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Showing posts with label Western models. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Western models. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2014

US led to Iraq Chaos, fighting to end an unfinished war

Iraq desperate for options against ISIS

 George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq is now reaping its latest fruits, as uncontrollable violence spills over the country's borders.

JUST over a decade after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, his White House successor Barack Obama has to start clearing up the violent mess.

Today’s lethal carnage, the deadliest yet, has come courtesy of the ultra-extremist terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL’s threat is regional, but its focus is on Iraq for now.

This image posted on a militant website June 14 appears to show militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) with captured Iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes after taking over a base in Tikrit, Iraq. (AP)

Earlier in the week, Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul fell to the militants. ISIL took over government buildings in a brazen swoop, panicking officials and flushing out half a million people in the city who suddenly had to flee for their lives.

Then on Wednesday, ISIL militants conquered Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. The irony and symbolism of it cannot be lost on local residents – US-style “regime change” to topple Saddam was supposed to end terrorism but has instead spread it like wildfire.

ISIL fighters had already embedded themselves in the central Iraqi city of Ramadi after taking over Fallujah near Baghdad. They have since announced a march towards the Iraqi capital.

In city after city, government troops fled after abandoning vital military assets including US-supplied heavy weaponry. ISIL militants then move in to seize the territory, buildings, military vehicles and weapons-filled arsenals, robbing banks and freeing jailed militants to grow from strength to strength.

ISIL also controls parts of Aleppo in Syria and the lucrative Conoco oil field in that country. For added funding, it operates extortion networks in Mosul.

There is no question that ISIL grows stronger as it sweeps across Iraq. Analysts say official Iraqi and US calculations have underestimated its actual strength.

However, some Iraqis may also have overestimated its strength. In one recent case, two divisions of Iraqi troops comprising 30,000 soldiers just turned and ran when faced with 800 ISIL fighters.

The result is that ISIL’s presumed strength becomes actual strength upon absorbing abandoned government assets. Never before has a government and its ally (the US) handed so many vital assets to an enemy force in so short a time.

No sooner had talk of Iraq retaining some US forces faded away inconclusively than even US diplomats suddenly felt they had to skip town, for good.

By Thursday, US diplomats were preparing plans to evacuate staff from their vast new embassy in Baghdad. Until recently the embassy stood as a proud testimony to post-Saddam Iraq, but now it may have to be handed over to a ruthless terror group.

UN staff are also preparing to evacuate. Iraq’s minorities who feel particularly vulnerable have already rushed for the borders.

Initially, ISIL was described as an al-Qaeda-inspired group. Then they were “disowned” even by al-Qaeda, after being found to be too undisciplined and too brutal for even al-Qaeda to handle.

Meanwhile ISIL has been busy with various activities, from kidnapping Turkish diplomats and targeting Christians in Mosul, to fighting Shi’ites and Kurds, to attacking Anbar University in Ramadi, briefly taking staff and students hostage.

ISIL is said to be financed generously by the same foreign backers who had sponsored Osama’s al-Qaeda. Then in Mosul it robbed a bank of nearly US$500mil (RM1.6bil) in cash, adding to its liquidity and immediate “cash flow.”

ISIL has had several name changes since its founding 10 years ago. It was led for a time by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi. Then it expanded operations to Syria in April last year when it also became known as ISIL and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/al-Sham (ISIS).

Under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s current leadership, ISIL became the most ambitious and ruthless of the region’s militant groups. Its ultra-extremism has unnerved al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri, who fears Abu Bakr’s ambition to take over his group.

ISIL wants to establish an Islamist caliphate spanning several countries in the region. In the process it seeks to compel occupying US forces to withdraw, topple the Iraqi government, murder all its associates and collaborators, and empty Shi’ite-majority Iraq of Shi’ites.

Operationally, ISIL is a Sunni umbrella grouping of several hardline Islamist groups, so internal unity is crucial. Abu Bakr’s leadership is safe so long as he can maintain organisational credibility.

By early Friday, reports emerged of the Iraqi government dispatching police and army special forces to battle the militants. Given recent events, it is doubtful what good if any they can do.

In Iraqi government circles, the thought of phasing out US forces has all but disappeared. There is a new mood to welcome and even embrace what remains of the US military.

But after more than a decade, Washington has contracted war fatigue. Iraq was never Obama’s “war” anyway.

