New Statesman: The lights that failed

 Revolutions are thrilling. But they destroy. Some hope that when a bad regime is overthrown, the subsequent trajectory must be progressive. Experience suggests the reverse. Authoritarianism is not weakened in such circumstances: it recurs. There are, of course, all sorts of revolutions: from above, from below, praetorian, sans-culotte, glorious, inglorious. In the Arab world they have historically fractured along nationalist, ethnic and religious fault lines. But one thing is certain: they never end the way you hope. [...]

None of these coups and revolutions widened public participation or advanced civic rights. So why should the uprisings of 2011 end differently? Many rulers in the region warned Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and others that they wouldn’t. We tended to dismiss them as self-interested autocrats. There is some truth in that description. But the ancient historian Thucydides, the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the German sociologist Max Weber, all of whom lived through the convulsive overthrow of old orders, knew how bad revolutions could get. Why had we forgotten?[...]

We have seen this most clearly in Lebanon, which since 1943 has had the longest experience of consociationalism – a system that seeks to promote the representation or well-being not of individuals but of self-identifying groups and their self-ascribed leaders – in the entire Arab world. This is not unique to Lebanon. It was disastrously imported into Iraq in 2003. In both places it has encouraged self-replicating groups of professionally communal politicians who make decisions not on the basis of voter intentions as revealed through elections but in clandestine negotiations with other elite groups. The primary aim of these groups is to preserve their power and access to state resources – which in turn generates the patronage on which such a system depends.

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New Statesman: Libya’s storms of history

 The impact of this unprovoked attack on three integral provinces of the Ottoman empire in Africa was profound. The Italian pursuit of Ottoman naval forces led to repeated closures of the Turkish Straits, blocking the passage of transport ships carrying Russian grain for export and seriously disrupting the Russian economy. A series of knock-on crises broke out in south-eastern Europe, triggering two major wars in 1912 and 1913 and sweeping away security arrangements that had previously prevented Balkan conflicts from escalating into continental wars. In short, the war for Libya proved a milestone on the road to the conflict that broke out in 1914. [...]

There was no third world war in 2014, of course. But the airstrikes of 2011 did exacerbate tensions among the major powers, partly because Nato’s humanitarian intervention quickly morphed into an assault on the Gaddafi regime. Vladimir Putin, then prime minister of Russia, compared the action to a “medieval call to crusade”. It was an unsettling feature of the world order, he remarked, that armed interventions could so easily be unleashed against sovereign states. Russia, Putin declared, would respond by strengthening its own defensive capacity. Commentators who know Putin well have suggested that the Libyan crisis of 2011, and especially the lynching of Gaddafi, were decisive in placing the Russian leader on the path to a more aggressively anti-Western foreign policy. [...]

It is still unlikely that a direct clash between Egyptian and Turkish troops will result from these steps. Egypt has for the moment promised only training, equipment and logistical support for its eastern Libyan proxies. But whereas the events of 2011 recalled the history of Western colonial and imperial violence, the prospect of an Egyptian-Turkish stand-off in northern Africa has switched on memories that extend far beyond the war of 1911 to the 1830s, when an ambitious Egyptian leader challenged Ottoman power in the eastern Mediterranean. [...]

There is a religious dimension to the crisis. The al-Sisi government claims that the fighters loyal to the Turkish-supported GNA include partisans of Islamic State. More specifically, Turkey is accused of sending Isis fighters from Syria to support the GNA. But it should be noted that a US Pentagon investigation found this accusation to be false. As many as 3,000 Syrians had been transferred by Turkey to Libya and paid to fight there, but these were mercenaries and not Islamist militiamen, according to the Pentagon’s report. On the other hand, Erdogan’s sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood, ruthlessly suppressed by al-Sisi in Egypt and still active in Libya, is well known. Erdogan is often seen making the rabaa sign to his supporters. This gesture, in which the four fingers are raised and the thumb tucked into the palm of the hand, recalls the massacre in Cairo’s Rabaa Square on 14 August 2013, when Egyptian security forces fired on a sit-in of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, killing more than 800 civilians (the Arabic word rabaa means “four”, hence the raised fingers).

