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Donald Trump Lies Endlessly About His Foreign Policy Positions

by RoxanaAVKV Posted on August 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post practically runs out of room this morning fact-checking Donald Trump’s big foreign policy speech on Monday. I didn’t listen to the speech, but it sounds like there was barely any room between the lies for him to have said anything that was true.

What’s remarkable about Trump’s Middle East position is that he doesn’t just exaggerate or cherry-pick; he flatly turns things 180 degrees. He supported the Iraq War in 2002-03. He favored a quick withdrawal in 2007. He supported the Libya war. He opposed getting involved in Syria. These are all the things he says have contributed to the rise of ISIS and the destabilization of the Middle East.

In other words, by his own admission, everything he would have done as president would have been a disaster. Except that he doesn’t admit it. He just lies about what his positions were. It’s an amazing performance.

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Donald Trump Lies Endlessly About His Foreign Policy Positions

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The US Government Is Literally Arming the World, and Nobody’s Even Talking About It

by AnnelieseV51 Posted on July 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

When American firms dominate a global market worth more than $70 billion a year, you’d expect to hear about it. Not so with the global arms trade. It’s good for one or two stories a year in the mainstream media, usually when the annual statistics on the state of the business come out.

It’s not that no one writes about aspects of the arms trade. There are occasional pieces that, for example, take note of the impact of US weapons transfers, including cluster bombs, to Saudi Arabia, or of the disastrous dispensation of weaponry to US allies in Syria, or of foreign sales of the costly, controversial F-35 combat aircraft. And once in a while, if a foreign leader meets with the president, US arms sales to his or her country might generate an article or two. But the sheer size of the American arms trade, the politics that drive it, the companies that profit from it, and its devastating global impacts are rarely discussed, much less analyzed in any depth.

So here’s a question that’s puzzled me for years (and I’m something of an arms wonk): Why do other major US exports—from Hollywood movies to Midwestern grain shipments to Boeing airliners—garner regular coverage while trends in weapons exports remain in relative obscurity? Are we ashamed of standing essentially alone as the world’s No. 1 arms dealer, or is our Weapons “R” Us role so commonplace that we take it for granted, like death or taxes?

The numbers should stagger anyone. According to the latest figures available from the Congressional Research Service, the United States was credited with more than half the value of all global arms transfer agreements in 2014, the most recent year for which full statistics are available. At 14 percent, the world’s second largest supplier, Russia, lagged far behind. Washington’s leadership in this field has never truly been challenged. The US share has fluctuated between one-third and one-half of the global market for the past two decades, peaking at an almost monopolistic 70 percent of all weapons sold in 2011. And the gold rush continues. Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon’s arms sales agency, euphemistically known as the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, estimates that arms deals facilitated by the Pentagon topped $46 billion in 2015, and are on track to hit $40 billion in 2016.

To be completely accurate, there is one group of people who pay remarkably close attention to these trends—executives of the defense contractors that are cashing in on this growth market. With the Pentagon and related agencies taking in “only” about $600 billion a year—high by historical standards but tens of billions of dollars less than hoped for by the defense industry—companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have been looking to global markets as their major source of new revenue.

In a January 2015 investor call, for example, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson was asked whether the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration and five other powers might reduce tensions in the Middle East, undermining the company’s strategy of increasing its arms exports to the region. She responded that continuing “volatility” in both the Middle East and Asia would make them “growth areas” for the foreseeable future. In other words, no worries. As long as the world stays at war or on the verge of it, Lockheed Martin’s profits won’t suffer—and, of course, its products will help ensure that any such volatility will prove lethal indeed.

Under Hewson, Lockheed has set a goal of getting at least 25 percent of its revenues from weapons exports, and Boeing has done that company one better. It’s seeking to make overseas arms sales 30 percent of its business.

Arms deals are a way of life in Washington. From the president on down, significant parts of the government are intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life. From the president on his trips abroad to visit allied world leaders to the secretaries of state and defense to the staffs of US embassies, American officials regularly act as salespeople for the arms firms. And the Pentagon is their enabler. From brokering, facilitating, and literally banking the money from arms deals to transferring weapons to favored allies on the taxpayers’ dime, it is in essence the world’s largest arms dealer.

In a typical sale, the US government is involved every step of the way. The Pentagon often does assessments of an allied nation’s armed forces in order to tell them what they “need”—and of course what they always need is billions of dollars in new US-supplied equipment. Then the Pentagon helps negotiate the terms of the deal, notifies Congress of its details, and collects the funds from the foreign buyer, which it then gives to the US supplier in the form of a defense contract. In most deals, the Pentagon is also the point of contact for maintenance and spare parts for any US-supplied system. The bureaucracy that helps make all of this happen, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is funded from a 3.5 percent surcharge on the deals it negotiates. This gives it all the more incentive to sell, sell, sell.

And the pressure for yet more of the same is always intense, in part because the weapons makers are careful to spread their production facilities to as many states and localities as possible. In this way, they ensure that endless support for government promotion of major arms sales becomes part and parcel of domestic politics.

General Dynamics, for instance, has managed to keep its tank plants in Ohio and Michigan running through a combination of add-ons to the Army budget—funds inserted into that budget by Congress even though the Pentagon didn’t request them—and exports to Saudi Arabia. Boeing is banking on a proposed deal to sell 40 F-18s to Kuwait to keep its St. Louis production line open, and is currently jousting with the Obama administration to get it to move more quickly on the deal. Not surprisingly, members of Congress and local business leaders in such states become strong supporters of weapons exports.

Though seldom thought of this way, the US political system is also a global arms distribution system of the first order. In this context, the Obama administration has proven itself a good friend to arms exporting firms. During President Obama’s first six years in office, Washington entered into agreements to sell more than $190 billion in weaponry worldwide—more, that is, than any US administration since World War II. In addition, Team Obama has loosened restrictions on arms exports, making it possible to send abroad a whole new range of weapons and weapons components—including Black Hawk and Huey helicopters and engines for C-17 transport planes—with far less scrutiny than was previously required.

