Chris Hedges's Blog, page 303

The Taliban Is Ascendant as Afghanistan Hangs in the Balance

The tables have turned. The Taliban, the militants who sheltered the 9/11 attackers and earned the wrath of America, are now meeting their arch-nemesis in Doha, Qatar. Conducting the talks is Zalmay Khalilzad, a senior diplomat of Afghan descent who is currently serving as the U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation.

Since August 2018, the two parties have met five times. Last Tuesday, Ambassador Khalilzad tweeted: “Just finished a marathon round of talks with the Taliban in Doha. The conditions for peace have improved. It’s clear all sides want to end the war. Despite ups and downs, we kept things on track and made real strides.”

It had been hoped that the peace talks would reach some positive conclusion by spring and a cease-fire announced. This has not happened. Ambassador Khalilzad has returned to Washington for further consultations.

What is holding up the negotiations? The special representative touched on this issue when he identified four major points on which agreement was essential for further progress. They are:

Counterterrorism assurances
Withdrawal of U.S. and NATO-affiliated troops
Intra-Afghan dialogue
A comprehensive cease-fire

In the February-March round now adjourned, an agreement has been reached on the draft of the first two questions only. It is obvious that these are the less complex issues on which anyone wishing to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan would agree readily. As it is, both sides, as well as Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, are now feeling uneasy and anxious about the intensely unstable situation in South and Southwest Asia.

U.S. President Donald Trump is also keen on reaching a consensus, as he has promised his people that he would bring American troops home. Since the agreed-upon draft has not been revealed one cannot comment on it, especially on the nature of the assurances regarding anti-terrorism. The Taliban are expected to pledge not to allow anyone to launch a 9/11-like attack against the U.S. again. What safeguards will be offered to ensure this is not known—neither has any time schedule for troop withdrawal been revealed.

The last two issues are trickier still, as they will determine the future political structure of Afghanistan. It requires no knowledge of rocket science to understand that the Taliban are negotiating from a position of strength and want to translate their military strategic advantage into political control over the country. This is a test case for the U.S.

So far, the Taliban have been adamant about having no truck with the Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul. It is dubbed an “American puppet.” There is no doubt that Ghani cannot survive in office without U.S. military backing. Today the Taliban control over 30 percent of Afghan territory. The capital is still held by Ghani thanks to America’s military presence. As U.S.and NATO forces have gradually been pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban have gained in strength. America’s attempts to train the Afghan army and arm it with modern weapons have not succeeded in converting it into a strong fighting force capable of defending the country.

If the Ghani government is sidelined to allow Khalilzad to make a deal in Doha, it would amount to Washington’s political surrender to an enemy it has fought for 17 years. The American electorate could well ask their current and former administrations to explain the loss of over 6,000 American lives in a prolonged and deadly war which failed to yield any political or strategic gains.

Taliban authority is inevitable if the leadership in Kabul is kept out of the talks. Without his government’s participation, Ghani would have no say in the implementation of the final settlement and the power-sharing arrangement that is worked out. Moreover, once the U.S. forces are out of Afghanistan, it would be a walkover for the Taliban.

Taliban leaders have already been discussing their future plans. Theirs would be an Islamic state, but they have moderated their tone somewhat, not wishing to revive memories of the ideological state they created from 1996 to 2001. Yet their extremist anti-female and anti-culture stance and militancy invites skepticism given their past record while in power.

They have also promised to cultivate cordial and friendly relations with Islamabad. This is to be expected. After all, Pakistan has been a friend that has provided them support and helped them break out of their isolation. Islamabad’s role in paving the way for the Doha talks has been acknowledged by Washington.

These developments have profound implications for Pakistan’s geopolitical prospects, which currently appear to be bleak. Taliban policies are bound to evoke a reaction from their rivals in the north of Pakistan. To begin with, it is feared that as soon as the U.S. leaves Afghanistan, in-fighting will break out, leaving Pakistan to cope with the mess that is bound to be left behind. That has happened before, and it will happen again. Pakistan lacks the capacity to address the ensuing crisis. It might complicate matters further. The U.S. withdrawal will create a vacuum if an agreement with firm international guarantees is not drawn up.

Pakistan will be back to square one—but in a worse regional scenario than ever before. The situation as it has emerged today has Russia and China eying the happenings in Afghanistan closely.

Since 2014, various forums have been set up to tackle the Afghan crisis. These have included Russia, China, the Taliban, Ashraf Ghani’s rivals, India, Pakistan, Iran and even the U.S. itself in various combinations. It was Trump’s categorical announcement about pulling out of Afghanistan that triggered the Doha framework that was firmed up by bringing Khalilzad into the negotiating process.

Even before the fifth round of negotiations ended on March 12, the world faced another crisis of grave dimension. India and Pakistan came to the brink of war on Kashmir. Considering that those two states are now nuclear powers, a full-fledged war between them would have led to nuclear havoc in South Asia.

Sherry Rahman, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S., reminded readers in an article published in Dawn that in the four wars India and Pakistan have fought since 1947, they have suffered a combined death toll of 22,600.

She cited a study by the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War that says in a nuclear confrontation in South Asia, 21 million people could die, and it could cause global famine resulting in the death of two billion people worldwide.

Rahman’s article was a powerful reminder that Kashmir had re-emerged as a dangerous flashpoint which should not be ignored.

At this stage, Kashmir will cast its long shadow on the talks in Doha. Though neither of the two nuclear powers are interlocutors in the Afghan negotiations, Kashmir will remain in the backdrop. Afghanistan, India and Pakistan have had a complex triangular relationship since 1947, when the British departed from the subcontinent.

Now we know more about the happenings in the region last month. The newspaper Dawn has revealed after due investigations that it was the Trump administration that played a key role in preventing the sparring between the two neighbors from spiraling out of control into a conflict of serious magnitude.

The goings-on behind the scenes will certainly have an impact on the Doha talks when Khalilzad returns to Qatar at the end of March.

