Anti-slavery protests continued across various world capitals this week, especially in countries across Africa, after earlier protests in France got violent when police used tear gas and other riot control tactics on a crowed of more than one thousand outside of the Libyan embassy in Paris. The protests are in response to last week"s widespread reports of slave markets operating in various cities across Libya, and look to continue as according to Reuters a major rally is set to take place in London later this week.
Meanwhile France on Wednesday called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the revelations, with President Macron referencing recent footage proving the existence of a slave trade network in Libya as "scandalous" and "unacceptable".
According to a CNN investigation, which included video footage of one slave auction in progress, migrant African workers are being sold for as little as $400 in at least nine different Libyan cities, though it"s believed the network of slave auctions extends more broadly, including to locations under the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in Tripoli.
A migrant looks out of a barred door at a detention centre in Gharyan, Libya, Oct. 12, 2017. Hundreds more like him are being kept in smuggler-owned Libyan warehouses, where they are sometimes beaten, ransomed or sold into slavery. Image source: Reuters via CBC Radio
Other investigations by international rights groups such as the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) have further found that many migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya are routinely "detained, tortured, and even killed." This also no doubt includes large numbers of internal refugees from Libya"s recent "summer of mass displacement" due to dozens of militias as well as multiple regional governments vying for territory and power. Libya has recently been described by the European Council On Foreign Relations as "one country, three governments."
According to Deutsche Welle (DW), anger is spreading in Africa, with multiple governments demanding action as protests swell. DW reports:
Politicians in Africa have expressed their outrage at the scandal – especially in West Africa where most African migrants originate. President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou felt particularly revolted by the reports, summoning the Libyan ambassador to Niger and demanding the International Court of Justice investigate Libya for trading slaves.
And the African Union is also likely set to demand concrete action, though the Tripoli government in Libya is nowhere near in control of the entire country (and itself could be complicit), which is largely run by competing militias:
Meanwhile the foreign minister of Burkina Faso, Alpha Barry, told the press that he had also summoned the Libyan ambassador to the capital Ouagadougou for consultations. The issue has since been added to the agenda of next week"s African Union meeting in Ivory Coast, to take place on November 29 and 30.
Migrants swept up in the slave trade before reaching the Mediterranean coast are describing Libya as "hell" and express fear of being caught by roving militias, and it appears that even children may be part of the slave trafficking. DW continues:
The issue has made waves in the Ivory Coast itself — 155 Ivorian refugees, including 89 women and underage migrants, were returned from Libya to the Ivory Coast earlier this week as part of a reintegration initiative launched by the European Union. Representatives of the Ivorian government, however, said that the health of those migrants returned from Libya was in a "deplorable state."
Current headlines and stories highlighting the continued outrage of Libya"s slave auctions, however, neglect to mention that the country has been a "failed state" since its "liberation" through the US-led NATO campaign to topple Muammar Gaddafi. At the end of last summer, the United Nation"s World Food Program (WFP) found that 1.3 million people are in need of emergency aid due to perpetual "conflict, insecurity, political instability and a collapsing economy."
Meanwhile, the fact that Libya has become a key European migration embarkation point for all of Africa coupled with its being a failed state and enduring war zone, ensures that the the humanitarian crisis will only continue to grow. Though global outrage over the latest revelations of slave markets and xenophobia in Libya continues, media coverage remains myopic in its assessment of the true depth of Libya"s problems and their causes.
Though CNN"s footage and accompanying report which lately sparked renewed public interest in Libya is shocking, such practices have been quietly documented for years, and clear warnings were issued starting in early 2011 that Libya"s black as well as migrant population would be the first to fall victim at the hands of the Islamist Libyan rebels that NATO"s war empowered. From the outset critics of Western intervention in Libya loudly sounded the alarm of a genocide against black Libyans in progress committed by the very rebels the US, UK, France, and Gulf allies were arming - a fact so well-known that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was personally briefed and warned on the matter.
Protests and diplomatic action is likely to merely take aim at the Western backed Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli, and not at the very authors of the "new" post-Gaddafi Libya who put the Tripoli government into power in the first place (France is among those responsible for creating Libya"s current chaos). And while Obama himself has actually voiced some minimal and too little too late "regret" over his decision to go bomb the Gaddafi government out of existence using the pretext of "humanitarian intervention" - calling it his "worst mistake" - Hillary has consistently defended her role as one of the architects of the war as Obama"s secretary of state.
Using contested intelligence, a powerful adviser urges a president to wage a war of choice against a dictator; makes a bellicose joke when he is killed; declares the operation a success; fails to plan for a power vacuum; and watches Islamists gain power. That describes Dick Cheney and the Iraq War—and Hillary Clinton and the war in Libya.
And yet years later, as such war crimes against both African migrants and black Libyans continue to be exhaustively documented, Hillary still says that she has no regrets. Though her beloved Libyan rebels, legitimized and empowered through broad support from the West, are now among the very militias hosting slave auctions, she"s never so much as hinted that regime change in Libya left the country and much of the region in shambles. Instead, she simply chose to conclude her role in the tragic story of Libya with her crazed and gleeful declaration of "we came, we saw, he died."
Concerning Obama, despite his general Libya mea culpa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning "humanitarian" minded architect of the 2011 US-NATO intervention (and ultimate author of Libya"s current hell) continues to pen his presidential memoir in the midst of an epic retirement tour of yachts, golf courses, and hidden celebrity islands.
Meanwhile, Libya still burns out of control, and America"s first black president, though surely able to command immense influence even from retirement, remains silenton the resurrection of a barbaric slave trade which didn"t exist in modern Libya prior to his own intervention there.
A new CNN investigation has uncovered a network of slave markets operating in warehouses in various cities across Libya six years after NATO-led intervention in the country toppled the government of Muammar Gaddafi in support of US and UK backed rebels. And not only did CNN confirm the presence of slave auctions where human beings are being sold for as little as $400 in "liberated" Libya, but CNN"s crew was actually able to film a live auction in progress, while also gathering the testimonies of multiple victims.
Though CNN"s footage and accompanying report is shocking, such practices have been quietly documented for years, and clear warnings were issued starting in early 2011 that Libya"s black as well as migrant population would be the first to fall victim at the hands of the Islamist Libyan rebels that NATO"s war empowered. From the outset critics of Western intervention in Libya loudly sounded the alarm of a genocide against black Libyans in progress committed by the very rebels the US, UK, France, and Gulf allies were arming - a fact so well-known that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was personally briefed and warned on the matter.
