Kashmir

Donald Trump says that the Kashmir problem goes back thousands of years and is very complicated, which is his way of saying that he doesn’t want to be involved.

To be honest we can talk about the roots of Hinduism, the invasion of the Mughals, the British Empire, and etcetera. But in reality the Kashmir problem dates back to the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent.

At that time the semi-autonomous kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir was given the option to join India or Pakistan. But there was a snag. The monarch—Maharaja Hari Singh was a Hindu while the majority of the population was Muslim.

Initially, the Maharaja tried to solve the problem by opting for independence. However, in October 1947, tribal militias from Pakistan invaded Kashmir. This prompted the Maharaja to seek military assistance from India. In return, he signed the Instrument of Accession, formally agreeing to join India. The result was the First Indo-Pakistani War (1947–1948).

The conflict ended with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in 1949, which established a Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir between Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. The UN also called for a plebiscite to allow the people of Kashmir to choose between India and Pakistan. This never happened.

Kashmir has remained a flashpoint ever since. India and Pakistan have fought additional wars over the region—in 1965 and 1999—and tensions persist with frequent military skirmishes along the LoC.

In addition to the international dimension, Kashmir also faces internal unrest. From 1989 onward, a violent separatist insurgency emerged in Indian-administered Kashmir, fuelled by dissatisfaction with Indian rule, human rights abuses, and support for militants from across the border. This insurgency has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and widespread suffering among civilians.

Then in August 2019, Narendra Modi’s Indian government, revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which had granted Jammu and Kashmir a special autonomous status. This was followed by a heavy military crackdown, internet shutdowns, and the detention of local leaders.

Just to make things more complicated, China also holds a portion of the region (Aksai Chin) and has its own disputes with India and tends to side with Pakistan.

This is all very troubling, but what makes it more so is the nuclear dimension. In 1998 both countries started building nuclear arsenals and they both have about 170 nuclear warheads each. India has a No First Use policy. Pakistan does not. This presumably means that if Pakistan is faced what it regarded as an existential threat then it would feel justified in the nuclear option.

Following the recent murder of 26 Indian tourists in Kashmir, India has threatened to scupper the 1960 Indus Water Treaty and cut Pakistan off from water which it needs to survive. This has been interpreted as an existential threat.

To complicate matters further, Israel—with its estimated 160 nuclear warheads—is paranoid about the “Islamic bomb” represented by Pakistan. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu also has close relations with India’s Narendra Modi.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is not known for ethnical behaviour. In fact, he may be one of the most corrupt presidents in American history. And American politics have been known for their corruption throughout the country’s nearly 250-year history.

In his first term, President Trump was attacked for promoting his newly-acquired International Hotel in Washington DC as THE Washington hostelry. His message was clear to foreign and domestic visitors: stay at my hotel and I will looking kindly on you. Guess where visitors stayed?

Whenever Trump upped sticks and moved to the Florida White House at Mar-a-Lago (which was quite often) he took with him a large retinue of Secret Service agents and White House staff. He charged the government for the privilege. This earned him an estimated $2 million net in his first four years. The practice continued when he was out of office and in his second term.

Trump also pushed hard to stage a G7 summit at his other Florida property, the Doral Golf Resort. This would have netted him $100 million but the public outcry stopped him.

Trump’s antics in the first term are small beer, however, compared to those of his second. This week saw the opening of the “The Executive Club” whose main investor is Donald Trump Jr. The Georgetown-based club is being billed as a billionaire’s club. Membership—which is by invitation only—costs $500,000 and there is a waiting list.

It is worth the money. The club promises exclusive on premise access to the president and key members of his administration. In short, cash for access.

Then there is the Trump family’s love affair with crypto. All three brothers are heavily involved here—Donald Jr, Eric and even 19-year-old Barron. They have several ventures in this Wild West currency business.

The first is a Trump meme coin. These are basically the crypto version of Pokémon or baseball cards. Only limited number are produced and as demand rises so does the value of each meme coin. The coins change hands and each time they do the Trump family takes a cut. So far, that cut is estimated to have made them $550 million.

Recently, the Trump family set up a competition whereby the top 220 meme coin buyers win an exclusive dinner with the president at his Washington golf club. Again, cash for access.

The Trump boys have also set up a crypto-bank called World Liberty Financial which has invested in a crypto currency called Ether coin which Trump is purchasing in large numbers as part of his Federal Reserve crypto bank.

Finally, there is the issue of insider trading in the hours before the announcement that most tariffs were being cut back to ten percent. It is known that there was a spike in share purchases hours before the announcement.

Who made the purchases would require an investigation by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). There have also been calls for the SEC to investigate the Trump family’s crypto business. But the chairman of the SEC is Paul Atkins, a Trump appointee and—surprise, surprise, the former co-chairperson of Token Alliance—a crypto currency advocacy group.

Two videos

Two disturbing videos out of America this week. The first one comes straight out of a White House cabinet meeting.

To Donald Trump’s credit, he has, in theory, been the most transparent president since at least the end of World War Two. But at the same time, he has opened doors to the media he likes and can control and slammed them shut to the journalists he dislikes.

Also, political leaders are not always willing to fully discuss an issue when the cameras are rolling. A perfect example of this is a recent cabinet meeting.

Cabinet meetings should be no-holds barred political discussions where a wide variety of views are aired. Instead we witnessed a round oval table series of sycophantic statements.

Attorney General Pam Bondi: “Thanks to you, Mr President, we are making great strides.

Labour Secretary Jamieson Greer: “You are standing up for American workers.”

Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard: “Thanks to your leadership….”

Administrator for Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin: “An honour to work with you.”

And so on and so on.

The second video has since been removed from the web. Just as well, as it should come with a health warning. It is disturbing. It is a two-minute production which was shown twice during Trump’s recent Michigan rally to mark the first 100 days of the Trump Administration.

Recently he rounded up several hundred alleged members of a violent gang and deported them to a notorious giant prison in El Salvador. The video below shows them being shackled, shaved and loaded onto planes while bent double. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the video is not the unnecessary cruelty it shows, or the knowledge that these people were denied the rule of law. It is the reaction of the crowd which throughout the video burst into wild cries of “USA, USA” and their demand that it be shown a second time.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".