Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Johan Galtung’s view from Europe: Bravo Trump–No to CIA!!
Bravo Trump–No to CIA!!
19 December 2016
#459 | Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
Whatever this “intelligence” may be is it intelligent?
Information about the “capability, intention and circumstances” of foreign (CIA) and domestic (FBI) actors: nothing wrong about that. With a good balance between friendly and hostile intentions; 80-20? It sounds more like 1-99, though. Outer and inner worlds are scanned for threats of violence, not for opportunities of peace. The focus is on security, not building cooperation. That may be done by conventional diplomacy–where does Trump stand on that? The US “intelligence community”–19 big organizations–looms higher. To disregard threats damage a top politician more than to disregard opportunities.
The net result is institutionalized paranoia. Trump might have compared the “intelligence” about Russia with his own impressions, and found it gravely wanting. Of course, they may both be wrong. Or right.
The reader will find ahead a table that has appeared in this column before: 15 conflict cases, with peaceful and violent ways of handling them. In the comment the focus is on loving USA vs hatred. Trump’s goal is Making America Great; not Big like a Big power, but as a Great Power; not “again” in the old way, but as his foreign policy ideas communicate, in totally new ways.
To be a Great Power is not the same as being a Big Bully.
So these fifteen ideas are offered again, this time more humbly, not critically. Regrettably Russia is not even on this list. Syria is, whether Putin and Trump end up with something similar or not.
IS came later; by this column seen IS as spiritual rather than military, focused on Mecca. The advice has been meeting IS violence protectively with defensive defense and negotiation. A task for Trump?
CONSTRUCTIVE vs DESTRUCTIVE US FOREIGN POLICIES: 15 CASES
| CONFLICTS | CONSTRUCTIVE, POSITIVE | DESTRUCTIVE, NEGATIVE |
| FINANCIAL F REAL R ECONOMY CRISIS | Encourage local saving banks Publish M2 Check Fed Reserve Tax speculation Drop bonuses Outlaw basic needs speculation Democratic control of central banks, state or private Mixed world currency | More F than Real growth More money than value Serving loans not people Countries in debt bondage Globalization through privatized central banks US$ world reserve currency |
| TERRORISM | Identify their just goals Publish Atta Who did 9/11? | Extra-judicial execution SOCO-Drones Covert war |
| US-ISRAEL vs ARAB-MUSLIM STATES | Palestine recognized; and A two states solution; and A Middle East Community MEC Israel and 5 Arab neighbors 1967 borders with revisions; and Org for Sec Coop West Asia | Tail wagging dog: Israel wagging USA; AIPAC wagging Congress Judeo-Christianity is anti-islam. Danger: Extreme US anti-semitism |
| LIBYA | Self-determination for parts, Federalism with democracy | Continued anarchy Unitary state illusion |
| SYRIA | Self-determination for parts, Federalism with democracy | Attack; SCO response? split Syria, rule parts |
| IRAQ | Self-determination for parts, (Con)federalism with democracy Kurdish autonomous communities | Withdrawal only: no rebuilding, no compensation |
| IRAN | Conciliation for 1953, Middle East nuclear free zone Cooperation on non-fossil energy | Attack, SCO response? No Iran nuclear arms Controlling Iran oil? |
| PAKISTAN | Pashtun autonomy, drop Durand Self-determination in Kashmir Indian-Pakistan-Kashmiri parts | Building a Durand fence Extrajudicial execution SOCO-Drones Covert war |
| AFGHANISTAN | A Central Asian Community Federation Local autonomies OIC-UNSC joint peacekeeping Nonaligned, no bases | Withdrawal only; no rebuilding, no compensation keeping troops, bases |
| KOREA | Peace Treaty with N Korea Normalization USA-N Korea Korea as nuclear free zone | Marginalizing N Korea US-SK military exercises Breaking agreements |
| CHINA | Open high level dialogue Mutual learning in economics Civil and economic rights | Encircling, sub-satel-navy “Reform”=neo-liberalism civil rights only |
| JAPAN | Japan in NE Asian Community Good relations to USA, APEC+ USA pulls out of Okinawa | Impeding conciliation Keeping Japan as client Subverting A9 |
| AFRICA | Welcome African Unity Build with China E-W rail road | AFRICOM Military intervention |
| LATIN AMERICA | Welcome CELAC integration Equity Latin Carib-Angloamerica Normalization USA-Cuba | Military intervention Supporting coups CIA micro-management |
| WORLD | All human rights conventions, across state borders National self-determination Dialogue of civilizations Stronger UN, with parliament | Civil-political only, within state borders Unitary state models Western universalism US exceptionalism |
The right column is sadly familiar; new cases are queuing up.
The left column also carries sadness. Nothing radical, more like common sense translated into political practice, to the relief of the parties concerned, the USA, and US relations to the world. USA wants to be loved, but reaps hatred with right column politics. Turn left.
Trump has a good distance to go in his relations to Iran and Cuba as a key to Latin America-Caribbean. Did he nonetheless listen too much to CIA, on those two major issues? Direct encounters with Raúl Castro may bring to his quick mind a very different Cuba; so may direct talks with the spiritual and political leaders of Iran. Trump’s Russian contacts could be helpful in both cases: Iran has borders with the former USSR and Cuba significant relations with Russia since 1958.
However, the most important case for Trump may be the first in the table: US economic relations to the world. To the right are well known US policies, all of them now proven as failed or discredited; to the left some ideas that may or may not coincide with Trump Thought.
Crucial is the US “Federal Reserve” Bank, basically a club of about 70 of the largest banks in the USA. Self-controlled, not by the legislative, nor the executive, nor the judicial power of the USA.
It relates to central private banks abroad and directs US federal policy rather than vice versa. Thus, at some time in the 1990s US blacklisted seven countries with central state-owned banks: Iraq-Iran, Lebanon-Libya, Syria-Sudan-Somalia; fought in six, pressured Iran.
The private central banks then come together in Basel under Swiss auspices, in the Bank for International Settlements, BIS, a pivot the USA wants to use for global financial control.
Now, where does Trump land on this? If he had the courage and the wits to attack one sacred US cow, the CIA, he may do so to another that also has grown out of proportion, the Federal Reserve. What the Federal Reserve does, however, is also business–and may also fail. Being in charge of Executive power he might like to enhance that power and not be waged by a tail. That may also apply to Netanyahu’s Israel: buying senators etc. may no longer be in.
Well, this is future talk. But that future may only be one month away. History is accelerating and more under Trump than ever.
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Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 450 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
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