Monday, January 4, 2021
Trump’s Call Leaves Allies Fearful for American Democracy
By Steven Erlanger
Many now take the president’s disregard for democratic and ethical norms for granted, but also fear its effect on America’s standing in the world.
President Trump’s extraordinary, wheedling telephone call to state officials in Georgia seeking to overturn the election results there has shaken many Europeans — not so much for what it reveals about Mr. Trump himself, but for what it may portend for the health of American democracy.
With just 16 days left in his presidency, Mr. Trump’s capacity to shock the world with his epic self-centeredness and disregard for democratic and ethical norms is vanishing. The president has revealed himself many times before this latest episode, when he badgered and threatened Georgia officials to “find” him the votes needed to flip the state.
But if Mr. Trump has not moved on, the world has. Foreign leaders are looking forward, even as many worry that the Trump effect will last for years, damaging trust in American predictability and reliability.
“A lot of people will just roll their eyes and wait for the clock to run down,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, the British research institution. “But by far the most troubling thing is the number of Republicans who are willing to go along with him, and what it’s doing to the Republican Party, playing out in real time.”
A group of House Republicans has vowed to challenge Joseph R. Biden’s Electoral College win on Wednesday when Congress meets to certify it, and at least a dozen Republican senators are expected to join them, forcing a vote though it is all but certain to fail.
With Mr. Trump continuing to have such a hold over the party and winning more than 74 million votes in November, Ms. Vinjamuri said, “It shows us that it will be incredibly difficult to govern the country in the next year or so.”
If so many Americans feel that the election was fraudulent, “it looks like America can’t even secure the most fundamental norms of democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, when losers have to accept that they lost,” she said.
Indeed to distant observers, the corrosive effects of Mr. Trump’s presidency are not isolated to Mr. Trump himself but extend far beyond the president — to the deep coterie of enablers around him, in the White House and his party, and even to an American public where significant numbers themselves believe that their democracy has been compromised and cannot be trusted.
The dangers that entail for foreign allies are manifold and will not be easily dispelled even with a new president. But they are raising special concerns before Mr. Trump exits.Foreign leaders are looking forward, but many worry that the Trump effect will last for years, damaging trust in American predictability and reliability.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaking in Wilmington, Del., last week. Foreign leaders are looking forward, but many worry that the Trump effect will last for years, damaging trust in American predictability and reliability.Credit...Amr Alfiky/The New York Times
Patrick Chevallereau, a former French military officer now at RUSI, a defense research institution in London, said that the Trump call “shows that the current president is in a mind-set to do anything — absolutely anything — before Jan. 20. There is zero standard, zero reference, zero ethics.” He added: “Everything else than himself can be destroyed and collapse, including us.”
Thomas Wright, an Irish-born expert on America at the Brookings Institution, said that “People are worried for real that Trump will come back.” The months since the election have shown people “just how bad a second term would have been — the guardrails off, a completely personalized government and giving voice to his authoritarian tendencies,” he said.
“Now the rest of the world understands that Trump could actually make a comeback in 2024, so that is a shadow that he will cast over American politics,” Mr. Wright said.
World leaders “all know that Trump is sort of crazy, but it’s the extremity of his actions, the lengths to which he has gone, that he got 74 million votes and is not retiring but will be a force for the Republicans” that is disconcerting, he added. “People knew what Trump is like, but the importance is the shadow of the future.”
Also troubling to many is the letter that the last 10 living secretaries of defense all signed urging the nation — and the military — to accept that the election is over and “the time for questioning the results has passed.”
Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a former French and United Nations diplomat who is president of the International Crisis Group, asked on Twitter: “Should we be reassured on U.S. democracy when 10 former defense secretaries warn against use of the military to dispute election results, or terrified that they believe taking a public stance has become necessary?”
The current acting secretary of defense, Christopher C. Miller, has not cooperated fully with the transition team of Mr. Biden Jr., while Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, whom Mr. Trump recently pardoned, has called for martial law and had a meeting at the White House, and that has clearly caused concern.
