Dispatches

TRUMP ENABLERS TRY TO REWRITE THEIR OWN AFGHANISTAN HISTORY.

There’s been no shortage of fact-based criticism aimed at the Biden administration’s handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, CNN fact checkers Daniel Dale, Holmes Lybrand and Tara Subramaniam noted (8/22). But former Trump administration officials have been rewriting history to blame Joe Biden for the chaos that unfolded.

Former Vice President Mike Pence published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (8/17) that cast sole blame on the Biden administration for the current situation in Afghanistan.

Pence went so far as to claim that the Trump administration’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban “immediately brought to Afghanistan a stability unseen in decades.”

“In the past 18 months, the US has not suffered a single combat casualty there. By the time we left office, the Afghan government and the Taliban each controlled their respective territories, neither was mounting major offensives, and America had only 2,500 US troops in the country—the smallest military presence since the war began in 2001,” Pence wrote.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also claimed, on Twitter and in an interview on Fox Business, that the Trump administration “kept the country stable.”

CNN noted there is no legitimate argument that Afghanistan experienced anything resembling “stability” after the US deal with the Taliban. While Pence is correct that no more US troops were killed in combat after the deal, the war continued to rage, and large numbers of Afghan troops and civilians continued to be killed or injured.

The inspector general for the Department of Defense reported that “the Taliban escalated violence further” in the immediate aftermath of the signing of the agreement. The UN reported that while “there was a drop in the number of civilian casualties documented in the first nine months” of 2020, “in stark contrast, the last three months of the year marked an uncharacteristic rise in civilian casualties — a critical indicator of the nature of the conflict. The year ended with increased focus on levels of violence and diminishing hopes for lasting peace.”

“The anguish caused by the armed conflict continued to be widespread and felt in cities and rural areas by people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and social-economic backgrounds,” the UN said in its annual report on the war — in which it noted that civilian casualties were up 45% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

After the White House announced (8/18) that the Taliban would permit “safe passage” to Afghan civilians traveling to the capital’s airport, Nikki Haley, Trump’s former US ambassador to the United Nations, criticized the Biden administration for relying on the word of the Taliban.

“To have our Generals say that they are depending on diplomacy with the Taliban is an unbelievable scenario,” Haley tweeted. “Negotiating with the Taliban is like dealing with the devil.”

CNN noted Haley didn’t mention that the Trump administration itself negotiated with the Taliban — and that she had herself spoken favorably of those peace negotiations while serving in the administration.

“We are seeing that we’re closer to talks with the Taliban and the peace process than we’ve seen before,” Haley said on Jan. 17, 2018, at the UN in New York. Haley added that Afghanistan officials were “confident that the Taliban will be coming to the table” and that the “US policy on Afghanistan is working.” Haley resigned from her post in the administration in October 2018.

Christopher Miller, who served as acting defense secretary for less than three months at the end of Trump’s presidency, claimed in an interview with Defense One Trump’s 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 was just a “play,” and Trump actually intended to keep US troops in Afghanistan for counterterrorism purposes.

CNN notes: “While we don’t know what Trump may have discussed with Miller in secret, statements from other administration officials and even Trump himself cast doubt on Miller’s claim. Trump has repeatedly said publicly, even after leaving office, that his plan was to bring home ‘all’ of the troops. A former Trump administration senior official told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Miller’s claim is false.”

As President, Trump called for a full withdrawal by Christmas 2020, even sooner than the May 1 deadline. And as recently as Aug. 12, Trump released a statement suggesting he would have followed through with the full withdrawal plan had he won the 2020 election, though he claimed it would have been “much more successful” than Biden’s.

In an April 18 statement that has since been deleted from his website, Trump said, “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.” And on June 26, Trump emphasized that his administration was responsible for starting the process to bring all troops back, saying “I started the process. All the troops are coming back home. They couldn’t stop the process. Twenty-one years is enough, don’t we think?”