This has been good news for the industry, which had been pressing for such changes for decades with little success. But the weaker regulations also make it potentially easier for arms smugglers and human rights abusers to get their hands on US arms. For example, 36 US allies—from Argentina and Bulgaria to Romania and Turkey—will no longer need licenses from the State Department to import weapons and weapons parts from the United States. This will make it far easier for smuggling networks to set up front companies in such countries and get US arms and arms components that they can then pass on to third parties like Iran or China. Already a common practice, it will only increase under the new regulations.

The degree to which the Obama administration has been willing to bend over backward to help weapons exporters was underscored at a 2013 hearing on those administration export “reforms.” Tom Kelly, then the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, caught the spirit of the era when asked whether the administration was doing enough to promote American arms exports. He responded:

“We are advocating on behalf of our companies and doing everything we can to make sure that these sales go through…and that is something we are doing every day, basically on every continent in the world…and we’re constantly thinking of how we can do better.”

One place where, with a helping hand from the Obama administration and the Pentagon, the arms industry has been doing a lot better of late is the Middle East. Washington has brokered deals for more than $50 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia alone for everything from F-15 fighter aircraft and Apache attack helicopters to combat ships and missile defense systems.

The most damaging deals, if not the most lucrative, have been the sales of bombs and missiles to the Saudis for their brutal war in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed and millions of people are going hungry. Members of Congress like Michigan Representative John Conyers and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy have pressed for legislation that would at least stem the flow of the most deadly of the weaponry being sent for use there, but they have yet to overcome the considerable clout of the Saudis in Washington (and, of course, that of the arms industry as well).

When it comes to the arms business, however, there’s no end to the good news from the Middle East. Take the administration’s proposed new 10-year aid deal with Israel. If enacted as currently planned, it would boost US military assistance to that country by up to 25 percent—to roughly $4 billion per year. At the same time, it would phase out a provision that had allowed Israel to spend one-quarter of Washington’s aid developing its own defense industry. In other words, all that money, the full $4 billion in taxpayer dollars, will now flow directly into the coffers of companies like Lockheed Martin, which is in the midst of completing a multibillion-dollar deal to sell the Israelis F-35s.

As Lockheed Martin’s Marillyn Hewson noted, however, the Middle East is hardly the only growth area for that firm or others like it. The dispute between China and its neighbors over the control of the South China Sea (in many ways an incipient conflict over whether that country or the United States will control that part of the Pacific Ocean) has opened up new vistas when it comes to the sale of American warships and other military equipment to Washington’s East Asian allies. The recent Hague court decision rejecting Chinese claims to those waters (and the Chinese rejection of it) is only likely to increase the pace of arms buying in the region.

At the same time, in the good-news-never-ends department, growing fears of North Korea’s nuclear program have stoked a demand for US-supplied missile defense systems. The South Koreans have, in fact, just agreed to deploy Lockheed Martin’s THAAD anti-missile system. In addition, the Obama administration’s decision to end the longstanding embargo on US arms sales to Vietnam is likely to open yet another significant market for US firms. In the past two years alone, the US has offered more than $15 billion worth of weaponry to allies in East Asia, with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea accounting for the bulk of the sales.

In addition, the Obama administration has gone to great lengths to build a defense relationship with India, a development guaranteed to benefit US arms exporters. Last year, Washington and New Delhi signed a 10-year defense agreement that included pledges of future joint work on aircraft engines and aircraft carrier designs. In these years, the US has made significant inroads into the Indian arms market, which had traditionally been dominated by the Soviet Union and then Russia. Recent deals include a $5.8 billion sale of Boeing C-17 transport aircraft and a $1.4 billion agreement to provide support services related to a planned purchase of Apache attack helicopters.

And don’t forget “volatile” Europe. Great Britain’s recent Brexit vote introduced an uncertainty factor into American arms exports to that country. The United Kingdom has been by far the biggest purchaser of US weapons in Europe of late, with more than $6 billion in deals struck over the past two years alone—more, that is, than the US has sold to all other European countries combined.

The British defense behemoth BAE is Lockheed Martin’s principal foreign partner on the F-35 combat aircraft, which at a projected cost of $1.4 trillion over its lifetime already qualifies as the most expensive weapons program in history. If Brexit-driven austerity were to lead to a delay in, or the cancellation of, the F-35 deal (or any other major weapons shipments), it would be a blow to American arms makers. But count on one thing: Were there to be even a hint that this might happen to the F-35, lobbyists for BAE will mobilize to get the deal privileged status, whatever other budget cuts may be in the works.

On the bright side (if you happen to be a weapons maker), any British reductions will certainly be more than offset by opportunities in Eastern and Central Europe, where a new Cold War seems to be gaining traction. Between 2014 and 2015, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military spending increased by 13 percent in the region in response to the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The rise in Poland’s outlays, at 22 percent, was particularly steep.

Under the circumstances, it should be obvious that trends in the global arms trade are a major news story and should be dealt with as such in the country most responsible for putting more weapons of a more powerful nature into the hands of those living in “volatile” regions. It’s a monster business (in every sense of the word) and certainly has far more dangerous consequences than licensing a Hollywood blockbuster or selling another Boeing airliner.

Historically, there have been rare occasions of public protest against unbridled arms trafficking, as with the backlash against “the merchants of death” after World War I, or the controversy over who armed Saddam Hussein that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Even now, small numbers of congressional representatives, including John Conyers, Chris Murphy, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, continue to try to halt the sale of cluster munitions, bombs, and missiles to Saudi Arabia.

There is, however, unlikely to be a genuine public debate about the value of the arms business and Washington’s place in it if it isn’t even considered a subject worthy of more than an occasional media story. In the meantime, the United States continues to hold onto its No. 1 role in the global arms trade, the White House does its part, the Pentagon greases the wheels, and the dollars roll in to profit-hungry weapons contractors.

