Power, Ego and Godliness

BY ROBERT KOEHLER

 JUNE 19, 2024

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OK, the big question: Should our country – USA! USA! – return to a place of godliness?

Suddenly the nation’s stewpot of controversy started boiling over, thanks to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito being secretly recorded agreeing with a fake conservative at the Supreme Court Historical Society dinner last week.

The fake conservative – progressive filmmaker Lauren Windsor – managed to snag (and record) a conversation with Alito at the event, in which she lamented she could see no way a conservative Christian could make peace with liberals and their focus ought to be on “winning the moral argument.” They had to “keep fighting” and, ka-wham, “return our country to a place of godliness.”

Alito agreed with her, acknowledging that

“one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

Let’s take a moment, shall we, and step beyond the clichés and paradoxes mixed into the controversy – in particular, the ones that purport to make America great. Perhaps the nation’s primary paradox is “the separation of church and state,” which is both totally sane and necessary and a potentially raw, insulting wound to believers in a loving God.

It’s sane and necessary because North America’s primary religion – the one that claimed European dominion over the land’s indigenous peoples – had gotten seriously corrupted by power over the centuries, with Jesus morphing from “the good shepherd” to the sword-wielding leader of Imperial Christianity, engaged in an ongoing war against infidels and critics.

At the same time, allegedly pushing religion out of the realm of government raises a question even I have to struggle with. If religion . . . if God. . . is the source of our deepest values, doesn’t separation of church and state push those values out of the governmental process as well? From where does a “separated” nation draw its values? Do the true believers actually have a valid point to make?

Well, yes and no.

What I fear at the deepest level of my being is the separation of values and state. This happens, for God’s sake, with or without a separation of church and state.

As I wrote several years ago:

“. . . government goes about its business — wages war, maintains a nuclear arsenal, entertains the American public with air and water shows — free of all unelected interference . . . except, uh, financial interference, which is always appropriate and always welcome.

“In other words, separation of church and state is small potatoes and hardly comes close to addressing the real issues of the day. Church and state, not to mention corporate wealth, are far too full of themselves and they all need to be contained by values that are immune to the corruption of power.”

Power, you might say, turns values into ego: religious ego, state ego. I don’t think it matters much whether it’s one or the other. Should our country return to a place of godliness? Not if the god in question is wielding a sword, or has his finger on the nuclear button.

What I fear isn’t religious belief but religious certainty – at the same level that I fear national certainty, if that certainty dismisses and dehumanizes its proclaimed enemy. Absolute certainty closes not just the mind but the heart.

“Having truth by the beard,” writes Regina Schwartz,

“ultimately harbors the danger of incivility toward those who don’t see the truth as we do — the axis of evil, the infidels. This is why a strong secularism must give institutional expression to the ethos that all are welcome in the search for the best beliefs about how to live together. . . .

“It is because that Truth of how best to live together is a mystery, not fully graspable, knowable, manipulable, after all, that we need to approach the dialogue with the other with full respect — to listen, learn, and evaluate.”

We face the unknown – we face the unknowable. This is our fate. Acknowledging this and groping for collective understanding is how we evolve. Closing off the unknown with a sese of absolute certainty is how we shut ourselves down.

“Consider,” as I wrote last year,

“the civil rights movement, which was empowered by a large religious base but was in no way limited to that base. The value it advanced — trans-racial oneness, full human equality — was a value emerging in the moment, in defiance of a settled, one might say religious, status quo, which had set strict rules about who mattered and who didn’t. The movement expanded our collective awareness. By embracing it, we evolved.”

Perhaps what matters is not whether we as a nation – as a world – “return” to godliness but, rather, that we continue discovering it.

Robert Koehler is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor.

With pardons in Maryland, 2.5 million Americans will have marijuana convictions cleared or forgiven

Maryland this week became the latest state to announce mass pardons for people convicted of marijuana-related crimes as the nation wrestles with how to make amends for the lives disrupted in the decadeslong war on drugs.

June 19, 2024


Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signs an executive order to issue more than 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions on Monday, June 17, 2024 in Annapolis, Md. Maryland Secretary of State Susan Lee is seated left. Standing left to right are Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, Shiloh Jordan, Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives for Last Prisoner Project and Heather Warnken, executive director of the University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Criminal Justice. (AP Phopto/Brian Witte)

By Geoff Mulvihill The Associated Press

Maryland this week became the latest state to announce mass pardons for people convicted of marijuana-related crimes as the nation wrestles with how to make amends for the lives disrupted in the decadeslong war on drugs.

Under Gov. Wes Moore’s plan, more than 175,000 convictions for possession of cannabis or drug paraphernalia will be pardoned, but not permanently erased from people’s criminal records.

Here’s a look at where the U.S. stands in addressing old marijuana convictions.

A fraction of cannabis convictions have been expunged or pardoned

NORML, a group that advocates for legalized marijuana, has tallied about 2.5 million expungements and pardons for cannabis convictions in recent years.

“It’s also a drop in the bucket when you consider the reality that over the last 50 years or so, over 30 million Americans have been arrested at the state or local level for marijuana,” Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director, said in an interview.

Pardons forgive people for their crimes. A pardon can restore civil liberties, such as voting, serving on juries and gun ownership. Expungements go further, hiding the record of convictions entirely; that can clear the way for receiving federal college tuition assistance, qualifying for public housing and allowing parents to participate in their children’s school activities, among other benefits.

