Chris Hedges's Blog, page 292

Fighting in the Forever Wars Turned Me Into a Progressive

This piece first appeared in TomDispatch. 

“Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners.” — Robert Graves, Goodbye To All That(1929).

I’m one of the lucky ones. Leaving the madness of Army life with a modest pension and all of my limbs intact feels like a genuine escape. Both the Army and I knew it was time for me to go. I’d tired of carrying water for empire and they’d grown weary of dealing with my dissenting articles and footing the bill for my seemingly never-ending PTSD treatments. Now, I’m society’s problem, unleashed into a civilian world I’ve never gazed upon with adult eyes.

I entered West Point in July 2001, a bygone era of (relative) peace, the moment, you might say, before the 9/11 storm broke. I leave an Army that remains remarkably engaged in global war, patrolling an increasingly militarized world.

In a sense, I snuck out of the military at age 35, my early retirement an ignominious end to a once-promising career. Make no mistake, I wanted out. I’d relocated 11 times in 18 years, often enough to war zones, and I simply didn’t have another deployment in me. Still, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that I’ll mourn the loss of my career, of the identity inherent in soldiering, of the experience of adulation from a grateful (if ill-informed) society.

Perhaps that’s only natural, no matter how much such a hokey admission embarrasses me. I recognize, at least, that there’s a paradox at work here: the Army and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) made me who I now am, brought a new version of me to life, and gifted me (if that’s the right phrase for something so grim) with the stories, the platform, and the pain that now make my writing possible. Those military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in particular turned a budding neocon into an unabashed progressive. My experiences there transformed an insecure, aspiring dealer-in-violence into someone who might be as near as a former military man can get to a pacifist. And what the U.S. Army helped me become is someone who, in the end, I don’t mind gazing at in the mirror each morning.

Should I thank the Army then? Maybe so, no matter the damage that institution did to my psyche and my conscience over the years. It’s hard, though, to thank a war machine that dealt so much death to so many civilians across significant parts of the planet for making me who I am. And no matter how much I told myself I was different, the truth is that I was complicit in so much of that for so long.

In a way, I wonder whether something resembling an apology, rather than a statement of pride in who I’ve become, is the more appropriate way of saying goodbye to all that. Nonetheless, the story is all mine, the burdensome, the beautiful, the banal, and the horrific. War, violence, and bigotry — as I’ve written — are America’s original sins and, looking back, it seems to me that they may be mine as well. In that context, though I’m now officially retired, I think of this as my last piece authored as an active military dissenter — a clearing of the air — before moving on to a life of activism, as well as an unarmed life of words.

What I Won’t Be Missing

It’s time to wave goodbye to a litany of absurdity that I witnessed in the institution to which I dedicated my adult life. Some peers, even friends, may call this heresy — a disgruntled former major airing dirty laundry — and maybe in some way it is. Still, what I observed in various combat units, in conversation with senior officers, and as a horrified voyeur of, and actor in, two dirty wars matters. Of that, I remain convinced.

So here’s my official goodbye to all that, to a military and a nation engaged in an Orwellian set of forever wars and to the professional foot soldiers who made so much of it all possible, while the remainder of the country worked, tweeted, shopped, and slept (in every sense of the word).

Goodbye to the majors who wanted to be colonels and the colonels who wanted to be generals — at any cost. To the sociopaths who rose in the ranks by trampling on the souls of their overburdened troopers, trading lives for minor bumps in statistics and pats on the shoulder from aggressive superiors.

Goodbye to the generals who led like so many lieutenants, the ones who knew the tactics but couldn’t for the life of them think strategically, eternally proving the Peter Principle right with every promotion past their respective levels of incompetence.

So long to the flag officers convinced that what worked at the squad level — physical fitness, esprit de corps, and teamwork — would win victories at the brigade and division level in distant, alien lands.

Farewell to the generals I served under who then shamelessly spun through Washington’s revolving door, trading in their multi-starred uniforms for six- and seven-figure corporate gigs on the boards of weapons manufacturers, aka “the merchants of death” (as they were known once upon a distant time), and so helped feed the unquenchable appetite of the military-industrial beast.

Farewell to the senior generals, so stuck in what they called “their lane” that they were unwilling (or intellectually unable) to advise civilian policymakers about missions that could never be accomplished, so trapped in the GWOT box that they couldn’t say no to a single suggestion from chickenhawk militarists on the Hill or in the Oval Office.

Goodbye to the devotees of American exceptionalism who filled the Army’s ranks, stalwart evangelists of a civic religion that believed there was a secret American inside every Arab or Afghan, ready to burst forth with the slightest poke from Uncle Sam’s benevolent bayonet.

Ciao to staff officers who mistook “measures of performance” (doing lots of stuff) for “measures of effectiveness” (doing the rightstuff). I won’t miss the gaggles of obtuse majors and colonels who demanded measurable “output” — numbers of patrols completed, numbers of houses searched, counts of PowerPoint slides published — from already overtasked captains and the soldiers they led and who will never learn the difference between doing lots and doing well.

Goodbye to battalion and brigade commanders who already had their hands full unsuccessfully “pacifying” entire districts and provinces in alien lands, yet seemed more concerned with the cleanliness of troopers’ uniforms and the two-mile-run times of their units, prioritizing physical fitness over tactical competence, empathy, or ethics.

Godspeed to the often-intolerant conservatism and evangelical Christianity infusing the ranks.

See ya to the generals who lent their voices, while still in uniform, to religious organizations, one of whom even became the superintendent of West Point, and at worst got mere slaps on the wrist for that. (And while we’re at it, here’s a goodbye wave to all those chaplains, supposedly non-denominational supporters of every kind of soldier, who regularly ended their prayers with “in Jesus’s name, amen.” So much for church-state separation.)

Farewell to the still-prevalent cis-gender patriarchy and (strangely erotic) homophobia that infuses the ranks of the U.S. military. Sure, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a thing of the past, but the Army remains a (straight) boys’ club and no easy place for the openly gay, while the president remains intent on banning transgender enlistees. And even in 2019, one in four women still reports at least one sexual assault during her military tour of duty. How’s that for social progress?

So long to the adrenaline junkies and power-obsessed freaks atop so many combat units, folks who lived for the violence, the rush of nighttime raids without a thought for their often counterproductive and bloody consequences. It’s a relief to leave them behind as they continue — prisoners of counterinsurgency, or COIN, math — to feed the insurgencies the U.S. fights far faster than they kill “terrorists.”

Goodbye to officers, especially generals, who place “duty” above ethics.

Sayonara to those who canonize “martyrs” like former commander James “Mad Dog” Mattis, a hero for resigning as defense secretary rather than implement (gasp!) modest troop withdrawals from our endless wars in Syria and Afghanistan. (As for a Pentagon-backed war in Yemen that starved to death at least 85,000 kids, he was apparently fine with that.)

Toodle-oo to the vacuous, “thanks-for-your-service” compliments from civilians who otherwise ignore soldiers’ issues, foreign policy, and our forever wars, who never give a thought to placing the country’s disastrous conflicts up there with healthcare on anyone’s election-year priorities list.

