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Sarah Jones | George W. Bush Can't Paint His Way Out of Hell
Sarah Jones, New York Magazine
Jones writes: "Painting is to Bush what politics used to be: a hobby for a wealthy man."
am not an art critic, but I don’t think George W. Bush’s new portraits are very good. They inspire nothing but malaise and communicate a dilettante energy. Painting is to Bush what politics used to be: a hobby for a wealthy man. Yet there is something revelatory about them, though this may be unintentional on the part of the artist. For his new book, Out of Many, One, Bush has selected immigrants for his subjects. Most are well-known, wealthy or established in some way, as if the American dream requires an M.B.A. One is Henry Kissinger, whom Bush describes as a “good friend.” Kissinger is by rights a war criminal, responsible for an American bombing campaign that murdered tens of thousands of Cambodian civilians. Here Bush’s hand slips, just a little. Amnesia is as beneficial to Bush as it is to Kissinger. Bush’s body count may even exceed that of his friend were they ever to compare notes.
The reality of the Bush legacy is at painful odds with his post-presidential reputation. That discrepancy isn’t news. Here is what we know about Bush. Ever so eager to establish himself as the avatar of something he calls “compassionate conservatism,” he is responsible for torture and death on a mass scale. Because these abuses did not occur on American shores, did not target American citizens, the political class has decided to pretend the death does not matter. Bush has assumed the role of elder statesman, a sensible voice in a Republican party gone mad. His complicity is fading out of view.
A recent work of hagiography from CBS This Morning only affirmed Bush’s status as the foremost survivor in American politics. In an interview with Norah O’Donnell, Bush held forth at length about his painting — he was inspired by Churchill, he said — and condemned the Capitol siege, one of the simpler acts a political figure may perform. There are still compassionate conservatives, he assured O’Donnell. “Absolutely. I’m one. And I think there are a lot,” he said. He’s right, actually, in his way. Compare Bush to Donald Trump and there are certain tonal differences. Bush’s old money mannerisms do not permit him to call anyone a “bad hombre,” he did not mock anyone with a disability while campaigning, and he did not rant and rave about the fake news media.
Beyond these superficial differences, Trump and Bush are more alike than they are different. “Compassionate conservatism is first and foremost springing from the heart,” Bush said during his first run for the presidency. The heart contains multitudes. Malice can spring forth from its depths, too. What does it mean, after all, to be compassionate and then to be a conservative? Bush set the example. To be a compassionate conservative was to oppose marriage rights for LGBT people and abortion rights for women. To lie as recklessly as Trump ever did and lead the country into illegal war. To torture. Bush can condemn the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s rhetoric along with it, but he’s hardly an innocent. Years after Bush left office, Trump would take a middling position against the war in Iraq — and reaped the reward. Trump built on a foundation Bush laid.
Even Bush’s book, with its emphasis on friendly immigrant faces, betrays an inability or willing refusal to cope with the sins of his past. For all the times Bush condemned Islamophobia, he did plenty else to stoke it. To speak of an “axis of evil” was to use language freighted with deep meaning. Bush and his speechwriters invoked Hitler and Fascism, and applied the analogy to two majority-Muslim countries that hadn’t attacked ours. People shortened the sentence. They heard “evil” and recognized Islam. Bush did not just go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, the nations; he took on spiritual enemies in a civilizational conflict and undercut his own warnings against Islamophobia. Bush can’t paint his way out of his legacy, though it seems he’d like to try.
In an era marked by the GOP’s steady march to the far right, the hunt for some vestigial sanity in the conservative movement leads many pundits astray. It’s easier to praise Bush than it is to grasp what he signifies. If Bush is our best example of a compassionate conservative, what does that say of the movement he represents — and what, too, does it indicate about the office he once held? The presidency was broken before Trump occupied it, and so was the GOP, and so was the conservative movement. And lest anyone think I am prepared to let the Democrats escape, the opposition is broken, too. A class eager to raise Bush up to the authoritative heights he enjoys cannot notice incipient fascism, let alone devise a sensible response. Bush, of course, locates the problem elsewhere. Speaking of his friendship with Michelle Obama, he told O’Donnell, “I think it’s a problem that Americans are so polarized in their thinking that they can’t imagine a George W. Bush and a Michelle Obama being friends.”
The problem isn’t that some people are outraged by Bush but that many people are not. There are people we shouldn’t befriend, and the president responsible for the torture memos ought to rank somewhere in the top five. (Save a spot for his good friend, Kissinger.) We decide what we tolerate, and a society that lets George W. Bush go anywhere without a shrieking Greek chorus to remind him of his body count isn’t good for much at all.
Someone might interject here and in true Sorkin-esque form say the presidency requires difficult decisions from its occupants. The presidency can induce a moral recklessness in people who consider themselves politically wise. In the eyes of some, the office is so meaningful that it mandates the absolution of all who occupy it. Maybe these people really are wise, in the same way that Bush really is a compassionate conservative. To be astute politically requires no great ethical commitments of a person. Impunity is the foundational value of Capitol Hill. Liberals believe it’s a tit for tat relationship, I’ll forgive your guy if you forgive mine, but as is generally the case, they are outclassed by their opposition. Bipartisanship is asymmetric. The right will recall everything it despised about Barack Obama until the sun dies. Liberals believe so strongly in the political institutions that empowered Bush and Trump they can do nothing but move on, will forgive those same institutions of anything, will destroy themselves in their inability to admit the truth.
Michelle Obama can hug Bush as much as she wants, and each time she does, it’s a concession. Purchase Bush’s insipid portraiture; it’s a concession. Each gentle interview is a concession too. Compassionate conservatives run interference for the darkest impulses of the GOP. “Please put aside all the harsh rhetoric about immigration,” Bush implored his party on television, and added, “Please put aside trying to score political points on either side.” Bush is concerned with aesthetics, can’t quite say that his party is almost wholly consumed by prejudice and rage and a small-minded kind of fear of the other. Instead, he must blame polarization and both sides must be complicit. For all Bush’s erstwhile talk about personal responsibility, he applies it infrequently to himself and to his peers.
