Hodeidah campaign now entering a new phase this war on the Yemeni population is set to escalate still further Since it launched in early December the coalition and their Yemeni assets have taken several towns and villages on Hodeidah province and are now poised to take the battle to the city itself On 20th February Emirati newspaper The National reported that in the coming days 8220more forces will be committed to Hodeidah as a new front is to be opened in the next few days by Maj Gen Tariq Mohammed Abdullah8221 nephew of the deceased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh This attack would put the almost completelyimport dependent country8217s most essential port out of action for months leaving millions unable to survive 8220If this attack goes ahead8221 Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring told the presswhen a similar attack was proposed earlier last year 8220this will be a deliberate act that will disrupt vital supplies 8211 the Saudiled coalition will not only breach International Humanitarian Law they will be complicit in near certain famine8221 His colleague Suze Vanmeegan addedthat 8220any attack on Hodeidah has the potential to blast an already alarming crisis into a complete horror show 8211 and I8217m not using hyperbole8221 There is no doubt the war8217s British and American overseers have given their blessing to this escalation In late 2016 the 8220Yemen Quartet8221 was formed by the US the UK Saudi Arabia and the UAE to coordinate strategy between the the war8217s four main aggressors Throughout 2017 they met sporadically but since the end of the year their meetings have become more frequent and higherlevel At the end of November just before the launch of operations in Hodeidah province Boris Johnson hosted a meeting of the Quartet in London as Theresa May simultaneously met with King Salman in Riyadh presumably to give the goahead to this new round of devastation for Yemen8217s beleaguered population They met again two weeks later and then too on 23rd January also at Johnson8217s instigation where the meeting was attended for the first time by Rex Tillerson The 8220economic quartet8221 8211 also attended by officials from the IMF and World Bank 8211 convened amp160 on 2nd February in Saudi Arabia whilst Johnson and Tillerson once again met with their Saudi and Emirati counterparts to discuss Yemen in Bonn on 15th February Of course these meetings do not carry out the nittygritty of strategic war planning 8211 civil servants in the military and intelligence services do that The purpose of such high level forums is rather for each side to demonstrate to the others that any amp160strategic developments carry the blessing of each respective government at the highest level That the 8220quartet8221 met just days before an announcement that the longplanned attack on Hodeidah port was imminent then speaks volumes about USUK complicity in this coming new premeditated war crime These military and humanitarian 8216developments8217 if such a word can be applied to the deliberate reversal of a country8217s living standards form the backdrop to the Saudiled coalition8217s unveiling on 22nd January of their new plan to deliver 8220unprecedented relief to the people of Yemen8221 YCHO 8211 8220Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations8221 8211 is a new 8216aid8217 programme with the ostensible aim of 8220addressing immediate aid shortfalls while simultaneously building capacity for longterm improvement of humanitarian aid and commercial goods imports to Yemen8221 primarily through increasing the 8220capacities of Yemeni ports to receive humanitarian as well as commercial imports8221 8211 and all sealed with a whopping 15billion in aid contributions What could possibly be wrong with that The problem here is not only that the the funding required to meet the needs created by the Saudiled coalition is estimated by the UN to be twicethat amount The real problem is that the plan will not in fact increase the imports on which Yemen is utterly dependent but reduce them still further This is because the muchvaunted 8216improvements in port capacity8217 will apply solely to 8220coalitioncontrolled ports8221 excluding the ports outside their control 8211 Hodeidah and Saleef 8211 which between them handle about 80 of Yemen8217s imports For these absolutely critical ports the plan explicitly states that it wants a reduction in the flow of cargo they handle by around 200 metric tons per month compared to mid2017 levels Yes you heard correctly cargo levels in mid2017 8211 when 130 children were dying each day from malnutrition and other preventable diseases largely caused by the limits on imports already in place 8211 are now deemed in need of further major reductions This plan is nothing less than a systematisation of the starvation politics of which the Saudis were accused by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen in relation to their closure of Hodeidah and Saleef in November Back then noted the panel8217s Final Report all Yemen8217s ports had been closed following a Houthi missile attack on Riyadh airport But whilst coalitioncontrolled ports were quickly reopened Hodeidah and Saleef remained closed for weeks 8220This had the effect8221 said the panel 8220of using the threat of starvation as an instrument of war8221 Today the 8216Comprehensive Operations8217 plan envisages making permanent the juxtaposition of wilful starvation of Houthicontrolled territory in which the vast majority of Yemenis live and 8216generous8217 aid deliveries into coalitioncontrolled territories These are the same 8216 methods of barbarism8217 as were employed by the British in the Boer war 8211 when Boercontrolled territories were subjected to scorched earth policies of torching farms and destroying livestock 8211 and then revived for Britain8217s colonial wars in Malaya amp160Kenya and indeed Yemen in the 1950s60s Small wonder Britain is so deeply involved today But such a strategy will surely be hard to sell in this day and age Certainly the Saudis seem to think so which is presumably why they have employed a plethora of the world8217s most notorious PR agencies to help them do so An exceptional investigation by the IRIN news agency reported that 8220the press release journalists received announcing the YCHO plan came neither from the coalition itself nor from Saudi aid officials It came along with an invitation to visit Yemen straight from a British PR agency8221 That agency was Pagefield Global Counsel one of the successor companies to disgraced PR giant Bell Pottinger employing over 20 former Pottinger staff The investigation also revealed that the powerpoint presentation used to introduce the YCHO to high level UN officials was authored by Nicholas Nahas of Booz Allen Hamilton a US management consultancy with longestablished links to the US state 8211 including involvementin the illegal SWIFT and PRISM mass surveillance programmes 8211 and which currently has says IRIN 822035 job listings in Riyadh on its website including 8220military planner8221 a role that requires the applicant to 8220Provide military and planning advice and expertise to support the coordination of Joint counter threat operations executed by coalition member nations and facilitate resourcing to enable operations82218221 Another PR company involved in 8216selling8217 the YCHO long on the Saudi payroll is Qorvis MSLGROUP who says IRIN 8220booked US revenue of more than 6 million from the Saudi Arabian embassy in the US over a 12month period up to September 20178221 These masters of spin have certainly been busy their work on the plan has been delivered to 8220the offices of major INGOs in the UK as well as to members of the UK parliament8221 and YCHO accounts has been set up on facebook twitter instagram youtube and gmail The YCHO twitter account has around 10000 followers but says the investigation 8220almost half of YCHO8217s followers have less than 10 followers themselves while some 1000 followers were accounts created on the same day in 2016 8211 signs that a significant number of bots or fakes are inflating YCHO8217s popularity8221 8220All of this8221 concludes IRIN 8220has fed suspicions that rather than a genuine attempt to help the people of Yemen the plan is really intended more to gloss over the Hodeidah issue and improve Saudi Arabia8217s battered image or at least a bit of both8221 You would think a strategy aimed at starving the world8217s most starving population still further would be a hard sell But then money not only talks it silences amp160And 15 billion is a lot of money The UN8217s own 8216 Humanitarian Response Plan8217 for Yemen issued just two days before the YCHO on 20th January had noted that 8220Al Hudaydah port which accounts for 7080 per cent of commercial imports in Yemen remains a critical lifeline despite operating at reduced capacity after being hit by an airstrike in August 20158221 adding that 8220the extended blockade imposed on Al Hudaydah and Salif ports on 6 November 2017 significantly threatened this lifeline of Yemenis8221 and that 8220only a sustained flow of imports of essential basic goods can avert further catastrophe8221 Yet the cashstrapped UN facing dramatic budget cuts from the Trump administration and presumably nervous of saying anything that might jeopardise SaudiEmirati money as well officially welcomed the announcement despite its clear commitment to essentially tightening the very blockade of Hodeidah and Saleef ports which the UN had denounced just days earlier Thankfully the aid agencies do not seem to have been fooled A joint statementon the YCHO by a number of international NGOs including Oxfam and Save the Children stated that 8220We remain concerned that the blockade on Red Sea ports has still not been fully lifted and about the insufficient volume of fuel reaching these which has led to an increase in the price of basic goods across the country As a result we are seeing families pushed into preventable disease and starvation because they cannot afford to buy food and clean water Hodeidah port handles the majority of the country8217s imports and cannot be substituted It is vital that the warring parties commit to keep Hodeidah port fully open and functioning including unfettered access for both humanitarian and commercial supplies8221 Save the Children8217s Caroline Anning explained that the plan 8220is a misconception 8211 in the publicity around this new plan they say the blockade around Hodeida port has been fully lifted but actually what we8217re seeing is that fuel is still being blocked coming into that port which is having a really horrendous knockon effect around the country8221 She added that if 8220they want to try and push the delivery of key important commercial supplies through other ports like Aden Jazan and Saudi Arabia and cut off the Hodeida port again that could be really problematic and again it means one of the warring parties in the conflict is controlling access routes for goods coming in8230Improved humanitarian access is really important and that8217s been a massive challenge 8211 but in reality that8217s not going to solve the humanitarian conflict in Yemen We8217ve seen increased violence air strikes across the country in the last few months civilians being killed every day vital infrastructure like health clinics being hit all the time While that8217s happening and while the economy is collapsing and public sector salaries aren8217t being paid the humanitarian crisis is going to continue8221 And the International Rescue Committee IRC8217s scathing response 8211 issued with the title 8220 Yemen Saudi 8216aid8217 plan is war tactic8221 8211 is worth quoting at length 8220The Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations YCHO announced on January 22 2018 is neither comprehensive nor reflective of clear shared humanitarian priorities8230The YCHO politicizes aid by attempting to consolidate control over access and transit points Rather than endorsing a parallel plan which was created without broad input from humanitarian actors the Saudi Led Coalition SLC and its supporters notably the US and UK should work to ensure the full implementation of the existing UN humanitarian response plan 8220The name in itself is misleading it is neither comprehensive nor particularly humanitarian8221 said Amanda Catanzano senior policy and advocacy director at the International Rescue Committee 8220The Saudiled coalition is offering to fund a response to address the impact of a crisis it helped to create The acute crisis in Yemen needs more than what appears to be a logistical operations plan with token gestures of humanitarian aid8221 The IRC go on to list a number of 8216red flags8217 about the plan first and foremost that it does not end the blockade 8220If the Saudis were serious about addressing the humanitarian crisis8221 they point out amp1608220the most valuable step they could take would be to lift the blockade permanently which they and the international community should do without delay8221 Furthermore they add the YCHO 8220severely threatens humanitarian access endangering the lives of millions more civilians The plan would move the main hub of the response from Hodeidah port to Aden port and would increase capacity of additional Southern ports of Mokha and Mukalla as additional alternatives The development of additional Yemeni ports is welcome and laudable but not at the expense of access to Red Sea ports like Hodeidah and Saleef The southern ports are neither equipped for nor well placed to service populations in need they the lack basic infrastructure and capacity of the northern ports through which 80 of all imports come into Yemen and humanitarians would need to go through 70 checkpoints between Sanaa and Aden complicating delivery and driving up costs8221 They also note that it is precisely the Saudiled coalition and its Yemeni stooges who have implemented a amp160policy of cutting off payments to public sector workers leading to the current public health disaster 8220The acute deprivation in Yemen is as much a function of the blockade as it is the absence of basic public services The SLC is overfunding the war effort at the expense of governance and service delivery The vague 8220economic stabilization8221 clause in the YCHO does not address the restoration of basic public services These funds should be used to reinstate basic government services and pay government workers8221 It concludes 8220A meaningful response to the world8217s largest humanitarian crisis requires more access 8211 not less At best this plan would shrink access and introduce new inefficiencies that would slow the response and keep aid from the neediest Yemenis including the over 8 million on the brink of starvation8221 said Catanzano 8220At worst it would dangerously politicize humanitarian aid by placing far too much control over the response in the hands of an active party to the conflict8221 Essentially this is a plan to tighten the blockade whilst monopolising access to aid in the hands of the aggressors presented as a great humanitarian effort and unveiled just as the coalition begins an attack on the country8217s 8220vital lifeline8221 which will lead to 8220a complete horror show8221 and 8220nearcertain famine8221 In the twisted minds of men like Mohammed bin Salman Rex Tillerson and Boris Johnson 8211 for whom even the liquidation of an entire people is a apparently a noble cause in the pursuit of containing Iran 8211 this is what passes for humanitarianism today A shorter version of this article originally appeared in Middle East Eye amp160

Photo/NOUN by/ADP Gerry/PROPN ampamp/PROPN Bonni/PROPN CC/PROPN BY/PROPN 20/NUM 8220The/NUM situation/NOUN in/ADP Yemen/PROPN 8211/NUM today/NOUN right/ADV now/ADV to/ADP the/DET population/NOUN of/ADP the/DET country8221/PROPN UN/PROPN humanitarian/ADJ chief/NOUN Mark/PROPN Lowcock/PROPN told/VERB Al/PROPN Jazeera/PROPN last/ADJ month/NOUN 8220looks/NOUN like/ADP the/DET apocalypse8221/PROPN 150000/NUM peopleare/NOUN thought/VERB to/PART have/AUX starved/VERB to/ADP death/NOUN in/ADP Yemen/PROPN last/ADJ year/NOUN with/ADP one/NUM child/NOUN dying/NOUN of/ADP starvation/NOUN or/CCONJ preventable/ADJ diseases/NOUN every/DET ten/NUM minutes/NOUN and/CCONJ another/PRON falling/VERB into/ADP extreme/ADJ malnutrition/NOUN every/DET two/NUM minutes/NOUN The/DET country/NOUN is/AUX undergoing/VERB the/DET world8217s/PROPN biggest/ADJ cholera/NOUN epidemic/NOUN since/SCONJ records/NOUN began/VERB with/ADP over/ADP one/NUM million/NUM now/ADV having/AUX contracted/VERB the/DET disease/NOUN 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salaries/NOUN of/ADP public/ADJ sector/NOUN workers/NOUN across/ADP the/DET majority/NOUN of/ADP the/DET country/NOUN leaving/VERB rubbish/NOUN to/PART go/VERB uncollected/ADJ and/CCONJ sewage/NOUN facilities/NOUN to/PART fall/VERB apart/ADV and/CCONJ creating/VERB a/DET public/ADJ health/NOUN crisis/NOUN A/DET further/ADJ eight/NUM million/NUM were/AUX cut/VERB off/ADP from/ADP clean/ADJ water/NOUN when/SCONJ the/DET Saudiled/VERB coalition/NOUN blocked/VERB all/DET fuel/NOUN importslast/ADJ November/PROPN forcing/VERB pumping/NOUN stations/NOUN to/PART close/VERB Oxfam8217s/PROPN country/NOUN director/NOUN in/ADP Yemen/PROPN Shane/PROPN Stevenson/PROPN commented/VERB at/ADP the/DET time/NOUN that/PRON 8220The/NUM people/NOUN of/ADP Yemen/PROPN are/AUX already/ADV being/AUX starved/VERB to/ADP submission/NOUN 8211/NUM unless/SCONJ the/DET blockade/NOUN is/AUX lifted/VERB quickly/ADV they/PRON will/AUX have/VERB their/PRON clean/ADJ water/NOUN taken/VERB away/ADV too/ADV Taking/VERB clean/ADJ water/NOUN from/ADP millions/NOUN of/ADP people/NOUN in/ADP a/DET country/NOUN that/PRON is/AUX already/ADV suffering/VERB the/DET world8217s/PROPN largest/ADJ cholera/NOUN outbreak/NOUN and/CCONJ on/ADP the/DET verge/NOUN of/ADP famine/NOUN would/AUX be/AUX an/DET act/NOUN of/ADP utmost/ADJ barbarity8221/NOUN Since/SCONJ then/ADV things/NOUN have/AUX been/AUX getting/VERB worse/ADJ As/ADP of/ADP late/ADJ January/PROPN fuel/NOUN imports/NOUN through/ADP the/DET country8217s/PRON main/ADJ port/NOUN Hodeidah/PROPN were/AUX still/ADV being/AUX blocked/VERB with/ADP cholera/NOUN cases/NOUN continuing/VERB to/PART climb/VERB as/ADP a/DET result/NOUN And/CCONJ on/ADP 23rd/NOUN January/PROPN the/DET UN/PROPN reported/VERB that/SCONJ there/PRON are/VERB now/ADV 222/NUM million/NUM Yemenis/PROPN in/ADP need/NOUN of/ADP humanitarian/ADJ assistance/NOUN 8211/NUM 34/NUM million/NUM more/ADJ than/ADP the/DET previous/ADJ year/NOUN 8211/NUM with/ADP eight/NUM million/NUM on/ADP the/DET 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<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.net/blog/175717/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>Finally, journalists have started criticizing in earnest the leviathans of Silicon Valley, notably Google, now the world&#8217;s third-largest company in market value. The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency, or maybe <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/technology/silicon-valley-and-spy-agency-bound-by-strengthening-web.html" type="external">merging</a> with it. Simultaneously another set of journalists, apparently unaware that the weather has changed, is still sneering at San Francisco, my hometown, for not lying down and loving Silicon Valley&#8217;s looming presence.</p> <p>The criticism of Silicon Valley is long overdue and some of the critiques are both thoughtful and scathing. The New Yorker, for example, has explored how <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/silicon-valley-start-ups-and-the-end-of-stanford.html" type="external">start-ups</a> are undermining the purpose of education at Stanford University, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_packer" type="external">addressed</a> the Valley&#8217;s messianic delusions and political meddling, and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/apple-tax-hearings-tim-cook-public-outrage.html" type="external">considered</a> Apple&#8217;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2013/05/28/how-does-apple-avoid-taxes/" type="external">massive tax avoidance</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />The New York Times recently published an opinion piece that startled me, especially when I checked the byline. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the fugitive in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banality-of-googles-dont-be-evil.html" type="external">focused on</a> The New Digital Age, a book by top Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen that to him exemplifies the melding of the technology corporation and the state. It is, he claimed, a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of our leading &#8220;witch doctors who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the twenty-first century.&#8221; He added, &#8220;This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley.&#8221;</p> <p>What do the US government and Silicon Valley <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_you_are_our_secret/" type="external">already have</a> in common? Above all, they want to remain opaque while making the rest of us entirely transparent through the capture of our data. What is arising is simply a new form of government, involving vast entities with the reach and power of government and little accountability to anyone.</p> <p>Google, the company with the motto &#8220;Don&#8217;t be evil,&#8221; is rapidly becoming an empire. Not an empire of territory, as was Rome or the Soviet Union, but an empire controlling our access to data and our data itself. Antitrust lawsuits proliferating around the company demonstrate its quest for monopoly control over information in the information age. Its search engine has become indispensable for most of us, and as Google critic and media professor Siva Vaidhyanathan puts it in his 2012 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520258827/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Googlization of Everything</a>, &#8220;[W]e now allow Google to determine what is important, relevant, and true on the Web and in the world. We trust and believe that Google acts in our best interest. But we have surrendered control over the values, methods, and processes that make sense of our information ecosystem.&#8221; And that&#8217;s just the search engine.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670025968/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />About three-quarters of a billion people use Gmail, which conveniently gives Google access to the content of their communications (scanned in such a way that they can target ads at you). Google tried and failed to claim proprietary control of digital versions of every book ever published; librarians and publishers fought back on that one. As the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/technology/google-and-publishers-settle-over-digital-books.html" type="external">reported</a> last fall, Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, summed the situation up this way: &#8220;Google continues to profit from its use of millions of copyright-protected books without regard to authors&#8217; rights, and our class-action lawsuit on behalf of US authors continues.&#8221;</p> <p>The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog <a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/cltrdojwaze061213.pdf" type="external">wrote</a> to the attorney general on June 12th urging him &#8220;to block Google&#8217;s just announced $1 billion acquisition of Waze, developers of a mobile mapping application, on antitrust grounds&#8230;Google already dominates the online mapping business with Google Maps. The Internet giant was able to muscle its way to dominance by unfairly favoring its own service ahead of such competitors as Mapquest in its online search results. Now with the proposed Waze acquisition, the Internet giant would remove the most viable competitor to Google Maps in the mobile space. Moreover it will allow Google access to even more data about online activity in a way that will increase its dominant position on the Internet.&#8221;</p> <p>The company seems to be cornering the online mapping business, seems in fact to be cornering so many things that eventually they may have us cornered.</p> <p>In Europe, there&#8217;s an antitrust lawsuit over Google&#8217;s Android phone apps. In many ways, you can map Google&#8217;s rise by the litter of antitrust lawsuits it crushed en route. By the way, Google bought Motorola. You know it owns YouTube, right? That makes Google possessor of the second and third most visited websites on earth. (Facebook is first, and two more of the top six are also in Silicon Valley.)</p> <p>Imagine that it&#8217;s 1913 and the post office, the phone company, the public library, printing houses, the US Geological Survey mapping operations, movie houses, and all atlases are largely controlled by a secretive corporation unaccountable to the public. Jump a century and see that in the online world that&#8217;s more or less where we are. A New York venture capitalist <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/05/running-the-table.html" type="external">wrote</a> that Google is trying to take over &#8220;the entire fucking Internet&#8221; and asked the question of the day: &#8220;Who will stop Google?&#8221;</p> <p>The Tipping Point We ask that question all the time in San Francisco, because here Google isn&#8217;t just on our computers, it&#8217;s on our streets. I wrote earlier this year about &#8220; <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary" type="external">the Google bus</a>&#8220;&#8212;the armadas of private wifi-equipped luxury buses that run through our streets and use our <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/14/those-infuriating-private-buses" type="external">public bus stops</a>, often blocking city buses and public transit passengers while they load or unload the employees taking the long ride down the peninsula to their corporation of choice. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Genentech run some of the bigger fleets, and those mostly unmarked white buses have become a symbol of the transformation of the city.</p> <p>Carl Nolte, the old native son who writes a column for the (dying) San Francisco Chronicle, <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/Nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-in-SF-4603169.php" type="external">said</a> this month of the future inhabitants of 22,000 high-priced apartments under construction, &#8220;These new apartment dwellers will all be new San Franciscans, with different values. In a couple of years we&#8217;ll think of the progressive politicians, circa 2012, as quaint antiques, like the old waterfront Commies your grandfather used to worry about. This is already a high-tech city, an expensive city, a city where middle-class families can&#8217;t afford to live. It is a city where the African American population has dropped precipitously, where the Latino Mission District is gentrifying more every day. You think it&#8217;s expensive here now? Just you wait. These are the good old days, but it won&#8217;t last. We are at a tipping point.&#8221;</p> <p>Mr. Nolte, you can tell, doesn&#8217;t particularly like this. A guy named Ilan Greenberg at The New Republic popped up to tell us that we must like it&#8212;or face his ridicule. He <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112886/san-franciscos-gentrification-problem-isnt-gentrification" type="external">writes</a>, &#8220;Ironically, the anti-gentrifiers themselves undermine San Francisco&#8217;s liberal ethos. Opposed to newcomers? Wary of people whose values you don&#8217;t understand? Critical of young people for not living up to an older generation&#8217;s ideals? It all sounds very reactionary and close-minded.&#8221; The problem is that we <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/america-s-new-oligarchs-fwd-us-and-silicon-valley-s-shady-1-percenters.html" type="external">understand Silicon Valley&#8217;s values</a> all too well, and a lot of us don&#8217;t like them.</p> <p>Adding newcomers might not be so bad if it didn&#8217;t mean subtracting a lot of those of us who are already here. By us I mean everyone who doesn&#8217;t work for a gigantic technology corporation or one of the smaller companies hoping to become a global monolith. Greenberg (who is, incidentally, writing for a publication quietly bought up by a Facebook billionaire) sneers at us for defending middle-class people, but &#8220;middle class&#8221; is just a word for those of us who get paid decently for our work. People at various income levels in a diversity of fields here in San Francisco are being replaced by those who work in one field and get paid extremely well. Small, alternative, and nonprofit institutions are also struggling and going down. It&#8217;s like watching a meadow being plowed under for, say, Monsanto genetically modified soybeans.</p> <p>Speaking of meadows, one of Silicon Valley&#8217;s billionaires, Napster founder and Spotify billionaire Sean Parker, just threw himself a $10 million wedding on environmentally sensitive land in Big Sur. In the course of <a href="http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2013/06/05/13898/elves-wouldn-t-have-done-this-the-coastal-commissi/" type="external">building</a> a massive fantasy set for the event, &#8220;including grading, change in use from campground to private event, construction of multiple structures including a gateway and arch, an artificial pond, a stone bridge, multiple event platforms with elevated floors, rock walls, artificially created ruins of cottages and castle walls,&#8221; he reportedly did <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Sean-Parker-buys-a-slide-from-Coastal-Commission-4580753.php" type="external">significant environmental damage</a> and violated regulations.</p> <p>Apparently paying $2.5 million in fines after the fact didn&#8217;t bother him. Napster and Spotify are, incidentally, online technologies that have reduced musicians&#8217; profits from their recordings to almost nothing. There are tremendously wealthy musicians, of course, but a lot of them are at best, yes, middle class. Thanks to Parker, maybe a little less so.</p> <p>Teachers, civil servants, bus drivers, librarians, firefighters&#8212;consider them representatives of the middle class under siege, as well as the people who keep a city viable and diverse. Friends of mine&#8212;a painter, a poet, a filmmaker, a photographer, all of whom have contributed to San Francisco&#8217;s culture&#8212;have been evicted so that more affluent people may replace them. There&#8217;s a widespread tendency to think that defending culture means defending privileged white people, but that assumes that people of color and poor people aren&#8217;t artists. Here, they are.</p> <p>Everyone here understands that if a musician&#8212;hip-hop or symphony&#8212;can&#8217;t afford a home, neither can a janitor and her family. And competition for those apartments is fierce, so fierce that these days no one I know can find a rental on the open market. I couldn&#8217;t when I moved in 2011; neither could a physician friend earlier this year. The tech kids come in and offer a year in cash up front or raise the asking price or both, and the housing supply continues to wither, while rents skyrocket. So while Greenberg might like you to think that we&#8217;re selfishly not offering a seat at the table, it&#8217;s more like old people and working families and people whose careers were shaped by idealism are objecting to being thrown under the, well, bus.</p> <p>Like Gandhi, Only With Guns Enough minions of Silicon Valley&#8217;s mighty corporations could arrive to create a monoculture. In some parts of town, it already is the dominant culture. A guy who made a fortune in the dot-com boom and moved to the Mission District (the partly Latino, formerly blue-collar eye of the housing hurricane) got locals&#8217; attention recently with a blog post titled &#8220; <a href="http://christacy.blogspot.com/2013/06/dont-be-fucking-douchebag-part-one.html" type="external">Douchebags Like You are Ruining San Francisco</a>.&#8221; In it, he described the churlish and sometimes predatory behavior of the very young and very wealthy toward the elderly, the poor, and the nonwhite.</p> <p>He <a href="http://christacy.blogspot.com/2013/06/dont-be-fucking-douchebag-part-three.html" type="external">wrote</a>, &#8220;You&#8217;re on MUNI [the city bus system] and watch a 20-something guy reluctantly give up his seat to an elderly woman and then say loudly to his friends, &#8216;I don&#8217;t know why old people ride MUNI. If I were old I&#8217;d just take Uber.'&#8221; Yeah, I had to look it up, too: Uber.com, a limousine taxi service you access via a smartphone app. A friend of mine overheard a young techie in line to buy coffee say to someone on his phone that he was working on an app that would be &#8220;like Food Not Bombs, to distribute food, only for profit.&#8221; Saying you&#8217;re going to be like a group dedicated to free food, only for profit, is about as deranged as saying you&#8217;re going to be like Gandhi, only with guns.</p> <p>&#8220;An influx of techies will mean more patrons for the arts,&#8221; <a href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/" type="external">trilled</a> an article at the Silicon Valley news site Pando, but as of yet those notable patrons have not made an appearance. As a local alternative weekly <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-bacon-wrapped-economy/Content?oid=3494301&amp;amp;showFullText=true" type="external">reported</a>, &#8220;The tech world in general is notoriously uncharitable: According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, only four of 2011&#8217;s 50 most generous US donors worked in tech, despite the fact that 13 of Forbes 50 Richest Americans in 2012 had made some or all of their fortunes in tech.&#8221; Medici in their machinations, they are not Medici-style patrons. There is no noticeable trickle-down in the Bay Area, no significant benevolence toward the needy or good causes or culture from the new tech fortunes.</p> <p>Instead, we get <a href="http://uptownalmanac.com/2013/02/did-mark-zuckerberg-pay-10-million-move-mission" type="external">San Francisco newcomer</a>, Facebook CEO, and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg pursuing his own interest with ruthless disregard for life on Earth. This year, Zuckerberg formed a politically active nonprofit, FWD.us, that sought to influence the immigration debate to make it easier for Silicon Valley corporations to import tech workers. There has been no ideology involved, only expediency, in how FWD.us pursued its ends. It decided to put its massive financial clout to work giving politicians whatever they wanted in hopes that this would lead to an advantageous quid pro quo arrangement. Toward that end, the group began <a href="http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Mark_Zuckerberg_s_Fwd_us_Fail_No_Surprise_11359.html" type="external">running ads</a> in favor of the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175648/michael_klare_keystone_xl_pipeline" type="external">Keystone XL pipeline</a> (that will bring particularly carbon-dirty tar sands from Canada to the US Gulf Coast) to support a Republican senator and other ads in favor of drilling in Alaska&#8217;s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to support an Alaskan Democrat.</p> <p>The takeaway message seemed to be that nothing is off limits in pursuing self-interest, and that the actual meaning and consequences of these climate-impacting projects was not of concern at least to that 29-year-old who&#8217;s also the 25th richest person in the United States. (To give credit where it&#8217;s due: Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk, Paypal cofounder and electric car mogul, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/net-us-usa-immigration-technology-idUSBRE94910K20130510" type="external">quit</a> FWD.us.) Zuckerberg and his Valley associates were pushing things they didn&#8217;t care about and demonstrating that they didn&#8217;t care about much except what makes their corporations run and their profits rise. Here, where the Sierra Club was founded in 1892 and many are environmentally minded, this didn&#8217;t go over well. Protests ensued at Facebook headquarters and on Facebook itself.</p> <p>Rising hostility to the tech surge in San Francisco is met with fury and bewilderment by many Silicon Valley employees. They tend to sound like Bush-era strategists dumbfounded that the Iraqis didn&#8217;t welcome their invasion with flowers.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s something else you should know about Silicon Valley: <a href="" type="internal">According to</a> Mother Jones, 89 percent of the founding teams of these companies are all male; 82 percent are all white (the other 18 percent Asian/Pacific Islander); and women there make 49 cents to the male dollar. Silicon Valley female powerhouses like Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg get a lot of attention because they&#8217;re unusual, black swans in a lake full of white swans. As Catherine Bracy, on whose research Mother Jones based its charts, <a href="http://cbracy.tumblr.com" type="external">put it</a>, &#8220;The current research I&#8217;ve seen shows that wealth creation from the tech industry is extremely unequally distributed, and current venture capital is going overwhelmingly to a small, homogeneous elite.&#8221; That&#8217;s what&#8217;s encroaching on San Francisco.</p> <p>That <a href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/" type="external">Pando article</a> chastises us this way: &#8220;San Francisco can become a world capital. First it needs to get over itself.&#8221; But maybe we don&#8217;t want to be a world capital or more like New York and Tokyo. The logic of more-is-better seems unassailable to San Francisco&#8217;s detractors, but inside their more is a lot of less: less diversity, less affordability, less culture, less continuity, less community, less equitable distribution of wealth. What&#8217;s called wealth in these calculations is for the few; for the many, it&#8217;s impoverishment. &amp;#160;</p> <p>The Armada of the .0001 Percent If Google represents the global menace of Silicon Valley, and Zuckerberg represents its amorality, then Oracle CEO Larry Ellison might best represent its crassness. The fifth-richest man in the world, he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/how-larry-ellison-is-destroying-the-america-s-cup.html" type="external">win</a> the America&#8217;s Cup yacht race a few years back. The winner gets to choose the next venue for the race and the type of boat to be used. So for this summer&#8217;s races, Ellison chose San Francisco Bay and a giant catamaran that appears to be exceptionally unstable. Last month, an Olympic-medal-winning sailor <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/05/andrew_simpson_dead_did_the_british_sailor_drown_because_the_america_s_cup.html" type="external">drowned</a> when a boat he was training on capsized in San Francisco Bay, pinning him under its sail.</p> <p>Part of Ellison&#8217;s strategy for winning again evidently involves making the boats so expensive that almost no one can compete. A race that once had 7 to 15 competitors now has 4, and one may drop out. Business Insider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-has-screwed-up-americas-cup-2013-6" type="external">headlined</a> a piece, &#8220;Larry Ellison Has Completely Screwed Up The America&#8217;s Cup.&#8221; It went on to say, &#8220;Each team, with the exception of New Zealand&#8217;s, is backed by an individual billionaire, and each has spent between $65 million and $100 million so far.&#8221; In typical Silicon Valley-fashion, Ellison also figured out how to <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/02/27/dramatic-change-americas-cup-deal" type="external">stick</a> San Francisco for a significant part of the tab and in the process even caused the <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/americas-cup-will-force-evictions-of-waterfront-businesses/Content?oid=2167899" type="external">eviction</a> of a few dozen small businesses, though in the end the city did not give him a valuable stretch of waterfront he wanted.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s what San Francisco is now: a front row seat on the most powerful corporations on Earth and the people who run them. So we know what you may not yet: they are not your friends and their vision is not your vision, but your data is their data, and your communications are in their hands, and they seem to be rising to become an arm of or a part-owner of the government or a law unto themselves, and no one has yet figured out what we can do about it.</p> <p>Rebecca Solnit is just winding up several months as a research fellow at Stanford Libraries and Stanford&#8217;s Bill Lane Center for the American West. Her work there will lead to a book about California history, but her new book, out this month, is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670025968/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Faraway Nearby</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>

