Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 15, 2021
Hello All – Within hours, Afghanistan will "fall" to the Taliban, and Taliban forces will soon enter and control Kabul, the nation's capital. This is obviously a disaster for the people of Afghanistan, but it is also a crisis for the USA political and military elite. In the days and weeks to come, the question of "Who lost Afghanistan?" will flood US media discourse. Images of US troops evacuating Embassy personnel and failing to evacuate thousands of Afghanis who served the US war and occupation will be juxtaposed to 1975 pictures of evacuation helicopters poised on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. Accurate information about what's happening in Afghanistan, and why did the war fail in all its parts, will be vital currency to US peace advocates in working to prevent further conflict.
As of late Sunday morning, as Afghan president Ghani flees to Tajikistan, negotiations are underway between the remnants of Afghanistan's former ruling circles and the Taliban, and (presumably) between the Taliban and US personnel. The US "demand" on the Taliban is for a de facto ceasefire in Kabul while the US evacuates its Embassy and other people. The Taliban has stated that it will abide by this demand, asking that the US cease bombing Taliban forces. By early/mid-next week, the Taliban will be in charge of Afghanistan, now responsible for cleaning up the mess of twenty years of war.
The dominant media framing in the US foretells a bloodbath at the hands of the Taliban. Women and those who assisted the US war and occupation are thought to be especially at risk. Fears on the part of women are bolstered by memories of the repressive Taliban regime of 20 years ago. Suggestions that the Taliban might have moderated their views are governing are dismissed out of hand; and the fate of Afghanistan's women is already the metric against which Taliban acceptance by the "international community" will be measured. Is the inaccuracy of the prediction that Vietnam would also suffer a bloodbath after the fall of the US puppet regime in 1975 reassuring? Probably not; but still, media reports on this subject deserve critical scrutiny.
The destabilization of US political discourse will also need careful attention. In addition to "Who lost Afghanistan?" we will have the thread of the loss of US prestige and influence over current or future client governments, and the related upset over the putative gains in influence made by our current arch-enemy China. Additionally, the US military and the State Department now have built an almost comic legacy of reassuring statements and optimistic scenarios, even within the past few days; and the credibility of the leadership of these two institutions going forward will be challenged by "What about Afghanistan?" Another important question is Will the US contribute to the international reconstruction efforts so vitally important to the common people of Afghanistan? If the Vietnam War reneging on promises of reconstruction aid is a precedent, probably not; but we should pressure our government to take some responsibility for rebuilding the country our war has damaged.
Sadly, the US peace movement was always too small to have much influence on the initiation or course of the Afghanistan War. Yet it should be remembered that from Day One alternatives to war or to escalation were proposed, and were sound and practical. The failure of antiwar opposition to enter substantially into the Democratic Party, and thus into congressional and media debates, is something that we must review carefully: What else should/could we have done? As CFOW approaches our 20th anniversary – essentially co-terminus with the Afghanistan War – it is time for thought and re-assessment, and for working hard to stop the next Afghanistan.
Some useful reading/viewing on the Afghanistan War
(Video) Taliban's Sweeping Offensive in Afghanistan Was "Inevitable" and Stems from Brutal U.S. War
From Democracy Now! [August 11, 2021]
---- The Taliban have continued to seize territory in Afghanistan as the U.S. completes its withdrawal of ground troops from the country, with the militant group now controlling a majority of Afghanistan's districts and a quarter of provincial capitals. The strength of the Taliban offensive in recent weeks has put the future of Afghanistan's government in doubt. "This kind of a crisis was inevitable whenever the U.S. pulled out, whether it had been 10 years ago, 19 years ago or 10 years from now," says foreign policy scholar Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. "This was rooted in the nature of the U.S. occupation that began in 2001." Congressmember Ro Khanna calls American involvement in Afghanistan a "fool's errand" that should have ended years earlier. [See the Program]
The Great Washington Ponzi Scheme in Afghanistan comes Crashing Down
, Informed Comment [August 13, 2021]
---- The United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, as is quickly becoming apparent as the Taliban take city after city. After 2002, it was never clear what the US war aim was. You can't win a war if you don't have a clear objective. The war is lost before it begins. … By spring of 2002, congressmen visiting Centcom head Tommy Franks were bluntly told that Afghanistan was no longer the mission, and the Bush crime gang had clearly decided to set up Iraq as a fall guy for 9/11 and break the country's legs. The US in 2002-2003 had a good outcome in Afghanistan. We should just have left then. [Read More]
No Exit: As the Taliban Seize Cities, Desperate Afghans Are Trapped in an American-Made Fiasco
By Andrew Quilty, The Intercept [
---- Afghan friends and colleagues began asking for help leaving the country in June. The requests were nothing new, but in the past they'd mostly been in jest. Now they were serious and urgent. The people who made them weren't just seeking a better life but refuge. …Discreet conversations about the success or failure of Afghan friends' visa applications occur daily. The U.S. and U.K. governments recently announced the broadening of entrance criteria for Afghans who worked alongside their citizens. The French embassy also provided visas for several hundred who worked with French organizations, sparking a race to apply. For those who don't qualify for such programs but have tens of thousands of dollars to spare, Turkish residency permits are available to anyone willing to buy property. Others, whose costly visa applications for the same country have been declined, are paying profiteering brokers several thousand dollars each to secure a visa or calling on foreign friends to petition embassies on their behalf. [Read More]
News Notes
Recently we were amazed and cheered by the decisive victory of Social-Democrat India Walton in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo. She won over the incumbent mayor and the Buffalo Democratic Party machine. Her victory in the primary is tantamount to becoming mayor; the Republicans have yet to offer a candidate. BUT now the Buffalo Establishment is fighting back, talking about a write-in vote for the defeated incumbent mayor, or even changing the governance of the city to do away with the mayor's power. [Read More]. And now, with the resignation of Gov. Cuomo and the elevation of Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul of Buffalo, an additional element enters the picture, as Hochul's husband is a major player [h/t SH] in Buffalo's gambling and other interests.