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The Red Line: The Libyan Civil War II (The Tide Turns)

When we covered the Libyan Civil War in February it looked like Haftar was about to be victorious, shelling the very gates of his enemies capital in Tripoli; but 5 months can make all of the difference. The GNA has turned the tide and now Haftar is on the run and held up in the fortress city of Sirte, taking the city though may mean Turkey and Russia escalating to all-out war. This weeks guests are Jalel Harchauoi (Clingendael Institute) Frederich Wehrey (Carnegie Centre) Jonathon Weiner (Fmr Asst Secretary of State for the USA) Find more info at - www.theredlinepodcast.com Follow the show at @TheRedLinePod or Michael the host at @MikeHilliardAus

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The Guardian: Russia Without Putin by Tony Wood review – myths of the new cold war (27 Dec 2018)

In the first piece of myth-debunking promised in his subtitle Tony Wood argues that Putin’s system is not a deviation from the Yeltsin years when the Russian elite enthusiastically embraced capitalism; it is a direct continuation of it. There may have been a minor shift under Putin towards the restoration of partial or full control by the state over some of the big resource-extracting companies in the raw material sector. But the intertwining of government and big business, the creation of an oligarchy and a huge widening of income differentials in favour of the rich were initiated under Yeltsin. To call Putin’s Russia a mafia state is therefore a mystification, since its elements – the hollowing out of elections so as to remove genuine democratic content, the promotion of former security agents to top jobs in the state apparatus and the entanglement of officialdom with organised crime – were all there under Yeltsin, too. Western governments and the advisers they dispatched to aid the Kremlin’s economic ministries at best turned a blind eye; more often they connived at it.

The second myth is that where there were negative distortions in Russia’s transition to capitalism it was because of the legacy of the Soviet past with an authoritarian ruling class and a population made passive by decades of submission to power. Here Wood is bold enough to confront the prevailing narrative of several prominent Russian writers and sociologists, as well as western observers, who adopt a kind of social Darwinism in arguing that it will take another generation for Homo Sovieticus to die out. Wood turns the argument on its head: “Rather than being a hindrance, the remnants of the Soviet past have been a massive boon for post-Soviet Russia,” he writes. Russians were willing to put up with devastating inflation, the destruction of their savings, the loss of jobs and the closure of much of industry because these hardships were softened by the survival, at least until recently, of low rents, free medicine, the pension system and other aspects of the welfare state. This parallelism of old and new structures smoothed the path of capitalist transition and forestalled massive rebellion. [...]

The fundamental fact, as Wood sees it, is the huge imbalance of power and resources between the west and post-Soviet Russia since the end of the cold war. In the 1990s the west wanted to drive home its advantage, hence the expansion of Nato that Russians, elite as well as people, came to resent. Not initially, though. Under Yeltsin and in Putin’s first few years as president, Russians wanted to be part of the liberal internationalist US-led bloc of developed states. The downfall of that idea was caused by the west’s rejection of Russia’s repeated proposals to join Nato, followed by Washington’s promotion of “colour revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004. Even as recently as 2011 when Dmitry Medvedev was president, Russia went along with the west on a major foreign policy issue by declining to use its UN security council veto to block the west’s intervention in Libya.

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Quartz: Male refugees commonly experience sexual violence on the route to Europe

In the hopes of making migration routes safer and improving responsive care, the commission, a rights advocacy group for displaced women and children, took a deeper look (pdf) at the experiences of men and boys who identify as males, as well as gay, transgender, and bisexual men. They found that while sexual violence is one of many reasons (paywall) thousands of migrants and refugees leave their homes for Europe, it is also something they encounter—sometimes repeatedly—along the route.

Last year, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) reported that requests for care aboard their search-and-rescue ship in the Mediterranean, the Aquarius, from male sexual abuse survivors jumped from 3% of rescued males in 2017 to 33% in 2018. [...]

The Commission met with more than 50 male refugees between 15 and 40 years old and refugee healthcare providers in Italy, and heard instances of rape, castration, and sexual humiliation. The refugees said the abuse would often occur at borders or checkpoints, with guards requesting payment before crossing. Sexual violence would happen even if they had funds demanded. Sometimes, abuse was taped or aired on a call with families for ransom. [...]

