Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy
Author, Activist, Journalist
Ron Ridenour
 Denmark and Joergensen
>> 1. Denmark: SOS Save our Sovereignty Denmark is for many the quintessential home of social democracy. Not the macerated form that Bernie Sanders introduced the U.S. to with his presidential campaign, but true democratic socialism with the emphasis on socialism. In part one of his seven part series, Ron Ridenour sets the foundation of the crisis that has beset Denmark in a slide to the right. Denmark is not alone in this, but in many ways is a case study for Europe and much of the rest of the world. Denmark: SOS Save Our Sovereignty (Part 1 of a 7 part series on Scandinavia’s “socialism”)[dropcap]I [/dropcap]first met Denmark’s last truly Social Democratic Prime Minister, Anker Joergensen, in his state office, unannounced, in late 1980. Grethe and I had just been married. We had met the year before in Los Angeles where I had been a “participatory journalist”, and activist for social/racial/gender equality and against the Vietnam War. I wanted to start a new life with Grethe in her peaceful, social democratic land.  Christiansborg Palace. Photo: Julian Herzog) I took odd jobs and did freelance writing for some Danish media, and for progressive media in the US and England. As such, I often walked from Grethe’s centrally located Copenhagen apartment to Christiansborg. The palace is the only building in the world that houses all government branches. The royal palace stood beside the seat of economic power, Denmark’s Stock Exchange (Boersen).  The Folketing Chamber of the palace. (Photo: Heje) Sometimes I covered official politics from my “palace playground”, as my new wife quipped. The six-story building is a labyrinth of hard wooden stairs, long hallways and hundreds of offices. On my second trip inside, I ambled about unable to find the stairs that led directly to the balcony reserved for journalists covering the parliament. There were no guards and no signs on most doors. I stopped before a high door and turned the bronze polished handle. A small man sat behind a large desk. He turned about to look at me, a smile on his face. I flushed and spurted an apology for disturbing what I realized was the nation’s political leader. “That’s quite alright. No problem,” replied the prime minister unperturbed. His face wrinkled cozily through a black-white mustache and goatee. Thinning black hair was brushed back revealing a partially bald scalp. No guards or assistants appeared as I quietly closed the big door. Later in the 1980s, I spoke a few times with the unassuming man when he was no longer prime minister yet still the Social Democratic (SD) party leader. We attended Danish union meetings with delegates from unions in Central America, men and women under threat by death squads working with the CIA and US military “advisors” backing murderous dictatorial regimes. In 1985, I again met Anker, as he was known by all, standing beside his old-fashioned, gearless bicycle in the dead of winter. I asked him if he would be on standby if we had use for his political influence during the Central American peace-solidarity march. Anker readily agreed, and he did act when our marcher in El Salvador got arrested. (1) Anker started his working life as a bicycle messenger, then as an unskilled warehouse worker. He quickly was made a shop steward and worked his way up the union ladder. In the 1960s, he actively opposed the US war against Vietnam. Anker participated in Danish sessions of the Russell-Sartre Tribunal, in 1968. He was a supporter of the oppressed in many parts of the world, and of the 1968 Danish student uproar. It was therefore with sadness for many on the left and the more militant class conscious workers that he decided to support Denmark’s admission to the EU, then called the EF, in 1972. Anker often found himself in the middle of political controversies. In Anker’s time, Denmark was known abroad as a tolerant, peaceful, civil liberties/freedom-loving land. Its foreign policy was based on peace. Anker supported the so-called “footnote” foreign policy (1982-8) when Denmark opposed placing NATO nuclear missiles in Europe. The anti-war movement had already convinced the Establishment not to allow NATO military exercises and atomic weapons on its territory. There were several serious confrontations between the US and Denmark because of this. Anker died peacefully, March 20, 2016, at 93. A people’s man, he lived all his adult life, until he entered a senior’s home, in a modest apartment in a working-class district of the capital city. Nevertheless, as a member of NATO and EU, Denmark cooperates with both pro-US institutions, including in war games. Ironically, it was after the fall of “communism” and the end of the cold war that Denmark decided to begin its “activist foreign policy,” based upon following the US into its wars, including breaking up Yugoslavia, the last European socialist state, and warring in the Middle East and Africa. Denmark losing its peace and social democracy
