Author Archives: Bill Humphrey

Bill Humphrey

About Bill Humphrey

Bill Humphrey is the primary host of WVUD's Arsenal For Democracy talk radio show and a local elected official.

Burundi: Major military coup attempt in progress

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Update May 15, 2015: The coup has failed.

A military coup attempt is in progress after weeks of demonstrations against the president’s unconstitutional re-election bid for a third term and against his violent security forces or youth paramilitaries. BBC Africa covered the blow-by-blow events of the day on its live feed.

President Pierre Nkurunziza was in Tanzania for a regional leaders meeting when General Godefroid Niyombare — a former intelligence chief fired in February for advising the president against seeking a third term — took to the airwaves to announce he was closing the airport and borders to keep the president from returning and would be taking power. Protesters began leaving the streets, after initial celebrations alongside the supportive troops, on the orders of pro-coup forces who began arriving in tanks and armored vehicles. Police fell back.

President Nkurunziza’s team said its loyal security forces remained in control of key government and broadcast functions as well as the presidential palace. They dubbed the coup attempt a failure:

“It is with regret that we have learned that a group of soldiers rebelled this morning and made a fake declaration about a coup. The Presidency of the Republic wants the public opinion both in Burundi and abroad to know that this coup attempt has been stopped and that the people who read that statement on private local radio are being sought by the defence and security forces so that they are brought to justice. The Presidency of the Republic is asking the people of Burundi as well as foreigners to keep calm. Everything is being done to maintain security across the national territory.”

 
However, I fear we might be looking at a South Sudan situation in Burundi. The coup attempt may only partially succeed but it will likely not completely fail either (given the large presence of participating tanks and troops already). The military is multi-ethnic and comprises multiple factions from the country’s civil war. Some of them will back the president, some will back the coup, and some will back neither. It will also likely be a more violent split than in Lesotho last summer. And it will certainly not be as clean a break as the Burkina Faso military coup last October, which also involved an unconstitutional re-election bid.

As another complication, Nkurunziza had indeed been elected democratically but was now attempting to violate the constitution and has been widely accused of deploying death squads against his political enemies. Thus the coup is (if successful) removing a democratic leader but one who had become about as undemocratic as possible over the course of his tenure.

Flag of Burundi

Flag of Burundi

May 13, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 127

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Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

AFD-logo-470

Topics: Marco Rubio’s close ties to billionaire Norman Braman; UK election results discussion. People: Bill, Nate. Produced: May 11th, 2015.

Discussion Points:

– Has presidential candidate and US Senator Marco Rubio crossed an ethics line with his billionaire patron, Norman Braman?
– What if anything does the 2015 UK election outcome mean for Labour’s future? Should US Democrats take any lessons one way or the other?

Episode 127 (49 min):
AFD 127

Related Links

– Guardian: “2015 UK general election results in full”
– AFD: “Marco Rubio’s Miami Vice”
– NYT: “Billionaire Lifts Marco Rubio, Politically and Personally”

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Seymour Hersh kind of went around the bend

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Seymour Hersh’s “reporting” is getting more bananas by the year. It’s a real shame to watch a respected investigative journalist — who broke stories like the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal — go into a a total tailspin in public. His Syria chemical attack claims in 2013/2014 were so thoroughly debunked that I just assumed he made up the (highly questionable) Bin Laden story / conspiracy theory as soon as it “broke.” Vox:

A decade ago, Hersh was one of the most respected investigative journalists on the planet, having broken major stories from the My Lai massacre in 1969 to the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004. But more recently, his reports have become less and less credible. He’s claimed that much of the US special forces is controlled by secret members of Opus Dei, that the US military flew Iranian terrorists to Nevada for training, and that the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Syria was a “false flag” staged by the government of Turkey. Those reports have had little proof and, rather than being borne out by subsequent investigations, have been either unsubstantiated or outright debunked. A close reading of Hersh’s bin Laden story suggests it is likely to suffer the same fate.

 
I hadn’t even heard about the speech in 2011 where he said racist things and tried to allege that the US military ranks were filled with members of Opus Dei (like from the Dan Brown books, not the real ones).

There’s a certain set of people who keep citing his reports even when it’s increasingly clear they’re ludicrous paranoia because they already believe the conspiracy theories he’s validating.

