The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed meets with Afghans displaced by the ongoing conflict. Credit: United Nations

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Feb 3 2021 (IPS)

President Biden and his administration confront a very challenging situation within the United States and abroad. His predecessor, Mr. Trump, refused to accept the defeat or extend any cooperation to the incoming team.

Simultaneously, the threat of internal terrorism, fomented by the former president’s rhetoric, is real. National security apparatuses are on maximum alert. Furthermore, Republican leaders have not yet decided to realign their party on values defended by Abraham Lincoln.

The health crisis is unprecedented. So far, over 450’0000 Americans have lost their lives in less than a year because of the coronavirus ravages alone. The economy is frail and unemployment soaring. President Biden and Vice-President Harris inherit a deeply divided country. Such a state of affairs is distinctive and has never occurred in the United States of America’s recently remembered history.

Abroad, the United States suffered an enormous setback during the last four years. Mr. Trump snubbed every friend, ally, and liable institution, antagonizing practically the whole world against his policies.

Among other significant lapses, his discord with Europeans and NATO, unilateral retraction from the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement, unhindered support to the Saudi-led Yemen tragedy, and troops withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan have been flagrant deviations from the standard and sound approaches undertaken by any government, Democrat or Republican.

On Afghanistan, more specifically, the United States and its allies spent trillions of dollars since 2001 on the bilateral and multilateral military, humanitarian, and development aid schemes. Thousands of their soldiers either lost their lives or sustained severe injuries.

However, due to evident inefficiency, systematic corruption, rampant nepotism, intentioned tribalism, and the traditional carelessness of Kabul leaders, little changed in ordinary people’s lives. Alarming insecurity all over the country, a quasi-inexistent economy, the inapplicable rule of law, raging violations of human rights, rising bigotry, and lack of vision for the future portray the current situation.

The Trump-Taliban agreement is perceived as a nail that aimed at durably coffining the hope for democracy, prosperity, and a peaceful future. There is a growing feeling within and outside Afghanistan that the United States did not achieve tangible results from their longest and costly war since Vietnam.

The Biden/Harris administration could transform the United States’ looming letdown into a success story of their foreign policy. Boldness and slightly more patience are essential to such an achievement.

Practically all post-Taliban chieftains in Afghanistan proved inept and part of the problem. The hope for a solution and taking Afghanistan out of the abyss rely on a young and incorruptible generation. Some students and scholars voiced their views by addressing President Biden and Vice-President Harris in a letter on 26 January 2021, transmitted to the White House two days later.

They valiantly highlight some inconsistency between policy and practice and the continued unfortunate support provided to inefficient and corrupt individuals by the international community. They further underscore their growing fear that Afghanistan has become the battleground for a new “great game” among superpowers that would last for decades.

They deem it necessary to learn from mistakes committed by the international community and Afghan leadership. In their view, the new administration in the United States needs to opt for an innovative approach that would finally bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and allow an honorable withdrawal of foreign troops from this country. In particular, they insist on the following:

  • 1 – Comprehensive review of the Trump-Taliban agreement: This accord is “unilateral, uncalculated, and even dangerous for the region’s peace and security.” Moreover, it is the outcome of an expedited process to secure a “foreign policy success” for the former president of the United States. Indeed, the Taliban deem it their undeniable success, generating understandable concerns among Afghan people and regional powers, particularly India, the Russian Federation, Central Asian countries, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the People’s Republic of China.

    2 – Robust nation-building efforts: It is evident that Afghanistan is a country possessing defined boundaries with its neighbors and a seat and recognition in all relevant international and regional structures. However, history has demonstrated that substantial efforts have never been undertaken by Afghan rulers to weld durably different ethnic groups and interests around common national values. Without such an enterprise, any undertaking to salvage Afghanistan will face insurmountable challenges. Furthermore, ethnic rivalries, tension, and conflict have always led adversaries of the country to take advantage of the divisions and achieve their objectives at the expense of the Afghan people’s well-being.