Denmark’s 5.5 million residents support a permanent military force of about 20,000. Although there is a draft, one can choose to perform civil service instead. No one is forced to go to war unless Denmark is attacked, so those who war are volunteer mercenaries and earn more money. The last Social Democratic Prime Minister, Helle Thorning Schmidt, was the first woman in the post. During her term, October 2011-June 2015, her enthusiasm for war included offering Barak Obama her military for “regime change” in Syria. She seemed disappointed that a war to remove Bashar al-Assad had been averted when Syria turned over all its chemical weapons for destruction, “no thanks” to Vladamir Putin’s input. She declared (September 2, 2014): “Denmark is one of those countries that deliver most. We are at the level with Americans, and in that way we also consider Denmark a strong, active and very solidarity NATO land.” Obama seemed to echo Schmidt when he welcomed Denmark’s current liberal Prime Minister (PM) Lars Loekke Rasmussen, and the other four Nordic land leaders, to a State Dinner on May 13, 2016. “The world would be better if more countries were like the Nordic lands.” “We share common interest and values”. You “punch above [your] weight.” He underscored Denmark’s recent decision to increase its military and economic aid to Afghanistan, and expressed thanks for DONG’s wind energy projects in Massachusetts. Denmark’s public television correspondent, Stephanie Surrugue, interpreted this praise as an American receipt for Denmark’s role in the “war on terror”. The most important matter discussed that day was US and Nordic governments’ response to “Russian aggression,” reminiscent of 2014 when Russia reclaimed Crimea after 97% of voters there so asked. Denmark had already temporarily sent 6 F-16s and rotating troops to the Baltic and Poland. When PM Rasmussen returned to Denmark after dinner, he sent another 150 troops. NATO will now have 6000 permanent troops in these four countries plus in Rumania and Bulgaria. In Obama’s dinner welcome, he extended another hand to Prime Minister Rasmussen, whose government and ally parties are known for being anti-immigrant. Obama referred to media critique against the new “Jewelry Law” as disproportional. The law cuts way back on immigration and asylum-seekers, even for those fleeing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where Denmark has long had hostile troops. The government even places ads around the continent warning refugees not to come. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/denmark-refugees-immigration-law/431520/ The refugees have a good chance of winning the court case especially as it was filed the day after the European Human Rights Court judged Denmark in violation of human rights regarding a law that discriminates against immigrants. An immigrant who marries someone living in another land cannot bring his/her partner to Denmark before they are 24 years old. This law is connected to another that only allows equality of natives and immigrants once the immigrant has been a citizen for 26 years. The main lawmaker considered these laws as making Denmark Europe’s “pioneer” in “hardening laws” against immigrants-refugees. The current Foreign-Integration Minister, Inger Stoejberg, expressed disdain for the Court’s decision. She said that she would find a way to maintain and extend tightening immigration-refugee rules. “If we can’t do it one way, we’ll do it another.” On the occasion of the White House State dinner, the five Nordic nations signed a “summit joint statement” with the US reaffirming “our deep partnership on shared fundamental values” that include strengthening NATO, backing the Baltic States and Poland with weaponry, aircraft and troops, pressing Russia on many fronts, “stabilizing” Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other areas. Finland and Sweden also planned to end their neutrality and join NATO, where Denmark, Norway and Iceland already sit. Sweden signed a Host Country Agreement with NATO after the dinner giving the war alliance rights to military troops and exercises on Swedish territory and even the right to war on Swedish territory “if a crisis” warrants it. Finland signed a similar agreement. Danish PM Loekke Rasmussen diligently prepared to please his host. Since 9/11 all the Danish governments (so-called blue/conservative and red/liberal block coalitions) support the many regime shifts outlined by the first George Bush government, about which I will write in future pieces. During the April 2016 Danish parliament debate to invade Syria and extend Denmark’s military capacity in Iraq, the foreign minister, Kristian Jensen, made no bones about it: “Our goal is quite simple. In relationship to Syria our goal is to remove Assad, as one of the worst dictators in the world at this time.” He also stated that Denmark will fight the Islamic State. According to United Nations law, as well as Denmark’s own constitution, war must not be waged if: there is no UN mandate, or the country in question is not attacking the nation. With Syria, no specific plans are stated about directly attacking government forces. However, the Syrian government has not asked Denmark or the “coalition of the willing” to aid it in its defense against IS, and thus the invasion is illegal. Pleasing the United States before dinner
The state-controlled utility said the move would reduce the government's stake in the company from 58.8 percent to 50.1 percent, and the government could sell more of its share in 2020 and lose control. It was originally all state-owned. In 2014, Goldman Sachs, the world’s most powerful and infamous investment firm, bought 18 percent of DONG for $1.2 billion. But it wasn’t even the New York GS company, rather a subsidiary in Luxembourg owned by a shell company tax haven in Delaware and Cayman Islands. With its minority ownership, GS insisted on determining Denmark’s energy company’s leadership. It then pushed DONG to go IPO, and threatened to shut down renewable energy sources if the government didn’t increase its subsidies. Just days after the White House State Dinner, the stock exchange valued DONG to be three times its underrated value in 2014, from about $5 billion to $13-15 billion. The “incentive plan” for DONG leadership garnered them $70 million, which raises suspicions that the company’s worth was deliberately undervalued. And