“It’s the things we don’t know that are scary,” Ms. Vinjamuri said. “We don’t know who else in the Pentagon is not cooperating, and it’s worrisome that these former secretaries clearly felt they had to issue a warning to people in the Pentagon that they need to uphold their oath to the Constitution.”
François Heisbourg, a French security analyst, jokingly asked, “How many wars can you start in 16 days?” But he, too, was struck by the autocratic tone of the Trump call and the hold Mr. Trump continues to have on so many key members of the Republican Party.
If the Senate runoffs in Georgia produce Republican victories on Tuesday “despite this impeachable phone call,” Mr. Heisbourg said, “the international reaction will be that the Republicans are not going to divorce Trumpism — after all, while Trump lost, they didn’t lose the legislative elections but did better than two years ago. Trump’s ability to get a grip on the party and keep it to the end is what is stunning and what scares people outside,” he said.
For others, Mr. Trump’s behavior is by now taken for granted, but so are its debilitating effects on America’s democracy and its standing in the world.
Laurence Nardon, head of the North America program at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, said that the Trump call was “more of the same,” so not especially shocking. “American soft power, as a model of democracy, is damaged by Trump’s actions,” she said. “But I think we have understood that his practice of power is an exception, even if his election is not an accident.”
Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, said that in general, “Europeans are no longer surprised by anything Trump does, but more disbelief that someone like Trump was ever president.”
There is confidence in the American system, Mr. Niblett said. “But what is more worrying is how many significant Republican players believe that it will do them good to play to this gallery, this scorched-earth, fake, disinformation politics, in which you raise doubts in people’s minds about your own democracy and than use those doubts politically.”
The big risk, he said, is that even if the American system can turn aside authoritarianism, “there could be a really brutal dynamic that makes it hard for America to be the partner people overseas need and hope for.”
After this phone call, Germans are holding their breath about what Mr. Trump might do next, said Jana Puglierin, director of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “News like this confirms everything that Germans have been hearing in the media for the past four years,” she said.
The letter of the former defense secretaries was also an eye-opener in Berlin. “They realized this is serious,” Ms. Puglierin said. “That they see a reason to write such a letter is shocking.”
Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, a research institution, said that “President Trump’s desperate efforts to interfere with the election results and subvert America’s democracy are now almost universally regarded in Westminster as a pitiful last howl at the moon.”
More optimistically, she said: “What is clear is that the tremendous impact that Trump’s administration has had on America’s standing in the world is coming to an end. There are high hopes for Biden to restore America’s moral mission, and the focus in Britain is entirely on looking forward, identifying areas of alignment and common interest with the new Biden administration.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/world/europe/brad-raffensperger-trump-call.html
Opinion: Why Congress Should Impeach Trump Again
The emergence of an audio recording of President Trump pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the results of the election is a harrowing moment in the history of our democracy. And though the number of his days in office is dwindling, the only appropriate response is to impeach Mr. Trump. Again. Whether he acknowledges it or not, President Trump is leaving the White House on Jan. 20 — but right now, there is nothing stopping him from running in 2024. That is a terrifying prospect, because the way he has conducted himself over the past two months, wielding the power of the presidency to try to steal another term in office, has threatened one of our republic’s most essential traditions: the peaceful transfer of power. Fortunately, our founders anticipated we would face a moment like this, which is one reason Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution entrusts Congress with the power not only to remove a president but also to prevent him or her from ever holding elected office again. Mr. Trump’s conduct over the past two months has left our legislators with no choice but to use it. That impeachment inquiry would take time, far more than Mr. Trump has left in office. But it would be well worth it. Since the election was called in favor of President-elect Joe Biden, Mr. Trump has been relentlessly fomenting doubts about its legitimacy — even as many federal and state courts, including ones whose judges were appointed by Mr. Trump himself, have ruled against his claims. He has reportedly inquired about the idea of enlisting the help of the military to keep him in power. Most recently, on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, he said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.” He added: “We won this state,” even though he didn’t. In a democracy, you don’t find votes. You count them. Most strikingly, Mr. Trump threatened the Georgia officials with criminal prosecution if they didn’t comply, saying leaving the vote counts intact would be a “big risk.” This kind of threat may sound familiar, because an eerily similar abuse of power led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment just over a year ago. Senator Susan Collins of Maine explained her vote to acquit him by