The Iraq War does appear in Bush’s new book. The former president profiles Tony George Bush, no relation, an Iraqi linguist filled with effusive praise for the American military and for Bush himself. “We will always be grateful to you and the US Armed Forces for everything they did for us,” reads an email Tony once sent to his chosen namesake. Tony’s experiences and views are his own; he is Shia and had good reason to fear Saddam Hussein. He is also useful to Bush, who wields Tony’s story like a shield from posterity. Bush is committed only to his own sanitization. To help him is to revise history.
Perhaps Trump will take up painting some day — the devil only knows what his subjects would be: landscapes of his properties, portraits of his immediate family, a still life of a dollar bill — and the power of the presidency will launder the reputation of an evil man. We’re already watching it happen.
Derek Chauvin is taken into custody after being found guilty of murdering George Floyd. (Photo: Getty)
EXPLAINER: Can Chauvin Get His Convictions Tossed on Appeal?
Michael Tarm, Associated Press
Tarm writes: "The unique circumstances surrounding Derek Chauvin's trial in George Floyd's death could offer the former Minneapolis police officer some shot at winning a retrial on appeal, though most legal experts agree it's a long shot."
he unique circumstances surrounding Derek Chauvin's trial in George Floyd's death could offer the former Minneapolis police officer some shot at winning a retrial on appeal, though most legal experts agree it's a long shot.
Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on Floyd's neck for nearly 9 1/2 minutes last May, killing the 46-year-old Black man and sparking some of the largest protests in U.S. history. His conviction on murder and manslaughter charges was seen by many across the country as a civil-rights milestone.
Here’s a look at some of the issues Chauvin's lawyers might cite in their expected appeal, and their chances of prevailing.
WHAT ARE POSSIBLE ISSUES THE DEFENSE COULD RAISE ON APPEAL?
The defense has said it was impossible for Chauvin to get a fair trial in Minneapolis because of pretrial publicity and community pressure on jurors to convict. That claim is sure to underpin any appeal.
As they arrived at and left the courthouse each day for testimony, jurors passed clear signs that the city was preparing for renewed protests. The courthouse downtown was encircled by razor wire and guarded by armed troops. Most storefront windows were boarded up.
A prime target of an appeal would be key rulings by trial Judge Peter Cahill, including that the trial should remain in Minneapolis rather than be moved and that jurors should be sequestered only for deliberations.
Cahill also refused to delay the trial after Minneapolis announced a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family during jury selection. The defense says that suggested guilt before jurors even heard evidence.
The defense has decried as prosecutorial misconduct remarks by the state during closings, including that aspects of the defense case were “nonsense." That claim could make its way into an appeal.
HAVE RETRIALS EVER BEEN GRANTED BECAUSE JURORS FELT PRESSURED?
Yes, though it's rare.
A U.S. appeals court in 1999 vacated white Detroit police Officer Larry Nevers’ conviction in the beating death of a Black motorist, noting how at least one juror had learned the National Guard was on standby in case Nevers was acquitted and violence ensued.
“The Court cannot imagine a more prejudicial extraneous influence than that of a juror discovering that the City he or she resides in is bracing for a riot,” it said, adding that letting the conviction stand would send the wrong message that rights to an impartial jury “do not extend to an obviously guilty defendant.”
Similarly, an appeals court in Florida ordered a new trial for a plain-clothed Hispanic officer, William Lozano, who fatally shot Black motorcyclist Clement Lloyd in 1989. A passenger on the motorcycle also died. Protests erupted in Miami.
At the 1991 Miami trial, jurors convicted Lozano of manslaughter. The appellate ruling overturning the conviction highlighted how some jurors admitted they feared an acquittal would renew protests. At his 1993 retrial in Orlando, Lozano was acquitted.
COULD COMMENTS BY POLITICIANS LEAD TO A RETRIAL FOR CHAUVIN?
Judge Cahill seemed to think that's at least a possibility.
He rebuked U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters on Monday for telling a crowd in a Minneapolis suburb days before deliberations started that, if Chauvin wasn’t convicted of murder, “we’ve got to get more confrontational.”
Cahill called the California Democrat’s comments “disrespectful to the rule of law,” saying elected officials shouldn't comment about ongoing trials. “Their failure to do so, I think, is abhorrent," he said.
Cahill indicated that Waters’ comments could be appealable.
“I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you (the defense) something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned,” he said in court Monday.
HOW DOES THE DEFENSE SHOW JURORS WERE IMPROPERLY INFLUENCED?
Mike Brandt, a leading Minneapolis-based criminal attorney who closely followed the Chauvin trial, said Chauvin's attorneys have heavy lifting to do before they can argue on appeal that jurors were unduly influenced or pressured.
He said appellate courts won't simply let Chauvin's lawyers theorize that jurors might have heard Waters' comments. Rather, they must offer proof that specific jurors heard the comments and that those comments influenced their votes to convict, he said.
The same goes for statements by prosecutors allegedly disparaging the defense case and for the contention that jurors found Chauvin guilty because they feared triggering angry protests if they didn't.
The defense must present compelling evidence — typically admissions from jurors themselves — that such statements and fears caused them to find Chauvin guilty, Brandt said.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS CHAUVIN WINS HIS APPEAL?
The odds are heavily against Chauvin, Brandt and other legal experts say.
Even if appellate judges find Chauvin's judge made erroneous rulings, they still must answer a decisive question: If Cahill had ruled differently, such as by granting a change-of-venue motion, is it conceivable the trial’s outcome could have been different? If the answer is no, Brandt said, they won’t toss the verdicts.
