WARbak

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an 520

cdv stanley

Trump and his news media and representatives are consistently using the language of “war,” and describing Trump as a “war president” during this pandemic. Most mainstream commentators and analysts have failed to understand the true meaning and origins of that language. “War president” is another example of a logic where democracy no longer applies. Carl Schmitt — a political theorist and jurist whose thinking was foundational for the Nazi regime — described thiscondition as one of “exception,” where the leader can ignore the rule of law and other norms. How can we better explain what Donald Trump and his agents really mean when they talk about him as a “war president”?

You are absolutely correct. When an authoritarian or like-minded leaders and regimes want to suspend democracy, they use the language of “war.” Trump calling himself a “war president” enables him to do drastic things such as rushing bills through Congress without proper debate, hearings and public scrutiny.  An emergency is a very dangerous time, and the fact that the coronavirus pandemic is a real emergency makes matters much more perilous and complicated.

Trump, the Republicans and many of their supporters have argued that older people and others who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus should be willing to face death as an act of “loyalty” and “patriotism” to save “the economy.” How does this relate to authoritarianism and fascism?

This coalition of the business elite, right-wing Christian evangelicals, and white nationalists and other white supremacists is very dangerous. Fascism is ultimately a death cult.

Social Darwinism is the heart of fascism as well as the heart of capitalism. With the pandemic, and the way capitalism is a type of religion in America,the Darwinian idea of “survival of the fittest” is made even more central. The notion that “Life is always a struggle, the weak will die” is central to fascism. That idea is also common to certain ways of thinking about capitalism. Remember, Adolf Hitler’s book was called, “My Struggle” — that “struggle” was survival of the fittest. That is exactly what we are seeing in this moment with Trump, the Republican Party and the coronavirus pandemic.

Crisis is an opportunity for Donald Trump. Several weeks ago, Donald Trump announced via Twitter that the United States was ending all legal immigration because of the coronavirus emergency. Of course, that is part of Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s white supremacist agenda.

Notice Trump’s verbiage when he describes the coronavirus: He calls it the “invisible enemy”. That language is an allusion to Jewish people. For centuries anti-Semites and other hate mongers for centuries have used such eliminationist, conspiratorial language. Trump’s announcement “banning” legal immigration — which was likely written by Stephen Miller — was also made on Hitler’s birthday. Miller has repeatedly signaled through his policies, language, emails and use of codes such as “14” and “88” in government documents and announcements a deep affinity with Nazis and other neo-fascists.

It is obvious that the Trump administration was going to move from stopping “illegal immigration” by nonwhite people and other stigmatized groups to then finding a way to stop legal immigration. Now Trump and Miller are using the coronavirus as an excuse to do just that. That Trump announced such a change on Hitler’s birthday should have been much bigger news. That the news media did not pick up on that date and the announcement, quite frankly, is shocking to me....

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/bombshell-report-finds-iraqi-officials-doubt-trumps-basis-for-escalating-to-the-brink-of-war/

no lnx

‘Bombshell’ report finds Iraqi officials doubt Trump’s basis for escalating to the brink of war

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House advisors and senior military personnel, delivers remarks during a national televised address Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, from the Cross Hall of the White House, responding to the retaliatory missile strikes against U.S. military and coalition forces in Iraq on Tuesday by the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams February 7, 2020

In a “bombshell” revelation that calls into question one of the Trump administration’s stated justifications for assassinating Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani—a move that nearly sparked a region-wide military conflict—Iraqi intelligence officials told the New York Times that they believe ISIS, not an Iran-linked militia, was likely responsible for the Dec. 27 rocket attack that killed an American contractor at an airbase near Kirkuk, Iraq.

The Times reported Thursday that “Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets… saying they believe it is unlikely that the militia the United States blamed for the attack” was responsible.

“All the indications are that it was Daesh,” Brigadier General Ahmed Adnan, the Iraqi chief of intelligence for the federal police at the K-1 air base, told the Times, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “We know Daesh’s movements.”

