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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Our guest for the hour is the longtime investigative journalist Allan Nairn. Allan, you were talking about a rightist revolution that is taking place right now. While President Trump speaks from his vacation home, his golf resort in Bedminster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is flying to Guam, making a surprise trip there. He said this was a very good week for the U.S. and the international community. As the tension with North Korea escalates, theres actually no U.S. ambassador to South Korea, theres no secretary of Asian Pacific affairs, theres no secretary of East Asian affairs. Can you talk about the significance of this?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Trump saysand hes said it repeatedlythat the world is exploiting the U.S., rather than the other way around. And maybe he believes that. If he believes that, then it makes sense to dismantle the instruments, the institutions that connect the U.S. to the rest of the world, the instruments of U.S. power and U.S. exploitation, like the State Department. And he is dismantling the State Department to a significant extent. Its remarkable. Hes looking to slash their budget by more than a third.

This comes from several places: one, that view of Trump; two, the fact that he is leading, in government, a coalition of various extreme-rightist factionsthe Koch brothers types, the Chamber of Commerce types, the racists, the neofascists, all sorts of different groups. One of them is a group thats ideologically descended from the old John Birch Society, which has always viewed the U.N. and the State Department as inherently evil. And they have managed to, in a sense, get control of State Department policy.

And that push dovetails with the efforts of the right-wing deficit hawks who want to slash the U.S. budget overall. Now, they facethe Republicans face a deep problem in Congress, because, on the one hand, they want to slash spending, but, on the other hand, they want to massively expand the Pentagon budget. The solution, up to nowstarted during the Reagan yearshas been to cut domestic discretionary spending and try to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but thats becoming much more difficult now because of the grassroots activism, which iswhich is fighting that. So, the State Department becomes a natural target, and theyre gutting it.

And this is one of the things that drives the establishment crazy, because the State Department is an instrument of U.S. power, and Trump is in the process of tearing it up. Theres actuallytheres a very relevant quote from Edward Gibbon, the historian, in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and hes talking about the empire in the second century. And he says, "They endeavored to convince mankind that their motive was not the temptation of conquest but was actuated by the love of order and justice." You could say the exact same thing about the U.S. today, what the U.S. today says to the world. But Trump comes along and says, "Oh, yeah, it is about conquest. We want to take Iraqs oil. We want to take Afghanistans minerals." And, you know, that really damages U.S. power, because it upsets people. They talk about the polls, which show a decline in world opinion of the U.S. Thats actually world opinion getting more realistic vis--vis the U.S. The basic Trump doctrine in international affairs is more violence, less hypocrisy; less talk about democracy, human rights, more straight-up violence. And the world is seeing this. And it makesit has the long-term effect of potentially making the U.S. less of a player.

AMY GOODMAN: Specifically, what does it mean not to have ambassadors in the world? And interestingly, the role of Rex Tillerson, who sometimes looks like hes the restraining force on President Trump, this former CEO of the largest private oil corporation in the world, ExxonMobil, though he, toowhat are his intentions for the State Department?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, its kind of remarkable, because he has embraced the White House project of dismantling his own agency, the State Department. Now, there are others, like Pruitt at EPA, who 14 times had filed suit against the EPA and has always been saying publicly he wants to kill it. Thats his mission in life. And now Trump gave him the opportunity to go inside and kill it. Tillerson doesnt come from that kind of background. Tillerson, in a sense, had his own private government, when he was running ExxonMobil. But now hes embraced the idea of undermining his own agency. But at the same time, he seems to recognize the aspects of Trumps rhetoric that make it harder for the U.S. to hold its power internationally.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, is there anything that saystheres a good deal of discussion saying, you know, what many people thought were laws were actually just norms that Trump is violating. That there should be embassies, is there anything to say, in every country? I mean, maybe the next step would be you dont have ambassadors in different places. You know, you just have U.S. corporations acting as U.S. ambassadors in different places. They set their own rules.

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Journalist Allan Nairn on Trump Administration's Revolutionary Dismantling of US Government - Democracy Now!

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin todays show looking at North Korea. Tension between the U.S. and North Korea escalated sharply Tuesday, after President Trump suggested hes preparing to start a nuclear war, threatening to unleash "fire and fury" against North Korea.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump was speaking from his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, where hes on vacation for 17 days.

Hours after he spoke, North Korea threatened to strike the U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific. Guam is home to 163,000 people as well as several major U.S. military bases.

Tension has been rising over North Korea in recent weeks. The U.N. Security Council recently imposed a new round of sanctions against North Korea over its test launches of two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month. The sanctions ban North Korean exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood, which could slash up to one-third of the countrys export revenue. Then, on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles.

In response to the rising tension, China has called on all sides to de-escalate their rhetoric. Concern is growing that the North Korea crisis might result in a new arms race in Asia. Some conservative politicians in South Korea are now calling for the U.S. to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the country. In Japan, some senior officials are pushing for the country to acquire long-range cruise missiles and air-to-ground missiles.

Were joined now by longtime, award-winning investigative journalist Allan Nairn, who spends a good deal of time in Asia.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Allan.

ALLAN NAIRN: Thanks. Good to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to "fire and fury," the words of President Trump at his Bedminster golf resort, against North Korea?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, the U.S. nuclear system was already dangerous, irresponsible, insane, because its on, mostmany of the U.S. weapons are on hair-trigger alert. The missiles in the silos, the missiles on the submarines, they can be fired within minutes, which could easily lead to a mistaken firing. And now theres a president whos on hair trigger.

For years, there was a consensus, a complete consensus, within the U.S. establishment and military, that military action against North Korea was unthinkable, because, just with conventional artillery, North Korea could immediately devastate Seoul, killing more than 100,000, perhaps. But recently, the political culture and discussion around military action against North Korea has shifted. Colonel Guy Roberts, whos a longtime Pentagon and NATO official, last year wrote an article calling for the U.S. to adopt a first-strike nuclear policy, to be willing to use nuclear weapons against a countryand he specifically mentioned North Korea as onein the event they use conventional weapons. He wrote that last year. This year, Trump nominated him to be the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear policy. John Bolton recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. should consider a ground invasion of North Korea. Lindsey Graham recently quoted Trump as saying that the U.S. should be ready to destroy

AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to that quote.

ALLAN NAIRN: North Korea itself.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to that quote of Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, being questioned last week on the Today show by Matt Lauer.

MATT LAUER: Every military expert says there is no good military option.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, theyre wrong. There is a military option.

MATT LAUER: Whats a good one?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: To destroy North Koreas program and North Korea itself. He is not going to allowPresident Trumpthe ability of this madman to have a missile to hit America. If theres going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there. If thousands die, theyre going to die over there. Theyre not going to die here. And hes told me that to my face.

AMY GOODMAN: "Hes told me that to my face," he said. President Trump told him, Lindsey Graham. Allan Nairn?

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah, well, given Trumps comments yesterday, it sounds like Graham was quoting Trump accurately. You know, recently, even Mother Jones ran a column asking, "Well, why shouldnt the U.S. do multiple nuclear strikes on North Korea?" During the campaign, Trump talked about nuclear weapons for South Korea and Japan and said, "Well, if theres a North Korea-Japan war, go for it. Have at it."

And also, this is not something that Trump just stumbled upon. There are really only three substantive issues that Trump has been engaged with throughout his career. One is trade. One is racism. Hes for it. He campaigned for the execution of the Central Park Five, who were innocent. But also nuclear weapons. During the Reagan administration, Trump tried to get appointed as a U.S. special envoy to negotiate a nuclear weapons deal with the Soviet Union. Hes been thinking about this for decades.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to recent comments by the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott Swift. He recently spoke at a security conference in Australia and took questions from the audience.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If, when you return to your command next week, you were to receive an order from the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States, to make a nuclear attack on China. Would you do it?

ADM. SCOTT SWIFT: Theseso far, these are yes-or-no answers. The answer would be yes. So, every member of the U.S. military has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the officers and the president of the United States, as the commander-in-chief appointed over us.

AMY GOODMAN: Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott Swift. The significance of what hes saying, Allan?

ALLAN NAIRN: You know, I had read that quote, but I hadnt seen the tape before. The laughter is interesting, because the establishment is aits an organism. It has this clubby ethos. And they discuss nuclear Armageddon very easily, very casually.

What hes talking about is just following the normal authoritarian chain of command that exists within the U.S. executive branch. And he and other officers do indeed swear an oath to carry out orders like that from the top.

In more rational times, what Trump said yesterday would be an article of impeachment. Theres been a lot of talk of impeachment from some people up to now, for things like Trumps crimes, like racism, injustice, stupidity, regarding the threat of climate change, all sorts of things. But, in a sense, all of those things fit within the normal parameters of the U.S. presidency. Lots of U.S. presidents, at one time or another, have engaged in talk and activities like that, although none so intensively as Trump. But with what hes doing now, provoking North Korea, risking actual destruction of part of the U.S., he is violating the systems rules on its own terms. Hes committing an actual threat against U.S. national security. And you would think that in just pragmatic political terms in Washington, that is the kind of thing that could be grounds for impeachment. But as long as he sits in that chair, its true, the commanders are obligated to obey his order.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. He was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum about the North Korean president, Kim Jong-un.

DAN COATS: Well, hes a very unusual type of person. Hes not crazy. And there is some rationale backing his actions, which are survivalsurvival for his regime, survival for his country. And he has watched, I think, what has happened around the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have, and seen that having the nuclear card in your pocket results in a lot of deterrence capability. The lessons that we learned out of Libya giving up its nukes and Ukraine giving up its nukes is, unfortunately, if you have nukes, never give them up.

AMY GOODMAN: Thats Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah, hes got a point. In many ways, Kim Jong-un iscomports himself like a crazy person, as does Trump, but there is an underlying rational incentive for the North Korean regime to get nuclear weapons, as Coats just acknowledged. You know, they always say there are no good options regarding North Korea. Well, there are no good military options. But as part of their goal of regime survival, one thing that the North Korean regime has always said is that they have two principal goals. One is to stop the U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which are provocative. And, two, end the Korean War. Theres an armistice now, but the Korean War is not formally over. Thats the kind of thing that, if the U.S. were serious, it could sit down on the table andat the table and negotiate.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, I just was listening to Rex Tillerson, who made a surprise trip today. He went from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, a place you have been a good deal, to Guam, where youve also spent time. Both of us returning to and from East Timor covering the Indonesian occupation there, we would go through Guam, a site of several major military installations. And on the plane, he said this was a very good week for the U.S. and the international community. He said this today.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. Well, maybe hes referring to what used to be called the nuclear doctrine, the madman theory, which was somethingan idea promoted by Kissinger and Nixon, which was that you had to persuade the potential adversary that youre actually crazy enough to launch the nuclear weapons. And during thehis presidential campaign, Trump said he was ready to use nuclear weapons. And reportedly, in briefings, he would ask, "Well, whats the point of having nukes if you dont use them?" So, maybe by some theory, its good for Trumps agenda, but its obviously very, very dangerous for the world.

And this idea that the generals around TrumpGenerals Kelly, Mattis and McMasterwill somehow stop him, it doesnt make sense, because that is not their responsibility. Their responsibility is to carry out his orders.

And politically, I think that Trump is just one quick war away from curing most of his political ills. The establishment press has been very critical of Trump. Theyve given him a lot of heat. But I think part of this is because they want to worship the U.S. presidency. They always do. They want to stand up and salute. But theyre very frustrated that Trump doesnt let them because of his comportment, because he acts in a way that undermines the mystique of the U.S. presidency and also the mystique of U.S. power.

AMY GOODMAN: And he attacks them. He attacks the press.

ALLAN NAIRN: Oh, and he attacks the press, as well. And their main critique of Trump has been not the substance and the Republican agenda, but rather the claim that he has failed to efficiently implement it. And they praise General Kelly now, because, they say, "Oh, maybe hell make it efficient." Well, I certainly hope not.

