LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 02/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 01-02/18
With Nuclear Weapons, We’re Getting Too Comfortable Thinking the Unthinkable
Richard A. Clarke and Steven Andreasen/The Washington Post/February 01/18
A dangerous disconnect is emerging between the horrific impacts of even the limited use of nuclear weapons, and leaders and policymakers who seem intent on threatening nuclear use in an ever-expanding range of scenarios. If this continues, the risk that a nuclear weapon will be used for the first time in more than 70 years — deliberately or otherwise — will grow. We must return to a more sober dialogue and approach to policy.
The Trump administration appears poised to expand the circumstances under which the United States might use nuclear weapons, including in response to a cyberattack. The time when leaders and policymakers in the United States, Russia and other countries had anything close to a personal connection with the effects of even a single nuclear weapon is becoming more distant. Memories of a smoldering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the stark fear generated by the Cuban missile crisis or the massive protests sparked in the early 1980s by the deployment of US and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe no longer drive or even inform policy. As former secretary of state George P. Shultz told Congress last week, “I fear people have lost that sense of dread.”
When nuclear theory or war-gaming moved from the Pentagon to the White House during the Cold War, it was more often than not met by a skeptical president and civilian leadership, who rightly recoiled from risking nuclear catastrophe. That is not the case now.
Five years ago, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board published a report equating the impact of Chinese and Russian capabilities to launch an “existential cyber attack” against the United States with the impact of a nuclear attack — and recommended that the United States be prepared to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to deter cyberattacks. When the board’s recommendation was exposed to the light of day by the two of us and others in 2013, it was publicly rebuked and, as a matter of policy, quietly discarded.
But just last month, the board’s proposal became US policy. In December, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy quietly expanded the role of nuclear weapons in US defense plans, stating they are “essential” to prevent “non-nuclear strategic attacks” — i.e., cyberattacks.
This week, the Trump administration is expected to release its “Nuclear Posture Review.” A leaked pre-decisional draft reaffirms the policy of threatening nuclear use to prevent cyberattacks, but goes even further — expanding the role of US forward-deployed nuclear weapons in NATO’s European defenses.
For decades, the United States has been moving to reduce the relevance of forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, and for good reason: US nuclear weapons in Europe have virtually no military utility, and their storage at bases in multiple countries presents a serious security risk. Removing them would reduce the risk of terrorism and instability, and would free up resources across NATO for other urgent defense tasks.
Moreover, as NATO has repeatedly stated, “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic forces of the Alliance.” With three nuclearized member states — the United States, Britain and France — NATO has a robust nuclear deterrent capable of being employed anywhere in defense of NATO interests.
The Trump Nuclear Posture Review not only rejects this logic, it ties our forward-deployed forces to NATO’s strategic forces as part of the bloc’s “supreme guarantee.” So rather than move in the direction of reducing nuclear risks by removing nuclear weapons from vulnerable sites, we will instead further cement them in place — when there is ample evidence of terrorist interest in nuclear facilities and, as is presently true in Turkey, evidence that the security of US nuclear weapons reportedly stored there can change literally overnight.
Raising the profile of nuclear weapons in our defense plans comes at a time when the disastrous consequences of even limited nuclear use is becoming even more apparent. Alan Robock and his colleagues at Rutgers University — using newly updated climate models and the much greater computing power now available — have concluded that even a limited nuclear exchange (50 to 100 weapons) could create a “mini-nuclear winter” whose effects could last two to three years and create tens of millions of deaths from starvation because of the collapse of grain crops brought on by climate change.
Nuclear weapons present a unique threat of national devastation and global extinction. They are good for only one purpose: deterring nuclear attacks. Policies equating cyberthreats to nuclear threats, or raising the profile of nuclear weapons in our conventional defenses, undermine the credibility of nuclear deterrence by threatening use for lesser contingencies and makes nuclear use more likely.

The Real Mystery About Low Inflation
Ramesh Ponnuru/Bloomberg/February 01/18
Where’s that inflation we were promised? That’s the question Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown asked economist Marvin Goodfriend during contentious hearings over his nomination to the Federal Reserve Board.
In 2011, Goodfriend had said that inflation would grow more severe. But inflation, as the senators noted, has been relatively low since then.
The Fed says it wants a measure of inflation called the PCE deflator to rise by 2 percent a year. Since the economic recovery began, the measure has almost always been below that target.
While Goodfriend was particularly vocal, he’s hardly alone in having expected higher inflation than we have seen. The Fed itself has routinely projected that inflation will soon hit the 2 percent target. It keeps moving the date we are going to hit it into the future.
A lot of financial commentary has puzzled over the “mystery of the missing inflation.”
Unemployment is low, interest rates are low, and during the early years of the recovery the Fed made large-scale asset purchases to ease credit. Many people associate each of these things with rising inflation. Yet it keeps failing to materialize.