the $1.2-$1.5 billion profit that Goldman Sachs plucked could have benefited Danish society had the shares been sold to Danish owned workers pension fund companies. The Social Democrat government’s finance minister at the time, Bjarne Corydon, is seen as the bourgeois’s Trojan Horse. The May 27, 2016 editorial in “Politiken”, a liberal capitalist daily, called the course of events “ugly”, which has “increased mistrust”, so much so that a staff writer wrote “This is the stuff that makes ordinary people turn their back on the powers that be and look towards Donald Trump”. While half of DONG’s electricity and heat generation comes from renewable sources, it also buys coal mined in Colombia where death squads operate. In December 2015, Danish and international media revealed how DONG and Sweden’s government-own Vattenfall bought coal from the murderous Prodeco mining firm owned by Glencore. BBC reported (2012) that Prodeco paid for the murder of ten residents, in 2002, so it could take their land. One-third of Danish electricity comes from coal—4.5 million tons in 2014—half of that comes from Colombia. DONG bought 950,000 tons from Prodeco, in 2014, and 160,000 tons in 2015, after exposure about its murders. As of this writing DONG has not severed ties with Prodeco, and it is hard to find workers who still believe the Social Democratic party represents workers. Denmark comes to dinner Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen came gleefully to dinner bearing those many gifts for America, and he thanked his world leader host for the “lucrative export contracts for Danish businesses.” These war-profiteering “gifts” offered to the world’s policeman belie Bernie Sanders portrayal of Denmark as socialist and humanitarian as he has so often proclaimed during the long US Democratic Party primary campaign. Sanders is a social democrat, who mistakenly yet bravely refers of himself as a socialist. He thinks well of Scandinavia because, after class struggle there like in all of Europe, it introduced social benefits: “providing health care to all people as a right” and “medical and family paid leave,” as he repeatedly says. A few days after he initiated this postulate early in the primary campaign, the Danish prime minister set Sanders straight, saying, “I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy…with a flexible labor market that makes it easy to hire or fire.” (1) As an organizer and spokesperson for the Central American peace-solidarity march being planned, I asked him to be on standby if we had use for his political influence. The six-week march (mostly in buses in 1985-6) from Panama to Mexico supported the Contadora peace process devised by regional leaders to pressure the US to end its war against Nicaragua, and its backing of military regimes massacring people in El Salvador and Guatemala. Anker Joergensen was useful when one of our marchers was arrested in El Salvador. Through his calls and those of other European leading figures, we forced the government to release the worker. This series sprang from discussions I’ve had with several people regarding the Danish/Scandinavian model of social democracy, or socialism as Bernie Sanders contends. Some well intentioned persons view the Nordic Model as a solution to greedy capitalism, while others view its role as a seditious savior of exploitative capitalism. Many Cubans I knew when living there (1988-96) and visiting since see the Nordic Model as a way out for their failing revolution, gone the way of a bureaucratic state. Some Spaniards backing Podemos hope to emulate Scandinavia, whose social democracy is also failing, unbeknownst to many foreign admirers. I have been encouraged by Podemos activist Pepe Crespo (http://elchiroilustrado.blogspot.com); Bernie Sanders supporter and colleague Dave Lindorff (www.thiscantbehappening.net); Left socialist William Hathaway, author of “Radical Peace” (www.peacewriter.org); Marxist-Leninist communist Klaus Riis (www.kpnet.dk); and my companion Jette Salling. Without their urgings I would not have delved into these complex themes. Hathaway put it this way. We are witnessing “the death of social democracy in Europe coupled with the rise of pseudo-left parties that exist to channel potentially revolutionary energy into reformist dead-ends…the crackdown on social democracy is inevitable under capitalism. These progressive measures were only allowed to stimulate consumption because the main consumer market then [Europe 1920s-70s and USA in Keynesian time, 30s-70s] was in the home countries. Now the market is global, and the corporations have to slash costs to compete with the emerging capitalist countries, which have lower wages, so social democracy has to go. But this crackdown may finally make the workers in the West realize their class position and start fighting back.” Lindorff put it another way. “Sanders [social democratic approach] offers a chance, slim I would agree, to attack the country’s corrupt power structure, and if that happens, we will inevitably see a weakening of the imperialist superstructure, and of the military industrial-complex…Sanders is urging his backers to create a movement, not for him but for the issues that matter which he is backing…It is a fantasy to believe that there will be a socialist revolution in the US that will overthrow the system. Far more likely is an openly fascist government.” NEXT: Roots to social democracy/capitalism, socialism
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The power of “Nyet!” Russia beards the Hegemon
THE WEST’S GREAT WAR AGAINST RUSSIA
Syria, the Ukraine, and other battlefields are just proxy conflicts. The object is the defeat and destruction of Russia as an independent world power.