Google: From “Don’t Be Evil” to Evil Empire?

https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/google-silicon-valley-nsa-spying/

2013-06-26

4left

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website Finally journalists have started criticizing in earnest the leviathans of Silicon Valley notably Google now the world8217s thirdlargest company in market value The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency or maybe merging with it Simultaneously another set of journalists apparently unaware that the weather has changed is still sneering at San Francisco my hometown for not lying down and loving Silicon Valley8217s looming presence The criticism of Silicon Valley is long overdue and some of the critiques are both thoughtful and scathing The New Yorker for example has explored how startups are undermining the purpose of education at Stanford University addressed the Valley8217s messianic delusions and political meddling and considered Apple8217s massive tax avoidance The New York Times recently published an opinion piece that startled me especially when I checked the byline WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the fugitive in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London focused on The New Digital Age a book by top Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen that to him exemplifies the melding of the technology corporation and the state It is he claimed a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism from two of our leading 8220witch doctors who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the twentyfirst century8221 He added 8220This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley8221 What do the US government and Silicon Valley already have in common Above all they want to remain opaque while making the rest of us entirely transparent through the capture of our data What is arising is simply a new form of government involving vast entities with the reach and power of government and little accountability to anyone Google the company with the motto 8220Don8217t be evil8221 is rapidly becoming an empire Not an empire of territory as was Rome or the Soviet Union but an empire controlling our access to data and our data itself Antitrust lawsuits proliferating around the company demonstrate its quest for monopoly control over information in the information age Its search engine has become indispensable for most of us and as Google critic and media professor Siva Vaidhyanathan puts it in his 2012 book The Googlization of Everything 8220We now allow Google to determine what is important relevant and true on the Web and in the world We trust and believe that Google acts in our best interest But we have surrendered control over the values methods and processes that make sense of our information ecosystem8221 And that8217s just the search engine About threequarters of a billion people use Gmail which conveniently gives Google access to the content of their communications scanned in such a way that they can target ads at you Google tried and failed to claim proprietary control of digital versions of every book ever published librarians and publishers fought back on that one As the New York Times reported last fall Paul Aiken executive director of the Authors Guild summed the situation up this way 8220Google continues to profit from its use of millions of copyrightprotected books without regard to authors8217 rights and our classaction lawsuit on behalf of US authors continues8221 The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog wrote to the attorney general on June 12th urging him 8220to block Google8217s just announced 1 billion acquisition of Waze developers of a mobile mapping application on antitrust grounds8230Google already dominates the online mapping business with Google Maps The Internet giant was able to muscle its way to dominance by unfairly favoring its own service ahead of such competitors as Mapquest in its online search results Now with the proposed Waze acquisition the Internet giant would remove the most viable competitor to Google Maps in the mobile space Moreover it will allow Google access to even more data about online activity in a way that will increase its dominant position on the Internet8221 The company seems to be cornering the online mapping business seems in fact to be cornering so many things that eventually they may have us cornered In Europe there8217s an antitrust lawsuit over Google8217s Android phone apps In many ways you can map Google8217s rise by the litter of antitrust lawsuits it crushed en route By the way Google bought Motorola You know it owns YouTube right That makes Google possessor of the second and third most visited websites on earth Facebook is first and two more of the top six are also in Silicon Valley Imagine that it8217s 1913 and the post office the phone company the public library printing houses the US Geological Survey mapping operations movie houses and all atlases are largely controlled by a secretive corporation unaccountable to the public Jump a century and see that in the online world that8217s more or less where we are A New York venture capitalist wrote that Google is trying to take over 8220the entire fucking Internet8221 and asked the question of the day 8220Who will stop Google8221 The Tipping Point We ask that question all the time in San Francisco because here Google isn8217t just on our computers it8217s on our streets I wrote earlier this year about 8220 the Google bus82208212the armadas of private wifiequipped luxury buses that run through our streets and use our public bus stops often blocking city buses and public transit passengers while they load or unload the employees taking the long ride down the peninsula to their corporation of choice Google Apple Facebook and Genentech run some of the bigger fleets and those mostly unmarked white buses have become a symbol of the transformation of the city Carl Nolte the old native son who writes a column for the dying San Francisco Chronicle said this month of the future inhabitants of 22000 highpriced apartments under construction 8220These new apartment dwellers will all be new San Franciscans with different values In a couple of years we8217ll think of the progressive politicians circa 2012 as quaint antiques like the old waterfront Commies your grandfather used to worry about This is already a hightech city an expensive city a city where middleclass families can8217t afford to live It is a city where the African American population has dropped precipitously where the Latino Mission District is gentrifying more every day You think it8217s expensive here now Just you wait These are the good old days but it won8217t last We are at a tipping point8221 Mr Nolte you can tell doesn8217t particularly like this A guy named Ilan Greenberg at The New Republic popped up to tell us that we must like it8212or face his ridicule He writes 8220Ironically the antigentrifiers themselves undermine San Francisco8217s liberal ethos Opposed to newcomers Wary of people whose values you don8217t understand Critical of young people for not living up to an older generation8217s ideals It all sounds very reactionary and closeminded8221 The problem is that we understand Silicon Valley8217s values all too well and a lot of us don8217t like them Adding newcomers might not be so bad if it didn8217t mean subtracting a lot of those of us who are already here By us I mean everyone who doesn8217t work for a gigantic technology corporation or one of the smaller companies hoping to become a global monolith Greenberg who is incidentally writing for a publication quietly bought up by a Facebook billionaire sneers at us for defending middleclass people but 8220middle class8221 is just a word for those of us who get paid decently for our work People at various income levels in a diversity of fields here in San Francisco are being replaced by those who work in one field and get paid extremely well Small alternative and nonprofit institutions are also struggling and going down It8217s like watching a meadow being plowed under for say Monsanto genetically modified soybeans Speaking of meadows one of Silicon Valley8217s billionaires Napster founder and Spotify billionaire Sean Parker just threw himself a 10 million wedding on environmentally sensitive land in Big Sur In the course of building a massive fantasy set for the event 8220including grading change in use from campground to private event construction of multiple structures including a gateway and arch an artificial pond a stone bridge multiple event platforms with elevated floors rock walls artificially created ruins of cottages and castle walls8221 he reportedly did significant environmental damage and violated regulations Apparently paying 25 million in fines after the fact didn8217t bother him Napster and Spotify are incidentally online technologies that have reduced musicians8217 profits from their recordings to almost nothing There are tremendously wealthy musicians of course but a lot of them are at best yes middle class Thanks to Parker maybe a little less so Teachers civil servants bus drivers librarians firefighters8212consider them representatives of the middle class under siege as well as the people who keep a city viable and diverse Friends of mine8212a painter a poet a filmmaker a photographer all of whom have contributed to San Francisco8217s culture8212have been evicted so that more affluent people may replace them There8217s a widespread tendency to think that defending culture means defending privileged white people but that assumes that people of color and poor people aren8217t artists Here they are Everyone here understands that if a musician8212hiphop or symphony8212can8217t afford a home neither can a janitor and her family And competition for those apartments is fierce so fierce that these days no one I know can find a rental on the open market I couldn8217t when I moved in 2011 neither could a physician friend earlier this year The tech kids come in and offer a year in cash up front or raise the asking price or both and the housing supply continues to wither while rents skyrocket So while Greenberg might like you to think that we8217re selfishly not offering a seat at the table it8217s more like old people and working families and people whose careers were shaped by idealism are objecting to being thrown under the well bus Like Gandhi Only With Guns Enough minions of Silicon Valley8217s mighty corporations could arrive to create a monoculture In some parts of town it already is the dominant culture A guy who made a fortune in the dotcom boom and moved to the Mission District the partly Latino formerly bluecollar eye of the housing hurricane got locals8217 attention recently with a blog post titled 8220 Douchebags Like You are Ruining San Francisco8221 In it he described the churlish and sometimes predatory behavior of the very young and very wealthy toward the elderly the poor and the nonwhite He wrote 8220You8217re on MUNI the city bus system and watch a 20something guy reluctantly give up his seat to an elderly woman and then say loudly to his friends 8216I don8217t know why old people ride MUNI If I were old I8217d just take Uber8221 Yeah I had to look it up too Ubercom a limousine taxi service you access via a smartphone app A friend of mine overheard a young techie in line to buy coffee say to someone on his phone that he was working on an app that would be 8220like Food Not Bombs to distribute food only for profit8221 Saying you8217re going to be like a group dedicated to free food only for profit is about as deranged as saying you8217re going to be like Gandhi only with guns 8220An influx of techies will mean more patrons for the arts8221 trilled an article at the Silicon Valley news site Pando but as of yet those notable patrons have not made an appearance As a local alternative weekly reported 8220The tech world in general is notoriously uncharitable According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy only four of 20118217s 50 most generous US donors worked in tech despite the fact that 13 of Forbes 50 Richest Americans in 2012 had made some or all of their fortunes in tech8221 Medici in their machinations they are not Medicistyle patrons There is no noticeable trickledown in the Bay Area no significant benevolence toward the needy or good causes or culture from the new tech fortunes Instead we get San Francisco newcomer Facebook CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg pursuing his own interest with ruthless disregard for life on Earth This year Zuckerberg formed a politically active nonprofit FWDus that sought to influence the immigration debate to make it easier for Silicon Valley corporations to import tech workers There has been no ideology involved only expediency in how FWDus pursued its ends It decided to put its massive financial clout to work giving politicians whatever they wanted in hopes that this would lead to an advantageous quid pro quo arrangement Toward that end the group began running ads in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring particularly carbondirty tar sands from Canada to the US Gulf Coast to support a Republican senator and other ads in favor of drilling in Alaska8217s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to support an Alaskan Democrat The takeaway message seemed to be that nothing is off limits in pursuing selfinterest and that the actual meaning and consequences of these climateimpacting projects was not of concern at least to that 29yearold who8217s also the 25th richest person in the United States To give credit where it8217s due Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk Paypal cofounder and electric car mogul quit FWDus Zuckerberg and his Valley associates were pushing things they didn8217t care about and demonstrating that they didn8217t care about much except what makes their corporations run and their profits rise Here where the Sierra Club was founded in 1892 and many are environmentally minded this didn8217t go over well Protests ensued at Facebook headquarters and on Facebook itself Rising hostility to the tech surge in San Francisco is met with fury and bewilderment by many Silicon Valley employees They tend to sound like Bushera strategists dumbfounded that the Iraqis didn8217t welcome their invasion with flowers Here8217s something else you should know about Silicon Valley According to Mother Jones 89 percent of the founding teams of these companies are all male 82 percent are all white the other 18 percent AsianPacific Islander and women there make 49 cents to the male dollar Silicon Valley female powerhouses like Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg get a lot of attention because they8217re unusual black swans in a lake full of white swans As Catherine Bracy on whose research Mother Jones based its charts put it 8220The current research I8217ve seen shows that wealth creation from the tech industry is extremely unequally distributed and current venture capital is going overwhelmingly to a small homogeneous elite8221 That8217s what8217s encroaching on San Francisco That Pando article chastises us this way 8220San Francisco can become a world capital First it needs to get over itself8221 But maybe we don8217t want to be a world capital or more like New York and Tokyo The logic of moreisbetter seems unassailable to San Francisco8217s detractors but inside their more is a lot of less less diversity less affordability less culture less continuity less community less equitable distribution of wealth What8217s called wealth in these calculations is for the few for the many it8217s impoverishment amp160 The Armada of the 0001 Percent If Google represents the global menace of Silicon Valley and Zuckerberg represents its amorality then Oracle CEO Larry Ellison might best represent its crassness The fifthrichest man in the world he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to win the America8217s Cup yacht race a few years back The winner gets to choose the next venue for the race and the type of boat to be used So for this summer8217s races Ellison chose San Francisco Bay and a giant catamaran that appears to be exceptionally unstable Last month an Olympicmedalwinning sailor drowned when a boat he was training on capsized in San Francisco Bay pinning him under its sail Part of Ellison8217s strategy for winning again evidently involves making the boats so expensive that almost no one can compete A race that once had 7 to 15 competitors now has 4 and one may drop out Business Insider headlined a piece 8220Larry Ellison Has Completely Screwed Up The America8217s Cup8221 It went on to say 8220Each team with the exception of New Zealand8217s is backed by an individual billionaire and each has spent between 65 million and 100 million so far8221 In typical Silicon Valleyfashion Ellison also figured out how to stick San Francisco for a significant part of the tab and in the process even caused the eviction of a few dozen small businesses though in the end the city did not give him a valuable stretch of waterfront he wanted Here8217s what San Francisco is now a front row seat on the most powerful corporations on Earth and the people who run them So we know what you may not yet they are not your friends and their vision is not your vision but your data is their data and your communications are in their hands and they seem to be rising to become an arm of or a partowner of the government or a law unto themselves and no one has yet figured out what we can do about it Rebecca Solnit is just winding up several months as a research fellow at Stanford Libraries and Stanford8217s Bill Lane Center for the American West Her work there will lead to a book about California history but her new book out this month is The Faraway Nearby To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here To stay on top of important articles like these sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatchcom here

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<p>Jan 24(Reuters) - Airex Inc</p> <p>* Says it plans to merge with wholly owned unit AISOL Co., Ltd.</p> <p>* Merger effective April 1</p> <p>* Says AISOL Co., Ltd. will be dissolved after the merger</p> <p>Source text in Japanese: <a href="https://goo.gl/E6Xk8o" type="external">goo.gl/E6Xk8o</a></p> <p>Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China blamed U.S. export restrictions for its record trade surplus with the United States, but expressed hope that a solution can be found to settle trade issues between the world&#8217;s two biggest economies as U.S. tariffs loom.</p> <p>Beijing was bracing on Thursday for an announcement from U.S. President Donald Trump of tariffs of as much as $60 billion on Chinese imports, raising fears that the two countries could be sliding towards a trade war.</p> <p>The tariffs will be imposed under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, focusing on Chinese high-tech goods. Trump says Beijing has forced U.S. firms to transfer their intellectual property to China as a cost of doing business there.</p> <p>Washington is also pressing China to reduce its staggering $375 billion trade surplus with the United States by $100 billion.</p> <p>Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said it was unfair to throw around criticism about unfair trade if the United States won&#8217;t sell to China what it wants to buy, referring to U.S. export controls on some high-tech products.</p> <p>&#8220;How many soybeans should China buy that are equal to one Boeing aircraft? Or, if China buys a certain number of Boeing aircraft should the U.S. buy an equal number of C919s?&#8221; Hua said, mentioning China&#8217;s new self-developed passenger jet.</p> <p>However, China still hopes it can hold constructive talks with the United States in a spirit of mutual respect to seek a win-win solution, she added.</p> <p>U.S. agricultural exports to China stood at $19.6 billion last year, with soybean shipments accounting for $12.4 billion. Chinese penalties on U.S. soybeans will especially hurt Iowa, the state that backed Trump in the 2016 presidential elections and is home to U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad.</p> <p>Some Americans believe that China can&#8217;t find a substitute for U.S. soybeans, but that&#8217;s an &#8220;arrogant and naive&#8221; idea, China&#8217;s Global Times said in an editorial on Thursday.</p> <p>The widely read state-run tabloid is run by the ruling Communist Party&#8217;s official People&#8217;s Daily, though its stance does not necessarily equate with Chinese government policy.</p> <p>Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>) jets have also been often cited as a potential target by China, which has been developing the C919 as part of its civil aerospace ambitions.</p> <p>The U.S. plane manufacturer, which has the biggest market share in China, said last year it expects China to buy more than 7,000 Boeing jets worth $1.1 trillion over the 20 years to 2036.</p> &#8220;WON&#8217;T SIT IDLY BY&#8221; <p>&#8220;With regards to the Section 301 investigation, China has expressed its position on many occasions that we resolutely oppose this type of unilateral and protectionist action by the U.S.,&#8221; the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday.</p> <p>&#8220;China will not sit idly by while legitimate rights and interests are hurt. We must take all necessary measures to firmly defend our rights and interests.&#8221;</p> <p>U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday the tariffs would target China&#8217;s high-technology sector and there could also be restrictions on Chinese investments in the United States.</p> <p>Other sectors like apparel could also be hit.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>Trump is expected to sign a memo on the tariffs at 1230 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT).</p> <p>Jacob Parker, Beijing-based vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council, said the group wanted to know what action the U.S. administration wants China to take to improve protection for intellectual property, and over forced technology transfer.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really important for them to lay that out so that we have a strategy going forward and it&#8217;s not just tariffs for tariffs&#8217; sake.&#8221;</p> <p>Parker said China needs to adopt a tougher deterrent against counterfeiting and IP theft, and do away with joint venture and business licensing requirements that can be used to mandate technology transfers to gain market access.</p> <p>&#8220;At the moment, it&#8217;s very difficult for the two sides to sit down and talk because the Trump administration seems determined to go this way regardless of China&#8217;s manoeuvres,&#8221; said He Weiwen, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">Boeing Co</a> 337.1 BA.N New York Stock Exchange -0.53 (-0.16%) BA.N BBY.N 600029.SS QCOM.O NXPI.O <p>Trade wars are &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;easy to win&#8221;, said Trump, having made election campaign promises to get tough with China over its huge surplus with the United States.</p> <p>On Wednesday, the World Trade Organization ruled that Washington had not fully complied with a 2014 ruling against its anti-subsidy tariffs on various Chinese products ranging from solar panels to wind towers, giving Beijing a partial victory over the U.S. in the case.</p> LIMITED IMPACT <p>The measures planned by Washington so far are expected to have a limited impact on China&#8217;s economy, which is far less dependent on exports than it was a decade ago.</p> <p>&#8220;Most Chinese corporates seems to be quite resilient against a potential trade war given the high share of domestic revenue,&#8221; said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. &#8220;However, there are certain sectors which will be relatively more affected, such as information technology and consumer durables.&#8221;</p> <p>(For a graphic on U.S. imports from China click <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q</a>)</p> <p>In a possible sign of what is to come, Best Buy Co Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BBY.N" type="external">BBY.N</a>), the largest U.S. consumer electronics retailer, has decided to stop buying smartphones from Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.</p> <p>Moody&#8217;s Investors Service said the impact would be far greater if the United States significantly expands tariffs and throws in broad-ranging protectionist measures.</p> <p>Sectors with a large, direct exposure to the U.S. market, Moody&#8217;s said, included cork and wood products, furniture, office machines, household appliances, electrical equipment, road vehicles, telecommunications equipment, electrical machinery, apparel and footwear, animal oils and fats.</p> <p>Analysts said U.S. companies like Boeing, as well as deals which require Chinese approval, could also become caught in the crossfire should a trade war break out.</p> <p>Boeing this week announced a $3.6 billion order from China Southern Airlines Co Ltd&#8217;s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=600029.SS" type="external">600029.SS</a>) subsidiary Xiamen Airlines. Chip giant Qualcomm Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) is still waiting for Chinese approval for its proposed $44 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NXPI.O" type="external">NXPI.O</a>).</p> <p>U.S. electric carmaker Tesla Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) is in long-running talks with Shanghai authorities to build a local manufacturing plant in the city.</p> <p>Reporting by Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Additional reporting by Elias Glenn in BEIJING; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Nick Macfie</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - A majority of Americans, including Republicans, Democrats and gun owners want stricter laws on gun ownership and armed guards in schools, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll taken in early March.</p> Instructors work with participants on proper gun handling during a firearms training class at the PMAA Gun Range in Salt Lake City, Utah, July 1, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart <p>Hundreds of thousands of students and their families are expected to march in cities across the United States on Saturday to demand stricter gun control, part of the response to a mass shooting at a Florida high school in February.</p> <p>The following are some of the main findings of the poll:</p> GUNS IN SCHOOLS <p>About 75 percent of adults say they want armed security guards in school, with some 53 percent in favor of publicly funding gun classes for teachers and school personnel and 45 percent saying school staff should be encouraged to carry a weapon.</p> BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR GUN CONTROL <p>A majority of Democrats and Republican voters support stricter gun laws, including 91 percent on both sides who say anyone with a history of mental illness should be banned from owning a gun. Eighty-four percent of Republicans believe people on the &#8220;no-fly&#8221; list should also be banned from gun ownership and 83 percent are in favor of expanding background checks. A majority of Republicans also say that assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips should be outlawed.</p> <p>GRAPHIC: <a href="http://reut.rs/2ptFPhy" type="external">reut.rs/2ptFPhy</a></p> Columbine High School student Leah Zunder holds a sign during a National School Walkout in Littleton, Colorado. REUTERS/Rick Wilking GUN OWNERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO VOTE <p>Gun owners are more politically active than others, the poll found. They are more likely to be registered to vote, and they express more interest in voting in November&#8217;s midterm elections, when one third of U.S. Senate seats and all the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be decided.</p> <p>Fifty percent of gun owners said they are certain to vote compared to 41 percent of people who do not own a gun.</p> GUN CONTROL IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE ECONOMY <p>Gun control is on a par with the economy as a top issue that will motivate U.S. voters in November, the poll found.</p> GUN OWNERS STILL APPROVE OF THE NRA <p>One in four adults say they own a gun and a majority of gun owners say they own more than one gun.</p> <p>Nearly 60 percent of gun owners say that the National Rifle Association gun rights advocacy group is either doing &#8220;the right amount of work&#8221; or it &#8220;doesn&#8217;t do enough&#8221; to promote the interests of gun owners. About 30 percent say the NRA is &#8220;too aggressive&#8221; in promoting gun rights, according to the poll.</p> <p>Separately, about 38 percent of gun owners also say they would like to vote in November for a congressional candidate who would oppose U.S. President Donald Trump and 39 percent say the country is on the wrong track.</p> <p>The Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2,389 U.S. adults was conducted between March 5-7 and has an overall credibility interval of 4-5 percent.</p> <p>Reporting by Maria Caspani in NEW YORK; Editing by Leela de Kretser and Grant McCool</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany&#8217;s justice minister said on Thursday she had asked to speak to Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) executives to find out whether the social media site&#8217;s 30 million users in the country were affected by a scandal involving the handling of personal data.</p> FILE PHOTO - German Justice Minister Katarina Barley leaves after receiving her certificate of appointment from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Germany, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch <p>The world&#8217;s largest social media network is facing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower&#8217;s allegations that London-based consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.</p> <p>Katarina Barley said it must be possible for users of social media sites to specify whether they are happy for their data to be used in certain ways, rather than just giving them the option to tick &#8220;yes&#8221; or not be able to use the service.</p> <p>&#8220;I demand clarification on whether German users and accounts are affected and what Facebook plans to do to prevent this from happening again,&#8221; she told a news conference.</p> <p>She said a day for the talks next week had not been set.</p> 3D-printed models of people are seen in front of a Facebook logo in this photo illustration taken June 9, 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration <p>Germany has been a leading proponent of tougher regulation on social media. It passed a tough law to clamp down on online hate speech last year, and Facebook also faces a German anti-trust inquiry over the monetizing of personal data.</p> <p>Privacy rights are a particularly sensitive and emotional issue in Germany after decades of state surveillance carried out by the Nazi regime and later in Communist East Germany.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 169.39 FB.O Nasdaq +1.24 (+0.74%) FB.O TWTR.N SNAP.N <p>Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled the data of 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers&#8217; access to such information.</p> <p>The revelation has knocked nearly $50 billion off Facebook&#8217;s stock market value in two days and hit the shares of Twitter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) and Snap ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">SNAP.N</a>) over fears that a failure by big tech firms to protect personal data could deter advertisers and users and invite tougher regulation.</p> <p>Barley said that the issue was best dealt with at a European, rather than a national, level. New European Union privacy rules take effect in May.</p> <p>&#8220;We know that companies respect the rules when sanctions are particularly painful,&#8221; she said.</p> <p>Reporting by Joseph Nasr and Emma Thomasson; Editing by Hugh Lawson</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled data belonging to 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers&#8217; access to such information.</p> <p>The world&#8217;s largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower&#8217;s allegations that London-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.</p> <p>&#8220;This was a major breach of trust. I&#8217;m really sorry this happened. We have a basic responsibility to protect people&#8217;s data,&#8221; Zuckerberg said in an interview with CNN, breaking a public silence since the scandal erupted at the weekend.</p> <p>Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook the company "made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it." ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2DHAlUJ" type="external">bit.ly/2DHAlUJ</a>)</p> <p>He said the social network planned to conduct an investigation of thousands of apps that have used Facebook&#8217;s platform, restrict developer access to data, and give members a tool that lets them to disable access to their Facebook data more easily.</p> <p>His plans did not represent a big reduction of advertisers&#8217; ability to use Facebook data, which is the company&#8217;s lifeblood.</p> <p>Zuckerberg said he was open to additional government regulation and happy to testify before the U.S. Congress if he was the right person.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure we shouldn&#8217;t be regulated,&#8221; he told CNN. &#8220;I actually think the question is more what is the right regulation rather than yes or no, should it be regulated? ... People should know who is buying the ads that they see on Facebook.&#8221;</p> <p>Zuckerberg said Facebook was committed to stopping interference in the U.S. midterm election in November and elections in India and Brazil.</p> INVESTOR FEARS <p>Facebook shares pared gains on Wednesday after Zuckerberg&#8217;s post, closing up 0.7 percent. The company has lost more than $45 billion of its stock market value over the past three days on investor fears that any failure by big tech firms to protect personal data could deter advertisers and users and invite tougher regulation.</p> <p>Zuckerberg told the New York Times in an interview published on Wednesday he had not seen a &#8220;meaningful number of people&#8221; deleting their accounts over the scandal.</p> <p>Facebook representatives, including Deputy Chief Privacy Officer Rob Sherman, met U.S. congressional staff for nearly two hours on Wednesday and planned to continue meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Facebook was unable to answer many questions, two aides who attended the briefing said.</p> Slideshow (6 Images) <p>Zuckerberg told the website Recode that fixes to protect users' data would cost "many millions of dollars." ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2IJbYJS" type="external">bit.ly/2IJbYJS</a>)</p> <p>The whistleblower who launched the scandal, Christopher Wylie, formerly of Cambridge Analytica, said on Twitter he had accepted invitations to testify before U.S. and UK lawmakers.</p> <p>The German government said Facebook must explain whether the personal data of the country&#8217;s 30 million users were protected from unlawful use by third parties, according to a report in the Funke group of German regional newspapers.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 169.39 FB.O Nasdaq +1.24 (+0.74%) FB.O &#8216;SCAPEGOAT&#8217; <p>On Tuesday, the board of Cambridge Analytica suspended its Chief Executive Alexander Nix, who was caught in a secret recording boasting that his company played a decisive role in Trump&#8217;s victory.</p> <p>However, the academic who provided the data disputed that on Wednesday.</p> <p>&#8220;I think what Cambridge Analytica has tried to sell is magic, and they&#8217;ve made claims that this is incredibly accurate and it tells you everything there is to tell about you. But I think the reality is it&#8217;s not that,&#8221; psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, an academic at Cambridge University, told the BBC in an interview.</p> <p>Kogan, who gathered the data by running a survey app on Facebook, also said he was being made a scapegoat by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Both companies have blamed Kogan for alleged data misuse.</p> <p>Only 300,000 Facebook users responded to Kogan&#8217;s quiz, but that gave the researcher access to those people&#8217;s Facebook friends as well, who had not agreed to share information, producing details on 50 million users.</p> <p>Facebook has said it subsequently made changes that prevent people from sharing data about friends and maintains that no breach occurred because the original users gave permission. Critics say that it essentially was a breach because data of unsuspecting friends was taken.</p> <p>Analysts have raised concerns that the incident will reduce user engagement with Facebook, potentially lessening its clout with advertisers. Three Wall Street brokerages cut their price targets.</p> <p>&#8220;Investors now have to consider whether or not the company will conclude that it has grown in a manner that has proven to be untenable,&#8221; said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser.</p> Related Coverage <a href="/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-mozilla/mozilla-suspends-ads-on-facebook-on-data-privacy-concerns-idUSKBN1GY1KS" type="external">Mozilla suspends ads on Facebook on data privacy concerns</a> <a href="/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-warrants/cambridge-analytica-london-search-warrant-adjourned-until-friday-ico-idUSKBN1GY1DW" type="external">Cambridge Analytica London search warrant adjourned until Friday: ICO</a> <a href="/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-germany/german-justice-minister-calls-in-facebook-over-data-scandal-idUSKBN1GY19K" type="external">German justice minister calls in Facebook over data scandal</a> <p>The company has risen more than 550 percent in value in the past five years.</p> <p>Reporting by David Ingram; Additional reporting by Dustin Volz and David Shepardson in WASHINGTON and Kate Holton in LONDON; Writing by Susan Thomas; Editing by Bill Rigby, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Airex to merge with unit AISOL China blames U.S. for staggering trade surplus as tariffs loom Americans want armed school guards and tighter gun laws: Reuters/Ipsos poll German justice minister calls in Facebook over data scandal Zuckerberg apologizes for Facebook mistakes with user data, vows curbs

https://reuters.com/article/brief-airex-to-merge-with-unit-aisol/brief-airex-to-merge-with-unit-aisol-idUSL4N1PJ2P0