Recently Congressmen Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones joined Rep. Cori Bush and other progressive Democrats in a "sleep-in" on the Capitol steps to protest the adjournment of Congress without taking action on the expiring moratorium on evictions, potentially affecting millions of renter households. Now the Centers for Disease Control has issued an additional two-month moratorium for counties with a high-rate of Covid cases. But what happens when this moratorium expires? A Counterpunch article, "A Last-Minute Reprieve for the Homeless…for Now," gives a good overview of what to expect unless Congress takes action.
A documentary film now running on PBS Frontline shows how the FBI's high-profile capture of alleged terrorists "The Liberty City Seven" was simply a scam, initiated and organized by FBI undercover people to give the Agency a moment of glory in the post-9/11 War on Terror. The story is summarized in an article from The Intercept, "The Most High-Profile Al Qaeda Plot Foiled After 9/11 Was an FBI Scam." This was not an isolated case; several hundred people have been prosecuted in similar FBI set-ups, and Trevor Aaronson has written a useful book about all this: The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism. Twelve years ago we had a local version of this nonsense, as the FBI set-up four Muslim men from Newburgh to supposedly blow up synagogues in the Bronx and much more. There's a documentary film about this also. To my knowledge, no FBI or other government officials have been fired or arrested for doing this.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 6 to 6:30 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
The Newsletter was on vacation last week, and so was I. With some CFOW friends/stalwarts, I visited Vermont's North East Kingdom. Among the highlights of my Excellent Adventure was a trip to the home of the Bread & Puppet Theater, where we visited a barn/museum filled with thousands of masks and puppets, the signature props of B&P's half-century of agitational performances; we also attended their annual "Circus." You can see/learn about Bread & Puppet's background, museum, and Circus from videos here and here. Highly recommended is this full-length documentary film, "Ah! The Hopeful Pageantry of Bread and Puppet." Sadly, B&P co-founder Elka Schumann died just a week before our visit. Obituaries (here and [NYTImes] here) fill in some of the background of this remarkable woman and the Bread & Puppet Theater. ALSO on this vacation, I was introduced to the fabulous voice of Eva Cassiday. (h/t SR). Here she sings "Over the Rainbow"; I also like her January 1996 "Blues Alley Concert." In November 1996 Eva Cassiday died from cancer. A great loss, but her voice lives on.
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Our Not-So-Slow-Motion Apocalypse
By August 12, 2021]
---- In heat and weather terms, our world is not just going to become extreme in 20 years or 50 years or as this century ends. It's officially extreme right now. And here's the sad thing: I have no doubt that, no matter what I write in this piece, no matter how up to date I am at this moment, by the time it appears it will already be missing key climate stories and revelations. Within months, it could look like ancient history. Welcome, then, to our very own not-so-slow-motion apocalypse. A friend of mine recently commented to me that, for most of the first 30 years of his life, he always expected the world to go nuclear. That was, of course, at the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And then, like so many others, he stopped ducking and covering. How could he have known that, in those very years, the world was indeed beginning to get nuked, or rather carbon-dioxided, methaned, greenhouse-gassed, even if in a slow-motion fashion? As it happens, this time there's going to be no pretense for any of us of truly ducking and covering. [Read More]
Glenn Greenwald: the greatest journalist of all time?
