Category Archives: Lands

15,000 more public workers are fired in Turkey crackdown

The New York Times reports: The Turkish government on Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15,000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets.

More than 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what the authorities said were connections to a failed coup on July 15 or to terrorists.

The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s embrace of Putin may soon come to resemble a kiss of death

Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes write: On the surface, Trump’s repeated assertion that America’s allies are swindling the United States, which reflects a piddling fee-for-service conception of alliances in general and especially of the arguably obsolete NATO alliance, might seem like music to Putin’s ears. But if we more closely examine the political earthquake of Nov. 8, we will see why a shared illiberalism will do little or nothing to reduce tensions between Russia and the United States.

First of all, the populist insurgency that just overthrew the American political establishment represents the very sort of resentment-fueled instability that frightens Moscow most. An ardent opponent of regime change, Putin has been subsidizing populist insurgencies in various European countries not to replace the governing parties but simply to sap the EU’s unity and coherence. Similarly, any hypothetical clandestine Russian involvement in the American presidential campaign was presumably aimed at weakening Clinton before she acceded to the presidency as well as discrediting the American political model in general, not at electing Trump. Nothing would unnerve the Kremlin more than a new rash of Orange Revolutions. The fact that they will now be anti-liberal rather than liberal revolutions is no real consolation. Let’s assume that Trump is being sincere when promising Putin non-interference in the domestic politics of other countries. By inspiring emulators, his seditious example will nevertheless be inherently threatening to ruling elites around the world. And while Putin has every reason to rejoice at Trump’s snide dismissals of NATO, he will be less enthusiastic about Trump’s insistence that all of America’s allies must increase their defense budgets to the promised 2 percent. Spooked by a seasoned dealmaker’s calculated bluff that he will otherwise cut them loose, the truant members of NATO are very likely to do just that.

Second, the U.S. election delivered a fatal blow to the dominant narrative designed to legitimate the Putin regime in the face of Russia’s poor and worsening economic conditions. According to this narrative, all Russia’s problems result from a global liberal conspiracy, led by the United States, to humiliate Russia and prevent it from assuming its rightful place in the world. But in an election covered 24/7 by Russian state media, the candidate who was repeatedly branded as “Putin’s puppet” was elected president by the American people. The way this democratic outcome has sabotaged Putin’s legitimacy formula can be illustrated by the comments of some of Russia’s leading nationalists. In a series of tweets after the election, Alexander Dugin declared that “Anti-Americanism is over”.

And this is not because it was wrong but exactly the opposite. It is because the American people themselves have started the revolution against precisely that aspect of the USA that we all hated. Now the European ruling elite as well as the part of the Russian elite that is still liberal cannot be blamed as before for being be too pro-American. From now on, it should be blamed for being what it is: a corrupt, perverted greedy gang of bankers and destroyers of cultures, traditions, and identities.

But the end of anti-Americanism, prematurely fêted by Russian nationalists, promises to be the beginning of a destabilizing crisis inside Russia. A principal source of Putin’s legitimacy since he returned to the presidency in 2012 has been the obsessively repeated accusation that the United States is a hypocritical superpower, publicly espousing universal values but acting secretly in pursuit of narrow national advantage. Trump’s embrace of “America First,” whatever it means in practice, makes nonsense out of Putin’s endlessly recycled excoriations of America’s inveterate hypocrisy.

On a more practical level, Trump’s election obliges Putin to own the chaos he has sowed in both Syria and eastern Ukraine. Standing up to the United States was arguably a principal motivation for Putin’s interventions in both countries, justified to the Russian public largely as ways of sticking a finger into America’s eye, revealing its weakness and hypocrisy, and teaching it that Russia cannot be ignored. But the president-elect’s expressed willingness to offer Putin a wide berth in both arenas greatly diminishes the domestic political value of the two incursions as sources of national pride. Here again, Trump’s embrace of Putin may soon come to resemble a kiss of death.