Based on personal experience when I was a little kid growing up with aging relatives with certain genetic predispositions, I assume we’re going to find out later that 78-year-old Hersh has been suffering from dementia. But my relatives losing their grip on reality weren’t hugely influential journalists with major platforms. His home publication (the New Yorker) has reportedly stopped printing his stories (because they can’t be supported/confirmed) and he’s responded with tantrums. This “story” about Bin Laden and the last big report were only published in London.

Complicating things is that he has genuinely reported on actual coverups before. So it’s likely that anything disproving his “research” or “sources” on stories now is just convincing him in his confusion that there’s an even more massive coverup or conspiracy afoot when really there isn’t in this case. Coverups typically only work when there are few people involved and the incident being covered is fairly small and low-profile. They fall apart very quickly for anything bigger because there are simply too many people willing to talk. His latest allegation involves a vast multi-national intergovernmental conspiracy involving one of these least-reliably secretive intelligence outfits in the world (Pakistan’s ISI), and Hersh has convinced himself based on very thin and indirect sourcing that everyone has managed to keep their mouths shut for four years.

I’m afraid people with less reputable journalistic platforms are taking advantage of Seymour Hersh’s increasingly obvious disconnect with reality to get clicks and attention.

Authority Figure

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Recep-Tayyip-ErdoganIn March, I noted that as part of Erdogan’s increasingly erratic and authoritarian behaviors, anti-“Insult” crackdowns on free speech are mounting in Turkey. Erdogan’s immoderate behavior of the last two years (since the Gezi Park riots) is complex and motivated by many factors — some reasonable, others less so. But as I’ve argued many times before, it fits a pattern of political practices that are fairly consistent with Turkish (and maybe even pre-Turkish Ottoman) political culture, and I do not believe his actions and statements are uniquely egregious or related to his political affiliation as an Islamist democrat.

I just ran across an interesting piece from Mustafa Akyol, April 10, 2014 (during the run-up to Erdogan’s successful presidential campaign last year), headlined “Turkey’s doctrine of pre-emptive authoritarianism” for Al-Monitor, which goes more into depth on the political culture angle and how (at least) some of this has been “performed” authoritarianism:

This doctrine, which has not been observed much in Turkey simply because it is taken as a fact of life, is based on a simple rule: In every political confrontation, the thing to do is to be as strong, defiant, stubborn and threatening as possible. Only then, the enemy will be crushed and victory will be secured. Otherwise, the enemy will begin to come after you, defeat you and will show no mercy. So, you should pre-emptively corner and weaken him as much as possible.

This doctrine does not believe in peaceful solutions that will come through negotiation, bargaining and consensus. Reasonable concessions, which could normally lead to such consensus-based solutions, are condemned as naivete, weakness and perhaps not outright treason.
[…]
It is not a first step forward toward reconciliation. It is rather the first step back toward downfall. Once the malicious people on the other side see your concession, they will become only more invigorated and aggressive. So you should keep them at bay by never accepting any of their demands and showing them how tough you are.
[…]
This is why while Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism puzzles the West, it makes him only more popular at home among his conservative base. In fact, most conservatives love Erdogan precisely for being so defiant. One could see this feeling on the huge posters of Erdogan that were put up all around Istanbul during the recent election campaign: They carried a resolute pose of the prime minister and two simple words: “iron will.”

To be sure, it is not just Erdogan’s supporters who love an iron will, but most of his opponents as well. For decades, Turkey’s secularists praised Ataturk’s authoritarian legacy and rallied behind the military, which insisted in oppressing the “reactionaries” and the “separatists,” or religious conservatives and Kurdish nationalists, with all means possible.

 
Obviously I’m not excusing any of this, because it’s consistently one of Turkey’s biggest political culture failings. And I don’t think historical context and behavior automatically exculpates Erdogan himself. But I think it’s important to see that there is a wider/longer context, so that it’s not blamed on his faith or political affiliation, which I think has been wrongly implicated by some commentators who have an agenda of tearing down democratic political Islam and the religion generally.

Marco Rubio’s Miami Vice

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Don’t feel bad, Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. We found someone probably as corrupt as you to run for president while you’re in prison — Sen. Marco Rubio of Miami, Florida:

As Mr. Rubio has ascended in the ranks of Republican politics, Mr. Braman has emerged as a remarkable and unique patron. He has bankrolled Mr. Rubio’s campaigns. He has financed Mr. Rubio’s legislative agenda. And, at the same time, he has subsidized Mr. Rubio’s personal finances, as the rising politician and his wife grappled with heavy debt and big swings in their income.
[…]
A detailed review of their relationship shows that Mr. Braman, 82, has left few corners of Mr. Rubio’s world untouched. He hired Mr. Rubio, then a Senate candidate, as a lawyer; employed his wife to advise the Braman family’s philanthropic foundation; helped cover the cost of Mr. Rubio’s salary as an instructor at a Miami college; and gave Mr. Rubio access to his private plane.