An appeals court may also look favorably on Cahill’s reasoning in denying a change of venue. Cahill had noted that media scrutiny of Floyd’s death was nearly as intense across Minnesota, suggesting that any alternate city would have faced the same challenge of preventing news from tainting the jury.
Also, higher courts have repeatedly ruled that jury selection is an effective way to counteract unflattering media accounts of a defendant and to ensure even-handed jurors are impaneled.
And Brandt said Cahill gave Chauvin’s lawyers more latitude than usual in questioning potential jurors about biases and in striking ones they thought couldn’t be fair — latitude appellate courts would likely note.
As American troops depart, winding down a twenty-year intervention, Afghans are forced to reckon with the question of whether their government can stand on its own against the Taliban. (photo: Adam Ferguson/New Yorker)
Rajan Menon | The Graveyard of Empires Redux: America's Ruinous Pursuit of Mission Impossible in Afghanistan
Rajan Menon, TomDispatch
Menon writes: "Washington has been fighting what, in reality, should have been considered a fantasy war, a mission impossible in that country, however grim and bloody, based on fantasy expectations and fantasy calculations."
As the vaccinations increase in this country but Covid-19 surges on among the unvaccinated, you can still get a signed, personalized copy of Nina Burleigh’s revealing new book, Virus: Vaccinations, the CDC, and the Hijacking of America’s Response to the Pandemic, for a minimum contribution to TomDispatch of $100 ($125 if you live outside the USA). This offer, first made with her recent piece on the subject, will only last a few more days, so check out the TomDispatch donation page as soon as you can and my deepest thanks to those of you who continue to keep this website afloat in distinctly rough times. Tom]
It started with three air strikes on September 11, 2001. The fourth plane, heading perhaps for the Capitol (a building that wouldn’t be targeted again until last January 6th), ended up in a field in Pennsylvania. Those three strikes led to an American invasion of Afghanistan, beginning this country’s second war there in the last half-century. Almost 20 years later, according to the New York Times, there have been more than 13,000 U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. Call that payback after a fashion. There’s only one problem: the greatest military on the planet, with a budget larger than that of the next 10 countries combined, has visibly lost its war there and is now in full-scale retreat. It may not be withdrawing the last of its forces on May 1st, as the Trump administration had agreed to do, but despite the pressure of the American military high command, President Biden “overrode the brass” and announced that every last American soldier would be gone by the 20th anniversary of those first airstrikes against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
At this late date, consider it grimly fascinating that the generals who all those years kept claiming that “corners” were being turned and “progress” made, that we were “on the road to winning” in Afghanistan, as the present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley insisted back in 2013, simply can’t let go of one of their great failures and move on. Under the circumstances, don’t for a second assume that the American war in Afghanistan is truly over. For one thing, the Taliban have not yet agreed to the new withdrawal date, as they did to the May 1st one. Instead, some of its commanders are promising a “nightmare” for U.S. troops in the months to come. Were they, for instance, to attack an air base and kill some American soldiers, who knows what the reaction here might be?
In addition, the Pentagon high command and this country’s intelligence agencies are still planning for possibly making war on Afghanistan from a distance in order to “prevent the country from again becoming a terrorist base.” As Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper of the New York Times reported recently, “Planners at the military’s Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and Joint Staff in Washington have been developing options to offset the loss of American combat boots on the ground.”
In other words, the American war in Afghanistan may be ending but, as with so much else about that endless experience, even the finale is still up for grabs. In that context, consider the thoughts of TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon on what has, without any doubt, been the American war from hell of this century. Tom
-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
The Graveyard of Empires Redux
America's Ruinous Pursuit of Mission Impossible in Afghanistan
n May 1st, the date Donald Trump signed onto for the withdrawal of the remaining 3,500 American troops from Afghanistan, the war there, already 19 years old, was still officially a teenager. Think of September 11, 2021 — the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the date Joe Biden has chosen for the same — as, in essence, the very moment when its teenage years will be over.
In all that time, Washington has been fighting what, in reality, should have been considered a fantasy war, a mission impossible in that country, however grim and bloody, based on fantasy expectations and fantasy calculations, few of which seem to have been stanched in Washington even so many years later. Not surprisingly, Biden’s decision evoked the predictable reactions in that city. The military high command’s never-ending urge to stick with a failed war was complemented by the inside-the-Beltway Blob’s doomsday scenarios and tired nostrums.
The latter began the day before the president even went public when, in a major opinion piece, the Washington Post’s editorial board distilled the predictable platitudes to come: such a full-scale military exit, they claimed, would deprive Washington of all diplomatic influence and convince the Taliban that it could jettison its talks with President Ashraf Ghani’s demoralized U.S.-backed government and fight its way to power. A Taliban triumph would, in turn, eviscerate democracy and civil society, leaving rights gained by women and minorities in these years in the dust, and so destroy everything the U.S. had fought for since October 2001.
By this September, of course, 775,000-plus Americans soldiers will have served in Afghanistan (a few of them the children of those who had served early in the war). More than a fifth of them would endure at least three tours of duty there! Suffice it to say that most of the armchair generals who tend to adorn establishment think tanks haven’t faced such hardships.
In 2010 and 2011, the Obama surge would deploy as many as 100,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The Pentagon states that, as of this month, 2,312 American soldiers have died there (80% killed in action) and 20,666 have been injured. Then there’s the toll taken on vets of that never-ending war thanks to PTSD, suicide, and substance abuse. Military families apart, however, much of the American public has been remarkably untouched by the war, since there’s no longer a draft and Uncle Sam borrowed money, rather than raising taxes, to foot the $2.26 trillion bill. As a result, the forever war dragged on, consuming blood and treasure without any Vietnam War-style protests.