DMITRY ORLOV
Kerry sitting with Lavrov and Putin in Moscow: Observe the Russians’ faces.
In the beginning it was centered on Russia, but the phenomenon has since spread around the world and is about to engulf the United States itself. It works like this: the United States decides what it wants Russia to do and communicates its wishes, expecting automatic cooperation. Russia says “Nyet.” The United States then runs through all of the above steps up to but not including the bombing campaign, from which it is deterred by Russia’s nuclear deterrent. The answer remains “Nyet.” One could perhaps imagine that some smart person within the US power structure would pipe up and say: “Based on the evidence before us, dictating our terms to Russia doesn’t work; let’s try negotiating with Russia in good faith as equals.” And then everybody else would slap their heads and say, “Wow! That’s brilliant! Why didn’t we think of that?” But instead that person would be fired that very same day because, you see, American global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Americans act baffled, regroup and try again, making for quite an amusing spectacle.
The whole Edward Snowden imbroglio was particularly fun to watch. The US demanded his extradition. The Russians said: “Nyet, our constitution forbids it.” And then, hilariously, some voices in the West demanded in response that Russia change its constitution! The response, requiring no translation, was “Xa-xa-xa-xa-xa!” Less funny is the impasse over Syria: the Americans have been continuously demanding that Russia go along with their plan to overthrow Bashar Assad. The unchanging Russian response has been: “Nyet, the Syrians get to decide on their leadership, not Russia, and not the US.” Each time they hear it, the Americans scratch their heads and… try again. John Kerry was just recently in Moscow, holding a marathon “negotiating session” with Putin and Lavrov. Above is a photo of Kerry talking to Putin and Lavrov in Moscow a week or so ago and their facial expressions are hard to misread. There’s Kerry, with his back to the camera, babbling away as per usual. Lavrov’s face says: “I can’t believe I have to sit here and listen to this nonsense again.” Putin’s face says: “Oh the poor idiot, he can’t bring himself to understand that we’re just going to say ‘nyet’ again.” Kerry flew home with yet another “nyet.”
Our thanks to Club Orlov for this splendid essay.
What’s worse, other countries are now getting into the act. The Americans told the Brits exactly how to vote, and yet the Brits said “nyet” and voted for Brexit. The Americans told the Europeans to accept the horrendous corporate power grab that is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the French said “nyet, it shall not pass.” The US organized yet another military coup in Turkey to replace Erdoǧan with somebody who won’t try to play nice with Russia, and the Turks said “nyet” to that too. And now, horror of horrors, there is Donald Trump saying “nyet” to all sorts of things—NATO, offshoring American jobs, letting in a flood of migrants, globalization, weapons for Ukrainian Nazis, free trade…
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he corrosive psychological effect of “nyet” on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated. If you are supposed to think and act like a hegemon, but only the thinking part still works, then the result is cognitive dissonance. If your job is to bully nations around, and the nations can no longer be bullied, then your job becomes a joke, and you turn into a mental patient. The resulting madness has recently produced quite an interesting symptom: some number of US State Department staffers signed a letter, which was promptly leaked, calling for a bombing campaign against Syria in order to overthrow Bashar Assad. These are diplomats. Diplomacy is the art of avoiding war by talking. Diplomats who call for war are not being exactly… diplomatic. You could say that they are incompetent diplomats, but that wouldn’t go far enough (most of the competent diplomats left the service during the second Bush administration, many of them in disgust over having to lie about the rationale for the Iraq war). The truth is, they are sick, deranged non-diplomatic warmongers. Such is the power of this one simple Russian word that they have quite literally lost their minds.