William D. Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and a senior advisor to the Security Assistance Monitor. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. To receive the latest from TomDispatch.com, sign up here.

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The US Government Is Literally Arming the World, and Nobody’s Even Talking About It

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Too Strong to Lose, Too Weak to Win

by DemetriaGrullon Posted on July 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

We live in an age of disintegration. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Greater Middle East and Africa. Across the vast swath of territory between Pakistan and Nigeria, there are at least seven ongoing wars—in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and South Sudan. These conflicts are extraordinarily destructive. They are tearing apart the countries in which they are taking place in ways that make it doubtful they will ever recover. Cities like Aleppo in Syria, Ramadi in Iraq, Taiz in Yemen, and Benghazi in Libya have been partly or entirely reduced to ruins. There are also at least three other serious insurgencies: In southeast Turkey, where Kurdish guerrillas are fighting the Turkish army, in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula where a little-reported but ferocious guerrilla conflict is underway, and in northeast Nigeria and neighboring countries where Boko Haram continues to launch murderous attacks.

All of these have a number of things in common: They are endless and seem never to produce definitive winners or losers. (Afghanistan has effectively been at war since 1979, Somalia since 1991.) They involve the destruction or dismemberment of unified nations, their de facto partition amid mass population movements and upheavals—well publicized in the case of Syria and Iraq, less so in places like South Sudan, where more than 2.4 million people have been displaced in recent years.

Add in one more similarity, no less crucial for being obvious: In most of these countries, where Islam is the dominant religion, extreme Salafi-Jihadi movements, including the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban are essentially the only available vehicles for protest and rebellion. By now, they have completely replaced the socialist and nationalist movements that predominated in the 20th century—these years have, that is, seen a remarkable reversion to religious, ethnic, and tribal identity, to movements that seek to establish their own exclusive territory by the persecution and expulsion of minorities.

In the process and under the pressure of outside military intervention, a vast region of the planet seems to be cracking open. Yet there is very little understanding of these processes in Washington. This was recently well illustrated by the protest of 51 State Department diplomats against President Obama’s Syrian policy and their suggestion that air strikes be launched targeting Syrian regime forces in the belief that President Bashar al-Assad would then abide by a ceasefire. The diplomats’ approach remains typically simpleminded in this most complex of conflicts, assuming as it does that the Syrian government’s barrel-bombing of civilians and other grim acts are the “root cause of the instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.”

It is as if the minds of these diplomats were still in the Cold War era, as if they were still fighting the Soviet Union and its allies. Against all the evidence of the last five years, there is an assumption that a barely extant moderate Syrian opposition would benefit from the fall of Assad, and a lack of understanding that the armed opposition in Syria is entirely dominated by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda clones.

Though the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is now widely admitted to have been a mistake (even by those who supported it at the time), no real lessons have been learned about why direct or indirect military interventions by the US and its allies in the Middle East over the last quarter century have all only exacerbated violence and accelerated state failure.

The Islamic State, just celebrating its second anniversary, is the grotesque outcome of this era of chaos and conflict. That such a monstrous cult exists at all is a symptom of the deep dislocation societies throughout that region, ruled by corrupt and discredited elites, have suffered. Its rise—and that of various Taliban and al-Qaeda-style clones—is a measure of the weakness of its opponents.

The Iraqi army and security forces, for example, had 350,000 soldiers and 660,000 police on the books in June 2014 when a few thousand Islamic State fighters captured Mosul, the country’s second largest city, which they still hold. Today the Iraqi army, security services, and about 20,000 Shia paramilitaries backed by the massive firepower of the United States and allied air forces have fought their way into the city of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, against the resistance of ISIS fighters who may have numbered as few as 900. In Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, supposedly decisively defeated in 2001, came about less because of the popularity of that movement than the contempt with which Afghans came to regard their corrupt government in Kabul.

Everywhere nation states are enfeebled or collapsing, as authoritarian leaders battle for survival in the face of mounting external and internal pressures. This is hardly the way the region was expected to develop. Countries that had escaped from colonial rule in the second half of the 20th century were supposed to become more, not less, unified as time passed.

Between 1950 and 1975, nationalist leaders came to power in much of the previously colonized world. They promised to achieve national self-determination by creating powerful independent states through the concentration of whatever political, military, and economic resources were at hand. Instead, over the decades, many of these regimes transmuted into police states controlled by small numbers of staggeringly wealthy families and a coterie of businessmen dependent on their connections to such leaders as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt or Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

In recent years, such countries were also opened up to the economic whirlwind of neoliberalism, which destroyed any crude social contract that existed between rulers and ruled. Take Syria. There, rural towns and villages that had once supported the Baathist regime of the al-Assad family because it provided jobs and kept the prices of necessities low were, after 2000, abandoned to market forces skewed in favor of those in power. These places would become the backbone of the post-2011 uprising. At the same time, institutions like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that had done so much to enhance the wealth and power of regional oil producers in the 1970s have lost their capacity for united action.

The question for our moment: Why is a “mass extinction” of independent states taking place in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond? Western politicians and media often refer to such countries as “failed states.” The implication embedded in that term is that the process is a self-destructive one. But several of the states now labeled “failed” like Libya only became so after Western-backed opposition movements seized power with the support and military intervention of Washington and NATO, and proved too weak to impose their own central governments and so a monopoly of violence within the national territory.

In many ways, this process began with the intervention of a US-led coalition in Iraq in 2003 leading to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the shutting down of his Baathist Party, and the disbanding of his military. Whatever their faults, Saddam and Libya’s autocratic ruler Muammar Gaddafi were clearly demonized and blamed for all ethnic, sectarian, and regional differences in the countries they ruled, forces that were, in fact, set loose in grim ways upon their deaths.