Not surprisingly, most Americans know even less about the numbers of Afghan civilians killed and wounded in these years. Since 2002, at least 47,000 non-combatants have been killed and another 43,000 injured, whether by airstrikes, artillery fire, shootings, improvised explosive devices, or suicide and car bombings. A 2020 U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan notes that 2019 was the sixth straight year in which 10,000 civilians were killed or wounded. And this carnage has occurred in one of the world’s poorest countries, which ranks 187th in per-capita income, where the death or incapacitation of an adult male (normally the primary breadwinner in a rural Afghan home) can tip already-poor families into destitution.
So how, then, can the calls to persevere make sense? Seek and you won’t find a persuasive answer. Consider the most notable recent attempt to provide one, the Afghanistan Study Group report, written by an ensemble of ex-officials, retired generals, and think-tank luminaries, not a few of them tied to big weapons-producing companies. Released with significant fanfare in February, it offered no substantive proposals for attaining goals that have been sought for 19 years, including a stable democracy with fair elections, a free press, an unfettered civil society, and equal rights for all Afghans — all premised on a political settlement between the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban.
Still Standing After All These Years
Now, consider Afghanistan’s bedrock reality: the Taliban, which has battled the world’s most fearsome military machine for two decades, remains standing, and continues to expand its control in rural areas. The U.S., its NATO allies, and the Afghanistan National Security and Defense Forces have indeed killed some 50,000 Taliban fighters over the years, including, in 2016, its foremost leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor. In 2019-2020 alone, several senior commanders, also members of the Taliban’s shadow government, were killed, including the “governors” of Badakshan, Farah, Logar, Samangan, and Wardak provinces. Yet the Taliban, whose roots lie among the Pashtun, the country’s historically dominant ethnic group, have managed to replenish their ranks, procure new weapons and ammunition, and raise money, above all through taxes on opium poppy farming.
It helps that the Taliban continues to get covert support from Pakistan’s military and intelligence service, which played a pivotal role in creating the movement in the early 1990s after it was clear that the leaders of the Pakistan-backed Pashtun mujahedeen (literally, those who wage jihad) proved unable to shoot their way into power because minority nationalities (mainly Uzbeks and Tajiks) resisted ferociously. Yet the Taliban has indigenous roots, too, and its success can’t be attributed solely to intimidation and violence. Its political agenda and puritanical version of Islam appeal to many Afghans. Absent that, it would have perished long ago.
Instead, according to the Long War Journal, the Taliban now controls 75 of Afghanistan’s 400 districts; the government rules 133 others, with the remaining 187 up for grabs. Although the insurgency isn’t on the homestretch to victory, it’s never been in a stronger military position since the 2001 American invasion. Nor has the morale of its fighters dissipated, though many are doubtless weary of war. According to a May U.N. report, “the Taliban remain confident they can take power by force,” even though their fighters have long been vastly outmatched in numbers, mobility, supplies, transportation, and the caliber of their armaments. Nor do they have the jets, helicopters, and bombers their adversaries, especially the United States do, and use with devastating effect. In 2019, 7,423 bombs and other kinds of ordnance were dropped on Afghanistan, eight times as many as in 2015.
Tallying Costs
As 2019 ended, a group of former senior U.S. officials claimed that the Afghan campaign’s costs have been overblown. American troops killed there the previous year, they pointed out, amounted to only a fifth of those who died during “non-combat training exercises” and that “U.S. direct military expenditures in Afghanistan are approximately three percent of annual U.S. military spending” and were decreasing. It evidently escaped them that even a few fatalities that occur because a country’s leaders pursue outlandish objectives like reshaping an entire society in a distant land should matter.
As for the monetary costs, it depends on what you count. Those “direct military expenditures” aren’t the only ones incurred year after year from the Afghan War. Brown University’s Costs of War Project, for instance, also includes expenses from the Pentagon’s “base budget” (the workaday costs of maintaining the armed forces); funds allotted for “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the post-9/11 counter-terrorism wars; interest payments on money borrowed to fund the war; the long-term pensions and benefits of its veterans; and economic aid provided to Afghanistan by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Do the math that way and the price tag turns out to be so much larger.
But even if you were to accept that 3% figure, that would still total $22 billion from the $738 billion fiscal year 2020 Pentagon budget, hardly chump change — especially given the resources needed to address festering problems on the home front, including a pandemic, child poverty, hunger, homelessness, and an opioid epidemic.
Nation-Building: Form vs. Substance
Now, consider some examples of the “progress” highlighted by the proponents of pressing on. These would include democratic elections and institutions, less corruption, and inroads against the narcotics trade.
First, the election system, an effective one being, of course, a prerequisite for democracy. Of course, given the way Donald Trump and crew dealt with election 2020 here in the U.S., Americans should think twice before blithely casting stones at the Afghan electoral system. In addition, organizing elections in a war-ravaged country is a dangerous task when an insurgency is working overtime to violently disrupt them.
Still, each of Afghanistan’s four presidential elections (2004, 2009, 2014, 2019) produced widespread, systematic fraud verified by investigative reporters and noted in U.S. government reports. After the 2014 presidential poll, for instance, candidate Abdullah Abdullah wouldn’t concede and threatened to form a parallel government, insisting that his opponent, Ashraf Ghani, had won fraudulently. To avert bloodshed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brokered a power-sharing deal that made Abdullah the “chief executive” — a position unmentioned in the Afghan constitution. (Incidentally, elections to the national legislature have also been plagued by irregularities.) Although USAID has worked feverishly to improve election procedures and turnout, spending $200 million on the 2014 presidential election alone, voting fraud remained pervasive in 2019.
As for key political institutions, which also bear American fingerprints, the respected Afghanistan Analyst Network only recently examined the state of the supreme court, the senate, provincial and district assemblies, and the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC). It concluded that they “lacked even the minimum independence needed to exercise their constitutional mandate to provide accountability” and aggravated the “stagnation of the overall political system.”
