Gate Print Edition Spring 2017-2018

VOLUME IV ISSUE 2

Letter from the editors The Gate’s mission is to support, encourage, and facilitate the production of politically focused student journalism, combining pre-professional training with public engagement and service. The journal was created to explore and analyze “All Things Politics,” be it campus issues, domestic policy, or international relations. This year, we remain committed to publishing ideas from all different ideological backgrounds and perspectives.

This is The Gate’s fifth print edition, and the first time that The Gate has published two print editions in one year.

The timing of this release also coincides with the official re-launch of The Gate’s Cook County Jail Project, and we’re incredibly grateful for the IOP’s help and guidance in this exciting program. We are thankful for all of the writers who contributed to this edition, as well as for our design team who spent hours formatting the stories included here. The Gate is grateful for the support of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the countless fellows and guest speakers we have welcomed to our meetings this past year. In particular, we would like to thank Matthew Jaffe, Crystal Coats, Jenny Huang, Alicia Sams, Christine Hurley, Katrina Mertens, Ashley Jorn, Lucy Little, and Zane Maxwell for all that they do to support The Gate. Additional thanks is due to David Axelrod, for his continued support of the David Axelrod Reporting Grant. Finally, we would like to give a special thank you to a generous donor, whose anonymous gift made this second print edition possible.

The works in this magazine and hundreds of others are available at www.uchicagogate.com. We hope you join us there as we continue to explore, document, and analyze political life in all its forms.

–Adam Chan and Dylan Wells, Editors-in-Chief; Jacob Toner Gosslein, Managing Editor All images, unless otherwise specified, are taken from Creative Commons.

The photograph above, as well as the third photograph to the right, were provided by the University of Chicago.

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Table of Contents 04 Why Here, Why Now? The motivation behind Trudeau’s appeal to young people 06 The Active Western Role in the Libyan Slave Trade How we have turned a blind eye 08 Timing is Everything Bringing military trauma care to American neighborhoods 12 Money and Mistrust The effects of Trump’s decision to cut off aid to Pakistan 16 An Interview with McKay Coppins Author and staff writer at the Atlantic 18 Hayek Doesn’t Belong to the Right The need to correct our perception 20 Counterterrorism on the Shores of the Sahara What the Sahel G5 would face 23 A Kingdom in Flux Amid Social Reform Saudi Arabia struggles with change 26 Twilight of the Idols Cryptocurrencies face reality 29 Resistance Persists The 2018 Women’s March

Editors-In-Chief Adam Chan & Dylan Wells Managing Editor Jacob Toner Gosselin U.S. Editor Riddhi Sangam Chicago Editor Danielle Schmidt World Editors Ashton Hashemipour & Saisha Talwar Interview Editor Ridgley Knapp University Editor Sarah Wasik Opinion Editor Malloy Owen Chief Copy Editors Lucy Johnson & Emily Lynch Design Team Lauren Futter & Dina Rabinovitz Outreach Chair Eleanor Khirallah Marketing Chair Megha Bhattacharya Senior Writers Brett Barbin, Yarra Elmasry, Tim Koenning, Richard Omoniyi-Shoyoola, Alexandra C. Price, Kaeli Subberwal Columnists Will Cohen, Aman Tiku, Dylan Stafford Issue 2 | 3

Why Here, Why Now? The Motivation Behind Trudeau’s Appeal to Young People

by Alexandra C. Price On Wednesday, February 7, 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched a four-day US tour here at the University of Chicago before continuing on to San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is not unusual for Trudeau to visit the United States—he has made fourteen visits in his time as Prime Minister, mostly for summits and meetings with other world leaders—but this trip stood out, in part due to its focus on young people as agents of change.

As opposed to most of his other US visits, this trip was more broad and ambitious in its purpose. In a press release in mid-January, Trudeau’s office announced that the visit was meant to “further strengthen the deep bonds that unite Canada and the United States.” In order to achieve this goal, Trudeau included meetings with political leaders such as Rahm Emanuel and local business leaders in California in his itinerary, emphasizing his belief in the importance of trade and collaboration between Canada and the United States. This is not new—desire for increased collaboration has been a defining feature of Trudeau’s time in office, ever since he first traveled to the United States in 2016, marking the first

official visit by a Canadian leader in nineteen years. Instead, what made this trip stand out so much was its scope—it incorporated meetings with individuals in various regions and sectors, ranging from business leaders, government officials, and, most surprisingly, University of Chicago students.

The visit came at a tense political moment for the United States and the world—during the first year of his term, US President Donald Trump reversed many of the Obama administration’s positions that aligned with Trudeau’s progressive agenda. Most notably, the Trump administration has publicly opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal, reneged on prior initiatives to protect the environment, and pursued starkly different policies regarding immigration and refugees. In response, Trudeau has been seeking new partnerships in the United States across the board so that he continues to be able to promote Canada’s business interests, even where he and Trump do not agree. Last year, for example, Trudeau became the first Canadian Prime Minister to speak at a US governor’s conference, where he championed NAFTA and other partnerships

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between Canadian and US companies. Now, he is reaching out to American youth as well.

It is unusual for a world leader to spend a great deal of time courting young adults, let alone those of a foreign power. Yet American college students tend to be receptive towards Trudeau’s progressive ideas—unsurprisingly, since most college campuses lean liberal.

Several students echoed this after the event, including Second Year Ronen Schatsky.

Schatsky said that he came to see Trudeau speak because “[Trudeau] is a leader that inspires [him]” due to the fact that he is welcoming to immigrants and those who are underrepresented, among other things.

Trudeau is often compared to Obama in his popularity, and especially in the era of Trump, it can be encouraging for many students who have become disillusioned to hear from a politician who they believe in. The appeal to students is another way that Trudeau echoes Obama’s legacy—Obama made headlines during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns by coming to talk to college students and to encourage them to come out and vote, even though they have historically been absent on Election Day. It is likely that Trudeau is seeking to en-

gage with students for a similar reason—because they are generally more open to liberal ideas than older voters, they represent an important and underrepresented demographic in elections, and they will soon become the next generation of world leaders. In other words, if a politician or political party can get college students on their side, they gain a decisive advantage in accumulating enough support to achieve policy goals.

In his address to students, Trudeau said that he chose to include young people in the debate about their future because they are “agents of change for whom change isn’t scary.” In Canada, he explained, youth are changing the nature of the political discourse, demanding intelligent, rational arguments as opposed to fear-mongering tactics—he called on youth in the United States to do the same. Again, this call to action comes at a time when many students are disillusioned by the current state of politics, and Americans as a whole are disappointed in the Trump administration.

“I don’t know if it’s true [that young people] want to hear arguments based on facts . . . but I like that idea a lot. That really explains why people are so disenchanted with politics,” Schatsky commented after the event. “[Trudeau] may have hit on something, actually trying to appeal to people’s ability to think.”

Keeping with that spirit, Trudeau’s address to students incorporated many references to policies on his agenda, such as NAFTA. For example, Trudeau commented with a teasing smile that while Canadians are “very aware of everything going on in the United States,” Americans often take for granted how intertwined American and Canadian interests

are. In fact, the United States exports more to Canada than to the United Kingdom, Japan, and China combined. Trudeau argued that NAFTA would be the best deal for every country, including the United States, and that what is good for Canada is also good for the United States. Additionally, Trudeau argued in defense of feminism, claiming that feminism is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do in order to spur further economic growth in our societies.

Other moments of the event, however, were driven more by rhetoric than by facts. During the question and answer session with David Axelrod, for example, Trudeau was asked about military weapons that Canada sold to the Philippines, a decision which has been criticized by many human rights activists and

by Trudeau’s political opponents in Canada.

When asked if he worried that those weapons could potentially be used to harm civilians, Trudeau danced around the question, claiming that there are plenty of rules in place that the Canadian government committedly follows, but failing to name any specific rules or examples. When Axelrod returned with a follow-up question asking if Trudeau was satisfied in the particular case of the arms deal with the Philippines, Trudeau shut down the line of questioning by saying that he is “still in the process of looking at [the situation].”

Additionally, Trudeau stayed away from specifics while talking about negotiating values versus trade in affairs with other countries, stating rather uncontroversially that it is a question of “balance.” In these moments, Trudeau seemed to compromise his own ideals of fact-based arguments and open debate, leaning instead towards the rhetoric and

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question-dodging that people often criticize in incumbent politicians.

Still, on the surface, it seemed that most students who attended the event agreed with Trudeau’s ideas, a conclusion which is backed up by his approval ratings. Ever since his election, Trudeau has enjoyed an almost cult-like popularity in the United States, similar to the overwhelming approval that Obama had in places like Germany for the first several years of his administration. The real question is whether or not Trudeau can animate this latent support into political action among American youth and business leaders—can he motivate students to learn more about NAFTA, or to become more involved in politics in general? Did his rhetoric move any of them to take action in their lives regarding feminism, or will Trudeau remain the attractive, liberal hero that American liberals admire from afar?

Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Canada will truly “lead the free world” anytime soon, but it is clear that Trudeau is vying for a more prominent place in international relations for his country. Only time will tell whether or not Trudeau will be able to advance this agenda in US-Canadian relations and in his own country over the next few years. Regardless, Trudeau’s visit to the University of Chicago marks an interesting turn in relations between the United States and Canada and could serve as a reminder to students of their potential to enact political change.

Alexandra C. Price is a Senior Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

The Active Western Role in the Libyan Slave Trade As twenty-first century Americans, we are guilty of assuming that slavery is an institution of the past. We applaud ourselves on progressivism and for making strides towards equality. But in reality, the slave trade is still alive and flourishing through illegal networks in Libya, and the West has turned a blind eye.

In the fall of 2017, footage of two men being sold in Tripoli was recorded on a phone camera and released to the public.

What followed was an undercover investigation by CNN and the subsequent realization of a huge problem: migrants in Libya are being purchased as slaves during auctions.

Organized gangs profiting off of migrants traveling through Libya to get to Europe are acting as the auctioneers. The treatment of these so-called slaves, both at the detention centers and at the auctions themselves, is nothing short of horrendous. They are abused, forced to live in terrible conditions, and deprived of food. After the video was released, there was an outcry from the global community: France condemned the action and the United Nations held a summit on the issue at the end of the year.

Where are these “slaves” coming from?

In the past three years alone, roughly half a million people have attempted to cross the Mediterranean via Libya as refugees fleeing their home countries. Why Libya? The country’s location is ideal; its long border and direct access to the Mediterranean make it a hotspot for migration. In addition, migrants are drawn to countries with dysfunctional governments and no coherent legal system.

Without a functioning law, the odds of their being punished for trespassing are slimmer.

In this way, Libya is attractive to migrants.

Despite Libya’s attractiveness, the journey across the Mediterranean is treacherous; the United Nations estimates that roughly three thousand migrants die each year while trying to cross. Though the cry for humanitarian action has led to stricter enforcement of border patrol and more frequent coast guard searches, migrants have continued to travel to Libya in hopes of making it across and escaping whatever persecution they found at home. Only now, because of stricter patrolling, more are getting caught. The coast guard crackdowns have caused an accumulation of detainees stuck in Libya. Smugglers can then take advantage of these men, and this exploitation quickly devolves into a slave trading relationship.

Why do smugglers have the power to exploit free men?