Parting is such sweet sorrow when it comes to the neo-Confederate backgrounds and cheerleading of far too many troopers and officers, to a military academy that still has a Robert E. Lee Road on which you drive from a Lee Housing Area to a Lee Barracks, part of an Army that has named at least 10 of its stateside bases after Confederate generals.

Farewell to rampant Islamophobia in the ranks and the leaders who do so little to counter it, to the ubiquitous slurs about Arabs and Afghans, including “hajis,” “rag-heads,” “camel jockies,” or simply “sand niggers.” What a way to win Muslim “hearts and minds!”

Ta-ta to the paradox of hyper-capitalism and Ayn Randian fiscal conservatism among the officers of the nation’s most socialist institution, the military. Count me in as sick of the faux intellectuals reading books by economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman in Iraq or their less sophisticated peers toting around Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck volumes, all the while enjoying their publicly-financed, co-pay-less government healthcare.

Adieu to a military justice system that boots out soldiers who commit “alcohol-related” offenses or “piss hot” for marijuana while rarely investigating the Army’s role as a catalyst for their addictions — and so long as well to a discipline-over-treatment model for dealing with substance abuse that’s only now beginning to change.

Goodbye to infighting among the Army, Navy, and Air Force over funds and equipment and to those “Pentagon Wars” that prioritize loyalty to your service branch over fealty to the nation or the Constitution.

See you later, when it comes to the predictable opinions of a legion of semi-retired generals on 24-hour cable news who count on their public stature to sell Americans yet more guns and militarism.

So long to the faux-intellectualism of men like former “surge” general David Petraeus and his sycophantic army of “warrior monks” and COINdinistaswho have never seen a problem to which slightly improved counterinsurgency tactics wasn’t the answer and are incapable of questioning the efficacy of force, intervention, and occupation as ways to alter complex societies for the better.

Farewell to the pride and value military leaders place on superficial decorations — patches and badges and medals — rather than true mission-accomplished moments. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for even a single senior commander to ever admit that his forces wasted their time, or worse, during their year-long deployment in one of America’s distant war zones.)

Cheerio to the prevailing consensus among U.S. officers that our NATO allies are “worthless” or “weak” because they aren’t aggressive enough in taking on certain missions or types of patrols, while fighting and sometimes dying for Uncle Sam’s global priorities. (This is the nonsense that led to French fries being banned and “freedom fries” served in the congressional cafeteria after France had the gall to oppose Washington’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.)

Goodbye to the colonels and generals who speak at the funeral ceremonies of soldiers they hardly know in order to “rededicate” the mourning survivors to the never-ending mission at hand.

Farewell to the soldiers and officers who regularly complained that the Army’s Rules of Engagement were too strict — as if more brutality, bombing, and firepower (with less concern for civilians) would have brought victory — as well as to the assumption behind such complaints that Americans have some sort of inherent right to wage wars of choice overseas.

So long to the chauvinism in the senior ranks that asserts some sort of messianic American right and mission to police the globe, dot it with bases, and give its military men license to strut around the villages and alleyways of sovereign states as if they were their own.

America’s servicemen have taken to believing in their own myth: that they really do constitute a special caste above all you measly civilians — and now, of course, me, too. In this way, military men actually reflect a toxic society’s values. Few ask why there aren’t teachers, nurses, and social workers honored like U.S. military personnel in America’s vaunted sports stadiums. True servants — as we soldiers, in my years of service, were so fond of dubbing ourselves — should stick to humility and recognize that there are other, far nobler ways to spend one’s life.

And here, finally, is what I can’t say goodbye to: a society that’s come to value its warriors above all others.

A Farewell Coda

So what should this now-retired Army major make of it all? The inconvenient truth is perhaps very little. It’s unlikely that anything I’ll write will change many minds or affect policy in any way. In the decade following World War I, when Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine of his time, took up the pen to expose the ills of American-style corporate warfare, he (unlike me) made a true splash. As today, however, the American intervention machine just rolled on. So what chance does a former Army major have of moving the needle on U.S. militarism?

I’m active now in what little there is of an antiwar movement in this country. That was part of the genius of President Richard Nixon’s cynical decision in 1973, following years of large-scale antiwar activity in this country and in the U.S. military itself during the Vietnam era, to end the draft. He replaced a citizen’s army with an all-volunteer force. By turning the military into a professional caste, a kind of homegrown foreign legion, rather than a responsibility of every citizen, by transforming its officers into an isolated, fawned-upon caste, he effectively ensured that the public would look elsewhere and that antiwar movements would largely become things of the past.

Maybe it’s hopeless to fight such a beast. Still, as the child of a blue-collar, outer-borough New York City family, I was raised on the romance of lost causes. So I hope to play a small role in my version of a lost cause — as a (lonely) response to the pervasive stereotypes of modern American soldiers, of the officer corps, of West Point. I plan on being there whenever the militarists insist that Army types are all politically conservative, all model patriots, all devout “moral” Christians, all… you name it and I’ll be there as an inconvenient counterpoint to a system that demands compliance.

And here’s the truth of it: no matter what you may think, I’m not alone. There are a precious few other public voices from the forever wars speaking out and — as various supportive texts and emails to me have made clear — more silent dissenters in the ranks than you might imagine.

So count on this: I’ll be hoping that more serving officers as well as troops gather the courage to speak out and tell the American public the score when it comes to our brutal, hopeless, never-ending wars. Sure, it’s just a dream for now, but what would those at the top of that war system do if the troops, officers, and commanders they’ve so consciously placed on a pedestal begin doubting, then questioning, then dissenting? That would be a problem for a war machine that, even in the age of AI and drones, still needs its obedient foot soldiers to hump a ruck and patrol a block.

I was, until recently, one of them, the obsequious grunt at the pointy end of the spear fashioned by a warlike government ruling over an apathetic citizenry. But no longer. I’m only 35 and maybe it won’t make a difference, but I must admit that I’m looking forward to my second act. So think of this goodbye to all that as a hello to all that as well.

Only the Struggle Matters

PARIS—In the small chapel to the right at the entrance of the neoclassical Church of Saint-Sulpice is a large mural by Eugène Delacroix. The painter, at the end of his career and suffering from the tuberculous laryngitis that would soon kill him, depicted a story from Genesis. “Jacob is travelling with the flocks and other gifts he is taking to his brother Esau in the hope of appeasing his anger,” Delacroix wrote in 1861 when the painting was completed. “A stranger appears, blocking his path, and engages him in a fierce struggle – The holy books see this struggle as a symbol of the trials God sometimes sends His chosen ones.”

Delacroix shows the stranger—an angel—and Jacob wrestling in a sunlit clearing in a thick forest. Jacob, bent with exertion, the muscles on his back tense, attempts to push back against the angel, who stands implacably upright. The mural, created with layers of paint and bold, thick brush strokes that would later inspire the Impressionists, was Delacroix’s final testament to the inherent struggle—a struggle he was acutely aware he would soon lose—with mortality.