Executive branch officials such as mayors, governors and the president can offer pardons on their own, and relatively few executives have done sweeping ones like Maryland’s. They’ve done so in Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Birmingham, Alabama; and Kansas City, Missouri.

President Joe Biden has ordered multiple rounds of pardons for those convicted of possession on federal lands or in the District of Columbia. It’s not clear exactly how many people are covered. For proof they’ve been pardoned, people have to apply for a certificate; as of this month, only a little over 200 covered by Biden’s pardon had done so.

It takes a court — often at the direction of a law — to order expungements, though Oregon provides those along with pardons, and the Maryland approach makes it easier to obtain an expungement.

Clearing crimes is rooted in legalizing marijuana

Marijuana laws have changed vastly since the late 1990s when states began allowing medical marijuana, something most states have since done. Twenty-four states have legalized recreational use for adults, 26 have decriminalized it and the U.S. Justice Department this year moved to reclassify it as a less dangerous drug, a move that gives hope to advocates in the remaining 12 states that it could be legalized there, too.

When Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana in 2012, it raised an issue: Is it OK for people convicted in the past of something that’s legal now to continue to suffer consequences?

Increasingly, voters and lawmakers have been saying no. Most states that have legalized the drug recently have had as part of that policy a way to clear convictions for past use. An expungement-by-application provision was included when Maryland’s voters approved legalizing marijuana in a 2022 ballot measure.

But often those provisions require people with convictions to petition to have their records expunged, a process that can take time and require the help of a lawyer.

Policies like Maryland’s can address racial disparities

Advocates say that granting pardons or expungements in one swoop, as Maryland did, is a way to address long-standing racial disparities.

A major toll of the nation’s drug policies is that Black people have suffered more direct consequences than white people, even though studies have found they use marijuana at similar rates.

An ACLU analysis of federal crime data found that Black people were more than three times as likely as white people to be charged with marijuana possession in 2018. There were disparities in every state.

Automatic pardons and expungements cover everyone who qualifies and don’t introduce more chances for disparities.

A 2020 study by University of Michigan Law School professors found that less than 7% of the people eligible for expungement there were granted it. Most didn’t apply.

“Under the old petition model, you needed a lot of resources to get an expungement,” said Adrian Rocha, policy manager at Last Prisoner Project, which, like other advocacy groups, is pushing for large-scale pardon and expungement policies.

“The blanket pardons for whole categories of activities that were previously criminalized — they do help Black and brown communities and help address the impacts that all communities have faced,” said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at Drug Policy Alliance.

AUSTRALIA

More than 1m birds to be destroyed as bird flu detected at a seventh Victorian farm

By Jane McNaughton and Warwick Long for ABC Rural


Victoria's chief veterinary officer, Graeme Cooke, said the latest infected farm housed between 150,000 and 200,000 egg-laying chickens. (File pic) Photo: AFP

Australia's largest outbreak of bird flu has hit a grim milestone, with Victorian authorities confirming more than 1 million birds will be killed to try and prevent the spread of the virus.

Seven farms across south-west Victoria have now been found with highly pathogenic strains of avian influenza, affecting hundreds of thousands of farmed birds.

The outbreak began on an egg farm near Meredith in May, and has continued to spread in the region as local farmers face the harsh reality of Australia's biosecurity response to outbreaks of emergency animal diseases.

Victoria's chief veterinary officer, Graeme Cooke, said the latest infected farm housed between 150,000 and 200,000 egg-laying chickens.

"This latest infected premises was once again picked up on very early surveillance and that means it can be dealt with very early," Dr Cooke said.

"I really thank producers within the restricted area where all the cases have been for their help and collaboration as we work our way through this outbreak."
Nation's largest outbreak

The death toll from the current outbreak of bird flu is more than double the state's most recent outbreak in 2020, which resulted in the death of over 400,000 birds, including emus, turkeys and chickens, across the state.

The current outbreak is concentrated mostly to the Golden Plains Shire, one of the largest regions that produces eggs and chicken meat in Victoria, producing about a quarter of Victoria's eggs.

A control zone is in place spanning approximately 100 kilometres from west to east across the region, covering six of the seven farms detected with the H7N3 strain of avian influenza.

"[Control measures] really reduce the level of virus in an area. The faster we can pick it up, the less risk there is of onwards spread," Dr Cooke said.

"The requirements in the controlled areas, especially the restricted areas, are to prevent onward movement of the virus either by vehicles, people or other means.

"Meredith has consistently been detecting [bird flu].

"If this virus was allowed to spread onward it would be devastating for the rest of the poultry industry in Victoria and perhaps onward through Australia.

"The right thing to do is to stop the infected premises being any further risk, and that's the action that is taken through the humane destruction and disposal and the onwards cleansing and disinfection of the farms."

An egg farm near Terang was also found to have bird flu within its chicken population last month, however authorities found a different strain, H7N9.

Agriculture Victoria is investigating the cause of the outbreaks but so far it is believed the disease has spread from wild birds into domestic poultry.

The disease has spread from wild birds into domestic poultry, experts believe. (File pic) Photo: Pixabay
Duck farm infected

The state's outbreak of avian influenza has also spread to a commercial duck farm near Meredith.