2018-01-24

2least

Jan 24Reuters Airex Inc Says it plans to merge with wholly owned unit AISOL Co Ltd Merger effective April 1 Says AISOL Co Ltd will be dissolved after the merger Source text in Japanese googlE6Xk8o Further company coverage Beijing Headline News Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJINGSHANGHAI Reuters China blamed US export restrictions for its record trade surplus with the United States but expressed hope that a solution can be found to settle trade issues between the world8217s two biggest economies as US tariffs loom Beijing was bracing on Thursday for an announcement from US President Donald Trump of tariffs of as much as 60 billion on Chinese imports raising fears that the two countries could be sliding towards a trade war The tariffs will be imposed under Section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act focusing on Chinese hightech goods Trump says Beijing has forced US firms to transfer their intellectual property to China as a cost of doing business there Washington is also pressing China to reduce its staggering 375 billion trade surplus with the United States by 100 billion Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said it was unfair to throw around criticism about unfair trade if the United States won8217t sell to China what it wants to buy referring to US export controls on some hightech products 8220How many soybeans should China buy that are equal to one Boeing aircraft Or if China buys a certain number of Boeing aircraft should the US buy an equal number of C919s8221 Hua said mentioning China8217s new selfdeveloped passenger jet However China still hopes it can hold constructive talks with the United States in a spirit of mutual respect to seek a winwin solution she added US agricultural exports to China stood at 196 billion last year with soybean shipments accounting for 124 billion Chinese penalties on US soybeans will especially hurt Iowa the state that backed Trump in the 2016 presidential elections and is home to US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad Some Americans believe that China can8217t find a substitute for US soybeans but that8217s an 8220arrogant and naive8221 idea China8217s Global Times said in an editorial on Thursday The widely read staterun tabloid is run by the ruling Communist Party8217s official People8217s Daily though its stance does not necessarily equate with Chinese government policy Boeing BAN jets have also been often cited as a potential target by China which has been developing the C919 as part of its civil aerospace ambitions The US plane manufacturer which has the biggest market share in China said last year it expects China to buy more than 7000 Boeing jets worth 11 trillion over the 20 years to 2036 8220WON8217T SIT IDLY BY8221 8220With regards to the Section 301 investigation China has expressed its position on many occasions that we resolutely oppose this type of unilateral and protectionist action by the US8221 the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday 8220China will not sit idly by while legitimate rights and interests are hurt We must take all necessary measures to firmly defend our rights and interests8221 US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday the tariffs would target China8217s hightechnology sector and there could also be restrictions on Chinese investments in the United States Other sectors like apparel could also be hit Slideshow 2 Images Trump is expected to sign a memo on the tariffs at 1230 pm EDT 1630 GMT Jacob Parker Beijingbased vice president of China operations at the USChina Business Council said the group wanted to know what action the US administration wants China to take to improve protection for intellectual property and over forced technology transfer 8220It8217s really important for them to lay that out so that we have a strategy going forward and it8217s not just tariffs for tariffs8217 sake8221 Parker said China needs to adopt a tougher deterrent against counterfeiting and IP theft and do away with joint venture and business licensing requirements that can be used to mandate technology transfers to gain market access 8220At the moment it8217s very difficult for the two sides to sit down and talk because the Trump administration seems determined to go this way regardless of China8217s manoeuvres8221 said He Weiwen a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization a Beijingbased think tank Boeing Co 3371 BAN New York Stock Exchange 053 016 BAN BBYN 600029SS QCOMO NXPIO Trade wars are 8220good8221 and 8220easy to win8221 said Trump having made election campaign promises to get tough with China over its huge surplus with the United States On Wednesday the World Trade Organization ruled that Washington had not fully complied with a 2014 ruling against its antisubsidy tariffs on various Chinese products ranging from solar panels to wind towers giving Beijing a partial victory over the US in the case LIMITED IMPACT The measures planned by Washington so far are expected to have a limited impact on China8217s economy which is far less dependent on exports than it was a decade ago 8220Most Chinese corporates seems to be quite resilient against a potential trade war given the high share of domestic revenue8221 said Alicia Garcia Herrero chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis 8220However there are certain sectors which will be relatively more affected such as information technology and consumer durables8221 For a graphic on US imports from China click tmsnrtrs2FMsz1Q In a possible sign of what is to come Best Buy Co Inc BBYN the largest US consumer electronics retailer has decided to stop buying smartphones from Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei a source familiar with the matter told Reuters Moody8217s Investors Service said the impact would be far greater if the United States significantly expands tariffs and throws in broadranging protectionist measures Sectors with a large direct exposure to the US market Moody8217s said included cork and wood products furniture office machines household appliances electrical equipment road vehicles telecommunications equipment electrical machinery apparel and footwear animal oils and fats Analysts said US companies like Boeing as well as deals which require Chinese approval could also become caught in the crossfire should a trade war break out Boeing this week announced a 36 billion order from China Southern Airlines Co Ltd8217s 600029SS subsidiary Xiamen Airlines Chip giant Qualcomm Inc QCOMO is still waiting for Chinese approval for its proposed 44 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV NXPIO US electric carmaker Tesla Inc TSLAO is in longrunning talks with Shanghai authorities to build a local manufacturing plant in the city Reporting by Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING Additional reporting by Elias Glenn in BEIJING Writing by Ryan Woo Editing by Simon CameronMoore and Nick Macfie Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters A majority of Americans including Republicans Democrats and gun owners want stricter laws on gun ownership and armed guards in schools according to a ReutersIpsos national poll taken in early March Instructors work with participants on proper gun handling during a firearms training class at the PMAA Gun Range in Salt Lake City Utah July 1 2016 REUTERSJim Urquhart Hundreds of thousands of students and their families are expected to march in cities across the United States on Saturday to demand stricter gun control part of the response to a mass shooting at a Florida high school in February The following are some of the main findings of the poll GUNS IN SCHOOLS About 75 percent of adults say they want armed security guards in school with some 53 percent in favor of publicly funding gun classes for teachers and school personnel and 45 percent saying school staff should be encouraged to carry a weapon BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR GUN CONTROL A majority of Democrats and Republican voters support stricter gun laws including 91 percent on both sides who say anyone with a history of mental illness should be banned from owning a gun Eightyfour percent of Republicans believe people on the 8220nofly8221 list should also be banned from gun ownership and 83 percent are in favor of expanding background checks A majority of Republicans also say that assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips should be outlawed GRAPHIC reutrs2ptFPhy Columbine High School student Leah Zunder holds a sign during a National School Walkout in Littleton Colorado REUTERSRick Wilking GUN OWNERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO VOTE Gun owners are more politically active than others the poll found They are more likely to be registered to vote and they express more interest in voting in November8217s midterm elections when one third of US Senate seats and all the seats in the US House of Representatives will be decided Fifty percent of gun owners said they are certain to vote compared to 41 percent of people who do not own a gun GUN CONTROL IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE ECONOMY Gun control is on a par with the economy as a top issue that will motivate US voters in November the poll found GUN OWNERS STILL APPROVE OF THE NRA One in four adults say they own a gun and a majority of gun owners say they own more than one gun Nearly 60 percent of gun owners say that the National Rifle Association gun rights advocacy group is either doing 8220the right amount of work8221 or it 8220doesn8217t do enough8221 to promote the interests of gun owners About 30 percent say the NRA is 8220too aggressive8221 in promoting gun rights according to the poll Separately about 38 percent of gun owners also say they would like to vote in November for a congressional candidate who would oppose US President Donald Trump and 39 percent say the country is on the wrong track The ReutersIpsos poll of 2389 US adults was conducted between March 57 and has an overall credibility interval of 45 percent Reporting by Maria Caspani in NEW YORK Editing by Leela de Kretser and Grant McCool Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BERLIN Reuters Germany8217s justice minister said on Thursday she had asked to speak to Facebook FBO executives to find out whether the social media site8217s 30 million users in the country were affected by a scandal involving the handling of personal data FILE PHOTO German Justice Minister Katarina Barley leaves after receiving her certificate of appointment from President FrankWalter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace in Berlin Germany March 14 2018 REUTERSFabrizio Bensch The world8217s largest social media network is facing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower8217s allegations that Londonbased consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect US President Donald Trump in 2016 Katarina Barley said it must be possible for users of social media sites to specify whether they are happy for their data to be used in certain ways rather than just giving them the option to tick 8220yes8221 or not be able to use the service 8220I demand clarification on whether German users and accounts are affected and what Facebook plans to do to prevent this from happening again8221 she told a news conference She said a day for the talks next week had not been set 3Dprinted models of people are seen in front of a Facebook logo in this photo illustration taken June 9 2016 REUTERSDado RuvicIllustration Germany has been a leading proponent of tougher regulation on social media It passed a tough law to clamp down on online hate speech last year and Facebook also faces a German antitrust inquiry over the monetizing of personal data Privacy rights are a particularly sensitive and emotional issue in Germany after decades of state surveillance carried out by the Nazi regime and later in Communist East Germany Facebook Inc 16939 FBO Nasdaq 124 074 FBO TWTRN SNAPN Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled the data of 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers8217 access to such information The revelation has knocked nearly 50 billion off Facebook8217s stock market value in two days and hit the shares of Twitter TWTRN and Snap SNAPN over fears that a failure by big tech firms to protect personal data could deter advertisers and users and invite tougher regulation Barley said that the issue was best dealt with at a European rather than a national level New European Union privacy rules take effect in May 8220We know that companies respect the rules when sanctions are particularly painful8221 she said Reporting by Joseph Nasr and Emma Thomasson Editing by Hugh Lawson Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Facebook Inc FBO Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled data belonging to 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers8217 access to such information The world8217s largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower8217s allegations that Londonbased political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect US President Donald Trump in 2016 8220This was a major breach of trust I8217m really sorry this happened We have a basic responsibility to protect people8217s data8221 Zuckerberg said in an interview with CNN breaking a public silence since the scandal erupted at the weekend Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook the company made mistakes theres more to do and we need to step up and do it bitly2DHAlUJ He said the social network planned to conduct an investigation of thousands of apps that have used Facebook8217s platform restrict developer access to data and give members a tool that lets them to disable access to their Facebook data more easily His plans did not represent a big reduction of advertisers8217 ability to use Facebook data which is the company8217s lifeblood Zuckerberg said he was open to additional government regulation and happy to testify before the US Congress if he was the right person 8220I8217m not sure we shouldn8217t be regulated8221 he told CNN 8220I actually think the question is more what is the right regulation rather than yes or no should it be regulated People should know who is buying the ads that they see on Facebook8221 Zuckerberg said Facebook was committed to stopping interference in the US midterm election in November and elections in India and Brazil INVESTOR FEARS Facebook shares pared gains on Wednesday after Zuckerberg8217s post closing up 07 percent The company has lost more than 45 billion of its stock market value over the past three days on investor fears that any failure by big tech firms to protect personal data could deter advertisers and users and invite tougher regulation Zuckerberg told the New York Times in an interview published on Wednesday he had not seen a 8220meaningful number of people8221 deleting their accounts over the scandal Facebook representatives including Deputy Chief Privacy Officer Rob Sherman met US congressional staff for nearly two hours on Wednesday and planned to continue meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday Facebook was unable to answer many questions two aides who attended the briefing said Slideshow 6 Images Zuckerberg told the website Recode that fixes to protect users data would cost many millions of dollars bitly2IJbYJS The whistleblower who launched the scandal Christopher Wylie formerly of Cambridge Analytica said on Twitter he had accepted invitations to testify before US and UK lawmakers The German government said Facebook must explain whether the personal data of the country8217s 30 million users were protected from unlawful use by third parties according to a report in the Funke group of German regional newspapers Facebook Inc 16939 FBO Nasdaq 124 074 FBO 8216SCAPEGOAT8217 On Tuesday the board of Cambridge Analytica suspended its Chief Executive Alexander Nix who was caught in a secret recording boasting that his company played a decisive role in Trump8217s victory However the academic who provided the data disputed that on Wednesday 8220I think what Cambridge Analytica has tried to sell is magic and they8217ve made claims that this is incredibly accurate and it tells you everything there is to tell about you But I think the reality is it8217s not that8221 psychologist Aleksandr Kogan an academic at Cambridge University told the BBC in an interview Kogan who gathered the data by running a survey app on Facebook also said he was being made a scapegoat by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Both companies have blamed Kogan for alleged data misuse Only 300000 Facebook users responded to Kogan8217s quiz but that gave the researcher access to those people8217s Facebook friends as well who had not agreed to share information producing details on 50 million users Facebook has said it subsequently made changes that prevent people from sharing data about friends and maintains that no breach occurred because the original users gave permission Critics say that it essentially was a breach because data of unsuspecting friends was taken Analysts have raised concerns that the incident will reduce user engagement with Facebook potentially lessening its clout with advertisers Three Wall Street brokerages cut their price targets 8220Investors now have to consider whether or not the company will conclude that it has grown in a manner that has proven to be untenable8221 said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser Related Coverage Mozilla suspends ads on Facebook on data privacy concerns Cambridge Analytica London search warrant adjourned until Friday ICO German justice minister calls in Facebook over data scandal The company has risen more than 550 percent in value in the past five years Reporting by David Ingram Additional reporting by Dustin Volz and David Shepardson in WASHINGTON and Kate Holton in LONDON Writing by Susan Thomas Editing by Bill Rigby Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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<p>By <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/20/why-not-a-probe-of-israel-gate/" type="external">Robert Parry / Consortiumnews</a></p> <p>The other day, I asked a longtime Democratic Party insider who is working on the Russiagate investigation which country interfered more in U.S. politics, Russia or Israel. Without a moment&#8217;s hesitation, he replied, &#8220;Israel, of course.&#8221;</p> <p>Which underscores my concern about the hysteria raging across Official Washington about &#8220;Russian meddling&#8221; in the 2016 presidential campaign: There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in U.S. politics. If there were, we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israelgate.</p> <p>The problem is that if anyone mentions the truth about Israel&#8217;s clout, the person is immediately smeared as &#8220;anti-Semitic&#8221; and targeted by Israel&#8217;s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many media/political allies for vilification and marginalization.</p> <p /> <p>So, the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/03/22/the-clintontrump-aipac-pander-off/" type="external">both appeared before AIPAC</a> in 2016, with Clinton promising to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship &#8220;to the next level&#8221; &#8212; whatever that meant &#8212; and Trump vowing not to &#8220;pander&#8221; and then pandering like crazy.</p> <p>Congress is no different. It has given Israel&#8217;s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/03/congress-cheers-netanyahus-hatred-of-iran/" type="external">record-tying three invitations</a> to address joint sessions of Congress (matching the number of times British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared). We then witnessed the Republicans and Democrats competing to see how often their members could bounce up and down and who could cheer Netanyahu the loudest, even when the Israeli prime minister was instructing the Congress to follow his position on Iran rather than President Obama&#8217;s.</p> <p>Israeli officials and AIPAC also coordinate their strategies to maximize political influence, which is derived in large part by who gets the lobby&#8217;s largesse and who doesn&#8217;t. On the rare occasion when members of Congress step out of line &#8212; and take a stand that offends Israeli leaders &#8212; they can expect a well-funded opponent in their next race, a tactic that dates back decades.</p> <p>Well-respected members, such as Rep. Paul Findley and Sen. Charles Percy (both Republicans from Illinois), were early victims of the Israeli lobby&#8217;s wrath when they opened channels of communication with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the cause of seeking peace. Findley was targeted and defeated in 1982; Percy in 1984.</p> <p>Findley recounted his experience in a 1985 book, &#8220;They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel&#8217;s Lobby,&#8221; in which Findley called the lobby &#8220;the 700-pound gorilla in Washington.&#8221; The book was harshly criticized in a New York Times review by Adam Clymer, who called it &#8220;an angry, one-sided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents.&#8221;</p> <p>Enforced Silence</p> <p>Since then, there have been fewer and fewer members of Congress or other American politicians who have dared to speak out, judging that &#8212; when it comes to the Israeli lobby &#8212; discretion is the better part of valor. Today, many U.S. pols grovel before the Israeli government seeking a sign of favor from Prime Minister Netanyahu, almost like Medieval kings courting the blessings of the Pope at the Vatican.</p> <p>During the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama, whom Netanyahu viewed with suspicion, traveled to Israel to demonstrate sympathy for Israelis within rocket-range of Gaza while steering clear of showing much empathy for the Palestinians.</p> <p>In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tried to exploit the tense Obama-Netanyahu relationship by stopping in Israel to win a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu. The 2016 campaign was no exception with both Clinton and Trump stressing their love of Israel in their appearances before AIPAC.</p> <p>Money, of course, has become the lifeblood of American politics &#8212; and American supporters of Israel have been particularly strategic in how they have exploited that reality.</p> <p>One of Israel&#8217;s most devoted advocates, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has poured millions of dollars in &#8220;dark money&#8221; into political candidates and groups that support Israel&#8217;s interests. Adelson, who has advocated <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/26/a-threat-to-nuke-tehran/" type="external">dropping a nuclear bomb</a> inside Iran to coerce its government, is a Trump favorite having donated a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/us/politics/trump-inauguration-sheldon-adelson-fundraising.html?_r=0" type="external">record $5 million</a> to Trump&#8217;s inaugural celebration.</p> <p>Of course, many Israel-connected political donations are much smaller but no less influential. A quarter century ago, I was told how an aide to a Democratic foreign policy chairman, who faced a surprisingly tough race after redistricting, turned to the head of AIPAC for help and, almost overnight, donations were pouring in from all over the country. The chairman was most thankful.</p> <p>The October Surprise Mystery</p> <p>Israel&#8217;s involvement in U.S. politics also can be covert. For instance, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin played a key role in helping Ronald Reagan&#8217;s campaign in 1980 strike a deal with Iran to frustrate President Jimmy Carter&#8217;s efforts to free 52 American hostages before Election Day.</p> <p>Begin despised Carter for the Camp David Accords that forced Israel to give back the Sinai to Egypt. Begin also believed that Carter was too sympathetic to the Palestinians and &#8212; if he won a second term &#8212; would conspire with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to impose a two-state solution on Israel.</p> <p>Begin&#8217;s contempt for Carter was not even a secret. In a 1991 book, &#8220;The Last Option,&#8221; senior Israeli intelligence and foreign policy official David Kimche explained Begin&#8217;s motive for dreading Carter&#8217;s reelection. Kimche said Israeli officials had gotten wind of &#8220;collusion&#8221; between Carter and Sadat &#8220;to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.&#8221;</p> <p>Kimche continued, &#8220;This plan prepared behind Israel&#8217;s back and without her knowledge must rank as a unique attempt in United States&#8217;s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.&#8221;</p> <p>But Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, &#8220;he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.&#8221;</p> <p>In a 1992 memoir, &#8220;Profits of War,&#8221; former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe also noted that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt.</p> <p>&#8220;Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,&#8221; Ben-Menashe wrote. &#8220;As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel&#8217;s back.&#8221;</p> <p>So, in order to buy time for Israel to &#8220;change the facts on the ground&#8221; by moving Jewish settlers into the West Bank, Begin felt Carter&#8217;s reelection had to be prevented. A different president also presumably would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon.</p> <p>Ben-Menashe was among a couple of dozen government officials and intelligence operatives who described how Reagan&#8217;s campaign, mostly through future CIA Director William Casey and past CIA Director George H.W. Bush, <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2013/08/26/a-cia-hand-in-an-american-coup/" type="external">struck a deal</a> in 1980 with senior Iranians who got promises of arms via Israel in exchange for keeping the hostages through the election and thus humiliating Carter. (The hostages were finally released on Jan. 20, 1981, after Reagan was sworn in as President.)</p> <p>Discrediting History</p> <p>Though the evidence of the so-called October Surprise deal is far stronger than the current case for believing that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media have refused to accept it, deeming it a &#8220;conspiracy theory.&#8221;</p> <p>One of the reasons for the hostility directed against the 1980 case was the link to Israel, which did not want its hand in manipulating the election of a U.S. president to become an accepted part of American history. So, for instance, the Israeli government went to great lengths to discredit Ben-Menashe after he began to speak with reporters and to give testimony to the U.S. Congress.</p> <p>When I was a Newsweek correspondent and first interviewed Ben-Menashe in 1990, the Israeli government initially insisted that he was an impostor, that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence.</p> <p>However, when I obtained documentary evidence of Ben-Menashe&#8217;s work for a military intelligence unit, the Israelis admitted that they had lied but then insisted that he was just a low-level translator, a claim that was further contradicted by other documents showing that he had traveled widely around the world on missions to obtain weapons for the Israel-to-Iran arms pipeline.</p> <p>Nevertheless, the Israeli government along with <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/30/unmasking-an-october-surprise-debunker/" type="external">sympathetic American reporters</a> and members of the U.S. Congress <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2013/06/08/second-thoughts-on-october-surprise/" type="external">managed to shut down</a> any serious investigation into the 1980 operation, which was, in effect, the prequel to Reagan&#8217;s Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1984-86. Thus, U.S. history was miswritten. [For more details, see Robert Parry&#8217;s &#8220; <a href="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1868/t/12126/shop/shop.jsp?storefront_KEY=1037" type="external">America&#8217;s Stolen Narrative</a>&#8220;; &#8220; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secrecy-Privilege-Rise-Dynasty-Watergate/dp/1893517012" type="external">Secrecy &amp;amp; Privilege</a>&#8220;; and &#8220; <a href="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1868/t/15439/shop/shop.jsp?storefront_KEY=1175" type="external">Trick or Treason</a>.&#8221;]</p> <p>Looking back over the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, it is clear that Israel exercised significant <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/09/how-israel-out-foxed-us-presidents-4/" type="external">influence over U.S. presidents</a> since its founding in 1948, but the rise of Israel&#8217;s right-wing Likud Party in the 1970s &#8212; led by former Jewish Prime Ministers <a href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/072706.html" type="external">Menachem Begin</a> and <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2012/07/02/yitzhak-shamir-the-well-liked-terrorist/" type="external">Yitzhak Shamir</a> &#8212; marked a time when Israel shed any inhibitions about interfering directly in U.S. politics.Much as Begin and Shamir engaged in terror attacks on British officials and Palestinian civilians during Israel&#8217;s founding era, the Likudniks who held power in 1980 believed that the Zionist cause trumped normal restraints on their actions. In other words, the ends justified the means.</p> <p>In the 1980s, Israel also mounted spying operations aimed at the U.S. government, including those of intelligence analyst <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/09/spies-diplomacy-and-double-standards/" type="external">Jonathan Pollard</a>, who fed highly sensitive documents to Israel and &#8212; after being caught and spending almost three decades in prison &#8212; was paroled and welcomed as a hero inside Israel.</p> <p>A History of Interference</p> <p>But it is true that foreign interference in U.S. politics is as old as the American Republic. In the 1790s, French agents &#8212; working with the Jeffersonians &#8212; tried to rally Americans behind France&#8217;s cause in its conflict with Great Britain. In part to frustrate the French operation, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts.</p> <p>In the 20th century, Great Britain undertook covert influence operations to ensure U.S. support in its conflicts with Germany, while German agents unsuccessfully sought the opposite.</p> <p>So, the attempts by erstwhile allies and sometimes adversaries to move U.S. foreign policy in one direction or another is nothing new, and the U.S. government engages in similar operations in countries all over the world, both overtly and covertly.</p> <p>It was the CIA&#8217;s job for decades to use propaganda and dirty tricks to ensure that pro-U.S. politicians were elected or put in power in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, pretty much everywhere the U.S. government perceived some interest. After the U.S. intelligence scandals of the 1970s, however, some of that responsibility was passed to other organizations, such as the <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/08/cias-hidden-hand-in-democracy-groups/" type="external">U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy</a> (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).</p> <p>NED, USAID and various &#8220;non-governmental organizations&#8221; (NGOs) finance activists, journalists and other operatives to undermine political leaders who are deemed to be obstacles to U.S. foreign policy desires.</p> <p>In particular, NED has been at the center of efforts to flip elections to U.S.-backed candidates, such as in Nicaragua in 1990, or to sponsor &#8220;color revolutions,&#8221; which typically organize around some color as the symbol for mass demonstrations. Ukraine &#8212; on Russia&#8217;s border &#8212; has been the target of two such operations, the Orange Revolution in 2004, which helped install anti-Russian President Viktor Yushchenko, and the Maidan ouster of elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.</p> <p>NED president Carl Gershman, a neoconservative who has run NED since its founding in 1983, openly declared that <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/27/a-shadow-us-foreign-policy/" type="external">Ukraine was &#8220;the biggest prize&#8221;</a> in September 2013 &#8212; just months before the Maidan protests &#8212; as well as calling it an important step toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Gershman <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/07/key-neocon-calls-on-us-to-oust-putin/" type="external">called directly for regime change</a> in Russia.</p> <p>The Neoconservatives</p> <p>Another key issue related to Israeli influence inside the United States is the role of the neocons, a political movement that emerged in the 1970s as a number of hawkish Democrats migrated to the Republican Party as a home for more aggressive policies to protect Israel and take on the Soviet Union and Arab states.</p> <p>In some European circles, the neocons are described as &#8220;Israel&#8217;s American agents,&#8221; which may somewhat overstate the direct linkage between Israel and the neocons although a central tenet of neocon thinking is that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israel. The neocons say U.S. politicians must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel even if that means the Americans sidling up to the Israelis rather than any movement the other way.</p> <p>Since the mid-1990s, American neocons have worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu. Several prominent neocons (including former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg) advised Netanyahu&#8217;s 1996 campaign and urged a new strategy for &#8220;securing the realm.&#8221; Essentially, the idea was to replace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states with &#8220;regime change&#8221; for governments that were viewed as troublesome to Israel, including Iraq and Syria.</p> <p>By 1998, the Project for the New American Century (led by neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan) was pressuring President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq, a plan that was finally put in motion in 2003 under President George W. Bush.</p> <p>But the follow-on plans to go after Syria and Iran were delayed because the Iraq War turned into a bloody mess, killing some 4,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bush could not turn to phase two until near the end of his presidency and then was frustrated by a U.S. intelligence estimate concluding that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb (which was to be the pretext for a bombing campaign).</p> <p>Bush also could pursue &#8220;regime change&#8221; in Syria only as a proxy effort of subversion, rather than a full-scale U.S. invasion. President Barack Obama escalated the Syrian proxy war in 2011 with the support of Israel and its <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/15/did-money-seal-israeli-saudi-alliance/" type="external">strange-bedfellow allies</a> in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-ruled Gulf States, which hated Syria&#8217;s government because it was allied with Shiite-ruled Iran &#8212; and Sunnis and Shiites have been enemies since the seventh century. Israel insists that the U.S. take the Sunni side, even if that <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/29/the-de-facto-usal-qaeda-alliance/" type="external">puts the U.S. in bed with al-Qaida</a>.</p> <p>But Obama dragged his heels on a larger U.S. military intervention in Syria and angered Netanyahu further by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than bomb-bomb-bombing Iran.</p> <p>Showing the Love</p> <p>Obama&#8217;s perceived half-hearted commitment to Israeli interests explained Romney&#8217;s 2012 campaign trip to seek Netanyahu&#8217;s blessings. Even after winning a second term, Obama sought to appease Netanyahu by undertaking a three-day trip to Israel in 2013 to show his love.</p> <p>Still, in 2015, when Obama pressed ahead with the Iran nuclear agreement, Netanyahu went over the president&#8217;s head directly to Congress where he was warmly received, although the Israeli prime minister ultimately failed to sink the Iran deal.</p> <p>In Campaign 2016, both Clinton and Trump wore their love for Israel on their sleeves, Clinton promising to take the relationship to &#8220;the next level&#8221; (a phrase that young couples often use when deciding to go from heavy petting to intercourse). Trump reminded AIPAC that he had a Jewish grandchild and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.</p> <p>Both also bristled with hatred toward Iran, repeating the popular falsehood that &#8220;Iran is the principal source of terrorism&#8221; when it is Saudi Arabia and other Sunni sheikdoms that have been the financial and military supporters of al-Qaida and Islamic State, the terror groups most threatening to Europe and the United States.</p> <p>By contrast to Israel&#8217;s long history of playing games with U.S. politics, the Russian government stands accused of trying to undermine the U.S. political process recently by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee &#8212; revealing the DNC&#8217;s improper opposition to Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217;s campaign &#8212; and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta &#8212; disclosing the contents of Clinton&#8217;s paid speeches to Wall Street and pay-to-play aspects of the Clinton Foundation &#8212; and sharing that information with the American people via WikiLeaks.</p> <p>Although WikiLeaks denies getting the two batches of emails from the Russians, the U.S. intelligence community says it has high confidence in its conclusions about Russian meddling, and the mainstream U.S. media treats the allegations as flat-fact.</p> <p>The U.S. intelligence community also has accused the Russian government of <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/07/us-report-still-lacks-proof-on-russia-hack/" type="external">raising doubts</a> in the minds of Americans about their political system by having RT, the Russian-sponsored news network, hold debates for third-party candidates (who were excluded from the two-party Republican-Democratic debates) and by having RT report on protests such as Occupy Wall Street and issues such as &#8220;fracking.&#8221;</p> <p>The major U.S. news media and Congress seem to agree that the only remaining question is whether evidence can be adduced showing that the Trump campaign colluded in this Russian operation. For that purpose, a number of people associated with the Trump campaign are to be hauled before Congress and made to testify on whether or not they are Russian agents.</p> <p>Meanwhile, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other establishment-approved outlets are working with major technology companies on how to <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/01/the-orwellian-war-against-skepticism/" type="external">marginalize independent news sources</a> and to purge &#8220;Russian propaganda&#8221; (often conflated with &#8220;fake news&#8221;) from the Internet.</p> <p>It seems that no extreme is too extreme to protect the American people from the insidious Russians and their Russiagate schemes to sow doubt about the U.S. political process. But God forbid if anyone were to suggest an investigation of Israelgate.</p> <p>Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, &#8220;America&#8217;s Stolen Narrative,&#8221; either <a href="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1868/t/12126/shop/shop.jsp?storefront_KEY=1037" type="external">in print here</a> or as an e-book (from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Stolen-Narrative-Washington-ebook/dp/B009RXXOIG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1350755575&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=americas+stolen+narrative" type="external">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/americas-stolen-narrative-robert-parry/1113515681?ean=2940015517552" type="external">barnesandnoble.com</a>).</p>

Israel Has Interfered More in U.S. Politics Than Russia, but Don't Expect a Probe of Israelgate

https://truthdig.com/articles/israel-has-interfered-more-in-u-s-politics-than-russia-but-dont-expect-a-probe-of-israelgate/

