Hundreds of people run alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane, some climbing on the plane, as it moves down a runway of the international airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug.16. 2021.Verified UGC via AP
“ISTANBUL — Thousands of desperate Afghans trying to escape the Taliban takeover swarmed Kabul’s main international airport on Monday, rushing the boarding gates, mobbing the runways, clambering atop the wings of jets and even trying to cling to the fuselage of departing American military planes.
At least half a dozen Afghans were killed in the chaos, some falling from the skies as they lost their grasp, and at least two shot by American soldiers trying to contain the surging crowds.
The images evoked America’s frantic departure from Vietnam, encapsulating Afghanistan’s breathtaking collapse in the wake of American abandonment.
As American troops sought to manage the exodus, seizing air traffic control to prioritize military flights evacuating Western citizens and flying Apache helicopters low over the crowds to clear the runway, Taliban fighters capped a swift and devastating lunge for power, posing for an iconic photo behind the ornate presidential desk in the presidential palace hours after President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — President Biden offered a defiant defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, blaming the swift collapse of the Afghan government and chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport on the refusal of the country’s military to stand and fight in the face of the Taliban advance.
Speaking to the American people from the East Room after returning briefly to the White House from Camp David, Mr. Biden said he had no regrets about his decision to end the longest war in United States history. But he lamented that two decades of support failed to turn the Afghan military into a force capable of securing its own country.
‘We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries. Provided for the maintenance of their airplanes,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide was the will to fight for that future.’
Mr. Biden acknowledged that the Taliban victory had come much faster than the United States had expected and that the withdrawal was ‘hard and messy.’ As the fourth president to preside over the war in Afghanistan, though, he said that ‘the buck stops with me.’” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden’s unapologetic defense on Monday of his decisions in Afghanistan rallied some Democrats to his side, but the president still faces angry and increasingly public criticism from lawmakers in both parties over the chaos descending on Kabul.
After leaving the White House largely undefended, some Democratic leaders voiced tentative support after the speech.
‘President Biden understands history when it comes to Afghanistan,’ said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a member of Democratic leadership. ‘He made the difficult decision to not hand over this longest of American wars to a fifth president, and had he walked away from the withdraw agreement originally negotiated by President Trump, Taliban attacks on U.S. forces would have restarted and required yet another surge in U.S. troops.’
But other lawmakers were unmollified. Many moderate Democrats remained furious at the Biden administration for what they saw as terrible planning for the evacuation of Americans and their allies. Liberal Democrats who have long sought to end military engagements around the world still grumbled that the images out of Kabul were damaging their cause.” Read more at New York Times
“In the 20 years that the United States military was in Afghanistan, more than 775,000 American troops deployed there, to citylike air bases and sandbag outposts on lonely mountaintops. As the Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday, wiping away any gains made, veterans said in interviews that they watched with a roiling mix of sadness, rage and relief. Some were thankful that America’s involvement in the country seemed to have ended, but were also dismayed that hard-won progress was squandered. Others were fearful for Afghan friends left behind.
In interviews, text messages and on Facebook, men and women who collectively spent decades in Afghanistan said they were angry that despite a drawdown that has spanned years, the United States could not manage to exit the country with more dignity.
The anguish can be especially raw because veterans often worked side by side with Afghans during the years of attempts at nation-building, and now in that nation’s collapse they see the individual faces of friends who have been enveloped by the anarchy.” Read more at New York Times
“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban declared an ‘amnesty’ across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee the country.
Following a blitz across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a brutal rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical.
Older generations remember the Taliban’s ultraconservative Islamic views, which included severe restrictions on women as well as stonings, amputations and public executions before they were ousted by the U.S-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Built and trained at a two-decade cost of $83 billion, Afghan security forces collapsed so quickly and completely — in some cases without a shot fired — that the ultimate beneficiary of the American investment turned out to be the Taliban. They grabbed not only political power but also U.S.-supplied firepower — guns, ammunition, helicopters and more.
The Taliban captured an array of modern military equipment when they overran Afghan forces who failed to defend district centers. Bigger gains followed, including combat aircraft, when the Taliban rolled up provincial capitals and military bases with stunning speed, topped by capturing the biggest prize, Kabul, over the weekend.
A U.S. defense official on Monday confirmed the Taliban’s sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity. The reversal is an embarrassing consequence of misjudging the viability of Afghan government forces — by the U.S. military as well as intelligence agencies — which in some cases chose to surrender their vehicles and weapons rather than fight.
The U.S. failure to produce a sustainable Afghan army and police force, and the reasons for their collapse, will be studied for years by military analysts. The basic dimensions, however, are clear and are not unlike what happened in Iraq. The forces turned out to be hollow, equipped with superior arms but largely missing the crucial ingredient of combat motivation.” Read more at AP News
“At just short of 20 years, the now-ending US combat mission in Afghanistan was America’s longest war. Ordinary Americans tended to forget about it, and it received measurably less oversight from Congress than the Vietnam War did. But its death toll is in the many tens of thousands. And because the United States borrowed most of the money to pay for it, generations of Americans will be burdened by the cost of paying it off.