The senate lacked the third of its membership elected by district assemblies — the remaining senators are appointed by the president or elected by provincial assemblies — for a simple reason. Though constitutionally mandated, district assembly elections have never been held. As for the ICOIC, it had only four out of its seven legally required commissioners, insufficient for a quorum.
When it comes to the narcotics trade, Afghanistan now accounts for 90% of the world’s illicit opium, essential for the making of heroin. The hectares of land devoted to opium-poppy planting have increased dramatically from 8,000 in 2001 to 263,000 by 2018. (A slump in world demand led to a rare drop in 2019.) Little wonder, since poppies provide destitute Afghan farmers with income to cover their basic needs. A U.N. study estimates that poppy sales, at $2 billion in 2019, exceeded the country’s legal exports, while the opium economy accounted for 7% to 11% of the gross domestic product.
Although the U.S. has spent at least $9 billion attempting to stamp out Afghanistan’s narcotics trade, a 2021 report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) concluded that the investment had next to no effect and that Afghan dominance of the global opium business remained unrivalled. The report didn’t, however, mention the emergence of a new, more insidious problem. In recent years, that country has become a major producer of illegal synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamine, both cheaper and more profitable than opium cultivation. It now houses, according to a European Union study, an estimated 500 meth labs that manufacture 65.5 tons of the stuff daily.
As for the campaign against corruption, a supposed pillar of U.S. nation-building, forget it. From shakedowns by officials and warlords to palatial homes built with ill-gotten gains by the well-connected, corruption permeates the American-installed system in Afghanistan.
Though U.S. officials have regularly fumed about the corruption of senior Afghan officials, including the first post-Taliban president, Hamid Karzai, the CIA funneled “tens of millions” of dollars to him for years (as he himself confirmed). Investigative reporting by the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock revealed that many notorious warlords and senior officials were also blessed by the Agency’s beneficence. They included Uzbek strongman and one-time First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused of murder, abduction, and rape, and Mohammed Zia Salehi, the head of administration at the National Security Council under President Karzai.
In 2015, a U.S. government investigation revealed that $300 million earmarked to pay the Afghan police never actually reached them and was instead “paid” to “ghost” (non-existent) officers or simply stolen by police officials. A 2012 study traced 3,000 Pentagon contracts totaling $106 billion and concluded that 40% of that sum had ended up in the pockets of crime bosses, government officials, and even insurgents.
According to SIGAR’s first 2021 quarterly report to Congress, one U.S. contractor pled guilty to stealing $775,000 in State Department funds. Two others, subcontractors to weapons giant Lockheed Martin, submitted nearly $1.8 million in fraudulent invoices, while hiring local employees who lacked contractually required qualifications. (They were asked to procure counterfeit college diplomas from an Internet degree mill.)
And lest you think that this deeply embedded culture of corruption in Afghanistan is a “Third World” phenomenon, consider an American official’s recollection that “the biggest source of corruption” in that country “was the United States.”
Hubris and Nemesis Strike — Yet Again
While writing this piece, a memory came back to me. In 1988, I was part of a group that visited Afghanistan just as Soviet troops were starting to withdraw from that country. After a disastrous 10-year war, those demoralized young soldiers were headed for a homeland that itself would soon implode. The Red Army had been sent to Afghanistan in December 1979 by a geriatric Politburo leadership confident that it would save an embattled Afghan socialist regime, which had seized power in April 1978 and soon sparked a countrywide Islamist insurgency backed by the CIA and Saudi dollars that spawned a small group that called itself al-Qaeda, headed by a rich young Saudi.
Once the guerillas were crushed, so Soviet leaders then imagined, the building of a modern socialist society would proceed amid stability and a shiny new Soviet-allied Afghanistan would emerge. As for those ragtag bands of primitive Islamic warriors, what chance did they stand against well-trained Russian soldiers bearing the latest in modern firepower?
Moscow may even have believed that the Kabul government would hold its own after the Soviet military left what its new young leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had then taken to calling “the bleeding wound.” The Afghan president of that moment certainly did. When our group met him, Mohammed Najibullah Ahmadzai, a burly, fearsome fellow who had previously headed the KHAD, the country’s brutal intelligence agency, confidently assured us that his government had strong support and plenty of staying power. Barely four years later, he would be castrated, dragged behind a vehicle, and strung up in public.
The Politburo’s experiment in social re-engineering in a foreign country — no one said “nation-building” back then — led to more than 13,000 dead Soviet soldiers and perhaps as many as one million dead Afghans. No two wars are alike, of course, but the same vainglory that possessed those Soviet leaders marked the American campaign in Afghanistan in its early years. The white-hot anger that followed the 9/11 attacks and the public’s desire for vengeance led the George W. Bush administration to topple the Taliban government. He and his successors in the White House, seized by the overweening pride theologian Reinhold Niebuhr had long ago warned his fellow Americans about, also believed that they would build a democratic and modern Afghanistan.
As it happened, they simply started another, even longer cycle of war in that unfortunate country, one guaranteed to rage on and consume yet more lives after American soldiers depart this September — assuming Biden’s decision isn’t thwarted.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel Frostlands (the second in the Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
President Joe Biden. (photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Unions Warn Senate Democrats: Pass the PRO Act, or Else
West Virginia Unions Pressure Manchin to Back Biden on Infrastructure Plan
Don Gonyea, NPR
Gonyea writes: "If President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan is going to become a reality, it will very likely need the vote of every Democrat in the evenly divided Senate."
f President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan is going to become a reality, it will very likely need the vote of every Democrat in the evenly divided Senate.
That simple fact puts a bright spotlight on West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who represents a deep-red Republican state — a place that Donald Trump carried in the past two elections by some 40 percentage points.
Manchin's position means he will have a lot of say on whether the package includes everything the Biden administration wants, and on how to pay for it.
