The facility will enable large-scale production, ensuring the delivery of sustainable and innovative graphene solutions to global markets, HEG says in regulatory filing
TACC Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of HEG Ltd, has entered into a partnership with Ceylon Graphene Technologies/CGT (a joint venture between LOLC Advance Technologies and Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology) to establish a state-of-the-art graphene manufacturing facility at TACC’s premises in India.
The partnership comes in the wake of TACC Ltd entering into a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CGT to advance graphene technology and unlock its vast potential for diverse applications, per a regulatory filing by HEG (LNJ Bhilwara group). HEG is a graphite electrode manufacturer.
The proposed graphene manufacturing facility will enable large-scale production, ensuring the delivery of sustainable and innovative graphene solutions to global markets, said the regulatory filing. The company did not disclose the investment being made to set up the facility.
This MoU establishes a strategic collaboration between TACC and CGT to jointly explore the manufacturing of graphene and its derivatives, leveraging Sri Lanka’s premium vein graphite and TACC’s synthetic graphite expertise. Together, the two companies aim to develop high quality graphene materials and solutions…,” per HEG’s regulatory filing.
Graphene is a revolutionary material made of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, known for its exceptional strength, conductivity, and lightweight nature. It is widely regarded as a game-changer across industries, enabling advanced applications in electronics, energy storage, coatings, composites, construction material, textiles and more.
On 6 January, Vijitha Herath, Minister of Foreign Affairs, launched the initiative as part of the digitisation process initiated by Dissanayake. A pilot project is active in seven embassies, including Japan, Qatar and Kuwait. Jasintha Subasinghe, Sinhalese in Italy: ‘Visits to the homeland were races for documents’. Cases of abuse of power by officials in some countries.
Colombo (AsiaNews) – ‘This online system is very valuable for us who are abroad. We are very grateful to benefit from such an effective measure. Until now we had to rush and waste time. We are facilitated because we only go on holiday to our homeland for a short period of time’.
AsiaNews gathered the views of some Sinhalese living abroad on the 6 January launch of the digital platform that allows overseas citizens to quickly obtain birth, marriage and death certificates through their respective embassies, without any delay.
The initiative is part of the ambitious digitisation programme initiated by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. In this context, on Monday, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath inaugurated the new platform: a website managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism.
The pilot project is being implemented in seven embassies in Sri Lanka, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, as well as in Milan, Toronto, Melbourne and Dubai. The project aims to cover all embassies in the future.
‘This opportunity for Sri Lankans abroad is the result of dedicated efforts over the past two months by officials of the presidential secretariat,’ said Minister Herath.
‘Although the officials could have implemented it earlier, they did not have the necessary leadership. However, with the new political leadership, the officials managed to turn it into reality within two months. This is the first successful initiative of the President’s digitisation process’. For Herath, the new service would also support the economy: Sri Lankans abroad can obtain documents for a fee of about USD 22.
The minister also announced that a tender had been issued for the printing of new passports. ‘In this way, we intend to get the quantities of passports quickly and provide the same technology for renewing and obtaining new documents,’ he added. ‘With over three million Sinhalese currently living abroad, this is a critical step.’
Lester Jans, who lives in Los Angeles, California, US, told AsiaNews that the system needs to be set up as soon as possible to allow Sri Lankans living abroad to obtain documentation online. Even in his case, visits to Sri Lanka turned into office runs.
‘The short time we have to spend with our relatives back home, we have to spend on getting these documents. So, my friends and I appreciate these new measures. We abroad are very grateful to the new government for making this progress,’ Jasintha Subasinghe, who represents herself and her friends living in Breccia (Como), Italy, told AsiaNews .
Philippe Ratnayake, a resident of Brussels, Belgium, sees this step by the government with two perspectives. ‘Firstly, we congratulate the government for taking a step forward towards Sri Lankan citizens abroad. Because some had to wait a long time to get the necessary certificates through embassies and offices in their respective countries,’ he told AsiaNews.
Then, he says he is aware of cases where officials in some countries have extorted money from people by claiming to provide those documents quickly.
He explained that ‘when we go to make requests for documents we are given a yellow sheet. That yellow sheet indicates that we are Sri Lankan citizens and the officials try to trick us and get money by saying that it is a long process. There have been friends of ours who have faced similar situations’.
Another thing Philip explained is that only migrant workers or people who have a visa can be involved in this process, but people staying abroad under political protection cannot be involved in the new process. Everyone said that this new step will have to be kept under control to avoid any drift, because it is still a pilot project.
Eight Indian fishermen were arrested on charges of fishing in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, the Sri Lankan Navy said. So far, 18 fishermen have been arrested this year.
The Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday said it has arrested eight Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing in the island nation’s territorial waters and seized two fishing trawlers.
The arrests took place on Saturday night “during a special operation conducted in the sea area north of Mannar”, it said in a press statement.
With this arrest, so far, this year, 18 Indian fishermen have been arrested and three trawlers confiscated, the statement said.
The Sri Lanka Vehicle Importers’ Association has raised concerns about the potential hike in vehicle import taxes, which are currently at approximately 300%. According to the association, taxes could climb to 400%, 500%, or even 600% for certain vehicles.
The president of the association, Prasad Manage explained that the sharp increase in taxes is due to multiple layers of taxation.
There is a special import tax based on the vehicle’s value. Additionally, there’s a luxury tax, and all three are added to the CIF value. On top of that, an 18% VAT is applied. This results in four types of taxes determining the final cost of a vehicle,” he said.
The association predicts that taxes on some vehicles will increase significantly. For instance:
Taxes on a Wagon R could rise from Rs. 1.6 million to over Rs. 1.8 million.
Taxes on a Vitz could jump from Rs. 2 million to approximately Rs. 2.4 million.
Taxes on vehicles like the Toyota Aqua, Corolla, and Axio, previously Rs. 5.7 million to Rs. 6.6 million, could now exceed Rs. 6.6 million.
While the cost of importing vehicles will rise sharply, the association noted that the prices of vehicles already in the local market are likely to see only a slight increase.
Despite the rising taxes, the association urged the public not to panic. Mr. Manage encouraged potential buyers to wait until new vehicles arrive in Sri Lanka, as the supply situation may stabilize.
Sri Lanka imposed strict restrictions on vehicle imports in 2020 during the severe economic downturn. However, with the implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program and the recovery of foreign reserves, optimism about vehicle imports returned.
In September 2024, the Cabinet approved the phased import of motor vehicles and wheeled items under 304 Harmonized System (HS) Codes, effective from February 2025.
However, a recent gazette notification issued by the President introduced new excise duty amendments on vehicle imports. These adjustments increase excise duties on both fuel-powered and electric vehicles, depending on cylinder capacity and vehicle age.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 05-11 January 2025
As the northeast winds and rains bend, our President alights on China. As we enter the 2nd quarter of the 21st century, much of the world around us is still colonized. Most times in all but name. Our economy continues to be held hostage, bound hand and foot, to the US Treasury – fronting for Wall Street and London & Euro bondholders wrapped in Rating-Agency flags – determining who and how our coin – our labor, really – is to be valued and invested.
If we are honest, we will admit: We may be trainers and exporters of accountants, numerary and literary clerks, around the world. But we ourselves are immaculately illiterate and innumerate about our true priorities, let alone ignorant of our true history, our best interests. There is no end to the lessons we could learn from China, on how to organize and rule an independent modern industrial country. However, we have to navigate and manoeuvre the still-active colonial timebombs on land and sea, as we fill in the curious blanks of history – bomb craters, really – of 500 years and more, to build a better country… to share in a better world.
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Was it Sinhala monks as envoys who informed the Roman Empire about China? China (Zhongguo, the Middle Kingdom) has historically called Sri Lanka – Shiziguo – the Kingdom of the Lion. And they once called India – Tian Xi (Western Heaven). And what is in those scriptures of ours, that made the Chinese trek over the Himalayas to study at our early University-Monasteries? The largest foreign ships in China were also once from Lanka. So much to remember… (see ee Focus)
The 500 years and more of China’s abstention from the Lakdiva Sea is yet to be fully rectified, the ocean made finally and truly ‘post-colonial’. That post-colonial branding turns out to be have been a heavily funded now-defunded tenure posting. For, yes, so-called World War 2 never ended. Simply, frozen, we’re told… 260 US military bases still adorn colonized Japan and Korea, alone, and hundreds of bases more litter other isles and seas. All offering lessons on ‘democracy’.
Anglo-Yankee nervousness about Sri Lanka’s relationship with China, though expected, is to be pitied, if not cause for a titter or two. It is understandable. The US and their agents in the Central Bank of Ceylon opposed Sri Lanka’s most enduring treaty, the Rubber-Rice Pact. And as for our even more ancient and abundant cultural and economic ties, little is divulged in English. And even then it is via the nosey BBC. The tsunami of fake news and mudslinging is relentless. Thus, the Anglo-US alliance seeks to militarily and economically stunt Sri Lanka’s view of itself in the real world, and its possibilities and futures…
This widespread nervousness is exhibited in the continuing attempt to sow discord between Sri Lanka & Myanmar, with the orchestrated arrivals of ‘refugees’ from those shores, where hot war is being waged. The annual wintry season’s usual flus are relentlessly headlined and spread in scaremongering social media as somehow heralding mysterious new pandemics in the land of the panda. There is even talk broadcast in India of coups, crafted by the CIA and ‘disgruntled’ Sinhala Buddhist nationalist elements, while AKD is at Tiananmen. They wish! Other ‘liberal’ media join in chorus: ‘Setback in Sino-Indian relations due to fresh territorial and water disputes.’ Well, what else is new? Then you have the Bajaj and Ashok Leyland lenders growing restless… All this to stop the time….
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‘Note the pent-up demand for motor vehicles & the pressure it has
created from that lobby for the removal of all restrictions on vehicle
import restrictions. That a sizeable urban group of Sri Lankans are willing
to pay 200-300% mark-upsthrough taxation on a depreciating asset, is an
undeniable sign of inverted incentives & imbalances in an economy.’