2017-04-27

4left

By Robert Parry Consortiumnews The other day I asked a longtime Democratic Party insider who is working on the Russiagate investigation which country interfered more in US politics Russia or Israel Without a moment8217s hesitation he replied 8220Israel of course8221 Which underscores my concern about the hysteria raging across Official Washington about 8220Russian meddling8221 in the 2016 presidential campaign There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in US politics If there were we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israelgate The problem is that if anyone mentions the truth about Israel8217s clout the person is immediately smeared as 8220antiSemitic8221 and targeted by Israel8217s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many mediapolitical allies for vilification and marginalization So the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both appeared before AIPAC in 2016 with Clinton promising to take the USIsraeli relationship 8220to the next level8221 8212 whatever that meant 8212 and Trump vowing not to 8220pander8221 and then pandering like crazy Congress is no different It has given Israel8217s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a recordtying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress matching the number of times British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared We then witnessed the Republicans and Democrats competing to see how often their members could bounce up and down and who could cheer Netanyahu the loudest even when the Israeli prime minister was instructing the Congress to follow his position on Iran rather than President Obama8217s Israeli officials and AIPAC also coordinate their strategies to maximize political influence which is derived in large part by who gets the lobby8217s largesse and who doesn8217t On the rare occasion when members of Congress step out of line 8212 and take a stand that offends Israeli leaders 8212 they can expect a wellfunded opponent in their next race a tactic that dates back decades Wellrespected members such as Rep Paul Findley and Sen Charles Percy both Republicans from Illinois were early victims of the Israeli lobby8217s wrath when they opened channels of communication with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the cause of seeking peace Findley was targeted and defeated in 1982 Percy in 1984 Findley recounted his experience in a 1985 book 8220They Dare to Speak Out People and Institutions Confront Israel8217s Lobby8221 in which Findley called the lobby 8220the 700pound gorilla in Washington8221 The book was harshly criticized in a New York Times review by Adam Clymer who called it 8220an angry onesided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents8221 Enforced Silence Since then there have been fewer and fewer members of Congress or other American politicians who have dared to speak out judging that 8212 when it comes to the Israeli lobby 8212 discretion is the better part of valor Today many US pols grovel before the Israeli government seeking a sign of favor from Prime Minister Netanyahu almost like Medieval kings courting the blessings of the Pope at the Vatican During the 2008 campaign thenSen Barack Obama whom Netanyahu viewed with suspicion traveled to Israel to demonstrate sympathy for Israelis within rocketrange of Gaza while steering clear of showing much empathy for the Palestinians In 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney tried to exploit the tense ObamaNetanyahu relationship by stopping in Israel to win a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu The 2016 campaign was no exception with both Clinton and Trump stressing their love of Israel in their appearances before AIPAC Money of course has become the lifeblood of American politics 8212 and American supporters of Israel have been particularly strategic in how they have exploited that reality One of Israel8217s most devoted advocates casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has poured millions of dollars in 8220dark money8221 into political candidates and groups that support Israel8217s interests Adelson who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb inside Iran to coerce its government is a Trump favorite having donated a record 5 million to Trump8217s inaugural celebration Of course many Israelconnected political donations are much smaller but no less influential A quarter century ago I was told how an aide to a Democratic foreign policy chairman who faced a surprisingly tough race after redistricting turned to the head of AIPAC for help and almost overnight donations were pouring in from all over the country The chairman was most thankful The October Surprise Mystery Israel8217s involvement in US politics also can be covert For instance the evidence is now overwhelming that the Israeli government of rightwing Prime Minister Menachem Begin played a key role in helping Ronald Reagan8217s campaign in 1980 strike a deal with Iran to frustrate President Jimmy Carter8217s efforts to free 52 American hostages before Election Day Begin despised Carter for the Camp David Accords that forced Israel to give back the Sinai to Egypt Begin also believed that Carter was too sympathetic to the Palestinians and 8212 if he won a second term 8212 would conspire with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to impose a twostate solution on Israel Begin8217s contempt for Carter was not even a secret In a 1991 book 8220The Last Option8221 senior Israeli intelligence and foreign policy official David Kimche explained Begin8217s motive for dreading Carter8217s reelection Kimche said Israeli officials had gotten wind of 8220collusion8221 between Carter and Sadat 8220to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967 including Jerusalem and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state8221 Kimche continued 8220This plan prepared behind Israel8217s back and without her knowledge must rank as a unique attempt in United States8217s diplomatic history of shortchanging a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation8221 But Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when Kimche wrote 8220he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby8221 In a 1992 memoir 8220Profits of War8221 former Israeli intelligence officer Ari BenMenashe also noted that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt 8220Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David8221 BenMenashe wrote 8220As Begin saw it the agreement took away Sinai from Israel did not create a comprehensive peace and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel8217s back8221 So in order to buy time for Israel to 8220change the facts on the ground8221 by moving Jewish settlers into the West Bank Begin felt Carter8217s reelection had to be prevented A different president also presumably would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon BenMenashe was among a couple of dozen government officials and intelligence operatives who described how Reagan8217s campaign mostly through future CIA Director William Casey and past CIA Director George HW Bush struck a deal in 1980 with senior Iranians who got promises of arms via Israel in exchange for keeping the hostages through the election and thus humiliating Carter The hostages were finally released on Jan 20 1981 after Reagan was sworn in as President Discrediting History Though the evidence of the socalled October Surprise deal is far stronger than the current case for believing that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign Official Washington and the mainstream US media have refused to accept it deeming it a 8220conspiracy theory8221 One of the reasons for the hostility directed against the 1980 case was the link to Israel which did not want its hand in manipulating the election of a US president to become an accepted part of American history So for instance the Israeli government went to great lengths to discredit BenMenashe after he began to speak with reporters and to give testimony to the US Congress When I was a Newsweek correspondent and first interviewed BenMenashe in 1990 the Israeli government initially insisted that he was an impostor that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence However when I obtained documentary evidence of BenMenashe8217s work for a military intelligence unit the Israelis admitted that they had lied but then insisted that he was just a lowlevel translator a claim that was further contradicted by other documents showing that he had traveled widely around the world on missions to obtain weapons for the IsraeltoIran arms pipeline Nevertheless the Israeli government along with sympathetic American reporters and members of the US Congress managed to shut down any serious investigation into the 1980 operation which was in effect the prequel to Reagan8217s IranContra armsforhostages scandal of 198486 Thus US history was miswritten For more details see Robert Parry8217s 8220 America8217s Stolen Narrative8220 8220 Secrecy ampamp Privilege8220 and 8220 Trick or Treason8221 Looking back over the history of USIsraeli relations it is clear that Israel exercised significant influence over US presidents since its founding in 1948 but the rise of Israel8217s rightwing Likud Party in the 1970s 8212 led by former Jewish Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir 8212 marked a time when Israel shed any inhibitions about interfering directly in US politicsMuch as Begin and Shamir engaged in terror attacks on British officials and Palestinian civilians during Israel8217s founding era the Likudniks who held power in 1980 believed that the Zionist cause trumped normal restraints on their actions In other words the ends justified the means In the 1980s Israel also mounted spying operations aimed at the US government including those of intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard who fed highly sensitive documents to Israel and 8212 after being caught and spending almost three decades in prison 8212 was paroled and welcomed as a hero inside Israel A History of Interference But it is true that foreign interference in US politics is as old as the American Republic In the 1790s French agents 8212 working with the Jeffersonians 8212 tried to rally Americans behind France8217s cause in its conflict with Great Britain In part to frustrate the French operation the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts In the 20th century Great Britain undertook covert influence operations to ensure US support in its conflicts with Germany while German agents unsuccessfully sought the opposite So the attempts by erstwhile allies and sometimes adversaries to move US foreign policy in one direction or another is nothing new and the US government engages in similar operations in countries all over the world both overtly and covertly It was the CIA8217s job for decades to use propaganda and dirty tricks to ensure that proUS politicians were elected or put in power in Europe Latin America Asia and Africa pretty much everywhere the US government perceived some interest After the US intelligence scandals of the 1970s however some of that responsibility was passed to other organizations such as the USfunded National Endowment for Democracy NED and the US Agency for International Development USAID NED USAID and various 8220nongovernmental organizations8221 NGOs finance activists journalists and other operatives to undermine political leaders who are deemed to be obstacles to US foreign policy desires In particular NED has been at the center of efforts to flip elections to USbacked candidates such as in Nicaragua in 1990 or to sponsor 8220color revolutions8221 which typically organize around some color as the symbol for mass demonstrations Ukraine 8212 on Russia8217s border 8212 has been the target of two such operations the Orange Revolution in 2004 which helped install antiRussian President Viktor Yushchenko and the Maidan ouster of elected proRussian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 NED president Carl Gershman a neoconservative who has run NED since its founding in 1983 openly declared that Ukraine was 8220the biggest prize8221 in September 2013 8212 just months before the Maidan protests 8212 as well as calling it an important step toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin In 2016 Gershman called directly for regime change in Russia The Neoconservatives Another key issue related to Israeli influence inside the United States is the role of the neocons a political movement that emerged in the 1970s as a number of hawkish Democrats migrated to the Republican Party as a home for more aggressive policies to protect Israel and take on the Soviet Union and Arab states In some European circles the neocons are described as 8220Israel8217s American agents8221 which may somewhat overstate the direct linkage between Israel and the neocons although a central tenet of neocon thinking is that there must be no daylight between the US and Israel The neocons say US politicians must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel even if that means the Americans sidling up to the Israelis rather than any movement the other way Since the mid1990s American neocons have worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu Several prominent neocons including former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle Douglas Feith David Wurmser Meyrav Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg advised Netanyahu8217s 1996 campaign and urged a new strategy for 8220securing the realm8221 Essentially the idea was to replace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states with 8220regime change8221 for governments that were viewed as troublesome to Israel including Iraq and Syria By 1998 the Project for the New American Century led by neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan was pressuring President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq a plan that was finally put in motion in 2003 under President George W Bush But the followon plans to go after Syria and Iran were delayed because the Iraq War turned into a bloody mess killing some 4500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis Bush could not turn to phase two until near the end of his presidency and then was frustrated by a US intelligence estimate concluding that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb which was to be the pretext for a bombing campaign Bush also could pursue 8220regime change8221 in Syria only as a proxy effort of subversion rather than a fullscale US invasion President Barack Obama escalated the Syrian proxy war in 2011 with the support of Israel and its strangebedfellow allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunniruled Gulf States which hated Syria8217s government because it was allied with Shiiteruled Iran 8212 and Sunnis and Shiites have been enemies since the seventh century Israel insists that the US take the Sunni side even if that puts the US in bed with alQaida But Obama dragged his heels on a larger US military intervention in Syria and angered Netanyahu further by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than bombbombbombing Iran Showing the Love Obama8217s perceived halfhearted commitment to Israeli interests explained Romney8217s 2012 campaign trip to seek Netanyahu8217s blessings Even after winning a second term Obama sought to appease Netanyahu by undertaking a threeday trip to Israel in 2013 to show his love Still in 2015 when Obama pressed ahead with the Iran nuclear agreement Netanyahu went over the president8217s head directly to Congress where he was warmly received although the Israeli prime minister ultimately failed to sink the Iran deal In Campaign 2016 both Clinton and Trump wore their love for Israel on their sleeves Clinton promising to take the relationship to 8220the next level8221 a phrase that young couples often use when deciding to go from heavy petting to intercourse Trump reminded AIPAC that he had a Jewish grandchild and vowed to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Both also bristled with hatred toward Iran repeating the popular falsehood that 8220Iran is the principal source of terrorism8221 when it is Saudi Arabia and other Sunni sheikdoms that have been the financial and military supporters of alQaida and Islamic State the terror groups most threatening to Europe and the United States By contrast to Israel8217s long history of playing games with US politics the Russian government stands accused of trying to undermine the US political process recently by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee 8212 revealing the DNC8217s improper opposition to Sen Bernie Sanders8217s campaign 8212 and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta 8212 disclosing the contents of Clinton8217s paid speeches to Wall Street and paytoplay aspects of the Clinton Foundation 8212 and sharing that information with the American people via WikiLeaks Although WikiLeaks denies getting the two batches of emails from the Russians the US intelligence community says it has high confidence in its conclusions about Russian meddling and the mainstream US media treats the allegations as flatfact The US intelligence community also has accused the Russian government of raising doubts in the minds of Americans about their political system by having RT the Russiansponsored news network hold debates for thirdparty candidates who were excluded from the twoparty RepublicanDemocratic debates and by having RT report on protests such as Occupy Wall Street and issues such as 8220fracking8221 The major US news media and Congress seem to agree that the only remaining question is whether evidence can be adduced showing that the Trump campaign colluded in this Russian operation For that purpose a number of people associated with the Trump campaign are to be hauled before Congress and made to testify on whether or not they are Russian agents Meanwhile The Washington Post The New York Times and other establishmentapproved outlets are working with major technology companies on how to marginalize independent news sources and to purge 8220Russian propaganda8221 often conflated with 8220fake news8221 from the Internet It seems that no extreme is too extreme to protect the American people from the insidious Russians and their Russiagate schemes to sow doubt about the US political process But God forbid if anyone were to suggest an investigation of Israelgate Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the IranContra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s You can buy his latest book 8220America8217s Stolen Narrative8221 either in print here or as an ebook from Amazon and barnesandnoblecom

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<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coal_Bike,_China_1997.jpg"&amp;gt;Brian Kelley&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Wikimedia</p> <p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175297/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p> <p>If you want to know which way the global wind is blowing (or the sun shining or the coal burning), watch China. That&#8217;s the news for our energy future and for the future of great-power politics on planet Earth. Washington is already watching&#8212;with anxiety.</p> <p>Rarely has a simple press interview said more about the global power shifts taking place in our world. On July 20th, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575376712353150310.html" type="external">told</a> the Wall Street Journal that China had overtaken the United States to become the world&#8217;s number one energy consumer. One can read this development in many ways: as evidence of China&#8217;s continuing industrial prowess, of the lingering recession in the United States, of the growing popularity of automobiles in China, even of America&#8217;s superior energy efficiency as compared to that of China. All of these observations are valid, but all miss the main point: by becoming the world&#8217;s leading energy consumer, China will also become an ever more dominant international actor and so set the pace in shaping our global future.</p> <p>Because energy is tied to so many aspects of the global economy, and because doubts are growing about the future availability of oil and other vital fuels, the decisions China makes regarding its energy portfolio will have far-reaching consequences. As the leading player in the global energy market, China will significantly determine not only the prices we will be paying for critical fuels but also the type of energy systems we will come to rely on. More importantly, China&#8217;s decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate change.</p> <p>How to Rise to Global Preeminence</p> <p>You can&#8217;t really appreciate the significance of China&#8217;s newfound energy prominence if you don&#8217;t first grasp the role of energy in America&#8217;s rise to global preeminence.</p> <p>That the northeastern region of the young United States was richly endowed with waterpower and coal deposits was critical to the country&#8217;s early industrialization as well as to the North&#8217;s eventual victory in the Civil War. It was the discovery of oil in western Pennsylvania in 1859, however, that would turn the US into the decisive actor on the global stage. Oil extraction and exports fueled American prosperity in the early twentieth century&#8212;a time when the country was the planet&#8217;s leading producer&#8212;while nurturing the rise of its giant corporations.</p> <p>It should never be forgotten that the world&#8217;s first great transnational corporation&#8212;John D. Rockefeller&#8217;s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil" type="external">Standard Oil Company</a>&#8212;was founded on the exploitation and export of American petroleum. Anti-trust legislation would break up Standard Oil in 1911, but two of its largest descendants, Standard Oil of New York and Standard Oil of New Jersey, were later fused into what is now the world&#8217;s wealthiest publicly traded enterprise, <a href="http://www.exxonmobil.com/" type="external">ExxonMobil</a>. Another descendant, Standard Oil of California, became Chevron&#8212;today, the third richest American corporation.</p> <p>Oil also played a key role in the rise of the United States as the world&#8217;s preeminent military power. This country supplied most of the oil consumed by Allied forces in both World War I and World War II. Among the great powers of the time, the US alone was self-sufficient in oil, which meant it could deploy massive armies to Europe and Asia and overpower the well-equipped (but oil-starved) German and Japanese militaries. Few realize this today, but for the architects of America&#8217;s victory in the Second World War, including President Roosevelt, it was the nation&#8217;s superior endowment of petroleum, not the atom bomb, that proved decisive.</p> <p>Having created an economy and military establishment <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174810/michael_klare_the_pentagon_as_global_gas_guzzler" type="external">based on oil</a>, American leaders were compelled to employ ever more costly and desperate measures to ensure that both always had an adequate supply of energy. After World War II, with domestic reserves already beginning to shrink, a succession of presidents fashioned a global strategy based on ensuring American access to overseas petroleum.</p> <p>As a start, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf kingdoms were chosen to serve as overseas &#8220;filling stations&#8221; for US refiners and military forces. American oil companies, especially the descendants of Standard Oil, were aided and abetted in establishing a major presence in these countries. To a considerable extent, in fact, the great postwar strategic pronouncements&#8212;the Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, the Nixon Doctrine, and especially the <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/repudiate_the_carter_doctrine" type="external">Carter Doctrine</a>&#8212;were all tied to the protection of these &#8220;filling stations.&#8221;</p> <p>Today, too, oil plays a critical role in Washington&#8217;s global plans and actions. The Department of State, for example, still maintains an elaborate, costly, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175159/tomgram:_nick_turse,_out_of_iraq,_into_the_gulf/" type="external">deeply entrenched</a> military capability in the Persian Gulf to ensure the &#8220;safety&#8221; and &#8220;security&#8221; of oil exports from the region. It has also extended its military reach to such key oil-producing regions as the Caspian Sea basin and western Africa. The need to retain friendly ties and military relationships with key suppliers like Kuwait, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia continues to dominate US foreign policy. Similarly, in a globally warming world, a growing American interest in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html" type="external">melting Arctic</a> is being propelled by a desire to exploit the polar region&#8217;s untapped hydrocarbon reserves.</p> <p>Planet Coal?</p> <p>The fact that China has now overtaken the United States as the world&#8217;s leading energy consumer is bound to radically alter its global policies, just as energy predominance once did America&#8217;s. No doubt this will, in turn, alter the course of Sino-American relations, not to speak of world affairs. With the American experience in mind, what can we expect from China?</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805089217/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />As a start, no one reading newspaper business pages could have any doubt that Chinese leaders <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/business/global/18yuan.html" type="external">view energy</a> as a&#8212;possibly the&#8212;major concern of the country and have been devoting substantial resources and planning to the procurement of adequate future supplies. In addressing this task, Chinese leaders face two fundamental challenges: securing sufficient energy to meet ever-rising demand and deciding which fuels to rely on in satisfying these requirements. How China responds to these challenges will have striking implications on the global stage.</p> <p>According to the most recent <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/" type="external">projections</a> from the US Department of Energy (DoE), Chinese energy consumption will grow by 133% between 2007 and 2035&#8212;from, that is, 78 to 182 quadrillion British thermal units (BTUs). Think about it this way: the 104 quadrillion BTUs that China will somehow have to add to its energy supply over the next quarter-century equals the total energy consumption of Europe and the Middle East in 2007. Finding and funneling so much oil, natural gas, and other fuels to China is undoubtedly going to be the single greatest economic and industrial challenge facing Beijing&#8212;and in that challenge lays the possibility of real friction and conflict.</p> <p>Although most of the country&#8217;s energy funds are still expended domestically, what it spends on imported fuels (oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium) and energy equipment (oil refineries, power plants, and nuclear reactors) will significantly determine the global price of these items&#8212;a role that, until now, has been largely filled by the United States. More important, however, will be the decisions China makes about the types of energy it will come to rely on.</p> <p>If Chinese leaders were to follow their natural inclinations, they would undoubtedly avoid relying on imported fuels altogether, given how vulnerable foreign-energy dependence can make a country to overseas supply disruptions or, in China&#8217;s case, a possible US naval blockade (in the event, say, of a prolonged conflict over Taiwan). Li Junfeng, a senior Chinese energy official, was recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/business/global/18yuan.html" type="external">quoted</a> as saying, &#8220;Energy supply should be where you can plant your foot on it&#8221;&#8212;that is, from domestic sources.</p> <p>China does possess one kind of fuel in abundance: coal. According to the most recent DoE projections, coal will make up an estimated 62% of China&#8217;s net energy supply in 2035, only slightly less than at present. A heavy reliance on coal, however, will exacerbate the country&#8217;s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/world/asia/29china.html" type="external">environmental problems</a>, dragging down its economy as health-care costs mount. In addition, thanks to coal, China is now the <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Coal.html" type="external">world&#8217;s leading emitter</a> of climate-altering carbon dioxide. According to the DoE, China&#8217;s share of global carbon-dioxide emissions will jump from 19.6% in 2005, when it barely trailed the US at 21.1%, to 31.4% in 2035, when it will tower over all other countries in net emissions.</p> <p>As long as Beijing refuses to significantly reduce its reliance on coal, ignore its rhetoric on global-warming negotiations. It simply won&#8217;t be able to take truly meaningful steps to address climate change. In this way, too, it will alter the face of the planet.</p> <p>Recently, the country&#8217;s leaders seem to have become far more sensitive to the risks of excessive reliance on coal. Massive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html" type="external">emphasis</a> is now being placed on the development of renewable energy systems, especially wind and solar power. Already, China has become the world&#8217;s leading producer of wind turbines and solar panels, and has already begun exporting its technology to the United States. (Some economists and labor unions, in fact, claim that China is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/business/energy-environment/10steel.html" type="external">unfairly subsidizing</a> its renewable-energy exports in violation of World Trade Organization rules.)</p> <p>China&#8217;s growing emphasis on renewable energy would be good news, if it resulted in substantial reductions in coal use. At the same time, the country&#8217;s drive to excel at these techniques could push it into the forefront of a technological revolution, just as early American dominance of petroleum technology propelled it to the front ranks of world powers in the twentieth century. If the United States fails to keep pace, it could find the pace of its decline as a world power quickening.</p> <p>Whose Saudis Are They?</p> <p>China&#8217;s thirst for added energy could also lead quickly enough to friction and conflict with the United States, especially in the global competition for increasingly scarce supplies of imported petroleum. As its energy use ramps ever upward, China is using more oil, which can only lead to greater political economic, political, and someday possibly even military involvement in the oil-producing regions&#8212;areas long viewed in Washington as constituting America&#8217;s private offshore energy preserves.</p> <p>As recently as 1995, China <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Oil.html" type="external">only consumed</a> about 3.4 million barrels of oil per day&#8212;one-fifth the amount used by the United States, the world&#8217;s top consumer, and two-thirds of the amount burned by Japan, then number two. Since China pumped 2.9 million barrels per day from its domestic fields that year, its import burden was a mere 500,000 barrels per day at a time when the US imported 9.4 million barrels and Japan 5.3 million barrels.</p> <p>By 2009, China was in the number-two spot at 8.6 million barrels per day, which still fell far below America&#8217;s 18.7 million barrels. At 3.8 million barrels per day, however, domestic production wasn&#8217;t keeping pace&#8212;the very problem the US had faced in the Cold War era. China was already importing 4.8 million barrels per day, far more than Japan (which had actually reduced its reliance on oil) and nearly half as much as the United States. In the decades to come, these numbers are guaranteed only to get worse.</p> <p>According to the DoE, China will overtake the US as the world&#8217;s leading oil importer, at an estimated 10.6 million barrels per day, sometime around 2030. (Some experts believe this shift could occur far sooner.) Whatever the year, China&#8217;s leaders are already enmeshed in the same power &#8220;predicament&#8221; long faced by their American counterparts, dependent as they are on a vital substance that can only be acquired from a handful of unreliable producers in areas of chronic crisis and conflict.</p> <p>At present, China obtains <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Oil.html" type="external">most of its imported oil</a> from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Oman, Sudan, Kuwait, Russia, Kazakhstan, Libya, and Venezuela. Eager to ensure the reliability of the oil flow from these countries, Beijing has established close ties with their leaders, in some cases providing them with significant economic and military assistance. This is exactly the path once taken by Washington&#8212;and with some of the same countries.</p> <p>China&#8217;s state-controlled energy firms have also forged &#8220;strategic partnerships&#8221; with counterpart enterprises in these countries and in some cases <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175226/michael_klare_shopaholic_china" type="external">acquired</a> the right to develop major oil deposits as well. Especially striking has been the way Beijing has sought to undercut US influence in Saudi Arabia and with other crucial Persian Gulf oil producers. In 2009, China <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/business/energy-environment/20saudi.html" type="external">imported</a> more Saudi oil than the US for the first time, a geopolitical shift of great significance, given the history of US-Saudi relations. Although not competing with Washington when it comes to military aid, Beijing has been dispatching its top leaders to woo Riyadh, promising to support Saudi aspirations without employing the human rights or pro-democracy rhetoric usually associated with American foreign policy.</p> <p>Much of this should sound exceedingly familiar. After all, the United States once wooed the Saudis in a similar way when Washington first began viewing the kingdom as its overseas filling station and turned it into an unofficial military protectorate. In 1945, while World War II still raged, President Roosevelt made a special trip to meet with King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and establish a protection-for-oil arrangement that persists to this day. Not surprisingly, American leaders don&#8217;t see (or care to recognize) the analogy; instead, top officials look askance at the way China is poaching on US turf in Saudi Arabia and other petro-states, portraying such moves as antagonistic.</p> <p>As China&#8217;s reliance on these overseas suppliers grows, it is likely to bolster its ties with their leaders, producing further strains in the international political environment. Already, Beijing&#8217;s reluctance to jeopardize its vital energy links with Iran has frustrated US efforts to impose tough new economic sanctions on that country as a way of forcing it to abandon its uranium-enrichment activities. Likewise, China&#8217;s <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703594404575191671972897694.html" type="external">recent loan</a> of $20 billion to the Venezuelan oil industry has boosted the status of President Hugo Ch&#225;vez at a time when his domestic popularity, and so his ability to counter US policies, was slipping. The Chinese have also retained friendly ties with President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan, despite US efforts to paint him as an international pariah because of his alleged role in overseeing the massacres in Darfur.</p> <p>Arms-for-Oil Diplomacy on a Dangerous Planet</p> <p>Already, China&#8217;s efforts to bolster its ties with its foreign-oil providers have produced geopolitical friction with the United States. There is a risk of far more serious Sino-American conflict as we enter the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175249/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,_the_oil_rush_to_hell/" type="external">&#8220;tough oil&#8221;</a> era and the world supply of easily accessible petroleum rapidly shrinks. According to the <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/" type="external">DoE</a>, the global supply of oil and other petroleum liquids in 2035 will be 110.6 million barrels per day&#8212;precisely enough to meet anticipated world demand at that time. Many oil geologists believe, however, that global oil output will reach a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175082/michael_klare_goodbye_to_cheap_oil" type="external">peak level</a> of output well below 100 million barrels per day by 2015, and begin declining after that. In addition, the oil that remains will increasingly be found in difficult places to reach or in highly unstable regions. If these predictions prove accurate, the United States and China&#8212;the world&#8217;s two leading oil importers&#8212;could become trapped in a zero-sum great-power contest for access to diminishing supplies of exportable petroleum.</p> <p>What will happen under these circumstances is, of course, impossible to predict, especially since the potential for conflict abounds. If both countries continue on their current path&#8212;arming favored suppliers in a desperate bid to secure long-term advantage&#8212;the heavily armed petro-states may also become ever more fearful of, or covetous of, their (equally well-equipped) neighbors. With both the US and China deploying growing numbers of <a href="http://concernedafricascholars.org/african-security-research-project/?p=13" type="external">military advisers</a> and instructors to such countries, the stage could be set for mutual involvement in local wars and border conflicts. Neither Beijing nor Washington may seek such involvement, but the logic of arms-for-oil diplomacy makes this an unavoidable risk.</p> <p>It is not hard, then, to picture a future moment when the United States and China are locked in a global struggle over the world&#8217;s remaining supplies of oil. Indeed, many in official Washington believe that such a collision is nearly inevitable. &#8220;China&#8217;s near-term focus on preparing for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait&#8230; is an important driver of its [military] modernization,&#8221; the Department of Defense noted in the 2008 edition of its annual report, The Military Power of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. &#8220;However, analysis of China&#8217;s military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests Beijing is also developing capabilities for use in other contingencies, such as a conflict over resources&#8230;&#8221;</p> <p>Conflict over planetary oil reserves is not, however, the only path that China&#8217;s new energy status could open. It is possible to imagine a future in which China and the United States cooperate in pursuing oil alternatives that would obviate the need to funnel massive sums into naval and military arms races. President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, seemed to glimpse such a possibility when they <a href="http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8292.htm" type="external">agreed</a> last November, during an economic summit in Beijing, to collaborate in the development of alternative fuels and transportation systems.</p> <p>At this point, only one thing is clear: the greater China&#8217;s reliance on imported petroleum, the greater the risk of friction and conflict with the United States, which relies on the same increasingly problematic suppliers of energy. The greater its reliance on coal, the less comfortable our planet will become. The greater its emphasis on alternative fuels, the more likely it may make the twenty-first century China&#8217;s domain. At this point, how China will apportion its energy needs among the various candidate fuels remains unknown. Whatever its choices, however, China&#8217;s energy decisions will shake the world.</p> <p>Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805089217/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet</a>. His previous book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805079386/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Blood and Oil</a>, was made into a documentary film and is available at <a href="http://www.bloodandoilmovie.com/" type="external">bloodandoilmovie.com</a>. To catch Klare discussing China&#8217;s energy superpowerdom on Timothy MacBain&#8217;s latest TomCast audio interview, click <a href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2010/09/china-shakes-world.html" type="external">here</a> or, to download it to your iPod, <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&amp;amp;subid=&amp;amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;amp;type=10&amp;amp;tmpid=5573&amp;amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817" type="external">here</a>.</p>

China: Energy Superpower of the Future

https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/china-energy-superpower-coal/

2010-09-20

4left

amplta hrefhttpenwikipediaorgwikiFileCoal_Bike_China_1997jpgampgtBrian KelleyampltaampgtWikimedia This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website If you want to know which way the global wind is blowing or the sun shining or the coal burning watch China That8217s the news for our energy future and for the future of greatpower politics on planet Earth Washington is already watching8212with anxiety Rarely has a simple press interview said more about the global power shifts taking place in our world On July 20th the chief economist of the International Energy Agency IEA Fatih Birol told the Wall Street Journal that China had overtaken the United States to become the world8217s number one energy consumer One can read this development in many ways as evidence of China8217s continuing industrial prowess of the lingering recession in the United States of the growing popularity of automobiles in China even of America8217s superior energy efficiency as compared to that of China All of these observations are valid but all miss the main point by becoming the world8217s leading energy consumer China will also become an ever more dominant international actor and so set the pace in shaping our global future Because energy is tied to so many aspects of the global economy and because doubts are growing about the future availability of oil and other vital fuels the decisions China makes regarding its energy portfolio will have farreaching consequences As the leading player in the global energy market China will significantly determine not only the prices we will be paying for critical fuels but also the type of energy systems we will come to rely on More importantly China8217s decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate change How to Rise to Global Preeminence You can8217t really appreciate the significance of China8217s newfound energy prominence if you don8217t first grasp the role of energy in America8217s rise to global preeminence That the northeastern region of the young United States was richly endowed with waterpower and coal deposits was critical to the country8217s early industrialization as well as to the North8217s eventual victory in the Civil War It was the discovery of oil in western Pennsylvania in 1859 however that would turn the US into the decisive actor on the global stage Oil extraction and exports fueled American prosperity in the early twentieth century8212a time when the country was the planet8217s leading producer8212while nurturing the rise of its giant corporations It should never be forgotten that the world8217s first great transnational corporation8212John D Rockefeller8217s Standard Oil Company8212was founded on the exploitation and export of American petroleum Antitrust legislation would break up Standard Oil in 1911 but two of its largest descendants Standard Oil of New York and Standard Oil of New Jersey were later fused into what is now the world8217s wealthiest publicly traded enterprise ExxonMobil Another descendant Standard Oil of California became Chevron8212today the third richest American corporation Oil also played a key role in the rise of the United States as the world8217s preeminent military power This country supplied most of the oil consumed by Allied forces in both World War I and World War II Among the great powers of the time the US alone was selfsufficient in oil which meant it could deploy massive armies to Europe and Asia and overpower the wellequipped but oilstarved German and Japanese militaries Few realize this today but for the architects of America8217s victory in the Second World War including President Roosevelt it was the nation8217s superior endowment of petroleum not the atom bomb that proved decisive Having created an economy and military establishment based on oil American leaders were compelled to employ ever more costly and desperate measures to ensure that both always had an adequate supply of energy After World War II with domestic reserves already beginning to shrink a succession of presidents fashioned a global strategy based on ensuring American access to overseas petroleum As a start Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf kingdoms were chosen to serve as overseas 8220filling stations8221 for US refiners and military forces American oil companies especially the descendants of Standard Oil were aided and abetted in establishing a major presence in these countries To a considerable extent in fact the great postwar strategic pronouncements8212the Truman Doctrine the Eisenhower Doctrine the Nixon Doctrine and especially the Carter Doctrine8212were all tied to the protection of these 8220filling stations8221 Today too oil plays a critical role in Washington8217s global plans and actions The Department of State for example still maintains an elaborate costly and deeply entrenched military capability in the Persian Gulf to ensure the 8220safety8221 and 8220security8221 of oil exports from the region It has also extended its military reach to such key oilproducing regions as the Caspian Sea basin and western Africa The need to retain friendly ties and military relationships with key suppliers like Kuwait Nigeria and Saudi Arabia continues to dominate US foreign policy Similarly in a globally warming world a growing American interest in the melting Arctic is being propelled by a desire to exploit the polar region8217s untapped hydrocarbon reserves Planet Coal The fact that China has now overtaken the United States as the world8217s leading energy consumer is bound to radically alter its global policies just as energy predominance once did America8217s No doubt this will in turn alter the course of SinoAmerican relations not to speak of world affairs With the American experience in mind what can we expect from China As a start no one reading newspaper business pages could have any doubt that Chinese leaders view energy as a8212possibly the8212major concern of the country and have been devoting substantial resources and planning to the procurement of adequate future supplies In addressing this task Chinese leaders face two fundamental challenges securing sufficient energy to meet everrising demand and deciding which fuels to rely on in satisfying these requirements How China responds to these challenges will have striking implications on the global stage According to the most recent projections from the US Department of Energy DoE Chinese energy consumption will grow by 133 between 2007 and 20358212from that is 78 to 182 quadrillion British thermal units BTUs Think about it this way the 104 quadrillion BTUs that China will somehow have to add to its energy supply over the next quartercentury equals the total energy consumption of Europe and the Middle East in 2007 Finding and funneling so much oil natural gas and other fuels to China is undoubtedly going to be the single greatest economic and industrial challenge facing Beijing8212and in that challenge lays the possibility of real friction and conflict Although most of the country8217s energy funds are still expended domestically what it spends on imported fuels oil coal natural gas and uranium and energy equipment oil refineries power plants and nuclear reactors will significantly determine the global price of these items8212a role that until now has been largely filled by the United States More important however will be the decisions China makes about the types of energy it will come to rely on If Chinese leaders were to follow their natural inclinations they would undoubtedly avoid relying on imported fuels altogether given how vulnerable foreignenergy dependence can make a country to overseas supply disruptions or in China8217s case a possible US naval blockade in the event say of a prolonged conflict over Taiwan Li Junfeng a senior Chinese energy official was recently quoted as saying 8220Energy supply should be where you can plant your foot on it82218212that is from domestic sources China does possess one kind of fuel in abundance coal According to the most recent DoE projections coal will make up an estimated 62 of China8217s net energy supply in 2035 only slightly less than at present A heavy reliance on coal however will exacerbate the country8217s environmental problems dragging down its economy as healthcare costs mount In addition thanks to coal China is now the world8217s leading emitter of climatealtering carbon dioxide According to the DoE China8217s share of global carbondioxide emissions will jump from 196 in 2005 when it barely trailed the US at 211 to 314 in 2035 when it will tower over all other countries in net emissions As long as Beijing refuses to significantly reduce its reliance on coal ignore its rhetoric on globalwarming negotiations It simply won8217t be able to take truly meaningful steps to address climate change In this way too it will alter the face of the planet Recently the country8217s leaders seem to have become far more sensitive to the risks of excessive reliance on coal Massive emphasis is now being placed on the development of renewable energy systems especially wind and solar power Already China has become the world8217s leading producer of wind turbines and solar panels and has already begun exporting its technology to the United States Some economists and labor unions in fact claim that China is unfairly subsidizing its renewableenergy exports in violation of World Trade Organization rules China8217s growing emphasis on renewable energy would be good news if it resulted in substantial reductions in coal use At the same time the country8217s drive to excel at these techniques could push it into the forefront of a technological revolution just as early American dominance of petroleum technology propelled it to the front ranks of world powers in the twentieth century If the United States fails to keep pace it could find the pace of its decline as a world power quickening Whose Saudis Are They China8217s thirst for added energy could also lead quickly enough to friction and conflict with the United States especially in the global competition for increasingly scarce supplies of imported petroleum As its energy use ramps ever upward China is using more oil which can only lead to greater political economic political and someday possibly even military involvement in the oilproducing regions8212areas long viewed in Washington as constituting America8217s private offshore energy preserves As recently as 1995 China only consumed about 34 million barrels of oil per day8212onefifth the amount used by the United States the world8217s top consumer and twothirds of the amount burned by Japan then number two Since China pumped 29 million barrels per day from its domestic fields that year its import burden was a mere 500000 barrels per day at a time when the US imported 94 million barrels and Japan 53 million barrels By 2009 China was in the numbertwo spot at 86 million barrels per day which still fell far below America8217s 187 million barrels At 38 million barrels per day however domestic production wasn8217t keeping pace8212the very problem the US had faced in the Cold War era China was already importing 48 million barrels per day far more than Japan which had actually reduced its reliance on oil and nearly half as much as the United States In the decades to come these numbers are guaranteed only to get worse According to the DoE China will overtake the US as the world8217s leading oil importer at an estimated 106 million barrels per day sometime around 2030 Some experts believe this shift could occur far sooner Whatever the year China8217s leaders are already enmeshed in the same power 8220predicament8221 long faced by their American counterparts dependent as they are on a vital substance that can only be acquired from a handful of unreliable producers in areas of chronic crisis and conflict At present China obtains most of its imported oil from Saudi Arabia Iran Angola Oman Sudan Kuwait Russia Kazakhstan Libya and Venezuela Eager to ensure the reliability of the oil flow from these countries Beijing has established close ties with their leaders in some cases providing them with significant economic and military assistance This is exactly the path once taken by Washington8212and with some of the same countries China8217s statecontrolled energy firms have also forged 8220strategic partnerships8221 with counterpart enterprises in these countries and in some cases acquired the right to develop major oil deposits as well Especially striking has been the way Beijing has sought to undercut US influence in Saudi Arabia and with other crucial Persian Gulf oil producers In 2009 China imported more Saudi oil than the US for the first time a geopolitical shift of great significance given the history of USSaudi relations Although not competing with Washington when it comes to military aid Beijing has been dispatching its top leaders to woo Riyadh promising to support Saudi aspirations without employing the human rights or prodemocracy rhetoric usually associated with American foreign policy Much of this should sound exceedingly familiar After all the United States once wooed the Saudis in a similar way when Washington first began viewing the kingdom as its overseas filling station and turned it into an unofficial military protectorate In 1945 while World War II still raged President Roosevelt made a special trip to meet with King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and establish a protectionforoil arrangement that persists to this day Not surprisingly American leaders don8217t see or care to recognize the analogy instead top officials look askance at the way China is poaching on US turf in Saudi Arabia and other petrostates portraying such moves as antagonistic As China8217s reliance on these overseas suppliers grows it is likely to bolster its ties with their leaders producing further strains in the international political environment Already Beijing8217s reluctance to jeopardize its vital energy links with Iran has frustrated US efforts to impose tough new economic sanctions on that country as a way of forcing it to abandon its uraniumenrichment activities Likewise China8217s recent loan of 20 billion to the Venezuelan oil industry has boosted the status of President Hugo Ch225vez at a time when his domestic popularity and so his ability to counter US policies was slipping The Chinese have also retained friendly ties with President Omar Hassan Ahmad alBashir of Sudan despite US efforts to paint him as an international pariah because of his alleged role in overseeing the massacres in Darfur ArmsforOil Diplomacy on a Dangerous Planet Already China8217s efforts to bolster its ties with its foreignoil providers have produced geopolitical friction with the United States There is a risk of far more serious SinoAmerican conflict as we enter the 8220tough oil8221 era and the world supply of easily accessible petroleum rapidly shrinks According to the DoE the global supply of oil and other petroleum liquids in 2035 will be 1106 million barrels per day8212precisely enough to meet anticipated world demand at that time Many oil geologists believe however that global oil output will reach a peak level of output well below 100 million barrels per day by 2015 and begin declining after that In addition the oil that remains will increasingly be found in difficult places to reach or in highly unstable regions If these predictions prove accurate the United States and China8212the world8217s two leading oil importers8212could become trapped in a zerosum greatpower contest for access to diminishing supplies of exportable petroleum What will happen under these circumstances is of course impossible to predict especially since the potential for conflict abounds If both countries continue on their current path8212arming favored suppliers in a desperate bid to secure longterm advantage8212the heavily armed petrostates may also become ever more fearful of or covetous of their equally wellequipped neighbors With both the US and China deploying growing numbers of military advisers and instructors to such countries the stage could be set for mutual involvement in local wars and border conflicts Neither Beijing nor Washington may seek such involvement but the logic of armsforoil diplomacy makes this an unavoidable risk It is not hard then to picture a future moment when the United States and China are locked in a global struggle over the world8217s remaining supplies of oil Indeed many in official Washington believe that such a collision is nearly inevitable 8220China8217s nearterm focus on preparing for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait8230 is an important driver of its military modernization8221 the Department of Defense noted in the 2008 edition of its annual report The Military Power of the People8217s Republic of China 8220However analysis of China8217s military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests Beijing is also developing capabilities for use in other contingencies such as a conflict over resources82308221 Conflict over planetary oil reserves is not however the only path that China8217s new energy status could open It is possible to imagine a future in which China and the United States cooperate in pursuing oil alternatives that would obviate the need to funnel massive sums into naval and military arms races President Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao seemed to glimpse such a possibility when they agreed last November during an economic summit in Beijing to collaborate in the development of alternative fuels and transportation systems At this point only one thing is clear the greater China8217s reliance on imported petroleum the greater the risk of friction and conflict with the United States which relies on the same increasingly problematic suppliers of energy The greater its reliance on coal the less comfortable our planet will become The greater its emphasis on alternative fuels the more likely it may make the twentyfirst century China8217s domain At this point how China will apportion its energy needs among the various candidate fuels remains unknown Whatever its choices however China8217s energy decisions will shake the world Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author most recently of Rising Powers Shrinking Planet His previous book Blood and Oil was made into a documentary film and is available at bloodandoilmoviecom To catch Klare discussing China8217s energy superpowerdom on Timothy MacBain8217s latest TomCast audio interview click here or to download it to your iPod here

