It all started in that same year of 1985, but not in Libya. She was also covering in that year the separatist war by the Tamil Tigers, to break off, from Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the far-northern and far-eastern sections of that country, so as to create an independent nation, which would be controlled by Tamils, and no longer be merely a region within the nation of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is not Tamil-majority, but is instead overwhelmingly Sinhalese population. Marie Colvin was embedded there, along with the anti-Government fighting forces, Tamil separatists, anti-Sinhalese fighters who were at war against Sri Lanka’s Government. This was a Tamil-versus-Sinhal war, and she was reporting it, from the standpoint of the separatist-Tamil rebels.

Her much-celebrated career ended 27 year later, with her own death, on 22 February 2012, in Homs Syria, while she was embedded with anti-Government forces there, who were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government, instead of to overthrow Sri Lanka’s or Libya’s Government.

In all three of those instances — from the very start, to the very the end, of her illustrious career — she was embedded along with, and her articles were in support of, anti-Government forces that the UK-US aristocracy supported, in order to break up countries that this aristocracy were hoping to ‘free’, so as to take control over them, away from the existing independent Governments there. This was her constantly recurring pattern, from her start, to her widely lionized end, as being a promoter of US-UK international empire: journalism that embraces and unquestioningly accepts and endorses imperialism, while never indicating to its audience that it has any connection whatsoever to imperialism.

In between her Sri Lankan start and her Syrian end, she prominently reported several times from Libya, likewise from the standpoint of opponents of that independent nation’s Government. Libya had previously been a vassal state of Turkey (Ottoman Empire), then of Italy (Italian Empire), then was an ‘independent’ nation within the UK-US Empire. And, then, finally — as a result of Libya’s Revolution, which was led by Gaddafi in 1969 — Libya actually did win its independence. Gaddafi became killed in 2011, from forces that had been unleashed by the US-UK Empire and France. That successful assassination happened on 20 October 2011, and America’s Secretary of State promptly and publicly exulted about it, by bragging “We came, we saw, he died — ha ha ha!.”(The Democratic National Committee and its duped voters rewarded her with their Presidential nomination five years later in 2016 because she was ‘the most experienced candidate’, having had lots of such disastrous ‘experiences’, which the duped voters were misled to think to have been an asset, instead of a liability.) Thus, ‘democracy’ was finally being brought to Libyans, by that country’s former foreign imperial masters, plus their agents, Al Qaeda and other local proxy-forces against Gaddafi.

What all of Colvin’s reporting exemplified was ‘journalism’ by a ‘reporter’ who is embedded along with the fighting forces that were being propagandized for by her own nation’s aristocracy — and, though she was American, she was in the employ of American vassals, UK aristocrats. This US-UK aristocracy wanted those countries to become either broken up, or else taken over by themselves entirely; and she was a ‘journalistic’ agent for that, though she was unaware of the fact, and was actually proud of her work, because of her obliviousness to the broader and deeper reality around her.

Here are some crucial details of her career-highlights, in this regard:

—

The Tamil Tigers constituted the fighting force of Sri Lanka’s 18% minority of the Sri Lankan population who were 74%-majority Sinhals. Ceylon’s (Sri Lanka’s) Sinhal population had been ruled by the British Empire through that 18% minority of Tamils as UK’s local agents, until Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was finally released from British bondage, and won independence in 1946, when the British Empire was breaking up.

A key Sri Lankan law that passed in 1956, the Sinhala Only Act, made Sinhalese language replace the British-imposed English language as Sri Lanka’s official language. Though the Tamil language had never been Sri Lanka’s official language, many Tamils, who had been accustomed to ruling the land for their British masters, were infuriated that the ‘inferior’ Sinhal people now ruled the land. One of those Sinhals was their own leading aristocrat, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the progressive who became elected Prime Minister in 1956 and won passage of the Sinhala Only Act and of other laws to actually end British control, but he was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk because Bandaranaike had just then signed an agreement with the leader of the main Tamil party to bring some degree of local autonomy to the Tamil minority, who were concentrated in the far north and far east. Bandaranaike’s wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was then elected as Prime Minister in 1960, and she not only tried to increase political participation by Buddhists, but she firmly established democratic socialism (or progressivism) as the Government’s policy. But then, the Marxist (dictatorial socialist) Lanka Sama Samaja Party eroded popular support for her government, which became resoundingly defeated in the general election of 1965. Sirimovo became re-elected back into power in 1970. However, her Government’s support of Buddhism and of the Sinhalese language alienated the country’s large Tamil minority, 80% of whom are Hindu (the others: 13% Muslim, 2% Christian, 2% Sikh, and only .8% Buddhist). By contrast, 93% of Sinhals are Buddhist. According to the US Library of Congress in 1988, “93 percent of the Sinhala speakers were Buddhists, and 99.5 percent of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka spoke Sinhala.” (By contrast, the entirety of Sri Lanka is 70% Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim, and 7% Christian — very different from the Tamils.) So: Sri Lanka’s political split was along religious lines — mainly Tamil Hindus versus Sinhal Buddhists — in addition to being along tribal lines; and the Tamils represented, in both respects, supporters of the Hindu caste-system, and of the former British aristocracy, which are America’s vassals, against the Sri Lankan public.

In 1976, the militant separatist Tamil Tigers were born, basically as a reaction against the 1946 freeing of that country from its former colonial British masters.

Starting in 1985, the Tamil Tigers “forcibly occupied more than 35,000 acres of Muslim residential, agricultural and cattle farming land. The government did nothing to help Muslims regain their properties based on title deeds, government permits or the paddy cultivation register. During the ethnic conflict in 1983, 1985, and 1990, more than 12,700 Muslim families were chased out by” the Tiger forces. Wikipedia’s article “Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province by LTTE” calls the October 1990 portion of that sequence an “ethnic cleansing,” of Muslims, from the north Sri Lankan, Tiger-controlled, city of Chavakachcheri.

Colvin’s ‘news’-‘reports’ were strongly pro-Tamil, anti-Sinhal, but she seems to have known nothing about the country from which she was reporting (at war), and to have cared even less about it. (She even said [12:00-] “The history, and the ability to put into context anything in a war … It didn’t mean anything,” because “it never happens the way you think it’s going to.” She exhibited no interest whatsoever in understanding the background of a war. To her, for example, the war in Chechnya was simply bombings by Russia, “an indiscriminate bombing of Chechen villages,” and she had no curiosity as to why whatever was occurring was actually happening.) Instead, she was obsessed by, and focused only on, the immense suffering that civilians on the US-UK-backed side experienced. Of course, the owner of her newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, probably knew the historical background in this former British colony of Sri Lanka, but her employers never told her about that, and she apparently never asked them about it. They simply couldn’t find any other journalist who was stupid enough to do their bidding in their bosses’ former Empire and who was willing, indeed eager, to accept the pay that they offered to do it. This well-intentioned, but willingly ignorant, employee lost an eye — and was nearly killed — because of her being embedded there, with what were actually (though she never knew it) UK proxy-forces. She thought that she was helping ‘the good guys’ (Tamils) in a war against ‘the bad guys’ (the Government). She was the archetypal star-‘journalist’, having faith in ‘our’ side. She is beloved, by her ‘journalistic’ colleagues, as if she hadn’t been merely the empire’s most effective war-propagandist.

—

In 2011, in Libya, she was accepted again into Gaddafi’s tent for an interview, even though she despised him as one of the ‘bad’ guys. (This doesn’t mean “bad” as Hillary Clinton was bad, but instead ‘bad’ as one of the Clinton-Biden-Obama regime’s many victims who all were ‘bad’, in her view. And, of course, the US-UK aristocracy are all ‘good’, in that view: the imperialists’ view.)