A question remains, however: Why did the opposition to autocracy and to Western intervention take on an Islamic form and why were the Islamic movements that came to dominate the armed resistance in Iraq and Syria in particular so violent, regressive, and sectarian? Put another way, how could such groups find so many people willing to die for their causes, while their opponents found so few? When ISIS battle groups were sweeping through northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, soldiers who had thrown aside their uniforms and weapons and deserted that country’s northern cities would justify their flight by saying derisively: “Die for then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki? Never!”

A common explanation for the rise of Islamic resistance movements is that the socialist, secularist, and nationalist opposition had been crushed by the old regimes’ security forces, while the Islamists were not. In countries like Libya and Syria, however, Islamists were savagely persecuted, too, and they still came to dominate the opposition. And yet, while these religious movements were strong enough to oppose governments, they generally have not proven strong enough to replace them.

Though there are clearly many reasons for the present disintegration of states and they differ somewhat from place to place, one thing is beyond question: The phenomenon itself is becoming the norm across vast reaches of the planet.

If you’re looking for the causes of state failure in our time, the place to start is undoubtedly with the end of the Cold War a quarter-century ago. Once it was over, neither the US nor the new Russia that emerged from the Soviet Union’s implosion had a significant interest in continuing to prop up “failed states,” as each had for so long, fearing that the rival superpower and its local proxies would otherwise take over. Previously, national leaders in places like the Greater Middle East had been able to maintain a degree of independence for their countries by balancing between Moscow and Washington. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, this was no longer feasible.

In addition, the triumph of neoliberal free-market economics in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse added a critical element to the mix. It would prove far more destabilizing than it looked at the time.

Again, consider Syria. The expansion of the free market in a country where there was neither democratic accountability nor the rule of law meant one thing above all: Plutocrats linked to the nation’s ruling family took anything that seemed potentially profitable. In the process, they grew staggeringly wealthy, while the denizens of Syria’s impoverished villages, country towns, and city slums, who had once looked to the state for jobs and cheap food, suffered. It should have surprised no one that those places became the strongholds of the Syrian uprising after 2011. In the capital, Damascus, as the reign of neoliberalism spread, even the lesser members of the mukhabarat, or secret police, found themselves living on only $200 to $300 a month, while the state became a machine for thievery.

This sort of thievery and the auctioning off of the nation’s patrimony spread across the region in these years. The new Egyptian ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, merciless toward any sign of domestic dissent, was typical. In a country that once had been a standard bearer for nationalist regimes the world over, he didn’t hesitate this April to try to hand over two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia on whose funding and aid his regime is dependent. (To the surprise of everyone, an Egyptian court recently overruled Sisi’s decision.)

That gesture, deeply unpopular among increasingly impoverished Egyptians, was symbolic of a larger change in the balance of power in the Middle East: Once the most powerful states in the region, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq had been secular nationalists and a genuine counterbalance to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf monarchies. As those secular autocracies weakened, however, the power and influence of the Sunni fundamentalist monarchies only increased. If 2011 saw rebellion and revolution spread across the Greater Middle East as the Arab Spring briefly blossomed, it also saw counterrevolution spread, funded by those oil-rich absolute Gulf monarchies, which were never going to tolerate democratic secular regime change in Syria or Libya.

Add in one more process at work making such states ever more fragile: the production and sale of natural resources—oil, gas, and minerals—and the kleptomania that goes with it. Such countries often suffer from what has become known as “the resources curse”: States increasingly dependent for revenues on the sale of their natural resources—enough to theoretically provide the whole population with a reasonably decent standard of living—turn instead into grotesquely corrupt dictatorships. In them, the yachts of local billionaires with crucial connections to the regime of the moment bob in harbors surrounded by slums running with raw sewage. In such nations, politics tends to focus on elites battling and maneuvering to steal state revenues and transfer them as rapidly as possible out of the country.

This has been the pattern of economic and political life in much of sub-Saharan Africa from Angola to Nigeria. In the Middle East and North Africa, however, a somewhat different system exists, one usually misunderstood by the outside world. There is similarly great inequality in Iraq or Saudi Arabia with similarly kleptocratic elites. They have, however, ruled over patronage states in which a significant part of the population is offered jobs in the public sector in return for political passivity or support for the kleptocrats.

In Iraq, with a population of 33 million people, for instance, no less than seven million of them are on the government payroll, thanks to salaries or pensions that cost the government $4 billion a month. This crude way of distributing oil revenues to the people has often been denounced by Western commentators and economists as corruption. They, in turn, generally recommend cutting the number of these jobs, but this would mean that all, rather than just part, of the state’s resource revenues would be stolen by the elite. This, in fact, is increasingly the case in such lands as oil prices bottom out and even the Saudi royals begin to cut back on state support for the populace.

Neoliberalism was once believed to be the path to secular democracy and free-market economies. In practice, it has been anything but. Instead, in conjunction with the resource curse, as well as repeated military interventions by Washington and its allies, free-market economics has profoundly destabilized the Greater Middle East. Encouraged by Washington and Brussels, 21st century neoliberalism has made unequal societies ever more unequal and helped transform already corrupt regimes into looting machines. This is also, of course, a formula for the success of the Islamic State or any other radical alternative to the status quo. Such movements are bound to find support in impoverished or neglected regions like eastern Syria or eastern Libya.

Note, however, that this process of destabilization is by no means confined to the Greater Middle East and North Africa. We are indeed in the age of destabilization, a phenomenon that is on the rise globally and at present spreading into the Balkans and Eastern Europe (with the European Union ever less able to influence events there). People no longer speak of European integration, but of how to prevent the complete break-up of the European Union in the wake of the British vote to leave.

The reasons why a narrow majority of Britons voted for Brexit have parallels with the Middle East: The free-market economic policies pursued by governments since Margaret Thatcher was prime minister have widened the gap between rich and poor and between wealthy cities and much of the rest of the country. Britain might be doing well, but millions of Britons did not share in the prosperity. The referendum about continued membership in the European Union, the option almost universally advocated by the British establishment, became the catalyst for protest against the status quo. The anger of the “Leave” voters has much in common with that of Donald Trump supporters in the United States.