The money has flowed both ways. Mr. Rubio has steered taxpayer funds to Mr. Braman’s favored causes, successfully pushing for an $80 million state grant to finance a genomics center at a private university and securing $5 million for cancer research at a Miami institute for which Mr. Braman is a major donor.

 
Rubio seems pretty convinced that this is all above-board because he doesn’t try to hide any of his extensive campaign finance ties and personal (financial) relationships to Braman. I guess that’s the John Roberts school of non-corruption: If it’s fully transparent and there’s no explicit quid pro quo of money for favors/contracts, then it must not be corrupt.

However, it’s not even clear that there isn’t some kind of quid pro quo, formal or otherwise. It’s not pay-to-play, but Rubio certainly seems willing and eager to play as a thank you for all the paying.

“What is the conflict?” [Rubio] asked. “I don’t ever recall Norman Braman ever asking for anything for himself.” He acknowledged that Mr. Braman had approached him about state aid for projects, such as funding for cancer research, but said that he had supported the proposals on their merits.
[…]
Mr. Braman acknowledged seeking the occasional “small favor” from Mr. Rubio’s Senate office. There was the daughter of the woman who does his nails, Mr. Braman recalled, who had an immigration problem, and the student from Tampa who wanted a shot at military school. In both cases, he said, Mr. Rubio’s staff was quick to respond. (Mr. Rubio’s staff said it had decided not to recommend the Tampa student.)

 
Um, ok. Whatever this is, maybe it’s not strictly speaking illegal, but it’s certainly against the spirit of ethics and anti-corruption laws and principles. It’s disproportionate and narrow favoritism for a specific wealthy benefactor.

And I guess Rubio would probably suggest he’s not the only one doing this kind of thing and just happens to be one of the least affluent and most indebted high-profile U.S. politicians (and certainly is one of the least cash-flush presidential candidates on a personal basis).

There’s a lot more in the NY Times article (quoted above) about how much Rubio has benefited from Braman’s support. The latter has been saying he was going to make Rubio president since before he was even in the U.S. Senate — and he’s paid for most of the steps to get him close to that goal.

marco-rubio

What Bernie Sanders stands for

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I’m delighted to see the media taking the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign quasi-seriously, which is way better than my expectations. For example, this LA Times op-ed:

Let’s consider some of Sanders’ wild ideas:
– Free college tuition.
– A $1 trillion program to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges.
– Break up giant financial institutions.
– Publicly funded elections.
– Higher taxes on the wealthy.
– Government-run healthcare.
[…] he will have done this country a great service if, through his blunt talk and grandfatherly presence, he gets more citizens to stop being distracted by scare stories and political labels and to start considering ideas on their merits. A 40-hour work week, a minimum wage and restrictions on child labor were once thought of as subversive, socialist doctrines, but they have turned out to be pretty good ideas for Americans — except maybe for the billionaires.

 
(NOTE: Each point is further elaborated and commented on in the full piece. I’ve just included the headers above.)

This 1989 Bernie Sanders interview on C-SPAN is incredibly compelling television, even at 40 minutes long:

Obviously I think he’s changed his mind on some things, procedurally at least. After all, he’s not running as an independent or third-party candidate this time. Still, it’s pretty riveting.

Exit polls paint bleak picture in UK for anti-Conservative bloc

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According to current exit polling from the UK, the Conservatives surged way ahead of pre-election polling and will finish just 10 seats short of a majority. With Lib Dems, far-right UKIP, and conservative unionist Northern Irish parties supporting, they would be able to form a government. The Lib Dems got crushed but still are kingmakers — which is toxic for them since so many LD voters bailed because of their role in the coalition government last time, which would be even less powerful this time around. In fact, the Conservatives seem well positioned to just form a minority government, though I don’t know how long it could last even under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

Labour got all but swept in Scotland by the SNP (i.e. maybe one seat remains) and lost in England to add insult to desperation. They ended up finishing worse than in 2010, contrary to all pre-election polling.

Bottom line from the current exit polling: Conservatives outperformed expectations by quite a lot and will probably lead the next government. Labour screwed up badly on top of their Scotland problems.