 

Christian Charity Gave Over $50 Million to Hate Groups, Report Reveals

The National Christian Foundation is America’s eighth largest public charity, but it doesn’t build houses, educate children, feed the hungry, or provide other goods or services one might commonly associate with a charity. It’s also not a household name like the Red Cross, but that doesn’t prevent it from having vast influence. According to a new investigation from Sludge, the far-right, evangelical NCF “has donated $56.1 million on behalf of its clients to 23 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.”

These nonprofits include multiple anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hate groups. In fact, as reporter Alex Kotch points out, Inside Philanthropy has said that NCF “is probably the single biggest source of money fueling the pro-life and anti-LGBT movements over the past 15 years.”

In addition to not being a direct service charity, the NCF is also not a conventional foundation that a wealthy donor uses as a vehicle to grow and then give away their money to multiple other charities over time. Instead, it’s a donor-advised fund, offering its Christian donors “expert guidance and creative giving solutions,” Kotch writes.

Helaine Olen, writing in The Atlantic, calls these donor-advised funds a “waiting room for charitable donations,” in which anyone, not only the wealthy, can place money into the fund, let it grow, and then have it distribute the money gradually to organizations of the donor’s choice.

According to Kotch, these funds allow their clients “immediate tax breaks on donations.”

They also give individual donors who pay into the fund anonymity. While Sludge was able to use publicly available tax findings to determine which organizations NCF funded, the names of the fund’s donors stay hidden.

The biggest recipient of NCF funds, according to Sludge’s investigation, is Alliance Defending Freedom, a network of lawyers, who, Kotch writes, “have supported criminalizing homosexuality, sterilizing transgender people, and claimed that gay men are pedophiles.”

Kotch continues:

Alliance Defending Freedom took in $49.2 million from NCF from 2015-17. ADF received $46.3 million in contributions and grants during the 2016 fiscal year (from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016). It got $16.8 million from NCF in the calendar year of 2015, meaning that, if these years were aligned, NCF’s donations would have represented over one-third of ADF’s annual contributions.

The Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center says “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science,” including linking homosexuality to pedophilia, is another frequent beneficiary of NCF funds. Sludge found it received $5.3 million from 2015 to 2017.

While anti-LGBT organizations are the primary recipients of NCF’s funds, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant organizations also benefit:

Anti-Muslim groups ACT for America ($98,000), American Freedom Law Center ($40,000), David Horowitz Freedom Center ($40,000), and Virginia Christian Alliance ($3,600) have received thousands from NCF since mid-2014, and anti-immigrant nonprofits American Border Patrol ($100) and The Remembrance Project ($2,500) also got NCF funding.

Donor-advised funds, in general, are not required to have policies addressing hate groups. As Kotch explains, “these giant funds absolve themselves of any responsibility, saying that as long as the Internal Revenue Service has granted 501(c)(3) status to an organization, it’s fair game.”

At least one expert Sludge spoke to believes funds like NCF are funding hate groups intentionally, and could, if they chose, deny a client’s request to fund them.

Aaron Dorfman, president and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, told Sludge, “With the dramatic escalation of violence and intimidation by white nationalists and right-wing extremists, it’s way past due for sponsors of donor-advised funds to cut off any dollars flowing to hate groups.” And, he continued, “they have every right to exercise discretion by refusing a donor’s request to fund a hate group.”

NCF did not respond to Sludge’s requests for comment. Read the entire article here.

Trump Praises Brazil’s Far-Right Leader at White House

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump praised Brazil’s new far-right leader Tuesday as he welcomed him to the White House, saying the man who’s been described as the “Trump of the Tropics” has done “a very outstanding job.”

Trump said President Jair Bolsonaro had run “one of the incredible campaigns,” saying he was “honored” it had drawn comparisons with his own 2016 victory. And he predicted the two would have a “fantastic working relationship,” telling reporters as he opened a joint press conference that they have “many views” in common.

The two leaders were expected to discuss a range of issues during their first sit-down, including expanding trade relations, increasing U.S. private-sector investment in Brazil and resolving the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela. Both are fierce critics of Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

As they sat down for talks, Trump also said that he supports Brazil’s effort’s to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and is “very strongly” looking at U.S. support for Brazil’s effort to gain certain NATO privileges.

“We’re very inclined to do that,” Trump told reporters, describing the relationship between the two countries as better than ever.

“I think there was a lot of hostility with other presidents. There’s zero hostility with me. And we’re going to look at that very, very strongly, whether it’s NATO or it’s something having to do with alliance,” he said.

Brazil, the largest and most populous nation in Latin America, has pursued becoming a “major non-member ally” to NATO to make buying U.S. weapons easier and to lower barriers to military and other cooperation with the U.S.

Trump later told reporters he intends to work to designate Brazil a “major non-NATO ally” and “maybe a NATO ally” as well.

Days after taking office Jan. 1, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, said Brazil would consider letting the U.S. have a military base in the country as way to counter Russian influence in the region, particularly related to Brazil’s neighbor Venezuela.

That statement was roundly criticized, including by former military members of his government, and the administration backed off. Still, Bolsonaro routinely expresses his admiration for Trump and frequently says closer U.S. ties are key to Brazil’s future.

“I admire President Donald Trump and we will certainly work toward” shared interests,” Bolsonaro said Tuesday, adding that just as Trump “wants to have a great America,” he wants to have “a great Brazil.”

In a sign of friendship, the two also exchanged soccer jerseys.

Bolsonaro has sought to underscore his pro-America stance throughout his visit.

“For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC,” he tweeted after arriving. “It’s the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for.”

Bolsonaro continued that message in remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday.

“Nowadays, you have a president who is a friend of the United States who admires this beautiful country,” he said.

The Brazilian president, who arrived in the country with a half-dozen ministers, also made an unusual visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on Monday.

Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying him on his first bilateral overseas trip, described the CIA as “one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world” in a tweet that was likely to raise eyebrows back home in Brazil, where the U.S. and its spy services have been regarded with suspicion in recent years.

Bolsonaro succeeded a leftist who at times had a frosty relationship with the United States. In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of former President Dilma Rousseff, leading to several years of tense relations between the U.S. and Brazil.

His insurgent, social media-powered campaign has been likened to Trump’s 2016 effort. Like Trump, he painted himself as representing “the people” standing up against “the elite,” blasted unflattering stories as “fake news,” and mimicked Trump’s “America First” catch phrase, pledging to put “Brazil First.”

In an interview on Fox Monday, Bolsonaro said he supported Trump’s hardline immigration policies and his efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions or do not intend to do the best or do good for the American people,” said Bolsonaro, adding that he hoped the U.S. would uphold its current immigration policies.

The remarks were aired after the two countries signed several bilateral agreements, including one that allows the United States to use Brazil’s Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites, and Brazil announced an end to visa requirements for U.S. tourists who visit the country.

Brazil is seeking U.S. help with its efforts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and to expand trade. The Bolsonaro administration is seeking to reduce public-sector spending and privatize state enterprises to reduce debt and grow its economy.

Venezuela is expected to be a subject of discussion. Brazil, like the U.S., has recognized the leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as Venezuela’s interim president under the argument that Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate.

Bernie Sanders Makes the Case for His Electability

WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders spent much of 2016 talking of revolution. In 2019, he’s turned to a subject that’s a bit more pragmatic: electability.

As he revs up his second presidential campaign, the Vermont senator and his supporters are putting his case for winning the general election at the center of the argument. The emphasis is meant to aggressively confront the perception that Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is too liberal to win over the coalition needed to win the White House. That question dogged Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic nomination four years ago. This time he is trying to shake it early.

On the trail, Sanders is quick to note that some of his policy ideas have moved from the fringe to the mainstream of the Democratic Party. His strategists argue he’s best positioned to win over voters in the three Rust Belt states that Democrat Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016. Trump, the campaign argues, won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the keys to his Electoral College victory, by offering a version of Sanders’ populist economic message.

What Trump was offering “was faux-Bernie Sanders in order to beat Hillary Clinton,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said, adding that Sanders plans to focus on the three states even as he fights off a crowded field of Democrats vying for the nomination in states with early primary contests. “We will invest, we will go to these states and demonstrate through real action, and hopefully data and numbers, that we can beat Donald Trump.”

The early focus on the general election is just one of the many ways Sanders has evolved from the freewheeling candidate of 2016 to a front-runner. Already, the campaign has 70 staffers on its payroll , compared to 30 in July 2015, his advisers told reporters last week on a conference call arranged to discuss Sanders’ “path to victory more than 600 days before Election Day. In less than a week as a declared candidate, Sanders flexed the power of his robust donor list, raising $10 million from donors, the campaign said, a sum that dwarfed his rivals.

Sanders’ viability-first focus comes as the Democratic field continues to expand. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke jumped into the presidential race last week, and former Vice President Joe Biden appears on the cusp of announcing his plans. Biden and O’Rourke are each expected to infuse a more centrist strain of politics into the race, and supporters of both men say they could also appeal to white working-class voters who backed Trump in 2016.

Kayleigh McEnany, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said: “We are happy to go toe to toe with any Democrat 2020 contender, especially in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. President Trump expanded the map, winning states that have not been won by a Republican since the 1980s.”

Whether Sanders would have beaten Trump in 2016 is, of course, unknowable. Indeed, like Trump, Sanders appealed to voters with populist promises to upend Washington and fight for the forgotten. It is possible that, if Sanders had been the nominee, he may have won some disillusioned or disconnected voters who ultimately voted for Trump over Clinton. But Sanders had weak spots with other key parts of the Democratic coalition — notably African-American voters. It’s impossible to know whether he would have matched Clinton’s overwhelming support from those voters.

Sanders’ campaign argues that he’s starting his 2020 bid in a stronger place among African-American and Latino voters. But this case isn’t yet about convincing independent or moderates, but rather about convincing the Democratic base.

“The polls have been pretty consistent that Democratic primary voters are very focused on which candidate has the best chance to beat Trump, so I expect all the candidates to argue why they are uniquely positioned to win,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama.

“Bernie Sanders has a strong case that his economic message works in the states that delivered Trump the presidency in 2016, but his challenge is going to be articulating how he can defend himself against attacks that he is a socialist,” Pfeiffer said.

Karine Jean-Pierre, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser at MoveOn, argued against the notion that a more centrist candidate is inherently more electable. “Often you’ll hear arguments from centrist, or more corporate-aligned, Democrats that a candidate needs to run as a centrist to win — but those comments say more about the commenters’ interests and ideology. They don’t actually tell you much useful about political outcomes,” she said.

“This year’s primary is obviously a different dynamic than 2016, when there were only two Democrats, and much of that debate centered on electability — and then the candidate presumed by the Democratic establishment to be most ‘electable’ lost,” Jean-Pierre said.

So far, Sanders has been focused on Democrats’ shared goal of defeating Trump, whom he’s called the most dangerous president in American history. But he’s also placed himself as a standard-bearer in today’s political environment.

“In 2016, this is where the political revolution took off,” Sanders said during a recent trip to New Hampshire, a state that he won by 22 percentage points. He said that he began the race far behind Clinton, campaigning on ideas “considered by establishment politicians and mainstream media to be ‘radical’ and ‘extreme.’”

Sanders says that now his ideas are supported by a majority of Americans, particularly Democrats and independents, as well as his rivals in the race.

Many of the hundreds who braved a snowstorm to hear Sanders speak said they believe Sanders is the Democratic candidate best suited to end the Trump era.

Kimberly Taylor, a 53-year-old who works at a veterinary clinic, said she was a huge supporter of Sanders in 2016 and is inclined to support him again.

“I know there’s a huge running list and that there are a lot of people out there, but I think a lot of them are just reiterating what he’s been saying pretty much his whole life,” Taylor said of the Democratic field.

Asked whether Sanders is Democrats’ best opportunity to beat Trump, she replied, “God, I hope so.”

Facebook Settles Suits Over Ad-Targeting Discrimination

SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook settled five lawsuits alleging that its advertising systems enabled discrimination in housing, credit and employment ads. For the social network, that’s one major legal problem down, several to go, including government investigations in the U.S. and Europe over its data and privacy practices.