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<p>By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch the day before Occupy Wall Street&#8217;s one-year anniversary. Read Tom Engelhardt&#8217;s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175593/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_success_is_for_the_stubborn/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p> <p>Occupy is now a year old. &amp;#160;A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters: at one year old, Georgia O&#8217;Keeffe was not a great painter, and Bessie Smith wasn&#8217;t much of a singer. One year into the Civil Rights Movement, the <a href="http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/" type="external">Montgomery Bus Boycott</a> was still in progress, catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta &#8212; by, that is, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Occupy, our bouncing baby, was born with such struggle and joy a year ago, and here we are, 12 long months later.</p> <p>Occupy didn&#8217;t seem remarkable on September 17, 2011, and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan&#8217;s Zuccotti Park. But its most remarkable aspect turned out to be its staying power: it didn&#8217;t declare victory or defeat and go home. It decided it was home and settled in for two catalytic months.</p> <p>Tents and general assemblies and the acts, tools, and ideas of Occupy exploded across the nation and the western world from Alaska to New Zealand, and some parts of the eastern world &#8212; Occupy Hong Kong was going strong until <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/business/global/occupy-hong-kong-protesters-evicted.html" type="external">last week</a>. For a while, it was easy to see that this baby was something big, but then most, though not all, of the urban encampments were busted, and the movement became something subtler. But don&#8217;t let them tell you it went away.</p> <p /> <p>The most startling question anyone asked me last year was, &#8220;What is Occupy&#8217;s 10-year plan?&#8221;</p> <p>Who takes the long view? Americans have a tendency to think of activism like a slot machine, and if it doesn&#8217;t come up three jailed bankers or three clear victories fast, you&#8217;ve wasted your quarters. And yet hardly any activists ever define what victory would really look like, so who knows if we&#8217;ll ever get there?</p> <p>Sometimes we do get three clear victories, but because it took a while or because no one was sure what victory consisted of, hardly anyone realizes a celebration is in order, or sometimes even notices. We get more victories than anyone imagines, but they are usually indirect, incomplete, slow to arrive, and situations where our influence can be assumed but not proven &#8212; and yet each of them is worth counting. &amp;#160;</p> <p>More Than a Handful of Victories</p> <p>For the first anniversary of Occupy, large demonstrations have been planned in <a href="http://www.nycga.net/events/" type="external">New York</a> and <a href="http://occupyactionsf.org/?p=1" type="external">San Francisco</a> and a host of smaller actions <a href="http://interoccupy.net/s17nyc/events_tags/solidarity/" type="external">around the country</a>, but some of the people who came together under the Occupy banner have been working steadily in quiet ways all along, largely unnoticed. From Occupy Chattanooga to Occupy London, people are meeting weekly, sometimes just to have a forum, sometimes to plan foreclosure defenses, public demonstrations, or engage in other forms of organizing. On August 22nd, for instance, a foreclosure on Kim Mitchell&#8217;s house in a low-income part of San Francisco was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GfqXsW099k" type="external">prevented</a> by a coalition made up of Occupy Bernal and Occupy Noe Valley (two San Francisco neighborhoods) along with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/accesf" type="external">ACCE</a>, the group that succeeded the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2009/09/18/acorn_2/" type="external">Republican-destroyed</a> ACORN.</p> <p>It was a little victory in itself &#8212; and another that such an economically and ethnically diverse group was working together so beautifully. Demonstrations and victories like it are happening regularly across the country, including in Minnesota, thanks to <a href="http://www.occupyhomesmn.org/" type="external">Occupy Homes</a>. Earlier this month, Occupy Wall Street helped Manhattan restaurant workers defeat a lousy boss and a worker lock-out to <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/09/hot_and_crusty.php" type="external">unionize</a> a restaurant in the Hot and Crusty chain. (While shut out, the employees occupied the sidewalk and ran the Worker Justice Caf&#233; there.)</p> <p>In Providence, Rhode Island, the <a href="http://www.occupyprovidence.com/" type="external">Occupy encampment</a> broke up late last January, but only on the condition that the city open a daytime shelter for homeless people. At Princeton University, big banks are no longer invited to recruit on campus, most likely thanks to <a href="http://www.occupyprinceton.net/banks-not-to-recruit-on-campus-this-fall/" type="external">Occupy Princeton</a>.</p> <p>There have been thousands of little victories like these and some big ones as well: the impact of the <a href="http://www.moveourmoneyusa.org/" type="external">Move Your Money</a> initiative, the growing revolt against student-loan-debt peonage, and more indirectly the passing of a California law <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/11/business/la-fi-mo-foreclosure-laws-20120711" type="external">protecting homeowners</a> from the abuse of the foreclosure process (undoubtedly due in part to Occupy&#8217;s highlighting of the brutality and corruption of that process).</p> <p>But don&#8217;t get bogged down in the tangible achievements, except as a foundation. The less tangible spirit of Occupy and the new associations it sparked are what matters for whatever comes next, for that 10-year-plan. Occupy was first of all a great meeting ground. People who live too much in the virtual world with its talent for segregation and isolation suddenly met each other face-to-face in public space. There, they found common ground in a passion for economic justice and real democracy and a recognition of the widespread suffering capitalism has created.</p> <p>Bonds were formed across the usual divides of age and race and class, between the housed and the homeless as well as the employed and jobless, and some of those bonds still exist. There was tremendous emotion around it &#8212; the joy of finding you were not alone, the shame that was shed as the prisoners of debt stepped out of the shadows, the ferocity of solidarity when so many of us were attacked by the police, the dizzying hope that everything could be different, and the exhilaration in those moments when it already was.</p> <p>People learned how direct democracy works; they tasted power; they found something in common with strangers; they lived in public.&amp;#160; All those things mattered and matter still. They are a great foundation for the future; they are a great way to live in the present.</p> <p>Maybe Occupy was too successful a brand in that it sometimes disguised how much this movement was part of popular surges going on around the world: the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175369/rebecca_solnit_the_butterfly_and_the_boiling_point" type="external">Arab Spring</a> (including the three successful revolutions, the ongoing Syrian civil war, uprisings in Yemen, and more); the student uprisings in Montreal, Mexico, and Chile that have continued to develop and broaden; the economic revolts in Spain, Greece, and Britain; the ongoing demonstrations and insurrections around Africa; even various acts of resistance in India, Japan, China, and Tibet, some large and powerful. Because, in case you hadn&#8217;t noticed, these days a lot of the world is in some form of rebellion, insurrection, or protest.</p> <p>And the family resemblances matter.&amp;#160; If you add them all up, you see a similar fury at greed, political corruption, economic inequality, environmental devastation, and a dimming, shrinking future.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The Heroic Age</p> <p>Nevertheless, the one-year anniversary is likely to produce a lot of mainstream media stories that will assure you Occupy was only a bunch of tents that came down last year, that it was na&#239;ve, and that&#8217;s that. Don&#8217;t buy it. Don&#8217;t be reasonable, don&#8217;t be realistic, and don&#8217;t be defeated.&amp;#160; A year is nothing and the mainstream media is oblivious to where power lies and how change works, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you need to be.</p> <p>That same media will tell you 99 ways from Tuesday how powerless you are and how all power is made by men in suits who won or bought elections, but don&#8217;t buy that either. Instead, notice how <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-punk-putin-editorial" type="external">terrified</a> Vladimir Putin was of three young performers in bright-colored balaclavas, and how <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/occupy-wall-street-critics-betray-fear/2011/10/19/gIQAOK1FyL_blog.html" type="external">equally frightened</a> Wall Street is of us. They remember something we tend to forget: together we are capable of being remarkably powerful. We can make history, and we have, and we will, but only when we keep our eyes on the prize, pitch a big tent, and don&#8217;t stop until we get there.</p> <p>We live in the heroic age itself, the age of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, of the Zapatistas in Mexico, of the Civil Rights Movement&#8217;s key organizers, including <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2012/9/7/rep_john_lewis_civil_rights_icon" type="external">John Lewis</a> and <a href="http://thegrio.com/2012/05/12/civil-rights-leaders-commend-obamas-gay-marriage-stance/" type="external">Reverend Joseph Lowery</a>, and of so many nameless heroines and heroes from <a href="http://www.possible-futures.org/2012/01/09/horizontalism-and-territory/" type="external">Argentina</a> to <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175031/rebecca_solnit_a_new_era_of_people_power_in_the_streets_" type="external">Iceland</a>. Their praises are often sung, and the kinds of courage, integrity, generosity of spirit, and vision they exhibited all matter, but I want to talk about another virtue we don&#8217;t think about much: it&#8217;s the one we call patience when we like it or it appears to be gentle, and stubbornness when we don&#8217;t or it doesn&#8217;t.</p> <p>After all, Suu Kyi was steadfast during many years of house arrest and intimidation after a military junta stole the 1990 election she had won and only this year did the situation <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/12/aung-san-suu-kyi-burma-president-talks" type="external">shift</a> a little. The goals of the stubborn often seem impossible at inception, as did some of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement, or for that matter the early <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1190/adam_hochschild_history_to_the_rescue" type="external">nineteenth century abolitionist movement</a> in the United States, which set out to eradicate the atrocity of slavery more than 30 years before victory &#8212; a lot faster than the contemporaneous women&#8217;s movement got basic rights like the vote. Change happens, but it can take decades; and it takes people who remain steadfast, patient (or stubborn) for those same decades, along with infusions of new energy. &amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>I suspect the steadfastness of the heroes of the great movements of our time came not only from facts but from faith. They had faith that their cause was just, that this was the right way to live on Earth, that what they did mattered, and they had those things decades before the results were in. You had to be unrealistic about the odds to go up against the Burmese generals or the Apartheid regime in South Africa or Jim Crow or 5,000 years of patriarchy or centuries of homophobia, and the unrealistic among us drew on their faith and did just that, with tremendous consequences.</p> <p>Realism is overrated, but the fact is that the Occupy movement has already had extraordinary results. We changed the national debate early on and brought into the open what was previously hiding in plain sight: both the violence of Wall Street and the yearning for community, justice, truth, power, and hope that possesses most of the rest of us. We found out something that mattered about who we are: we found out just how many of us are furious about the debt peonage settled onto millions of &#8220;underwater&#8221; homeowners, people destroyed by medical debts, and students shackled by subprime educations that no future salaries will ever dig them out of.</p> <p>And here was Occupy&#8217;s other signal achievement: we articulated, clearly, loudly, incontrovertably, how appalling and destructive the current economic system is. To name something is a powerful action. To speak the truth changes reality, and this has everything to do with why electoral politics runs the spectrum from euphemism and parallel-universe formulations to astonishing lies and complete evasions. Wily Occupy brought a Trojan horse loaded with truth to the citadel of Wall Street. Even the <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/wall_streets_charging_bull_sta.html" type="external">bronze bull</a> couldn&#8217;t face that down.</p> <p>Meeting the Possibilities Down the Road</p> <p>A 10-year plan would function like a map: we could see where we had been, where we are, and where we want to go. In San Francisco, participants in the one-year anniversary events will burn student loan and mortgage contracts to symbolically free the prisoners of debt. In New York, Occupy Wall Street itself is focusing on <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/169760/occupy-20-strike-debt#" type="external">debt strikes</a> for the one-year anniversary. This September 17th, practical goals will be announced, a Debt Strikers Manual will debut &#8212; and who knows, in 10 years&#8217; time some of those goals could even be fully realized.</p> <p>This will require unwavering determination, even when there are no results.&amp;#160; It means not being sour about interim and incomplete victories, as well as actual defeats along the way. In 10 years, we could see some exciting things: the reversal of the harsh new bankruptcy laws, the transformation of educational financing, and maybe even a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/05/could-national-debt-forgiveness-help-kickstart-the-american-economy/" type="external">debt jubilee</a>, along with major changes in banking and mortgage laws.</p> <p>The victories, when they come, won&#8217;t be perfect.&amp;#160; They might not even look like victories or like anything we ever expected, and there will be lots of steps along the way that purists will deplore as &#8220;compromise.&#8221; Just as anything you make from a cake to a book never quite resembles the Platonic ideal in your head, victories may not look like their templates, but you should celebrate them, however imperfect they may be, as further steps along the road and never believe that the road ends or that you should stop walking.</p> <p>Still, if you&#8217;re talking about results, I&#8217;m convinced that pressure from Occupy and the student activists around it was what put student debt in the Democratic platform and has made it a major talking point of the Obama campaign. I worry that if, 10 years from now, the landscape of educational finance has been transformed for the better, no one will remember why or how it happened, or who started it all, so no one will celebrate or feel how powerful we really can be.</p> <p>It will be taken for granted the way, say, voting rights are for those of us so long disenfranchised. Most people will forget the world was ever different, just as most people will never know that more than 100 <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/506/" type="external">coal-fired plants</a> were not built in this country thanks to climate and environmental activists and few note that the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175468/bill_mckibben_puncturing_the_pipeline" type="external">Keystone XL pipeline</a> would have been finished by now, were it not for <a href="http://www.350.org/" type="external">350.org</a> and the <a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/" type="external">rest of the opposition</a>. This is why stories matter, especially the stories of our power, our victories, and our history.</p> <p>Looking Back With Gratitude, Looking Forward With Fierceness</p> <p>Once there was a great antinuclear movement in this country, first focusing on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175371" type="external">dangers and follies</a> of &#8220;peaceful&#8221; nuclear power, then on the evil of nuclear weapons, and it won many forgotten victories. Ever notice that we haven&#8217;t actually built a reactor since the 1970s, partly because safety standards got so much higher?&amp;#160; Who now remembers the <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Oct-03-Mon-2005/news/3636155.html" type="external">Great Basin MX</a> missile installations that were never built, the nuclear waste dumps &#8212; at Sierra Blanca, Ward Valley, and Yucca Mountain, among other places &#8212; that never opened?&amp;#160;</p> <p>Who still even thinks about some of the arms-reduction treaties? And yet little of this would have happened if those antinuclear movements hadn&#8217;t existed.&amp;#160; So thank an activist, and thank specifically the visionaries who showed up early and the stubborn ones who stayed to work on the issue long after the millions involved in the early 1980s nuclear-freeze movement had given up and gone home. Some of them are <a href="http://www.wslfweb.org/" type="external">still</a> at <a href="http://www.nirs.org/" type="external">work</a>, and we&#8217;re all beneficiaries.</p> <p>One of the first groups in the round of antinuclear activism that began in the 1970s was the <a href="http://clamshellalliance.org/" type="external">Clamshell Alliance</a> created in 1976 to oppose New Hampshire&#8217;s proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. One reactor was built and is still operating at Seabrook; one was cancelled due to opposition.&amp;#160; Building the first reactor cost five times the initial estimate and led its owner, Public Service of New Hampshire, to what was then the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. history when it was unable to make ratepayers pick up the bill. You can read that as a partial victory, but Clamshell did so much more.</p> <p>Their spirit and their creative new approach inspired activists around the country and helped generate a movement. Sixty-six nuclear power plants were cancelled in the wake of Clamshell. Keep in mind as well that the Clamshell Alliance and many of the antinuclear groups that followed developed non-hierarchical, direct-democracy methods of organizing since used by activists and movements throughout the U.S. and beyond, including Occupy Wall Street, whose consensus-based general assemblies owed a lot to a bunch of hippies no one remembers.</p> <p>Bill Moyers met with Clamshell Alliance members in 1978, when he thought they were beginning to be victorious in inspiring a national movement and they thought they were failing. What he said is still <a href="http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.html" type="external">worth quoting</a>:</p> <p>&#8220;That Friday night, I expected to meet a spirited, upbeat group that was proud of its accomplishments. I was shocked when the Clamshell activists arrived with heads bowed, dispirited, and depressed, saying their efforts had been in vain. The Clamshell experience of discouragement and collapse is far from unusual. Within a few years after achieving the goals of &#8216;take-off,&#8217; every major social movement of the past 20 years has undergone a significant collapse, in which activists believed that their movements had failed, the powerful institutions were too powerful, and their own efforts were futile. This has happened even when movements were actually progressing reasonably well along the normal path taken by past successful movements!&#8221;</p> <p>With Occupy, remarkable things have already happened, and more remarkable systemic change could be ahead. Don&#8217;t forget that this was a movement that spread to thousands of cities, towns, and even rural outposts across the country and overseas, from Occupy Tucson to Occupy Bangor. Remember that many of the effects of what has already happened are incalculable, and more of what is being accomplished will only be clear further down the road.</p> <p>Go out into the streets and celebrate the one-year anniversary and start dreaming and planning for 2021, when we could &#8212; if we are steadfast, if we are inclusive, if we keep our eyes on the prize, if we define that prize and recognize progress toward it and remember where we started &#8212; be celebrating something much bigger. It&#8217;s a long road to travel, but we can get there from here.</p> <p>Rebecca Solnit was an antinuclear activist in the 1980s and 1990s, as her 1994 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520220668/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Savage Dreams</a> recounts. The author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143118072/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster</a>, she is currently speaking about disaster, civil society, and utopia in programs with the <a href="http://freeuniversitynyc.org/schedule/" type="external">Free University of New York</a>, the San Francisco Public Library&#8217;s <a href="http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000352501" type="external">One City One Book program</a>, and <a href="http://www.calhum.org/programs/searching-for-democracy/california-reads/" type="external">Cal Humanities</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 2012 Rebecca Solnit</p>

Occupy Your Victories

https://truthdig.com/articles/occupy-your-victories/

2012-09-19

4left

By Rebecca Solnit TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch the day before Occupy Wall Street8217s oneyear anniversary Read Tom Engelhardt8217s introduction here Occupy is now a year old amp160A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters at one year old Georgia O8217Keeffe was not a great painter and Bessie Smith wasn8217t much of a singer One year into the Civil Rights Movement the Montgomery Bus Boycott was still in progress catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta 8212 by that is Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr Occupy our bouncing baby was born with such struggle and joy a year ago and here we are 12 long months later Occupy didn8217t seem remarkable on September 17 2011 and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan8217s Zuccotti Park But its most remarkable aspect turned out to be its staying power it didn8217t declare victory or defeat and go home It decided it was home and settled in for two catalytic months Tents and general assemblies and the acts tools and ideas of Occupy exploded across the nation and the western world from Alaska to New Zealand and some parts of the eastern world 8212 Occupy Hong Kong was going strong until last week For a while it was easy to see that this baby was something big but then most though not all of the urban encampments were busted and the movement became something subtler But don8217t let them tell you it went away The most startling question anyone asked me last year was 8220What is Occupy8217s 10year plan8221 Who takes the long view Americans have a tendency to think of activism like a slot machine and if it doesn8217t come up three jailed bankers or three clear victories fast you8217ve wasted your quarters And yet hardly any activists ever define what victory would really look like so who knows if we8217ll ever get there Sometimes we do get three clear victories but because it took a while or because no one was sure what victory consisted of hardly anyone realizes a celebration is in order or sometimes even notices We get more victories than anyone imagines but they are usually indirect incomplete slow to arrive and situations where our influence can be assumed but not proven 8212 and yet each of them is worth counting amp160 More Than a Handful of Victories For the first anniversary of Occupy large demonstrations have been planned in New York and San Francisco and a host of smaller actions around the country but some of the people who came together under the Occupy banner have been working steadily in quiet ways all along largely unnoticed From Occupy Chattanooga to Occupy London people are meeting weekly sometimes just to have a forum sometimes to plan foreclosure defenses public demonstrations or engage in other forms of organizing On August 22nd for instance a foreclosure on Kim Mitchell8217s house in a lowincome part of San Francisco was prevented by a coalition made up of Occupy Bernal and Occupy Noe Valley two San Francisco neighborhoods along with ACCE the group that succeeded the Republicandestroyed ACORN It was a little victory in itself 8212 and another that such an economically and ethnically diverse group was working together so beautifully Demonstrations and victories like it are happening regularly across the country including in Minnesota thanks to Occupy Homes Earlier this month Occupy Wall Street helped Manhattan restaurant workers defeat a lousy boss and a worker lockout to unionize a restaurant in the Hot and Crusty chain While shut out the employees occupied the sidewalk and ran the Worker Justice Caf233 there In Providence Rhode Island the Occupy encampment broke up late last January but only on the condition that the city open a daytime shelter for homeless people At Princeton University big banks are no longer invited to recruit on campus most likely thanks to Occupy Princeton There have been thousands of little victories like these and some big ones as well the impact of the Move Your Money initiative the growing revolt against studentloandebt peonage and more indirectly the passing of a California law protecting homeowners from the abuse of the foreclosure process undoubtedly due in part to Occupy8217s highlighting of the brutality and corruption of that process But don8217t get bogged down in the tangible achievements except as a foundation The less tangible spirit of Occupy and the new associations it sparked are what matters for whatever comes next for that 10yearplan Occupy was first of all a great meeting ground People who live too much in the virtual world with its talent for segregation and isolation suddenly met each other facetoface in public space There they found common ground in a passion for economic justice and real democracy and a recognition of the widespread suffering capitalism has created Bonds were formed across the usual divides of age and race and class between the housed and the homeless as well as the employed and jobless and some of those bonds still exist There was tremendous emotion around it 8212 the joy of finding you were not alone the shame that was shed as the prisoners of debt stepped out of the shadows the ferocity of solidarity when so many of us were attacked by the police the dizzying hope that everything could be different and the exhilaration in those moments when it already was People learned how direct democracy works they tasted power they found something in common with strangers they lived in publicamp160 All those things mattered and matter still They are a great foundation for the future they are a great way to live in the present Maybe Occupy was too successful a brand in that it sometimes disguised how much this movement was part of popular surges going on around the world the Arab Spring including the three successful revolutions the ongoing Syrian civil war uprisings in Yemen and more the student uprisings in Montreal Mexico and Chile that have continued to develop and broaden the economic revolts in Spain Greece and Britain the ongoing demonstrations and insurrections around Africa even various acts of resistance in India Japan China and Tibet some large and powerful Because in case you hadn8217t noticed these days a lot of the world is in some form of rebellion insurrection or protest And the family resemblances matteramp160 If you add them all up you see a similar fury at greed political corruption economic inequality environmental devastation and a dimming shrinking futureamp160 The Heroic Age Nevertheless the oneyear anniversary is likely to produce a lot of mainstream media stories that will assure you Occupy was only a bunch of tents that came down last year that it was na239ve and that8217s that Don8217t buy it Don8217t be reasonable don8217t be realistic and don8217t be defeatedamp160 A year is nothing and the mainstream media is oblivious to where power lies and how change works but that doesn8217t mean you need to be That same media will tell you 99 ways from Tuesday how powerless you are and how all power is made by men in suits who won or bought elections but don8217t buy that either Instead notice how terrified Vladimir Putin was of three young performers in brightcolored balaclavas and how equally frightened Wall Street is of us They remember something we tend to forget together we are capable of being remarkably powerful We can make history and we have and we will but only when we keep our eyes on the prize pitch a big tent and don8217t stop until we get there We live in the heroic age itself the age of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma of the Zapatistas in Mexico of the Civil Rights Movement8217s key organizers including John Lewis and Reverend Joseph Lowery and of so many nameless heroines and heroes from Argentina to Iceland Their praises are often sung and the kinds of courage integrity generosity of spirit and vision they exhibited all matter but I want to talk about another virtue we don8217t think about much it8217s the one we call patience when we like it or it appears to be gentle and stubbornness when we don8217t or it doesn8217t After all Suu Kyi was steadfast during many years of house arrest and intimidation after a military junta stole the 1990 election she had won and only this year did the situation shift a little The goals of the stubborn often seem impossible at inception as did some of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement or for that matter the early nineteenth century abolitionist movement in the United States which set out to eradicate the atrocity of slavery more than 30 years before victory 8212 a lot faster than the contemporaneous women8217s movement got basic rights like the vote Change happens but it can take decades and it takes people who remain steadfast patient or stubborn for those same decades along with infusions of new energy amp160amp160 I suspect the steadfastness of the heroes of the great movements of our time came not only from facts but from faith They had faith that their cause was just that this was the right way to live on Earth that what they did mattered and they had those things decades before the results were in You had to be unrealistic about the odds to go up against the Burmese generals or the Apartheid regime in South Africa or Jim Crow or 5000 years of patriarchy or centuries of homophobia and the unrealistic among us drew on their faith and did just that with tremendous consequences Realism is overrated but the fact is that the Occupy movement has already had extraordinary results We changed the national debate early on and brought into the open what was previously hiding in plain sight both the violence of Wall Street and the yearning for community justice truth power and hope that possesses most of the rest of us We found out something that mattered about who we are we found out just how many of us are furious about the debt peonage settled onto millions of 8220underwater8221 homeowners people destroyed by medical debts and students shackled by subprime educations that no future salaries will ever dig them out of And here was Occupy8217s other signal achievement we articulated clearly loudly incontrovertably how appalling and destructive the current economic system is To name something is a powerful action To speak the truth changes reality and this has everything to do with why electoral politics runs the spectrum from euphemism and paralleluniverse formulations to astonishing lies and complete evasions Wily Occupy brought a Trojan horse loaded with truth to the citadel of Wall Street Even the bronze bull couldn8217t face that down Meeting the Possibilities Down the Road A 10year plan would function like a map we could see where we had been where we are and where we want to go In San Francisco participants in the oneyear anniversary events will burn student loan and mortgage contracts to symbolically free the prisoners of debt In New York Occupy Wall Street itself is focusing on debt strikes for the oneyear anniversary This September 17th practical goals will be announced a Debt Strikers Manual will debut 8212 and who knows in 10 years8217 time some of those goals could even be fully realized This will require unwavering determination even when there are no resultsamp160 It means not being sour about interim and incomplete victories as well as actual defeats along the way In 10 years we could see some exciting things the reversal of the harsh new bankruptcy laws the transformation of educational financing and maybe even a debt jubilee along with major changes in banking and mortgage laws The victories when they come won8217t be perfectamp160 They might not even look like victories or like anything we ever expected and there will be lots of steps along the way that purists will deplore as 8220compromise8221 Just as anything you make from a cake to a book never quite resembles the Platonic ideal in your head victories may not look like their templates but you should celebrate them however imperfect they may be as further steps along the road and never believe that the road ends or that you should stop walking Still if you8217re talking about results I8217m convinced that pressure from Occupy and the student activists around it was what put student debt in the Democratic platform and has made it a major talking point of the Obama campaign I worry that if 10 years from now the landscape of educational finance has been transformed for the better no one will remember why or how it happened or who started it all so no one will celebrate or feel how powerful we really can be It will be taken for granted the way say voting rights are for those of us so long disenfranchised Most people will forget the world was ever different just as most people will never know that more than 100 coalfired plants were not built in this country thanks to climate and environmental activists and few note that the Keystone XL pipeline would have been finished by now were it not for 350org and the rest of the opposition This is why stories matter especially the stories of our power our victories and our history Looking Back With Gratitude Looking Forward With Fierceness Once there was a great antinuclear movement in this country first focusing on the dangers and follies of 8220peaceful8221 nuclear power then on the evil of nuclear weapons and it won many forgotten victories Ever notice that we haven8217t actually built a reactor since the 1970s partly because safety standards got so much higheramp160 Who now remembers the Great Basin MX missile installations that were never built the nuclear waste dumps 8212 at Sierra Blanca Ward Valley and Yucca Mountain among other places 8212 that never openedamp160 Who still even thinks about some of the armsreduction treaties And yet little of this would have happened if those antinuclear movements hadn8217t existedamp160 So thank an activist and thank specifically the visionaries who showed up early and the stubborn ones who stayed to work on the issue long after the millions involved in the early 1980s nuclearfreeze movement had given up and gone home Some of them are still at work and we8217re all beneficiaries One of the first groups in the round of antinuclear activism that began in the 1970s was the Clamshell Alliance created in 1976 to oppose New Hampshire8217s proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant One reactor was built and is still operating at Seabrook one was cancelled due to oppositionamp160 Building the first reactor cost five times the initial estimate and led its owner Public Service of New Hampshire to what was then the fourth largest bankruptcy in US history when it was unable to make ratepayers pick up the bill You can read that as a partial victory but Clamshell did so much more Their spirit and their creative new approach inspired activists around the country and helped generate a movement Sixtysix nuclear power plants were cancelled in the wake of Clamshell Keep in mind as well that the Clamshell Alliance and many of the antinuclear groups that followed developed nonhierarchical directdemocracy methods of organizing since used by activists and movements throughout the US and beyond including Occupy Wall Street whose consensusbased general assemblies owed a lot to a bunch of hippies no one remembers Bill Moyers met with Clamshell Alliance members in 1978 when he thought they were beginning to be victorious in inspiring a national movement and they thought they were failing What he said is still worth quoting 8220That Friday night I expected to meet a spirited upbeat group that was proud of its accomplishments I was shocked when the Clamshell activists arrived with heads bowed dispirited and depressed saying their efforts had been in vain The Clamshell experience of discouragement and collapse is far from unusual Within a few years after achieving the goals of 8216takeoff8217 every major social movement of the past 20 years has undergone a significant collapse in which activists believed that their movements had failed the powerful institutions were too powerful and their own efforts were futile This has happened even when movements were actually progressing reasonably well along the normal path taken by past successful movements8221 With Occupy remarkable things have already happened and more remarkable systemic change could be ahead Don8217t forget that this was a movement that spread to thousands of cities towns and even rural outposts across the country and overseas from Occupy Tucson to Occupy Bangor Remember that many of the effects of what has already happened are incalculable and more of what is being accomplished will only be clear further down the road Go out into the streets and celebrate the oneyear anniversary and start dreaming and planning for 2021 when we could 8212 if we are steadfast if we are inclusive if we keep our eyes on the prize if we define that prize and recognize progress toward it and remember where we started 8212 be celebrating something much bigger It8217s a long road to travel but we can get there from here Rebecca Solnit was an antinuclear activist in the 1980s and 1990s as her 1994 book Savage Dreams recounts The author of A Paradise Built in Hell The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster she is currently speaking about disaster civil society and utopia in programs with the Free University of New York the San Francisco Public Library8217s One City One Book program and Cal Humanities Copyright 2012 Rebecca Solnit