First and foremost, the Libyan government is not strong enough to fight off of the stream of refugees. After Muammar Gaddafi was thrown from power, rival governments formed and have been vying for power in different regions of the country. Since then,

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Libya has been dealing with the incoherence of their government, which has made it difficult to enforce the fair treatment of men who are not even citizens.

In addition, the migrants’ desperation to flee oppression in their own countries has fueled the slave trade. Getting in trouble with Libyan authorities is often better than whatever persecution they faced back home, and, as a result, thousands make the trek.

Because they are willing to risk their lives, the migrants are more susceptible to being exploited.

of the European Union, allocated funds to the Libyan coast guard directly to enforce their borders and detain illegal migrants. Italy was likely trying to decrease the amount of migrants entering their border. However, the money they put into border control led to the backlog of passengers in detention centers, and the situation rapidly degenerated.

Yet this direct relationship between Europe and the slave trade is not the only issue. Europe has played a much larger role in fueling the general African migrant crisis.

An active Western contibrution

A larger scale relationship between the West and Africa

Unfortunately, though, it is not as though this trade has been thriving without any Western awareness. On the contrary, the West has known, or at least had proof, since at least last April. A statement was released by the Internal Organization for Migration (IOM) in April 2017 that reported the existence of slave markets across North Africa, and there was no global-scale response to these reports. A UN human rights report from September 2017 stated that “returned migrants are being robbed, raped, and murdered in Libya,” and still there was no outcry.

It took physical evidence in the form of digital auction footage to convince the public that an urgent solution was needed.

In addition, Italy, along with the European Union, inadvertently played a large role in contributing to the refugee crisis. After refugees began to enter Europe from the Mediterranean coast, Italy, with the backing

In Libya’s case specifically, Western interference has been only mildly beneficial. After helping to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, the West was supposed to assist with a democratic transition of power. However, instead of providing Libya with the necessary infrastructure to start a new government in the right direction, the West largely pulled out of Libya. This caused the rival governments to form, which clearly has not benefited the Libyan people as the West intended.

As other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, can attest, giving temporary aid (either in the form of assistance in overthrowing authoritarian regimes or in funds) without supplying the necessary infrastructure can lead to serious problems, because it paves the way for corrupt regimes to take over.

Now, we have reached the point where international action is needed, because Libya

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is physically unable to fix its problem alone.

The summit that met at the end of 2017 decided that fifteen thousand migrants would be flown back to their original countries.

France has played a particularly large role, both in offering a temporary place of refuge for migrants and also in conveying the atrocities of the trade to the public. Yet this will not solve the problem. The origin of the slave trade was the issues plaguing the migrants’ home countries that caused them to leave in the first place.

A true solution would revolve around providing African nations with the infrastructural help they need to keep citizens content in their own nations and to prevent hotspot countries such as Libya from taking in their refugees. Instead of funnelling resources and funding to Libya, which did not know what to do with with them, it would have been much more beneficial for the West to install a democratic government with a strong constitution after Gaddafi’s overthrow, setting the country up for economic success in the long run.

Of course, this is incredibly complicated, but the sooner that Western nations turn their focus to these aims, the sooner the refugee problem will come to a close and nations can promise not only safety, but prosperity, to their people.

Noa Levin is a Staf Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

Timing is Everything Bringing Military Trauma Care to American Neighborhoods

by Will Cohen While wars are being fought thousands of miles overseas, few realize that lessons being learned on the battlefield are being applied every day in violent areas of America’s inner cities, after mass shootings and terror attacks, and in the average community hospital. As the severity of injuries in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increased, so did our ability to treat these injuries. In fact, over just an eightyear period between 2005 and 2013, the fatality rate among those same patients decreased by close to 50 percent.

These gains were translated from the battlefield to the streets of America. Trauma centers in the United States applied lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq when tragedy struck on April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon. Although three individuals lost their lives, over 260 injured spectators and participants survived the twin explosions in downtown Boston. Not one person who reached a hospital that day succumbed to their injuries.

According to the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, within the United States trauma-related injuries are the leading

cause of death for individuals under the age of forty-five and the fourth leading cause of death overall. As the University of Chicago prepares to open its own trauma center on the South Side of Chicago in the coming months, its team of trauma surgeons is applying the lessons learned treating injured service members overseas in order to improve trauma care domestically.

From the battlefield When a US service member is severely injured on the battlefield, it triggers a cascade of actions and techniques that have been practiced and fine-tuned over time. Immediately, those on the battlefield with an injured soldier seek to control the bleeding, one of the most crucial aspects in trauma care. It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of soldiers who die on the battlefield do so due to exsanguination (blood loss). Hence, immense strides have been taken to equip front line units with equipment and tools that aid in stopping bleeding after serious injuries. Dr. David

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Hampton, a trauma surgeon at the University of Chicago Medicine and Commander in the US Naval Reserve, cited the distribution of individual first aid kits (IFAKs) to every enlisted service member as a critical step in rapidly providing care to the injured. These include tourniquets and hemostatic dressings that can be soaked in medication that catalyzes coagulation (blood clotting). Additionally, special operations units have begun deploying with freeze-dried plasma, the liquid phase of whole blood responsible for carrying clotting factors and immunomodulators. A medic simply needs to add water before injecting the plasma into a bleeding soldier.

Rather than the ABCDE (Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure) acronym associated with the priority levels in many aspects of medical care where ensuring the integrity of a patient’s airway is the preliminary concern, military trauma follows a very different acronym, according to Hampton.

“In the military it’s not so much ABCDE as it is what we call MARCH,” he said. “The M is massive hemorrhage, so the reason why they

put that forward is because of the tourniquets so that is something that they can treat quickly and anyone can do it. Airway and respirations are not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you exsanguinate in the field, game over.”

After attempting to stop any bleeding, an immediate attempt is made to evacuate the injured soldier with MEDEVAC or CASEVAC. MEDEVAC encompasses what is frequently seen in television shows and movies. A dedicated helicopter or ground vehicle equipped with medical equipment, likely painted with a red cross, travels to and evacuates a patient, with little to no weapons systems. CASEVAC is a non-dedicated transport vehicle that is used in one of two situations: a patient requires immediate evacuation and cannot wait for MEDEVAC, and/or the patient needs to be evacuated out of an active situation in which the possibility of the evacuation team needing to fight its way in or out of the area is high.

Once soldiers have been evacuated, they can be brought to several different levels of care facilities. In situations like the Persian Gulf War, in which American troops advanced quickly throughout the country, twenty-person Forward Surgical Teams (FSTs) led by a trauma surgeon, an orthopedist, and an anesthesiologist, were established as major medical facilities could not keep up with geographic advancements. FSTs have now become commonplace in warzones. These teams seek to stabilize patients immediately for transport to facilities with a wider array of capabilities,

according to Dr. Kenneth Wilson, who is also a trauma surgeon at University of Chicago Medicine and a colonel in the United States Army who recently completed an active duty tour in Afghanistan.

“The transfer times are key,” said Hampton, “so in the military they push the FST as far forward as possible and then the ancillary services go even further. My job was to make sure they get from the 1a [battlefield] back to the Level II [FST] Additionally, the United States operates Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) in theatre, which maintain capabilities to provide more intensive care.

“It makes sense if you’re in Baghdad and got injured that you went to the CSH in Baghdad and it was better than if you were out in the field, so now they just pick up the hospital [FST]. I’ve seen a hospital taken down and picked up and moved” Wilson said.

Once patients have been stabilized and treated at a CSH, they can be moved by aircraft to a Level IV regional medical center, which exists outside the combat zone as a fully functioning, stand-alone hospital. At these facilities, “definitive” multidisciplinary trauma treatment can be provided. Lastly there are Level V facilities (Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, San Diego Naval Medical Center, etc.), major stateside military medical facilities which provide long-term and complex care such as reconstructive surgery, just as any major American academic

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medical center could.

As components of this treatment cascade can be distant when fighting in locations such as the Middle East or Africa, transport is critical. The US Air Force maintains C-17s that are comparable to flying Intensive Care Units that allow evacuation of critically injured soldiers from anywhere in the world. According to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Magazine, significantly injured service members could wait as long as forty-five days to return to the United States during the Vietnam War with a survival rate of 75 percent, with an improvement in speed but not survival rate by Operation Desert Storm in 1991. However, drastic improvements continued with the Air Force ensuring state-side evacuations within three days. When it comes to survival rate, “If you make it to a field hospital in theater with a heartbeat,” says Justin Brockhoff, an officer with the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, “you have a 98 percent chance of living.” In a situation in which rapid evacuation is not possible, or a humanitarian disaster occurs where trauma services are required in-country, the US Navy maintains two hospital ships, the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy, that each contain hundreds of beds and that are staffed by military personnel from major Naval medical centers.

As important as it is to get an injured service member to major medical centers outside the combat zone, the most important concept in the entire military trauma care process is the

golden hour.

“The golden hour is that period of time where what you do or don’t do to a patient determines whether they do very well or very poorly” Hampton said.

If critically injured patients receive treatment rapidly after injury, their survival chances increase dramatically. This is why, according to Wilson, evacuation and ensuring that “hospitals are closer to the point of injury instead of flying directly into Kuwait or Baghdad” are critically important in military trauma care. The chief priority is the rapid stabilization and transport of critically injured soldiers to the appropriate medical facilities.

To the streets of America The concept of the golden hour is not unique to military trauma care. In fact, the term was first coined by Dr. R. Adams Cowley at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His research and focus on the time from injury to treatment have largely underpinned the creation of the network of EMS and trauma centers throughout the United States. After the Boston Marathon bombing, many individuals involved in the medical response said in a special journal report (It Takes a Team: The 2013 Boston Marathon: Preparing and Recovering from a Mass Casualty Event) that it was “dumb luck” that the attack happened within

close proximity to six Level I trauma centers.

To receive Level I accreditation, a center has to maintain 24-hour coverage by general surgeons, and quick to immediate availability of a range of medical specialties from orthopedics and neurosurgery to radiology. Level I trauma centers must be able to provide care for any type of trauma-related injury and conduct trauma-based research to be certified by the American College of Surgeons.

For several decades, a different situation has played out on the South Side of Chicago, an area that has seen extraordinarily high levels of violent crime in recent years. Since 1991 and the closure of Michael Reese Hospital, critically injured South Side residents could have to travel up to ten miles by ambulance to reach a Level I trauma center. On November 25, 2017 a University of Chicago Police Department security alert reported that a shooting had occured at 5401 S. Cottage Grove, where a single victim was shot multiple times.

Rather than being transported three blocks to the University of Chicago Medical Center, the victim was taken by ambulance to Stroger Hospital, nine miles away.

Although the University of Chicago maintained a dedicated pediatric Level I trauma center on its Hyde Park campus, it lacked an adult Level I accreditation and could not accept the most critically injured adults.

Starting in May of 2018, South Side victims will no longer need to travel such great distances in an emergency. The University of

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Chicago will be opening its own adult trauma center within its new emergency room, which will likely result in an uptick in penetrating trauma survival rates as well as those from motor vehicle accidents, falls, and work-related injuries. A study published in 2015 showed that the treatment of severe injuries at a Level I trauma center rather than a standard emergency room resulted in a 25-percent reduction in mortality. With a trauma center closer by, “The issue just becomes, can your physiologic reserve hang on to get you from where you are on the South Side to the nearest facility. Because that’s literally the golden hour,” Hampton said.