The Dangerous Myth of Gaddafi"s "African Mercenaries"
Among the foremost of these early critics at the time, Maximilian Forte, Associate Professor at Montreal"s Concordia University, published a 2012 book which exhaustively documented racially motivated crimes which came early and often during the armed uprising. His book, Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO"s War on Libya and Africa, contains essential summary context laying out the role that international media played in 2011 and after, including CNN itself, in fueling the xenophobic campaign to scapegoat Libya"s over one million strong black population as "pro-Gaddafi mercenaries".
Racial fear and xenophobia were at the very crux of the first public calls for Western military intervention, and were the basis for the first utterance of the need for a "no-fly zone" ... The myth of the "African mercenary" was useful for the Libyan opposition, the NTC [National Transitional Council] and the militias, to insist that this was a war between "Gaddafi and the Libyan people," as if he had no domestic support at all...
As Patrick Cockburn explained, the insurgents" "explanation for the large pro-Gaddafi forces was that they were all mercenaries, mostly from black Africa, whose only motive was money."
Gaddafi"s "pan-Africanist" policies such as aggressive support for the creation of the African Union (in 2002), and a relatively open immigration policy allowing for the influx of sub-Saharan African migrants to work on Gaddafi"s massive building projects, stirred resentment and discontent within broader Arab Libyan society in the decade leading up to the 2011 war. This was the historical background which set the stage for the anti-Gaddafi rebels" extraordinary claim that sub-Saharan "foreign mercenaries" were being used en masse by Gaddafi to target protesters (later proven false).
QADHAFI in 1998 adopted a decade-long pan-African policy that enabled large numbers of sub-Saharan migrants to enter Libya without visas to work in the construction and agricultural industries. Although sub-Saharan Africans provided a cheap labor source, they were poorly treated and were subjected to periodic mass expulsions. By the mid-2000s, domestic animosity toward African migrants...
Similar to later developments in Syria, the media would uncritically echo whatever the "freedom fighting" rebels would feed it, thus this black foreign mercenary trope became an unquestioned reality spread from rebel propagandists to the Western public. Libyan opposition members even began claiming to be victims of wild attacks by roving bands of machete-wielding pro-Gaddafi blacks wearing tell-tale yellow hard hats - a symbol which also falsely began to be associated with "Gaddafi"s savage mercenaries" - resulting in subsequent mass arrests and executions of innocent black migrant construction workers.
CNN Spread the "Black Mercenary" Lie
The end result would of course be the widespread targeting and scapegoating of an entire ethnic population within Libya. This is demonstrated, for example, in the most well-known example of Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000 black and “dark-skinned” Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backed NTC Misratan brigades.
A widely circulated photo from the Libyan war which shows rebels threatening to shoot a black man.
But it is important to remember that CNN itself at the time regularly promoted the false "black mercenary" narrative which helped fuel and excuse such atrocities, even though it is now much belatedly investigating and decrying Libya"s current migrant slave auctions, while leaving out the essential context which enabled such horrors in the first place. For example, the following February 2011 CNN reporting relied on unnamed opposition sources during the earliest days of the conflict to say:
Residents said hundreds of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa had been killed or captured while fighting for Gadhafi, but much of the army appears to have gone over to anti-government forces.
And a separate CNN article from the same month - though acknowledging that no CNN journalists were even inside the country - still uncritically reported:
Clashes broke out between a large crowd of demonstrators and people who appeared to be African mercenaries in the center of the city, according to an activist.
Yet another broadcast segment from February 2011 - the clip of which appears to have since been deleted from CNN"s site (but which is available on YouTube), asks the question: in Libya "just who is doing the dirty work?" - while answering that Gaddafi imported Chadian and Sudanese mercenaries to crack down on civilian protesters.
And those few examples are but a tiny sampling of CNN"s consistent spreading the dangerous myth throughout the early stages of the conflict - to say nothing of how ubiquitous the false rebel claims became among mainstream media generally.
US-backed Rebels and Ethnic Genocide
One of the few international correspondents to actually report the truth in real time while writing from inside Libya was The Independent"s (UK) Patrick Cockburn. In an August 2011 story he wrote as if attempting to warn the world about the future war crimes to come at the hands of the US-backed rebels:
The rotting bodies of 30 men, almost all black and many handcuffed, slaughtered as they lay on stretchers and even in an ambulance in central Tripoli, are an ominous foretaste of what might be Libya"s future. The incoming regime makes pious statements about taking no revenge on pro-Gaddafi forces, but this stops short of protecting those who can be labelled mercenaries. Any Libyan with a black skin accused of fighting for the old regime may have a poor chance of survival.
If reporters like Cockburn and even prominent human rights organizations (see Human Rights Watch, September 2011, Libya: Stop Arbitrary Arrests of Black Africans) understood what was happening months prior to height of NATO"s military campaign in support of the rebels, which ended in the brutal torture and field execution of Gaddafi, then what did one of the prime US architects of the war, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton know and when did she know it?
Then Secretary of State Clinton posing with Libyan rebel commanders.
What Hillary Knew
The answer lies in a March 27, 2011, intelligence brief on Libya published by WikiLeaks. The brief, which was made public in 2015 as part of a large batch of Hillary emails released by the State Department, was sent by long time close adviser to the Clinton family and Hillary’s personal intelligence gatherer, Sidney Blumenthal, and contains clear reference to rebels summarily executing "all foreign mercenaries" - which had already become the common euphemism for black Libyans then being targeted by the US-supported rebels.
Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.
Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troopscontinue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting…
Hillary Emails show UK, French, Egyptian special forces were secretly in Libya providing arms to "protestors" https://t.co/SyRhaYeLGI
And further interesting is that the line immediately following the acknowledgement of war crimes against "foreign mercenaries" indicates that a long time CIA supported Libyan exile was then taking command of the very militants committing those summary executions.
At the same time Colonel Khalifa Haftar has reportedly joined the rebel command structure, in an effort to help organization the rebel forces.
Khalifa Haftar has since 2011 become a mainstay in Libya"s post-Gaddafi chaos, heading up one of the three to four governments (at any given time) claiming authority in the war-torn country. Haftar has been widely acknowledged as the "CIA"s man" during his two decade long exile in the US, as a BBC profile explained: "His proximity to the CIA"s headquarters in Langley hinted at a close relationship with US intelligence services, who gave their backing to several attempts to assassinate Gaddafi."
CIA"s Khalifa Haftar and Mass Executions
Meanwhile, Haftar is currently being eyed by international prosecutors for continuing to commit war crimes in Libya. One month ago The Guardian reported, "Ex-CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, due to meet Italian officials in Rome, ordered soldiers to kill prisoners, according to legal experts." The Guardian cites video evidence which proves he continues to be "complicit in calling for extrajudicial killings."