At the same time however, the US cannot be seen to be escaping through the back door, Baghdad embassy staff notwithstanding. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Obama said he would not rule out any response needed against the militants.

On the ground in Iraq however, resistance alone is inadequate – it means ISIL can stage a return as soon as resistance fades or ends.

In 2009, Obama declared that al-Qaeda had to be “disrupted, dismantled and destroyed.” Is he now prepared to go anywhere as far against a group that is even more deadly than al-Qaeda?

As usual, John McCain has weighed in with unhelpful partisan comments. He reportedly said that Obama’s entire security team should be sacked and replaced by the Bush team.

It is highly unlikely that the Bush team will want to clean up its own mess. It is always easier to start a war than to end one satisfactorily.

That same Bush team had invaded Iraq on the false pretexts of seizing Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and stopping terrorist operations. But there were no WMDs or terrorist groups; now terrorists roam and govern Iraq practically nationwide.

Saddam Hussein, for all his ruthlessness, made sure that no terrorist or militant groups could emerge. Everything changed after his fall.

There is another lesson with no shortage of eager students, however: that harshness and cruelty pay. That lesson is now being taught in Iraq, with the likes of ISIL lapping it up and preaching it.

Contributed by Bunn Nagara
Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (Isis) Malaysia. The views expressed are entirely the writer's own.


 Related post:

Ukraine political chaos could lead to economic disaster In a commentary,  the newspaper said falling into the craze for Western-style democracy leads to chaos and diasaster!



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Another reluctant coup hits Thailand 
Within days, Bangkok moved from a troubled democracy to martial law to a coup under an army junta without a single shot fired.

The Thailand coup and its aftermath
The Thai army remains a key player in the country’s politics, for better or worse, whether opponents and critics like it or not. 

EU teetering on the brink, almost

JUST as Europe tussled with Russia over issues of regional identity in Crimea and Ukraine, grave questions hung over its prime regionalist project: the European Union.

Still no rest for politicians

Thailand's complex politics grows ever more complicated, again producing more questions and problems than answers or solutions. 

Military priorities trump diplomacy, again

Not only is there an overwhelming reliance on the military option over Ukraine, but diplomats have retreated from the scene when they are needed most. 

Tension around the ballot box

JUST about everyone anxious about Thai politics is on edge, practically hanging on to a narrow ledge of a precipice.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

People's Daily warns: copying Western-style democracy leads to chaos and disaster!

Ukraine political chaos could lead to economic disaster

In a commentary,  the newspaper said falling into the craze for Western-style democracy had led countries to irretrievable secession and endless domestic struggles instead of happiness and stability.

"Copying Western-style democracy would probably lead to disaster and street politics usually leads to domestic turmoil and even civil war," it said.

Citing countries in western Asia and northern Africa, Ukraine and Thailand, which have experienced street protests and even armed conflicts, the newspaper said Western-style democracy might have led to a wrong path - street politics.

"These cases show that copying Western-style democracy with no respect for the actual situation and cultural differences will mostly be unsuccessful," the newspaper said.

The article also pointed out that in most of the cases, the United States and some Western forces had been involved in the street politics in these countries, either "on stage" or behind the scenes.

These cases show that copying Western-style democracy with no respect for the actual situations and cultural differences of a certain country will mostly be unsuccessful. Sometimes, copying Western-style democracy can even turn into a destructive force.

"In many circumstances, the so-called value of democracy has become a big stick for certain countries to practise hegemony and new interventionism," it said, adding that democracy should be realised in different forms in different countries.

The most important criteria to assess whether political development accords with the Chinese people's fundamental interests is development and stability, said the article.

The article in the end called on people to stay on high alert against the trap of Western-style democracy, adhere to the reform and opening up policies, and stick to the path of political development with Chinese characteristics.

"From western Asia to North Africa, many countries have slipped into the confused madness of 'western democracy', which has neither brought happiness nor stability," the paper said.

It also took aim at British democracy.

"In Britain's parliament to this day there are still hereditary nobles. For Chinese people, this is unthinkable," the paper said, adding that China should continue going down its own path.

-- BEIJING, June 9 (BERNAMA)

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Monday, April 15, 2013

Looming danger on contrast and competition of economic models

The successful East Asian model of ‘state-driven capitalism’ is being threatened by TPPA proposals.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.

