Chris Hedges's Blog, page 645

Teacher Accidentally Fires Gun in Classroom

SAN FRANCISCO—A teacher at a Northern California high school accidentally fired his gun inside a classroom, causing minor injuries to three students, but kept teaching while the students sat there, the mother of one of the students said Wednesday.

Dennis Alexander, a reserve police officer, was pointing the gun at the ceiling Tuesday to make sure it was not loaded when it discharged inside his classroom at Seaside High School in the coastal community of Seaside, police said.

Police said no one sustained serious injuries.

Alexander was not authorized to have a gun on campus, Monterey Peninsula Unified School District spokeswoman Marci McFadden said.

District policy says only school resource officers — active law enforcement personnel employed as armed security at schools — can carry guns on campuses.

Authorities were investigating why Alexander had the gun and if officials were aware that he intended to bring it to school, McFadden said.

Fermin Gonzales, 17, one of the injured students, told KTVU-TV that he saw blood on his shirt after the gun fired.

“Then I wiped my neck, kind of, and a bullet fragment comes off my neck,” he said.

The teen’s mother, Crystal Gonzales, told The Associated Press that no officials contacted parents to let them know what happened and that she was shocked to learn about the mishap several hours later.

“I’m still really upset no one called a nurse or a paramedic to come check on the students,” Gonzales said. “They just sat there until the bell rang.”

The accidental shooting came amid a national debate over whether to arm teachers in the aftermath of a mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff members.

On Wednesday, thousands of high school students walked out of classrooms across the nation to protest gun violence in schools.

A law that took effect in California on Jan. 1 halted the ability of school districts to allow non-security employees to carry guns on campus.

Alexander was teaching a gun safety lesson in an administration of justice class and was about to show the students how to disarm someone when the gun fired, Gonzales said.

Gonzales said the incident happened Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. and that she did not hear about it until her son called her hours later when the class ended and went to a relative’s home.

As the boy’s parents rushed him to a hospital for X-rays, she said the school’s principal called her cellphone to apologize.

The teen is fine, though he’s still shaken up and stayed home Wednesday, his mother said.

Gonzales said police didn’t arrive at the school to investigate until three hours later and the family filed a police report.

Alexander was placed on administrative leave from his teaching job and he was also placed on administrative leave at the Sand City Police Department, police and school officials said. Efforts to reach Alexander were not immediately successful.

The school district sent a letter to parents saying its human resources department, the high school administrators and the Seaside Police Department “immediately began investigating the incident, including interviewing students in the class.”

It said counseling was made available to students and that it could not release any other details “due to the nature of this personnel incident.”

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Associated Press Writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report.

‘Bloody Gina’ Should Not Lead the CIA

Editor’s note: John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

President Trump’s nomination of CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to be the new director returns the country to the bad old days of torture and secret prisons. Trump couldn’t be any clearer that he has come down on the side of the architects of the George W. Bush-era torture policy. Haspel was a protégé of Jose Rodriguez, the CIA’s notorious former deputy director for operations and former director of the Counterterrorism Center (CTC), known as the godfather of the torture program. Haspel served as Rodriguez’s chief of staff at CTC.

Haspel has been at the CIA for 33 years. She’s been described in the media as a “,” with an “” and as someone who “inspires those around her.” I’m sure that’s true for some. But many of the rest of us who knew and worked with Gina Haspel at the CIA called her “Bloody Gina.”

The CIA will not permit me to talk about Haspel’s time overseas. Suffice it to say that others already have, and her career has been well documented in the media. Most importantly, it was Haspel whom Rodriguez ordered to destroy videotaped evidence of the torture of Abu Zubaydah, who many of us believed, incorrectly, to be the third-ranking person in al-Qaida. And that was after the White House counsel told her to preserve everything. She never apologized or even attempted to explain herself. Rodriguez called her a patriot. I would say that she committed “obstruction of justice,” a felony.

Haspel’s appointment as CIA director is wrong for a number of reasons. First, just imagine the message this sends to the CIA workforce: Engage in whatever war crimes or crimes against humanity you want, and there won’t be any repercussions. Don’t worry about ethics. Don’t worry about morality. We’ll cover for you. And you can destroy the evidence, too.

What message does that send to other countries around the world? What do we tell our allies, the same ones we criticize every year in the State Department’s annual Human Rights Report? We tell them: “You know how we always say that we’re a beacon of respect for human rights and the rule of law? Well, that’s nonsense. We say those things only when it’s expedient. Do as we say, not as we do.”

Our actions are also not lost on our enemies. A myriad of former intelligence professionals will tell you that the torture program has been the greatest recruitment tool terrorist groups around the world have ever had. It has energized them. It’s given them something to rally against. It swelled their ranks. It was no coincidence that ISIS paraded its prisoners in front of cameras wearing orange jumpsuits before beheading them. Gina Haspel has to take responsibility for her role in that.

We should also ask ourselves who we want to be as Americans. Do we want to be just another international rogue nation that tortures people? Do we want to be the country that snatches people from one country and sends them to another to be tortured and interrogated? Do we want to be the country that cynically preaches human rights, then violates those same rights when we think nobody is looking? Shouldn’t we want to be that shining beacon, the country that every other one looks up to?

Haspel’s nomination is also an insult to the likes of Sen. John McCain, the one person on Capitol Hill with the greatest moral authority to weigh in on torture. McCain knows that torture is an abomination. It’s un-American. We should listen to him. Haspel’s nomination is an insult to Defense Secretary James Mattis, the retired four-star general who told Trump to his face during the transition period that torture doesn’t work, and to CIA Director Mike Pompeo himself, who said in his confirmation hearings that he was opposed to the torture program and would not reinstate it, even if the president ordered him to do so.

There is some hope that the CIA’s overseers on Capitol Hill will have the sense to tell the president that this nomination is wrong. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), in 2013 objected to Haspel’s temporary appointment as director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, the agency’s operations directorate, denying her the position on a permanent basis. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the SSCI’s ranking member, said he that Haspel intended to comply with the spirit and letter of the law banning torture. She made no public response. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has already said he will oppose her nomination.

If there was ever a time for Senate Democrats to stand together, it is now. Our nation cannot afford to backslide into lawlessness. We cannot countenance torture. We cannot look the other way. We cannot reward the torturers. Gina Haspel more appropriately should be facing a judge to answer to charges of war crimes. She ought not be in the director’s office at the CIA.

China and Russia Aren’t Nearly as Dangerous as We’re Meant To Believe

Some readers will barely finish reading the title of this piece before the ad hominem attacks commence. They’ll surely label me a Putin crony or a China apologist before reaching the second paragraph. Such is life in this age of militarism, hyper-partisanship and American hysteria.

Sure, Russia has been accused of meddling in the 2016 elections; and, yes, China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea and investing heavily across Eurasia and Africa. Maybe its even fair to consider Russia and China as competitors on the world stage. Still, none of that justifies war or the threat of war. The U.S. has seen darker days (like two world wars and a Cold War nuclear showdown) and there’s little cause for panic. Instead, the rhetoric of the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy (NDS), which refers to China and Russia as “revisionist powers,” reads like 1950s anti-Soviet-alarmism.