And soon after it was outlined, Manchin voiced some immediate concerns. He said raising the corporate tax rate from its current 21% up to 28% to help pay for the proposal was too much of an increase. He suggested a smaller hike, up to 25%.
Right away, it underscored how central Manchin would be to the plan's success.
And unions in West Virginia, which argue that the future of the state's economy depends on Biden's proposal, took Manchin's line as a cue to mobilize and to start educating their membership and the general public about what's at stake.
"It's really important to break down the aspects of the jobs plan state by state," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, who promised to put a special emphasis on Manchin's home state.
The SEIU represents thousands of health care workers who earn minimum wage in West Virginia — workers who are overwhelmingly female. A proposed $400 billion would be directed toward the home care industry under the Biden package. The SEIU estimates that would mean improved pay and benefits and an additional 6,000 jobs in West Virginia, a state with an aging population in need of such care.
Of those workers, Henry said, "We intend to make sure she is seen by Sen. Manchin," adding that the moderate Democrat must understand that home care deserves to be part of an infrastructure plan. "He needs to vote yes on both rebuilding roads and bridges in West Virginia, but also in investing in the home care workforce in his state."
The effort to win Manchin's support is now underway by the SEIU and its allies. One group, the Working Families Party, is running print and TV ads to pressure the senator. It's also hosting socially distanced, livestreamed outdoor concerts under the banner of Jammin' for Jobs. At one such event in the college town of Morgantown, bands played on the rooftop of a downtown building while spectators watched from the breezy top level of a parking garage just across the street.
Working Families organizer Ryan Frankenberry said you move Manchin by moving public opinion — "by creating awareness, by making it harder for him to say no. To create the expectation that he must and will say yes."
"You can catch more flies with honey than you can vinegar"
Vikki Tully is a native West Virginian. The 64-year-old Head Start teacher introduces herself by saying, "I was raised in a union home. I'm a coal miner's daughter." She is also an officer with SEIU Local 1199, which represents home care workers.
Lately she's been driving the winding highways and backroads through the Appalachian Mountains to meet with home care workers all over the state. She's there to let them know what they can do to make their voice heard and to ask them to sign personalized cards urging Manchin to support the infrastructure plan.
Tully also wants Manchin to remember that unions got voters to the polls in 2018 when he was last on the ballot. He narrowly won. "We stood up for him to get him where he's at; he needs to stand with us now," Tully said.
One thing stands out as you watch this union effort: Unlike so many political campaigns, it's all very polite.
Tully says that's a bit unusual for the SEIU, which is well-known for its "in your face" activism.
"But that's not what it's going to take right now," she said. "You can catch more flies with honey than you can vinegar. So we're trying to go that route now."
Then, after a pause, she added, "until it's needed to do it the other way."
In the downtown Charleston offices of the West Virginia AFL-CIO, President Joshua Sword says union officials have not ruled out doing big public events and rallies as a demonstration of support for the Biden infrastructure and jobs plan. Right now, however, they're working behind the scenes, taking advantage of their longstanding relationship with Manchin. They're talking, says Sword.
One reason for such an approach is that this is a state that Trump carried easily twice. Sword estimates that half of his union membership voted for Trump. Still, he says, they want the jobs that a big infrastructure plan would bring.
Ultimately, he says he thinks Manchin will be there in the end. "I don't think you have to push Sen. Joe Manchin on infrastructure," Sword said.
"This is his classic role"
This week, Manchin told reporters on a conference call that the infrastructure bill should focus on more traditional infrastructure — roads, bridges, rail, airports — and also bringing broadband internet to every corner of rural states like West Virginia.
That would appear to be bad news for those applauding the Biden administration's much broader definition, which includes home care, the promotion of electric vehicles and other measures. Manchin said some big items in the Biden plan — like home care — can be addressed in separate legislation. But that could make such programs more difficult to pass.
"Yep, we're definitely into a Joe Manchin moment." That's how West Virginia University political scientist John Kilwein describes it.
"This is his classic role," Kilwein continued, "how he envisions himself as the go-between the two parties and the kind of the common-sense guy from a rural state that can bring some down-home intelligence to the Capitol."
Hanging over the infrastructure debate are two recent moves by Manchin. He's now a co-sponsor of the pro-labor PRO Act — legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize. But he also, last month, rejected a labor-backed $15-an-hour minimum wage. That was a stinging defeat for many of those same union members pressing him now on infrastructure.
It all makes the effort to win support for Biden's plan a delicate dance for labor groups. Right now, the fight is over infrastructure, but with Manchin at center stage in a 50-50 Senate, it's a dance that's likely to continue on issue after issue, well beyond infrastructure.
The investigation led by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has spanned more than two years, and its focus has shifted over time. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A 'Relic' and 'Burden': Manhattan District Attorney to Stop Prosecuting Prostitution
Rachel Treisman, NPR
Treisman writes: "Manhattan's district attorney announced Wednesday that his office will no longer prosecute prostitution and unlicensed massage under a new policy that's believed to be the first of its kind in New York."
Cyrus Vance Jr. also appeared virtually in Manhattan Criminal Court to request the dismissal of more than 900 such cases dating back to the 1970s, according to a press release. He moved to dismiss another 5,000 cases related to the state's controversial anti-loitering statute, which New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo repealed in February.
In a statement, Vance noted the disproportionate impact of such laws on the LGBTQ community and other vulnerable populations, and credited advocates and survivors with making this set of reforms possible.
"Over the last decade we've learned from those with lived experience, and from our own experience on the ground: criminally prosecuting prostitution does not make us safer, and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers," Vance said. "... By vacating warrants, dismissing cases, and erasing convictions for these charges, we are completing a paradigm shift in our approach."
The Manhattan District Attorney Office's previous policy was to dismiss prostitution cases after the charged individual completed five counseling sessions with service providers. Going forward, it said its Human Trafficking Response Unit will file paperwork to decline formally to prosecute, and to inform the person arrested about purely voluntary services.