Low inflation may sound like a happy surprise, but economists express concern about it for a number of reasons. Most of all, they worry that if the Fed has lost the ability to raise the inflation rate, it may not be able to take effective action to counter the next recession.
There are convincing explanations for the Fed’s failure to hit its 2 percent target: a complicated one and a simple one.
The complicated one observes that monetary policy has not been as accommodative as it might seem. Low interest rates have reflected a low natural rate of interest more than they have reflected Fed easing. The asset purchases were advertised and understood to be temporary, blunting their inflationary impact. Perhaps most important, the Fed has been paying banks interest on excess reserves -- IOER -- that is above the corresponding market interest rate.
George Selgin, a monetary economist at the libertarian Cato Institute, explained the effects of this last policy in recent congressional testimony:
By keeping its IOER rate above corresponding market interest rates, as it has done since November 2008, the Fed has prevented additions to the supply of bank reserves from resulting in any general increases in the supply of credit. Instead, increases in total bank reserves were matched by roughly equal changes in banks’ excess reserve holdings.
Even during the early years of the recovery, the Fed’s policies have worked at cross purposes with each other, with the interest on excess reserves counteracting the Fed’s asset purchases.
The deeper explanation for why the Fed hasn’t hit its target is the simpler one: It doesn’t really want to hit it. Or, at least, it doesn’t want to hit it as much as it wants other things.
It has become easier to see this in recent years, as the Fed has taken multiple steps that unequivocally reduce inflation. From December 2015 onward, the Fed has raised the federal funds rate five times, and it was talking about raising it long before it acted. The Fed has also slowly moved to reduce its asset holdings. The Fed wouldn’t have done either of these things if higher inflation were its top priority.
It has given other goals – such as “normalizing” interest rates by bringing them closer to historical averages – precedence over higher inflation. And it has decided that it would rather keep paying interest on excess reserves, a policy that it believes gives it more control over interest rates, than lower its payments in a way that might increase inflation. Goodfriend overestimated how inflationary the Fed was willing to be. So have a lot of other people. The real mystery, at this point, is why so many people find low inflation mysterious. The Fed isn’t hitting its target because it doesn’t take its target seriously.

The World Bank Is Searching for Meaning
Noah Smith/The Bloomberg/February 01/18
Paul Romer’s departure last week as chief economist of the World Bank isn’t an event about just one man and his former job. His exit was undoubtedly influenced by individual factors, but it also illustrates broad challenges for the Bank as an institution.
Romer is, to put it bluntly, a contentious man. A celebrated researcher of economic growth, he has spent years vigorously attacking the ideas of his doctoral adviser, macroeconomist Robert Lucas, and the very field of macroeconomics itself. At the World Bank, his tenure has been marked by heated disputes, including one over how many times the word “and” should be used in official communications.
That sort of approach can be very useful in an academic setting. Indeed, many of Romer’s criticisms of macroeconomics were truths that others in the field had been afraid to speak (though I’m not so sure about his grammatical advice). But when it comes to navigating the complex bureaucracy of an institution like the World Bank, perfectionism, bluntness and prickly precision are not necessarily the most endearing traits.
But the bigger question concerns the Bank itself. The immediate cause of Romer’s departure probably had to do with a public clash over the widely cited Ease of Doing Business rankings. This index, which the World Bank updates frequently, is intended to measure how easy it is to start a business in a particular country. An accommodating business environment is assumed -- both by the Bank and by many economists -- to be a good thing. It’s believed to result in more creative destruction -- the constant churning of industries and businesses that improves the economy through competition that eliminates inefficient producers. It also reduces monopoly power, by making it easier for new companies to enter a market and compete.
That’s the abstract theory, anyway. In reality, the ease of doing business is hard to measure -- the Bank’s criteria might not capture the factors that are most important in encouraging business dynamism, or the rankings might weight the factors incorrectly. Rich countries tend to be ranked higher, but this might just be because countries make it easier to do business once they get rich.
Romer made headlines earlier this month when, speaking to reporters from the Wall Street Journal, he accused the Bank of changing its rankings unfairly. Romer noticed that changes in the factors used to construct the index had the effect of raising Chile’s ranking under conservative governments and lowering it under socialist ones. Romer later clarified that he didn’t mean to assert that politics was a factor in the Bank’s decisions, but nevertheless the damage to the reputation of the rankings, and of the Bank itself, could be long-lasting. Though Romer’s tenure as chief economist had been marked by many clashes, this battle was probably the last straw.
Political motivations or no, however, the overall usefulness of the Ease of Doing Business rankings is highly questionable. Many free-market enthusiasts, such as John Cochrane of the Hoover Institution, believe that if countries up their position in the World Bank’s rankings, growth will follow as a matter of course. But the evidence says otherwise. In 2016, economics student and blogger Evan Soltas measured whether large increases in a country’s position in the rankings were followed by growth. He found no measurable effect, even in the long term, and that taking the World Bank’s advice on structural issues seems to do very little if anything for economic growth.
