Day: June 5, 2024

Pashinyan, Guterres discuss the issue of sending UN fact-finding mission to Nagorno Karabakh and Lachin Corridor  ARMENPRESS

Just a reaction. No strategic foresight. Everyone already knows what politicians say today… https://t.co/xAeQ1Z6UcL

— Notes from Georgia/South Caucasus (Hälbig, Ralph) (@SouthCaucasus) June 6, 2024

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Few have exerted as much influence on the tone, and outcome of elections, as Nigel Farage.; Fewer have done so while failing to win office.; In seven attempts at standing for a seat in the UK House of Commons between 1994 and 2015, the votes to get him across the line have failed to materialise.; Yet it is impossible to imagine the Brexit referendum of 2016, or the victory of the Conservatives under Boris Johnson in 2019, as being possible without his manipulative hand. ;

Before an audience at the MF Club Health and Wealth Summit at the Tiverton Hotel in March, Farage had words for his country’s voting system, one that notoriously remains stubbornly rooted to the “first past the post” model.; It was a system that had, in his view, eliminated any coherent distinction between the major parties.; They had become “big state, high tax social democrats”. ;

Farage took the budget as a salient illustration.; The leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, agreed “with virtually everything in the budget.; It would’ve made no difference if Rachel Reeves had delivered that budget instead of Jeremy Hunt.; They are all the same.”

Having been made leader of the populist Reform UK party for the next five years, Farage felt it was time to make another tilt.; On June 3, he announced that he would be standing in the July 4 election in the Essex constituency of Clacton, one that had conclusively voted to leave the European Union in 2016.; It is also the only constituency to have ever elected an MP from UKIP, Reform UK’s previous iteration.; The decision concluded a prolonged phase of indecision.; And it will terrify the Tory strategists.

The speech offered little by way of surprises.; The usual dark clouds were present.; The failure by both Labour and the Conservatives to halt the tide of immigration.; Rates of crushing taxation.; General ignorance of Britain’s finest achievements battling tyranny, including a lack of awareness about such glorious events as D-Day.; The poor state of public services, including the National Health Service.; A state of “moral decline”.; Rampant crime.; In the UK, one could “go shoplifting and nick up to 200 quid’s worth of kit before anyone is even going to prosecute you.”

From the view of the Conservatives, who already risk electoral annihilation at the polls, Reform UK was always going to be dangerous.; Roughly one in four voters who helped inflate Johnson’s numbers in 2019 are considering voting for it.; It explains various efforts by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, including his insensibly cruel Rwanda plan, to court a voting base that he hopes will return to the Tory fold. ;

Unfortunately for the PM, such efforts will hardly matter now that the real Nigel is running.; “The pint-loving populist offers a splash of colour in an otherwise grey campaign,” suggests Robert Ford in The Spectator.; “The result will be a constant background hum of populist criticism undermining Tory promises and reinforcing voters’ doubts.”

Veteran British commentator Andrew Marr relished the irony: here was the architect of the Brexit victory bringing calamity to the Conservatives.; Farage had effectively raised “the pirate flag of what he calls ‘a political revolt’ against the entire Westminster class; but in particular against the listing, drifting and battered galleon that is the Tory party.”

Leaving aside – and there is much on that score – the issue of Farage’s Little England image, his presence in the Commons would come with various promises that will rock Britain’s political establishment.; There is, for instance, the proposal for electoral reform, one long strangled and smothered in the cot by the main parties.; Finally, he insists, a proportional representation model of voting can be introduced that will make Westminster more representative.

He also proposes ridding Britain of the House of Lords in its current form, replacing it with what would essentially make it an elected chamber accountable to voters.; This “abomination” and “disgrace” of an institution had become the destination for shameless political hacks favoured by Labor and Tory prime ministers.; “It’s now made up of hundreds of mates of Tony Blair and David Cameron; they’re the same blooming people,” he rattled to the entrepreneurs at the Tiverton Hotel.; “They all live within the same three postcodes in West London.; They’re not representative of the country in any way at all.”