WHO OPPOSED HELPING OUR ALLIES IN AFGHANISTAN? In July, the House passed a bill to remove some of the obstacles to providing visas for Afghan refugees who helped US military during the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. The Averting Loss of Life and Injury by Expediting SIVs (ALLIES) Act, sponsored by US Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) was a no-brainer piece of legislation that would remove some of the requirements for special immigrant visas for Afghans who risked their lives and their family’s lives in order to help the US achieve its goals on foreign soil. The bill was co-sponsored by 104 Democrats and 36 Republicans. It passed the House 407-16. Who voted against this bill? Walter Einenkel of DailyKos wrote, ”I bet you can guess at least a few of them.

“All 16 are a part of the so-called ‘Freedom Caucus,’ known for harboring a lot of elected officials who should have probably been impeached, be it for complicity in sexual assaults, or for complicity in the attempted coup of our government.” They include:

• Andy Biggs (AZ), who made his money the old fashioned way—he won it from Publisher’s Clearing House back in 1993. Biggs, climate-denier, is also known as one of the four people who brainchilded the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” D.C. event. Biggs tweeted (8/18): “Every passing day, Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal gets worse and brings with it national shame not seen since Vietnam.” I guess he forgot to mention his part in all of this?

• Lauren Boebert (CO), who has been tweeting out nonsense about needing to know what the “vetting” process is. This is par for the course for Boebert, who uses her social media platforms to barf up public health advice that a snake-oil salesman would be embarrassed to offer.

• Mo Brooks (AL), “whose social media account, probably handled by some sociopathic underling, has been putting forth a nonstop stream of anti-immigrant, anti-historical reality for the past 24 hours.”

• Scott DesJarlais (TN), who has been trying to blame the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan on former President Barack Obama.

• Jeff Duncan (CO), who said (8/18): “If the Taliban executes any Christians in Afghanistan, the United States should retaliate violently against the Islamists.”

• Bob Good (VA) is pretending to be worried about “Americans trapped in Afghanistan” on social media these days.

• Paul Gosar (AZ), whose own family members are among his most severe critics, still needs to be investigated for his part in the Jan. 6 riots and insurrection.

• Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), after being suspended from Twitter, has rejoined to tell the world she is going to impeach President Joe Biden.

Kevin Hern (OK) tweeted (8/17): “In Biden’s America, our allies can no longer trust us and our adversaries no longer fear us.”

• Rep. Jody Hice (GA) has been all in on trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

• Thomas Massie (KY), whose claim to fame was doing dirty work for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and blocking disaster relief from getting to Americans in need.

• Barry Moore (AL): “When people say that Trump changed the Republican Party, just remind them that Barry Moore has been bananas crazy racist and corrupt for a long, long time.”

* Scott Perry (PA), who, when he isn’t being an anti-immigration racist, or telling Americans that higher standards for clean air don’t take into account that God is also an air polluter, he’s working with Donald Trump in an attempted coup d’etat of our government..

• Rep. Bill Posey (FL), whose big move has been to question President Barack Obama’s citizenship. Everything else is just the run-of-the-mill GOP platform of bad public health, gun, and environmental laws and tax giveaways to the rich. 

• Matthew Rosendale (MT), a self-described “rancher” (who has never been a “rancher” of anything), is a classic GOP carpetbagger from the East Coast. But inside his carpet bag is a lot of racism.

• Finally, Chip Roy (TX), who has attempted to walk the tightrope of somehow being the logical Trump supporter. In Roy’s own words, the best strategy for the Republican Party at this moment in our nation’s history, as we stand on the precipice of a collapsing economy and health care system during a pandemic, is to slow everything down in government in order to make sure that our country has “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done.”

“All of those Republicans have attacked Biden, thrown their hands up in the air, and performatively wept for the Americans and allies left in Afghanistan. Those are the guys,” Einenkel concluded.

ENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS EARLY DIDN’T REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its statewide employment data (8/20), which allows economists to judge how unemployment rates changed in states that stopped paying expanded UI benefits in June. Did this get people back to work faster? Did unemployment go down more in states that stopped the expanded benefits?

“Experts will probably provide us with the results of sophisticated models sometime soon, but I can provide unsophisticated results right now,” Kevin Drum noted. “All I did was calculate the change in the unemployment rate between May and July for all states, and then took two averages: one for states that ended expanded benefits early and one for states that have continued them.” Here are the results:

• States that ended benefits early: -0.7 percentage points

• States that continued benefits: -2.4 percentage points

In other words, states that ended benefits early saw unemployment drop only slightly. States that continued paying expanded benefits saw unemployment drop three times as much. (Note: If you calculate the percent drop, rather than in percentage points, the results are pretty much the same.)

Peter Ganong, economics professor at the University of Chicago, had similar findings that states which continued UI benefits had higher employment growth than states that cut off benefits early. However, the difference is small.

TRUMP SUGGESTS VACCINATION. HIS CULTISTS BOO. Donald Trump did literally the least he could when he recommended to supporters in Alabama that they consider vaccinations against COVID-19.

“I believe totally in your freedoms, I do, you gotta do what you gotta do, but I recommend take the vaccines,” the former president said at a rally in Cullman, Ala. (8/21). “I did it. It’s good.” The crowd responded with boos.

“That’s okay, that’s alright,” Trump pressed on. “But I happen to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know. But it is working. You do have your freedoms, you have to maintain that.”

Trump is only the latest Republican to make the 180-degree turn from denying the virus to falling in line with efforts to see the general public vaccinated, Lauren Floyd noted at DailyKos (8/22). “These shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible, or we’re going to be back in a situation in the fall that we don’t yearn for, that we went through last year,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month. “Ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.”

Fox pundits took similar stances. “Please take COVID seriously,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told his viewers in July. “I can’t say it enough. Enough people have died. We don’t need anymore death. Research like crazy.” Hannity added: “Talk to your doctor, your doctors, medical professionals you trust based on your unique medical history, your current medical condition, and you and your doctor make a very important decision for your own safety. Take it seriously. You also have a right to medical privacy. Doctor-patient confidentiality’s also important, and it absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated. I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccination.”

US Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) went from calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “tyrant” for enforcing a mask mandate to encouraging people to talk to their doctors about getting the vaccine. He and his wife catching COVID-19 apparently led to the difference in messaging for him. Moore posted on Facebook: “I’m sad to share that Heather and I have tested positive for COVID-19. To every extent possible, I will continue working virtually while recovering in quarantine.

“While I believe every American has the freedom to make their own health-related decisions, I encourage talking with your doctor about the different vaccines and therapies available and making an informed decision about the prevention and treatment that is best for you. Now is the time to act—don’t wait until you or someone you love is sick.”

PFIZER VACCINE GETS FULL FDA APPROVAL. The Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older (8/23), making it the first to move beyond emergency use status in the US.

The decision will set off a cascade of vaccine requirements by hospitals, colleges, corporations and other organizations, the New York Times reported. United Airlines recently announced that its employees will be required to show proof of vaccination within five weeks of regulatory approval.

Oregon has adopted a similar requirement for all state workers, as have a host of universities in states from Louisiana to Minnesota. The Pentagon has said it would mandate the shots for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops once the Pfizer approval came through.

Kevin Drum noted, “In one sentence we learn that full approval will set off a “cascade” of vaccine requirements, but in the very next sentence we learn that loads of organizations have already put them in place.

“So which is it? Is full approval needed for vaccine requirements to be approved? Or can everyone do it regardless of the vaccine’s status? Seems like the latter to me, but what do I know?

Drum added, “How is Fox News taking this? Until today, the party line was that the vaccine was still ‘experimental’ because it had only emergency approval. Today, they’re reporting that “‘critics’ are wondering if the FDA rushed the full approval for political reasons. Just asking questions here!”