In 2012, in Syria, at the conflict in Homs, she was telecasting to CNN, and other TV networks, regarding how evil Bashar al-Assad was for bombing the enclaves there that, in fact, were cooperating with Al Qaeda (though Colvin didn’t report that they were such). It was on 22 February 2012, and Britain’s Telegraph  bannered “Marie Colvin: Britain summons Syria ambassador over killing.” This newspaper reported: “In her broadcasts on Tuesday night, Colvin had accused the Syrian Army of perpetrating the ‘complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists.’ Describing what was happening as ‘absolutely sickening’, Colvin said: ‘The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.’” When the US and UK had done more-widespread, entire-city, bombings in World War II, it was fine, in this view; but, now, when Syria’s Government were doing more-targeted versions of that, in order to prevent a takeover of Syria by the US, and a subsequent hand-over of Syria to the Sauds, it wasn’t okay. And, of course, the Western ‘press’-corps, of US-UK invasion-propagandists, place Colvin upon a pedestal, as having constituted the ‘ideal’ ‘ war journalist’.

That’s one way of interpreting wars and international relations — the way that Colvin memorialized.

An excellent docudrama movie about Marie Colvin’s reporting from Sri Lanka in 1985, and Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2012, is the November 2018 “A Private War”. It provides an honest portrayal of her. (Some incompetent critics downgraded the movie because of what actually were deficiencies — basically Colvin’s stupidity and shallowness — in the real person herself. Other incompetent critics, such as at the neoconservative Washington Post, praised it largely because they shared Colvin’s neoconservatism. It’s just an honest, and very skillfully done, biopic.) On the basis of its strictly cinematic values, I consider it a superb film.

——

The opposite way — the anti-imperialist viewpoint — of reporting about war and international relations, has been embodied, to cite two prime authentic journalists — NOT propagandists (such as Colvin was) — by Vanessa Beeley, and also by Eva Bartlett. Both of these authentically great reporters have also covered the war in Syria. Here, from them, is this opposite way of interpreting war and international relations:

——

“Western media lies about Syria exposed (Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett)”

VIDEO, 19 mins., Eva Bartlett, 10 December 2016, U.N.

——

https://www.rt.com

“‘They know that we know they are liars, they keep lying’: West’s war propaganda on Ghouta crescendos”

Eva Bartlett, on 21 March 2018

——

“Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett & Patrick Henningsen Exposes the White Helmets”

VIDEO, 27 mins., 7 October 2016, rt.com

——

21stcenturywire.com

“Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception – Part I”

Vanessa Beeley, 23 October 2015

——

21stcenturywire.com

“Part II – Syria’s White Helmets: War By Way of Deception ~ ‘Moderate Executioners’”

Vanessa Beeley, 28 October 2015

——

21stcenturywire.com

“WHO ARE SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS (terrorist linked)?”

Vanessa Beeley, 21 June 2016

——

21stcenturywire.com

“EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake ‘White Helmets’ as Terrorist-Linked Imposters”

Vanessa Beeley, 23 September 2016

——

mintpressnews.com

“Faux Humanitarian Irwin Cotler, the White Helmets, and the Whitewashing of an Appalling Agenda”

Vanessa Beeley, 1 August 2019

——

Those journalists DON’T win awards from the Foreign Press Association, etc., and AREN’T hired by mainstream ‘news’ media, but they are vastly superior to the ones who do.

Blackwater mercenary company founder Erik Prince and the self-appointed leader of Fascist International, Steve Bannon, have joined forces and dusted off the old discredited neo-conservative theory of “Clash of Civilizations,” to threaten global stability with religious and ethnic nationalism.

One of the more important revelations in former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the 2016 election is the close working relationship Bannon established with Prince. Sensing fertile political ground for their far-right beliefs, Bannon and Prince have established, under the aegis of their professed Catholicism, a movement that threatens both the current pope and the European Union.

The Clash of Civilizations was the main tenet of Harvard University’s Samuel P. Huntington. Huntington also defended the pro-fascist Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Mexico and the military dictatorship of Brazil. Huntington was also a champion of South Africa’s apartheid state and advocated its “reform” rather than its abolishment. Huntington’s approaches to Latin American immigration into the United States serves a basis for the draconian anti-immigration policies of Donald Trump and his “immigration czar,” Stephen Miller. Huntington saw Europe and Western Europe, including Croatia and Slovenia, along with Australia and New Zealand as a “core civilization” against the rest of the world. Huntington made it a point to exclude from the core civilization the Christian Orthodox nations of the Balkans, including Greece, as well as Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia.

To advance political domination by far-right political parties and politicians, Bannon has been busy establishing a training academy for far-right wing Christian zealots at the Trisulti Charterhouse in Collepardo in central Italy. Bannon has admitted that he is following George Soros’s global playbook. Instead of a neo-liberal global network, like that of Soros, Bannon is creating a far-right political movement in Europe that will extend its tentacles around the world, primarily in Huntington’s “core civilization” countries plus Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. With his political group, called “The Movement” in operation in Brussels and targeting upcoming European Parliament elections, Bannon has taken advantage of a schism within the Roman Catholic Church to convincing those opposed to Pope Francis I to permit him to set up shop in the 13^th century monastery in Collepardo.

Bannon is clearly setting the stage for a revised “clash of civilizations” between Judeo-Christianity and the rest of the world. Fascism is seen as the preferred political system for the Western “core.”

Bannon’s colleague in the 2016 Trump campaign, Michael Ledeen, the notorious neo-conservative, wrote a book in 1972 that promotes the fascist political philosophy. Titled “Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936,” Ledeen describes in glowing terms Mussolini’s efforts to create an international Fascist movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. According to an interview Ledeen gave to the neo-con “National Review” in 2002, the Ledeen Doctrine boils down to the following credo: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Mussolini’s template has largely been adopted by Bannon, who, still has, along with arch neo-con national security adviser John Bolton, still have Trump’s ear on foreign policy.

Bannon is attempting to purge the nexus of his Judeo-Christian core civilization of perceived enemies, who include Vatican loyalists of Pope Francis. Bannon – in cooperation with the extremely conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke and former Pope Benedict XVI – has been waging a political jihad against Pope Francis. Bannon believes the current pontiff to be a dangerous liberal and a “Cultural Marxist,” who supported many of President Barack Obama’s policies. Bannon and a right-wing Catholic group close to Burke, the Institute of Human Dignity, or Dignitatis Humana Institute, which runs Bannon’s new headquarters at the Trisulti Abbey, opposes Francis’s goal of avoiding a “clash of civilizations” between Christianity and Islam.

Bannon, in cooperation with Cardinal Raymond Burke and former Pope Benedict XVI, has been waging a war against Pope Francis I. Bannon sees Francis as a dangerous liberal and a “Cultural Marxist,” who supported President Barack Obama’s policies. Bannon and a right-wing Catholic group close to Burke, the Institute of Human Dignity, or “Dignitatis Humana Institute,’ which owns Bannon’s new headquarters at the Trisulti Abbey, opposes Francis’s goal of avoiding a “clash of civilizations,” particularly one between Christianity and Islam.

Bannon’s financial firm, Bannon & Company, is investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, believed by many financial experts to be a giant scam. Cryptocurrencies are favored by neo-Nazis and fascists to fund their activities without the worry of financial surveillance from bank regulators and financial intelligence agencies. Bannon, as a former Goldman Sachs executive, understands how to avoid financial network roadblocks.

One of the mandatory studies at Bannon’s academy for neo-Nazis will most certainly be on the works and thoughts of Julius Evola (1898-1974), a far-right Italian philosopher, who provided the inspiration for several fascist terrorist attacks in Italy during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, including the deadly Bologna central rail station bombing in 1980. Bannon is a promoter of Evola’s doctrine, which is known as Traditionalism. The followers of Evola are called the “Children of the Sun” and they include adherents of two leading neo-Nazi parties in Europe: Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary. Other Traditionalist philosophers, all of whom dabbled in Indo-European Aryan occultism and, to varying degrees, embraced fascism in the interwar years, include Romanian Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), French/Egyptian René Guénon (1886-1951), and Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Ananda Coomaraswamy (1887-1947).

US neo-Nazi leader and “alt-right” term creator, Richard Spencer, a college friend of Trump’s anti-immigration czar, Stephen Miller, is also a follower of Evola. Evola’s writings were an inspiration to Benito Mussolini Fascist movement and Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (SS). Evola even visited SS headquarters in Germany to proselytize his philosophy of fascism to the SS rank and file.