– Kusum Wijetilleke (see ee Economists, Austerity & Oligarchy)
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The Island’s editors shed kimbula tears that even ‘the non-parliamentary oppositional groups’ have no alternative to the IMF’s final solutions: ‘The Frontline Socialist Party has sought to belittle the increase in Sri Lanka’s foreign currency reserves… It is also demanding an immediate end to the IMF program.’ But our supine media does not even dare explore alternatives, let alone provide space, oxygen to air for such views. This ee reproduces an Island interview with the FSP’s Education Secretary Pubudu Jagoda. Jagoda warns that the inability of the JVP to resolve the country’s economic challenges may result in ‘sudden collapse’ and give rise to ‘authoritarian’ rule.
‘The government is a patchwork of ideological contradictions’, and this ‘diversity’ prevents ‘a cohesive strategy… to formulate practical solutions for the people’s problems.’ Relying heavily on ‘rhetoric around anti-corruption initiatives’ – ‘There are limits to how far you can go with slogans about changing the political culture. These initiatives cannot put food on people’s tables.’
So, does the FSP offer more practical solutions to the country’s disorders? They speak of ‘public welfare’, of child malnutrition, and their proposals for the budget (see last ee), but again they fail to clearly spell out a positive program to achieve a modern industrial society, which alone can carry the weight of their often-romantic ‘welfare’ dreams. Why the shyness? Is it studied indifference or plain ignorance?
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• Privatized companies perform worse than when they were public. But that’s supposed to be a secret, and Sri Lanka’s merchant media is not allowed to shed any such ‘sunlight’. Sunlight is a brand, after all, and a Unilever IPR-protected brand, perhaps why such sunlight can never set. Only dissolve and pollute the drains. At least until their patent runs out. Privatization is a big racket, indispensable to such luminaries as the big 4 ‘accountancy’ firms operating in Colombo: Deloitte, PWC (PriceWaterhouseCoopers), KPMG, and EY (Ernst & Young). Now what is the main role of these tax magicians? – To avoid taxes, misreport profits, fix the books, etc, for the multinational corporations (MNCs). Their major consultancy expertise involves the business of transfer pricing, one of the main means by which MNCs like Unilever, Exxon, CTC, etc, avoid paying their due to the country, while pointing fingers at local individuals and families.
If we stamped the label ‘importer’ in front of every company listed on the stock exchange or in the media, we will learn how a long ‘value’ chain of ye olde mercantile agency houses strangle the economy.
So imagine our surprise, sorry, sheer delight, when US tax magicians Ernst & Young (EY) announces this week, their appointment of Talal Rafi as ‘Director, Business Consulting’. Rafi may deny he possesses astrological powers, yet he promises ‘future-ready solutions to clients in a rapidly changing world’. Our radar picked up Rafi’s drone rising in the Arabian Sea when his name started to author several boring columns in the Wijeya Group’s Financial Times.
Then in June 2024, SJB party leader Sajith Premadasa appointed Rafi as his policy advisor. So what does it matter? Rafi admits the IMF & World Bank & International Sovereign Bond (ISB) owners are all creatures of the USA. He says Premadasa has only known him for a couple of years. Besides, Premadasa has more economically sharp advisors from the casinos. But what makes a boring story more compelling is when we find out he is being welcomed to Ernst & Young by their Sri Lanka & Maldives Country Managing Partner Duminda Hulangamuwa, who is ‘excited to welcome Talal…’
Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Chairman Duminda Hulangamuwa is also senioradvisor to the incumbent President of the country. Rafi & Hulang however are no strangers to the global glug-glug. This perhaps is how Rafi plans to fathom the shifting ‘future’ to offer ‘ready’ solutions.
Rafi was first coyly named as ‘an economic policy consultant to [an unnamed] multilateral development bank’. Also, as a ‘regular contributor for the International Monetary Fund’s Expert Forum on Public Finance’ and ‘a member of the expert network of the World Economic Forum’ and ‘of the Deloitte Global Economist Network’. Wait! Deloitte was named as a ‘transaction advisor’ for privatizing several strategic national enterprises like SriLankan Airlines, SLTelecom, Litro & SL Insurance, etc. And, Rafi is no stranger to this world’s most rapacious milieu… EY… Deloitte… shapeshifters…
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‘CBSL Governor & Deloitte’s Talal Rafi to speak at Oxford Global Society Panel’, reported one headline in late 2023. They were joined by ‘Member of SL Presidential Advisory Group & former IMF Director Sharmini Coorey’. Rafi’s credentials included ‘visiting lecturer at the Centre for Banking Studies, Central Bank of Sri Lanka’, having toiled on ‘projects by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank & USAID’ and been recognized as a fellow predator by the NASDAQ Centre, S&P Global, the World Bank, IMF, ADB, World Economic Forum, Chatham House London, London School of Economics, & Forbes. He was even on the board of the hijacked Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, ‘Sri Lanka’s state foreign policy thinktank’, and on the board of ‘Almas Holdings, one of Sri Lanka’s largest asset management firms,’ owned by Imtiaz Buhardeen and linked to importer Sierra Cables and LOLC Browns, etc. Rafi also co-chairs another Rockefeller Exxon front – the Global Plastic Innovation Network Action Group of the World Economic Forum!
Transfer pricing involves rules and methods for pricing transactions within and between MNCs under common ownership or control. Cross-border controlled transactions can distort taxable income, through under- and over- invoicing etc. Ernst & Young has been sued by former partner Sayantani Ghose – an expert in transfer pricing who worked at EY for 16 years – who says she was forced out of her job for refusing to sign off on client transactions that violated tax and securities laws. EY has already paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements over its auditors’ alleged misconduct in recent years. New York-based EY has faced numerous claims over the past decade that it encouraged or tolerated misconduct by auditors, including approving unlawful accounting practices in order to win or keep clients…
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On 11 January 2025, Ernst & Young Director Talal Rafi and University of Buckingham Lecturer in Accounting Business & Finance Cathrine Weerakkody moderate a webinar on ‘IMF Agenda: Opportunities & Challenges for SL post 2025’, sponsored by Daily FT, ACCA and the International Chamber of Commerce SL together with WIM, Cornucopia, CIMA, AGXA, and Global Greenwich Colombo. ‘Sri Lankan experts’ such as ‘Advocata Institute Chairman Murtaza Jafferjee and Georgetown University’s Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service Professor of the Practice of International Development Shantayanan Devaraja will strike the keynotes, while a choir of well-credentialed wailers feature Department of Economics Senior Prof Sirimal Abeyratne, OPA Vice President; Sri Lanka Economic Association VP & Ministry of Plan Implementation Former Secretary Chandrasena Maliyadde, Senior Economic Advisor to the Former President RHS Samaratunga, ETIS Lanka COO Bram Nicholas, Deloitte Director & Lead Economist Rumki Majumdar, BRI Sinologist, Visiting Faculty Peace & Conflict Samitha Hettige, and Former Joint Secretary Government of India Jitendra Kumar.
Wijeya Group’s FT columnist Abeyratne by the way was appointed Executive Director this week of the German-funded Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA). SBD de Silva often wondered why there was no Centre for Wealth Analysis? He wished the so-generous Germans and others would tell us how they got ‘wealthy’, or at least tell us how their agents in Sri Lanka got wealthy by importing and retailing those 300 branded industrial German goods, which they prevent us from making here. Mein gott! (see ee Random Notes)
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• When Singh Sang a Southern Song – This ee Focus reproduces Usvatte-aratchi (Ua)’s name-dropping recall of Manmohan Singh & Amiya Bagchi and the rest of an Indian shoal of eminent economists. The US embassy must have given permission to these columnists to only praise Manmohan Singh’s supposed repudiation of India’s Nehruvian and supposedly ‘socialist’ ways! We disagree with much of Ua’s understanding of India’s and China’s economy. But Ua’s obeisance is not complete. Ua at least remembers Bagchi, who Ua invited to speak at the Central Bank school, uneasy though his reception there was. We of course also recall Singh’s running of the South Commission under Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere in the 1980s. Singh apparently began to understand the grip that the colonial system still had over countries, and tried to examine how in adverse conditions, the South could break from this stranglehold.
The South Commission was established in 1987 by Non-Aligned countries in Harare, Zimbabwe. Chaired by Julius Nyerere, with Manmohan Singh as Secretary General, the Commission analyzed the economies of the South. In 1990 it produced ‘The Challenge to the South’, responding in part to the failure of the 1983 Willie Brandt Commission report on ‘international development issues’. The Commission led to the establishment of the South Centre – an international thinktank headquartered in Geneva – in 1995.
Singh, we’re told, was very proud of his work in but apparently refused to answer a journalist’s query on how he moved from the strong arguments of the South Commission in August 1990 to oversee India’s abject surrender to IMF dictat in Bangkok in July 1991. India’s deal was poorly executed, there was no mandatory technology & science transfer for liberalization, perhaps due to the strategic withdrawal of the USSR at that time… And so it turns out that the ‘thoroughly secular’ Singh was also ‘largely responsible for introducing the neoliberal ‘reforms’ in the country’. (see ee Economists, Patnaik, GDP-Nationalism)
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This ee Focus, midst the President’s voyage to the People’s Republic of China, also attempts to depict Sri Lanka’s long and ‘enchanting’ historical engagements with China. In China to this day, Sri Lankans are treated as ‘lao pengyou’ (old friends), unlike Indians who the English have used as troops & auxiliaries, then as now, to undermine and invade that country. Sri Lanka, earlier known in China as Shilan (Ceylon), is now Si-li Lanka. We resurrect such sources as RALH Gunawardena’s work on navigational history,which are placed within Senake Bandaranayake’s useful and concise (tho problematic) periodization of Sri Lanka’s history into 12 parts, beginning with: ‘Sri Lanka – Period 1, Prehistoric Period, ~120,000 BC onwards toM19thC. (1815/1848 AD) onwards: Modern Transitional Era. Total Colonial Occupation. Underdevelopment.
For our purposes, we begin with Sri Lanka’s Period 5…which provides ample evidence of early contact, recalling Early Anuradhapura Period and Unified All-Country Kingdom… Urbanization. Continuing Trade Phase 2. Major Irrigation & Architectural Complexes. Colossal stupas. Centrifugal tendencies dominant. These long-distance relationships were enabled by the surpluses accumulated through advanced ancient irrigation systems, as were not to be found in ‘ancient Mesopotamia, Tigris, Euphrates or Indian river valleys’: but came to be only ‘seen in Ceylon’ where ‘the fusion of Egyptian and Babylonian patterns achieved the most complete and subtlest forms’ (Needham). At this moment, where all manner of panaceas are being offered to bring down the price of rice, few mention the need for replenishing the irrigation and industrializing the countryside.