Delacroix asks us what constitutes victory in life. What gives life meaning? How are we to live? Why struggle against forces that we can never overcome? In the biblical story, Jacob is crippled in the long night’s fight, then blessed at dawn by the departing angel. He begs the angel’s name. But that name remains unspoken. Delacroix painted the inscription “Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink,” from Psalm 69, over the entrance to the Chapel of the Holy Angels, which holds two other murals by Delacroix portraying clashes with angels. On the ceiling is the Archangel Michael driving the demons from heaven. On the wall opposite Jacob and the angel, Heliodorus is attacked by angels as he attempts to steal the treasures from the temple in Jerusalem. A large window in the church’s stone wall spills sunlight over the paintings.

“Painting taunts and torments me in a thousand ways,” Delacroix wrote in his journal in 1861, seven months before completing his work at Saint-Sulpice. “… [T]hings that seemed to be the easiest to overcome present appalling, interminable difficulties. How is it, then, that instead of casting me down, this eternal combat lifts me up, not discouraging, but consoling me?”

Our worth is determined, the painter attempts to show us, not by what we do in life, but by what we do with what life gives us. It is the ferocity and steadfastness of the struggle that exalt us, especially when we comprehend that victory is ultimately impossible. This wisdom would be echoed by Albert Camus almost a century after Delacroix when he wrote that life required us to “être à la hauteur de son désespoir”—rise up to the level of our despair.

Three Saturdays ago France experienced its 18th consecutive weekend protest by the gilets jaunes, or “yellow vests,” against President Emmanuel Macron’s austerity measures, tax cuts for the wealthy and privatization of public services. Members of the masked and violent Black Bloc had infiltrated the yellow-vest protest on the Champs-Élysées. A few dozen Black Bloc people smashed windows of luxury shops and torched Le Fouquet, one of the city’s best-known restaurants. Police, who inexplicably waited to intervene, eventually used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters. The images of the clashes and property destruction were repeatedly broadcast throughout the following week. The police chief would be fired. Macron, who during the mayhem was skiing in the Pyrenees, would ban protests on the Champs-Élysées and order 6,000 counter-terrorism soldiers deployed outside government buildings. The pleadings by yellow-vest organizers for Black Bloc activists to separate themselves from the nonviolent protests were effectively drowned out by the state’s successful demonization—bolstered by the broadcast media—of the protest movement as a threat to public order and security.

As clashes took place on the Champs-Élysées, some 20,000 demonstrators thronged the streets outside the old Paris Opera House to protest the government’s refusal to address the crisis of global warming. My wife and I were in this nonviolent crowd, which was largely ignored by the press for the more colorful scenes of newspaper kiosks going up in flames on the Champs-Élysées.

The Black Bloc in France, as in the United States, is a gift to the security and surveillance apparatus. I suspect the French police waited to intervene until the camera crews could get enough dramatic footage. The goal of any counterinsurgency campaign is to villainize protest movements, paint them as violent and dangerous to limit their appeal, reduce their numbers and use them as justification to ban any dissent.

Revolution is not about catharsis. It is not about joining a masked mob to “get off” on property destruction. That is protest as adolescent narcissism. It celebrates a self-destructive hyper-masculinity that also fuels many in the police and military. It alienates those within the power structures who, if revolution is to succeed, must be pried away from defending the ruling elites. It produces nothing but fleeting protest porn, which Black Bloc activists watch with self-admiration. And the state loves it.

“We are attached to constitutional rights, but we’ve got people who through all means quite simply want to make a wreck of the republic, to break things and destroy, running the risk of getting people killed,” Macron said after the disturbances.

The yellow vests returned the next weekend in Paris and other cities in France. But the numbers had fallen by half. The peaceful marches were again disrupted by Black Bloc activists, shattering windows and throwing bottles. The yellow-vest protesters deride the Black Bloc contingents as the casseurs, or wreckers. Yellow-vest marchers have taken to waving white flags as a symbol of nonviolence. It appears to be a losing battle.

France has been in an official state of emergency since the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. The current crisis has only increased the presence of squads of heavily armed soldiers patrolling the city. The threat of terrorism, whether from radical jihadists or cliques of Black Bloc activists, is used by France and other states that seek to crush basic civil liberties and dissent in the name of national security. Macron, who is deaf to the plight of the working class and serves as a French instrument for the global social inequality orchestrated by corporate elites, is pushing significant sectors of the population off the streets and into the arms of the neofascist Marine Le Pen, with whom our corporate masters can make an accommodation, just as they have with Donald Trump. What they fear is a popular uprising. What they fear is losing power. If it takes alliances with repugnant neofascists and demagogues to retain control they will make them.

The brutality of our corporate executioners grows by the day. They will stop at nothing, including wholesale murder, to consolidate power and amass greater profits. Blinded by hubris, driven by greed, disdainful of democracy, foolishly believing their wealth will protect them, they will herd us over the cliff unless they are overthrown.

Delacroix was right. It is the struggle that matters. Not the outcome. I was where I should have been that Saturday in front of the Paris Opera House. Yes, our cries were not heard. Yes, it may be futile. But the fight is what makes us human. It gives us dignity. It affirms life in the face of death. “This eternal combat” brings with it, as the painter knew, a strange kind of consolation that lifts us up to the level of our despair.

Vietnam Woman Pleads Guilty to Lesser Charge in Kim Killing

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia—A Vietnamese woman who is the only suspect in custody for the killing of the North Korean leader’s brother pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in a Malaysian court on Monday and her lawyer said she could be freed as early as next month.

Doan Thi Huong had faced a murder charge, which carried the death penalty if she was convicted, in the slaying of Kim Jong Nam, who died after being accosted by two women in a Kuala Lumpur airport terminal. Huong nodded as a translator read the new charge to her: voluntarily causing injury with a dangerous weapon, VX nerve agent.

High Court judge Azmi Ariffin sentenced Huong to three years and four months from the day she was arrested on Feb. 15, 2017. Huong’s lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik said his client is expected to be freed by the first week of May, after a one-third reduction in her sentence for good behavior.

“I am happy,” Huong, 30, told reporters as she left the courtroom, adding she thought it was a fair outcome.

While handing out a jail term short of the maximum 10 years the new charge carried, the judge told Huong she was “very, very lucky” and he wished her “all the best.” Vietnamese officials in the courtroom cheered when the decision was announced.

Huong is the only suspect in custody after the Malaysian attorney general’s stunning decision to drop the murder case against Indonesian Siti Aisyah on March 11 following high-level lobbying from Jakarta. Huong sought to be acquitted after Aisyah was freed, but prosecutors rejected her request.

Prosecutor Iskandar Ahmad told the court that the attorney-general offered the reduced charge to Huong following pleas from the Vietnamese government and her lawyers.

The original charge had alleged the two women colluded with four North Koreans to murder Kim with VX nerve agent they smeared on his face as he was passing through the airport on Feb. 13, 2017. The women had said they thought they were taking part in a harmless prank for a TV show.

The four North Koreans fled Malaysia on the same day Kim was killed.

The High Court judge last August had found there was enough evidence to infer that Aisyah, Huong and the four North Koreans engaged in a “well-planned conspiracy” to kill Kim and had called on the two women to present their defense.

Lawyers for the women have said that they were pawns in a political assassination with clear links to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and that the prosecution failed to show the women had any intention to kill. Intent to kill is crucial to a murder charge under Malaysian law.