There is a case to be made for Farage to stay behind the throne of UK politics, influencing matters as sometimes befuddled kingmaker.; Even if he fails at this eighth attempt – and given current polling, Reform UK is not on course to win a single seat – there is every chance that he will have a direct say in the way the Conservatives approach matters while in opposition.; He might even play the role of a usurping Bolingbroke, taking over the leadership of a party he promises to inflict much harm upon next month.; Short of that, he can have first dibs at the selection of a far more reactionary leader from its thinned ranks. The Farage factor will again become hauntingly critical to the gloomy fate of British politics.

There is plenty of;chatter right now;about prospective foreign policy advisors in a future Trump administration, if indeed, that is the way the election goes in November.

Essentially they fall into two categories: internationalists or America firsters.

Republican Internationalists are hawks who say they want to go back to Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” opposition to Russia, China, and Iran, while maintaining U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia. Former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are cited as being proponents of this aggressive internationalism.

One might also add former national security adviser John Bolton to the list, but he has had a falling out with Trump that is probably irreparable. The internationalist moniker could also apply to the Biden administration’s foreign policy.

America First nationalists normally want to intervene unilaterally without being encumbered by traditional U.S. alliances and care little for active global promotion of values and democracy, or policing other countries and their conflicts. Russ Vought, Trump’s former budget director, and Richard Grenell, his former acting national intelligence director and ambassador to Germany, sometimes appear hostile to traditional U.S. allies and the European Union while favoring conservative nationalists like Victor Orban of Hungary.

In his term as president, Trump had both types in his camp. He claimed to be against unneeded wars but failed to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan (mostly because he was too weak to stop the U.S. military from slow-walking the deal he made with the Taliban to leave). And he showed flashes of aggression in using force against foreign countries that didn’t have his favor—assassinating;the second most powerful leader in Iran, and;threatening to use nuclear weapons;against North Korea;before the “love letters” began to flow.

In his current presidential campaign, Trump has taken on a more America First hue, calling for an end to the Ukraine War and criticizing NATO members for not pulling their weight, but;also proposing to send assassination teams into Mexico;to whack drug lords without Mexico’s approval.

Although the Republican internationalist camp—think Nikki Haley, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell—would shudder at the comparison, their view seems similar to that of the Biden administration. Although Biden had the courage, which escaped George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump, to withdraw U.S. forces from the disastrous quagmire in Afghanistan, Biden has been an enthusiastically blind booster of U.S. Cold War-era alliances and has exhibited continuing interventionist rhetoric and actions toward the Russian war in Ukraine (instead of pressuring U.S. allies to take over the lead in supporting Ukraine).

Also, he has gone beyond the traditional American policy of ambiguity about whether to come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack and;made a blunt and repeated verbal promise;that the United States would do so.

Finally, Biden has gone out of his way to make some conflicts a matter of “democracies versus autocracies” like in Russia, when it serves, while courting dictatorships, like that of Saudi Arabia.

There has to be a better alternative to hawkish internationalism of Biden and Trump’s equally aggressive Jacksonian nationalism.

A newfound modesty and restraint in U.S. foreign policy might be just the ticket. The ideal form of this could be a move to a realist minimalist strategy based on dealing peacefully with countries and leaders as they are rather than the way the United States arrogantly would like them to be.

The world has been economically multipolar for decades and is now becoming multipolar in military and political power. With more than $30 trillion in national debt, the United States can no longer afford to be the world’s juggernaut or policeman. We should let rich and friendly countries in Europe and Asia assume a larger role in beefing up their militaries and providing regional security.

For example, wealthy European countries, with a combined GDP much greater than that of Russia, should take over the lead in funding the transfers of military weapons to Ukraine. In Asia, rising (India and the ASEAN nations) and developed (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia) nations could combine their efforts and become the first line of defense against Chinese assertiveness against Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas.

In both of those theaters, the United States could assume a balancer-of-last-resort strategy (essentially becoming a second line of defense) in case uncontrolled aggression by a major power—such as the already exhausted Russia attempting to take over Europe or China advancing past Taiwan to attack other nations in Asia—threatened to disrupt the global balance of power.