Bannon’s and Prince’s intertwined political finances were exposed during the 2016 presidential campaign. Prince donated some $150,000 to the pro-Trump PAC “Make America Number 1 in 2016.” In turn, the PAC funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Cambridge Analytica and Glittering Steel, a video production company. Bannon co-founded both companies. Bannon was also buoyed by generous funding from hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Currently, with a seemingly endless supply of funds, Bannon is waging a far-right insurgency in Europe involving neo-Nazi, fascist, and right-wing Catholic organizations close to Opus Dei.

Erik Prince abandoned the conservative Calvinism of his auto parts-manufacturing wealthy father to embrace Catholicism, Opus Dei, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta – based in Rome and a rival-laden headache for Pope Francis – and the Legionnaires of Christ. Opus Dei was founded by Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928 as a pro-fascist and pro-Francisco Franco answer to the more liberal-minded Jesuits. It is noteworthy that Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff, is currently experiencing a virtual civil war within the catholic Church and Vatican hierarchy, spurred on by the likes of Bannon, Prince, former Pope Benedict, and other right-wing members of the College of Cardinals.

Bannon, Prince, and other far-rightists are now attempting to impose on their followers and fellow-travelers the same sort of “groupthink” Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels applied to Germany. In his seminal work, Yale University professor Irving Janis summed up “groupthink,” particularly how groups can, conversely to bringing out the best in people, also bring out the worst. Janis’s 1982 book, “Groupthink,” describes the phenomenon by quoting 19^th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.” Europe’s current fascination and widespread support for political parties that were largely banned and shunned after the Nazi defeat in 1945 have created an environment where Bannon, Prince, and their collaborators find ready audiences for their extremism. In such climates, a strategy of tension permits a clash of civilizations, which is nirvana for the neo-cons and extreme right.

The recent deadly Christchurch mosque attacks appear to have been the first act in a strategy of tensions conflict being waged by the far-right. The Easter Sunday bombings of churches in Negombo, Batticaloa, and Colombo, Sri Lanka, as well as three five-star hotels in Colombo – killing well over 300 people, were reportedly claimed by a hitherto unknown group called the National Thowheed Jamath or National Monotheism Organization. Sri Lanka’s government alleged the attacks were in retaliation for the Christchurch mosque bombings. Some things are known about the group claiming it carried out the attacks in Sri Lanka. It is not connected operationally to either the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, although the Islamic State made unverifiable claims of responsibility. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that New Zealand’s intelligence has no indication that the Sri Lanka attacks were in retaliation for the Sri Lanka attacks. It should be noted that New Zealand, as a member of the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance, has access to countless communications intercepts.

While flames leaped from Paris’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral on April 15, a fire broke out at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. In the weeks preceding the Notre Dame fire, vandals broke into Notre-Dame-des-enfants in Nîmes, France and smeared excrement on the crucifix and walls of the church. In March, a fire broke out at another famous Paris church, Saint-Sulpice. In February, a fire broke out in Lavaur Cathedral in Lavaur, France. That fire was preceded by vandalism of Saint Nicolas in Houilles and Saint Nicolas in Maisons-Laffitte in Yvelines.

Arson also destroyed three African-American churches in Opelousas, Louisiana. The son of a sheriff’s deputy was arrested for arson. Louisiana has recently been the scene of renewed activities by Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups.

All of the incidents – in New Zealand, Sri Lanka, France, and Louisiana – those confirmed as terrorism and those for which the jury is still out, should be viewed through the lens of the strategy of tensions and a final showdown between Christianity and Islam advanced by Bannon, Prince, and their supporters in Brussels and the Trisulti monastery.

The world has seen this particular play before. From the late 1960s to the 1980s, over two thousand people died in terrorist attacks blamed mainly on left-wing terrorists, including the Italian Red Brigades and West German Red Army Faction. The victims included the former Christian Democratic Prime Minister of Italy, Aldo Moro. The deadliest attack was the bombing of the Bologna rail station in 1980. Originally, there was an attempt to blame all the attacks, mostly bombings, on the left-wing groups. In fact, most of the attacks were carried out by neo-fascist groups hoping to have the Communists blamed. Inquiry commissions later determined that the neo-fascists and far-left groups all had links to the Central Intelligence Agency – which once employed Erik Prince’s Blackwater as a contractor – and the intelligence services of NATO members. It was the late Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, who revealed the name of the sinister association of NATO spies and false flag terrorists: Gladio.

The Left in this country has a serious problem: they don’t want to talk about religion and are particularly allergic to the phrase “Islamic terrorism.”

On Easter Sunday, Catholic churches and international hotels across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. In a stunning display of how far the Left’s allergy has spread, former president Barack Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former HUD secretary Julián Castro all tweeted condolences to “Easter worshippers.”

“Holy weekend for many faiths”? The only religions celebrating holidays were Jews (Passover) and Christians (Easter).

“The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka,” Barack Obama tweeted.

“We’re actually called Christians not ‘Easter worshippers’ wouldn’t hurt to maybe just say that,” National Review writer Alexandra DeSantis tweeted, as conservatives throughout the Twitter became incensed over the phrase. Breitbart called the tweets a “ sympathy snub” that showed Obama and friends “could not bring themselves to identify the victims of the attacks as ‘Christians.’” A Washington Times op-ed called the phrase anti-Christian.

The backlash was so intense that Slate felt the need to run an article defending the phrase:

“Easter worshippers” describes Christians in church on Easter Sunday. The term is more descriptive than “Christians,” because it conveys the additional fact that the victims were actively celebrating Easter when they were killed. They are worshippers, and it is Easter. If it helps, try putting the emphasis on worshippers in the phrase: It’s Easter worshippers, not Easter-worshippers.

Well, actually no, that’s not how this works. Christians don’t gather in church on the Easter holiday to worship Easter. They gather to worship God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ in particular; hence why the gathered worshippers are called “Christian.”

It’s also possible that this phrase was repeated by so many Democratic politicians because it was created by a public relations firm that works for the Democratic National Committee, like MWWPR. These agencies draft guidance, talking points, speeches, and social media posts. Politicians, with the obvious exception of Donald Trump, rarely post their own original thoughts online. Given that these tweets were posted during the Easter holiday, it seems likely that this was drafted by a PR company with ties to the Democratic Party.

Brennan and his clique have upped the ante by claiming, without a shred of evidence, that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed the hacking of computer systems linked to the U.S. election. NBC News, which has a long history of cooperation with the CIA going back to the days of RCA/NBC chairman David Sarnoff and his close friend CIA director Allen Dulles, dutifully reported Brennan’s outrageous claims as «news».

It is clear those former CIA officials who have lent credence to Brennan’s report would not have done so unless they received clearance from Brennan and his CIA to go public with their unfounded charges against Russia. Those who have echoed Brennan’s unfounded findings of election interference by Russia include former acting CIA director Michael Morell; former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden; former CIA director Leon Panetta; former CIA clandestine service agents Robert Baer; Evan McMullin – a failed 2016 independent presidential candidate – and Glenn Carle. However, for every ex-spook Brennan pulls out of his hat to accuse President-elect Donald Trump of being a «Russian agent», there are many more who have claimed that the CIA’s «proof» of Russian interference in the 2016 election is pure malarkey.

Brennan and his cabal of dark players know fully well that it is the CIA that has pioneered in the art and science of election manipulation. In 1996, it was Russia that bore the brunt of CIA election manipulation with its agents-of-influence in Moscow and other large cities, namely the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and George Soros’s Open Society Institute and Foundation, engaged in political dirty tricks aimed at undermining the electoral chances of the Russian Communist Party presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov.

The CIA, Soros’s operatives, and the NED printed and distributed fake campaign flyers claiming to have originated with the Zyuganov's campaign. The flyers advocated returning Russia to Stalinism and re-launching the Cold War against the West. The CIA and Soros dirty tricks operatives also announced to the press phony Zyuganov news conferences where no one showed up. The dirty tricks team also canceled reservations made by the Zyuganov campaign at hotels and public meeting halls. The CIA and their allies also helped to manipulate election returns and shaved votes from Zyuganov's total, particularly in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. This helped the favored U.S. candidate, Boris Yeltsin, achieve a second-round victory of 54-to-40 percent over Zyuganov. In 2012, then-President Dmitry Medvedev said, «There is hardly any doubt who won [the '96 election]. It was not Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin».