MANY articles and books have been published on the contrast and competition between the present Western and the Asian-style economic models.

Western countries are said to have the free-market model based on competition among private firms, with the government taking a hands-off approach.

East Asian countries are branded as practising “state capitalism” in which the government plays a major role in helping the local private sector and the state also fully or partially owns many enterprises.

The Western countries are increasingly attacking the Asian model, claiming that state-owned companies or state-aided commercial firms have an unfair advantage vis-à-vis foreign firms competing with them.

In our region, countries with a substantial role of the state include China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore. Of course, in Japan and South Korea, their domestic firms grew to become world-beaters with the systematic backing of their governments.

For these countries, the so-called state capitalism (or in the case of socialist countries, market-oriented socialism) have worked well through industrial development and relatively high and sustained economic growth.

Some Western countries have been trying to curb or even eventually eliminate the Asian model of state-owned or state-aided capitalism.

This is largely hypocritical because the America, European and Japanese agricultural sectors are highly subsidised and protected; many of their farms could not survive without massive state aid and high import tariffs.

Many of their banks and industrial firms are also subsidised in various ways, including through multi-billion dollar bailouts in the wake of the recent financial crises.

This has not stopped these countries from attacking the Asian model. The latest attempt to curb this model is through the negotiations in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a trade and investment treaty involving the United States, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Peru, Chile, Australia and New Zealand.

The TPPA contains an important section on State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), championed by the United States and Australia.

The TPPA drafts are secret, so the text of the SOE section is not known. However, it can be anticipated that the section will contain disciplines to curb and shape the behaviour of three types of SOEs.

The recently concluded US bilateral FTAs contain a competition chapter that deals with two types of SOEs. For example, the US-Peru FTA has disciplines on designated monopolies and state enterprises, and it is likely that the United States will propose something similar in the TPPA.

That FTA says that government monopolies shall act solely in accordance with commercial considerations, including with regard to price, quality, availability, transportation, when buying or selling the monopoly goods or services.

They shall provide non-discriminatory treatment to investments, goods and services of other TPPA members. And they shall not use their monopoly position to engage in anti-competitive practices through its dealings with its parents, subsidiaries or other enterprises with common ownership in a non-monopolised market that adversely affect the investments of other countries.

State enterprises shall similarly provide non-discriminatory treatment in the sale of goods or services to investments of other countries.

More importantly, the United States and Australia are proposing a third type of SOE to be subject to disciplines. According to press reports, Australia has also introduced the principle of “competitive neutrality” to discipline the SOEs.

How this principle will apply can be anticipated from the Australian government’s competitive neutrality guidelines.

This is based on the concept of a “government-owned business”. The state-owned business enterprise which competes with private companies may obtain advantages, impeding the ability of the private sector to compete on equal terms.

According to the Australian guidelines, these advantages include exemptions from taxes; cheaper debt financing (because of the low-risk classification or government guarantees); absence of need to make a commercial rate of return; and exemption from regulatory constraints or costs.

To offset these advantages, the Australian guidelines cover how government businesses should pay taxes in full; pay back to the central government the difference in their loan costs vis-à-vis private sector loan costs; pay licence fees equivalent to the central government; and ensure they obtain a commercial rate of return.

It is likely therefore that the draft of the TPPA will have disciplines along the lines above on a third category of SOEs, government-linked business entities involved in commercial activities that compete with the private sector.

The proposed disciplines could be along the line that “advantages” enjoyed by government-linked businesses such as those mentioned in the Australian guidelines be disallowed.

The implications for Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore would be serious because their national economies are characterised by important roles of state-owned enterprises or government-linked companies.

The countries would have to move away from their successful development model and economic structure.

Moreover, SOEs have many functions including providing social services to the public, ensuring that poor and vulnerable groups are given special consideration.

This often means that SOEs cannot operate on solely commercial grounds; and that several of them depend on government subsidies and assistance, and there are also cross-subsidies in that the profitable aspect of an SOE may finance non-profitable (but socially important) activities. There is a danger that the TPPA section on SOEs will prevent or hinder the socially useful functions of SOEs.

The TPPA negotiations are still going on, and a text on the SOEs section is not yet final, so there is scope for different views to be expressed.

GLOBAL TRENDS By MARTIN KHOR

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