Tag: Democracy and Rule of Law
Part 1: Is this what you voted for?
J. F. Carter, US Army (ret LTC) 1968-1992, United Nations (ret D-1) 1992-2009, and European Union (ret D-1) 2009-2011, writes:
Dear Fellow Americans,
It is time to wake up from your slumber and face the truth. Our nation is in peril. Trump’s selection of Hegseth as SecDef and Gabbard as DNI, as well as VP Vance’s statements in Munich in support of the Alternative für Deutschland neofacists, reflect a dramatic change of direction. The President is conceding to Putin’s expansionism and betraying basic American principles. The credibility, rules-based order, national sovereignty, and freedom that have brought prosperity for the past 80 years are at risk.
Putin’s savior
Trump has thrown President Putin a lifeline. The Russian economy and military are exhausted. Ukraine would have prevailed, but Trump blinked. He is the 21st century version of Neville Chamberlain, who surrendered the Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Hitler.
Likewise, Trump is yielding the national security of Ukraine and its citizens to Russia. Secretary of State Rubio will meet Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Saudi Arabia to negotiate a deal. This will be done without consulting Ukraine or the European Union. It will weaken NATO, which stands on the front line with Russia. That makes the US much more vulnerable.
The broader implications
Trump is signaling both Putin and President Xi. They now understand that they can do as they want, even if it means giving up Europe and Taiwan. Trump is also adding fuel to the fire in the Middle East. His pandering to Prime Minister Netanyahu will fuel Arab hatred of the US and inspire ISIS attacks on the US.
There are ongoing discussions of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. We can expect a catastrophic response. Trump is creating the conditions for igniting WWIII, or complete Western capitulation. We can only pray that a new Churchill or Roosevelt will sound the clarion call to reason and freedom.
Gutting American security and economy
To further undercut US security, Trump has gutted USAID and its soft power diplomacy. He and Musk are purging the FBI, CIA and the national intelligence community, as well as our world class military. He will install compliant loyalists. This is akin to Stalin’s purge of the military in the 1930s, which weakened the Soviet defense against Hitler’s army. Perhaps Trump thinks he can make a deal with Putin as Stalin did with Hitler in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. That effort to buy peace between the two totalitarian nations led to catastrophe for both.
Not content with undermining our national standing and security, Trump is also undermining the economy. Tariffs, mass deportations, budget cuts, and gutting of the regulatory and oversight bodies will kill the Biden expansion. The Trump-Musk team fired 300 National Nuclear Security Administration employees and had to hire them back. It has fired 350 EPA and 1000 Veteran Affairs staff, as well as threatening to fire 90,000 IRS staff. How will that help to collect the millions of dollars needed to address the national debt?
Farmers will be particularly hard hit with the loss of markets that will never return. Canada, Mexico, Latin America, and some Asian nations will seek other trading partners. The EU, Russia, and China will benefit. US exports of oil, gas, steel, autos, and agricultural products will be replaced by less mercurial sources.
The budget
Will the average citizen be more financially secure with the MAGA Project 2025 budget proposals? It promises 4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra wealthy and austerity for the rest of us. To partly compensate, $2 trillion in budget cuts are anticipated. These include Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Affairs, supplementary nutrition and aid to 40 million low income families.
The result will be more interest to be paid on the national debt, something traditional Republicans decry. Also a weaker dollar, weaker purchasing power, and much higher inflation. Republican President Lincoln warned:
It is the same old serpent that says work and I will eat. You toil and I will enjoy the fruits thereof.
The rule of law
Trump’s vindictive attacks against our system of jurisprudence and rule of law will further undermine US security. He released the convicted January 6 insurrectionists into society. What example does that set for law enforcement?
Are we now ruled by a mafia oligarchy like Russia? Trump has unleashed an unelected and uncleared citizen, Elon Musk, to access private data in the name of efficiency. This is in exchange for his $225 million donation to the Trump campaign and free unlimited X endorsements. The Trump Administration also tried to award Tesla a $400 million contract for its armored Cybertruck. Only publicity undid the deal. The Age of the Robber Baron is back!
Minorities and opposition
Trump’s people attack minorities, immigrants, non binary peoples, females, free choice, and books not sanctioned by them. Anything other than what their orthodoxy declares legitimate is fair game. Anyone different becomes a target for hatred and vitriol. It is the same scenario that Hitler used against communists, socialists, Jews and non whites. Divide and Rule! Us Against Them! The Soviets, Khmer Rouge and ethnonationalists in Yugoslavia all used these tactics. I personally witnessed it in Cambodia and Yugoslavia.