The CIA has been at the election manipulation game since its inception in 1947. In February 1948, a formerly Top Secret CIA document spelled out the efforts to be taken by the United States and its ambassador in Rome, James Dunn, in preparation for the April 1948 Italian election. Wheat shipments were to be increased from the United States to Italy to prevent a reduction in bread rations just prior to the election. U.S. military equipment was to be sent to Italy in the event martial law had to be declared if the Italian Communist Party, which had been in a coalition government with the Christian Democrats since 1944, was successful at the polls. Assisting this military effort was the political indoctrination of many Italian military officers and non-commissioned officers at military schools in the United States.

The CIA also directed a sharp stick at the Italian electorate, warning that Italians could not «combine the advantages of aid from the West with that of political safety and benefits from the Soviet Union». The CIA was worried that if the Soviet Union returned control of the city of Trieste to Italy and renounced Italy’s war reparations to the Soviet Union prior to the April election, the Italian Communist Party would reap the electoral benefits and be victorious.

The CIA’s political dirty tricks in Italy began in earnest when it covertly directed $1 million, contained mostly in «bags of money», to Christian Democratic politicians led by Prime Minister Alcide de Gaspari. The CIA used its front newspapers in Italy to publish forged letters, allegedly written by Italian Communist Party leaders, in an attempt to embarrass them publicly. Similarly, the CIA attempted to blackmail Italian Socialist Party leaders who were part of a Popular Front coalition with the Communists. The blackmail eventually led to a split within the Socialist Party ranks between party leader Pietro Nenni and anti-Communist leader Giuseppe Saragat. The CIA’s manipulation paid off when the Christian Democrats won 48.5 percent of the vote and formed a new government without Communist participation.

When, in 1978, it appeared that the Christian Democrats, led by former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, were prepared to enact a «historic compromise» to share political power with the Italian Communist Party, the CIA instructed its agents-of-influence within Italy and the Vatican, the so-called «Gladio» network, to arrange for Moro’s kidnapping and assassination and blame it on the leftist Italian Red Brigades. The CIA’s psychological operation designed to blame radical Communists for Moro’s death was successful when the Italian electorate voted overwhelmingly for a CIA-linked Christian Democratic faction opposed to any accommodation with the Communists. The CIA showed that it was not averse to political assassinations to achieve its electoral aims in other countries.

The CIA’s involvement by hook and by crook in the 1948 Italian election was repeated in numerous nations around the world. In 1964, the CIA ensured that the Chilean Popular Action Front (FRAP) Socialist presidential candidate Salvador Allende was defeated by the Christian Democratic leader Eduardo Frei. The CIA pumped $3 million into Frei’s campaign, mainly to generate anti-Allende propaganda. Allende lost the race with 38.6 percent of the vote to Frei’s 55.6 percent. In 1970, Allende won the presidential election with a slim 36.4 percent of the vote against the CIA-backed former president Jorge Alessandri. The CIA set about immediately to undermine Allende and on September 11, 1973, a CIA-backed military coup resulted in Allende’s assassination. The one thing that separates the CIA from other intelligence agencies that seek to influence elections, is that the CIA’s hands are always dripping with blood.

The 1956 election in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka) saw an unpopular United National Party led by pro-Western Prime Minister John Kotelawala lose to the leftist Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by Solomon Bandaranaike. Although the Kotelawala government had received the largesse of CIA aid funneled through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, it was not enough to save it from defeat by Bandaranaike’s socialists. The CIA merely set about the undermine Bandaranaike’s government with the icing on the cake being the prime minister’s assassination in 1959, allegedly by a Buddhist monk who hid a revolver underneath his robes prior to a meeting with the prime minister at his private residence. The assassin’s two conspirators received life sentences, while the trigger puller, Somarama Thero, was baptized as a Christian two days before his hanging. The CIA’s MK-Ultra psychological operations program had already mastered in the science of creating programmed assassins.

Time and time again, the CIA has successfully engaged in election manipulation in parliamentary elections, presidential elections, popular referenda, and local and regional elections. The CIA is now directing its wealth of election chicanery toward the American electorate to discredit and undermine the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. For the sake of democracy everywhere, the CIA must be abolished.

One chessboard and many players

The first priority for Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will be to create a political base for himself within the ruling coalition. The directions of his government’s policies will depend on Sirisena’s political consolidation. 

Sirisena has been a committed member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] for several decades and his best hope lies in snatching the party from the control of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. His power base is not very different from Rajapaksa’s. 

However, given the deep-rooted antipathies between the SLFP and the United National Party led by Ranil Wickremesinghe (whom Sirisena has appointed as the prime minister according to the deal worked out in the run-up to the recent election), tensions are bound to arise in the working of the new government. 

How long can the inchoate coalition carry on is anybody’s guess, as the countdown begins for the next parliamentary election (due next year). Once he consolidates, why should Sirisena ‘abdicate’ power in favor of Wckremesinghe? This is the second issue. Party politics in Sri Lanka is very competitive.

Therefore, Sirisena’s immediate objective will be to navigate his passage through a fluid situation. Unsurprisingly, he would choose India for his visit foreign visit. No Sri Lankan leader can afford to ignore or bypass India. 

Moreover, Sirisena is well aware that Rajapaksa had tenaciously cultivated the leadership of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] and its mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS]. Rajapaksa lavishly hosted senior leaders of the BJP and the RSS and built an understanding with them based on ideological affinities – robust nationalism riveted on cultural identity. 

However, the three-way Beijing-Colombo-Delhi diplomatic pirouette during the Rajapaksa era would make a charming case study. China, for sure, expanded its economic and political presence in Sri Lanka during the Rajapaksa years but China’s projects in Sri Lanka were financed with commercial loans. 

When the West tried to pressure Rajapaksa by demanding investigation into alleged war crimes by his government (after having helped Sri Lanka militarily to win the war against the LTTE), China supported him unequivocally in the UN forums. In turn, China’s support enabled Rajapaksa to bargain with Delhi. 

From the Indian viewpoint, Rajapaksa was another past master in the politics of attrition, as almost all his predecessors have been, relentlessly probing the limits to Indian tolerance (and goodwill.) Thus, Rajapaksa would permit Chinese submarines to visit Sri Lankan ports for refueling, etc. on commercial terms but reassured Delhi that this didn’t meant giving a ‘base’ to the Chinese navy. 

He made sure Delhi knew he was no pushover, but also could be a pragmatic interlocutor to do business with. Sirisena can be expected to follow this tradition. 

Towards the end of Rajapaksa’s rule, some sort of a modus vivendi began appearing in Delhi’s equations with Colombo. All in all, Delhi faces yet another transition in Colombo that requires starting all over again. 

But Sirisena enjoys more elbowroom than Rajapaksa. The Anglo-American sponsorship of the ‘regime change’ in Sri Lanka means that the West is no longer a discontented party looking in but has become an active player. 

Sirisena would have one more ball to juggle in the air, but then, it also opens up for him more negotiating space vis-à-vis the foreign powers. 

For the West, the best thing would be if Wickremesinghe won the next general election and headed the government in a revamped parliamentary system under a presidency that voluntarily cut back its constitutional powers. But that is too much to expect. 

Indeed, Washington already senses the need to deal with Sirisena. The secretary of state John Kerry made the first direct contact with Sirisena on Monday. 

But the key question in regional politics will be: How far do the Anglo-American interests and Indian interests converge over Sri Lankan developments? 

India will be quietly pleased if the pro-western leadership of Wickremesinghe begins cutting back on Sri Lanka’s ties with China. However, beyond that comes the issue of the Western presence in Sri Lanka as such, a country that India has regarded as falling within its ‘sphere of influence’. 

No doubt, Britain’s recent return to the ‘east of Suez’ (following the establishment of a military base in Bahrain) prompts London to regain its traditional influence over the political elites in Colombo. Sri Lanka’s pivotal role in the World War II is embedded deep in Britain’s historical consciousness and London would accord great importance to the island’s role in the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean. 