Australian Duck Meat Association chief executive Greg Parkinson said the farm represented about two percent of Australia's commercial duck population and mostly supplied meat to restaurants, not supermarkets.

"It was not unexpected, it's a smallish duck farm - about 40,000 birds - and it was very close to the infected egg farms," he said.

"Ducks are kept in sheds precisely for these sorts of reasons - we try to buffer ourselves from wild bird incursions and virus spillovers.

"About 30 million ducks are processed for meat per year."

Australia's duck meat industry is relatively concentrated and run by two main processors, Luv-a-Duck, which has about 30 farms in western Victoria, and Pepe's Ducks which runs out of New South Wales.

The infected duck farm does not supply either of these companies.
International infections

There are many types of bird flu, including the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, which has been detected in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, South America and Antarctica.

This strain of the disease has spread beyond poultry, affecting various mammals including penguins, cattle and humans.

This strain has not been detected in Australian animals, however, the nation recorded its first ever human case in March, when a child returned home from India with the disease.

The child has since recovered and authorities have confirmed there is no ongoing threat to the public.

Australia's response to eradicate avian influenza is in stark contrast to countries like the United States, where more than 96 million birds have been affected by the disease since an outbreak that began in 2022, according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

This story was first published by the ABC.

The Phases and Pillars for Resolving the War in Gaza


The UN's call had been muted, alongside the voices of the US and others. Gaza has become a playground of wanton inhumanity, a theater of brutal debauchery.


BYALAN DELOTAVO, PHD
JUNE 19, 2024
MODERN DIPLOMACY

Jana, 7, has received treatment at a WHO-supported stabilization centre in the south of Gaza after being diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition and dehydration. Photo: WHO


The UN’s call had been muted, alongside the voices of the US and others. Gaza has become a playground of wanton inhumanity, a theater of brutal debauchery amid a civilized modern world heavily influenced by Western powers who profess to emphatically uphold justice and human rights but are confounded by their abhorrence of racial hatred and ethnic mass killings.

Finally, however, the unified UN voice has grown louder and clearer, even as it remains polarized by clashing resolute personal and clan interests. Amidst this complexity, let me propose the phases and pillars for resolving the armed conflict in Gaza.

Phase One: Rescue Operation

De-occupation

Whether Gaza is termed an occupied or disputed territory, it remains a volatile flashpoint jeopardizing the national security of both Palestine and Israel. Gaza resembles a volleyball tossed back and forth between Israel and Palestine, with Western power brokers as the audience. In 1967, Israel captured Gaza from Egypt after the Six-Day War and withdrew its forces in 2005 as a political strategy under the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over in 2006, reciprocal military attacks ensued, characterized by civilian casualties that sadly have become a norm of warfare.

Deoccupation can facilitate peace and reconstruction in Gaza. However, the nature of this de-occupation is crucial, leading us to the next pillars.

Demilitarization

Hamas regards itself as an armed resistance, contrasting with the diplomatic approach of the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas considers no longer practicable. Armed conflict has provided Hamas reason to exist and provided grounds for Netanyahu’s government military retaliations. The situation, exploited by resolute personal and clan interests, perpetuates the war. War is the raison d’etre for the parties involved; it creates a symbiosis that facilitates support and ensuring the continuation of their respective power bases, existence, and calculated relevance.

Demilitarization is the prerequisite for serious, feasible diplomatic resolution. It’s for the reconstruction of Gaza and the rehumanization of its people. Thus, deoccupation requires divestment of armed conflict resources, both internal and external, and investment in reconstruction and rehumanization endeavors.

However, it’s crucial to note militarization is the consequence of another factor—radicalization.

Deradicalization

The conflict in Gaza thrives on radicalism from both sides, viewing diplomatic resolution as a historical failure devoid of power. Led by leaders deeply committed to personal causes and bolstered by their respective radical groups, the conflict becomes an obsession aimed at ultimate annihilation, leading to mutual destruction through sustained warfare.

Few are more resolute in their intent to exterminate perceived enemies than religious-political radicals. For them, extermination becomes a divine homage. Consequently, an armed conflict fueled by empowered religious-political radicalism remains indifferent to human suffering and death, regardless of its scale. Thus, the de-occupation of Gaza necessitates the disengagement of radical Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Resolving the war in Gaza requires not only an analytical understanding of religious-political radicalism, but also unveiling the empowerment of leaders by their radical support groups in sustaining the war. This is no easy task, considering that Western power brokers of peace may themselves be entrenched in their respective religious-political ideologies while pursuing their political, commercial, and military interests.

Thus, there is a need for a genuinely neutral intermediary and a mutually beneficial strategy and plan that ensures the national security of both Israel and Palestine, as well as infrastructural, societal reconstruction, and socioeconomic progress.

Creation of a Reconstructive Neutral Zone

A mere ceasefire alone cannot guarantee sustainable peace in Gaza. The presence of a UN peacekeeping force with civilian engineering and medical corps, humanitarian aid workers including educators and mental health providers, can enable Gaza and its people to transition from war to peace and societal reconstruction. This would also facilitate the establishment of a reconstructive neutral zone to safeguard the national security of both Palestine and Israel. When arms are laid down and people engage in productive endeavors, their focus shifts from war to socioeconomic progress.

