Counting Coup, Quid-pro-quo, et al

"Quid pro who?" and "Tit for what?" are two of the most frequently asked questions of this administration, since its president said to the Prime Minister of India: "it's not as though you've got China on your border", China and India share a thousand miles border, but it is not surprising to some that this president of the United States did not even know that. He possesses less common knowledge, or common sense than a Cocky Lothario, who spends his life in pursuit of women of questionable virtue. While his siblings pursued higher education, he languished in the bars and brothels of downtown At age seventy-one, I am still sitting alone at home, after a hectic night on the town, trying to live up to the reputation I earned as a much younger man. Never married, I have flitted from flower to flower, never taking responsibility for the harm that I've done. Or the time to discover the joys of domesticity that the vast majority of other men like myself think is a routine part of growing older. When we, men like myself, are out on the town, no one can imagine the uncertainty that haunts us who live alone incessantly. As we make it a habit to disguise such weakness from those around us. But the truth is, living the life of Lothario is not all that is marked up to be. no one counts the times when you are alone, wishing you had someone to talk to, and who could understand you. Lothario, like Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, believed that counting coup on women made them bigger men, but all that it does is disguise their insecurities within. Which, in turn, displays their/your weaknesses, and shows their Achille's heel, through which all who wish them ill, will gain the opportunity to do as they will. Though I don't wish to abide on this topic, I do think we all need to understand what "counting coup" means. Counting coup was the winning of prestige over an enemy by the plains Indians of North America. Warriors won prestige by acts of bravery in the face of an enemy, which could be recorded in various ways and retold in legend. Any blow struck against an enemy counted as a coup, but the most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior with a hand, bow, or coup stick, and escaping unharmed. Touching the first enemy who then died in a battle, or touching the enemy's defensive works, also counted as a coup, as did, in some tribes or 'Nations', simply riding up to an enemy, touching him with a short stick and riding away again unscathed. Counting coup could also involve stealing an enemy's weapons or horses as they were tied up to his lodge in his camp. Risk of injury or even death was required to count coup. And the greater the risk, the higher the honor. Escaping unharmed while counting coup was considered a higher honor than being wounded in the attempt. A warrior who won a coup was permitted to wear an eagle feather in his hair. If he had been wounded in the attempt, however, he was required to paint his feather red to indicate his injury. After a battle or exploit, the people of a band, a tribe, or a nation, would gather together to recount their acts of bravery and "count coup". Coups were recorded by cutting notches in a coup stick. Indians of the Pacific Northwest would tie an eagle feather to their coup stick for each coup counted. But not all nations did so. Among the "Blackfoot Nation" of the upper Missouri River Valley, a coup could be recorded by the placement of "coup bars" on the sleeves or shoulders of special garments that bore paintings of the warrior's exploits in battle. Many such shirts, reminders of these events, have survived to the present, including some in European museums. Joe Medicine Crow (1913--2016) is credited with achieving this feat while serving with the US army during World War Two, as on one occasion he overpowered and disarmed a German soldier, and later stole horses from an SS unit.

"Quid pro quo" -- Latin for "something for something" -- It is a common concept in foreign relations. US assistance to other countries is typically contingent on an agreement to help achieve an American objective. The impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are focused on whether the president abused his office by seeking a quid pro quo from Ukraine that would benefit him personally, rather than promote his country's interests internationally; namely, investigations of his political opponents. There have been six episodes in which top Trump administration and Ukrainian officials discussed such a potential quid pro quo, according to congressional testimony, public statements, and documents. The majority of the negotiations involved Trump's allies pushing Ukraine to pursue the investigations of Trump's domestic political rivals in exchange for a White House meeting for the newly elected Ukrainian president. In congressional testimony on the twentieth of November, US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, testified that there was an explicit quid pro quo when it came to Ukraine securing the White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sondland also testified that he believed that nearly four hundred million dollars in security assistance for Ukraine was withheld, or frozen, as part of a pressure campaign against Ukraine, although he claimed not to have been told that directly. He said that he conveyed that message to a top aide to Zelensky at a meeting in Warsaw, Poland, on September first, telling him that US aid would not resume until Ukraine announced an investigation of the Bidens.