The US remains a superpower, but is no longer as powerful as it once was. It, too, is feeling the strains of this global moment, in which it and its local allies are powerful enough to imagine they can get rid of regimes they do not like, but either they do not quite succeed, as in Syria, or succeed but cannot replace what they have destroyed, as in Libya. An Iraqi politician once said that the problem in his country was that parties and movements were “too weak to win, but too strong to lose.” This is increasingly the pattern for the whole region and is spreading elsewhere. It carries with it the possibility of an endless cycle of indecisive wars and an era of instability that has already begun.

Patrick Cockburn is a Middle East correspondent for the Independent of London and the author of five books on the Middle East, the latest of which is Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East (OR Books).

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Too Strong to Lose, Too Weak to Win

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Donald Trump Won’t Rule Out Using Nuclear Weapons in Europe

by ChongTrevizo637 Posted on March 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe during a town hall in Wisconsin on Wednesday. The Republican presidential front-runner was asked about his recent contradictory statements about nuclear proliferation—in which he said he was concerned about the spread of nukes while also suggesting that more countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, should be allowed to acquire them.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the host of the town hall, tried to pin Trump down on what circumstances might compel President Trump to deploy the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

“Look, nuclear should be off the table, but would there a time when it could be used? Possibly,” Trump said.

Matthews asked Trump to tell the Middle East and Europe that he would never use nuclear weapons, but Trump continued to evade. Asked again if he’d use nuclear weapons in Europe, Trump held firm. “I am not—I am not taking cards off the table,” Trump responded.

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Donald Trump Won’t Rule Out Using Nuclear Weapons in Europe

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Quote of the Day: The Middle Class Doesn’t Care If We Cut Taxes on the Rich

by NatishaRoney Posted on March 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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From House Speaker Paul Ryan, talking about his view of tax reform:

I do not like the idea of buying into these distributional tables.

“These distributional tables” are the ones that show Republican tax plans giving enormous cuts to the wealthy and nothing much at all to the middle class. Ryan calls them ridiculous because once you account for the economic boom of Republican tax cuts for the rich, everyone is going to be rolling in dough. Besides which, Ryan insists, “I think most people don’t think, ‘John’s success comes at my expense.'” Bottom line: distributional tables are for losers. “Bernie Sanders talks about that stuff. That’s not who we are.”

On a more amusing note, Ryan says he’s not looking at how to fund a border wall. “Remember, we’re not going to pay for that, recall?” So true.

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Quote of the Day: The Middle Class Doesn’t Care If We Cut Taxes on the Rich

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This Is A Thing Donald Trump Just Said. For Real. This Is Real Life.

by CheryleThyer Posted on January 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, ok? It’s, like, incredible.” —Donald Trump, who is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, insulting the intelligence of his own supporters.

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This Is A Thing Donald Trump Just Said. For Real. This Is Real Life.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Iran-Saudi Arabia Crisis

by GlennLance Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Relations between Shiite Iran and its oil-rich Sunni neighbors across the Persian Gulf have never been warm, and the civil wars in Syria and Yemen have fueled mistrust and proxy battles between the two countries for years. But even those conflicts didn’t manage to bring about the diplomatic meltdown that occurred this weekend, when Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran and significantly ramped up tensions between two of the Middle East’s most powerful players.

What happened? Saudi Arabia rang in the new year by executing 47 prisoners on Saturday. One of them was a Shiite cleric named Nimr al-Nimr, a longtime critic of the Saudi government who was accused by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir during an interview with Reuters of “agitating, organizing cells, and providing them with weapons and money.” In response, protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Shortly thereafter Saudi Arabia ceased diplomatic relations with Iran.

Bahrain and Sudan have since joined the Saudis in cutting diplomatic ties, and the United Arab Emirates “downgraded” its relations with Iran by recalling its ambassador and reducing staff in Tehran. The Saudis also announced other steps, including cutting off flights between Iran and Saudi Arabia and banning Saudis from traveling to the Islamic Republic.

Why does it matter? Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are major players in international trade, as well as in various conflicts playing out throughout the Middle East, and outright hostility between the two countries could bleed over in many ways.

The diplomatic crisis could affect efforts to broker peace in Syria. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are deeply enmeshed in Syria’s civil war. Saudis fund Islamist rebels in Syria while Iran supplies weapons, soldiers, money, and diplomatic backing to the Syrian government along with extensive support to its close ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Both countries are also important players in any attempt at a peace process for Syria. The UN special envoy for Syria hoped to restart peace talks between the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime this month, but a collapse in Saudi-Iranian relations could sink negotiations before they get going again. “We were hoping that a diplomatic solution could be found to the Syrian crisis in the next few months. Forget about it,” Fawaz Gerges, a Middle Eastern studies professor at the London School of Economics, told CNN.

It could worsen Yemen’s civil war. Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor, normally ruled by a Sunni-led government, is under the control of a Shiite rebel group called the Houthis. The Saudis launched an air campaign against those rebels in March and has been bombing Yemen ever since. While the campaign hasn’t dislodged the Houthis, it has killed more than 1,000 civilians by the United Nation’s estimate and laid waste to the capital of Sanaa. While Iran supports the Houthis, Yemen experts believe Iran hasn’t backed them in the same large-scale way as it has Hezbollah. But if tensions continue to rise with Saudi Arabia, Iran could be tempted to ratchet up its involvement in Yemen.

World powers are watching the situation closely. Russia has allied itself with Iran in Syria by sending weapons to the Assad regime and launching airstrikes against rebels. Sputnik, a Russian government-run media outlet, quoted a foreign ministry source who said Russia was “willing to play, if necessary, a role as a mediator in the settlement of existing and emerging discords between these countries.” China, a major consumer of Gulf oil, is also watching the situation and has urged both sides to calm tensions.