Phase Two: Societal Regeneration

Reconstruction

Similar to the post-war efforts in Japan, which benefited not only the Japanese but also the global community, a joint international reconstruction project could be implemented in Gaza. This could potentially stabilize both Palestine and Israel, with positive ripple effects throughout the Middle Eastern region. An adapted version of the Japanese-US reconstruction model might also prove effective in post-war Ukraine.

Reconstruction, coupled with initiatives for economic empowerment and global support, offer brighter prospects for the war-torn Gaza and vulnerable Israel to become sustainably peaceful states focused on societal regeneration and progress.

Rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure is a daunting task, but even more challenging is the process of healing the souls of Gaza’s people, which could be prolonged and generational.

Rehumanization

Sociocultural transformation through inclusive educational content and strategies can help shape a more inclusive and productive Palestinian and Israeli society. The masses, who are both victims and participants in inhumanity, critically need a globally supported and holistic societal process to recover from their profound traumas.

The armed conflict has deeply wounded the Palestinian soul and transformed Israel’s once-regarded civilized defense complex into an instrument of mass killing and destruction. The sufferings endured by Palestinians are unspeakable, and what has become of Israel under Netanyahu’s leadership is a disgrace to its history. Both peoples need healing and support to embark on a new journey toward humanization.

Reformation

Unlike stable and progressive hereditary religious monarchies, Palestine and Israel cannot afford to entangle themselves in religious-political authoritarianism. Such entanglements would be destructive and bleak for their future. Transparent democracy offers both states a viable and enduring path forward. Transitioning from destructive militant leadership to constructive socioeconomic governance will facilitate the region’s smooth reformation.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar envision economic progress and prosperity for the Middle East. Countries that remain mired in a culture of war and destruction have no place in this vision of development; they can only regress into oblivion and insignificance unless they join this brighter national and regional outlook.

Closing Notes

Hope’s glimmer shines ever brighter. From the impassioned voices of Jewish-American leaders like Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, to the rational and visionary messages of Israeli leaders like Ehud Barak and Benny Gantz, to the diplomatic inclinations of the Palestinian presidency, and the global chorus calling for peace—and now, the ostensibly unified call from the UN—we hear louder and clearer calls for peaceful social change in Gaza, Palestine, and Israel.

With the leadership of sensible and humane power brokers committed to positive change, the dream of a peaceful and progressive Middle East need not languish as a mere fantasy. Ordinary people simply want to live as valued and respected human beings, as part of a universal human family.

We are all one human species; our survival and future depend not on destroying each other, but on building up one another. We may compete in our respective ethnic, technological, scientific, and economic achievements, each finding our niche, but we are all part of one human ecosystem of life and existence.

There is no future in destructive armed conflict. Getting even can be achieved in the constructive engagement in the Olympics of societal progress. Thus, the world does not need leaders who are weak, self-obsessed, and warmongers, but leaders who are strong, altruistic, and possess socioeconomic acumen.


Alan Delotavo, PhD
Alan Delotavo, Ph.D. (University of Pretoria), is a Canadian writer with a diverse academic and professional background. Previously serving as an assistant professor in social science and a world religion instructor, Alan has also transitioned from a former sectarian clergyman to a secular job stint and became a person with inclusive and respectful outlook of religious beliefs and traditions. His academic background spans interdisciplinary anthropological studies, exploration of religion's impact on social dynamics, and ethical considerations. Throughout his career, Alan has actively engaged with scholarly communities, participating in esteemed organizations and presenting academic papers at international conferences. Alan is also the creator of 2nd-opinion.xyz, a platform providing specialized insights on global affairs.

Nancy Pelosi, After Meeting Dalai Lama, Says China Is ‘Trying to Erase’ Tibetan Culture

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers after their meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India, on June 19, 2024.
Prakash Singh—Bloomberg/Getty Images

BY SUDHI RANJAN SEN AND DAN STRUMPF / BLOOMBERG
JUNE 19, 2024 

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused China of trying to erase Tibetan culture following her high-profile meeting with the Dalai Lama at his home in northern India Wednesday, a visit condemned by Beijing.

Pelosi was joined on the trip to Dharamshala by a bipartisan delegation led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The group also met with officials from Tibet’s government in exile.

Pelosi said a bill recently passed in Congress strengthening U.S. support to Tibet sends a strong message to China.

China is “trying to erase the culture, reduce the use of the language,” Pelosi said during a public ceremony Wednesday in Dharamshala. “They are trying something that we cannot let them get away with.”

Read More: China’s Residential Schools Separate a Million Tibetan Children From Their Families, U.N. Says

“This bill is a message to the Chinese government that we have clarity in our thinking and understanding of this issue of the freedom of Tibet,” Pelosi said.


Beijing had warned the U.S. lawmakers against the meeting, urging the U.S. in remarks on Tuesday to “see clearly the anti-China separatism nature” of the Dalai Lama and his followers.

China considers the Dalai Lama a separatist for his commitment to limited autonomy for the region. Pelosi has been a longtime critic of Chinese policy on Tibet, and visited the Tibetan city of Lhasa in 2015.

Read More: The Dalai Lama on the Gratitude He Feels Looking Back at His Escape From Tibet

China annexed Tibet in the 1950s, with the Dalai Lama and other monks fleeing to India nine years later, where they live as refugees and have set up a government in exile in Dharamshala.