And yesterday Al Jazeera reported that a formal suit has been filed against Haftar at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for "carrying out mass executions and torture." Another recent Guardian report which details torture and rape being carried out against prisoners held under Haftar"s militia alliance, includes the following eyewitness account of the torture of African migrant detainees: “There was a black man, a migrant. In the evening, they threw him into one of our cells: ‘You rape this guy, otherwise, you’re dead!’”
Then Secretary of State Clinton understood in early 2011 what was happening concerning the rebel genocidal targeting of black Libyans and African migrants, yet pushed to arm the rebels and overthrow Gaddafi anyway. She was given the intelligence brief which gave evidence this was happening on March 27, 2011. But even without such a classified intelligence report personally delivered to her, such war crimes were so well known that a full month prior on February 28, 2011, Al Jazeera could publish the following story entitled, African Migrants Targetted in Libya:
As nations evacuate their citizens from the violence gripping Libya, many African migrant workers are targeted because they are suspected of being mercenaries hired by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.
Dozens of workers from sub-Saharan Africa are feared killed, and hundreds are in hiding, as angry mobs of anti-government protesters hunt down "black African mercenaries," according to witnesses.
"No Regrets"
But even years later, as such race-based war crimes have now been exhaustively documented, Hillary has consistently indicated that she has no regrets. Though her beloved Libyan rebels, legitimized and empowered through broad support from the West, were literally killing people based on the color of their skin, not a single one has ever been convicted in a court of law or punished for their crimes.
Moreover, Hillary has never so much as hinted at the problem, though her public stature would allow her a world-wide platform to speak against atrocities at any time, possibly preventing further crimes. Instead, she has simply chosen to conclude her role in the tragic story of Libya with her crazed and gleeful declaration of "we came, we saw, he died."
Exactly six years ago, on October 20th, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered, joining a long list of African revolutionaries martyred by the West for daring to dream of continental independence.
Earlier that day, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte had been occupied by Western-backed militias, following a month-long battle during which NATO and its ‘rebel’ allies pounded the city’s hospitals and homes with artillery, cut off its water and electricity, and publicly proclaimed their desire to ‘starve [the city] into submission’. The last defenders of the city, including Gaddafi, fled Sirte that morning, but their convoy was tracked and strafed by NATO jets, killing 95 people. Gaddafi escaped the wreckage but was captured shortly afterward. I will spare you the gruesome details, which the Western media gloatingly broadcast across the world as a triumphant snuff movie, suffice to say that he was tortured and eventually shot dead.
We now know, if testimony from NATO’s key Libyan ally Mahmoud Jibril is to be believed, it was a foreign agent, likely French, who delivered the fatal bullet. His death was the culmination of not only seven months of NATO aggression, but of a campaign against Gaddafi and his movement, the West had been waging for over three decades.
Yet it was also the opening salvo in a new war - a war for the militarily recolonization of Africa.
The year 2009, two years before Gaddafi’s murder, was a pivotal one for US-African relations. First, because China overtook the US as the continent’s largest trading partner; and second because Gaddafi was elected president of the African Union.
The significance of both for the decline of US influence on the continent could not be clearer. While Gaddafi was spearheading attempts to unite Africa politically, committing serious amounts of Libyan oil wealth to make this dream a reality, China was quietly smashing the West’s monopoly over export markets and investment finance. Africa no longer had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF for loans, agreeing to whatever self-defeating terms were on offer, but could turn to China - or indeed Libya - for investment. And if the US threatened to cut them off from their markets, China would happily buy up whatever was on offer. Western economic domination of Africa was under threat as never before.
The response from the West, of course, was a military one. Economic dependence on the West - rapidly being shattered by Libya and China - would be replaced by a new military dependence. If African countries would no longer come begging for Western loans, export markets, and investment finance, they would have to be put in a position where they would come begging for Western military aid.
To this end, AFRICOM - the US army’s new ‘African command’ - had been launched the previous year, but humiliatingly for George W. Bush, not a single African country would agree to host its HQ; instead, it was forced to open shop in Stuttgart, Germany. Gaddafi had led African opposition to AFRICOM, as exasperated US diplomatic memos later revealed by WikiLeaks made clear. And US pleas to African leaders to embrace AFRICOM in the ‘fight against terrorism’ fell on deaf ears.
After all, as Mutassim Gaddafi, head of Libyan security, had explained to Hillary Clinton in 2009, North Africa already had an effective security system in place, through the African Union’s ‘standby forces," on the one hand, and CEN-SAD on the other. CEN-SAD was a regional security organization of Sahel and Saharan states, with a well-functioning security system, with Libya as the lynchpin. The sophisticated Libyan-led counter-terror structure meant there was simply no need for a US military presence. The job of Western planners, then, was to create such a need.
NATO’s destruction of Libya simultaneously achieved three strategic goals for the West’s plans for military expansion in Africa. Most obviously, it removed the biggest obstacle and opponent of such expansion, Gaddafi himself. With Gaddafi gone, and with a quiescent pro-NATO puppet government in charge of Libya, there was no longer any chance that Libya would act as a powerful force against Western militarism. Quite the contrary - Libya’s new government was utterly dependent on such militarism and knew it. Secondly, NATO’s aggression served to bring about a total collapse of the delicate but effective North African security system, which had been underpinned by Libya. And finally, NATO’s annihilation of the Libyan state effectively turned the country over to the region’s death squads and terror groups. These groups were then able to loot Libya’s military arsenals and set up training camps at their leisure, using these to expand operations right across the region.
It is no coincidence that almost all of the recent terror attacks in North Africa - not to mention Manchester - have been either prepared in Libya or perpetrated by fighters trained in Libya. Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, Mali’s Ansar Dine, and literally dozens of others, have all greatly benefited from the destruction of Libya.
By ensuring the spread of terror groups across the region, the Western powers had magically created a demand for their military assistance which hitherto did not exist. They had literally created a protection racket for Africa.
In an excellent piece of research published last year, Nick Turse wrote how the increase in AFRICOM operations across the continent has correlated precisely with the rise in terror threats. Its growth, he said, has been accompanied by “increasing numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia.
In fact, data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM’s establishment. In 2007, just before it became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000. By AFRICOM’s own official standards, of course, this is a demonstration of a massive failure. Viewed from the perspective of the protection racket, however, it is a resounding success, with US military power smoothly reproducing the conditions for its own expansion.
This is the Africa policy Trump has now inherited. But because this policy has rarely been understood as the protection racket it really is, many commentators have, as with so many of Trump’s policies, mistakenly believed he is somehow ‘ignoring’ or ‘reversing’ the approach of his predecessors. In fact, far from abandoning this approach, Trump is escalating it with relish.
