Chelsea Manning jailed again after refusing to testify against WikiLeaks

By Niles Niemuth

17 May 2019

“I would rather starve to death than change my opinion”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/17/chel-m17.html

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed by a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia for contempt of court for the second time since March, after she again refused to testify before a grand jury impaneled to bring frame-up charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Federal Judge Anthony Trenga rejected two motions submitted by Manning’s lawyers to quash the subpoena and disclose any evidence of unlawful electronic surveillance by the government.

An appointee of President George W. Bush who ruled in favor of Trump’s xenophobic anti-Muslim travel ban, Trenga instead ordered Manning to be jailed immediately after a two-hour hearing. On top of imprisonment, he vindictively imposed fines of $500 per day if she does not testify after a month of confinement and $1,000 a day after two months.

According to her attorneys, the piling on of a coercive financial penalty is highly unusual, typically reserved for compelling testimony from representatives of corporations, not individuals.

Manning has courageously insisted on principle that she will never testify before any grand jury about her possible contacts with Assange and WikiLeaks or anything else. “I would rather starve to death than to change my opinion in this regard,” Manning told Judge Trenga during the public portion of Thursday’s hearing. She added, “And when I say that, I mean that quite literally.”

Asked during a press conference before the hearing how long she was prepared keep refusing to answer questions before a grand jury, Manning replied resolutely, “Forever, indefinitely.”

Assange currently faces extradition to the United States from the UK on a hacking charge for allegedly seeking to assist Manning to crack a password so she could remain anonymous on a military computer network. Based on the evidence and interviews that have been made public, Manning on Thursday criticized the case against Assange as “bananas.”

The journalist is currently being held in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison, known as Britain’s Guantanamo, after being sentenced to 50 weeks in prison on a bail-jumping charge related to long-discredited rape allegations in Sweden. Assange was illegally snatched from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 11 when his asylum status was revoked after seven years by the government of Lenin Moreno. He also now faces possible extradition to Sweden, after the “preliminary investigation” into the rape allegations was reopened on Monday.

The persecution of Assange and Manning comes amid a frenzied war fever, as the Trump administration simultaneously threatens Iran and Venezuela and escalates its trade war with China. Hand in hand with an intensifying campaign to censor the internet, the effort to silence Assange and Manning is aimed at crushing dissent and preventing the development of a mass anti-war movement.

Manning spent 62 days in the Alexandria City Jail before being released last week after the term of that grand jury expired. Even before she was released, however, she was served with a subpoena to appear before a new grand jury on Thursday. Manning was given just one week of freedom to spend with her friends and family before being cruelly thrown back into federal detention.

The former Army Specialist is being persecuted by the Trump administration for the role she played in exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan by leaking secret and sensitive documents to WikiLeaks in 2010. She has already served seven years of a 35-year sentence in a military prison, including a year in solitary confinement.

Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017 on the very last day of his second term in office, in an effort to paper over his administration’s record of pursuing whistleblowers. However, Obama refused to grant a full pardon, which would have cleared Manning’s criminal record.

Prior to Thursday’s hearing, Manning told the press: “I think that this is ultimately an attempt to place me back in confinement. I think that the questions are the same questions I was asked before the court martial seven eight years ago.

There is nothing new. They’re not asking anything new. There’s no new information they are trying to get from me.

“Ultimately the goal here is to re-litigate the court martial, from my perspective. They didn’t like the outcome. I got out. So, this is a way to place me back into confinement.”

Manning’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, addressed the media after Manning was returned to jail, expressing her disappointment and reiterating that her client would not betray her convictions by testifying.

“In 2010, Chelsea made a principled decision to let the world see the true nature of modern asymmetric warfare,” Meltzer-Cohen said. “It is telling that the United States has always been more concerned with the disclosure of those documents than with the damning substance of the disclosures.

“The American government relies on the informed consent of the governed, and the free press is the vigorous mechanism to keep us informed. It is a point of pride for this administration to be publicly hostile to the press. Grand juries and prosecutions like this one broadcast an expanding threat to the press and function to undermine the integrity of the system according to the government’s own laws.