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• Mental Wards & Awards – We would scratch ours heads if we still had our heads on. We have already scratched our heads into bald stumps of nothingness. So, we have taken our heads off for a moment. So many absurdities. So much magic. Not a day passes, or should we say not a chandeliered hotel afternoon dissolves into perfumed darkness, nor glittering evenings shut down in silence, without the import merchants of Colombo, agents of multinationals, not giving themselves even more awards! Sporting suits & saris & what not in AC-ed rooms. Giving & receiving awards for all kinds of things. Awards for this & that. And eerily, telling us about it. Then there’s the de-rigueur photo op with the US Envoy. Tap open any media ‘Business’ section. Awards. Awards. Awards. Is this a carryover from the old-boy/ old-girl culture derived from the English private schools, where prize giving is a major blazered business? Awards for being more ‘equalizing’ or virtuous than the darker ‘natives’. Click. Justice. Rule of Law. Click. We keep scratching…
This week saw the media give themselves awards, instead of the usual reporting on others giving themselves and each other awards. Does the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) still hand out awards to students who never attended their classes but were still able to deliver the valedictorian?
Does this award-giving&taking exhibit a decadent narcissistic streaking? To make them believe otherwise. That their apocalypticme-first (& why not!) impetuosity, devil-may-care fatuity, enabled by the capitalist anarchy, only revives itself, again for another maimed generation at least, only through it seems greater & greater destruction…
We notice that many of these awards are for certain categories under their ‘diversity, inclusivity, equality’ nameboards – or for saving some rare animal, they declare is on the edge of extinction, or equality. Each virtue they signal has an airy tax shelter attached like air-conditioned outdoor plumbing. But here’s the exhaust. What they are awarding themselves for is their continued prevention of a modern industrial society, their blocking of investment of money into industrial capital. If there is a thing called corruption, then this is it. But it’s more like, plain robbery.
Enter then the accountants & associated number crunchers, who have us by the nuts & bolts… We are trainers & exporters of accountants. Yet none of them appear to be able to count on our behalf. None dare stand up and declare, it is they who owe us and here is how & why! If proofs are needed. And chartered, indeed, but with a compass oriented in which direction?! None can say, it is modern industry that counts.
It is no ironic historical farce we are having 2 English literary festivals, one sponsored by the tourist rentiers fattening upon that ‘boutique’ Fort in Galle, where locals are being systematically chased out, and another funded by ye olde English opium dealer HSBC – Hongkong & Shanghai Bank – who hath occupied the iconic Colombo Public Library…
Would they ever feature such a novelist as Amitav Ghosh who has mined deep the archives in India, England and China, starring so bright in his 2023 opus Smoke and Ashes on his research into his trilogy Sea of Poppies about the role India’s merchant and moneylending minorities, so dominant in Sri Lanka too, have played in the monstrous and ignored English opium wars on China…. wars that continue in other ways to this day…
This endeavour goes beyond merely cleaning up the environment. It aspires to restore the deeply eroded and deteriorated social and environmental fabric of our motherland. We aim to create cleanliness and rejuvenation across all sectors of society – President Anura Kumara Dissanayake unveiling the Clean Sri Lanka initiative on the 1st of January 2025
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s three step plan for 2025 is an initiative that presents an opportunity for the entire country to rally round and contribute to the success of the plan. The President has placed good governance and anti-corruption at center stage and if one can borrow from ph.pintrest.com, the following graphic illustrates broadly the substance of the speech that the President made on the 1st of January heralding 2025 and setting the tone and direction for his government.
This article is not an attempt to expand on the speech or provide interpretations of the speech as President Dissanayake was very clear, concise and substantive in his well-presented speech. This article is about the physical cleansing of the country’s environment, the degradation of it which those with eyes, ears and noses cannot miss once they step outside their homes. Physical cleanliness is very much a mechanical exercise if the hearts and minds of people are not there to feel that environment cleanliness is very much part of who we are, and that uncleanliness reflects who we should not be. In this context, physical cleanliness is very much part of the ethos of the Clean Sri Lanka effort which aims to transform the mindset of people to usher in a value-based, internally and externally clean society.
The focus of this article is to highlight one serious contributor to environment degradation, pollution, arising from plastic waste, and to present a point of view that such physical pollution is reflective of minds that are polluted and the lack of concern for other living beings around every individual.
Glimpse at the global situation
Plastic pollution is a global problem. Every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic ecosystems, polluting lakes, rivers and seas. Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)’s body of work demonstrates that the problem of plastic pollution doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The environmental, social, economic and health risks of plastics need to be assessed alongside other environmental stressors, like climate change, ecosystem degradation and resource use.(https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution#:~:text=Plastic%20pollution %20can%20alter%20habitats, capabilities %20and%20social%20well%2Dbeing).
Over 460 million metric tonsof plastic are produced every year for use in a wide variety of applications.
An estimated 20 million metric tons of plastic litter end up in the environment every year. That amount is expected to increase significantly by 2040.
Plastic pollution affects all land, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. It is a major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation and contributes to climate change.
As plastic pollution is a transboundary issue, a global plastics treaty is needed to ambitiously reduce plastic production, phase out harmful subsidies, eliminate products and chemicals of concern, and adopt strong national plans and rigorous reporting and compliance mechanisms.
A project of the Institute for the study of human knowledge, the Human Journey, under the paragraph captioned Death by Garbage” states that Turtles, Seabirds, Marine Animals eat plastic — instead of food – and then starve to death. Plastic debris makes its way from the land into the ocean because most of it is littered or thrown into landfills without adequate safeguards. The amount of plastic waste we dump into the environment in a single day is almost unimaginable. In the time it takes you read this sentence, about one hundred thousand plastic bottles will have been thrown away. Such bottles make up about one-third of all plastic trash. Another third is plastic bags and food wrappers. Other food-related items – lids, straws, cups, plastic utensils and plates – make up the largest share of the rest” https://humanjourney.us/sustainability/our-plastic-earth/the-plastic-in-our-life/? gad_source=1
A glimpse at the Sri Lankan situation
The National Plastic Waste Inventory for Sri Lanka: A Material Flow Approach document of the Ministry of Environment released in February, 2024 provides readers with disturbing statistics on plastic pollution in the country (https://www.env.gov.lk/web/images/pdf/divisions/PollutionControl/Publications/National_plastic_waste_inventory_for_Sri_Lanka_-_MFA_FEB_2024_Final_0509.pdf)
Specifically, attention is drawn to the following.
Widespread plastic pollution
The widespread plastic pollution problem that affects the entire country, including remote areas. The issue is having a significant impact on the environment and biodiversity and is contributing to climate change.
Waste generation
Sri Lanka generates around 250,000 tonnes (or 250,000,000 Kilograms, or 250 million kilograms!) of plastic waste each year, with the majority coming from rural areas. Based on this statistic, with a population of around 22 million people, each person generates about 11 kilograms of plastic waste every year.
Waste collection
Around 73% of plastic waste is collected, but only a small portion of plastic, only 11% in mixed waste is recycled.
Waste disposal
About 44% of uncollected plastic waste is burned openly, and 24% is disposed of in waterways and on land.
Plastic in the ocean
Sri Lanka was ranked fifth in the world for releasing plastic and polythene waste into the ocean in 2017.
Plastic in coastal seas
The Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) estimates that 1,500 metric tonnes of plastic garbage enter Sri Lanka’s coastal seas each year.
Chemicals
As plastics biodegrade, they release chemicals like phthalates and Bisphenol A (BPA). These chemicals have been linked to hormone damage and dermatitis.
Although the Ministry of Environment report says 73% of plastic waste is collected, what one sees when travelling around the country does not seem to be consistent with this statistic. Plastic bags and bottles litter roads, waterways (rivers, canals), wetlands, drains, beaches, parks etc signifying that the public generally appear to be oblivious to plastic waste.
Sri Lanka developed a National Action Plan on Plastic Waste Management (NAPPWM) in 2021 to address the issue (https://ccet.jp/sites/default/files/2021-08/srilanka_report_web_fin_pw.pdf)
The plan is based on the government’s national policies and the waste hierarchy, and it is a comprehensive plan with goals assigned to the reduction, reuse, recycling, and final disposal of plastic waste. Very importantly it has identified goals for several important cross cutting issues as shown in the illustration below,
While the national action plan and all its goals are commendable and the document identifies a pathway towards reducing plastic waste, its success obviously rest on how well it is implemented and monitored. Perhaps the most significant goal that will determine the success or failure of the plan, besides the commitment and funding from the government for implementation of the plan, is community participation and goal number 16. Unless the community at large are educated on the perils of plastic waste, unless they take ownership of the effort to reduce plastic waste, and they collectively become the voice to prevent littering of plastic anywhere and everywhere, and they become active advocates of organised plastic waste collection, disposal and recycling, it is unlikely that the national action plan will be successful and sustainable. In this context, managing plastic waste, reducing waste and recycling waste is more than a physical cleansing effort and it is an effort that must come from the inner self of people. It is therefore very much consistent with the overall goals in the Clean Sri Lanka initiative of the government.
The general public in their individual capacities and through community organisations, workplaces, voluntary organisations, religious institutions etc, should spearhead the drive to battle plastic waste by better managing waste and making better reuse of plastic waste. Besides this, the government should give serious consideration to link programs like Samurdhi, Aswasuma and recipients to be integral in assisting with efforts being made specifically with programs like the National Action Plan on Plastic Waste Management, and more generally with efforts relating to environment arrest environment degradation.
Overall, Clean Sri Lanka is not any one entities or individual’s project. It is essentially a people’s project that must be based on a mindset change that must involve everyone. Not just the government and public officials, but the entire society. Politicians, business leaders, teachers, civil society leaders and religious leaders have a major role to play in influencing and changing the mindset of the people and they must take the lead to effect this change. However, at the end of the day if the general public’s mindset does not change, the country will have more of the same and continue to live in an unclean, corrupt society with no values such as ethical and moral practices.