What the Trump administration is doing, as it is doing in pretty much every policy area, is stripping the previous policy of its ‘soft power’ niceties to reveal and extend the iron fist which has in fact been in the driving seat all along. Trump, with his open disdain for Africa, has effectively ended US development aid for Africa - slashing overall African aid levels by one third, and transferring responsibility for much of the rest from the Agency for International Development to the Pentagon - while openly tying aid to the advancement of “US national security objectives.”
In other words, the US has made a strategic decision to drop the carrot in favor of the stick. Given the overwhelming superiority of Chinese development assistance, this is unsurprising. The US has decided to stop trying to compete in this area, and instead to ruthlessly and unambiguously pursue the military approach which the Bush and Obama administrations had already mapped out.
To this end, Trump has stepped up drone attacks, removing the (limited) restrictions that had been in place during the Obama era. The result has been a ramping up of civilian casualties, and consequently of the resentment and hatred which fuels militant recruitment. It is unlikely to be a coincidence, for example, that the al Shabaab truck bombing that killed over 300 people in Mogadishu last weekend was carried out by a man from a town in which had suffered a major drone attack on civilians, including women and children, in August.
Indeed, a detailed study by the United Nations recently concluded that in “a majority of cases, state action appears to be the primary factor finally pushing individuals into violent extremism in Africa.” Of more than 500 former members of militant organizations interviewed for the report, 71 percent pointed to “government action,” including “killing of a family member or friend” or “arrest of a family member or friend” as the incident that prompted them to join a group. And so the cycle continues: drone attacks breed recruitment, which produces further terror attacks, which leaves the states involved more dependent on US military support. Thus does the West create the demand for its own ‘products."
It does so in another way as well. Alexander Cockburn, in his book ‘Kill Chain," explains how the policy of ‘targeted killings’ - another Obama policy ramped up under Trump - also increases the militancy of insurgent groups. Cockburn, reporting on a discussion with US soldiers about the efficacy of targeted killings, wrote that:
“When the topic of conversation came round to ways of defeating the [roadside] bombs, everyone was in agreement. They would have charts up on the wall showing the insurgent cells they were facing, often with the names and pictures of the guys running them," Rivolo remembers. "When we asked about going after the high-value individuals and what effect it was having, they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, we killed that guy last month, and we’re getting more IEDs than ever.’ They all said the same thing, point blank: ‘[O]nce you knock them off, a day later you have a new guy who’s smarter, younger, more aggressive and is out for revenge.”’
Alex de Waal has written how this is certainly true in Somalia, where, he says, “each dead leader is followed by a more radical deputy. After a failed attempt in January 2007, the US killed Al Shabaab’s commander, Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, in a May 2008 air strike. Ayro’s successor, Ahmed Abdi Godane (alias Mukhtar Abu Zubair), was worse, affiliating the organization with Al-Qaeda. The US succeeded in assassinating Godane in September 2014. In turn, Godane was succeeded by an even more determined extremist, Ahmad Omar (Abu Ubaidah). It was presumably Omar who ordered the recent attack in Mogadishu, the worst in the country’s recent history. If targeted killing remains a central strategy of the War on Terror”, De Waal wrote, “it is set to be an endless war.”
But endless war is the whole point. For not only does it force African countries, finally freeing themselves from dependence on the IMF, into dependence on AFRICOM; it also undermines China’s blossoming relationship with Africa.
Chinese trade and investment in Africa continues to grow apace. According to the China-Africa Research Initiative at John Hopkins University, Chinese FDI stocks in Africa had risen from just two percent of the value of US stocks in 2003 to 55 percent in 2015, when they totaled $35 billion. This proportion is likely to rapidly increase, given that “Between 2009 and 2012, China’s direct investment in Africa grew at an annual rate of 20.5 percent, while levels of US FDI flows to Africa declined by $8 billion in the wake of the global financial crisis”. Chinese-African trade, meanwhile, topped $200 billion in 2015.
China’s signature ‘One Belt One Road’ policy - to which President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion to create global trade routes designed to facilitate $2 trillion worth of annual trade - will also help to improve African links with China. Trump’s policy toward the project was summarised by Steve Bannon, his ideological mentor, and former chief strategist in just eight words: “Let’s go screw up One Belt One Road.”
The West’s deeply destabilizing Africa policy - of simultaneously creating the conditions for armed groups to thrive while offering protection against them - goes some way toward realizing this ambitious goal. Removing Gaddafi was just the first step.
In a speech that commentators have said "the likes of which have never been heard by a U.S. leader in the United Nations", President Trump did not disappoint expectations that his first appearance at the UN would be a fiery, memorable affair, and while laying out his view for a "nationalist" basis to US foreign policy, focusing on state sovereignty as the framework for the "great revival of nations" and future international relations while vowing to "always put America first", Trump slammed “the scourge of our planet which is a group of rogue regimes" listing North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, while also taking shots at Saudi Arabia and China.
In a forceful endorsement of nationalism around the world, Trump called for a "great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people and their patriotism."
Saying that "major portions of the world are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell", Trump"s most memorable comment was that the United States will be forced to “totally destroy” North Korea unless Pyongyang backs down from its nuclear challenge, mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “rocket man” on a suicide mission, a comment which was followed by loud murmuring around the assembly.
"If it the US forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime" adding that North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles “threatens the entire world with unthinkable cost of human life.”
In his first, 41-minute long appearance at this annual gathering of world leaders, the president also took aim at Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional influence, Venezuela’s collapsing democracy and the threat of Islamist extremists, while also criticizing the Cuban government.
On Iran, which he called an “economically depleted rogue state that exports violence" Trump said the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama was an embarrassment and hinted that he may not recertify the agreement when it comes up for a mid-October deadline. “I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it."
On Venezuela, Trump said the collapsing situation there “completely unacceptable” and said the United States cannot stand by and watch. He warned the United States was considering what further actions it can take. “We cannot stand by and watch."
Ultimately Trump reverted back to how he sees America"s role in the world order, saying the United States does not seek to impose its will on other nations and will respect other countries’ sovereignty.
“I will defend America’s interests above all else. But in fulfilling our obligations to other nations we also realize it’s in everyone’s interest to seek a future where all nations can be sovereign, prosperous and secure.”
Selected speech highlights:
"I will always put America first just like you, the leaders of your countries, should put your countries first."
"We meet at a time of immense promise and great peril... It is up to us whether we will lift the world to new heights or let it fall into a valley of disrepair."
“The scourge of our planet is a group of rogue regimes"
“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime... The U.S. is ready, willing and able to take military action, but “hopefully that won’t be necessary”
"If it the US forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea"
“It’s time for North Korea to realize that de-nuclearization is its only acceptable future"
"it’s outrageous that nations would support North Korea and that rogue nation’s pursuit of missiles threatens the whole world"
"Problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented."