The Trump administration has not released a single piece of evidence showing that the Iraqi militia Khataib Hezbollah, which has ties to Iran, was responsible for the attack on K-1. The group has denied carrying out the attack.

The U.S. responded to the rocket attack days later with deadly airstrikes on Khataib Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Syria, setting off a dangerous escalatory spiral that brought Iran and the U.S. to the brink of war.

On Jan. 2, the U.S. assassinated Soleimani with a drone strike in Baghdad ordered by President Donald Trump. Following the assassination, which was widely condemned as an act of war, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement claiming without evidence that Soleimani “orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months—including the attack on December 27th—culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.”

But Iraqi officials told the Times that “based on circumstantial evidence and long experience in the area where the attack took place,” there is good reason to be skeptical about U.S. claims that Khataib Hezbollah was behind it.

As the Times reported:

The rockets were launched from a Sunni Muslim part of Kirkuk Province notorious for attacks by the Islamic State, a Sunni terrorist group, which would have made the area hostile territory for a Shiite militia like Khataib Hezbollah.

Khataib Hezbollah has not had a presence in Kirkuk Province since 2014.

The Islamic State, however, had carried out three attacks relatively close to the base in the 10 days before the attack on K-1. Iraqi intelligence officials sent reports to the Americans in November and December warning that ISIS intended to target K-1, an Iraqi air base in Kirkuk Province that is also used by American forces…

These facts all point to the Islamic State, Iraqi officials say.

“We as Iraqi forces cannot even come to this area unless we have a large force because it is not secure,” Brig. Gen. Adnan said of the area from which the rocket attack was launched. “How could it be that someone who doesn’t know the area could come here and find that firing position and launch an attack?”

In response to the Times report, Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, tweeted: “Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and we went to war with Iraq. If this report is true, ISIS attacked the U.S. and we nearly went to war with Iran.”

Sina Toossi

@SinaToossi

This is huge: Iraqi military & intelligence officials say it’s highly unlikely that a rocket attack that killed an Iraqi-American contractor in early January—& led to an escalation cycle that almost started a war—was carried out by an Iran-allied militia.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/middleeast/iraq-iran-hezbollah-evidence.html …

Iraqi soldiers at the K-1 base, which was struck by rockets on Dec. 27.

Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran?

Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events.

nytimes.com

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3:57 PM - Feb 6, 2020

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CODEPINK

@codepink

The US almost started WWIII based on questionable evidence.

After all of the violence  in the Middle East following the attack on US bases, #Iraqi officials are now questioning the US's claim that the #Iran-backed militia Khataib Hezbollah are to blame. https://buff.ly/31CpWqT

Iraqi soldiers at the K-1 base, which was struck by rockets on Dec. 27.

Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran?

Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events.

nytimes.com

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1:15 PM - Feb 6, 2020

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U.S. officials insisted to the Times that they have “solid evidence” showing that Khataib Hezbollah carried out the attack, but they have not released any of this evidence to the public or to Iraqi officials.

“We have requested the American side to share with us any information, any evidence, but they have not sent us any information,” Lt. Gen. Muhammad al-Bayati, chief of staff for former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, told the Times.

Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East security director at the Center for a New American Security think tank, tweeted that the U.S. Congress “must ask questions about this and get the intel.”

Responsible Statecraft managing editor Benjamin Armbruster agreed.

“Congress needs to investigate ASAP,” Armbruster tweeted.

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see for pol

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-has-never-been-anti-war-if-you-understand-the-history-of-gop-foreign-policy-hes-always-been-just-another-republican/

no lnx

Trump has never been anti-war. If you understand the history of GOP foreign policy, he’s always been just another Republican

Written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon January 12, 2020

American foreign policy has always been dictated by the wants and whims of powerful business interests.

As I plowed through my favorite works of historical literature to trace the evolution of Republican foreign policy through alternating periods of imperialism and isolationism, that fact was unavoidable. We are a capitalist society, and the dictates of our business community trump all other considerations in shaping public policy. It is foolish to pretend there was ever a time when those financial interests were not critical in determining our foreign policy.

