By Joaquín Roy
BARCELONA, Aug 13 2015 (IPS)

Recovering from a broken femur following a bicycle accident suffered in Switzerland, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry – former senator and former presidential candidate – is anxious to accelerate his convalescence and will visit Cuba on Friday Aug. 14, where he will hoist the Stars and Stripes flag over the emblematic U.S. embassy building in Havana.

Joaquín Roy

But Kerry will not going to a strange place: in reality, he will be going back home. As he catches a glimpse of the Capitol building in the Cuban capital, he will certainly think that it looks familiar – no wonder, it is a copy of the one on Capitol Hill back in Washington.

More than Mexico (from which the United States snatched half of its territory) and Puerto Rico (the peak of the 1898 Spanish-American War, together with the Philippines), Cuba is the land in Latin America which is the most naturally “American-Yankee”. Nothing is more palpable confirmation of this than to see the appalling ease with which anyone who has recently arrived in Cuba from Miami adapts to the local environment.

At this point, one must ask why it has taken so long to “normalise” what should have been a close relationship between the empire and a modest island about 160 kilometres from Key West.

“More was lost in Cuba” has been the cry of several generations of Spaniards as they considered a family or business misfortune. What did the United States lose in Cuba through having maintained that lengthy embargo in place, whose goal has been recognised as a failure?

More than substantial property, most of which actually belonged to Spaniards or their immediate descendants, Washington lost the arrogance of its hegemonic superiority after World War II.

The conversion of Cuba into a Marxist-Leninist state, allied with the Soviet Union – the arch-enemy of the United States – and the total destruction of the capitalist system, plus the exile of a stratum of a remarkable society, was a painful slap on the face of such magnitude that no U.S. president was willing to forgive and go down in history for being the first who had bowed before Castro.“The United States is what Latin America wanted to be and could not be. Hence, Castro insisted on converting the country [Cuba] into an enemy, a task in which he was helped by the unfortunate policies of Washington”

This explains the inertia of maintaining the embargo, an error that bit by bit has been weakened in the economic field. But any explanation must also take into account the primary role played by Fidel Castro, lord and master of the situation.

His leadership will be remembered in history, although probably without absolving him (as he promised when he was condemned in 1956 after his first failed rebellion). He has had no match since Simon Bolívar.  His success is credited to his extreme understanding of the meaning of the United States in the historical evolution of Latin America and its innate identity. Unlike the erroneous vision of other leaders, Castro understood that United States was an intrinsic part of the Latin American personality, and Cuba in particular.

The United States is what Latin America wanted to be and could not be. Hence, Castro insisted on converting the country into an enemy, a task in which he was helped by the unfortunate policies of Washington. Nevertheless, he retained the notion that in reality Cubans do not hate the United States, but only despise the temporary occupants of the White House and the detested U.S. security institutions.

Castro knew perfectly well that while Cuba was by defect becoming a nation after gaining independence mortgaged by the Platt Amendment (another of Washington’s errors), it was also becoming inexorably “Americanised”.

The new empire reinforced this error through its support for or tolerance of dictators and corrupt Cuban rulers of the 1930s and 1940s, details that Castro exploited in a ruthless Machiavellian fashion to attempt to demonstrate the alien nature of the United States.

That is why, faced with maintenance of the embargo, Castro responded with actions that provoked the negative reaction of Washington.

When there were phases of relative calm (as happened under the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton administrations) Castro sent troops to Africa, or shut down planes of Brothers to the Rescue (a Miami-based activist organization formed by Cuban exiles), generating adoption of the Helms-Burton Act which codified the embargo. He also got the European Union to adopt a Common Position, a sort of weak “embargo” to “keep up with the Joneses”.

Why does this scaffolding now appear to be coming down – because the justifications of the past do not have the arguments that are necessary for pragmatism today. The United States needs a secure and steady environment it its backyard. Barack Obama has more important issues to deal with in the rest of the world. Cuba has become a nuisance.

The other reason is because Raúl Castro is not like his brother and is clutching at the straw of the United States “returning home”.

But the change will not be easy. The political conditions of normalisation inserted in the Helms-Burton Act are formidable (disappearance of the Castro brothers or many high officials named by them, establishment of political parties, freedom of expression, elimination of Radio/TV Martí, etc.).

Erosion by slow progress (as in the economic field) will not be sufficient. It will be necessary for Congress to repeal the legislation en bloc. This time Raul is not going to commit a fatal error. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

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By Roberto Savio
ROME, Jan 22 2015 (IPS)

Every day we receive striking data on major issues which should create tumult and action, but life goes on as if those data had nothing to do with people’s lives.