Hungarian PM Orban, Turkish PM Erdogan, Slovak PM Fico, the German AfD party, and Putin are all in with Trump! They suppress the media and fee speech. They call any opposition the “enemy of the people.” The White House even denied access to the Associated Press because it refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Education and religion
Trump is trying to re-educate and dumb down the public by abolishing the Education Department. His followers are instituting their own curriculum, banning books, and endorsing the Bible in public schools. This violates the First Amendment provision of separation of church and state. The new Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., symbolizes the current anti-science trend.
Are these people Christians as exemplified in the New Testament? Where is their compassion, love of fellow man or even sense of humor?
Questions we need to answer
What can explain Trump/MAGA actions that weaken the US and our allies? Why are they empowering Russia, China and other authoritarians? Have we become so ill educated that we elect inept clowns to entertain us? Where are the competent leaders to set the example of pride, dignity, courage, real strength, and placing country before self?
A small time bully and wanna be mafioso who bends to Al Capone-Putin is leading us to destruction. Are we Rome under Caligula or Nero, awaiting the fall of the Empire? What dirt does Putin have on Trump? Or is he and his ilk fascist at heart? Do they support the German AfD, Orban, and Putin to bring on chaos from which they will profit?
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The America Trump wants is not democratic
NPR broadcast a piece this morning on the dismantling of US democratization efforts abroad.
The Trumpkins/Muskites are cutting the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). NPR doesn’t say, but I assume the International Republican Institute (IRI) is also bleeding out. It gets much of its funding through NED, as does NDI. State Department and USAID funding for democratization is also frozen.
Trump is an authoritarian
This is not surprising. Trump has made it clear he thinks he is above the law:
Vice President Vance in Munich this week lectured the Europeans for their alleged intolerance of authoritarian politics. He also preferred meeting with the head of the neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland(AfD) rather than Germany’s chancellor.
They are not hiding their own identity or their preferences.
It is not just a preference
At home, Trump is doing authoritarian as well as talking it. The Trump-backed Musk cuts are hitting institutions and programs Congress has authorized and to which it has appropriated funds. The President has a sworn obligation to execute those instructions. The House impeached Trump in 2019 for failing to do so with Ukraine assistance. But that can’t happen again so long as Republicans have the majority. Trump is unleashed.
Some Federal courts have begun to order unfreezing of funds and halts or reversal of firings. Trump is not complying. He is defying and pushing back to force escalation of the cases to the Supreme Court. There he hopes the 6-3 majority he created will back his moves. Even if he loses there, the delay will have destroyed most of what Trump and Musk wanted destroyed.
What’s next?
I expect Trump to go after the courts. He will order up impeachments in Congress of a few Federal judges. If he picks weak and vulnerable ones, they will resign to protect themselves. This will precipitate many more resignations, giving him the possibility of filling them with his own, young, yes-people.
I suppose at some point there will be massive demonstrations around the country to object to the authoritarian drift. Trump will order violent police action in response. That’s what he wanted to do in his first term. This time around, he won’t hesitate.
He also won’t hesitate to cut taxes for the rich, as he did in his first term. Some of those big cuts expire at the end of 2025. The Republicans in Congress are lining up to do the deed. They’ll give the working class voters who backed Trump a pittance.
The economy is headed into stagflation. Inflation is already up a tad. The new tariffs and shortage of labor due to deportations will contribute more pressure on prices. Meanwhile the government firings and the added costs of the tariffs to consumers will slow the economy. The stock market, which has experienced a glorious 16 years of rise, will implode. That’s not really a prediction, as I haven’t attached a date to it. But I find it hard to believe we’ll get through the next four years without a bust.
Stopping the craziness
I see little immediate prospect for stopping this craziness. A few Republican defections in the House and Senate would help. But Trump’s threat to primary defectors has worked so far. The only real dissenters among Republicans have been people who aren’t running again.
The first big opportunity will be the November 2026 Congressional elections. All of the House and one third of the Senate will then be up for grabs. But only a handful of seats will be competitive. Winning enough of those to gain a majority in one of the Houses will be existential for the Democrats. And for democracy in America and the world.