President Trump lacks anything close to a consistent foreign policy doctrine or dogma, which, well, can be both a good and a bad thing. His generals, on the other hand – Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster – are all hyper-interventionists bent on perpetual American exceptionalist hegemony. And, for these true believers, there are only two countries standing in the way of a new Pax Americana: China and Russia. Seriously, read the NDS summary and you’ll see what I mean. Look, I don’t know exactly what occurred between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 – honestly, no one does. But for me, the Trump team’s hardline defense rhetoric and combative posture towards the twin Eurasian powers of China and Russia, has never jived with the MSNBC-Russia gate-collusion narrative. Of course, I could be wrong.

What’s certain, however, is this: neither Russia or China have the capacity nor the intent for global conquest. These are nuclear-armed regional titans, and, at least in China’s case, have real economic clout. What they’re decidedly not is super villains. All the alarmism surrounding Russia and China (and North Korea and Iran, for that matter) serves none but the military-industrial complex, the arms dealers, and hawkish politicians who bully their way to power through the force of inflated threats. The US military – no how much we thank the troops and pour on the faux adulation – is already overstretched, fighting several small, indecisive wars simultaneously across the Greater Middle East. The soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors can’t possibly forward deploy – indefinitely – to balance against Russian and Chinese invasions that just aren’t coming. That’s just madness…absurdity…the specialty of post-9/11 America.

A Stroll in the Other Guys’ Shoes

Humor me with a quick thought experiment: imagine a foreign power possessing the strongest military in the world set up bases in Canada, Mexico, and on various Caribbean Islands; that its ships cruised the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico with regularity; that it forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Central America; that it built an alliance with every power in North America besides us and conducted regular military exercises along the Rio Grande and in the Puget Sound. How might the United States respond? I’d bet on all out war, but hey, who knows.

The point is, that’s the way the world looks when viewed from Moscow or Beijing. This shouldn’t imply that Putin or Xi Jinping are swell guys without skeletons in their proverbial closets. It’s just the stark reality. Only most Americans are too self-obsessed and blinded by self-righteousness to walk a mile in Russian or Chinese shoes. We’re special, we’re exceptional – it’s the other guy that’s (always) wrong.

The Great White Hype: Inflating the Russian Bear

Russia ain’t no angel. Since 2008, it has fought a war with neighboring Georgia, annexed the Crimea, and not-so-surreptitiously intervened in Ukraine. See, but it isn’t so simple. Foreign affairs unfold in manifold gray areas and Uncle Sam doesn’t have such a clean track record itself!

Context matters! Remember, that all the above actions occurred directly adjacent to Russia’s borders, in its neighborhood. Georgia (backed by NATO and the US) wasn’t so innocent and helped provoke the Russian bear at the outset of war. The people of Crimea wanted to join Russia and only became Ukrainian property due to a deal struck by Premier Khrushchev in the 1950s. In the Ukraine, the US appears to have colluded with the pro-Western opposition to overthrow an elected government long before the Russians intervened. Most significantly, despite promises made by then President George H.W. Bush, the (by definition anti-Russian) NATO military alliance has spread eastward right to Moscow’s borders.

Speaking of borders, Russia has fourteen countries touching its territory on land alone. Russia is encircled by adversaries and feels deeply threatened. And, despite an impressive arsenal of nukes, Russia is weak. Its essentially a petro-state that’s hostage to the fluctuation of oil and gas prices, boasting – at best – an economy about the size of Spain or Italy. Russian men also suffer from a serious alcohol, suicide, and life expectancy crisis. White ethnic Russians are losing demographic ground to a growing Muslim population, which spooks Putin and company. Their Defense spending is about a tenth of the United States and less than half that of a British-German-French combo. Russian tanks and armored vehicles appear daunting next to Latvia, but it still has a GDP just 11% that of the European Union and lacks the air or sea lift capacity to project power globally. Russia has one aircraft carrier. The US has (depending on the source) about 20 of various sizes.

The prognosis: Russia is, at best, playing a losing hand with remarkable skill. Western Europe is not in danger of conquest and the US homeland is quite safe. The Russian military is more likely to get bogged down fighting Islamists in the Caucasus or Mid East than to invade Poland. It may nibble at the edges of its eastern and southern rim but has neither the capacity or intent to assert itself globally. Besides, if forced to do so, a European coalition can and will easily check Russia’s most aggressive moves along its borders.

The Asian Invasion: Inflating the Chinese Dragon

China’s no stranger to controversy either. It claims a slew of sandy islands in the South China Sea and bullies smaller neighbors economically and at sea. It’s constructing infrastructure for a trade route through Central and South Asia that will only increase its economic clout. Still, some perspective is in order. The South China Sea is essentially China’s version of the Caribbean, a sea which the US Navy has dominated for some 200 years, often through Marine Corps interventions and CIA-inspired coups. This is China’s backyard, and they’ve got a population over 1 billion, with the #1 or #2 world economy. Is it so crazy to expect they’d be a major player in East Asia? Over time, the US will either have to accept this and seek mutually beneficial coexistence, or, otherwise, fight a potentially cataclysmic war, which, no one would really win (especially when the global economy collapses and nukes begin-a-flying).

China, too, has fourteen land neighbors (the US has two) – many of them hostile. Russia, historically, is not a natural ally and the two fought serious border clashes during the 1960s. A coalition of maritime neighbors, allied with the US Navy, are actively contesting those islands in the South China Sea. Sure, China could punish them with sanctions, but – since their economies are inextricably linked – would also hurt itself in the process.

China’s military spending is still one-third that of the US, and even smaller if one includes powerful US regional partners like Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia. For all the fear of its navy turning the Western Pacific into a “Chinese lake,” it still has a single aircraft carrier. It’s local (US-allied) neighbors have quite a few more; Japan has four; India and Australia two each; and even South Korea matches China’s one! Admittedly, due to Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) missile technology (which China has heavily invested in), aircraft carriers are no longer the be all, end all, of naval power. Still, if a state seeks to project power globally – as we’re told China intends to do – its going to need more than one old, leaky, former Russian carrier.

China, like Russia, also has a future demographic problem, mainly due to its long standing “one child policy” and low birthrate. It also faces a natural US ally with a growing population, economy, and military on its southwest border: India. All those inconveniences are likely to keep China busy for at least a generation or two.

The prognosis: China’s economic and military might are expanding. Still, it has nowhere near the global reach of the United States, and its economy is far too interdependent with America to risk a war of expansion. They’ll eventually become the big boy on the block in their own neighborhood (just like we are in the Gulf of Mexico!) and take their inevitable place among the major powers. None of that requires, or could even be avoided by, a catastrophic war. China isn’t coming for California, except, perhaps, to collect some debts.

Let us review, then: Putin is a nasty guy and probably a killer; XI is centralizing power in his authoritarian single party system. Putin wants to regain some of Russia’s (or the Soviet Union’s) former regional clout XI desires regional preeminence in the South China Sea. This author, at least, is not a particular fan of either strongman. There’s my disclaimer…again.