As part of that settlement, Facebook says it will overhaul ad targeting for housing, credit and employment ads so they can’t be used to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity, gender and other legally protected categories in the U.S., including national origin and sexual orientation. The social media company is also paying about $5 million to cover legal fees and other costs.

Facebook and the plaintiffs — a group including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Fair Housing Alliance and others —called the settlement “historic.” It took 18 months to hammer out. The company still faces an administrative complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in August over the housing ads issue.

What’s not yet clear is how well the safeguards will work. Facebook has been working to address a slew of social consequences related to its platform, with varying degrees of success. Last week, it scrambled to remove graphic video filmed by a gunman in the New Zealand mosque shootings, but the footage remained available for hours on its site and elsewhere on social media.

Earlier in March, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “privacy-focused vision” for the company to focus on messaging instead of more public sharing — but he stayed mum on overhauling Facebook’s privacy practices in its core business.

Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU and the group’s lead attorney on its suit, praised the settlement as “sweeping” and said she expects it to have ripple effects through the tech industry.

Facebook agreed to let the groups test its ad systems to ensure they don’t enable discrimination. The company also agreed to meet with the groups every six months for the next three years, and is building a tool to let anyone search housing-related ads in the U.S. targeted to different areas across the country.

Discrimination hasn’t Facebook’s only problem with ad targeting. In the past, it’s taken fire for allowing advertisers to target groups of people identified as “Jew-haters” and Nazi sympathizers. It’s also still dealing with fallout from the 2016 election, when, among other things, Facebook allowed fake Russian accounts to buy ads targeting U.S. users to stir up political divisions.

One of the complaints said that Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act because its targeting systems allow advertisers to exclude certain audiences, such as families with young children or disabled people, from seeing housing ads. Others alleged job discrimination, with ads being shown to men but not women in traditionally male-dominated fields, or only to younger users.

As part of the changes, advertisers who want to run housing, employment or credit ads will no longer be allowed to target people by age, gender or zip code. Facebook will also limit the targeting categories available for such ads. For example, such advertisers wouldn’t be able to exclude groups such as “soccer moms” or people who joined a group on black hair care.

Endlessly customizable ad targeting is Facebook’s bread and butter. The ads users see can be tailored down to the most granular details — not just where people live and what websites they visited recently, but whether they’ve gotten engaged in the past six months or share characteristics with people who have recently bought a BMW, even if they have never expressed interest in doing so themselves. It’s how the company made $56 billion in revenue last year.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, would not say whether the changes will hurt the company’s advertising revenue. The most important thing, she said, was to protect Facebook’s users from discrimination.

“Today’s changes mark an important step in our broader effort to prevent discrimination and promote fairness and inclusion on Facebook,” she said in a blog post Tuesday. “But our work is far from over.”

The American Emperor Has No Clothes

This piece originally appeared on antiwar.com.

There are times when I wish that the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. As a veteran of two imperial wars, a witness to the dark underside of America’s empire-denial, I’ve grown tired of the equivocation and denials from senior policymakers. The U.S. can’t be an empire, we’re told, because—unlike the Brits and Romans—America doesn’t annex territories outright, and our school children don’t color its colonies in red-white-and-blue on cute educational maps.

But this distinction, at root, is rather superficial. Conquest, colonization, and annexation are so 19th century – Washington has moved beyond the overt and engages in the (not-so) subtle modern form of imperialism. America’s empire over the last two decades—under Democrats and Republicans—has used a range of tools: economic, military, political, to topple regimes, instigate coups, and starve “enemy” civilians. Heck, it didn’t even start with 9/11—bullying foreigners and overturning uncooperative regimes is as American as apple pie.

Still, observing post-9/11, post-Iraq/Afghanistan defeat, Washington play imperialism these days is tragicomically absurd. The emperor has no clothes, folks. Sure, America (for a few more fleeting years) boasts the world’s dominant economy, sure it has dotted the globe with a few hundred military bases, and sure its military still outspends the next seven competitors combined. Nonetheless, what’s remarkable, what constitutes the real story of 2019, is this: the US empire can’t seem to accomplish anything anymore, can’t seem to bend anybody to its will. It’s almost sad to watch. America, the big-hulking has-been on the block, still struts its stuff, but most of the world simply ignores it.

Make no mistake, Washington isn’t done trying; it’s happy to keep throwing good money (and blood) at bad: to the tune of a cool $6 trillion, 7,000 troop deaths, and 500,000 foreign deaths—including maybe 240,000 civilians. But what’s it all been for? The world is no safer, global terror attacks have only increased, and Uncle Sam just can’t seem to achieve any of its preferred policy goals.

Think on it for a second: Russia and Iran “won” in Syria; the Taliban and Pakistan are about ready to “win” in Afghanistan; Iran is more influential than ever in Iraq; the Houthis won’t quit in Yemen; Moscow is keeping Crimea; Libya remains unstable; North Korea ain’t giving up its nukes; and China’s power continues to grow in its version of the Caribbean—the South China Sea. No amount of American cash, no volume of our soldiers’ blood, no escalation in drone strikes or the conventional bombing of brown folks, has favorably changed the calculus in any of these regional conflicts.

What does this tell us? Quite a lot, I’d argue—but not what the neoliberal/neoconservative alliance of pundits and policymakers are selling. See for these unrepentant militarists the problem is always the same: Washington didn’t use enough force, didn’t spend enough blood and treasure. So is the solution: more defense spending, more CIA operations, more saber-rattling, and more global military interventions.

No, the inconvenient truth is as simple as it is disturbing to red-blooded patriots. To wit, the United States—or any wannabe hegemon – simply doesn’t possess the capability to shape the world in its own image. See those pesky locals— Arabs, Asians, Muslims, Slavs—don’t know what’s good for them, don’t understand that (obviously) there is a secret American zipped inside each of their very bodies, ready to burst out if given a little push!

It turns out that low-tech, cheap insurgent tactics, when combined with impassioned nationalism, can bog down the “world’s best military” indefinitely. It seems, too, that other regional heavyweights—Russia, China, Iran, North Korea—stand ready to call America’s nuclear bluff. That they know the US all-volunteer military and consumerist economy can’t ultimately absorb the potential losses a conventional war would demand. Even scarier for the military-industrial-congressional-media establishment is the logical extension of all this accumulated failure: the questionable efficacy of military force in the 21st century.

