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This evening's music features r&b singer Betty Everett. Enjoy!

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

-- Confucius

News and Opinion

Worth a full read. Here's a snippet to get you started:

Hedges: The Empire Does Not Forgive

The Carthaginian general Hannibal, who came close to defeating the Roman Republic in the Second Punic War, committed suicide in 181 BC in exile as Roman soldiers closed in on his residence in the Bithynian village of Libyssa, now modern-day Turkey. It had been more than thirty years since he led his army across the alps and annihilated Roman legions at the Battle of Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae, considered one of the most brilliant tactical victories in warfare which centuries later inspired the plans of the German Army Command in World War I when they invaded Belgium and France. Rome was only able to finally save itself from defeat by replicating Hannibal’s military tactics.

It did not matter in 181 BC that there had been over 20 Roman emperors since Hannibal’s invasion. It did not matter that Hannibal had been hunted for decades and forced to perpetually flee, always just beyond the reach of Roman authorities. He had humiliated Rome. He had punctured its myth of omnipotence. And he would pay. With his life. Years after Hannibal was gone, the Romans were still not satisfied. They finished their work of apocalyptic vengeance in 146 BC by razing Carthage to the ground and selling its remaining population into slavery. Cato the Censor summed up the sentiments of empire: Carthāgō dēlenda est (Carthage must be destroyed). Nothing about empire, from then until now, has changed.

Imperial powers do not forgive those who expose their weaknesses or make public the sordid and immoral inner workings of empire. Empires are fragile constructions. Their power is as much one of perception as of military strength. The virtues they claim to uphold and defend, usually in the name of their superior civilization, are a mask for pillage, the exploitation of cheap labor, indiscriminate violence, and state terror.

The current American empire, damaged and humiliated by the troves of internal documents published by WikiLeaks, will, for this reason, persecute Julian Assange for the rest of his life. It does not matter who is president or which political party is in power. Imperialists speak with one voice. The killing of thirteen U.S. troops by a suicide bomber at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday evoked from Joe Biden the full-throated cry of all imperialists: “To those who carried out this attack … we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay.” This was swiftly followed by two drone strikes in Kabul against suspected members of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), which took credit for the suicide bombing that left some 170 dead, including 28 members of the Taliban.

The Taliban, which defeated U.S. and coalition forces in a 20-year war, is about to be confronted with the wrath of a wounded empire. The Cuban, Vietnamese, Iranian, Venezuelan and Haitian governments know what comes next. The ghosts of Toussaint Louverture, Emilio Aguinaldo, Mohammad Mossadegh, Jacobo Arbenz, Omar Torrijos, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Juan Velasco, Salvador Allende, Andreas Papandreou, Juan Bosh, Patrice Lumumba, and Hugo Chavez know what comes next. It isn’t pretty. It will be paid for by the poorest and most vulnerable Afghans. ...

Like Cato the Censor, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are, if history is any guide, at this moment planning to destabilize Afghanistan by funding, arming, and backing any militia, warlord or terrorist organization willing to strike at the Taliban. The CIA, which should exclusively gather intelligence, is a rogue paramilitary organization that oversees secret kidnappings, interrogation at black sites, torture, manhunts, and targeted assassinations across the globe. It carried out commando raids in Afghanistan that killed a large number of Afghan civilians, which repeatedly sent enraged family members and villagers into the arms of the Taliban. It is, I expect, reaching out to Amrullah Saleh, who was Ashraf Ghani’s vice president and who has declared himself “the legitimate caretaker president” of Afghanistan. Saleh is holed up in the Panjashir Valley.  He, along with warlords Afgand Massoud, Mohammad Atta Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum, are clamoring to be armed and supported to perpetuate conflict in Afghanistan. ...

All empires die. The end is usually unpleasant. The American empire, humiliated in Afghanistan, as it was in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, as it was at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, is blind to its own declining strength, ineptitude, and savagery. Its entire economy, a “military Keynesianism,” revolves around the war industry. Military spending and war are the engine behind the nation’s economic survival and identity. It does not matter that with each new debacle the United States turns larger and larger parts of the globe against it and all it claims to represent. It has no mechanism to stop itself, despite its numerous defeats, fiascos, blunders and diminishing power, from striking out irrationally like a wounded animal. The mandarins who oversee our collective suicide, despite repeated failure, doggedly insist we can reshape the world in our own image. This myopia creates the very conditions that accelerate the empire’s demise.