Yet even if we accept all of the above as a given, it doesn’t add up to Russian or Chinese schemes for world conquest or global hegemony. Nor is Putin or XI (or even Kim Jong Un) irrationally suicidal enough to actually launch a nuke at Los Angeles. Love ’em or hate ’em, these are generally rational men seeking national security and limited military gains at the margins of their local regions.

It is the United States, rather – you know, the “beacon of freedom” – that deploys commandos and military advisers to around 70% of the countries in the world. It is the United States, and only the United States, which rings our “adversaries” with hundreds of military bases and spends more on Defense than most of the rest of the world combined. And, uncomfortable though it may be, it’s the United States that often tops international polls as the greatest threat to global peace.

Maybe the rest of the world is crazy, mistaken, and only us Americans gaze upon this world with objective eyes. Maybe Russia, China, and a slew of other rogue states really are bent on global empire and the US military must police the global commons from now till eternity.

Maybe; but, what if we’re wrong?

‘Human Rights Champion’ John McCain Silent on Efforts to End War Crimes in Yemen

Last week, Sen. John McCain wrote an op-ed in The New York Times with Angelina Jolie, lamenting a lack of “action” on protecting the Rohingya. The article, well-argued and appealing to our better angels, laid out the urgency and outrage of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Muslim-minority group in Myanmar. It’s one of a half-dozen columns penned by the Arizona senator over the past year lobbying for “human rights” and for the United States to “take action” on them, with varying degrees of specificity and militarism.

Yet the ongoing human rights crisis McCain has the most influence to do something about—the brutal, indiscriminate bombing of Yemen by Saudi-led forces—has not only been met with silence from the senator, but he has more often than not backed the country responsible for the disaster: Saudi Arabia.

A new bill authored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia and its bombing campaign—a campaign that, by the latest accounts, has killed over 13,000 civilians and caused upward of 1 million cholera cases—has yet to see any support from McCain. Indeed, in 2017, the last and only real time those in the U.S. Senate made an effort to end U.S. backing of the siege of Yemen, McCain voted against a measure to end arming Saudi Arabia in response to its war crimes. “Thank God for the Saudis,” McCain said in 2014. It appears his position has yet to change.

During the three-year siege of the poorest country in the Arab world by Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and other Gulf allies, McCain has repeatedly voted in favor of selling the absolute monarchy weapons and protected it in Congress from efforts to curb its human rights abuses, offering only the occasional mild chiding.

As McCain polishes his PR image as a human rights champion, doing the media rounds and writing columns, those in the press need to ask him why he is silent on the human rights abuses he can actually do something about. McCain has tremendous, if not deciding, purchase over ending the Saudi bombing of Yemen (unlike bombings committed by Russia or China or other countries). U.S. backing isn’t merely incidental, either. As senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel—hardly a radical lefty—argued in 2016: “if the United States and the United Kingdom, tonight, told King Salman, ‘This war has to end,’ it would end tomorrow. The Royal Saudi Air Force cannot operate without American and British support.”

This is a decision Congress can make this week and one McCain could have a potentially dispositive influence over. But he chooses not to because McCain—like many of those responsible for U.S. foreign policy—appears to care about human rights only insofar as they advance American interests. Or, at the very least, only insofar as they don’t upset those interests. The senator infamously cut off a reporter’s question two years ago over the McCain Institute receiving a $1 million donation from Saudi Arabia.

Just as with his support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or for Israel’s 2014 bombing of Gaza that killed over 1,500 civilians, McCain’s concern over human rights is, at best, selective and, at worst, self-serving.

For “human rights” to be more than a branding exercise, McCain can lend his tremendous influence to ending one of the globe’s major humanitarian disasters. This isn’t mere posturing or point scoring: By throwing his considerable weight behind the bill, McCain could finally end the moral stain of U.S. support for war crimes in Yemen. Organizations from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International to OxFam—to the United States’ own State Department—have acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses in Yemen. When will America’s supposed protector of human rights, John McCain?

Where Have You Gone, George McGovern?

He knew war well—well enough to know he hated it.

George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He flew 35 missions as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.

Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war—like Vietnam—he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his anti-war stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.

Today’s Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. They dutifully voted for Bush’s Iraq war. Then, they won back the White House and promptly expanded an unwinnable Afghan war. Soon, they again lost the presidency—to a reality TV star—and raised hardly a peep as Donald Trump expanded America’s aimless wars into the realm of the absurd.

I’ve long known this, but most liberals—deeply ensconced (or distracted) by hyper-identity politics—hardly notice. Still, every once in a while something reminds me of how lost the Democrats truly are.

* * *I nearly spit up my food the other day. Watching on C-SPAN as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., gleefully attended a panel at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, I couldn’t help but wonder what has happened to the Democratic Party. The worst part is I like her, mostly. Look, I agree with Sen. Klobuchar on most domestic issues: health care, taxes and more. But she—a supposed liberal—and her mainstream Democratic colleagues are complicit in the perpetuation of America’s warfare state and neo-imperial interventionism. Sen. Klobuchar and other Democrats’ reflexive support for Israel is but a symptom of a larger disease in the party—tacit militarism.

AIPAC is a lobbying clique almost as savvy and definitely as effective as the NRA. Its meetings—well attended by mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike—serve as little more than an opportunity for Washington pols to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu’s ring and swear fealty to Israel. Most of the time, participants don’t dare utter the word “Palestinian.” That’d be untoward—Palestinians are the unacknowledged elephants in the room.

The far right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu, who is little more than a co-conspirator and enabler for America’s failed project in the Middle East, should be the last group “liberals” pander to. That said, the state of Israel is a fact. Its people—just like the Palestinians—deserve security and liberty. Love it or hate it, Israel will continue to exist. The question is: Can Israel remain both exclusively Jewish and democratic? I’m less certain about that. For 50 years now, the Israeli military has divided, occupied and enabled the illegal settlement of sovereign Palestinian territory, keeping Arabs in limbo without citizenship or meaningful civil rights.

This is, so far as international law is concerned, a war crime. As such, unflinching American support for Israeli policy irreversibly damages the U.S. military’s reputation on the “Arab street.” I’ve seen it firsthand. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds and thousands of miles away from Jerusalem, captured prisoners and hospitable families alike constantly pointed to unfettered U.S. support for Israel and the plight of Palestinians when answering that naive and ubiquitous American question: “Why do they hate us?”

Heck, even Gen. David “Generational War” Petraeus, once found himself in some hot water when—in a rare moment of candor—he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.” Translation: U.S. policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American soldiers less safe.

So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever Washington feels like it—so long as it’s in the name of fighting (you guessed it) “terrorism.” So, which “liberals” are raising hell and ringing the alarm bells for their constituents about Israeli occupation and America’s strategic overreach? Sen. Klobuchar? Hardly. She, and all but four Democrats, voted for the latest bloated Pentagon budget with few questions asked. Almost as many Republicans voted against the bill. So, which is the anti-war party these days? It’s hard to know.

