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Category: Politics

Life in a Virginia town with a government-approved armed militia

Life in a Virginia town with a government-approved armed militia

Mother Jones reports: On a dry, bright afternoon in late June, members of the Bedford Militia lined up on a grassy lot on the property of Bryan Buchanan Auto Auction, right off the county highway in Montvale, Virginia. The group of about a few dozen stood in formation still as water, a US flag on one side and the squad’s guidon bearer holding up the militia’s flag on the other, the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. All were dressed…

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Biden close to backing G20 peace talks on Afghanistan, Italian PM believes

Biden close to backing G20 peace talks on Afghanistan, Italian PM believes

The Guardian reports: The Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, believes he is close to gaining Joe Biden’s support to stage a special G20 peace conference on Afghanistan next month that will include key players with close contact with the Taliban, including China, Russia and Turkey. Draghi, the chair of the G20 group of nations, has been working on the plan for days, holding talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Italian prime minister is also expected to hold a…

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UN Security Council should authorize the U.S. and allies to enforce a safe zone for evacuations from Kabul

UN Security Council should authorize the U.S. and allies to enforce a safe zone for evacuations from Kabul

Paula J. Dobriansky and Paul Saunders write: President Biden seems to have set a trap for himself—and for Americans, allied personnel and Afghans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Those civilians were stranded after Mr. Biden withdrew U.S. troops only to be surprised by the Taliban’s quick takeover. Mr. Biden promised to evacuate them by Aug. 31, and the Taliban said they’d hold him to that deadline. On Monday the administration signaled that it intends to abide by it. It won’t be…

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How Mexico helped the New York Times get its journalists out of Afghanistan

How Mexico helped the New York Times get its journalists out of Afghanistan

Ben Smith reports: A group of Afghans who worked for The New York Times, along with their families, touched down safely early Wednesday — not in New York or Washington, but at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City. The arrival of the 24 families was the latest stop in a harrowing escape from Kabul. And Mexico’s role in the rescue of journalists from The Times and, if all goes as planned, The Wall Street Journal offers a disorienting glimpse…

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Taliban urge women to stay home because fighters haven’t been trained to respect them

Taliban urge women to stay home because fighters haven’t been trained to respect them

The New York Times reports: When the Taliban were last in power, Afghan women were generally not allowed to leave their homes except under certain narrowly defined conditions. Those who did risked being beaten, tortured or executed. In the days since the Taliban swept back into control, their leaders have insisted that this time will be different. Women, they say, will be allowed to work. Girls will be free to attend school. At least within the confines of their interpretation…

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Arkansas runs out of intensive care beds for Covid patients

Arkansas runs out of intensive care beds for Covid patients

The Associated Press reports: Arkansas on Tuesday ran out of intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced, as a surge in cases continued overwhelming hospitals in the state. The state’s ICU capacity for COVID patients barely eased hours after Hutchinson’s announcement, with only one hospital in southeast Arkansas showing availability, according to the state’s system for coordinating coronavirus patients. Virus patients make up about half of the…

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The effort to rescue the Afghans that the U.S. government has abandoned

The effort to rescue the Afghans that the U.S. government has abandoned

Arash Azizzada writes: The day our lives fell apart, Sunday, Aug. 15, I received a call from a close friend in Kabul. Usually cool and confident, vital skills for a community leader in a complex, conflict-ridden place like Afghanistan, my friend now whispered in desperation. “I need to get out,” he said. “Help me.” In the background, I could hear the city bustling nervously as millions of people absorbed the fact of the Taliban’s conquest. My friend, a vocal activist…

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CIA Director William Burns held secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar

CIA Director William Burns held secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar

The Washington Post reports: CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting Monday in Kabul with the Taliban’s de facto leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. President Biden dispatched his top spy, a veteran of the Foreign Service and the most decorated diplomat…

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Costa Ricans live longer than Americans. What’s their secret?

Costa Ricans live longer than Americans. What’s their secret?

Atul Gawande writes: Life expectancy tends to track national income closely. Costa Rica has emerged as an exception. Searching a newer section of the cemetery that afternoon, I found only one grave for a child. Across all age cohorts, the country’s increase in health has far outpaced its increase in wealth. Although Costa Rica’s per-capita income is a sixth that of the United States—and its per-capita health-care costs are a fraction of ours—life expectancy there is approaching eighty-one years. In…

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The nine Democrats making Nancy Pelosi’s life harder are making a big mistake

The nine Democrats making Nancy Pelosi’s life harder are making a big mistake

Jamelle Bouie writes: Popular or unpopular, good economy or bad, the president’s party almost always loses seats in midterm elections. That there are so few exceptions — Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats in 1934, Bill Clinton and the Democrats in 1998, and George W. Bush and the Republicans in 2002 — proves the rule. The upshot is that if you are a member of Congress in the majority — and you share a party with the president — the die…

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Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?

Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?

Jordan Michael Smith writes: On a warm June evening in downtown Manhattan, tourists hoping to visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum are disappointed. The spot is closed after 5 p.m., a security guard repeats patiently to visitors. From behind a rope, the tourists look at the spaces where the Twin Towers used to be. The names of the 2,977 people killed by Al Qaeda in September 2001 are etched into bronze parapets surrounding two pools. Water flows down…

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The chance of a deal with the Taliban that the U.S. squandered twenty years ago

The chance of a deal with the Taliban that the U.S. squandered twenty years ago

Alissa J. Rubin reports: Taliban fighters brandished Kalashnikovs and shook their fists in the air after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, defying American warnings that if they did not hand over Osama Bin Laden, their country would be bombed to smithereens. The bravado faded once American bombs began to fall. Within a few weeks, many of the Taliban had fled the Afghan capital, terrified by the low whine of approaching B-52 aircraft. Soon, they were a spent force, on the…

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U.S. military gives Biden a deadline to decide on extending Afghanistan evacuations

U.S. military gives Biden a deadline to decide on extending Afghanistan evacuations

CNN reports: The US military is advising President Joe Biden that he must decide by Tuesday whether to extend the evacuation in Afghanistan beyond August 31, according to a defense official directly familiar with the discussions. Military advisers have told the White House that the decision must be made by Tuesday in order to have enough time to withdraw the 5,800 troops currently on the ground, as well as their equipment and weapons. If the President agrees, the military anticipates…

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Afghanistan again becomes a cradle for jihadism — and Al Qaeda

Afghanistan again becomes a cradle for jihadism — and Al Qaeda

Robin Wright writes: In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command. He has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul. During one of several interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing…

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Far-right extremists in United States applaud Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan

Far-right extremists in United States applaud Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan

Digital Forensic Research Lab reports: Supporters of far-right extremist movements in the United States applauded the Taliban after the group’s takeover of Afghanistan, cheering the development as an existential defeat of Western powers they believe are responsible for perceived declines in society. Some went so far as to frame the US defeat in the nation as a goal for their own movements to aspire toward. Extremists’ reactions to the Taliban’s domination of Afghanistan fits into three distinct buckets: support for…

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As Biden faces a political crisis, Democrats look on in alarm

As Biden faces a political crisis, Democrats look on in alarm

The New York Times reports: With President Biden facing a political crisis that has shaken his standing in his party, Democrats across the country are increasingly worried about their ability to maintain power in Washington, as his administration struggles to defend its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and stanch a resurgent pandemic that appeared to be waning only weeks ago. While Americans watched devastating scenes of mayhem at the Kabul airport and ascendant Taliban forces last week, the steady drumbeat of…

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