Tit for tat originated from the Middle English phrase "tip-for-tap", which means blow-for-blow, and was first used in the year fifteen fifty-eight. Introduced by Anatol Rapoport, who developed a strategy in which each participant in an iterated prisoner's dilemma follows a course of action consistent with his opponent's previous performance. By example, if provoked, a player subsequently responds with retaliation; if unprovoked however the player cooperates. Tit for tat is a strategy that can be implemented in games, or in political discourse, with repeated moves, or in a series of similar games. The concept revolves around 'game theory', an economic framework that explains how humans interact with each other in competitive environments. There are two types of game theory: cooperative game theory, and uncooperative game theory. Cooperative game theory involves participants negotiating and cooperating to achieve the desired results. Non-cooperative game theory involves no negotiation or cooperation between opposing parties whatsoever. The tit-for-tat strategy is not exclusive to economics or politics. It is used in many fields, including psychology. In biology, it is likened to reciprocal altruism. And if we follow that analogy, we can see where Nick Paton Walsh's analysis for CNN pertains: President Donald Trump's acolytes felt perhaps that Ukraine -- whose name means "borderland", and whose loss of much of its territory to Russia -- made it appear an easy place for a shakedown. Addled by corruption and poverty, it may have seemed accustomed; even open, to explicit acts of what some would later call bribery or extortion.

First was the cynicism. Ukrainians are used to being screwed over by power, especially Moscow -- their former imperial master, reluctant always to surrender her fiefdoms. Even Trump's own national security advisor at the time, John Bolton, once reportedly referred to the push for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son as a "drug deal". And it was pushed on a novice Ukrainian president whose election marked an extraordinary electoral break with a corrupt past of oligarchs, and the same cannibalistic political elite that had run the country into the ground during its recent bid for independence. Yes, president Volodymyr Zelensky had a billionaire backer during his election campaign. But he has so far avoided obvious traces of fealty to Igor Kolomoisky, and the usual spoils of Ukraine's political elite, preferring to maintain his neophyte image, addressing voters through a live instagram feed as he sweats on a treadmill. Imagine this is your first interaction with the world's only remaining superpower: its commander-in-chief trying -- on the presidential hotline -- to persuade you to investigate his political rival's son, in exchange you get US military aid you thought you already had, and that you existentially need to fight off an overbearing, invading neighbor (one that is very chummy with the guy in the White House on the other end of the line). Even in Kiev -- whose name you can't even spell without showing where you stand over decades of Soviet abuse -- that was a pretty low blow. It was also very amateur. Corruption in the former Soviet Union is not just a walk-on experience. You don't just blunder in with a suitcase full of cash, and leave ten minutes later, the deal sealed with a handshake. It is deeply local, about simmering allegiances, family loathing, and old enemies. And often so complex it becomes impenetrable, even to insiders. Foreigners usually lack any grasp of these sensitivities and are -- with Rudy Giuliani's conduct in Kiev a case in point here -- a bad choice of a co-conspirator as they bumble around your capital. Ukraine's recent, hellish past has left it inured to amateur drug dealers. And as Trump's impeachment trial gets underway just shy of the fifteenth anniversary of the end of Ukraine's Orange Revolution. The Orange Revolution marked the first peaceful "colored revolution" that faced down attempts by Moscow to keep control of a former Soviet satellite. Since then, Ukraine has been through a lot more than just a poisoned president -- more than most countries could endure.