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<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Inc :</p> <p>* PROPOSES TO ENTER AGREEMENT PURSUANT TO WHICH JOINCARE TO SELL 49% EQUITY INTERESTS IN LIVZON MAB FOR RMB294 MILLION Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Two U.S. regulators have proposed Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>) pay $1 billion in penalties to resolve probes into auto insurance and mortgage lending abuses at the third largest U.S. bank, overshadowing its first quarter results.</p> <p>The San Francisco-based lender, which reported a quarterly profit, said it may have to restate results to reflect the final settlement. The proposed penalties were reported earlier this week by Reuters.</p> <p>Analysts said that while the $1 billion penalty would not make a significant dent to its balance sheet, it may take the bank some time to repair the damage to its reputation.</p> <p>Shares of the bank fell 3.4 percent to $50.89.</p> <p>&#8220;Operationally, Wells Fargo can recover, but reputationally and how a billion dollars will weigh on them - only time can tell,&#8221; said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley in Boston.</p> <p>&#8220;Companies have come back from worse than this but right now they&#8217;re still in the eye of the storm,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>The bank, still smarting from a prolonged sales scandal in its retail banking business, found inconsistencies at its auto lending and mortgage in the summer of 2017 - leading to further probes by regulators.</p> <p>To appease investors and regulators, the bank overhauled its operational structure, shook up its board and hired a new compliance officer.</p> <p>But this failed to impress the U.S. Federal Reserve, which imposed restrictions in February on the bank&#8217;s growth, forbidding it to expand its balance sheet beyond 2017 levels until it makes internal changes that addressed risk management.</p> <p>&#8220;A bank&#8217;s balance sheet is the engine for profit growth,&#8221; said Kyle Sanders, analyst at Edward Jones. &#8220;The constraints on Well&#8217;s ability to take on deposits and make new loans will likely result in lagging earnings growth for Wells relative to peers in the near-term.&#8221;</p> <p>Wells estimates restrictions on balance sheet growth will cut annual profit by $300 million to $400 million this year.</p> <p>Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan repeatedly sought to reassure investors that the bank was stable despite the regulatory restrictions.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m confident that our outstanding team will continue to transform Wells Fargo into a better, stronger company; however, we recognise that it will take time to put all of our challenges behind us,&#8221; Sloan said in the bank&#8217;s first-quarter results statement on Friday.</p> <p>But as recently as last month, the bank also said it was examining its wealth and investment management business for possible customer abuse, including overcharging and inappropriate referrals, after inquiries from government agencies.</p> PROFIT RISES, REVENUE DIPS <p>Despite its ongoing woes, the bank reported a 6 percent jump in profit, saying net income applicable to common stock rose to $5.53 billion, or $1.12 per share in the quarter ended March 31, from $5.23 billion, or $1.03 per share a year ago. ( <a href="https://reut.rs/2HgHNMt" type="external">reut.rs/2HgHNMt</a>)</p> A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photo <p>Analysts on average expected $1.06 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p> <p>Wells Fargo has been struggling to reduce expenses, but failed to keep a leash on costs in the quarter despite Sloan&#8217;s vow to slash $4 billion in costs by 2019 by closing hundreds of branches and taking other measures.</p> <p>Total noninterest expenses for the first quarter rose 3.3 percent to $14.24 billion.</p> <p>Sloan reiterated his 2019 cost savings target, and said his non-interest expense dollar target range for full-year 2018 remains unchanged.</p> <p>In January, the company had said it remained committed to reducing its expenses by $2 billion by the end of 2018.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co</a> 50.89 WFC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.81 (-3.43%) WFC.N <p>Total revenue in the quarter fell 1.4 percent to $21.93 billion. Total loans slipped 1.2 percent to $947.3 billion, hurt most by a decline in average loans in its community banking unit, which includes consumer banking.</p> <p>Non-interest income from mortgage banking, an area where the bank supersedes its peers, fell 23.9 percent due to rising interest rates.</p> <p>Income tax expenses fell 36 percent to $1.37 billion following President Donald Trump&#8217;s tax overhaul last year.</p> <p>Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham, Bernard Orr</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) said on Friday it took a $4.24 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share, figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards.</p> FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo <p>The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the after-tax, non-cash impact would be about $4.2 billion, plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share.</p> <p>The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard, and those will be reflected when GE reports first-quarter results on April 20.</p> <p>The value of GE&#8217;s contract assets are being written down, but that does not change the value of the long-term contracts GE has, nor does it affect GE&#8217;s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018, GE said.</p> <p>The adjustments appear within expectations, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said. &#8220;Now the focus moves to next Friday&#8217;s earnings.&#8221;</p> <p>The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises, including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter, analysts said.</p> <p>GE shares were down 1 percent at $13.35 in aftermarket trading after rising 2.4 percent on Friday.</p> <p>The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from long-term contracts, and is designed to make a company&#8217;s cash flow more closely match its income, accounting experts and analysts said.</p> <p>The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly. The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration, analysts said.</p> <p>Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts, but the process can lead to over- or under-estimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet, experts say.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N <p>GE&#8217;s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to $28.8 billion in 2017, from $16.9 billion in 2014, most of it in its power and aviation units. The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers, which creates the gap between profit and cash flow, according to GE&#8217;s regulatory filings.</p> <p>GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions, cash flow and taxes on Friday.</p> <p>GE&#8217;s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between $1.00 and $1.07 a share.</p> <p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE&#8217;s accounting for contract assets, raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation.</p> <p>GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts.</p> <p>GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings, a more exacting standard under the new rules, because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years.</p> <p>Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China&#8217;s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 20 percent in the first quarter, with some analysts speculating exporters were rushing out shipments to get ahead of threatened tariffs that are spurring fears of a full-blown trade war.</p> <p>The latest readings on the health of China&#8217;s trade sector are unlikely to ease tensions following weeks of tit-for-tat tariff threats by Washington and Beijing, though they suggest China&#8217;s economy is still in relatively solid shape.</p> <p>Even as China&#8217;s trade surplus narrowed overall in the first three months of the year, its surplus with the U.S. surged 19.4 percent to $58.25 billion from a year earlier, customs data showed on Friday.</p> <p>While China was busy selling more to the U.S., it was buying more from other countries, and ran a $9.86 billion deficit with the rest of the world in the quarter.</p> <p>China&#8217;s overall exports and imports both grew at a strong double-digit clip early in the year, and while exports unexpectedly fell in March &#8212; resulting in a rare trade deficit &#8212; most analysts chalked it up to seasonal factors and said it was too early to call a trend.</p> <p>Still, while no hard timeline has been set by either Washington or Beijing for the actual imposition of tariffs, analysts said China&#8217;s exporters may already be adapting their strategies as punitive trade measures loom.</p> <p>China&#8217;s first-quarter exports to the U.S. rose 14.8 percent from a year earlier, despite a 5.6 percent drop in March. Its imports from the U.S. rose 8.9 percent in the quarter and 3.2 percent in March.</p> <p>That helped narrow its surplus with the U.S. in March alone to $15.43 billion from $20.96 billion in February, but that was still nearly 18 percent higher than March 2017.</p> <p>&#8220;The sharp decline in March export growth after very solid performance in January and February suggests some exporters may have front-loaded exports (early) this year due to concern over the possibility of a Sino-U.S. trade war after the U.S. hiked tariffs on global imports on solar panels and washing machines,&#8221; said Lisheng Wang, an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong.</p> <p>&#8220;We believe export growth will slow due to yuan appreciation and rising trade tensions...China&#8217;s imports could be more resilient than exports in our view as China has pledged to increase imports,&#8221; Wang said.</p> <p>China&#8217;s total aluminum exports in March rose to their highest since June, just as the United States imposed tariffs on imports of the metal and steel on March 23.</p> SEASONAL EXPORT DIP IN MARCH <p>For the first quarter as a whole, China&#8217;s exports grew a hearty 14.1 percent from a year earlier.</p> <p>March shipments fell 2.7 percent, however, lagging analysts&#8217; forecasts for a 10.0 percent increase, and down from a sharper-than-expected 44.5 percent jump in February, which economists believe was heavily distorted by seasonal factors.</p> <p>&#8220;Most of (the March) drop is seasonal &#8211; Chinese New Year was later than usual this year, meaning more of the holiday disruptions will have dragged into March than in 2017,&#8221; Capital Economics Senior China Economist Julian Evans-Pritchard wrote in a note.</p> <p>March import growth of 14.4 percent beat expectations, however, suggesting China&#8217;s domestic demand may still be solid enough to cushion the blow from any trade shocks.</p> <p>Analysts had expected imports to grow 10.0 percent in March, picking up from 6.3 percent growth in February.</p> <p>That produced an unexpected trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, but such shortfalls are not uncommon for China early in the year, again likely due to holiday distortions.</p> <p>For Jan-March, imports rose a strong 18.9 percent on-year.</p> Shipping containers are seen piled up at a port in Qingdao, Shandong province, China April 13, 2018. China Daily via REUTERS <p>Imports of commodities continued to lead the way in March as manufacturers replenished inventories ahead of a seasonal pick-up in demand. Shipments of copper, crude oil, iron ore and soybeans all rose from the previous month.</p> <p>Analysts are still expecting China&#8217;s economic growth to slow later in the year, however, as a cooling property market weighs on demand for building materials from cement to steel.</p> OUTLOOK CLOUDY <p>China&#8217;s exports rode a global trade boom last year, expanding at the fastest pace since 2013 and serving as one of the key drivers behind the economy&#8217;s forecast-beating 6.9 percent expansion.</p> <p>But the sudden spike in trade tensions with the United States is clouding the outlook for both China&#8217;s &#8220;old economy&#8221; heavy industries and &#8220;new economy&#8221; tech firms alike.</p> <p>Washington says China&#8217;s $375 billion trade surplus with the United States is unacceptable, and has demanded Beijing reduce it by $100 billion immediately.</p> <p>In a move to further force China to lower the billions of goods trade surplus running with the U.S., Trump unveiled tariff representing about $50 billion of technology, transport and medical products early this month, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) <p>China&#8217;s tech sector, which is key part of Beijing&#8217;s longer-term &#8220;Made in China 2025&#8221; strategy to move from cheap goods to higher-value manufacturing, may be particularly vulnerable.</p> <p>Hi-tech products have been among its fastest growing export segments. China exported $137.8 billion worth of high-tech products in the first quarter, up 20.5 percent on-year.</p> <p>Reporting by Elias Glenn, Lusha Zhang and Stella Qiu; Editing by Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices extended recent gains and a gauge of global stocks eased on Friday as concern over a broader conflict in Syria left investors nervous, while U.S. bank shares led Wall Street lower.</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid <p>The State Department said on Friday that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma.</p> <p>The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East.</p> <p>Oil prices added to recent gains that drove them to highs not seen since late 2014 and posted their biggest weekly gain since July.</p> <p>&#8220;The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more, as we get closer to the moment of the strikes, if there are any,&#8221; said John Kilduff, partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management. He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with powerful oil producers.</p> <p>On Wall Street, fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors, while financial stocks led the day&#8217;s declines.</p> <p>Shares of JPMorgan Chase ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) were down 2.7 percent after its earnings missed estimates, while Citigroup ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) dropped 1.6 percent despite beating profit estimates. An S&amp;amp;P 500 index of bank stocks .SPXBK fell 2.6 percent.</p> <p>Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares, said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette &amp;amp; Woods in New York. &#8220;If you didn&#8217;t own financials going into the quarter, there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them,&#8221; Grant said.</p> <p>The banks&#8217; results kicked off the U.S. earnings reporting period. Tax cuts are expected to help corporate America post its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years. Earnings at S&amp;amp;P 500 companies are estimated to grow by 18.4 percent from a year earlier.</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 122.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,360.14, the S&amp;amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 7.69 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,656.3 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 33.60 points, or 0.47 percent, to 7,106.65.</p> <p>For the week, the S&amp;amp;P 500 was up 2 percent, the Dow rose 1.8 percent and Nasdaq gained 2.8 percent.</p> <p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">.FTEU3</a> rose 0.10 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 0.15 percent. The MSCI index ended the week with its strongest performance in five.</p> <p>In the oil market, U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 32 cents to settle at $67.39 a barrel, while Brent crude LCOcv1 rose 56 cents to $72.58.</p> <p>The dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders waited for more clarity on a possible Western military intervention in Syria.</p> <p>The dollar index .DXY, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was 0.03 percent higher at 89.78.</p> <p>The Japanese yen weakened 0.01 percent versus the greenback at 107.36 per dollar.</p> <p>Aluminum hit a six-year high on Friday and posted its biggest weekly gain since the current contract was launched after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia&#8217;s UC Rusal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0486.HK" type="external">0486.HK</a>), the world&#8217;s second-biggest producer.</p> <p>London Metal Exchange aluminum CMAL3 hit its highest since March 2012 at $2,340 a ton before retreating to close at $2,285, down 1.7 percent.</p> <p>Spot gold XAU= added 0.7 percent to $1,345.01 an ounce. U.S. gold futures GCcv1 gained 0.50 percent to $1,348.60 an ounce.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp;amp; Co</a> 110.3 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange -3.07 (-2.71%) JPM.N C.N .DJI .SPX .IXIC <p>In the bond market, the U.S. Treasury yield curve hovered at its lowest level in more than decade as short-dated yields have risen more than longer-dated ones this week on expectations of further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.</p> <p>Graphic: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade</p> <p>The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) stepped into the currency market and bought another HK$3.368 billion ($429.08 million) in Hong Kong dollars late in the U.S. session on Friday, as the local currency hit the weaker end of its trading range.</p> <p>Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR last rose 3/32 in price to yield 2.8248 percent, from 2.834 percent late on Thursday.</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: World stocks set for best week in a month - <a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external">reut.rs/2IQUDhs</a>)</p> <a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external" /> <p>(GRAPHIC: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade - <a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external">reut.rs/2CkkWKx</a>)</p> <a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external" /> <p>Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Richard Leong, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Sinead Carew and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York, Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

BRIEF-Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Says Joincare To Sell 49 PCT Equity Interests In Livzon Mab Wells Fargo faces $1 billion fine from loan abuses GE books $4.2 billion charge, restates earnings as expected China's trade surplus with U.S. soars in first quarter but March exports falter Stocks dip, oil gains as Syria fears go on; U.S. bank shares fall

https://reuters.com/article/brief-livzon-pharmaceutical-group-says-j/brief-livzon-pharmaceutical-group-says-joincare-to-sell-49-pct-equity-interests-in-livzon-mab-idUSFWN1PD0RG

2018-01-18

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Jan 18 Reuters Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Inc PROPOSES TO ENTER AGREEMENT PURSUANT TO WHICH JOINCARE TO SELL 49 EQUITY INTERESTS IN LIVZON MAB FOR RMB294 MILLION Source text for Eikon Further company coverage Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Reuters Two US regulators have proposed Wells Fargo ampamp Co WFCN pay 1 billion in penalties to resolve probes into auto insurance and mortgage lending abuses at the third largest US bank overshadowing its first quarter results The San Franciscobased lender which reported a quarterly profit said it may have to restate results to reflect the final settlement The proposed penalties were reported earlier this week by Reuters Analysts said that while the 1 billion penalty would not make a significant dent to its balance sheet it may take the bank some time to repair the damage to its reputation Shares of the bank fell 34 percent to 5089 8220Operationally Wells Fargo can recover but reputationally and how a billion dollars will weigh on them only time can tell8221 said Art Hogan chief market strategist at B Riley in Boston 8220Companies have come back from worse than this but right now they8217re still in the eye of the storm8221 he added The bank still smarting from a prolonged sales scandal in its retail banking business found inconsistencies at its auto lending and mortgage in the summer of 2017 leading to further probes by regulators To appease investors and regulators the bank overhauled its operational structure shook up its board and hired a new compliance officer But this failed to impress the US Federal Reserve which imposed restrictions in February on the bank8217s growth forbidding it to expand its balance sheet beyond 2017 levels until it makes internal changes that addressed risk management 8220A bank8217s balance sheet is the engine for profit growth8221 said Kyle Sanders analyst at Edward Jones 8220The constraints on Well8217s ability to take on deposits and make new loans will likely result in lagging earnings growth for Wells relative to peers in the nearterm8221 Wells estimates restrictions on balance sheet growth will cut annual profit by 300 million to 400 million this year Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan repeatedly sought to reassure investors that the bank was stable despite the regulatory restrictions 8220I8217m confident that our outstanding team will continue to transform Wells Fargo into a better stronger company however we recognise that it will take time to put all of our challenges behind us8221 Sloan said in the bank8217s firstquarter results statement on Friday But as recently as last month the bank also said it was examining its wealth and investment management business for possible customer abuse including overcharging and inappropriate referrals after inquiries from government agencies PROFIT RISES REVENUE DIPS Despite its ongoing woes the bank reported a 6 percent jump in profit saying net income applicable to common stock rose to 553 billion or 112 per share in the quarter ended March 31 from 523 billion or 103 per share a year ago reutrs2HgHNMt A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City US January 10 2017 REUTERSStephanie KeithFile Photo Analysts on average expected 106 per share according to Thomson Reuters IBES Wells Fargo has been struggling to reduce expenses but failed to keep a leash on costs in the quarter despite Sloan8217s vow to slash 4 billion in costs by 2019 by closing hundreds of branches and taking other measures Total noninterest expenses for the first quarter rose 33 percent to 1424 billion Sloan reiterated his 2019 cost savings target and said his noninterest expense dollar target range for fullyear 2018 remains unchanged In January the company had said it remained committed to reducing its expenses by 2 billion by the end of 2018 Wells Fargo ampamp Co 5089 WFCN New York Stock Exchange 181 343 WFCN Total revenue in the quarter fell 14 percent to 2193 billion Total loans slipped 12 percent to 9473 billion hurt most by a decline in average loans in its community banking unit which includes consumer banking Noninterest income from mortgage banking an area where the bank supersedes its peers fell 239 percent due to rising interest rates Income tax expenses fell 36 percent to 137 billion following President Donald Trump8217s tax overhaul last year Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru Editing by Patrick Graham Bernard Orr Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters General Electric Co GEN said on Friday it took a 424 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards FILE PHOTO The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in MontoirdeBretagne near SaintNazaire western France November 21 2016 REUTERSStephane MaheFile Photo The maker of power plants jet engines medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the aftertax noncash impact would be about 42 billion plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard and those will be reflected when GE reports firstquarter results on April 20 The value of GE8217s contract assets are being written down but that does not change the value of the longterm contracts GE has nor does it affect GE8217s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018 GE said The adjustments appear within expectations Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said 8220Now the focus moves to next Friday8217s earnings8221 The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a 62 billion charge in the fourth quarter analysts said GE shares were down 1 percent at 1335 in aftermarket trading after rising 24 percent on Friday The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from longterm contracts and is designed to make a company8217s cash flow more closely match its income accounting experts and analysts said The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration analysts said Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts but the process can lead to over or underestimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet experts say General Electric Co 135 GEN New York Stock Exchange 032 243 GEN GE8217s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to 288 billion in 2017 from 169 billion in 2014 most of it in its power and aviation units The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers which creates the gap between profit and cash flow according to GE8217s regulatory filings GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions cash flow and taxes on Friday GE8217s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between 100 and 107 a share The US Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE8217s accounting for contract assets raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings a more exacting standard under the new rules because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years Reporting by Alwyn Scott Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles BEIJING Reuters China8217s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 20 percent in the first quarter with some analysts speculating exporters were rushing out shipments to get ahead of threatened tariffs that are spurring fears of a fullblown trade war The latest readings on the health of China8217s trade sector are unlikely to ease tensions following weeks of titfortat tariff threats by Washington and Beijing though they suggest China8217s economy is still in relatively solid shape Even as China8217s trade surplus narrowed overall in the first three months of the year its surplus with the US surged 194 percent to 5825 billion from a year earlier customs data showed on Friday While China was busy selling more to the US it was buying more from other countries and ran a 986 billion deficit with the rest of the world in the quarter China8217s overall exports and imports both grew at a strong doubledigit clip early in the year and while exports unexpectedly fell in March 8212 resulting in a rare trade deficit 8212 most analysts chalked it up to seasonal factors and said it was too early to call a trend Still while no hard timeline has been set by either Washington or Beijing for the actual imposition of tariffs analysts said China8217s exporters may already be adapting their strategies as punitive trade measures loom China8217s firstquarter exports to the US rose 148 percent from a year earlier despite a 56 percent drop in March Its imports from the US rose 89 percent in the quarter and 32 percent in March That helped narrow its surplus with the US in March alone to 1543 billion from 2096 billion in February but that was still nearly 18 percent higher than March 2017 8220The sharp decline in March export growth after very solid performance in January and February suggests some exporters may have frontloaded exports early this year due to concern over the possibility of a SinoUS trade war after the US hiked tariffs on global imports on solar panels and washing machines8221 said Lisheng Wang an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong 8220We believe export growth will slow due to yuan appreciation and rising trade tensionsChina8217s imports could be more resilient than exports in our view as China has pledged to increase imports8221 Wang said China8217s total aluminum exports in March rose to their highest since June just as the United States imposed tariffs on imports of the metal and steel on March 23 SEASONAL EXPORT DIP IN MARCH For the first quarter as a whole China8217s exports grew a hearty 141 percent from a year earlier March shipments fell 27 percent however lagging analysts8217 forecasts for a 100 percent increase and down from a sharperthanexpected 445 percent jump in February which economists believe was heavily distorted by seasonal factors 8220Most of the March drop is seasonal 8211 Chinese New Year was later than usual this year meaning more of the holiday disruptions will have dragged into March than in 20178221 Capital Economics Senior China Economist Julian EvansPritchard wrote in a note March import growth of 144 percent beat expectations however suggesting China8217s domestic demand may still be solid enough to cushion the blow from any trade shocks Analysts had expected imports to grow 100 percent in March picking up from 63 percent growth in February That produced an unexpected trade deficit of 498 billion for the month but such shortfalls are not uncommon for China early in the year again likely due to holiday distortions For JanMarch imports rose a strong 189 percent onyear Shipping containers are seen piled up at a port in Qingdao Shandong province China April 13 2018 China Daily via REUTERS Imports of commodities continued to lead the way in March as manufacturers replenished inventories ahead of a seasonal pickup in demand Shipments of copper crude oil iron ore and soybeans all rose from the previous month Analysts are still expecting China8217s economic growth to slow later in the year however as a cooling property market weighs on demand for building materials from cement to steel OUTLOOK CLOUDY China8217s exports rode a global trade boom last year expanding at the fastest pace since 2013 and serving as one of the key drivers behind the economy8217s forecastbeating 69 percent expansion But the sudden spike in trade tensions with the United States is clouding the outlook for both China8217s 8220old economy8221 heavy industries and 8220new economy8221 tech firms alike Washington says China8217s 375 billion trade surplus with the United States is unacceptable and has demanded Beijing reduce it by 100 billion immediately In a move to further force China to lower the billions of goods trade surplus running with the US Trump unveiled tariff representing about 50 billion of technology transport and medical products early this month drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing Slideshow 2 Images China8217s tech sector which is key part of Beijing8217s longerterm 8220Made in China 20258221 strategy to move from cheap goods to highervalue manufacturing may be particularly vulnerable Hitech products have been among its fastest growing export segments China exported 1378 billion worth of hightech products in the first quarter up 205 percent onyear Reporting by Elias Glenn Lusha Zhang and Stella Qiu Editing by Kim Coghill Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles NEW YORK Reuters Oil prices extended recent gains and a gauge of global stocks eased on Friday as concern over a broader conflict in Syria left investors nervous while US bank shares led Wall Street lower FILE PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York US April 10 2018 REUTERSBrendan McDermid The State Department said on Friday that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East Oil prices added to recent gains that drove them to highs not seen since late 2014 and posted their biggest weekly gain since July 8220The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more as we get closer to the moment of the strikes if there are any8221 said John Kilduff partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with powerful oil producers On Wall Street fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors while financial stocks led the day8217s declines Shares of JPMorgan Chase JPMN were down 27 percent after its earnings missed estimates while Citigroup CN dropped 16 percent despite beating profit estimates An SampampP 500 index of bank stocks SPXBK fell 26 percent Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares said RJ Grant head of trading at Keefe Bruyette ampamp Woods in New York 8220If you didn8217t own financials going into the quarter there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them8221 Grant said The banks8217 results kicked off the US earnings reporting period Tax cuts are expected to help corporate America post its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years Earnings at SampampP 500 companies are estimated to grow by 184 percent from a year earlier The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 12291 points or 05 percent to 2436014 the SampampP 500 SPX lost 769 points or 029 percent to 26563 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 3360 points or 047 percent to 710665 For the week the SampampP 500 was up 2 percent the Dow rose 18 percent and Nasdaq gained 28 percent The panEuropean FTSEurofirst 300 index FTEU3 rose 010 percent and MSCIs gauge of stocks across the globe MIWD00000PUS shed 015 percent The MSCI index ended the week with its strongest performance in five In the oil market US crude CLcv1 rose 32 cents to settle at 6739 a barrel while Brent crude LCOcv1 rose 56 cents to 7258 The dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders waited for more clarity on a possible Western military intervention in Syria The dollar index DXY which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was 003 percent higher at 8978 The Japanese yen weakened 001 percent versus the greenback at 10736 per dollar Aluminum hit a sixyear high on Friday and posted its biggest weekly gain since the current contract was launched after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia8217s UC Rusal 0486HK the world8217s secondbiggest producer London Metal Exchange aluminum CMAL3 hit its highest since March 2012 at 2340 a ton before retreating to close at 2285 down 17 percent Spot gold XAU added 07 percent to 134501 an ounce US gold futures GCcv1 gained 050 percent to 134860 an ounce JPMorgan Chase ampamp Co 1103 JPMN New York Stock Exchange 307 271 JPMN CN DJI SPX IXIC In the bond market the US Treasury yield curve hovered at its lowest level in more than decade as shortdated yields have risen more than longerdated ones this week on expectations of further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve Graphic US yield curve flattest in a decade The Hong Kong Monetary Authority HKMA stepped into the currency market and bought another HK3368 billion 42908 million in Hong Kong dollars late in the US session on Friday as the local currency hit the weaker end of its trading range Benchmark 10year notes US10YTRR last rose 332 in price to yield 28248 percent from 2834 percent late on Thursday GRAPHIC World stocks set for best week in a month reutrs2IQUDhs GRAPHIC US yield curve flattest in a decade reutrs2CkkWKx Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos additional reporting by Richard Leong Saqib Iqbal Ahmed Sinead Carew and Jessica ResnickAult in New York Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman Our Standards The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