“This administration is also obsessed with undercutting the legacy of President Barack Obama, from reversing health care policy to Chelsea Manning’s commutation.

“It is up to the press to stand up for themselves, to stand up for the practice of journalism, and to stand up for Chelsea in the same manner she has consistently stood up for the press.”

The response of the establishment media and the Democratic Party to Manning’s re-incarceration has been to maintain their silence. Neither the New York Time s nor the Washington Post carried reports of her latest detention on their front pages in the hours after the news broke.

When contacted by the World Socialist Web Site for a comment on the arrest of Manning, Senator Bernie Sanders’ Washington DC press office continued the 2020 presidential candidate’s complicit silence. “The senator has not made any statements on Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning,” a staffer confirmed.

The same is the case for Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, both members of the Democratic Socialists of America, neither of whom, as of this writing, had made a statement on their social media accounts about Manning’s latest incarceration. There was no response to a request from the WSWS for a statement from Tlaib’s office, and Ocasio-Cortez’s office was unreachable by phone.

While they have been abandoned by the Democrats and the mainstream press, Manning and Assange have the support of millions of workers and young people around the world. This support must be developed into a conscious political movement. Demonstrations, meetings and teach-ins should be organized in every city to demand their freedom and an end to their persecution by the US government.

Rising US health insurance costs take toll on workers

By Alex Johnson

17 May 2019

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/17/heal-m17.html

A new poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Los Angeles Times found that an extraordinary rise in the cost of health care plans and deductibles over the last decade has imperiled the financial security of American workers.

According to the Times article published earlier this month, health insurance deductibles have soared in recent years, increasingly leaving Americans with unaffordable bills.

Since 2007, annual deductibles in job-based health plans—the most common form of coverage—have increased fourfold, with the average deductibles for health plans rising to an estimated $1,300. The results have spurred on what the Times calls “an affordability crisis” that has sent many households of the middle and working class to, or on the brink of, financial ruin.

The ever-rising cost of health insurance has placed an increasing number of workers in increasingly more precarious conditions.

More than 4 in 10 workers enrolled in plans with high deductibles don’t possess enough savings to pay for them. In a country where more than 70 percent of the population live paycheck to paycheck and where more than half have witnessed stagnant or declining wages, one health emergency requiring an out-of-pocket payment could send an individual or family into destitution.

According to government data analyzed by the KFF for the Times, only half of single households and 60 percent of family households had more than $2,000 in savings in 2016.

Among the conclusions drawn are that one in six Americans who received insurance through their jobs reported that they had to make “difficult sacrifices to pay for their healthcare plans” in 2018. These sacrifices included cutting back on food and other desperate actions such as moving in with friends and family or taking on extra jobs.

The study notes that the rise in cost sharing is “endangering patients’ health” and has caused millions, including people with serious illnesses, to skip care entirely to avoid the expenses. Additionally, a larger number of workers are turning to GoFundMe pages or other charities to seek financial relief.

The article admits that the health care system is fueling “resentments” and “deepening inequalities, as healthier and wealthier Americans are able to save for unexpected medical bills while the less fortunate struggle to balance costly care with other necessities.”

A 45-year-old Information Technology worker told the Los Angeles Times that his family has been severely handicapped by $5,000 in outstanding medical bills. Despite having a household income of more than $80,000, he said his family has very little left over to cover a $4,000 annual deductible.

“We shop at discount grocery stores. My wife is couponing. We are putting every single bill we can on the credit card.” After noting that even a family meal at McDonald’s has become a luxury, he said, “we’re drowning.”

Another worker, a 55-year-old nurse’s assistant working in a nursing home in Ohio, said she’s had to cut back on taking trips to the grocery store as she struggled to pay off $1,000 in medical bills after breaking her wrist. Other workers spoke of having to move back in with their parents or take on extra jobs.