With the trauma center in its final preparations for opening in May, operating procedures and supplies are being determined, and the military inspiration is not far away for many. For example, Wilson credited his military experience for influencing his care of vascular injuries. At an FST, Wilson explained, medics often place a shunt in an injured extremity to provide blood flow to the remaining portion of the limb and stabilize the patient for transport to a better-equipped facility.

He hopes that “in the civilian world, instead of taking these patients through big long repairs in the middle of the night, [you should] put a shunt in, send them upstairs, and when you’re not tired, when the patient has been resuscitated, when all the inflammatory intermediaries have subsided, then you go back. I’d

like to see that happen, because I personally use it that way, because of the military experience. At a busy trauma center like the University of Chicago may one day be, that gunshot wound to the leg may be followed by another gunshot wound. I can’t spend ten hours vascularizing something.”

Additionally, Hampton explained that transexamic acid, a medication used by some special forces medics to help control bleeding, will be tested at the University of Chicago trauma center when a massive transfusion is needed for a patient. Additionally recent research regarding transfusion protocols and the correct ratio between plasma, platelets, and red blood cells will be evaluated. Wilson also cited the importance of research pertaining to transfusion ratios as a very important contribution of military medicine to domestic care. Unlike in the military, when plasma storage is an issue on the battlefield, domestic transfusions can be parsed out and refined.

abdominal aorta. According to Hampton, REBOA has become common in the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. Hampton also cited a procedure known as a left lateral thoracotomy, which makes use of the same REBOA technique when a surgeon has difficulty placing a clamp on the aortic arch. This emerged into more common use as cardiothoracic surgeons became familiar with the technique in literature and its use in wartime, and then applied it in a domestic setting.

But in the end, Wilson and Hampton both cited the simplest tool as the most important contribution that military trauma care has had on its civilian equivalent: tourniquets.

Their importance was evident on June 14, 2017, when the Congressional Baseball Practice was attacked by a gunman who critically injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

Scalise credits fellow congressman Brad Wenstrup for saving his life that day. Wenstrup, a US Army podiatric surgeon who served a

the efforts of a trauma center. Hampton, a member of the University of Chicago’s mass casualty planning committee, is working to develop a procedure in case such a horrific event occurs. He stressed communication as a vital component and looked to the military integration of various services for inspiration. “When a marine gets injured and they bring them back to the FST which is where the Navy is, the Navy takes care of them, then the Marine pilot brings them back to the CSH and then the Air Force takes over and flies him overseas to Bethesda and then finally you’re at a tri-service facility,” he said. “That kind of dynamic communication, but across all service lines, you can clearly see how well it works getting someone from the battlefield to the United States in twenty-four or forty-eight hours.”

A similar situation, albeit on a smaller scale, exists within a trauma center he explained.

Everyone has to know the mass casualty pro-

As innovations in military trauma care trickle back to their domestic equivalents, the same cannot be said for its practitioners.

During wartime, unlike peacetime where bench-level research advances such as new hemostatic dressings are much more common, surgeons are forced to be very creative in a resource-deprived environment. Discussing the benefits of his experience as a military surgeon, Hampton said that “from the perspective of building confidence with your own skill set, most definitely, suddenly you realize you can do a lot with less, and I think that’s what being at an FST really pushes forward. I think the big thing is being overtly resourceful. Once you realize that you don’t need to get the extra CT scan and that the physical exam that you learn as a first-year [medical student] actually goes a long way, then those kinds of small adjunct really separates and builds your confidence.”

One example of this necessary mechanical ingenuity and its impact on modern medicine traces back to the Korean War and general/ vascular surgeons being deployed with little assistance. To control the bleeding of one patient while operating on another, the physician devised the idea of placing a small balloon within the aorta to stop hemorrhaging from the thoracic cavity, abdomen, or pelvis.

Although it was unsuccessful at the time, this idea led to the creation of a procedure known as REBOA, Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta, which entails placing a balloon through a catheter in the femoral artery and inflating the balloon in the

tour at a Combat Support Hospital in Iraq, immediately applied a tourniquet to Scalise’s injury, likely providing the time necessary to facilitate transfer to a nearby hospital.

As innovations in military trauma care trickle back to their domestic equivalents, the same cannot be said for its practitioners.

In fact, the reverse phenomenon frequently occurs: many military trauma surgeons first train in high-volume civilian trauma centers and then deploy to a military environment.

This is mainly due to the case volume sustainment in civilian trauma centers, where complex injuries are routinely seen. Conversely, military trauma centers frequently do not maintain a large enough patient base to allow surgeons to maintain advanced skills and techniques. To ensure the foremost training for its surgeons, the Department of Defense evaluated civilian trauma centers across the nation as locations for skills sustainment centers. At these civilian centers, located at some of the highest-volume facilities in the country such as Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and USC/LA County Medical Center, military physicians enhance their skills, share lessons learned from the battlefield, and train military medics prior to deployments.

Unfortunately, in this day and age it’s not enough to be skilled in new surgical procedures and maintain cutting-edge technology.

When a mass casualty event occurs, a lack of communication can significantly hamper

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tocol within their department in order to facilitate smooth transitions “from the casualty collection point to the emergency room, to the operating room and onward to the ICUs. The big thing when they say, University of Chicago, you’re the nearest player, the most severely injured patients are going to come to you first, that’s when you have to know where our priorities lie.” For example, elective surgeries would likely be canceled as the operating rooms are cleared and patients in the emergency department would be moved to clear beds for incoming victims.

“Make sure the location you’re going to be triaging people by level is ready to go and that people are in the right spot, and as long as you can get that mobilized quickly, you’ll do very well” said Hampton.

With the University of Chicago trauma center opening, trauma care will be reaching the South Side and advancements from overseas military trauma care will be hitting the streets of Chicago. Hampton is confident that the reduced timing and distance to care will make a positive impact on residents. “If the betting man were betting, he’d be putting money on the University of Chicago.”

Will Cohen wrote a column for The Gate on military affairs entitled “The Big Stick.” The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

Money and Mistrust

The Effects of Trump’s Decision to Cut Off Aid to Pakistan

by Atman Mehta On New Year’s Day, President Trump tweeted that Pakistan has delivered “nothing but lies and deceit” in exchange for American aid and declared that the United States would stop aid to Pakistan. This decision shouldn’t be a surprise, both by the standards of the present and previous administrations. Trump similarly criticized Pakistan in his address at Fort Myers in August while outlining his policy for South Asia and Afghanistan.

To understand the implications of freezing aid to Pakistan, we must tarry a little, understand the relevant historical and political contexts, and most importantly, look to the effects of this decision on the populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mistrust between Pakistan and the United States is familiar, with a convoluted history reaching as far back as Jimmy Carter, who suspended US aid to Pakistan in 1979 due to concerns regarding its nuclear program, only for it to be later revived by his successor, Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush’s administration expressed similar concerns in the August of 1990, when it suspended both economic and military aid to Pakistan because of its “clandestine” nuclear program.

American policy towards Pakistan changed

dramatically after 9/11, with George W. Bush’s administration’s declaration of the “war on terror;” from 2002 to 2010 aid to Pakistan reached almost $19 billion. To do so, both the administrations of President Bush and President Obama had to ignore concerns regarding Pakistani nuclear proliferation, as well as the common knowledge of the Pakistani military’s ties with terrorist groups such as the Taliban and the Haqqani Network.

In 2005, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military dictator, that “the United States will be a friend for life.” A few days later, the Bush administration announced its decision to resume the sale of F-16s to Pakistan after a sixteen year hiatus. Yet a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report dated April 21 of the same year expressed concerns over the Pakistani state and military’s support for terrorism, stating that “Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives remain in Pakistan and may have re-established their organizations in Pakistani cities.” It continued on to state that although Musharraf had banned certain terrorist groups, they were still operating. The same report detailed concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear program. These concerns, and those of the

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past, including a letter by twenty House representatives urging the administration not to sell F-16s to Pakistan, were ignored. Instead, as a CRS report dated November 8, 2007 presented rather dramatically, the total value of arms sales to Pakistan in 2006 nearly equaled all the sales to Pakistan from 1950 to 2001.

The Obama administration similarly brushed aside such concerns. In fact, in 2009, President Obama signed the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, a “non-military” aid package worth $7.5 billion. The bill contained explicit conditions regarding the Pakistani civilian government’s support for terrorist and militant groups (a rather astounding admission to make while providing aid to the same state). Akbar Zaidi, a Pakistani political economist, asked, “… How will imposing conditions on a civilian government ensure that these conditions are adhered to by the military and its agencies?” A valid question which largely remained unanswered.

Moreover, the Quarterly Progress and Oversight report of 2013 regarding the “civilian assistance” program in Pakistan is rather revealing: since 2010, the USAID Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted sixty audits in Pakistan accounting for a total

of $635.2 million; about 40 percent of these audits found “internal control weaknesses” and one in three found “noncompliance” with procedures and regulations. “Noncompliance” seems only to be a polite euphemism to say that American aid was potentially being used for, to put it mildly, whatever the recipients wanted. These audits covered only a fraction of the total aid package; we can only try

who are a threat to the world. This template merits doubt: it seems far too coincidental that Washington’s efforts saw moral motives in Pakistan only when the US military needed land-routes to support its war efforts in Afghanistan. Obama’s 2014 budget proposal described Pakistan as “strategically important.”

When Pakistan cut off NATO’s supply lines as retaliation to Operation Neptune Spear

tions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The corollary to the first of these concerns is obvious. For one part, as the Financial Times reported, Pakistan has stopped sharing intelligence with the US, essential to American war-efforts in Afghanistan. We can also expect Pakistan to block important supply routes, as it has done in the past. Put succinctly by Richard Olson, a special representative

“Noncompliance” seems only to be a polite euphemism to say that American aid was potentially being used for, to put it mildly, whatever the recipients wanted. to estimate the impacts to real scale. Unsurprisingly, this was ignored in the press and by the administration.

The theme of such wilful ignorance isn’t a mere blip. To provide a more dramatic example, in 2010, a paper by Azeem Ibrahim (a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute) even showed that funds were allocated for naval repairs when no navy was in use, among other such examples. The paper was sent to the National Security Council and State Department, only to be ignored. Incidentally, this was the year the administration announced a $2 billion arms deal with Pakistan, a 30 percent increase in the same. Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even stated that Pakistan is the United States’ strongest partner in counter-terrorism.

One must question American motives in this relentless provision of aid in spite of all kinds of concern. The official pretext is a standard foreign policy template: to strengthen the forces fighting against ruthless terrorists

(the unilateral raid to kill Osama bin Laden), John Kerry said that the United States needed Pakistan’s assistance to supply American troops stationed in Afghanistan. In a meeting with the then Pakistani Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani, former CIA director David Petraeus is reported to have stressed the “continued need for the route through Khyber.”

The message of US foreign policy towards Pakistan has been clear: we will support you when we need you; we will suspect you when dispensable, we will believe you when it’s in our interests, and support for terrorist organisations and irresponsible nuclear activity is problematic only when we don’t need your supply routes.

It is in this context in which Trump’s decision to withhold aid to Pakistan must be understood. The consequences of this decision must be analysed in primarily two ways: in terms of the immediate efficacy of the decision, and in terms of the impacts on the two most important stakeholders—the popula-

Issue2|13

for Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Obama administration: “the Pakistanis could effectively shut down the war.” Such a view isn’t at all singular; Huma Yusuf, a Wilson Center Global Fellow said, “There is really no way forward for the United States in Afghanistan without Pakistan playing some kind of cooperative and collaborative role.”