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How to solve the Dayton puzzle
Bosnian Fulbrighter Cancar will present tomorrow 11-12:30 at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Please register and join us!
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Serbian civil society boycotts Government
Here’s a statement, published by European Western Balkans, from leading civil society organizations in Serbia, who want nothing to do with a government that is suppressing the student protest movement:
Since the beginning of the student protests in Serbia, we have publicly and unequivocally supported all their demands. The loss of innocent lives in the collapse of the train station canopy in Novi Sad on November 1st last year deeply shook us, as did the violence we are witnessing and the actions of institutions that, instead of fulfilling their duties, are using various maneuvers to suppress the student movement. The students have demonstrated that the movement cannot be suppressed and that the struggle will continue until institutions begin fulfilling their mandates. The rule of law and accountability of public officials must be the foundation of a functioning society. However, Serbia has long ceased to be a country governed by the rule of law.
For years, we have witnessed pressure, attacks, and intimidation campaigns against civil society organizations, human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and citizens who dare to stand up against corruption and abuse of institutions. We see the misuse of state security structures and other institutions for illegal surveillance of activists and the fabrication of criminal and other legal proceedings aimed at intimidating activists and journalists. The pressure on civil society has now taken on an institutional form for the first time through the proposed law on a special register of foreign influence agents, modeled after regulations in Russia and Belarus. In response to all this, the responsible institutions remain silent and fail to perform their fundamental duty – they do not protect citizens or the common good.
In recent days, we have witnessed harassment, arrests, deportations, and entry bans imposed on activists, students, and public figures from abroad. We are also seeing the targeting of citizens with dual citizenship, while convicted war criminals publicly share students’ personal data, thereby endangering their safety.
We are also witnessing authorities attempting to uphold a false facade of democracy and inclusivity in policy-making by formally involving civil society in decision-making processes. However, regardless of how well these initiatives may appear, they are not implemented in practice, and the standards for protecting human rights and freedoms have been in steady decline in recent years. Citizens and civil society have no real opportunity to influence decisions regarding projects and activities that already have or could have a negative impact on their rights, property, health, and safety. Public spaces and services, cultural heritage, and natural resources are being systematically taken from citizens, with the active complicity of public institutions, public servants, and the country’s highest-ranking officials.
Due to all the aforementioned reasons, and guided by the conviction that the rule of law must finally prevail, we have decided to suspend our cooperation with the legislative and executive authorities in Serbia. By cooperation, we refer to any form of membership – formal or informal – in working groups within government ministries, as well as in all other permanent and ad hoc working groups, councils, and similar instruments of state bodies that require our direct involvement.
We will not abandon the effort to restore institutions of the Republic of Serbia to their rightful functions and to the citizens. We remain committed to our work and will continue to monitor all decision-making processes, regularly inform the public about their effects, and, in the coming period, utilize all legal, administrative, and other mechanisms available within state institutions. In doing so, we will protect human rights, report criminal offenses and violations, highlight harmful decisions and actions, and make use of all available mechanisms to safeguard the public interest, human rights, freedoms, health, safety, and property of citizens, in accordance with the goals, vision, and mission of our organizations.
Signatories:
- A11 – Initiative for Economic and Social Rights
- Alternative Girls’ Center
- ASTRA – Anti-Trafficking Action
- Autonomous Women’s Center
- Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
- Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
- Center for Contemporary Politics
- Civic Initiatives
- CRTA – Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability
- European Movement in Serbia
- FemPlatz
- Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
- Humanitarian Law Center
- Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
- Initiative for the Rights of Persons with Mental Disabilities – MDRI-S
- International Aid Network – IAN
- Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM
- Media Association
- Ministry of Space Collective
- National Coalition for Decentralization
- Online Media Association
- Partners for Democratic Change Serbia
- PIN – Psychosocial Innovation Network
- Polekol – Organization for Political Ecology
- Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and Environment – RERI
- SHARE Foundation
- Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation
- Youth Initiative for Human Rights
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Bosnian constitutional reform on one page
I hope my friends at Circle (Krug) 99 in Sarajevo won’t mind my republishing this statement. It is a clear and concise proposal for constitutional changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina presented at their January 19 session. It also puts the responsibility where it belongs: primarily on Bosnians.