Third, Putin’s reassertion of Russia’s heft on the international stage has depended on his leading the revolt against American-orchestrated globalization. This picture has no doubt been scrambled by Trump’s eccentric argument that globalization is a conspiracy not by, but against, the United States. But the more important development is that the uncontested leader of the deglobalizing world, the most visible counter-revolutionary in the worldwide fight against liberal internationalism, will soon be the president of the United States, a figure immensely more powerful and imitation-worthy than the president of Russia. The unbridled enthusiasm with which Europe’s anti-establishment populists have greeted Trump’s victory reflects the fact that he is perfectly credible as a populist insurgent in a way that Putin, who has dominated the election-proof Russian state for almost two decades, is not. The rise of anti-EU populism in Europe could even have the paradoxical consequence of drawing Trump into a new trans-Atlantic alliance of populist democracies based on a new set of illiberal “shared values.” [Continue reading…]

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Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard goes to Trump Tower to defend Assad

The Daily Beast reports: Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been a rising star in progressive circles, which makes her meeting Monday with President-elect Donald Trump highly unusual, at least at first glance.

But the Hawaii congresswoman has also been a defender of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — stances that align with the incoming administration’s foreign policy.

Gabbard, a favorite of incoming White House senior counselor Steve Bannon, is the first congressional Democrat approached to have a face-to-face meeting with Trump—and the first Bernie Sanders supporter to do so as well. Sensing criticism from the left for taking a meeting with Trump, she put out a statement in which she justified her foreign policy meeting as necessary so that the left and right could find “common ground.”

But she also included pro-Assad apologia in the mix, arguing that the United States should not confront Russia because it could lead to conflict and indicating that the Assad regime should remain in place, calling any attempts to remove him as “illegal.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s support for Assad will make the global refugee crisis permanent

Murtaza Hussain reports: In early 2011, as protestors demanding political reform took to the streets of Syrian cities, Rami Makhlouf, a powerful businessman and confidant of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, sat down for an interview with the late New York Times journalist Anthony Shadid.

The Assad dynasty had ruled Syria unopposed for decades. But the regime, along with a nexus of political and economic elites, was shaken. Uprisings had recently deposed longstanding dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. In a region suddenly electrified by the prospect of political change, many began to speculate that Syria’s ruling elite might be next.

In the interview, Makhlouf issued a grim warning to Syria’s opposition and its sympathizers.

“Nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime,” he told Shadid. “Don’t put a lot of pressure on the president, don’t push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do.”

“They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone.”

Five years later, against the predictions of many, the Assad regime has maintained its grip on power. And, as Makhlouf promised, many have suffered to make this possible. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and maimed, while the fighting has reduced ancient cities like Homs and Aleppo to rubble.

Syria’s tragedy also has a global dimension, and that is the exodus of an estimated 5 million people from their homes in Syria over the last five years. The refugees have left on foot, packed into ships, and entrusted their lives to smugglers in an effort to escape their ravaged country. Hundreds of thousands of them have landed on the increasingly unwelcoming shores of Europe. Nearly 3 million now live in Turkey alone.

Unlike its citizens, however, Syria’s regime shows no sign of departing. In a recent interview, Assad vowed to rule Syria at least until 2021, while his government has pledged to take back “every inch” of Syrian territory from opposition control.

Outside powers may be tempted to accept this state of affairs, and to accept Assad as a partner in stabilizing Syria. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that his administration could work with Assad, even tacitly praising him in a debate for being “much tougher and much smarter” than U.S. leaders. [Continue reading…]

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In Syria’s Aleppo, Shiite militias point to Iran’s unparalleled influence

The Washington Post reports: Syria’s government hopes a brutal siege will vanquish rebel holdouts in the city of Aleppo, a key battleground. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops aren’t leading the charge.

That task has been taken up by thousands of Shiite militiamen from Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan who are loyal to Iran, a Shiite country and perhaps Assad’s most important ally.