The Completion Of The Afghanistan Withdrawal Is Nothing To Celebrate

The US has officially announced the completion of its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, minus of course the CIA ops which will continue in that country and the bombs that will likely continue to rain down in the name of fighting terrorism.

There are a lot of warmongers rending their garments over the termination of a decades-long military occupation which accomplished nothing besides making war profiteers wealthy and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Almost as ridiculous are the countless pundits and politicians hailing this as some kind of major accomplishment that Americans should be proud of.

Pride, praise and celebration are not the appropriate emotional response to the day. The appropriate response to a decades-overdue withdrawal from a war that should never have happened in the first place is rage. Unmitigated rage at an unforgivable atrocity which amassed a mountain of corpses for no legitimate reason, from which the region will probably not recover in our lifetime. Unmitigated rage at those responsible for starting and maintaining this horror all this time.

This is not something that Biden should be applauded for. Nobody deserves praise or credit for ending a twenty-year disaster, especially one they helped start. Nobody applauds the mass shooter for finally setting down the rifle.

Every single allied soldier who died in Afghanistan died in vain. They died fighting not for national security, freedom, or democracy, but for war industry profit margins and for the idiotic geostrategic agendas of globe-dominating imperialists. This is also the reason every Afghan soldier and Afghan civilian was killed during that time.

They all died in vain. We shouldn’t concoct sugary fairy tales about this, we should try to prevent it from happening again.

Who knows where Afghanistan would be if the US and its allies had stayed out of the nation two decades ago? Who knows where they’d have been had the US not begun arming the mujahideen against the Soviet Union four decades ago? We will never know what could have been for those people. The opportunity to find out was taken away from them. Stolen forever.

And of course no lessons were learned from this by anyone who will be making decisions about the actions that will be taken by the most powerful military force in history. America’s bloated military budget will continue to swell, and its arsenal and that of its allies will pivot toward new enemies.

The only sane response to all this is rage, and disgust. And a firm commitment to trying to end this madness.

Afghanistan Faces Future Under Taliban as U.S. Withdraws & Drone Strikes Continue to Kill Civilians

After 20 years, last US flight departs Kabul, leaving Afghanistan to its fate

America’s longest war came to an end just before midnight local time in Afghanistan, when the last evacuation flight flew out of Kabul airport.

A C-17 military transport plane took off carrying the US commander who oversaw the evacuation operation, Maj Gen Christopher Donahue of the 82nd Airborne Division, and the acting US ambassador, Ross Wilson, who were the last two Americans to step off the tarmac in Kabul, minutes before the 31 August deadline.

It brought to an end a US presence that lasted nearly 20 years, beginning just a few weeks after the September 11 attacks. The US gave up its last toehold in Kabul to the guerrilla group it ousted with initial ease in 2001, marking a defeat on the scale of Vietnam.

There was no fanfare or ceremony, and no handing over of flags to Kabul’s new masters. All remaining armoured vehicles and other military equipment items were destroyed or rendered useless and the Taliban were notified of the last flight.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said later “a new chapter has begun”, with the military operation over and a diplomatic mission just starting. US diplomatic operations have now been moved from Kabul to Qatar, he said. More than 100 Americans remain in Afghanistan who wanted to leave but were unable to get on the last flights, he said, but that the State Department would keep working to get them out.

Peace Activist Kathy Kelly on Reparations for Afghanistan & What the U.S. Owes After Decades of War

International talks aim for consensus on Taliban government

Talks are under way in Doha and New York to try to reach an international consensus on the conditions for recognising the Taliban government in Afghanistan. There are signs of tensions between superpowers after Russia called on the US to release Afghan central bank reserves that Washington blocked after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this month. “If our western colleagues are actually worried about the fate of the Afghan people, then we must not create additional problems for them by freezing gold and foreign exchange reserves,” said the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov.

He said the US must urgently unfreeze these assets, “to bolster the rate of the collapsing national currency”. ...

On Monday, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, will convene a meeting in New York of ambassadors from the five permanent members of the UN security council – Russia, China, the US, the UK, and France – to discuss a potential joint resolution on Afghanistan. The resolution has been under discussion over the weekend.

China urges nations to ‘actively guide’ Taliban government

China’s top diplomat has urged the international community to engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban government and “guide it actively”, in a phone call with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Wang Yi, Chinese state councillor and foreign minister, also said that Washington should work with the international community to help the new regime run governmental functions normally, according to a statement. He added that the US’s “hasty withdrawal” could allow terrorist groups to “regroup and come back stronger”.

