UPDATE 1-Biden says in Colorado that extreme weather will cost U.S. over $100 bln this year
Steve Holland
GOLDEN, Colo., Sept 14 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that extreme weather events would cost the United States over $100 billion this year, as he visited Colorado to highlight drought conditions and raging wildfires in the U.S. West.
Colorado was his last stop on a three-state western swing in which he also visited California and Idaho to demonstrate how global warming has scorched the region’s landscape even as states in other parts of the country battle hurricanes and storms that have caused flash floods and killed dozens.
Tropical Storm Nicholas was battering the Texas and Louisiana coasts on Tuesday, flooding streets and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power.
Biden has also used the trip to build support for his administration’s infrastructure spending plans aimed at fighting the growing threat of climate change.
“We have to make the investments that are going to slow our contributions to climate change, today, not tomorrow,” Biden said after touring the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
Recent extreme weather events will “come with more ferocity,” he added.
Biden estimated the economic damage caused by such events this year would come in at more than $100 billion, a day after saying they cost the United States $99 billion last year.
“Even if it’s not in your backyard, you feel the effects,” he said.
During the tour, Biden examined a windmill blade resting on the ground outside the laboratory and also looked at a giant solar battery, saying such batteries would be important in ensuring homeowners have seven days of reserve power.
Biden hopes to tap into voter concerns about the climate to gain popular support for a $3.5 trillion spending plan that is being negotiated in the U.S. Congress.
Republicans oppose the legislation due to its price tag and because taxes would be raised on the wealthy to pay for it.
Democrats who hold narrow majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate are hoping to pass the spending plan with only Democratic votes, a difficult balancing act in chambers rife with competing interests. (Reporting by Steve Holland in Golden, Colorado; Writing by Nandita Bose; Editing by David Gregorio and Peter Cooney)
A Beachfront Property Taken From A Black Family A Century Ago May Soon Be Returned
Joe Hernandez September 10, 2021
William Redmond III, a visitor from Atlanta, takes a photo of the historic plaque marking Bruce’s Beach in April in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Mario Tama/Getty Images
In 1924, a flourishing beach resort for Black people along the Southern California coast was seized by the local city government through eminent domain.
The stated reason was to build a park, but historical records show the resort was shut down because the resort’s owners and its patrons were Black.
Now, an effort to return what is known as Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of its original owners — and make amends for a historical wrong — is poised to become reality.
The California Legislature gave its final approval Thursday night to a bill that would let Los Angeles County officials give Bruce’s Beach back to the family that owned it nearly a century ago.
An aerial view shows Bruce’s Beach (center) wedged between expensive real estate in April in Manhattan Beach. Mario Tama/Getty Images
All that’s needed is a signature from Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom lawmakers expect to give “quick approval” to the bipartisan legislation, Spectrum News 1 reported.
“I’m elated, walking on water right now,” Duane Shepard, a Bruce descendant and family historian, said Thursday, according to the Southern California News Group. “This is one of the greatest things in American history right now.”
The rise and fall of Bruce’s Beach
Married couple Willa and Charles Bruce began purchasing land along the shoreline in the city of Manhattan Beach, just outside Los Angeles, in 1912.
The pair ran a successful resort for Black families — the spot was quickly dubbed Bruce’s Beach — during a time when Jim Crow laws were common and Black people had limited access to the beach, the Southern California News Group reported.
But white landowners suggested the growing Black population would depreciate land prices. They were also angry over the success of Bruce’s Beach.
According to a report Manhattan Beach prepared in April, historical documents indicate that “white neighbors resented the resort’s growing popularity and prosperity of its African American owners.”
Ultimately, it was the Bruces’ own government that ended their run in the seaside community.
According to the text of the bill, the Manhattan Beach board of trustees voted in 1924 to condemn Bruce’s Beach and the surrounding land, taking control of it through eminent domain.
A photo of Charles and Willa Bruce is attached to a plaque marking Bruce’s Beach in April in Manhattan Beach. Mario Tama/Getty Images
The board also enacted ordinances preventing the opening of any new beach resorts, effectively blocking the Bruces from relocating their business within the city limits.
“As a result of these intentional racially discriminatory acts, the Bruces lost their land and their business, the Bruce family moved out of the City of Manhattan Beach, and the city immediately demolished the Bruce’s Beach resort,” the bill said.