Besides, the Dems mustered fewer than 30 votes in support of the Rand Paul amendment and his modest call to repeal and replace America’s outdated, vague Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). All Sen. Paul, a libertarian Republican, wanted to do was force a vote—in six months—to revisit the AUMF. This wasn’t radical stuff by any means. The failure of Paul’s amendment, when paired with the absolute dearth of Democratic dissent on contemporary foreign policy, proves one thing conclusively: There is no longer an anti-war constituency in a major American political party. The two-party system has failed what’s left of the anti-war movement.

* * *By no means is Amy Klobuchar alone in her forever-war complicity. Long before she graced the halls of the Senate, her prominent precursors—Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (to name just a few)—rubber-stamped a war of aggression in Iraq and mostly acquiesced as one president after another (including Barack Obama) gradually expanded America’s post-9/11 wars. When will it end? No one knows, really, but so far, the U.S. military has deployed advisers or commandos to 70 percent of the world’s countries and is actively bombing at least seven. That’s the problem with waging clandestine wars with professional soldiers while asking nothing of an apathetic public: These conflicts tend to grow and grow, until, one day—which passed long ago—hardly anyone realizes we’re now at war with most everyone.

So where are the doves now? On the fringe, that’s where. Screaming from the distant corners of the libertarian right and extreme left. No one cares, no one is listening, and they can hardly get a hearing on either MSNBC or Fox. It’s the one thing both networks agree on: endless, unquestioned war. Hooray for 21st century bipartisanship.

Still, Americans deserve more from the Democrats, once (however briefly) the party of McGovern. These days, the Dems hate Trump more than they like anything. To be a principled national party, they’ve got to be more than just anti-Trump. They need to provide a substantive alternative and present a better foreign policy offer. How about a do-less strategy: For starters, some modesty and prudent caution would go a long way.

* * *George McGovern—a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace—wouldn’t recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton, Schumer and company. He’d be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state.

In 1972, McGovern’s presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie’s did) reached out to impassioned youth in the “New Left,” and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern’s signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous war.

His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing white doves. Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not.

Today’s Dems are too frightened, fearful of being labeled “soft” (note the sexual innuendo) on “terror,” and have thus ceded foreign policy preeminence to the unhinged, uber-hawk Republicans. We live, today, with the results of that cowardly concession.

The thing about McGovern is that he lost the 1972 election, by a landslide. And maybe that’s the point. Today’s Democrats would rather win than be right. Somewhere along the way, they lost their souls. Worse still, they aren’t any good at winning, either.

Sure, they and everybody else “support the troops.” Essentially, that means the Dems will at least fight for veterans’ health care and immigration rights when vets return from battle. That’s admirable enough. What they won’t countenance, or even consider, is a more comprehensive, and ethical, solution: to end these aimless wars and stop making new veterans that need “saving.”

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.

Iran, North Korea and the Dangers of Trumpian Diplomacy

This planet just became a more perilous place to live.

It may not have seemed so last week, when Donald Trump agreed to meet Kim Jong Un for negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Trump’s abrupt diplomatic offer was certainly an improvement on his jeering, boasting and threatening on Twitter—even if he doesn’t understand that he gave away exactly what the dictator wanted most, without getting anything in return. The prospect of talks is almost always preferable to the possibility of war, which is why previous presidents consistently sought ways to engage the hereditary despots in Pyongyang.

The difference is that those presidents also knew enough not to approve any discussion without adequate preparation, let alone the total absence of rational planning and knowledgeable staff. Only a figure as arrogantly stupid as Trump would assume that he can handle such a complex and delicate situation on his own, without the military and diplomatic expertise that is at every president’s disposal.

Unfortunately, the margin for error in dealing with a regime like Kim’s is very, very small—and the stakes in a nuclear negotiation are unimaginably big. Any mistake can make a bad situation much, much worse.

That was why the State Department and the National Security Council spent many hours secretly preparing former president Bill Clinton and his companions for their August 2009 trip to bring home two American journalists imprisoned by the North Korean government.

Although the Obama administration publicly pretended to keep the rescue mission at arm’s length, its officials informed and oversaw everything that the Clinton party did, down to their deadpan facial expressions in the official photograph taken after their encounter with Kim Jong Il, the late father of Kim Jong Un.

Every word was scripted with absolute precision. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were released, as were several South Korean prisoners. More important, Clinton’s discussion with Kim led directly to the resumption of talks with the United States, which delayed the North’s acquisition of nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles for years.

The results of the 2009 mission were a testament to the 42nd president’s own skills, yet he would be the first to admit that the weeks of instruction and preparation—not to mention the knowledge about North Korea acquired during his presidency—had been crucial to a happy outcome.

Flash forward to a new president who starts off knowing nothing, who refuses to read anything longer than a page or two, and whose hostile belligerence has led to the rapid dismantling of the State Department. As Trump contemplates meeting with Kim in just two months, he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, further destabilizing the apparatus needed to support his diplomatic adventure. And he has replaced Tillerson with Mike Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas who has been running the CIA.

Pompeo’s appointment is not a promising development.

While it is hard to imagine him making matters worse for the deeply demoralized Foreign Service, Pompeo clearly shares the blustering, foolhardy attitudes toward nuclear negotiation voiced by Trump himself. He has hinted that the solution to our problems with North Korea may lie in military action, and even joked about assassinating Kim.

More troubling still is that Pompeo, like Trump, believes the United States should scuttle the nuclear agreement with Iran that was achieved after years of negotiation supported by our European allies, Russia, and China. Although the Trump administration certifies that the Iranians have lived up to its requirements in every respect, Pompeo has said, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal.” Which would free the Iranians to resume their own nuclear program—and increase the likelihood of another disastrous war in the Middle East.

Indeed, Trump appears prepared to reinstate sanctions on Iran, in violation of that agreement, on May 12—just around the time he is expecting to sit down with Kim to forge a similar agreement with North Korea. Evidently, neither he nor Pompeo nor any of the strutting hawks in the White House realize that the chances of a deal with Pyongyang are unlikely to survive a rupture with Tehran.

Nobody will accept the word of an American president after Trump violates the agreement that his predecessor reached with Iran. Even if North Korea signs an agreement, its erratic leader will hardly feel obligated to honor the deal when the United States so casually discards its own commitments.

Let’s hope someone can explain all this to Trump, in two pages or less, before it is too late.

Conor Lamb’s Showing Signals a Revolt in Trump Country

President Trump put his political standing on the line in western Pennsylvania’s special congressional election on Tuesday. He lost.

Republicans and their allies threw every attack in their political arsenal at Democrat Conor Lamb. They apparently fell short. The GOP found that its big corporate tax cut had scant appeal in a district that had voted for Trump by nearly 20 points. They pulled ads on their major achievement.

Many blue-collar voters seemed interested in coming back to their old Democratic loyalties after years of straying Republican. Lamb, a pro-union Marine veteran with deep roots in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, opened the door for them to return home after a long time away.

Lamb’s showing against Republican Rick Saccone—Lamb led by 641 votes with almost all of the votes counted—broadened the Democrats’ opportunities in this fall’s midterm elections. Republicans are vulnerable even in Trump’s 2016 heartland.

