According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the average number of violent incidents instigated by Jewish settlers each month have increased by 57 per cent in 2018, when compared with 2017, and by staggering 175 per cent, when compared with 2016.
Read the full story on Al Jazeera:
Were President Putin and President Maduro secretly in a same band during 1980’s? Read the great story and watch the video on RT:
USA has had military cooperation with radical groups particularly in the Middle East. However, the cooperation with far-right parties and militia groups, such as Azov Battalion, in Ukraine may have been one of the most controversial and it may also backfire handsomely.
The Azov Battalion, or Azov Regiment, is one of many privately-funded volunteer battalions that were formed during the crisis in Ukraine in 2014 (1). Far-right volunteers from different parts of the world joined Azov Battalion. Azov Battalion has benefited from the funding, weapons and training USA has provided for Ukrainian military groups. Azov has gradually developed into a far-right, neo-Nazi movement with street-patrolling militia and own youth camp (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Because of the neo-Nazi element of the battalion, US Congressmen John Conyers and Ted Yoho drew up an amendment to House Defense Appropriations bill in 2015. The amendment “limits arms, training, and other assistance to the neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the Azov Battalion” and it was passed unanimously. However, US Department of Defense objected the amendment. The ban to give any kind of support or training to Azov Battalion finally came to force last year. (3, 4)
The Azov Movement and other similar far-right groups and parties have become increasingly severe problem in Ukraine. Their militia groups have been allowed to be some sort of part of law enforcement and they have attacked minority groups, often with impunity. There have also been attacks on anti-fascist groups, city council meetings, media outlets, art exhibitions, foreign students and women’s marches (1, 5).
The Azov Movement also wants to extend its cooperation with other far-right radical groups in Europe and North America. Olena Semenyaka, the international secretary for Azov’s political wing, the National Corps, says that Azov has gained popularity and become “small state in a state” in Ukraine. Semenyaka believes that in the current climate it is possible that far-right leaders can come to power in Europe and Azov wants to form coalitions and be in front of the far-right movement. There has also been more and more cooperation with American neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists. According to FBI, Azov’s military wing is “believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.” (5)
References:
1) “Commentary: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem” Reuters 19.3.2018
2) “Foreigners join far-right militias in Ukraine’s fight against rebels” The Irish Times 17.7.2014
3) “Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill” The Nation 14.1.2016
4) “Congress bans arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis” The Hill 27.3.2018
5) “Azov, Ukraine’s Most Prominent Ultranationalist Group, Sets Its Sights On U.S., Europe” Radio Free Europe 14.11.2018
Perhaps one of the most surprising changes during the Trump presidency has been the change in the attitude towards Europe and particularly the European Union. When asked to identify his biggest competitor or foe during an interview in July 2018, President Trump said:
“Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.” (1)
USA and particularly Republicans have increased their cooperation with European far-right and right-wing populist leaders. The former leader of British far-right party UKIP, “Mr. Brexit” Nigel Farage has had close ties particularly to President Trump and Steve Bannon (2). Farage is still campaigning for Brexit and according to him President Trump is a “believer in Brexit” (3, 4). In last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC, organized by American Conservative Union ACU, one of the guest speakers was Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who describes herself to be “the political heir” of her grandfather Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French far-right party National Front (5).
President Trump has appointed ambassadors who have caused controversy. The US ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra has worked closely with some American anti-Muslim organizations and he has made several unsubstantiated anti-Muslim claims (6). The US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell caused controversy already before his appointment because of his insulting and derogatory remarks about women. After becoming the ambassador Grenell gave an interview to far-right news outlet Breitbart and said that he wanted to “empower” anti-establishment right-wing forces throughout Europe (7, 8). Steve Bannon has been trying to start a “Trump-style populist insurgency” with his Brussels-based group The Movement. However, many European far-right parties or politicians haven’t been very keen to join his operation (9).
Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has joined Bannon’s group (9, 10). Salvini has also wanted to create “Italian-Polish axis” that could help to spark right-wing populist “European Spring” and replace the center-right “French-German axis” in Europe (11). Poland has become increasingly important ally of USA. President Trump has praised Poland and Polish people “for standing up for their independence, their security and their sovereignty.” The ruling Polish nationalists have wanted to strengthen the American-Polish alliance even more by requesting that USA would establish a permanent armored base, “Fort Trump”, in Poland. European diplomats have been worried that “hard-liners in the White House are using a willing Warsaw as a wedge to divide and weaken the EU, with which Trump has clashed over trade, climate change, defense spending, Middle East diplomacy and global governance” (12).