Officials from the Tibetan government-in-exile earlier said the U.S. visit and legislation will put pressure on China to engage with them as they seek autonomy for the region.

US lawmakers meet Dalai Lama in India, drawing sharp criticism from China

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi told crowds of Tibetans it was an "honour" to have met with the Dalai Lama, in a speech carried by the government-in-exile's Tibet TV.


Ahead of the visit, China's embassy in New Delhi criticised the meeting, saying the Dalai Lama was "not a pure religious figure, but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion". / Photo: AFP

A group of senior US lawmakers, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, have met with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile in India, sparking heavy criticism from China.

The bipartisan group of US lawmakers, led by Congressman Michael McCaul and Pelosi, visited the 88-year-old Buddhist spiritual leader at his home base in the northern Indian hill-town of Dharamsala on Wednesday.

Pelosi told crowds of Tibetans it was an "honour" to have met with the Dalai Lama, in a speech carried by the government-in-exile's Tibet TV.

The visit follows the passage of a bill by the US Congress that seeks to encourage Beijing to hold talks with Tibetan leaders, which have been frozen since 2010.

"This bill is a message to the Chinese government that we have clarity in our thinking and understanding in the issue of the freedom of Tibet", she said.

Pelosi said the bill was "soon to be signed" by US President Joe Biden.

'Anti-China separatist activities'

Ahead of the visit, China's embassy in New Delhi criticised the meeting, saying the Dalai Lama was "not a pure religious figure, but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion".

Many exiled Tibetans fear Beijing will name a rival successor to the Dalai Lama, bolstering control over a land it poured troops into in 1950.

The Dalai Lama was just 23 when he escaped the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in fear for his life after Chinese soldiers eviscerated an uprising against Beijing's forces, crossing the snowy Himalayas into India.

He stepped down as his people's political head in 2011, passing the baton of secular power to a government chosen democratically by some 130,000 Tibetans around the world.

"The democracy of the diaspora of the Tibetans in exile is very important to us," Pelosi said.

Penpa Tsering, the sikyong or head of that government, said it does not seek full independence for Tibet but rather to pursue a long-standing "Middle Way" policy seeking greater autonomy and "to resolve the Sino-Tibet conflict through dialogue".

But Beijing's embassy accused the Tibetan administration of seeking to break away.

"We urge the US side to fully recognise the anti-China separatist nature of the Dalai group," the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India wrote on social media late on Tuesday.

It reiterated its oft-repeated position that the high-altitude territory "has always been part of China since ancient times".

US lawmakers meet Tibet's Dalai Lama in India

Former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile at Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India, June 18, 2024. 

REUTERS/Stringer

JUN 19, 2024

DHARAMSALA, India - A group of influential U.S. lawmakers met exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Wednesday at his home in India's Himalayas, officials said, despite China's warnings to avoid contact with the Buddhist monk it calls a separatist.

The bipartisan group of seven met the 88-year-old Nobel peace laureate at his monastery in the northern town of Dharamsala, they said, a day after arriving to a warm reception by school children, Buddhist monks and nuns.

The team, led by Michael McCaul, a Republican representative from Texas, who also chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, includes Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Issues the lawmakers are set to discuss with the Dalai Lama include a U.S. bill that aims to press China to resolve the Tibet dispute and awaits President Joe Biden's signature, McCaul said on Tuesday.

Beijing, which calls the Dalai Lama a dangerous "splittist" or separatist, said it was seriously concerned about the visit and the bill.

It urged the lawmakers not to make contact with what it calls the "Dalai clique" and Biden not to sign the bill.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet. Chinese officials chafe at any interaction he has with officials of other countries.


The Dalai Lama has met U.S. officials, including presidents, during previous visits to the United States, but Biden has not met him since taking office in 2021.

He is due to fly to the U.S. this week for medical treatment, but it is unclear if he will have any engagements then. 

REUTERS

 

The United States Is the Main Obstacle to Peace in Palestine

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Posted onJune 18, 2024

On June 13, Hamas responded to persistent needling by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the U.S. proposal for a pause in the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The group said it has “dealt positively… with the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a cease-fire agreement.” Hamas added, by contrast, that, “while Blinken continues to talk about ‘Israel’s approval of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official voicing approval.”

U.S. Marines and IDF soldiers in joint maneuver Intrepid Maven, Feb. 28, 2023. Photo: US Marines.

The full details of the U.S. proposal have yet to be made public, but the pause in Israeli attacks and release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations for a more lasting cease-fire and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations would succeed.

As former Israeli Labor Party prime minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on June 3rd, “How do you think [Gaza military commander] Sinwar will react when he is told: but be quick, because we still have to kill you, after you return all the hostages?”

Meanwhile, as Hamas pointed out, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest U.S. cease-fire proposal, so it has only the word of U.S. officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately agreed to it. In public, Netanyahu still insists that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its governing authority in Gaza, and has actually stepped up Israel’s vicious attacks in central and southern Gaza.

The basic disagreement that President Joe Biden and Secretary Blinken’s smoke and mirrors cannot hide is that Hamas, like every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the Israeli and U.S. governments do not.

Biden or Netanyahu could end the slaughter very quickly if they wanted to – Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent cease-fire, or Biden by ending or suspending U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel. Israel could not carry out this war without U.S. military and diplomatic support. But Biden refuses to use his leverage, even though he has admitted in an interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political benefit.