Jan/PROPN 18/NUM Reuters/PROPN Livzon/PROPN Pharmaceutical/PROPN Group/PROPN Inc/PROPN PROPOSES/PROPN TO/PART ENTER/VERB AGREEMENT/NOUN PURSUANT/NOUN TO/PART WHICH/PRON JOINCARE/NOUN TO/PART SELL/VERB 49/NUM EQUITY/PROPN INTERESTS/PROPN IN/ADP LIVZON/PROPN MAB/PROPN FOR/ADP RMB294/PROPN MILLION/NUM Source/PROPN text/NOUN for/ADP Eikon/PROPN Further/PROPN company/NOUN coverage/NOUN Our/PRON Standards/PROPN The/DET Thomson/PROPN Reuters/PROPN Trust/PROPN Principles/PROPN Reuters/PROPN Two/NUM US/PROPN regulators/NOUN have/AUX proposed/VERB Wells/PROPN Fargo/PROPN ampamp/PROPN Co/PROPN WFCN/PROPN pay/VERB 1/NUM billion/NUM in/ADP penalties/NOUN to/PART resolve/VERB probes/NOUN into/ADP auto/NOUN insurance/NOUN and/CCONJ mortgage/NOUN lending/NOUN abuses/NOUN at/ADP the/DET third/ADV largest/ADJ US/PROPN bank/NOUN overshadowing/VERB its/PRON first/ADJ quarter/NOUN results/VERB The/DET San/PROPN Franciscobased/PROPN lender/NOUN which/PRON reported/VERB a/DET quarterly/ADJ profit/NOUN 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<p>Over the long run of history, the most effective opponents of excessive wealth and privilege have not normally been city dwellers, workers or unions. Instead, they have usually been those with close links to food and the land, what we would now identify as the food movement.</p> <p>Even today, in more than a few countries, food is the organizing principle behind the main challengers of existing power structures. In El Salvador, the national coordinator of its Organic Agriculture Movement (MAOES) is Miguel Ramirez who&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32372-agroecology-as-a-tool-for-liberation-transforming-industrial-agriculture-in-el-salvador" type="external">recently explained</a>:</p> <p>We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers&#8217; social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers.</p> <p>According to Ramirez, the Salvadoran organic agriculture movement wants much more than improved farming. It is seeking enhanced political rights, long-term ecological sustainability, social equity and popular health. Ramirez calls it &#8220;this titanic but beautiful struggle, to reclaim the lives of all Salvadorans.&#8221;</p> <p>They may be small farmers, but they have a grand ambition. This ambition is even&amp;#160; <a href="http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27" type="external">shared worldwide</a>. But how realistic is it? Are they right to imagine food and farming are the missing vehicle for transformative social change?</p> <p>The question is timely. Not long ago, The New York Times asserted that the center aisles of US supermarkets <a href="" type="internal">are being called</a> &#8220;the morgue&#8221; because sales&amp;#160;of junk food are crashing; meanwhile, an international consultant told Bloomberg magazine that &#8220;there&#8217;s complete paranoia&#8221; at major food companies where food movements are being <a href="http://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/monsantos-worst-fear-may-be-coming-true/" type="external">taken very seriously</a>.</p> <p>Food movements are rapidly growing across the world. In the US alone, there have been surges of interest in heirloom seeds, in craft beers, in traditional <a href="http://wideawakebakery.com/" type="external">bread and baking</a>, in city garden plots, in organic food and in opposition to GMOs. Simultaneously, there has been a massive growth of interest in food on <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/how-instagram-is-turning-home-cooks-into-food-stars/" type="external">social media</a>&amp;#160;and the initiation or renewal of institutions, such as Slow Food USA and <a href="" type="internal">the Grange movement</a>, to name just a few.</p> <p>Even at the normally much quieter farming end of the food value chain, agribusiness has had to resort to buying up <a href="http://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/the-puppetmasters-of-academia-ny-times-left-out/" type="external">&#8220;independent&#8221; academics and social media supporters</a>&amp;#160;to boost the case for GMOs and pesticides.</p> <p>All of a sudden, individuals all over the globe are scrutinizing the products and processes of the food system.</p> <p>The Direction of the Food Movement</p> <p>The food movement has a unique philosophy. Unlike all other systems of Western thought, its philosophy is based on a biological understanding of the world. It seeks to replace political and economic ideologies deeply embedded in our culture with a biologically-inspired imperative which fulfills the need to align human needs with the needs of ecosystems and habitats. It is a philosophy which recognizes that our planetary problems and our social problems are really the same problem and seeks to transform our relationships with each other and with the natural world accordingly.</p> <p>For this reason, the food movement is unexpectedly radical. Its philosophy exposes longstanding weaknesses in some of the most fundamental ideas underpinning Western political establishments. So, while neoliberalism and socialism are ideological variants of enlightenment thought, the food movement is concerned with erasing (at least so far as is possible) all ideologies because all ideologies are, at bottom, impediments to an accurate understanding of the world.</p> <p>This philosophy is apparent in five of its most notable qualities:</p> <p>1) The food movement is a leaderless movement</p> <p>The food movement has no formal leaders. Even the most famous members of the movement &#8212; such as Frances Moore Lapp&#233;, Vandana Shiva, Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan &#8212; do not set goals, give orders or decide on the movement&#8217;s tactics. These individuals are not power-brokers but rather sources of inspiration. The food movement is a social movement that is organic, anarchic and self-organized. It is a food swarm, and the absence of formal leadership within it is not a sign of weakness but of strength.</p> <p>2) The food movement is a grassroots movement</p> <p>The food movement is also unusually inclusive. It is composed of the urban and the rural, the rich and the poor, of amateurs and experts, of home cooks and celebrity chefs, farmers and gardeners, parents and writers, the employed and the unemployed. There is no upper limit to membership of the food movement. It is not defined in opposition to anything &#8212; it would include the whole world if it could &#8212; and so there is no essential sense in which it is exclusive. Exclusivity is often the Achilles heel of social movements, but though its opponents have tried to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/121374/foodie-elitism-are-mark-bittman-and-michael-pollan-elitist" type="external">label it as elitist</a>, for good reasons, they have not succeeded. Granted, Prince Charles is a very enthusiastic member, but so too are <a href="" type="internal">hip hop artists from Oakland</a>, the <a href="http://www.mstbrazil.org/" type="external">landless peasant movement of Brazil</a>, the instigators of the <a href="" type="internal">Mexican soda tax</a> and the <a href="http://detroitagriculture.net/" type="external">urban agriculture movements of Detroit</a>, Chicago and Cleveland. Such groups are neither elite nor elitist. The food movement reaches across class lines. It is indeed beyond grassroots.</p> <p>3) The food movement is international</p> <p>The food movement is international and multilingual. In each locality it assumes different forms. The&amp;#160;Campaign for Real Ale, <a href="http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/organisation-mainmenu-44/what-is-la-via-campesina-mainmenu-45" type="external">Via Campesina</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata" type="external">Zapatistas</a>, <a href="http://www.slowfood.com/" type="external">Slow Food</a> and <a href="http://www.gmwatch.org/" type="external">Europe&#8217;s anti-GMO</a> movement are very different, but instead of competing or quarreling, there are remarkable overlaps of purpose and vision between the parts. This was on display at last winter&#8217;s British <a href="http://www.oxfordrealfarmingconference.org/" type="external">Oxford Real Farming Conference</a>&amp;#160;where food producers and good food advocates from all over the world shared stages and perspectives and the effect was to complement and inspire each other.</p> <p>4) The food movement is low-budget</p> <p>The fourth distinguishing characteristic of the food movement is that it has little money behind it. Despite efforts by corporations, such as the Walmart Foundation, to sway the movement&#8217;s direction through <a href="" type="internal">multimillion-dollar donations</a> to the Food Research and Action Center and Feeding America, on the whole, the movement owes little to philanthropic foundations or billionaire backers. Instead, it consists overwhelmingly of amateurs, individuals and small groups and whatever money they possess has followed, not led them. This is an indication that the food movement is spontaneous, vigorous and internally driven.</p> <p>5) The food movement has many values</p> <p>The food movement has multiple values and many component parts. It integrates concerns about human health, animal welfare, agricultural sustainability, ecological sustainability, food justice, political empowerment and more.</p> <p>The Philosophy and Synergy of the Food Movement</p> <p>The food movement embodies a profound philosophical shift.</p> <p>The narrative dominating international food policy, especially post-1945, has been that food is a commodity ( <a href="" type="internal">when it is not a weapon</a>) and agriculture is a business. This conceptualization of food is an ideological extension of the current dominant Western philosophy, which is atomistic and mechanistic, so that in the formal and official worlds of business, government, the law and education, phenomena are assumed to be unconnected until proven otherwise.</p> <p>This ideology allows the agriculture &#8220;industry&#8221; in the US to be exempt from most anti-pollution legislation and for doctors not to be educated in nutrition. This ideology also values the health requirements and food needs of one species (humans) &#8212; and usually just a few of those &#8212; above that of all other organisms.We are thus surrounded in everyday life by institutions and practices whose founding rationale is the ideology of disconnection.</p> <p>In contrast, the food movement believes in something very different: that the purpose of life is health and that the optimal and most just way to attain human health is to maximize the health of all organisms, with one of the most effective ways to do that being through food.</p> <p>This belief system is derived from practical experience. The food movement has internalized certain observations, such as the potential of compost to improve crop growth and soil function, the human health benefits of a varied diet, and the successes of numerous farming systems in the absence of synthetic inputs. It also has noted apparent powerful connections between health, agriculture, animal welfare and the environment. These connections allow for the existence of a virtuous circle in which the most ecologically healthy farms generate foods that are the healthiest and the tastiest. These farms are also the most productive. (For US examples, <a href="" type="internal">see here</a>, and for an example from rice, <a href="https://www.independentsciencenews.org/un-sustainable-farming/how-millions-of-farmers-are-advancing-agriculture-for-themselves/" type="external">see here</a>.)</p> <p>Food philosophy thus replaces the neo-Darwinist narrative of life-as-competition with the idea that life thrives in the presence of other life. There is perfectly good evidence for this &#8212; we know, for example, that the tens of millions of species on Earth are interdependent. Plants and algae excrete oxygen, which all animals need. Animals eat plants and algae, but excrete nitrogen and phosphorus, which all plants and algae need.</p> <p>Similarly, all biological organisms are, in fact, self-optimizing and&amp;#160;self-repairing systems. They therefore tend to maximize their own robustness and health unless, as unfortunately but commonly occurs, they are actively prevented from doing so by a limited environment or a deficient diet.</p> <p>The Origins of Food Philosophy</p> <p>This food philosophy has three notable antecedents. One is philosopher Peter Singer&#8217;s famous anti-speciesism argument from his book, Animal Liberation: that humans have a duty of care towards all animals, with the crucial difference being that the food movement extends Singer&#8217;s argument to all organisms, not just higher animals.</p> <p>The second precedent is Gaia theory, which proposes that life forms create and enhance their own living conditions. The main difference being that food philosophy applies this thesis to every scale, notably to soils and to landscapes.</p> <p>The third precedent is Barry Commoner and his four laws of ecology. His second and third laws are consistent with food philosophy. However, Commoner&#8217;s first law: &#8220;Everything is connected to everything else&#8221; needs modification. The reason is that all things are not connected equally &#8212; most connections occur through food. Commoner&#8217;s fourth law, &#8220;There is no such thing as a free lunch,&#8221; is flatly contradicted by the virtuous circle of the food movement. All ecological systems generate synergies, and synergies between organisms are essentially free lunches; that is why species diversity and biological productivity on Earth have risen over the eons.</p> <p>Food philosophy, therefore, represents a major split from post-enlightenment philosophy in its vision of life and biology. It doesn&#8217;t ask, as Descartes did, What does rational thought reveal about how we should live? It asks: What does nature reveal about how we should live?</p> <p>We might thus summarize food&amp;#160;philosophy as follows:</p> <p>(1) Biological interactions allow synergisms of individual health and system productivity, which can be taken advantage of in good farming.</p> <p>(2) Biological interactions occur primarily through food, which represents the chemical energy running through the system.</p> <p>Implications of Food Philosophy for the Food Movement</p> <p>The attitudes of the food movement reflect this philosophy. Since the philosophy is universal, constructive, inclusive, flexible and nonviolent, so is the movement. For example, whereas people outside of the food movement tend to see the issues of human health, food quality, animal welfare and ecological and agricultural sustainability as concerns to be solved separately (if at all), those inside the food movement are likely to see them as connected and therefore insoluble except together.</p> <p>Consequently, alliances between individuals and between organizations can and do form around common goals, and the food movement emerges as a synergy between issues formerly identified as distinct, channeling a vast reservoir of positive social energy in consistent directions.</p> <p>Being guided by a food philosophy causes its members to use whatever resources are at hand in the most appropriate manner. They do not await orders. They develop arguments, write letters, make calls, avoid products, share information and so on, wherever they perceive the need or opportunity to be greatest, just as the workers of an ant or bee colony do whatever job appears in front of them without explicit instructions. To the multinational corporations who are its targets, movement activity may feel like a piranha feeding frenzy. Blood is scented; arguments are sharpened; protests register on social media; more attackers arrive; the target howls; opportunistic journalists pile in (and maybe some legislators too), until finally the target agrees to amend, label or remove the offending product, ingredient or publication. These are food swarms and they are what direct democracy looks like. Similarly, a government can instruct people that irradiated or GMO food is safe to eat. But it cannot make them eat it.</p> <p>Resistance based on food logic is always likely to beat enlightenment logic when the subject is food because it is both rational and relatively easy for the people to form their own opinions and spend their money elsewhere. The food system is perhaps the one domain where the people retain this power, certainly more than they do in any other domain of public life.</p> <p>The successes of the food movement are now sufficiently evident so that major parts of the old environmental movement, plus the health and wellness movements, and even parts of the labor movement have begun to reframe their activities as coming from a food system perspective. Some have largely migrated into the food movement altogether. For example, the <a href="http://www.ciw-online.org/" type="external">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a> is much better known to the public and <a href="" type="internal">has been more successful through its food connections</a> than through its union ones. To a significant degree, once-separate social movements are converging to become branches of the food movement.</p> <p>In other words, food is a highly successful rallying point. It serves well because food is not only a conceptual <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)" type="external">framing</a> for much of human affairs that is strongly distinct from the standard enlightenment framings of&amp;#160;economics and social Darwinism, but also because it acts as a potent organizing principle for individuals to act around. The frame used by the food movement precisely reflects the key biological reality that a universal daily requirement of all humanity is food. And the same is true for other species. Thus, our good food also needs good food, and so on ad (almost) infinitum. Anyone who adopts that devastating logic has a huge advantage, not only in understanding how the world really works, but also in acting on that information.</p> <p>How Will the Food Movement Impact Society?</p> <p>Ideas are the currency of power. Philosopher Peter Singer wrote <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_(book)" type="external">Animal Liberation</a>&amp;#160;in 1975. It spawned the international animal rights movement and drove society-wide debates on the human usage of animals for research and in agriculture. Forty years later, the increasing popularity of veganism shows his ideas are still gathering momentum. Singer&#8217;s achievement was to show that enlightenment thinkers had attempted to rationalize &#8212; rather than ditch &#8212; the concept of human exceptionalism, which dated back at least to the Bible&#8217;s authorization of the dominion of &#8220;man&#8221; over the Earth. At a stroke, Singer destroyed the arguments for treating animals badly and provided a perfect example of how enlightenment rationalizations have functioned to constrain modern thought, and most particularly, the human potential to do good.</p> <p>Because they go far beyond our treatment of sentient animals and extend to all organisms, the implications of food philosophy are significantly more profound and far-reaching than those of Peter Singer. Food philosophy is an intellectual key to overthrowing mechanistic reductionist society. To the many individuals who suspect that enlightenment thought is the engine driving our societies over an ecological cliff, food philosophy offers the conceptual way out, and just as the food movement is feeding and growing as a consequence of its philosophy, so also the expansion of the food movement will in turn enable this philosophy to challenge existing political systems.</p> <p>In just this way, enlightenment thinkers laid the groundwork for a meritocratic and commercial society to replace feudalism and their ideas justified the necessary concepts that the founders of the new society came to rely on: mechanization, individualism and competition. Nowadays, their ideas are used for preserving this order, even as the intellectual flaws of that understanding are increasingly manifesting as ecological crises, not least in the form of global climate change &#8212; a crisis that the food movement could play a critical role in addressing.</p> <p>Confronting Climate Change</p> <p>The food movement did not come together to solve the issue of climate change but many in the food movement believe they have the tools to largely solve the problem. The reasons are simple. First, perhaps as much as 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions <a href="" type="internal">result from the activities of the industrial food sector</a>. Secondly, carbon can easily be removed from the air and <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/images/Reports/UniformityToDiversity_ExecSummary.pdf" type="external">stored in soil</a> and in the process <a href="" type="internal">create the type of soil</a> actively desired by organic and agroecological farmers. These farmers are still developing their techniques for carbon sequestration, but anecdotal evidence suggests that soil sequestration can combine with food production to store many tons of carbon per acre per year. Thus, <a href="http://rodaleinstitute.org/reversing-climate-change-achievable-by-farming-organically/" type="external">as a recent report suggests</a>, the food system desired by the food movement can make our atmospheric carbon problem manageable and perhaps solve it completely.</p> <p>The leaders of the mainstream climate movement, however, seem to believe climate solutions must be technical or social, but windmills, solar power, electric cars, dams, divestment, and infrastructure protests are largely symbolic actions. Unlike reducing demand for energy by reforming and localizing the food system or storing carbon in soil, they do not necessarily reduce overall use of fossil fuels and do nothing to prevent the loss of greenhouse gases from ecosystems. Worse, as resource-inefficient ways of generating and storing energy, technofix solutions have the effect of increasing other forms of pollution.</p> <p>Hopefully sooner, rather than later, the well-meaning but misled climate movement will come to understand the error of singling out individual forms of pollution, like carbon dioxide or methane, and become the next social movement to join the food liberation movement.</p> <p>In any event, the food movement is going to continue to grow, and its vision will force a social and intellectual transformation of our society. The benefits of this transformation will be immense.</p>

Food Liberation: Why the Food Movement Is Unstoppable

https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/21/food-liberation-why-the-food-movement-is-unstoppable/

2016-09-21

4left

Over the long run of history the most effective opponents of excessive wealth and privilege have not normally been city dwellers workers or unions Instead they have usually been those with close links to food and the land what we would now identify as the food movement Even today in more than a few countries food is the organizing principle behind the main challengers of existing power structures In El Salvador the national coordinator of its Organic Agriculture Movement MAOES is Miguel Ramirez whoamp160 recently explained We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agroecology is a liberated square meter We see it as a tool to transform farmers8217 social and economic conditions We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers According to Ramirez the Salvadoran organic agriculture movement wants much more than improved farming It is seeking enhanced political rights longterm ecological sustainability social equity and popular health Ramirez calls it 8220this titanic but beautiful struggle to reclaim the lives of all Salvadorans8221 They may be small farmers but they have a grand ambition This ambition is evenamp160 shared worldwide But how realistic is it Are they right to imagine food and farming are the missing vehicle for transformative social change The question is timely Not long ago The New York Times asserted that the center aisles of US supermarkets are being called 8220the morgue8221 because salesamp160of junk food are crashing meanwhile an international consultant told Bloomberg magazine that 8220there8217s complete paranoia8221 at major food companies where food movements are being taken very seriously Food movements are rapidly growing across the world In the US alone there have been surges of interest in heirloom seeds in craft beers in traditional bread and baking in city garden plots in organic food and in opposition to GMOs Simultaneously there has been a massive growth of interest in food on social mediaamp160and the initiation or renewal of institutions such as Slow Food USA and the Grange movement to name just a few Even at the normally much quieter farming end of the food value chain agribusiness has had to resort to buying up 8220independent8221 academics and social media supportersamp160to boost the case for GMOs and pesticides All of a sudden individuals all over the globe are scrutinizing the products and processes of the food system The Direction of the Food Movement The food movement has a unique philosophy Unlike all other systems of Western thought its philosophy is based on a biological understanding of the world It seeks to replace political and economic ideologies deeply embedded in our culture with a biologicallyinspired imperative which fulfills the need to align human needs with the needs of ecosystems and habitats It is a philosophy which recognizes that our planetary problems and our social problems are really the same problem and seeks to transform our relationships with each other and with the natural world accordingly For this reason the food movement is unexpectedly radical Its philosophy exposes longstanding weaknesses in some of the most fundamental ideas underpinning Western political establishments So while neoliberalism and socialism are ideological variants of enlightenment thought the food movement is concerned with erasing at least so far as is possible all ideologies because all ideologies are at bottom impediments to an accurate understanding of the world This philosophy is apparent in five of its most notable qualities 1 The food movement is a leaderless movement The food movement has no formal leaders Even the most famous members of the movement 8212 such as Frances Moore Lapp233 Vandana Shiva Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan 8212 do not set goals give orders or decide on the movement8217s tactics These individuals are not powerbrokers but rather sources of inspiration The food movement is a social movement that is organic anarchic and selforganized It is a food swarm and the absence of formal leadership within it is not a sign of weakness but of strength 2 The food movement is a grassroots movement The food movement is also unusually inclusive It is composed of the urban and the rural the rich and the poor of amateurs and experts of home cooks and celebrity chefs farmers and gardeners parents and writers the employed and the unemployed There is no upper limit to membership of the food movement It is not defined in opposition to anything 8212 it would include the whole world if it could 8212 and so there is no essential sense in which it is exclusive Exclusivity is often the Achilles heel of social movements but though its opponents have tried to label it as elitist for good reasons they have not succeeded Granted Prince Charles is a very enthusiastic member but so too are hip hop artists from Oakland the landless peasant movement of Brazil the instigators of the Mexican soda tax and the urban agriculture movements of Detroit Chicago and Cleveland Such groups are neither elite nor elitist The food movement reaches across class lines It is indeed beyond grassroots 3 The food movement is international The food movement is international and multilingual In each locality it assumes different forms Theamp160Campaign for Real Ale Via Campesina the Zapatistas Slow Food and Europe8217s antiGMO movement are very different but instead of competing or quarreling there are remarkable overlaps of purpose and vision between the parts This was on display at last winter8217s British Oxford Real Farming Conferenceamp160where food producers and good food advocates from all over the world shared stages and perspectives and the effect was to complement and inspire each other 4 The food movement is lowbudget The fourth distinguishing characteristic of the food movement is that it has little money behind it Despite efforts by corporations such as the Walmart Foundation to sway the movement8217s direction through multimilliondollar donations to the Food Research and Action Center and Feeding America on the whole the movement owes little to philanthropic foundations or billionaire backers Instead it consists overwhelmingly of amateurs individuals and small groups and whatever money they possess has followed not led them This is an indication that the food movement is spontaneous vigorous and internally driven 5 The food movement has many values The food movement has multiple values and many component parts It integrates concerns about human health animal welfare agricultural sustainability ecological sustainability food justice political empowerment and more The Philosophy and Synergy of the Food Movement The food movement embodies a profound philosophical shift The narrative dominating international food policy especially post1945 has been that food is a commodity when it is not a weapon and agriculture is a business This conceptualization of food is an ideological extension of the current dominant Western philosophy which is atomistic and mechanistic so that in the formal and official worlds of business government the law and education phenomena are assumed to be unconnected until proven otherwise This ideology allows the agriculture 8220industry8221 in the US to be exempt from most antipollution legislation and for doctors not to be educated in nutrition This ideology also values the health requirements and food needs of one species humans 8212 and usually just a few of those 8212 above that of all other organismsWe are thus surrounded in everyday life by institutions and practices whose founding rationale is the ideology of disconnection In contrast the food movement believes in something very different that the purpose of life is health and that the optimal and most just way to attain human health is to maximize the health of all organisms with one of the most effective ways to do that being through food This belief system is derived from practical experience The food movement has internalized certain observations such as the potential of compost to improve crop growth and soil function the human health benefits of a varied diet and the successes of numerous farming systems in the absence of synthetic inputs It also has noted apparent powerful connections between health agriculture animal welfare and the environment These connections allow for the existence of a virtuous circle in which the most ecologically healthy farms generate foods that are the healthiest and the tastiest These farms are also the most productive For US examples see here and for an example from rice see here Food philosophy thus replaces the neoDarwinist narrative of lifeascompetition with the idea that life thrives in the presence of other life There is perfectly good evidence for this 8212 we know for example that the tens of millions of species on Earth are interdependent Plants and algae excrete oxygen which all animals need Animals eat plants and algae but excrete nitrogen and phosphorus which all plants and algae need Similarly all biological organisms are in fact selfoptimizing andamp160selfrepairing systems They therefore tend to maximize their own robustness and health unless as unfortunately but commonly occurs they are actively prevented from doing so by a limited environment or a deficient diet The Origins of Food Philosophy This food philosophy has three notable antecedents One is philosopher Peter Singer8217s famous antispeciesism argument from his book Animal Liberation that humans have a duty of care towards all animals with the crucial difference being that the food movement extends Singer8217s argument to all organisms not just higher animals The second precedent is Gaia theory which proposes that life forms create and enhance their own living conditions The main difference being that food philosophy applies this thesis to every scale notably to soils and to landscapes The third precedent is Barry Commoner and his four laws of ecology His second and third laws are consistent with food philosophy However Commoner8217s first law 8220Everything is connected to everything else8221 needs modification The reason is that all things are not connected equally 8212 most connections occur through food Commoner8217s fourth law 8220There is no such thing as a free lunch8221 is flatly contradicted by the virtuous circle of the food movement All ecological systems generate synergies and synergies between organisms are essentially free lunches that is why species diversity and biological productivity on Earth have risen over the eons Food philosophy therefore represents a major split from postenlightenment philosophy in its vision of life and biology It doesn8217t ask as Descartes did What does rational thought reveal about how we should live It asks What does nature reveal about how we should live We might thus summarize foodamp160philosophy as follows 1 Biological interactions allow synergisms of individual health and system productivity which can be taken advantage of in good farming 2 Biological interactions occur primarily through food which represents the chemical energy running through the system Implications of Food Philosophy for the Food Movement The attitudes of the food movement reflect this philosophy Since the philosophy is universal constructive inclusive flexible and nonviolent so is the movement For example whereas people outside of the food movement tend to see the issues of human health food quality animal welfare and ecological and agricultural sustainability as concerns to be solved separately if at all those inside the food movement are likely to see them as connected and therefore insoluble except together Consequently alliances between individuals and between organizations can and do form around common goals and the food movement emerges as a synergy between issues formerly identified as distinct channeling a vast reservoir of positive social energy in consistent directions Being guided by a food philosophy causes its members to use whatever resources are at hand in the most appropriate manner They do not await orders They develop arguments write letters make calls avoid products share information and so on wherever they perceive the need or opportunity to be greatest just as the workers of an ant or bee colony do whatever job appears in front of them without explicit instructions To the multinational corporations who are its targets movement activity may feel like a piranha feeding frenzy Blood is scented arguments are sharpened protests register on social media more attackers arrive the target howls opportunistic journalists pile in and maybe some legislators too until finally the target agrees to amend label or remove the offending product ingredient or publication These are food swarms and they are what direct democracy looks like Similarly a government can instruct people that irradiated or GMO food is safe to eat But it cannot make them eat it Resistance based on food logic is always likely to beat enlightenment logic when the subject is food because it is both rational and relatively easy for the people to form their own opinions and spend their money elsewhere The food system is perhaps the one domain where the people retain this power certainly more than they do in any other domain of public life The successes of the food movement are now sufficiently evident so that major parts of the old environmental movement plus the health and wellness movements and even parts of the labor movement have begun to reframe their activities as coming from a food system perspective Some have largely migrated into the food movement altogether For example the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is much better known to the public and has been more successful through its food connections than through its union ones To a significant degree onceseparate social movements are converging to become branches of the food movement In other words food is a highly successful rallying point It serves well because food is not only a conceptual framing for much of human affairs that is strongly distinct from the standard enlightenment framings ofamp160economics and social Darwinism but also because it acts as a potent organizing principle for individuals to act around The frame used by the food movement precisely reflects the key biological reality that a universal daily requirement of all humanity is food And the same is true for other species Thus our good food also needs good food and so on ad almost infinitum Anyone who adopts that devastating logic has a huge advantage not only in understanding how the world really works but also in acting on that information How Will the Food Movement Impact Society Ideas are the currency of power Philosopher Peter Singer wrote Animal Liberationamp160in 1975 It spawned the international animal rights movement and drove societywide debates on the human usage of animals for research and in agriculture Forty years later the increasing popularity of veganism shows his ideas are still gathering momentum Singer8217s achievement was to show that enlightenment thinkers had attempted to rationalize 8212 rather than ditch 8212 the concept of human exceptionalism which dated back at least to the Bible8217s authorization of the dominion of 8220man8221 over the Earth At a stroke Singer destroyed the arguments for treating animals badly and provided a perfect example of how enlightenment rationalizations have functioned to constrain modern thought and most particularly the human potential to do good Because they go far beyond our treatment of sentient animals and extend to all organisms the implications of food philosophy are significantly more profound and farreaching than those of Peter Singer Food philosophy is an intellectual key to overthrowing mechanistic reductionist society To the many individuals who suspect that enlightenment thought is the engine driving our societies over an ecological cliff food philosophy offers the conceptual way out and just as the food movement is feeding and growing as a consequence of its philosophy so also the expansion of the food movement will in turn enable this philosophy to challenge existing political systems In just this way enlightenment thinkers laid the groundwork for a meritocratic and commercial society to replace feudalism and their ideas justified the necessary concepts that the founders of the new society came to rely on mechanization individualism and competition Nowadays their ideas are used for preserving this order even as the intellectual flaws of that understanding are increasingly manifesting as ecological crises not least in the form of global climate change 8212 a crisis that the food movement could play a critical role in addressing Confronting Climate Change The food movement did not come together to solve the issue of climate change but many in the food movement believe they have the tools to largely solve the problem The reasons are simple First perhaps as much as 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions result from the activities of the industrial food sector Secondly carbon can easily be removed from the air and stored in soil and in the process create the type of soil actively desired by organic and agroecological farmers These farmers are still developing their techniques for carbon sequestration but anecdotal evidence suggests that soil sequestration can combine with food production to store many tons of carbon per acre per year Thus as a recent report suggests the food system desired by the food movement can make our atmospheric carbon problem manageable and perhaps solve it completely The leaders of the mainstream climate movement however seem to believe climate solutions must be technical or social but windmills solar power electric cars dams divestment and infrastructure protests are largely symbolic actions Unlike reducing demand for energy by reforming and localizing the food system or storing carbon in soil they do not necessarily reduce overall use of fossil fuels and do nothing to prevent the loss of greenhouse gases from ecosystems Worse as resourceinefficient ways of generating and storing energy technofix solutions have the effect of increasing other forms of pollution Hopefully sooner rather than later the wellmeaning but misled climate movement will come to understand the error of singling out individual forms of pollution like carbon dioxide or methane and become the next social movement to join the food liberation movement In any event the food movement is going to continue to grow and its vision will force a social and intellectual transformation of our society The benefits of this transformation will be immense