The famous quotation by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi , the 13th-century poet, jurist, Islamic scholar and Sufimystic, illustrates this point so well yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world, today I am wise, so I am changing myself”.
Sri Lankans, its leaders and the public, can choose whether they wish to change their mindset and look at a cleaner country from a broader context of good governance and interdependency. They must consider safeguarding the environment as an insurance for the well-being of current and future generations of all living beings in the country. Perhaps the broader context needs to be introduced in schools so that it becomes part of the formative phase of children, and they grow into adulthood with their mindsets already changed. The concept of a clean Sri Lanka should not be a political football and hopefully embraced as a necessity by all political parties and the civil society.
Media reports that the Sri Lanka Gem and Jewellery Association (SLGJA) has called for urgent policy reforms to accelerate growth and restore global competitiveness within the sector, aiming to once again establish Sri Lanka as ‘Ratnadeepa’ – the Island of Gems – the Jewel of Asia.
In this context it is relevant to reflect on how Sri Lanka lost its eminence as Ratnadeepa to Thailand.
At the very inception of the EDB it had selected the Gems and Jewellery sector to be given high priority in export development. The EDB resuscitated the Blue Diamonds Ltd giving a boost to the diamond cutting industry. Heat treating machines were imported to support the value addtion to geuda stones. A gem cutting center was established to improve the gem cutting technology. There were two critical problems that the gems and jewelry industry faced at the time.
One was the severe competition that the local industrialists had from Thai nationals who had established themselves strongly in the gem mining centers and buying up the uncut gems and specially geuda. These were then exported legally and more illegally to Thailand where uncut stones were cut and geudas burned and converted to sapphires. The Thais had the financial strength to buy up massive stocks of geuda and uncut gems. The local industrialist did not have the financial strength to stock the raw material. At a meeting where the Governor of the Central Bank was present the EDB explained this problem and proposed that the Central Bank should establish a special refinance scheme of Rs 500 million to meet this need. The Governor said that will increase the money supply in the country leading to inflation and other problems. In response the EDB offered to freeze that amount of funds which was held by the EDB in Bank deposits to prevent an increase in money supply. The Governor rejected the proposal. The outcome was that Sri Lanka lost the opportunity to become a gems and jewelry center, and our gems helped Thailand to become a premier center for gems and jewelry.
The second problem with our industry was the restrictions on gold import for manufacture of jewelry. When the problem was taken up with the Cabinet President JR h directed to undertake a study of the Gold Trade in a few East Asian countries. The.
The Hong Kong Chinese are reputed to be very conservative investors. They do not trust very much paper currency which have had many fluctuations in value. But gold is a solid investment, and the Chinese were willing to forgo the interest on Bank deposits, which was very small, and preferred to hold their investment in gold in the banks which were prepared to hold the gold on behalf of the investors. The investor had the right to get the gold back at any time. It was a win-win situation. It was the safest investment. Gold did not depreciate but appreciated against paper currencies. As proof of the gold deposit the investor was given a paper certificate and hence the gold in the Bank was called “Paper Gold”. The paper was also transferrable. Under this system gold was freely available in the country for the Jewellery industry.
It was also mentioned that it was encouraged by the government as paper gold mops up excess currency in the economy and reduces inflation. It was an efficient and transparent system.
The President JR had liked the idea of paper gold, but the Central Bank had objected to the idea on the grounds that gold is bullion and cannot be made a subject of any other agency.
EDB had from its inception been debating with the Central Bank to make import of gold free for the jewelry industry. Other than this irrelevant statutory restriction the Central Bank had an obnoxious objection which was not openly disclosed, that India will not like it as it will encourage smuggling of gold to India. EDB responded in jest that if gold smuggling to India was done on a fair scale there would have been less terrorism in the North.
It was the short-sighted attitude of the Central Bank that deprived Sri Lanka from reestablishing again as ‘Ratnadeepa- the Island of Gems – the Jewel of Asia.”
The so-called ethnic issue is a product of the 19th century British colonial Administration. There were no ethnic issues in this country prior to that, although there were few Malabars (Tamils) and Muslims even prior to 1815 there was only one nation called Sinhala in this country. All others were migrants. The country was known as Sinhale, meaning the land of the Sinhala people (see The Kandyan Convention of 2nd March 1815) minority communities coexisted within the Sinhala Buddhist society without any problem. Most Muslims even got the Sinhala ge names like mudiyanseilage and vidanelaage etc. Accordingly gradual social integration with the native Sinhalese was taking place smoothy. In the olden days any one who wanted to be a citizen of this country had to get fully integrated with the native Sinha Buddhist society. That was made law by royal decree.
Thus, the ethnic problem in this country as it exists is therefore only an artificial and savage post-colonial conspiracy created by the colonial invaders and injected in to the heads of minority communities, as an inherent part of the mechanism in their divide and rule policy. The minorities were also given special privileges over the native Sinhalese. It was the British Colonial invaders who introduced South Indian Malabar colonial settlers in pursuance of this vicious colonial policy in the 19th century to this country, in two stages. Those who were brought prior to 1840 formed three categories. That was those who were brought as sepoys to crush the native Sinhalese who rose up against the invader in 1818 and 1848. Next there were those who were brought as cooly slave labour to work on their projects like road building and toddy taping. finally, those who were brough to be settled in the north and east under their long term vicious colonial settler policy to change the demographic constitution of the country, to weaken the powers of the natives. The second phase includes those who were brought to work on their newly opened up plantations on the central hill country, reaching nearly 1.2 million. The long-term colonial policy behind all those packages was to divide and destroy this Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country that was their envy, to take revenge from the Sinhala Buddhists for the worst defeat and humiliation they had to face in 1803 in the whole British Empire, in the Danthure and Wagolla battles. The blood thirsty British were never satisfied with the mass massacre and annihilations they committed in 1818 Uva Wellassa and 1848 Matale in retaliation, which John Davy has described in the following words. ’The history of British rule in Sri Lanka after the 1818 rebellion cannot be related without shame. None of the members of the leading families in the Kandyan country have survived. Small pox and deprivations have destroyed those spared by the gun and the sword”. That was whythe imperial British adopted the above long-term large-scale colonial settler programe in the whole country.
In this essay first, I would like to draw the attention of my readers to the following excellent article by Prof. N.A.de S. Amaratunga DSc, posted on January 4th, 2025 in the Lanka web on this subject. It is based on his valuable findings on a global scale.
Thereafter, I propose to present my comments on his article, without prejudice, to increase the value of his contribution to all important and timely issues facing our motherland on the following four aspects
2. Second, to highlight the cancerous external intervention and the political headache promoted by the Church fueled West to destroy the Sinhala Buddhist identity in this country, the envy and the eyesore of the Western colonial powers, while instigating India as well to follow the same policy, which has now reached an extremely a dangerous level.
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Solving Ethnic Issues without the financial burden of PCs
Posted on January 4th, 2025
Prof. N.A.de S. Amaratunga DSc
Tamils and also Muslims to a degree in the North, East, Centre and Colombo voted for this government rejecting their own ethnic political parties which helped the government to get more than two thirds majority. The significance of this change of heart, if it is that, should be understood by the government as well as all political leaders of the country. It could mean that what they want is apart from solving of the problems common to all communities such as the economic, education, employment, health issues etc., a different approach to the ethnic problem which had been all these years exploited by their politicians for their own political survival. Moreover, they may have realized the inadequacy of benefits of Provincial Councils when the huge expenditure they entail is considered. They may have experienced the ills of PCs when the Northern PC was run by their own politicians
The Provincial Councils do not serve any useful purpose. One cannot see a single project or beneficial outcome that has resulted from PC activity anywhere in the country. Instead, it is another bureaucratic barrier to the people that increase the red tape, inconvenience, waste of time, money and energy of the people. Further it has increased the number of corrupt politicians that people have to bribe to get any official work done. The devolution of power via these PCs is totally redundant as shown by the inability of the Northern PC, which was formed for the very purpose of solving the Tamil problem? Or to meet the Indian aspirations ?, to make use of the opportunity to serve the people. The work done by these PCs could easily be carried out by the GA and the kachcheri system we had previously without the involvement of politicians. Similarly administrative power could be devolved to the North through the local government institutions.
Total revenue from PCs in 2020 was Rs.331 billion and the expenditure was a similar amount. Financially there was no gain for the country and there is nothing to show as benefits. This revenue could have anyway accrued via other existing institutions like the katcheri system, local government etc and Tax Department and more revenue to the Treasury. By this means the expenditure would have been cut down to a minimum while retaining the revenue. These PCs have functioned under the Govenor and the seceretary without the politicians for the last three to four years showing that this tier of political rulers are redundant and a burden to the poor people.
Further, several authoritative worldwide surveys have shown that power-sharing measures as a solution to ethnic conflict have not been successful. There had been 78 countries in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, former USSR and the Caribbean which were in intense ethnic conflict during 1980 to 2010. Of these only 20 managed to conclude inter-ethnic power sharing arrangements, many failed, some experienced genocide eg. Rwanda in 1993 and others ended with secession eg. Sudan in 2005. Only 4 to 6 achieved stable arrangements but even these have serious political instability (Horowitz D, 2014).
Following are few extracts from these research works; The core reason why power-sharing cannot resolve ethnic conflict is that it is voluntaristic; it requires conscious decisions by elites to cooperate to avoid ethnic strife. Under conditions of hypernationalist mobilisation and real security threats, group leaders are unlikely to be receptive to compromise and even if they are they cannot act without being discredited and replaced by harder-line rivals” (Kaufmann, 1997). Proposals for devolution abound, but more often than not devolution agreements are difficult to reach and once reached soon abort” (Horowitz, 1985).
That Sri Lanka provides ample evidence in support of the above research findings could easily be seen in its experience with its own Provincial Councils. Of the nine PCs the worst failure was seen in relation to the previous Northern PC where it was supposed to be essential for the solution of the ethnic conflict. Its Chief Minister after willingly contesting for the post, made use of the opportunity to loudly engage in secessionist rhetoric and propaganda. He did not make use of the government grants for the development of the North.
