Tag: President

Alphonso David Fired as Human Rights Marketing campaign President Over Cuomo Ties

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Post date September 7, 2021

Alphonso David, the president of the human rights campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ organization, was fired by the group’s board on Monday night for a report revealing that he had advised former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on dealing with allegations of sexual harassment.

David, the first black president of the group, was dismissed “for an important reason” in separate votes by the boards of the human rights campaign and its affiliated foundation after the two boards held a joint meeting. After two abstentions on the Board of Trustees, the votes were unanimous.

The removal of Mr David is the latest fallout from the report by Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, describing Mr Cuomo’s allegations of sexual harassment and the efforts of his staff to take revenge against the former governor’s accusers. Mr. Cuomo resigned in August after the report made 11 allegations and described a toxic work environment.

Mr David, who had worked as an attorney in Mr Cuomo’s office, was identified in the James report as being involved in efforts to undermine Mr Cuomo’s first accuser, Lindsey Boylan. Although Mr. David no longer worked there, he had a memo containing confidential information about Ms. Boylan’s career. He shared the memo with Mr. Cuomo’s advisors, who hoped to provide details to reporters. Mr David has claimed that as a lawyer he has an obligation to do so.

Mr David also proposed changes to a letter slandering Ms. Boylan that circulated among Mr Cuomo and his aides, saying that he would collect signatures from former aides for it. However, he refused to sign it himself and later said that he did not know the extent of the allegations against Mr Cuomo. He called for Mr Cuomo’s resignation after the report was made public.

A person familiar with deliberations on the human rights campaign board said that when the allegations came to light, Mr. David never told the organization that he was providing advice to Mr. Cuomo. The person said that Mr. David did not consult the group’s attorney or tell them that he would be interviewed by Ms. James’ office.

In a statement, board co-chairs Morgan Cox and Jodie Patterson said they had decided to end David’s role “with immediate effect for violating his contract with the human rights campaign.”

The statement also touched on a public dispute that unfolded between Mr. David and the board over the weekend after Mr. David said he had been told that a review of his actions had been completed without any wrongdoing being found.

“Yesterday and today, Mr. David issued a statement containing significant untruths about the investigation and his status with the organization,” said Mr. Cox and Ms. Patterson. “At HRC we are fighting to bring full equality and liberation to LGBTQ + people everywhere. This also includes fighting on behalf of all victims of sexual harassment and assault. “

The review was carried out by members of the HRC Executive Committee. They determined that Mr. David had a conflict of interest in advising Mr. Cuomo’s office and that his efforts are damaging the organization’s reputation. Joni Madison, the group’s chief operating officer, becomes interim president while David’s successor is sought.

Mr. David is not the only liberal ally of Mr. Cuomo involved in the James report. Recently, prominent attorney Roberta A. Kaplan, a co-founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, whose mission is to fight for victims of sexual harassment, resigned after the James report revealed that she was with Tina Tchen, the executive director, spoke of Time’s Up, a letter written about Ms. Boylan by Mr. Cuomo’s staff. Despite denying the charge of advising Mr. Cuomo’s team on defamation of a victim, both Ms. Kaplan and Ms. Tchen recently resigned from their roles.

Mr David had been a Cuomo adviser for nine years when the human rights campaign hired him in June 2019. Announcing the appointment of Mr David, the group highlighted his work with the former governor on important advances in LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality and a ban on conversion therapy.

Divisions between Mr David’s supporters and those who believed he had crossed a line in helping Mr Cuomo tackle allegations of sexual harassment became even more apparent Sunday after Mr David posted his statement on Twitter. Along with stating that the review was completed without a finding of misconduct, he said that the co-chairs of the board “have now asked to consider resigning, not because of misconduct but because they believe that the incident was a ‘distraction’ to the organization. “

He said their plan was to “calmly resolve the matter this holiday weekend,” adding, “I have the support of too many of our employees, board members and stakeholders to go quietly into the night. I’m not resigning. “

“The idea that this is a distraction is just wrong,” said David. “I was not distracted, nor were my HRC colleagues who fight for human rights. The distraction would require my resignation without submitting the results of the review. “

Human rights campaign officials then released a statement to their own staff saying that the review had not been carried out and that Mr David misrepresented the information he was given about the results.

“We were very surprised and disappointed by the inaccuracies in his portrayal of events,” the two CEOs told their employees in an email. “This investigation will soon be completed,” the statement said, and the organization “will then have more to say.” The chief executives initially supported Mr. David in staying in his position, but when some staff asked if he should resign, they hired the Sidley Austin law firm to review his conduct.

The person familiar with the board’s decision said there was no written report of this review and that there never would be. Rather, there were oral presentations to the board of directors. Mr. David is said to have given the board of directors names in addition to the 10 hours he spent giving names for the interviews.

The CEO’s statement released late Monday showed that there were not just isolated calls for Mr David to step down, but hundreds of them, with staff, board members and allies wanting the group to separate from him.

“This is a painful moment in our movement,” they wrote. “While the board’s decision is not the result we ever imagined or hoped for with regard to Mr David’s tenure at HRC, his actions have placed us in an untenable position by violating the core values, guidelines and mission of Violate HRC. ”They said they were“ grateful for his guidance over the past two years, ”especially on initiatives related to the trans community.

Tags Alphonso, Campaign, Cuomo, David, Fired, Human, President, Rights, Ties

World News

Afghanistan Reside Updates: Taliban Enter Kabul, Authorities Collapses as President Flees

Post author By
Post date August 15, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Afghanistan’s government collapsed on Sunday with President Ashraf Ghani’s flight from the country and the Taliban’s entry into the capital, effectively sealing the insurgents’ control of the country after dozens of cities fell to their lightning advance.

On Sunday evening, former President Hamid Karzai announced on Twitter that he was forming a coordinating council together with Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Afghan delegation to peace talks, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hesb-i-Islami party, to manage a peaceful transfer of power. Mr. Karzai called on both government and Taliban forces to act with restraint.

As it became clear that members of the Taliban had entered Kabul, the capital, thousands of Afghans who had sought refuge there after fleeing the insurgents’ brutal military offensive watched with growing alarm as the local police seemed to fade from their usual checkpoints.