Why does transferring the land require a new law?
Because the action against the Bruces involved government bureaucracy, it’s not as easy as simply turning over the property to the descendants of the family.
After a series of land transfers, the plots formerly belonging to the couple were given to Los Angeles County.
But state law requires the county to use Bruce’s Beach for public recreation and prevents it from transferring or selling the property.
The bill that has now gained final legislative approval would eliminate that restriction for Bruce’s Beach.
Republican lawmakers are banning masks in schools. Iowa, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and South Carolina are prohibiting public schools from requiring students wear them.
Across the country, Republican lawmakers are making it harder for people to vote. So far, they’ve enacted more than 30 laws that reduce access to polling places, number of days for voting and availability of absentee voting.
This is not limited government, folks. To the contrary, these Republican lawmakers have a particular ideology, and they are now imposing those views and values on citizens holding different views and values.
This is big government on steroids.
Many Republican lawmakers use the word “freedom” to justify what they’re doing. That’s rubbish. What they’re really doing is denying people their freedom – freedom to be safe from Covid, freedom over their own bodies, freedom to learn, freedom to vote and participate in our democracy.
Years ago, the Republican party had a coherent idea about limiting the role of government and protecting the rights of the individual. I disagreed with it, as did much of the rest of America. But at least it was honest, reasoned and consistent. As such, Republicans played an important part in a debate over what we wanted for ourselves and for America.
Today, Republican politicians have no coherent view. They want only to be re-elected, even if that means misusing government to advance a narrow and increasingly anachronistic set of values – intruding on the most intimate aspects of life, interfering in what can be taught and learned, risking the public’s health, banning what’s necessary for people to exercise their most basic freedoms.
This is not mere hypocrisy. The Republican party now poses a clear and present threat even to the values it once espoused.
‘The harm to children is irreparable’: Ruth Etzel speaks out ahead of EPA whistleblower hearing
Carey Gillam
Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
The US Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect children by ignoring poisons in the environment and focusing on corporate interests, according to a top children’s health official who will testify this week that the agency tried to silence her because of her insistence on stronger preventions against lead poisoning.
“The people of the United States expect the EPA to protect the health of their children, but the EPA is more concerned with protecting the interests of polluting industries,” said Ruth Etzel, former director of the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP). The harm being done to children is “irreparable”, she said.
A hearing will be held on 13 September in which several internal EPA communications will be presented as evidence, including an email in which EPA personnel discuss using press inquiries about Etzel as “an opportunity to strike” out against her. Among many witnesses to be called to testify are several former high-level EPA officials.
“I want this to be seen and heard,” Etzel said. “I think we should let some light shine on these dirty tricks.”
Etzel is among five current or former EPA scientists who have recently come forward with allegations that the agency, which is charged with regulating chemicals and other substances that may harm public and environmental health, has become deeply corrupted by corporate and political influence. That outside influence pushes agency scientists to make important assessments in ways that will protect their jobs, rather than protect the public, Etzel said.
The whistleblowers have alleged a range of wrongdoing by the EPA, including using intimidation tactics against the agency’s own scientists to protect the interests of certain industries, even when doing so puts the public at risk. The problems have continued into the Biden administration, according to the allegations.
‘Destroy the scientist’
Etzel is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who joined the EPA in 2015 after serving as senior officer in the department of public health and environment at the World Health Organization in Switzerland. She also previously worked for the US Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Agriculture, and is well known as a global expert on children’s health issues.
In her role at the EPA, Etzel helped launch an initiative to accelerate the reduction of childhood exposure to lead from sources in air, water, soil, paint and food. The federal lead strategy stalled, Etzel alleges, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump when the EPA came under the direction of administrator Andrew Wheeler.
Etzel filed her whistleblower complaint against the EPA in November 2018 alleging that her determination to push the initiative forward, including publicly complaining about EPA delays, triggered retaliation.
The EPA placed her on leave, demoted her, cut her pay, fabricated complaints against her, and conducted a smear campaign aimed at “humiliating” her and “undermining her career and professional stature”, according to her complaint. The EPA also blocked opportunities for her to speak at professional conferences, she alleges.