Although adopting a policy of realist restraint would require giving up the American big-man-on-campus role, it would provide adequate security for a deeply indebted United States at a much lower cost and would avoid the imperial decline that so many overextended great powers have experienced historically.

• This article was also published in Responsible Statecraft

By Jonathan Power*

“Guantánamo has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the law”. Did you say that? Did I? No. It was the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, speaking in June 2014.

How come that the most powerful man in the world couldn’t open the locks of this unlawful prison? How come the prisoners can’t be transferred for trial and, if convicted, imprisoned in the United States itself? The simple answer is that the Republicans joined by some Democrats in Congress have continually blocked Obama. While it is true that his hands were tied during his first term he didn’t try again after he was re-elected, until in a speech he m de some remarks on the issue, including my opening line. Obama had been prodded to raise the issue again because of a hunger strike by most (about 100) of the 166 inmates.

Despite the speech, Obama couldn’t break the Republican headlock.

Buck McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was willing to discuss Guantánamo with Obama, but first he needed to know what the president would do with “terrorist detainees who are too dangerous to release but cannot be tried”. But why can’t they be tried? – because in US courts, as in all civilized countries, evidence that is produced during torture is not admissible. (Under President George W. Bush, the US tortured many of them until Obama stopped it the day he was sworn in.)

One must deduce from all this that the Republicans will continue to insist that all the prisoners stay in Guantánamo until they die a natural death. (Sotto voce, they whisper that if some of them kill themselves as a result of the hunger strike that will help things along.)

Some of these prisoners are truly dangerous men. But others like Khalid al-Odah from Kuwait, incarcerated for 11 years, whose plight the Financial Times highlighted, who claims he was teaching in Afghanistan at the time of his arrest, had never been accused of beinga member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Subsequently, following the FT article, he was released into the hands of the Kuwaiti authorities.

At the beginning of his term Obama’s persona was riding high in the Muslim world. But that admiration, made possible by there being, after eight years of President George Bush, a fresh and liberal voice in the White House, slipped away. Despite the withdrawal from Iraq, the announced withdrawal from Afghanistan and the support for the Arab Spring, the combination of Guantánamo and lack of progress on creating fair boundaries for a Palestinian state undermined his standing.

I advocated some time ago in “World Policy Journal”, an influential US foreign policy magazine, that if the prisoners were blocked from being taken for trial in US domestic courts, then the courts should come to Guantánamo to replace the slow-moving military commissions based in the prison which have done an ineffective job in trying to replace the federal court system. (Six prosecutors have resigned in protest.) For many years I hadn’t heard a whimper about this idea. But ten years ago, an article on the opinion page of the New York Times by two Yale University law professors, Bruce Ackerman and Eugene Fidell, developed my suggestion.

The president, they argued, can order this on his own say-so without recourse to Congress. “Previous presidents have established federal civilian courts on territory under American military control. The clearest precedent was set in postwar Germany.”

This doesn’t solve the problem of the handful of detainees deemed too dangerous ever to release. This can be dealt with another day as there are no quick answers. At the least they should be transferred to jails within the US and given normal visiting rights and legal advice.

For whatever reason Obama didn’t take up this suggestion. However, overall, he made progress, reducing the number of detainees from 250 to 40. In early February 2021, President Joe Biden declared his intention to close the facility before he leaves office. Ten detainees have been released from Guantánamo. Last month, the count was still 30 detainees in prison. The Department of Defence has continued to expand the facilities in Guantánamo, including a second courtroom.

This tragic story has, it seems, still a few more chapters to be written.

• Note: For 17 years, Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune.

During their final year at the Air Force Academy (AFA), cadets choose the specific jobs they will be assigned while on active duty.;This crucial decision, made in the nascence of one’s career, has far-reaching implications with regard to career advancement.;The Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) links available jobs with an alphanumeric designation, and not surprisingly, pilot training represents the most popular AFSC for graduating cadets at the AFA.;But the second choice is astonishing for cadets who have received a four-year education worth;$416,000;at an institution that is tasked to train career Air Force officers.