The group is calling on the EU to stop deporting migrants back to Libya or their home country, where they may face sexual abuse again. They have asked the new right-wing Italian government to stop the criminalization of search-and-rescue operations and to reopen ports for rescued migrants. And they have also requested support from the UN for local organizations working with survivors of sexual violence. Enjoy this content in the new Quartz app Get the app

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The New York Review of Books: A Minister, a General, & the Militias: Libya’s Shifting Balance of Power

Military and financial support from foreign patrons—the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, and Russia—has been essential to his drive. For its part, the United States has long eyed him warily and has officially backed the Tripoli government, even while maintaining an intelligence and special operations presence among his forces in Benghazi. Increasingly, however, US diplomats see Haftar as crucial to moving Libya beyond a drawn-out “transition” period. Washington is now backing a United Nations effort to try and convert his campaign into momentum for a dialogue conference and national elections later this year. [...]

Central to this effort are the pacts and alliances that Haftar has negotiated with the Libyan communities that lay in his path. Some towns and tribes allied with Haftar out of desperation at the impotence of Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. Others did so to obtain leverage against local rivals. This was certainly the case in the desert south, where crime and economic misery created a vacuum that Haftar’s forces filled with cash and supplies—even as they stoked communal tensions by favoring some tribes over others. In western Libya, towns are divided, with some armed groups having aligned themselves with his forces even while nominally still under the authority of his rival, the government in Tripoli. [...]

Another seeming contradiction is the general’s aversion to Islamists. “We don’t need Sharia [Islamic law] here,” he told me in 2014. “Sharia is already in our hearts.” And yet, adherents of a conservative, literalist interpretation of Islam known as Salafism are his staunchest military supporters. My hosts in Sabratha were also Salafists, including the owner of the farm and the commander of the militia, a man named Musa al-Najem. [...]

I asked him about whether he and his fellow Salafists followed Haftar, but they demurred, citing the Salafi doctrinal tenet about obeying the local political authority in one’s geographic area—which, these days, looks like Haftar. It is a belief that forms the bedrock of a Salafi current often described as “quietism,” nurtured with Saudi petrodollars to eschew overt political activism. In Libya, however, these Salafists are hardly apolitical: they are a rising force, in schools and mosques, but also in the policing sector, where they patrol against illicit drugs and alcohol—as well as activities they deem un-Islamic, such as art exhibitions. They have also fought the terrorists of the Islamic State and are opposed to rival political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Big Think: Why the wars America starts are unwinnable | Danny Sjursen

Danny Sjursen—a prominent U.S. Army strategist and also a former history instructor at West Point Academy—posits that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't winnable. So... why don't we leave? As he puts it: "We have the inertia of a military-industrial complex, which makes a lot of money for a lot of people and keeps a lot of people employed, on one end, and then we have the sunken cost fallacy on the other side, where we say “We’ve committed so much we can’t possibly leave.” Danny is brought to you today by the Charles Koch Foundation. The Charles Koch Foundation aims to further understanding of how US foreign policy affects American people and societal well-being. Through grants, events, and collaborative partnerships, the Foundation is working to stretch the boundaries of foreign policy research and debate by discussing ideas in strategy, trade, and diplomacy that often go unheeded in the US capital. For more information, visit charleskochfoundation.org. NOTE: The views expressed in this video are those of the guest speaking in an unofficial capacity and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Command and General Staff College, Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government.

Jacobin Magazine: The Salvini Plan

It’s not just immigrants that Salvini has in his crosshairs. His Lega, today in government with the Five Star Movement, has discussed closing down many of Italy’s mosques, and his ministry has announced plans for a census of Roma camp sites throughout the country. He has also set his sights on immigration lawyers, liberal journalists, and NGO volunteers, claiming that they peddle fake news and engage in humanitarian activity for profit. The attack on perceived “foreigners” also targets NGO missions as representative of foreign capital: “foreign ships with foreign money.” [...]

By 2013, the route proved so deadly that large numbers of Syrians refused to take it, preferring to wait in North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey for other routes to open. Under Matteo Renzi’s center-left government, the Italian state’s own Mare Nostrum rescue operation was axed. As the state left people to drown, humanitarian maritime missions run by NGOs tried to save them. Even so, as deaths at sea mounted during 2014 and 2015, this did not deter hundreds of thousands from daring the route: indeed, more than 150,000 made the crossing each year between 2014 and 2016. [...]

In spring 2017, Italy’s center-left government, led by Paolo Gentiloni and then-interior minister Marco Minniti, fleshed out a deal with the Serraj government in Libya to effectively arm and fund Libyan militia to seize departing migrant boats. The plan was finally implemented at the end of the summer. By the time of the march 2018 elections, there had already been a 75 percent drop in the number of migrant landings, and a campaign of racist rhetoric and violence outran the efforts of the progressive left-wing and Catholic forces, which had previously sustained rescue operations. [...]