As for the other part, this political manoeuvre is scarcely enough to incentivize Pakistan away from militant groups. Miftah Ismail, Pakistan’s de-facto Finance Minister, told Reuters that “aid cuts will not hurt us … that’s not the leverage [the United States has],” It is likely that the only part of the Pakistani state that the Trump administration has hurt is its pride. C. Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University specialising in South Asia, shares a similar view, stating that this policy is not enough to “make Pakistan change its behaviour.” However, in my opinion, (if that counts for anything) these are lesser concerns.

To investigate the effects (if any such exist)

of this move on the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we must view this decision as part of a larger policy towards the region.

In 2009, then ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson noted in one of her reports that “Taliban groups in Pakistan and the regional threat posed by Al-Qaeda” can’t be effectively mitigated without policy that leads to greater stability in Afghanistan. She reasoned that Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban stems from its fear that the United States and NATO

tagonise Pakistan towards terrorist groups (“justified or not”), which can only portend a greater risk of more violence, more militancy and more civilian deaths.

More importantly, Trump’s policies towards Afghanistan couldn’t be farther away from the “stability” Patterson spoke of. The administration has already called for about three thousand more troops to be stationed in Afghanistan, and even more frighteningly, plans to allow for more covert drone strikes in

“accidents” in Pakistan. These are only conservative estimates concealing what must be called larger war crimes. Further, these documents pre-date the indiscriminate and, at times, untargeted violence of the drone-strike program, issues that weren’t deemed worthy enough to be addressed by the Trump administration (neither while outlining its policy towards Afghanistan, nor while cutting aid to Pakistan). The escalation of such war efforts and the drone program is a complete contra-

Trump’s policies towards Afghanistan couldn’t be farther away from the “stability” Patterson spoke of. will fail to securely establish a “non-Taliban” government favourable to Pakistan, an obvious consequence of a flippant foreign policy towards Pakistan. Her report also addresses the role of India, whom Pakistan views as one of its greatest threats, in the conflict. She writes, “Justified or not,” greater Indian involvement (including investment, trade, etc.) will cause Pakistan to support Taliban groups more vehemently as “anti-India allies.” In such a case, we can only expect more militancy and less stability in Afghanistan. Trump’s address at Fort Myers precisely contradicted these concerns.

For one, Trump’s call for greater Indian involvement in the region will further an-

the war, as reported by the New York Times.

Along with the expectation of a more militant Afghanistan, this will serve to increase the amount of civilian damage. To estimate such, we mustn’t look farther than WikiLeaks’ Afghan Diaries.

Paramilitary forces shot at a village man both deaf and mute when he ran in confusion faced with the approaching forces; Polish forces bombed a wedding celebration, which killed even pregnant women and their fetuses in what was described as a “revenge attack”; French troops shot at a bus, wounding eight children in another incident; US troops carried out a similar attack shortly thereafter; the United States and NATO are guilty of similar

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diction of Patterson’s recommendations to work towards a more stable situation in Afghanistan, and consequently, in Pakistan.

In his address, Trump remarked, “Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace.” It would serve well, in that case, to determine the desires of the Afghan people. Although polls are seldom reliable in warzones, many provide rather dramatic results. In a poll conducted by the Afghan Centre for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research, only 6 percent of the population held views of American troops which were “very favourable,” and the population supported local police forces over

American troops in a ratio of more than two to one.

Even more revelations are made when we look at testimonies. Najib Mamalai, a political analyst in Kabul, stated that US forces alienated Afghanis and “spoke with bombs and guns” rather than humanity.

Opinions about the United States aren’t much higher among Pakistani civilians, thousands of whom have died in the “war on terror.” (According to a Pew Poll, 59 percent of Pakistanis hold the outright view that America is an enemy and only 11 percent see it as a friend.)

Strikingly absent from the narrative presented both by the Trump administration and the press is the impact of this move (in its larger context) on the populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There has been almost no attempt even to conceal what must be called hegemonic selfishness, either by the press or by the government. Heather Nauert, spokesperson of the US State Department, said in a press briefing that it is of the utmost necessity that Pakistan deny safe havens to terrorists who pose threats to US interests The press is guilty of similar rhetoric. Foreign Affairs featured a piece by C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly that concluded that Americans must celebrate that it no longer subsidises a country which “undermines its regional interests in almost every way conceivable.”

On the whole, the “regional interests” of the United States are, at most, marginally import-

ant, especially if we consider the populations which have suffered in a war which has been waged for almost two decades. A perfunctory attempt, at best, was made by Rafia Zakaria in an op-ed for Al-Jazeera: “Pakistan, on the other hand, cannot go anywhere. It is stuck with active extremists, retired extremists, and the regional players.”

Aid to Pakistan or no aid to Pakistan, realities for both populations seem grim; the Afghan population can’t expect peace anytime soon since Trump escalated American war efforts, and if we are to believe to Patterson, neither can the Pakistani population be relieved of the Taliban or Al-Qaeda threat.

Aziz Rahman, a banker in Kabul, stated (perhaps far more accurately than any American press agency) that “Trump’s speech is good for Americans, not for the poor people of Afghanistan.” Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst in Kabul spoke likewise: “In the future, we will witness a worsening of the war, more killing and more problems for the Afghan nation.”

On the face of it, this decision only barely carries the moral solace in the immediate future of not further providing for a state which supports militant groups guilty of humanitarian crimes. However, we have little reason to believe that this decision is any less fickle than similar decisions in the past. It would be silly to think that the Trump administration has morally awoken in its approach to Pakistan (it blatantly hasn’t done so towards Afghan-

Issue2|15

istan); it is far more likely that Washington realised that Pakistan is a poor investment, with far more loss than return. We shouldn’t be surprised if the authorities in Washington wake up tomorrow to realise once more that Pakistan is a “friend for life.”

Most importantly, regardless of the whims of Washington, the realities for the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan remain as deplorable as the past. Despite intellectual and political jubilation, there is no reason to celebrate.

Instead, we should be concerned simply by virtue of being human, that the most pressing issues having populational impacts remain unspoken of.

Atman Mehta is a Contributing Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

An interview with McKay Coppins McKay Coppins is an author and current staff writer at The Atlantic. Growing up in Mormon household and graduating from Brigham Young University, he found himself well-positioned at Buzzfeed News to cover Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign during the 2012 election.

In that election’s aftermath, he composed The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House based on interviews he had conducted with certain rising stars in the Republican Party (most of whom went on to launch presidential campaigns in 2016). The Gate’s Brett Barbin sat down with Coppins to discuss his background, faith, and where young Mormons like himself fit within our political framework.

The Gate: What do you see as your role as a journalist? Entertaining or informing your readers?

McKay Coppins: Not entertaining. Although if that’s a byproduct, then I’m certainly happy to do that. But it’s informing them. It’s tackling these big, complex issues and debates and trying to inform and enlighten. At the end of the day, you’re trying to answer questions; tell stories that are true, real, and have some kind of consequence; and make sense of whatever you’re covering. That’s the mission, that’s what

the Atlantic does, and that’s what the best journalistic institutions do.

Gate: Who would you say you’re writing for at the Atlantic?

Coppins: I don’t know. People who read my stories? An interesting thing about how the media landscape has changed is that you don’t necessarily have the same, very distinctive niche readership that publications used to because everything you’re writing is going online. With the way that social media platforms work, you’re aiming it in general out into the world.

I’m writing for people who want to understand what’s happening in American politics.

And that group has gotten a lot bigger than it was a few years ago, given who is President and all the unprecedented things that are happening. Basically, I’m just writing for people who want to understand what’s happening in Washington and in our country.

Gate: As a younger man, you were required to go on a two-year Mormon mission to Dallas.

Do you think your missionary work with Latin American immigrants in Texas influenced your journalism career?

Coppins: Definitely. In a very obvious narrow sense, it opened my eyes to immigration issues. Regardless of policy prescriptions, the

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thing that most infuriates me about the immigration debate is the dehumanizing quality of the way we talk about immigrants. Spending two years just living day-to-day with immigrants who are in this country to work, raise their families, or send money back to their families and seeing their gritty, day-to-day reality makes so much of the abstract debate and talking points flatten the whole experience.

But then, in general, being a Mormon missionary—and I assume being a missionary in any other religious tradition—develops a sense of empathy. I was nineteen when I went out. Nineteen to twenty-one is a formative period of your life and to spend that time just trying to help other people helped me re-examine my priorities and, hopefully, develop some empathy. I’m certainly not a perfect model of it, but the best journalism is produced empathetically. That doesn’t mean unskeptically, but with some kind of compassion.

Gate: In college, you wrote a column for fellow Mormons at Brigham Young. Why did you go from writing about your faith life and giving advice to other Mormons to mostly covering national politics once you moved to Newsweek and Buzzfeed News?

Coppins: I don’t think I ever set out to just write about Mormonism. Although it was obviously something I was interested in and curious about when I was in college. That column provided an outlet for me to work through a lot of questions I had and interesting things I was observing among my fellow young Mormons at BYU. But I haven’t gone back and read those columns. I’m sure I disagree with some of them now. But that experience was really good for me both for the way that I thought about my faith and the way that I tried to develop a sense of independence when it comes to things that I’m close to.

A few years later when I was covering the Mitt Romney campaign, I would write about Mormonism but not always from a personal standpoint and certainly not always in defense of every aspect of Mormon theology or culture. Often, I cast a journalistically skeptical look at these issues in the context of a presidential campaign as a way to understand this person who’s running for president. Some Mormons didn’t like the way that I wrote about that stuff, but I tried to be as fair as I could while also maintaining a sense of independence.

Gate: You called your column for your classmates: “Mormon twentysomething.” Where do you see that now late twenty-something Mormon politically?

Coppins: [Laughs] This is a really interesting time in Mormon politics. Mormons are traditionally the most reliably Republican religious group in America, but Mormons were famously averse to the Trump candidacy. In the Republican primaries, he came in third (last place) in Utah. He got 14 percent of the vote.

For younger Mormons, the Trump era has disillusioned a lot of people in terms of Republican politics in general. There have been studies that show that Mormons are disassociating with political parties at an unprecedented rate. I wonder what that will mean for this upcoming generation of Mormons.

I’m just outside of the Mormon twenty-something experience now—I just turned thirty last year—but I do sense that there’s at least a lot less partisan loyalty to the Republican Party. But even beyond that, I wonder, depending on how Trump influences what conservatism means going forward, how long young Mormons stay aligned with it. It’s possible that Trump ends up being a fluke and the traditional conservatism, as we understand it, persists. In that case, I do think the majority of young Mormons will still stay aligned with conservative politics. But time will tell; at the very least, we’re seeing an exodus from the institution of the Republican Party among young Mormons.

Gate: In your first article, you wrote about the diversity of opinion among young Mormons,

but that they all could agree to support Mitt Romney and Prop 8. Which present day issues like those do you think most young Mormons can get behind?