Huong’s lawyer told the court Monday that her guilty plea to the lesser charge showed she “has taken responsibility” for her actions. In asking for a lenient sentence, he also told the court that her move saved judicial time.

Hisyam had urged the judge to take into account Huong’s honesty, her acceptance of responsibility and the acquittal of her co-defendant.

“She is neither a criminal nor has the propensity to commit a crime,” Hisyam said.

Huong, the youngest of five children, has a promising future with a degree in accountancy but she is also “naive and gullible,” he said.

Hisyam said four North Korean suspects still at large were the “real assassins.”

They “exploited her weakness and manipulated her to carry out their evil designs under the camouflage of funny videos and pranks,” he said.

The judge said he had taken into account the gravity of the offense and also the fact that Huong was remorseful and a first offender. He said the sentence “would serve the interest of justice.”

Before the sentencing, Vietnamese Ambassador Le Quy Quynh said he expected Huong to be freed immediately. After the sentencing, he said: “I am highly appreciative that she will be released very soon but I want to emphasize that she is a victim like the Indonesian.”

Hisyam told reporters later that Huong wasn’t being fairly treated compared to Aisyah but that she pleaded guilty because she wanted to walk free as soon as possible.

Huong’s father, Doan Van Thanh, who attended the hearing, said he was delighted that she will soon be free.

As Huong was being escorted out of the court building, she shouted to reporters: “It’s very good. I love you.” She told reporters earlier that she wants to “sing and act” when she returns to Vietnam.

Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don’t want the trial politicized.

Kim Jong Nam was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea’s ruling family. He had been living abroad for years but could have been seen as a threat to Kim Jong Un’s rule.

Biden Faces New Scrutiny From Dems Over Behavior With Women

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday defended his interactions with women, saying he doesn’t believe he’s ever acted inappropriately. But a Nevada politician’s assertion that Biden’s kiss on the back of her head made her feel uncomfortable prompted some Democrats to question whether the 76-year-old is too out of step with his own party to run a successful 2020 presidential campaign.

The episode, recounted by Democrat Lucy Flores, highlighted an aspect of Biden’s persona that has been publicly known for years: the affectionate whispers, hugs and shoulder squeezes he has long doled out to women, often on camera and at high-profile public events. In a moment of national reckoning over sexual harassment and the treatment of women by powerful men, some Democrats said Biden’s actions have taken on a new light.

“It looks different in 2019,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist. Cardona said that while Biden’s behavior is not automatically disqualifying for the presidency, “it all depends on how he continues to respond to this. He has to acknowledge that his behavior made some women uncomfortable.”

In a statement on Sunday, Biden said it was never his intention to make women feel discomfort.

“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort,” he said. “And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully.”

Flores’ account of the 2014 incident comes at a crucial moment for Biden. He’s been wrestling for months with a final decision on whether to run for president, blowing through several self-imposed deadlines.

Meanwhile, the Democratic primary has sped on without him, with more than a dozen candidates in the race, including a record number of women and minorities. Veterans like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have shown surprising strength, while newer White House hopefuls like California Sen. Kamala Harris and Texan Beto O’Rourke have drawn big crowds and displayed early fundraising prowess.

Biden still leads most early polls, buoyed by broad name recognition and the goodwill he generated during eight years as President Barack Obama’s No. 2. Given his experience and appeal with white working-class voters in Midwestern battleground states, he’s also seen by some Democrats as the best-positioned candidate to defeat President Donald Trump.

Nancy Bobo, an Iowa activist who was among Obama’s earliest supporters in the state, shares that view. She fears the episode with Flores suggests Democrats may try to tear down their most-qualified candidate.

“I can just see what’s coming at him,” Bobo said.” And it’s going to come at him from the Democrats.”

None of Biden’s potential rivals defended him following Flores’ allegations. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she believed Flores and said Biden “needs to give an answer” about what occurred.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Flores was “quite bold” to “go up against the highest levels of her political party” with the allegations and suggested that Biden should consider apologizing to Flores. Conway deflected questions about the numerous women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, allegations he denies.

Flores told The Associated Press on Sunday that she had been mulling coming forward for years. The tipping point for her, she said, was Biden’s meeting in March with 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.

“I saw that she was meeting with him and I thought to myself that if I don’t say something now, I’m going to regret this,” Flores said.

Flores said she approached only New York Magazine to publish her account of her encounter with Biden and that the magazine had fact-checked the piece after she submitted it. She said that she had provided New York with the names of several people she confided with about the incident soon after it occurred. She said she also “shared a conversation with a former staffer” about the episode.

Flores declined to name any of those people to AP, saying that “no one is willing to speak publicly.”

The AP tried to contact several advisers and aides from Flores’ 2014 campaign, but was unable to obtain any independent verification of her account.

Flores said Biden’s team has not been in touch with her since her story was published. She said she would be satisfied if Biden simply acknowledged the discomfort the episode caused her.

“I do think that if he truly wants to listen, he will make himself available,” she said.

Biden has been warned by advisers that his past statements and actions, including his long history of hugging and showing affection to women, would face fresh scrutiny in the 2020 campaign. In some cases, Biden’s policy positions, such as his support for the 1994 crime bill that is blamed for mass incarcerations of minorities, are out of step with a party that has shifted to the left. But at other moments, like when he touts his ability to forge compromises with Republicans, he can appear to be speaking about a political era that many Democrats believe no longer exists.

Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said Biden’s team needs to answer a key question before launching a White House bid: “Do they feel confident in their ability to understand this electorate and campaign in 2020, which is already different than 2016?”

Even before Flores made her allegations, some Democrats were wondering whether Biden was meant for his moment. His team was widely panned following reports that they were considering tapping a younger Democrat or a minority like Abrams as a running mate early in the primary in an attempt to counteract questions about Biden’s age.

While Biden’s team denied that he was considering that step, Biden did float the idea to Abrams over a recent lunch, according to a Democrat with knowledge of the discussion. The Democrat was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity.

Flores, a former Nevada state representative and the 2014 Democratic nominee for Nevada lieutenant governor, wrote that the incident with Biden occurred as the two were waiting to take the stage during a rally in Las Vegas.

“I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. ‘Why is the vice president of the United States touching me?'” she wrote. “He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head.”

Biden spokesman Bill Russo said the former vice president doesn’t remember kissing Flores.

Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz said that while Flores’ descriptions may feel familiar to those who have watched Biden hug and hold hands with women for years, she put the focus on the women who were on the receiving end of his affections.

“What Lucy Flores so bravely did is say, ‘This is the way he made me feel,'” Katz said. “No one has ever done that before with Joe Biden.”

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writer Stephen Braun in Washington contributed to this report.

Erdogan: Turkish Ruling Party Emerges as Winner

ISTANBUL — The Latest on Turkey’s municipal elections (all times local):

11 p.m.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his ruling party has emerged the winner of Turkey’s mayoral elections “by a wide margin” and has dealt a blow to those who tried to bring Turkey to its knees.