At 6:30 p.m. local time, the Taliban issued a statement that their forces were moving into police districts in order to maintain security in areas that had been abandoned by the government security forces. Taliban fighters, meeting no resistance, took up positions in parts of the city, after Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, posted the statement on Twitter.

“The Islamic Emirates ordered its forces to enter the areas of Kabul city from which the enemy has left because there is risk of theft and robbery,” the statement said. The Taliban had been ordered not to harm civilians and not to enter individual homes, it added. “Our forces are entering Kabul city with all caution.”

As the sun set behind the mountains in the western part of the city, the traffic was clogged up as crowds grew bigger, with more and more Taliban fighters appearing on motorbikes, police pickups and even a Humvee that once belonged to the American-sponsored Afghan security forces.

Earlier in the afternoon, Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal announced that an agreement had been made for a peaceful transfer of power for greater Kabul, and that his forces were maintaining security.

“The city’s security is guaranteed. There will be no attack on the city,” he said. “The agreement for greater Kabul city is that under an interim administration, God willing, power will be transferred.”

Mr. Mirzakwal later announced a 9 p.m. curfew in the capital, and called on its residents to go home.

Mr. Ghani left in a plane for Uzbekistan with his wife, Rula Ghani, and two close aides, according to a member of the Afghan delegation in Doha, Qatar, that has been in peace negotiations with the Taliban since last year. The official asked not to be named because he did not want to be identified speaking about the president’s movements.

In a Facebook video, Mr. Abdullah, former chief executive of the Afghan government, criticized Mr. Ghani for fleeing.

“That the former president of Afghanistan has left the country and its people in this bad situation, God will call him to account and the people of Afghanistan will make their judgment,” Mr. Abdullah said in the video.

In negotiations being managed by Mr. Abdullah, Mr. Ghani had been set to travel to Doha on Sunday with a larger group to negotiate the transfer of power, but flew instead to Uzbekistan, the peace delegation member said.

Mr. Ghani had resisted pressure to step down. In a recorded speech aired on Saturday, he pledged to “prevent further instability” and called for “remobilizing” the country’s military. But the president was increasingly isolated, and his words seemed detached from the reality around him.

With rumors rife and reliable information hard to come by, the streets were filled during the day with scenes of panic and desperation.

“Greetings, the Taliban have reached the city. We are escaping,” said Sahraa Karimi, the head of Afghan Film, in a post shared widely on Facebook. Filming herself as she fled on foot, out of breath and clutching at her headscarf, she shouted at others to escape while the could.

“Hey woman, girl, don’t go that way!” she called out. “Some people don’t know what is going on,” she went on. “Where are you going? Go quickly.”

Wais Omari, 20, a street vendor in the city, said the situation was already dire and he feared for the future.

“If it gets worse, I will hide in my home,” he said.

The United States military stepped up its evacuation of American diplomatic and civilian staff. A core group of American diplomats who had planned to remain at the embassy in Kabul were being moved to a diplomatic facility at the international airport, where they would stay for an unspecified amount of time, according to a senior United States official.

On the civilian side of the airport, a long line of people waited outside the check-in gate, unsure if the flights they had booked out of the country would arrive.

After days in which one urban center after another fell to the insurgents, the last major Afghan cities that were still controlled by the government, other than Kabul, were seized in rapid succession over the weekend.

The insurgents took Mazar-i-Sharif, in the north, late on Saturday, only an hour after breaking through the front lines at the city’s edge. Soon after, government security forces and militias — including those led by the warlords Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Noor — fled, effectively handing control to the insurgents.

On Sunday morning, the Taliban seized the eastern city of Jalalabad. In taking that provincial capital and surrounding areas, the insurgents gained control of the Torkham border crossing, a major trade and transit route between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban offensive, which started in May when the United States began withdrawing troops, gathered speed over the past week. In city after city, the militants took down Afghan government flags and hoisted their own white banners.

Despite two decades of war with American-led forces, the Taliban have survived and thrived, without giving up their vision of creating a state governed by a stringent Islamic code.

After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the 1990s, movie theaters were closed, the Kabul television station was shut down and the playing of all music was banned. Schools were closed to girls.

Despite many Afghans’ memories of years under Taliban rule before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, the insurgents have taken control of much of the country in recent days with only minimal resistance.

Their rapid successes have exposed the weakness of an Afghan military that the United States spent more than $83 billion to support over the past two decades. As the insurgents’ campaign has accelerated, soldiers and police officers have abandoned the security forces in ever greater numbers, with the cause for which they risked their lives appearing increasingly to be lost.

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Panic gripped the Afghan capital, Kabul, Sunday as Taliban fighters started arriving in the city, inmates broke out of the main prison on the east side of the city, and the American-backed government appeared to crumble.

By the afternoon, President Ashraf Ghani was reported to have fled. And as American forces focused their energies on evacuation flights for embassy staff and other personnel, Afghan government officials were shown in video footage accepting a handover of power to their Taliban counterparts in several cities.

Early in the day, senior Afghan politicians were seen boarding planes at Kabul airport. Bagram Air Base was taken by Taliban forces midday Sunday as was the provincial town of Khost in eastern Afghanistan, according to Afghan media reports. The fall of Khost was part of a domino-like collapse of power of astonishing speed that saw city after city fall in just the last week, leaving Kabul as the last major city in government hands.

Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal announced in a video statement in the early afternoon that an agreement had been made for a peaceful transfer of power for greater Kabul and sought to reassure residents, saying that the security forces would remain in their posts to ensure security in the city.

“As the minister of interior, we have ordered all Afghan National Security Forces divisions and members to stabilize Kabul,” he said in a video statement released on the Facebook page of the ministry at 2 p.m. local time. “The city’s security is guaranteed. There will be no attack on the city. The agreement for greater Kabul city is that under an interim administration, God Willing, power will be transferred.”

But residents seemed unconvinced by their leaders’ assurances. In the center of the city people were pictured painting over advertisements and posters of women at beauty salons, apparently preparing for a takeover by the fundamentalist Taliban who do not allow images of humans or animal life, and have traditionally have banned music and the mixing of the sexes.

The Taliban denied rumors that their chief negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was already in the capital and preparing to take over control at the Interior Ministry.

Throughout the day, surreal scenes played out as it appeared ever more clear the Taliban were taking over.