A separate poll found that more than a quarter of workers had to put off vacation time or buying major purchases to pay their medical bills. An additional quarter said they reduced spending on clothing or other more-basic purchases.

A study published by the American Cancer Society found that more than 56 percent of American workers in the last year either struggled to pay their medical bills, delayed appointments and doctors’ visits, or experienced turmoil over how they could afford care. Individuals and families with medical conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes have suffered the most.

The staggering explosion in the cost of deductibles followed the passage of Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. Prior to the ACA, in 2006, nearly half of Americans had no deductible, while the average cost of a deductible plan when adjusted for inflation was only $376. By 2018, the average cost of a deductible had ballooned to an estimated $1,350 while insurance premiums increased beyond the rate of inflation.

These price increases provide a dramatic exposure of the ACA, which was essentially authored by the insurance companies and hospital giants to lower health care expenses for corporations and the government, shifting the cost of rising premiums and deductibles onto the backs of workers while at the same time enriching insurance companies.

UnitedHealth, for example, accumulated $12 billion in profits over two years under the ACA, largely to the benefit of its wealthy executives and investors.

While the stock market soars, US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, largely due to the opioid epidemic and the lack of affordable health care and other services.

In March, the White House proposed a 12 percent reduction in funds for the Department of Health and Human Services for the 2020 fiscal year, while slashing Medicaid over the next 10 years and allowing states to lower benefits for poor and lower-income workers.

The proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, which amount to around $1.4 trillion in total over the next decade, will only exacerbate the cost of health care and worsen workers’ conditions.

Moreover, slashing social programs aimed at treating medical and preventive care—including wellness visits, immunizations, and screenings—will increase the number of people forced to undergo emergency operations or serious hospital treatments, where costs are much more expensive.

US security forces storm Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C.

By Nick Barrickman

17 May 2019

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/17/vene-m17.html

On Thursday at noon, United States law enforcement officials, some of them helmeted and wearing flak jackets and carrying battering rams, forced their way into the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., detaining four anti-war activists who had been residing there.

The activists, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine and David Paul, part of a group calling themselves the Embassy Protection Collective (EPC), had been invited to stay inside the Venezuelan embassy over a month ago by the elected and internationally recognized government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The raid against the embassy was carried out in flagrant violation of international laws governing diplomatic relations between states and is of a piece with the reckless and illegal actions taken by the Trump administration in an effort to force a regime change in Venezuela, home to the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.

According to the Washington Post, “Federal law enforcement officers, including several in fatigues wearing tactical gear, entered the building through a back door and conducted a sweep with police dogs. After more than an hour, police brought the activists into a driveway hidden from the view of protesters and the news media…”

Hundreds of armed security forces were involved in the operation, including elements of the US Secret Service, the Metropolitan Police and the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.

The Post noted that ambulances and personnel with stretchers had been assembled at the embassy in the lead-up to the raid. As of this writing it is unclear if any of the detained activists were injured. The four are due to face charges in U.S. federal court Friday relating to their occupation, including the supposed interference with the diplomatic mission of officials representing U.S. puppet and self-appointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó. Trespassing charges have not been brought, apparently because the lease for the building is in the name of the Maduro government.

As of Friday, representatives of the US puppet Guaidó are due to take possession of the embassy. In a statement dripping with cynicism, Guaidó-appointed ambassador Carlos Vecchio, a U.S. State Department asset, declared “The usurpation has ended… It has taken time and effort, but we have complied with the Venezuelan people. Infinite thanks to the Venezuelan diaspora for their sacrifice. Next liberation: Venezuela.”

Speaking to the press, the Collective’s legal counsel, constitutional lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, stated of the raid and arrests: “This is an extraordinary step by the Trump administration and frankly, one that has been supported by every politician that has remained silent. They don’t have to take a position on the government of Venezuela, they do have to take a position in defense of diplomacy, of the Vienna Convention, of international law. That is what is at issue with this seizure and this entrance today.”

