Author: Human

It has been five years since the attack at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan. US President Donald Trump put out a proclamation on August 26, the anniversary. “The terrorist was one of the thousands of prisoners released by the Taliban just 2 months earlier.  As a result, 13 American service members were killed, 45 were wounded, and more than 160 civilians were injured,” President Trump said.

He noted that on August 26, “a lone ISIS-K terrorist pressed into the crowd at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan, and detonated a body-worn bomb.”

Trump called on the nation to honor the fallen. “On the fifth anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate, we solemnly honor their selflessness and valor.” He noted that for 20 years Americans fought in Afghanistan.

He then got to the tragedy of the 2021 withdrawal. “Yet within months, President Biden squandered those hard-fought gains, putting politics over strategy and rushing through a poorly executed withdrawal that would soon become one of the worst military disasters in our Nation’s history.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion section also released a new video documentary about the withdrawal. It is called The Path to Zero: The Withdrawal From Afghanistan.

The Journal described this as “an unflinching account of America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, told by the people who lived it. Structured around President Biden’s 2021 decision to draw down to “zero” troops, the film traces how one choice cascaded into a chaotic, deadly ending – the closure of Bagram, the collapse of the Afghan army, and a frantic evacuation through three Kabul airport gates, culminating in the tragic Abbey Gate suicide bombing attack.” It includes “candid interviews with the diplomats, generals, and soldiers who were there, the film tells the riveting story of the unfolding tragedy – and gives voice to the moral injury many young Marines who manned the gates still carry.”

The video illustrates how the withdrawal became a tragic chaos and led to death and suffering.

The US left Bagram Airfield in July, before the final date of withdrawal. That withdrawal was supposed to go on through September but was accelerated. The Afghan security forces collapsed, and Afghanistan rapidly fell to the Taliban. This fall was likely envisioned in talks that had taken place in Doha. The first Trump administration had wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan. In fact, it was never clear why US troops had stayed so long.

The problem is that it’s easier to get into wars like Afghanistan than it is to leave.

The US has seen this before in Vietnam or other conflicts. However, the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan had large ramifications. Trump said this week that the withdrawal from Bagram  “surrendered our largest military base in the country, lost billions of dollars of military equipment, and left our remaining forces without their strategic advantages as the Taliban rapidly advanced.” He described the collapse in Afghanistan as the result of the previous Biden administration’s incompetence.

The WSJ video reminds us of how the tragedy unfolded. It also sheds a concerning light on the failed planning for withdrawal and a sense that no one was accountable for the failure. It also leads to questions about whether other countries looked at the withdrawal and drew lessons about a weakened America that couldn’t deter enemies.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The Biden administration had warned that Russia would invade. However, when the chips were down, many Western governments evacuated Kyiv and appeared to believe half of Ukraine would fall to Russia. In the end, the Ukrainians held on, and Russia failed to take Kyiv. Russia felt that it could get away with the invasion because it was not deterred. Did the Afghanistan chaos of withdrawal lead to that sense?

Other crises followed. In April, a civil war broke out in Sudan. Did the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) feel it could get away with launching a conflict in Sudan after there had been hope of transition to democracy? The civil war has been brutal and has included massacres. Did the US try to stop the civil war? It’s not clear, but it appears the Biden White House failed to do much. The Trump administration has called for a ceasefire, but it still hasn’t happened.

In Yemen, the administration also failed to make much progress, despite talks in Oman. A UN-backed truce in Yemen in March 2023 was a rare silver lining.

On other fronts, the US continued to appear to lose leverage around the world. Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were cut off throughout much of 2023 and under siege. This had followed a previous short conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020. In September 2023, a new offensive led to 50,000 Armenians fleeing the enclave. Here, again, the US appeared absent.

On October 7, Hamas launched its attack on Israel, murdering 1,000 people and taking 251 hostages. Did Hamas feel emboldened by the Taliban victory? Hamas leaders were hosted in Doha, as the Taliban had been hosted. The Taliban had been careful not to carry out massive massacres when they marched on Kabul, instead handing the US a fait accompli. Hamas believed it could carry out a massacre and get away with it. It apparently believed it could then take over the West Bank and spread war across the region. What was the Hamas calculus? Didn’t it know Israel would launch a major war in response? Did it think the massive hostage taking would prevent the war?