And The New York Times posted: Accusations that President Trump shaped American policy toward Ukraine for his own political gain exploded into a crisis for the White House in September after a whistle-blower complaint. Lawmakers have been examining how Mr. Trump pushed the Ukrainians to investigate the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in twenty sixteen and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter, a lawyer and former lobbyist. Those questions are now at the center of the House's impeachment inquiry. Once members of Congress turned their attention to Mr. Trump's dealings with Ukraine, inaccurate statements about the former vice president and his son began circulating again in far-right corners of the internet, and on social media platforms like Facebook. The allegation at the heart of the controversy is that while Mr. Biden was vice president, he pushed to have Ukraine's top prosecutor removed for investigating a company connected to Mr.Biden's son Hunter, the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma. Videos pushing this theory began appearing on Twitter in late September and early October, and have been viewed tens of millions of times. Mr. Trump's campaign has also asserted the claim in ads on Facebook. The vice president was overseeing American policy toward Ukraine at the time, and he did push for the removal of the country's top prosecutor, who was seen as corrupt and/or ineffectual by the United States and Western European governments. But there is no evidence he did so to benefit his son or the oligarch who owns Burisma.

In twenty sixteen, the Democratic National Committee hired CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, to investigate how hackers had breached a D.N.C. network and released stolen e-mails from the committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign to Wikileaks just months before the presidential election. Mr. Trump has since fixated on CrowdStrike, saying that he "heard it was owned by a very rich Ukrainian". He has repeatedly voiced his theory that Ukraine -- instead of, or in collusion with, Russia -- interfered in the election on behalf of the Democrats. In his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July, Mr. Trump suggested that the company had moved the hacked D.N.C.server to Ukraine. "They say Ukraine has the server", Mr. Trump said, according to notes describing the call. But there is no evidence to support Mr. Trump's assertions, which have been spread widely online. CrowdStrike, based in California, is not Ukrainian-owned and does not appear to have any Ukrainian connections. And there is no evidence to suggest that CrowdStrike conspired to hide a compromised server in Ukraine. Until Mr. Trump's assertions, however, even internet speculation did not suggest that CrowdStrike was owned by a rich Ukrainian, or assert that a Democratic server was hidden in Ukraine. "CrowdStrike's co-founder is a Russian-born US citizen, who has spent all of his adult life in the United States, and has no connection to Ukraine", the company said on its website. CrowdStrike concluded that two espionage groups connected to Russia were responsible for the D.N.C. breach. The Justice Department and the F.B.I., after conducting their own investigations, confirmed that Russia hacked the e-mails. There was no single server, and there was no indication that one was moved to Ukraine

Counting coup, tit-for-tat, quid pro quo, et al, are all parts of the mischievous practices of Belize's and the Caribbean's favorite rascal: Bra Anansi. Anansi's legend originated among the Asanti people of present-day Ghana. The name 'Anansi' is Akan, and means "spider". It was later extended to other Akan groups, and then to the West Indies, Suriname, and Sierra Leone, where it was introduced by Jamaican Maroons, and to the Netherland Antilles. In Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire, he is known as 'Nanzi', and his wife is called 'Shi Maria'. Anansi's stories are some of the best known among the Asante people of Ghana, where the records show an exclusively oral tradition, and in fact, Anansi himself is synonymous with language skills and wisdom. He was so bold and well remembered, that he arrived in the Caribbean and other areas of the New World with captives from the Atlantic slave trade. In the Caribbean, Anansi is celebrated as a symbol of resistance and slave survival. Anansi is able to turn the tables on their powerful oppressors using cunning and deception. A model of behavior used by slaves to strengthen themselves in the confines of the power structure of the plantations. It is also believed that Anansi played a multi-functional role in the lives of the slaves. As well as being an inspiration for resistance strategies that his stories were used as, to bolster the slaves within the limits of their captivity. He is so well known that he has given his name to a rich tradition of legends among many Ghanian children -- anasesem -- or tales of spiders. Elsewhere they have other names, such as Anansi story in Belize, Ananse-Tori in Suriname, Anansi in Guyana, and Kuent'i Nanzi in Curacao.

Howard A. Frankson -- Belize