The lawyer stated that the embassy raid had been “a State Department operation” that had been “carried out by State Department personnel.” Verheyden-Hilliard declared: “This is sending a message to embassies and diplomatic missions all over the world that any host country can make the decision that if it disagrees or does not like the leadership of another country it can simply appoint someone else, say that they are recognizing another person as the leader, and then seize and enter an embassy.”

Pseudo-left representatives of U.S. imperialism, such as Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, declined to issue so much as a tweet in opposition to the seizure of the embassy by U.S. security forces. This is in line with their defense of the Trump administration’s drive for regime change in Venezuela. In February, Sanders solidarized himself with the phony “opposition” of Guaidó and his supporters, who have sought to promote a military coup against the bourgeois nationalist government of Nicolás Maduro.

For her part, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez pledged in an interview two weeks ago with the National Review to toe the line of the Democratic Party, declaring “I defer to caucus leadership on how we navigate this.” In February, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced she had decided “to recognize Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, as the interim president until full, fair and free elections can be held” and that “Nicolás Maduro’s regime of repression … must be condemned swiftly by the full international community.”

Prior to the raid, EPC activists had faced a police-backed siege of the property, with right-wing Guaidó supporters blocking, physically attacking and harassing activists delivering supplies. Last week, in a move demonstrating the U.S. government’s disregard for international law, electrical power to the embassy was cut along with the building’s water supply.

On Tuesday, an eviction notice was delivered to EPC members which bore no markings indicating its authenticity. According to Consortium News, the document “appeared to have been written by the Guaidó faction but was posted and read by D.C. police as if it were a document from the U.S. government.” On Wednesday, the U.S. government issued warrants for the detainment of the EPC members, presaging Thursday’s events.

The treatment of the collective by the Trump administration has been denounced internationally. On Sunday, the National Lawyers Guild issued a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the United Nations and others, which states, “the United States government, through various law enforcement agencies, has condoned and protected violent opponents in support of an attempted siege of the Embassy. In so doing, the U.S. government is creating a dangerous precedent for diplomatic relations with all nations.”

Verheyden-Hilliard, the legal counsel for the activists, spoke on the Trump administration’s fears of the potential for a broader movement of the population: “This is a direct response to a growing view in the United States that more and more people were standing in support of diplomacy, more and more people were standing in support of peace. People don’t want to see another war; they don’t need to see the United States government waging another illegal war.”

The lawyer noted this to be the case “despite a lot of the press coverage [of the embassy occupation, which] has not been forthright. Much of it has been extremely biased and... not accurate. The people who have been here inside of the embassy have been peaceful. The people who have supported them inside of the embassy have been peaceful.

The assaults that we have [seen], the violence … the noise from the sirens, the flashing lights and the use of strobes ... these are all nonlethal weapons that were being authorized for use … No action was taken by American law enforcement to stop the illegal actions.”

Vecchio has no standing as a Venezuelan diplomat and represents a government that exists only in the regime-change propaganda of US imperialism. Rather, he a leader of Guaidó’s far-right Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) wanted in Venezuela for inciting violence.

He is scheduled to meet early next week with officers of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which overseas US military operations in Latin America. Earlier this week, he said that he would discuss with the US military brass plans “to advance in strategic and operational planning with the priority goal of stopping our people's suffering and restoring democracy.”

This direct turn to the US military follows Guaidó’s abortive April 30 coup attempt, which failed to produce any significant fissures in Venezuela’s armed forces or elicit any significant popular support. Since then, backing for the self-proclaimed and US-backed “interim president” has visibly waned, with barely a few hundred people turning out for a demonstration he called last Saturday.

Absent popular support or backing from any major faction of the Venezuelan military, Guaidó appears to be banking on a direct US military intervention. The assault on the Venezuela’s embassy in Washington may well be a warning that a violent assault is being prepared on the country itself.