We know that Hamas released two elderly Israelis and also several Americans soon after October 7, apparently hoping to achieve some kind of deal. This didn’t work, but it raises some questions. It has never been fully explained about the two Americans released by Hamas in October, before the Israeli offensive on October 27. At the time Reuters reported on October 21, 2023 that “U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Qatar and Israel” after the women were released. “Hamas said the two women, who Israel's Kan public broadcaster reported were dual Israeli-American nationals, were freed ‘for humanitarian reasons’ in response to Qatari mediation.”

Is there any connection to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan? Did that withdrawal lead to Russia assuming that the US wouldn’t stop its march on Kyiv? Did that lead to Hamas assuming it could get away with an unprecedented attack? Was US deterrence weakened? We may never know, unless we have access to internal documents of the Putin administration or Hamas leadership. What is clear is that the years after 2021 were ones of accelerating global chaos as the world order has shifted. Many countries want to weaken the US-led world order that emerged in the 1990s. Russia, China, and others have been clear about this.

Other trends were clear in the period 2021-2024. Economic blocs such as BRICS and the SCO expanded, as Russia and China grew their power. Many US partners and allies began hedging their bets by working with China.

The Abraham Accords also appeared to stagnate. No new countries joined. Concepts such as I2U2, meant to bring together India, the UAE, Israel, and the US, didn’t progress as much as hoped. Neither did the Negev Forum. Regional integration didn’t happen as planned. Instead, October 7 derailed hopes of peace. Iran also prodded its militias in Iraq to increase attacks. They targeted US forces in Erbil, and Iran also targeted ships using drones.

Iran also moved its Shahed 136 drones to the Houthis in Yemen in 2020, foreshadowing how it would send them to Russia. As such, it is clear that the years around the fall of Kabul became ones in which there were serious setbacks for the US and the US-led world order.

We now live in the aftermath of that era. The war in Ukraine and Sudan continues. The war in Gaza and the Middle East that began on October 7 has continued for more than 1,000 days with no end in sight. China continues to position itself as a more powerful country. The war with Iran, which began in February, has shifted US focus to the Middle East. This may embolden China.

Many trends that began years ago are continuing. The Trump administration has deterred US enemies and has had successes, such as in Venezuela. However, it remains to be seen if all the lessons of Kabul will be learned.

New British PM Andy Burnham is set to announce a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank imminently, The Times and The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

According to both reports, citing government officials, Burnham is considering a trade embargo within the coming weeks. The new sanctions regime would likely stop the exchange of both goods and services.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband already announced on August 19 that measures are being prepared to “target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion,” following Israel’s announcement of a tender for the E1 settlement project.

British sanctions on Israel trade could however cause a split inside the Labour party.

On one side, 140 Labour members of Parliament (about a third of the party’s representation in the House of Commons) have signed a letter to the new prime minister calling for sharp measures against the Israeli settlements.

On the other side, Labour Friends of Israel has warned it would be impossible to ban trade from settlements only, making the plans a “de facto boycott of all of Israel”.

In its most recent report, LFI said Britain should continue to take considered and calibrated steps against violent extremist settlers, but that at the same time, any further untargeted steps the UK government takes, "for instance, sanctions going beyond violent extremist settlers and organizations," would likely have a number of negative effects.

"A boycott of all trade with settlements is practically and politically impossible," said LFI. "It would affect all Israeli businesses operating in the settlement blocs, as well as East Jerusalem and the Old City, where major Israeli businesses like Bank Hapoalim and Teva operate, and where the tourism sector is critical for Israeli and Palestinian workers."

"A settlement boycott would thus become a de facto boycott of all of Israel, which would rightly be perceived within the UK Jewish community as a further example of the government singling out and targeting Israel for punitive action and harsh rhetoric," it added.

