Monthly Archives: August 2021

When One Congresswoman voted NO to Giving a Blank Check to a Forever War

Civics, General, Women,

Three days after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) cast the lone “no” vote on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that the House of Represenatatives approved, 420 to 1.

Rep. Lee stood before her House colleagues and pleaded with them not to give President Bush a blank check to wage war against the remote, lawless nation (Afghanistan) accused of harboring the Sept. 11 terrorists.

“Let’s just pause, just for a minute, and think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control,” she said to them days after the attacks.

One woman. Trying to reason with her colleagues not to decide hastily to give the president a blank check. Death threats and vilification followed for years. But her vote was also widely praised as an act of political courage.

She told the LA Times she has never wavered on her conviction that she was on the right side of history. “No way” she said in an interview when asked if she ever had second thoughts. “I did a lot of thinking about that. I talked to constitutional lawyers about that. I’m a person of faith. I prayed over that. And we’re humans, because we all make mistakes. So that’s the calculated risk whenever you cast a vote that may or may not be the sentiment of the majority. But no.”

She has lobbied for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to declare war by repealing the military authorization. She has become an antiwar crusader to bring U.S. troops home, pestering each new president to wind down the fighting.

Kudos to Rep. Barbara Lee! But what of her colleagues – her own party members in particular?

Did they really want to give the president a blank check to punish whomever he and his advisors thought were a threat to American national security? If they were on the fence, why didn’t they speak up like Rep. Lee? Were they too wrapped up in emotions as the rest of America likely was? Too blinded by emotions to think straight – at least to give some days’ pause to think things through as Rep. Lee advised?

Or did they know in their hearts she was right but too worried about keeping their seats and potentially the public backlash they’d likely receive? Granted, I imagine it’s much easier to conform under a national crisis. Yet Rep. Lee had the fortitude to speak publicly and vote NO.

We’ll never know; or maybe we the public might discover their real sentiments about that vote after some of those members retire and write a memoir to celebrate themselves.

This of course would be after U.S. lost thousands of lives, a ton of money, and an estimated tens of thousands of Afghan lives lost, ruined, or uprooted.

Specifically, official government data shows the war has cost the U.S. around $1trn. Between the fiscal years of 2002 and 2020, official counts of total military expenditure in Afghanistan by the US Department of Defense totalled $824bn; additionally, spending on reconstruction by various agencies including the state department came to $131bn.

Unofficial estimates, however, suggest the bill is much higher. The Costs of War project by researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island estimates that between 2001 and 2021 the war cost the US $2.26trn. Their estimate includes items in addition to those in the official tallies: the bill for operations in Pakistan, war debt and support supplied to veterans, which are excluded from official tallies.

Although the military evacuation of tens of thousands out of Afghanistan has ended, There is chatter of potentially more military (drone) strikes if safe passage of those still wanting to leave the country is threatened by militants, which would cost still more money and lives.

Regarding the cost of lives lost: on the U.S. side: 2,448 American service members have been killed in Afghanistan as of April 2021, according to data from Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the Brown University Costs of War project, as reported by the Associated Press. An additional 3,846 U.S. contractors also lost their lives.

Oh wait…add 13 more service members from the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K (or IS-K,ISKP, ISK), attack last week.

On the Coalition side – the allies from three dozen countries.who helped the U.S. fight in Afghanistan, there have been an estimated 1,147 deaths (as of May 18, 2020).

And on the Afghan side, according to Wikipedia:

During the War in Afghanistan, over 47,245 civilians, 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and police and more than 51,000 Taliban fighters have been killed as of April 2021. Overall the war has killed 171,000 to 174,000 people in Afghanistan. However, the death toll is possibly higher due to unaccounted deaths by “disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war.”

The Cost of War project estimated that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts.

We can add about 170 more Afghan lives lost as of Thursday, August 26th, 2021, thanks to Isis-k, according to local Afghan health officials. Plus two Isis-k members, and nine members of a family – including six children, thanks to a drone strike by the United States on Sunday, August 29th.