Reference:
1) “Donald Trump calls the EU ‘a foe’ ahead of Putin summit” Independent 15.7.2018
2) “Nigel Farage on the story behind his friendship with Trump” The New Yorker 30.11.2016
3) “Nigel Farage: Trump supports Brexit because it will upend ‘global bureaucracy’” Breitbart 20.12.2018
4) “Nigel Farage joins Leave Means Leave campaign as Vice Chairman” Leave Means Leave
https://www.leavemeansleave.eu/nigel-farage-joins-leave-means-leave-campaign-vice-chairman/
5) “Trump’s GOP is morphing into France’s far right” The Washington Post 23.2.2018
6) “New US ambassador to Netherlands regularly made unsubstantiated ‘no-go zones’ claims, speculated 15% of Muslims could be jihadists” CNN 9.1.2018
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/09/politics/kfile-pete-hoekstra-no-go-zones/index.html
7) “Senator weighs holding up Trump nominee over ‘insulting and derogatory’ tweets” The Daily Beast 12.7.2017
8) “New US ambassador to Germany under fire for rightwing support” The Guardian 4.6.2018
9) “Steve Bannon’s far-right Europe operation undermined by election laws” The Guardian 21.11.2018
10) “Italy’s Matteo Salvini joins Bannon’s European populist group” The Guardian 8.9.2018
11) “Salvini calls for ‘Italian-Polish axis’ to replace Paris-Berlin” EurActiv 10.1.2019
12) “Poland’s risky ‘America first’ policy” Politico 6.10.2018
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-risky-america-first-policy-jaroslaw-kaczynski-donald-trump/
Because of some recent events in different parts of the world, here are some timely geopolitical thoughts about USA as an “empire.” These thoughts are from Stratfor, an American geopolitical intelligence platform founded by George Friedman in 1996 (1). Stratfor is sometimes called “Shadow CIA.” (2)
George Friedman explained the nature of the American “empire” during a media conference in 2015. Here is a YouTube link to that part of his speech:
Here are some extracts of a Stratfor article “The Geopolitics of the United States, Part 1: The Inevitable Empire.” (3)
“The two world wars of the early 20th century constituted a watershed in human history for a number of reasons. For the United States the wars’ effects can be summed up with this simple statement: They cleared away the competition.
Global history from 1500 to 1945 is a lengthy treatise of increasing contact and conflict among a series of great regional powers. Some of these powers achieved supra-regional empires, with the Spanish, French and English being the most obvious. Several regional powers — Austria, Germany, Ottoman Turkey and Japan — also succeeded in extending their writ over huge tracts of territory during parts of this period. And several secondary powers — the Netherlands, Poland, China and Portugal — had periods of relative strength. Yet the two world wars massively devastated all of these powers. No battles were fought in the mainland United States. Not a single American factory was ever bombed. Alone among the world’s powers in 1945, the United States was not only functional but thriving.
The United States immediately set to work consolidating its newfound power, creating a global architecture to entrench its position.”
“There is another secret to American success — both in controlling the oceans and taking advantage of European failures — that lies in an often-misunderstood economic structure called Bretton Woods. Even before World War II ended, the United States had leveraged its position as the largest economy and military to convince all of the Western allies — most of whose governments were in exile at the time — to sign onto the Bretton Woods accords. The states committed to the formation of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to assist with the expected post-War reconstruction. Considering the general destitution of Western Europe at the time, this, in essence, was a U.S. commitment to finance if not outright fund that reconstruction. Because of that, the U.S. dollar was the obvious and only choice to serve as the global currency.
But Bretton Woods was about more than currency regimes and international institutions; its deeper purpose lay in two other features that are often overlooked. The United States would open its markets to participating states’ exports while not requiring reciprocal access for its own. In exchange, participating states would grant the United States deference in the crafting of security policy. NATO quickly emerged as the organization through which this policy was pursued. “
References:
1) Stratfor in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor
2) “Stratfor, a.k.a ‘Shadow CIA,’ Had Contracts With 13 Federal Departments: WikiLeaks” Huffington Post 14.2.2014
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/15/stratfor-canadian-government_n_4449505.html
3) “The Geopolitics of the United States, Part 1: The Inevitable Empire” Stratfor 4.7.2016
https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire
It has been quite unbelievable to read news about Brexit and the political situation in Britain, lately. I lived in Britain over 10 years, but Britain seems to have changed beyond recognition – and not in a good way.