In consideration of the above what would be more suitable for Sri Lanka is a power-sharing mechanism at the centre which would suit its geography of ethnicity
where in most areas there is a mixture of ethnic groups and 50% of minorities live outside the North and the East. If all possibility of discrimination of majority or minority communities is avoided and people are allowed to learn to respect each other’s different cultures there would develop common feelings and thinking about national issues which would be the national integration that has eluded us all these years.
The Tamils who voted for this government and a majority of them did so, may prefer such a system of power sharing at the centre which may make them feel integrated and belonging to their country more than the PC system which make them more separate and parochial in their own country. A new group of Tamil politicians may emerge who would like to be responsible for the whole country rather than an enclave in the far North.
The government has a two thirds majority and could bring in the necessary constitutional changes without a hassle to eliminate the presidential system? get rid of the 13th Amendment and establish an institution for power sharing at the centre. > mad no power sharing on an ethnic basis. Governance should one for the whole country.be If the minorities agree India will not mind the removal of the 13th A which they forced on us as they see no need for it.. It is significant that no mention of the full implementation of the 13th A was made in the joint statement issued by the Indian and Sri lankan leaders during the latter’s recent visit to India, an issue which was always taken up by the Indian side whenever the leaders of the two countries met in the past. Now may be the opportunity to solve the ethnic problem to the satisfaction of everybody and
My comments
However, at the same time, while thanking him for sharing his valuable experience, I would like to make few pertinent comments on some of the conclusions he has arrived at, by giving my personal experience as a senior public servant who has personally seen and experienced it on ground. The author has not dealt fully with the unprecedent and irreparable political and administrative damages done the 13th A to this country as a free, independent and sovereign state form 1987 up to date. First by this Indian imposition on this Island nation which had remained as a unitary State for the past 2566 years, defended and protected it from all South Indian invasions from the 2nd century BC up to the 13th century AD and thereafter from Western Colonial invasions starting with the Portuguese 1505, Dutch 1665 and the British from 1797-1948. His conclusion that the PCC have messed up the whole District Administration system making it almost redundant is very correct. But it would have been better if he had given in detail as to how it had been done. For example, the resulting exponential increase in a useless second tire political power base, like Governors Ministers and Secretaries, increase in cadre, waste and corruption, centralization and duplication making the delivery of services to the people utterly ineffective, inefficient and extremely slow. I would also disagree with his proposed power sharing on an ethnic basis as it leads to a breakdown in the unitary status of the State. The power of the State in a unitary State should lie with the center to preserve and protect its territorial integrity.
Finally, I would have preferred the author, with his global experience to have strongly recommended the complete abolition of the 13th A together with the Rajiv/JR Accord that was imposed on this country by India by force to facilitate the establishment of the Eelam, a separate Tamils State covering 1/3 of the country immediately a with a projected coup to make it almost 2/3 at the end after annexing a number of other provinces like the central Uva and Sabaragamuwa where a substantial number of Indian Tamils live and finally making this Island the 29th State of India as Panikkar dreamt.
The only acceptable solution to the native Sinhala Buddhist in this country is one country and one nation. The country being Sri Lanka as it had been now accepted both locally and internationally as decreed by the Republican Constitution 1972. It must also be stated here for record purposes that Sinhala race is the only legitimate nation on this country as they are the people who founded this country, built up its glorious Sinhala Buddhist Civilization a form 543 BC and defended it against and protected it from all South Indian invasion numbering nearly 18 from the second century BC and from all Western invasions from 1505 up to date. All others are only others immigrant ethnic entities some com eon their own in search of green pastures and other, especially the army of Malabar people brought by the Dutch and British in the 19th century only. As South Indian slaves as a labour force to work on their projects, to fill the Banks of England and to realize their vicious divide and rule policy and destroy the millennia old unique Sinhala Buddhist Civilization on this planet, that had been thorn in their eyes and an eternal object of envy in their hearts.
Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report
World Meteorological Organization, Executive Summary of the WMO Statement on Weather Modification,” WMO Documents on Weather Modification Approved by the Commission for Atmospheric Sciences Management Group, Second Session, Oslo, Norway, 24-26 September 2007. CAS-MG2/Doc 4.4.1, Appendix C.
The arrival of the above group of people in Sri Lanka presents a big challenge to the Navy and our border protection services as any positive signal emanating from the Government in accepting them as refugees will open Sri Lanka to the influx of boat people which will be extremely difficult to control.
At present, there are over 1 million Rohingyas mainly in the Cox Bazar region of Bangladesh which is considered as the world’s largest refugee camp. There are thousands of Rohingyas who fled Myanmar and are now living as refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia too.
The organized arrival of refugees in search of greener pastures is a common problem in many parts of the world. The people smugglers who are well organized await the favourable signals such as the recognition of refugees and acceptance of illegal arrivals by the governments and NGOs in the receiving countries and will contribute to swell the arrival numbers creating an unenviable situation both for the country’s economic and social structures and to the illegal refugees by way of accidental deaths. The tragic stories of deaths and disappearance of hundreds of ‘refugees’ in the Mexican/ US border and European border areas make anyone open his eyes.
Australia planned well in countering the manoeuvres of human smugglers by adopting a firm policy of establishing offshore refugee camps and joint action in arresting possible sources of illegal migrants and establishing strong border operations. They also took action to deport the illegal travellers to their original arrival points, Sri Lanka, perhaps should plan such steps before becoming a greener pasture for possible influx of illegal arrivals.
The multitudes who trekked the tricky path for the Alaska Gold Rush mostly came a cropper. What fate awaits the punters who have made a beeline for the Syrian casino will become a wee bit clearer when President Trump ascends the Washington gaddi on January 20. The US, Israel, Tukey, HTS, a stream of European countries have their hats in the ring. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon are relatively passive.
Some unexpected names are in circulation again – Eric Prince, the founder of Blackwater, the world’s biggest contractor for mercenary armies. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Prince had submitted a lengthy project report to privatize” the military management of Afghanistan.
At the very outset, the project should have been turfed out of hand as moronic, but the lamentable fact is that the document did find traction upto the White House, through the agency of Trump’s close adviser Steve Bannon before he was shown the door. The Pentagon ultimately put the project through the shredders.
The Afghanistan project may not have taken off. This does not mean that Prince has been grounded. He now lives in the UAE, has been active in disturbed places like Libya. How could Syria not be a magnet for a businessman filled with the Spirit of adventure and faith in American capitalism?
We have the testimony of the Wall Street journal that the Trump team is already in touch with Prince on a matter concerning Ukraine. Prince is being nudged to buy Motor Sich, a Ukrainian aircraft engine manufacturer to prevent a group of Chinese companies from acquiring all the sensitive goodies that go with Motor Sich.
American adventurers being asked to buy up Ukrainian assets? Is the loot on? The incoming President has already gone public: he wants to own the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada. Why not add Syria to the list?
Who sired Hayat Tehrir al Sham?
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Eric Prince may have known Abu Mohammad al Julani who mutated into Ahmed al Sharaa and is now the leader of Hayat Tehrir al Sham. HTS itself an amalgamation of various Sunni, Takfiri groups once Jabhat al Nusra which was in guerrilla combat with the official Syrian Army eversince the civil war broke out in 2011 just when the Arab Spring gathered pace in the Arab world.
The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, coming out of convalescence from a German clinic, was stunned to find his friends Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia ousted by their people. To stave off popular resentment against his regime, he showered $136 billion on his people in cash payments and welfare schemes.
He then went about lobbying for a coalition for dismantling the Shia arc – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (Southern Lebanon) and Hamas in Gaza, all under US auspices. Israel, the spider in all West Asian webs, is by western custom, never mentioned when plots are revealed.
There was a difficulty in the Shia arc from the beginning. It was a misnomer. Yes, Iran is Shia, but Syria is predominantly Sunni with a variant of Shias, the Alawis, a minority elite group who control military power. Islam in Syria and Iraq was tempered by Baath socialism founded in 1947 by Michel Aflaq (a Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (Sunni) and Zaki al Arsuzi (Alawi/Shia). It was at core Arab nationalism, tied to socialism and anti Imperialism.
In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt was similarly structured. This concert of Arab nationalism and socialism with an anti imperialist slant was always going to be hugely inconvenient to a theocratic, Zionist state plus America.
The Israel national security state required a solid enemy, not socialism and nationalism but something more like rampaging Islamism, potential of terrorism built into it. 9/11 should be made out to be a credible possibility, the stuff that makes propaganda copy writers salivate.
Nasser with his secularism made way for Anwar Sadat, with his Muslim Brotherhood background. That became the perfect counterpoint – one theocracy in conversation with another. Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem was the seed from which sprouted the idea of Abrahamic accords.
From Sadat’s Islam, reared in the ranks of the Akhwan, to Ahmed al Sharaa who mutated from Abu Mohammad Ali Julani and who was a true blue terrorist until the other day, Israel is now surrounded by every possible variety of Islam.
The world opens up for Mercenaries.
Yes, to revert to mercenary supremo, Eric Prince who may well have monitored the career of a star mercenary like Sharaa. When Ashton Carter was the Secretary of Defence, he had assigned Lloyd Austin to train and equip Syrian militants to strengthen the opposition to Bashar al Assad. Could Sharaa be one of the youth he trained? The $500 million project flopped so badly that Lloyd Austin was severely grilled by a Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. How many of those you trained are still fighting in Syria?” a Senator asked him. Austin was tongue tied. On persistence questioning, he opened up. Four or five may still be fighting.”
During the chaotic American involvement in the Syrian civil war, troops trained by the US walked away with military hardware and joined Jabhat al Nusra, the brutal terrorist group. The clip of the Senate hearing was on e-span as was Defence Secretary Carter’s Press Conference.
Another chapter with Afghanistan?
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri broke his duck with Afghanistan at the right moment by meeting Amir Khan Muttaqi Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister in the neutral turf of Dubai. Indians did not quite clamber onto the same helicopter which ferried ousted President Ashraf Ghani to Dubai but the Indian embassy staff fled in double quick time. Without the US and Ghani crutches, Indians felt unsafe among Afghans.
When President Obama announced phasing out of troops, the argument against the move offered by General Stanley McCrystal says something of our standing among Afghans. India’s socio economic development creates problems. It detracts Pakistan from helping our war on terror.” That was a decade ago. But New Delhi was not convinced even then.