Wealthy Pakistanis are getting away with murder

The law protects wealthy and influential people as they can pay a large amount of money to the deceased’s family to avoid prosecution or a harsh sentence

By IMAD ZAFAR

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/opinion/wealthy-pakistanis-are-getting-away-with-murder/

Two men convicted several years ago of killing  Shahzeb Khan, the only son of a senior police official, in Sindh province have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, which highlights how Pakistan’s justice system favors the wealthy and powerful over ordinary people.

Shahrukh Jatoi killed Khan on December 24, 2012, when the victim was returning from his older sister’s wedding with his family. On their way back they were stopped by a drunk, Siraj Talpur, who tried to harass Khan’s sisters. Khan stopped him and Talpur backed off, as he was alone.

Later Talpur and his friend Jatoi and other accomplices went to Khan’s home, shot him and fled the scene. Khan was taken to hospital but was declared dead.

The news was broadcasted on television and soon Jatoi and his friends were arrested. They were tried in a terrorism court and Jatoi and Talpur were both sentenced to death.

After the verdict, the families of the killers approached Khan’s family and threatened to kill their daughters.

Constant pressure from the powerful feudal and political families of Jatoi and Talpur led Khan’s father, Aurangzeb Khan, to sign a forgiveness deal. He appeared in court and said he had forgiven Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Talpur.

After that, the murder case was reopened. With the help of the Sindh provincial government, the case against Shahrukh Jatoi was weakened, resulting in the dropping of terrorism charges, and after that, it was a cakewalk for both the Jatois and Talpurs to manipulate the judicial proceedings and get their children out of jail and protect them from any legal consequences.

Khan’s father is said to have accepted 250 million rupees (about US$1.75 million) in blood money from the Jatoi and Talpur families to compensate him for the loss of his son. This money was taken in the name of Diya, an Islamic law that allows victims to forgive the accused in exchange for money. Raymond Davis, the US Central Intelligence Agency contractor who shot people in Lahore, was released under the same law.

This law dates back to the tribal Arab culture of centuries ago. The law protects wealthy and influential people as they can pay a large amount of money to the deceased’s family to avoid prosecution or a harsh sentence. This is often achieved through the use of pressure tactics or the exploitation of the family’s economic circumstances. Since this law has an affiliation with religion, there is no way that such legal loopholes can be discussed or debated in the conservative society of Pakistan.

The family of the deceased did the right thing by taking money from the influential feudal lords. There was a lot of criticism of the family at that time for allowing the sons of feudal lords to go free. But people who taunted Aurangzeb Khan actually had no idea of the ground realities of Pakistani society. When influential and well-connected people threaten to kill your children, when the children are being chased down every second, it is very hard for parents to risk the lives of their living children for the sake of dead ones. Only a fool would risk his children’s lives, knowing that the state and the institutions are in the pockets of the influential and well-connected.

This deal, however, was later rejected by the court and both Jatoi and Talpur were sentenced to death. However, after the death of Shahzaib Khan’s father and with the passage of time the media focus shifted away from this case, and the influential families of the two criminals made sure that their sons benefited from the loopholes in the system. As a result, they are no longer on death row as their punishment has been reduced to life imprisonment, which in reality means only seven years, as according to Pakistan Law, days and nights spent in jail are counted as separate days. What a joke: killing someone mercilessly and destroying someone’s family and in the end spending seven years in jail, with luxuries available to them even behind bars.

It is actually the state that should have been in the forefront in this case. After all, this brutal murder sent waves of terror across the country, and it was just a matter of imposing the writ of the state. Sadly, the state itself has absolutely no interest in protecting the lives of its own citizens, which raises the question: Why should I remain a law-abiding citizen knowing that the state has left the law in the hands of criminals like Shahrukh Jatoi?

This is not the first incident where the influential have successfully played with the system. A young barrister was killed on a busy road in the capital Islamabad last year by the armed men of a famous Land Mafia person, Taji Khokhar, but the family of the victim is still helplessly seeking justice.