If Soltas’s result holds -- and given the poor performance of other rankings of business conditions, it seems likely it will -- it means that the World Bank has been recommending policies based more on faith and assumptions than on real hard evidence. Since countries often work hard to improve their position in the rankings, this means that the Bank has probably been squandering its policy clout. And if reforms intended to climb up the rankings end up making societies less equal, the Bank could even have been having a negative impact on the world’s poor. That would be a mistake along the same lines as the one made by the Bank’s sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, which recommended fiscal austerity policies that it later admitted had hurt the countries they were designed to help.
If true, this would be bad for the World Bank, which has been suffering an identity crisis in recent years. Global growth means that few countries need or want the Bank’s development loans, leaving it searching for a reason to continue existing. Many had envisioned the Bank, which employs a large number of academically trained economists, functioning as a think tank to advise countries on how to boost growth. No one needs or wants a think tank that is known for giving bad advice.
So although Romer’s exit will take the World Bank out of the headlines for a while, the deeper questions about its future remain. Its problems are much bigger than one contentious chief economist.

The 'Goodness' of Migrants: When Feelings Trump Facts
Douglas Murray/Gatestone Institute/February 01/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11817/migrants-goodness-facts
No one asked what in the hearts of the migrants of Calais is so very "good", and what "goodness" is so lacking in the hearts of the British people that it needs topping-up from the camps of Calais.
It is worth reflecting on just two recent terrorist plots, by people who did not bring only "goodness" when they came from Calais.
The question fails to get asked: "What exactly did we gain from their presence in our country? And what exactly was the 'goodness' that you think they brought?"
In Western Europe, there is still only an overwhelming political and social price a price to pay for appearing to be against mass immigration. Public opinion polls may consistently show the public to be opposed to mass migration. But in public, it remains most acceptable, and indeed commonplace, to continue to utter bromides about the benefits that migration brings, including the advantages from any and all illegal immigration.
Recently on the BBC's main political discussion programme, Question Time, the panel were asked about immigration and, as so often in the British immigration debate, the subject of the situation in Calais, France came up. Over recent years Calais has repeatedly become the place for illegal camps of illegal migrants to congregate, in the hope of moving from France to the UK. Some of these migrants attack lorries and disable vehicles to try to climb aboard them. Others attempt other ways to get through the Channel Tunnel, either on a vehicle or on foot.
A group of migrants gather near a truck depot in Calais, France, on January 19, 2018. Calais is a central hub for illegal migrants to congregate, in the hope of moving from France to the UK. Some of the migrants attack UK-bound lorries and disable vehicles, to try to climb aboard them.
Of course, if these people were genuine asylum seekers with genuine asylum claims, they have already passed through several countries in which they could and should have claimed asylum. That they are congregating around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Calais is a demonstration not that they are legitimate asylum seekers in search of safety, but illegal migrants seeking to get into Britain.
Like everything else in the immigration debate, and often life, feelings most of the time trump facts. The discussion on the BBC's Question Time was, in that sense, utterly typical. One of the guests on the panel was the Hollywood scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black. A social and political liberal, Black used his time there to make one extraordinary claim in particular:
"Understand that some of these people who are in Calais trying to get here. They're not coming to try and steal from you or to ruin your culture. They're coming here because you're a giant, beautiful beacon of hope for them. And I hope that the government finds it in their heart to spend some of that money to make sure that their conditions are liveable there and to let some of them in, to share their goodness with your greatness."
This speech was greeted with a roar of applause from the audience and audible approval from other members of the panel including the Conservative cabinet minister, Margot James. No one asked what there is in the hearts of the migrants of Calais that is so very "good", and what "goodness" is so lacking in the hearts of the British people that it needs topping-up from the camps of Calais.
So even in a society as self-delusional and self-forgetting as modern Britain, it is worth reflecting on just two recent cases of people who did not bring only "goodness" when they came from Calais.
At the beginning of January, Munir Mohammed of Derby was convicted of an attempted terrorist attack. It is believed that Mohammed and two collaborators were planning a Christmas terrorism spectacular involving a bomb attack. Mohammed was apparently only days away from achieving his aims when he was arrested by the British police. And where was Mohammed from? Born in Eritrea, he grew up in neighbouring Sudan. In June 2013, he and his pregnant wife left for Europe and took the now traditional route into Turkey and from there into Europe via the Greek island of Samos. Somewhere on the route from Athens through the Balkans, his wife lost her baby and he promptly dumped her.
By January 2014, Mohammed had reached France and from there he managed to pay a smuggling gang to get him through the Channel Tunnel. He successfully hid in a lorry in order to reach the UK, and got out of the lorry on the motorway service station on the M1. After applying for asylum, he got caught in the long backlog of cases, met a new girlfriend, and with her and another accomplice plotted to carry out a mass casualty terrorist attack that was only very narrowly averted.
Also this January, the British courts saw 18-year-old Ahmed Hassan Mohammed Ali. Born in Iraq, he came to the UK illegally via Calais in 2015. He now stands charged with leaving a bomb on a London Underground train at Parsons Green tube station last September during the morning rush hour. The detonating part of the device went off, causing minor burns to some of the passengers and leading to a stampede in which a number of schoolchildren on the train were hurt. Fortunately, however, the device itself failed to go off, so a bomb that would have led to dozens of body bags being needed again in London resulted instead only in minor injuries and a lot of terrified children.
Ahmed Hassan Mohammed Ali and Munir Mohammed are both migrants from Calais. Both were in Britain illegally. Still, the question fails to get asked of people such as Dustin Lance Black: "What exactly did we gain from their presence in our country? And what exactly was the 'goodness' that you think they brought?" That such people would probably have no answer to this question is one thing. That so few people would even bother to ask such questions publicly is another. But one day they will ask, and with increasing -- and justifiable -- anger.
**Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England. His latest book, an international best-seller, is "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam."
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Trump's SOTU Hit the Right Foreign Policy Notes - Now Comes the Hard Part
John R. Bolton/Gatestone Institute/February 01/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11819/trump-sotu
President Trump's first State of the Union address was not heavy on national security issues. It did, however, make one critical point: In reviewing the international achievements of his first year in office, Trump was abundantly clear that the Obama era is over. Primarily retrospective assessments like Trump's are perfectly legitimate for a president finishing his initial year, especially given what his policies are replacing.
Gone was President Obama's self-congratulatory moral posturing, replaced by a concrete list of accomplishments that will inevitably increase the power of America's presence in the world. Trump's policy is not only not isolationist — as many of his opponents (and a few misguided supporters) contend — his pursuit of Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" approach actually demonstrates that Obama's detached, ethereal retreat from American assertiveness internationally amounted to the real isolationism.
Donald Trump's 2018 State of the Union address. (Image source: The White House)
Most importantly, Trump again committed to palpably more robust military budgets and an end to the budget-sequester mechanism, the worst political mistake made by Republicans in Congress in living memory. Sequestration procedures were liberal dreams come true, forcing wasteful increases in domestic programs in order to obtain critical military funding. The sooner this whole embarrassing exercise is behind us, the better.
As Secretary of Defense James Mattis frequently points out, harking back to Jeane Kirkpatrick's famous comment, there cannot be an adequate American foreign policy without an adequate defense policy.
Trump chose to single out the need "to modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal," the bedrock of America's deterrence capabilities. Indeed, Trump went on, quite rightly, to cast doubt on the "Global Zero" notion of actively working to eliminate all nuclear weapons. For many of those who pursue "Global Zero," the real target is not rogue states like Iran or North Korea, or strategic threats like Russia or China, but the United States itself. Trump basically said in response, "When the lions lie down with the lambs, call me." Just so.
I wish the president had also stressed the profound need to rapidly scale up our national missile defense capabilities, a program that was all but eviscerated during the Obama administration. Indeed, we must devote far more attention to capabilities beyond the original Bush program, which focused on addressing the relatively limited threats of the rogue states, which might have the capability to launch handfuls rather than hundreds of ballistic missiles at American targets. It is past time to return to Reagan's original vision of "strategic defense," so that the United States can have adequate defenses against Russia's large, newly upgraded and modernized missile arsenals, and also against China's rapidly increasing capabilities.
Increasing our defense capabilities is not just important: It is urgent. The global bills accrued because of failures by prior administrations are coming due on Trump's watch, underlining the gravity of the international threats facing the United States. With immediate, continuing threats from international terrorism and nuclear proliferators like North Korea and Iran, plus strategic threats from Russia and China, America's agenda is full to overflowing.
On radical Islamic terrorism, Trump could point to the military success against the ISIS caliphate and new rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, while recognizing that we remain at risk as long as this dangerous political ideology persists. There was no better manifestation of the president's commitment to winning the "long war" than his unequivocal statement that our terrorist prison at Guantánamo Bay would remain open. Trump thereby emphatically rejected the Clinton and Obama administrations' "law enforcement" paradigm for handling terrorism, and embraced the "war paradigm," which brings into play a different mind set, different national powers and different legal authorities and constraints.
Trump was very clear that he regards the regimes controlling Iran and North Korea to be the basic problems, and that nuclear weapons in their hands were unacceptable, a formulation very close to George W. Bush's admonition that we could not allow "the world's most dangerous weapons" to fall into the hands of "the world's most dangerous leaders." Trump did not explicitly call for regime change in Tehran and Pyongyang, but he came close enough that fire bells should be ringing in the night in both Iran and North Korea. U.S. actions, and those of other like-minded countries, should now follow, to make it clear that the way to minimize the chances for the use of force against the rogue states' nuclear programs is to get new regimes that renounce the existing programs, and quickly dismantle them.