"Major portions of the world are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell"
"No nation should have to share a disproportionate share of the burden, militarily or financially"
“If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph.”
"The American people hope that one day soon the United Nations can be a much more accountable and effective advocate for human dignity and freedom around the world."
The “righteous many” must confront the “wicked few."
His full speech transcript below:
And in simple text:
Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, world leaders, and distinguished delegates, welcome to New York. It is a profound honor to stand here in my home city as a representative of the American people to address the people of the world. As millions of our citizens continue to suffer the effects of the devastating hurricanes that have struck our country, I want to begin by expressing my appreciation to every leader in this room who has offered assistance and aid. The American people are strong and resilient, and they will emerge from these hardships more determined than ever before. Fortunately, the United States has done very well since Election Day last November 8. The stock market is at an all-time high, a record. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 16 years, and because of our regulatory and other reforms, we have more people working in the United States today than ever before. Companies are moving back, creating job growth, the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time, and it has just been announced that we will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense. Our military will soon be the strongest it has ever been. For more than 70 years, in times of war and peace, the leaders of nations, movements, and religions have stood before this assembly. Like them, I intend to address some of the very serious threats before us today, but also the enormous potential waiting to be unleashed. We live in a time of extraordinary opportunity. Breakthroughs in science, technology, and medicine are curing illnesses and solving problems that prior generations thought impossible to solve. But each day also brings news of growing dangers that threaten everything we cherish and value. Terrorists and extremists have gathered strength and spread to every region of the planet. Rogue regimes represented in this body not only support terror but threaten other nations and their own people with the most destructive weapons known to humanity. Authority and authoritarian powers seek to collapse the values, the systems, and alliances, that prevented conflict and tilted the word toward freedom since World War II. International criminal networks traffic drugs, weapons, people, force dislocation and mass migration, threaten our borders and new forms of aggression exploit technology to menace our citizens. To put it simply, we meet at a time of both immense promise and great peril. It is entirely up to us whether we lift the world to new heights, or let it fall into a valley of disrepair. We have it in our power, should we so choose, to lift millions from poverty, to help our citizens realize their dreams, and to ensure that new generations of children are raised free from violence, hatred, and fear. This institution was founded in the aftermath of two world wars, to help shape this better future. It was based on the vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect their sovereignty, preserve their security, and promote their prosperity. It was in the same period exactly 70 years ago that the United States developed the marshal plan to help restore Europe. Those these beautiful pillars, they are pillars of peace, sovereignty, security, and prosperity. The marshal plan was built on the noble idea that the whole world is safer when nations are strong, independent, and free. As president Truman said in his message to congress at that time, our support of European recovery is in full accord with our support of the united nations. The success of the united nations depends upon the independent strength of its members. To overcome the perils of the present, and to achieve the promise of the future, we must begin with the wisdom of the past. Our success depends on a coalition of strong and independent nations that embrace their sovereignty, to promote security, prosperity and peace, for themselves and for the world. We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions or even systems of government, but we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties, to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation. This is the beautiful vision of this institution and this is the foundation for cooperation and success. Strong sovereign nations let diverse countries with different values, different cultures, and different dreams, not just coexist, but work side by side on the basis of mutual respect. Strong sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny. And strong sovereign nations allow individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by god. In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather, to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch. This week gives our country a special reason to take pride in that example. We are celebrating the 230th anniversary of our beloved constitution, the oldest constitution still in use in the world today. This timeless document has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans and for countless millions around the globe whose own countries have found inspiration in its respect for human nature, human dignity into, and the rule of law. The greatest in the united States constitution is its first three beautiful words. They are "We the people." Generations of Americans have sacrificed to maintain the promise of those words, the promise of our country and of our great history. In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign. I was elected not to take power, but to give power to the American people where it belongs. In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. Our government"s first duty is to its people, to our citizens, to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values. As president of the united States, I will always put America first. Just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first. [ Applause ] All responsible leaders have an obligation to serve their own citizens, and the nation state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition. But making a better life for our people also requires us to with work together in close harmony and unity, to create a more safe and peaceful future for all people. The United States will forever be a great friend to the world and especially to its allies. But we can no longer be taken advantage of or enter into a one-sided deal where the united States gets nothing in return. As long as I hold this office, I will defend America"s interests above all else, but in fulfilling our obligations to our nations, we also realize that it"s in everyone"s interests to seek the future where all nations can be sovereign, prosperous and secure. America does more than speak for the values expressed in the united nations charter. Our citizens have paid the ultimate price to defend our freedom and the freedom of many nations represented in this great hall. America"s devotion is measured on the battlefields where our young men and women have fought and sacrificed alongside of our allies. From the beaches of Europe, to the deserts of the Middle East, to the jungles of Asia, it is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerge victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others. Instead, we helped build institutions such as this one to defend the sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all. For the diverse nations of the world, this is our hope. We want harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife. We are guided by outcomes, not ideologies. We have a policy of principled realism, rooted in shared goal, interests, and values. That realism forces us to confront the question facing every leader and nation in this room, it is a question we cannot escape or avoid. We will slide down the path of complacency, numb to the challenges, threats, and even wars that we face, or do we have enough strength and pride to confront those dangers today so that our citizens can enjoy peace and prosperity tomorrow. If we desire to lift up our citizens, if we aspire to the approval of history, then we must fulfill our sovereign duties to the people we faithfully represent. We must protect our nations, their interests and their futures. We must reject threats to sovereignty from the Ukraine to the south China sea. We must uphold respect for law, respect for borders, and respect for culture, and the peaceful engagement these allow. And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threatens us with chaos, turmoil, and terror. The score of our planet today is small regimes that violate every principles that the united nations is based. They respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries. If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength. No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea. It is responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of north Koreans. And for the imprisonment, torture, killing and oppression of countless more. We were all witness to the regime"s deadly abuse when an innocent American college student, Otto Warmbier, was returned to America, only to die a few days later. We saw it in the assassination of the dictator"s brother, using banned nerve agents in an international airport. We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country, to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea"s spies. If this is not twisted enough, now North Korea"s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life. It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime, but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict. No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That"s what the united nations is all about. That"s what the united nations is for. Let"s see how they do. It is time for North Korea to realize that the denuclearization is its only acceptable future. The united nations security council recently held two unanimous 15-0 votes adopting hard-hitting resolutions against North Korea, and I want to thank China and Russia for joining the vote to impose sanctions, along with all of the other members of the security council. Thank you to all involved. But we must do much more. It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior. We face this decision not only in North Korea, it is far past time for the nations of the world to confront another reckless regime, one that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room. The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country, with a rich history and culture, into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violent, bloodshed and chaos. The longest suffering victims of Iran"s leaders are, in fact, its own people. Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian live, its oil profits go to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors. This wealth, which rightly belongs to Iran"s people, also goes to shore up bashar Al Assad"s dictatorship, fuel Yemen"s civil war, and undermine peace throughout the entire Middle East. We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program. The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don"t think you"ve heard the last of it. Believe me. It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran"s government end its pursuit of death and destruction. It is time for the regime to free all Americans and citizens of other nations that they have unjustly detained. Above all, Iran"s government must stop supporting terrorists, begin serving its own people, and respect the sovereign rights of its neighbors. The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran"s people are what their leaders fear the most. This is what causes the regime to restrict internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protesters, and imprison political reformers. Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the people will face a choice. Will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed and terror, or will the Iranian people return to the nation"s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture and wealth, where their people can be happy and prosperous once again. The Iranian regime"s support for terror is in stark contrast to the recent commitments of many of its neighbors to fight terrorism and halt its finance, and Saudi Arabia early last year, I was greatly honored to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations. We agreed that all responsible nations must work together to confront terrorists and the islamic extremism that inspires them. We will stop radical islamic terrorism because we cannot allow it to tear up our nation and, indeed, to tear up the entire world. We must deny the terrorists" safe haven, transit, funding, and any form of support for their vile and sinister ideology. We must drive them out of our nation. It is time to expose and hold responsible those countries whose support and fi -- who support and finance terror groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and others that slaughter innocent people. The United States and our allies are working together throughout the Middle East to crush the loser terrorists and stop the re-emergence of safe havens they use to launch attacks on all of our people. Last month I announced a new strategy for victory in the fight against this evil in Afghanistan. From now on, our security interests will dictate the length and scope of military operation, not arbitrary benchmarks and timetables set up by politicians. I have also totally changed the rules of engagement in our fight against the Taliban. And other terrorist groups. In Syria and Iraq, we have made big gains toward lasting defeat of ISIS. In fact, our country has achieved more against ISIS in the last eight months than it has in many, many years combined. We seek the deescalation of the Syrian conflict, and a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. The actions of the criminal regime of Bashar Al Assad, including the use of chemical weapons against his own citizens, even innocent children, shock the conscience of every decent person. No society could be safe if banned chemical weapons are allowed to spread. That is why the United States carried out a missile strike on the air base that launched the attack. We appreciate the efforts of the united nations" agencies that are providing vital humanitarian assistance in areas liberated from ISIS, and we especially thank Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon for their role in hosting refugees from the Syrian conflict. The United States is a compassionate nation and has spent billions and billions of dollars in helping to support this effort. We seek an approach to refugee resettlement that is designed to help these horribly treated people and which enables their eventual return to their home countries to be part of the rebuilding process. For the cost of resettling one refugee in the United States, we can assist more than ten in their home region. Out of the goodness of our hearts, we offer financial assistance to hosting countries in the region and we support recent agreements of the g-20 nations that will seek to host refugees as close to their home countries as possible. This is the safe, responsible, and humanitarian approach. For decades the United States has dealt with migration challenges, here in the western hemisphere. We have learned that over the long term, uncontrolled migration is deeply unfair to both the sending and the receiving countries. For the sending countries, it reduces domestic pressure to pursue needed political and economic reform and drains them of the human capital necessary to motivate and implement those reforms. For the receiving countries, the substantial costs of uncontrolled migration are born overwhelmingly by low-income citizens whose concerns are often ignored by both media and government. I want to salute the work of the united nations in seeking to address the problems that cause people to flee from their home. The united nations and African union led peacekeeping missions to have invaluable contributions in stabilizing conflict in Africa. The United States continues to lead the world in humanitarian assistance, including famine prevention and relief, in south Sudan, Somalia, and northern Nigeria and Yemen. We have invested in better health and opportunity all over the world through programs like PEPFAR, which funds AIDS relief, the president"s malaria initiative, the global health security agenda, the global fund to end modern slavery, and the women entrepreneur"s finance initiative, part of our commitment to empowering women all across the globe. We also thank -- [ applause ] We also thank the secretary general for recognizing that the united nations must reform if it is to be an effective partner in confronting threats to sovereignty, security, and prosperity. Too often the focus of this organization has not been on results, but on bureaucracy and process. In some cases, states that seek to subvert this institution"s noble end, have hijacked the very systems that are supposed to advance them. For example, it is a massive source of embarrassment to the united nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the U.N. Human rights council. The United States is one out of 193 countries in the united nations, and yet we pay 22% of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes. The United States bears an unfair cost burden, but to be fair, if it could actually accomplish all of its stated goals, especially the goal of peace, this investment would easily be well worth it. Major portions of the world are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell, but the powerful people in this room, under the guidance and auspices of the united nations, can solve many of these vicious and complex problems. The American people hope that one day soon the united nations can be a much more accountable and effective advocate for human dignity and freedom around the world. In the meantime we believe that no nation should have to bear a disproportionate share of the burden, militarily or financially. Nations of the world must take a greater role in promoting secure and prosperous societies in their own region. That is why in the western hemisphere the United States has stood against the corrupt destabilizing regime in Cuba and embraced the enduring dream of the Cuban people to live in freedom. My administration recently announced that we will not lift sanctions on the Cuban government until it makes fundamental reforms. We have also imposed tough calibrated sanctions on the socialist Maduro regime in Venezuela which has brought a once thriving nation to the brink of total collapse. The socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has inflicted terrible pain and suffering on the good people of that country. This corrupt regime destroyed a prosperous nation -- prosperous nation, by imposing a failed ideology that has produced poverty and misery everywhere it has been tried. To make matters worse, Maduro has defied his own people, stealing power from their elected representatives, to preserve his disastrous rule. The Venezuelan people are starving and their country is collapsing. Their democratic institutions are being destroyed. The situation is completely unacceptable, and we cannot stand by and watch. As a responsible neighbor and friend, we and all others have a goal -- that goal is to help them regain their freedom, recover their country, and restore their democracy. I would like to thank leaders in this room for condemning the regime and providing vital support to the Venezuelan people. The United States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable. We are prepared to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people. We are fortunate to have incredibly strong and healthy trade relationships with many of the Latin American countries gathered here today. Our economic bond forms a critical foundation for advancing peace and prosperity for all of our people and all of our neighbors. I ask every country represented here today to be prepared to do more to address this very real crisis. We call for the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela. [ Applause ] The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. [ Applause ] From the soviet union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenants of these discredited ideologies, only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems. America stands with every person living under a brutal regime. Our respect for sovereignty is also a call for action. All people deserve a government that cares for their safety, their interests, and their well-being, including their prosperity. In America, we seek stronger ties of business and trade with all nations of goodwill, but this trade must be fair and it must be reciprocal. For too long the American people were told that mammoth, multinational trade deals, unaccountable international tribunal and powerful global bureaucracies were the best way to promote their success. But as those promises flowed, millions of jobs vanished and thousands of factories disappeared. Others gamed the system and broke the rules, and our great middle class, once the bedrock of American prosperity, was forgotten and left behind, but they are forgotten no more and they will never be forgotten again. While America will pursue cooperation and commerce with other nations, we are renewing our commitment to the first duty of every government, the duty of our citizens. This bond is the source of America"s strength and that of every responsible nation represented here today. If this organization is to have any hope of successfully confronting the challenges before us, it will depend as president Truman said, some 70 years ago, on the independent strength of its members. If we are to embrace the opportunities of the future and overcome the present dangers together, there can be no substantive for strong, sovereign and independent nations, nations that are rooted in the histories and invested in their destiny, nations that seek allies to befriend, not enemies to conquer, and most important of all, nations that are home to men and women who are willing to sacrifice for their countries, their fellow citizens, and for all that is best in the human spirit. In remembering the great victory that led to this body"s founding, we must never forget that those heroes who fought against evil, also fought for the nations that they love. Patriotism led the polls to die to save Poland, the French to fight for a free France, and the Brits to stand strong for Britain. Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts, our minds, and our nations, if we will not build strong families, safe communities and healthy societies for ourselves, no one can do it for us. This is the ancient wish of every people and the deepest yearning that lives inside every sacred soul. So let this be our mission and let this be our message to the world. We will fight together, sacrifice together, and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity, and for the all mighty god who made us all. Thank you, god bless you, god bless the nations of the world and god bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. [ Applause ]
Trading volumes have exploded higher and prices for LIT (the Lithium and Battery Tech ETF) are back to near 6 year highs.
h/t @EricBalchunas
Never one to miss out on an opportunity, LME is reportedly looking to introduce a contract for lithium (via Mining-Journal.com)...
While details were scarce on the ground, SP Angel expects that the contract would be tied to lithium carbonate concentrate, a major traded raw material for lithium processors and battery producers, and also possibly a contract for lithium hydroxide, a value added product preferred by some downstream consumers.
Both would likely have strict quality controls which might add to costs, SP Angel said.
When contacted by Mining Journal for comment on the possible contracts, a spokesperson for the LME said it had been approached by industry users regarding the introduction of an LME lithium contract and it was looking into this.
“We believe in developing products in conjunction with participants to meet the real needs of the market, and are committed to assessing and enhancing our offering as effectively as possible,” the spokesperson said.
Lithium prices have been on an uptrend recently thanks to increased demand for lithium-ion batteries.
European lithium carbonate/lithium hydroxide supplier Novo Lítio (AU:NLI), formerly Dakota Minerals, says demand forecasts for lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) range from 550,000-600,000 tonnes per annum by 2025, up from 200,000tpa in 2016, mostly driven by an increase in lithium-ion battery uptake for storage solutions and electric vehicles.
To meet this demand, according to a May report by Roskill, an additional 370,000tpa of LCE production capacity is scheduled to come online by 2020, although it said not all is likely to be realised.
SP Angel said it welcomes the introduction of such contracts, which would help provide the industry a standardised benchmark to use, as opposed to the various short-term, long-term and region-specific prices currently quoted on the market.
It gave the example of lithium carbonate prices fluctuating between US$11-16 per kilogramme for large biannual contracts delivered into the US, while spot delivered into China was quoted at $17.4-22.8/kg in July/August, which it said highlights “the discrepancy in prices for differing contracts and locations.
“We hope the LME can get on and establish this contract ASAP to help better manage and stabilise the market,” it said.
As Climateer Investing notes,to date the only way to participate for non-industry punters has been through mining company equities, almost none of which offer pure-play exposure. Should exposure be what one desires. Our preference was cobalt for which the LME does have a futures contract and whose underlying supply vs. lithium is a bit tighter. As usual though, once you think you"ve found the key they go and change the lock, in this case after the 150% move higher the battery producers are getting very creative with ways to reduce per-battery use of cobalt.
Innovation and substitution: the commodity speculators enemy.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has stepped up US military strikes against al-Shabaab, the ISIS-affiliated terrorist group based primarily in Somalia, despite promises to avoid more foreign entanglements. In May, a Navy SEAL died during a mission targeting a compound of al-Shabaab militants, becoming the first US soldier to die in Somalia since 1993, when 18 US service members were killed in what became known as the battle of Mogadishu, later memorialized in the film “Black Hawk Down.” In June, the US killed 8 militants during a drone strike against what US officials described as one of the group’s primary training camps and bases.
While al-Shabaab lacks the resources to launch an effective counterattack against the US, the group instead opted to mock Trump in a new propaganda video. In it, the group responds to Trump’s violent escalation by calling him a “brainless billionaire” and criticizing US voters for electing “arguably the most stupid president a country could ever have" - echoing sentiments commonly expressed by left-leaning voters in metropolitan hubs like New York City.
Trump, the militants claim, is "making the United States the greatest joke on Earth and is now propelling it further to its eventual defeat and destruction," according to Russia Today, which cited the Associated Press and the SITE Intelligence Group.
In addition to authorizing more drone strikes against Somalian while also categorizing parts of the country’s south as an area where active hostilities are taking place, Somalia was included as one of six countries in the Trump administration’s travel ban.
The group also criticized its neighbor Kenya, which has declared a new offensive against the extremists, sending in troops to take part in a multinational African Union force. Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for a number of terror attacks inside Kenya, including the 2015 shooting at a mall in Nairobi.
“Your military’s invasion of Somalia will continue to destabilize your country,” the video states.
“When we do strike, your government will not be able to protect you.”
The group has also vowed to carry out more attacks against Somalia"s recently elected government.
According to RT, this isn’t the first time the group has referenced Trump in its propaganda. In a recruitment video released early last year, the group included inflammatory sound bites from then-candidate Trump, including his notorious call for a “complete and total shutdown” of Muslims entering the US. Since being pushed out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabaab has lost control of most of Somalia"s cities and towns. But it still retains a strong presence in swathes of the south and center and still carries out major gun and bomb attacks. The group killed more than 4,200 people in 2016, according to the Pentagon-supported Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
With every passing day the formerly booming nation of South Africa is getting ever closer to the formerly banana republic of Zimbabwe.
On Wednesday, South Africa"s ruling African National Congress proposed at its 5th annual national policy conference that in addition to potentially nationalizing the country"s central bank, that land expropriation without compensation should be allowed where it is "necessary and unavoidable," President Jacob Zuma said.
There was a hard push from supporters of President Jacob Zuma for a decision on the redistribution of land without compensation‚ which would necessitate a change to the constitution. But as the Sunday Times reported, according to the ANC’s economic transformation subcommittee head‚ Enoch Godongwana‚ both this proposal and the current system of redistribution with compensation remain on the table for debate by branches. Zuma‚ however‚ hinted in his closing address that there could be legislative changes for expropriation without compensation.
“We agree on the imperative to accelerate land redistribution and land reform. Again we had robust discussions on the modalities to achieve this. We agree that using the fiscus for land redistribution must be accompanied by other measures if we are to achieve the goal at the required pace,” said Zuma in his closing remarks at the six-day conference held in Johannesburg.
“Where it is necessary and unavoidable this might include expropriation without compensation‚” Zuma said.
As discussed several months ago, land will be a key issue ahead of a December conference where a successor to Zuma will be chosen. The two current frontrunners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former African Union chair and Zuma"s ex-wife. As a reminder, Dlamini-Zuma has made land redistribution from whites to blacks without compensation one of her main policies.
The policy conference - which has been the top news item in South Africa for the past six days - made a dramatic turn-around and ditched the term "white monopoly capital" as being the main hindrance to the rapid socio-economic transformation of the black majority. Most of the delegates appeared to have given President Jacob Zuma and his supporters the thumbs down on this issue. They have recently used the term "white monopoly capital" in what appears to be an attempt to regain lost support among the masses.
"Nine out of those eleven commissions said the phenomenon of monopoly capital is a global one and it manifests itself differently in various parts of the globe and therefore it would not be correct to characterize ours simply as white monopoly capital," said Joel Netshitenze of the ANC"s national executive committee.
* * *
Ordinary South Africans are meanwhile keeping close tabs on the policy conference, adamant that the ANC come up with solutions to overcome deep poverty, the uncontrollable rise in unemployment and inequality.
The ANC should once again become "the party that people voted for so many years ago," says Mbali Nyando, lamenting that 22 years into democracy, the living conditions of the people, black people in particular, are "deteriorating rather than improving."
Bheki Khumalo told DW that the ANC should focus on unemployment, a "major issue among the black people." People are unemployed, hungry and they have lost hope, he says, appealing to the ANC to work more closely with entrepreneurs.
And if South Africa decides to follow in Zimbabwe"s footsteps, the already hopeless people will be even hungrier and even more unemployed.
Have you ever wondered why Donald Trump is so deeply hated by the elite?
It isn’t because he is a Republican. In fact, there are lots of Republicans out there that the elite absolutely love. The truth is that the reason the elite have such deep animosity toward Trump is because he is fighting their globalist agenda. When Trump talks about a border wall or a travel ban, the elite hate that because they ultimately want a world where national borders have been made meaningless. And when Trump talks about tearing up trade agreements that really freaks them out because they have been working very hard to try to merge the economies of the planet into a single global economic system. Worst of all for the globalists was when Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. For decades the elite have been using such international agreements to impose their values on the entire planet, and now the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is standing up to them.
Unfortunately, most of the members of Congress are still embracing the globalist agenda, and this puts them directly at odds with Trump. So just because someone is a “Republican” does not mean that they care about American sovereignty. Sadly, sometimes Republicans are actually some of the worst offenders when it comes to pushing globalist causes.
This is why we need a new political war against globalism. It wasn’t enough just to get Trump into the White House, because the globalists in Congress seem determined to block most of the things that he is trying to do. So we need to kick the globalists out and replace them with true patriots that truly want to restore our republic.
Most Americans don’t understand that these issues can have a really dramatic impact on their daily lives. For example, the reason why someone in your extended family may not have a good job right now is because that job was shipped to China.
According to Politifact, more than one study has found that the United States lost more than 60,000 manufacturing facilities after China joined the WTO in 2001…
In 2001, the year China joined the WTO, the Census counted 352,619 manufacturing establishments. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, it counted 292,543. That’s a drop of 60,076 over those three years.
Another Census series, its Business Dynamics Statistics, tallied 348,513 manufacturing establishments in 2001 and 274,756 in 2014 — a drop of 73,757 manufacturing establishments.
A a 2014 report out of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2013. The report cites illegal Chinese policies that encourage exports and keep labor cheap, as well as a failure of the WTO agreement that endorsed China’s membership to prevent these sorts of actions.
Slowly but surely merging the United States into a global economic system has cost American workers dearly. Today, American workers have to compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the planet that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. This is driving down wages and eroding the middle class.
The middle class dipped under 50 percent of the U.S. population for the first time ever in 2015, and if current trends continue the middle class will just continue to get smaller and smaller in the years ahead.
But the global elite are not concerned about the middle class. They love shipping jobs overseas because it enables them to make bigger profits.
Our daily lives are affected by our lack of border security as well. For decades, globalists in both major parties have been perfectly fine with neglecting border security because ultimately they want national borders to essentially become meaningless. But this has allowed millions upon millions of people to enter our nation illegally, and communities all over America are suffering the consequences.
For example, there are 150,000 gang members now living in Chicago, and a lot of that growth can be attributed to illegal immigration. The gang members now outnumber the police by more than 10 to 1, and more illegal immigrants are pouring into Chicago with each passing day.
In other parts of the country, the federal government is forcing local communities to take refugees from the Middle East whether they want them or not. Here in Idaho, a five-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by three Islamic refugees, but incidents such as this are not going to stop the globalists in Washington from forcing us to take even more.
And we aren’t even supposed to say “Islamic terror” anymore because the global elite are trying to foster “cooperation” between all of the major religions of the world.
If the global elite have their way, America will continue to be merged into a global economic system, a system of “global governance”, and a system of “global religious cooperation”. International bodies such as the UN and international treaties such as the Paris climate agreement will be used to impose globalist values on literally the entire planet.
If we do not stop the globalists, American sovereignty could eventually be eroded away almost completely. Yes, the “United States” may still technically exist, but all of the important decisions would potentially be made by a “North American Union” or a “global government”.
The European Union and the African Union are models for what the elite hope to do to the entire world. Many Americans don’t even know that all 55 nations in Africa belong to the African Union. And of course the elite eventually hope to unite all of the regions under a single international banner.
If we hope to defeat the globalists, now is the time. We already have Donald Trump in the White House, and now we need to kick the globalists out of Congress and out of important positions in our government agencies. We also need to withdraw from a whole host of international agreements that have already significantly eroded American sovereignty.
We will always want to maintain positive working relationships with other nations, but we do not ever want to merge into a single global system.
Our founders risked everything to break free from tyranny and to establish a free and independent republic, and we aren’t about to willingly hand this country over to the globalists now.