But it would be unfair to single out the State Department. It is as if the entire American body politic has been infected by a putrid miasma. It permeates all things and makes life miserable. In spite of the mounting problems, most other things in the US are still somewhat manageable, but this one thing—the draining away of the ability to bully the whole world—ruins everything. It’s mid-summer, the nation is at the beach. The beach blanket is moth-eaten and threadbare, the beach umbrella has holes in it, the soft drinks in the cooler are laced with nasty chemicals and the summer reading is boring… and then there is a dead whale decomposing nearby, whose name is “Nyet.” It just ruins the whole ambiance!
It is a hopeful sign that people throughout the Washington-dominated world are discovering the power of “nyet.” The establishment may still look spiffy on the outside, but under the shiny new paint there hides a rotten hull, with water coming in though every open seam. A sufficiently resounding “nyet” will probably be enough to cause it to founder, suddenly making room for some very necessary changes. When that happens, please remember to thank Russia… or, if you insist, Putin.
Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and a writer on subjects related to "potential economic, ecological and political decline and collapse in the United States," something he has called “permanent crisis”. Orlov believes collapse will be the result of huge military budgets, government deficits, an unresponsive political system and declining oil production.
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Olympic war
by Mikhail Leontyev VOLTAIRE NETWORK | MOSCOW (RUSSIA) | 28 JUNE 2016 
РУССКИЙ ESPAÑOL DEUTSCH
However, Hello! Sport, in a sense, is a sublimation of war. Therefore, at the time of the ancient Olympics the fighting used to cease. The current sports is sublimation of the “cold war.” In this case, the fighting is not suspended, as there never was an actual war taking place. Everything that happens around the sport, the Olympic Games, doping, has no relation either to any sport, or to doping. Just what I have said above. In the history of the ancient Olympic Games the most outrageous case was related to the Emperor Nero in year 67 AD. The emperor moved the games two years ahead, bribed judges and organized the disqualification of all of his strongest opponents. As the result he became the champion six times.
From the movie “Asterix and Obelix”:
Objection, demand, protest! I accuse the Gauls in the abuse of magic elixir !!!!
As for the doping: 50 year long progress in the sphere of sports could not be have been achieved without certain “medicinal factors.” Thus, the success is largely determined by the level of sports medicine and influence of controlling this medicine institutions. There is reason to believe that we are lagging behind in both areas. WADA – the current Anti-Doping Agency – was created in the ninety nine, when we, as a country we are now, did not exist. That is what it is-it was created without us, and as it turned out quite unexpectedly, against us. The summit of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, decided not to suspend the entire Russian team from participation in the Olympic Games in Rio, but it upheld the disqualification of the Russian athletics federation and left the decision on the admission of individual athletes at the discretion of the relevant international federations. We were allowed !!! They decided not to finish us off now, and promised to forgive us in the future, if we behave ourselves. This is very similar to the history of sanctions. In fact it is just a part of it. We are being strangulated “sectorally” – bit by bit, not in “once- and- for-all” manner. So that the incentives to change our mind would remain intact. Because the task is not to strangle us, but to hook us on. And because this story hides the fact that it is impossible to choke us out, and besides, even attempting it is dangerous to their health. In fact, all this doping scandal is a revenge. Revenge because we could not be intimidated and subdued. They failed. This revenge is hysterical, silly and self-incriminating. We have already won. And to compete with them in fair play – fair play by their rules, according to which we have to lose- is rather silly, indeed. However, good-bye!
Mikhail Leontyev is chief editor of magazine Odnako. He is also a commentator with the first Russian television network, and director of the information department of Rosnef publicity. Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com
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Arch-rivals India and Pakistan take opposed stands on Hague court’s anti-China ruling
The Empire of Hypocrisy plays with fire in the South China Sea as it seeks to roll back China’s influence in regional and global affairs.