A good example concerns climate change. We know well that we are running out of time. It is nothing less than our planet that is at stake … but a few large energy companies are able to get away with their practices surrounded by the deafening silence of humankind.

Roberto Savio

Another example comes from the world of finance. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2009, banks have paid the staggering amount of 178 billion dollars in fines – U.S. banks have paid 115 billion, while European banks 63 billion. But, as analyst Sital Patel of Market Watch writes, these fines are now seen as a cost of doing business. In fact, no banker has yet been incriminated in a personal capacity.

Now we have other astonishing data from Oxfam – if nothing is done, in two years’ time the richest one percent of the world´s population will have a greater share of its wealth than the remaining 99 percent.

The richest are becoming richer at an unprecedented rate, and the poorest poorer. In just one year, the one percent went from possessing 44 percent of the world´s wealth to 48 percent last year. In 2016, therefore, it is estimated that this one percent will possess more than all the other 99 percent combined.

The top 89 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by 600 billion dollars in the last four years – a rise of five percent and equal to the combined budgets of 11 countries of the world with a population of 2.3 billion people.

In 2010, that figure was owned by 388 billionaires, and this striking and rapid concentration of wealth has, of course, a global impact. The so-called middle class is shrinking fast and in a number of countries youth unemployment stands at 40 percent, meaning that the destiny of today’s young people is clearly much worse than that of their parents.“In a world where the value of solidarity has disappeared (Europe’s debate on austerity is a good example), apathy and atomisation have become the reality. We are going back to the times of Queen Victoria, substituting a rich aristocracy with money coming from trade and finance, not production”

It will probably take some time before those figures become part of general awareness but it is a safe bet that they will not lead to any action, as with climate change. U.S. President Barack Obama is the only leader who has announced a tax increase on the rich, although he stands little chance of succeeding with his Republican-dominated Congress.

In a world where the value of solidarity has disappeared (Europe’s debate on austerity is a good example), apathy and atomisation have become the reality. We are going back to the times of Queen Victoria, substituting a rich aristocracy with money coming from trade and finance, not production. But up to a point: 34 percent of today’s billionaires inherited all or part of their wealth, and – interestingly – “inheritance tax is the most avoidable of levies”, as James Moore noted Jan. 20 in The Independent.

The “father of modern times”, late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, saw it clearly when he said that the rich produce richness, the poor produce poverty. So let the rich pay less taxes.

Well, in a just-released report, the U.S. Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes that in 2015 the poorest one-fifth of Americans will pay on average 10.9 percent of their income in taxes, the middle one-fifth 9.4 percent, and the top one percent just 5.4 percent.

Now, 20 percent of the richest billionaires are linked to the financial sector and it is worth recalling that this sector has grown more than the real economy, and has regulations only at national level. At global level, finance is the only activity which has international body of some kind of governance, as do labour, trade and communications, to name just a few.

Finance is no longer at the service of the economy and citizens. It has its own life. Financial transactions are now worth 40 trillion dollars a day, compared with the world’s economic output of one trillion.

At national level, there are now attempts half-hearted attempts to regulate finance. But let us look what is happening in United States. The new bland regulation is the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly known as the Dodd-Frank, and it does not go as far as restoring the division between deposit banks, which was where citizens put their money and which could not be used for speculation, and investments banks, which speculate … and how!

This separation was abolished during the U.S. presidency of Bill Clinton, and is considered the end of banks at the service of the real economy. In any case, the lobbyists on Wall Street are intent on having the Dodd-Frank chipped away at, little by little.

There is some schizophrenia when we look at the relations between capital and politics. The U.S. Supreme Court has eliminated any limit to contributions from companies to political elections, declaring that the companies have the same rights as individuals. Of course, there are not many individuals who can shell out the same figures as a company, unless you’re one of the 89 billionaires!

Meanwhile, banks are not only responsible for the corruption of the political system, and for the illegal activities which have earned them billions of dollars, they are also responsible for funding only big investors, and leaving everybody else out from easy credit. The efforts of the Chairman of the European Central Bank,  Mario Draghi, to have banks give credit to small companies and individuals has gone largely nowhere.

But a new and imaginative initiative comes from the very stern Dutch bankers. All 90,000 bankers in the Netherlands are now required to take an oath: “I swear that I will endeavour to maintain and promote confidence in the financial sector. So help me God”.

This is not so much oriented towards the customer, and it is very self-serving; and it brings God in as the regulator of the Dutch banking system. Perhaps the Dutch bankers have been paying heed to the words of Goldman Sach’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein who said at the time of the financial crisis in 2009 that bankers were “doing God’s work”.