Uncertainty in the oil market is only rising. Iran has huge oil reserves, and it will finally be able to export that oil to the world market again this year now that Western sanctions are lifting. That could mean even more oil on the world market and another year of low prices—or tensions between Iran and Saudia Arabia could send oil prices rising again. No one’s sure which way it will go.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Iran-Saudi Arabia Crisis

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Surprise! Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Helps Donald Trump

by GiuseppBurgett Posted on December 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Back in September, Donald Trump put forth a tax plan that pledged to help middle-class Americans and take aim at the “hedge fund guys.” That four-page proposal was criticized for being vague on the details. It also raised eyebrows with its promise to be revenue-neutral.

On Tuesday, an independent think tank weighed in and called bullshit on Trump’s populist guise.

The analysis, released by the Tax Policy Center, found that the Republican frontrunner’s proposal would largely benefit only the wealthiest Americans by giving the top 0.1 percent an average of $1.3 million a year in tax cuts. Middle class Americans would see their taxes reduced by just $2,700 annually.

The plan would also wipe out revenue by a staggering $9.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the TPC,

“The revenue losses from this plan are really enormous,” Len Burman, director of the TPC, said. “Basically it would negate all the economic benefits if we were running deficits anywhere near as large as we’re projecting here.”

This latest analysis proves, once again, Trump’s tax plan and his insistence that it would cost billionaires like him a “fortune” is, as our Kevin Drum noted, the Lie of the Year.

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Surprise! Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Helps Donald Trump

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The 8 Biggest Moments of Tuesday’s Republican Presidential Debate

by Aaron Stone Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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The stakes in Las Vegas were high on Tuesday night, as the nine leading Republican presidential candidates met once again for the last Republican debate of 2015. The event took place at the Venetian, the hotel-casino owned by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, who was sitting in the front row, and it aired on CNN. The conversation centered on terrorism in the wake of the attacks in Paris and the San Bernardino shooting—but the candidates took every opportunity to sneak in digs at their rivals on a wide range of subjects.

Though the simmering rivalry between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio was expected to take center stage, it was just one of many disputes that broke out during the debate. Donald Trump and Jeb Bush butted heads several times: Trump attempted to dismiss Bush with a reference to his flagging campaign, while Bush tried to make the case that Trump is not a serious candidate. Rand Paul had a combative evening as well, taking the fight to Rubio over immigration and to the group as a whole over foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Chris Christie tried to cut into the bickering by pointing out that they are the outsiders who will stop bickering and get things done.

Here are the highlights—and lowlights—from the fifth Republican presidential debate.

Rubio and Cruz take their long-simmering foreign policy conflict to the stage: Egged on by moderator Wolf Blitzer, Rubio launched an attack against Cruz’s record on defense. “Three times he voted against the Defense Authorization Act, which is a bill that funds the troops,” Rubio said. “And I have to assume that if you vote against it in the Senate, you would also veto it as president.”

“You can’t carpet bomb ISIS if you don’t have planes and bombs to attack them with,” Rubio continued.

Cruz responded by tying Rubio to President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, whom he claims destabilized the Middle East and opened the region to “radical Islamic terrorists.” But Cruz also used the moment to draw a distinction with Rubio over their foreign policy approaches. “We need to focus on killing the bad guys,” he said, “not getting stuck in Middle Eastern civil wars that don’t keep America safe.”

Paul goes after Rubio on his immigration bill—by talking about terrorism: Paul used the issue of terrorism to light into Rubio for his work on a comprehensive immigration bill—a key weakness for Rubio among Republican primary voters who are wary of immigration and oppose the maligned immigration bill Rubio helped craft in 2013. “To defend the country, you have to defend the border,” Paul said.

Trump defends targeting the families of ISIS fighters: Paul laid into Trump for proposing to go after the families of ISIS fighters. “If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize that there’s something called the Geneva Convention we’re going to have to pull out of,” Paul said. “It would defy every norm that is America. So when you ask yourself, whoever you are, that think you’re going to support Donald Trump, think, do you believe in the Constitution? Are you going to change the Constitution?”

Trump’s response? “So they can kill us but we can’t kill them? That’s what you’re saying?”

Trump would be willing to shut down parts of the internet to keep ISIS out: In his bid to claim his spot as the most anti-ISIS candidate, Trump has suggested that he’d keep the group off the internet. How exactly, Blitzer wondered, would Trump achieve this? Was he worried about the implications for freedom of speech?

Trump wasn’t worried. “You talk freedom of speech, you talk freedom of anything you want,” Trump said. “I don’t want them using our internet.” His explanation was short on details—”I wanted to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS cannot do what they’re doing”—but rest assured, Trump would shut that all down. “I sure as hell don’t want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our internet,” he said.

Jeb finally pounces on Trump: “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency,” Bush said about 45 minutes into the debate, midway through a minor skirmish with Bush. The former Florida governor came into the debate clearly angling to diminish Trump’s standing as the front-runner. “This is another example of the lack of seriousness,” Bush said of Trump’s line about ISIS family members. “It’s just crazy. It makes no sense to suggest this.”

Bush had opened the night rebutting Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslim visitors from the country, saying it was not a serious proposal. “Donald is great at the one-liners,” Bush said, “but he is a chaos candidate, and he would be a chaos president.”

Trump hits back at Jeb: But Trump didn’t let Bush get the last laugh. Later in the debate, Trump steamrolled the former Florida governor. “This is a tough business, to run for president,” Bush said sternly in a back-and-forth with Trump. “Oh yeah,” Trump said sarcastically, almost rolling his eyes, “you’re a real tough guy Jeb, I know.”

“You’re never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency,” Bush responded, perking up with life. But alas for Jeb, Trump was ready with a zinger. “I’m at 42 percent and you’re at 3,” Trump quipped. “So far I’m doing better, so far I’m doing better. You know you started off over here, Jeb”—Trump pointed next to himself at center stage—”you’re moving over further and further. Pretty soon you’re going to be off the end.”