saying she thought he had learned “a pretty big lesson.” Clearly, Mr. Trump learned a different lesson — that he was above the law. It’s just as William Davie from North Carolina, discussing the position of the presidency at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, predicted: A president who viewed himself to be unimpeachable, he said in 1787, would “spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.” It’s time for Congress, once and for all, to put an end to this. No one wants to put the country through the turmoil of another impeachment. But we also can’t afford to look the other way — for several reasons. For one, we must establish a precedent that a president who tries to cheat his way to re-election will be held accountable. Sure, this attempt may not have succeeded, but a failed coup should itself be alarming enough. And who is to say there won’t be a closer election in the future, with a more competent authoritarian candidate — whose party also has control of the House of Representatives? We need to make sure that Congress has ensured that candidates cannot strong-arm their way into re-election. We also need to set a precedent that a lame duck president can still be held accountable. If an incumbent, say, threatened to nuke Iran unless the Electoral College sided with him, we would want to have a mechanism by which we could remove him from office. In our Constitution, impeachment is that mechanism, but it is worthless if we never use it. And last, we cannot risk Mr. Trump’s becoming president again — or for that matter, even running again with a chance of winning. This isn’t a point about ideology; it’s a reflection of the fact that our system may not be able to withstand this lawless man returning to the highest office in the land. Emboldened by our failure to hold him accountable for abusing his power in his first term, who knows what he would do in a nonconsecutive second term? The damage to our institutions from his first four years in office will take generations to undo. Our democracy might not be able to handle another four.Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, was able to protect Mr. Trump the last time — no doubt because he was afraid of what a truly rigorous trial might show. But he may no longer be able to do so. For one thing, Mr. Trump will soon lack the power of the presidency to dole out favors and punish his enemies. For another, the Senate composition will be different. Already, Democrats have flipped seats in Arizona and Colorado. Republicans who voted to acquit him, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have shown signs they are finally willing to stand up to him. And Georgians will go to the polls to decide who will represent them in the Senate. Mr. Trump’s preferred senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, would no doubt try to block an inquiry into his misdeeds. But if these senators lose their seats, a full and robust inquiry in the Senate could be the result, with Chuck Schumer as majority leader. In 2008, a young member of the Judiciary Committee said, “The business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the United States put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service.” That congressman’s name was Mike Pence — and he was exactly right. We need to convict President Trump and make sure he can never call the White House home again. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/trump-georgia-impeach.htmlAnd this time, he should be convicted. The country cannot risk his becoming president again.
#Pakistan #PPP - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stands as the tallest icon and pioneer of struggle for democracy and equal rights in the country
Former Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stands as the tallest icon and pioneer of struggle for democracy and equal rights in the country, said Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari paying a glowing tribute.In his message on the eve of 93rd birthday anniversary of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the PPP Chairman said that Shaheed Bhutto picked up the shattered pieces of Pakistan following Dhakka fall and inspired a politically demoralised population by rejuvenating the dream of the founders of the nation. “Through his political wisdom and sagacity, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto not only had 90,000 Prisoners of War (PoWs) freed and thousands of square kilometers occupied by the enemy vacated, he also laid foundations of nuclear power to safeguard the country from repetition of such debacles in future,” he added.Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that no patriotic Pakistani can forget the plans and efforts to strengthen the economy of the country launching macro and micro level industrialisations, education institutions, a unanimous Constitution, lifting up the poor and political empowerment of every segment of the society. “What he did in a half century life for the country is unmatched in the post-Quaid-e-Azam Pakistan for which he was murdered through judiciary by the enemies of the country and its democratic order,” he added. He reiterated that PPP would follow the foot-steps of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and carry forward their struggle till their mission if achieved despite threats, hurdles, victimisations and highhandedness by the remnants of Dictator Zia and their henchmen.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24254/
#HappyBirthdaySZAB #Pakistan #PPP - The vision of Z A Bhutto
By Senator Rehman Malik
This day of April 4 reminds us of the judicial murder of a great charismatic public leader Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1979 – a day that was actually the death of humanity. He ruled the hearts of the people as he gave a voice to poor masses.