By Nick Burns, The New Statesman [UK] [August 2021]
---- Glenn Greenwald has been making new enemies lately. Once feted on the left for his reporting on government surveillance – based on documents leaked to him by the intelligence analyst Edward Snowden – America's most conspicuous journalist spent much of the last few years taking issue with liberal suspicions of a plot between Donald Trump and Russia. The result of this impudence was Greenwald's disappearance from liberal news networks such as MSNBC. He became instead a frequent guest on conservative network Fox News. … Greenwald's critics on the left find it hard to dismiss him entirely. One reason for this is his high-profile reporting work in Brazil, where he has lived since the beginning of his career as a journalist and political writer in 2005. This comes as a surprise: that a figure so steeped in the headlines and internecine squabbles of US political media should not just live abroad but have a separate and undeniable influence in a foreign country. No other figure in the media criticism wars can claim the same. [Read More]
The Fall of Andrew Cuomo
(Video) Gov. Cuomo Resigns After Sexual Harassment Probe; Critic Says He Is "Still Gaslighting New Yorkers"
From Democracy Now! [August 11, 2021]
---- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced his resignation, effective August 24, after a week of intense pressure from fellow Democrats for him to step down. Cuomo, who has been in office since 2011, had few allies left after an investigation by New York's attorney general found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women — allegations he continues to deny. "Governor Cuomo is still gaslighting New Yorkers," says Yuh-Line Niou, a member of the New York State Assembly representing Manhattan, who says Cuomo must still be impeached. [Read More]
(Video) "A Petty Tyrant with Too Much Power": Former Cuomo Rival Zephyr Teachout Responds to Resignation
From Democracy Now! [August 11, 2021]
---- Law professor Zephyr Teachout, who challenged Cuomo for the New York Democratic nomination for governor in 2014, describes Cuomo as "extraordinarily vengeful" and applauds the bravery of the women who spoke up about his behavior. "He never hesitated to use the power of the state, state resources, to serve his own ends," says Teachout. [See the Program] Teachout also has an informative essay, "The Real Question Is Why Andrew Cuomo Took So Long to Fall," in The Nation [August 11, 2021]/
The Climate Crisis
Playing Nice With the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Climate Denial
August 9, 2021]
---- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released the first, nearly 4,000-page installment of its Sixth Assessment Report. The report, from a working group of over 200 scientists, distills the current consensus about the physical science of climate change from 14,000 peer-reviewed studies. This consensus is grim: None of the emissions scenarios this report highlights see warming kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Heat waves previously seen only twice in a century will soon hit every six years, along with a slew of vicious storms and droughts. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are at their highest point in two million years. … In a summer of rolling climate disasters that have made that fact viscerally obvious, politicians around the world have already started offering platitudes about the need for "action" and "ambition." Yet they mostly haven't called for the rapid shift off fossil fuels that the report indicates is necessary. It's not that politicians in powerful countries have done nothing in the past two decades. The problem, rather, is that where they've done anything at all, it has tended to be the wrong thing, emphasizing subtle market tweaks and shiny new technologies instead of the core work of decarbonization: getting off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. [Read More] Aronoff notes that she is reporting on Part I of the IPCC Report, the only part officially released. Now more of the Report has been leaked: read "Fearing Government Whitewash, Scientists Leak Draft IPCC Report Urging Bold Emission Cuts," by Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams [August 13, 2021]
Israel/Palestine
America Needs to Start Telling the Truth About Israel's Nukes
---- American politicians often warn that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, it will spark a nuclear stampede across the Middle East. Allowing Tehran to get the bomb, Senator Robert Menendez, the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, predicted in March 2020, could "set off a dangerous arms race in the region." In an interview in December, President-elect Joe Biden cautioned that if Iran went nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt might too, "and the last goddamn thing we need in that part of the world is a buildup of nuclear capability." Such statements are so familiar that it's easy to overlook their artifice. In warning that Iran could turn the Middle East nuclear, American politicians imply that the region is nuclear-free now. But it's not. Israel already has nuclear weapons. You'd just never know it from America's leaders, who have spent the last half-century feigning ignorance. This deceit undercuts America's supposed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and it distorts the American debate over Iran. It's time for the Biden administration to tell the truth. [Read More] One hero in this story is Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. Learn more in this 2004 Democracy Now!
Our History
The Anti-Asian Roots of Today's Anti-Immigrant Politics
By Mari Uyehara, The Nation [August 9, 2021]
---- The effort to disappear Asians from the American imagination, including among our working-class heroes, has been an effective project. Anti-immigrant bias has long been exploited for political gain. In colonial America, "swarthy" German immigrants were the targets of animus from British settlers. Later, the distinctively vicious Know-Nothing or American Party, beat and shot German and Irish Catholic Americans—who were believed to be criminal and papist elements infiltrating the country—at polling places during elections. But it was the anti-Asian movement, along with the oppression of Indigenous and Black Americans, that helped unify previously fractured European immigrant groups, binding them together in a cross-class identity of whiteness and inventing the entirely new and racialized concept of the "illegal immigrant." … The Chinese laborers who built nearly 700 miles of transcontinental railroad were excluded from the photo commemorating its completion; Japanese Americans were erased from the pantheon of US agriculture. A true multiracial working-class movement owes more than that to the memory of the country's great Asian laborers: miners and construction workers, railroad laborers and cigar makers, cooks and house servants, farmers and fishermen. [Read More]