Fiorina claims she aided government intelligence work after 9/11: “Let me tell you a story,” she said. “Soon after 9/11, I got a phone call from the NSA. They needed help. I gave them help. I stopped a truckload of equipment. I had it turned around. It was escorted by the NSA into headquarters.”

As recounted recently in a story by Yahoo News, as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina got a call from NSA chief Michael Hayden, who needed computer equipment for a secret new program. Fiorina chose to help and rerouted a shipment of computer servers headed to a retailer to the National Security Agency instead. Those servers were used in the secret, warrantless collection of data that was exposed in 2013 by Edward Snowden.

Paul calls Christie Dr. Strangelove: Christie was vehement: A no-fly zone meant no planes would be flying over Syria, even if that required attacking a Russian aircraft.

“Well, I think if you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate,” Paul said in response, pointing to Christie, who was standing right beside him. “Here’s the thing. My goodness, what we want in a leader is someone with judgment, not someone who is so reckless as to stand on the stage and say, ‘Yes, I’m jumping up and down, I’m going to shoot down Russian planes.'”

Paul didn’t leave it at that, slipping in a dig against Christie for the Bridgegate controversy that’s dragged down his presidential ambitions. “When we think about someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don’t like their friends, they want to get a Democrat.”

Originally posted here – 

The 8 Biggest Moments of Tuesday’s Republican Presidential Debate

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We Are Live-Blogging the Final GOP Debate of 2015

by Enrique8184 Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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This debate was a mess. I seriously wonder whether ordinary viewers were able to follow much of it at all. It left me with the impression of a bunch of super macho monks angrily arguing about angels on the head of a pin. The candidates went down a rabbit hole early on and never really came up for air.

My strongest impression is that Ben Carson was terrible. He really needed to show that he wasn’t a complete nitwit on national security, and he failed spectacularly. He was obviously out of his depth and had no clue how to answer even the simplest questions. He literally froze when Wolf Blitzer asked him his view of the USA Freedom Act. It was almost painful to watch. Later on he burbled about not being able to fix the Middle East, sending Syrian refugees back to Syria with a few defensive weapons, and then became completely incoherent when asked about North Korea. Carson did so badly that I think his campaign is over.

Donald Trump took a step backward to his persona from the first debate: lots of mugging for the camera and no apparent policy knowledge at all. He doubled down on killing the families of terrorists; he answered three or four different questions by saying he opposed the invasion of Iraq; and then produced one of the night’s most fatuous lines: “I think for me, nuclear, the power, the devastation, is very important to me.” That’s his position on the nuclear triad? It’s hard to believe this isn’t going to hurt him in the polls, but this is not a normal world we live in these days. I’d say he’s going to lose a few points, but I won’t pretend to be confident about that.

Jeb Bush tried manfully to needle Trump, but the poor guy just can’t pull it off. All Trump had to do was make a face at him. As for substance, he was one of the most reasonable guys on the stage, but he seems incapable of stating his views in any kind of memorable way. He did nothing to help himself tonight.

Marco Rubio did his usual thing: he produced tight little canned responses to every question. I don’t like this approach, but I suppose it sounds coherent and forceful to some people. He did OK, and might pick up a few points. However, I would like to hear more about whether he thinks Ted Cruz exposed national secrets on live TV.

Ted Cruz probably did well, though he struggled with several questions. Does he really think we can carpet bomb only “the bad guys” and no one else? Does he really think arming the Kurds is the key to defeating ISIS? They aren’t going to fight ISIS anywhere outside Kurdistan. But I doubt this kind of stuff does him much harm. His tedious manhood fight with Wolf Blitzer over being allowed to speak when it wasn’t his turn didn’t make him look especially presidential, but maybe that doesn’t matter either. My sense is that he came out about even tonight.

Chris Christie said nothing except that he’s tough. Carly Fiorina just spouted her usual one-liners. John Kasich desperately wants people to pay attention to him and just can’t pull it off. And Rand Paul, bless his heart, didn’t try to out-macho everyone. But he also probably didn’t appeal to anyone either.

It’s hard to know how to react to this stuff. Kasich apparently wants a full-on re-invasion of Iraq. Trump wants to kill terrorist families. Cruz wants to carpet bomb ISIS but has no idea what that actually means. Rubio thinks our Middle Eastern allies will all magically provide lots of ground troops just as soon as the lily-livered Obama is out of office. Carson is just plain scary in his lack of knowledge of anything. The only thing they all agree on is that America needs a testosterone injection. It’s pretty depressing to watch.

But maybe I can cheer you up. Earlier today I told you that the latest issue of Mother Jones features a scarily-near-life-size picture of me, suitable for putting on your refrigerator if you buy a copy of the magazine. Did you think I was joking? I wasn’t, and I have photographic proof on the right. But I tell you what: If enough of you make a donation to MoJo tonight, I think I can convince them never to do this again. Deal?

Full debate transcript here.

Here we are for the….what is this? The fifth Republican debate? They fly by so fast! It seems like just yesterday that Carly Fiorina was a toddler in the undercard debate, but now look at her. Proudly up on the main stage and polling at 2.2 percent.

11:06 – And that’s a wrap.

11:04 – Trump: Our health care system is going to implode in 2017.

11:02 – Jeb mentions his “detailed plans” yet again. He probably ought to cool it on that.

10:55 – Commercial break! Then closing statements. While we wait with bated breath, how about making a donation to the hardworking bloggers here at Mother Jones? Just click here.

10:54 – Trump says he won’t run as an independent. At least, it seems like he said it. You never know with Trump.

10:52 – Trump and Rubio are now mugging together.

10:51 – Rubio wants to upgrade everything.

10:48 – Hugh Hewitt asks Trump what he’d upgrade first: missiles, subs, or bombers. Trump’s stream of conscious reply is on a whole new level. Hugh asks again. Trump: “I think for me, nuclear, the power, the devastation, is very important to me.” OMG.