Internal EPA email communications included as evidence in the case shows that initial questions from media about Etzel’s administrative leave drew curt responses declining to comment on “personnel matters”. But as media inquiries about Etzel mounted, on 28 September 2018, a top EPA public affairs official wrote to the EPA press secretary and other public affairs officers: “This is our opportunity to strike.”
Then, in an email thread with the subject line “Push this around ASAP please,” public affairs officials agreed to a “stronger updated” statement about Etzel that said she was placed on administrative leave because of “serious reports made against her by staff … ” that were “very concerning”.
“The old playbook was attack the science,” Etzel told the Guardian. “The new playbook is destroy the scientist.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 100 other public health-oriented organizations and institutions sent a letter in 2018 to the EPA protesting the removal of Etzel, who has received multiple national and international awards for scientific integrity and advocacy in recent years.
‘Right the wrongs of the past’
In a pre-hearing statement, the EPA denied taking retaliatory actions against Etzel and said the federal lead action plan was issued in December 2018 and was a “major focus and significant accomplishment”.
“While appellant Ruth Etzel has alleged that EPA’s former administration delayed implementation of the action plan with the premise that it did not care about children and lead exposure issues, the profuse record and witness testimony will illustrate that appellant’s allegations are grossly unfounded,” the EPA said in the filing with the MSPB.
The EPA said there were numerous complaints about Etzel’s management, including complaints that she used “explicit language”, “failed to follow agency HR policy”, was unable “to control her emotions”, and often would “bully others”.
In a statement to The Guardian the EPA said: “This administration is committed to ensuring all EPA decisions are informed by rigorous scientific information and standards. Retaliation against employees who report alleged violations is not tolerated at EPA.”
Paula Dinerstein, a lawyer with the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is representing Etzel, said the EPA still has not taken action to implement the lead protection strategy, and has acknowledged the “libelous claims” against Etzel were not substantiated.
The Biden administration should not only reinstate Etzel to her previous position, but should also take steps to address the deeper problems revealed by whistleblowers, Dinerstein said.
“Etzel and other recent EPA whistleblowers have exposed EPA’s timidity and industry capture,” she said. “The Biden administration has said a lot of the right things, and has taken some good steps, but it will take a lot of effort and pressure to ensure they right the wrongs of the past.”
The case of Etzel v EPA is set for a hearing in front of the US Merit Systems Protection Board on 13-15 September. The proceedings are open to the public, and scheduled to be held via Zoom due to fears about the spread of Covid-19.
A secretive Pentagon program that started on Trump’s last day in office just ended. The mystery has not.
Craig Timberg
US pentagon building aerial view at sunset
WASHINGTON – A Pentagon program that delegated management of a huge swath of the internet to a Florida company in January – just minutes before President Donald Trump left office – has ended as mysteriously as it began, with the Defense Department this week retaking control of 175 million IP addresses.
The program had drawn scrutiny because of its unusual timing, starting amid a politically charged changeover of federal power, and because of its enormous scale. At its peak, the company, Global Resource Systems, controlled almost 6% of a section of the internet called IPv4. The IP addresses had been under Pentagon control for decades but left unused, despite being potentially worth billions of dollars on the open market.
Adding to the mystery, company registration records showed Global Resource Systems at the time was only a few months old, having been established in September 2020, and had no publicly reported federal contracts, no obvious public-facing website and no sign on the shared office space it listed as its physical address in Plantation, Fla. The company also did not respond to requests for comment, and the Pentagon did not announce the program or publicly acknowledge its existence until The Washington Post reported on it in April.
And now it’s done. Kind of.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon made a technical announcement – visible mainly to network administrators around the world – saying it was resuming control of the 175 million IP addresses and directing the traffic to its own servers.
On Friday the Pentagon told The Post that the pilot program, which it previously had characterized as a cybersecurity measure designed to detect unspecified “vulnerabilities” and “prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space,” was over. Parts of the internet once managed by Global Resource Systems, the Pentagon said, now were being overseen by the Department of Defense Information Network, known by the acronym DODIN and part of U.S. Cyber Command, based at Fort Meade.
The IP addresses had never been sold or leased to the company, merely put under its control for the pilot program, created by an elite Pentagon unit known as the Defense Digital Service, which reports directly to the secretary of defense and bills itself as a “SWAT team of nerds” that solves emergency problems and conducts experimental work for the military.
“The Defense Digital Service established a plan to launch the cybersecurity pilot and then transition control of the initiative to DoD partners,” Russell Goemaere, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said in a statement to The Post. “Following the DDS pilot, shifting DoD Internet Protocol (IP) advertisement to DoD’s traditional operations and mature network security processes, maintains consistency across the DODIN. This allows for active management of the IP space and ensure the Department has the operational maneuver space necessary to maintain and improve DODIN resiliency.”
But the Pentagon statement shed little new light on exactly what the pilot program was doing or why it now has ended. It’s clear, though, that its mission has been extended even as it comes more formally under Pentagon control.
On the unusual timing of the start of the pilot program – which began the transfer of control of IP addresses at 11:57 a.m. on Inauguration Day, three minutes before President Joe Biden took office – Goemaere added, “The decision to launch and the scheduling of the DDS pilot effort was agnostic of administration change. The effort was planned and initiated in the Fall of 2020. It was launched in mid-January 2021 when the required infrastructure was in place.”
Global Resource Systems did not return a request for comment Friday.
The unusual nature of the program has been tracked by several people in the networking world, including Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik, a network monitoring company.
In April, Madory, a former Air Force officer, had come to believe the program was intended to collect intelligence. By announcing control of such a large section of the internet – especially one the Pentagon had left mothballed for years – it likely was possible to reroute information flowing across the internet to military networks for examination and analysis.
Madory said Friday that routine networking errors can make such operations fruitful.
“There are a lot of networks that inadvertently leak out vulnerabilities,” he said. “I’m sure they’ve been scooping that noise up for the past few months.”
Such tactics, he added, can allow cyberspies to discover weaknesses in the networks of adversaries or potentially detect evidence of how adversaries are surveilling your own networks, to help inform the creation of better defenses.
Madory shared one more tantalizing fact: His analysis of traffic flowing through the internet addresses once controlled by Global Resource Systems are still leading to the same place as they have for most of the year – a computer router in Ashburn, Va., a major hub of internet connections for government agencies and private companies – despite the official resumption of Pentagon control.
The Washington Post’s Alice Crites and Paul Sonne contributed to this report.
Donna Jones, the lead for serious and organized crime for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said police chiefs were concerned the loss of UK and US forces’ checks on exports would pave the way for more heroin trafficking into the UK.
Afghanistan accounts for 82 per cent of global opium cultivation, according to the National Crime Agency, with most heroin that reaches the UK trafficked through the western Balkans.
“Having checks over airport borders and shipping containers has given us an element of control,” said Ms Jones, the police and crime commissioner for Hampshire.
“With an unstable government, with the Taliban in those key roles, do we believe that these organized crime issues could be overlooked or even possibly supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan? I’d say probably yes.”
The opium trade is a major source of income for a large proportion of the Afghan population as it is far more profitable than wheat or other crops.
For about a year before the Taliban were overthrown by the US-led coalition 20 years ago, they had declared opium production as un-Islamic and led a successful campaign eradicating almost all production in areas it controlled.
However, in the past 20 years, the drug trade has become a significant source of income for the Taliban insurgency against the US.
“It is highly unlikely the Taliban will prioritize a ban on opium production at a time when they are badly in need of funds. This is the cognitive dissonance that will be going on in the minds of their leadership: ideology versus necessity,” said a police source.
Ms Jones said the initial impact was expected to be limited. “I don’t think the increase is hitting the person on the street yet, but I think it will do over the next six to 12 months and I think it will do in quite large waves,” she said.
“As a commissioner who has responsibility for making sure that we are tackling drug-related harm, I am very concerned about the effect of heroin on the streets of Britain over the next year and beyond.”
The number of drug-related deaths are at their highest on record, at 4,561 in 2020 in England and Wales, with heroin and morphine accounting for more than a third.
The warning over heroin imports coincides with a national alert by Public Health England over a surge in overdoses that have accounted for at least 16 deaths in less than two weeks in southern England.
Three of deaths – linked to heroin adulterated with the synthetic opioid isotonitazene – had been in Hampshire, said Ms Jones. Isotonitazene is said to be 500 times stronger than morphine.
Jason Harwin, deputy chief constable and the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for drugs, said: “Heroin causes significant harm and misery in our communities and police continue to work hard to target those who import and sell it. We are monitoring and reviewing intelligence in relation to heroin being imported from overseas.”