Here’s a look at the US-led war in Afghanistan, by the numbers, as the Taliban in a lightning offensive take over much of the country before the United States’ Aug. 31 deadline for ending its combat role and as the United States speeds up American and Afghan evacuations.
Much of the data below is from Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and from the Brown University Costs of War project. Because the United States between 2003 and 2011 fought the Afghanistan and Iraq wars simultaneously, and many American troops served tours in both wars, some figures as noted cover both post-9/11 US wars.
The longest war:
Percentage of US population born since the 2001 attacks plotted by Al Qaeda leaders who were sheltering in Afghanistan: Roughly one out of every four.
The human cost:
American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448.
US contractors: 3,846.
Afghan national military and police: 66,000.
Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144.
Afghan civilians: 47,245.
Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.
Aid workers: 444.
Journalists: 72.
Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of US occupation:
Percentage drop in infant mortality rate since US, Afghan, and other allied forces overthrew the Taliban government, which had sought to restrict women and girls to the home: About 50.
Percentage of Afghan teenage girls able to read today: 37.
Oversight by congress:
Date Congress authorized US forces to go after culprits in Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Sept. 18, 2001.
Number of times US lawmakers have voted to declare war in Afghanistan: 0.
Number of times lawmakers on Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee addressed costs of Vietnam War, during that conflict: 42
Number of times lawmakers in same subcommittee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars, through mid-summer 2021: 5.
Number of times lawmakers on Senate Finance Committee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars since Sept. 11, 2001, through mid-summer 2021: 1.
Paying for a war on credit, not in cash:
Amount that President Truman temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for Korean War: 92 percent.
Amount that President Johnson temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for Vietnam War: 77 percent.
Amount that President George W. Bush cut tax rates for the wealthiest, rather than raise them, at outset of Afghanistan and Iraq wars: At least 8 percent.
Estimated amount of direct Afghanistan and Iraq war costs that the United States has debt-financed as of 2020: $2 trillion.
Estimated interest costs by 2050: Up to $6.5 trillion.
The wars end. The costs don’t:
Amount Bilmes estimates the United States has committed to pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for roughly 4 million Afghanistan and Iraq veterans: more than $2 trillion.
Period those costs will peak: after 2048.” Read more at Boston Globe
“WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.
Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots.
Officials said they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also require an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month.
The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers. They would probably be followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year, then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received.” Read more at New York Times
“CHICAGO — As alarm mounted over the coronavirus ripping through the country, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago was barraged with warnings: Lollapalooza was looking increasingly risky. The annual four-day music festival would draw hundreds of thousands of people downtown, unmasked, crowded into mosh pits, city parks, restaurants and L trains, setting up the threat of a superspreader coronavirus event in the Midwest.
The mayor insisted that the festival go on.
The decision to host the event, which injected a dormant downtown with energy and freely spending tourists at the end of last month, reflected a shifting response to the continuing pandemic. One year ago, Chicago was a muted version of itself: Businesses were restricted, schools were preparing to teach remotely, the police blocked access to beaches on Lake Michigan and Lollapalooza was canceled.
But in recent days, even as the highly contagious Delta variant ravages the South and has caused upticks in all 50 states, mayors, governors and public health officials have treaded lightly when considering whether to reimpose restrictions. With more than twice as many new virus cases being reported nationally compared with last August, baseball games, music festivals and state fairs have forged ahead, and restaurants, gyms and movie theaters have stayed open. In many places, people have been largely left to decide for themselves whether to start wearing masks again or change the ways they work, socialize and vacation.
Americans have entered a new, disheartening phase of the pandemic: when they realize that Covid-19 is not disappearing anytime soon. A country that had been waiting for the virus to be over has been forced to recalibrate.” Read more at New York Times
“"Health and safety has always been our number one priority": The Las Vegas Raiders have become the first NFL team to require proof of vaccination to attend home games.” Read more at USA Today
“More than 1,000 students and staff are in quarantine Tuesday after the first week of school in Nashville, Tennessee, where more than 250 cases of COVID-19 were recorded . In total, 980 students and 95 staff are in quarantine or isolating. The situation in Nashville schools is happening as the nation is seeing hospitalizations for those under age 50 hit all-time highs.” Read more at USA Today
“Bill Lee, Tennessee’s Republican governor, signed an executive order letting parents opt out of school mask mandates.” Read more at New York Times
“The Delta variant is overwhelming U.S. intensive care units. One in five I.C.U.s now has almost every bed occupied.” Read more at New York Times
“New Zealand went into a three-day nationwide lockdown after the discovery of a solitary case of Covid-19.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The origin story of Covid-19 remains a mystery mired in contentious debate. But as Jason Gale reports, a research paper that languished in publishing limbo for a year and a half contains meticulously collected evidence supporting scientists’ initial hypothesis — that the outbreak stemmed from infected wild animals sold in China’s so-called wet markets. That theory prevailed until speculation that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a nearby lab gained traction.” Read more at Bloomberg
A boy is treated outside a hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti, after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Sunday. (Getty Images)
“PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti was battered with rains Monday and early Tuesday, as rescue workers and doctors with little equipment worked feverishly to save victims of Saturday’s massive earthquake.