Milinda Moragoda, founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, met with Chinese Ambassador Qi Zhenghong to discuss bilateral relations between the People’s Republic of China and Sri Lanka.
The luncheon discussion covered various subjects on relations between the two countries in the context of the Pathfinder China-Sri Lanka Cooperation Studies Centre (CSLCSC), inaugurated in 2015, which saw numerous Chinese Think Tanks and academic institutions focusing on the South Asian region. One of the areas of interest was to host Chinese academics and subject specialists focusing on China-Sri Lanka relations at the CSLCSC for extended periods as it had done before the COVID-19 pandemic. Another area was to examine the possibilities of translating historical Chinese books covering China–Sri Lanka relations in all aspects. The Foundation made a significant contribution in 2020 by translating a Chinese publication on ‘Prevention and Control of Covid-19’, authored by Professor Wenhong Zhang, into Sinhala and Tamil languages for distribution among the public free of charge.
The visit to the Chinese Embassy was part of the Pathfinder Foundation’s ongoing engagement with China. Both countries have enjoyed an uninterrupted close relationship since historical times, particularly in the modern period. The Chinese Ambassador visited ‘River Point’ in October 2024, where the Foundation functions. Since then, several Chinese delegations have visited the Pathfinder Foundation to exchange views on the bilateral relationship between the two countries, the last being a delegation from the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) representing the Institute of Military Legal Systems Studies (IMLSS) based in Beijing.
Bernard Goonetilleke, Chairman of the Pathfinder Foundation and Jin Enze from the Embassy participated in the discussion.
Western state and corporate media have become propaganda outlets, trying to keep us in the dark
Monitoring corporate media performance for 25 years – week after week, war after war – has done little to diminish our dismay at the robotic automaticity of ‘mainstream’ enthusiasm for US-authored regime change.
Each time, without fail, thousands of media commentators function, not as critical-thinking individuals, but as cookie-cutter cogs in a propaganda printing machine stamping the word ‘GOOD’ on the public mind.
It is not that we are told what to think – they know we mostly just skim the headlines – we are told what to feel. The result is a thin veneer of symbolic headline ‘news’ painting a positive picture followed by ‘in-depth’ content that hides as much as it reveals. This ‘coverage’ is not comprehensible and is not intended to be because it serves the needs of power rather than truth.
The latest propaganda blitz is particularly remarkable given that the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group led by Mohammed al-Jolani that overthrew Syria’s Assad dictatorship in December is a proscribed terrorist group under UK law. The UK government website currently reads:
‘Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” should be treated as alternative names for the organisation which is already proscribed under the name Al Qa’ida.’
‘Remember, all these freedom fighters” in Syria want to fly planes into our buildings.’
A 2016 Amnesty report described abuses carried out by Jabhat al Nusra and associated groups, now known as HTS, in Syria:
‘The cases of abduction, torture and summary killings documented by Amnesty International offer a glimpse into the reality of life under armed opposition groups in Aleppo and Idleb governorates. Civilians who live under constant threat of indiscriminate attack by government forces simply for living in areas controlled by armed groups have suffered abuse at the hands of these groups as they assert their authority through rough justice” and cruel punishments. Media activists, journalists, lawyers, humanitarian workers and others have been subjected to abduction and torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of armed groups that form part of the Army of Conquest and Aleppo Conquest coalitions.’
None of this has deterred the ‘mainstream’ cheerleaders using endless pictures of smiling Syrians, with women notably to the fore in a brazen attempt to exploit #MeToo kudos. See here and here for examples. One typically cheerful BBC home page reported ‘relief’ at HTS’s violent regime change.
After years spent propagandising for this result, a Guardian home page was similarly full of celebration. US journalist Glenn Greenwald commented:
‘The U.S. lists Mohammed al-Jolani as a wanted terrorist, yet he is now being reframed as a polished, blazer-wearing rebel willing to partner with the West.’
‘It previously publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, although it remains proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK, as well as the UN, the US, Turkey and other countries.
‘Questions remain over whether it has completely renounced those links, but its message in the run-up to Assad’s deposition has been one of inclusiveness and a rejection of violence.’
Words are what matter, it seems, even if the claimed ‘rejection of violence’ is challenged somewhat by HTS having just conquered Syria using methods that owe more to Hitler’s blitzkrieg than Gandhi’s satyāgraha.
‘So far, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the formerly al-Qaida-linked Islamist militia that led the charge against Assad, has belied its extremist roots with moderately reassuring words.’
Former head of MI6 Sir John Sawers went so far as to say:
‘It would be rather ridiculous, actually, if we’re unable to engage with the new leadership in Syria because of a proscription dating back 12 years.’
‘UK could consider removing proscription of Syria’s HTS, says minister’
The US having already led the way in that regard.
Economist and former politician Yanis Varoufakis captured it perfectly:
‘The Western media’s duplicity has broken all records. When jihadists entered Kabul, ousting the US regime, it was the end of the world. Now that jihadists have entered Damascus to overthrow a secular enemy of the West, it is a triumph of the human spirit.’
Indeed, this is an eerily exact re-run of supposedly independent and impartial media performance celebrating US-UK regime change in Iraq. On 9 April 2003, as US tanks stormed Baghdad, the BBC’s Nicholas Witchell beamed:
‘It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy.’
ITN’s Tom Bradby declared: ‘This war has been a major success’ (ITN Evening News, 10 April 2003). According to ITN’s John Irvine, the outlook was rosy:
‘A war of three weeks has brought an end to decades of Iraqi misery.’ (ITN Evening News, 9 April 2003)
At least one million Iraqis died in the hell that was being unleashed. In 2016, the BBC reported of Iraq:
‘Grinding poverty has made the trafficking of kidneys and other organs a phenomenon in Baghdad.
‘About 22.5% of Iraq’s population of nearly 30 million people live in abject poverty, according to World Bank statistics from 2014.’
The same media cookie-cutter cogs greeted the overthrow of the Libyan government – different ‘rebels’, same Western bombers. As the Libyan state collapsed, the BBC’s Nick Robinson observed that Downing Street ‘will see this, I’m sure, as a triumphant end’ (BBC News at Six, 20 October 2011). In Washington, the BBC’s Ian Pannell surmised that Obama ‘is feeling that his foreign policy strategy has been vindicated – that his critics have been proven wrong’. (BBC News online, 21 October 2011)
On and on, this was an exact repetition of Iraq with little or no reflection on the results of that earlier ‘intervention’. A 2016 report into the Libya war by the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee summarised the consequences:
‘The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa.’
That NATO-led ‘intervention’ killed an estimated 40,000 people. Once one of Africa’s most advanced countries for health care and education, Libya became a failed state, with the collapse of essential services, the re-emergence of slave markets and a raging civil war with murderous ethnic cleansing. The West’s alleged motive or casus belli was not the commission, but the supposed hypothetical threat of a massacre of civilians, dismissed by the Foreign Affairs Committee as baseless. The real interest in Libya, as Iraq, was oil.
‘An Extraordinary Amount Of Arms’
Because corporate ‘journalism’ is a propaganda machine, the message must always be clear, with no room for doubt. The public forehead is not to be branded with messages of: ‘GOOD, but…’ Naturally, then, it is deemed beyond the remit of responsible journalism to ask how the smartly dressed Syrian ‘rebels’ with high-tech weapons became powerful enough to overthrow a national government supported by Russia and Iran. How did that happen? Who gave them the weapons, funded them, trained them, organised them? Economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Sybil Fares of Sustainable Development Solutions Network explain:
‘Operation Timber Sycamore was a billion-dollar CIA covert program launched by Obama to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. The CIA funded, trained, and provided intelligence to radical and extreme Islamist groups. The CIA effort also involved a rat line” to run weapons from Libya (attacked by NATO in 2011) to the jihadists in Syria. In 2014, Seymour Hersh described the operation in his piece The Red Line and the Rat Line”:
‘A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”’
Sachs and Fares continue:
‘Soon after the launch of Timber Sycamore, in March 2013, at a joint conference by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, Obama said: With respect to Syria, the United States continues to work with allies and friends and the Syrian opposition to hasten the end of Assad’s rule.”’
Our search of the ProQuest newspaper database finds no mention of ‘Timber Sycamore’ in any UK newspaper in the last three months. Mentions did appear in The Pioneer, New Delhi; Haaretz in Israel; in the Sri Lanka Guardian and the Tehran Times. That simple finding gives an idea of the current state of UK press freedom. See Sachs’ excellent interview here for further discussion.
WikiLeaks notes that in a September 2016 leaked audio US Secretary of State John Kerry said of anti-Assad forces: ‘we’ve been putting an extraordinary amount of arms in… Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, huge amount of weapons coming in, huge amount of money…’. In June 2015, the Washington Post reported of the US:
‘At $1 billion, Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA’s overall budget… US officials said the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years — meaning that the agency is spending roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.’
In 2017, The New York Times reported that the US had been embroiled in a dirty war in Syria that constituted ‘one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A’, running to ‘more than $1 billion over the life of the program’. The aim was to support a vast ‘rebel’ army created and armed by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to overthrow the Syrian government.
It is difficult to suppress so much naked ‘intervention’. Ignoring the broader context reviewed above, the Daily Mail reported:
‘US special forces warned Syrian rebel fighters to be ready” weeks before Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters launched the large-scale coup that toppled former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, it has emerged.’
Blithely ignoring the role of the West, the Observer concluded its leading article with what was presumably not an attempt at humour:
‘But the west must not attempt to dictate events.’
The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall did a magnificent job of reversing the truth by pretending not to be aware of a mountain of evidence, saying of the West:
‘It largely looked on as the most terrible suffering, mass displacement, war crimes, illegal use of chemical weapons and other horrors unfolded. Its occasional interventions – such as Donald Trump’s one-off 2017 bombing of regime military facilities after a chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhun in Idlib – were undertaken more to ease collective consciences than to effect real change.’