For the US, of course, Sri Lanka is situated between Diego Garcia and the Malacca Straits; it straddles the sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean through which China conducts the bulk of its foreign trade (including imports of oil); and, its potential value to the US’ ‘pivot to Asia’ is self-evident. 

India keeps a safe distance from the US’ containment strategy towards China, but it would have three main considerations in a scenario where the Western strategic presence in Sri Lanka surged. 

One, India would disfavor any Western military presence as such in Sri Lanka. Two, India would be the net loser, being the pre-eminent regional power today, if the big-power rivalries begin to get played out in its backyard (over which it would have no control.) Three, there is the looming Tamil problem. This needs some explanation. 

The Sri Lankan Tamil problem impacts the politics in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu where the BJP is working hard to establish a presence. This is one thing. 

Secondly, any Western mediation in the Sri Lankan Tamil problem would mean a loss of influence for Delhi in the island’s politics. Significantly, the Tamil National Alliance announced its support December 30 for Sirisena’s candidacy in the presidential election only after the return of party leader T. Sampanthan to Colombo from Delhi after holding unpublicized consultations with the Indian establishment. 

Clearly, despite its ‘pro-Western’ outlook, the Sri Lankan Tamil elites simply cannot do without the goodwill of the Indian establishment. And on its part, India will be extremely loathe to see the Western powers poaching into its exclusive preserve in Sri Lankan politics. 

The point is, given the fragmentation of the Sinhala constituency, the Tamil party’s role in Sri Lankan politics remains decisive, as the recent presidential election showed.

The western and Indian media reports have been celebrating that China’s influence in Sri Lanka is all set to peter out. But this zero sum assessment is far too simplistic. 

For one thing, would cash-strapped Britain or the US be willing to replace China’s role as an economic benefactor? China won the projects, after all, through open tenders. 

China’s influence in Sri Lanka is traditional. (Colombo offered to mediate in the 1962 China-India war.) Over and above, the resilience of the Sri Lankan elites as the region’s outstanding practitioners of international diplomacy should not be overlooked. 

Sirisena must be conscious that such an extraordinary level of Western interference in his country’s domestic politics is only due to its potential to be a ‘lynchpin’ in the US-British strategies against China. 

However, being a staunch nationalist with no trace of ‘westernism’ in his DNA, Sirisena would also know that non-alignment is a valuable trump card in the contemporary world situation. Trust him to play the trump card if his game plan comes under threat from the West. 

The defeat of the incumbent Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential election on Thursday was neither completely unexpected nor was inevitable, as the narrow victory of his opponent Maithripala Sirisena testifies. But its significance is nonetheless far-reaching. 

What happened may not have the look of a classic ‘regime change’ – ‘color revolution’ as in Georgia or a coup as in Ukraine – because the transition adhered to democratic principles, but without doubt outside powers had got involved discreetly (without being visible) and choreographed the rebound of party politics in Sri Lanka. 

The success of that unspoken enterprise will ultimately need to be measured in terms of the policies (and their sustainability) that the Sirisena government is likely to pursue in the coming period. Given that country’s complex external environment, the contradictions in its political economy and of course Sri Lanka’s robust democratic traditions, the best-laid plots by outsiders can go awry. 

In a manner of speaking, after the decade-long Rajapaksa era, Sri Lanka is once again becoming a ‘normal’ country – a vivacious democracy that got brutalized in civil war, but refused to go under. 

No doubt, the new government will reset the compass of national and regional policies and its impact will be felt far and wide, since Sri Lanka happens to be one of the most coveted real estates in the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean. 

For the United States, Sri Lanka figures as a potential ‘lynchpin’ in its rebalance strategy in Asia; for Britain, its return to the east of Suez demands reclaiming the mentorship of the political elites in Colombo; for China, it is a vital hub in its Maritime Silk Road strategy; while, for India, that island falls within what it regards as its ‘sphere of influence’. 

A good starting point, therefore, will be an understanding of what really happened. To be sure, Rajapaksa miscalculated by seeking renewed mandate two years before his term ended. 

But then, he also knew from the outcome of the provincial elections in April in the western and southern provinces (dominated by the majority Sinhala communities who formed his power base) that popular discontent with his government was simmering and that he had alienated the country’s political class. 

The alliance led by Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] won the two provincial elections, but lost a number of seats (dropping from 106 to 89) and in vote share (around 10 percent) in comparison with the 2009 provincial elections. The neo-liberal economic policies, especially reduction in fuel and food subsidies, combined with the perceived authoritarian style of the president had begun taking their toll. 

Curiously, however, the opposition alliance led by the United National Party [UNP] under the leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe also failed to make any significant gains in the April elections. (In fact, UNP too lost seats and vote share.) Thus, Rajapakasa estimated that the disenchantment with his rule did not yet translate into support for the opposition and his decision to go for a mid-term poll rested on that calculation. 

Ironically, both SLFP and UNP adhere to neo-liberal economic policies and while Rajapaksa unfailingly resorted to populist slogans, Wickremesinghe never cared to disown his image as a ‘business-friendly’ and elitist politician, which undercuts his party’s credibility in the eyes of the dispossessed poor. 

Enter the United States and Britain. Drawing appropriate conclusions from the results of the provincial elections in April, an Anglo-American effort began discreetly to bolster the standing of Wickremesinghe, a former prime minister whose ‘pro-western’ outlook is well established. 

The project aimed at helping him to build a new coalition that might enable him to return to power as head of a new government. 

This required two things: on the one hand, Wickremesinghe needed to shed or at least dilute his elitist image, while on the other hand, Rajapaksa’s entrenched power base among the majority community, rooted in Buddhist-Sinhala nationalism, needed to be breached. 

Thus, a veteran SLFP leader and former president Chandrika Kumaratunga was brought back from retirement to align with Wickremesinghe (although they used to be political rivals in the past) with the single objective of ousting Rajapaksa. 

Kumaranatunga used to have an aura of being a ‘leftist’ and that and her family’s populist politics dating back to the 1950s still holds some nostalgia for the Sinhalese poor people – although she has come a long way in the recent decades and as an associate of the Clinton Foundation she is close to the US political and social circuit and doesn’t even espouse socialism anymore. 

On the other hand, Rajapkasa was dealt a lethal blow when a senior cabinet minister and one of his trusted aides, Sirisena, defected. It was a double setback insofar as Sirisena was a seasoned SLFP leader and, more importantly, a hardcore Buddhist-Sinhala nationalist himself. 

Simply put, it was a brilliant move on the part of Kumaranatunga and Wckremesinghe to make an offer to Sirisena that he possibly couldn’t refuse, namely, that he would be the common candidate of the opposition in the forthcoming presidential election if he defected to their side. 

The deal involved Sirisena becoming president who would appoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister heading a new government, while on a parallel track the country’s constitution would be amended to restore the Westminster-style political system that Sri Lanka used to have. 

The ‘assets’ that Sirisena brought into the opposition camp have been the following. One, he took away with him a slice of Rajapaksa’s Buddhist-Sinhala nationalist constituency and a clutch of disaffected SLFP leaders and activists. 

Two, he commanded support in the north-central region (which was colonized by Sinhala settlers during the SLFP governments in the past), which helped to neutralize to some extent Rajapaksa’s solid power base in the south. 

Three, Sirisena brought in his image of being an unvarnished ‘native’ (he doesn’t speak English) – the perfect foil to the elitist, urbane, Colombo-based Wickremesinghe. 

But the smartest thing that the western mentors of the anti-Rajapksa coalition managed to achieve was to get the Sri Lankan Tamil leadership to lend support to Sirisena. The Sri Lankan Tamil elites (drawn from upper castes) have been traditionally ‘pro-Western’ in their outlook and they seem to feel confident that the Western powers will get the Wickremesinghe-led government to redress their longstanding grievances of discrimination and state repression (where successive Indian leaderships proved ineffectual). 

Indeed, Sri Lankan Tamil elites once before had enthusiastically cooperated with a western-sponsored peace process spearheaded by Norway in the first half of the last decade. 