Rather than recognize the limits of American military, economic, and political power, Bush II, Obama, and now Trump, have simply dusted off the old playbook. It’s reached the level of absurdity under the unhinged regime of Mr. Trump. Proverbially blasting Springsteen’s “Glory Days,” as its foreign policy soundtrack, the Donald and company have doubled down. Heck, if Washington can’t get its way in Africa, Europe, Asia, or the Mideast, well why not clamp down in our own hemisphere, our traditional sphere of influence—South and Central America.

Enter the lunacy of the current Venezuela controversy. Trump’s team saw a golden opportunity in this socialist, backwater petrostate. Surely here, in nearby Monroe Doctrine country, Uncle Sam could get his way, topple the Maduro regime, and coronate the insurgent (though questionably legitimate) Juan Guaido. It’s early 20th century Yankee imperialism reborn. Everything seemed perfect. Trump could recall the specter of America’s tried and true enemy—“evil” socialism—cynically (and absurdly) equating Venezuelan populism with some absurd Cold-War-era existential threat to the nation. The idea that Venezuela presents a challenge on the scale of Soviet Russia is actually farcical. What’s more, and this is my favorite bit of irrationality, we were all recently treated to a game of “I know you are but what am I?” from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who (with a straight face) claimed Cuba, tiny island Cuba, was the real “imperialist” in Venezuela.

Next, in a move reminiscent of some sort of macabre 1980’s theme party, Trump resuscitated Elliott Abrams—you know, the convicted felon of Iran-Contra infamy, to serve as Washington’s special envoy to embattled Venezuela. Who better to act as “fair arbiter” in that country than a war-criminal with the blood of a few hundred thousand Central Americans (remember the Contras?!?) on his hands back in the good old (Reagan) days.

Despite all this: America’s military threats, bellicose speechifying, brutal sanctions, and Cold War-style conflict-framing, the incumbent Maduro seems firmly in control. This isn’t to say that Venezuelans don’t have genuine grievances with the Maduro government (they do), but for now at least, it appears the military is staying loyal to the president, Russia/China are filling in the humanitarian aid gaps, and Uncle Sam is about to chalk up another loss on the world scene. Ultimately, whatever the outcome, the crisis will only end with a Venezuelan solution.

America’s impotence would almost be sad to watch, if, and only if, it wasn’t all so tragic for the Venezuelan people.

So Trump and his recycled neocons will continue to rant and rave and threaten Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and so on and so forth. America will still flex its aging, sagging muscles—a reflexive habit at this point.

Only now it’ll seem sad. Because no one is paying attention anymore.

The opposite of love isn’t hate—it’s indifference.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

The Trump Administration Is Detaining Migrant Children in Clandestine Shelters

The federal government is relying on secret shelters to hold unaccompanied minors, in possible violation of the long-standing rules for the care of immigrant children, a Reveal investigation has found.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government agency that cares for unaccompanied minors, has never made the shelters’ existence public or even disclosed them to the minors’ own attorneys in a landmark class-action case.

It remains unclear how many total sites are under operation, but there are at least five in Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia, holding at least 16 boys and girls for the refugee agency, some as young as 9 years old.

Minors being held at the clandestine facilities initially were placed at known shelters around the country but later were transferred to these off-the-books facilities that specialize in providing for youth with mental health and behavioral challenges.

The refugee agency’s standards for transferring youth in its care state that the agency “makes every effort to place children and youth within the ORR funded care provider network,” but makes room for out-of-network transfers, adding that “there may be instances when ORR determines there is no care provider available within the network to provide specialized services needed for special needs cases. In those cases, ORR will consider an alternative placement.”

Under the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 pact that sets the standards for how unaccompanied minors are treated while detained and calls for their swift release, the federal government is supposed to provide attorneys representing detained children with a regular and detailed census of each minor in the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s custody. The practice appears to violate the long-held agreement.

Holly Cooper, who represents the class of unaccompanied minors in the agency’s care, says the government failed in its obligation to report every minor’s location – and believes the refugee agency still is withholding information about other locations, even after being pressed to do so.

“Detained unaccompanied children with mental health issues are some of the most vulnerable children, and when the government does not provide access to their whereabouts, it calls into question the basic underpinnings of our democratic institutions,” Cooper said.

Cooper learned about one of the facilities months ago. After requesting information about additional sites, she learned about several others. Now, she told Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, she’s still getting credible information that the list the government provided to her is incomplete.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement acknowledged a request for comment but hadn’t yet responded to specific questions by the time this story was published.

Robert Carey, who directed the agency during the final two years of the Obama administration, said that as far as he knew, no such arrangements were in place before Donald Trump became president.

“If that was happening, it was something that I was not aware of,” he said.

Some facilities, he said, occasionally would subcontract specialized medical or educational services. But Carey said he wasn’t aware of children being housed outside of publicly disclosed shelters.

“We had pretty exhaustive oversight procedures and monitoring procedures,” he said. “If any of those standards are being lessened or compromised, that would obviously be cause for concern. These systems are in place for a reason. There’s an inherent vulnerability in the care for children.”

One of the care providers, Millcreek Behavioral Health in Fordyce, Arkansas, operates as a residential treatment center and is holding at least eight children in the refugee agency’s custody, according to information obtained by Reveal. Inspection reports obtained by Reveal do not suggest any serious state violations; 911 service call records to the facility were requested by Reveal in December, but the local office of emergency management hasn’t decided whether to release the documents.

Another provider, Rolling Hills Hospital in Ada, Oklahoma, is a facility for children and adults that is holding at least one minor in the refugee agency’s custody. An investigation by The Oklahoman published earlier this year revealed that patients complained of broken bones, along with “allegations of sexual harassment and physical abuse” at the hospital. A 2017 inspection report reviewed by Reveal describes multiple violations, including employees who said the hospital failed to provide staff orientation, patient records that indicated registered nurses had not provided necessary assessments, and a facility where patient deaths went unreported to the governing body for oversight.

Officials with the care facilities either declined to comment or did not respond to emails and phone messages from Reveal.