Having said that, there is still a crucial difference between our isolationist and interventionist eras — as well as a way of understanding how Donald Trump, for all his efforts to depicting himself as something new on the foreign policy scene, is just a continuation of the status quo that has existed for the last century or so.

1. Republican foreign policy was isolationist from the party’s founding through the 1890s.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854, and acquired national power until the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Not surprisingly, Lincoln’s administration was so focused on winning the Civil War that foreign policy was an afterthought; to the extent that the 16th president took a serious interest in foreign affairs, it was in making sure that the Confederacy did not receive assistance from world powers like the British and French empires.

His successor, Andrew Johnson, was the first Republican president to make a major foreign policy move. (Admittedly, calling Johnson a Republican is problematic: He had been a lifelong Democrat, and became so estranged from Republicans in Congress he was eventually impeached.) In 1867, Johnson allowed Secretary of State William Seward to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7 million. This acquisition, which was roughly one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States, went a long way toward furthering America’s ambition to become an empire in the Western Hemisphere. At the time, however, it was ridiculed as “Seward’s folly,” with many in the press arguing that he had wasted taxpayer money on a frozen wasteland. It wasn’t until gold was discovered in Alaska in 1898 — an important year in American foreign policy for other reasons — that Seward’s wisdom became apparent.

After Seward, however, America’s post-Civil War foreign policy was defined by isolationism. The Civil War had made Americans weary of bloodshed. During this time some smaller imperialist overtures were undertaken, such as Ulysses S. Grant’s attempt to annex Santo Domingo (as the future Dominican Republic was then known) and Benjamin Harrison’s support for a coup led by American businessmen who overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy.

For the most part, though,  the guiding rule of American foreign policy was to follow the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which held that the U.S. would protect the Western Hemisphere from foreign invasion and otherwise stay out of foreign affairs, and the dictates of George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796, which similarly urged that the nation resist foreign entanglements).

2. Republican foreign policy went through an imperialist phase after the Spanish-American War in 1898.

If there is one book you should read after looking at this article, it is Kristin L. Hoganson’s “Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.” Hoganson discusses how cultural concerns about a decline in American masculinity during the late 19th and early 20th century bled over into politics. William McKinley, despite not being inclined toward imperialism by nature, was so harshly criticized for refusing to wage war with Spain in order to “liberate” Cuba and the Philippines that the pressure caused him to declare war after the USS Maine exploded in 1898 — an explosion that was blamed on the Spanish Empire but is now believed to have been an accident.

This was a turning point in the history of American foreign policy.  America’s victory of Spain meant that our nation began to take on the trappings of a true world power for the first time. Matters were exacerbated under Theodore Roosevelt, for whom imperialism wasn’t a reluctant “obligation” but a grand adventure. Roosevelt may be deified today, but his blatantly racist and jingoistic philosophy solidified the imperialist ventures that had begun under McKinley. He oversaw the building of the Panama Canal and established a “Roosevelt corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine that would allow America to intervene in Western Hemisphere nations on economic issues. Even his successor, William Howard Taft, implemented a policy of “Dollar Diplomacy” in which he blatantly admitted that American financial interests would dictate its foreign policy decisions.

When World War I broke out in Europe, the Republican Party was split between the internationalist faction that wanted the U.S. to get involved and the isolationist faction eager to stay out of the bloody conflict. Because public opinion was overwhelmingly against American involvement, the isolationists prevailed. Then came the Zimmerman Telegram in 1917, which revealed that Germany had tried to seduce Mexico’s support by offering to give back the lands America had seized during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). At that point, Republicans joined the rest of the country in supporting American involvement on behalf of the Allies during World War I.