The U.S. is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of a cease-fire order by the International Court of Justice. Bipartisan U.S. leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24, even as the International Criminal Court reviews a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.

The United States seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

But perhaps this is appropriate, as the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for that isolation. By its decades of unconditional support for Israel, and by using its UN Security Council veto dozens of times to shield Israel from international accountability, the United States has enabled successive Israeli governments to pursue flagrantly criminal policies and to thumb their noses at the growing outrage of people and countries across the world.

This pattern of U.S. support for Israel goes all the way back to its founding, when Zionist leaders in Palestine unleashed a well-planned operation to seize much more territory than the UN allocated to their new state in its partition plan, which the Palestinians and neighboring countries already firmly opposed.

The massacres, the bulldozed villages and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 to a million people in the Nakba have been meticulously documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to persuade two generations of Israelis, Americans and Europeans that they never happened.

The U.S. was the first country to grant Israel de facto recognition on May 14, 1948, and played a leading role in the 1949 UN votes to recognize the new state of Israel within its illegally seized borders. President Eisenhower had the wisdom to oppose Britain, France and Israel in their war to capture the Suez Canal in 1956, but Israel’s seizure of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1967 persuaded U.S. leaders that it could be a valuable military ally in the Middle East.

Unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of more and more territory over the past 57 years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to keep expanding their genocidal territorial ambitions. Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace their Greater Israel plan to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion present themselves.

Israel’s de facto expansion has been facilitated by the United States’ monopoly over mediation between Israel and Palestine, which it has aggressively staked out and defended against the UN and other countries. The irreconcilable contradiction between the U.S.’s conflicting roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and the principal mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the whole world.

But as we see even in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, the rest of the world and the UN have failed to break this U.S. monopoly and establish legitimate, impartial mediation by the UN or neutral countries that respect the lives of Palestinians and their human and civil rights.

Qatar mediated a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, but it has since been upstaged by U.S. moves to prolong the massacre through deceptive proposals, cynical posturing and Security Council vetoes. The U.S. consistently vetoes all but its own proposals on Israel and Palestine in the UN Security Council, even when its own proposals are deliberately meaningless, ineffective or counterproductive.

The UN General Assembly is united in support of Palestine, voting almost unanimously year after year to demand an end to the Israeli occupation. A hundred and forty-four countries have recognized Palestine as a country, and only the U.S. veto denies it full UN membership. The Israeli genocide in Gaza has even shamed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) into suspending their ingrained pro-Western bias and pursuing cases against Israel.

One way that the nations of the world could come together to apply greater pressure on Israel to end its assault on Gaza would be a “Uniting for Peace” resolution in the UN General Assembly. This is a measure the General Assembly can take when the Security Council is prevented from acting to restore peace and security by the veto of a permanent member.

Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to ignore cease-fire resolutions by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and an order by the ICJ, but a Uniting for Peace resolution could impose penalties on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott. If the United States still insists on continuing its complicity in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly could take action against the U.S. too.

A General Assembly resolution would change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus back from Biden and Blinken’s diversionary tactics to the urgency of enforcing the lasting cease-fire that the whole world is calling for.

It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push Israel’s U.S. partner in genocide to the side, and for legitimate international authorities and mediators to take responsibility for enforcing international law, ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bringing peace to the Middle East.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

 

US Acquires Anti-China Missile Network Along First Island Chain

by Reiho Takeuchi Posted onJune 19, 2024

Since the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty expired in 2019, the United States has developed Medium-Range Missile (MRM) capability.

On April 3, 2024, Gen. Charles Flynn, U.S. Army Pacific commanding general, told the Japanese media at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo that the U.S. Army planned to deploy a new MRM launcher in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of this year that could act as a deterrent against China. He didn’t disclose the name of the missile launching system or where and when the U.S. would deploy it. However, the Asahi Shimbun reported that a U.S. government source said the system would likely be based in Guam and temporarily transferred to Japan for training.

In January 2023, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Washington postponed deploying the ground-launched MRM in Japan. On April 22, 2024, the U.S. Army announced sending an MRM system to the Philippines. It came amid a series of U.S.-Philippines military exercises and was the first-ever deployment of the MRM system, also known as the Typhon system, to the Indo-Pacific theater. The U.S. Army didn’t say how long the Typhon system would remain in the Philippines.

As of this writing, the whole picture of the U.S. MRM system deployment is unknown. However, an investment plan the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command submitted to Congress in 2021 featured “highly survivable, precision-strike networks along the first island chain” as a central element. And now, the plan has reached the stage of realization at no extra cost.

First, the Japanese government is deploying missile troops, a base, and a surveillance force to the Nansei islands, which are on the first island chain and extend from southwestern Kyushu to northern Taiwan. Such military installations are in north order, on Mage Island, Amami Island, the main island of Okinawa, Miyako Island, Ishigaki Island, and Yonaguni Island.

Taiwan, Japan, and the major islands of the Nansei Islands

Second, Japan is developing and purchasing longer-range missiles.

Tokyo has already signed a contract with the U.S. to buy 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1,600 kilometers. Also, Japan is developing standoff missiles, which can attack from a distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade the weapon’s effect or defensive fire from the target area. Japan aims to develop missile capabilities that can be launched from vehicles, ships, fighter aircraft, and submarines to adversary’s ships and ground-surface objectives. Its range will reach a maximum of 3,000 kilometers.