For much of Syria’s civil war, these religiously motivated fighters have reinforced Syria’s badly weakened military. Now, they are playing an increasingly critical role in trying to seize opposition-held eastern Aleppo by coordinating their attacks with government forces and warplanes flown by Russia, another ally of Assad’s.

The government, backed by Russian aircraft, launched a major offensive across northern Syria last week that has brought further devastation to eastern Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.

The militias appear to be forming a sophisticated ground coalition that has further bolstered Iran’s influence in Syria, alarming even officials in Assad’s government, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“They are building a force on the ground that, long after the war, will stay there and wield a strong military and ideological influence over Syria for Iran,” he said. “And there is not much Assad can do to curb the rising influence of these groups, even though Syrian officials are clearly concerned about this, because the militiamen are literally preventing the overthrow of his government.” [Continue reading…]

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A lesson for Trump in Syria: The enemy of my enemy is… my enemy

Michael Weiss writes: The Russian presidential administration’s readout of the phone call was terse but telling. “Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump,” it stated, “both spoke of the need to work together in the struggle against the number one common enemy — international terrorism and extremism. In this context, they discussed issues related to solving the crisis in Syria.”

That marriage of true minds occurred on Nov. 14, exactly six days after the world began referring, however reluctantly, to Donald Trump as president-elect of the United States.

It was an unknown number of days after the New York real estate baron received what he described as a “beautiful” letter from his soon-to-be Russian counterpart, a man whose steadfast leadership he has professed to admire and whose regime is currently — although perhaps not for long — under U.S. sanctions owing to its invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s military is also responsible, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, for killing more Syrian civilians in a single year than ISIS has managed to do in three-and-a-half years—and all in the name of combating what Putin calls “international terrorism and extremism.”

Not that Trump is aware of that latter statistic (he has, at times, been unaware of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), and not that he would be much bothered by it even if he were. His Syria policy, such as it can be divined from his statements and claims on the hustings, and now in his turbulent transition period, has remained doggedly opposed to reality.

His handle on the contemporary Middle East is both a monochromatic caricature of the war on terror (“bomb the shit out of them”) and a semi-conscious regurgitation of authoritarian propaganda and disinformation, the sort of lies he doesn’t dismiss and many enemies of the United States have long hoped a Western leader such as him would swallow. [Continue reading…]

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Aleppo bombs leave quarter million ‘living in hell’ and without hospital care

The New York Times reports: The remaining hospitals on the rebel-held side of Aleppo, Syria, have been badly damaged and forced to stop providing care amid an intensifying bombardment, according to the World Health Organization.

Bombs launched by the Syrian government over the past three days seriously damaged two general hospitals that were providing trauma care in the war zone and hit the only children’s hospital, according to doctors, nurses and residents.

The destruction left more than a quarter-million people in eastern Aleppo without hospital care, the W.H.O. said. It is unclear if the hospitals will be able to reopen.

“Although some health services are still available through small clinics, residents no longer have access to trauma care, major surgeries, and other consultations for serious health conditions,” the health organization said in a statement issued Sunday. [Continue reading…]

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The worrying rise of Britain’s modern day ‘Hitler youth’

The Daily Mail reports: Neo-Nazi referrals to the government’s deradicalisation programme are overtaking Islamist extremism cases in parts of the UK.

Security minister Ben Wallace highlighted the increase in far-right radicalisation amid new figures showing almost 300 children were referred to officials.

The worrying statistics show 16 of the 300 flagged up for neo-Nazi links were under the age of 10.

Mr Wallace, Tory MP for Wyre and Preston North, told collegues in the Commons: ‘The Prevent strategy is seeing a growth in far-right referrals.

‘In some areas of the country, these Prevent referrals outnumber those about the other parts we are worried out.’

Parts of Wales are reporting figures of above 50 percent for far-right referrals to the Prevent strategy programme, senior fellow in extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Rashad Ali told The Times.