All in all, therefore, in Thursday’s election Rajapaksa faced a somewhat motley coalition comprising chunks of rural Sinhala communities (especially in the north), sections of Buddhist-Sinhala nationalists, urban Sinhalese, defectors from the SLFP, business community, Sinhalese intellectuals and Tamils from the north and east. The surprising thing is that even with the backing of such a coalition, Sirisena managed to secure just about 51.26 percent votes. 

Paradoxically, it is the overwhelming Tamil support for Sirisena that ultimately proved the clincher – although he has been a staunch supporter of the hardline policies of the Rajapaksa government on the devolution of power to the Tamil-dominated regions or the easing of the military presence in those regions. 

Clearly, Rajapaksa’s hardcore power base in the south largely remains intact – at least, as of now. This is important to understand, because what follows next will critically depend on the durability of the unwieldy rainbow coalition that Sirisena is leading. 

For a start, Wickremsinghe and Kumaranatunge once before also had tried to work together and found it impossible and the big question is whether in the aftermath of Rakjapaksa’s fall, Washington and London will succeed in getting their co-habitation to continue. 

Again, Sirisena has appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister but his own commitment to deliver on his electoral pledge to render himself a titular figurehead and revert Sri Lanka to the parliamentary system within one hundred days of becoming president cannot be fulfilled easily. The point is, Rajapaksa’s alliance still commands majority in the Sri Lankan parliament and it is difficult to muster support for a constitutional reform. 

The parliamentary elections are due only next year and one possibility is that Sirisena may order a mid-term poll. But what if Rajapaksa’s alliance is returned in strength in a new parliament as well? 

Meanwhile, it is useful to remember that Rajapaksa and Sirisena have been close associates within the SLFP up until very recently. Rajapaksa regarded Sirisena as his trusted colleague so much so that the latter was made the secretary of the SLFP and even was given the sensitive portfolio of defence minister for an interim period during the war against the LTTE in 2009. Suffice to say, Rajapaksa and Sirisena have much more in common with each other than either would have with Wickremesinghe or Kumarnatunga. 

Politics do make strange bed-fellows and the Anglo-American project probably drew confidence from that dictum. But then, power is also an aphrodisiac and one hundred days could be a long time in politics. 

(To be continued)

The geopolitics of the Indian Ocean will never be the same again. The White House spokesman Jay Carney explained that the United States would be henceforth «as a courtesy in appropriate setting, more frequently using the name Myanmar». 

Diplomacy is indeed largely courtesy and the «appropriate setting» was the visit by President Thein Sein to the White House, which signified the formal launch of the US’ rebalancing strategy to the west of the Malacca Strait. 

A common thread

Even as Thein Sein visited Washington, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Delhi. From Delhi, Li headed for Islamabad. Meanwhile, Thein Sein returned to Naypyidaw just in time to receive Shinzo Abe, the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to Myanmar since 1977. And no sooner than Abe got back to Tokyo, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in the Japanese capital on a 3-day visit. 

Indeed, neighboring Beijing also received a visitor from South Asia on the day Manmohan arrived in Tokyo – Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse. The spectacle got rounded off on Saturday at a security conference in Singapore that also brought the US defence secretary Chuck Hagel to the region. The common thread that ran through all this congested diplomatic traffic in the past fortnight was the rise of China and the US’ rebalancing strategy. 

Thein Sein was the first head of state from «Burma» to visit Washington in 47 years. A big slice of history drifted away, marked by deep chill and total breakdown of relations between the two countries. The lifting of US sanctions and the conclusion of a trade and investment framework agreement enable US companies to invest in Myanmar, which is the last frontier in the scramble for mineral resources. The economic spinoff can be mutually beneficial. 

Myanmar gets income, investment and integration into the world economy, while the US hopes to reassert its presence in a region that is crucial to the rebalancing strategy. The strengthening of ties with Myanmar helps Washington to contain China, which visualizes Myanmar as a vital communication link connecting the Indian Ocean – a route that bypasses the Malacca Strait…

Sitting in an important area

Abe’s mission to Myanmar supplemented Obama’s overture to Thein Sein. Japan also aims to erode China’s economic presence in Myanmar. Japan has no legacy of sanctions that Abe needed to put behind and there has been a dramatic jump in the Japanese economic presence in Myanmar lately. Abe took with him more than 100 Japanese businessmen. 

He agreed to write off another $1.74 billion in debt in addition to the $3.4 billion in arrears owed by Myanmar that was waived off last year. Abe also pledged a new aid package of $500 million for infrastructure and power projects. Kyodo news agency noted Abe’s visit «could counter China’s strong influence» in Myanmar. In the Japanese assessment, Beijing overestimated its political and economic clout in Myanmar and is facing growing dissatisfaction in that country, which Tokyo can exploit by making investments and creating job opportunities and presenting a more systematic and credible way of doing business. 

Hardly six months into his spectacular return to power, Abe is creating waves in the region west of the Malacca Strait. Taking note of China’s rising influence in Sri Lanka, the «teardrop in the Indian Ocean», he moved to safeguard Japan’s traditional ties with the island. Abe invited President Rajapaksa to Tokyo in March. The joint statement issued after the talks said,

«The two leaders acknowledged that, as maritime countries, Japan and Sri Lanka had a responsibility to play important roles for the stability and prosperity of the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. In this regard, the two leaders shared the view that Sri Lanka, being located on the Indian Ocean sea lanes and having a potential to be a maritime hub of the region, would play a crucial and positive role among the international community. Prime Minister Abe expressed his intention that Japan would continue to provide necessary assistance to Sri Lanka’s efforts to that end.» 

Sri Lanka will henceforth allow port calls by Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels and the two countries decided to cooperate in maritime security. Japan signed a loan package of 41 billion Yen for Sri Lanka. 

Abe swiftly followed up in early May by deputing Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and Senior Vice Minister of Finance Uko Obuchi to Colombo (as part of a South Asian tour). Kyodo cited Aso pledging Tokyo will support Colombo’s efforts to improve its coast guard, as the South Asian country «sits in a geopolitically important area.» 

Petty burglars

However, it is Abe’s aggressive pursuit of stronger ties with India that falls in a category by itself and provokes China to no end. Abe’s agenda is two-fold: bilateral engagement and trilateral cooperation alongside the US. Indeed, the US also visualizes India as the «lynchpin» of its rebalancing strategy. A whole new coinage has appeared in the strategic discourses – «Indo-Pacific,» which connotes that the US, Japan and India actually belong to a common strategic space. 

Abe has successfully wooed India by resuming negotiations for an agreement in nuclear cooperation despite the debris of Fukushima and by making huge investments in India’s technology sector and infrastructure. Without doubt, China is a focal point for Tokyo in the expanding framework of strategic partnership with India. India has been playing it cool and a delicate game of hedging was on. 

Delhi’s preference has been to leverage the relationship with Japan to secure an optimal position in negotiations with China, a game that the mandarins in Delhi have perfected over the years. But that may be about to change. The recrudescence of border tensions following China’s troop incursions in mid-April has changed the alchemy of regional politics. The anxieties regarding Chinese intentions gnaw Indian mind and the pundits in Delhi are clamoring for a concord with Japan and the US. 

Abe is highly regarded in Delhi and «Abepolitik» appeals to the Indian nationalistic sensibility. Manmohan said in Tokyo, «India and Japan are natural and indispensable partners» and the two countries should place «particular importance on intensifying political dialogue and strategic consultations and progressively strengthening defense relations.» 

The alacrity with which Beijing reacted to Manmohan’s words drew attention to the new cadence in the Indian voice. The ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily lashed out at Japanese leaders, terming them «petty burglars» trying to cash in on the transient India-China disharmony. The Global Times newspaper noted that India and Japan are close to signing a deal to supply amphibious US-2 planes to India and that it would mark a strengthening of the alliance between Japan and India in terms of defence and military cooperation. 

The daily accused Japan of trying to take advantage of the border tensions between India and China and to contain the latter with the possible military sale. 