The Salvini Plan might also be designed to break the Five Star Movement’s own coalition of support and consolidate the Lega’s power, both through ongoing local votes and any snap general election that might be called. Recent local elections have indeed seen the center-right win mayoral seats across Italy, often with 60 percent of the vote. The Five Star Movement, which came in first across the South in March’s general election, no longer seems to be polling well after allying with the Lega, whose anti-migrant rhetoric used to be matched by hatred for Southerners (it only recently dropped the name “Northern League” from its propaganda at the national level). A fresh election, likely resulting in gains for the Lega, would allow Salvini’s party greater control of state finances and satisfy the conservative capitalist interests that stand behind it, without having to give in to some of the Five Star’s (limited) demands for welfare reform. [...]

Yet the power of the extreme-right hate speech does not only draw from its radicalism or the leverage of the capitalist powers financing it. Matteo Salvini is not only a result of the Left’s failure, but ironically, the success of past revolt. The fear he stirs up is based on very real acts of resistance against the border regime. Without the mass breakthrough of 2015, in which migrants scaled and dissolved Europe’s eastern and southern borders, the new European right would not have had the basic material from which to construct its hatred and lies.

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Vox: What does “denuclearization” mean?

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un struck a historic deal to work toward “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. The trouble is they don’t have a shared vision of what “complete denuclearization” looks like.

And while handshakes were exchanged and agreements were signed after unprecedented talks in Singapore, no country with a nuclear program as advanced as North Korea's has ever denuclearized. 

Politico: What populists get wrong about migration

As part of the medical team that rescues and cares for the migrants that arrived in Sicily, I heard countless stories of abuse, violence and rape. Many were detained in Libya, where people are routinely forced into slavery and tortured for ransom. None boarded our vessel with the bags that Salvini would have them repack. [...]

As my patients’ stories attest, the EU’s tunnel vision when it comes to cutting the number of people migrating to Europe creates increasingly dangerous and deadly journeys for those compelled to flee their countries. Its decision to cooperate with Libya, in particular, has led to flagrant human rights abuses. [...]

The EU has tied development assistance to harsh migration policies in the transit countries of the Sahel. Niger — the main transit country for the majority who travel north to Europe — for example, has become the largest per capita recipient of EU foreign aid. Algeria, in recent months, has dropped thousands of people in the desert without food or water.  

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Politico: Hold the Nobel Prize: Kim is setting a trap for Trump

The Panmunjom Declaration, issued after the late April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, feels like a Hollywood movie remake with new actors but the same tired story. North Korea has pledged on multiple occasions to not acquire nuclear weapons, beginning with the North’s accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985. In 1992, Kim’s grandfather committed to three noes: no nuclear weapons, no nuclear reprocessing and no uranium enrichment. North Korea was caught red-handed cheating multiple times on all three nuclear noes, but still received security assurances from the United States in 2005, when both sides pledged “to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together” and normalize relations. All of these efforts ended in the same place, with a different Kim breaking his promises and enjoying tangible concessions from the United States and its allies. [...]

2. Nuclear-only deals do not solve the strategic issues. Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, because it suffered from a number of fatal flaws, including its sole focus on the nuclear issue to the exclusion of Iran’s other problems (terrorism, human rights, missiles, regional aspirations). The Trump administration is now dealing with the failure of Obama’s aspirational foreign policy, which was supposed to moderate the hard-line clerics who really run Iran. A deal with North Korea that focuses only on its nuclear program will leave Pyongyang’s military threat intact, including its missile force and chemical and biological weapons capabilities. This threat will need to be addressed, and so will the North’s proliferation and cyber activities, and its abhorrent treatment of its own citizens. While the end of the North’s nuclear program would be a major accomplishment, it will leave other challenges to be overcome.

3. Insist on the Libya model of denuclearization. The sequencing of denuclearization will show how serious North Korea is about this process. Pyongyang will likely prefer to use Kim Jong Il’s framework, where both sides participate in long, drawn-out negotiations. This would allow the North to continue its nuclear weapons program and run out the clock to the U.S. 2020 presidential election. The United States should insist instead on the Libya model for denuclearization: complete, total and near-instantaneous. This will not come cheap; Pyongyang will insist on significant U.S. concessions. But there’s another reason to push for the maximum: Iran is watching Trump’s North Korea dealings, closely, and any precedent set with Kim will be noted in Tehran.