Meanwhile, many vaccine doubters apparently are looking instead at horse deworming tablets to ward off COVID, which has led to a rash of overdoses of a drug that has no proven use against COVID. Mark Sumner at DailyKos notes that the Mississippi Department of Health issued an “official MS Health Alert” warning that “At least 70% of the recent calls [to poison control centers] have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers.” That includes at least one death.” It’s enough that the FDA issued a rather extraordinary tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop It.”

Sumner added, “Those looking to horse pills for treatment might want to note one very simple thing first: adult horses have weights ranging from around 900 to upwards of 2,000 pounds. So, at the very least, a standard dose for a horse is likely to be many times what the average person can stand. And since overdose from Ivermectin can cause seizures, coma, lasting neurologic damage, and death, most of those calling the Mississippi hotline should count themselves lucky they could operate a phone.”

Plenty of people are willing to peddle ivermectin in human-sized doses, Sumner said. “In fact, just Googling the drug will net a number of online peddlers offering to provide Ivermectin in express to your home ‘without a prescription.’ And, should you happen to be afflicted with intestinal strongyloidiasis or onchocerciasis (conditions caused by parasitic worms) … sure. Give it a try. But it won’t cure COVID-19.” Merck, which manufactures ivermectin, agrees.

POLL SHOWS 81% WELCOME AFGHAN ALLIES WHO HELPED US. CBS News/YouGov polling released Aug. 22 showed overwhelming support for evacuating Afghan translators and other allies to the US. Overall, 81% responded affirmatively when asked if the nation should “help Afghan allies enter the US.” Only 19% opposed.

There was significant support for protecting our Afghan allies across individual party lines, CBS News reported. Support among Democrats was 90%. But support also was high among independents and Republicans, at 79% and 76%, respectively, Gabe Ortiz noted at DailyKos (8/23).

“The broad bipartisan support for resettling Afghan allies is part of a broader public opinion trend in favor of immigrants and immigration, which grew stronger during the past four years,” immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice said in response to the polling.

The organization noted Gallup polling from last July that showed near-record high support among Americans who believe more immigration is good. Recent Data for Progress polling also shows overwhelming support for a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, temporary status holders and essential workers. 

The CBS/YouGov poll, conducted Aug. 18-20, also showed 63% approved of removing US troops but only 47% approved of Biden’s handling of the removal. Overall, respondents split 50-50 on Biden’s performance in office, down from 62% approval in March and 58% approval in July.

REPORT SAYS FEDS TARGETED BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTERS. The US Justice Department (DOJ) under Donald Trump intentionally targeted Black Lives Matter protesters for prosecution, hoping to disrupt the movement and discourage individuals from participating, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) reported (8/18).

The report, conducted in partnership with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law, analyzed 362 criminal cases filed by federal prosecutors in connection with nationwide protests from May 31 to Oct. 25, 2020.

“These directives, meant to disrupt the movement, were the primary reason for the unprecedented federalization of protest-related prosecutions seen in 2020,” the report said, according to Aysha Qamar of DailyKos (8/20).

In the report, the two organizations noted that as protests across the country increased, so did police presence, the deployment of federal agents, and prosecution of protesters. According to the report, policing has been historically used as a tool to deter Black people from engaging in protest and has weakened efforts that draw attention to issues impacting Black Americans.

The report compared the difference in how the government handled COVID-19 protests by anti-maskers and others opposing safety measures to how racial injustice protests were dealt with in the same period.

In describing BLM protests in its directives and statements, the DOJ “painted an image of protesters as ‘violent radicals,’” and “the government justified the expanded use of its authority and deployment of federal enforcement due to what it claimed was local and state leaders’ ‘abdication of their law enforcement responsibilities in deference to this violent assault’,” the report said.