Grace dumped up to 10 inches of rain before being upgraded from depression to tropical storm early Tuesday, creating yet another crisis for exhausted, newly homeless people who needed shelter. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that Grace was causing flooding across parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought.
Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River — Lake Mead — have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white ‘bathtub ring’ of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.
States, cities, farmers and others have diversified their water sources over the years, helping soften the blow of the upcoming cuts. But federal officials said Monday’s declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted in 2019, when some states in the Colorado River basin agreed to give up shares of water to maintain levels at Lake Mead.
‘The announcement today is a recognition that the hydrology that was planned for years ago — but we hoped we would never see — is here,’ said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton.” Read more at Boston Globe
“A New York man who supported the far-right Proud Boys group pleaded guilty on Monday to threatening to kill Raphael Warnock, a newly elected senator from Georgia, before and during the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
The man, Eduard Florea, 41, of Queens, pleaded guilty to posting violent threats against Mr. Warnock, who had just won a runoff election in Georgia for the Senate and was later sworn in on Jan. 20. ‘Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he’s swinging with the fish,’ Mr. Florea posted online on Jan. 5, using an expletive before fish.
Mr. Florea also pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Brooklyn to a weapons offense after federal agents discovered a vast arsenal in his New York City home in January, including more than 1,000 rounds of rifle ammunition that he unlawfully possessed because of a prior felony conviction, prosecutors said in a news release.
Mr. Florea, a software engineer whose arrest in January came amid an intensifying nationwide manhunt for those who broke into the U.S. Capitol, will face up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on Nov. 29, federal prosecutors said. Mr. Florea is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.” Read more at New York Times
“T-Mobile has confirmed it was hit by a data breach after hackers claimed they were selling personal information obtained from some 100 million people. The company has not said whether any personal information from customers was accessed or how widespread the damage may be. These kinds of breaches are becoming more of a threat to US security, and can have long-lasting consequences for individuals as well as the companies affected. Colonial Pipeline, one of the largest fuel pipelines in the US, says the breach that caused it to go offline in the spring alsocompromised the personal information of nearly 6,000 individuals, who are mostly current or former company employees and their family members.” Read more at CNN
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has renewed a pledge to spend more than $1 trillion on infrastructure to boost the economy and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Modi made the announcement on India’s Independence Day, which is a holiday he often likes to use to make ambitious promises (he made a similar infrastructure pledge last year). As Asia’s third-largest country and home to nearly 1.4 billion people, things like railways and emissions regulations are a big priority for India. The country is also clawing its way out of its first recession in a quarter century, spurred on by the pandemic. Modi did not give a timeline for the infrastructure plan, called ‘Gati Shakti,’ which means momentum.” Read more at CNN
“Muhyiddin resigns. Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin resigned on Monday after he lost his parliamentary majority, making his 17 months in office the shortest of any Malaysian premier. King Al-Sultan Abdullah will keep Muhyiddin in his post in a caretaker capacity until a new government can be formed, but ruled out a new election as the country battles a wave of coronavirus infections. Muhyiddin blamed his loss of support on his refusal to drop corruption charges against members of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which includes former Prime Minister Najib Razak.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Maki Kaji, a university dropout who turned a numbers game into one of the world’s most popular logic puzzles and became known as the ‘Godfather of Sudoku,’ died at his home in Tokyo on Aug. 10. He was 69.
His death was announced on Tuesday by the puzzle company he co-founded, Nikoli. The cause was bile duct cancer, the company said in a statement.
In a speech in 2008, Mr. Kaji said he first ‘fell in love’ with a game called Number Place in 1984. He renamed it Sudoku.
‘I wanted to create a Japanese name,’ Mr. Kaji said. ‘I created the name in about 25 seconds.’ The reason: He had been in a rush to get to a horse race. He said he had not expected the name to stick. (‘Sudoku ‘roughly translates to ‘single numbers.’)”
By then, with two childhood friends, he had started the company that would later become Nikoli, which, according to the company, is among the most prolific global publishers of puzzle magazines and books. The company helped catapult Sudoku into the mainstream in the mid-2000s. It was Japan’s first puzzle magazine, the company said in its statement.
The company itself does not create many new puzzles — for example, an American is believed to have invented an earlier version of Sudoku. But the true origins are murky. Some trace the game back to Leonhard Euler, an 18th-century Swiss mathematician. Others say the idea came from China, through India, to the Arab world in the eighth or ninth century.” Read more at New York Times
“‘Exploited his status as a musician’: Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan is being sued for allegedly grooming and sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in 1965.” Read more at USA Today
“LOS ANGELES — A California woman delivered emotional testimony Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court while seeking a protective order against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer stemming from two alleged assaults that took place this spring.
On the first day of a hearing before Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman, the woman described in graphic detail being choked and punched by the pitcher. The hearing is expected to continue Tuesday.” Read more at Washington Post