Trump cited both Russia and China as "rivals... that challenge our interests, our economy and our values," thereby giving the lie (yet again) to those who say he is somehow blind to the Russian threat. While the president's comments on China focused primarily on economic and trade issues, there is no doubt he understands the strategic nature of the Chinese challenge as well.
In the days following this well-received State of the Union, Trump must now develop a comprehensive series of policies for dealing with the due bills now cascading across his desk. Most immediately, the administration must decide on what it is prepared to do to ensure that, as Trump said to the United Nations General Assembly in September, denuclearization is the only way forward for North Korea and Iran. Preventing nuclear-capable rogue states (not accepting them, as Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, said she was prepared to do) is clearly the right outcome.
What Trump must reject, immediately, is what we have been doing for years, and which has manifestly failed. In the military context, Gian Gentile has described what he calls "a strategy of tactics," which purports to be a strategy but is not one in fact. Under a nonproliferation "strategy of tactics," we have aimlessly tried a little of this, then a little of that, hoping that something would work out. It hasn't. And there is not time for persisting in this failed approach.
Understandably, Trump may not have wanted to address these complex and dangerous issues in what was already a longer-than-average State of the Union. Fair enough, but the hard analysis and planning, and the even harder decisions, are coming very soon.
*John R. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is Chairman of Gatestone Institute, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad".
*This article first appeared in The Hill and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The "Fake News" Crusade to "Protect" You from Free Speech
Robbie Travers/Gatestone Institute/February 01/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11821/fake-news-free-speech
Even if judgements against some of these websites might be overturned in courts, doing so is clearly an enormous financial burden, as the would-be censors doubtless know. But what a handy way not to have one's policies questioned -- especially, one assumes, during elections.
Attempts to censor "competing narratives" is probably just a tip-off that certain individuals are afraid their political ideas will be unable to withstand the questions asked or the test of time.
"If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society." — Natan Sharansky, The Case for Democracy.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear," George Orwell wrote in his ant-totalitarian novel, 1984. He would probably have frowned upon the latest UK Government blueprint to create a regulatory agency that will ultimately strangle freedom of expression.
Scrutiny against "Fake News," is undoubtedly a positive development. It means that at least people are questioning the news they are consuming. Yes, it is a problem that so much disinformation and misinformation exists. It is, however, a far bigger problem if they do not. The public's resolve should be that disinformation is not combated by a regulatory body controlled by Government. Individual arguments, with evidence, is what belongs in a democracy, which can only survive if it is a marketplace of ideas.
If having a Government body decide what can and cannot be published – thereby creating a culture of both official censorship and self-censorship -- is not enough to concern you, the briefest glance at what this newly created British body would consider "Fake News" should send you running into the street.
This new UK Government body would deem worthy of censorship "Satire or parody which means no harm but can fool people". According to these geniuses, satire and parody are "Fake News."
Satire often relies on mixing believability and absurdity -- not necessarily to fool people but to point out serious problems in a more approachable way. This can be done to draw people's attention to take a harder look at what they are consuming, or to make a wider political point humourously. The idea that satirical publications would be possibly removed and censored because people might believe them sounds disingenuous at best, and at worst autocratic.
It is easy to see how Governments might be tempted to censor criticism by satire or any other way. Someone might end up exposing truths that the government would rather were not made public. Someone high up might, God forbid, even be the butt of a joke. All jokes, then, will be required to conform to the Government's opinions, while jokes that mock the opposition will be left untouched? Who regulates the regulators? Criminalising jokes is the first step toward the end of freedom. Look at Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has filed over 1,800 cases against cartoonists, and others who dared to make a joke at his expense.
This new British body, according to a UK Government Spokesperson, will reportedly be "tasked with combating disinformation" -- but what counts as "disinformation"?
If "disinformation" is determined by Government, the Government is free to censor anyone who challenges its opinion, or what it might like its subjects to believe. Who would you trust to run the bureau that decides which political opinions are malicious and dangerous. and which should be censored because they are "fake"?
Even if you agree with the UK Government, that, say, Russia poses a dangerous geopolitical threat by spreading disinformation, it is the job of the government to let you hear it, and then tell you why it is not correct. The danger remains that while the current government might not abuse its powers of censorship, the next one might. Giving power to a Government you trust only means that, later on, you may well find out that you have given that power to a Government you may not trust.