But Beijing isn’t far behind Abe in wooing India. The new Chinese leadership made an extraordinary gesture by picking India for Li’s first visit abroad as premier. Li offered a «handshake across the Himalayas» to the Indians during his 3-day visit and proposed a «strategic consensus and cooperation» between the two countries. Delhi chose to mull over it but is far from disinterested. 

National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon will be visiting Beijing in coming days, followed by Defence Minister A. K. Antony and Manmohan himself. There is ample scope for the two countries to ponder over what happened on the disputed border and to negotiate the irreducible minimum needed to preserve mutual trust in relations. Beijing appreciates that it is not in India’s DNA to jettison its independent foreign policy and to be shepherded into alliances and blocs. It is largely up to Beijing not to drive Delhi into a Japanese and/or American embrace. 

By slotting Pakistan as the second leg of Li’s foreign tour, Beijing signaled that China’s glorious relationship with that country is no longer «India-centric». Li had the principal objective of preserving the uniqueness of the Sino-Pak relationship at a historic juncture when Pakistan is in transition and there are very many uncertainties surrounding its future. 

He made two proposals aimed at strengthening China’s strategic presence in the Indian Ocean – promoting the building of a China-Pakistan economic corridor from the Persian Gulf across Pakistan to western China and maritime cooperation with Pakistan. 

However, out of the entire flurry of Chinese engagements through the past fortnight, it was Rajapaksa’s visit to Beijing that proved most substantial and specific. To be sure, China-Sri Lanka relationship is fast expanding and Beijing senses that it holds potential to acquire something of the verve of China’s «all-weather friendship» with Pakistan. 

During Rajapaksa’s visit, China extended a huge $2.2 billion loan package to Sri Lanka in the infrastructure sector and has announced wide-ranging Chinese participation in Colombo’s ambitious program to transform Sri Lanka into another Singapore. Beijing finds the buoyancy of the Sri Lankan economy quite encouraging for stepping up investments. The two countries have afreed to conclude an FTA. 

During Rajapaksa’s visit, Beijing «upgraded» the ties with Colombo to one of «strategic cooperative partnership» and the two countries decided to step up military and security cooperation. 

A minimalist agenda

The unspoken running theme of this extraordinary string of events in a packed fortnight finally surged to make its appearance in flesh and blood in an «exchange» at the weekend security conference in Singapore. 

Hagel, upon the conclusion of his speech at the conference, was openly challenged by a Chinese general to explain the US military’s Asia pivot. The general said the Obama administration’s new focus on the Pacific has been widely interpreted as an "attempt to counter China's rising influence and to offset the increasing military capabilities of the Chinese PLA. However, China is not convinced." In pointed remarks, the Chinese general asked Hagel how he can assure China that the increased US deployments to the region are part of an effort to build a more positive relationship with Beijing.

The point is, China is making sure in front of the regional audience of defence ministers and security experts that it is easily provoked. And, arguably, the fear of China getting provoked may already be working on many Asian minds. The heart of the matter is that so long as the Chinese economy continues to grow, its interdependency develops with it for the other Asian economies. After all, there is a limit to how much Japan or the US can aid its regional parties if the latter got into a flashpoint with China. 

Indeed, the Obama administration is also causing misgivings in the minds of the Asians by ostentatiously wooing the new leadership in Beijing as a stakeholder in global partnership. There has been a constant flow of senior officials from Washington to the Chinese capital in recent weeks and the dramatic initiative to hold a US-China summit in California later this week took Asia-Pacific by surprise. 

Besides, Beijing’s big advantage is that in the emergent power dynamic, it has a minimal agenda – namely, deny Japan or the US the scope to recruit the countries of the region to join any containment strategy directed against China. It is not a tall Chinese demand for most countries of the region – including for a traditional ally of the US like South Korea or an old adversary of China like Vietnam. On the other hand, it is simply not enough for the US or Japan if other Asian countries remained fence sitters. Clearly, time works to China’s advantage. 

Countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka or Pakistan would perceive the advantages in maintaining a relative balance among the big powers with a view to win economic and technical support and assistance from both China and the west. Thein Sein most certainly grasped the import of Obama’s momentous decision to call his country by its proper name. Rajapaksa has secured much negotiating space already vis-à-vis an overbearing India. Pakistan feels emboldened to resist the US pressure. 

Manmohan would also see that while the partnering with Japan in strategy and security is all very well as a long-term goal, India’s near term priority lies in generating a peaceful environment in which development becomes possible. Japan lags far behind China as India’s partner in trade and investment. 

India’s advantage lies in factoring in the high level of US-China interdependency and the lack of clarity as yet that Abe is Japan and «Abepolitik» is for all time.

The two pipelines would have immense geopolitical significance. The Xinhua news agency aptly described them as «China’s new strategic energy channels.» The 1100-kilometre long pipelines with annual capacity of 22 million tonnes of oil and 12 billion cubic meters of gas respectively will connect the port of Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal with China’s Yunnan Province.

Quite obviously, China is now well placed to tap into the energy reserves in Myanmar and Bangladesh. It is repeating a pattern that is by now familiar to the Central Asian countries and Afghanistan – China finances and builds transportation routes leading to its hinterland and connects them to the upstream projects in neighboring regions.

The pipelines through Myanmar have an added strategic importance for Beijing. They will help China to reduce its heavy dependence on the Strait of Malacca for the transportation of energy. Around 80% of China’s energy imports are presently transported via Malacca Strait, which of course has grave strategic implications against the backdrop of the United States’ «rebalancing» in Asia and the maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

Beijing has not hidden its sense of unease that China’s energy security is vulnerable to the «choke point» of Malacca Strait, which is effectively under US control. President Hu Jintao once famously described the worrisome dependence as China’s «Malacca Dilemma». The new pipelines through Myanmar could reduce the dependence by about one-third.

The economics of the enterprise are equally significant. The new routes could cut down transportation distance for the African and Arabian oil shipments by 1200 kilometers. It gives a big boost to Beijing’s ambitious plans to develop China’s southern regions.

Spiritual partner

New Delhi will keenly assess the impending tectonic shift in the geopolitics of the Bay of Bengal. The Indian strategic thrust all along has been to keep the Bay of Bengal as its «sphere of influence». But in another 6 months, Bay of Bengal, which has many highly sensitive Indian defence installations, will begin to turn into a busy waterway for oil tankers plying between Myanmar and the Persian Gulf and Africa.

The spate of high-level visits by Indian officials to Myanmar in the recent period can be viewed against this backdrop. In fact, Defence Minister A.K.Antony has just begun an official visit to Myanmar. This follows the visit by External Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s path-breaking visit to Myanmar last year underscored the highest priority India attaches to relations with that country. New Delhi is invoking India’s ancient Buddhist heritage to build special bonds with Myanmar. While India has slipped down on the economic ladder and currently figures as only a measly number 9 or 10 in the order of Myanmar’s business partnerships, it hopes to be way up as that country’s cultural and spiritual partner in a way that the US or China cannot rival.

The common conception among Indian pundits has been that the Great Game in the Indian Ocean involves India and China at its epicenter with the US acting as a referee or moderator. But what emerges bears striking similarity to the big-power rivalries in Central Asia where many extra-regional powers have entered the fray. Indeed, the 5 «Stans» themselves are increasingly playing their own little games of hide-and-seek hoping to create space for themselves by tapping into the big-power rivalries – and often succeeding.

The point is, countries such as Myanmar or Sri Lanka are already adept at negotiating with the big powers to their best advantage. Thus, Russia is the latest big player to enter Bangladesh’s first circle of partnerships. If the US was hoping to get a grip on the exploitation of Bangladesh’s energy reserves – ConocoPhillips is exploring offshore Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal – Russia promises to give it good competition. The focus of the recent visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Moscow (first-ever visit by a Bangladesh leader to Moscow) was on energy and arms purchase. Moscow is putting big money on the table [http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/621744_print.html] both to finance its arms exports as well as to build Bangladesh’s first nuclear reactor.