The minimum commitment for an AFA education is five years of active duty service, and the AFSCs that obligate cadets for the least amount of payback time represent the second most popular job selections in the aggregate. The act is known among cadets as “dive in five,” and it is borne of disillusionment and the realization that DEI-entrenched military leadership, quota-based promotions, and falling standards are not what they signed up for.;

DEI’s nonsensical, unsupported claims that phenotype and sexual identity are indispensable components of superior military performance and the intimidating effect of DEI political officers embedded within the cadet wing breed cynicism and psychological fatigue. Recent;undercover investigative reporting;that exposes blatant corruption within Air Force DEI programs and an admission of DEI’s lack of benefit affirms the negative view of DEI held by most cadets. If the real Air Force is at all similar to the academy experience, then why devote a career to an organization with priorities more in line with;Cloward-Piven;than the Constitution?

The AFA recruits candidates by falsely advertising that cadets will be challenged to the full extent of their abilities.;The performative expectations of academy administrators and their political allies have fallen precipitously—much to the disappointment of young men and women who crave an elite four-year military education, only to find it more in common with an Ivy League school than a military academy.;Those times are gone, but to revisit them, one must return to the academy’s early years.

If standards and expectations remain high, qualified cadets will rise to meet them, and the public will realize the benefits of its investment.;Cadets and recent graduates of the AFA have been denied the opportunity to test themselves to the utmost. Standards have fallen to accommodate sensibilities and the misguided perception that the admissions process is an infallible predictor of success.;This goal is attained by setting attrition rates at 10-15% of the incoming class, commensurate with the undergraduate;Ivy League;experience.

The 4^th;class system at the AFA essentially no longer exists.;During basic summer training, upper-class instructors cannot raise their voices, and safe spaces are available for those sensitive personalities bearing the brunt of criticism. Basic cadets are limited to performing three pushups if commanded by upperclassmen.;Summer training concludes with Hell Day, which lasts only hours, after which time members of the fourth class are allowed to function at ease for the remainder of their time at the academy. This mode of indoctrination into military life is the culmination of an inexorable process to minimize psychological and physical hardship and a denial of the premise that mutual adversity builds character and cohesion.;

The class motto of the AFA Class of 1972 is “Strength Through Adversity,” and it serves as a comparative reminder of the devolution of expectations and the redefinition of military science.;The 4^th;class system which our class endured lasted nearly one year.;During basic summer, compliance was ensured through food deprivation, punishment runs, special inspections, verbal abuse at high decibel levels, sleep privation, unarmed combat, and for a recalcitrant like myself, enlistment in the “goon squad,” where attitudes were uncomfortably readjusted.;

The academic year afforded little free time between full academic loads, military training, and physical education that were all performed under the umbrella of the unremitting 4^th;class system.;The year ended with the aptly named Hell Week, and to this day, my classmates can recall both the personal indignities they experienced and the sense of relief, camaraderie, and sense of accomplishment.

Dr. Frederick Malmstrom’s;prediction that group loyalty would supplant honor as the primary driver of ethical behavior at the AFA has come to fruition. A recent anonymous survey of cadets confirmed that 80% agree that group loyalty is more important than the Honor Code. Expulsions due to honor code violations are rare, and remediation and multiple opportunities to atone for honor code infringements are accepted practice.;In essence, the Honor Code, the distinguishing pillar of a military academy education, has assumed an aspirational quality and represents a capitulation to those who contend that contemporary young adults cannot live by the same levels of honor as previous generations.;Upon commissioning, can one assume that these Air Force officers suddenly will act honorably in an era where influential military officers;bend the truth?