History will neither forgive nor forget the murder of a leader who wanted to make us progressive and peaceful, to take us towards national integrity and prosperity by empowering the masses, and by making Pakistan the first Muslim nuclear power in the world. He feared that Pakistan would be exposed to external danger by neighbouring India and therefore announced, “We (Pakistan) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own (nuclear bomb), we have no other choice.”
Bhutto refused to succumb to international pressure to roll back Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Gerald Feuerstein, who was a witness to the meeting between Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Lahore in August 1976, admitted in an interview that Bhutto rejected the warning to roll back or compromise Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a distinguished leader in the history of Pakistan who imparted the lesson of peace and humanity to the rest of the world.
Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hurt for his people, country and the Muslim Ummah, and he made history by bringing the Ummah on one platform during the Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore in 1974. He was not only a distinguished national leader but also an unparalleled statesman who revived a broken nation after the disaster of the fall of Dhaka by bringing back 90,000 prisoners of war. The public must know that the enemies of Pakistan decided to eliminate him after he refused the rollback of the nuclear programme despite numerous pressures and threats of making him a “horrible example”.
CIA hatched a plan to block communism, using Islam through General Zia-ul-Haq. He preached his own brand of Islam wherein he promoted extremists, terrorists and all kind of criminals under the name of Jehadis. These extremists and criminal elements were brought and nourished by US in Pakistan for launching them in Afghanistan to operate.
I got an invitation for an official function at the Army House once, but it was this black day in the history of Pakistan, as on this day, the Chief Justice of Pakistan upheld the death sentence of Bhutto. He received many greetings and commendations for his judgment. General Zia-ul-Haq, standing next to the Chief Justice was also receiving greetings from his own created politicians and senior colleagues. They were essentially celebrating the death of a charismatic leader who dreamt of Pakistan leading the world.
They killed and buried Bhutto mysteriously but hid his brave daughter. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, the first woman Prime Minister of the Muslim world, signified the political rebirth of her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s legacy. She suffered the most in the hands of Zia-ul-Haq and his remnants but eventually she witnessed the crashing of C-130B Hercules aircraft where even remains of the body of Zia-ul-Haq could not be found. The wrath of Allah Almighty also fell on Justice Moulvi Mushtaq who had awarded death sentence to Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as well.
As Director FIA, I took it upon myself to look into old files of the judicial murder of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, where I found some tampered documents. I will soon write a book detailing the conspiracy behind Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s ‘judicial murder’, which was carried out through a premeditated plan. General Zia-ul-Haq’s government changed the documents but the entire world declared it a ‘judicial murder’. I appreciate the honesty of the then Director Law of FIA who had clearly stated the shells of the bullets were replaced, witnesses were tampered, and Masood Mahmood was tutored under duress.
General Zia-ul-Haq tried to eliminate Bhuttoism by killing Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto but he still rules the hearts of the people while Zia-ul-Haq was seen as a disgrace in the world. We know almost all those Muslim leaders who participated in the Second Islamic Summit Conference held from February 22-24, 1974 in Lahore died unnatural deaths. Undoubtedly, the killing of all these Muslim leaders cannot be a coincidence but an operation to punish them and to give a message to the Muslim world.