Third, the National Security Strategy of Japan, published in December 2022, approves Japan’s counterstrike capabilities.

Counterstrike capabilities mean the capability to attack the adversary’s bases. The document states that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) leverages standoff defense and other capabilities. “In cases where an armed attack against Japan has occurred, and as part of that attack, ballistic missiles and other means have been used, and counterstrike capabilities enable Japan to mount effective counterstrikes against the opponent’s territory. Counterstrikes are done as a minimum necessary measure for self defense and in accordance with the Three New Conditions for Use of Force.”

The Three New Conditions for Use of Force were established in 2014, which are:

1. When an armed attack against Japan or against a foreign country that is in a close relationship with Japan occurs and, as a result, threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger to fundamentally overturn people’s right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
2. When no other appropriate means are available to repel the attack, ensure Japan’s survival, and protect its people.
3. Use of force is limited to the minimum extent necessary.

Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan prohibits using military force without an attack on Japan. However, in 2014, the Shinzo Abe administration changed the interpretation of the Constitution and approved exercising the right of collective defense. According to the examples the government submitted to the ruling party conference before the change was decided, JSDF would defend attacked U.S. warships, intercept ballistic missiles heading to the U.S., support U.S. warships operating near Japan when the U.S. mainland is under attack, and so on.

Fourth, the U.S. has the right to command JSDF.

On April 10, 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida issued a joint statement stating “our intention to bilaterally upgrade our respective command and control frameworks to enable seamless integration of operations and capabilities and allow for greater interoperability and planning between U.S. and Japanese forces in peacetime and during contingencies.” In 2015, the Alliance Coordination Mechanism was set up so that the U.S. and Japanese forces could cooperate closely.

In addition, there was a secret agreement. On July 23, 1952, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Robert Murphy, U.S. Far East Commander in Chief Mark Clark, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida agreed that a single commander was indispensable in an emergency and that the U.S. should appoint the person. Yoshida asked that this agreement be kept secret because it would significantly impact the Japanese public.

To sum up, Japan is deploying Medium-Range missiles to the Nansei Islands to attack the adversary’s bases in order to defend the U.S., and the U.S. will command the Japanese forces.

If a war occurs in East Asia and Japan plays such a role, China will attack missile bases in Japan, especially the Nansei Islands, first of all. However, the U.S. probably takes the sacrifice for granted.

Professor Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes at the Naval War College published a paper in 2012 titled Asymmetric Warfare, American Style. In it, they insisted that “Let’s just say it: AirSea Battle in East Asia is about China” and that “if the United States places enough importance on its political and strategic goals in Asia to contemplate a fight there, it should […] match its commitment with deeds.”

They made preliminary remarks, “In the best case from Washington’s standpoint, Beijing might desist from ever attempting to upend the U.S.-led order in the region.” They simulated a contingency over Taiwan that “PLA naval forces must pass through the narrow seas separating the Ryukyus in order to menace Taiwan’s vulnerable east coast and threaten U.S. forces converging on the combat theater” and described the Nansei Islands as “tiny, seemingly insignificant, Japanese-held islands could thus leap to the foreground of a cross-strait conflagration.”

They estimated the result of the attempt to eliminate Japanese deployment of missiles on the Nansei Islands, “A suppression campaign involving air power and ballistic- and cruise-missile strikes would accelerate the rate at which the PLA exhausted finite stocks of munitions, airframes, and airmen” and “Abundant, survivable, inexpensive weaponry could coax China into exhausting expensive and scarce offensive weapons for meager territorial gain and uncertain prospects of a breakthrough into Pacific waters.”

The U.S. is carrying out the plan as the paper suggested 12 years ago and will sacrifice the Nansei Islands to compete with China.

Some locals are aware that they will be in great danger, so they have been opposing the deployment of the missiles. Still, the mayors of the local towns approved the plan, and Tokyo put it into practice, boasting that “strengthening defenses on the Nansei Islands is a manifestation of determination to defend Japan.”

Reiho Takeuchi is a Japanese journalist whose work focuses on the geopolitical issues of Asia-Pacific. He has written a series of articles titled U.S. Military and Modern Colonialism on https://reihotakeuchi.substack.com/. His latest article is The U.S. Military Dominates Japanese Sky. E-mail: reihotakeuchi@gmail.com

 

Uncontrolled Spending on Nukes and War in Ukraine – The Tory-Labour Election Pac

by Ian Proud Posted onJune 19, 2024

On 12 April, Keir Starmer announced that Labour would commit to increase UK defense spending to 2.5%. While the Conservative Party has been talking up the need to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP for some time, Rishi Sunak made his formal announcement on 24 April. On the eve of Rishi’s reveal, the UK Defense Journal declared ‘Britain to boost defense spending due to threat from Russia!’  Out of the blue, spending 2.5% of GDP on defense had become a joint Tory-Labour commitment.

For voters, at a time of an ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, Israeli atrocities in Gaza and growing fear of China, spending an extra 0.5% of GDP on defense a headline grabber. But why is there no debate between the two main political parties in the UK general election campaign about foreign, security and defense policy?