“I don’t have anybody that needs to comment,” said Pam Burford, an administrator at Millcreek Behavioral Health.

Néstor Dubón, a sponsor for an asylum-seeking cousin who’s being held at Millcreek, hasn’t visited the site but describes it as a better alternative to the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center, a shelter whose federal contract came to an end in 2018, where Dubón’s cousin previously was held. Dubón was told that his cousin would be transferred to Arkansas but was unaware that the facility’s use as a shelter wasn’t public. No matter where his cousin is being held, Dubón’s chief concern is his cousin’s release. He said he’s met all the requirements asked of him by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to gain his cousin’s freedom.

“I’ve given my fingerprints three times – three times!” Dubón said. “I’ve obtained and shared birth certificates and powers of attorney from Honduras and for what? He’s still there.”

Dubón’s 16-year-old cousin has been in the agency’s custody since he first entered the United States more than two years ago.

Both Millcreek and Rolling Hills are owned and operated by Acadia Healthcare. Reveal has determined that 50 of Acadia’s facilities – operating in 23 states and Puerto Rico – provide residential care for minors, but it’s unclear how many of those facilities serve youth in the refugee agency’s custody.

Acadia has been publicly traded on the NASDAQ for nearly a decade. With hundreds of facilities and a capacity of over 18,000 beds, it is one of the largest treatment networks in the country. Its services include care for behavioral health and addiction.

In November, a critical investor detailed a litany of abuse allegations at Acadia-run facilities, including Rolling Hills. A December 2017 lawsuit accused Acadia and Rolling Hills of permitting ongoing sexual abuse inside a facility for children, destroying video evidence and refusing access to a state investigator.

Former Acadia CEO Joey Jacobs has acknowledged that regulatory problems led some states to temporarily stop referring people to Acadia facilities. But Jacobs announced those problems had been resolved, at least in a call with investors in November 2018.

“We’re a large company with a large number of facilities,” he said. “So at any time, we can have an inspection go bad or an incident occur or an investigation be instigated.”

Jacobs left the company in December. Acadia has accumulated $3.2 billion in debt from buying up local care centers, prompting critical attention from investors who doubt that it can be paid off.

Acadia Healthcare did not return a call for comment for this story.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement also hasn’t disclosed that it houses children at Devereux, a nonprofit behavioral health organization based in Pennsylvania that operates in multiple states, Reveal has confirmed. One of its facilities in Florida is holding at least five minors for the federal agency. The previously undisclosed care network also includes residential treatment centers operated by KidsPeace and Youth For Tomorrow. These two organizations already contract with the government as shelter providers, offering general care. But they don’t have public agreements to provide the more intensive behavioral and mental health care of a residential treatment center.

KidsPeace communications director Bob Martin told Reveal that there were “a very small number of cases” in which his organization has accepted children from other refugee agency shelters for placement in its residential treatment center. In those cases, he said, no new contracts were signed, beyond what he called a “letter of agreement” with the agency.

“It’s been an extremely rare occurrence,” Martin said.

Martin said any questions about government oversight in those cases should be answered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Courtney Gaskins, director of program services for Youth For Tomorrow, confirmed that the refugee agency has requested that her organization take children in its residential treatment wing.

“We’ve gotten requests for those,” she said. But Gaskins declined to say whether her organization has ever agreed to do so. “I wouldn’t comment if we did,” she said.

Reveal reviewed federal contract and grant awards to Youth For Tomorrow and KidsPeace but found no mention of residential treatment center services.

Some of the nonprofit organizations involved in this network are well-monied and hold powerful connections in the media and government. Devereux’s board includes James H. Schwab, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, was the president of Vice Media until December and remains a board member and senior adviser at Vice. Oliver North and Fox News analyst Brit Hume sit on the Youth For Tomorrow board of directors.

In a statement to Reveal, Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, called the arrangement “incredibly disturbing.”

“Imagine being a child in a strange country, hundreds or thousands of miles from where you grew up, surrounded by people who may not speak your language. You would be incredibly vulnerable – which is exactly why ORR is supposed to follow strict regulations governing where these children can be held and what child welfare standards must be met.”

Merkley has introduced a bill that would require shelter operators to grant access to members of Congress.

“ORR needs to provide answers immediately about where they are holding asylum-seeking children, and what, if any, child welfare regulations those facilities are meeting,” he said.

The lack of disclosure of facilities where unaccompanied minors are held leaves a vacuum of public oversight. It’s unclear how the refugee agency regulates and inspects these facilities. For its publicly listed shelters, the agency sets a minimum staff-to-children ratio and training requirements and conducts announced and unannounced inspections. One possibility is that shelter providers are subcontracting the care of certain children to another care provider.

According to cooperative agreements between the refugee agency and residential care providers, which Reveal acquired after filing a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, shelters may subcontract services to other entities. In those cases, the federal agency holds the shelter responsible for ensuring that “sub-recipients” maintain the same standards of care required by law.

Reveal filed FOIA requests in the fall for information about any subcontracts or out-of-network care contracts to care for unaccompanied children. The government has yet to respond.

This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and Matt Thompson and copy edited by Nikki Frick.

Elizabeth Warren Calls for End to Electoral College

During a CNN town hall Monday night in Mississippi—where GOP laws and suppression tactics have disproportionately harmed black voters—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the best way to strengthen voting rights nationwide is to amend the U.S. Constitution and abolish the Electoral College.

“I believe we need a constitutional amendment that protects the right to vote for every American citizen and to make sure that vote gets counted,” the Massachusetts senator and 2020 presidential contender said to applause. “We need to put some federal muscle behind that, and we need to repeal every one of the voter suppression laws that [are] out there right now.”

“We need to make sure that every vote counts….Come a general election, presidential candidates don’t come to places like Mississippi,” Warren continued. “My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College, and every vote counts.”

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren calls for abolishing the Electoral College and moving to a national popular vote: “Every vote matters” #WarrenTownHall https://t.co/pPFMVywETf pic.twitter.com/yy0J0HgAjc

— CNN (@CNN) March 19, 2019

Warren’s support for abolishing the Electoral College comes as the National Popular Vote movement is gaining steam, with a number of states passing legislation to award their delegates to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.

