Tag: Denmark
Trump’s folly
It’s not a good week for the buffoon-in-chief. His proposal to buy Greenland ran into a Danish prime minister who said no. The budget deficit is soaring. The economy is weakening. Beijing is not yielding in his easy-to-win tariff war, but Trump is softening his stance by postponing some promised tariffs. He has retreated from requiring universal background checks for gun purchasers, routed by a phone call from the National Rifle Association. American Jews he has accused of disloyalty to Israel by voting for Democrats are up in arms. Half a dozen potential Democratic candidates are out-polling him.
Trump’s reaction? He is doubling down on satisfying his anti-immigrant, Christian evangelical, racist base. You don’t want to separate migrant children from their parents? He proposes locking up both parents and children indefinitely. He declares himself the “chosen one” with a glance at the heavens. He retweets white supremacist, anti-Jewish trash talkers who claim Jewish Israelis, who don’t believe in the first coming of the Messiah, regard him as the second coming.
In any place but the White House, such jabber would be regarded as symptomatic. The mental illness is however not only his. This folly is still getting more than 40% approval. Americans have lost touch with reality.
This is not a conservative administration. It is a radical one sending the country to ruin. The deficit alone should be enough to make real Republicans doubt Trump’s wisdom. The trade war and slowing economy are putting the long expansion begun under President Obama at serious risk. Trump’s petulant cancellation of a trip to Denmark is making all America’s allies blanch. America’s adversaries are delighted: the West and its democratic ideals could be collapsing.
What can be done? Very little. Until Republicans tire of Trump and decide he will lead them to defeat in 2020, the Democrats are stuck: the House they control can indict but not convict or remove from office. Proceeding with impeachment before the election is a risky move. Their best bet is to investigate as thoroughly as possible and hope what they find will dent Trump’s support and encourage their own voters to turn out.
The Democrats’ best hope in 2020 is the economy: if recession hits by next summer, Trump is toast. There are a lot more voters interested in their jobs than in how many “conservative” pro-business, pro-gun, anti-immigrant judges he has managed to appoint and get confirmed. Wishing recession however is political self-immolation. So is internecine bloodletting through the primary season. All the Democratic candidates would do well to keep their focus on the miserable performance of the Trump Administration rather than on each others’ shortcomings.
Making Trump’s folly apparent should be easy. Hammer away at the weakening economy, the disrepute America has fallen into abroad, the silliness of a president who spends his days watching Fox News, and his failure to deliver on infrastructure, tax cuts for working people, and health care. Trump has made himself an easy target. Keep firing at it.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What difference do women make?
For the 15th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, on Tuesday the US Institute of Peace collaborated with five Scandinavian embassies to host the event “Global Security: What Does Gender Have To Do With It?” The event specifically examines what lessons may be learned from Scandinavian successes in gender equality and feminist policies, and comes in the wake of a new global report that explores the continuing – and some new – challenges for gender equality and women’s rights worldwide.
After Ambassador William Taylor, Executive Vice President of the USIP, gave the welcome, His Excellency Geir Haarde, Iceland’s Ambassador to the US, highlighted Scandinavian countries’ successes, including their long history of collaborating and sharing best practices, but also warned that even they must be vigilant against backsliding. This is especially important considering the global climate for gender rights: violent extremism, gender-based violence, systematic rape as a weapon of war, women being formally excluded from peace processes, and many other continuing challenges.
The keynote speaker, Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defense for Finland and instrumental in achieving UNSCR 1325, took a global outlook. Nordic countries have indeed achieved much, but 1325 in particular ‘was born in Africa, in Namibia’. Rehn therefore highlighted the locality of all advancement initiatives. There is a crucial role for the UN, of course, in formalizing and institutionalizing such initiatives, and for world leaders as well, but Rehn pointed out that women the world over – as individuals – have different needs and expectations, and so naturally they need different projects as well.
Rehn also explored one of the central themes of the event: including women in peace negotiations and processes greatly enhances the success of negotiations and the sustainability of peace agreements, and counters violent extremism. Women’s participation can produce creative peace, which pays attention to the psychological aspects of reconstruction as well as the physical, and incorporates social, health, and education issues – especially for girls.
The expert panel featured Brigadier Flemming Kent Vesterby Agerskov of Denmark, who was Director of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force in Afghanistan; Captain Anna Bjorsson, Gender Advisor at the Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters; Carla Koppell, Chief Strategy Officer at USAID; and Ambassador Dag Halvor Nylander, Norwegian Special Envoy to the Colombian Peace Process.
Agerskov offered insights into how incorporating women into his efforts to fight corruption and increase stability in Afghanistan heightened successes there. Like his fellows on the panel, he emphasized the need for decisive leadership on board with increasing women’s participation in all aspects of peace processes and civil society initiatives. Bjorsson stated that gender equality is a central policy of Sweden’s current government, following the principle that women and men must have the same power to shape society and their own lives. Creating a military with a gender-equal code of conduct and increased female participation makes it more effective in addressing different groups’ security concerns, as well as enhancing its reputation.
Koppell highlighted the relative successes of the USAID agenda on women’s rights in the past three years, with 50,000 women worldwide working for it in some capacity, but also stressed that this program needs to improve. For instance, they are behind on women mediators and dealing with non-state actors in countries where USAID projects are based, as well as in exploring the consequences for gender rights of new threats like climate change.
Nylander concluded with an illuminating overview on how the peace process in Colombia over the past three years has had the most success of any such process in confronting gender issues, such as sexual violence; integrating a gender perspective into all resolutions; and working with numerous women civil society activists and women’s NGOs. Importantly, though at first neither party (the Colombian government and FARC) fully acknowledged the importance of gender issues, they now are both supportive of these steps.
This panel did not have sufficient time to go into detail about local cases, but the speakers agreed on global themes and answered their initial question. UN reports and local experiences have shown that gender-inclusive settings with active participation from both men and women greatly facilitate negotiations and create enduring peace agreements. Women, like men, have roles to play at every level and at every step in the process, even in militaries. Hopefully, the next fifteen years will bring more progress.
RSS - Posts
