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Minnesota GOP ‘in ruins’ after shocking scandal

Minnesota GOP ‘in ruins’ after shocking scandal

Politico reports: Less than a year ago, Minnesota looked every bit a swing state. Donald Trump was pouring millions of dollars into his campaign there, after nearly flipping the state in 2016, Republicans were making inroads in the ancestrally Democratic Iron Range. In the Twin Cities suburbs, nervous Democrats feared protests following the police murder of George Floyd could turn some voters to the GOP. That all fell apart with Joe Biden’s victory in November. And nine months later, the…

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America’s betrayal of its Afghan allies

America’s betrayal of its Afghan allies

Russell Berman writes: The Afghans were not ready to leave. That was how President Joe Biden, in his address to the nation on Monday, tried to explain why his administration had not acted sooner, and faster, to evacuate America’s allies from Afghanistan ahead of the Taliban’s rapid march to Kabul. Many of the local partners who aided the U.S. military during its 20-year war—interpreters, activists, civil servants, and others—were “still hopeful for their country,” Biden said. He made no mention…

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Biden administration moved slowly to help Afghan refugees as it prepared to exit

Biden administration moved slowly to help Afghan refugees as it prepared to exit

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration moved slowly for months to address the plight of vulnerable Afghans who had worked for the United States even as a deadline for U.S. military withdrawal loomed, refugee advocates said — a lull some blamed on White House concern that the influx would invite partisan political backlash amid a rush of migrants at the southern border. Afghans who served as interpreters, fixers and other staff for the U.S. military and diplomats over the…

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Most Americans say the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not worth fighting

Most Americans say the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not worth fighting

The Associated Press reports: As U.S. forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years, most Americans – Republicans and Democrats – think the war in Afghanistan was “not worth fighting.” The AP-NORC survey was conducted August 12 through 16, as Taliban forces quickly swept through the countryside and cities of Afghanistan. The Afghan government collapsed after the Taliban entered the capital city of Kabul on August 15. The public is closely divided over President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign…

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Biden promised allies ‘America is back.’ Chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal is making them fear it’s still ‘America First’

Biden promised allies ‘America is back.’ Chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal is making them fear it’s still ‘America First’

CNN reports: Visiting Brussels earlier this summer, President Joe Biden was single-minded in his message to American allies. “America is back,” he declared in the lobby of the European Union’s headquarters, repeating a mantra he had uttered at nearly every stop of his first trip abroad, during which leaders welcomed him as a salve to four years of Trump-era angst. “It’s overwhelmingly in the interest of the United States of America to have a great relationship with NATO and with…

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Confidential State Department cable in July warned of Afghanistan’s collapse

Confidential State Department cable in July warned of Afghanistan’s collapse

The Wall Street Journal reports: About two dozen State Department officials serving at the embassy in Kabul sent an internal memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and another top State Department official last month warning of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the cable. The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban…

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Direct and daily talks with Taliban to salvage Biden’s Afghanistan crisis

Direct and daily talks with Taliban to salvage Biden’s Afghanistan crisis

CNN reports: While the US State Department continues to engage in high-level diplomatic talks with the Taliban in the neutral setting of Doha, Qatar, as it has for the past year, the real negotiations have moved to the chaotic streets of Kabul in recent days, where American military commanders are in constant communication with Taliban militants over security around the airport. In an extraordinary move, the top US commander in Afghanistan, Adm. Peter Vasely, has been leading the effort to…

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Court blocks a vast Alaskan oil drilling project, citing climate dangers

Court blocks a vast Alaskan oil drilling project, citing climate dangers

The New York Times reports: A federal judge in Alaska on Wednesday blocked construction permits for an expansive oil drilling project on the state’s North Slope that was designed to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years. The multibillion-dollar plan, known as Willow, by the oil giant ConocoPhillips had been approved by the Trump administration and legally backed by the Biden administration. Environmental groups sued, arguing that the federal government had failed to…

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Afghanistan only the latest U.S. war to be driven by deceit and delusion

Afghanistan only the latest U.S. war to be driven by deceit and delusion

On Aug. 16, 2021, thousands of Afghans trapped by the sudden Taliban takeover rushed the Kabul airport tarmac. AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani By Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service In Afghanistan, American hubris – the United States’ capacity for self-delusion and official lying – has struck once again, as it has repeatedly for the last 60 years. This weakness-masquerading-as-strength has repeatedly led the country into failed foreign interventions. The pattern first became clear to me when I learned on…

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Apologists for the failed policy in Afghanistan would like us to focus on anything but their own complicity

Apologists for the failed policy in Afghanistan would like us to focus on anything but their own complicity

Anatol Lieven writes: An opening move in the U.S. military high command’s campaign to deflect blame for the 20-year-long American debacle in Afghanistan has come with a Sunday article by General H.R. McMaster and Bradley Bowman in the Wall Street Journal, “In Afghanistan, the Tragic Toll of Washington Delusion.” The delusions have indeed been real, and now cruelly exposed. As amply documented by the reports of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John F. Sopko, and the The…

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Leaders in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley defy the Taliban and demand an inclusive government

Leaders in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley defy the Taliban and demand an inclusive government

The New York Times reports: Two prominent Afghans who do not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s rightful leaders have begun issuing challenges to the militants from a small but strategic pocket of territory that the Taliban do not control, according to an Afghan diplomat and statements by the leaders. Although it is unclear how many followers are with them or how many arms they have, both men — the vice president in the toppled government and the son of a…

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New Zealanders support latest Covid lockdown as Sydney faces Delta disaster

New Zealanders support latest Covid lockdown as Sydney faces Delta disaster

The Guardian reports: To overseas eyes, going into national lockdown over a single case should have been a hard sell, even for an extraordinarily popular prime minister such as Jacinda Ardern. But a disastrous outbreak of the Delta variant in Sydney has helped galvanise New Zealand’s “team of 5 million” – and across the country, the government’s tough strategy on Covid-19 has enjoyed widespread popular support. On Tuesday, New Zealand was plunged into a national, level 4 lockdown – the…

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Fossil fuel companies are quietly scoring big money for their preferred climate solution: carbon capture and storage

Fossil fuel companies are quietly scoring big money for their preferred climate solution: carbon capture and storage

Inside Climate News reports: Over the last year, energy companies, electrical utilities and other industrial sectors have been quietly pushing through a suite of policies to support a technology that stands to yield tens of billions of dollars for corporate polluters, but may do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These policies have fast-tracked environmental reviews and allocated billions in federal funding for research and development of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technologies that pull carbon dioxide out of…

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How water shortages are brewing wars

How water shortages are brewing wars

Sandy Milne writes: Speaking to me via Zoom from his flat in Amsterdam, Ali al-Sadr pauses to take a sip from a clear glass of water. The irony dawning on him, he lets out a laugh. “Before I left Iraq, I struggled every day to find clean drinking water.” Three years earlier, al-Sadr had joined protests in the streets of his native Basra, demanding the authorities address the city’s growing water crisis. “Before the war, Basra was a beautiful place,”…

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