The insurgency has long had its own power structure of shadow governors appointed for every province, and Sunday it was clear who was in control in strategic areas. The governors and tribal and political leaders who had been in power were shown in videos formally handing control to their Taliban counterparts in the strategic cities of Kandahar, the main stronghold of the south, and in Nangarhar, the main city of the east.

But in Kabul fears of the city being overrun were running high after a breakout of prisoners, many of them members of the Taliban, from the main prison at Pul-i-Charkhi.

“Look at this, the whole people are let free,” a man said as he filmed a video footage of people carrying bundles walking away from the prison, posted on Facebook. “This is the Day of Judgment.”

The breakout seems to have been by the prisoners from the inside, rather than an attack by Taliban forces from the outside.

Some Afghans still found room for humor amid the chaos: “Taliban have reached Kabul airport … their speed is faster than 5G,” one resident of Kabul posted on Facebook.

But others fled, though it is unclear where they could go with the Taliban in control of so much of the country.

Ruhullah Khapalwak contributed reporting.

Credit…Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

KABUL, Afghanistan — As the Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday, completing the near total takeover of Afghanistan two decades after the American military drove them from power, an eerie quiet that had enveloped the city in recent days transformed into chaos.

A frenzied evacuation of U.S. diplomats and civilians kicked into high gear, while Afghans made a mad dash to banks, their homes and the airport. Crowds of people ran down the streets as the sound of gunfire echoed in downtown Kabul.

Helicopter after helicopter — including massive Chinooks with their twin engines, and speedy Black Hawks that had been the workhorse of the grinding war — touched down and then took off loaded with passengers. Some shot flares overhead.

Those being evacuated included a core group of American diplomats who had planned to remain at the embassy in Kabul, according to a senior administration official. They were being moved to a compound at the international airport, where they would stay for an unspecified amount of time, the official said.

The runway of the airport was filled with a constellation of uniforms from different nations. They joined contractors, diplomats and civilians all trying to catch a flight out of the city. Those who were eligible to fly were given special bracelets, denoting their status as noncombatants.

On the civilian side of the airport, a long line of people waited outside the check-in gate, unsure if the flights they had booked out of the country would arrive.

For millions of Afghans, including tens of thousands who assisted the U.S. efforts in the country for years, there were no bracelets. They were stuck in the city.

Rumors abounded: The Taliban were in the city, or weren’t they? Were the Americans securing the palace?

The streets of the city were packed, and many shops were closed. Traffic barely moved.

At one bank in downtown Kabul, hundreds of people clambered to get in once doors opened. Two men tried to climb a barred gate into the building.

At Abdul Haq Square in the center of the capital, five men who appeared to be Taliban fighters gathered as cars drove by showing their support for the militants.

Two other men, outside the American Embassy, said that they had just been freed by the Taliban from the giant Pul-e-Charkhi Prison.

On one street downtown, a pair of police officers said that they were readying for a fight with the Taliban and had changed into militia clothing. Another group of officers, none with weapons, seemed more curious about whether a house in the once coveted and protected green zone was now empty.

Some police officers appeared to have abandoned their usual checkpoints, leading to speculation that the government was no longer in control.

At a bus station in Kabul, members of the Afghan security forces were seen changing into civilian clothes as they waited for transport to their hometowns.

While President Biden has defended his decision to hold firm and pull the last U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, his administration has become increasingly worried about images that could evoke a foreign policy disaster of the past: the fall of Saigon at the end of the conflict in Vietnam in 1975.

The swift advance of the Taliban has stunned many in the White House.

On Sunday, as a sense of panic gripped Kabul, guards at checkpoints inside the fortified green zone, who typically stop vehicles and check identity cards, lifted their metal barriers and waved all the cars through as the neighborhood drained of foreigners.

Convoys of armored vehicles raced to find safety in the headquarters of what had been the NATO center for its Operation Resolute Support. Others flocked to the Serena Hotel, a heavily fortified hotel popular among foreigners.

At the NATO center, military personnel handed out matchbox-size cardboard containers with ear plugs, and corralled people onto the helicopters. As the aircraft took off for the international airport, dozens of people evacuating got their last glimpses of the capital below — the fate of the city hanging in the balance.

Two Marines, standing by the runway at the Kabul airport, acknowledged that they were living a moment of history. A little earlier, they said, someone walked by after exiting one of the helicopters cradling a poorly folded American flag: It had just come down off the embassy.

Fahim Abed, Fatima Faizi, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Christina Goldbaum, Sharif Hassan, Jim Huylebroek, Najim Rahimand Lara Jakes contributed reporting.

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Confusion reigned in Washington early Sunday as the Taliban entered Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, with U.S. officials scrambling to determine how safe Americans still there would be.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was expected to discuss the crisis on three television news shows on Sunday morning, hours after the American Embassy in Kabul closed and its small core of remaining diplomats fled to the capital’s international airport for safety.

Embassy staff had begun a vigorous effort to destroy documents and other sensitive materials before leaving the sprawling compound. A fourth senior U.S. official would not say whether the chargé d’affaires, Ross Wilson, and his immediate circle of advisers would remain at a diplomatic facility at the Kabul airport or return to the United States with other Americans who were being evacuated.

The Biden administration has repeatedly warned the Taliban against taking Kabul by force or even entering the city while the immense evacuation effort is underway, a process that could take days or even weeks to complete. Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy who has been negotiating with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, has sought to broker a deal to reduce violence as the extremist group seized control of most of Afghanistan.

At the same time, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military’s Central Command, has flown to the gulf region to oversee the military operations in Afghanistan. The Central Command’s forward headquarters is in Qatar.

A Defense Department official said Sunday that Bagram Air Base, the headquarters of the 20-year American war effort in Afghanistan, had also fallen to the Taliban.

Taliban fighters entered the base — which the United States turned over last month to Afghan security forces — on Sunday, the official said. More ominously, Taliban forces have also taken nearby Parwan prison, where thousands of prisoners, including Qaeda fighters, had been housed.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raced to the Pentagon on Sunday morning for meetings on the unfolding crisis.

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, called Afghanistan’s rapid deterioration an “unmitigated disaster” and blamed President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump for the troop withdrawals that Mr. Sasse said caused the country’s undoing.

“History must be clear about this: American troops didn’t lose this war — Donald Trump and Joe Biden deliberately decided to lose,” the senator said in a statement on Sunday morning.

“The looming defeat will badly hurt American intelligence and give jihadis a safe haven in Afghanistan, again,” Mr. Sasse said. “America will regret this.”

Kandahar

EPA, via Shutterstock
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Hamed Sarfarazi/Associated Press
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Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
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Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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With their seizure of Jalalabad on Sunday, the Taliban appeared to be on the verge of a complete takeover of Afghanistan. Planes departing the airport in Kabul, the capital, were filled with people fleeing the city.

Credit…Afghan Ministry of Defense, via Associated Press

With the Taliban on the verge of regaining power in Afghanistan, President Biden has defended his decision to leave the country after two decades of U.S. military involvement.

In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Biden said that the United States had invested nearly $1 trillion in Afghanistan over the past 20 years and had trained and equipped more than 300,000 Afghan security forces, including maintaining the Asian country’s air force.

“One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” Mr. Biden said. “And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

Mr. Biden’s statement came hours after the Taliban seized Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, but before the group captured the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, The group entered Kabul, the capital, on Sunday as President Ashraf Ghani fled.

Mr. Biden partly blamed President Donald J. Trump for the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan, saying that the deal made with the Taliban in 2020 had set a deadline of May 1 this year for the withdrawal of American forces and left the group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001.”

“I faced a choice — follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict,” Mr. Biden said.

This year, a study group appointed by Congress urged the Biden administration to abandon the May 1 deadline and slow the withdrawal of American troops, saying that a strict adherence to the timeline could lead Afghanistan into civil war. Pentagon officials made similar entreaties, but Mr. Biden maintained his long-held position that it was time for Afghanistan to fend for itself.

Since international troops began withdrawing in May, the Taliban have pursued their military takeover far more swiftly than U.S. intelligence agencies had anticipated. On Saturday, Mr. Biden accelerated the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to help ensure the safe evacuation from Kabul of U.S. citizens and Afghans who worked for the American government. That deployment will temporarily bring to 5,000 the number of American troops in the country.

In his statement, Mr. Biden warned the Taliban that “any action on their part on the ground in Afghanistan, that puts U.S. personnel or our mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong U.S. military response.”

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

A high school student in Kabul, Afghanistan’s war-scarred capital, worries that she now will not be allowed to graduate.

The girl, Wahida Sadeqi, 17, like many Afghan civilians in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal and ahead of a Taliban victory, keeps asking the same question: What will happen to me?

The American withdrawal, which effectively ends the longest war on foreign soil in United States history, is also likely to be the start of another difficult chapter for Afghanistan’s people.

“I am so worried about my future. It seems so murky. If the Taliban take over, I lose my identity,” said Ms. Sadeqi, an 11th grader at Pardis High School in Kabul. “It is about my existence. It is not about their withdrawal. I was born in 2004, and I have no idea what the Taliban did to women, but I know women were banned from everything.”

Uncertainty hangs over virtually every facet of life in Afghanistan. It is unclear what the future holds and whether the fighting will ever stop. For two decades, American leaders have pledged peace, prosperity, democracy, the end of terrorism and rights for women.

Few of those promises have materialized in vast areas of Afghanistan, but now even in the cities where real progress occurred, there is fear that everything will be lost when the Americans leave.

The Taliban, the extremist group that once controlled most of the country and continues to fight the government, insist that the elected president step down. Militias are increasing in prominence and power, and there is talk of a lengthy civil war.

Over two decades, the American mission evolved from hunting terrorists to helping the government build the institutions of a functioning government, dismantle the Taliban and empower women. But the U.S. and Afghan militaries were never able to effectively destroy the Taliban, who sought refuge in Pakistan, allowing the insurgents to stage a comeback.

The Taliban never recognized Afghanistan’s democratic government. And they appear closer than ever to achieving the goal of their insurgency: to return to power and establish a government based on their extremist view of Islam.

Women would be most at risk under Taliban rule. When the group controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, it barred women from taking most jobs or receiving educations and practically made them prisoners in their own homes — though this was already custom for many women in rural parts of the country.

“It is too early to comment on the subject. We need to know much more,” Fatima Gailani, an Afghan government negotiator who is involved in the continuing peace talks with the Taliban, said in April. “One thing is certain: It is about time that we learn how to rely on ourselves. Women of Afghanistan are totally different now. They are a force in our country — no one can deny them their rights or status.”

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

If there is a consistent theme over two decades of war in Afghanistan, it is the overestimation of the results of the $83 billion the United States has spent since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan security forces and an underestimation of the brutal, wily strategy of the Taliban.

The Pentagon had issued dire warnings to President Biden even before he took office about the potential for the Taliban to overrun the Afghan Army. But intelligence estimates indicated that it might happen in 18 months, not within weeks.

Commanders did know that the afflictions of the Afghan forces had never been cured: the deep corruption, the failure by the government to pay many Afghan soldiers and police officers for months, the defections, the soldiers sent to the front without adequate food and water, let alone arms.

Mr. Biden’s aides say that the persistence of those problems reinforced his belief that the United States could not prop up the Afghan government and its military in perpetuity. In Oval Office meetings this spring, he told aides that staying another year, or even five, would not make a substantial difference and was not worth the risks.

In the end, an Afghan force that did not believe in itself and a U.S. effort that Mr. Biden, and most Americans, no longer believed would alter events combined to bring an ignoble close to America’s longest war. The United States kept forces in Afghanistan far longer than the British did in the 19th century, and twice as long as the Soviets — with roughly the same results.

For Mr. Biden, the last of four American presidents to face painful choices in Afghanistan but the first to get out, the debate about a final withdrawal and the miscalculations over how to execute it began the moment he took office.

“Under Trump, we were one tweet away from complete, precipitous withdrawal,” said Douglas E. Lute, a retired general who directed Afghan strategy at the National Security Council for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

“Under Biden, it was clear to everyone who knew him, who saw him pressing for a vastly reduced force more than a decade ago, that he was determined to end U.S. military involvement,” Mr. Lute added, “but the Pentagon believed its own narrative that we would stay forever.”

He continued, “The puzzle for me is the absence of contingency planning: If everyone knew we were headed for the exits, why did we not have a plan over the past two years for making this work?”

Credit…Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday that the defeat of Afghan security forces that has led to the Taliban’s takeover “happened more quickly than we anticipated,” although he maintained the Biden administration’s position that keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan was not in American interests.

“This is heart-wrenching stuff,” said Mr. Blinken, who looked shaken, in an interview on CNN after a night that saw members of the Taliban enter the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the shuttering of the U.S. Embassy as the last remaining American diplomats in Afghanistan were moved to a facility at the city’s airport for better protection.

Mr. Blinken stopped short of saying that all American diplomats would return to the United States, repeating an intent to maintain a small core of officials in Kabul.

But he forcefully defended the administration’s decision to withdraw the military from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, saying it could have been vulnerable to Taliban attacks had the United States reneged on an agreement brokered under President Donald J. Trump for all foreign forces to leave the country.

“We would have been back at war with the Taliban,” Mr. Blinken said, calling that “something the American people simply can’t support — that is the reality.”

He said it was not in American interests to devote more time, money and, potentially, casualties, to Afghanistan at a time that the United States was also facing long-term strategic challenges from China and Russia. But, Mr. Blinken said, American forces will remain in the region to confront any terrorist threat against the United States at home that might arise from Afghanistan.

He also appeared to demand more conditions for the prospect of recognizing the Taliban as a legitimate government or establishing a formal diplomatic relationship with them.

Earlier, the Biden administration had said the Taliban, in order to acquire international financial support, must never allow terrorists to use Afghanistan as a haven, must not take Kabul by force and must not attack Americans.

On Sunday, Mr. Blinken said the Taliban must also uphold basic rights of citizens, particularly women who gained new freedoms to go to work and school after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

There will be no recognition of a Taliban government “if they’re not sustaining the basic rights of the Afghan people, and if they revert to supporting or harboring terrorists who might strike us,” the secretary of state said.

Mr. Blinken’s comments were swiftly criticized by the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, who said the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan “is going to be a stain on this president and his presidency.”

“They totally blew this one,” Mr. McCaul said. “They completely underestimated the strength of the Taliban.”

“I hate to say this: I hope we don’t have to go back there,” he said. “But it will be a threat to the homeland in a matter of time.”

Tags Afghanistan, Collapses, enter, Flees, Government, Kabul, Live, President, Taliban, Updates

World News

Algerian Troopers Die Combating Wildfires, President Says

Post author By
Post date August 11, 2021

ALGIERS, Algeria – At least 25 Algerian soldiers were killed to save residents from forest fires that devastate mountain forests and villages east of the capital, the president said Tuesday evening as the civilian death toll rose to at least 17 from the fires.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers had saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region where the Berbers of the North African nation live. Eleven other soldiers were burned while fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Ministry of Defense said.

Prime Minister Aïmene Benabderrahmane later said on state television that 17 civilians lost their lives, bringing the total death toll to 42. He didn’t make any details.

The Kabyle region, about 60 miles east of Algeria’s capital, Algiers, is littered with inaccessible villages. Some villagers fled, others tried to hold back the flames themselves with buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. There are no water dumping planes in the region.

The prime minister told state television that initial reports from security services showed that the fires in Kabyle were “highly synchronized”, adding that this “leads one to believe that it is criminal activity”. Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud, who had traveled to Kabyle, also blamed arson for the fires.

No details were immediately released to explain the high death toll in the military.

Dozens of fires broke out in Kabyle and elsewhere on Monday, and the Algerian authorities sent the army to help citizens fight the fires and evacuate. A 92-year-old woman who lives in the Kabyle mountain village of Ait Saada said the scene on Monday night looked like “the end of the world”.

“We were scared,” Fatima Aoudia told The Associated Press. “The entire hill has been turned into a huge flame.”

Climate scientists say there is little doubt that the burning of coal, oil and natural gas causes climate change to cause extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, forest fires, floods and storms. Worsening drought and heat, both related to climate change, are leading to forest fires in the American west and Russia’s northern region of Siberia. Extreme heat is also fueling the massive fires in Greece and Turkey.

Tags Algerian, Die, fighting, President, Soldiers, wildfires

Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris to go to Vietnam and Singapore amid tensions with China

Post author By
Post date July 31, 2021

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two June 14, 2021 in Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Singapore and Vietnam next month to strengthen the U.S.’s relationship and economic ties with the Indo-Pacific region, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Harris will be the first U.S. vice president to visit Vietnam, and the highest-ranking official from the Biden administration to visit the Indo-Pacific, and Asia overall. Indo-Pacific refers to the region that lies between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, bordered by Japan, India and Australia.

The visit comes as the administration works to fortify regional ties with Southeast Asian nations, while pushing back on China’s influence in the region and globally.

“President [Joe] Biden and Vice President Harris have made it a top priority to rebuild our global partnerships and keep our nation secure, and this upcoming visit continues that work — deepening our engagement in Southeast Asia,” Symone Sanders, senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Harris, said in the White House statement.

The White House did not provide details on the dates of the trip. It will also serve as Harris’ second international trip in office after she visited Guatemala and Mexico in June as part of her diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration to the U.S.

Harris will meet with the leaders of Singapore and Vietnam to discuss regional security, climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, according to the White House. She will also discuss joint efforts with the leaders to “promote a rules-based international order.”

The announcement also comes just days after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s own trip to Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam, which focused on offering support to Southeast Asia nations as territorial rifts with China unfold.

The vice president’s visit affirms the strength of the relationship between the U.S. and Singapore, according to a statement released on Friday by the press secretary to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the Business Times reported.

Harris will meet with Singapore leaders to discuss ways to cooperate in areas such as defense, digital trade and cyber security, according to the Business Times.

“I am delighted to welcome Vice-President Harris on her first official visit to Singapore,” the statement said, according to Business Times. “I look forward to our discussions on strengthening bilateral cooperation and working together on global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.”

Tags China, Harris, Kamala, President, Singapore, tensions, vice, Vietnam, Visit

Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris unveils technique to handle unlawful immigration

Post author By
Post date July 30, 2021

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building during the National Bar Association’s virtual meeting in Washington, DC, the United States, on Tuesday, July 27, 2021.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday released a comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of migration amid the recent surge in illegal border crossings between the US and Mexico.

The strategy states that the pandemic and “extreme weather conditions” have exacerbated the causes of migration, including corruption, violence, human trafficking and poverty.

The announcement comes as the government faces a crisis on the southern border with migrant detentions reaching a 20-year high in recent months.

More than 1.1 million arrests were recorded in the first six months of this fiscal year, according to US Customs and Border Protection. And in June alone, there was a record high of almost 190,000 arrests.

While the Biden government has sent millions of doses of vaccine and hurricane aid to Central America, Harris noted that such short-term aid “is not enough to provide long-term relief”.

Instead, the Vice President’s strategy promises more sustained efforts to address the motives for migration, including a realignment of engagement in Central America.

“In Central America, the root causes of migration run deep – and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States,” Harris wrote in a cover letter about the plan. “Because of this, our nation must work consistently with the region to address the needs that are causing people to leave Central America and come to our border.”

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden appointed Harris to lead the government’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and she visited the US-Mexico border in June as part of that effort.

The strategy is the Vice President’s latest move to address these root causes and is a core part of the Biden government’s broader plan, released Tuesday, to establish a “fair, orderly and humane immigration system.”

The plan is divided into five pillars but does not provide a detailed timetable or policy actions to be taken. The pillars include combating economic insecurity and inequality, combating democratic corruption and promoting respect for human rights.

The plan also addresses gang violence and crime, and the fight against sexual and gender-based violence.

Harris noted that the United Nations and the governments of Mexico, Japan and South Korea have pledged to join efforts to combat the motives for migrating from Central America.

“The United States cannot do this job on its own,” Harris wrote in the cover letter. “Our strategy is far-reaching – and focuses on our partnerships with other governments, international institutions, companies, foundations and civil society.”

On Tuesday, the White House also published a “Collaborative Migration Management Strategy” ordered by President Joe Biden in February. It outlines how the US will work with other countries to “manage safe, orderly and humane migration” in North and Central America.

Efforts include expanding employment opportunities and protection in countries where migrants leave, ensuring safe and humane border management, and creating more legal routes for entry into the United States

Dozens of migrants of Central American and Mexican descent are sleeping on the esplanade of the National Institute of Migration near the El Chaparral border crossing, waiting for US authorities to allow them to enter the country to begin their humanitarian asylum process.

Stringer | Image Alliance | Getty Images

Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for its immigration policies, claiming that the withdrawal of several directives enacted under former President Donald Trump encouraged illegal migration to the United States

Democrats and immigration supporters have also put pressure on Biden to ensure humane treatment of migrant children and families at the border and repeal a Trump-era public health ordinance known as Title 42.

The Health Ordinance has allowed border officials to deport migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum.

On Monday, the Biden government also announced that it would speed up deportations for some migrant families through an “expedited deportation,” which allows immigration authorities to deport a migrant without a hearing from an immigration judge.

The expeditious deportation procedure will apply specifically to family units who are not deported to Mexico under Title 42 and who are not entitled to asylum, according to a statement by the Ministry of Homeland Security.

This decision drew further criticism from supporters of the left.

Tags address, Harris, Illegal, Immigration, Kamala, President, Strategy, unveils, vice

World News

Haitian Ex-Intelligence Officer Gave Order to Kill President, Colombia Says

Post author By
Post date July 16, 2021

Colombian officials on Friday identified a former Haitian intelligence official as the man who ordered two former Colombian soldiers to kill Haiti’s president, Jovanel Moïse, this month.

The ex-intelligence official, Joseph Felix Badio, had first told two Colombian soldiers that they would be “arresting” the president, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, the head of Colombia’s national police, said at a news conference.

But a few days before the operation, he said, the plan changed. Mr. Badio told the former soldiers, Duberney Capador and Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia, that “what they had to do was assassinate the president of Haiti,” General Vargas said.

Colombian officials did not describe the source of the information. Earlier this week Colombian intelligence and foreign ministry officials told The New York Times that they had not been able to interview the Colombian suspects.

Haitian police have issued a “wanted” notice for Mr. Badio’s arrest, accusing him of murder. The Haitian police also accuse him of organizing logistics, procuring vehicles and coordinating the operation of the assassination squad.

Tags Colombia, ExIntelligence, gave, Haitian, kill, Officer, order, President

Politics

Biden condemns assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise

Post author By
Post date July 8, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he departs the White House in Washington, U.S., July 7, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, who was shot dead by attackers in his private residence overnight.

“The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti,” Biden said in a statement.

Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, confirmed the killing and said the military and police were in control of security in the country. Joseph added that the first lady, Martine Moise, was injured in the attack and is being treated at a hospital.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. was in touch with the government in Haiti and stood ready to provide aid if requested.

“We stand prepared to assist. We’re certainly in touch, but obviously this is still developing, and so we’ll assess what their needs are,” Psaki told reporters on Wednesday aboard Air Force One en route to Illinois.

Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., Bocchit Edmond, called on the U.S. and other nations to provide assistance to the armed forces in Haiti in the wake of the assassination.

Edmond said economic assistance was not the current priority and emphasized the need to bolster security in Haiti. In particular, he noted the importance of protecting Haiti’s borders as the perpetrators could still be inside the country or may have already escaped.

“We cannot have a stable country without security,” Edmond said during a press conference Wednesday.

Edmond added that a formal request to the U.S. for help in investigating the assassination has been submitted and is being evaluated. He noted that he was in contact with the White House, the State Department and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison.

The State Department echoed Biden’s condemnation of the assassination and urged Haiti to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“Those who seek to accomplish their political goals through violence and by subverting the rule of law will not succeed in thwarting the Haitian people, and their desire for a better, for a brighter future. We urge Haitian authorities to bring those responsible to justice,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price at a press conference Wednesday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been briefed on the attack and the security situation in Haiti by the U.S. ambassador, who is currently in Washington, and Deputy Chief of Mission Nicole Theriot, who is in Haiti, Price said. The State Department has also been in frequent contact with the prime minister.

Price said he couldn’t confirm that the U.S. has received a formal request for assistance but said the U.S. ambassador was in touch with the Haitian National Police.

The State Department strongly denied any involvement by the Drug Enforcement Administration after the attackers reportedly were heard identifying themselves as DEA agents.

“These reports are absolutely false,” Price said. “The United States condemns this heinous act. These false reports are nothing more than that, just false reports.”

Based on a video shot from a neighbor’s house during the attack, Edmond asserted that the perpetrators of the assassination were “well trained professional killers, commandos,” some of whom spoke Spanish. Haitians speak French and Creole.

The attack adds to the political upheaval in the Caribbean country, which has been facing a surge in gang violence, Covid-19 cases and anti-government protests, the Associated Press reported.

Moise, 53, was accused of trying to increase his power and faced months of demands from opposition leaders to step down, according to the AP. He had been ruling by decree for over a year after Haiti did not hold elections.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tags Assassination, Biden, condemns, Haitian, Jovenel, Moïse, President

Politics

Kamala Harris’ chief of employees limits entry to vp

Post author By
Post date June 29, 2021

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak during an event on high-speed internet access in the South Court Auditorium at the White House complex on June 3, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

Kamala Harris’ chief of staff has effectively shut out several longtime of the vice president’s political and business world allies as the Biden administration contends with several challenges, including battles over voting rights and the border, according to people familiar with the matter.

Harris has not been returning phone calls to people who have considered themselves members of her inner circle, including donors and people who supported her Senate and White House runs, according to some of the people with knowledge of the situation.

Under chief of staff Tina Flournoy’s watch, Harris speaks regularly to President Joe Biden, her family members, a tight group of friends, and her strategists, these people said. The people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Yet as Flournoy, who built a tough reputation while working for former President Bill Clinton, exerts her power as a gatekeeper to the vice president, several of Harris’ allies outside the federal government are struggling to get their calls returned after years of regularly being in touch with her, some of these people said.

A person familiar with Flournoy’s handling of incoming communication with these associates says she sometimes starts a conversation asking, “What is it that you want from the vice president?” If the person wants to just say hello and have a brief conversation, Flournoy says that time will come at future private events.

If a person wants to speak to Harris about where she stands on policy, Flournoy will, at times, say they can’t speak to the vice president about policy and will make an introduction to one of her policy advisors.

Some of these same advisors and donors are trying other routes, including by attempting to speak with Douglas Emhoff, the vice president’s husband. Many of those calls have yet to be returned, these people said.

Chiefs of staff, especially those in the highest echelons of government, are expected to run a tight ship for their bosses, including by limiting who gets in the door for meetings or who reaches them on the phone. In the vice president’s world, some allies can get in – but they guard their status so they don’t run afoul of Flournoy.

For instance, an influential Democratic donor who raised money for Harris’ failed bid for president recently tried to reach out to the vice president, and had yet to receive a call back. Then this person decided to contact Flournoy.

That didn’t work. The donor reached out to a fellow Democratic financier for Flournoy’s contact information. But the fellow financier declined to share Flournoy’s email address for fear of losing access themselves.

Another Harris supporter said she hasn’t heard from the vice president since a call with supporters during the transition period.

While Flournoy has made it tougher to get in touch with Harris, some of the vice president’s supporters accept it as a consequence of Harris building out her portfolio. Harris recently made her first visit as vice president to the U.S.-Mexico border, she touted President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, and is expected to have a role working on criminal justice reform, among other items.

One person close to Harris said they appreciated what Flournoy is doing and has accepted that it’s simply going to be harder to get in touch with Harris now that she is vice president and begins working on big-ticket initiatives.

“There’s no question she [Flournoy] is a strong chief of staff and there’s no question that she is very focused on making sure that the VP is able to be focusing on the coronavirus pandemic and getting people vaccinated, the border, voting rights,” said another Harris ally who has spoken to Flournoy.

“So by making sure that she is able to focus on what she’s being charged with, there could be people who are not necessarily getting access because the chief of staff is prioritizing those tasks for the VP over political outreach,” this person explained.

A spokeswoman for Harris did not return a request for comment.

In this May 31, 2008 file photo, Tina Flournoy, then Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws committee member, during a hearing in Washington.

Susan Walsh | AP

Flournoy’s background

Flournoy has deep roots in Washington, D.C., and is a veteran of the mainstream Democratic establishment.

In the latter half of the 1980s, she worked as a law clerk for Julia Cooper Mack, a judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals, before jumping into politics, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

CRP also says she later had stints as a counsel for the Democratic National Convention, as a leader on Clinton’s transition team after he was elected in 1992, and then as counsel for the former president’s office of presidential personnel.

Flournoy is listed as general counsel for cigarette maker Phillip Morris in a 1995 White House press advisory naming Kennedy Center advisory committee members. Later, she served as traveling chief of staff for Sen. Joe Lieberman during the 2000 presidential campaign, when he was Al Gore’s running mate.

After working on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president, she became assistant to the president for public policy at the American Federation of Teachers, an influential union. Flournoy was originally connected to Harris by Minyon Moore, who was an assistant to Clinton when he was president. Moore, who didn’t return a request for comment, was once named as one of the 100 most powerful women in Washington.

Before she became Harris’ chief of staff, Flournoy led the staff working for former President Bill Clinton starting in 2013. At that post, Flournoy oversaw a staff of approximately 10 people who worked directly with Clinton, and had regular engagement with the Clinton Foundation, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

While Flournoy was chief of staff, Clinton held an infamous tarmac meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch while his wife ran for president in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server was being investigated at the time by the FBI, which is part of the Justice Department.

Flournoy’s style working for Harris is familiar to people who knew her while she worked for Clinton. She took over managing access to Clinton after the departure of his longtime right-hand man, Doug Band. Band, who co-founded corporate consulting firm Teneo, is known for helping create Clinton’s post-presidential life, including assisting in launching the foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.

According to a report by Vanity Fair, Clinton and Band interacted with some controversial celebrities and executives, including the late Jeffrey Epstein, who later died by suicide in prison after being arrested for child sex trafficking.

“If you look at Doug’s tenure, it ranges from Epstein to others,” a person with direct knowledge of Flournoy’s work told CNBC.

“If you look from 2013 through about a year a half ago when Tina was here, you can’t point to any single one of them being here [Clinton’s orbit]. I call some of those people who were once around ‘the unsavory humans,'” this person added.

Clinton praised the hiring of Flournoy in a tweet after Harris made the official announcement. A spokesman for Clinton did not return a request for comment.

Band did not comment.