3. Republican foreign policy was isolationist and anti-immigrant from the end of World War I until Pearl Harbor.

After World War I, Woodrow Wilson tried to create an international alliance called the League of Nations that would prevent another world war from breaking out. His plan was met with suspicion by the leader of the Senate Republicans, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, and the GOP emerged as staunchly isolationist in response to Wilson’s sudden intense internationalism. The Republican presidential candidate in 1920, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio, ran on his opposition to the League of Nations and won what was then the biggest popular vote majority in history. Not surprisingly, he and his two successors — Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — continued his larger tradition of being avowedly isolationist.

One striking parallel between this period and the era of Trump is in its open hostility toward immigrants. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were all supporters of the Johnson-Reed Act, which established quotas for individuals from Southern and Eastern European countries, and outright banned immigration from Asian countries (many of whom had already been barred under previous immigration laws). It isn’t much of a leap to go from the prejudices of that era to Trump’s open hostility toward immigrants from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. It was rooted in an ingrained xenophobia among the nation’s more powerful demographic classes, fueled by obvious racism.

Not all of the Republicans from this era were isolationist, however. The GOP’s 1940 presidential candidate, Wendell Willkie, defeated challengers who opposed doing anything to help the Allies during World War II and instead pushed an internationalist perspective. In 1952 — when it looked like one of the Senate’s premier isolationists, Robert Taft, was poised to get the Republican presidential nomination — the GOP instead chose Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, an internationalist and war hero who became the first Republican president in 20 years.

4. World War II and the Cold War changed everything.

By then, however, World War II had already fundamentally transformed American society. The trauma of Pearl Harbor convinced the American government, and its people, that the nation needed to have a strong military and play a leading role in world affairs. The growth of the Soviet Union, and the spread of socialist or communist revolutions throughout the world, convinced Americans that they faced an existential threat during the Cold War. After the Cold War ran its course in 1991, Islamist terrorists became a new existential threat that (purportedly) called for a strong military-industrial complex.

Despite warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex near the end of his presidency, Eisenhower believed in a robust military that used America’s clout to shape foreign affairs. This philosophy was shared by every Republican president that followed him: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush the father and George W. Bush the son. The names of the countries where those presidents waged war have varied — Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Some of them were more favorable toward international institutions than others: There’s a considerable contrast between George H.W. Bush and his son on that issue, for example. But overall, the idea was that the U.S. had both national security interests and ideological responsibility as the leader of the “free world,” in contrast to fascism, Soviet expansion and Islamic terrorism.

5. Aside from a handful of minor issues, Trump is basically continuing the foreign policies of the last 80 years of Republican political leaders. He ain’t that special.

I will leave it to the psychologists to speculate why Trump has chosen a handful of issues on which to be non-normative. It’s a subject I’ve discussed with one of his favorite Fox personalities, Steve Hilton, and I’ve sought comment from the White House with minimal acknowledgment. Either way, it is fair to identify a few semi-arbitrary issues where Trump’s ideas differ from those of mainstream Republicans since World War II.

Trade is a big one. The last president to actively promote a protectionist perspective on trade was Herbert Hoover, who is associated with the Great Depression. Trump also likes to make a big deal about his reluctance to participate in multinational organizations like NATO, and tends to cozy up to authoritarian leaders like  Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Kim Jong-un, Rodrigo Duterte and Vladimir Putin. He pulled U.S. forces largely out of Syria and generally appears to make decisions at random, with no consistent philosophy at work. Or rather, if there is one, it’s rooted in the character flaws of one man rather than a body of thought about how the world works.

Where it has counted, though, Trump has been a traditional Republican. He pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal long before the assassination of Qassem Soleimani; he has pumped up the military budget; and his contempt for international institutions like the UN was foreshadowed by presidents like George W. Bush. Let’s not pretend that Trump is the first Republican president who has made deals with disreputable foreign regimes (think of Ronald Reagan and apartheid South Africa). Trump’s “America First” and “nationalist” rhetoric may sound like Republicans of the 1920s, but he is only amplifying the prejudices that his party has always held.

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https://theconversation.com/how-twitter-and-other-social-media-can-draw-the-us-into-foreign-interventions-105539

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised to resign by the end of the month.

That announcement came after thousands of Algerians took to the streets in March to protest his decision to run for a fifth term.