The text of the new policy notes it does not preclude officials from bringing "other charges that may stem from a prostitution-related arrest." A spokesperson confirmed to NPR that it will not change the office's existing approach to arresting patrons of prostitution.
But the change is poised to affect thousands of sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, many of whom are women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community.
"Black, Brown and East Asian women and girls, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people have been disproportionately harmed by laws like 'loitering for the purpose of prostitution' and 'unlicensed practice of a profession' – a charge that is often used to make arrests in massage businesses," Judy Harris Kluger, executive director of the legal services provider Sanctuary for Families, said in a statement.
She added that the district attorney is making "critical changes in its approach to the sex trade and the way our communities support those most at risk of exploitation."
The district attorney's office said it had identified 5,994 cases in its records — dating back to 1976 — that involved an open bench warrant as well as a top charge of either prostitution, unlicensed massage or "loitering for the purpose of prostitution," all misdemeanors.
Of those, 878 are prostitution cases and 36 are related to unlicensed massage. The remaining 5,080 listed "loitering for the purpose of prostitution" as the top charge, and Vance asked the court to dismiss those as well. He said his office has not prosecuted that crime since 2016 and noted it was removed from the state's penal code earlier this year.
"These cases – many dating back to the 1970s and 1980s – are both a relic of a different New York, and a very real burden for the person who carries the conviction or bench warrant," Vance said.
Many of these warrants were issued "at a time when we did not recognize the circumstances that these individuals were facing," Vance added. They imposed significant "collateral consequences" on vulnerable people, he said, some of whom continue to live under the threat of being detained because of pending warrants.
The national debate over whether sex work should be illegal is not new. Opponents say sex work is an exploitative industry and victimizing profession, while many advocates and academics believe decriminalizing it would protect sex workers and benefit public health.
A coalition of advocates formed the group Decrim NY in 2019, with a stated goal of working to "decriminalize, decarcerate and destigmatize" the sex trades in New York City and across the state.
Cecilia Gentili, founder of Transgender Equity Consulting who helped found Decrim NY, described the policy shift as "the kind of change our community has been hoping for, advocating for, for decades."
"This initiative to end the prosecution of people who are simply trying to work to survive through a depressed economy, and to immediately dismiss the almost 6,000 bench warrants for loitering, prostitution, and non-licensed massages is one of the most significant steps taken nationally in the effort to stop criminalizing sex work," Gentili said.
Abigail Swenstein, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Exploitation Intervention Project who joined Vance in his motions to dismiss the cases, welcomed Wednesday's announcement.
But she said the policy should not replace pending legislation that would decriminalize sex work and provide criminal relief for people who have already been convicted, and called on state lawmakers to pass it.
Other jurisdictions in and beyond New York have also taken steps to ease the prosecution of prostitution. Brooklyn's district attorney, for instance, said in January he would dismiss more than 1,000 prostitution-related warrants from the last five decades.
Since taking office in 2018, Philadelphia's district attorney has told his assistant district attorneys not to charge sex workers with prostitution if the individual has fewer than two convictions, and State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced last month that the city of Baltimore will permanently stop prosecuting prostitution, trespassing and other minor charges.
Vance has said he will not seek a fourth term as Manhattan district attorney, which would begin in January. As The Appeal has reported, most of the candidates running for election in June have said they would not prosecute cases involving consensual sex work.
Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro attends his supporters during a protest in favor of the government and against the lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak in front of the Planalto Palace in Brasília, Brazil, on May 3, 2020. (photo: Andre Borges/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Brazil's Bolsonaro Says Army May Go After People Who Enforce Quarantines, Calling Them Cowards
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday said he is willing to deploy the army on the streets if governors and mayors continue to enforce quarantines confinements and curfews."
According to Bolsonaro, quarantines, curfews, and movement restrictions are signs of cowardice.
razil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday said he is willing to deploy the army on the streets if governors and mayors continue to enforce quarantines confinements and curfews.
"If I decree it, it will be enforced. Our Armed Forces can go to the streets to enforce the fifth article of the constitution on freedom of movement in the national territory in times of peace," Bolsonaro said.
The president called the measures restricting movement and economic activities as "cowardly and absurd" and added that they would only generate chaos due to hunger.
Besides being nostalgic for the last Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985), Bolsonaro's mismanagement of the pandemic has put at risk not only Brazilians but the entire Latin America region, according to statements by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Brazilian government's late and not strong enough response to the pandemic has resulted in one of the highest death tolls in the world with a daily average of 3000 deaths.
As of Saturday morning, Brazil had reported over 14 million COVID-19 cases and 386,623 deaths.
The Forest Service recently determined Nestlé's activities left California's Strawberry Creek 'impaired' while 'the current water extraction is drying up surface water resources'. (photo: Nick Todd/Alamy)
Nestlé Doesn't Have Valid Rights to Water It's Been Bottling, California Officials Say
Ian James and Janet Wilson, The Palm Springs Desert Sun
Excerpt: "California water officials on Friday issued a draft order telling Nestlé to 'cease and desist' taking much of the millions of gallons of water it pipes out of the San Bernardino National Forest to sell as Arrowhead brand bottled water."
The order, which must be approved by the California Water Resources Control Board, caps years of regulatory probes and a public outcry over the company’s water pipeline in the San Bernardino Mountains, where opponents argue that siphoning away water harms spring-fed Strawberry Creek and the wildlife that depends on it.
Nestlé’s use of water from the national forest 70 miles east of Los Angeles generated opposition and protests from area residents — and a lawsuit by environmental groups —after a 2015 investigation by The Desert Sun revealed that the U.S. Forest Service was allowing the company to pipe water from the national forest using a permit with a 1988 expiration date, and with no review of the environmental impacts during the state's last severe drought.