The main path for a Democratic takeover of the House runs through Republican-held districts where Hillary Clinton defeated or lost only narrowly to Trump in 2016. But Lamb demonstrated that more moderate Democrats could harvest anti-Trump votes without waging an anti-Trump campaign.

Lamb didn’t have to cast himself as a Trump backlash candidate because he was certain to win the president’s energized foes. So he was free to say—as he did in a highly disciplined appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning—that he wanted to work with Trump. Lamb cast himself as a unifier and criticized both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for presiding “over a time when we’ve had more and more gridlock and fewer and fewer important things getting done.”

The issues he listed as his priorities were straight off the bread-and-butter menu: transportation, infrastructure, Social Security and Medicare.

Lamb combined the politics of 2018 with the appeals of a much earlier era, when blue-collar districts tilted Democratic and unions could help deliver their members against anti-labor Republicans.

Saccone’s support for anti-union right-to-work laws turned out to be a vulnerability and organized labor was a key component of Lamb’s formidable effort. The highest profile Democrat Lamb brought in to campaign for him was former Vice President Joe Biden, the avatar of working-class Democrats.

Thus did Lamb build up a large majority in the Pittsburgh suburbs in Allegheny County where Trump was clearly a drag on the GOP. But he also posted gains in more rural and small town (and more Republican) parts of the district. Lamb not only ran far ahead of Clinton; he bested Barack Obama’s 2012 showing as well. The race underscored that Clinton’s deep deficits among white voters without college degrees were a continuation of longer-term trends, not an entirely new development.

Daniel Nichanian, a postdoctoral fellow in political science at the University of Chicago, reported that in the parts of the district that are in Westmoreland County, Trump had prevailed by 34 percentage points, and Mitt Romney by 27 points in 2012. Lamb cut Saccone’s margin to 15 points.

At the same time, Republicans suffered from an enthusiasm gap, as they have in almost all of the special elections held since Trump became president. Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report noted that Democratic Allegheny County turned out at 67 percent of 2016 levels. Turnout in more Republican Westmoreland County was at just 60 percent.

It was striking that the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement claiming that Saccone would come out the winner after “every legal vote is counted.” That word “legal” revealed how far the party has sunk to Trumpian levels: Trying to cover up a humiliation, the GOP intimated that any loss would be the result of illegitimately cast ballots.

Democrats will not be able to re-create everywhere the nearly perfect match between candidate and district that Lamb represented. And in some contests, progressive voters will resist nominees as middle-of-the-road as the former prosecutor who said his main goal was to get both parties “working together.”

Nonetheless, Lamb’s breakthrough should petrify Republicans. The staunchest anti-Trump voters are clearly prepared to vote for Democratic candidates no matter their ideology. Trump’s grip on less affluent voters has clearly weakened. This is also a sign that many of his 2016 supporters were casting ballots more against Hillary Clinton than for him. But November’s vote will not be a referendum on Clinton. It will very much be a judgment on Trump. And we’ve seen in one contest after another how lethal he is to his party.

U.K. Expels 23 Russians Over Spy Attack

LONDON — The Latest on the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England (all times local):

7:40 p.m.

The spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry says one of the many reasons to dismiss Britain’s accusations against Moscow in the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter is a suspicious absence of video footage.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned on March 4 in Salisbury. Russia vehemently denies involvement and has pointed to a number of possible anomalies.

Maria Zakharova told The Associated Press that the apparent lack of video of the Skripals being poisoned is a red flag.

She said that “I will never believe that this person or group of people … would not be seen after the commission of the crime. I will never believe it.”

“You have video cameras everywhere!”

Zakharova also reiterated Russian criticism that Britain hasn’t followed international procedure in the case by not providing Russia information.

She said that “if an emergency occurs in which a chemical, poisonous agent is used, there is an accompanying legal mechanism … it’s obligatory to immediately begin a bilateral investigation.”

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7:35 p.m.

Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador says the government is asking the international chemical weapons watchdog to independently verify its analysis that a military-grade nerve agent from the former Soviet Union was used to poison an ex-Russian agent accused of spying for the United Kingdom.

Jonathan Allen said that without any alternative explanation from Russian authorities about the nerve agent “we have no choice but to conclude this was a state-sponsored act against the prohibition and use of chemical weapons and in defiance of international law.”

He said the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has been informed about the use of the nerve agent and the U.N. “are inviting them to independently verify our analysis.” He said: “We are making every effort to expedite this process.”

Allen told reporters before heading into an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by Britain on Wednesday afternoon that “today I’ll be calling on my council colleagues to stand with us … against an illegal act, against a very troubling act, and against a reckless and indiscriminate act which puts civilian lives at risk.”

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6:50 p.m.

One of the Russian suspects in the fatal radiation poisoning in London of former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko says Britain’s statements about the Sergei Skripal poisoning case suggest that it was a provocation.

Andrei Lugovoi is one of two Russians sought by Britain in the 2006 killing of Litvinenko, who fled to Britain and became a harsh critic of President Vladimir Putin. Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in London.

Lugovoi was quoted as saying Wednesday by the state news agency RIA Novosti that “it seems to me that all their statements once again underscore that everything that was done around Skripal was a provocation — I do not rule out either by the British special services themselves or by some third force — but certainly not by the Russian Federation.”

Russia refused to extradite Lugovoi and another suspect named by Britain. He is now a member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

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5:20 p.m.

The U.N. says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemns any use of nerve agents, calling their use as a weapon “unacceptable” and warning that use by a state “would constitute a serious violation of international law.”

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq was responding to a question Wednesday on whether British Prime Minister Theresa May was justified to expel Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of an ex-Russian agent blamed on Russia.

Haq told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York that Guterres is not in a position to attribute responsibility for the attack, but “he strongly condemns the use of any nerve agent or chemical weapons and hopes that the incident will be thoroughly investigated.”

He said Guterres conveyed his sympathy and hopes for the early recovery of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who remain in critical condition in a hospital in Salisbury, southwestern England, after being found unconscious on March 4.

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5:10 p.m.

An Italian politician who hopes to be Italy’s next premier says he’ll rethink his pro-Russia stance if Moscow is proven to have poisoned an ex-spy.

Matteo Salvini, whose Euro-skeptic League is cozy with Russia, expressed skepticism that Russia is involved in the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal in England. He said “we see and hear a lot of fake news,” and that “in 2018 you don’t go around poisoning people.”

But he added that if there were “concrete proof” Russia caused the nerve agent attack “we’d change our relationship” with Russia.

Salvini, who has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saw his League triumph as the biggest party in a center-right coalition in March 4 national elections.

Salvini is clamoring for the European Union to drop sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. On Wednesday he called those sanctions “an economic, geopolitical and trade folly.”

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4:45 p.m.

The English Football Association says it will “work closely” with Britain’s government over the England team’s participation at the World Cup in Russia amid tensions over an ex-spy’s poisoning.

In response to the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, British Prime Minister Theresa May said politicians and royals wouldn’t travel to the June 14-July 15 soccer tournament among a series of measures to be taken against Russia.

May didn’t reference calls by some British politicians for the England team to boycott the World Cup.

English soccer’s governing body also hasn’t commented directly on boycott calls.