Erdogan spoke after preliminary results relayed by state media showed that his party had gained some 45 percent of the votes, but lost the mayoral seat of Ankara to the main opposition after 25 years. The president had cast the elections as a matter of “national survival.”

Erdogan said: “we accept that we have gained the hearts of the people in the places where we won, but were not successful enough in this regard in the places that we lost.”

The Turkish leader noted that a pro-Kurdish party, which he branded as terrorists for their alleged links to outlawed Kurdish rebels, had suffered losses in the country’s mostly-Kurdish populated regions.

He said that “our Kurdish brothers have shown that they will not yield to a terrorist group or to those who have come out of the woodwork with the backing of the terrorist group.”

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8:40 p.m.

Turkey’s state media say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party is leading in the municipal elections but may look set to lose control of the capital city, Ankara, after 25 years.

State broadcaster TRT says Erdogan’s Islamic-based party gained nearly 47 percent of the votes in Sunday’s election, with half of the more than 194,000 ballot boxes counted. The main, secular-oriented opposition party has 31 percent.

However, the opposition is leading in Ankara with 49.5 percent of the votes, according to TRT.

The capital city was considered a main battleground of these elections that are seen as a test of Erdogan’s popularity amid an economic downturn and rising inflation.

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8:10 p.m.

Turkey’s official news agency says two people have been killed in fighting in southern Turkey, raising the number of deaths in violence during local elections to four.

Anadolu Agency said the latest deaths occurred Sunday in the southern province of Gaziantep where supporters of two rival candidates for the race of neighborhood administrators opened fire at each other. Two people were wounded in the shooting.

Earlier, two people were killed in the eastern Malatya province. Dozens of other people were injured in scattered fighting across the country.

The election campaigns before the vote were highly polarizing with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials using hostile rhetoric toward opposition candidates.

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7:25 p.m.

State media reports that Turkey’s ruling party is leading in the country’s municipal election.

State broadcaster TRT says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative Islamic-based party has garnered nearly 48 percent of the votes in Sunday’s municipal election with nearly 28 percent of the more than 194,000 ballot boxes counted. According to early results, the main opposition party has nearly 31 percent of the vote.

The elections are seen as a crucial test of Erdogan’s support amid a sharp economic downturn, marked by double-digit inflation and soaring food prices.

More than 57 million voters were eligible to take part in choosing the mayors of 30 major cities, 51 provincial capitals and 922 districts in Turkey.

The voting was marred by scattered election violence that killed at least two people and injured dozens of others across Turkey.

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6 p.m.

Polls have closed in Turkey’s municipal elections, which are being seen as a test for the popularity of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party amid a strong economic downturn.

More than 57 million voters were eligible to take part in choosing the mayors of 30 major cities, 51 provincial capitals and 922 districts in Turkey.

They also were casting ballots at more than 194,000 polling stations across the country to elect local assembly representatives, as well as tens of thousands of neighborhood and village administrators.

Turkey is struggling now with a weakened currency, double-digit inflation and soaring food prices.

In the last local election in 2014, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party won nearly 43 percent of the vote and retained its hold on Istanbul and the capital city, Ankara.

Elected officials will serve for five years.

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5:30 p.m.

Turkey’s official news agency has reported two deaths and dozens of injuries in fights related to local elections in several provinces.

Anadolu news agency said Sunday the deaths in the eastern Malatya province followed a brawl between supporters of competing candidates in a race for neighborhood administrators.

It says at least 21 people were injured in southeastern Diyarbakir province over brawls in the same type of local race. In southeastern Mardin province, at least nine people were hurt. Twelve people were lightly wounded in Sanliurfa province bordering Syria.

Two people are also injured in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district in a fight between relatives of candidates running for neighborhood administration posts.

Election campaigns in Turkey have been highly polarized with officials, especially President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, using hostile rhetoric toward opposition candidates.

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5:15 p.m.

The co-leader of a pro-Kurdish party has cast her ballot in Istanbul and said her party worked hard in Turkey’s local elections despite government pressures.

Pervin Buldan of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, told reporters she was heading to the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in the southeast to await the results of Sunday’s vote.

Since 2016, the Turkish government has removed elected mayors from 95 municipalities for alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants and replaced them with trustees.

The HDP —the second largest opposition party in parliament— has vowed to win those seats back but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened he won’t recognize results if there are any alleged links to terror groups.

Mainstream media did not cover HDP’s campaign rallies. The party is strategically sitting out races in Turkey’s major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, to send votes to the opposition.

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5 p.m.

The leading candidates to be Istanbul’s next mayor have cast their ballots in the key race in Turkey’s local elections.

Ruling party candidate Binali Yildirim, formerly a prime minister and transport minister for Turkey, said he campaigned hard for the city of 15 million. He says “we have listened to Istanbul residents and now it’s time to work and to serve.”

Opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, who has served as a district mayor in Istanbul, said he hopes for a high voter turnout in Sunday’s vote. He says “I wish for a good administration and democracy embracing all.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose rise to power began as Istanbul mayor in 1994, knows that a win for his party in Istanbul, the financial and cultural heart of Turkey, is crucial. He has said “whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey.”

The mayor of Istanbul will serve for five years.

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3:05 p.m.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cast his vote in Istanbul for key municipal elections that will test his popularity amid a sharp economic downturn.

Speaking to reporters at his polling station, Erdogan expressed sadness over two deaths in eastern Malatya province that were linked to the elections.

The leader of the Felicity Party, an Islamic-oriented rival of the ruling party, identified the dead as party volunteers and alleged they were killed by a relative of a candidate running for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.

Erdogan said it would not be “correct to make this a questioning or a judgment between political parties.”

The Turkish president called Sunday’s local elections a “keystone of democracy” and said if his party does well it would add “great power” to the administration.

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1:00 p.m.

The leader of a small Islamic-oriented party says two party members were killed in eastern Turkey.

Temel Karamollaoglu of the Felicity Party tweeted that a polling station volunteer and a party observer were killed in a district of Malatya province.

Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported Sunday that the deaths followed a brawl between supporters of competing candidates in an election for neighborhood administrators. Anadolu says one person was injured.

Karamollaoglu alleged the party members were attacked by a relative of the candidate from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party.

He says the dispute wasn’t “simple animosity.” He says the volunteers tried to enforce the law requiring ballots to be marked in private voting booths instead of out in the open.

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9:35 a.m.

Voters in Turkey are electing mayors for 30 large cities, and a main battleground for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party appears to be in the capital, Ankara.

Opinion polls suggested the candidate of an opposition alliance, Mansur Yavas, could end the longtime rule of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Ankara. A former government environment minister, Mehmet Ozhaseki, is running for mayor under the banner of Erdogan and his nationalist allies.

Another closely watched mayoral election is in Istanbul. Erdogan began his rise to power as the city’s mayor in 1994 and has said at campaign rallies that “whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey.”

Erdogan named former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to run against opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu in the Istanbul mayor’s race. The president spoke at six rallies in Istanbul on Saturday.

Erdogan has campaigned tirelessly for Justice and Development Party candidates and framed the municipal elections taking place across Turkey on Sunday as matters of “national survival.”

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7:10 a.m.

Voters in Turkey have begun casting ballots in municipal elections that are seen as a barometer of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s popularity amid a sharp economic downturn in the nation that straddles Europe and Asia.

More than 57 million voters are eligible to choose mayors, local representatives and neighborhood or village administrators. The elections are being held as Turkey faces an economic recession, rising food prices and high unemployment.

Erdogan’s past electoral successes have been based on economic prosperity, but opinion polls suggest this time around his ruling party could lose control of Turkey’s large cities, including Ankara, the capital.

Erdogan has campaigned heavily for his party’s candidates, declaring Turkey’s economic woes “an attack” on the country and framing the elections on Sunday as matter of “national survival.”

As Climate Change Accelerates, So Does Global Hunger, Report Reveals

The global threat of hunger is growing again after years of progress in reducing it, the United Nations says, because of the effects of climate change.

It says this is just one aspect of a wider acceleration in the pace of the changes wrought by the world’s unremitting consumption of fossil fuels and the consequential rise in global temperatures..

The evidence that hunger and malnutrition are once again on the rise is published in a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the state of the global climate in 2018.

The report, drawing on material from scientists, UN agencies and countries’ own meteorological services, says the physical signs and the impacts of climate change are speeding up as record greenhouse gas concentrations drive global temperatures towards increasingly dangerous levels.

Highlighting record sea level rise and exceptionally high land and ocean temperatures over the past four years, the report warns that this warming trend has lasted since the start of this century and is expected to continue.

Carbon dioxide levels, which were at 357.0 parts per million when the first statement in the series was published in 1994, keep rising − to 405.5 ppm in 2017. Greenhouse gas concentrations for 2018 and 2019 are expected to show a further increase.

The start of 2019 has seen warm record daily winter temperatures in Europe, unusual cold in North America and searing heatwaves in Australia. Arctic and Antarctic ice extent is yet again well below average.

In a statement the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, writes that the data released in the report “give cause for great concern. The past four years were the warmest on record, with the global average surface temperature in 2018 approximately 1°C above the pre-industrial baseline … There is no longer any time for delay.”

Four warming years

The WMO secretary-general, Petteri Taalas, says: “Key findings of this statement include the striking consecutive record warming recorded from 2015 through 2018, the continuous upward trend in the atmospheric concentrations of the major greenhouse gases, the increasing rate of sea level rise and the loss of sea ice in both northern and southern polar regions.”

One particular concern highlighted is food security. In the words of the report, “exposure of the agriculture sector to climate extremes is threatening to reverse gains made in ending malnutrition.

“New evidence shows a continuing rise in world hunger  after a prolonged decline, according to data compiled by UN agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme.

“In 2017, the number of undernourished people was estimated to have increased to 821 million, partly due to severe droughts associated with the strong El Niño of 2015–2016.”

Climate refugees

The FAO says the absolute number of undernourished people − those facing chronic food deprivation − reached  nearly 821 m in 2017, from around 804 m in 2016.

The WMO report also singles out the plight of those forced by climate change to leave their homes and become refugees, either within their own countries or abroad. Out of 17.7 m people classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) tracked by the International Organization for Migration, it says, by September 2018 over 2 m people had been displaced by disasters linked to weather and climate events.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR’s Protection and Return Monitoring Network, about 883,000 new internal displacements were recorded between January and December 2018, of which 32% were associated with flooding and 29% with drought.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees were affected by what the UN calls “secondary displacement”, caused by extreme events, heavy rain, flooding and landslides.

More acid seas

The WMO also expresses concern about a range of impacts of climate change on the global environment, including reduced levels of oxygen in the oceans. Since the middle of the last century there has been an estimated 1-2% decrease in the amount of oxygen in the world’s oceans, according to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC).

In the past decade the oceans have absorbed around 30% of CO2 emissions of human origin. Absorbed CO2 reacts with seawater and changes the pH of the ocean. This process, known as ocean acidification, can affect the ability of marine organisms such as molluscs and reef-building corals, to build and maintain shells and skeletal material.

Observations in the open ocean over the last 30 years have shown a clear trend of decreasing pH. In line with previous reports and projections, ocean acidification is ongoing and the global pH levels continue to decrease, according to UNESCO-IOC. One recent report suggested possible alarming future impacts.

The State of the Climate report will be one of WMO’s contributions to the UN’s Climate Action Summit on 23 September.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tells Donors: Give Directly to Candidates, Not the DCCC

Denouncing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new policy of cutting off firms that work with primary challengers as “divisive” and “harmful,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday advised small-dollar donors to stop giving money to the DCCC and instead donate to progressive candidates directly.

“The DCCC’s new rule to blacklist + boycott anyone who does business with primary challengers is extremely divisive and harmful to the party,” tweeted the congresswoman from New York. “My recommendation, if you’re a small-dollar donor: pause your donations to DCCC and give directly to swing candidates instead.”

The @DCCC’s new rule to blacklist+boycott anyone who does business w/ primary challengers is extremely divisive & harmful to the party.

My recommendation, if you’re a small-dollar donor: pause your donations to DCCC & give directly to swing candidates instead.

Some great ones:

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 30, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez went on to list three swing-seat House Democrats up for reelection in 2020: Reps. Katie Porter (Calif.), Mike Levin (Calif.), and Lauren Underwood (Ill.).

The New York congresswoman’s call for small-dollar donors to “pause” donations to the DCCC comes amid a growing progressive revolt against the campaign arm’s new policy, which states that the organization “will not conduct business with, nor recommend to any of its targeted campaigns, any consultant that works with an opponent of a sitting member of the House Democratic Caucus.”

Progressives vowed to fight back against the rule, arguing it will disproportionately harm left-wing organizations looking to transform the party by ousting conservative Democrats.

As Common Dreams reported last week, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus met with DCCC chair Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) to slam the policy and call for a change.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called the DCCC’s rule “a slap in the face of Democratic voters across the nation.”

In a series of tweets on Saturday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who reached the House after a primary victory, warned that the DCCC’s rule risks “undermining an entire universe of potential candidates and vendors—especially women and people of color—whose ideas, energy, and innovation need a place in our party.”

If the DCCC enacts this policy to blacklist vendors who work with challengers, we risk undermining an entire universe of potential candidates and vendors – especially women and people of color – whose ideas, energy, and innovation need a place in our party (6/x)

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) March 30, 2019

“I believe fiercely in the potential of our party, but we cannot credibly lay claim to prioritizing diversity and inclusion when institutions like the DCCC implement policies that threaten to silence new voices and historically marginalized communities,” Pressley added. “The lesson of 2018 is that our party is made stronger by the inclusion of diverse, disruptive candidates and vendors who bring different perspectives and experiences.”

‘Renouncing Violence’ Is a Demand Made Almost Exclusively of Muslims by The NY Times

A FAIR survey of the phrase “renounce violence” in the New York Times over the past 10 years shows that 95 percent of the time the demand is made of Muslim organizations, people or political parties, the most prominent being the Taliban and Hamas. There are zero instances of anyone in the Times—whether reporters quoting officials or columnists—from March 28, 2009, to March 28, 2019, insisting or suggesting that the United States, Israel or any white-majority country “renounce violence.”