| The current Constitutional arrangement of Bosnia and Herzegovina is based on Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, whose principal attribute Is the cessation of armed conflict in our country. However, its implementation over the past three decades has clearly shown that this consensual constitutional arrangement in fact represents an obstacle to the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a democratic state in harmony with contemporary standards. For this reason, constitutional reform is necessary and should unfold in three directions. First, we should incorporate into the constitution the actual achievements of constitutional development attained up to now. For example, the Constitution provides for legal regulation of state symbols, and this has been realized. The symbols have been adopted and have taken on a life of their own. Now it is necessary to raise their normalization to the constitutional level. In addition, reform of the armed forces, introduction of a Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, intelligence agencies and indirect taxation – these are all new institutions and authorities for our state that should be dealt with in a coherent text of the principal law of the land. Second, the Constitution is replete with provisions of a limited time nature. In other words, their validity and implementation are linked with precisely defined timelines. Some of these have either expired, or they present solutions that are no longer realistically implementable because of the afore-mentioned developments. For example, there is the convening of the Constitutional Court, the first naming of the Executive Council of the Central Bank with a foreigner as its governor, and the Permanent Committee for military issues. Constitutional reform would include eliminating references of this kind. The third direction of reform is perhaps the most demanding, since it calls for the harmonization of the Constitution with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which has time after time referred to the discriminatory nature of current provisions that limit the active and passive voting rights for the House of Peoples and for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It would be enough to recall the decision in the Kovacevic vs. Bosnia case, where the claimant demonstrated that the House of Peoples at the state level has no electoral legitimacy under today’s constitutional arrangements. There exists in this country the will, the professional expertise and expert communities necessary to conduct a thorough constitutional reform, whose work hopefully would be augmented with considerable assistance of international players. ** Presenters at the “Krug 99” session were: Professor Dr. Sukrija Baksic Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo 19 January 2025 ** Adil Kulenović, president |
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Why a PM resigning doesn’t matter
I’ve been preoccupied with events in DC and thus slow to comment on Serbian politics. Certainly the resignation of the prime minister is a credit to the demonstrators. They have maintained the pressure for months in the aftermath of the collapse of the Novi Sad train station canopy.
Waves of protests
In my way of counting this is a third wave of recent popular protests against President Aleksandar Vucic. The first wave was the anti-violence protests starting in late 2023. The second was environmental protests against lithium mining last summer and fall. Now we are seeing massive protests asking for accountability for the Novi Sad tragedy, which occurred last November 1. The common thread is that Serbs are asking for more transparency, accountability, and rule of law.
The protests show profound dissatisfaction with Vucic. He has introduced a semi-authoritarian system. The state vilifies and arrests dissenters, denies them outlets for free expression, and buys support with government jobs and contracts. Meanwhile, he and his allies are harvesting rents from any and all who want to do business in Serbia.
While united on the street, the opposition is fragmented among small political parties and their egotistical leaders. There is no opposition ready to govern. Some of the demonstrators are calling for a technical government to prepare for elections. Vucic won’t likely do that. He doesn’t hesitate to cheat when need be during electoral campaigns and at the polls. A technical government might put a crimp in his style.
Democratic backsliding has worked well for Vucic
But he is also genuinely popular in much of the country. He is a devoted Serbian nationalist who has attracted a lot of foreign investment from China, Europe, and the US. Despite his democratic backsliding, he has also gained political support from Washington and Brussels. They have regarded him as better than any of the conceivable alternatives, which are mostly on the nationalist right. And they like Vucic’s supply of ammunition to Ukraine and his willingness to mine lithium. Fawning over Vucic by the US government and by Germany has been particularly noteworthy.
Beijing has been investing mainly in steel, other metals, mining, and the automotive industry. In addition to its potential future in the European Union, Serbia is attractive partly because of lax regulation and enforcement. The Novi Sad collapse is symptomatic. China also supplies internal security technology that Vucic no doubt appreciates.
Moscow is not a big investor anywhere these days but gets lots of electronic components and political support from Serbia. Most notable is Serbia’s refusal to align with EU Ukraine sanctions.
One lapdog is as good as another
In this context, the resignation of a prime minister with little power doesn’t make a lot of difference. Vucic is the man, not Vucevic. If he thinks he’ll win, or can ensure that he’ll win, the President will call new elections. That has worked for him in the past to quiet protests. Or he will choose another lapdog prime minister who will do what the President wants without objection.
The prospects for real democracy in Serbia are dim, but of course that is true elsewhere as well. But that’s not a good reason not to try. My sentiments are with the demonstrators.
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