Well God will have to be actively involved. All the three biggest Dutch banks – Rabobank, ABN Amro and ING Groep – have been involved in scandals that have hurt consumers, or were nationalised during the financial crisis, costing taxpayers more than 140 billion dollars. In one case, Rabobank was fined one billion dollars.

New York’s Wall Street and London’s City are said to be open to the idea of introducing a similar oath.

It is probably only that kind of Higher Power which could turn the tide in this world of growing inequality and lack of ethics. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

The author can be contacted at utopie@ips.org

Excerpt:

By Mairead Maguire
BELFAST, Sep 12 2014 (IPS)

While the United States, United Kingdom and NATO are pushing for war with Russia, it behoves people and their governments around the world to take a clear stand for peace and against violence and war, no matter where it comes from.We are at a dangerous point in our history of the human family and it would be the greatest of tragedies for ourselves and our children if we simply allowed the war profiteers to take us into a third world war, resulting in the death of untold millions of people.

Mairead Maguire

NATO’s decision at its summit in Wales (September 4-5) to create a new 4,000 strong rapid reaction force for initial deployment in the Baltics is a dangerous path for us all to be forced down, and could well lead to a third world war if not stopped. What is needed now are cool heads and people of wisdom and not more guns, more weapons, more war.

NATO is the leadership which has been causing the ongoing wars from the present conflict in the Ukraine, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and others.

NATO’s latest move commits its 28 member states to spend two percent of their gross domestic product on the military, and to establish a series of three to five bases in Eastern Europe where equipment and supplies will be pre-positioned to help speed deployments, among other measures. “We are at a dangerous point in our history of the human family and it would be the greatest of tragedies for ourselves and our children if we simply allowed the war profiteers to take us into a third world war, resulting in the death of untold millions of people”

This decision by the United States/NATO to create a high readiness force with the alleged purpose of countering an alleged Russian threat reminds me of the war propaganda of lies, half-truths, insinuations and rumours to which we were all subjected in order to try to soften us all up for the Iraq war and subsequent horrific wars of terror which were carried out by NATO allied forces.

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) observation team, NATO’s reports, including its satellite photos which show Russian combat forces engaged in military operations inside sovereign territory of Ukraine, were based on false evidence.

While NATO is busy announcing a counter-invasion to the non-existent Russian invasion of Ukraine, people in Ukraine are calling out for peace and negotiations, for political leadership which will bring them peace, not weapons and war.

This spearhead military force will be provided by allies in rotation and will involve also air, sea and special forces. We are also informed by a NATO spokesperson that this force will be trained to deal with unconventional actions, from the funding of separatist groups to the use of social media, intimidation and black propaganda.

No doubt the current Western media’s demonisation of President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people, by trying to inculcate fear and hatred of them, is part of the black propaganda campaign.

NATO’s latest proposals of 4,000 soldiers, and a separate force of 10,000 strong British-led joint expeditionary force also proposed, is a highly aggressive and totally irresponsible move by the United States, United Kingdom and NATO. It is breaches the 1997 agreement with Moscow under which NATO pledged not to base substantial numbers of soldiers in Eastern Europe on a permanent basis.

NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated but it was not and is now controlled by the United States for its own agenda. When speaking of NATO, one of President Bill Clinton’s officials said “America is NATO”. Today NATO, instead of being abolished, is re-inventing itself in re-arming and militarising European states and justifying its new role by creating enemy images – be they Russians, IS (the Islamic State), and so on.

In an interdependent, interconnected world, struggling to build fraternity, economic cooperation and human security, there is no place for the Cold War policies of killing and threats to kill and policies of exceptionalism and superiority. The world has changed. People do not want to be divided and they want to see an end to violence, militarism and war.

The old consciousness is dysfunctional and a new consciousness based on an ethic of non-killing and respect and cooperation is spreading. It is time for NATO to recognise that its violent policies are counterproductive. The Ukraine crisis, groups such as the Islamic State, etc., will not be solved with guns, but with justice and through dialogue.

Above all, the world needs hope. It needs inspirational political leadership and this could be given if President Barack Obama and President Putin sat down together to solve the Ukraine conflict through dialogue and negotiation and in a non-violent way.

We live in dangerous times, but all things are possible, all things are changing … and peace is possible. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Excerpt:

The United States has said it will increase direct support to the Syrian opposition. Credit: Freedom House//CC by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 14 2013 (IPS)

With U.S. intelligence agencies’ concluding that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against rebel forces, the White House announced Thursday that it will increase “the scope and scale” of assistance it has been providing to the opposition, including direct support to its military arm.