A spokesperson for the US Department of State, Ned Price, said in a short statement that Blinken and Wang spoke about “the importance of the international community holding the Taliban accountable for the public commitments they have made regarding the safe passage and freedom to travel for Afghans and foreign nationals”.

The two foreign ministers also spoke of the bilateral relationship. Wang said Beijing would consider how to engage with the US “based on its attitude towards China”. But he also said: “Dialogue is better than confrontation, and cooperation is better than conflict.”

What a story to tell the world: Britain values dogs more than Afghan people

As the gates of hell closed on Kabul, they were among the last to make it out. They landed in the early hours of Sunday morning, to a hero’s welcome from some, and shamed silence from others. For this was a planeload not of human souls – those desperate Afghans who had huddled knee-deep in sewage for days outside the airport in hopes of being saved – but of cats and dogs.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed, through audibly gritted teeth, that the private plane chartered to bring back former soldier turned animal rescuer Paul “Pen” Farthing and his menagerie of strays had been “assisted” through the airport by British troops in the final shambolic hours of the retreat from Kabul – even as human beings who had put their trust in the western forces they worked alongside were being abandoned to their fate.

As Tom Tugendhat, the Tory MP and ex-serviceman who has been struggling to get his old army interpreter into the UK, put it: “We’ve just used a lot of troops to get in 200 dogs; meanwhile my interpreter’s family is likely to be killed. When one interpreter asked me a few days ago, ‘Why is my five-year-old worth less than a dog?’ I didn’t have an answer.”

What a story to tell the world about ourselves, amid the chaos of our leaving. What a gift to extremist movements across the Middle East and beyond, who draw their power from the idea that the west holds foreign lives contemptuously cheap; that cats of no conceivable interest to the Taliban can be airlifted out but not human beings at risk of being hunted down and executed. Even Farthing’s Afghan staff, whom he had insisted he would get out, were left behind in the end, after their paperwork was rejected at the airport.

UN atomic watchdog says North Korea appears to have restarted nuclear reactor

North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog has said in an annual report. ...

“There were no indications of reactor operation from early December 2018 to the beginning of July 2021,” the IAEA report said of the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, a nuclear complex at the heart of North Korea’s nuclear programme.

“However, since early July 2021, there have been indications, including the discharge of cooling water, consistent with the operation of the reactor.“ ...

The IAEA said in June there were indications at Yongbyon of possible reprocessing work to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel that could be used in nuclear weapons.

Friday’s report said the duration of that apparent work – five months, from mid-February to early July - suggested a full batch of spent fuel was handled, in contrast to the shorter time needed for waste treatment or maintenance.

Oregon counties request trucks for bodies as Covid overwhelms morgues

Two Oregon counties hit hard by Covid-19 are running out of space to hold bodies amid an intense surge in cases that is overwhelming the state’s healthcare system, forcing authorities to request refrigerated trucks to help handle the overflow.

In Josephine county, located in the state’s south-west, the local hospital is exceeding its body storage capacity and the area’s five funeral homes and three crematoriums are “at the edge of crisis capacity daily”, the county emergency manager told the state last week. Meanwhile, Tillamook county, on Oregon’s north-west coast, reported that its sole funeral home “is now consistently at or exceeding their capacity” of nine bodies.

Rising cases, mostly among the unvaccinated, have overwhelmed hospitals across the state. In south-west Oregon, cases are increasing faster than anywhere else in the country. Oregon has more people hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic. Officials attribute the current surge to the hyper-contagious Delta variant and low vaccination rates in some regions, such as Josephine county, where just 40% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated. In Tillamook county, 54% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated.

“In the past two weeks, we have had more new positive cases than the first 10 months of the pandemic,” the Tillamook county board of commissioners said in a public statement. “The spread of Covid in Tillamook county has reached a critical phase.” The area, which has a population of 26,000, saw six deaths in six days.

Cases in the state are up 33% in the last two weeks, while deaths have risen 48% and hospitalizations are up 126%, according to New York Times data. More than 90% of the state’s ICU beds are full, and the vast majority of patients are unvaccinated.

Judge STRIPS CUSTODY From Mom For Not Being Vaccinated

US judge revokes mother’s right to visit son over her refusal to get Covid vaccine

A judge in Illinois revoked a mother’s right to visit her 11-year-old son because she refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

In what is believed to be an unprecedented ruling, Cook county judge James Shapiro said Rebecca Firlit, 39, who shares custody of her son with her divorced husband, could not see the boy again until she had taken the shot.

“I was confused because it was just supposed to be about expenses and child support,” Firlit told the Chicago Sun-Times about the virtual court hearing, which took place earlier this month.

“I was confused because it was just supposed to be about expenses and child support,” Firlit told the Chicago Sun-Times about the virtual court hearing, which took place earlier this month.

“One of the first things he asked me when I got on the Zoom call was whether or not I was vaccinated, which threw me off because I asked him what it had to do with the hearing. “He said, ‘I am the judge, and I make the decisions for your case.’” Firlit’s lawyer, Annette Fernholz, said she had filed a legal challenge to the state appellate court, noting that the boy’s father had not been seeking such a ruling.

“The trial court clearly exceeded its authority in suspending the mother’s parenting time when the issue before the court was child support,” Fernholz said in a statement. “The mother did not know her parenting time was being discussed when she went to Zoom court. The judge deprived her of notice and a full hearing on the issue.”

Firlit, who has not said if she will get the vaccine, told the judge her decision not to take it was not political. “I’ve had adverse reactions to vaccines in the past and was advised not to get vaccinated by my doctor,” she said. “It poses a risk.”

Mass EVICTIONS BEGIN With 750K In Immediate Danger

Chicago to investigate officer who confronted Black woman walking dog

The Chicago police oversight agency is investigating a white officer’s struggle with a Black woman who was walking her dog in a lakefront park, an encounter the woman’s attorneys allege became violent and was “an obvious case of racial profiling”. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (Copa) opened its investigation on Sunday. ...

A law office representing Nikkita Brown said in a statement she was near the lakefront with her dog at about 12.10am on Saturday when a Chicago police officer approached her for being in the area after the park was closed.

In the two-minute-long video recorded by a bystander, Brown and her dog appear to walk away from the officer as he follows closely. Brown turns around with her phone in her hand and stops. Moments later, the officer appears to reach for Brown’s phone and then grab Brown, who can be heard yelling, “Let go!” as she struggles to break free. Brown’s attorneys accused the officer of “violently” attacking their client “for absolutely no reason”.

“He attempts to tackle her, all while groping her body as she screams for help,” the attorneys said in the statement. “This unprovoked attack lasts for approximately two minutes, during this time Ms Brown’s phone is knocked from her hands and she is knocked out of her shoes.” When Brown is finally free, she can be seen picking up her phone before walking away with her dog. Her attorneys said she returned home, called 911 and filed a report with a sergeant. The attorneys said she had not received a copy of that report.

Matt Taibbi Calls FOR THIRD PARTY To End Forever Wars

Residents clog roads fleeing South Lake Tahoe as Caldor fire advances quickly

Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate the famous tourist town of South Lake Tahoe as the raging Caldor fire draws closer on Monday, prompting chaotic scenes and clogged roads as residents rushed to leave the area.

Ash rained down on long lines of cars gridlocked on the roads exiting the popular vacation city, which is home to more than 20,000. Cars inched along through the smoky haze, some piled high with belongings and others towing trailers with bikes and other recreation equipment. Occasionally, sirens rang out and red lights flashed into the distance. Anxiety mounted with each gusty breeze, strong enough to shake the trees, reminding evacuees that the inferno was heading their way.

By mid-afternoon many streets were silent and empty as evacuees cleared out, save for a few folks still feverishly loading cars, trucks and RVs with their things. But for some, that just wasn’t an option. Reel Duncan, a resident of more than 15 years, doesn’t have a vehicle. “It’s messed up, the evacuation for people who don’t have cars” she said, adding that she’d heard there were going to be shuttles for people but was told they’d stopped running earlier in the day.

“It is me and my fiancé and my cat,” Duncan said. “We are all packed up and ready to go, we just have to figure out a way to get out. And we have nowhere to go.” Her neighbor, longtime resident Ron Hartman, was also stuck without a car. “We are thinking about just riding our bikes down the highway with a sign on the back,” Duncan said. “Like, can anyone give us a ride?” ...

“Today’s been a rough day and there’s no bones about it,” Jeff Marsoleis, forest supervisor for El Dorado national forest, said on Sunday evening. A few days ago, he said, he thought crews could halt the Caldor fire’s eastern progress, but “today it let loose”. Crews are preparing for challenging days ahead, with gusty winds and critical fire weather conditions in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday.