Social media played a crucial role in those demonstrations, allowing protesters to coordinate the place and time of the mass gatherings.

We do not yet know whether President Bouteflika will keep his promise. Perhaps even more uncertain, will the international community hold him accountable if he does not?

The answer might depend on how active Algerians will be on Twitter. In at least one case, Twitter usage had a dramatic impact abroad during a country’s civil unrest.

My colleague Benjamin T. Jones and I found that during the 2011 Libyan civil war, social media helped convince other countries such the U.S. to intervene in favor of protesters.

Winning support one tweet at a time

The Libyan civil war exploded in February 2011. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had been in power since 1969, and those who opposed him wanted to implement reforms aimed at reducing government corruption and providing greater political transparency.

Protests began on Feb. 15 in Benghazi and spread to other cities. By Feb. 27, the opposition announced it had organized itself into the National Transitional Council, or the NTC. They claimed to be the true representative of the Libyan people.

A few days later, the NTC established a Twitter account to publicize their version of the conflict.

Up to the civil war, Gadhafi had meticulously controlled most of the communication coming out of Libya. He sought to project an image of the country as a place where political order prevailed and citizens supported him.

Twitter became a powerful instrument to air the rebels’ account of the conflict and present themselves to the international community as a viable – even preferable – alternative to Gadhaf.

[twt]

Tweets and US policy changes

In our research, we collected data on all the tweets by Libyan rebels. We then used statistical techniques to measure how the rebels’ Twitter feed affected both U.S. behavior toward the Libyan government and relations with the rebels.

We found that messages that denounced Gadhafi’s atrocities against civilians were significantly correlated with the decision of the U.S. to adopt more cooperative behaviors with the rebels – for example, to praise their activities and to agree to meet with them.

Correlation, of course, does not mean causation.

However, even after we accounted for other factors, such as the behavior of the rebels toward Gadhafi and U.S. intelligence on the field, we found that the rebels’ tweets contributed to the U.S. becoming more cooperative with the rebels.

This happened despite the fact that President Barack Obama was reluctant to intervene at the outset of the conflict.

How were they so successful in gaining U.S. support?

Rebels tweeted in English to communicate directly to both U.S. policymaking elites and the broader public. They voiced their support for democracy and human rights while publicizing Gadhafi’s atrocities against civilians.

Examples provided by the rebels included violations of international law by the regime and attacks on civilian homes. Apparently in response and often just a few days later, U.S. officials voiced public support for the rebels’ cause and aims

twt]

When elites have access to privileged information – gained, for example, in private, secret meetings – elites will know something that the public will not. In technical terms, that’s known as information asymmetry.

Because the public is not privy to this information, elites cannot use it to justify their foreign policy choices. So elites might make choices that seem arbitrary to the public. This process erodes public support for those policies.

Instead, the fact that rebels could communicate to both rebels and elites at the same time via social media enabled rebels to build a coalition of support that included both elites and the public.

That support turned into intervention. Beginning in March 2011, NATO countries, including the U.S., staged air and naval strikes against Gadhafi’s forces, who were attacking civilians.

The intervention paved the way for the rebels’ victory.

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Does social media rush interventions?

Since Libya’s civil war, the use of social media across the globe to draw attention to foreign crises has only grown stronger.

In 2013, dozens of videos distributed via YouTube documenting a possible chemical attackon Syrian civilians shook the international community. More videos on those attacks have been posted since 2013.

[vid]

Similar attacks happened in April 2018 and were documented on social media. And just like Obama did in 2011 when intervening in Libya, President Trump bypassed Congress when authorizing strikes in Syria in response to such attacks.

This raises the question of whether social media is rushing U.S. leaders to intervene with very little planning for what comes after.

In the process of bypassing Congress, the president had made an important decision on the use of force all alone, without consulting the Congress, as is required by U.S. law.

Here, as with Obama, President Trump was responding to a sense of urgency. Our research suggests that social media helped create that sense; whether it was good policymaking is another question entirely.