There are currently no negotiations happening between the United States and Iran, but all options remain on the table, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Fox News interview.

This is a developing story.

Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who was was serving a life sentence for his role in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia has died, a United Nations official said on Thursday, confirming a report in Serbian media.

The octogenarian former general, nicknamed the Butcher of Bosnia, had been in ill health in the last few years and was hospitalized repeatedly. He had been in the UN detention center since his arrest in 2011.

This is a developing story.

The US Army said on Wednesday it is awarding up to $2.2 billion to five companies to build and operate tiny nuclear reactors on military bases, which it hopes will one day power remote installations.

So-called microreactors are tiny factory-built nuclear plants that developers say will be easily transported and generate up to 20 megawatts of power each.

The Army believes that developing them through a program called Janus could one day help power remote military installations such as those in Alaska or on islands. The program has a goal of deploying the first reactor by September 2028.

The companies and bases the Army selected were: Antares Nuclear Inc in Fort Bragg, North Carolina; BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC in Fort Campbell, Kentucky; General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems in Fort Hood, Texas; Radiant Industries Inc in Fort Benning, Georgia; and Westinghouse Government Services in Fort Drum, New York.

The Army did not detail how much money would be distributed to each company. But Radiant said it will get up to $750 million to develop and deploy 15 of its Kaleidos reactors in the program.

An Army official said reactors will have to follow all environmental and safety rules that apply to commercial reactors but added that they would be regulated by the Army, not the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates commercial reactors.

"The whole idea here is that at the back end of this we want a commercial product," said Jeff Waksman, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment.

Radiant’s Chief Commercial Officer Mike Starrett told Reuters in an interview that the Janus award is key to the company scaling up its business to eventually meet the needs of commercial customers like data centers in about 2030.

Critics of microreactors say they will be expensive compared to conventional reactors. Waksman said nobody thinks that microreactors will be lower in cost than conventional plants. "What we are trying to do here with Janus… is to flesh out how we can get those prices down," Waksman said.

The military currently pays about 40 cents a kilowatt-hour to power Arctic installations, a cost it hopes to cut, Waksman said. The Army also expects that the private sector will raise more money for the reactors than the federal government, and the program will help attract that capital.

Starrett said that because Radiant's containerized reactors can be brought to the customer, eliminating energy transmission fees, their delivered cost will be between 20 and 30 cents per kilowatt-hour.

In its latest effort to quash rumors and concerns that it will sell off more of its assets amid reports that it is the subject of federal investigations into potential tax fraud, TWG Global said Wednesday that its stakes in both the Los Angeles Dodgers and its Cadillac Formula 1 team are not for sale.

The comments were made in a biting news release attacking the investigations and allegations of fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York are investigating the company, and more specifically, founder and CEO Mark Walter.

"Over the past several weeks, multipronged attacks against TWG have been advanced by unnamed sources with self-serving interests that have been reported in the media," the statement began. "It is important to set the record straight. TWG stands firmly behind the integrity of its business and remains focused on continuing to deliver value to its stakeholders.

"Despite what has been reported, there has been no fraud."

Speculation about the potential sale of assets picked up last week when Walter agreed to sell his stake in the Los Angeles Lakers for a reported $12.5 billion – barely a year after purchasing majority ownership for $10 billion.

Shortly after the sale, Dodgers president Stan Kasten told the media, "The Dodgers are not being sold."

In its statement Wednesday, TWG echoed Kasten's words.

“Regarding the Los Angeles Dodgers, to be clear, the team is not being sold, and no sale process has been initiated,” the statement read, before later adding, “Similarly, TWG is not considering exiting its stake in the Cadillac Formula 1 team or any other part of TWG Motorsports.”

"The allegation that the Los Angeles Dodgers were acquired or have been funded improperly is false and not supported by the facts," the statement also added.

Among Walter’s other sports endeavors, he owns the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and French top-flight soccer team RC Strasbourg while holding stakes in the Andretti Global motorsports operation and Chelsea of the Premier League in England.

