Southeast Asia

In an effort to reinforce public perception that policy changes when a new administration assumes the White House, US and European analysts have made several attempts to push forward narratives describing US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy as “confused” or “unclear” in contrast to his predecessor, President Barrack Obama.
However, upon closer examination, from the Middle East to Asia Pacific, US foreign policy has continued, virtually uninterrupted, for decades.

The goal of informing an audience is straightforward and employs equally straightforward methods. The goal of manipulating an audience, however, is more complicated. It involves not only manipulating the current facts, but also reaching back and forth through time to revise both distant and recent history.

At the beginning of the month Cambodia hosted local elections that precede parliamentary elections that are scheduled on the summer of 2018. In this context, the role that local elections play in the political life of the country can hardly be overestimated, since they serve as a display of the ideas and moods that dominate the Cambodian political scene and can be regarded as an indicator of the course that the parliamentary elections are going to take.

“America first” and “to hell with the rest of the world”! One single stroke of hand, one signature, and over 1,000 hardworking people in Bali, Indonesia, suddenly ended up on the pavement. No second thoughts, no mercy. American savage capitalist ways met and embraced that fabled Indonesian feudalism, which was implanted into this country several decades ago, precisely after the 1965 military coup sponsored by the West.

Recently, terrorist attacks have unfolded across Indonesia, a militant network disrupted along the Thai-Malaysian border and full-scale military operations including aerial bombing deployed as Philippine troops fought to take back Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao, all linked or affiliated with the Islamic State.

The only word I find for it is cloddish. I refer to the latest CIA-instigated attempt to initiate regime change against outspoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The so-called ISIS terror attack in the minerals-rich southern Philippines island of Mindanao, a predominately Muslim part of the mostly Christian nation of 100 million people, took place literally in the midst of President Duterte’s talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mayhem broke out across the southern Philippine city of Marawi where militants besieged it and hoisted flags of the so-called “Islamic State.” Located on the southern island of Mindanao, the city is only slightly removed from Al Qaeda affiliate Abu Sayaff’s primary area of operation on nearby Jolo and Basilan islands.

On May 9, the current Mayor of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname Ahok, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of violating the law on blasphemy, which was adopted as far back as 1965 to maintain religious tolerance and guarantee the protection of religious freedom in the country.

On May 9, the current Mayor of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname Ahok, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of violating the law on blasphemy, which was adopted as far back as 1965 to maintain religious tolerance and guarantee the protection of religious freedom in the country.

Jakarta is now in turmoil. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known in Indonesia as ‘Ahok’), until very recently a beloved and extremely effective Governor of the capital city, was sentenced on May 9, 2017 to two-years in prison, for ‘blasphemy’.