In my humble capacity, I will soon expose those facts which are buried in files from those who are mum. Us PPP workers and President Asif Ali Zardari, filed a reference to Supreme Court but the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry did not take it up. I, therefore, appeal to the present Chief Justice to take up this case to vindicate the position of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a distinguished leader in the history of Pakistan who imparted the lesson of peace and humanity to the rest of the world. He gave voice to the poor and oppressed people of Pakistan and empowered them to stand for their rights. I had the honour to work with three Bhuttos, first with Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and thereafter Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto – my leader, mentor and sister – followed by Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari – the only hope for Pakistan’s future. I feel proud to have personal and political association with the Bhutto and Zardari families. Like Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto who carried on Bhutto’s legacy more powerfully and bravely, I find the same bravery, wisdom, vision and far-sightedness in Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Bhutto’s ideology was popular throughout the world and he could have saved his life if had compromised with a dictator, which was an impossible notion for a leader of the people. Today, Pakistan is secure only due to Bhutto’s vision. The future belongs to PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as he is the only one who truly has the guts to fill Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s boots. Bilawal is the future Prime Minister of Pakistan InshaAllah, and the people can see a Bhutto among themselves once again.
Pakistanis see a ray of hope in Chairman Bilawal Bhutto to pull the nation out of crisis. He is rightly following in the footprints of Z A Bhutto and SMBB and we will soon witness him be successful in his mission.
https://nation.com.pk/04-Apr-2020/the-vision-of-z-a-bhutto
OP-ED: #HappyBirthdaySZAB #Pakistan #PPP - I wish Shaheed Bhutto were alive today
Manufacturers have ensured its cost to be accessible to the reach the pockets of the most poor. According to experts Oxford’s vaccine can be stored at fridge temperature, Moderna requires storage at -20o C; Pfizer at an Arctic -78o C. The comparative cost of the doses is debatable. According to a report estimated cost is $39 for two doses for the Pfizer vaccine, $50 for two doses of Moderna, and a low $3 a dose for the Oxford. The Oxford loaves-and-fishes miracle might be made possible through Covax, a global initiative that hopes to distribute about 2bn doses to 92 low- and middle-income countries at a maximum cost of $3 a dose. On the other hand, what was once an iron curtain, Putin’s Russia has developed its own Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik-V) vaccine. As against oft repeated promises of providing vaccine to its poor people free of cost, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a massive ‘voluntary’ free vaccination programme against COVID-19. It is another thing that the Russians are finding it hard to have volunteers for its massive vaccination programme. It faces much similar opposition from its clergy as we in Pakistan have been facing in the execution of polio immunisation programme.
Despite the fact that the masses appreciated Generic Scheme as a major healthcare reform, it became a sordid victim of the conspiracy by the international pharmaceutical conglomerate and greedy Pakistani bureaucracy
As compared to others our Chinese friends have been pursuing a parallel programme. China has been concentrating on two state-sponsored vaccines – Sinovac and Sinopharm. Although they have not been tested to the nth degree, these Chinese vaccines, like Covid-19 itself, have been exported already to other countries, hopefully with less lethal consequences. In Pakistan Imran Khan’s approach is much more quixotic. On the other hand PDM being a larger mulla created platform is busy what is at best be described as bullshitting distractions. While the PTI government under IK is busy bemoaning financial bankruptcy having no money for its dilapidated medicare – with greater emphasis on Covid-19 prevention rather than its cure. Having established his own ShaukatKhanum Memorial Cancer Hospital IK seems to have accomplished his life longambition, while leaving rest of healthcare to privatised social distancing, leaving it to the masses to self-restraint while allowing free for all in larger social gatherings such as weddings etc.
US Congress passes Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act
The US Congress has passed a bill named after Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai aimed at expanding the number of scholarships to women in Pakistan. The scholarships will be awarded under a merit and needs-based programme. The Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act was passed by the US House of Representatives in March 2020, according to the information posted on the US Congress website. The US Senate recently adopted the bill by a voice vote. It has now been sent to President Donald Trump to sign it into a law. The bill requires the USAID to award at least 50 per cent of scholarships to Pakistani women, the Radio Pakistan reported. These scholarships will be provided across a range of academic disciplines and in accordance with the existing eligibility criteria. In 2012, a Taliban gunman shot Yousafzai in the head for campaigning for girls’ education but she survived. She became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. The Pakistani Nobel laureate graduated from the University of Oxford in June 2020. https://www.samaa.tv/education/2021/01/us-congress-passes-malala-yousafzai-scholarship-act/It aims to expand scholarships for Pakistani women.
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