Advantage to China, Russia

Equally, Russia is also asserting its presence in Myanmar. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Myanmar last week and called for the complete dismantling of sanctions against that country. Do not be surprised if Russia makes offers to build a nuclear power plant in Myanmar or to sell weapons. Interestingly, Lavrov’s visit to Naypyidaw coincided with the visit of a team of US nuclear officials to negotiate a safeguards regime that allows inspection of Myanmar’s suspected atomic sites.

Meanwhile, Japan’s new Finance Minister Taro Aso also picked Myanmar for one of the first overseas trips by a member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet that took office last month. Tokyo plans to provide Myanmar with a 50-billion yen ($574 million) loan by the end of March and to continue with previously announced plans to waive debt that it is owed.

Clearly, there is a beeline leading to Myanmar and the speed with which Beijing advanced the construction of the two pipelines should not come as surprise. Direct foreign investment into Myanmar increased by 40 percent last year to touch a record level of $3.99 billion. According to the Asian Development Bank forecasts, Myanmar’s gross domestic product may expand 6.3 percent this year after an estimated 6 percent gain in 2012. «Myanmar could become one of the next rising stars in Asia if it can successfully leverage its rich endowments,» the ADB forecast said.

China accounts for about half of the foreign investment Myanmar has attracted since 2008. But the equation is changing, although China’s influence in Naypyidaw remains formidable. In 2011, Myanmar abruptly halted work on the $3.6 billion Myitsone hydropower dam across the Irrawaddy River that was being built with China Power Investment Corp., on the ground that the project was against the «will of the people.» China Power viewed the development as «bewildering» but Beijing was determined not to feel disheartened. Meanwhile, the CNPC continued with its work on building the pipelines.

How does it all add up? Like in Central Asia, a multi-vector Great Game in the South Asian region is apparent, which devolves upon many processes such as the US’s «rebalancing», China’s assertiveness, Russia’s re-entry as a global power, Japan’s quest for economic revival, politics of energy security and so on.

The regional security scenario in the Indian Ocean is poised to transform phenomenally when these processes advance. Much is going to depend on the fate of the US-Russia «reset» and on how the US-China rivalries will play out in Asia in the coming period. However, a qualitative difference will be that unlike in the ASEAN region, the US has been historically an «outsider» in the South Asian region.

Except for Pakistan, South Asian countries kept away from building cold-war alliances with the US against the Soviet Union. Quite obviously, the US’ pressure tactics toward Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh (and even Myanmar) in the most recent years failed to work.

Therefore, it is highly improbable that any of the South Asian countries will cooperate with the US’ containment strategy toward China (or Russia). Suffice to say, the advantage goes to China and Russia if they are interested in a «pivot» to South Asia… If only China and Russia can reconcile their divergent priorities within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the grouping could even emerge as a regional platform bringing together the countries of South Asia.
 

The United States has just been admitted to the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) as a «dialogue partner». In essence, the United States has received the same type of membership in the thirteen-year old Indian Ocean regional bloc as NATO has afforded to countries like Australia and Japan. There is little doubt that NATO and Washington see American associate status in IOR-ARC as a vehicle for bringing more nations to the East into the NATO fold. The United States joins NATO nations France, Britain, and NATO «global partners» Japan, Pakistan, and Egypt as an associate partner of the IOR-ARC.

India, which has served as chair of IOR-ARC since 2011, will turn over the chair to Australia in 2013. Under India’s chairmanship, the United States became a dialogue partner, and with close U.S. military ally Australia in charge from 2013-2015, IOC-ARC cooperation with NATO can be expected to grow even closer. The other IOR-ARC dialogue partner is China, and the politics behind America’s entry into Indian Ocean regional bloc politics can only be seen as a further attempt by Washington and its allies to resurrect the old George F. Kennan Cold War-era anti-Soviet «containment» policy and apply it to China.

By island-hopping through the Indian Ocean, NATO can eventually use the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN’s) regional forum, in which NATO members Canada, the United States, and NATO members in the European Union, as well as U.S. NATO global partner allies Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, have dialogue partner status, to extend NATO’s reach from the Indian Ocean into the Asia-Pacific region. It is clear that NATO intends to become a global security bloc that would see the world in two-dimensional «NATO versus anyone else» terms.

Currently there are 28 members of NATO. Other nations in Europe waiting in the wings for full membership are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Adding NATO global partners Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mongolia to the Mediterranean Dialogue countries of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and perhaps, soon, Libya and the ICI countries of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, and the true «road map» of NATO expansion comes into sharper focus.

IOR-AOC partner status will give the United States the diplomatic offices to convince the group to align itself with NATO, just as a joint Turkish-American initiative convinced the Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE to sign up for the ICI.

With Australia at the helm of the IOR-ARC from 2013 to 2015 and considering the fact that the Australian Labor Party of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Liberal-National Coalition of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott outdo each other in following the dictates of Washington, NATO will be in a commanding position to bring IOR-ARC nations into the western alliance’s firm grip. The easiest nations to convince will be those having an existing military relationship with the United States and/or Britain: Kenya, Oman, Seychelles, Mauritius, Thailand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Nations where France has influence, Madagascar and Comoros, will quickly fall into line.

Indonesia, India, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mozambique will see the economic benefits of cooperating with NATO. That will leave Malaysia, South Africa, and more interestingly, Iran, left out of the equation. However, NATO’s propaganda arm, which cleverly disguises its operations and those of the Central Intelligence Agency through the financing of non-governmental organizations associated with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, has trained its sights on the governments of Malaysia, South Africa, and Iran. The goal is to replace the governments of the three nations with more subservient regimes that will follow Washington’s and NATO’s orders.

It is clear that Washington is relying on the Gillard government in Canberra to extend NATO’s and America’s military influence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. After attending the NATO Summit in Chicago in May 2012, Gillard agreed to a major presence of U.S. naval and air bases in Darwin and Perth, as well as the establishment of a drone base on the Australian-administered Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean. There have been suggestions that Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted in a parliamentary coup organized by the CIA and its Australian counterparts because Rudd was not keen on Australia’s closer military ties with the United States and NATO. Rudd reportedly favored a more independent and Asia-oriented foreign policy. If Rudd was a victim of a «perfectly-democratic» CIA coup, he would not have been the first victim. Independent-minded Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was deposed in a CIA-initiated constitutional coup in 1975. Whitlam was replaced by Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser, who, like Gillard, was more in synch with Washington’s wishes.

To be fair, Fraser, who is now 82, was one of the first Australian leaders who came out against the U.S. base expansion in Australia. In 2009, Fraser left the Liberal Party, criticizing its leader, Abbott, as a «conservative» and not a «liberal». Earlier, Fraser’s denunciation of Bush’s war policies, earned him the wrath of neo-cons in the Liberal Party, one of whom called the former prime minister a «frothing-at-the-mouth leftie» who supported Islamic fundamentalists. The criticism was similar to other knee-jerk character assassinations launched against anyone who disagreed with the neo-con, Israel-genuflecting, globalized NATO crowd. Whitlam, who is 96, patched things up with Fraser long ago. In 1996, they united to support Australia breaking its ties with the British crown and becoming a republic. Both were keenly aware that it was the Queen’s appointed Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, a longtime CIA asset, who engineered Whitlam’s ouster in 1975.

Expansion of NATO into a global military pact has its roots in the George W. Bush administration and, specifically, in a 2006 proposal floated by Bush’s ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder. Writing in the Council on Foreign Relations publication Foreign Affairs, Daalder proffered a neo-conservative dream: a «Global NATO» bringing into full membership South Africa, Japan, Brazil, and Australia. Arch-neocon publisher Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of his desire for his home country of Australia to become a full member of NATO. Many leading Zionists in the United States, Canada, and Britain have called for full NATO membership for Israel. Other neo-cons see a NATO with Singapore, New Zealand, South Korea, and India as full members.

The Mediterranean, ICI, and IOR-ARC moves by the United States are laying the groundwork for global NATO expansion. There is one development that could stand in NATO’s way: the fragmentation of NATO members from within, The possibilities of an independent Scotland splitting from England, an independent Quebec separating from Canada, and arising from the potentially failed states of Belgium, Spain, and Italy, independent Flanders, Catalonia, and Venice, may be the internal cancer that finally metastasizes into a disease that kills off NATO, once and for all.