The landscape is similar in Leicestershire, according to the paper, who report far-right extremism makes up half of all cases. [Continue reading…]

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Michael Flynn, on trip to Russia, said ‘who knows’ whether Syria gas attack was a ‘false flag’

CNN reports: During a 2015 trip to Russia, Donald Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, said he didn’t know whether the 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria was conducted by the Syrian Army or by other forces in an attempt to draw the United States into the conflict.

Flynn not ruling out the possibility of a “false flag” attack raises questions about how the Trump administration will approach the Syrian conflict. The Obama administration, the Arab League, NATO, and many western governments have pointed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime as being responsible for the attack. A United Nations investigation didn’t assign blame, but evidence from the report pointed to the Assad regime being responsible.

Assad’s regime and Russian President Vladimir Putin claim opposition forces were behind the attack.

Flynn, who was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for the Obama administration at the time of the 2013 attack, made the remarks during a December 2015 question and answer session hosted by the Russian government-funded television network, Russia Today. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey cheered by words of Michael Flynn, Trump’s security adviser

The New York Times reports: Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser for the incoming Trump administration, once wrote on Twitter that it was “rational” to fear Muslims, but that does not seem likely to cause him any grief with Turkey’s government, even though it is led by a religiously conservative Muslim, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ankara has paid far more attention to General Flynn’s full-throated support for Mr. Erdogan’s government, and especially its wish to extradite the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen from his sanctuary in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

General Flynn wrote an article published in The Hill on Election Day calling on the United States to be more sympathetic to the concerns of Turkey, a NATO ally, and embracing Mr. Erdogan’s position that Mr. Gulen is an extremist who was behind the failed July coup against his government.

Mr. Gulen and his supporters deny that, and depict him as a moderate more concerned with building thousands of schools than with toppling Turkey’s government. Mr. Gulen was once an ally of Mr. Erdogan, but they had a falling out.

General Flynn’s article, as Politico reported, did not disclose that he was a paid lobbyist for a consultancy founded by a Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin, who is also the head of the Turkish-American Business Council. [Continue reading…]

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Local resistance is the way to stop ISIS impetus

Hassan Hassan writes: At the peak of ISIL’s military momentum in 2014, the Iraqi city of Haditha was in the middle of it all. From its northwestern tip, ISIL had seized areas that stretched to Aleppo. The group’s territorial depth east of the city extended to the Jordanian border. The militants also seized Tikrit, west of the city, and Baghdadi to its south. The group enforced a siege around the city that would last for two years.

Haditha’s remarkable resistance is even more impressive given that ISIL saw the city in western Anbar as a vital prize. In September 2014, ISIL tried to take control of the Haditha Dam, Iraq’s second largest hydroelectric facility after the Mosul Dam. In May 2015, ISIL’s takeover of Ramadi deepened Haditha’s isolation from the south.

But Haditha still survived the pressure from ISIL. In an audio statement released one month after ISIL took over Ramadi, ISIL’s former spokesman specifically mentioned Haditha as a top priority for the group. In particular, he singled out the Jaghayfa tribe that led the effort to protect the city.

“If we do overrun Haditha before they repent, we won’t spare anyone until it is said that there used to be Jaghayfa here and homes for Jaghayfa,” said Abu Muhammad Al Adnani, who was killed in an American attack in August.

Attempts to take the city further intensified after Adnani’s speech. As the operation to expel ISIL from Mosul enters its second month and the campaign to isolate Raqqa enters its third week, the story of little-known towns such as Haditha deserves attention. ISIL swept through cities such as Mosul and Raqqa with relative ease but, despite all odds, failed to take ones such as Haditha. [Continue reading…]

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Europe’s leaders to force Britain into hard Brexit

The Observer reports: European leaders have come to a 27-nation consensus that a “hard Brexit” is likely to be the only way to see off future populist insurgencies, which could lead to the break-up of the European Union.