Fifty years ago the Honor Code was not without its problems, particularly with respect to the toleration clause, but the Cadet Wing uniformly attested to its benefits and accepted it as an immutable standard of ethics.;Those guilty of cheating, lying, stealing, or tolerating such behavior were summarily expelled.;Living under the code allowed one to safely live in a dormitory with open, unlocked doors.;Throughout the day when the facility was vacant, a $20 bill left in plain sight in one’s room would remain unmolested until the owner claimed it.;A cadet living under a vigorously enforced honor code for four years usually applied these qualities while serving as a commissioned officer.;

Throughout the year up to 15% of the cadet wing cannot pass the physical fitness test (PFT), but outliers can retreat to a safe space if the pressure to improve performance is too overwhelming. The PFT consists of 5 three-minute periods, and each segment is devoted to a specific skill—pull-ups, standing long jump, push-ups, crunches (not sit-ups), and the 600-yard run. A maximum score for each event earns 100 points, while the minimum performance level is worth 25 points. The minimum scores for males in the prime of health are modest: 3 pull-ups, 7’2” standing long jump, 24 push-ups, 47 crunches, and 2 minutes and 11 seconds for the 600-yard run.;

The;overweight and obese;constitute 68% of armed forces personnel, and it is incumbent on the officer corps to set an example of physical prowess.;General MacArthur;spoke to the importance of physical fitness and intense athletic competition, but as standards wane, his wisdom has been discarded. Rather than retreating to safe spaces, members of my class were placed on restriction until they passed the PFT.;

DEI receives unabated, effusive praise in the Association of Graduates (AOG) magazine;Checkpoints, the primary information source by which graduates receive news about their alma mater. Other than an occasional, truncated letter to the editor, the settled science of DEI is treated like a godsend. The editors promote an embellished, one-sided narrative of DEI’s dubious benefits, but fail to sound the alarm that cadets are subjected to attend mandatory indoctrination sessions on gender identity. Delving deeply into the murky world of pseudoscience, civilian professors, who constitute 42% of the faculty, proclaim the proven existence of fifty-odd gender types—the validity of which cadets cannot contest in the classroom.

The meals served at Mitchell Hall, the cadet dining facility, are barely edible.;Cadets often leave the academy premises to eat at fast food restaurants, and judging by the Mitchell Hall cuisine served at our class’s 50^th;reunion, one cannot blame them. Sijan Hall, one of the two cadet dormitories, was built in 1968.;Renovations have been delayed despite a centralized heating failure this past year, and a lack of hot water for the last three months that affected multiple squadrons.;The outgoing superintendent considers these issues to be low priority and fails to address the problems. Cadets view these acts of omission as proof of DEI’s preeminence and the;forgotten wisdom of Sun Tzu’s;admonition;regarding a commander’s responsibility for the welfare of one’s subordinates.

The ideological direction of the academy provokes escalating concerns from the graduate community, and as a result, their financial contributions to the AFA Foundation have plummeted.;Corporate donations compensate for the shortfall, but as in the case of the United Services Automobile Association’s sponsorship of a;DEI Reading Room;at the academy’s McDermott Library, there is a risk of further polarization to the institution.;Dependence on large contributions from entities committed to corporatism and stakeholder capitalism disenfranchises individual donors whose commitments are based on loyalty and commitment rather than politics.

Too often the AOG leadership acquiesces to political pressure, supports programs fraught with Marxist ideology, and fails to resist declining cadet expectations. Most graduates and cadets understand that DEI and falling standards lead to detrimental repercussions and understand the need for these problems to be discussed frankly in an open, non-censored forum. On multiple occasions, these sincere entreaties have been met with condescending, threatening rebukes from the Chairman of the AOG’s Board of Directors (BOD)—a display of heavy-handedness at complete odds with General Colin Powell’s views on leadership. Under no circumstances is a retired military officer, who serves as a volunteer on the AOG BOD, entitled to intimidate fellow graduates who offer informed perspectives to the graduate community. Too little free speech once again embroils a noble institution in a quagmire of its own making, and as a consequence, cadets are diving in five. 

• This article was published by the Brownstone Institute

#Armenia: Government seeking help from international community for natural disaster recovery
Major highways remain barely passable. By Ani Avetisyan ⁦@AvetissianAn⁩ via ⁦@eurasianet⁩ https://t.co/N0B74VQ1GO

— Notes from Georgia/South Caucasus (Hälbig, Ralph) (@SouthCaucasus) June 6, 2024