View from America
By M.R. Josse
GAITHERSBURG, MD: President Joe Biden is on the cusp of a presidency-defining first 100 days of victory, with tens of millions of Americans on the verge of receiving stimulus checks, as the $ 1.9 Trillion rescue bill he authored heads back to the House for a final vote. As this is being drafted, that is CNN’s assessment, one that finds general resonance in the mainstream American media’s reportage.
As CNN tells it: “After a weekend of high drama, which saw the President intervene to keep moderate West Virginian Senator Joe Manchin in line with his fellow Democrats and preserve their tiny Senate margin, Biden hopes to sign the massive bill into law this week.”
US President Biden unveiling $ 1.9 trillion rescue bill
MUCH NEEDED RELIEF
Though there is still some lingering disappointment in the ranks of ‘progressive’ Democrats, caused by the removal of a minimum wage hike in the Senate version of the package passed 6 March and the narrowed scope of unemployment payment, Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders provided Biden very welcome and timely political cover by describing the bill as “the most significant piece of legislation to benefit the working families in the modern history of the US.”
Thus, when Biden signs the bill into law soon he can legitimately claim a very substantial political achievement early in his presidency. That would validate the organizing principle of his political campaign for the presidency in 2020: that he could secure the resources and strategy that he believes is vital in ending the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the latter front, it is notable that while, early on, Biden had promised to administer 100 million vaccines to Americans within 100 days of his administration, less than 50 days from 20 January 2021, over 90 million – or roughly 9.4% of the population – have been vaccinated, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Presently, 2 million doses are being injected into arms per day! A third vaccine (Johnson & Johnson) – a single-dose one that is easier to transport and store than the two others that have been and are being injected into arms here for some time now – is now reinforcing the national vaccination process.
Grimmer pandemic stats are: total cases – nearly 29 million; fatalities well over 500,000. Also worrisome is that variants of the virus are spreading. No less so is that, despite the stern warnings and urgent urgings of the CDC and a whole phalanx of reputed experts and scientists to not relax pandemic-related restrictions, some officials are turning a deaf ear to such sensible counsel.
Indeed, the governors of two states – Texas and Mississippi – have not only brazenly lifted the mask mandate but permitted, even encouraged, businesses to fully open. While such behavior may seem weird to even frequent visitors to this country as yours faithfully, they are apparently par for the course here: diversity, it seems, is inherent in the American DNA!
OMINOUS PORTENTS
There are ominous portents discernible on other fronts, too. Indeed, a scary glimpse of the dangers that may be lurking ahead for Biden, and America, was provided by none other than FBI Director, Christopher Wray, the other day, in an interview to CNN.
They emanate from the conspiracy theories tied up to the 6 January 2021 mob insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the ‘Big Lie’ about the 2020 presidential election being ‘stolen’ from the former president, Donald Trump.
Wray predicted that “the problem of domestic terrorism is not going anywhere soon”, even while informing CNN’s audience that “2,000 plus cases” relating to that horrific event in the annals of modern American history were currently being “probed” by the FBI, with the possibility that that number could eventually be significantly higher.
In a parallel development, out tumbled a welter of media stories informing that the U.S. Capitol was ‘on high alert’ and has ‘increased security’, in the wake of worrisome reports of a possible ‘attack plot’ on 4 March by QAnon conspiracy-advocates. What’s more, those crazies promised that on that day Trump would be inaugurated as president for a second term!
[It may be noted that, according to Wikipedia, the first inauguration, that of George Washington, took place on 30 April 1789. All subsequent (regular) inaugurations from 1793 till 1933 were held on 4 March, the day of the year on which the federal government began operation under the U.S. Constitution, in 1789.]
It is worth bearing in mind that, due to the seriousness with which such threats were taken, the Capitol went into lockdown, with all meetings scheduled for 4 March being cancelled.
Tellingly, as CNN informed, investigators were examining whether even U.S. lawmakers ‘wittingly or unwittingly aided Capitol rioters.’ No less interesting is the fact that, on 4 March itself, Trump reiterated his Big Lie on the ‘stolen’ election, this time, with allegations that the Georgia elections were ‘rigged.’
FOREIGN FRONT
On the foreign relations front things have not been exactly calm – if not wildly turbulent. On 2 March, as per a Reuters report, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny being poisoned, then jailed in Russia. This represents Biden’s most direct challenge yet to the Kremlin. The U.S. was joined in this move by the European Union.
On 3 March, an airbase hosting U.S. troops in western Iraq was rocket-attacked, not many days following the U.S. retaliatory strike on a Syrian military facility in northern Syria in the wake of an attack by Iran-backed Shia militia against American assets in Iraq.