A US judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X/Twitter seeking to void a New York state law requiring social media companies to disclose how they monitor hate speech, extremism, harassment, foreign political interference and disinformation.

US District Judge John Cronan in Manhattan rejected X's argument that the Stop Hiding Hate Act violated the US Constitution's First Amendment by exposing it to lawsuits and big fines unless it disclosed "highly sensitive and controversial speech" that the state found objectionable.

The judge said requiring X to report “purely factual and uncontroversial information” about its content moderation policies was reasonably related to New York’s interest in letting people make informed choices about using social media.

"Businesses always exercise their discretion, judgment, and opinions when deciding what goods or services to offer," Cronan wrote. "Burger King chooses to generally offer higher-calorie items than, say, Sweetgreen, but the disclosure of calorie information remains purely factual. So too here."

The dismissal is with prejudice, meaning X cannot amend its complaint.

X, formerly Twitter, is part of Musk's rocket and satellite company SpaceX. Neither lawyers for X nor SpaceX immediately responded to requests for comment.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James defended the law. It did not immediately respond to similar requests for comment.

Signed in December 2024 by Governor Kathy Hochul, the New York law required social media companies with at least $100 million of annual revenue to disclose how they eliminate hate on their platforms, and report their progress.

Civil fines can reach $15,000 per violation per day. The law was written with help from the Anti-Defamation League.

In seeking a dismissal, James said the law helped consumers understand what to expect from social media, without blocking platforms from speaking out or exercising judgment when moderating content.

Musk scrapped Twitter’s content moderation policy after he bought that company in 2022. The world’s richest person has described himself as a free speech absolutist.

Dolly Parton, the singer who died Tuesday at age 80 after a brief bout with cancer, was mourned around the world as a stellar songwriter, consummate country hitmaker, savvy entrepreneur and generous philanthropist. 

In Jewish circles, she was also remembered as the inspiration for PJ Library, a program that sends free children’s books to Jewish families in order to foster Jewish values and traditions.

In 2015, when Harold Grinspoon launched PJ Library, he took a page from Parton, who a decade earlier had started Imagination Library, a literacy program that mails free children’s books to families across the US.

After hearing Parton interviewed about the program, Grinspoon, a philanthropist in and out of the Jewish community, signed on as a sponsor of the Imagination Library in Western Massachusetts, where he lives.

“We should create a Jewish version of Imagination Library,” said Grinspoon, according to a 2023 recollection by his daughter-in-law and president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, Winnie Sandler Grinspoon.

“Harold was looking for ways to build Jewish literacy,” she wrote. “He was witnessing a lack of connection to the values, stories, and traditions that have been at the center of the Jewish experience for millennia.”

Two decades later, PJ Library has more than 670,000 subscribers in 40 countries.

On Tuesday, in a tribute to Parton, PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation recalled a meeting between the two in 2023. According to an Instagram post, “she shared the following with him: ‘I am honored to get to help inspire a love of reading in children. They truly are our future.’”

“Harold remembers Dolly as ‘a truly amazing person — not only a great artist, but a great entrepreneur and philanthropist,” according to the post. “We honor Dolly for educating millions, for her remarkable career, her kindness, her art, and especially her generosity.”

“Dolly’s generosity of spirit extended far beyond inspiring the creation of PJ Library,” Alex Zablotsky, PJ Library’s executive director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Parton drew inspiration for her art and philanthropy from her hardscrabble roots in rural Tennessee. She was one of 12 kids growing up in a one-room log cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Parton’s father never learned how to read or write.

“This actually started because my father could not read and write, and I saw how crippling that could be,” Parton said of the Imagination Library at a ceremony where she was awarded a Carnegie Medal for her partnership with a pediatric hospital in East Tennessee, now named for Parton.

“My dad was a very smart man. And I often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write. So that is the inspiration,” she said.

Parton had a close bond with other Jews, notably Sandy Gallin, the manager who guided her from Nashville to mainstream pop stardom, according to the Forward.

When Gallin died in 2017, Parton said, “Nobody could quite get how the Christian Southern girl and the New York Jewish boy could have so much in common. But it was real.”

One trouble spot, however, came in a 1994 interview with Vogue Magazine, when Parton mused about starting a television series about a country singer who turns to gospel music. She gave up the idea, she said, because “most of the people out here [Hollywood] are Jewish and it’s frightening for them to promote Christianity.”

She later apologized in a letter to Abe Foxman, then head of the Anti-Defamation League, JTA reported at the time.

“I know how stereotypes can be hurtful,” she wrote. “Like all Americans of good will, I recognize the importance of rejecting prejudice.”

Foxman accepted her apology. “Whatever she said was unfortunate, and she recognizes that,’” Foxman told The New York Times. “I know it’s not easy for celebrities to publicly say they made a mistake. As far as we are concerned, the matter is behind us.”

On Tuesday, Laura Liebman, director of development for The Bronfman Fellowship for young Jewish leaders, paid tribute to the singer, who was a feminist and an ally of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Dolly somehow managed to transcend race, class, religion, politics and gender,” Liebman wrote in an essay for eJewishPhilanthropy. “As the Jewish community becomes increasingly siloed, we could all learn from Dolly’s radical acceptance and show more love and compassion for our fellow Jews.” 

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday declaring a national emergency and banning the use of some foreign equipment in the US electricity grid, the White House said.

The order cites what the White House described as an "unusual and extraordinary foreign threat" posed by foreign-made bulk-power systems that may present national security vulnerabilities.

Trump’s order, the latest example of ⁠Washington’s approach to tackling technology threats posed by China, follows a decision by the European Commission earlier this year to ban Chinese-made inverters from publicly funded energy projects.

Last year, Reuters reported that rogue communication devices not listed in product documents had been found in some Chinese solar power inverters ​by US experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues.

“I … find that the situation with respect to the foreign supply of bulk-power system electric equipment constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency with respect to that threat,” Trump said in the order.

Under the order, certain foreign-produced bulk-power system electric equipment, including associated critical software and digital capabilities that could pose cybersecurity or operational risks, will be barred from being purchased or installed in the United States, the White House said in a statement.

The order also asks the US Energy Secretary to impose conditions on the continued use and operation of such equipment to address concerns identified by the Trump administration, the White House added.

American singer Miley Cyrus said on Wednesday she was heartbroken following the death of her godmother, country music icon Dolly Parton, who died of cancer at age 80  on Tuesday.

"The feeling of losing my Aunt Dolly is beyond what feels right to share. Our most sacred moments were private and they'll stay there behind the stage, beneath the glamour & between our hearts," Cyrus, who often referred to Parton as an aunt, wrote on X/Twitter.

"What I KNOW is Dolly would want me to feel it, write a song about it, and then continue on and be strong. I have an angel by my side. I always have. One of our last conversations was about music and metamorphosis," added the "Flowers" singer.

Cyrus also said she loved Parton and described her death as a collective loss shared by family members and friends of the late singer-songwriter whose hits included “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” and “9 to 5.”

Parton had been a fixture in Cyrus' life since before her birth. The country star became Cyrus' godmother in 1992 after Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley's father, asked her to take on the role. The two had toured together during the success of Billy Ray Cyrus' breakthrough hit "Achy Breaky Heart."

Though Parton never had children of her own, she became a maternal figure to Cyrus.

“Dolly’s been like a mother to me. Actually, I was just reading this fax that she sent me two Mother’s Days ago,” Cyrus told W Magazine in 2024.

Their close relationship also extended to the screen. Parton guest-starred as Miley Stewart’s Aunt Dolly in three episodes of the Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana between 2006 and 2010.

Beyond family ties, Parton served as a mentor to Cyrus throughout her music career, helping guide her transition from Disney Channel star to Grammy-winning performer and Hollywood Walk of Fame honoree.

The pair collaborated numerous times over the years. In 2019, they performed a duet of Parton's "Jolene" during a Grammy Awards tribute to the country music legend.

They reunited in 2022 for NBC's live special "Miley's New Year's Eve Party," performing Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball."