The Healthcare Bait-and-Switch: From the Clintons to Obama and Back Again
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | March 8, 2018
On the campaign trail in January of 2016, Hillary Clinton told Iowa voters that Bernie Sanders’ single payer health care proposal was an idea whose time would never come. “People who have health emergencies can’t wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass ,” said the presumed shoo-in for president. Two years later, one-third of Democrats in the Senate have endorsed Sanders’ Medicare for All Act and half the Democrats in the U.S. House have signed on to Rep. John Conyers’ Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, HR 676 . Polls show 75 percent of Democrats favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American,” and 31 percent of the public at-large wants health care to be the first problem the Democrats tackled if they win the White House in 2020.
Predictably, however, Hillary Clinton’s favorite think tank is still trying to make sure single payer health care never happens. The lavishly funded Center for American Progress (CAP) last week unveiled their counterfeit, sound-alike health care plan, dubbed Medicare Extra for All, whose sole purpose is to distract and confuse a public that is demonstrably “ready” for single payer. The CAP scheme, like Obamacare, keeps the private insurance corporations at the center of the money-stream, doesn’t cover everyone, charges fees, co-pays and premiums, doesn’t save much money, and would fail to provide millions with adequate coverage. “CAP’s plan maintains the current tiered system in which some people have private health insurance, those with the greatest needs have public health insurance, some people will have inadequate coverage and others will have no coverage at all,” writes Dr. Margaret Flowers , of Health Over Profit. “By offering a solution that sounds good to the uninformed — ‘Medicare Extra for All’ –but continues to benefit their Wall Street donors,” said Flowers, “Democrats hope to fool people or buy enough support to undermine efforts for NIMA,” or National Improved Medicare for All, the comprehensive single payer plan supported by the activists like Flowers.
National Improved Medicare for All would save half a trillion dollars a year on administrative costs and another $100 billion on reduced drug costs, according to Flowers. “The CAP plan maintains the complicated multi-payer system that we have today,” she said. “At best, it will only achieve 16% of the administrative savings of a single payer system and it will have less power to reign in the high costs of care.”
The CAP scheme would leave the link between employment and health coverage intact, keeping workers ultimately dependent on the whims of their bosses for healthcare coverage. “When people who have private health insurance lose their job or move, they risk losing their health insurance,” said Flowers. “NIMA creates a health system that covers everyone no matter where they are in the United States and its territories.”
The Obama-Scam, Repackaged
The Center for American Progress is running the same bait-and-switch con that Barack Obama played in the set-up to his Affordable Care Act. Bruce Dixon and I were introduced to Obama’s healthcare scam in June of 2003 when we engaged the then candidate for the U.S. Senate in a month-long telephone and email conversation, at The Black Commentator . At the time, Obama was trailing the field of candidates and in need of every Black vote in Illinois. Dixon and I had just learned that Obama had joined the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the corporate money-bag operation for the right wing of the party founded by white southern Democrats including Bill Clinton and Al Gore. On top of that, he’d recently removed his 2002 (mildly) anti-war speech from his campaign website, apparently to get in line with George Bush’s triumphal “Mission Accomplished ” speech, the previous month. Obama denied that he’d become a member of the DLC, and claimed his website was undergoing “routine” updating. (Years later, when the war was clearly lost, Obama’s team would resurrect “The Speech” as proof of his early anti-war credentials.)
Dixon and I decided that the best way to determine if Obama should be in the DLC or not, would be to put him to a three-question “bright line” test on the issues of war, health care and U.S. membership in the NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. If the candidate answered all three questions correctly, then he should not be a member of the DLC. If he failed, then the DLC was where he belonged, and voters should make their decisions, accordingly.
We presented our bright line questions to Obama in the June 19, 2003 , Cover Story of the publication:
1. Do you favor the withdrawal of the United States from NAFTA? Will you in the Senate introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end?
2. Do you favor the adoption of a single payer system of universal health care to extend the availability of quality health care to all persons in this country? Will you in the Senate introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end?
3. Would you have voted against the October 10 congressional resolution allowing the president to use unilateral force against Iraq?
Note that we specified “a single payer system of universal health care.”
Obama used weasel-language to fudge his answers to the Iraq War and NAFTA questions. On health care, he wrote:
“I favor universal health care for all Americans, and intend to introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end in the U.S. Senate, just as I have at the state level. My campaign is also developing a series of interim proposals – such as an expansion of the successful SCHIP program – so that we can immediately provide more coverage to uninsured children and their families.”
Obama left out the words “single payer.” Only after he became president, six years later, would it become clear that his definition of “universal” health care meant only that all Americans would be required to enroll in an insurance program – just as states require that all drivers be insured.
Despite his use of weasel-wording in all three answers, we at The Black Commentator gave Obama a passing grade. “BC is not seeking to martyr Barack Obama on a left-leaning cross,” we wrote.
(Our actual motive in 2003 was fear of being labeled “crabs in a barrel” for undermining the prospects of such an attractive, progressive-sounding, young Black up-and-coming politician—a failure of political nerve for which I will forever be ashamed.)
A year and a half later, in the week before Obama was sworn into the Senate, he told me that the country was not “ready” for single payer. But, if he really believed that, he would not have spent the next four years misleading the people through his calculated misuse of the term “universal.”
“Universal” was Obama’s bait-and-switch to confuse the public, much of which continued to wishfully assumed that he favored some kind of single payer plan. Once he got in office—and after announcing that “all entitlements, including Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, would be “on the table” for cutting under his administration—Obama banished single payer advocates like Rep. Conyers from the White House and quite publicly allowed the for-profit healthcare corporations to write his Affordable Care Act, with its “universal” mandate that added many of millions of new “customers” for the industry.
The Democratic Leadership Council disbanded near the end of Obama’s first term in office. Faux-progressives claimed a victory. “One of the things that’s happening right now in Democratic politics is that progressives are winning the battle for the party,” said Progressive Congress president Darcy Burner. “The corporate-focused DLC type of politics isn’t working inside the Democratic party.”
That was nonsense. The DLC went out of business because it had won its battle for corporate hegemony in the party. By 2011, Obama had revealed himself as a full-blooded austerity (and war) president, and was still seeking his “Grand Bargain” with the Republicans. The “progressives” were defenestrated (thrown out of the White House windows) and humiliated in his first year, and were not to rise again until Bernie Sanders, the nominally non-Democrat, made his bid for the White House in 2016—with single payer healthcare at the tip of his spear.
Sanders’ version of single payer is “highly flawed ,” said Health Over Profit’s Margaret Flowers, who is also co-director of Popular Resistance , but, “the fact that the Democrats are proposing something that sounds like NIMA means we are gaining power.” The legislation “calls for a four-year transition period, during which the newly improved Medicare would first insure all children and adults 55 or older, then expand gradually to cover all adults,” writes the Huffington Post .
The Sanders bill’s endorsers in the Senate include a number of obvious Trojan Horses, such as Cory Booker, a deeply reactionary politician who could have been the “first Obama” had he won prominent office just a few years sooner (see The Black Commentator, April 4, 2002, “Fruit of the Poisoned Tree .”) He was among 13 Democrats that voted against creating a reserve fund to allow Americans to import cheaper drugs from Canada, lamely claiming that it didn’t address consumer protection issues. Booker and others are joining the pro-single payer bandwagon to weaken it from the inside, while his allies in the Clinton camp and their Center for American Progress scheme to extend the life of for-profit healthcare under the Medicare brand.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the greatest negative motivator for single payer. He last month proposed new rules that would allow sale of short-term insurance policies that omit “essential health benefits”—what Sen. Ron Wyden calls “junk insurance”—to allow the market to work its miracles. But the people are learning that the market will kill you.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Why Russia’s New Strategic Capabilities Come As a Shock to US Intelligence Community
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 08.03.2018
The United States of America spends something like $80 billion annually on intelligence gathering and analysis. When the CIA was founded by the National Security Act in 1947 the intention was to create a mechanism that would warn about an imminent threat. The memory of Pearl Harbor in 1941, when Japan attacked the U.S. naval base was still fresh, and the legislation was popularized by the slogan “no more Pearl Harbors.”
In spite of the dedication of considerable resources and manpower, there have been some major intelligence failures in the past seventy years, starting with the inability to anticipate the breakout of the Korean War and including the embrace of false intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. But the most recent failure is perhaps more consequential than either Korea or Iraq.
On March 1st, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke before his country’s Federal Assembly plus a large group of both local and foreign journalists, outlining his plans for the economy and also dealing with other domestic issues should he be reelected later this month. The final third of the presentation was on national defense and, in its substance, was clearly directed at a global audience, particularly the United States.
He explained:
“During all these years since the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty [in 2001] we have been working intensively on advanced equipment and arms, which allowed us to make a breakthrough in developing new models of strategic weapons.”
He was referring to the RS-28 Sarmat ballistic missile, which has almost unlimited range and ultra-high speed, enabling it to employ trajectories including strikes coming over the South Pole that can defeat existing American Anti-Ballistic Defense systems. Russia has also produced and deployed a hypersonic glider weapon system Avangard.
But the real game changer is the Russian ability to negate America’s ability to project power through its navy. The already deployed air-launched Kinzhal anti-ship missile has a range of 2000 kilometers and a hyper-sonic speed that makes it nearly impossible to intercept. The development has made America’s thirteen aircraft carrier groups obsolete. President Putin made clear that Russia now has an overwhelming military advantage in cruise and ballistic missiles that are capable of penetrating U.S. defenses.
The new reality may or may not impel policymakers in Washington to approach Moscow and seek a new round of negotiations for arms control, but the real shock deriving from the Putin announcement is the failure of the intelligence community to anticipate the developments and advise their significance. Some of the new systems were hardly secret, with development of the Sarmat, for example, known to western governments for a number of years.
There will no doubt be a blame game in Washington over the inability to learn of Russia’s arms programs, but the questions that probably will not be asked relate to the intelligence agencies themselves and their capabilities, or lack thereof. It is no secret that organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have seen their basic missions change since 2001. An organization that used to pride itself on its ability to conduct classic espionage operations involving recruiting and running spies suddenly heard from policymakers that those skills were no longer in demand. Many officers who were made redundant or forced to retire were precisely those individuals who had cut their teeth on running operations directed against the old Soviet Union. They had the language and cultural skills necessary to collect information on Russia. With their departure, those capabilities also largely vanished.
Instead of spying, American intelligence agencies working mostly against what was broadly described as “terrorism,” used technology to locate potential targets and kill them. The CIA’s Clandestine Services, once the haven of its spies, became under President Barack Obama, a largely paramilitary operation focused on military solutions rather than espionage. This process was accelerated under Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, who worked assiduously to reduce the influence of the former spies within the Agency. Brennan reportedly had once wanted to become a spy but was kicked out of the training program as “unsuitable.”
So, has America learned that its intelligence agencies are doing all the wrong things and that the national defense strategy is unsustainable because the Russian-American relationship is now on a new footing? Possibly, but it is perhaps more likely that Washington will avoid asking the hard questions.
‘Truly Unprecedented’: High Level Inter-Korean Talks See Promising Start
Sputnik – 06.03.2018
On Monday, a South Korean delegation flew to Pyongyang to take part in a welcome banquet held by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un prior to talks expected to focus on bubbling tensions on the peninsula and the rocky relationship between North Korea and the US.
The South Korean delegation includes Chun Eui-yong, Seoul’s National Security Office director and Suh Hoona, the head of South Korea’s intelligence agency.
Speaking to Sputnik Radio’s Loud & Clear, Simone Chun, a fellow at the Korea Policy Institute and member of the Korean Peace Network, broke down the meeting and discussed what could blossom from it.
“We will have to wait and see, but so far it looks like even President [Donald] Trump is looking forward to talking to North Korea,” Chun told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. “So if that is true, that probably sounds like we’re going to have brighter news than we’ve had in the last seven or eight years.”
“There were amazing pictures of the Korean delegate… they went to North Korea on a South Korean military aircraft… and the most interesting thing, truly unprecedented, is that they actually met with Kim Jong-un within three hours — that is truly something that has never happened before,” she added, before saying that “if all goes well I think we’re going to have some major breakthrough.”
Though Chun is hopeful that the talks will end on good terms, she admitted to Becker that at the end of the day nothing can be settled unless the US also signs off.
“It’s just a reality in international politics that without the US, nothing can be done. I think it’s very important to go step by step,” she said. “These guys are really truly experienced… they aren’t just inexperienced bureaucrats, they have years of experience in dealing with North Korea so I think that we really have a dream team.”
Chun believes that Pyongyang will likely use the talks as a way to “learn more about the Trump administration’s motives.”
“The most important thing is to end or reduce US hostility to North Korea… the bottom line is that if the United States can end its hostility toward North Korea, a foundational progress can be made.”
Pyongyang Seeks to ‘Write New History’ of Korean Unification – State Media
Sputnik – 06.03.2018
Shortly after Kim Jong-un hosted a high-level delegation of South Korean officials for dinner in Pyongyang on Monday, North Korean state media said the country’s leader intends to advance inter-Korean relations and make the story of Korean history a story of unification.
Kim “repeatedly clarified that it is our consistent and principled stand and his firm will to vigorously advance the North-South relations and write a new history of national reunification by the concerted efforts of our nation to be proud in the world,” according to North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).
The Yonhap news agency has reported that the main goal of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s envoy to Pyongyang is to enable US-North Korea talks. Chung Eui-young, the head of South Korean national security, and Suh Hoon, Seoul’s spy chief, are among those who met with Kim.
Moon’s delegation hand-delivered a letter from the South Korean president addressing Kim. “Hearing the intention of President Moon Jae-in for a summit from the special envoy of the south side, he exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement,” KCNA said. Further, the Pyongyang’s leader “gave the important instruction to the relevant field to rapidly take practical steps for it.”
“He [Kim] also made an exchange of in-depth views on the issues for easing the acute military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and activating the versatile dialogue, contact, cooperation and exchange,” KCNA added.
The United States and South Korea are in close contact regarding the inter-Korean talks that are currently underway, State Department spokesperson Katina Adams told Sputnik on Monday. “We are in contact with the Republic of Korea about our unified response to North Korea,” said Adams said.
Washington and Seoul will work together “through the maximum pressure of the campaign to ensure that North-South progress is accompanied by advances towards denuclearization.”
KCNA reports that the meeting was held in “a compatriotic and sincere atmosphere.”
Nuclear genie pops out of Saudi bottle
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | March 3, 2018
The United States invaded and destroyed Iraq in 2003 on the false ground that Saddam Hussein secretly nurtured a nuclear program, but fifteen years later, Washington is actively discussing how to cater to Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions. It is a sign of our times that the nuclear genie is out of the Saudi bottle and the US may have to get used to the idea.
Saudi Arabia has opened bids from foreign companies to build two nuclear reactors. Riyadh wants eventually to install up to 17.6 gigawatts of atomic capacity by 2032 – or up to 17 reactors. Tens of billions of dollars worth business is involved. Companies from the US, France, Russia, China and South Korea have shown interest – including Westinghouse. There is pressure on the Trump administration to restart talks with Riyadh on a civil nuclear cooperation pact so that Westinghouse can pick up the lucrative business. The nuclear commerce with Saudi Arabia fits in with President Trump’s America First, as it could create thousands of jobs in the US economy.
But there is a serious catch. The Saudis will not accept any restrictions on uranium enrichment technology. Washington’s policy, on the other hand, is to sign a peaceful nuclear cooperation pact – known as a 123 agreement – that blocks steps in fuel production with potential bomb-making uses. Now, Riyadh maintains that it is not interested in diverting nuclear technology to military use, but it wants nonetheless to tap its own uranium resources for “self-sufficiency in producing nuclear fuel”. Indeed, Saudis have a point here. It is Saudi Arabia’s prerogative to have access to nuclear enrichment technology – like any NPT member country.
But then, Saudi Arabia happens to be a Muslim country in the Middle East and the West so far ensured that there is nothing like an “islamic bomb”. What happens if some day, a gust of Arab Spring blows through the Arabian Peninsula and an authentic Islamic regime takes shape there? Again, the Saudis already have a past history of funding Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear weapon program. The two countries are close allies. General Raheel Sharif, former Pakistani army chief, heads the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance, which was formed last year. Pakistan’s present army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa is frequently in and out of Saudi Arabia. In February, following Bajwa’s last hushed visit, Pakistan announced the deployment of a few thousand troops to Saudi Arabia under a bilateral security cooperation agreement for unspecified purposes.
Conceivably, Saudis intend to develop nuclear weapons some day. The Saudi compulsions are similar to Pakistan’s – nuclear weapons provide deterrent capability. Lest it be forgotten, Saudi Arabia already has a “delivery system” – missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Its armed forces even have a designated Saudi Strategic Missile Force, which handles long-range missiles. Actually, these missiles don’t make sense unless they’re armed with nuclear weapons. What makes all this a combustible mix is that the present Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a hot head, as the bloody war in Yemen testifies. The rift with Qatar underscores that MbS is bent on establishing Saudi hegemony in the region.
Logically speaking, the US could offer to Saudi Arabia something like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement of July 2015 that restricts Iran’s nuclear program. The Saudis cannot complain because they had previously complained that the JCPOA was a generous deal for Iran – except that it means:
- No indigenous reprocessing, with all spent reactor fuel to be shipped out of the country;
- Severe restrictions on any uranium enrichment, in terms of both the level of enrichment and the amount of material enriched;
- A highly intrusive IAEA inspection regime, in which international inspectors have continual and full access to nuclear facilities, including the right to inspect military bases or other places if they had any reason to suspect nuclear-related activities.
Of course, it entails the Trump administration admitting that JCPOA was a brilliant achievement in nuclear non-proliferation. That will be not only a bitter pill to swallow for President Trump but his (and Israel’s) entire strategy to reimpose sanctions against Iran would unravel.
The alternative will be to give Saudi Arabia a free hand to acquire mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle but the US Congress is almost certain to shoot it down. On the other hand, if the US and Saudi Arabia cannot agree on a 123 agreement, Westinghouse loses the multi-billion dollar business. Russia’s Rosatem has already sought a contract to construct 2 nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia. In the prevailing new Cold War climate with the Trump administration castigating Russia as a “revisionist power” and an “existentialist threat”, a coordinated effort by the international community to circumscribe Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions (on the lines that the Obama administration could mobilise) is too much to expect today. Which, in turn, creates space for Saudi Arabia to outmaneuver the Trump administration. Riyadh is aware of it. (Asharq Al-Awsat )
This is going to be one hell of a trapeze act for the Trump administration. If Trump destroys the JCPOA in these circumstances, and Iran retaliates by resuming uranium reprocessing, this becomes an entirely new ball game. Other Middle Eastern countries are watching – Turkey and Egypt, in particular. And they would be wondering, ‘If Saudi Arabia can have reprocessing technology, why not us?’ Israel’s “nuclear superiority” is steadily getting eroded, too. Read a fascinating piece Coming soon – a Nuclear Middle East.
South Korea ‘to send high-level delegation to North’
Press TV – March 4, 2018
South Korea has announced a decision to send a high-level political delegation to the North, raising hopes for a diplomatic solution to the decades-long conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
The South Korean presidential office announced on Sunday that a special 10-member government delegation was to visit North Korea on Monday.
“The special delegates will have extensive discussions over issues including creating conditions for North-US talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and improving inter-Korea ties,” Blue House spokesman Yoon Young-chan told reporters.
The 10-member group comprises five top delegates, including top national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and intelligence chief Suh Hoon. It will fly to the North’s capital, Pyongyang, on Monday afternoon before returning on Tuesday, Yoon said.
The delegation will then fly to the US to brief officials in Washington, he added.
The move comes just weeks after the North’s leader Kim Jong-un sent a delegation to the South that included his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong.
During her stay, Kim Yo-jong personally delivered to South Korean President Moon Jae-in an invitation from her brother for a summit meeting in Pyongyang.
Peace advocate
President Moon, 65, who hails from the Democratic Party, rose to power last year vowing to ameliorate the broken ties between the two Koreas.
Last week, Moon advised US leaders to stop setting preconditions to hold talks with North Korea and make greater efforts for peace and stability. Washington needs to “lower the threshold for talks” with Pyongyang, he said.
On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang called on the US to drop any precondition for talks.
“The US is taking preposterous action by continuing to trumpet an insistence that it will not have dialog unless a right condition is met,” the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying by the state-run KCNA news agency.
The US, which has imposed many sanctions on Pyongyang, has said that North Korea should denuclearize in order for negotiations to begin.
Late last month, the US imposed the “toughest ever” sanctions on North Korea.
The sanctions were imposed shortly after athletes from the North and South marched together in a show of unity at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, which ended February 25.
North Korea, for its part, says its nuclear arsenal is a deterrent against potential US aggression.
The US has substantial military presence in the region and has repeatedly threatened the North with military action.
Trump And Kim’s Tug-Of-War Over President Moon
By Andrew KORYBKO – Oriental Review – 03/03/2018
North Korea is reportedly willing to engage in talks with South Korea and the US.
The message was apparently conveyed after a high-level North Korean official met with the South Korean President, Moon Jae-In, who had previously campaigned on a promise to revive the so-called “Sunshine Policy” of some of his predecessors in actively seeking a rapprochement with Pyongyang. The course of developments in the 9 months since his election, especially regarding US actions towards North Korea and its preplanned calculated responses to it, made it almost impossible to advance this idea, but the recently concluded Pyeongchang Winter Olympics proved to be the perfect opportunity for breathing new life into this stalemated but nevertheless promising vision.
China and Russia previously proposed what they called the “Double Freeze” whereby the US and South Korea would indefinitely halt their joint military drills with one another in exchange for North Korea doing the same with its missile and nuclear tests. Washington took the first step in announcing the postponement of its planned exercises with Seoul, which created an amicable atmosphere for Pyongyang to do its part in making the Olympic Games a diplomatic success for everyone and infusing fresh optimism into the “Double Freeze” proposal. As could have been expected, however, the US recently said that it would be resuming its military games with South Korea and even deploying attack drones to the peninsula, which drew sharp condemnation from North Korea who accused America of endangering the incipient peace process.
Even so, this hasn’t yet resulted in any characteristically ostentatious moves from Pyongyang, which can be interpreted in one of two ways. The first is how Trump and his team are likely perceiving this, which is that North Korea is indicating its receptivity to talks from a position of weakness, especially after the US’ new sanctions against the country. The second, though, is more probable, and it’s that North Korea doesn’t want to be seen as being the first one to break the “Double Freeze” , especially since it’s betting that its recent “charm offensive” during the Olympics was enough to convince President Moon of Kim Jong-Un’s sincerity in holding talks with him.
Basically, the North Koreans are trying to deepen the divide between the US and their military allies in South Korea in an attempt to embolden Seoul to flex its independence and proactively take the initiative to further the positive gains achieved during the “Olympic Peace” and “Double Freeze”. Pyongyang has gone to great lengths to “humble itself” before the eyes of the world in presenting its peaceful intentions, which it’s hoping was successful in creating space for President Moon to once more try his hand at reviving the “Sunshine Policy”. Kim will try to encourage him, Trump will try to deter him, but what everything essentially comes down to is which of the two ultimately comes out on top in this tug-of-war over President Moon.
The post presented is the partial transcript of the CONTEXT COUNTDOWN radio program on Sputnik News, aired on Friday Mar 2, 2018.
Yemen: Peace On The Horizon
By Andrew KORYBKO – Oriental Review – 02/03/2018
The Houthis and the former President of South Yemen introduced somewhat similar peace proposals for ending the War on Yemen.
The first move in this direction was made during last week’s Valdai Conference on Russia’s role in the Mideast, when Ali Naser Mohamad, who presided over the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen from 1980-1986, issued an 8-point plan for resolving the conflict in which his most unique suggestion was to “initiate a dialogue between all the political forces on the establishment of a two-region federal state.” This was clearly in reference to the Southern Transitional Council’s (STC) seizure of Aden, their former capital, from Hadi’s government at the end of January after the internationally recognized leader refused to reform his Cabinet and reportedly ordered that force be used against the protesting Southerners.
Federalization has long been thought of as a “compromise” between wartime allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the first of which began the war in order to reinstall Hadi as Yemen’s President while the latter is thought of having a favorable approach towards the Southern separatists.
As for the Houthis’ proposal, it interestingly mirrored most of what the former South Yemeni leader proposed, albeit with its own nuances. Both sides want an end to the war, new elections, and UNSC support, though they seem to differ over some technicalities. Whereas the South wants a federal solution, the Houthis importantly suggest that all contested issues be decided by a referendum, with the implication being that it would be a nationwide one where the more populous North would have the electoral power to reject any regional-centric proposal put forth by the South. The issues of South Yemen’s autonomy and the country’s corresponding constitutional reform to legalize this desired status seem to be the primary difference between each party’s peace proposals.
In the stalemated military situation that defines the present day, neither side is able to enforce their will on the other, but the most important observation is that the political will for peace invariably exists in the territories that used to comprise the independent countries of North and South Yemen.
Extrapolating from this, it can be deduced that each of their populations are completely exasperated by this war, especially the majority of the country that resides in the North and has been forced to endure the insufferable humanitarian consequences of the coalition’s war against the Houthis for over three years now. Likewise, presuming that the former South Yemeni President was speaking in a semi-official capacity and “testing the waters” at Valdai, the conclusion can be reached that the STC is “moderating” its independence aspirations and willing to settle for federalization, at least at this stage, which of course appeals to the Saudis and the Houthis for different reasons and makes it easier to begin a dialogue on ending the war.
In the coming future, all sides will likely readjust their positions somewhat as they politically jockey with one another in preparing for inevitable peace talks, and it’s here where Russia could play a strategic role in facilitating this by mediating or possibly even hosting this dialogue whenever it ultimately happens.
Cambodia PM accuses US of lying about aid suspension
Press TV – March 3, 2018
Cambodia’s prime minister has slammed the US administration for being dishonest about the “suspension” of aid to the Southeast Asian nation, saying Washington’s aid cut had actually taken place in 2016.
The White House announced Tuesday that it was suspending or curtailing several Treasury, USAID and military aid programs aimed at supporting Cambodia’s military, taxation department and local authorities, claiming that they were all responsible for the country’s recent political instability.
Reacting to the announcement, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Washington’s ambassador to Phnom Penh, William Heidt, was lying and insisted that US aid to Cambodia’s tax department was slashed back in 2016, Reuters reported.
“We, the 16 million people, didn’t receive American aid in the tax sector. This aid was already finished in 2016,” said the prime minister during a speech to thousands of garment workers in the country’s southern province of Preah Sihanouk.
He then added, “Please, US Ambassador, answer this one question: why did you announce cutting aid while there is no aid? Do you intend to distort the reputation of Cambodia?”
The US Embassy in Phnom Penh, however, refused to comment about the prime minister’s remarks.
According to the report, Washington’s decision to partially suspend its aid to Cambodia came amid an ongoing government crackdown on the nation’s political opposition, Hun Sen’s critics, as well as opposition lawmakers and non-governmental organizations months prior to a July general election.
Hun Sen, who the report describes as “a close ally of China,” has often criticized Washington publicly, specifically for dropping bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War, which concluded in 1975.
He has also accused the leader of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), who was detained and jailed last year, of conspiring with Washington to topple him.
Meanwhile, the White House has said the US had spent over $1 billion worth of aid for Cambodia and that its assistance to the country for health, agriculture and mine-clearing will continue.
Russia postpones strategic talks with US
Press TV – March 2, 2018
Moscow has postponed planned talks with Washington on strategic stability originally set for later this month, after a US delegation refused to attend a Geneva meeting on cybersecurity earlier in the week, Russian envoy to Washington has announced.
Ambassador Anatoly Antonov told Russian TASS news agency on Thursday that the last-minute pullout from talks in Geneva by the US delegation on February 27 reflected an “unfriendly step… that gave the impression of having been pre-planned and leading to the further degradation of bilateral relations.”
“We have expressed indignation to the Department of State that the American side has wrecked Russian-American expert consultations on global information security,” Antonov said, noting that Moscow and Washington had agreed to hold the talks in Geneva on February 27-28.
However, he insisted, “The Americans refused to participate in the event just on its first day under the pretext of absolutely ungrounded accusations against Russia.”
“As a result of those US actions, the Russian side has found it impossible to hold Russian-American consultations on bilateral issues and strategic stability topics planned for March 6-7 in Vienna, which is why we have postponed them,” Antonov said.
The development came after the US accused long-time rival Russia of openly breaching Cold War-era treaties by developing what President Vladimir Putin referred to on Thursday as a new generation of “invincible” hypersonic weapons and submarines.
Reacting to Putin’s speech on Thursday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said, “It was certainly unfortunate to have watched the video animation that depicted a nuclear attack on the United States. We don’t regard that as the behavior of a responsible international player.”
Antonov, however, rejected the remarks by Nauert in a separate statement he posted on Facebook.
“I will underline once again that Russia has not violated a single arms control and non-proliferation agreement while developing its nuclear potential,” said the Russian envoy.
He further said, “It appears that the State Department does not know the substance of the matter very well.”
Antonov went on to also emphasized that none of the weapons mentioned in Putin’s state of the nation address were covered by the treaties signed by the US and the former Soviet Union.
South Korea’s Moon informs Trump of plan to send special envoy to North Korea
Press TV – March 1, 2018
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has told his American counterpart Donald Trump that he intends to send a special envoy to Pyongyang in response to an invitation by Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, following the recent Olympic-driven detente between the two Koreas.
“In response to the visit by North Korea’s special envoy Kim Yo Jong, … Moon conveyed to Trump his plans to dispatch a special envoy to the North soon,” Seoul’s presidential office said in a statement on Thursday, following their phone conversation.
It added that Moon and Trump further “agreed to continue their efforts to maintain the momentum for South-North dialogue so it may lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
The development came after Pyongyang, in a rare move, participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics held in South Korea, providing an opportunity for the two neighbors to resolve long-running hostilities. The two sides have exchanged diplomatic and high-level visits, and there is hope that relations could improve effectively.
The two neighbors have been separated by a heavily-militarized border since the three-year Korean War came to an end in 1953. The conflict ended with an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty and left many families separated on the two sides.
The situation on the Korean Peninsula has been tense due to Pyongyang’s development of its nuclear and missile programs.
Moon has sought to use the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which concluded on Sunday, to open dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang in the hopes of easing a nuclear standoff that has caused global security fears.
The South Korean leader said earlier this week that Washington needed to “lower the threshold for talks” with Pyongyang.
Furthermore, senior North Korean officials visiting the South for the Winter Olympics said on Sunday that Pyongyang was open to talks with Washington.
However, the US has ruled out any possibility of negotiations before the North, which last year conducted multiple missile and nuclear tests, takes steps towards denuclearization.
The US and its allies in the West and in Asia engineered tough UN sanctions on North Korea last year when Pyongyang test-fired two missiles in July and then carried out its most powerful nuclear test in August.
However, many said the sanctions would not deter North Korea from pursuing its nuclear and missile program, which Pyongyang insists is part of its defense policy against the US. Critics have repeatedly warned that sanctions would more affect North Korean people rather than its military and the government.
The Breach of the UNSC Ceasefire in Syria: a Way Out of This Situation
By Peter KORZUN | Strategic Culture Foundation | 01.03.2018
The UN’s authority has been undermined by the fact that UN Security Council Resolution 2401 demanding a 30-day truce in Syria, which was unanimously endorsed on Feb. 24, has not been honored. On Feb. 26, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the document needed to take effect without delay, but combat operations continue. Why has this happened and what can be done to enforce the mandate?
It’s important to note that the ceasefire didn’t apply to extremist groups, such as Islamic State (IS) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS (Jabhat al-Nusra), which are closely affiliated with Al Qaeda. HTS is the dominant fighting force in Ghouta. Another militant group there is Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, which has close ties to IS, as both are pursuing the same goal of establishing a Sharia-based state in Syria. The Syrian military is not in violation of the resolution as it continues to fight these extremist groups in Eastern Ghouta. The resolution can be enforced only if all parties agree to stop shooting. That hasn’t been achieved and that’s the root of the problem.
Before the vote, Russia had warned that the extremist groups cared little about UNSC mandates and might continue fighting. That’s what happened. The cease-fire is being broken by Jaysh al-Islam, Faylaq al- Rahman, and HTS. Jaish al-Islam, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Feylaq al-Rahman, and Fadjr al-Umma have established a joint command and control center in Eastern Ghouta. As they are all allied with HTS, this justifies the use of force against all of them.
The goal of the extremists is to undermine the truce and provoke retaliatory strikes on Syrian forces, while the US is using the continued fighting as a pretext for putting the blame on Damascus.
The possibility that the US will use force against Syria – which is exactly what the extremists want them to do – is real. Then the tail will be wagging the dog.
Moscow has already expressed its grave concerns about these events. In a meeting with his Portuguese counterpart, Augusto Santos Silva, on Feb. 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that more disinformation about the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces could be disseminated in order to undermine the truce.
Meanwhile, Moscow is not sitting idly by and watching the events. On Feb. 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin held an urgent discussion of the situation with his German and French counterparts. Russia can use its influence to mediate between Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds in Afrin. It has already made it clear that it will do its best to keep Israel and Iran from clashing. A new round of escalation in Syria should be avoided at all costs, and the West needs to be putting pressure on the extremist groups in order to foil their aspirations, instead of using the events in Eastern Ghouta as a pretext for whipping up tensions.
Besides, it’s not all doom and gloom in Syria. There have been no truce violations in the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, or Idlib since the resolution was passed. Iranian officials have also voiced their support of the UN resolution.
Looking for scapegoats is not the way to solve the problem. Those who are making threats to attack Syria are providing the terrorists with grist for their mill. Allowing extremist groups to continue fighting with impunity will only fan the hostilities. The de-escalation process has brought concrete results beyond what anyone had expected. Now those achievements are under threat.
The way to solve the problem is to join efforts and pressure the terrorist groups in Eastern Ghouta into compliance. The experience gained from the de-escalation zones could be utilized. An internationally authorized corridor could be opened to allow the militants leave the area, so as to avoid further civilian casualties. They could go to Idlib, where their “comrades-in arms” still control relatively large swathes of terrain. In that event they would be covered by the existing de-escalation accords. This would be a much better outcome than the fierce fighting being waged now in Ghouta that is causing horrendous civilian casualties.
The US should stop making threats to use force. Syria is not violating the resolution. The final goal in Ghouta is to get the terrorists out so the hostilities will end. A US attack on Syria would grossly violate the resolution it voted in favor of, while also benefiting Al-Nusra and other jihadist groups. This is the time for the US to start talking with Russia and making an effort to align their positions, instead of playing into the hands of militant groups that were excluded from the UN-brokered peace process.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Seyed M. Marandi: Trump Lost the Iran War – Must Sell It as a Victory
- Iran, Saudi FMs hold phone talks as Persian Gulf states rethink US ties
- The Illusions of Western Virtue: Ursula von der Leyen and Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy
- AIPAC-backed candidates lose New York primaries as voters reject pro-genocide lobby
- The West’s Post-Soviet ‘Democracy’ Playbook
- UK suppressed intel on Sudan genocide to protect UAE ties: Report
- Starmer’s exit exposes dirty secret: UK can’t afford Ukraine War
- Putin Warns the West: Russia Is Ready
- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- If Americans Knew
- Israel’s Attacks on Gaza’s Children (Photos)
- ‘His only crime is that he is a Palestinian doctor’
- ‘Killed pursuing her dream’: Gaza girl on her way to school dies in Israeli drone strike
- Unbelievable pressure on Gaza from Israel, “Board of Peace” – Daily Update
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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