In a late afternoon teleconference, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, repeatedly declined to say whether support will include arms that the western-backed Supreme Military Council (SMC) has requested in light of recent setbacks it has suffered on the battlefield.

“We’ve heard their request, and our aim is to be responsive,” he said. “This is going to be different in both scope and scale in terms of what we have provided to the SMC…and will be aimed at strengthening [its] effectiveness.”

But Rhodes appeared to rule out direct military action, including creating a “no-fly zone” to protect the rebels or carrying out airstrikes against facilities used by the regime’s forces, whose ranks were recently bolstered by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon.

“We have not made any decision to pursue a military operation such as a no-fly zone,” he said, as it “would carry great and open-ended costs” and would not necessarily ensure a dramatic improvement in the rebels’ situation on the ground."We have not made any decision to pursue a military operation such as a no-fly zone."
-- Ben Rhodes

“We are prepared for all contingencies, and we will make decisions on our own timeline,” he said. “Any future action we take will be consistent with our national interest and must advance our objectives.”

The White House announcement came amidst a growing sense of urgency by the opposition and their U.S. supporters, who are worried that recent battlefield successes by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – notably their capture last week of the border town of Al-Qusayr close to the Lebanese border – has shifted the tide of the war in the regime’s favour.

While the administration initially described the opposition’s setbacks as tactical and unlikely to end a strategic stalemate, U.S. intelligence agencies and some independent analysts have reportedly painted a more pessimistic picture, suggesting that momentum in the nearly two-and-a-half-year-old war has moved decisively towards the regime.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that top SMC commander, General Salim Idris, had sent what it called a “desperate plea” to the United States, Britain and France for anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft weapons and hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds.

Without such materiel, he warned, rebels may soon lose their hold on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city located close to the Turkish border.

Syrian army, pro-regime militias, and Hezbollah fighters have reportedly been moving into positions around Aleppo in preparation for a major assault that could deliver a decisive blow against rebel forces in the northeastern part of the country.

The White House has come under growing pressure to escalate its involvement in the conflict from providing rebel forces with humanitarian and “non-lethal” assistance, ranging from medical supplies to night-vision goggles, to providing them with direct military support, whether by military intervention or by providing the kinds of arms requested by Idris.

That pressure has come both from the rebels’ backers in the region – notably, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have provided arms to the SMC and other rebel groups, including radical Sunni Islamist fighters, some reportedly associated with Al Qaeda – and from neo-conservative and other right-wing hawks in the media and Congress, chiefly Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham.

They have been joined over the past weeks by a smattering of liberal interventionists, some of whom supported the 2003 Iraq invasion. But their biggest catch came this week when, at a private gathering with McCain, former president Bill Clinton said he agreed with the Arizona senator, calling Obama’s refusal so far to provide more support to the rebels a “big mistake”.

“Sometimes, it’s best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t over-commit,” Clinton said, echoing the off-the-record position of his wife, Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state reportedly argued last fall in favour of escalating U.S. military support for the rebels during a particularly intense internal administration debate.

As it grew clear in recent days that the opposition, in its weakened state, was adamantly opposed to participating in proposed U.S.- and Russian-backed peace talks in Geneva in the coming weeks, Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, has reportedly taken over from where she left off, urging the administration to take stronger action in order to level the playing field in advance of any negotiations.

Obama, whose concerns about deeper involvement in yet another Middle Eastern war appear to mirror those of the general public, according to recent polls, has until now resisted these pressures. But he also promised last year that he would escalate U.S. intervention if the Assad regime crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons.

“The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has,” Rhodes said Thursday, noting that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded with “high confidence” that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.

Between 100 to 150 people had died in these attacks, he said, noting that the estimate was “likely incomplete…[and] a small portion of the catastrophic loss of life in Syria that now totals more than 90,000 deaths”.

The use of chemical weapons had added to the urgency of the situation, he said, suggesting, however, that the increased involvement of Hezbollah and Iran was also a major factor in the White House announcement.

Precisely what kinds of additional – and presumably lethal – assistance Washington will provide the SMC, however, remains unclear and the source of continued debate within the administration.

Rhodes’s vagueness and his statement that the administration will now consult with Congress and its allies – Obama attends a Group of Eight meeting in Northern Ireland next week – suggested that the issue was far from settled.

In the past, senior officials have said they opposed providing shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles to the rebels for fear they could be transferred to or captured by Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in their ranks.

Rhodes indicated that that those concerns have diminished somewhat as Washington has stepped up its humanitarian and non-lethal military aid to the SMC.