Tags Access, chief, Harris, Kamala, Limits, President, staff, vice

Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris visits the U.S.-Mexico border as immigration disaster continues

Post author By
Post date June 26, 2021

Vice President Kamala Harris made her first visit as Vice President to the US-Mexico border on Friday, touring immigration facilities and meeting with young women.

Speaking to reporters after her tour, Harris said the border trip increased the need to address the root causes of the surge in undocumented migrants from Central America.

“The lack of economic opportunity, very often violence, corruption and food insecurity,” said Harris, “including fear of cartels and gang violence.”

“The work we have to do is address the root causes or else we will continue to see the effects of what is happening at the border,” she said. “It will, as we have done, require a comprehensive approach that recognizes every part of it.”

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden appointed Harris to work to address these causes. In June, she visited Guatemala and Mexico, where she delivered a blunt message to potential migrants.

“I want to make it clear to people in the region who are considering making this dangerous hike to the US-Mexico border, don’t come. Don’t come,” Harris said at a press conference in Guatemala on June 7th. “I think if you get to our border, you will be rejected.”

Harris had been criticized by Republicans in recent weeks for not having personally visited the US-Mexico border.

The White House said Harris always plans to make the trip at the right time. However, the June 25 election may have been influenced by former President Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday to visit the June 30 border with Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott.

A day after Trump announced his upcoming trip, the White House said Harris would visit the border on June 25. Harris’ trip took the White House press corps by surprise. Typically, West Wing aides brief a small group of reporters at least a week in advance of the President and Vice President’s travel plans to give news agencies time to organize their coverage.

Harris denied on Friday that Trump’s plans had any impact on her schedule.

“I said I was going to the border in March, so this is not a new plan,” Harris told reporters after landing in Texas. “Coming to the border … means looking at the effects of what we’ve seen in Central America.”

However, the White House said El Paso’s choice to visit was actually influenced by the former president. In his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump claimed his border wall had turned El Paso from a criminal city into a safe city that angered residents.

Biden and Harris have been criticized for pulling back on Trump-era restrictive immigration policies, even though immigrant detentions on the U.S.-Mexico border have hit 20-year highs in recent months.

Immigration remains a hot topic for both sides. Democrats and pro-immigrant activists have urged Biden to further reduce enforcement and ensure humane treatment of migrant children and families who arrive at the border.

White House officials have said for months that Harris’ efforts to curb immigration from Central America are diplomatic-centered and distinct from border security issues.

“The Vice President’s trip to Guatemala and Mexico earlier this year was about the causes, and this border visit is about the effects,” their spokesman, Symone Sanders, told reporters on Thursday. “Both trips will influence the government’s cause strategy.”

– Reuters correspondent Nandita Bose contributed to this report.

Tags border, continues, Crisis, Harris, Immigration, Kamala, President, USMexico, vice, Visits

World News

Iran’s Incoming President Vows Powerful Line on Missiles and Militias

Post author By
Post date June 21, 2021

Iran will not negotiate with the United States over its ballistic missile or regional militia programs, its Conservative-elect Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday.

In his first press conference as President-elect, Raisi said he would not meet with President Biden and urged the United States to uphold a 2015 agreement that restricted Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions.

“My serious recommendation to the US government is to immediately return to its obligations to lift all sanctions and show their goodwill,” he said in a briefing with national and international reporters in Tehran on Monday.

“Regional issues and missiles are non-negotiable,” he said, adding that the United States had failed to enforce the issues it “negotiated, agreed and committed to”.

The comments come as the US and Iran negotiate through mediators in Vienna to revive the 2015 agreement. Mr Biden has pledged to seek a return to the deal, which would lift around 1,600 sanctions against Iran after the Trump administration stepped out of the deal in 2018, calling it too weak.

Mr Raisi’s promise to refuse to negotiate missile and militia issues falling outside of the 2015 nuclear deal came as no surprise, analysts said, reiterating the positions he had taken as a candidate as well as those of the current administration.

“It was to be expected – he knows more about what he will not do than about concrete foreign policy plans,” says Hamidreza Azizi, visiting scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “He just repeated the general positions of the Islamic Republic.”

When meeting with Mr Biden, the elected Iranian President had only one word answer: “No”.

What is striking is the determination with which Raisi declined the possibility of a meeting with the US president, said Azizi, attributing this to his lack of diplomatic background.

“The tone was not diplomatic and we will see that again during his presidency as he has no diplomatic experience,” he said.

Talal Atrissi, a sociologist at the Lebanese University in Beirut who studies Iran and its regional allies, said Raisi’s victory was a blow to reformists and would undermine Iran’s relations with its regional militias known as the “Axis of Resistance” , strengthen. These include Hezbollah in Lebanon, various militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are supported by Iran and who share their anti-Israel and anti-American stance.

“Raisi will remain committed to the Axis of Resistance,” said Atrissi, adding that Iran’s regional activities were never directed by the President, but by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“This relationship is not going to change at all,” he said. “On the contrary, there will be more cooperation.”

Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran had failed, Raisi said on Monday, according to the Iranian state-controlled broadcaster Press TV.

A negotiating team involved in the indirect talks in Vienna will continue those talks until his government takes its place, he said. He added that he supported discussions that safeguard Iran’s national interests, but “we will not allow talks for talks’ sake”.

This appeal also extended to European nations, said Raisi, “who must not allow themselves to be influenced by US pressure and must meet their obligations.”

Raisi, an ultra-conservative chief justice believed to be the potential successor to the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been charged with human rights abuses, including participating in a mass execution of opponents of the government in 1988. That record has earned him sanctions from the United States .

However, on Monday he called himself a “defender of human rights and the safety and comfort of the people,” adding that he would continue this role as president.

He also voiced a new idea: Iran is ready to reestablish diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, which collapsed in 2016 after Iranians protested the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric that stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

That proposal, Azizi said, appeared to be part of Iran’s efforts to develop bilateral ties with other countries in the region independently of the United States, including American allies like Saudi Arabia.

Also over the weekend, the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr was temporarily shut down, with officials calling it a “technical fault” and telling Iranians that the shutdown, which began on Saturday, would take a few days, according to the media.

Farnaz Fassihi contributed to the coverage.

Tags incoming, Irans, Line, Militias, Missiles, President, tough, Vows