Following last week’s ruling, India quickly issued a series of statements that parroted Washington’s stance on the South China Sea dispute and promoted the PCA and the UN Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS), on which the court claimed to have based its ruling. Pakistan, meanwhile, has sided with China, arguing that the territorial disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through negotiations among the states directly involved and calling on all other powers to refrain from interfering.
On July 13, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a statement that “noted” the PCA ruling. It went on to frame the dispute in the terms laid down by Washington as revolving around “freedom of navigation and overflight” and concluded by calling for “utmost respect for UNCLOS.” India, declared the MEA statement, “supports freedom of navigation and over flight and unimpeded commerce, based on principles of international law as reflected notably in UNCLOS.”
US Navy vessels in the Far East. No right whatsoever to be taunting people 10,000 miles from our shores, but that is exactly what all imperialist navies do.
The next day, India joined with Japan, the US’s principal ally in Asia, to support the PCA ruling and launch a new “maritime strategic dialogue” as part of their “Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership.” The joint statement that was issued following talks between Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his visiting Japanese counterpart, Gen Nakatani, sought to cast Beijing as a threat to order and international law. The defence ministers, said the statement, had “expressed concern” over “recent developments” in “the seas connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans.” They had, it continued, “reaffirmed the importance of respecting international law, as reflected notably in the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS), of the peaceful settlement of the disputes without any threat or use of force, and of ensuring freedom and safety of navigation and over-flight as well as unimpeded lawful commerce in international waters.”
Washington’s claim—parroted by Tokyo and New Delhi—that it is upholding “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea against an aggressive China is a false narrative, concocted so as to provide the pretext for a dramatic escalation of US military pressure on China. The real “right” the US is seeking to assert is the “freedom” to position its warships so that they can seize Indian Ocean and South China Sea “chokepoints” and impose an economic blockade on China in the event of a war or war crisis.
The US has long been working to integrate India ever more fully into its anti-China “pivot to Asia.” In March, the head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, publicly called for the US and Indian navies to mount joint patrols throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including the South China Sea.
Under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that ruled India for 10 years ending in 2014, New Delhi forged a “global strategic partnership” with Washington and signed a defence cooperation pact that saw the Pentagon become the Indian military’s closest training partner, and the US India’s biggest supplier of new weapons and weapons systems.
The two year-old government of Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has aligned India even more closely with Washington, transforming it into a veritable “frontline state” in the US drive to strategically isolate and encircle China. In January 2015, Modi and Obama issued a “Joint Indo-US Strategic Vision for the Indo-Pacific” that incorporated the US position on the South China Sea lock-stock-and-barrel. In June, Modi and Obama announced they had finalized the text of an agreement to allow the Pentagon to make routine use of Indian military bases for the refueling and resupply of its planes and warships, as well as to forward position material.
Despite all this, India continues to posture as “strategically autonomous,” so as to exploit China’s hopes it can yet dissuade New Delhi from becoming a junior partner of US imperialism; and, above all, so as to prevent the Indian people from realizing the extent to which India is now harnessed to the US’s strategic agenda and the terrible dangers that this entails.
Thus New Delhi is claiming that its stand on The Hague decision is not directed against China. “This is not an issue of being in favor or against any particular country,” said MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup. “It is about the use of the global commons. It is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of law.”
Indian military-strategic analysts have been far less circumspect, with many enthusiastically welcoming the PCA ruling as an opportunity for India to aggressively pursue its strategic ambitions.
“With the PCA negating Chinese claims over South China Sea, Indian naval warships can now move through the region under UNCLOS without informing the Chinese,” declared Indian Express columnist Sushant Singh. He urged the Modi government to use the ruling to further develop India’s military-strategic ties with the US and its allies in the Asia-Pacific and thereby boost India’s great power ambitions, including securing a major role in “policing” the Indian Ocean.
“Asserting the PCA judgment,” wrote Singh, “is an opportunity for New Delhi to assure its friends and allies in the region that it believes in the principle of freedom of navigation … This will enhance India’s credibility and reputation as a maritime power in the region.”
The Times of India ’s Indrani Bagchi termed The Hague ruling “a sweet verdict” for India, adding it “was greeted with much satisfaction by New Delhi.”
Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary, called The Hague decision “a damning indictment” of Beijing and said China “would appear as a rogue state” should it fail to abide by it.