“General Idris and the SMC we are comfortable working with,” he said.  “It’s been important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more extremist elements of the opposition, such as al Nusra. We now have those relationships. We now have that pipeline flowing.”

By Johan Galtung
ALFAZ, Spain, Jan 14 2013 (IPS)

The problem of the U.S. economy lies much deeper than the fiscal cliff. Wise people–Robert Borosage, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz–see neither the fiscal deficit nor the U.S. debt as the key problems, but the lack of growth.

Johan Galtung

They point to the Bill Clinton years and how, through growth, the Debt/Gross Domestic (GDP) ratio went from a half to a third. Important, but then there is a fourth consideration: some Americans are suffering, out there. The bottom “16 percent” of people and families below the poverty line do not know for sure where their next meal will come from and have no medical insurance. Macro-economics is blind to basic human needs, yet there are solutions.

After Clinton, increasing expenditure with enormously costly wars making conflicts even worse, and, in addition, lowering the revenue by reducing taxes on the super-rich. That a fiscal deficit would rear its ugly head, fed by such policies year after year, was a foregone conclusion. U.S. voters, you asked for it, you got it.

Congress voted a compromise on ten fiscal cliff factors. The market reacted “positively”, if that is the right word when the finance economy makes a Dow Jones Index leap upwards while the real economy is stagnant, thus increasing the gap feeding future crashes.

It was a lazy compromise, little new beyond the juggling of old factors. Major problems like Medicare payment–the U.S. health services, at 17 percent of the GDP, produce less health than the typical European services at eight percent of GDP–and unemployment insurance were postponed, not solved. Like the debt ceiling. The new Congress inherits ever more intractable and pressing problems. One reason is obvious: the fiscal cliff discourse is much too narrow.

There is nothing pointing in new directions. How about a Municipal Uplift Authority (MUA) as a major federal programme? Hovering over the U.S. municipal map, identifying the municipalities with the highest levels of misery–people below the poverty line, with hunger threatening and no health coverage–is easy. Lift them up!

Cutting some expenditure and increasing taxes on the rich is indispensable, but limited and limiting. A huge imaginative programme for the 16 percent to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps, with credits for small companies-cooperatives designed to produce food, clothing and housing, health and education all at affordable prices might do miracles.

Carefully monitored, MUA should be self-sustaining, and after the credits have been repaid, generate domestic demand for considerable economic growth. Sixteen percent is a major proportion. A more realistic approach to getting the economic wheels turning than hoping to become the major world hydrocarbon exporter by 2030–by then hydrocarbons may be phased out. Better turn inward, facing the fact: U.S. and Western world trade dominance is gone. Outcompeted.

But there are also other approaches, and they in no way exclude each other, nor do they exclude the fiscal cliff avoidance compromise.

The U.S. debt is increasing. States and corporations buy U.S bonds at low interest–parking dollars for some limited time to avoid the costs of buying other currencies–trusting to be serviced by freshly printed dollars. But that cannot last forever, given the many schemes for regional and world currencies based on a mix, not on any single currency.

With a (flexible) U.S. debt ceiling of 16.3 trillion dollars the major creditor, China, has problems. Could the two agree on something in return for some debt forgiveness? Like the reduction of a major U.S. federal expenditure, the one trillion dollars on military expenses?

A creditor is entitled to look at the debtor’s budgets to identity cuts; the debtor is entitled to say “that one has to do with you (and Russia)”, and the creditor to reply, “if so, let us talk; our economy is still smaller than yours, to match you militarily is more of a burden on us; how about bilateral-balanced-controlled disarmament, and we could throw some debt relief into the bargain?” China might demand no encircling of China militarily, nor any Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc excluding China economically. Who will benefit? Obviously both; relieved of military waste, of a sizeable tip of the debt iceberg, cooperating rather than competing in the global arena.

We sense three possible losers: European Union, Russia and Japan, with Australia, hoping to be favoured by one or the other. But USA-China together matter more; they might even engage in imaginative joint projects for poverty alleviation elsewhere. Lift up the bottom, create customers.

The two policies, lifting up municipalities and tying debt relief to disarmament, are both rational. But in the way of rationality stands the arithmetic of Congressional voting, as adjusted to the arithmetic of the deficit reduction as a hand to a glove; even if the hand becomes paralysed. They fit too well, blocking out other views.

Some other input is needed if the legislative power has no other game to offer. The onus is on the executive power. Could there be a latent New Deal, hiding in Obama’s second term? If not, poor U.S.–four more years of the same, downhill.

In the swamp of problems there are bubbles waiting to burst: finance versus real economy, printed money versus real value, debt service versus people service. There is a way out.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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