Stephan: The American hurried exoodus is going to leave the Taliban militarily the best equipped terrorist force in the world. They will be better equipped than any other nation in the region, except Pakistan and India. What that means, and how it will play out we won't know for years, maybe several decades. But it makes the Taliban a force to reckon with. How this was allowed to happen is something historians will be studying for generations.
The Taliban have published a series of photographs of their fighters at an Independence Day parade brandishing US assault weapons. The parade took place in the city of Qalat, the capital of Zabul province, on Thursday. The photographs show a Taliban unit carrying M4 carbines, which were supplied by the US to Afghan forces in recent years.
US national security officials are working to account for more than 20 years worth of weapons provided to the Afghan military as images of Taliban fighters brandishing American-made rifles and riding in abandoned Humvees are raising concerns about what else was left behind.The Taliban’s newfound American arsenal is likely not limited to small arms, as the group captured sizable stockpiles of weapons and vehicles held at strongholds once controlled by US-backed forces, including modern mine-resistant vehicles (MRAPs) and Humvees.Initial estimates suggest the Taliban may now also possess several Black Hawk helicopters and other US-funded military aircraft, according to a congressional source familiar with early assessments provided by defense officials.
That potentially includes roughly 20 A-29 Tucano attack planes, the source said, […]
Stephan: There hasn't been much discussion in the mainstream media about the role of evangelicals in making the covid pandemic worse than it needed to be. Here is one take on this.
The notion that religion is an inherently pro-social phenomenon has always been nonsense, despite protestations to the contrary. As religious studies experts emphasize, the category of “religion” encompasses such a broad array of practices, traditions and beliefs that the term itself is notoriously difficult to define. Unfortunately, the de facto Christian supremacy that pervades American society not only makes it difficult to subject extremist Christianity to the level of scrutiny it demands. It also means that, for many Americans, the concept of religion is distorted through a conflation with Christianity itself.
The popular blog Get Religion, which pretends to be objective and disinterested while publishing a slate of authors mostly from white evangelical backgrounds who exhibit pro-evangelical bias, embodies both of these unfortunate tendencies. Last week, Get Religion’s Richard Ostling, a Reformed believer, cited me as the token voice of opposition in a piece that rehashes the demonstrably false claims that the recent rapid secularization of the US population is to blame for polarization, and that churches are an important moderating […]
Stephan: This is why international treaties and agreements fostering environmental wellbeing are so important. Here is proof. So when you hear some climate change or environmental denier spewing disinformation just let them know about this.
Credit: Kirill Rudenko/Getty
In these days of rapidly escalating climate catastrophe, it can be hard to find shreds of good news. The results emerging from the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 treaty designed to protect Earth’s atmospheric ozone layer, are a welcome exception.
Often held up as a success story of international cooperation, the protocol’s global ban on ozone-damaging commercial compounds—such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—has led to the recovery of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, which absorbs dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun. As it turns out, according to new research, the Montreal Protocol is even more important to life on Earth than previously quantified.
The protocol has shielded plants around the world from harmful UV rays that would have reduced their ability to store carbon, giving Earth more of a fighting chance against climate change, according to a study published on Wednesday in Nature.
Previous studies have assessed the Montreal Protocol’s power to mitigate climate change by limiting CFCs, which are a powerful greenhouse gas, but a team led by Paul Young, an atmospheric and climate scientist at Lancaster […]
Stephan: The Supreme Court has been corrupted by appointments made on the basis of ideology, not legal competence, or personal integrity. It is impeding America's ability to foster wellbeing, support democracy, and prepare for climate change. I am very glad to read this and hope that it works.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (I think the best picture taken of her as speaker.
On Tuesday, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, also known as H.R. 4. As Ian Millhiserexplained in Vox, H.R. 4 essentially overturns the Supreme Court’s recent attacks on voting rights: Its central provisions give both the Justice Department and federal courts sweeping authority to block voter suppression laws. But one crucial section takes a more creative approach: The House bill actually repeals the court’s own rules for deciding election-related cases—which strongly favor states’ ability to suppress votes—replacing them with voter-friendly directives that would force the justices to safeguard equal suffrage. H.R. 4 also takes on the “shadow docket,” prohibiting the Supreme Court from issuing unreasoned emergency orders reversing lower court decisions that protected the franchise. And it abolishes the legal doctrine that allows the justices to shield anti-voting laws from judicial scrutiny in the run-up to an election.
H.R. 4, in short, is court reform. It is the clearest indication yet that House Democrats are getting serious about […]
Stephan: What is reported in this article is, or ought to be criminal, Using public frequencies to create life-threatening chaos should not be legal. Fox, by its own admission in court, is not a news organization. Fox speaks of entertainment but in fact it is a carefully designed White supremacy christofascist disinformation operation, represented by people who do not mind lying for a living.
One of the main things the Covid pandemic has made clear to me is the importance for a democratic nation to control disinformation that has life-threatening consequences.
https://youtu.be/Urnr1ITGdTM
Fox News suggested in a segment on Sunday that Covid-19 is being used to distract the country from the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The White House was busy making headlines this week — but not about our Afghanistan response,” Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed. “The president instead announcing he will give a booster shot and mandating the vaccine for nursing homes staff. But is this just an attempt to distract the American people away from the Afghanistan crisis?”
“The Administration has spoken as much about Afghanistan as it has about Covid,” she admitted before welcoming Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marty Makary to opine on the subject.
“There have been daily headline-grabbing announcements from the White House with no new supporting data,” Makary complained. “And then on Thursday, they hit the nuclear button and said the FDA is going to grant full approval [for Covid-19 vaccines] and they gave those details yesterday.”
“Medical advice should be exempt from partisan manipulation and news announcements like this,” he added. “When we politicize Covid right now for the sake of changing the news cycle, it damages that great credibility and public trust of the medical profession.”
