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"You’ll never see westerners so concerned about humanitarian issues as when there’s a chance some distant part of the world might not be subjected to military occupation by the most murderous power structure on earth."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

EVERY Media Outlet SHILLS For Endless War In Afghanistan Amid Collapse

The fall of Kabul: a 20-year mission collapses in a single day

The final collapse of the 20-year western mission to Afghanistan took only a single day as Taliban gunmen entered the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and America abandoned its embassy in panic. Even the militants themselves were surprised by the speed of the takeover, co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar admitted in a video statement in the evening. Now the group faces the challenge of ruling, he added. They are expected to proclaim a new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan soon.

Many in Kabul do not trust promises made by the former insurgents of an amnesty for their old enemies and those, like women’s rights activists, who sought a different future for Afghanistan. The airport was mobbed with thousands of people desperate to escape. In the evening they flooded on to the runway, halting all air traffic. ...

Shaheen, the Taliban spokesman, has promised “amnesty” for those who worked for the now-fallen government, or with western nations, inviting them – though probably only the men – to serve under Taliban rule. “We once again invite them all to come and serve the nation and the country,” he said. But it was an offer viewed with scepticism by many. In areas seized by the group there have been credible reports of reprisal killings, execution of surrendering soldiers, and women forced from their jobs at gunpoint, barred from education and forced into marriage by militants.

Taliban Seizes Control of Afghanistan; Chaos at Kabul Airport as Thousands Attempt to Flee

Taliban orders fighters into Kabul as US evacuates embassy

The Taliban are on the brink of taking full control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, after their fighters were ordered on Sunday afternoon to enter the city and the US sent helicopters to evacuate diplomats from its embassy. In deeply humiliating scenes for the Biden administration, embassy personnel were ferried from the compound to the nearby airport by military helicopter. Diplomatic armoured SUVs were also seen leaving. The exodus began early on Sunday after the insurgents captured the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Wisps of smoke from the embassy roof were visible across the city, residents said, as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents. ... As events unfolded with dizzying speed Afghanistan’s pro-western president, Ashraf Ghani, fled to neighbouring Tajikistan, according to multiple reports. Diplomatic sources said he had resigned. His office said it could not comment on his movements for security reasons.

Within hours of his apparent departure, Taliban officials said their fighters had been instructed to go into the city centre in order to “maintain law and order”. The insurgents would not enter civilian homes or harass residents, a statement declared. With negotiations over a transition of power taking place in Doha, there was speculation that the Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, would become the country’s new president, possibly by Sunday evening.

The US was seeking agreement from the Taliban on a peaceful transition of power, as well as assurances on refugees and that the new government would not impose sharia law, diplomats said. Washington’s ability to influence events is, however, severely limited. Pakistan and Iran are the main external players. ...

Taliban leaders said they had no plans to seize the capital by force. Instead, by lunchtime small groups of fighters entered the city from two directions. One column, apparently unarmed and holding the white Taliban flag, was spotted marching towards the presidential palace.

Journalist Ahmed Rashid on the Taliban’s Return to Power & What Comes Next for Afghanistan

Afghanistan Shenanigans

Things have been moving very rapidly as Taliban forces immediately closed in on Kabul after the end of the occupation. The US is frantically evacuating people, former Afghan officials are fleeing the country, and a transition to Taliban control is a done deal.

It’s long been obvious to anyone paying attention that the Taliban would regain control of the country when occupying western powers withdrew, but I don’t think anyone would’ve put money on it happening this quickly. A few interesting questions have come up about this, like for example how hilarious would it be if after spending twenty years and trillions of dollars and thousands of human lives “fighting the Taliban”, the Taliban suddenly resumed power as a US puppet regime?

I mean, what’s going on here?

Taliban spox speaking with BBC world rn. Says Afghanistan will be open for business with US and the US companies can keep on working on their public sector contracts

— M.S (@ShaykShack) August 15, 2021

And here?

Ali Ahmad Jilali, U.S.-based academic and ex-Afghan interior minister, likely to be named as head of new interim government in #Kabul, three diplomatic sources told @Reuters

— Frud Bezhan (@FrudBezhan) August 15, 2021

And here?