Almost half—48 percent—of the instances of “renounce violence” in the New York Times during the time period asserted that Palestinians “refused” to “renounce violence.” This was typically signaled with an umbrella label of “Hamas,” with varying degrees of specificity. Roughly a third of those said to not “renounce” violence were either Afghan or Iraqi insurgency groups fighting American military occupation. Thus, roughly 80 percent of the time, the term was evoked to describe people under military control of Israel or the US.

Of the 58 examples found of the phrase in the Times from 2009 to present day, only three instances expressed a demand that non-Muslims “renounce violence”: The Czech government (12/22/09) threatening to ban the Communist Party; Turkish criticism (7/29/10) of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a secular Communist party, though Kurds are mostly Muslim; and a report (2/5/17) on Obama’s commutation of Oscar López Rivera that noted the longtime Puerto Rican independence advocate “refused to renounce violence.”

The complete list can be viewed here. The New York Times was selected as the focus of the study due to its position as the US’s most influential newspaper.

It’s not clear why no reporters, columnists or experts quoted ever felt the need to ask the White House or the Pentagon, or any of their friendly allies in Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, if they would “renounce violence.” The expectation that a party should refuse to engage in armed activity as a means of exerting political influence was almost exclusively reserved for those under military occupation from Western forces or their Middle Eastern allies.

“In sharp contrast to Dr. King, Mr. Mandela continues to call for an ‘armed struggle,’” a 1990 New York Times op-ed (6/21/90) complained.

Before the time frame of the survey, South African leader Nelson Mandela was often scolded in the Times opinion pages for refusing to unilaterally reject violence. “Why Won’t Mandela Renounce Violence?” asked a June 21, 1990, op-ed by congressional aide David G. Sanders. There’s no evidence in the Times archives that South Africa’s apartheid government was ever asked the same question.

For decades, Amnesty International infamously refused to label Mandela a Prisoner of Conscience because he wouldn’t formally pledge to refrain from violence—a rather precious, morally boutique demand Amnesty requires of all of its Third World causes. In the Western liberal mind, we can name oppressors, but never support those actually fighting them, instead demanding the oppressed unilaterally refuse the single most ubiquitous political tool in history—that of violence.

There are also instances prior to the survey period of the phrase being applied to white people—when they were also under Western occupation. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Times made several mentions of Irish resistance fighters under the British occupation of Northern Ireland “refusing to renounce violence.” In this context, as well, there was no mention of Britain’s refusal to do so.

Vows by Muslim and Sikh groups to “fight  back” against anyone who threatened their neighborhoods prompted the New York Times (8/10/11) to highlight a call to “renounce violence.”

During the 10-year survey period, other than Czech Communists and López Rivera, the only people in the West needing to “renounce violence” were Muslims—in a bit of editorializing during the 2011 London riots from Times reporters John Burns and Ravi Somaiya (8/10/11), suggesting the father of a person who had died during the unrest was appealing “for all in the community to renounce violence.” The community in question, according to the Times London’s “Muslim populations.”

Hamas is regularly said, almost like it’s required by the Times style guide, to be failing this arbitrary moral test. Pro-Israel columnist Roger Cohen has evoked the phrase three times since 2009. The “refusal to denounce violence” box-checking was especially popular with Times Jerusalem chief Jodi Rudoren, who used the cliche five times in 2014 alone in reference to Hamas—the same year Israel’s violence killed 1,500 Palestinian civilians, including 523 children. During that same conflict, “Hamas violence” claimed the lives of six Israeli civilians. At no point in her coverage during this time did Rudoren mention that the IDF had, like Hamas, refused to “renounce violence”—and were exceedingly more efficient at carrying it out.

Demanding Iraqi or Afghan insurgents or Hamas “renounce violence” is, of course, a defensible moral stance. One could argue that their religious-infused militancy is reactionary or counter-productive. (Just this month, thousands of Palestinians protested Hamas in Gaza.)

But that’s not really the issue here. The issue is the wholly selective and loaded manner in which this burden is applied. Why should only these groups—Muslim 95 percent of the time—“renounce violence,” but the US and its allies never have to? What makes the West’s arbitrary, violent occupations per se justified, while less sophisticated counter-occupations who refuse to go full Gandhi are committing a profound moral transgression? There is no sense to it, other than serving a lazy, racist rhetorical tic. Ask Muslims to “renounce violence,” by all means, but maybe, at least every now and then, ask non-Muslim militants to do so as well.

Afghan Veterans of Syrian War Struggle Back Home

HERAT, Afghanistan — Too poor to even buy pens and notebooks for school, Mehdi left his home in Afghanistan soon after his 17th birthday and headed to Iran, hoping to make his way to Europe and find work.

Instead, Mehdi ended up fighting in Syria’s civil war, a conflict he had nothing to do with, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from home. He was one of tens of thousands of Afghans recruited, paid and trained by Iran to fight in support of Tehran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

There, he found himself thrown into one of the war’s bloodiest front lines, surrounded by the bodies of his comrades, under fire from Islamic militants so close he could hear their shouts of “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) before each mortar blast.

Iran ran an extensive drive to bring Shiites from across the region and create a network of militias to help save Assad from the uprising against his rule — not only Afghans but also Pakistanis, Iraqis and Lebanese. Now with the 8-year war in Syria winding down, the question is what will Tehran do with those well-trained, well-armed forces.

Mehdi and other soldiers-for-hire from Afghanistan’s impoverished Shiite Muslim communities are returning to their homeland, where they are met with suspicion. Afghan security officials believe Iran is still organizing them, this time as a secret army to spread Tehran’s influence amid Afghanistan’s unending conflicts.

“Here in Afghanistan we are afraid. They say we are all terrorists,” said Mehdi, now 21 and back in his home city of Herat. He spoke on condition he not be fully identified for fear of retaliation. He wouldn’t meet The Associated Press at home or in public — only in a car parked in a remote, mostly Shiite neighborhood. Even there, Mehdi kept his face obscured with a scarf, glancing suspiciously at every passing car.

Afghan veterans returning from Syria are threatened from multiple sides. They face arrest by security agencies that view them as traitors. And they face violence from the brutal Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, which views Shiites as heretics and vows to kill them. Last May, IS gunmen burst into Herat’s Jawadia Shiite mosque, opening fire and setting off their suicide belt explosives among worshippers, killing 38 people.

Just knowing people who fought in Syria can land someone in jail, said a local elder in a village near Herat. He spoke on condition of anonymity for that reason. Eight men from his village were killed fighting in Syria, but there are no graves for them here. All were buried in Iran, he said.

Iran intensified its role in Syria when Assad appeared to be losing the fight against rebels in 2013 and 2014. Tehran sent hundreds of Revolutionary Guard troops and began bringing in allied militias. The most well-known and most powerful was Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

But the largest was the force made up of Afghans, known as the Fatimiyoun Brigade, which experts have estimated numbered up to 15,000 fighters at any one time.

Over the years, tens of thousands of Afghans likely trained and fought in it. Most of them are from Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority, who are among the country’s poorest.