What is particularly worthy is that, as per multiple media accounts, Biden called off a second strike by F-16 aircraft after reportedly learning that many women and children would have also been killed. If that is so, it could provide a valuable clue into Biden’s mind-set. Of course, one must consider the fact that the United States and Iran are reportedly getting ready for a resumption of diplomatic talks at some point in the future; it wouldn’t do, in such circumstances, to go for overkill, would it?
Another revealing foreign policy facet of the still brand-new Biden administration’s foreign policy architecture has to do with Afghanistan. On this score, it bears recalling that U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, as per an 8 March report by the BBC, wrote a letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani calling for a 90-day reduction in violence and a transitional government formed from both sides.
Blinken, however, told Ghani that no decision had been made about whether to stick to a planned U.S. troop withdrawal by 1 May, as committed by the Trump administration but which Afghan officials fear would create enormous security challenges.
BBC’s Lyse Douset describes the letter, obtained by the BBC, as “blunt” and interprets it as an effort to “step up pressure” on the Afghan government and the Taliban. As Douset reminds, “However, the disagreement and distrust between the two sides is still wide and Afghans worry that a deal brokered in haste could quickly break down.”
It would hence be wise to wait and watch, even for a Nepal which, while not exactly an immediate neighbour of Afghanistan, does share common concerns and some neighbours, including Pakistan, China and India, all of which do have enduring, if not totally similar, interests in monitoring how U.S.-Afghan/Taliban relations fare.
NEPALI QUAGMIRE
l note that there has been a rather bewildering and rapid-fire array of political developments in Nepal, of late. Taken cumulatively, they reinforce what I’ve maintained, for long: that Nepal is sucked into a deadly bog or quagmire – largely created by foreign forces and their Nepali lackeys to advance their respective interests – that it is now difficult, if not impossible, to get out.
They include: the annulment by the Supreme Court of the Oli-Dahal’s NCP, and recognition of the Rishi Ram Kattle-led NCP; the inability of the Election Commission to resolve which faction of the squabbling NCP faction’s claim to legal recognition is legitimate; and the fact that the first session of the restored House of Representatives was disrupted by MPs representing the NC and the Dahal-Nepal grouping of the NCP, the very ones that were so vociferous in demanding the restoration of Parliament!
And if all those oddities were not difficult enough to wrap one’s head around, what does one say about the non-recognition by Parliament that there are now two splinters of the erstwhile NCP? Of course, since Parliament does not recognize that the NCP has split, it is logical that its Secretariat should have declared, on the opening day of the restored House, that their lawmakers should be seated together.
No less edifying are the gyrations of NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba. Not too long ago, he had made it plain that he was raring to take a shot at becoming prime minister one more incredible time! That was when he was being assiduously wooed to head a coalition government – in the event that the Oli-led one disintegrated – by both Oli, and his recent nemesis, Prachanda, aka Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
More recently, Deuba was reportedly quoted as saying that he was not in a hurry to sit on the prime ministerial gaddhi. That song then changed somewhat: he was not in the race for the prime ministerial position, at all! What, then, was these verbal gymnastics all about? Perhaps a belated recognition that in the extremely turbid and fluid political situation obtaining in the country currently, it made more practical sense to wait and see what actually happens on the ground – and how – before jumping in.
What has also come to pass, of late, is that the incumbent government led by K.P. Sharma Oli has been taking bold and dramatic steps, including – most notably – those relating to the renegade Communist grouping led by Netra Bikram Chand, aka Biplav.
First, there was the release from detention of a passel of leaders and cadres of that party; then came a formal three-point agreement with the government; and, finally, the decision to initiate a formal political dialogue for some yet undisclosed motives.
I don’t know how all this looks to you. To me, it suggests that there is a very strong possibility that the Oli government will still be around for sometime – or so, at least, it would appear to Oli and Company.
Incidentally, talking about Oli I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed his 4 March jibe at Prachanda delivered in a speech in Birtamod: its punch line was: he was in favor of a government with which the Nepali people would be ‘comfortable’ with, a clear dig at Prachanda’s saying, sometime back, that he favored a Nepali government with which India would be ‘comfortable’!
Finally, I was struck by the contrast outlined below. Baburam Bhattarai, formerly joined at the hips with Prachanda et al, speaking in Hindi on an Indian TV channel and former King Gyanendra telling a reporter in Darjeeling, in a Tik-Tok video: I don’t know Hindi!
The former monarch who had schooled at St. Joseph’s, in North Point, in Darjeeling spoke in Nepali. He said he was holidaying there, recalling that 50 years ago or so he was once a student in that town. He looked fit and dandy, fired off answers to queries smoothly. No, the reporter did not ask whether there was any hidden political agenda to his visit to ‘Darj.’
The writer can be reached at: manajosse@gmail.com
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