The Tories and Labour have been completely silent on how much this additional 0.5% will cost in hard-earned, tax-payers’ cash.  At a pre-election debate, the phrase ‘2.5% on defense’ slipped off Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner’s tongue quicker than the sale of her council house in Stockport.  In its review of the Conservative Manifesto, the Institute for Fiscal Studies only refers to increased defence spending in percentage terms, and not in pounds and pence.

In fact, the Tory-Labour pact on defense spending will cost in excess of £13bn each year. Apparently, cutting the size of the civil service and cutting benefits will largely fund this. Although no actual plans for this have been set out.  So we should assume an increase in UK government borrowing which has now risen above 100% of GDP, with a government deficit that is currently twice as high as the limit set within the European Union (3%).

Let’s be clear, the Tory-Labour plans for defence spending exceed the total cost of their respective election spending pledges. Labour spending plans top off at around £10bn and Keir Starmer and crew can barely breathe without being pressed on how they’ll fund breakfast clubs for primary schools, or a warm house plan to stop elderly people dying because they can’t afford to pay for heating.  The Conservatives are looking to cut taxes, despite massive debt and a large deficit. But where they are planning to spend more, for example on Sunak’s bizarre kids’ army, those costs fall far short of the assumed Tory-Labour increase in defense spending.

And what the public doesn’t know is that most of the new money for defense has already been spent. The UK already spends 2.3% of GDP following a huge recent splurge.  The remaining 0.2% will disappear quicker than a British Minister’s deleted WhatsApp messages.

But this money isn’t giving us anything new.  In fact, the day-to-day budget this year to pay for the lads and lasses on the front line of our defense has been cut by £2.5bn. Many service personnel worry about whether they’ll have a house to live in. Submariners talk about the increased stress of longer deployments which have been driven by the need to cut costs.

No, this 0.5% increase in defense spending will be shuffled towards completely out of control spending on the defense procurement program and the proxy war in Ukraine.

In March 2024, the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee reported that the Ministry of Defense has been consistently unable or unwilling to control the spiraling costs and delivery schedules of its 1800 (that’s right, eighteen hundred) defense projects. The MoD has a woeful track record: whether it’s a £430m overspend on the Warrior program or £2.5bn over on new aircraft carriers, a 59% delay in delivering the Challenger 3 tank or an extra 7 years for Dreadnought.

On 4 December 2023 the National Audit Office produced a review of the MoD’s equipment plan for the next decade concluding that it was ‘unaffordable and facing the largest budget deficit since the plan was introduced in 2012’.  Note here that the current plan was developed two years before the Ukraine crisis started.  So the motto for UK defense procurement should be ‘delivering last decade’s technology in the next decade at whatever cost.’

According to the MoD’s estimates, the costs of the equipment program have shot up by 27% or £65.7bn over the past year alone. And that is based on their ‘most likely’ scenario for spending. In the ‘worst case’, the total increase in cost will amount to almost £80bn.  Add in other expected cost overruns that the MoD reassures us can be absorbed by efficiency savings, then the cost shoots up to over £104bn. The Public Accounts Committee noted that these estimates do not account for an estimated £12bn in additional requirements for the Army.

By far the biggest area of budgetary pressure is in the nuclear program which is currently overspent by 62%. These include the much-delayed ‘Dreadnought’ submarine as a replacement for the SSBNSs that carry the UK’s nuclear missiles.  There is a joint UK-US project to build a new class of submarines to counter the apparent threat from China under the AUKUS program; however, the current generation of Astute class fleet submarines in the UK has only been operational for ten years. We have a program to design a new nuclear warhead with the US, as if having 225 nukes wasn’t enough. None of these massively costly projects are giving us capabilities that we don’t already possess. While they are undoubtedly strengthening the UK’s military industrial supply chain, they aren’t making us safer.

After expensive nukes, the Tories and Labour are jointly committing to prop up proxy conflicts. £3.9bn will be allocated from the Treasury reserve in the current financial year, principally to fund the UK’s weapon shipments to Ukraine, but also the cost of supporting US strikes against Yemen. As I understand it, this ‘reserve’ funding for proxy conflicts will become normalized within the defense budget from 2025/6, after the general election dust has settled.  With practically no parliamentary scrutiny, a massive financial commitment to the government in Kyiv has been baked into the government’s spending plans under the next parliament.

There has been no discussion of either expensive nukes or support for proxy conflicts by the Conservatives or Labour in the election campaign. The UK is practically the only country in the western alliance where any discussion of defence spending on nuclear weapons or war in Ukraine is almost completely stifled, by the government, the main opposition party and the mainstream media.

Afraid to show weakness, the Labour party has refused to chart its own policy on foreign defense and security policy. As they will most likely win the election, we should assume big spending on nukes come what may, and on proxy conflicts until a negotiated settlement is reached in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza (arguably the flashpoint for Houthi strikes against western shipping).  A brief attempt to shift debate towards spending more on international engagement including through overseas aid and diplomacy evaporated. UK electors now face a terrifying lack of choice, with both the Tories and Labour preferring war-war, over jaw-jaw.

Ian Proud is a former British diplomat and was the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to 2019.  While in Russia, Ian advised UK Ministers on Russia’s political economy, and that of neighbouring former Soviet states, including Ukraine. He recently published his memoir, a Misfit in Moscow: how British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.