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Al Jazeera: Nigeria migrants who escaped Libya restart their lives

Joshua, 32, is one of the 6,000 Nigerian migrants the International Organization for Migration (IOM) repatriated to Nigeria on a chartered flight from Libya after reports of endemic abuse and modern-day slavery. [...]

Regardless of their status - either as economic migrants or victims of the dangerous trafficking business - these migrants are all escaping grinding poverty and a high rate of unemployment, which push irregular migration across the Sahara to Libya.

A recent report from Nigeria's Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said about 16 million people out of a total active labour force of 85 million were unemployed in the third quarter of 2017. [...]

In Nigeria, it was launched in May 2017 with the aim of helping stranded migrants in Libya. As part of the reintegration and support programme, IOM organised a workshop on business skills and cooperatives for returned migrants in Lagos state. Returnees were invited to Lagos and lodged in a hotel for the four-day training course.

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Deutsche Welle: Jean-Claude Juncker: Migrants 'need legal ways to come to Europe'

We've told the member states of their responsibility, and we will see what the member states do about it. The member states, in their wisdom, don't always follow the Commission's proposals. In 2001, the Commission proposed a joint system to protect the external borders. The member states rejected it then, only to demand it now. And now we've implemented these joint controls of the external borders. When it comes to resolving the great challenges of our age, we have to leave it to the imagination of those who are governing the member states and nations. And immigration and migration is a great challenge of our age. It's not just about preparing for the future; we should have prepared for the present yesterday.  [...]

The populists themselves are dangerous, but they are far more dangerous when the traditional, classic parties adopt their harmful proposals. If the traditional parties follow the populists, they become populist themselves, which is a phenomenon we are already seeing in some EU countries. No, we should not be afraid of the populists; we should embrace those they are fighting. [...]

Yes, but it's a solidarity that must touch on all areas of international life. Africa must become aware of the fact that it is already, today, a big international player. Europe must not distance itself from Africa's universal ambitions. Africa is not a continent that will become part of our history tomorrow. Africa has always been a part of history. Certain Europeans just didn't see it that way.

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Al Jazeera: Libya mired in 'culture of impunity'

Ahmed el-Gasir: The culture of impunity prevalent in Libya is a result of the inability of judicial and law enforcement authorities to function in the country. Perpetrators of grave violations, such as extrajudicial killings and torture, document their crimes, videos and photos, and broadcast them without fearing accountability.

Since Gaddafi's regime ended, apart from the trials of ex-regime members and associates, there were no trials carried out for any of the serious crimes committed by any party.

The inability and failure of these authorities to operate is mainly caused by the spread of weapons, the presence of hundreds of militias and political chaos in Libya, with several entities claiming "legitimacy". [...]

Gasir: "Operation Dignity" has adversely affected the social fabric of Libyan society. The tactics employed by Gaddafi in 2011 created certain divisions between towns or tribes, but they do not compare to what Haftar has done.

Hate speech and incitement of violence divided not only towns or tribes, but also neighbourhoods and even families. The level of violence and disregard to the sanctity of human life and value of human dignity is unprecedented in Libyan society.

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Politico: Merkel identifies Libya as key to migration crisis

Dodging a question on whether she supported a proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to set up “hotspots” to handle asylum requests from start to finish in Libya, Merkel said efforts to improve the situation “should not fail over money,” promising the organizations up to €50 million this year for new operations on the ground in Libya. [...]

During the first 10 days of August, the number of migrants making the crossing to Italy fell by 76 percent compared to the same period last year; last month, the number of arrivals had already halved compared to 2016. Interior Minister Marco Minniti told POLITICO on Thursday this was a direct result of Italy’s attempts to boost the Libyan navy and coast guard’s ability to deal with vessels carrying migrants. [...]

Ambrosi acknowledged that the Italian measures could have had an impact but stressed that other factors such as “a significant reduction” of the number of people entering Libya from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as well as the slow stabilization of the political situation in parts of Libya, were equally decisive.

What’s more, most migrants picked up by Libyan ships “are brought back to detention centers where conditions are not acceptable,” he added. “So you have taken them out of a nasty situation at sea, but you are putting them in an equally nasty or at times worse situation on land.”