Zain, the only son of a widow, was shot on the main road in Lahore in front of hundreds of people by a drunk, Mustafa Kanju, son of the famous politician Siddique Kanju, but the widow who lost her only son gave a statement to the court that she could not fight this case against the influential man due to threats to her daughters, hence she forgave the culprit. The lady, who was forced to walk naked in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is still seeking justice as the people who were involved in this brutal and inhumane act are connected to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party.

Unfortunately, the Pakistani political elite, solely for their own benefit, support and nurture these hardcore criminals and as a result, we see incidents like this where a family’s only son loses his life and the murderers are not even touched in some cases. Our collective approach of accepting crimes and violence has paved the way for this lawlessness. We love to gossip about murders and terrorist attacks as we sip our tea and coffee, or love to post sentimental messages on social media just to pass the time, and after a day or two forget the incident and always look forward to new ones.

This habit of gossiping and passing time idly, while doing nothing to bring about practical changes in society, is successfully being exploited by the political and feudal elites. They know that society is not ready to stand up for their rights, thinking that it is only Khan or Zain who have lost their lives and it will never happen to their kids.

The other hypocritical attitude is our behavior toward criminals. As criminals like Malik Riaz, Aleem Khan the Jatoi family, the Talpur family, Taji Khokhar and many others are rich and influential, we love to make connections with them; we even feel proud taking selfies with them. Until and unless we change our attitudes toward crime and criminals, innocent young men like Khan will be shot to death every now and then. It was, unfortunately, Khan’s turn but it can happen to any one of us. A knock on our door or a doorbell ring and a murderer like Jatoi can shoot our kids too.

We have to act now. We must not accept the court’s decision to overturn the death penalties awarded to Jatoi and Talpur. We must pressure the government to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. As long as hardcore criminals like Jatoi and Talpur do not receive justice, we cannot live without fear for our children.

The most dangerous man in the world

By JEFFERSON MORLEY

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/opinion/the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world/

When US national security adviser John Bolton demanded military plans to oust the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Trump demurred, reportedly saying Bolton was trying to pull him “into a war.” When Bolton demanded “regime change” in Iran and the Pentagon produced a plan to put 120,000 troops into the region, Trump demurred again.

“He is not comfortable with all this ‘regime change’ talk,’ which to his ears echoes the discussion of removing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein before the 2003 US invasion,” one unnamed official told The Washington Post.

When push comes to proverbial shove, Trump balks at shoving.

When US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó attempted to lead a popular uprising on April 30, Trump did not lend his voice to the call. As Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited the alleged danger of Russian involvement, the US president rubbished his message, saying Vladimir Putin was “not looking at all to get involved in Venezuela, other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela.”

The uprising failed, and Bolton moved on to Iran.

Last week, Bolton warned the Tehran government that “any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.” On Wednesday, Trump spoke of negotiations, saying, “I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.”

The White House national security adviser wants war, but his boss doesn’t want to be a war president. Trump’s combination of bluster (“bomb the shit out of them”) and anti-war rhetoric (“Bush lied”) is a political asset he doesn’t want to squander. Bolton’s job isn’t in any danger, because to Trump, tough talk is good politics. Insults, threats, sanctions, and covert operations are fine – as long as they don’t lead to an actual shooting war.

Now, the dynamic has flipped. The generals [Mattis and McMaster] are gone, replaced by Bolton and Boeing lobbyist Patrick Shanahan. As Bolton pursues regime change in Venezuela and Iran, the only restraining force is Trump himself. It’s a thin orange line. Will it hold?

Some hope it’s a “good cop/bad cop” routine, designed to get Trump to the global stage of negotiations. But that is not how Bolton thinks. He has never suggested that any negotiated settlement between the United States and any adversary is worth pursuing.

When Trump came to office, official Washington hoped generals like defense secretary James Mattis and national security adviser H R McMaster would act as the “adults in the room.” In Washington-speak, the phrase expressed the bipartisan hope that Trump’s non-interventionist instincts, grounded in domestic politics, would be curbed.

Now, the dynamic has flipped. The generals are gone, replaced by Bolton and Boeing lobbyist Patrick Shanahan. As Bolton pursues regime change in Venezuela and Iran, the only restraining force is Trump himself.

It’s a thin orange line. Will it hold?

Trump’s Obama-like determination to stay out of wars shouldn’t be underestimated. Hillary Clinton, who advocated strongly for Timber Sycamore, the Central Intelligence Agency’s US$1 billion covert arms transfer program, would never have abruptly withdrawn 2,000 US troops from Syria, as Trump did in December.

While then-president Barack Obama refused direct US involvement in Syria, he did acquiesce to Timber Sycamore. The goal was to aid the “moderate” rebels, who, unfortunately, did not exist. The program flooded the country with weapons, many of which wound up in the hands of al-Qaeda and its offshoots, funded by US allies in the Persian Gulf.

Trump ended Timber Sycamore in the summer of 2017. His withdrawal order in December 2018 not only triggered Mattis’ resignation, it also deprived Bolton of real estate from which he planned to confront Iran. Bolton has been trying to walk back Trump’s order ever since, with some success. Approximately 400 US troops remain in the country.

On Venezuela, it was Trump who started talk of a “military option” in August 2017 before Bolton had even joined his administration. Bolton escalated the confrontation, with the help of Pompeo, repeatedly saying “Maduro must go” and that his “time is up.” Trump, pondering the reality that US military intervention can only undermine the goal of ousting Maduro, now resists the option he put on the table.

The problem for the war-wary Trump is threefold.

First, Bolton is, objectively speaking, a warmonger. He has favored attacking Iran and North Korea, just as he favored attacking Iraq in 2003. The disastrous consequences of that invasion have had no effect on his impermeable thinking. He doesn’t want any advice on his schemes, and he doesn’t get any. If the policy doesn’t work, he changes the subject, not directions.

Second, because Bolton’s policies are developed in private, without the usual input from other sectors of the government, especially the military, they are under-informed and unsustainable. In Venezuela, Bolton failed to understand the political realities in the South American country, leaving talk of military intervention as the only face-saving option.

Third, and most important, Trump’s regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are also seeking to goad the US into taking action against Iran, their regional rival.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought authority to attack Iran in 2011, only to be thwarted by the opposition of Obama and his own security cabinet. Now Obama is gone and Trump has given Netanyahu everything he wanted: an embassy in Jerusalem and recognition of the Golan Heights. Why not a unilateral attack on Iran to degrade its infrastructure?

Saudi Arabia is openly calling for war. After four oil tankers last week suffered damage from some kind of attack, the United States and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran.

Why? The New York Times reported that “Israeli intelligence had warned the United States in recent days of what it said was Iran’s intention to strike Saudi vessels.” The Times said the information came from a “senior Middle Eastern intelligence official.”

An Iranian parliamentary spokesman described the attacks as “Israeli mischief.” To date, there is no conclusive evidence about who was responsible.

Nonetheless, the Arab News, a Saudi outlet owned by the brother of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), is now calling for “surgical strikes” on Iran.

It is one thing for Trump to rebuke Bolton privately. If and when Netanyahu and MBS ask for war, Trump will have more difficulty saying no – which is what Bolton is counting on.

It is no exaggeration to say Bolton is the most dangerous man in the world. It is a title he will only lose if Trump wants it.

This article was produced by the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute, which provided it to Asia Times.

Headlong attack on Huawei threatens US firms

If Washington acts to block tech exports to Chinese buyers, US companies would face an uncertain future

  

By CHRISTOPHER SCOTT

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/article/headlong-attack-on-huawei-threatens-us-firms/

On Wednesday, the US Commerce Department announced that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will be placed on an export control list, which could pave the way for a ban on US sales to the company.

The announcement was overshadowed by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that restricts Huawei from doing business in the United States. But the decision to place Huawei on the so-called “Entity List,” has the potential for significantly more far-reaching consequences.

Contrary to a conception widely held among Trump administration officials and lawmakers, the consequences may be more catastrophic for US technology companies than for Huawei, experts say.