10:47 – Jeb continues the mindless China bashing. This is everyone’s favorite sport every four years.

10:46 – Christie wants us to dig up Chinese corruption and then tell the Chinese people about it. How? Leaflets?

10:44 – Carson is now literally babbling about national security. I can’t watch. It’s too embarrassing.

10:42 – What would Fiorina do about North Korea? Answer: we have to beat up on China. This will convince them to help us get rid of Kim Jong-un. What?

10:38 – Commercial break! And I’m working hard here, folks. How about a donation? Show us that you get it.

10:35 – Hmmm. I wonder what Chris Christie’s job used to be? I wish he’d let us know.

10:31 – Carson: We should settle Syrian refugees in…northwest Syria. All we need is a few weapons to defend it. But why do we send Kurdish arms through Baghdad? Does Carson really not know? This is almost painful to watch.

10:26 – FFS, will everyone stop griping about not getting called on?

10:20 – Bush once again needles Trump for getting his information from “the shows.” Sadly, he can’t really pull it off. It does seem to get under Trump’s skin, though.

10:18 – Trump has been mugging for the camera all night. Much like the first debate.

10:12 – Carly trying to sound tough. They’re all trying to sound tough. They’re the toughest toughs of all time. They’re all tougher than anyone else on the stage. I wonder if even conservatives get weary of this endless bluster?

10:09 – The overall impression of this debate is total chaos, despite the fact that everyone on stage except Rand Paul has pretty much the same foreign policy.

10:07 – Wolf desperately trying to shut up Ted Cruz. Finally succeeds. Cruz looks like an idiot.

10:05 – I’m losing the plot here. Who’s in favor of what these days?

10:03 – Carson: Middle East has been in turmoil for thousands of years. We’re not going to fix it. Huh? Does he even listen to his own words?

10:02 – Now it’s $3 trillion.

10:01 – Trump: We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple dictators. Now the Middle East is a mess. Not totally clear what he means by this, but he’s certainly opened himself up for attack.

9:56 – Cruz manfully tries to defend teaming up with dictators as long as they’re our dictators.

9:52 – Commercial break! Why not take the time to make a donation to Mother Jones? All you have to do is click here. It only takes a few seconds.

9:51 – Carson: we have to destroy the caliphate. We have to “take their energy.” We have to cut off Raqqa. That’s his strategy?

9:48 – Um, no, Carly, Petraeus wasn’t “retired early” because he told Obama something he didn’t want to hear. You remember the real reason, don’t you?

9:47 – Rubio seems to think the only reason that Middle Eastern countries aren’t providing ground troops is because they don’t trust Obama. I hope he doesn’t actually believe that.

9:45 – Kasich appears to be proposing a massive re-invasion of Iraq.

9:44 – Now Trump doesn’t want to close down parts of the internet, he just wants to get a bunch of “smart guys” to infiltrate them. I wonder why no one has thought of that before?

9:37 – Should we kill the families of terrorists? Trump says he would be “very, very firm with families,” whatever that means.

9:35 – Cruz will destroy ISIS by “targeting the bad guys.” Okey dokey.

9:33 – Rubio says we need ground troops to defeat ISIS. This isn’t rocket science, but props to Rubio for actually saying it.

9:31 – Wolf asks Cruz again: would he carpet bomb cities? Cruz says he’d carpet bomb the places where ISIS is. This is, of course, in the cities.

9:30 – Cruz yet again seems to think the Kurds will fight outside Kurdistan if we arm them. This is pitiful.

9:28 – Trump desperately tries to tap dance around his idea of closing down parts of the internet. Eventually, he says yes, by God, he would shut down parts of the internet.

9:25 – Fiorina thinks we missed the San Bernardino shooters because we used the wrong algorithms. Also: we don’t need to force Silicon Valley companies to cooperate with NSA. We just need to ask them. Has she paid attention to anything at all over the past three years?

9:23 – Who’s right about the USA Freedom Act, Rubio or Bush? Carson looks like a deer in headlights and says Wolf should ask them. He doesn’t want to get in the middle of this. WTF? This is the new, well-briefed Carson?

9:20 – Christie just flat-out said that policy is boring. All we need is a guy who’s tough on terrorism. This legislation mumbo jumbo from the junior senators is for wimps.

9:18 – Rubio implies that NSA can’t access phone records with a warrant. But he didn’t quite come right out and say that, which means he can deny it later.

9:16 – This is great. Rubio has just implicitly accused Cruz of blabbing classified information on national TV.

9:15 – Rubio giving another one of his mini canned speeches. Do people really respond well to this?

9:13 – Cruz can’t abide the thought that he voted for a bill that Obama signed.

9:11 – So far, there’s been zero substance in this debate. Obama is horrible, ISIS must be destroyed, I’ll keep you safe, blah blah blah.

9:07 – These folks are still obsessed about whether Obama will say radical Islamic terror. Can someone please ask why they’re so fixated on this? Do they really think that saying this over and over actually makes a difference?

9:03 – Shouldn’t Obama get 30 seconds every time someone mentions him?

9:01 – Cell phones with ISIS flags on them? Have I missed something?

8:59 – Well, they’re all going to keep us safe.

8:51 – Chris Christie blaming LA school closure on Barack Obama.

8:49 – Rand Paul going after Trump and Rubio in his opening statement. OK then.

8:48 – And we’re off!

8:39 – Ben Carson has apparently been studying up on foreign policy. I so can’t wait for that. Do you think he’s figured out how to pronounce Hamas yet?

8:30 – Three minutes away from Reince Priebus! Then we get to see whatever ridiculous opening video CNN has concocted for us tonight.

8:22 – So how was the opening act? Did Lindsey Graham declare war on anyone?

8:13 – We have a few minutes while the CNN folks burble away, so why not donate some money to Mother Jones while we wait? I plan to harass you all evening about this, so you might as well do it now. Come on. What do you say?

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We Are Live-Blogging the Final GOP Debate of 2015

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