The FA says it “will continue to work closely with the U.K. government and relevant authorities regarding our participation” at the World Cup and an upcoming Women’s World Cup qualifier.

England’s women’s team is due to play in Russia on June 8.

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4:40 p.m.

Germany’s new foreign minister says Berlin “can fully and completely understand” why Britain took action over the poisoning of a former Russian spy.

Britain said Wednesday it would expel 23 Russian diplomats and sever high-level bilateral contacts after Russia ignored a deadline to explain how a Soviet-developed nerve agent was used against the ex-spy and his daughter.

New German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said at a handover ceremony Wednesday it is “disappointing that Russia so far doesn’t appear to be prepared” to help clear up the case. He said it should “create transparency,” either bilaterally to Britain or at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Maas said Germany will consult closely with London “and we can fully and completely understand that Britain had to react to this.”

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4:20 p.m.

British soldiers in protective clothing loaded a tow truck onto an army vehicle in southwestern England as they traced the movements of a former Russian spy who was attacked with a nerve agent.

The army cordoned off a road in Dorset on Wednesday as authorities investigated the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Authorities have also blocked off several sites in and near Salisbury, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London as part of their probe.

The military often assists police in cases where the armed forces have some expertise.

British police and intelligence reports say the Skripals were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent developed in the Soviet era. Though the material is believed to degrade quickly, authorities have sought to cordon off areas under investigation.

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4:15 p.m.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Britain’s decision to expel Russian diplomats is crude and hostile.

In a Wednesday statement, the ministry did not announce retaliatory measures, but said “our response will not be long in coming.”

Hours earlier, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsions in response to the poisoning in Britain of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter.

The ministry says that May’s statement is “an unprecedentedly crude provocation that undermines the foundations of a normal interstate dialogue between our countries.”

The statement added: “We consider it categorically unacceptable and unworthy that the British government, in its unseemly political aims, further seriously aggravated relations, announcing a whole set of hostile measures, including the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats from the country,” the statement said.

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4 p.m.

A senior Russian lawmaker says that British accusations against Russia over the poisoning of a former spy could mark an attempt by London to improve its global standing.

Britain has announced that it will expel 23 Russian diplomats, sever high-level contacts with Moscow and take other measures in response to the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, denounced the British action as “mean and cynical.” He added that the accusations against Russia represent a “dirty game” aimed to “restore London’s position as a key global player.”

Kosachev said that Russia lacked any motive for the poisoning and argued that Britain has failed to provide any proof of Russia’s involvement, adding that “Sherlock Holmes is turning in his grave.”

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3:55 p.m.

Britain is warning travelers to Russia that they could face anti-British sentiment amid political tension between London and Moscow over the nerve-agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal.

The Foreign Office updated its travel advice Wednesday, as Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats and other measures against Moscow.

It says Britons visiting Russia should “remain vigilant” and avoid commenting publicly on political developments.

The Foreign Office says that “due to heightened political tensions between the U.K. and Russia, you should be aware of the possibility of anti-British sentiment or harassment at this time.”

Thousands of England fans are expected to travel to Russia for the soccer World Cup in June.

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3:40 p.m.

The speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament is calling for Russia to take firm and retaliatory actions against Britain in response to London’s decision to expel Russian diplomats.

Valentina Matvienko made the comments several hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsions in the escalating dispute with Russia over the poisoning in Britain of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter.

Matvienko was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass that “the British, without presenting any evidence to Russia, have identified Russia as guilty. This is unprecedented, I think diplomatic practice does not know such examples. Therefore, Russia must react very quickly, very rigidly and in a symmetrical manner,” she said, according to state news agency Tass.

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3:30 p.m.

The head of a Russian government agency says Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok, which Britain said was used to poison an ex-spy, isn’t part of an international ban on chemical weapons.

Vladimir Uiba, the head of the Federal Medical and Biological agency, said according to the Interfax news agency that Novichok didn’t fall under the Chemical Weapons Convention that entered force in 1997. He wouldn’t say if Russia inherited any amounts of Novichok from the Soviet Union and whether they were destroyed.

Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said earlier Wednesday that Russia completed the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles last year under the convention.

Britain said it will expel 23 Russian diplomats, sever high-level contacts with Moscow and take other measures in response to Sergei Skripal’s poisoning.

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2:55 p.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is promising that the European Union will be united in responding to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. But she’s dismissing the idea of acting as an intermediary in the escalating spat between London and Moscow.

Merkel told ARD television Wednesday that there will be a “united European opinion” on the matter, and reiterated that Germany takes Britain’s evaluation of the case “very seriously.”

She said that “transparency on Russia’s part is very important — the findings must be taken seriously.”

Merkel noted that, while there are differences with Russia on many issues, “we cannot break off all contacts now — we must keep speaking with Russian officials despite all differences of opinion.”

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2:10 p.m.

Russia’s UK ambassador says Britain’s decision to expel some 23 Russian diplomats is hostile and unacceptable.

The embassy says in a statement Wednesday that U.K. Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko was summoned to the Foreign Office and told of the expulsions. Prime Minister Theresa May announced the measure in response to the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

May gave the Russians an ultimatum until midnight Tuesday to explain how a nerve agent developed in the Soviet era came to be used in the March 4 attack. May responded with a package of diplomatic and economic sanctions after she said her request was met with disdain.

Yakovenko says “we consider this hostile action as totally unacceptable, unjustified and shortsighted.”

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1:30 p.m.

A top Russian soccer figure is brushing off Britain’s threat to ask its royal family to stay away from this summer’s soccer World Cup in Russia.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday said Britain’s royal family would be asked not to attend the tournament, as part of sweeping measures against Russia over the nerve agent attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England.

Nikolai Simonyan, vice president of the Russian Football Union, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying “It’s not so important that officials wouldn’t come, that’s their problem. It’s important if the team comes, and it wants to come.”

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12:50 p.m.

Britain is expelling 23 Russian diplomats after the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy — the single biggest such expulsion since the Cold War.

Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons on Wednesday that Russia has expressed “disdain” for Britain’s wish for an explanation into the attempted murder of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. She says that Russia’s actions “represent an unlawful use of force.”

May said the Russian diplomats have a week to leave Britain.

She also announced a range of economic and diplomatic measures, including a decision to cancel all high-level bilateral contacts with Russia and to ask the royal family not attend the soccer World Cup in Russia.

Russia has denied responsibility in the March 4 attack on the Skripals.

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12:45 p.m.

Russia’s UK ambassador says Britain’s behavior in connection with the investigation into the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy is a “provocation.”

Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko told Sky News after leaving London’s Foreign Office Wednesday that Britain’s actions are ” absolutely unacceptable and we consider this a provocation.” He did not elaborate.

Prime Minister Theresa May is about to announce economic and diplomatic measures against Russia in response to the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The father and daughter remain in critical condition in Salisbury, southwestern England.

Yakovenko says “We believe that the measures which are taken by the British government is nothing to do with the situation which we have in Salisbury.”

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12:40 p.m.

Russia’s cabinet minister says that Moscow has fully destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles.

In remarks carried by Russian news agencies Wednesday, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said Russia completed its chemical weapons dismantling efforts in November and doesn’t have any such weapons.