Afghan allies in hiding, executed in the street — Jewish people know this haunting story
Will Berkovitz
The clock is ticking. As an American Jew, a rabbi, and the CEO of an organization trying to get the families of our staff out of Afghanistan, the bell tolls with every passing second.
The season of reflection and reconciliation is upon us. Our names are being inscribed for life or death.
Americans must make good on our pledge and take concrete, immediate action to get these Afghan families and allies out. President Joe Biden must direct his administration to create an expedited process to evacuate them. This is a moment when we can not wait until all the details are worked out.
I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been for those left behind to see the gates at the Kabul airport shut and the last flight leave, knowing they would face the danger ahead alone.
The last member of Afghanistan’s Jewish community left the country this week. Yet there remain so many other people, our Muslim allies, who need help. In-text messages and voicemail we received, the desperation is palpable: We are left behind, they tell us. The gates are closed. The roads are unsafe. We are in hiding. Please help us, they beg.
I have heard the audio messages of gunfire in the streets. In a terrified call from a family in Panjshir province Tuesday we were told the Taliban dragged all males aged 10 to 65 from their homes and executed them in the street. Children as young as 10 years old murdered just for existing. Their blood is on our hands.
‘Never forget’ is a call to action
As Jews, we know this story all too well. We know what it’s like to fear for the death of our children. These families are in danger because of their work with the United States government and our military.
Our staff feels helpless. They’ve been working tirelessly to save 123 people, many of whom are family members of our team. Seventy-three of them are children forced to play a deadly game of hide and seek with the Taliban. In voice messages from Kabul, I’ve heard children’s hushed laughter in the background even as their parents talked in despair.
A Taliban soldier stands guard at the gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 5, 2021. Some domestic flights have resumed at Kabul’s airport, with the state-run Ariana Afghan Airlines operating flights to three provinces.
As a Jewish social service organization, our reaction to this crisis is urgent and familiar. There are painfully obvious echoes between what is happening in Afghanistan today and what our people endured leading up to the Holocaust. People are being hunted. Families in hiding. We heard of children executed in the street.
“Never forget” is a call to action, not just a suggestion to always remember. For our Jewish community, it doesn’t matter that we are trying to save Muslims. As our tradition teaches, “One who saves a single life, saves an entire world.”
As Americans, we have a moral obligation. All people of faith have a religious one as well. The call of history echoes loud today. “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible,” said Rabbi Joshua Heschel back in 1972. Those words are as true today as they were 50 years ago.
We will be judged by our actions or indifference. Our words or our silence. Many of my colleagues in faith, as well as community leaders and heads of resettlement organizations, are mortified. We can’t accept the United States government isn’t doing better. We must do better. We have the resources. We just need the will.
What is the actual plan to save lives?
This must not be reduced to politics. We don’t need vague promises. We don’t need to hear, “we are working on it.” We can’t settle for being directed to dead-end websites or email addresses to which no one responds.
We need to know what the plan is to save these people’s lives. Who has the authority to act? People need to be empowered, not left waiting for guidance.
We have no clear answers. We are improvising, communicating with Special Immigrant Visa families in safe houses. They’re scared and are in fear the world will move on after the spectacle of the U.S.’s hasty withdrawal. We owe it to them not to move on until they are safe.
Earlier this summer, the State Department created a staffing surge to help ease the passport backlog so people could take their summer vacations. Why isn’t the State Department creating an even larger staffing surge to process Special Immigrant Visas so we can save the lives of our families and friends who fought and worked with our troops and our government?
The Biden administration must finish the mission. The mission isn’t complete if we leave these people to die.
Rabbi Will Berkovitz in Seattle, Washington, in August 2020.
We don’t have the luxury of time. The longer this drags on, the more desperate those left behind will become. We can’t urge people to take dangerous overland routes based on rumor, speculation, or hope. Cut the bureaucracy and prioritize evacuating these refugees to any intermediary country. Create safe corridors and charter flights. Get the airport in Kabul reopened. At the very least help us determine what is fact and what is fiction.
Each of us should feel we are standing before the gates of repentance this season as the ram’s horn blows a final time. As we are sealed in the book of life or death, let us never forget we can give our allies a chance for life as well. The mission won’t be complete if we leave our allies to die. We will all be judged on both what we do and what we fail to even try.
Rabbi Will Berkovitz is the CEO of Jewish Family Service, a Seattle-based social services agency founded in 1892 that helps vulnerable individuals and families achieve well-being, health and stability.
Thousands of flood-damaged cars may float back to market after Ida. How to spot one
Tanasia Kenney
Cars damaged in floodwaters caused by Hurricane Ida could soon be on the resale market, putting would-be buyers at risk.
Carfax spokesman Chris Basso estimates “378,000 flood-damaged autos were already on the roads” before Ida made landfall as a Category 4 storm in Southeast Louisiana last month, according to CNBC. The system left a trail of destruction stretching from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the Northeast, leaving parts of New York City underwater.
“If history holds true, we’re looking at several thousand more [flooded] vehicles,” Basso told CNBC, “and a decent percentage of them will make it back into the market.”
Flood-damaged cars can be repaired and resold. However, potential buyers aren’t always privy to a vehicle’s history. This is largely because waterlogged cars “are often transported well beyond their original region after major storms,” according to Consumer Reports.
If flood damage is disclosed on a car’s title, it can be legally resold once it has undergone the necessary repairs and a re-inspection, the consumer watchdog agency said. Still, some water-damaged cars will float back on the market with a clean history.
That’s why experts encourage consumers to do a thorough inspection before buying a new ride — or pay a trusted mechanic to take a look.
How to spot a flood-damaged car
When determining if a car has flood damage, the Better Business Bureau said shoppers should always ask to see the title.
“If the title is stamped ‘salvage’ or has arrived from a recently flood damaged state, ask questions,” the BBB’s website states. “[Also] consider purchasing a vehicle history report of the vehicle, which includes information [on] if the car has ever been tagged as ‘salvage’ or ‘flood damaged’ in any state.”
The vehicle’s dashboard and electronic components, such as lights, radio and turn signals, should be checked carefully to ensure everything is in working order, according to the BBB. Over time, water can make its way into vital systems, corroding metals, short-circuiting wires and warping brakes or rotors, says Consumer Reports.
Carpeting and upholstery should also be checked for signs of dampness, mud or silt.
A smell-test is also necessary, Carfax says. If a car smells of mold or mildew, it’s likely been underwater. Other tell-tale signs of water damage include:
Mud, dirt or debris under the seats or in the glove compartment
Visible rust around doors, under the dashboard, on the pedals or inside the hood
Brittle wiring under the dashboard
Fogging or moisture beads in exterior and interior lights
All in all, experts say it’s best to pass up a car with potential signs of flood damage, “even if [it] looks acceptable and may be working when you inspect it,” Consumer Reports chief mechanic John Ibbotson said.
The interior of a car damaged by the flood is seen covered in mud, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, in Mamaroneck, N.Y. More than three days after the hurricane blew ashore in Louisiana, Ida’s rainy remains hit the Northeast with stunning fury on Wednesday and Thursday, submerging cars, swamping subway stations
Who to blame for Taliban takeover? Former Afghan envoy points finger at Kabul
Phil Stewart
FILE PHOTO: Afghan Ambassador to the United States Roya Rahmani speaks during an interview with Reuters in Washington.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Roya Rahmani, Afghanistan’s first female ambassador to the United States who left her post in July, is clearly horrified by the Taliban takeover of her country. But she is not surprised.
In an interview, Rahmani accused the former U.S.-backed government in Kabul of a failure to lead the country and of widespread corruption that ultimately paved the way for the Taliban’s victory last month.
She also warned the United States, still smarting from its defeat, that the rise of the Taliban would have far-reaching geopolitical consequences.
“I, as an Afghan, was not surprised by the fact that the Taliban took over Afghanistan the way they did and how quickly they did, partly because of the lack of leadership by the Afghan government that was in place at the time,” Rahmani said.
President Joe Biden acknowledged he and other officials were aware of the risk that the Afghan government could collapse following the U.S. military withdrawal.
But they say they were caught off-guard by the speed of the Taliban victory, a miscalculation that helped lead to a chaotic U.S. military airlift of U.S. citizens and vulnerable Afghans. Thirteen U.S. troops and scores of Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing during the operation.
Biden, in a speech last month, accused Afghan troops of lacking “the will to fight” for their country’s future.
Rahmani saw things differently.