    3 – Initiating a viable and just peace process: Since the Geneva Accord of 1988 between the Soviet-sponsored communist regime in Kabul and Pakistan, numerous other futile agreements have been concluded in which “transfer and/or distribution of power” constituted the essence of deliberations among the protagonists, ignoring the fundamental internal and external causes of the conflict. The Doha peace process, already ten years old, merely focuses on power-sharing formulas, considered a peripheral endeavor. With a fresh foreign policy, it is a golden opportunity for the United States government to engage in a process that addresses the deep-rooted inter-Afghan, regional, and international concerns in an unbiased manner.

    4 – Review of the Afghan constitution and its derivative laws: It is clear that the outcome of the Bonn agreement of December 2001 and the subsequent post-Taliban constitution of Afghanistan did not reflect the Afghan society’s deep transformations during the harsh years of communism and Soviet invasion, the violent inter-faction battles among Mujahidin, and the inhuman Taliban regime. Therefore, the Afghan constitution’s reform is necessary. Continuation to build on the wrong foundations would prolong the agony of the Afghan people and draw the certainty of a “great failure” closer.

    5 – Search for an amicable understanding with Pakistan: Pakistan played a crucial role in hosting millions of refugees and allowing Mujahidin groups to fight the Soviets and their puppet regimes. However, their post-communism interference in Afghanistan and blind support to the Taliban, one of the most notorious terrorist organizations in the region, brought unforgivable tragedies. Nevertheless, Afghans must find an amicable understanding with Pakistan for the peace, security, and prosperity of both countries. It must lead Pakistan to end harboring, training, and arming the Taliban. Moreover, the crucial question that friends of Afghanistan must answer would be whether the Taliban is “an armed opposition group” or mercenaries at the service of a foreign nation. The answer to this question is fundamental for the future peace and security of the region.

    6 – Elaboration and implementation of a vigorous good-governance and ethics framework, policy and action plan for public and private sectors: There is no question that corruption, nepotism, tribalism, and decision-makers’ inefficiency have gangrened all organs of public and private segments in Afghanistan. Without developing and executing a clear policy and action plan to fight and defeat the scourges mentioned above and cultivate and promote good governance in the community, educative, administrative, and business stratum, international assistance would continue to be wasted and national resources embezzled in large part.

    7 – Necessity to prepare the future: Leaders in Afghanistan have hardly explained where their political, social, and economic visions would take the country in the near and distant future. In addition, repeated election riggings have induced a total lack of trust in the democratic system, further fomenting corruption and mismanagement. Without clear, transparent, and honest election procedures and competent people in charge, there will be no hope for a peaceful country. The presence of short- medium- and long-term development plans would allow the population to determine where their country would be in ten, twenty, or fifty years and what sacrifices are needed to achieve such objectives.

The letter’s signatories justifiably call on President Biden and Vice-President Harris to promote and support a young and incorruptible generation of Afghan leaders to endeavor and surmount the impediments mentioned above.

With all sincerity and humility, the new administration in Washington must embrace this new approach and abandon the policy of building on what did not function. It is also the right moment to put intense pressure on Pakistan to stop its unhindered and destructive support to the Taliban.

Finally, the international community and the United States, in particular, need to define their position concerning the Taliban and those who harbor, arm, train, and finance them, bearing in mind that their success to share or grab power would be perceived the success of other terrorist organizations too over the forces of democracy and the rule of law.

Afghans have suffered for over forty years from wars, destruction, killing of innocents – mainly women and children, extremism, terrorism, bigotry, and the ineptness of their leaders. It is high time to end their suffering with a refreshing policy and a new generation of leaders!

 

The post The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Saber Azam is a former United Nations official who served with UNHCR and DPKO in key positions in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is also the author of SORAYA: The Other Princess, a historical fiction that overflies the latest seven decades of Afghan history, and Hell’s Mouth, also a historical fiction that recounts the excellent work of humanitarian and human rights actors in Côte d’Ivoire during the First Liberian Civil War.

The post The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Foreign travelers must show negative Covid-19 test to enter Sweden

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Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced the news on Wednesday.

Lyssna: Foreign travelers must show negative Covid-19 test to enter Sweden

  • Starting Saturday, until the end of March, nearly all foreign travelers coming to Sweden must show a negative Covid-19 test before entering the country.
  • Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said the restriction exists to slow the spread of a more contagious variant of the Covid-19 virus first discovered in the UK.
  • Several people are exempt from the rule, like Swedish citizens and those under 18.

Frank Radosevich
frank.radosevich_ii@sverigesradio.se

Myanmar’s military is using absurd legal charges to keep leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked up

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Aung San Suu Kyi on January 27, days before the military takeover of Myanmar. | Thet Aung/AFP via Getty Images

After Monday’s coup, the de facto civilian leader is accused of having illegal walkie talkies.

Early Monday, Myanmar’s military took control of the government, arresting the de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her political allies in what the Biden administration has called a “coup.”

Now the military has announced formal charges against Suu Kyi. Her crime? Being in possession of illegally imported walkie-talkies. The charge carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

If it sounds like an absurd charge, that’s because it is. It’s really just a way for the military to manipulate the law and create a guise to continue detaining Suu Kyi. The ousted leader is currently under house arrest at her home in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital.

Myanmar’s deposed president, Win Myint, who ruled alongside Suu Kyi in her role as state counsellor, also faces charges for violating Covid-19 restrictions. He has been accused of greeting a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally back in November.

The almost comical charges against these leaders are another reminder of how brittle Myanmar’s democracy is.

They come just days after the military conducted a full-scale takeover of the government after making unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in the country’s November elections.

Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) Party won an overwhelming popular mandate in that election, winning 396 seats in parliament. Neither the country’s Union Election Commission nor international observers found evidence of widespread irregularities that would have changed the outcome of the vote.

But just as the new parliament was set to convene, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, stepped in. They arrested Suu Skyi and hundreds of members of her party, along with other activists and public figures. The internet was shut down and flights were grounded. The military declared a national emergency for one year and said it would remain in control during that time.

“The military is using the laws as a means to continue to detain both Suu Kyi and Win Myint,” John Quinley, a human rights specialist for Fortify Rights told the Wall Street Journal. “The coup is bringing Myanmar back to the dark days.”

An uncertain future for Myanmar

The Tatmadaw ruled the country for decades, and the country has experienced two previous coups, in 1962 and 1988. The military’s grip on power left the country isolated politically and economically, so the military worked to draft a new constitution adopted in 2008, which carved out some responsibilities for civilian leadership, while the military retained much of the actual power. In 2015, Myanmar’s pro-democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi and the party she led won a massive victory in the election, and Suu Kyi became the “state counsellor,” a de facto civilian leader, the following year.

Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest for her pro-democracy activism, is seen as a mother-like figure by her millions of supporters in the country. Her indifference to the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority tarnished her image abroad, but she has enormous support at home.

Suu Kyi’s party has called for nonviolent resistance against the regime, and in cities like Yangon, people banged pots and bans and honked horns in protest against the coup, according to the New York Times.

The Associated Press reported that hospital workers have also declared they will not work for the military regime, with some going on strike and others wearing red ribbons to show their opposition — a protest that may carry even more weight given the Covid-19 crisis.

These small acts of protests were echoed elsewhere, including in places like Bangkok, Thailand.

The rest of the world is closely watching what the military does next — though options for punishing the military and pushing them to back down are somewhat limited. At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Russia and China blocked a statement condemning the takeover.

The foreign minister of the G7, an organization of the world’s biggest economies, denounced the coup in a statement Wednesday. “We call upon the military to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law.”

The Biden administration has formally labeled the Myanmar takeover a coup, and will restrict some aid to the country, excluding funds that support civil society and humanitarian aid. The administration is also reviewing the imposition of economic sanctions on Myanmar, which were removed in 2016 as a reward for its democratization efforts.

This week has shown the hollowness of some of those democratization efforts in a place where something as minor as possessing imported walkie talkies can be used to justify detaining the country’s top civilian leader.

Boris Johnson accuses EU of appearing to cast doubt on Good Friday agreement

Give up looking for a new fright figment of your fevered imagination – just govern or quit!

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Prime minister criticises Brussels for invoking article 16 of post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol

Boris Johnson has accused the EU of appearing to “cast doubt” on the Good Friday agreement, with last week’s decision to invoke article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Speaking at prime minister’s questions after a call with Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, Johnson said: “It was most regrettable that the EU should seem to cast doubt on the Good Friday agreement, the principles of the peace process, by seeming to call for a border across the island of Ireland.”

Continue reading…

Lawmaker who faced anti-vax attack: ‘The movement is growing more violent’

QAnon has embedded itself along with other ultra-right wingers with anti-vax nutcases..

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Dodger Stadium protest that hampered distribution is no isolated incident, says Dr Richard Pan, who has experienced death threats and assault

On Saturday, anti-vaccine activists temporarily disrupted access to Los Angeles’s Dodger Stadium, one of the largest mass vaccination sites in the country, yelling at healthcare workers and calling the many older individuals patiently waiting for a vaccine in their cars “lab rats”.

To Dr Richard Pan, a state senator who has authored one of the toughest pro-vaccination laws in the country, the misguided, anti-science messaging was nothing new. Over the last decade, Pan has unwillingly become an expert in the anti-vaccine movement, having been a target of protests, death threats and an assault himself.

Continue reading…

Texas prisons have doled out thousands of COVID-19 vaccines — but none have gone to prisoners who get the virus at high rates

No fixing dumb Texans, it seems – sad…
Texas Department of Criminal Justice William G. McConnell Unit at Chase Field in Beeville.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has not said when or how inmates will be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Credit: Jennifer Whitney for The Texas Tribune

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The Texas prison system has administered more than 5,500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine, but none have been given to inmates who qualify for the shot under the state’s current phase of the rollout.

And the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has repeatedly refused to provide information on when or how its older or medically vulnerable incarcerated population will be vaccinated.

More than 240 state inmates have died after contracting the coronavirus — about two of every 1,000 inmates — according to prison death reports analyzed by the Texas Justice Initiative. That’s a significantly higher percentage of the population compared to the rest of the state and many other prison systems in the country. Thirty-eight prison employees have also died, according to TDCJ.

Prisons are notorious incubators for illness, and repeated outbreaks have erupted throughout the state’s 99 prison units since the virus swept through the state last March. It is not abnormal for hundreds of inmates at any given time to test positive at a single prison, and experts say outbreaks inside prison walls often are caused by and lead to more cases in surrounding communities.

Of the 8,900 doses the state has reportedly allocated to 66 TDCJ lockups so far, the prisons’ health care partners had administered 5,562 doses by Monday, an agency spokesperson said. Officials first injected health care workers in the prisons, following guidance from the state health department. Then, an unspecified number of correctional staff working in COVID-infected areas were vaccinated.

The spokesperson declined to clarify if the agency gave doses only to older correctional staff or those with certain medical conditions, as the second phase of the state’s vaccination plan allows, or if the officers were being considered health care workers. Jeff Ormsby, the executive director of Texas prisons’ American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees branch, said correctional employees in hospital settings are starting to be vaccinated.

“They’re going to officers that are working in medical facilities or wings, then I was told they would go to COVID-restricted wings, then they’d start doing all the other staff,” Ormsby said.

Because of the disease-prone environment of prisons, inmate advocates in the state and throughout the country have urged officials to prioritize those who live and work in prisons to get the coronavirus vaccine quickly. Laurie Pherigo, a prison reentry advocate in Austin, said prisoners also often don’t get adequate medical care. She noted many of those who died in custody were serving only short sentences or were about to be released.

“You have more of a chance of getting it, and you have more of a chance of dying,” Pherigo said. “We’re sentencing people to death effectively for the most minor crimes on the block, and that’s not acceptable. That should never be acceptable.”

Still, she viewed the agency’s move to start vaccinating staff as a start. Ormsby said it was best to start with officers, for their safety and as a ripple effect.

“If we can prevent staff from bringing it in, then the inmates … are safer,” he said.

TDCJ has not provided any details on when or how it will vaccinate inmates, but spokesperson Jeremy Desel said the agency is listening very closely to state guidance. The Texas Department of State Health Services allocates the state’s vaccine doses and has set the parameters for who should be immunized while demand for the vaccine still far exceeds supply.

Texas is in Phases 1A and 1B of its vaccine rollout plan. Phase 1A includes front-line health care workers and nursing home residents. People 65 and older and those with certain chronic medical conditions qualify for the shot under Phase 1B.

Though prison officials so far have only immunized staff, a health department spokesperson told The Texas Tribune last month that the vaccines provided to TDCJ are for both inmates and staff who would qualify under the phases. Gov. Greg Abbott has previously dodged a question on whether inmates will be prioritized to get the vaccine, and his spokesperson did not respond to questions for this story.

Though TDCJ has been silent on the topic, advocates have noted that many inmates are still hesitant to get a coronavirus vaccine, especially one offered by the prison health care system. The wariness is similar to the distrust many people in the free world feel with the rapidly developed vaccine, exaggerated by the country’s history of medical experimentation on prisoners and a lack of information in lockups.

Desel said videos and posters have been put into the prisons to detail the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.

“Doing the officers first could help in showing [inmates], ‘Hey, we need to do this,’” said Terra Tucker, the Texas state director at Alliance for Safety and Justice.

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Biden’s FCC takes its first steps toward making the internet affordable

FCC acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel.
FCC acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel at an oversight hearing on June 24, 2020, in Washington, DC. | Jonathan Newton/AFP via Getty Images

Big Telecom is responding.

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President Joe Biden’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) isn’t wasting any time trying to get low-income families online. Under acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC is moving to expand a broadband services discount program to cover remote schooling. And at least one company, possibly hoping to get into the new FCC’s good graces, has now voluntarily doubled the internet speeds on its package for low-income people.

On Monday, the FCC announced it was seeking comment on requests to expand E-Rate, which offers schools and libraries discounts on equipment and services needed to access the internet. With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing many students to do their schooling from home, Democrats have called for expanding the E-Rate to cover residential connections as well. Millions of students don’t have adequate internet in their homes, forcing them to use mobile phone data and even internet from nearby fast food restaurants. So discounted home internet services could help quite a bit.

Previous FCC Chair Ajit Pai repeatedly denied calls to consider the expansion. Instead, he asked companies not to cut Americans off from the internet if they couldn’t pay their bills, waive any late fees, make their wifi hotspots free, and consider adopting programs for low-income people. Then, Pai had to hope that the companies would say yes to these suggestions. Rosenworcel, on the other hand, is a vocal proponent of E-Rate expansion, so it’s no surprise that she’s moving quickly here.

“It’s clear that a priority for the Biden-Harris administration and its FCC is going to be getting robust broadband to every household in the US,” Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology & Law Policy, told Recode. “It’s a social justice issue, it’s an economic issue, it’s a health care issue, it’s an education issue, it’s a democracy issue. In other words, broadband internet access enables all of the administration’s top priorities.”

Perhaps sensing which way the wind is blowing (and under pressure from student activists), Comcast announced on Tuesday that, starting in March, it will double the download speeds on its Internet Essentials package to 50 Mbps download and bump the upload speed to 5 Mbps for no extra cost. Currently, Comcast offers 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds for $9.95 per month to people who are on government assistance. That’s the bare minimum to meet the FCC’s standard for broadband speed, and it’s actually an increase over the 15/2 Mbps Comcast offered before the pandemic hit.

The FCC’s 25/3 Mbps standard has been in place for the last six years and the entirety of Pai’s tenure, despite the changes in what the internet offers and what people use it for, and despite repeated calls to raise the standard. Some of those calls came from Rosenworcel, who argued that necessary services like telemedicine and school need faster speeds, especially when multiple people are using them. She has advocated for a download speed baseline of 100 Mbps.

Comcast isn’t going that far, but its 50/5 Mbps — and the timing of its announcement — suggest that it’s paying very close attention to how the new FCC will regulate its business, and possibly hoping to get on its good side with these proactive changes. It’s safe to say that Comcast understands that Pai’s “light-touch framework” days are over.

In addition to the E-Rate expansion, the FCC is also accepting requests for comment from the public about its Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which offers discounts of up to $50 on broadband services and equipment. While Sohn says the latest moves are a good sign, much more is still needed to close the digital divide.

“That includes the FCC, other federal agencies, the states, localities, philanthropy, digital inclusion advocates, and industry,” Sohn said. “As the industry will readily admit (and did admit by supporting the $50 emergency broadband benefit), it can’t close the digital divide itself.”

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