“Every Democrat running for president in 2020 should be standing alongside Elizabeth Warren in calling to eliminate the Electoral College so the popular vote determines the next president—and pass a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right of every American to vote,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which is backing Warren in the Democratic presidential primary, said in an email to supporters.

Warren’s call for bold voting rights reforms is part of her broad and substantive policy agenda, which is aimed at transforming the federal government to ensure its power is used on behalf of ordinary people, not massive corporations and the wealthy.

“Washington is working great, it’s working fabulously, for giant drug companies,” Warren said during the town hall. “It’s just not working for people who are trying to get a prescription filled. It’s working great for big oil companies that want to drill everywhere. It’s just not working for people who see climate change bearing down upon us. It’s working great for giant financial institutions and for payday lenders. It’s just not working great for people who are living paycheck to paycheck.”

“I’m tired of a Washington that works for the rich and the powerful. I want a Washington that works for the rest of America,” Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says. #WarrenTownHall https://t.co/rmonEoDziF pic.twitter.com/vnGqQPffHV

— CNN (@CNN) March 19, 2019

To ensure that Washington works for all Americans and not just the donor class and powerful companies, Warren—who has vowed to reject campaign donations from lobbyists and PACs—said “we need big structural change in this country.”

“When you’ve got a government that works for the rich and it’s not working nearly as well for anyone else, that’s corruption, and we need to call it out plain and simple,” the Massachusetts senator said, pointing to her sweeping anti-corruption legislation that would—among other major reforms—bar members of Congress from receiving donations from lobbyists and completely ban foreign lobbying.

Warren went on to highlight America’s soaring wealth and income inequality and call for a total rewrite of the nation’s economic rules.

“Part of that is putting more power back in the hands of workers,” Warren said.

The senator said imposing higher taxes on the richest Americans is another essential and way to curb inequality and fund major items on the progressive agenda.

“We get a two percent tax on the 75,000 richest families in this country,” Warren said, pointing to her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” proposal, “we would have enough money to provide universal child care, universal pre-K, universal pre-pre-K for every child in America and still have two trillion dollars left over.”

“When you’ve got a government that works for the rich and it’s not working nearly as well for anyone else, that’s corruption. … I have the biggest anti-corruption bill since Watergate,” Elizabeth Warren says about her plan to make sure the rich pay fair taxes. #WarrenTownHall pic.twitter.com/HBWKxuhHrL

— CNN (@CNN) March 19, 2019

Ardern Vows to Deny Accused Mosque Gunman Notoriety He Seeks

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand—New Zealand’s prime minister declared Tuesday she would do everything in her power to deny the accused mosque gunman a platform for elevating his white supremacist views, after the man dismissed his lawyer and opted to represent himself at his trial in the killings of 50 people.

“I agree that it is absolutely something that we need to acknowledge, and do what we can to prevent the notoriety that this individual seeks,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters. “He obviously had a range of reasons for committing this atrocious terrorist attack. Lifting his profile was one of them. And that’s something that we can absolutely deny him.”

She demurred about whether she wanted the trial to occur behind closed doors, saying that was not her decision to make.

“One thing I can assure you — you won’t hear me speak his name,” she said.

Later, in a passionate speech to Parliament, she urged the public to follow her lead and to avoid giving the gunman the fame he so obviously craves.

“I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them,” she said. “He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing, not even his name.”

The shooter’s desire for attention was made clear in a manifesto sent to Ardern’s office and others before Friday’s massacre and by his livestreamed footage of his attack on the Al Noor mosque.

The video prompted widespread revulsion and condemnation. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million versions of the video during the first 24 hours, but Ardern expressed frustration that the footage remained online, four days later.

“We have been in contact with Facebook; they have given us updates on their efforts to have it removed, but as I say, it’s our view that it cannot — should not — be distributed, available, able to be viewed,” she said. “It is horrendous and while they’ve given us those assurances, ultimately the responsibility does sit with them.”

Arden said she had received “some communication” from Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg on the issue. The prime minister has also spoken with British Prime Minister Theresa May about the importance of a global effort to clamp down on the distribution of such material.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also urged world leaders to crack down on social media companies that broadcast terrorist attacks. Morrison said he had written to G-20 chairman Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling for agreement on “clear consequences” for companies whose platforms are used to facilitate and normalize horrific acts.

Lawyer Richard Peters, who was assigned to represent Brenton Harrison Tarrant at his initial court appearance on Saturday, told the New Zealand Herald that Tarrant dismissed him that day.

A judge ordered Tarrant to return to New Zealand’s High Court on April 5 for his next hearing on one count of murder, though he is expected to face additional charges. The 28-year-old Australian is being held in isolation in a Christchurch jail.

“He seemed quite clear and lucid, whereas this may seem like very irrational behavior,” Peters told the newspaper. “He didn’t appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views.”

Peters did not return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Peters told the paper that Tarrant didn’t tell him why he wanted to represent himself. He said a judge could order a lawyer to assist Tarrant at a trial, but that Tarrant would likely be unsuccessful in trying to use it as a platform to put forward any extremist views.

Under New Zealand law, a trial is “to determine innocence or guilt,” Peters said. “The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views.”

Ardern previously has said her Cabinet had agreed in principle on tightening gun restrictions in New Zealand and those reforms would be announced next week. She also had announced an inquiry into the intelligence and security services’ failures to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans. There have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks.

New Zealand’s international spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, confirmed it had not received any relevant information or intelligence ahead of the shootings.

In Parliament on Tuesday, Ardern said there are justified questions and anger about how the attack could have happened in a place that prides itself on being open, peaceful and diverse.

“There are many questions that need to be answered and the assurance that I give you is that they will be,” she said. “We will examine what we did know, could have known or should have known. We cannot allow this to happen again.”

Meanwhile, Christchurch was beginning to return to a semblance of normalcy Tuesday. Streets near the hospital that had been closed for four days reopened to traffic as relatives and friends of the victims continued to stream in from around the world.