“It was not the Afghan forces, that they were not willing to fight for their freedom and for protection of their people. It was the leadership that was corrupt. And they handed over, basically, the country to the Taliban,” she said, without providing specific allegations.
In particular, Ashraf Ghani’s decision to abandon the presidency and leave Afghanistan on Aug. 15 was “extremely disappointing and embarrassing,” she said.
Ghani said on Wednesday he left because he wanted to avoid bloodshed. He denied allegations he stole millions of dollars on his way out.
“Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life,” Ghani said.
Rahmani, who is 43, left the job as ambassador to the United States after nearly three years in the role. During her posting she wrestled with what she believed was a politically-motivated case over an embassy construction project.
She denied any wrongdoing and an anti-corruption court found flaws in the case, sending it back even before the Afghan government crumbled.
“I invite any investigative body to look at all the documents,” she said.
But Rahmani’s accusations of broad corruption and mismanagement in Kabul carry echoes of warnings by current and former U.S. officials for years. Experts say corruption was steadily eroding ordinary Afghans’ faith in the U.S.-backed government and even turning some of them to the Taliban.
Rahmani described being cut out of discussions between Washington and Kabul, including during the Trump administration. Neither capital appeared to be fully preparing for consequences of the U.S. withdrawal, she said.
She warned of geopolitical shifts that will impact the United States and its allies.
Pakistan – a prickly U.S. ally that is close to the Taliban – will have gained leverage in its dealings with the Washington, she said.
“I believe that the United States will be facing a new Pakistan,” she said, while cautioning the Taliban’s takeover will have ripple effects on India, China, Turkey and beyond.
LAUDS AFGHAN WOMEN PROTESTERS
The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, girls could not attend school and women were banned from work and education. Religious police would flog anyone breaking the rules and public executions were carried out.
The Taliban have urged Afghans to be patient and vowed to be more tolerant this time.
But Rahmani says the Taliban’s decision to exclude women from all of the top government positions announced on Tuesday was proof that dark times may be ahead for women.
On Tuesday, a group of Afghan women in a Kabul street had to take cover after Taliban gunmen fired into the air to disperse hundreds of protesters.
“I salute all the brave women of Afghanistan. It is quite risky to do what they are doing,” Rahmani said. “And it’s also an indication to the rest of the world that they have everything to lose at this point.”
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mary Milliken and Angus MacSwan)
“I owe the Afghan people an explanation”: Ashraf Ghani apologizes for fleeing Kabul
Zachary Basu
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement Wednesday apologizing to Afghans for fleeing Kabul on the day the Taliban entered the capital city, calling it “the most difficult decision” of his life.
Why it matters: Ghani’s decision to flee Kabul and seek asylum in the United Arab Emirates on Aug. 15 precipitated the collapse of the Afghan government.
In a White House address the day after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, President Biden criticized Ghani and the Afghan security forces for choosing not to “fight for their country.”
Ghani was also accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of public money as he fled Kabul, allegations he has vigorously denied. He said Wednesday that he and his top aides would submit to an independent investigation or audit to prove his innocence.
The big picture: Ghani’s statement — his most extensive public remarks since the fall of Kabul — comes one day after the Taliban announced the formation of an acting government that features top loyalists and several internationally sanctioned terrorists.
What they’re saying: “I owe the Afghan people an explanation for leaving Kabul abruptly on August 15th after Taliban unexpectedly entered the city. I left at the urging of the palace security who advised me that to remain risked setting off the same horrific street-to-street fighting the city had suffered during the Civil War of the 1990s,” Ghani said.
“Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life, but I believed it was the only way to keep the guns silent and save Kabul and her 6 million citizens,” he added.
“Now is not the moment for a long assessment of the events leading up to my departure — I will address them in detail in the near future. But I must now address baseless allegations that as I left Kabul I took with my millions of dollars belonging to the Afghan people. These charges are completely and categorically false.”
“Corruption is a plague that has crippled our country for decades and fighting corruption has been a central focus of my efforts as president. I inherited a monster that could not easily or quickly be defeated.”
The bottom line: “It is with deep and profound regret that my own chapter ended in similar tragedy to my predecessors — without ensuring stability and prosperity. I apologize to the Afghan people that I could not make it end differently,” Ghani concluded. “My commitment to the Afghan people has never wavered and will guide me for the rest of my life.”