Interesting guy to serve as interim president in Taliban-dominated government. Attended @BritishArmy staff college in 1966-67. Director of Dari/Pashto services at @VOANews for many years. Later Afghan interior min & ambassador to Germany. Now at @NDU_EDU, funded by the Pentagon. https://t.co/5DZHaLEquf pic.twitter.com/cFZjQNEVFV

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) August 15, 2021

I’m not the first person to speculate about this:

What feels possible is that we are seeing what’s essentially an arranged transition and the Taliban will take power and then work with/subordinate to the US and likely be utilised in its regional plans towards Iran and China in some way.

— Louis Allday (@Louis_Allday) August 15, 2021

And this all comes just months after the Taliban renewed its earlier pledge to guarantee safety to a trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline, which many like journalist Whitney Webb have suggested was a major reason for the invasion of Afghanistan in the first place.

So who knows what’s going on, but it wouldn’t be surprising if shenanigans were afoot in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile this all has a lot of people outing themselves as believers in benevolent imperialism, with many westerners across the political spectrum arguing that the US needs to continue its military occupation in perpetuity to protect women’s rights.

Exactly right. https://t.co/QnRjOHHO1Y

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) August 15, 2021

It is now suddenly the wokest of feminisms to want an empire whose interventionism is literally always disastrous to re-invade Afghanistan and occupy their land for generations and keep murdering anyone who tries to fight back in order to force them all to espouse our white liberal values.

Exactly zero of the shitlibs demanding troops stay to prevent Taliban rule at gunpoint would fight the Taliban themselves. Exactly zero of them would even be willing kill Taliban forces sitting miles away safely piloting a drone. This is a game to them. A complete abstraction. I mean, can you picture Marianne Williamson charging at Taliban forces firing an M4 carbine? I can’t.

If the US empire hadn’t manufactured consent for the invasion by aggressive narrative management about Taliban oppression westerners would give zero fucks about women in Afghanistan, just like they give zero fucks about women in all the other oppressive patriarchal nations. This is all just people who don’t think much about the consequences of US warmongering having an emotional reaction to their sudden realization that US warmongering has consequences.

Maybe, just maybe, it was dumb to believe the invasion of Afghanistan ever had anything to do with helping women in the first place? The US military is the very last institution on earth who’d ever actually do anything in the interests of humanitarianism and the very last institution you’d ever want to.

"OH MY GOD think of the people of Afghanistan!! We've got to DO SOMETHING!!"

I mean I guess we could all open our wealthy nations to all the refugees who want to leave.

"Oh. Oh no. Haha! No. I just meant dropping bombs on them or something, I'm not a lunatic."

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 15, 2021

No matter what exactly is happening in Afghanistan, everything you’re seeing there today is the fault of the US-centralized oligarchic empire. Every little bit of it. Not just starting with the insane 2001 invasion which cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives but long before it, when US government agencies backed the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the eighties and actively radicalized them. This entire mess is the result of a bunch of imperialists deciding that the entire planet needs to be dominated by a single power structure and that it’s fine to play with human lives like chess pieces in order to make that happen.

These bastards are going to keep murdering people around the world while robbing and oppressing their own citizenry at home until their fingers can be pried off of the world’s steering wheel for good. Only then will we ever have a chance at creating a healthy world.

John Pilger: Assange’s Trials and Journalism’s Surrender

Ryan Grim: State Dept DODGES Question On Julian Assange, Support Of Free Press

Poland’s president signs bill to curb claims on property seized by Nazis

Poland’s president has decided to sign a bill that would set limits on the ability of Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and retained by postwar communist rulers, drawing fury from Israel, which said the law was antisemitic. ...

Before the second world war Poland had been home to one of the world’s biggest Jewish communities but it was almost entirely wiped out by the Nazis, and Jewish former property owners and their descendants have been campaigning for compensation.

Up to now Jewish expatriates or their descendants could make a claim that a property had been seized illegally and demand its return, but Polish officials argued this was causing uncertainty over property ownership.

In 2015 Poland’s constitutional tribunal ruled there should be specific deadlines after which administrative decisions over property titles could no longer be challenged. Changes to the law were adopted by the Polish parliament earlier this week. The bill sets a 30-year limit for restitution claims. ...

Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, said: “Poland today, for the first time, approved an antisemitic and immoral law.” In response, the head of Israel’s embassy in Warsaw was being called back immediately, he added. ... Israel was discussing further steps with the United States, he added.

Dozens of Jewish-American leaders condemn AIPAC ads targeting Ilhan Omar

Dozens of Jewish-American figures working in policy, politics and advocacy have condemned recent attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar by the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC), and urged the group to discontinue its ad campaign.

In a letter published on Thursday, the figures also urged AIPAC to discontinue ads targeting Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib.

"While we may not all agree with the Congresswomen's views and characterizations on issues related to Israel and Palestine - nor with one another's positions on these subjects - we are united in condemning these ads as not merely misleading, but dangerously so given their potential to incite or inspire bigotry, harassment and violence against the lawmakers they target," read the open letter, signed by figures from J Street, Americans for Peace Now, IfNotNow, and the ACLU.

The individuals were not representing their organisations, but the affiliations revealed wide-ranging concerns towards the advertisements.

Spain launches inquiry after dams drained for profit during drought

The Spanish government has launched an inquiry after it emerged that a power company drained two reservoirs during a heatwave and drought in order to profit from exceptionally high electricity prices. Iberdrola, the country’s second biggest producer, drained the dams in Zamora and Cáceres provinces in western Spain over a period of a few weeks to produce cheap hydroelectricity while the price to consumers is at a record high.

Air conditioners and fans are going flat out as Spain remains in the grip of a heatwave. It recorded its highest ever temperature on Saturday, 47.2C (117F), in Córdoba in Andalucía.

The minister for ecological transition, Teresa Ribera, described Iberdrola’s actions as scandalous and has written to the company. “This can’t be allowed to happen,” she said in a televised interview. “Water is a scarce resource which is just as important for the wellbeing of families and the economy as it is for generating electricity.”

Ribera said she viewed Iberdrola’s actions as irresponsible, but that they were not illegal because the companywas allowed to use a fixed quantity of water a year whenever it wished and regardless of climatic conditions. ... Both reservoirs are a long way from the sea and were popular for swimming and boating, especially in the hot summer months. Now they’re a desert, according to Javier Aguado, the mayor of San Cebrián de Castro, one of the villages affected.

Child Hospitalization for Covid-19 Hits All-Time High in US: Report

The U.S. hit a troubling milestone Saturday as federal data showed the most children to date hospitalized due to Covid-19.

According to Reuters, which first reported the "record high" figure:

The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the unvaccinated portion of the U.S. population, has caused hospitalizations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of pediatric hospitalizations to 1,902 on Saturday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Children currently make up about 2.4% of the nation's COVID-19 hospitalizations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vaccine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the new, highly transmissible variant.

With schools opening for the fall semester and political fights taking place in numerous states over mask mandates for students and educational staff, the increase in hospitalizations among children is worrying to public health experts like Sally Goza, former president of the Academy of Pediatrics.

"This is not last year's Covid," Goza explained Saturday during an appearance on CNN. "This one is worse and our children are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most."

NPR reported earlier this week that recent state-level data analyzed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association showed that "children accounted for roughly 15% of all newly reported COVID-19 cases across the nation for the week ending on Aug. 5. Nearly 94,000 child cases of COVID-19 were recorded during that period, a 31% increase over the roughly 72,000 cases reported a week earlier. In the week before then, there were 39,000 new child cases."

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at Stanford University, explained to NPR that because children under 12 years old still cannot receive a vaccination for Covid-19, it makes sense the number infections among children is rising even though overall children do not experience the same level of severe symptoms and rarely die from the disease.

"This virus is really tracking the unvaccinated," said Maldonado. "Because children under 12 are not able to be vaccinated, we're just seeing the same increase in infections in that group because [the delta variant] is so infectious."

US could see 200,000 Covid cases a day again: ‘Unvaccinated are sitting ducks’

The US could soon see Covid-19 cases return to 200,000 a day, a level not seen since among the pandemic’s worst days in January and February, the director of the National Institutes of Health warned on Sunday. While the US currently is seeing an average of about 129,000 new infections a day – a 700% increase from the beginning of July – that number could jump in the next couple weeks, Dr Francis Collins said on Fox News Sunday.

“I will be surprised if we don’t cross 200,000 cases a day in the next couple of weeks, and that’s heartbreaking considering we never thought we would be back in that space again,” Collins said. Collins pleaded anew for unvaccinated Americans to get their shots, calling them “sitting ducks” for a Delta variant that is ravaging the country and showing little sign of letting up.

“That was January, February, that shouldn’t be August. But here we are with the Delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated, who are sitting ducks for this virus, and that’s the mess we’re in.”

“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” he said. Collins also said the US could decide in the next couple weeks whether to offer coronavirus booster shots to more Americans this fall.

Four Florida teachers died this week, days before school year begins

Four teachers in Florida’s Broward county have died from Covid-19 this week as the Delta variant of coronavirus rages in the state amid political rows over mask mandates and vaccination.

“Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school,” Anna Fusco, president of Broward Teachers Union, which covers one of the country’s largest school districts, told local media outlets.

According to Fusco, three of the teachers were unvaccinated and the vaccination status of the fourth teacher was at that point unknown. ...

On 30 July, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an executive order that prohibits school districts from requiring staff and students to wear masks. DeSantis has also vowed to cut off state funding to any school district that implements a mask mandate.

Krystal Ball: Starve Workers Like Dogs! Fox News Says Quiet Part OUT LOUD

'DeJoy and Bloom Are Bandits': Top Dem Calls for Removal of Postal Service Chiefs

The removal of both U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Ron Bloom, chair of the Postal Service Board of Governors, was demanded Friday night after it was reported that DeJoy had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of publicly-traded bonds from an investment firm for which Bloom is a managing partner—a transaction critics say is a gross breach of government ethics.

With Bloom and DeJoy—both appointed during former President Donald Trump's tenure—already under fire from defenders of the U.S. Postal Service for a scheme to slow mail service and undermine the nation's federal mailing system from within, the new reporting by the Washington Post revealed that DeJoy "purchased 11 bonds from Brookfield Asset Management each worth between $1,000 and $15,000, or $15,000 and $50,000" between October of 2020 and April of this year.

In total, the purchases totaled up to $305,000 during that period. In response to the reporting, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)—who chairs the House Subcommittee on Government Operations, which has oversight of the Postal Service—ripped into both DeJoy and Bloom.

"This report is outrageous," Connolly tweeted Friday night. "DeJoy and Bloom are bandits, and their conflicts of interest do nothing but harm the Postal Service and the American people." ...

Bloom, who as chair of the USPS board ostensibly serves as DeJoy's boss, has expressed support for the controversial postmaster—a major GOP donor and Trump supporter—despite intense demands for his ouster ever since he moved to slow down mail delivery ahead of last year's election when an increase of voting by mail was expected due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I'm stuck on DeJoy's purchase of bonds from the company in which his quasi-boss is a managing partner," Kathleen Clark, a law professor who studies government ethics at Washington University, told the Post, "because I wonder whether it affects Bloom's ability to protect the public interest in his assessment of DeJoy’s performance as postmaster general."

While an email from Bloom sent to the Post argued that "no basis of conflict" was created by the bond purchases and a USPS spokesperson said that DeJoy did not directly order the purchases that were made on his behalf by his financial advisers, Clark said that does not absolve the clear ethical concerns.

"He's claiming that his agent didn't act on his specific direction," Clark said of DeJoy's involvement. "That's not good enough for federal government ethics."

Democrats’ divisions could still derail infrastructure bills

The Senate last week advanced a sprawling $3.5tn budget blueprint for “soft” infrastructure projects to tackle climate change and health care, a day after approving a $1tr bipartisan infrastructure bill to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. But even as Senate Democrats congratulated themselves on pushing through both measures, the fate of Biden’s economic priorities rests on House Democrats clearing several more looming hurdles as well as uniting the party’s left and right. ...

At a minimum, progressives have insisted the House delay considering the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the Senate passes a far larger climate and health bill – something not expected until the fall, and against the hopes of centrist House Democrats. ...

Pelosi now holds such a razor-thin majority in the House that she can afford only three Democratic defections to pass the bipartisan bill and the reconciliation bill if the votes are along party lines. Protest votes from either faction could sink the entire effort. But growing discontent about the legislation on both sides on Capitol Hill signals the prospect of an even more bitter and protracted intra-party fight over the future of the legislation in the coming weeks and months.

The speaker on Wednesday reaffirmed her position to House Democrats during a closed-door caucus meeting that the Senate would have to first pass the $3.5tr reconciliation bill before the House would move to consider the bipartisan bill.

NEW Census Data REVEALS Democrats Demographic FAILURES

S*!tLibs Blame Third Party Instead Of Corrupt Democrats

'All of the Sirens Are Going Off': NOAA Says July Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, a finding that comes just days after a United Nations scientific panel warned that humanity is running out of time to prevent the worst consequences of the climate emergency.

"All of the sirens are going off," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) tweeted in response to NOAA's announcement. "It is wildly important that Congress take strong, comprehensive action as soon as possible to meet the threat of climate change."

In a press release, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information noted that with the inclusion of data from last month—which was marked by devastating wildfires across the globe, from California to Turkey to Siberia to Canada—"it remains very likely that 2021 will rank among the world's 10 warmest years on record."