Moreover, does this new body mean that individuals could be challenged for presenting alternative opinions, or for challenging facts released by a Government? What if such challenges could be deeply important? How, then, is one to expose, for instance, wrongdoing by the Government? Sadly, this kind of policy seems poised not only to become a reality in Britain; it seems to be setting up shop throughout Europe.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron is leading a crusade against whatever some judicial official decides is "Fake News." Macron says websites that carry fake news will be "banned" "in order to protect democracy," supposedly because they present false narratives. Macron notes that France "needs" "emergency bans," to silence websites regarded by the French Government as sharing "fake news" -- especially, one assumes, during elections.
Even if judgements against some of these websites could be overturned in court, doing so would clearly be an enormous financial burden, as the would-be censors doubtless know. But what a handy way not to have one's policies questioned! Opposition could be silenced, even if temporarily, while you run your citizens through a legal gauntlet worthy of Galileo; meanwhile the Government can have the run of the corral to shape a discourse that favours -- itself. Governments also usually fight with endless time and endless resources.
Macron claims that he is attempting to "protect democracy." No, one does not protect democracy by restricting the freedom of speech by the members of that democracy. Democracy means letting the people (demos) have open access to information and coming to their own conclusions.
Germany has already passed laws which demand that any "hate speech" or "fake news," be removed from social networking. Immediately, the political opposition paid the price. Beatrix von Storch, a prominent member of parliament of the advancing AfD party, was suspended on January 2, the day after the law went into effect, for her twitter posts. What a nifty way to silence her and others -- and their ability to challenge the Government.
Even more dangerous, Ireland's Government is proposing legislation that would mean individuals could spend up to five years in prison for disseminating supposedly "Fake News" on internet accounts. How could a threat of imprisonment not have a chilling effect on open discourse? In a free society, Government should not be able to jail an individual for sharing opinions with which it disagrees. As the Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky wrote in his book, "The Case for Democracy," it is precisely the "The Town Square Test" that determines whether or not a society can even be considered free:
"If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society."
The UK Prime Minister's Spokesperson noted that , "We are living in an era of fake news and competing narratives." All right, time to compete. Explain to the public why your narrative is better. Where is it written that narratives should not compete? Political discourse depends on having differing ideas clashing, enabling different individuals to test their ideas through talk rather than through jail. A society with a single narrative is inherently a totalitarian one -- "Big Brother" -- that does not tolerate anyone questioning its essential orthodoxies. Attempts to censor "competing narratives" is probably just a tip-off that certain individuals are afraid their political ideas will be unable to withstand the questions asked or the test of time.
If Macron, and other European leaders truly want to "defend democracy" -- a premise that seems open to question -- it is time they made the case for defending it by supporting freedom of speech, unassisted by the "bear hug" of a "protective" government. If the values of human rights, democracy and freedom are as great as many know them to be, then "Fake News" will quickly be exposed as merely that, and not pose a threat to "True News" for very long.
**Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The new Hitler of the Middle East
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Othaimin/Al Arabiya/February 01/18
In an interview with The New York Times, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, described the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as “the new Hitler of the Middle East”. The Crown Prince said: “We learnt from Europe that appeasement in such cases will not work. We do not want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat in the Middle East what was done in Europe.”This assessment by the Crown Prince of the Iranian situation seems quite apt as, since the revolution, Iran has adopted a brutal ideology, namely Vilayat-e-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), which is the legitimate cover for the continuation of the revolution and incitement of problems and terrorism in the region and around the world. The Guardian Jurist, also known as Supreme Leader, is the ultimate authority in Iran, quite similar to the Papal States of the Middle Ages. The Papal States regarded the leader as God’s representative on Earth. Article five of the Iranian constitution expresses that as long as Imam Mahdi remains in occultation, the absolute guardianship and the leadership of the Ummah in Iran is given to a Jurist who is decent, pious, informed of the demands of the times, brave and qualified for leadership.
After decades of Saudi, Gulf and international patience, full confrontation is the optimal and final solution for dealing with such a regime
Sectarian view
In addition, Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist does not acknowledge nationalism as it has a sectarian view that claims the loyalty of all Shiites of the world to Iran. The constitution says that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution has the right to rule the “Shiite” nation since the original legitimate leader, i.e. Imam Mahdi, is in occultation. This suggests that the utmost loyalty of every Shiite in the world must be to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution. Thus, Iran transformed sectarianism into constitutional texts by turning the Shiites of the world into an agenda under the rule of the Guardian Jurist. It turned them into armed groups, spy cells, militias and organizations with utmost loyalty to the Guardian Jurist with no account of their nationalism.Many Shiite militias are operating on the directions of the Guardian Jurist including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, Houthis in Yemen, and sleeper cells in the Gulf States or around the world. Referring to its close ties with Shiites in Iraq including Sistani and other Iraqi Shiite clerics who studied in Qum, the Director of the Gulf and Middle East Center of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hamed Reza Daghani, said that the Iranian “soft power” in Iraq was the key factor in achieving Iranian ambitions in Iraq and in the region.