Today’s perhaps most stunning news was about hardline Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who reportedly suggested that PM May “should close parliament temporarily if necessary to stop MPs passing a bill blocking a no-deal Brexit.” (1)
Another worrying news was about the threat posed by far right. Britain’s counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu said that “the far right will exploit Brexit tensions with their propaganda triggering rises in hate crime and creating an atmosphere that terrorists can exploit.” Mr Basu continued:
“My concern is the polarisation, and I fear the far-right politicking and rhetoric leads to a rise in hate crime and a rise in disorder.” (2)
References:
1) “May should close parliament if necessary to stop bill blocking no deal Brexit, says Rees-Mogg – Politics live” The Guardian 23.1.2019
2) “Far right may exploit Brexit tensions, says UK counter-terror chief” The Guardian 23.1.2019
While talking about the government shutdown and planned border wall on Saturday, President Trump criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and said that she is “controlled by radical left”:
“She’s being controlled by the radical left, which is a problem. I think that’s a very bad thing for her. I think it’s a very bad thing for the Democrats.” (1)
On Sunday President Trump claimed in his tweet that Mrs Pelosi has become “a Radical Democrat”:
“Nancy Pelosi has behaved so irrationally & has gone so far to the left that she has now officially become a Radical Democrat. She is so petrified of the ‘lefties’ in her party that she has lost control…” (2)
President Trump’s strong words reminded me of a controversial memo written in May 2017 by Rich Higgins, former director for strategic planning in the National Security Council NSC. The memo was considered to be so controversial that Higgins, who was seen as an ally of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, was forced to resign (3).
In his memo Higgins listed a roster of enemies of President Trump and his supporters: the political establishment, the deep state, globalists, bankers, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, Maoists and others, for example the United Nations and the European Union, who cultivate and spread “cultural Marxism.” According to Higgins, the Democratic Leadership in USA “has been a counter-state enabler that executes, sustains, and protects cultural Marxist programs of action and facilitates the relentless expansion of the deep state.” (4)
When right-wing media outlet The Daily Caller interviewed him in September 2017, Higgins told that he had written the memo “in a personal capacity”, not as a work project. He didn’t know, whether President Trump ever read the memo or not (5). However, for example New York Daily News wrote in August 2017 that President Trump reportedly “raved about the document” and was “furious” about Higgins’ removal (6). Higgins believed that he was fired “for remaining based in reality and not succumbing to the politically correct, multicultural self-delusion popular in the governing elite.” (5)
References:
1) “Pelosi ‘controlled by radical left’ in border dispute over shutdown, Trump says” The Washington Times 19.1.2019
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/19/donald-trump-says-pelosi-controlled-radical-left-b/
2) “Virulente attaque de Trump contre la cheffe des démocrates au Congrès” Le Point 20.1.2019
3) “An NSC Staffer Is Forced Out Over a Controversial Memo” The Atlantic 2.8.2017
4) Higgins, Rich: “POTUS & Political Warfare” May 2017
https://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Political-Warfare.pdf
5) “Here’s why NSC staffer Rich Higgins says he was fired from the Trump administration ” The Daily Caller 23.9.2017
6) “NSC official fired for drafting memo claiming Islamists, bankers and globalists are threats to Trump’s agenda” New York Daily News 10.8.2017
President Trump has appointed Charles M. Kupperman to assist National Security Advisor John Bolton. The latest appointee has caused more concerns about the anti-Muslim bias of Trump administration. Kupperman served on the board of directors for the Center for Security Policy (CSP) between 2001 and 2010. The CSP and its former director Frank Gaffney Jr. are infamous for their anti-Muslim views (1, 2).