The move is different from the Trump administration’s punitive ban on exports to Chinese telecoms firm ZTE, which was enacted and then repealed last year, and does not immediately prohibit the sale of US components to Huawei. Once the listing is officially published, US companies will be required to obtain a special license to sell to Huawei.

Unintended consequences

“Huawei has been stockpiling some US components for the last few weeks, which suggests that there are some [US components] it will be unable replace,” Jim Lewis, senior vice-president and technology specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Asia Times.

But, he added: “I don’t think this will be a ZTE near-death-like experience since I expect Commerce to license some US technologies, at least for a while.”

It is also distinct from the ZTE ban – which threatened to put the company out of business – in that experts see Huawei as resilient even to an outright export ban.

According to Jimmy Goodrich, vice-president of global policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association, Washington runs huge risks with such a move.

“There’s really no segment of the industry that’s dominated entirely by US companies … If the US acts unilaterally in this space, then they’re really just going to end up hurting innovation in the US and China’s still going to get the technology that they’re concerned about,” Goodrich said at a recent panel discussion in Washington.

“We have to think about the unintended consequences,” he added. “Going back a year ago, we all know what happened with ZTE. Not out of coincidence, China announced several hundred million dollar programs to accelerate the localization of a lot of the 5G components. And so, are we going to just drive them to be better, more independent of us because of that?” Goodrich asked.

Washington in the dark

While some semiconductor industry insiders in the US are wary of the danger export bans pose to domestic companies, Washington has been slow to comprehend the extent of strides already made by China.

According to a recent analysis from Japanese research firm Techanalye, Huawei is already on par with Apple in terms of 4G chip design for smartphones. The research suggested that Huawei may already or soon be capable of rivaling US semiconductor-maker Qualcomm in mobile chip design. For the moment, Qualcomm is the still arguably the world leader in mobile chips, but that is thanks in large part to the 65% of its revenue that comes from China.

But the Trump administration and lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have not gotten the memo.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio said he enthusiastically supports the Commerce Department’s decision to issue a “denial of export privileges against Huawei.”

“Huawei is a state-directed instrument of national power used by the Chinese government to destroy their international competitors,” Rubio said.

Tom Cotton, a Republican Senator who co-sponsored a bill earlier this year that would, if passed, place an outright export ban on Huawei, sees the Commerce Department’s decisions as a death sentence for Huawei.

“@Huawei 5G, RIP. Thanks for playing,” he wrote on Twitter.

Tom Cotton

✔@SenTomCotton

.@Huawei 5G, RIP. Thanks for playing. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-huaweitech/chinas-huawei-70-affiliates-placed-on-u-s-trade-blacklist-idUSKCN1SL2W4?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews …

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5:32 PM - May 15, 2019

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China's Huawei, 70 affiliates placed on U.S. trade blacklist

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Implications for trade war

A tepid official reaction from Beijing – and from Huawei – is more evidence that figures in Washington such as Rubio and Cotton who think this represents a crushing blow are wrong in their assessment.

“The trade talks face a number of challenges – a new licensing requirement for Huawei is a minor one,” Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, told Asia Times.

“Because the Department of Commerce can either be lenient or strict in licensing, it does provide the US with a bit more leverage in the talks. But only a bit, given all the other issues involved,” he said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that “we ask our companies to follow the laws and regulations on export control and fulfill our due international obligations. We ask our companies to observe local laws and policies when doing business overseas.”

But, Lu added, China urges the US to “stop its wrong practices.”

Huawei said in a statement that “restricting Huawei from doing business in the US will not make the US more secure or stronger.”

“This will only serve to limit the US to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the US lagging behind in 5G deployment, and eventually harming the interests of US companies and consumer,” the statement went on.

Goodrich of the Semiconductor Industry Association, for his part, urged policymakers in Washington to rethink their approach.

“At the end of the day, do we want American chips over there or do we want Chinese ones?” he asked.

If the US blocks its own chip-makers out of the Chinese market, asking that question will be a fruitless exercise.