Manturov was responding to a question about Britain’s claim that the Novichok military-grade nerve agent designed in the Soviet Union was used to poison ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England.

Prime Minister Theresa May is planning to announce a range of economic and diplomatic measures against Russia in response to the attack on the pair, who remain in critical condition.

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12:25 p.m.

NATO is backing its ally Britain over the poisoning of a former spy, blamed on Russia, and has promised to help investigate the attack.

The alliance expressed “deep concern at the first offensive use of a nerve agent” on alliance territory since NATO was founded in 1949.

NATO also called on Russia to answer Britain’s questions in full about the Novichok military-grade nerve agent used against Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the March 4 attack in southern England.

In a statement after talks between NATO ambassadors Wednesday, the alliance “agreed that the attack was a clear breach of international norms and agreements.”

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12:15 p.m.

Britain has called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the investigation into the chemical agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter.

The U.K. Foreign Office said in a tweet Wednesday that it called for an “urgent” meeting to update council members on the investigation into the March 4 attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Prime Minister Theresa May is planning to announce a range of economic and diplomatic measures against Russia in response to the assault on the pair. The father and daughter remain in critical condition in a hospital in Salisbury, southwestern England.

May is set to update the House of Commons on the matter later Wednesday.

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11:50 a.m.

EU Council President Donald Tusk has said the nerve agent attack on a former spy in England was most likely “inspired” by Moscow and said he would put the issue to European Union leaders at a summit next week.

Tusk said on Twitter Wednesday that he showed full solidarity with British Prime Minister Theresa May “in the face of the brutal attack inspired, most likely, by Moscow.”

EU leaders will gather for a two day spring summit on March 22-23 in Brussels.

Russia has denied responsibility in the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England on March 4.

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11:40 a.m.

Britain’s ambassador in Geneva has lashed out at Russia, denouncing its alleged violations of international law, its actions in war-torn Syria, its “deeply alarming” domestic human rights situation and its “highly likely” role in the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain.

Speaking at the U.N.’s top human rights body, Ambassador Julian Braithwaite said Russia’s “reckless behavior is an affront to all that this body stands for.”

Referring to the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England on March 4, Braithwaite told the Human Rights Council on Wednesday that “Either Russia has deliberately flouted the rules-based international order, or it has lost control of its own chemical weapons.”

Russia has denied it is responsible for the poisoning.

Braithwaite also criticized Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Crimea, its “continued undermining of Georgia’s territorial integrity” and its role in Syria’s conflict.

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11:15 a.m.

Russia’s foreign minister has dismissed British accusations of Moscow’s involvement in the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in England. He added that Russia has no motive to poison Sergei Skripal — but “those who want to press their Russophobic campaign in all spheres of life could have it.”

Sergey Lavrov dismissed the British accusations as unfounded and compared London to a prosecutor who oversaw Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s purges and who said confession is enough for conviction.

Lavrov said London went a step further, expecting the world to rely on its suspicions to blame Russia.

He denounced what he described as “huge aplomb” of British officials who neglect the international chemical watchdog’s procedure for investigating a suspected chemical attack.

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10:10 a.m.

The Kremlin says Russia rejects the deadline that Britain gave it to explain any involvement in the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter remain in critical condition in hospital after being exposed to a military-grade nerve agent in the city of Salisbury last week.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Wednesday that Russia “rejects the language of ultimatums” after British Prime Minister Theresa May gave Russia until the end of Tuesday to explain how the Soviet-made nerve agent came to be used to target the ex-spy.

Peskov said Britain has so far only offered “baseless accusations which are not backed up by any evidence” and said Russia would cooperate with the investigation but does not see Britain’s willingness to reciprocate.

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8:55 a.m.

Britain’s prime minister is set to chair a meeting of the national security council Wednesday to consider sanctions against Russia after Moscow ignored a deadline to explain how a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union was used to target a former spy in England.

Theresa May is weighing a range of economic and diplomatic measures against Russia Wednesday in response to the assault on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The father and daughter remain in critical condition in a Salisbury hospital

Moscow says it won’t comply with Britain’s demands unless the government provides samples of the poison collected by investigators. Russia’s embassy in the U.K. warned Tuesday that any sanctions would “meet with a response.”

U.N. Forest Project ‘Does More Harm Than Good’

The harm a UN forest project in Africa is doing to local people is greater than the good it is managing to achieve for them, researchers say.

They say they have found significant flaws in conservation projects in a densely-forested region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where a decision on future investment by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is imminent.

The DRC province of Mai-Ndombe, with an estimated 73,000 indigenous people, has 10 million hectares of forest and the world’s largest wetland of international importance. It is a testing ground for international climate schemes designed to halt forest destruction, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reward indigenous and other local people who care for the forests.

But a study by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), which works to support community land rights, says the UN’s global forest conservation scheme, REDD+,  risks harming its intended beneficiaries in Mai-Ndombe, while failing to stop deforestation.

‘Terrible precedent’

“Our findings show that the DRC is not yet ready for REDD+ investment”, said Andy White, RRI’s coordinator. “The evidence from other countries shows that REDD+ and similar payment schemes will work only if governments recognise and support community land rights.”

The study’s authors say there is weak recognition of community land rights in the province, as well as corruption and poor governance, and that channelling more investment into the area for REDD+ programmes would only worsen conflict while  failing to protect the forests.

The countries funding the FCPF are due to decide within the next year on an agreement that would add millions of dollars to REDD+ programmes in the DRC, which contains the larger part of the world’s second biggest tropical rainforest.

“If the programme in Mai-Ndombe is approved without ensuring that local peoples’ rights are respected, it would set a terrible precedent for REDD+ and make a bad situation worse”, said Alain Frechette, researcher and director of strategic analysis at RRI.

Wrong recipients

“Strong indigenous and community land rights and a clear understanding of who owns forest carbon are vital prerequisites for climate finance to succeed.”

The report says some projects already under way have not adequately included communities in their governance or made plans to benefit forest peoples.

Instead, it says, the lack of legal safeguards and accountability in the current system could channel benefits from REDD+ to the private sector and to others with little incentive to champion forests or local peoples.

A second paper by RRI analyses the legal systems of 24 of the 50 developing countries preparing to participate in the global carbon market, and says only five have established national legal frameworks to regulate their trade in carbon.

So far, none of the 24 has set up a system for sharing the benefits earned on the carbon market with local forest communities, despite evidence that they are the forests’ best guardians.

Alain Frechette said it was crucial to protect and enforce forest peoples’ rights, to avoid the risk of displacing thousands of people and fuelling the violence and deforestation usually associated with the expansion of agro-industry and mining.

The Mai-Ndombe study is the first to analyse the 20 climate finance projects planned or under way in the province. Chouchouna Losale, of the Coalition of Women for the Environment and Sustainable Development in DRC, said: “These projects were developed in Kinshasa before being shared with communities. To succeed, the projects must include the communities that have managed these forests for generations.”