Over/ADP the/DET long/ADJ run/NOUN of/ADP history/NOUN the/DET most/ADV effective/ADJ opponents/NOUN of/ADP excessive/ADJ wealth/NOUN and/CCONJ privilege/NOUN have/AUX not/PART normally/ADV been/AUX city/NOUN dwellers/NOUN workers/NOUN or/CCONJ unions/NOUN Instead/ADV they/PRON have/AUX usually/ADV been/AUX those/PRON with/ADP close/ADJ links/NOUN to/ADP food/NOUN and/CCONJ the/DET land/NOUN what/PRON we/PRON would/AUX now/ADV identify/VERB as/ADP the/DET food/NOUN movement/NOUN Even/ADV today/NOUN in/ADP more/ADJ than/ADP a/DET few/ADJ countries/NOUN food/NOUN is/AUX the/DET organizing/VERB principle/NOUN behind/ADP the/DET main/ADJ challengers/NOUN of/ADP existing/VERB power/NOUN structures/NOUN In/ADP El/PROPN Salvador/PROPN the/DET national/ADJ coordinator/NOUN of/ADP its/PRON Organic/PROPN Agriculture/PROPN Movement/PROPN MAOES/PROPN is/AUX Miguel/PROPN Ramirez/PROPN whoamp160/PROPN recently/ADV explained/VERB We/PRON say/VERB that/SCONJ every/DET square/ADJ meter/NOUN of/ADP land/NOUN that/PRON is/AUX worked/VERB with/ADP agroecology/NOUN is/AUX a/DET liberated/ADJ square/ADJ meter/NOUN We/PRON see/VERB it/PRON as/ADP a/DET tool/NOUN to/PART transform/VERB farmers8217/NOUN social/ADJ and/CCONJ economic/ADJ conditions/NOUN We/PRON see/VERB it/PRON as/ADP a/DET tool/NOUN of/ADP liberation/NOUN from/ADP the/DET unsustainable/ADJ capitalist/ADJ agricultural/ADJ model/NOUN that/PRON oppresses/VERB farmers/NOUN According/VERB to/ADP Ramirez/PROPN the/DET Salvadoran/ADJ organic/ADJ agriculture/NOUN movement/NOUN wants/VERB much/ADV more/ADJ than/SCONJ improved/VERB farming/NOUN It/PRON is/AUX seeking/VERB enhanced/VERB political/ADJ rights/NOUN longterm/NOUN ecological/ADJ sustainability/NOUN social/ADJ equity/NOUN and/CCONJ popular/ADJ health/NOUN Ramirez/PROPN calls/VERB it/PRON 8220this/DET titanic/ADJ but/CCONJ beautiful/ADJ struggle/NOUN to/PART reclaim/VERB the/DET lives/NOUN of/ADP all/PRON Salvadorans8221/NOUN They/PRON may/AUX be/AUX small/ADJ farmers/NOUN but/CCONJ they/PRON have/VERB a/DET grand/ADJ ambition/NOUN This/DET ambition/NOUN is/AUX evenamp160/NUM shared/VERB worldwide/ADV But/CCONJ how/SCONJ realistic/ADJ is/AUX it/PRON Are/AUX they/PRON right/ADJ to/PART imagine/VERB food/NOUN and/CCONJ farming/NOUN are/AUX the/DET missing/VERB vehicle/NOUN for/ADP transformative/ADJ social/ADJ change/NOUN The/DET question/NOUN is/AUX timely/ADJ Not/PART long/ADV ago/ADV The/DET New/PROPN York/PROPN Times/PROPN asserted/VERB that/SCONJ the/DET center/NOUN aisles/NOUN of/ADP US/PROPN supermarkets/NOUN are/AUX being/AUX called/VERB 8220the/DET morgue8221/PROPN because/SCONJ salesamp160of/PROPN junk/NOUN food/NOUN are/AUX crashing/VERB meanwhile/ADV an/DET international/ADJ consultant/NOUN told/VERB Bloomberg/PROPN magazine/NOUN that/PRON 8220there8217s/PRON complete/ADJ paranoia8221/NOUN at/ADP major/ADJ food/NOUN companies/NOUN where/SCONJ food/NOUN movements/NOUN are/AUX being/AUX taken/VERB very/ADV seriously/ADV Food/NOUN 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<p>Honors History Class at Mission High School. Photos: Celine Nadeau</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;The big bad California STAR Test is in 27 days, everyone!&#8221; Mission High School history teacher <a href="" type="internal">Robert Roth</a> announces at the beginning of an honors class in March. &#8220;The way you are going to feel this is we are going to go through events really quick. But don&#8217;t worry, we&#8217;ll look at some things more deeply after the test,&#8221; Roth explains as 25 juniors trickle in. &#8220;I&#8217;m hecka bad at these tests,&#8221; Marilyn* says out loud; she puts her head down on the desk. Roth walks over to Marilyn and puts his hands on her shoulders. &#8220;No, you are not!&#8221; he says. &#8220;You are not bad at anything that&#8217;s important.&#8221;</p> <p>Every spring since 2001, students in 3rd to 11th grades in the US sit down to take <a href="" type="internal">standardized tests</a>, which are federally mandated by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act" type="external">No Child Left Behind Act</a>. But how standard can standardized testing really be, when each state decides which basic &#8220;standards&#8221;&#8212;or lessons&#8212;to teach, and how to test students&#8217; knowledge of them? In California schools, standardized tests consist of multiple-choice questions only (except for a short written assignment in fourth and seventh grade). Ideally, standards and tests are rigorous. In reality, Mission High teachers believe the quality of the &#8220;multiple choice&#8221; tests in California is very low, and doesn&#8217;t measure the achievement of its diverse student population. But since punishments&#8212;including school closures and staff firings&#8212;are attached to these test scores, many students and teachers here say they have urgent recommendations for &#8220;fixing&#8221; what Principal <a href="" type="internal">Eric Guthertz</a> calls the &#8220;broken scales&#8221; of NCLB.</p> <p>As Roth passes out a preview sheet of the <a href="http://www.startest.org/cst.html" type="external">California Standardized Test</a>, Brianna Frank rushes in and takes her seat. &#8220;I&#8217;m hungry. I&#8217;m always hungry,&#8221; she says. Diana* finds a red apple in her backpack and gives it to Brianna, who takes two buses from the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood each morning to get to school. As students take their seats, Brianna and Diana come up to the front of the class. &#8220;How many of you have heard of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921?&#8221; Brianna asks her classmates before she gets started on her presentation. Two hands go up.</p> <p>A few weeks ago, Roth offered students their choice of research projects. Most of the options were topics that won&#8217;t appear in the STAR multiple-choice questions, but Roth believes they make history relevant and interesting to his students. The Tulsa Race Riot jumped out at Brianna right away. Her boyfriend&#8217;s grandmother, Edna Tobie, is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Tobie was six when the riot happened in 1921. Brianna spent a day at Tobie&#8217;s house talking to her and her sons about it. &#8220;It was the second-largest African-American community at the time,&#8221; she tells the class now. &#8220;There were black-owned businesses, a real sense of pride in people, but the local government didn&#8217;t want to keep it going like that. So they attacked the community. The federal government didn&#8217;t come to defend Tulsa residents from the violence. No justice was served, and some older folks blame it now on young men&#8217;s disrespect for the law and the police. Even though it happened a long time ago, there are deep, deep scars in Tulsa. Edna&#8217;s sons couldn&#8217;t stop talking about it even though they weren&#8217;t even alive then.&#8221; Brianna&#8217;s classmates clap as she takes her seat, a big smile on her face.</p> <p>&#8220;I want to be a social worker,&#8221; Brianna tells me after class one day. &#8220;Where scars come from is important for me to understand.&#8221; She didn&#8217;t like history at all in middle school, but seeing why bills like the 14th Amendment got passed, and how long it took to make those words on paper real, fascinates her now. &#8220;A lot of people struggled before me so I can be a free black woman. It was very touching to hear,&#8221; Brianna reflected after hearing Tobie&#8217;s story.</p> <p>If you spend a day at Mission High, it&#8217;s hard to miss Brianna. She walks straight-backed, with a big smile on her face. She looks after people. &#8220;Why weren&#8217;t you in class yesterday?&#8221; she says to two Latino girls while rushing on her way to volunteer for a prom fundraiser. She has her hand up with questions or comments more than anyone else in Roth&#8217;s class. &#8220;Mr. Roth, what was the Truman Doctrine?&#8221; &#8220;What&#8217;s the Dream Act, again?&#8221; &#8220;How do you spell Guantanamo?&#8221; Roth says Brianna will get a high grade in his honors class, but she tells me she struggles with the standardized tests. &#8220;Why do they write them like they&#8217;re trying to trick me? Who writes instructions for them?&#8221; she wonders.</p> <p>Mission High Junior Marvin JordanA week before the STAR test, Roth was covering the Civil Rights Movement and played &#8220; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8" type="external">I&#8217;ve been to the Mountaintop</a>,&#8221; Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s last speech before his assassination. Most students haven&#8217;t seen this speech before, and as the clip ends, there is a heavy silence in the class. During lunch that day, Marvin Jordan comes back to Roth&#8217;s class. &#8220;I just want to play that speech over and over and over again,&#8221; Marvin says. &#8220;Even though King knows he will die, he is blossoming. He knows people will continue the fight. Makes you really think about what&#8217;s important in life.&#8221; He wrote the strongest essay after this documentary, Roth told me recently.</p> <p>In 2005, when Roth was teaching at Thurgood Marshall High School, a consultant from the California&#8217;s Department of Education came in to observe his classes and suggested to him that he concentrate less on writing assignments like these and more on multiple-choice exercises to prepare for the standardized test. &#8220;&#8216;After all,&#8221;&amp;#160;Roth recalls being told, &#8220;the test has no writing component.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;If California is serious about measuring real student achievement, we have to ask students to show what they understood about why an historical event took place, and how that connects to their lives,&#8221; Roth argues. He is resisting the pressures to cut out project-based learning like the Tulsa Race Riot or cut out reflections on the civil rights or discuss the implications of the 14th Amendment on immigration today, but there is no denying that the &#8220;hammer&#8221; of the sanctions is on his mind. Mission High&#8217;s test scores have been going up, but that didn&#8217;t prevent it from landing in <a href="http://www.educationsector.org/publications/portrait-school-improvement-grantees" type="external">the bottom 5 percent</a> of the 843 &#8220;persistently lowest-performing&#8221; schools in the nation.</p> <p>That meant the school qualified for much-needed federal funding through the Race to the Top <a href="http://www.educationsector.org/publications/portrait-school-improvement-grantees" type="external">School Improvement Grant</a>, but it comes with increased scrutiny, and the school lucked out this time around. Since Principal Guthertz just became a principal&#8211;after working as vice principal for three years and English teacher for five at Mission High&#8211;the district didn&#8217;t have to &#8220;replace&#8221; him as the grant requires under the &#8220;transformation&#8221; model.</p> <p>During one recent lunch break, Brianna&#8217;s classmates Marilyn and her boyfriend Miguel* linger on in Roth&#8217;s class, as students often do. Miguel and Marilyn are undocumented immigrants. They talk to Roth about &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Secure Communities</a>,&#8221; a controversial law that requires local authorities to report fingerprints of anyone arrested with the federal agencies, which could lead to eventual deportation. Marilyn&#8217;s friend, another student at Mission High, was arrested in San Francisco and detained in Washington, DC, for eight months because of this law, she says. &#8220;Marilyn was just educating me about this issue yesterday,&#8221; Brianna says on her way out of the class. &#8220;I had no idea that this issue was such a struggle for her.&#8221; Marilyn and Miguel are now gathering petitions to repeal Secure Communities in San Francisco, and they&#8217;re talking to students in different schools about their rights. Miguel is excited because a radio reporter said he wants to interview him about the law. &#8220;What will you talk about?&#8221; Roth asks Miguel. &#8220;The 14th Amendment,&#8221; he says without a pause, and &#8220;the need for due process.&#8221;</p> <p>Marilyn moved here five years ago from El Salvador to reunite with her mother, who moved here to support her extended seven-member family: &#8220;I was raised by my auntie, who got killed by a gang member.&#8221; Since Marilyn and her mother were separated for 12 years, they aren&#8217;t that close. &#8220;We don&#8217;t talk much,&#8221; Marilyn says. Five months ago, she didn&#8217;t raise her hand or say much in class, even though her writing was always good. By the end of school year, she speaks out and has her hand up often. &#8220;Mr. Roth always tells me that I need to trust myself and be strong,&#8221; she tells me recently. &#8220;I don&#8217;t have a lot of self-confidence, but I love debating and expressing my opinion.&#8221;</p> <p>A few days earlier, Marilyn took a review test designed by Roth. About half of the test was multiple choice. The other half consisted of short, written responses. Marilyn got a &#8220;C&#8221; in the multiple-choice section and an &#8220;A+&#8221; on the written responses. Even though Marilyn has been in the country for five years and can no longer take a modified test for English learners, words like &#8220;escalate&#8221; or &#8220;initiate&#8221; on the standardized tests make her nervous, and she gets stuck. In other respects, Roth thinks she does really well: Marilyn can analyze and connect dots. Her critical thinking and problem-solving skills are very strong. Her self-confidence has been growing.&#8221;Do we really need kids who can memorize in modern society?&#8221; Roth, who has been teaching in inner-city schools his entire 23-year career, asks me on the day we look over Marilyn&#8217;s test results. &#8220;I think our society needs history students who can think: research, analyze different primary sources, write well, detect biases. The standardized history test doesn&#8217;t measure any of these skills.&#8221;</p> <p>By mid-April, the testing pressure was in the air around Mission High hallways. Brianna, Marilyn, Miguel, and Marvin had been working with their &#8220;advisory&#8221; teachers for months to prepare for the exams. Principal Guthertz performed a cover of &#8220;Stand by Me&#8221; with new lyrics he wrote about the importance of tests. He also promised to fundraise for a boat party or eat live worms in public if scores go up this year. Last year, the school was promised gourmet lunch served by a famous chef, and when the scores went up, <a href="" type="internal">Mission High delivered</a>.</p> <p>&#8220;Listen! One more day before the big bad test, everyone!&#8221; Mr. Roth announced on April 8. &#8220;All I&#8217;m asking you to do is take it seriously. Do it for the school.&#8221; &#8220;Are they all just multiple choice, again?&#8221; Marvin asks. &#8220;That&#8217;s it,&#8221; Roth says, &#8220;but it doesn&#8217;t show exactly what you know.&#8221; &#8220;What does it show?&#8221; Marvin asks. &#8220;Just what you remember. This is not how it will be in college.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s do a quick review together.&#8221; Students pick their own partners and move seats. &#8220;Give me two things about the 14th Amendment!&#8221; Roth asks Darrell, as he walks around the class checking on groups. Dozens of students shout out the answers before he has a chance to respond. &#8220;What were the Palmer Raids? Who was the first Catholic president? Give me three things about the New Deal?&#8221; The back and forth turns into competitive shouting and laughter takes over the classroom. Marvin has his hand in the air permanently. &#8220;You are going to nail this test! Don&#8217;t let them trick you!&#8221;</p> <p>Once the test is over, the students are circumspect about their experience. &#8220;I think I did well on the history test, but they should add more questions on Black and Latino history,&#8221; Brianna tells me. Marilyn thinks that teachers from schools like Mission High should help testing companies choose the passages for the English reading part. &#8220;All the reading sections for English were so boring! I had to get up several times not to fall asleep,&#8221; she tells me while three other students around her chime in and agree. &#8220;Our English classes have much better readings,&#8221; another student says.</p> <p>&#8220;This is my dream job,&#8221; Betty Lee, who has been teaching math for three years at Mission High, tells me a week after the test. But she, too, believes that there is a misguided disconnect between what she thinks students should know and how the state chooses to measure and grade their success. &#8220;I teach them the big picture and concepts of mathematics. This is where problem-solving skills come from. The test looks at their procedural fluency. It emphasizes memorization over reasoning skills.&#8221; Lee says that most of her students are immigrants, and if they misunderstand one word, it throws the whole question off.</p> <p>Roth wants to see more writing in the tests, more open-ended questions, and he wants at least some judging to be done by teachers in the district, not just distant bureaucrats who have never met any of his students. Lee agrees and adds, &#8220;The instructions should be written in a more accessible language to different cultures, and teachers from diverse backgrounds should be paid to provide feedback when these standards and tests are developed,&#8221; Lee offered. &#8220;Instead of asking for the date and summary of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act#Creation:_The_Social_Security_Act" type="external">Social Security Act</a>, why not give the Act itself and have the student analyze it and compare it to others, which you can still do with bubbles,&#8221; Guthertz offered as an example, recently. Since colleges don&#8217;t look at these standardized test scores, it&#8217;s hard to make them meaningful for students. Some students, like Brianna, feel a deep sense of pride about Mission High and want &#8220;to do well&#8221; for the school or a teacher. &#8220;Some bubble in randomly or draw patterns on the tests,&#8221; Roth says.</p> <p>When teachers and Principal Guthertz talk about these challenges, NCLB and Race to the Top come up often. Sometimes NCLB is associated with George W. Bush, even though it had civil rights groups behind it and was strongly supported by liberal stalwarts like the late Ted Kennedy. Stanford professor <a href="http://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/ldh" type="external">Linda Darling-Hammond</a> wrote in The Flat World and Education that the law was a &#8220;major breakthrough&#8221; for flagging inequalities in education in terms of race and class, and it triggered attention for many historically neglected schools. For the first time, the federal government said that states had to meet the minimum standards for all students, especially students of color and special education students, and not mask their scores with the overall averages, Time&#8216;s education columnist <a href="http://www.eduwonk.com/2004/04/about-andrew-j-rotherham.html" type="external">Andrew Rotherham</a> explained. &#8220;We moved from really stale conversations with generalities to fairly empirical conversation. The accountability system is not perfect, but the data is much more fine-grained,&#8221; he argued.</p> <p>Ten years after the law was passed, a growing number of advocates now argue that the law has too many brutal <a href="" type="internal">unintended consequences</a> and must be reformed. Organizations like the <a href="http://www.naacp.org/content/main/" type="external">NAACP</a> and the <a href="http://www.thestrategycenter.org/" type="external">Community Strategy Center</a> claim that failed measurement policies have actually pushed more students of color and low-income students into prisons than colleges. In a recent report ( <a href="http://advancementproject.org/sites/default/wp-content/uploads/Federal%20Policy%20ESEA%20Reauthorization%20and%20the%20School-to-Prison%20Pipeline%20-%2003%2009%2011.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>), these groups argue that some schools are &#8220;increasing&#8221; their test scores by &#8220;punishing&#8221; failing students through suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests. Over 150 organizations have endorsed the report, urging federal policy makers to fix NCLB.</p> <p>John Burke with the Achievement Assessments Office at <a href="http://www.sfusd.edu/" type="external">San Francisco Unified</a> has some good news. &#8220;There is no doubt that the measures need to be broadened, and there is an agreement on the state and national level that assessment systems need to include more writing, expository information, and open-ended questions,&#8221; he explained. That&#8217;s why last year, California, along with 45 other states, adopted &#8220; <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/" type="external">Common Core</a>&#8221; academic standards initiative. The US Department of Education allocated significant funding for two multi-state consortia to create new standardized tests based on the Common Core standards in reading and math. Both consortiums of organizations ( <a href="http://www.achieve.org/parcc-announces-launch-new-website" type="external">PARCC</a> and <a href="http://www.k12.wa.us/smarter/default.aspx" type="external">SMARTER</a>) <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/11/21consortia.h30.html?qs=Catherine+Gewertz" type="external">claim</a>that they plan to involve teachers in designing and scoring the new assessments. Unfortunately for teachers at Mission High, these potentially improved tests won&#8217;t hit classrooms until 2015, and won&#8217;t affect tests used by Roth in social sciences. For now, teachers are stuck using the same old &#8220;broken&#8221; scales, while all &#8220;punishments&#8221; are attached to them. President Obama acknowledged that using current scales, four out of five schools could be labeled as failures, and is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/us/politics/15obama.html?_r=3&amp;amp;adxnnl=1&amp;amp;hpw=&amp;amp;adxnnlx=1300846702-88VF6KATBr+JieKGjgJu9w" type="external">lobbying</a> to overhaul NCLB this year.</p> <p>While most educators, including Principal Guthertz, don&#8217;t believe that NCLB should be thrown out completely, all the Mission High teachers I talked to want to see more nuanced, broader measures. They want more local control over &#8220;quality&#8221; definitions and a more nuanced approach to measuring &#8220;success&#8221; of a school. The law should be rewritten to include broader measures in calculating &#8220;adequate yearly progress&#8221; of schools, Guthertz told me. &#8220;We need to attach real weight to other measures to supplement data that states and federal government use: grades, attendance and suspension rates, drop out rates, college acceptances, student, parent and teacher satisfaction surveys, Latino and African-American students in Honors and AP classes.&#8221; This, Guthertz believes, will help states send a strong message to schools on how these benchmarks should be met: encourage not just higher scores, but also healthy and supportive learning cultures. &#8220;We send more African-American students to college than most schools in the district. Our student and parent satisfaction surveys are very high. Why isn&#8217;t that considered?&#8221; he wonders about the numbers that landed Mission High School on the &#8220;lowest-performing schools&#8221; list.</p> <p>&#8220;In my middle school, my teacher once told me that I&#8217;ll never go to college,&#8221; Marilyn tells me in between classes last week. &#8220;Then I came here, and Mr. Velez made me feel welcome and connected me to scholarships. Mr. Roth expects more from me than anyone. Why did they put us on that list of worst schools? Why doesn&#8217;t my opinion about my school matter?&#8221;</p> <p>*Editors&#8217; Note: This education dispatch is part of an <a href="" type="internal">ongoing series</a> reported from <a href="https://mhs-sfusd-ca.schoolloop.com/" type="external">Mission High School</a>, where education writer <a href="" type="internal">Kristina Rizga</a> is embedded for the year. Names of some students are changed. <a href="" type="internal">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a> to get all of the latest Mission High dispatches.</p> <p />

What Standardized Tests Miss

https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/students-teachers-obama-nclb/

2011-05-19

4left

Honors History Class at Mission High School Photos Celine Nadeau 8220The big bad California STAR Test is in 27 days everyone8221 Mission High School history teacher Robert Roth announces at the beginning of an honors class in March 8220The way you are going to feel this is we are going to go through events really quick But don8217t worry we8217ll look at some things more deeply after the test8221 Roth explains as 25 juniors trickle in 8220I8217m hecka bad at these tests8221 Marilyn says out loud she puts her head down on the desk Roth walks over to Marilyn and puts his hands on her shoulders 8220No you are not8221 he says 8220You are not bad at anything that8217s important8221 Every spring since 2001 students in 3rd to 11th grades in the US sit down to take standardized tests which are federally mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act But how standard can standardized testing really be when each state decides which basic 8220standards82218212or lessons8212to teach and how to test students8217 knowledge of them In California schools standardized tests consist of multiplechoice questions only except for a short written assignment in fourth and seventh grade Ideally standards and tests are rigorous In reality Mission High teachers believe the quality of the 8220multiple choice8221 tests in California is very low and doesn8217t measure the achievement of its diverse student population But since punishments8212including school closures and staff firings8212are attached to these test scores many students and teachers here say they have urgent recommendations for 8220fixing8221 what Principal Eric Guthertz calls the 8220broken scales8221 of NCLB As Roth passes out a preview sheet of the California Standardized Test Brianna Frank rushes in and takes her seat 8220I8217m hungry I8217m always hungry8221 she says Diana finds a red apple in her backpack and gives it to Brianna who takes two buses from the BayviewHunters Point neighborhood each morning to get to school As students take their seats Brianna and Diana come up to the front of the class 8220How many of you have heard of the Tulsa Race Riot of 19218221 Brianna asks her classmates before she gets started on her presentation Two hands go up A few weeks ago Roth offered students their choice of research projects Most of the options were topics that won8217t appear in the STAR multiplechoice questions but Roth believes they make history relevant and interesting to his students The Tulsa Race Riot jumped out at Brianna right away Her boyfriend8217s grandmother Edna Tobie is from Tulsa Oklahoma and Tobie was six when the riot happened in 1921 Brianna spent a day at Tobie8217s house talking to her and her sons about it 8220It was the secondlargest AfricanAmerican community at the time8221 she tells the class now 8220There were blackowned businesses a real sense of pride in people but the local government didn8217t want to keep it going like that So they attacked the community The federal government didn8217t come to defend Tulsa residents from the violence No justice was served and some older folks blame it now on young men8217s disrespect for the law and the police Even though it happened a long time ago there are deep deep scars in Tulsa Edna8217s sons couldn8217t stop talking about it even though they weren8217t even alive then8221 Brianna8217s classmates clap as she takes her seat a big smile on her face 8220I want to be a social worker8221 Brianna tells me after class one day 8220Where scars come from is important for me to understand8221 She didn8217t like history at all in middle school but seeing why bills like the 14th Amendment got passed and how long it took to make those words on paper real fascinates her now 8220A lot of people struggled before me so I can be a free black woman It was very touching to hear8221 Brianna reflected after hearing Tobie8217s story If you spend a day at Mission High it8217s hard to miss Brianna She walks straightbacked with a big smile on her face She looks after people 8220Why weren8217t you in class yesterday8221 she says to two Latino girls while rushing on her way to volunteer for a prom fundraiser She has her hand up with questions or comments more than anyone else in Roth8217s class 8220Mr Roth what was the Truman Doctrine8221 8220What8217s the Dream Act again8221 8220How do you spell Guantanamo8221 Roth says Brianna will get a high grade in his honors class but she tells me she struggles with the standardized tests 8220Why do they write them like they8217re trying to trick me Who writes instructions for them8221 she wonders Mission High Junior Marvin JordanA week before the STAR test Roth was covering the Civil Rights Movement and played 8220 I8217ve been to the Mountaintop8221 Martin Luther King Jr8217s last speech before his assassination Most students haven8217t seen this speech before and as the clip ends there is a heavy silence in the class During lunch that day Marvin Jordan comes back to Roth8217s class 8220I just want to play that speech over and over and over again8221 Marvin says 8220Even though King knows he will die he is blossoming He knows people will continue the fight Makes you really think about what8217s important in life8221 He wrote the strongest essay after this documentary Roth told me recently In 2005 when Roth was teaching at Thurgood Marshall High School a consultant from the California8217s Department of Education came in to observe his classes and suggested to him that he concentrate less on writing assignments like these and more on multiplechoice exercises to prepare for the standardized test 82208216After all8221amp160Roth recalls being told 8220the test has no writing component8221 8220If California is serious about measuring real student achievement we have to ask students to show what they understood about why an historical event took place and how that connects to their lives8221 Roth argues He is resisting the pressures to cut out projectbased learning like the Tulsa Race Riot or cut out reflections on the civil rights or discuss the implications of the 14th Amendment on immigration today but there is no denying that the 8220hammer8221 of the sanctions is on his mind Mission High8217s test scores have been going up but that didn8217t prevent it from landing in the bottom 5 percent of the 843 8220persistently lowestperforming8221 schools in the nation That meant the school qualified for muchneeded federal funding through the Race to the Top School Improvement Grant but it comes with increased scrutiny and the school lucked out this time around Since Principal Guthertz just became a principal8211after working as vice principal for three years and English teacher for five at Mission High8211the district didn8217t have to 8220replace8221 him as the grant requires under the 8220transformation8221 model During one recent lunch break Brianna8217s classmates Marilyn and her boyfriend Miguel linger on in Roth8217s class as students often do Miguel and Marilyn are undocumented immigrants They talk to Roth about 8220 Secure Communities8221 a controversial law that requires local authorities to report fingerprints of anyone arrested with the federal agencies which could lead to eventual deportation Marilyn8217s friend another student at Mission High was arrested in San Francisco and detained in Washington DC for eight months because of this law she says 8220Marilyn was just educating me about this issue yesterday8221 Brianna says on her way out of the class 8220I had no idea that this issue was such a struggle for her8221 Marilyn and Miguel are now gathering petitions to repeal Secure Communities in San Francisco and they8217re talking to students in different schools about their rights Miguel is excited because a radio reporter said he wants to interview him about the law 8220What will you talk about8221 Roth asks Miguel 8220The 14th Amendment8221 he says without a pause and 8220the need for due process8221 Marilyn moved here five years ago from El Salvador to reunite with her mother who moved here to support her extended sevenmember family 8220I was raised by my auntie who got killed by a gang member8221 Since Marilyn and her mother were separated for 12 years they aren8217t that close 8220We don8217t talk much8221 Marilyn says Five months ago she didn8217t raise her hand or say much in class even though her writing was always good By the end of school year she speaks out and has her hand up often 8220Mr Roth always tells me that I need to trust myself and be strong8221 she tells me recently 8220I don8217t have a lot of selfconfidence but I love debating and expressing my opinion8221 A few days earlier Marilyn took a review test designed by Roth About half of the test was multiple choice The other half consisted of short written responses Marilyn got a 8220C8221 in the multiplechoice section and an 8220A8221 on the written responses Even though Marilyn has been in the country for five years and can no longer take a modified test for English learners words like 8220escalate8221 or 8220initiate8221 on the standardized tests make her nervous and she gets stuck In other respects Roth thinks she does really well Marilyn can analyze and connect dots Her critical thinking and problemsolving skills are very strong Her selfconfidence has been growing8221Do we really need kids who can memorize in modern society8221 Roth who has been teaching in innercity schools his entire 23year career asks me on the day we look over Marilyn8217s test results 8220I think our society needs history students who can think research analyze different primary sources write well detect biases The standardized history test doesn8217t measure any of these skills8221 By midApril the testing pressure was in the air around Mission High hallways Brianna Marilyn Miguel and Marvin had been working with their 8220advisory8221 teachers for months to prepare for the exams Principal Guthertz performed a cover of 8220Stand by Me8221 with new lyrics he wrote about the importance of tests He also promised to fundraise for a boat party or eat live worms in public if scores go up this year Last year the school was promised gourmet lunch served by a famous chef and when the scores went up Mission High delivered 8220Listen One more day before the big bad test everyone8221 Mr Roth announced on April 8 8220All I8217m asking you to do is take it seriously Do it for the school8221 8220Are they all just multiple choice again8221 Marvin asks 8220That8217s it8221 Roth says 8220but it doesn8217t show exactly what you know8221 8220What does it show8221 Marvin asks 8220Just what you remember This is not how it will be in college8221 8220Let8217s do a quick review together8221 Students pick their own partners and move seats 8220Give me two things about the 14th Amendment8221 Roth asks Darrell as he walks around the class checking on groups Dozens of students shout out the answers before he has a chance to respond 8220What were the Palmer Raids Who was the first Catholic president Give me three things about the New Deal8221 The back and forth turns into competitive shouting and laughter takes over the classroom Marvin has his hand in the air permanently 8220You are going to nail this test Don8217t let them trick you8221 Once the test is over the students are circumspect about their experience 8220I think I did well on the history test but they should add more questions on Black and Latino history8221 Brianna tells me Marilyn thinks that teachers from schools like Mission High should help testing companies choose the passages for the English reading part 8220All the reading sections for English were so boring I had to get up several times not to fall asleep8221 she tells me while three other students around her chime in and agree 8220Our English classes have much better readings8221 another student says 8220This is my dream job8221 Betty Lee who has been teaching math for three years at Mission High tells me a week after the test But she too believes that there is a misguided disconnect between what she thinks students should know and how the state chooses to measure and grade their success 8220I teach them the big picture and concepts of mathematics This is where problemsolving skills come from The test looks at their procedural fluency It emphasizes memorization over reasoning skills8221 Lee says that most of her students are immigrants and if they misunderstand one word it throws the whole question off Roth wants to see more writing in the tests more openended questions and he wants at least some judging to be done by teachers in the district not just distant bureaucrats who have never met any of his students Lee agrees and adds 8220The instructions should be written in a more accessible language to different cultures and teachers from diverse backgrounds should be paid to provide feedback when these standards and tests are developed8221 Lee offered 8220Instead of asking for the date and summary of the Social Security Act why not give the Act itself and have the student analyze it and compare it to others which you can still do with bubbles8221 Guthertz offered as an example recently Since colleges don8217t look at these standardized test scores it8217s hard to make them meaningful for students Some students like Brianna feel a deep sense of pride about Mission High and want 8220to do well8221 for the school or a teacher 8220Some bubble in randomly or draw patterns on the tests8221 Roth says When teachers and Principal Guthertz talk about these challenges NCLB and Race to the Top come up often Sometimes NCLB is associated with George W Bush even though it had civil rights groups behind it and was strongly supported by liberal stalwarts like the late Ted Kennedy Stanford professor Linda DarlingHammond wrote in The Flat World and Education that the law was a 8220major breakthrough8221 for flagging inequalities in education in terms of race and class and it triggered attention for many historically neglected schools For the first time the federal government said that states had to meet the minimum standards for all students especially students of color and special education students and not mask their scores with the overall averages Time8216s education columnist Andrew Rotherham explained 8220We moved from really stale conversations with generalities to fairly empirical conversation The accountability system is not perfect but the data is much more finegrained8221 he argued Ten years after the law was passed a growing number of advocates now argue that the law has too many brutal unintended consequences and must be reformed Organizations like the NAACP and the Community Strategy Center claim that failed measurement policies have actually pushed more students of color and lowincome students into prisons than colleges In a recent report PDF these groups argue that some schools are 8220increasing8221 their test scores by 8220punishing8221 failing students through suspensions expulsions and schoolbased arrests Over 150 organizations have endorsed the report urging federal policy makers to fix NCLB John Burke with the Achievement Assessments Office at San Francisco Unified has some good news 8220There is no doubt that the measures need to be broadened and there is an agreement on the state and national level that assessment systems need to include more writing expository information and openended questions8221 he explained That8217s why last year California along with 45 other states adopted 8220 Common Core8221 academic standards initiative The US Department of Education allocated significant funding for two multistate consortia to create new standardized tests based on the Common Core standards in reading and math Both consortiums of organizations PARCC and SMARTER claimthat they plan to involve teachers in designing and scoring the new assessments Unfortunately for teachers at Mission High these potentially improved tests won8217t hit classrooms until 2015 and won8217t affect tests used by Roth in social sciences For now teachers are stuck using the same old 8220broken8221 scales while all 8220punishments8221 are attached to them President Obama acknowledged that using current scales four out of five schools could be labeled as failures and is lobbying to overhaul NCLB this year While most educators including Principal Guthertz don8217t believe that NCLB should be thrown out completely all the Mission High teachers I talked to want to see more nuanced broader measures They want more local control over 8220quality8221 definitions and a more nuanced approach to measuring 8220success8221 of a school The law should be rewritten to include broader measures in calculating 8220adequate yearly progress8221 of schools Guthertz told me 8220We need to attach real weight to other measures to supplement data that states and federal government use grades attendance and suspension rates drop out rates college acceptances student parent and teacher satisfaction surveys Latino and AfricanAmerican students in Honors and AP classes8221 This Guthertz believes will help states send a strong message to schools on how these benchmarks should be met encourage not just higher scores but also healthy and supportive learning cultures 8220We send more AfricanAmerican students to college than most schools in the district Our student and parent satisfaction surveys are very high Why isn8217t that considered8221 he wonders about the numbers that landed Mission High School on the 8220lowestperforming schools8221 list 8220In my middle school my teacher once told me that I8217ll never go to college8221 Marilyn tells me in between classes last week 8220Then I came here and Mr Velez made me feel welcome and connected me to scholarships Mr Roth expects more from me than anyone Why did they put us on that list of worst schools Why doesn8217t my opinion about my school matter8221 Editors8217 Note This education dispatch is part of an ongoing series reported from Mission High School where education writer Kristina Rizga is embedded for the year Names of some students are changed Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get all of the latest Mission High dispatches

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