Coppins: [Laughs] Well, Mitt Romney remains popular, but Prop 8 is a great example of how fast these issues do change. Proposition 8 was an issue in California during the 2008 Presidential Election. In that year, Barack Obama was on the record as opposed to same-sex marriage. I don’t think he supported Prop 8, but the Democratic Party platform was not particularly pro-marriage equality. And certainly, young Mormons were swept up in the campaign for Proposition 8 in California. Ten years later, I am certain that as the public opinion has shifted in general in favor of marriage equality, the public opinion among young Mormons has shifted as well.

But all of that is just to say that I don’t know if there are unifying issues that unite young Mormons politically. Religious liberty, in a very broadly defined sense, is something that most young Mormons would say they’re behind. But then when you get into the particulars, it becomes messier. When you talk about the issues of a florist or a baker and whether they should be compelled to serve or work for same-sex couples, there’s not necessarily any major consensus about that among young Mormons. There’s probably a lot of debate.

So much of our national politics in general is now defined in opposition to Donald Trump or in support of Donald Trump—everything seems to be about Donald Trump—actual policy issues have been secondary to the ongoing personality show that is the Trump White House.

Gate: Before the 2016 election, you wrote that Evan McMullin’s start-up campaign was taking over the GOP in Utah. Just last month, you penned an article about how Joe Arpaio’s style of politics has now subsumed the Republican Party. Which party do you think Mormons today would feel more comfortable belonging to?

Coppins: It’s hard because Evan McMullin has become such a polarizing figure now, so I would subtract the personalities from it. But the kinds of parties that those two people are talking about (Arpaio and Evan McMullin), Mormons would certainly be more drawn to a McMullinish party.

Arpaio represents a strongly represented element of the conservative movement. It’s more nationalist, nativist, and focused on law and order. He, in particular, is this very provocative, publicity-hungry figure, but the stuff that he stands for is not alien to a lot of people in the Republican Party.

But he’s defined himself by immigration, and that’s one issue that Mormons are relatively outside the conservative mainstream on

Issue2|17

partly because of the positions the Church has taken and partly because so many Mormons have had experiences as missionaries in Latin America. So, there’s a more compassionate view toward immigration than some other elements of the conservative base.

Gate: In another early article, you noted how some young Mormons were “getting into Obama” during the 2008 election. How should a future Democratic Party present itself to Mormon twenty-somethings in order to earn their vote?

Coppins: There is an opportunity for the Democratic Party to make gains not with just young Mormons but young religious people (for example, young evangelicals), but it has to at least be open to pro-life voters. I don’t see the Mormon position on abortion changing anytime soon at least among most voters.

Although certainly, there are pro-choice Mormons.

Also, the candidates that they nominate and promote and the rhetoric that they use has to be a little bit more inviting to traditional, religious groups. There is a sense of alienation that religious people feel when they hear Democrats talk about these issues.

Now, that’s not all religious people. Obviously, for example, the black church is a major component of the Democratic coalition. But there’s a strain of progressivism inside the Democratic Party that is perceived by some young religious people as hostile to their faith or at least dismissive of it.

If the Democratic Party were to tweak their rhetoric and be a little bit more open to prolife voters, it would probably go a long way toward breaking off a portion of the young Mormon vote.

Gate: Looking back on your older columns and across your career as of yet, how would you say your journalism experience has changed your personal politics?

Coppins: I don’t know. I don’t even know what I would disagree with politically. In fact, I always say that I don’t know that I have a super coherent ideological worldview when it comes to politics. I’m more interested in examining the forces at play in politics that are driving our debate, our powerful institutions, and the people in power. But no, I don’t think I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how my politics have been changed by journalism. I’m just so interested in telling the story, and that’s what I’ve been focused on.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity. The featured image was taken by the author. Brett Barbin is a Senior Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

“A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.”

“Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.”

“By giving the govern“Our freedom of choice in a competitive sociment unlimited powers, ety rests on the fact that, if one person refuses the most arbitrary rule to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another.”

“Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours

can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”

Hayek Doesn’t Belong to the Right

By Pablo Balsinde Anyone who follows any political commentary has seen parallels drawn between the social, political, and economic landscapes of 1930s Europe and today’s United States—systemic economic stagnation and increasing inequality, racial tensions, and nationalist sentiment.

In the opinion of these commentators, looking at similar historical periods can be help-

here.

In the years leading up to and during World War II, there was a consensus among British intellectuals, influenced by leftist theories of the inevitable consolidation of a technology-driven market, that totalitarianism was the logical end of capitalism. Seeing this, they subscribed to the belief that this historical trend could be managed scientifically

During the war, Hayek was an economics professor at the London School of Economics. Barred from taking a public post in Britain during the war because of his Austrian nationality, he decided to write a book to encourage people to think truly historically, so as to debunk this belief that liberalism always lead to authoritarianism. Instead of positing and blindly following “scientific laws of his-

If we are going to use the past to understand the present, it seems only sensible that we turn to texts from the past to do so. ful for understanding our current situation.

However, if we are going to use the past to understand the present, it seems only sensible that we turn to texts from the past to do so. This year is the twenty-fifth since Friedrich A. Hayek died, and his much-acclaimed The Road to Serfdom can provide a valuable perspective for thinking through how we got

to avoid its right-wing outcome. The prominent intellectual E. H. Carr, considering the German historical trend from the end of the nineteenth century towards a more unified and interventionist state, argued in his 1942 book Conditions of Peace that “we know the direction in which the world is moving, and we must bow to it or perish.”

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tory,” he argued we should try to understand the specific reasons and policies for why liberalism and the free market seemed to be failing to meet their promises.

Although we might not refer to inevitable trends in history as often, we can see some of this determinism in our public discourse today. Across the political spectrum, we have

f e t ”

s

Revisiting Hayek’s classic will not only provide the important historical consciousness that I have discussed, but will also be revealing in showing how effectively neoliberalism has appropriated his work. all heard the narrative that the rise of white nationalism in the United states is caused by globalization and technological change, intrinsic properties of twenty-first century capitalism. NAFTA is signed, jobs “inevitably” go to Mexico, and people turn to scapegoating.

On the left, this narrative may also include the rise of neoliberalism, which, beyond the globalization of the Washington Consensus, is rooted in a free market ideology which has led to heavy industry concentration, exemplified by the big banks, and deep income inequality. It is clear, then, how the conditions of the 1930s resemble ours. Liberalism, free trade, and markets are understood as the common causes of a seemingly inevitable horrifying populism.

A glance at the Wall Street Journal and its constant coverage of ever-larger mergers and acquisitions, or a half-dedicated watch of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” episode on corporate consolidation, should make it clear that we are rapidly heading toward monopoly.

In the last twenty years, the number of publicly traded companies has been cut in half.

At the same time, it is well understood that with lower central bank interest rates (as we’ve had for the last decade) comes cheaper money for companies to leverage themselves and buy out their competitors. Moreover, between 1970 and 1999 the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission together brought an average of 15.7 antitrust-cases, whereas in the years 2000-2014, they only brought 2.8 cases a year. For Hayek, particular policies like these have to be considered both in their own right and holistically in conjunction with other specific policies that might also push the market in the direction of monopoly, as opposed to simply attributing the trend to free market “neoliberalism.”

Hayek wrote, “When the course of civilization takes an unexpected turn […] we naturally blame anything but ourselves.” He attributed this to the fact that we always see our policies as well-intentioned and so assume that we could never be to blame for their failures. In Hayek’s time this “we” referred to classical British liberals. In our time, we can take it to mean the optimistic and enlightened Obama supporters—the majority in universities like this one.

It is in this way that the book is as relevant today as ever. It is very likely we might be

starting the road down to serfdom ourselves.

One of Hayek’s central arguments is that the road toward socialism (fascism being a kind of socialism) often starts with a concerted effort against competition carried out by vested interests: “this movement is deliberately planned mainly by the capitalist organizers of monopolies, and they are thus one of the main sources of this danger.” But it is only if governments submit to these corporate interests, or to a coalition of groups that have aligned with them, that the path toward monopoly will start: “The impetus of the movement toward totalitarianism comes mainly from the two great vested interests: organized labor and organized capital.”

For example, if we were to take Hayek’s perspective concerning the financial crisis, we would see that it was not the result of bankers selfishly gambling their money in the market, as the leftist narrative might suggest, but (among many, many other things) the result of lobbying by the financial industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government’s bowing to it. In particular, Fannie and Freddie, two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), were meant to lower underwriting standards and incentivize private banks to originate loans to low-income urban constituents, largely by purchasing mortgages issued by the banking sector that unintentionally made the industry great profits.

Senators, including Charles Schumer, Barack Obama, and Joseph Biden, accumulated millions in donations from these GSEs and from large financial institutions, and ended up supporting policies like the Community Reinvestment Act. These laws mandated increases in mandatory GSE loan purchases and made it easier for people to purchase homes, even without a downpayment. This completely distorted the subprime mortgage market, and encouraged the public to go deeply into debt.

Crucially, this lobbying was done in conjunction with well-meaning activist organizations like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which saw home ownership as a tool for upward mobility. Senators as dear to the average college student (including myself) as Schumer, Obama, and Biden do not simply take their cues from large financial institutions; they have to see some positive outcome in people’s lives (in

Issue 2 | 19

this case a home) for them to support a policy that directly increases bank’s profits.

The crisis, then, is not a result of the recklessness of the free market, but the result of ineffective policies. As the economist Raghuram Rajan put it in his 2010 book Fault Lines, “easy credit has been used as a palliative throughout history by governments that are unable to address the deeper anxieties of the middle class directly.”

Hayek outlines several more ways in which nations, upon embarking in completely wellintentioned economic planning, eventually see themselves unable to deliver their campaign promises. Politicians submit to the myth of full employment and inject tens of billions of dollars into General Motors’ bailout, mistakenly thinking that it would save more jobs than would allowing GM to go backrupt and directing those funds to R&D. The government’s well-meaning intervention in the economy, pushed for by the capitalist class, fails to deliver as promised. Citizens, feeling betrayed by politicians’ inability to fulfill their promises, might turn to a strongman individual who is “freed from the fetters of democratic procedure” in order to “get things done” and override the system that initially failed them.

To be sure, The Road to Serfdom is a text lauded by right-wing institutions like the Heritage Foundation and commentators like Glenn Beck. But precisely because of this, revisiting Hayek’s classic will not only provide the important historical consciousness that I have discussed, but will also be revealing in showing how effectively neoliberalism has appropriated his work. The text repeatedly makes arguments like the preservation of competition not being “incompatible with an extensive system of social services” which citizens have rights to or that equality of opportunity should be constantly promoted. Were one to draw as many parallels as possible, one will be reminded of the ways in which fascist Germany appropriated Nietzsche.

If we refuse to read Hayek, however, we might find ourselves tearing apart the author and his text without having read him, and falling into the public (and neoliberal-constructed) perception of both.

Pablo Balsinde is a Contributing Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

Counterterrorism on the Shores of the Sahara

by Richard Omoniyi-Shoyoola In late October of 2017, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley informed the UN Security Council that the United States would be pledging up to sixty million dollars, pending congressional approval, to support the G5 Sahel Joint Forces (Sahel G5), a multinational counterterrorism force in the Sahel region of Africa.