Roughly 10,000 veterans of the brigade have returned to Afghanistan, says a senior official in Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry who is familiar with government intelligence. The official was not authorized to brief reporters and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Afghan government and many experts believe Iran could mobilize these ex-fighters once more to assert its influence in Afghanistan, particularly as the United States accelerates its efforts to end its nearly 18-year military intervention.

“Expect the Iranians to reconstitute their militias inside Afghanistan at some point,” warned Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, a site devoted to coverage of the U.S. war on terror. “Iran does not discard assets in which it invests time, treasure and expertise.”

Afghanistan is already tormented by an overabundance of armed groups, many divided on ethnic lines. They include militias loyal to several warlords, who are aligned with the government but often at odds with each other. There are also the Sunni militants: Taliban insurgents rule in nearly half the country, and the Islamic State affiliate has proven to be a stubborn enemy, even in the face of relentless U.S. bombing raids.

All those factions could turn their massive arsenals on each other after a U.S. and NATO withdrawal. It has happened before. In the early 1990s, factions of the U.S.-backed mujahedeen who took power after the Soviet withdrawal turned on each other in fighting that leveled large parts of the capital, Kabul, and killed an estimated 50,000 people.

Iran will likely seize on any turmoil to mobilize the Fatimiyoun with the very real pretext that Afghan Shiites need a defender, said Michael Kugelman, Asia Program deputy director at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

If Afghanistan is plunged into more unrest, “the Iranians would have a strong motivation to help a Shia force that would face intensified threats from the Taliban and especially ISIS,” he said, using an alternate abbreviation for the Islamic State group.

Iran is already supporting Syria war veterans living in Kabul and in central Afghanistan’s Hazara-dominated region of Bamiyan, said the Interior Ministry official. He said Afghan intelligence agencies have identified senior Iranian government officials who are “managing the activities” of returning fighters, including providing them arms and money and building a structure for quick re-mobilization if needed. Afghan warlord Abdul Gani Alipur, an ethnic Hazara, is also implicated in aiding Iran, he said. Alipur was arrested late last year on charges of having an illegal militia, but he was released after thousands of Hazaras protested.

Most of those who joined the Fatimiyoun Brigade were driven by hopelessness and poverty, not loyalty to Iran, said Reza Kasimi, a researcher with the independent Kabul-based research group, Afghanistan Analysts Network.

“The first thing is that most of these people don’t see a future for themselves in Afghanistan,” he said.

When Mehdi went to Iran in 2015, he worked, mostly on construction sites, to earn enough money to make a run for Europe. But by the time he did, Europe’s borders had closed.

“I was very disappointed. I had come to Iran to go to Europe, to study, to have a better life, but I was still there, with nothing,” Mehdi said.

An Afghan friend suggested they enlist for Syria. As a fighter for Iran, they could earn the equivalent of $900 a month. At the time Mehdi was making barely $150 a month.

“I thought about it and I made my heart strong, like a raging river,” Mehdi said. “I decided, ‘Live or die, I’ll go.'”

They reported to a recruitment center in Tehran. There, officials gathered his personal details — the names of his parents and relatives and the street where he lived in Herat. “I understood they wanted all that information if I died,” he said.

He and other Afghan recruits were flown the next day to Iran’s southern Yazd province, where they underwent 27 days of training under the Revolutionary Guard. Mehdi’s marksmanship impressed the trainers, and he was made a sniper. When it was over, Mehdi was flown to Damascus with around 1,600 other new recruits.

In Damascus, the recruits opened bank accounts where their salary would be deposited. They were taken to the shrine of Sayeda Zeinab, a site outside Damascus revered by Shiites, for final blessings before battle. The next day, they were taken by bus to the northern city of Aleppo and sent immediately to the front.

There, Mehdi was thrown into one of the fiercest battles of the war — a campaign that began in the spring of 2016 against Islamic militant factions, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, over the town of Khan Toman and nearby villages on Aleppo’s edge.

It was a fight that showed the international nature of the war. Among the militants were Syrians, Iraqis, Chechens, Turkmens, Uzbeks and other foreign jihadis; on the other side were Syrian government troops, Iranian soldiers, Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, Iraqi Shiites and Afghans, backed by Russian warplanes — all battling for a piece of Syrian land.

The fighting went on for months and it is estimated hundreds on both sides were killed or wounded. On a single day, militants killed an estimated 80 pro-government fighters, including at least 13 Iranians and dozens of Afghans, Iraqis and Lebanese. In the end, the militants held Khan Toman, as they do to this day.

Mehdi described terrifying bloodshed. He said in one battle, 800 Afghans were sent to the front line and only 200 returned alive and unwounded. “Often in the morning I saw seven, eight dead bodies.” he said. “For the first couple of days I was very scared. The explosions were so loud.”

Another Afghan veteran of the same battle, Abdullah, said he still has nightmares of the dead, their limbs missing. He said the Afghans were sent as cannon fodder. “I saw Afghan fighters rolled over by tanks the way someone steps on ants,” he told the AP in Kabul. “Dead bodies were scattered everywhere.”

Mehdi returned to Afghanistan a year ago, and his life has changed little from when he left. He remains poor and unable to find a job.

After nearly 18 years and more than $1 trillion spent by the United States, Afghans are only getting poorer. According to a 2016-17 Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey, co-sponsored by the European Union, 55 percent of Afghans live below the poverty level, compared to 38 percent in 2011-12.

Mehdi spoke bitterly of his lack of options. He’s considering re-enlisting for Syria. The brigade is still operating there, and some Afghan veterans stayed in Syria to find jobs, mostly in construction.

“I don’t know what my future brings,” he said. “Maybe I become a thief or maybe I go back to Syria.”

____

Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

Scotland’s Green Energy Strides Are Leaving Us in the Dust

Scotland added another 6% of green energy in 2018, so that nearly 75% of its annual gross electricity consumption came from renewables, chiefly wind, solar and hydro. Scotland’s population is 5.4 million.

The increase in green energy came mainly from new offshore wind.

New offshore wind also allowed the UK to get 33% of its electricity from renewables in 2018. Although the UK is far behind Scotland in the green energy transition, it is nearly 12 times more populous, at 66 million, and so for it to get fully a third of its electricity from green sources is in real numbers a much bigger deal. British carbon emissions fell 3% last year.

Scotland and the UK have further big plans for new floating offshore wind turbines, a technology pioneered off the coast of Scotland by Shell.

Britain as a whole wants to get 30% of its electricity from wind alone by 2030.

Scotland is also doing groundbreaking research and development on wave and tidal energy, which has the advantage of being steady (unlike wind and solar). A small demonstration project is already powering 2600 homes in Scotland, and there are near-term plans to expand it.

People who talk about our finding future solutions to the climate emergency are just out of date. The solutions exist, it is just a matter of implementing them, of political will.

Scotland has that political will. (Truth in advertising, my maternal grandfather was a McIlwee, which I take makes me an honorary Glaswegian).

Scotland also has plans for car parks that charge electric vehicles, having called for the end of gasoline-driven cars by 2032. The Scotsman says, “Revolutionary vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology will also be employed at the hubs, allowing charged cars to feed electricity back to the smart grid where it can be used to power homes and businesses.”