The report comes months after the release of *Wall Street Journal* reporter Michael Bender’s book “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.” In the book, Bender details conversations Trump allegedly had with top officials in which he suggested targeting protesters using extreme military force several times, DailyKos reported. Trump not only told law enforcement officials to get “physical” with Black Lives Matter protesters but even showed them videos that featured aggressive officers as an example of what he wanted to see more of. “That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people,” Trump told top officials, according to the book. “Crack their skulls!”

Despite the number of reports confirming how peaceful Black Lives Matter protests have been, throughout his term in office Trump labeled racial justice protesters as violent. He not only gained widespread criticism for his decision to send federal agents to stop protests in cities such as Portland, Seattle and Washington, D.C., but encouraged others to approach protesters with violence, Daily Kos reported. According to the report, 29% of federal charges for protest-related activity occurred in Portland, Ore.

According to the Associated Press, M4BL is demanding reparations from the government including an acknowledgment and an apology for the long history of targeting movements “in support of Black life and Black liberation.” Additionally, it is pushing for the passage of the BREATHE Act, proposed federal legislation that would transform the nation’s criminal justice system by ending the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces in local communities. The report found that 20 cases involving protesters explicitly referenced task force involvement with a “greatly exaggerated” threat of violence from protesters.

SAYING CRAZY STUFF ALL THE TIME HAS CONSEQUENCES. On Aug. 19, a guy drove his pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress and, over the course of five hours, explained to police and a livestream on the Internet that he had a truck bomb. If it detonated, it would have taken out both buildings of the library, as well as a very cool fountain, a hunk of the Supreme Court building and, depending on the size of the bomb, maybe a piece of the Capitol and/or one of the House office buildings, Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (8/19). “The tourist casualty rate might have been dreadful. Like I said, it’s a block from everywhere.”

The Washington Post reported the Cannon, Jefferson and Madison office buildings were evacuated, as police said there was a possible explosive device in the pickup truck, though no explosives had been found.

US Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said the incident started around 9:15 a.m. when the man drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress at First Street and Independence Avenue SE. He said the driver told an officer who responded to the call that “he had a bomb” and the officer said he saw what “appeared to be a detonator.” Manger said negotiators were “hard at work” talking to the man and that he was hoping to have “a peaceful resolution to this incident.”

And because this is 2021, and everybody can make themselves a star, it appears that this guy provided his own live shot.

Law enforcement officials identified the man as Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina. In his live-stream, he was talking about a revolution, calling on “other patriots,” and trying to get President Biden on the phone. The Facebook live videos of the man who apparently was in the standoff with Capitol Police showed what looked to be a bomb in his lap. He was holding a large canister with a battery-powered device on top. He also claimed to have ammonium nitrate in the toolbox of his truck. He said the device is sound-activated, and would go off if the truck windows break by a bullet or other means.

“Ever since events began to pile up in Afghanistan, some of our more media-thirsty elected nutballs have found a new field in which to be unusually vocal,” Pierce noted. “Rep. Lauren Boebert thought it clever to say that only the Taliban is ‘building back better.’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video in which she called the president a “piece of sh*t.” And Donald Trump, Jr.—who, thanks be to God, is not likely to be elected to anything anywhere—said he agreed with the Taliban government when it maintains that there is not freedom of speech in the United States. The gentleman in the truck had thoughts, too.”

“I’m here for a reason, Joe Biden. I’m here for the American people. And if you want to take me out, take me out. But when the patriots come, your a— is in trouble,” Roseberry says in the video. “So if you blow my truck up man, it’s on you, Joe. I’m ready to die for the cause.”

... “The revolution is on, it’s here, it’s today,” he said in his livestream. “America needs a voice. I’ll give it to them.”

Roseberry voiced disgust with Biden’s Afghanistan policy and called on Democratic senators to step down, saying they were “killing America.” He demanded to speak with the president.

The distance between the call and the response is getting narrower by the week now. And there doesn’t seem to be the political will to do anything about that.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2021

Populist.com