The hardening line in EU capitals comes as Nigel Farage warns European leaders that Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, could deliver a political sensation bigger than Brexit and win France’s presidential election next spring – a result that would mean it was “game over” for 60 years of EU integration.

According to senior officials at the highest levels of European governments, allowing Britain favourable terms of exit could represent an existential danger to the EU, since it would encourage similar demands from other countries with significant Eurosceptic movements.

One top EU diplomat told the Observer: “If you British are not prepared to compromise on free movement, the only way to deal with Brexit is hard Brexit. Otherwise we would be seen to be giving in to a country that is leaving. That would be fatal.”

The latest intervention by Farage will only serve to fuel fears in Europe that anti-EU movements have acquired a dangerous momentum in countries such as France and the Netherlands, following the precedent set by the Brexit vote. Ukip’s interim leader, who predicted both the vote for Brexit and Donald Trump’s US victory, told the Observer that while Le Pen was still more likely to be runner-up to an establishment candidate next May, she now had to be taken seriously as a potential head of state. [Continue reading…]

Toby Helm writes: From Paris to Brussels, and Berlin to Warsaw and Bratislava, there is much sadness that the British are leaving. In the central and eastern European member states in particular, governments will fight tooth and nail to ensure their people can still travel to, and work in, the UK post-Brexit.

The right to move around the EU has symbolised, more than anything else, the break from their pre-1989 past under Soviet influence.

From his office in Bratislava, Slovakia’s state secretary at the foreign ministry, Ivan Korcok, can see Austria and speaks of the “emotional” importance of the EU to all Slovakians. “Our people are buying their apartments and building their houses across the border over there in Austria. Slovakia is a very pro-European country. People are concerned about the British situation [if it means they will no longer be able to move to and work in the UK]. The older generation here see their kids travelling abroad, and thinking differently to how they did. If one day a child in Slovakia decides to study elsewhere in Europe, including in the UK, and they can afford to, they go, they just go! This is such an emotional thing in positive terms about the EU.”

Marek Prawda, Poland’s former ambassador to the EU and now head of the European commission in Warsaw, says: “For us, being an EU member is the inverse of what was said in your referendum campaign about ‘taking back control’. To us, being a member of the EU has been about gaining back control, about freedom, about security, about being able to run an economy in a modern way. EU membership was a chance to shape our own life. We are able to borrow and invest in our economy. We are part of a rational world.” [Continue reading…]

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How World War III could begin in Latvia

Paul D Miller writes: Four years ago, I predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here’s my next prediction, which by now will strike many people as obvious: The Baltics are next, and will pose one of President-elect Donald Trump’s first and greatest tests. It probably won’t take the form of an overt invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a clear goal and a grand strategy. But it’s not the most realists perceive. Some argue that he is driven by fundamentally rational, defensive goals: NATO expansion appeared threatening and Russia is pushing back. The West expanded its sphere of influence at Russia’s expense, and Russia is now retaliating. That’s why the “Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” according to John Mearsheimer.

As with most academic realist analysis, this is nonsense. Putin is not driven by cold calculations of rational self-interest, because no human is. We are not Vulcans. We are driven by our perception of self-interest as shaped and defined by our deeper presuppositions and beliefs — which is to say, our ideology or religion.

Putin believes hegemony over Russia’s near-abroad is necessary for Russian security because of his beliefs about Russian nationhood and historical destiny. Putin (and, perhaps more so, his inner circle) isn’t merely nationalist. The Kremlin appears to be driven by peculiar form of Russian nationalism infused with religion, destiny, and messianism. In this narrative, Russia is the guardian of Orthodox Christianity and has a mission to protect and expand the faith.

A truly rational Russia would not see NATO and European Union expansion as a threat, because the liberal order is open and inclusive and would actually augment Russia’s security and prosperity. But, for Putin and other Russians who see the world through the lens of Russian religious nationalism, the West is inherently a threat because of its degeneracy and globalism.