Are there more? Even at this late stage of the war, I’ve had to make a bit of an effort to scroll the news to find the 170 figure; U.S. media mostly mentions only American lives lost in any U.S.-involved conflict, and rarely mentions lives lost on the other side — unless it’s the enemy, and less often, civilians. If foreign lives lost are mentioned at all, it’s just a blip way down in the article. If you want to find out about Afghan lives lost, you might have to turn to independent media or sources outside the U.S.; that’s been my reading experience, anyway.

At least some members of Congress seem to have regrown a bit of their spines back: on June 17th, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), a significant step to reassert congressional control over the executive branch’s military powers. But the vote does little to reduce the actual authority amassed by the White House over the past 20 years to use force all around the world.

That’s because a far more consequential piece of legislation, the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which was passed just after the September 11 attacks, remains in place. Though the 2002 AUMF relates to the use of force in Iraq and has been rarely invoked in recent years, the 2001 law is the legal backbone for U.S. military action against what are deemed to be terrorist entities or threats in any country.

While Congress has not previously had an appetite to check the White House’s post-9/11 war powers, this bill to repeal the 2002 AUMF has been noted by many political observers as a potentially important shift in thinking. This bill to repeal the 2002 AUMF was introduced by none other than Rep. Barbara Lee. The bill, H.R. 256 secured 49 Republicans among its 268 votes to pass. The measure has also gotten the support of President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

And on August 4th, 2021, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted voted 18-14 to repeal both the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) with supporters saying it was long past time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to declare war. (no kidding?!)

The repeal action now moves to the full Senate for its expected approval, a decided change in sentiment from decades since the twin military campaigns in Iraq.

A little progress is better than no progress at all, yes?

Here’s a glimmer of hope: in mid-July, a bipartisan and ideologically diverse group of senators proposed a new bill that, if passed, would dramatically shift the relative amount of power the president and Congress have over U.S. military operations. The new bill sets out a clear definition of which military activities need to be reported to Congress and how quickly. This is especially important given the ambiguities – such as loopholes in the 1973 War Powers Resolution which attempted to constrain presidential power after the disasters of the Vietnam War – that prior administrations (and the present one) have exploited since then.

With the leadership and persistence of Rep. Barbara Lee, support from like-minded colleagues, and public sentiment against forever wars, perhaps we’ll see a bit more responsible behavior from our elected officials? Like repealing the 2001 AUMF and not giving a blank check to the president to wreak destruction around the world in our names?

I leave you with words from one of my favorite journalists:

The Taliban’s takeover of Kabul is being likened by many to the fall of Saigon. Before the Afghanistan War, there was the Vietnam War. And there were many other wars during and before Vietnam and Afghanistan that garnered less attention.

If there is a lesson that Americans as a nation ought to take away from these devastating militaristic exercises that consistently do more harm than good, it is to ensure we never again rally behind a desire to bomb, raid, occupy and militarily strike another nation.

This means standing up to the liberal and conservative establishments that find a detached comfort in the cold calculus of warfare with no concern for life, safety, or democracy.

~ Sonali Kolkatar, 8/19/21 Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal has many critics — but most are missing the point

Sources

Los Angeles Times
MSN
The Cut
BBC
New Statesman
The Conversation
Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs – Brown University
The Intercept
UPI
Congress.gov – H.R. 256
ABC
Newsweek
NY Mag
Wikipedia – Coalition casualties in Afghanistan
Wikipedia – Civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Reuters
Alternet
The Independent

A Governor’s Sense of Entitlement & Disrespect for Women

General, Women, ,

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he would resign amid allegations of sexual harrassment by 11 women. Another woman has come forward since then with similar allegations. According to an explosive investigation into the allegations by the New York Attorney General’s office, the governor’s office was a “hostile work environment for women” in which he sexually harassed several current and former employees over years.

For an elected leader who has seemingly prided himself on standing with women and signing into law important bills like the 2019 Reproductive Health Act, a key component of his 2019 Justice Agenda – as well as legislation in later that year to to beef up sexual harassment protections for women in the workplace. This is bad optics, at the very least, for an elected leader.

It’s good he decided to step down (though not for 14 days from the time he made the announcement), right?

According to the New York Attorney General office’s investigation report:

In an instance involving one of Cuomo’s unnamed executive assistants, the governor was found to have “reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast.”