"In this case, first place is the worst place to be,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement. "July is typically the world's warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded. This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe."

Based on records dating back to 1880, NOAA's new analysis finds that the combined land and ocean surface temperature in July 2021 was 1.67°F higher than the 20th century average of 60.4°F. Last month's global surface temperature was just slightly higher than that of July 2016, a temperature that was tied in both 2019 and 2020.

"During the month, temperatures were much warmer than average across parts of North America, Europe, northern and southern South America, northern Africa, the southern half of Asia, Oceania, and parts of the western and northern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans," the U.S. government agency found.

In just the Northern Hemisphere, the land-surface temperature last month was the highest ever recorded in July—an "unprecedented" 2.77°F above the 20th century average.

"The seven warmest Julys have all occurred since 2015," NOAA observed. "July 2021 marked the 45th consecutive July and the 439th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average. Climatologically, July is the warmest month of the year. With July 2021 the warmest July on record, at least nominally, this resulted in the warmest month on record for the globe."

NOAA's findings align with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's warning on Monday that the planet's temperature is rising at an "unprecedented" rate—a trend the U.N. body said can only be reversed by massive and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

"This is not the new normal," the climate advocacy group Friends of the Earth tweeted in response to NOAA's findings. "Extreme temperatures and deadly weather will only get worse if we continue business-as-usual. Meanwhile, every year our government is still throwing billions of tax dollars into the corporations fueling this climate crisis."

Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’

Germany is forecast to record its biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 this year as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related downturn, according to a report by an environmental thinktank.

Berlin-based Agora Energiewende said the country’s emissions would probably rise by the equivalent of 47m tons of carbon dioxide.

The increase means Germany’s emissions will be about 37% lower than in 1990. It had aimed to cut emissions by 40% by 2020, and met the target last year but only due to the economic downturn.

Florida issues tropical storm warning for Panhandle region as Fred approaches

Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency for the state’s Panhandle region as Tropical Storm Fred moved through the Gulf of Mexico early on Sunday and parts of the Caribbean were preparing for the impact from Tropical Storm Grace.

Fred was forecast to move across the Gulf before reaching the coast Monday night or Tuesday morning, forecasters said. They said people from Alabama to the central Florida Panhandle should monitor the system’s progress. ...

Fred’s maximum sustained winds stood at 40mph (65kph) on Sunday morning. Anticipating Fred, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency for the state’s Panhandle region. And the Alabama governor, Kay Ivey, issued a statement Saturday saying her administration was monitoring the weather and “will be ready to act from the state level if needed”. ...

Fred had been downgraded to a tropical wave on Saturday. Tropical waves can contain winds and heavy rain, but do not circulate around a center point or an “eye” like a tropical storm or hurricane. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Grace was 85 miles south of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sunday morning. Forecasters said heavy rainfall from the system would fall over parts of the Lesser and Greater Antilles over the next few days.

Also of Interest

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

Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine and the Fall of Kabul

US Empire's Afghan Ponzi Scheme Comes to Ignoble End

Taliban’s Abdul Ghani Baradar is undisputed victor of a 20-year war

Rapid Taliban Takeover Shows How Little US Understood Afghanistan

Hold the Generals Accountable This Time

"Nobody Is Above the Law"—Except the Biggest Corporate and Goverment Criminals

After Taking Millions in Speaking Fees from Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Yellen Redacted 73 Meetings or Phone Calls in First 3 Months in Office

Trudeau calls for snap election in hopes of winning back voters

‘They should be worried’: will Lina Khan take down big tech?

Greenwald - Strengthening Substack Journalism With Video at Rumble: the Free Speech, Anti-YouTube Platform

Vaccine hesitancy is a symptom of people’s broken relationship with the state

Washington state confirms first live ‘murder hornet’ sighting of the year

Democracy Now - Haiti: 1,300 Die in Earthquake as Nation Is Still Recovering from 2010 Quake & Killing of President

Jimmy Dore Brings Anti-War Message To Fox News!

A Little Night Music

W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band - Bunch O Blues

W.C. Handy - Memphis Blues

W. C. Handy - Loveless Love

W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band - Muscle Shoals Blues

W.C. Handy's Orchestra - Louisville Blues

W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band - Livery Stable Blues

W.C. Handy's Orchestra - Aunt Hagar's Blues

W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band - Yellow Dog Blues

W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band - Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag