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In this mailing:
- Debalina Ghoshal: Countering Moscow:
NATO's New "Military Schengen Zone"
- Malcolm Lowe: Is Trump About to
Repeat Obama's Worst Mistake?
- Keya Mukherjee: What about the
Plight of Myanmar's Hindu Rohingyas?
by Debalina Ghoshal • April 5, 2018
at 5:00 am
- "Russia seeks to
change the international order, fracture NATO, and undermine
U.S. leadership in order to protect its regime, re-assert
dominance over its neighbors, and achieve greater influence
around the globe." — U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti,
Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
- "Russia has
demonstrated its willingness and capability to intervene in
countries along its periphery and to project power... Our
highest strategic priority as a Combatant Command is to deter
Russia from engaging in further aggression and exercising malign
influence over our allies and partners." — General Curtis
Scaparrotti.
- U.S. Army Europe
commander Lt. General Frederick Benjamin Hodges, just before he
retired last September, called the process of meeting the transportation
laws of individual countries and the movement of even
non-military convoys across Europe "cumbersome,"
citing as an example the five-day notice period required for
moving forces from Poland to Germany.
Pictured:
Multinational NATO soldiers with the Enhanced Forward Presence Battle
Group Poland arrive in Rukla, Lithuania on June 18, 2017, completing
a two-day tactical road march across NATO borders, as part of the
"Saber Strike 17" exercise. (Image source: U.S. Army/Sgt.
Justin Geiger)
On March 28, the European Union unveiled a plan to
enhance NATO defense capabilities, particularly in view of increasing
Russian aggression. The plan, which envisions the establishment of a
European Defense Union by the year 2025, is aimed at easing current
restrictions on the deployment of troops and the movement of military
materiel across Europe, in the same way that the Schengen Area
agreement has enabled passport-free travel between 26 states, most of
which belong to the EU.
Explaining the necessity for a "military Schengen
zone," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said:
"By facilitating military mobility within the EU,
we can be more effective in preventing crises, more efficient in
deploying our missions, and quicker in reacting when challenges
arise."
The EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc,
emphasized another aspect of the proposed zone:
by Malcolm Lowe • April 5, 2018 at
4:30 am
- Should American
personnel be removed from Syria, President Erdogan will be able
to use his tanks and airplanes to revive the Turkish genocidal
tradition by expelling the Syrian Kurds from their towns and
villages along the entire border with Turkey. These are the same
Kurds -- remember Kobani? -- who drove out ISIS from its Syrian
"caliphate" and enabled other Syrians to regain their
freedom and return to their own homes.
- In early February, the
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman begged Turkey to cease its
assault on Afrin, claiming -- truly enough -- that "the
continuation of Turkey's military operation will facilitate the
return of instability and terrorism to Syria." Indeed,
deprived of American protection, the Kurds will hardly find
anyone else willing to rescue them apart from Iran. If that
happens, the Kurds will reward Iranians with same loyalty and
devotion that they showed hitherto to Americans. Understandably,
since they will owe their lives and homes to Iran, not to the
United States.
- Even if the
implications of the massacre in Afrin were not so clearly
evident, President Trump should remember the worst mistake of
Obama's presidency in the area. This was Obama's precipitous and
petulant decision to withdraw residual American military forces
from Iraq. So, Mr. Trump, we beg and urge you not to copy Obama,
who made his big mistake and reversed it, but to reverse your
mistake before you make it.
Pictured:
The city center of Kobani, Syria on June 20, 2015, shortly after the
Kurdish YPG militia wrested control of the city from ISIS. (Photo by
Ahmet Sik/Getty Images)
The terrified dire warnings that greeted Donald
Trump's election to the presidency of the United States have proved
to be mostly exaggerated or imaginary. In some cases, like his
decision to terminate absurd diplomatic antics about the location of
Israel's capital, he has put an end to nonsense perpetrated by
politicians throughout the world, including all recent American
presidents. Very sadly, extremely sadly, he now seems inclined to
repeat the worst mistake of his predecessor, President Obama.
by Keya Mukherjee • April 5, 2018
at 4:00 am
- In its effort to
gather evidence against the Burmese government for its ethnic
cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the international community must
not let the dire circumstances of the Hindu Rohingyas go
unnoticed.
Pictured:
The Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, which houses
Rohingyas who fled Myanmar. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
On March 11, 2018, the UN Special Advisor on Genocide
Prevention told the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission
of Bangladesh that the United Nations is planning to amass evidence
of genocide against the Rohingyas in Myanmar (formerly Burma) through
a judicial investigation.
The persecution of Muslims in Myanmar has been
condemned by Western policymakers, international human rights
organizations and the United Nations for the past year. Since August
alone, more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to
escape atrocities committed against them by the Burmese army.
During the same period, however, more than 100,000
Hindu Rohingyas have also sought refuge in Bangladesh, but for a
different reason: to escape the brutality of the members of Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Muslim terrorist outfit fighting
against the Myanmar government.
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