Sahel is an Arabic word meaning shore, referencing the southern “shore” of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, to the Red Sea, to the Indian Ocean. The Sahel region spreads from Africa’s Western tip at Senegal and Mauritania, all the way to Eritrea and parts of Ethiopia in the east. The Sahel G5, a security coalition comprised of five Sahel countries, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, is on the front lines of the counter-terrorism effort against Boko Haram, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and other extremist Islamic groups competing and merging for power in the region. In March 2017 the four primary terror groups operating in the region coalesced under a common banner; AQIM and Al Mourabitoun originally merged in 2015, and both combined in early 2017 with the Macina Liberation Front and Ansar Dine into Jama’at Nusrat

al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or the “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims.” This cohering showcases the changing dynamics that are a part of the tumultuous situation.

The terror threat posed by these groups in the Sahel should not be understated. In 2016 alone, AQIM and al Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for a three man assault on an Ivory Coast beach resort that claimed the lives of fifteen civilians and three special forces soldiers. Similar attacks were coordinated in other Sahel countries. Conflicts pervade across national boundaries—the border between Niger and Mali is known as the “red zone” by locals, due to the high number of terrorist organizations, armed groups, and smugglers operating out of the area. Overall, the violence has caused tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced people in its wake.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram targeted a mosque using two young girl suicide bombers. The mosque attacks killed twenty-four people and wounded another eighteen attempting to flee the scene. Women and girl suicide bombers are part of a ploy to generate international outrage and use “expendable” targets. Women

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bombers from Boko Haram are more likely to target civilian areas, while male bombers are more likely to target Christian and pro-government institutions. Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for the 2014 slaughter of fifty-nine young boys at a secondary school in the Nigerian town of Buni Yadi. Boko Haram was responsible for 6,500 deaths in 2014 and 11,000 deaths in 2015, a death toll which exceeds that of ISIS. More recently in 2017, four US special forces officers were killed in an attempted mission to track down a local terrorist leader known as Dandou, affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS. News of the deaths furthered existing criticisms of the overall mission and purpose behind the deployment of troops in the Sahel region. Even more controversy was created at the delay in the return of Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson’s body from Niger, as many argued over President Trump’s handling of the phone call for condolences to Sergeant Johnson’s family. These stories reveal the lasting cost of terrorism at the individual, familial, community, and regional level, and the political challenges that arise when missteps are made.

Headquartered in central Mali, the Sahel G5

nations are a five-thousand-strong counterterrorism force for the Sahel. Their mission is divided into three sectors: the Liptako-Gourma region that includes the connecting borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger; the border between Mali and Mauritania; and the border between Niger and Chad. They are also the only African led transborder counter-terrorism force in the region. It’s a crucial strategy: by coordinating across national boundaries, and with possession of close knowledge of the ground level situation, the Sahel G5 are able to address the problems of

ily direct humanitarian relief, in the name of long-term security and stability for the Sahel G5 nations. Domestic political reforms in the Sahel nations are thus an essential component of the overarching counterterrorism mission.

Burkina Faso for example, has recently embraced fairer democracy and political reform. In 2015, it ended twenty-seven years of indefinite rule by a single man, too often characteristic of African nations, by electing a former President of the National Assembly Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to office.

Kaboré’s campaign mission sought to address

(MINUSMA). The reservations represent motives to limit an overreach of UN authority, the expanding scope of militarized humanitarianism, and the granting of military authority to an inexperienced peacekeeping force without the offensive capacity of a European or Sahel G5 state. The inefficiency of MINUSMA operations has further fueled US concerns about the overall success of UN peacekeeping missions: In January of 2017, $600 million was cut from the UN peacekeeping budget, under pressure from the Trump administration. Haley made it clear, stating

The G5 governments are uniquely suited for a public policy driven counterterrorism effort, beyond the scope of military action or aid from outside actors. terror in a way that the French military and the UN’s peacekeeping missions cannot. The overarching goal is to have all three actors support one another, to cover for each other’s weaknesses as they maneuver to defeat the persisting terror threat.

The problems posed by terrorism are not the only ones that the Sahel G5 nations must contend with. Rising populations, food insecurity, rampant poverty, underdeveloped infrastructure, and lacking political coordination are also substantive threats to the general welfare of Sahel’s civilian populations. Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and French President Emmanuel Macron, have affirmed their commitment to military operations in the region, though not necessar-

the challenges of income inequality, and to promote access to healthcare, education, and jobs. These legislative priorities work to root out the insecurities that are too often an in for terrorist propaganda, and to bolster the trust of the people in their government. In this way, the G5 governments are uniquely suited for a public policy driven counterterrorism effort, beyond the scope of military action or aid from outside actors.

To this point, international aid can be limited by the political concerns of political leaders in the giving nation. Haley stated that the US government has “reservations” about proposed efforts to expand the reach of the UN peacekeeping mission: “The Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali”

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that “anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary, we’re going to do away with.”

MINUSMA’s inefficiency has been well documented. It was established to provide postwar security after Mali’s 2012 rebellion and civil war, and has grown to become the most dangerous of the UN’s sixteen peacekeeping missions around the world. It currently acts in a non-offensive capacity as a Mali civilian defense force, against the armed groups in the northern parts of Mali. In 2015, MINUSMA worked to establish a peace agreement between two armed nationalist groups and the Malian government, known as the Agreement of Peace and Reconciliation. At the time the agreement led to a ceasefire, joint patrols of northern Mali territory, and

a common fight against Islamist extremists fighting in the north, but it has grown brittle in recent years. As skirmishes persist, the success of further peace negotiations is threatened, as is the safety of the people in the north of Mali.

MINUSMA itself is also acting to provide support for the other existing counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel, but it is without official UN authorization to engage offensively.

In the past, the Security Council has vocalized support for a more “proactive and robust posture” for the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, Darfur, and the Golan Heights, which is geo-politically a part of Syria. Concerning the current missions in the Sahel, Haley argued that there was insufficient military experience, jurisdiction, or planning for a UN directed initiative, and reaffirmed Secretary Tillerson’s original pledge directly for the G5 nations.

The stance in favor of direct Sahel G5 funding is motivated further by the inclusion of Chad as part of President Trump’s travel ban.

Chad’s inclusion in the travel ban was met with domestic and international criticism.

Domestic voices also criticized the lack of inter-agency coordination between the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department as the travel ban was announced.

As a consequence abroad, the militarily formidable Chad began to wean off its support for the counterterrorism project in Niger, reshifting soldiers to the northern border that it shares with Libya.

If the United States chooses to direct finan-

cial support to Chad and Niger, without the middleman of the inexperienced UN peacekeeping force, the move may assuage the post-travel ban frustrations of the Chadian government. Further, it could address the domestic concerns of those who expect a more robust counterterrorism force in Niger, particularly after the death of Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson. Additionally, the Sahel G5 was established relatively recently in June 2017. The relative youth of the coalition may be a reason to prioritize direct funding and operational support at this time.

France has been deeply involved in the conflict, and endorsed the United States’ $60 million pledge. They were the strongest proponents of the establishment of the Sahel G5 coalition, and has already committed thousands of troops in its largest overseas military operation: Operation Barkhane. The operation works to establish proper multilateral coordination between the G5 governments, and is only acting in a military capacity for the sake of security. In December 2017, President Macron hosted a summit in Paris to attract support for the counterterrorism project.

The fight of French special forces is also aimed in part at eliminating the domestic concerns in France raised by refugees fleeing the Sahel’s instability. As a former colonial power France has strong economic and security interests in the region, but could contribute to long lasting structural problems in the Sahel if it does not create a pressure for domestic policy reforms as a qualification for military or financial aid. As the Malian situation shows,

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there must be robust institutional redevelopment, community rebuilding, access to secure housing, environmental resource protection, career training and education, technological modernization, and a flushing out of political corruption, for success to be reached in the fight against terror. These developments in substandard communities are essential for nations in the Sahel facing critical concerns of regional violence and instability, but are also crucial for the development of other poor and wealth-disparate African countries, particularly those operating in a post-colonial context.

It is essential that the underlying problems of the terror threat be addressed with proper multilateral coordination and specific plans of action. There are pervasive structural concerns to be considered as a breeding ground for terror, including government corruption and inadequate conflict resolution strategies in states like Chad and Mali respectively. If the United States, France, and the UN have a vested interest in the long term sustainability and independence of the G5 nations, military solutions may prove to be an essential component of this mission. Other important considerations include the concerns of infrastructure, poverty, human trafficking, and transitional justice that must be addressed by political actors to benefit those victimized by the terror threat in the Sahel.

Richard Omoniyi-Shoyoola is a Senior Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

A Kingdom in Flux Amid Social Reform

by Yarra Elmasry

For decades, Saudi Arabia’s law and society have been defined by highly conservative clerics, sheikhs, and religious police. But since the rise to power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) in 2015, social and religious reform has started to take form in the kingdom. In part of his attempts to centralize power, MBS is pushing the kingdom towards a more open and modern version of Islam, one that is a stark contrast to Wahhabism.

Wahhabism was founded by Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century and stresses the absolute sovereignty of God. al-Wahhab rejected any intermediaries between a Muslim and God, and viewed Shia’s as non-Muslims. In 1925, Wahhabists seized Mecca, but allowed all Muslims to perform their rights during the Hajj.

The modern state of Saudi was formed in 1930 by Abdulaziz Al Saud, of whom all princes and princesses of Saudi Arabia are descendants. In the 1970s, Saudi charities,

supported by petroleum and export firms, began to fund Wahhabi schools and mosques around the world, which led to the spread of the strict form of Islam. Wahhabism demands strict adherence to the Qur’an, and states that those who do not practice Wahhabism are heathens and enemies.

In 1979, dozens of insurgents seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud. The Grand Mosque is one of Islam’s holiest mosques and was a battleground for two weeks, until the insurgents were either killed or captured and subsequently beheaded. A few months earlier, the Iranian revolution resulted in a referendum and Iran declared itself an Islamic Republic. Both of these events paved the way for King Khaled, the king at the time, to implement a stricter form of Islamic law.

Critics and analysts say that the rigidity in Wahhabism led to misinterpretations and distortions of Islam, and the rise of extremists such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq

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and Syria (ISIS). In July 2013, the European Parliament in Strasbourg classified Wahhabism as the main source of global terrorism.

Additionally, the US State Department has estimated that, over the past four decades, the kingdom has invested more than $10 billion into charities that spread Wahhabism.

Ahmed El Shamsy, an Associate Professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Chicago, explains that the beginning of Wahhabism was similar to other religious reform movements that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. “Wahhabism was different in arguing that the various popular religious practices that they rejected actually placed their practitioners outside the fold of Islam,” El Shamsy said. “This tendency for takfir/anathematizing other Muslims was characteristic of Wahhabism, and is still characteristic of its radical offspring today.”

The stricter adherence to Islamic law in the kingdom gave Islamic clerics considerable power over law-making within the

government. This helped shape society and social norms, with the strict separation of men and women in public spaces enforced by a heavy-handed religious police unit. The religious police, officially called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (and commonly referred to as the Hai’a), was formed in 1940 and has been criticised for excess force for many years. The religious police prohibit the sale of alcohol and tobacco, mandate the closure of shops during prayer times, and enforce the segregation of the sexes in public. Much of the stricter implementation of Islamic law manifests itself in social customs and mentalities, ones that specifically surround how women are viewed and treated in society. Strict enforcement of rules regarding women’s clothing in public is carried out by the religious police. While out in public, women in Saudi Arabia must wear the abaya, a long black robe, accompanied by a hijab, niqab, or burqa. Women who do

program on women varies depending on the relationship and goodwill of the guardian.

Regardless, the guardianship program is one that human rights organisations and activists are continuing to fight against and call for its removal.

A variety of social changes have occured in the kingdom over the past few years that stand in stark contrast to the social norms that have governed the kingdom for decades. Part of the most recent social reforms that have occurred in the kingdom have been ones to limit the powers of the the once feared Hai’a.

Previously, the Hai’a were able to arrest and detain citizens who do not act in accordance with Islamic law regarding morality and piety.

In 2016 the kingdom announced that the religious police would no longer be able to detain and arrest people, and instead were required to report violations to the civil police. Additionally, they are now only allowed to work during office hours, which will curb their

loul attempted to drive from the United Arab Emirates into Saudi Arabia in 2014, and was subsequently detained for seventy-three days for doing so.

As expected, activists, both within the kingdom and internationally, have celebrated the removal of the ban. Since the announcement, car advertisements targeting Saudi women have been launched, as have plans for the creation of a driving school at a women’s university. However, whether the new policy will face any resistance domestically remains to be seen. Prince Khalid Bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the US and a son of the King, says that Saudi society is ready. But many top clerics, who are paid by the government, are very conservative and have reinforced the ban for years.

Social reform push intensified in October 2017 when the kingdom announced that women would now be allowed to enter sports stadiums. A soccer match in early January

MBS is relaxing social norms within the kingdom, and in doing so has promised to return the kingdom to “what we were before —a country of moderate Islam that is tolerant of all religions and to the world.” not do so are frequently reprimanded by the religious police. In 2017, a video of a woman walking through a Saudi city wearing a miniskirt and T-shirt went viral on social media, and the woman in the video was subsequently detained.

In 2005, the Hai’a refused to allow girls to escape a burning building because they were ‘inappropriately dressed’, which resulted in the death of fifteen girls. More recently, in 2012, a woman recorded herself refusing to leave a shopping mall and telling the Hai’a that it was none of their business that she was wearing nail polish. Incidents like these have stirred up discontent with the power and role of the Hai’a, especially among the very large youth population in the kingdom. MBS’s decision to curtail Hai’a’s power, therefore, has been described by some as playing to a younger, more liberal Saudi Arabia.

The mindset that of women’s position has manifested itself most notably through the formal guardianship program. The guardianship program requires every woman to have a formal male guardian, whether he be a father, husband, brother, or son. Consent from the male guardian is required for a multitude of things, ranging from travel, marriage, access to healthcare, renting an apartment, and even court filings. The impact of the guardianship

ability to pursue civilians who they suspect are not adhering to Islamic law.

Another shift towards creating a more open society is the decision to lift the driving ban on women, scheduled to happen in June 2018.

The kingdom announced in September 2017 that women will now be allowed to drive. Despite guardianship laws, women will be able to obtain a drivers license without the consent of any male guardian.

This shift is a long time coming. Protests against the driving ban first started in 1990, when forty-seven women drove around Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital. The women were subsequently arrested, many lost their jobs because of it, and there was social uproar at the protest. Many Saudi officials and clerics have attempted to explain the purpose of the ban in a variety of ways. Some have claimed that it is inappropriate for women to drive and that men would not know how to deal with women driving next to them. Others have claimed that allowing women to drive would lead to promiscuity in Saudi culture, and some have claimed that driving harms women’s ovaries. For years, rights activists and women campaigners have advocated for the ban to be lifted. Many of them, such as Loujain Hathloul, have been detained for defying the ban as a form of protest. Hath-

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2018 marked the first time that women were allowed to attend a soccer match with men.

The Saudi government also announced that the stadiums will include separate cafes and prayer rooms for women. In addition to allowing women into stadiums, the government lifted a thirty-five-year-old ban on cinemas. The ban was implemented in the 1980s as a way to minimize the mixing of men and women in public, as well as to discourage public entertainment.

As part of his Vision 2030 plan, MBS plans to move Saudi Arabia away from an oil-dependent economy, to develop public service sectors, and to open the kingdom up. The recent social changes in Saudi, and the multitude of them in a short time frame, have taken many, both domestically and internationally, by surprise. At a recent conference in Riyadh, MBS said that the kingdom needs a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.” In attempting to do so, MBS is relaxing social norms within the kingdom, and in doing so has promised to return the kingdom to “what we were before —a country of moderate Islam that is tolerant of all religions and to the world.”

Paul Poast, an associate professor of International Relations at the University of

Chicago, anticipates the recent social reforms will impact Saudi foreign policy. “I have heard from some individuals involved in foreign policy that a line commonly used against Saudi Arabia is ‘well, what do you expect from a country that doesn’t even let women drive,’” Poast said. “Obviously that’s no longer the

sectors other than oil.

Most recently, a top Saudi cleric—Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq—said that women should dress modestly, but should not be required to wear an abaya. “More than 90 percent of pious Muslim women in the Muslim world do not wear abayas,” the Sheikh said. “So we should

kingdom and what kind of impact this will have on foreign affairs. However, it is clear that despite the recent reforms, human rights activists are still continuing to push for further social and religious change within the kingdom. Whether the recent social reforms, and any potential future ones, will contribute

It is clear that despite the recent reforms, human rights activists are still continuing to push for further social and religious change within the kingdom. case. It might seem small, but such actions will help Saudi diplomats have more credibility when negotiating with Western powers.”

In late February, the kingdom announced an investment of $64 billion into the development of its entertainment industry over the next ten years. The General Entertainment Authority (GEA) announced an unprecedented number of cultural events for the 2018 calendar year. More than five thousand live entertainment and cultural events are scheduled to take place in the coming calendar year and will be targeted to all ages and demographics of Saudi society. This increase in entertainment and cultural events is also part of the Vision 2030 and its goal to create greater contributions to the kingdom’s GDP through

not force people to wear abayas.” It is reported that he is the first cleric to say statements like these, and because of his position, it could be the basis for the formation of future law. As it stands currently, women must wear an abaya while in public. However, the way in which she does has started to change in recent years, with some women choosing to wear coloured abayas, or ones that are open in the front and reveal a long skirt or jeans. Whether any change in laws regarding the abaya happens remains to be seen, but if recent events are any indicator of where Saudi is heading, it seems like the country could possibly follow the Sheikh’s declaration.

It is not clear yet what long term impact the recent social reforms will have within the

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to making the kingdom a more moderate and tolerant one, like MBS hopes, remains to be seen.

Yarra Elmasry is a Staff Writer for The Gate.

The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

Twilight of the Idols

Cryptocurrencies Face Reality

by Ege Y. Ercan Recently, a friend of mine sent me an article explaining how a cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, created as a joke, now boasts a market capitalization of $2 billion. I was shocked: the market deemed this currency valuable when its own creator had not. After looking into this issue, I realized that the success of the entire cryptocurrency industry is no more logical than the rise of Dogecoin.

In 2018, it is becoming increasingly clear that so-called “virtual currencies” are not legitimate currencies. They fail to fulfill the functions a currency is supposed to perform. Rather than regard cryptocurrencies as currencies, markets treat them as highly valuable investment vehicles. However, there does not seem to be any evidence to justify this treatment either. This article attempts to demonstrate a critical flaw in virtual currencies: there is no sound answer to the question, “What justifies cryptocurrency prices?”

A Tech Revolution?

Blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies, has enormous potential. Countless academic articles could be written about this infrastructure. Bitcoin itself started with such a paper. In 2008, the currency’s anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), invented a system that could support “a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash [that] would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” I encourage computer science enthusiasts to read Nakamoto’s paper in its entirety, but, for the purposes of this article, the reader needs only to know that the technology crowdsources the transaction confirmation process. Market participants, who perform this auditing job, are colloquially called “miners.” The consolidation of miners’ computing power maintains a public ledger of transactions. Participants essentially “vote with their CPU power” on whether a transaction was ordered with good faith. When the combined computing power of honest miners is greater

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than hackers’, the system is thought to be virtually impenetrable. Though the network itself is safe, hackers can indirectly hack investors’ holdings in intermediary digital wallets.

This level of security is analogous to a physical currency that can never be counterfeited or stolen.

Due to its decentralized network, the platform’s success hinges on incentivizing enough honest actors to ensure the ledger’s integrity.

Anyone who has read the comments section of any forum knows that there is no shortage of bad actors on the internet, complicating Bitcoin’s task. Surprisingly, though, the commission system seems to have attracted enough miners to achieve a reliable, public ledger system.

Bitcoin transaction fees are determined by a demand-supply mechanism. Investors, who order a transaction, require miners to facilitate that transaction. Their willingness to pay for this service constitutes the demand for the validation of trades. In turn, the supply is formed by miners who are willing to allo-

cate their computing power to validate these trades at market prices. The price mechanism enables miners’ limited computing power to be allocated efficiently.

In the short run, the supply of computing power is fixed. Therefore, when the demand for transactions increases, fees rise unless existing miners expand their operations and new miners quickly enter the market. For example, tremendous trade volumes in December 2017 more than quadrupled transaction fees, from seven dollars to thirty. The free-floating transaction fee is evidence that economic incentives are built deep into this technology.

Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin’s use of the public ledger system has many prominent supporters. Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire businessman and founder of the Virgin Group,

cryptocurrencies are somehow reliable investment vehicles.

Over the last year, cryptocurrencies have experienced tremendous growth. The total market capitalization of all publicly-available cryptocurrencies went from around $17 billion to a high of around $830 billion—an approximately forty-eight-fold increase in value.

In the same timeframe, gold prices (USD/kg) rose from around $38,000 to $43,000—an approximately 13 percent appreciation. Crude oil prices (USD/bbl), starting around $53, reached around $63—an approximately 19 percent increase. Cryptocurrencies dwarfed the growth in both of these highly-demanded commodities. Comparing market cap to prices might not always be completely accurate.

For example, if Bitcoin supply increases but its price does not fall proportionally, the mar-

from somewhere else—right? Unlike conventional stocks, Bitcoin and its variants do not have underlying assets and thus do not generate cash flows. So, their intrinsic value is not analogous to the intrinsic value of a stock.

And, unlike conventional commodities, currently-available cryptocurrencies cannot be used as inputs for any sort of production. In other words, they are not a useful commodity. Moreover, the underlying technology that is said to ensure investors’ faith in the system is not even proprietary. Anyone can copy it.

That is why there are more than a thousand different competing cryptocurrencies.

So far, there does not seem to be an economic rationale for cryptocurrencies’ unparalleled success. Despite this short-run irrationality, many observers have faith that, in the long-run, markets will rectify the discrepancy

This article demonstrates that cryptocurrencies are not real currencies from a rational, economic standpoint. Yet, clearly, markets have deemed that these platforms are somehow valuable in the short-run. equated Bitcoin to his own ventures and commented that this infrastructure is “driving a revolution.” Branson is not alone: technology magnates like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt are also hopeful for this technology’s future.

A New Currency?

It is well-known (though rarely voiced) that the singular force affirming the legitimacy of the American dollar, Euro, or any other fiat currency is the public’s faith in the system. That trust is derived from governmental backing and expediency. The system is stable insofar as it facilitates a useful medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of measure. Despite the ostensible success of existing monetary policies, many disgruntled libertarians (including the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman) have been longing for a new system that would remove the government from the equation. Their wishes seemed to have come true in 2009 with Bitcoin, the first prominent digital currency of its kind. Over the last decade, Bitcoin and its variants have disrupted the financial industry and economic conventions. Yet, this disruption is not caused by the emergence of a true alternative currency: such a virtual currency has not emerged. Instead, Bitcoin’s success has been fueled by the unjustified view that

ket cap increases. Yet, clearly the price does not necessarily increase. So, this comparison between cryptocurrencies and commodities needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the drastic difference between 4,800 percent and 19 percent is telling. This level of growth strongly suggests that markets see virtual currencies not as currencies but as investment vehicles.