Totalitarian ideology
Therefore, the Crown Prince’s description is profound and precise as the Iranian totalitarian ideology is no different to Nazi Germany or any totalitarian regime embracing expansionism, racism and disregard for all international conventions. Over the past eight decades of its emergence, containment and compromise only resulted in failure in dealing with the totalitarian ideology. After decades of Saudi, Gulf and international patience, full confrontation is the optimal and final solution for dealing with such a regime, a main supporter of terrorism which continues to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and to destabilize their peace and security. Only confrontation can give birth to those who choose to abandon the totalitarian revolutionary ideology and reject revolutionary concepts for the concepts of nationalism, national states, respect for international conventions and refrain from intervening in the internal affairs of other countries. This is the only way to create a healthy political atmosphere that may contribute to the stability of the region and change its current chaotic reality.

Getting into the saving habit in the Gulf
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/February 01/18
Given the economic uncertainties of higher inflation and the introduction of VAT taxes, consumer spending in the Gulf has taken a bit of a battering. The choice is clear – spending more from past saving or controlling budgets and saving more. For many people, individual reasons for saving are different, whether it is for retirement, supporting children’s future education needs or to having the financial freedoms to do as one pleases. What are common though are the different paths adopted by individuals for building wealth and the manner of saving. When it comes to savings, there is no right or wrong answer and ultimately it depends on your needs and what you want your savings to achieve. For some investors these needs are met by having a mix or multiple saving vehicles that fulfill short and long term saving objectives, and these are re-assessed on a regular basis to see if the initial saving objectives are being met or not. Savers have to be both flexible in readjusting their saving targets as well being committed to meeting such targets. With so much on offer in the Gulf, and enticement all around, sometimes such targets seem difficult to meet.
How does one know how much to save and say “enough” has been saved? Again, this can only be answered by each individual investor who has a clear objective on why he is saving, the length of time he can maintain a regular saving plan or time horizon, and the liquidity needs of the individual saver.
These objectives need to be flexible, as individual circumstances might change, or the state of the economy or government policies o for example. As such it is important to stick to a target, but one that is sustainable overtime. Putting aside 50 riyals or dirhams a week is consistently doable, than setting an ambitious target of 1,000 a week only to drop it after a few weeks. While economic fluctuations and the changes in government policies are outside the control of individuals, the commitment to make savings to meet future needs is within their control
Saving for retirement
For those saving for retirement purposes, the earlier the saving habit and contributions are made, the better is time on their side in terms of expected future returns and given that there are not many company sponsored retirement plans in the Gulf this makes retirement planning even more important. The difficult aspect of cutting or control of spending is in deciding what one is willing to give up despite impulse spending temptations.
The above might seem difficulty at first for many people, but on closer analysis it is achievable as the key aspect is setting a realistic budget and sticking with it. Once one has had several months of successful experience with one’s budget, one can go to a next higher level of looking at further control of spending.
Throughout, some questions need to be answered such as admitting to oneself that maybe you are spending too much on something and then thinking deeply on why you spend so much on this item? Does it just make you feel good? Is it compulsive purchasing?
The culture of saving has a long history in the Gulf, especially amongst the older generation who passed through harder times than the younger generation, and the mechanism of saving has also evolved over time with increased investment channels, education and financial services availability compared with the favored saving in gold or silver coins in the past. Market research shows that 90 percent of Gulf citizens feel that it is important to have enough money to live off during retirement. Yet the survey also indicates that only 16 percent feel well prepared for retirement and furthermore that 84 percent of the citizens sampled do not know what their retirement income will look like. At the same time only 39 percent of the survey participants feel that they understood their short-term finance well, but only 20 percent felt the same about their long-term finances. This indicates that a culture of long term savings has still not taken place in the Gulf.
Periods of higher inflation
The savings ratio is affected during periods of higher inflation. Without exception, the national saving ratios of the GCC countries were affected in 2009 which witnessed some reduction in the national saving levels due to the rise in inflation in the region. Saving levels rose again from 2010 for all GCC countries when inflation levels fell back but with recent subsidy cuts and introduction of VAT taxes, inflation is again rising in the Gulf, and Gulf borrowing rates also rising as Gulf currencies are tied to dollar interest rate rises. The security of one’s employment and future job prospects are also important factors in the ability of an individual to save and with the Gulf countries embarking on a more localization of employment policies, this puts expatriates in even a more difficult situation. However, the introduction of indirect taxes is probably easier to cope with in the short term as individuals have more control by having a choice in either purchasing that commodity or not, or reducing their level of purchase of that commodity and saving more. All this will influence the ability to save. While economic fluctuations and the changes in government policies are outside the control of individuals, the commitment to make savings to meet future needs is within their control. One of the major mistakes for irregular saving is that circumstances change and one should plan for these circumstances because they do happen. To save successfully, one has to recognize that one’s choices are vulnerable to these changes and this might force a change of heart in saving behavior.
To overcome this, put your “smarter” self to be in charge: when choosing to save money, rely on your most motivated self to make the right decision. Sometimes the most powerful force is “inertia”, or doing nothing.In a strange way, financial inertia can be useful if one knows how to handle it, whereby the aim is having to do as little as possible which leads one to adapt the path of least action – namely, instituting automatic transfers to effect regular saving. Doing this makes it out of sight and out of mind and thus acceptable as a habit. Whatever path is chosen it is time for Gulf residents to seriously re-examine their saving habits.

On deception and lies within the Iraqi parliament
Adnan Hussein/Al Arabiya/February 01/18
If we were in a country whose government respects itself and which respects its citizens and looks after them, we would have witnessed a serious uproar following the recent developments related to the upcoming elections in Iraq.What Members of Parliaments revealed after it was decided to prohibit anyone who does not at least have a Bachelor Degree to run for the elections is a serious scandal. It turned out many members of the higher legislative body in the country violate the law day and night. Others collude with them and lie and cheat to serve their personal and partisan interests at the expense of the public interest which they were entrusted with. Current MPs who do not have a BA opposed the amendment to the electoral law because they would not be able to run for the elections again. They went to the federal court to appeal it but the court rejected the appeal. So they went back to Parliament and demanded altering the amendment so they can run again. To achieve their objective, some of them warned that if the Parliament does not eliminate this condition, they will have to expose other MPs’ lies. Logically speaking, the parliament’s presidential committee must be aware of all these details but it seems it is twisting facts as well.
The worst scandal is what hasn’t been exposed yet, and it’s a fact that there are several violations that have been overlooked and ignored
Violating the law
According to news reports earlier this week, MPs who would be harmed by this condition said that if the law is not amended again, they will call for investigating 13 MPs who attained higher degrees while serving as MPs, i.e. they violated the law which stipulates that a state employee cannot hold his post and study at the same time. They added that they will also expose 30 others who have a BA but do not have a Baccalaureate which is mandatory to go to college! The huge scandal is that legislators have violated the law by serving as MPs and studying at the same time. What’s worse is that there are other legislators who are aware of this violation but only decided to take action after they found themselves in a situation where their personal interests are threatened! They’ve now adopted the policy of: “If I'm going down, I'm taking everybody with me!” The worst scandal, however, is what hasn’t been exposed yet, and it’s a fact that there are several violations that have been overlooked and ignored. And at the end of the day, they tell you they are busy and occupied with establishing the state and building a system of governance and they expect you to believe this.

On systematic ignorance during Islamic awakening
Mohammed Al Shaikh/Al Arabiya/February 01/18
Saudi author Mohammed al-Mahmoud said in a tweet that Saudi Islamic scholar Safar al-Hawali said in a lecture that when poisonous gas was used against the Afghans, it cleared like a cloud and the winds then directed it towards the infidels’ path, adding that the wind was the God’s soldier.
Safar al-Hawali was a master of Sahwa (Islamic awakening) as he significantly contributed to establishing it and lecturing about its ideas. I am certain that many people who heard him talk about Afghanistan believed him. This example and other stories which create faith in myths and legends are what distinguished the Sahwa rhetoric the most during that phase. You can only imagine the extent of ignorance which is actually one of the most important factors that hindered human development in the past three decades. This ignorance controlled youths back then. Sahwaists, whether they belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or the Sururi Movement, knew that this was the best way to control people who cannot read and who are not well-educated. They made them more ignorant, unreasonable and illogical and fought all modern cultural phenomena and philosophy that encourage modern reasonable thinking. Sahwaists, whether they belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or the Sururi Movement, knew that this was the best way to control people who are not well-educated
Fall of Sahwa
Therefore, the fall of the so-called Sahwa, its ideology and preachers was inevitable as they destroy reason, oppose development, bet on ignorance and myths and cherish ignorance. They adopted this approach at schools as they controlled their curricula, at media outlets as they terrorized their employees and at mosques and preaching workshops. They were never ashamed of opposing science, philosophy and logic and slamming those who act upon them. A Salafist once said: He who adopts logic is a non-believer. Those who echo these statements do not know that all the technological products they use today are actually the result of reasonable and logical thought.
I am certain that Sahwa collapsed for logical reasons of which the most important is the rationality that relies on discussions which spread thanks to the telecommunications revolution. Criticism is no longer supervised as thanks to technology, it’s widely shared across the world.
Since man is logical by nature, awareness increased in an almost revolutionary manner - that is when compared with the time when ignorant Sahwa leaders dominated the scene.
If societies have really learnt anything, then going back to this ignorant phase of believing myths will be almost impossible if not totally impossible. This is why I am reassured that the phase of institutionalized and systematic ignorance has become history in our country.