AMY GOODMAN: As the new chief of staff.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. I certainly hope not, because this is a rightist revolution that is underway. They havemost governments, most new administrations that come in, follow the judicial principle of stare decisis. You accept precedent. You accept whats alreadymost of whats already in place. Not this group, not Trump and the Republicans, who now control all branches of U.S. government. They are a rollback administration. Their agenda is to roll back essentially all popular achievements that happened not just during the Obama years, but also back to Franklin Roosevelt and even Teddy Roosevelt. And on the racial justice and civil rights front, what theyre looking at is a rollback dating back to pre-Reconstruction, because, in principleand you look at the statements of someone like Sessions over the years, someone like Bannonthey are looking to eliminate anything in law or regulations that specifically acknowledges rights for African Americans. So theyre out to do a massive project of dismantling. Its a revolutionary movement. It hasnt gotten nearly as far as it could, because of Trumps incompetence. But if Kelly succeeds in making it efficient, God help us all.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you just mentioned history, and before we go to those other issues you raised, I wanted to go back to the words of President Harry Truman. Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki that killed 74,000 people. That came just three days after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing over 140 [sic] people. This is President Harry Truman140,000 people. This is President Harry Truman speaking on August 6, 1945, hours after he bombed Hiroshima.

PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN: If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth.

AMY GOODMAN: And you compare that to "fire and fury," the words of President Trump, Allan Nairn.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. Well, for one thing, Truman was speakingeven though it was an act of mass murder that he did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was in the midst of a brutal, vicious war against the mass-killing Japanese and Nazi regimes, so it was a different context from now.

But in a sense, it goes back to the point that this is a rollback administration we have. Since Truman spoke, in the years since then, due to pressure from peace and human rights activists, some U.S. standards in foreign policy have changed a little bit. There have somebeen some constraints placed on the military, the CIA. Trump is seeking to eliminate those. Since hes been in, civilian casualties as a result of U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq have multiplied fourfold. Hes basically told the commanders, "Do what you will." Hes rolling backtrying to roll back U.S. foreign policy toregarding violence, to where it stood many decades before, even back to the years of Teddy Roosevelt. When Teddy Roosevelt used to speak about the glory of war, the glory of violence and killing, and how that was essential to both the national character and personal character, thats the kind of thing Trump is evoking today.

AMY GOODMAN: Were going to continue this discussion after break. Were speaking with George Polk Award-winning, award-winning, longtime investigative journalist Allan Nairn. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell. Glen Campbell passed away Tuesday at the age of 81. He suffered from Alzheimers.

Continued here:
Forget Russia. Is Provoking a Nuclear War with North Korea Grounds for Impeachment? - Democracy Now!

August 8, 2017 When Kenyans cast their ballots on Aug. 8, they were not only voting on the issues and candidates but also to ensure the future of their democracy. This is important for the rest of Africa, where fair and free elections are still a rarity. If Kenya can demonstrate a learning curve in holding credible and peaceful votes, the rest of the continent will take note.

The key test in this election are reforms implemented after the violence of the 2007 election. Did they lessen Kenyas ethnic divisions? The two leading presidential candidates, the incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, did play to their tribal bases. Yet they also reached out to other tribes. And compared with previous contests, their policies represent very different approaches to governance, from poverty reduction to corruption fighting.

The post-2007 reforms included constitutional changes that work against the ethnic divide, devolve power, and improve the voting system. In addition, the rising population of urban youth is more digitally connected and civic-minded. More than half of registered voters are under the age of 35. They demand activist government that is inclusive and focused on growth, not on winning spoils from government by ethnicity.

While Kenyas economy is growing at a fast clip, it faces stark inequality in land ownership and a worsening in corruption. About half of the countrys 48 million people live below the poverty line. Kenya is also burdened by refugees and violence spilling over the border from Somalia and South Sudan. The newly elected president must tackle all of these problems. That task is made easier, however, if the election is seen as fair. A return to the kind of postelection violence experienced in 2007-08, when more than 1,000 people were killed, would set back Kenya and Africa.

That is why so many international groups were supporting this election, which is one of Africas largest with some 16,000 candidates. With that global focus, many Kenyans turned out to vote simply to ensure a resilient democracy.

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Kenya's learning curve in democracy - Christian Science Monitor

When Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn in Riga in May 2015, he greeted him by saying hello dictator.