State water officials opened a probe into Nestle's water rights in 2015. In 2017, they warned the giant water bottler that it might not hold rights for much of the water they take. Nestle disputed those conclusions at the time, and on Friday vowed to fight the recommended order.
With another potential drought looming across California, water board officials on Friday laid out their case that Nestlé must sharply curtail its withdrawals, and said the matter “requires Nestlé’s immediate attention.”
“It is concerning that these diversions are continuing despite recommendations from the initial report, and while the state is heading into a second dry year,” said Julé Rizzardo, assistant deputy director of the Division of Water Rights. “The state will use its enforcement authority to protect water and other natural resources as we step up our efforts to further build California’s drought resilience.”
The Forest Service, which issued a new three-year permit in 2018, said it could be invalid if the state board issues its order.
"The current permit and any future permits require the permittee to comply with State law, including its water rights. Otherwise the holder is in violation of the permit," said San Bernardino National Forest spokesman Zachary Behrens in an email.
State staff said their investigation had found multiple violations, and that if the order is adopted, the company would need to “limit diversions from surface streams to its pre-1914 water right of 7.26 acre-feet per year” and submit annual monitoring reports.
“While Nestlé may be able to claim a valid basis of right to some water in Strawberry Canyon, a significant portion of the water currently diverted by Nestlé appears to be diverted without a valid basis of right,” the water board’s officials said in the nine-page letter to representatives of Nestlé Waters North America.
If the order is finalized, the company could legally face fines of between $500 and $1,000 a day for every day it has continued to take water since the end of 2017, when the first warning report was sent, or continues to take water after the order is issued, a water board spokeswoman said.
For now, no penalties have been assessed.
"We didn’t issue a monetary penalty because the immediate priority is bringing Nestlé into compliance through the Cease and Desist Order," water board spokesperson Ailene Voisin said. "The order does not preclude the Board pursuing future penalties for violations."
What's next for Nestlé or its successor
The company has 20 days to appeal. The announcement by state regulators comes two months after Switzerland-based Nestlé announced it was selling its regional spring water brands in the U.S. and Canada, including Arrowhead, to private equity firms One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos & Co. for $4.3 billion.
“We do not anticipate the sale of Nestle Waters North America to affect the enforcement action moving forward,” Rizzardo said. “While ownership of Nestle’s parent company has changed, it’s our understanding that its day-to-day operations and management has not changed.”
The new owners announced this month that the company formerly known as Nestlé Waters North America will operate under the name BlueTriton Brands.
In response to questions from The Desert Sun, a BlueTriton spokesman said in an email that the findings contained major errors and the company would vigorously fight them.
"We are disappointed with the recommendation by the State Water Resources Control Board staff concerning our water rights in Strawberry Canyon. The ... staff report and draft cease-and-desist order, which is a part of the normal investigative process, errs with respect to several critical hydrological and legal conclusions."
The spokesman added, "For more than 125 years, BlueTriton Brands and its predecessors have sustainably collected water from Arrowhead Springs in Strawberry Canyon. We take pride in being good stewards of the environment, while providing an excellent product loved by Californians."
The statement said the findings "are contrary to California water rights law and a departure from long-standing (state water board) practice and precedent. It is our view that they have not fairly considered the extensive information and data we have provided to them."
BlueTriton will pursue all available legal options to correct the "misinterpretation of established California water law," the spokesman said, adding that they would comply with any final determination.
Piping water from a national forest:Bottling water without scrutiny
'My hope is that the Strawberry Creek ecosystem can be restored'
Opponents of the water-bottling operation said they are pleased with the decision. Amanda Frye, who researched and provided to state staff many documents on the water rights history, stretching back more than a century, has been calling for shutting down the pipeline for years.
“My hope is that the Strawberry Creek ecosystem can be restored in America’s San Bernardino National Forest,” Frye said.
Others agreed.
"The Water Board investigation confirms what we've believed all along: Nestlé/Blue Triton has been taking the public's water for decades without a valid right to it," said Michael O'Heaney, executive director of Story of Stuff, which had filed complaints and urged state officials as recently as February to come to a conclusion after Nestlé announced the sale.
"What better way to turn the page on Nestlé's well-earned negative reputation than by conceding this is the end of the proverbial pipeline,” O’Heaney said.
Water board staff acknowledged the "extraordinary" public input it received and its impact.
“This investigation provides a clear example of the vital role Californians play in protecting our water resources,” said Victor Vasquez, senior engineer with the Division of Water Rights. “We cannot overemphasize the importance of public engagement on water enforcement issues, especially given current conditions.”
Before the recent sale, Nestlé Waters North America had been the biggest bottled water company in the United States. The Forest Service charges Nestle a permit fee of $2,100 per year, but there is no charge for the water.
Permit for water pipeline:Nestlé is still taking national forest water for its Arrowhead label
The next steps
The draft order has not been scheduled for a vote by the state water board yet, said Voisin, the agency spokesperson.
“If Nestle requests a hearing, this matter will likely first be heard through the State Water Board’s Administrative Hearings Office,” Voisin said in an email. “If the Administrative Hearings Office agrees, after hearing evidence presented by all parties, it would then propose a Cease and Desist Order to the State Water Board for adoption.”
If the board adopts the order, it would become final, Voisin said, and the company would need to stop taking much of the water.
Nestlé collects water using a system of 10 gravity-fed boreholes and two water tunnels drilled deep into the mountainside. The water flows downhill through a 4.5-mile steel pipeline to a roadside tank, where it’s pumped into tanker trucks and hauled to a bottling plant.
Records show 211 acre-feet (68 million gallons) passed through the pipeline in 2019, and an estimated 180 acre-feet (58 million gallons) flowed through the pipeline last year.
The battle over Nestlé’s operation in the San Bernardino Mountains is one of several fights that opponents have waged across the country — in states including Oregon, Michigan and Pennsylvania — to try to block the company from siphoning water from springs and aquifers.
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