The Trump administration has or has had several members who have connections to Islamophobic organizations or who have expressed strong anti-Muslim sentiment. For example, Bolton himself, Secretary of State Pompeo and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway have ties to the Center for Security Policy (1). Bolton appointed Fred Fleitz, who has been one of Frank Gaffney’s top associates, as chief of staff of the National Security Council (NSC) (2). Fleitz has now become the new President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy (3). Pompeo has also worked closely with Islamophobic organization ACT for America and even received its highest award in 2016 (2). Bolton has also connections to other anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists and Islamophobes, including Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Bolton has been a chairman of the right-wing anti-Muslim think tank Gatestone Institute and he has reportedly received substantial payments from the think tank (2, 4). President Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller, one of the architects of the Muslim immigration ban, started Islamophobic projects and worked with alt-right figure Richard Spencer while studying at Duke University (5). Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson has also expressed strong anti-Muslim views (6).
Some former members of Trump administration with strong anti-Muslim views include former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former national security advisor Michael Flynn, former deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (5, 6).
References:
1) “Trump’s new ‘anti-Muslim’ appointee worries civil rights groups” Al Jazeera 17.1.2019
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/190117160447367.html
2) “Donald Trump’s Team of Islamophobes” The Nation 12.6.2018
https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-team-islamophobes/
3) Center for Security Policy – Staff:
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/about-us/staff/
4) “Trump’s new national security adviser chairs a group that has spread false claims about Muslim refugees in Europe” Business Insider 23.3.2018
https://www.businessinsider.com/john-bolton-gatestone-institute-muslim-refugees-2018-3
5) “The Dark History of the White House Aides Who Crafted Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’” Mother Jones 30.1.2017
6) “Donald Trump’s administration has seven people who have expressed Islamophobic sentiment” Independent 9.12.2016
The political situation in Britain seems to continue to be quite tense and chaotic, these days. The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow has managed to maintain some sort of sanity and humor amidst all the mayhem. He has become a surprising star in Europe and elsewhere.
Some stories and videos about John Bercow:
1) “‘More animal than ever’: Europeans find joy in John Bercow ” The Guardian 17.1.2019
2) “VIDÉO. « Ordeuuur…» Quand John Bercow, le Speaker de la chambre des Communes, devient la star du Brexit” Ouest France 17.1.2019
3) “‘Order! Order!’: Parliament Speaker Is Brexit’s Surprise Star and Villain” The New York Times 19.1.2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/world/europe/brexit-speaker-john-bercow.html
Daily Sabah reported yesterday that the German authorities have conducted raids in several parts of Germany on suspected members of a far-right group called the National Socialist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Deutschland. According to authorities, about 40 people are under investigation. The group’s members are suspected of glorifying Nazism and in some cases harboring “violent fantasies” (1).
Quite surprisingly, Ku Klux Klan is not a new addition on the far-right scene in Germany. German journalist Frederick Obermaier has been investigating the Ku Klux Klan in Germany and he has written a book about it (2). Obermaier told in an interview in 2017 that the German authorities have been aware of some KKK activity in Germany for decades. However, the amount of KKK members in Germany has been very small compared to USA. According to Obermaier, there have been “close relations” between US Klan groups and German Klan groups over the past 30 or 40 years. The German groups admire the American Klan and hope to become as big as the KKK in USA (3).
While Obermaier was reporting about the killing spree committed by National Socialist Underground NSU between 2000 and 2007, he found links to the Ku Klux Klan in Germany (3). Süddeutsche Zeitung told in 2016 that the only living member of the NSU terror cell, Beate Zschäbe, had reportedly attended at least two KKK gatherings (4). The NSU murdered 10 people, mostly Turkish immigrants, between 2000 and 2007 (5).
References:
1) “Police probe 40 members of German Ku Klux Klan” Daily Sabah 17.1.2019
https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2019/01/17/police-probe-40-members-of-german-ku-klux-klan
2) Obermaier, Frederick & Schulz, Tanjev: Kapuzenmänner: Der Ku-Klux-Klan in Deutschland. DTV Premium, Munich 2017.
3) “‘The KKK is active here in Germany'” Deutsche Welle 22.2.2017
https://www.dw.com/en/the-kkk-is-active-here-in-germany/a-37668846
4) “Four Ku Klux Klan groups active in Germany, says govt” The Local.de 25.10.2016
https://www.thelocal.de/20161025/four-ku-klux-klan-groups-in-germany-report-kkk
5) “Neo-Nazi murder gang member jailed for life in Germany” Reuters 11.7.2018
IDIS Observer 