Other invasions supported by the West are being casually soft-soaped by Western media in a way that would be unthinkable for Official Enemies. On December 9, Associated Press reported:
‘As Israel advances on a Syrian buffer zone, it sees peril and opportunity’
Israel, then, merely ‘advances’ into ‘a buffer zone’; it’s not invading, much less illegally invading. Associated Press previously reported:
‘Russia presses invasion to outskirts of Ukrainian capital’
‘Israel Enters Demilitarized Buffer Zone In the Golan Heights’
The BBC reported that Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights ‘are considered illegal under international law, which Israel disputes’. Imagine the BBC saying: ‘The invasion of Ukraine is considered illegal under international law, which Russia disputes.’ Unthinkable, of course – why would anyone care what the Russians think?
The BBC also provided a darkly amusing map of Syria reflecting its power-friendly worldview. Highlights included a completely undiscussed, preposterously named ‘US outpost’ inside Syria. Who is in there, we wondered; the US cavalry? What are they up to? Is there any oil there? There is also no mention in the BBC’s annotation that the blank space marking the Golan Heights is under illegal Israeli occupation.
By contrast, independent member of parliament Zarah Sultana commented on X:
‘Israel is invading Syria.
‘While committing genocide in Gaza, settler terror in the West Bank & bombing raids on Lebanon, Israeli tanks roll into Damascus.
‘This is a system of oppression that knows no borders — yet the UK government parrots lines about Israeli self-defence”.’
Sachs is less positive than our reflexively joyous media:
‘Most likely Syria will now succumb to continued war among the many armed protagonists, as has happened in the previous U.S.-Israeli regime-change operations.’
That terrible outcome would be the natural assumption for anyone with any knowledge of Iraq and Libya.
The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen managed to wave vaguely in the direction of the ugly truth:
‘Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were removed without a ready-made replacement waiting in the wings. Ill-considered foreign intervention did much to create two catastrophes.’
‘Foreign intervention’? By whom? Bowen would be out of a job if he told us those ‘catastrophes’ were committed by the same people driving the latest events in Syria. Was the main problem with those ‘interventions’ that there was not ‘a ready-made replacement waiting in the wings’? Was there a problem with the idea that the US and UK had any business imposing replacements on anyone? Especially given their nihilistic moral track record.
The truth is that violent regime almost always has catastrophic consequences for the civilian population. However violent or corrupt a state may be, if and when it collapses, so do many of the support systems needed to keep people alive and healthy.
A short BBC report discussed the fate of Iraq and Libya in three sentences, none of which mentioned that the US-UK alliance was behind those disasters. That omission allowed the BBC to tragicomically reflect on ‘the UK’s and US’s potential roles in preventing a similar situation from emerging in Syria’.
Truth is reversed, history is buried and the propaganda thunders on…
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The President’s Media Division had released a video, through social media, titled ‘A 100 days for a 100 years’. This video commemorates the first 100 days since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake assumed Office. It highlights key appointments and discussions held during this period. How these events translate into a long-term foundation is not however included in this video.
Indeed, the first 100 days have passed without any of the pessimistic predictions drawn by the Opposition. A cursory glance would tell that the country continues to function as always. Though the consumer faces a number of shortages and a spike in the price of certain commodities, the dreaded queues had not yet realised.
Is the economy recovering?
Furthermore, the economic crisis continues to be mitigated. The IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme is intact. This is alleviating the symptoms of bankruptcy.
A sign of the economic recovery might be considered to be the lifting of the temporary suspension on motor vehicle imports. This is to be effective from 01.10.2024 and would be done in stages. By February 2025, it is planned to allow even SUVs to be imported. New vehicle owners will have to comply with seven stringent conditions.
The temporary ban on vehicle imports was one of the first measures taken by the then government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa to protect the weakening economy. In March 2020, when the global pandemic descended on an already ailing economy, a ban on vehicle imports was imposed. This was in an effort to curb the outflow of foreign exchange. However, our country’s economic woes deepened and the ban continued for the next four years.
The incumbent President came to power on 21.09.2024. The present Government with an overwhelming majority was elected on 14.11.2024. The ban began to be incrementally lifted in-between President Anura Kumara Dissanayake assuming Office and NPP forming a new government.
IMF is the watchdog on our finances and is very categorical that State revenue must increase. Presently, IMF’s opinion of how we manage our finances carries a lot of weight. One could thus deduce that Sri Lanka is again able to import vehicles with IMF’s nod of approval. This could lead to the conclusion that our economy is well on its way to recovery.
This Government would like to take credit for this perception. In fact, the current Leader of the House and Cabinet Minister Bimal Rathnayaka is on record for taking credit for the improving ratings from international credit rating agencies.
It is true that the Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) is strengthening against the USD. By January 1, 2025, the buying rate of the USD was LKR 289.08. Compared to the rate in 2023 during the same period, which was LKR 360.40, this improvement is significant. However, the LKR was recovering even in 2024 and the rate at 01.01.2024 was LKR 319.23.
Unfortunately, this improvement is not because Sri Lanka is doing anything new or different to what we were doing before the economic crisis. The main factors that are contributing to the strengthening LKR is the revenue earned from improvements seen in tourism and remittances from the Sri Lankan expatriates.
Both of these were severely affected by the global pandemic. Worldwide the economy contracted as boarders closed. This costed jobs and in turn a fall in the remittances. As expatriates returned home, the Sri Lankan Government had the additional responsibility of quarantining and vaccinating them. The tourism industry that collapsed with the Easter Sunday attack in 2019 could not recover under these circumstances.
COVID-19 is now receding in our memories and the world is returning from the new normalcy” to the old normalcy”. This has been especially good news for the tourism sector and recently we celebrated the two million-visitor mark. However, the features and facilities we offer our tourists or efforts to reach new segments have not seen a significant change from the days before the crisis.
Both the Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Ranil Wickremesinghe governments worked hard to create overseas employment opportunities. As the Island’s economy contracted, more people left for these overseas jobs.
The import restrictions that were in place since 2020 further eased the pressure that was on the LKR. The demand for the USD thus reduced and this also helped strengthen the LKR against the USD.
It is in this backdrop that the import restrictions on vehicles are easing. Yet the IMF has not blinked. This is because the vehicle Imports will help bolster government revenues through taxation. The IMF mantra is that the government must increase its revenue to reduce its deficit.
By allowing vehicles to be imported the Government can increase its revenue. This will be especially helpful to meet the 24-50 per cent hike in State sector salaries that will come into effect from January 2025.
Increasing salaries without corresponding increases in productivity will only result in purchasing power losing its value. The Government had stated that through a scientific study services will be restructured and a performance-based system will determine future salary increments. The Government should have undertaken the reforms before increasing the salaries.
Instead, the Government opts to spend the hard earned/saved USD on a depreciating asset and thereby earn the funds needed to meet the salary hike. This is not a progress. Any benefit we may enjoy now either in the form of a new vehicle or a bigger paycheck will be temporary.
100 Days passed, but…
This Government is young. Many of the Government MPs and officials are political novices. Though the President’s Media Division would like to portray that concrete steps have been taken by the incumbent Government, the sad truth is that it has not.
Sri Lanka entered the IMF EFF program under the stewardship of President Wickremesinghe. He took a number of unpopular decisions, which reduced the burden on the Treasury. The increased taxes are squeezing the ordinary citizens dry. While this may have improved State revenues, he did not do much to improve productivity or explore new avenues to improve our forex.
It is this half-baked pie this Government taking credit for and celebrating its outcome as their achievements. Despite the number of discussions this Government held with the IMF officials, we have not seen any relief from the EFF program. Instead, the Government seems to be very happy to agree with everything the IMF proposes.
Even as this Government takes credit for the economic recovery”, this Government has been unable to resolve relatively simpler issues such as the shortages we are currently experiencing in essentials. During these 100 days, the Government was compelled to import rice, eggs and salt and failed to contain the rising prices of coconuts.
A hundred days may have passed. However, we are still floundering without a proper foundation to see a prosperous tomorrow. Perhaps it would be best if the Government could educate us on their specific targets for the next five years and their plans to achieve it than talk of a future where none of us would be alive.
Hey, why not buy (or just take) Greenland? After all, we already have a military base there, once known as Thule Air Base and, in 2023, renamed Pituffik Space Base in honor of the settlement of local people who were — yes! — displaced in 1951 when it was first built. And since there are still only about 22,000 Greenlanders on that giant landscape distinctly linked to North America, why shouldn’t Donald Trump, in his second term in office, pick it up for a song from the Danes, whether they or the Greenlanders want to sell it or not? I’m sure it’s crossed your mind, too, that, as our next president put it recently, the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for our country’s national security.
If we don’t take possession of those two million square kilometers of rock and ice, don’t be surprised if that near-Arctic power” China sends its military in. Why, back in 2016, Denmark turned down an offer from a Chinese mining company to buy an abandoned naval base there! And if they were to take Greenland, the obvious next step would be the Panama Canal, right? After all, isn’t the Chinese military already operating that waterway? Otherwise, why would our next president have wished a Merry Christmas on Truth Social to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama canal.” (No matter that the Panamanian president has sworn there are no Chinese soldiers in the canal, for the love of God.”)
Worse yet, if Greenland and that canal fall to the enemy, can Canada, also known (at least to our next president and, according to him, so many Canadians) as the 51st state,” be far behind, especially with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigning after almost a decade in office? And after all of that territory has been tucked away (at least in the dreams of one Donald J. Trump), who knows what might come next? Of course, if we don’t get too carried away ahead of time, all we have to do is wait less than two weeks until he’s once again president and perhaps we’ll find out.
In the meantime, let retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and TomDispatch regular William Astore, who runs the must-read Bracing Views Substack, fill you in on how Trump and his buddy, future trillionaire Elon Musk, are likely to make what’s already the world’s most distinctly over-endowed military great” again just in time to take any place on Earth. Tom
End Warness, Not Wokeness
Ten Thoughts on Curbing the Worst Excesses of U.S. Militarism
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take America back (again!) to greatness, there’s been much talk of Elon Musk’s new DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, and whether it will dare tackle Pentagon spending in useful ways. Could it curb rampant fraud, waste, and abuse within military contracting? Will the Pentagon finally pass a financial audit after seven consecutive failed attempts? Might the war in Ukraine finally sputter to an end, along with U.S. taxpayer support for that country of roughly $175 billion over the last three years?