Junckers words were perhaps an ironic response to Orbns earlier statement that he wants to build an illiberal state based on national foundations, citing Russia and China as examples. He might also have been referring to the way Orbn has been gradually amending Hungarys constitution to give his government more power. His efforts to date have left his FIDESZ party with significant control over the judiciary, media and banks.

Whatever Junckers motivation back at that meeting in 2015, the scathing greeting now doesnt look all that misplaced.

Orbn has long been a nationalist but his rhetoric of late has whipped up xenophobia. His government has cracked down on the media and non-governmental organisations that are considered disloyal to the nation. All this seems to be part of a general shift away from Hungary as a liberal democracy.

Orbn is a staunch critic of Western European multiculturalism and immigration. When the migration crisis hit in 2015, his country quickly became notorious for the brutal way it was treating the refugees arriving at its borders. Orbn himself referred to the refugees as poison and erected razor-wire fences on Hungarys southern borders to keep them out.

Orbn presents himself as the defender of the Hungarian nation. His nationalist rhetoric is laced with references to the the Treaty of Trianon, signed at the end of World War I. The treaty deprived Hungary of two-thirds of its territory and Orbn takes every opportunity to remind people of that.

The strategy seems to be to redress what Orbn sees as a historical injustice by stoking ethnic nationalism. He regularly clashes with the EU over anything that could be construed as an attack on the identity and integrity of the nation state. The EUs efforts to deal with the migration crisis through a quota system were a particular point of contention. He even took the matter to the European Court of Justice, so opposed had he become to Brussels asking him to take in a certain number of refugees.

Meanwhile, Orbns government has been acquiring various print, broadcast and online media outlets. According to the latest Freedom House report, Hungary, for the first time, has the lowest democratic score (3.54 out of 7) in the Central European region. The report raises concerns about corruption networks and the use of public power and resources to reward friendly oligarchs.

Policy institute Globsec also recently warned that the Hungarian government has a firmly pro-Russian view and that its national media have been weakened by a vast concentration of ownership by pro-government oligarchs who are completely biased on issues of the EU, NATO and Russia.

This pro-Kremlin stance was particularly interesting to witness while Hungary benefited from a 10 billion loan from Russia for the development of its nuclear power.

Yet, the EU only began to officially debate Hungarys drift to illiberal democracy in April 2017. Thats when the Hungarian parliament adopted a higher education law that threatens the survival of the prestigious Central European University (CEU) in Budapest.

The university was founded by the Jewish HungarianAmerican billionaire George Soros to promote liberal democracy and open society in post-Communist Europe. The law places restrictions on the CEU that many argue will make it impossible for it to operate freely, if at all.

Orbn and his government did not stop at the legislation, but continued with a sustained attack on Soros in a thinly disguised anti-Semitic campaign, casting him as manipulative and powerful. Posters have appeared showing a grinning Soros above a caption reading: dont let Soros have the last laugh!.

Speaking to students in July, Orbn claimed that a Soros plan was underway, aiming to bring hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Muslim world into the territory of the EU. This agenda, he argued, lies behind Brussels continuous withdrawal of powers from the nation states.

Similar critiques of such liberal values can be heard from populist politicians the world over, but Orbn is a worrying case. His intensifying rhetoric and growing indifference to democracy, combined with his governments slow but systematic dismantling of democratic institutions are evidence that he is making steady progress towards establishing the illiberal state he so openly envisages.

This is not to say that Hungary will leave the EU, but Orbn is playing a dangerous game. He is exploiting nationalism at home and attacking the EU, all the while taking its cash for short-term political gain.

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Democracy is on the brink in Hungary, so why is no one talking about it? - The Conversation UK

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Ousted Prime Minister Sharif Warns of Risk to Democracy in Pakistan Wall Street Journal (subscription) ISLAMABADOusted prime minister Nawaz Sharif warned Tuesday that the country was heading toward tragedy if elected leaders keep being removed, as he prepared for a show of strength with a traveling rally from the capital to his hometown. We want ... Heng on Democracy in PakistanNew York Times Pakistan's Democracy Will SurviveProject Syndicate Democracy After Sharif in PakistanForeign Affairs The Nation -The News International all 619 news articles »

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