Dr. Mohan Malik, an Indian-born academic now affiliated with US government-sponsored Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, urged India to use the ruling to expand its economic and security ties with South-East Asia, including with Vietnam, which has awarded India’s state-owned oil company exploration rights in South China Sea waters claimed by Beijing. Writing in the Times of India, Malik said, “The (Hague) verdict is a welcome development for India’s economic and strategic interests. It provides legal and diplomatic cover for increased Indian naval engagement with other South-East Asian countries.”
For decades Pakistan was Washington’s principal ally in South Asia. But with the US now building up its arch-rival India as a counterweight to China—including by securing it access to civilian nuclear trade, offering it the US’s most advanced weapons, and helping boost its economic and strategic ties with East Asia and Africa—Pakistan has been thrown into a strategic crisis.
Islamabad’s response has been to deepen its longstanding alliance with Beijing, Pakistan’s so-called “all-weather friend.” But this is only heightening frictions with both Washington and New Delhi.
Nevertheless, Pakistan quickly made clear its support for China’s position on how the South China Sea dispute should be resolved. On the very day of the ruling, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said, “Pakistan opposes any imposition of unilateral will on others and respects China’s statement of optional exception in light of Article 298 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
Minister Zakaria
Endorsing China’s opposition to the intervention of outside powers, particularly the US, in the South China Sea dispute, Zakaria added: “Countries outside the region should fully respect efforts made by China and the ASEAN countries to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea, and play a constructive role to this end.”
To the dismay of Islamabad, the US has ratcheted up pressure on Pakistan in recent months, demanding it shoulder still more of the burden in the Afghan counter-insurgency war, which has fueled an Islamist-tribal insurgency in large swathes of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
In late May, the US violated Pakistan “red lines” to kill the Taliban’s political leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in the process deliberately blowing up Islamabad’s efforts to entice the Taliban into peace talks.
In a clear indication of a further deterioration of US-Pakistani relations, the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing under the title, “Pakistan: Friend or Foe?” the same day The Hague ruling was delivered. Although Pakistan’s logistical support has been vital for maintaining the 15-year US occupation of Afghanistan, Congressmen and witnesses alike used the hearing to rail against Pakistan. Several lawmakers called for the US to cut off all assistance to Pakistan, for failing to do Washington’s bidding. Some even urged Pakistan be declared a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
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Chilcot Report Far Short of Judgment Day for War Criminal Tony Blair
Dispatches from
STEPHEN LENDMAN
The long delayed Iraq Inquiry Committee Chilcot report took seven years to complete, filled 12 volumes, yet excluded what’s most important – declaring the 2003 Iraq war illegal, flagrantly violating international law, destroying the cradle of civilization, raping it for control and profit, and demanding accountability for those responsible. Its 2.6 million words pronounced no judgment on Blair’s partnership with GW Bush’s naked aggression against a nonbelligerent country, based entirely on misinformation and Big Lies.
US, Britain and co-conspiratorial “coalition” partners attacked and occupied Iraq based on falsified claims about nonexistent WMDs, no evidence of chemical or biological ones, mushroom-shaped cloud hysteria, manipulated intelligence, a fabricated Al Qaeda connection, and other phony threats.
Intelligence was willfully cooked to fit policy. Britain’s so-called Dodgy Dossier generated fear to enlist public support for war, justifying the unjustifiable.
Bush, Blair & Co. are war criminals, responsible for millions of deaths, vast destruction, along with endless violence and chaos, US-created and supported ISIS now acting as imperial foot soldiers.
Blair acted internally on his own, willfully lied, mislead parliament, his senior ministers and Britain’s public – inventing a nonexistent threat “with a certainty that was not justified,” said Chilcot.
“W”—He may have acted like a bumbling idiot, and maybe he is, but his crimes are not something we can ever shrug off.
War on Iraq was entirely based on lies. Genocidal crimes followed. Yet neither Bush or Blair faces accountability – at home or by the International Criminal Court (ICC) – established by the Rome Treaty to prosecute individuals for crimes of war, against humanity and genocide.
Chilcot said Britain “invade(d) Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was (a first) not a last resort.”
Saddam Hussein posed no regional threat, said Chilcot. Britain with America and coalition partners acted extrajudicially. His report stopped short of demanding what’s most important – long-denied accountability.
Bush, Blair & Co. belong in the dock, prosecuted for Nuremberg-level high crimes – ones Chief Justice Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime against peace.”
STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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