Efficiency” may be the word of the hour, but a more efficient” imperial military, with a looser leash to attack Iran, bottle up China, and threaten Russia would likely bring yet more unrest to a world that’s already experiencing war-making chaos. When military lethality” becomes the byword of even the Democrats, as was true with Kamala Harris’s campaign — her vice-presidential running mate’s main criticism of the Trump record on Iran was that his leadership was too fickle” when it came to that country’s possible acquisition of a nuclear weapon — one wonders if any move toward restraint, let alone sanity and peace, is possible within the Washington beltway.
If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy want to lead a useful DOGE when it comes to the U.S. military, they should focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. Remind me, after all, of the last major war America effectively won. Yes, of course, it was World War II, 80 years ago, with a lot of help from allies like Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.
On the other hand, remind me of just how effective” the U.S. military was in replacing the Taliban with… yes, the Taliban in Afghanistan after 20 years of effort and roughly $2 trillion in expenditures; or how effective” it was in finding Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction while bringing democracy to Iraq; or how effective” it’s been in decreasing the risk of a world-altering nuclear war (while building a whole new generation of nuclear weaponry), as the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists creeps ever closer to a thermonuclear midnight.
Color this retired Air Force officer red, as in angry and scared. Still, a new administration should represent somewhat of a fresh start, another opportunity for this country to alter its militaristic course. Perhaps you’ll indulge me for a moment as I dream of 10 ways the Trump administration could (but, of course, won’t) bring a form of greatness” back to America. (An aside: Explain to me Donald Trump’s eternal focus on making America great again” when any president should instead be focused on making America good, as in morally just and decent, again.)
1. It’s said that Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will end wokeness” in the military. No more DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) generals, whatever that may mean. Apparently, the next administration wants to return to a military world of white men wearing stars (and losing wars) — the twenty-first-century equivalent of the heroes who triumphed” in places like Korea and Vietnam in the previous century. Perhaps the new Trump administration should reanimate former Air Force Strategic Air Commander General Curtis LeMay to win” a nuclear war against China or Russia. Whatever else you can say about LeMay, he wasn’t woke.” Nor were generals like Douglas MacArthur in Korea and William Westmoreland in Vietnam. Nor, of course, were they victorious or even that effective, as was no less true of more recent savior” generals like David Petraeus in Iraq and Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan.
America, we don’t need a secretary of defense to end wokeness” in the military. What we need is one to end warness, the pursuit of perpetual conflict across the globe. Instead of channeling his inner Darth Vader and choking the careers of the woke,” Hegseth — assuming he makes it to the Pentagon — should act to rein in all its warriors” and civilian neocons who keep boasting of putting on their big-boy pants as they clamor for yet more war.
2. Speaking of Darth Vader and Star Wars (and recalling its planet-destroying weaponry), the $2 trillion or so planned for the modernization” of this country’s nuclear arsenal, including new Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, a new stealth bomber (the B-21 Raider), and new Columbia-class nuclear submarines, could easily be curtailed, even cut completely, without faintly impacting national security. Instead, the U.S. could pursue nuclear reduction talks with Russia and China that would enhance world security so much more than building a whole new genocidal set of nukes and their delivery systems. If the Trump administration wants to show greatness,” it should do what President Ronald Reagan once did: work to put an end to nuclear madness through diplomacy.
3. Speaking of diplomacy and disarmament, isn’t it time for this country to stop being the world’s foremost merchant of death? The United States is, in fact, an uncontested number one in international arms sales, accounting for 40% of the marketplace. For a start, Trump and his minions could regain a smidgen of moral authority by halting the endless flow of (nearly) free bombs, missiles, and shells to Israel, thereby slowing its genocidal efforts to murder yet more Palestinians in Gaza. (Good luck on that one, of course.)
4. If Trump is so keen to put America First,” shouldn’t that mean sending money to Main Street, USA, rather than to Wall Street, K Street arms lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and giant military contractors in Crystal City, Virginia, and elsewhere? Euphemistically called the defense” budget, the money that flows into the U.S. military is now officially set at nearly $900 billion, but its future ceiling seems unlimited and the total national security budget” is already closer to an astounding $1.4 trillion. Why are Americans letting the Pentagon and the National (In)Security State gobble up roughly 60% of the federal discretionary budget, year in, year out, no matter which political party gains the presidency? In truth, America’s real political party is a warbird with two right wings.
5. Given those two right wings, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising how often it spins, flails, and fails. Only recently, for example, the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row. Had it been a Trump casino, it would have declared bankruptcy and gone belly up 30 years ago. Even then, you couldn’t have dissolved and distributed its assets, since roughly $2 trillion of them are missing.” (America, your money is MIA, or missing in action, while the American dream has been KIA, or killed in action, by wanton, wasteful, and wrongheaded Pentagon spending.) Want that institution to pass an audit? Cut its budget in half until it produces a credible and accurate accounting. Something tells me that the bureaucracy would finally win” its war on the numbers if faced with the equivalent of a budgetary guillotine.
6. Isn’t it finally time for the Pentagon to abandon its global fever dream of full-spectrum dominance”? An American military deployed everywhere is also one that is vulnerable everywhere. What sense is there in having U.S. Special Forces in 80+ countries? What sense is there in having roughly 800 military bases around the globe? Harkening back to my sci-fi youth, America today most closely resembles the power-driven empire in Star Wars (with the belligerence of the Klingons in Star Trek thrown in for good measure). If Elon Musk truly believes that less can be more (as in more efficient), why not start with far fewer bases and foreign entanglements?
7. Speaking of Star Trek, this country could use a new prime directive” where we don’t go in search of monsters to destroy everywhere. Isn’t it high time we turned inward and focused on healing ourselves? As presidential candidate and Senator George McGovern, a decorated World War II bomber pilot, said so powerfully in 1972, Come home, America.” Leave the world to settle its own affairs.
8. Speaking of new approaches, why not try rapprochement? Stop attempting to dominate Russia and China, countries that could conceivably destroy the U.S. (as we could destroy them), and start finding smart ways to cooperate. Echoing the business-speak that might appeal to Musk and Trump, isn’t it time to seek win-win scenarios rather than war-war ones?
9. They say fascism will come to America only if it’s wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross, but maybe some version of that is, in fact, the only way to neutralize future fascism — with critical patriotism (rather than jingoistic nationalism) that stresses fidelity to America’s highest ideals. Stop hugging the flag and start living up to the vision of a United (rather than increasingly dis-united) States, a true land of the free and home of the brave that refuses to be frightened by drones in the sky or an expanding China. Stop promoting a vision of a crusading America and start living a vision of a country in which peacemakers are honored, even revered.
10. The names of American drones — Predator” and Reaper” — reveal much about this country’s direction over the last half-century. What this country needs to be great again” are military and government establishments that are far less predatory and reap far fewer bodies overseas or, even better, none. (Keep in mind the millions of people killed, wounded, or displaced in countries ranging from Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to Afghanistan, Iraq, and all too many other lands across this planet in this century.)
There you have it, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, my 10 thoughts on your all too dodgy (rather than DOGE) quest for efficiency” and greatness” (again). In a nutshell, efficiency, as in doing things right, is far less important than effectiveness, or doing the right things, as management guru Peter Drucker put it. So, for example, a more efficient military might have fought in a somewhat smarter fashion in Iraq, but an effective military (and government) would have recognized that such a war should never have been pursued to begin with. Let me be clear: I don’t want an efficient” war with Iran or China or any other country. I want an effective American foreign (and military) policy where, to cite Abraham Lincoln, right makes might.
Put bluntly, you can’t do a wrong thing the right way, a simple maxim I fear will be lost on that potential future trillionaire Musk and his DOGE. Therefore, the U.S. military and government will continue to do all too many wrong things, perhaps in a few cases slightly more efficiently, only making U.S. defense” policy ever more predatory and so reaping yet more innocent lives across this globe of ours.
When it comes to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, let me say the obvious: the U.S. needs a smaller military establishment capable of defending this country by upholding the ideals and freedoms delineated in the Constitution. Fighting endless wars in distant lands is not the solution here, it’s the problem. As a result, America has an ineffective military (inefficient as hell to boot) that essentially launders trillions in taxpayer dollars to merchants of death like Lockheed Martin and Boeing while filling far too many body bags with dead foreigners. Your DOGE, Mr. Musk, won’t change this, nor will your predilection for spoiling the Pentagon with ever-higher budgets, President Trump.
So, what is to be done, America? As the prophet Michael Jackson once sang, we must start with the man in the mirror. Collectively, we need to ask ourselves and by extension our” government to change its ways. Or, more effectively, we need to demand radical and extensive changes, since power of the sort wielded by this country’s national security state will concede nothing without a demand.
The forms those demands take are up to you, America.
In my darker hours, I wonder if, in our latest Trumpian moment, this country will be the national equivalent of the Titanic, post-iceberg — meaning that our fate is sealed. If that’s the case, maybe we can play sweeter music and be kinder to each other as we slip toward an ice-cold watery grave. But there are other moments when I imagine the iceberg still looming before the ship of state and a course correction still possible.
I hope that’s the case, even if our ship’s captain (Donald Trump) and his senior officers appear asleep at the wheel, while a few nutcases seem to be seeking that iceberg as a national death wish of sorts or, if you prefer, as an end times” quest. As Howard Zinn once said, you can’t be neutral on a moving train — or for that matter on a ship of state already deep in perilous waters.
To use a different nautical reference, a more hopeful (if fictional) one, before the USS Caine goes down with all hands in high winds and heavy seas under the blundering and blustering Commander Queeg, maybe it’s time for us, the crew, to take matters into our own hands, as difficult as that may be to contemplate.
Come hard about, America! Seek the fair winds and following seas of peace. If we have the courage to do that, we will truly save our ship, ourselves, and much of the rest of the world from looming disaster.
Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Parliament yesterday that there is a risk of 100,000 illegal immigrants entering the country in the next few weeks.
The Minister further stated that Intelligence agencies have already reported on the arrival of those illegal immigrants.
He stated this while participating in a debate in Parliament yesterday in response to the issue raised by MP Rauff Hakeem regarding this matter during the debate.
It has been reported that 116 illegal migrants from Myanmar have entered the country. An investigation is underway into this matter. They were caught up in this racket and have even paid money. In addition, they have paid about 50 million in their local currency. Apart from that about 80 million have been paid to the organisers in their country for transport. The Police are currently investigating this matter.