No meeting

Despite plans that include transforming former logging zones into conservation areas and paying local people to plant acacia trees on degraded savannah, the DRC projects currently under way suffer from conflict and mismanagement, the report says, blaming weak public governance and inadequate adherence to international standards. The national REDD+ steering committee has not met since it was formed in 2012.

“The people of Mai-Ndombe – whose median income is only US$0.24 per day [for each member of an average-sized family of five] – are largely to thank for keeping the world’s second largest tropical forest intact. But their success has made the province a magnet for carbon profiteers as well as timber and oil companies”, said Solange Bandiaky-Badji of RRI.

Mai-Ndombe, in the west of the DRC, became a province in 2015, a year after the implementation of the country’s Forest Code. The Code recognises the legal right of indigenous peoples and local communities to ownership of forest areas of up to 50,000 hectares. In Mai-Ndombe the Mushie and Bolobo communities have asked for formal title to 65,308 hectares of land, but only 3,900 hectares have been legally recognised.

Massive contribution

Scientists estimate that, globally, forests and other “natural climate solutions” could by 2030 contribute about one third of what is needed to keep the global temperature increase below 2°C – the more modest of the two targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Increasingly, forests and the people who live in them are being recognised as vital to addressing climate change, as scientists continue to report a dearth of affordable carbon capture technologies that can safely be scaled up.

“In the DRC and worldwide, conflicts over agriculture, logging, livestock, mining and conservation are mounting”, says RRI’s Andy White. “Instead of empowering indigenous peoples, communities, and women in the forest communities, the REDD+ programmes in Mai-Ndombe are not adequately respecting the rights of local peoples and are failing to protect forests.”

“But all is not lost. It is not too late. Recognising community land rights and engaging local communities would ensure that this grand experiment under way in the world’s remote rainforests can succeed, unlocking all of the benefits that come with strong forests and forest protectors.”

Stephen Hawking, the Most Famous Physicist of His Time, Dies

LONDON—Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by disease, died early Wednesday, a University of Cambridge spokesman said. He was 76 years old.

Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, England.

The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, “A Brief History of Time,” became an international best seller, making him one of science’s biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.

“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement. “He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world. He once said, ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him forever.”

Even though his body was attacked by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when Hawking was 21, he stunned doctors by living with the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years. A severe attack of pneumonia in 1985 left him breathing through a tube, forcing him to communicate through an electronic voice synthesizer that gave him his distinctive robotic monotone.

But he continued his scientific work, appeared on television and married for a second time.

As one of Isaac Newton’s successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a “unified theory.”

Such a theory would resolve the contradictions between Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a “theory of everything” would allow mankind to “know the mind of God.”

“A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence,” he wrote in “A Brief History of Time.”

In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist.

He followed up “A Brief History of Time” in 2001 with the more accessible sequel “The Universe in a Nutshell,” updating readers on concepts like super gravity, naked singularities and the possibility of an 11-dimensional universe.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes in the universe “to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life” was wishful thinking.

“But one can’t help asking the question: Why does the universe exist?” he said in 1991. “I don’t know an operational way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me.”

The combination of his best-selling book and his almost total disability — for a while he could use a few fingers, later he could only tighten the muscles on his face — made him one of science’s most recognizable faces.

He made cameo television appearances in “The Simpsons” and “Star Trek” and counted among his fans U2 guitarist The Edge, who attended a January 2002 celebration of Hawking’s 60th birthday.

His early life was chronicled in the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything,” with Eddie Redmayne winning the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the scientist. The film focused still more attention on Hawking’s remarkable achievements.

Some colleagues credited that celebrity with generating new enthusiasm for science.

His achievements and his longevity helped prove to many that even the most severe disabilities need not stop patients from living.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association — the British name for ALS — said Hawking met the classic definition of the disease, as “the perfect mind trapped in an imperfect body.” He said Hawking had been an inspiration to people with the disease for many years.

Although it could take him minutes to compose answers to even simple questions Hawking said the disability did not impair his work. It certainly did little to dampen his ambition to physically experience space himself: Hawking savored small bursts of weightlessness in 2007 when he was flown aboard a jet that made repeated dives to simulate zero-gravity.

Hawking had hoped to leave Earth’s atmosphere altogether someday, a trip he often recommended to the rest of the planet’s inhabitants.

“In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet,” Hawking said in 2008. “I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then.”

Hawking first earned prominence for his theoretical work on black holes. Disproving the belief that black holes are so dense that nothing could escape their gravitational pull, he showed that black holes leak a tiny bit of light and other types of radiation, now known as “Hawking radiation.”

“It came as a complete surprise,” said Gary Horowitz, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It really was quite revolutionary.”

Horowitz said the find helped move scientists one step closer to cracking the unified theory.

Hawking’s other major scientific contribution was to cosmology, the study of the universe’s origin and evolution. Working with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hawking proposed in 1983 that space and time might have no beginning and no end. “Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile north of the North Pole,” he said.

In 2004, he announced that he had revised his previous view that objects sucked into black holes simply disappeared, perhaps to enter an alternate universe. Instead, he said he believed objects could be spit out of black holes in a mangled form.

That new theory capped his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really “disappear” inside a black hole and leave no trace, as he long believed, when subatomic theory says matter can be transformed but never fully destroyed?

Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, and grew up in London and St. Albans, northwest of the capital. In 1959, he entered Oxford University and then went on to graduate work at Cambridge.

Signs of illness appeared in his first year of graduate school, and he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankee star who died of it. The disease usually kills within three to five years.

According to John Boslough, author of “Stephen Hawking’s Universe,” Hawking became deeply depressed. But as it became apparent that he was not going to die soon, his spirits recovered and he bore down on his work. Brian Dickie, director of research at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said only 5 percent of those diagnosed with ALS survive for 10 years or longer. Hawking, he added, “really is at the extreme end of the scale when it comes to survival.”

Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy.

Jane cared for Hawking for 20 years, until a grant from the United States paid for the 24-hour care he required.

He was inducted into the Royal Society in 1974 and received the Albert Einstein Award in 1978. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of Honor, one of the highest distinctions she can bestow.

He whizzed about Cambridge at surprising speed — usually with nurses or teaching assistants in his wake — traveled and lectured widely, and appeared to enjoy his fame. He retired from his chair as Lucasian Professor in 2009 and took up a research position with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Hawking divorced Jane in 1991, an acrimonious split that strained his relationship with their children. Writing in her autobiographical “Music to Move the Stars,” she said the strain of caring for Hawking for nearly three decades had left her feeling like “a brittle, empty shell.” Hawking married his one-time nurse Elaine Mason four years later, but the relationship was dogged by rumors of abuse.

Police investigated in 2004 after newspapers reported that he’d been beaten, suffering injuries including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip, and was left stranded in his garden on the hottest day of the year.

Hawking called the charges “completely false.” Police found no evidence of any abuse. Hawking and Mason separated in 2006.

Lucy Hawking said her father had an exasperating “inability to accept that there is anything he cannot do.”

“I accept that there are some things I can’t do,” he told The Associated Press in 1997. “But they are mostly things I don’t particularly want to do anyway.”

Then, grinning widely, he added, “I seem to manage to do anything that I really want.”

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Hawking’s website: http://www.hawking.org.uk