After Ida's Destruction, Sunrise Movement Urges Biden to Declare Climate Emergency

With search and rescue efforts underway and widespread power outages in the wake of Hurricane Ida barreling into the Louisiana coast Sunday as a Category 4 storm, the youth-led Sunrise Movement on Monday urged President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.

"Today my heart aches for Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. On the 16th anniversary of Katrina, a storm that many still haven't recovered from, families are traumatized by yet another devastating climate catastrophe," said Varshini Prakash, the group's executive director, in a statement.

"Let's be clear: This was preventable," she continued. "It was preventable that New Orleans lost its power. It was preventable that people had to evacuate their homes. It was preventable that shelters face both a climate disaster and a Covid-19 surge. And it was preventable that people would lose their lives—especially poor people, and Black and Brown communities who don't all have the privilege of evacuating." ...

"What more do politicians need to realize that the climate crisis is here and killing us?" asked Prakash. "The time for incrementalism and watered down 'solutions' is over. While community members and aid groups provide support to victims of the storm, what is President Biden doing?"

"Biden must declare a climate emergency to mobilize the federal government towards addressing these climate disasters and tackling the climate crisis head on," she added. "We're done with thoughts and prayers and so are the communities of the Gulf South. We need action now."

After Hurricane Ida, a “Just & Fair Recovery” Must Address Ongoing Disasters of Poverty, Inequality

Hurricane Ida: up to 2 million without power as New Orleans assesses damage

Up to 2 million people remained without power in and around New Orleans on Monday as residents and authorities began to assess “catastrophic” damage from Hurricane Ida, a 150mph monster storm that was the most powerful ever to hit Louisiana. At least two people are known to have been killed, a motorist who drowned in New Orleans and a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge. The state’s governor, John Bel Edwards, and Joe Biden said they expected the death toll to rise.

Crews using airboats and helicopters were conducting search-and-rescue missions in several neighbourhoods, seeking people stranded in the attics or on roofs of flooded homes. Almost 5,000 national guard troops were activated, a number Edwards said would double by Tuesday.

The disaster has left scores of coastal Louisiana residents trapped by floodwaters and pleading to be rescued. Residents living amid the rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf coast retreated to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them.

Residents woke to widespread devastation caused by the category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Sunday at Port Fourchon, then tore a path north towards New Orleans. The storm struck the city on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800, mostly by flood. Roofs torn from buildings, fallen trees, utility poles and other storm debris blocked roads and hampered rescue workers. Downed power lines, many still live, created a dangerous situation for those emerging to assess the damage.

Spain’s Mar Menor: The lagoon becoming a fish cemetery

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Afghanistan collapse reveals Beltway media’s loyalty to permanent war state

Go back to Afghanistan? Men like McMaster and Panetta are addicted to war

Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state

Demand for 'Moratorium on Drone Warfare' Follows Latest US Killing of Afghan Civilians

Afghan Crisis Must End America’s Empire of War, Corruption and Poverty

Living In Reality: Afghanistan Issue

Ukraine Shuts Down Opposition Media - U.S. Ambassador Applauds 'Daring Act', Calls For Support

GOP Candidate Calls for '20 Strong Men' to Force Out Pro-Mask School Board Members

After 25 Years, There’s a Reason MSNBC Can’t Look Back

House Democrats Demand Repeal of Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Reconciliation Bill

‘It’s not the cow, it’s the how’: why a long-time vegetarian became beef’s biggest champion

Afghan War Is OFFICIALLY OVER But Trump Demands Reinvasion?

Krystal Ball: Maddow Show is ENDING! Is MSNBC SCREWED?

Kim Iversen: Secret Big Tech Contracts With NSA, DOD Should SCARE You

Ryan Grim: The CIA Needs To Be PROSECUTED Now That The War In Afghanistan Is Over

Matt Stoller: McKinsey Class Has A TEMPER TANTRUM Over Biden Actually Ending War In Afghanistan

Rising: Could The Withdraw From Afghanistan Been Done Better?

A Little Night Music

Betty Everett - My Love

Betty Everett & Jerry Butler - Love is Strange

Betty Everett - You're No Good

Betty Everett & Jerry Butler - Ain't That Loving You Baby

Betty Everett - Getting Mighty Crowded

Betty Everett - Ain't Gonna Cry

Betty Everett - Too Hot To Hold

Betty Everett - Who Will Your Next Fool Be

Betty Everett - Love Comes Tumbling Down