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Vox: The Middle East's cold war, explained

Al Jazeera: Forces loyal to Libya's Haftar 'burn 6,000 books'

Forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar have been accused of burning more than 6,000 books, including works on religion, politics, poetry and philosophy.

According to a video posted on Facebook by Al Manara, a Libyan media platform, more than 6,000 books - including reported biographies of the Prophet Muhammad - were destroyed by a police force in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday.

The video showed a police officer claiming that the seized literature was promoting the ideas of "Daesh" (the Arabic term for Islamic State of Iraq and Levant or ISIL), as he sat behind a desk covered with books, including classical Islamic works.

The officer said the books "promoted violence" and the "ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood", which has been banned by UAE and Egypt.

In January, more than 100 Libyan writers and intellectuals, including renowned Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, condemned a seizure of books deemed "erotic" or anti-Islamic by authorities in eastern Libya.

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Salon: The Manchester bombing is blowback from the West’s disastrous interventions and covert proxy wars

In March 1998, Qaddafi’s Libya became the first country to issue an Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden. The warrant was studiously ignored by American and British intelligence, according to French journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac. Five months later, Al Qaeda struck the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. (Among the participants in the attack were al-Libi and Ali Abdelsoud Mohammed, a spy for Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who had entered the US on a CIA-approved visa and managed to rise to the rank of corporal at the John F. Kennedy School of Special Warfare at Ft. Bragg, where he smuggled special forces training manuals out to Al Qaeda cadres.) [...]

A secret 2008 US embassy cable described Qaddafi’s government as a bulwark against the spread of Islamist militancy. “Libya has been a strong partner in the war against terrorism and cooperation in liaison channels is excellent,” the cable read. “Muammar al-Qadhafi’s criticism of Saudi Arabia for perceived support of Wahabi extremism, a source of continuing Libya-Saudi tension, reflects broader Libyan concern about the threat of extremism. Worried that fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq could destabilize the regime, the [government of Libya] has aggressive pursued operations to disrupt foreign fighter flows, including more stringent monitoring of air/land ports of entry, and blunt the ideological appeal of radical Islam.” [...]

When the Libyan uprising broke out in March 2011, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates immediately pumped arms and logistical support into the armed opposition. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saw the insurgency as an opportunity for America to assert its influence amidst the tumult of the Arab Spring. She advocated arming the rebels on the grounds that Washington could get “skin in the game,” according to her Middle East advisor, Dennis Ross. [...]

Libya today is a failed state, its public coffers and oil reserves looted by the foreign powers that oversaw the war of regime change in 2011. Its shores are a main disembarkation point for migrants, where women fleeing conflict and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa are beaten, raped and starved in “living hellholes,” according to UNICEF. The United Nations International Organization for Migration has recorded testimony of open air slave markets in Libya where migrants from West Africa are bought and sold. The refugee crisis has propelled the rise of the far-right in Europe, fueling the demagogic politics of figures from Nigel Farage to Marine Le Pen that blame the victims of the West’s catastrophic interventions.

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Vox: Trump says his refugee ban is about protecting America. It's really about Islamophobia.

If you take a close look at Trump’s executive order, you see that it contains a major loophole — an exemption from its ban on refugee entry to the United States for “religious minorities” being persecuted by their governments. Who’s going to qualify for these exemptions? A lot of Christians — according to Trump himself. Here’s what he said in a Friday interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody: [...]

The text of Trump’s executive order never uses the words “Islam” or “Muslim.” Perhaps that’s for legal reasons. But it’s so full of code words that it’s impossible to mistake the intent. [...]

Which “violent ideologies” are those? Surely it’s not white nationalism — the executive order doesn’t ban Scandinavian skinheads from entering the United States. Instead, it bars anyone and everyone from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya, making clear that the theory behind this order is that Muslims, specifically foreign-born Muslims, are seen as an especial kind of threat of violent extremism.

This is a dubious theory. Since 9/11, home-grown white supremacists and similar extremists have killed more Americans in the US than all Islamic extremists, American or non-American, put together. It seems that, if your goal is saving lives and stopping extremism, it makes more sense to look at home than singling out a group of immigrants who come, disproportionately, from one religious group.

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Boing Boing: Map shows Middle East based on who actually holds territory

From Geopolitical Futures via Joshua Landis. Seems rough on details. If Islamic State gets wee satellites down in Yemen, you'd think the Sinai Insurgents would at least get some diagonal shading!

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