In this view, NATO is not the benign guarantor of liberal order in Europe, but the hostile agent of the degenerate West and the primary obstacle to Russian greatness. Thus, Putin’s grand strategy requires breaking NATO. Specifically, he must make the Article V mutual security guarantee meaningless.

Putin has already succeeded in eroding NATO’s credibility. His last two targets, Georgia and Ukraine, were not NATO members, but in 2008 had been explicitly and publicly assured that they would be granted Membership Action Plans, the roadmap to membership. Russia clearly and publicly opposed any steps towards NATO membership for both countries — and then proceeded to invade them.

Russia’s invasions of Georgia and Ukraine created disputed territories — South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Crimea — occupied by Russian soldiers. No country will ever join NATO while being partly occupied by Russia.

Putin now has the most favorable international environment since the end of the Cold War to continue Russian expansion. European unity is fractured. Alliance members are questioning the value of the mutual security pact. And the next American president seems openly favorable to Russia and ready to excuse Russia’s irresponsible behavior. [Continue reading…]

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Baltic warning over Russian move on NATO

BBC News reports: Lithuania has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin may test Nato in the weeks before Donald Trump becomes US president.

Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said he was “very afraid” for the Baltics, as well as the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Nowhere is the troubled transition of Donald Trump being watched more carefully than in the Baltic states.

Lithuania believes its dark view of Russian intentions is justified by its geography and its history.

Once part of the Soviet Union, it is now a member of both Nato and the European Union. It has a land border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.

In the capital, Vilnius, there is a mural showing Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin locked in a passionate embrace.

The government naturally expresses its views in less lurid terms but it shares the basic concern of the artist that Mr Trump and Mr Putin are too close for comfort.

Wall mural shows Donald Trump locked in embrace with Russian President Vladimir Putin

The fear here is that the United States is keen to see Russia as a potential partner and reluctant to share the view in Eastern Europe that Moscow presents a potent and immediate military threat. [Continue reading…]

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Aleppo hospitals cease to function after repeated bombings

David Nott reports: I don’t think that in all my years of doing this I’ve ever seen such dreadful pictures of injuries, of people lying on the floor of an emergency room, the dead mixed with the living.

One colleague, who I speak to all the time, was in despair, sending me all these photographs, and saying: “David, you have to do something to help us.” But what can I do?

The message out of eastern Aleppo is that there are no hospitals functioning at all. They have all been repeatedly attacked in the past few days. Some were able to evacuate, but one was totally and utterly destroyed by rockets and bombs. I heard that two doctors were killed and 16 other staff injured and I am afraid that one of the dead may be a brilliant surgeon, who would be a particularly serious loss.

There is another hospital that we haven’t even had a message from. So, I suspect they are out of action, but we know nothing about the staff or the conditions there.

The Aleppo hospitals have been re-opened so many times, underground or at new locations, but between the bombing and the siege I don’t know if it will be possible to resurrect them this time. There is so much equipment that you need in order to operate and there is no sterilisation and no monitoring machines for anaesthetics. Even if the hospitals saved some machines they can’t run them because the generators have been destroyed or are out of fuel.

The taking out of every hospital and medical facility that gives hope and help to civilians is not a coincidence. The medics have such fantastic morale that you would not imagine them giving up, but I have an awful suspicion that this is the endgame. [Continue reading…]

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‘Extreme surveillance’ becomes UK law with barely a whimper

The Guardian reports: A bill giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world has passed into law with barely a whimper, meeting only token resistance over the past 12 months from inside parliament and barely any from outside.

The Investigatory Powers Act, passed on Thursday, legalises a whole range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services unmatched by any other country in western Europe or even the US.

The security agencies and police began the year braced for at least some opposition, rehearsing arguments for the debate. In the end, faced with public apathy and an opposition in disarray, the government did not have to make a single substantial concession to the privacy lobby.

US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.” [Continue reading…]

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For Syria rebels, Trump win adds to uncertain fate

Reuters reports: On the eve of Donald Trump’s election victory, members of a Western-backed Syrian rebel group met U.S. officials to ask about the outlook for arms shipments they have received to fight President Bashar al-Assad.

They were told the programme would continue until the end of the year, but anything more would depend on the next U.S. administration, a rebel official at the meeting said. When Trump takes office in January, it may stop altogether.

The president-elect has signalled opposition to U.S. support for the rebels, and an overhaul of policy on Syria.

The military aid programme overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency has given arms and training to moderate rebels in coordination with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and others.

It helped to support these rebels, fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner, as jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda emerged as a major force in a war approaching its sixth anniversary.

U.S. officials declined to comment on any meetings with rebel groups, and previously have not commented on the CIA programme given its covert nature.

But Trump has indicated he could abandon the rebels to focus on fighting Islamic State which control territory in eastern and central Syria. He might even cooperate against IS with Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, which has been bombing the rebels for over a year in western Syria.

Assad, in an interview published on Tuesday, said Trump would be a “natural ally” if he decides to “fight the terrorists”.

The rebels are looking on the bright side. They say support via the U.S.-backed programme has been inadequate and Washington has stopped Saudi Arabia from giving them more powerful weapons.

So the rebels hope a more isolationist United States will give regional states a free hand, allowing Saudi Arabia to provide the anti-aircraft missiles President Barack Obama has vetoed. [Continue reading…]

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Making America white again

Toni Morrison writes: This is a serious project. All immigrants to the United States know (and knew) that if they want to become real, authentic Americans they must reduce their fealty to their native country and regard it as secondary, subordinate, in order to emphasize their whiteness. Unlike any nation in Europe, the United States holds whiteness as the unifying force. Here, for many people, the definition of “Americanness” is color.

Under slave laws, the necessity for color rankings was obvious, but in America today, post-civil-rights legislation, white people’s conviction of their natural superiority is being lost. Rapidly lost. There are “people of color” everywhere, threatening to erase this long-understood definition of America. And what then? Another black President? A predominantly black Senate? Three black Supreme Court Justices? The threat is frightening.

In order to limit the possibility of this untenable change, and restore whiteness to its former status as a marker of national identity, a number of white Americans are sacrificing themselves. They have begun to do things they clearly don’t really want to be doing, and, to do so, they are (1) abandoning their sense of human dignity and (2) risking the appearance of cowardice. Much as they may hate their behavior, and know full well how craven it is, they are willing to kill small children attending Sunday school and slaughter churchgoers who invite a white boy to pray. Embarrassing as the obvious display of cowardice must be, they are willing to set fire to churches, and to start firing in them while the members are at prayer. And, shameful as such demonstrations of weakness are, they are willing to shoot black children in the street.

To keep alive the perception of white superiority, these white Americans tuck their heads under cone-shaped hats and American flags and deny themselves the dignity of face-to-face confrontation, training their guns on the unarmed, the innocent, the scared, on subjects who are running away, exposing their unthreatening backs to bullets. Surely, shooting a fleeing man in the back hurts the presumption of white strength? The sad plight of grown white men, crouching beneath their (better) selves, to slaughter the innocent during traffic stops, to push black women’s faces into the dirt, to handcuff black children. Only the frightened would do that. Right?

These sacrifices, made by supposedly tough white men, who are prepared to abandon their humanity out of fear of black men and women, suggest the true horror of lost status.

It may be hard to feel pity for the men who are making these bizarre sacrifices in the name of white power and supremacy. Personal debasement is not easy for white people (especially for white men), but to retain the conviction of their superiority to others—especially to black people—they are willing to risk contempt, and to be reviled by the mature, the sophisticated, and the strong. If it weren’t so ignorant and pitiful, one could mourn this collapse of dignity in service to an evil cause. [Continue reading…]

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