Thirty people were still being treated at the Christchurch hospital, nine of them in critical condition, said David Meates, CEO of the Canterbury District Health Board. A 4-year-old girl was transferred to a hospital in Auckland and is in critical condition. Her father is at the same hospital in stable condition.

Relatives of the dead are still anxiously awaiting word on when they can bury their loved ones. Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible. Ardern has said authorities hope to release all the bodies by Wednesday and police said authorities are working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they can.

Sheik Taj El-Din Hilaly, of Sydney, traveled to Sydney to attend and lead some of the funerals. Through a translator, he said he felt compelled to travel to Christchurch to support the grieving. A nationwide lockdown on mosques was imposed until Monday, which Hilaly said had upset Muslims whom he had visited in Auckland. Police continue to guard mosques across the country.

Grieving residents of this close-knit city have created makeshift memorials near the mosques the killer targeted and at the botanical gardens, where a mountain of flowers has grown by the day.

Janna Ezat, whose son, Hussein Al-Umari, was killed in the Al Noor mosque, visited the memorial at the gardens and became overwhelmed by the outpouring of love.

She knelt amid the flowers and wept, grabbing at daisies and lilies as though she might find her boy in them.

Ezat is comforted by reports that Hussein confronted the killer, charging at him after surviving the first spray of bullets.

“I’m very happy. I’m wearing white. We normally wear black,” she said. “But he is a hero and I am proud of him.”

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Associated Press writers Stephen Wright and Steve McMorran contributed to this report.

Damage Deepens as Swollen Rivers Inundate Midwestern Towns

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Hundreds of homes flooded in several Midwestern states after rivers breached at least a dozen levees following heavy rain and snowmelt in the region, authorities said Monday while warning that the flooding was expected to linger.

About 200 miles of levees were compromised — either breached or overtopped — in four states, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. Even in places where the water level peaked in those states — Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas — the current was fast and the water so high that damage continued to pile up. The flooding was blamed for at least three deaths.

“The levees are busted and we aren’t even into the wet season when the rivers run high,” said Tom Bullock, the emergency management director for Missouri’s Holt County.

He said many homes in a mostly rural area of Holt County were inundated with 6 to 7 feet (1.8 to 2.1 meters) of water from the swollen Missouri River. He noted that local farmers are only a month away from planting corn and soybeans.

“The water isn’t going to be gone, and the levees aren’t going to be fixed this year,” said Bullock, whose own home was now on an island surrounded by floodwater.

One couple was rescued by helicopter after water from three breached levees swept across 40,000 acres (16,188 hectares), he said. Another nine breaches were confirmed in Nebraska and Iowa counties south of the Platte River, the Corps said.

In Atchison County, Missouri, about 130 people were urged to leave their homes as water levels rose and strained levees, three of which had already been overtopped by water. Missouri State Highway Patrol crews were on standby to rescue anyone who insisted on staying despite the danger.

“The next four to five days are going to be pretty rough,” said Rhonda Wiley, Atchison County’s emergency management and 911 director.

The Missouri River already crested upstream of Omaha, Nebraska, though hundreds of people remained out of their homes and water continued to pour through busted levees. Flooding was so bad around Fremont, Nebraska, that just one lane of U.S. 30 was uncovered outside the city of 26,000. State law enforcement limited traffic on that road to pre-approved trucks carrying gas, food, water and other essential supplies.

“There are no easy fixes to any of this,” said Fremont City Administrator Brian Newton. “We need Mother Nature to decrease the height of the river.”

In southwest Iowa, the Missouri River reached a level in Fremont County that was 2 feet (0.6 meter) above a record set in 2011. The county’s emergency management director, Mike Crecelius, said Monday that more water was flooding into low-lying parts of Hamburg, where a wall of sand-filled barriers was breached when one failed.

President Donald Trump tweeted Monday that he is staying in close contact with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem about the flooding. Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence to go survey the flood damage in Nebraska Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in the tweet. She did not say where in Nebraska Pence would go.

Reynolds, touring flood-ravaged areas of the state for the second straight day, warned that flooding will worsen along the Mississippi River as snow melts to the north.

The National Weather Service said the river was expected to crest Thursday in St. Joseph, Missouri, at its third-highest level on record. Military C-130 planes were evacuated last week from nearby Rosecrans Air National Guard base.

In North Dakota, Fargo was preparing for potentially major flooding along the Red River — the same river that ravaged the city a decade ago. Mayor Tim Mahoney declared an emergency and asked residents to help fill 1 million sandbags in response to a weather service warning that snowmelt poses a big risk in Fargo. Sandbag-filling operations start March 26.

In Illinois, weather service readings showed major flooding along the Pecatonica River at Shirland and Freeport, and the Rock River in the Rockford area and Moline. Freeport City Manager Lowell Crow said officials there expected the Pecatonica River “to possibly rise to a record level or at least to a level we haven’t seen in 50 years.”

The flooding started after a massive late-winter storm hit the Midwest last week.

The high water was blamed in the deaths of three people from Nebraska. Betty Hamernik, 80, of rural Columbus, was trapped in her home by the fast-rising Loup River. Her body was recovered Saturday.

Aleido Rojas Galan of Norfolk was swept away Friday night in southwestern Iowa, when the vehicle he was in went around a barricade. On Thursday, Columbus farmer James Wilke, 50, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try to reach stranded motorists.

Two men in Nebraska have been missing since Thursday. One was last seen on top of his flooded car; the other was swept away after a dam collapsed.

The Missouri Department of Transportation reported about 100 flood-related road closures, including a stretch of Interstate 29.

Jud Kneuvean, emergency manager with the Army Corp of Engineers’ Kansas City district, blamed rainfall, snowmelt and higher temperatures “converging all at the same time.” No significant flooding was expected east of Kansas City, though Kneuvean said the Corps was monitoring closely.

“When you have a high river and have any forecast of rain on it, it can change the scenario very quickly,” Kneuvean said.

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Associated Press writers Jim Salter in St. Louis; Grant Schulte in Lincoln, Nebraska; Nelson Lampe in Omaha, Nebraska; Caryn Rousseau in Chicago; David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa; and Blake Nicholson in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report.

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Check out the latest developments on the flooding.