Cryptocurrencies are partly victims of their own success. Their prodigious growth causes drastic variability. And this volatility makes digital currencies unsound stores of value.

Adding to their troubles, their decentralized validation systems make them a cumbersome medium of exchange. Moreover, no mainstream analyst would ever use cryptocurrencies to measure the value of an asset—just as s/he would not value the S&P 500 index in terms of Tesla stocks. That is, on all three accounts of what a currency should be (a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of measure), free-floating cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin fail. Ultimately, all evidence points to the fact that virtual currencies are currencies only in name.

A New Investment Vehicle?

If cryptocurrencies are not real currencies, considering that the markets view them as very valuable, their value should be derived

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between empty speculation and real value. As legendary investor Warren Buffet remarked, “I can say with almost certainty that [cryptocurrencies] will come to a bad ending.”

Really?

Proponents of virtual currencies could highlight some features and present them as value drivers. First, they might assert that society is benefited by the decentralized system’s endorsement of any and all transactions made on the platform. Unlike Bitcoin and its variants, proper institutions attempt to intercept transfers made for unlawful purposes.

Financial intermediaries like Venmo are legally obligated to monitor the flow of funds.

Some people see the independence afforded by cryptocurrencies as invaluable. However, this level of liberalization is opposed even

by UChicago’s Nobel-winning economics professors Eugene Fama and Richard Thaler, and anyone else who is not allergic to law and order. It is hard to understand how the complete lack of oversight can be seen as a benefit to society when many studies suggest that cryptocurrencies fuel terrorist activities, drug deals, and money laundering.

Here, I am compelled to respond to the claim that unlawful activities could not be funded with cryptocurrencies, if these socalled currencies were not a store of value and medium of exchange. This claim fails to

distinguish between current market trends and conditions that economic theory predicts will prevail in the long-run. This article demonstrates that cryptocurrencies are not real currencies from a rational, economic

accounts anyway. Moreover, cryptocurrency transactions are not free. The cosmetic difference between a banker’s collecting the fees versus a programmer’s collecting them does not improve consumer well-being. Altogeth-

networks could collapse alongside Bitcoin prices. A solution is immediately clear. Cryptocurrencies could be refined to serve as real currencies.

Despite all the shortcomings of these early

If the implementation of cryptocurrencies does not evolve, the very idea of wealth management by decentralized networks could collapse alongside Bitcoin prices. standpoint. Yet, clearly, markets have deemed that these platforms are somehow valuable in the short-run. Hence, criminals can use virtual currencies for their illicit activities even if valuations are unreasonable and artificially propped up.

A second claim could be that the extensive network of miners creates value for platforms by assuring market participants that their investments are safely maintained. But this argument seems to assume some sort of stability in computing power allocation. Miners are not contractually obligated to continue using Bitcoin or any of its variants. As blockchain is open-source, miners can swiftly migrate between different platforms with essentially zero switching costs. In other words, the added value that miners bring to any particular cryptocurrency is temporary and malleable.

Another claim could be that the decentralized system creates value by circumventing commercial banking fees. However, this view is only half right because most, if not all, market participants, after selling their cryptocurrencies, transfer their balances to their bank

er, the arguments made in favor of cryptocurrencies are flimsy at best. It seems that there are too many programmers and not enough economists in the camp of Bitcoin and its variants.

Solution?

For a long time, cryptocurrency markets have been left to the free market’s own devices. Interestingly, cryptocurrencies have been mostly overlooked by the financial sector. The adoption of Bitcoin and its variants by financial institutions would confer sorely missing legitimacy to these decentralized exchanges.

However, a groundswell of institutional support is highly unlikely as the founding principle of cryptocurrencies is anti-institutional in nature. In any case, without protections from the government, so-called currencies like Bitcoin are open to market manipulations and crashes. Hence, if the implementation of cryptocurrencies does not evolve, the very idea of wealth management by decentralized

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cryptocurrencies, anchored digital currencies have great potential. Moving past speculative instruments, consumers have a natural demand for safer versions of digital currencies. Use of cash has been steadily declining in modern times, and a vast majority of funds are already kept digitally. Therefore, the idea of anchored cryptocurrencies is compatible with current consumer trends. A fixed exchange rate between digital and physical currencies could make cryptocurrencies functional for the general public. However, the integrity of this currency peg could probably be sponsored only by a reputable institution with the authority to enforce monetary policy: central banks.

Ege Y. Ercan is a Contributing Writer for The Gate. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

Resistance Persists The 2018 Women’s March

by Kaeli Subberwal & Alia Shahzad It starts out as a trickle. A pink pussy hat here, an edge of posterboard there among the demure black coats and lowered heads of the bus riders. Then, on the train, it’s more of a stream, clusters of girls and women sitting with their knees touching, talking excitedly or showing off their signs. From the train it’s into the flood, swept up in a sea of humanity, people ready to take to the streets like they did a year ago.

On November 9, 2016, many Americans, especially women, were left reeling. Those who went into the 2016 election season expecting to come out as citizens under the country’s first female president were instead left with a commander-in-chief who bragged about his perceived right to grab women “by the pussy,” bought the silence of an adult film star he’d had an affair with, constantly made insidious references to his attraction to his own daughter, and has been accused of sexual assault by nineteen women. And counting.

By the time Donald Trump’s inauguration day came around, women across the

country were in desperate need of healing.

The women’s march on January 21, 2017 was a moment of solidarity and healing, and the message that many heard was “we’ll get through this.”

“I think last year it was kind of a reaction to what had just happened with the election, with this notion of ‘resistance.’ And resistance means that you’re standing firm against something. And I think this year, it’s about taking power, it’s about being emboldened, to not sit back and not simply try to survive, but to thrive,” said Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney.

And indeed, this year felt different. This was due in part to the fact that, while the Trump administration has undertaken several consequential actions that are deeply worrying to liberal Democrats, it has failed on many of its campaign promises, including ending the Affordable Care Act and enacting the travel ban (which is still partly blocked until it is considered by the Supreme Court in April). All of this suggests that, at least on

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some level, the resistance is working.

The Chicago Women’s March this year was different in another way. The 2017 march quickly came under fire for a lack of intersectionality, and indeed, it did attract a great many white women who were new to activism, driven by a sense of fear and urgency that women of color have contended with for decades. More importantly, many white women are part of the reason Trump is in office and posing a perennial threat to women of color—Trump won 53 percent of white women’s votes.

“I think there were a lot of lessons to be learned about what [intersectionality] looks like,” said Foxx. “I think that you’d find that a lot of women were feeling like they weren’t welcome. And there has to be some real intentional efforts to welcome folks, and to amplify issues that matter. When you talk about being a black woman, for me, I embody race and gender, and there are other people who embody other things, whether it’s sexuality, whether it’s ability. And we have

to recognize that those voices are of equal import. And anything that we do that does not have intentional inclusion is not going to be as productive as it could be.”

That effort was visible in the 2018 Chicago Women’s March. Most of the speaker lineup was composed of women of color, people with disabilities, and non-cisgender/heterosexual people, each taking the mic to explain why they were marching. Celina Villanueva of New Americans Democracy Project and youth engagement manager of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights took to the podium to give one of the most impassioned speeches of the morning, decrying the fact that a generation of people are at risk of losing their homes as a result of the repeal of DACA. “I challenge us all to seek true intersectionality in this movement and in every movement. For the white women in the crowd—and there’s a bunch of y’all—I challenge you to organize your own communities and to have the uncomfortable conversations with other white women and other family members who voted for Trump last year,” said Villanueva.

Support from diverse groups can sometimes muddle a movement’s goals. When last year’s March organizers revoked their partnership with an anti-Trump advocacy group that also supported the pro-life platform, many questioned the feasibility of simultaneously including communities of differing background experiences and maintaining unity within the movement. Perhaps as a consequence, many of this year’s speakers and organizers carefully examined the intention behind their communities’ participation in the march to align with its broader goals.

Tahera Ahmad, Director of interfaith en-

gagement at Northwestern University, spoke to the Gate specifically about the role of the Muslim Ummah.

“Many Muslims recognize oneness [in their practice], and I think that’s what we have to provide to this movement. No matter where you come from, what background you come from, it’s part of the core of our belief system that everyone deserves dignity. That’s what I see my role: to remind people that we are one, we come from one, and return to one.

Everyone has a place in this movement, and I think many Muslims come from this place,” said Ahmad.

The march’s broad inclusivity also spanned age groups—three women toting signs that read “First-Gen Immigrant,” “Second-Gen,” and “Third-Gen” posed for a picture outside of the Federal Plaza, where the march’s route concluded, and a barrage of police barriers and garbage trucks broke up the crowd.

Parents pushed strollers and wagons adorned with crayoned signage alongside groups of older women carrying boards that read “I can’t believe we’re still doing this.” Some were at once frustrated by the lack of progress in the crusade for gender parity and inspired by the youth turnout.

“I think a lot of [the older generation] are upset we didn’t get out and do all of this before the 2016 general election. We really dropped the ball between 1976 and 2016 in terms of not being involved in politics. The younger generation is a lot more organized,” one marcher, who attended her first organized political event in 1974, told the Gate.

The Women’s March Chicago was indeed well-organized, welcoming three hundred thousand protesters to watch performers and speakers, fifty thousand more than last year. The event featured varied performanc-

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es, ranging from members of the Hamilton cast, billionaire environmental rights activist Tom Steyer, Women’s March Chicago board members, and transgender activist Channyn Lynne Parker. Organizers were also careful to accommodate disabled protesters and families with young children—the two groups were given priority to exit the stage area and enter the protest route; family aid tents lined the sides of the road.

Also new this year was the protest’s official title: March to the Polls. The organization’s first objective, as listed on its website, was “to celebrate the spirit of the resistance efforts over the past year and unite to focus on the 2018 elections and beyond.” The site’s home page also links directly to a Resources for Voting page, which includes information about voting registration and other tips from the League of Women Voters in Illinois, all part of the effort to focus marchers’ good intentions into concrete change.

If the 2017 Women’s March was a moment of reaction and resistance to what many considered an unthinkable outcome of the 2016 election, this year’s organizers and marchers assembled in downtown Chicago with a renewed sense of purpose and a strategy at the ready. As Illinois State Senator Mattie Hunter told the Gate, “when women speak, things happen. And when women roll up their sleeves and start working, things happen.

So what we’re here to do is calling for more women to get involved in every facet of life.”

The images featured in this article were taken by the authors. Kaeli Subberwal is a Senior Writer with The Gate, and Alia Shahzad is a Staff Writer. The opinions expressed here are not necessary reflective of The Gate at large.

A Glimpse of the

Women’s March

Clockwise from top left: Illinois’s Attorney General, Kim Foxx; Celina Villanueva and her mother backstage after her speech; Fahed Ahmad and her mother, who she says was anxious to attend the march; Illinois State Senator Mattie Hunter was eager to show her support for the marchers.

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