The same woman also recounted a circumstance in which “the governor moved his hand to grab her butt cheek and began to rub it. The rubbing lasted at least five seconds.”

Governor Cuomo responded,

“I take full responsibility for my actions. I have been too familiar with people. My sense of humor can be insensitive and off-putting. I do hug and kiss people casually — women and men. I have done it all my life,” Cuomo said.

“In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn,” he said. “And I should have. No excuses.”

Okay, so you’re a hug-and-kiss man, Governor; you say it’s what you’ve done all your life, what your parents taught you, what Italians do (kiss on both sides of the cheek). But apparently you don’t have a sense of boundaries – of when to stop making contact with others, like inappropriately touching women’s bodies without their consent.

All the good you have done for New Yorkers through signing of landmark laws for greater equality for women, workers, and the LGBTQ community, as well as guiding New York in the first weeks of the pandemic, will now be overshadowed by these serious allegations of sexual misconduct.

Publicly championing the rights of women and others doesn’t excuse your despicable behavior. Other men on the left have been called to accountability for sexual harassment or misconduct and resigned: former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman; former Senator Al Franken of Minnesota; and former Representative Anthony Weiner of New York, thanks to his sexting to multiple women – at least one who received an unsolicited photo of his junk and the same to a minor – for which he went to federal prison for 21 months and had to register as a sex offender. Those are just a few to name; how many others are there whose sense of entitlement and lack of respect for women caused harm to others?

Having political power does not entitle you to have limitless access to other people’s bodies to make you feel good, Governor Cuomo.

How do you think YOU would feel if a powerful elected official groped your wife, daughter, son, relative, or friend, or better yet – yourself, just because he (or she) felt like it?

And then you or your loved one are told by the perpetrator’s henchman (or henchwoman) to keep your trap door shut about the violation? And if you choose not to stay silent, your perpetrator publicly gaslights you by telling investigators that you processed what you heard through your own filter, and that it was “often not what was said and not what was meant”.

Y’know what Governor? There’s probably many other people who share your political beliefs who DO NOT inappropriately touch others without their permission or make lewd comments and who have the necessary experience and skills to run for office .

The same can be said for politicians on the right who have been accused of sexual misconduct, such as, of course – our former President “Grab them by the pussy” Trump, no less.

However, because you’ve championed women’s rights and signed laws to support more than half of America’s population, your actions are particularly egregious.

To my mind, the only way forward is for you to be held accountable for every complaint made against you. The women who have accused you of inappropriately touching them and making lewd comments to them deserve to be heard.

That’s 12 women who’ve now come forward. Are there more? The NY AG’s investigation interviewed 179 witnesses and reviewed 74,000 items including emails and texts. That sounds like they mean serious business.

“I do it with everyone,” you said in response to the testimony of one of the 11 women, Anna Ruch, who testified that she felt “distraught and uncomfortable” at a 2019 wedding party when you (whom she says had never met), cupped her face in your hands and said: “May I kiss you?”

As CNN’s Chris Cillizza observed, “‘I do it with everyone’ is an interesting defense of sexually inappropriate behavior.”

Sounds like disrespect toward Ms. Ruch to me. And entitlement – reaching out (literally!) to any young woman who strikes your fancy.

Reports have you responding to the accounts of your accusers with a potpourri of outright denial, appeals to failing memory, suggestions that the women had “misunderstood” your actions, and darker insinuations that they and the investigators were motivated by political or other animosity towards you.

Making defiant denials, gaslighting your accusers, and appealing to a myriad of excuses is not leadership.

I’m glad and relieved you stepped down. You’ve potentially left a painful mark on the lives of 12 women – something they’ll have to live with for the rest of their lives. They consented to do their jobs, not to be your plaything.

And to anyone dissing the governor’s accusers with lame comments like “the women just want the money” or “the women just want their 15 minutes of fame” or belittling them with name-calling, I ask you:

Just TRY imagining for a moment if someone in a position of power put their hands on your ass, your junk, or your breasts without your consent. Would you enjoy it? You’d have to live with that moment of violation forever.

Likewise, how do you think you’d feel if a powerful elected official violated your loved one? Would you start blaming your loved one for how she dressed or where she was? Or would you focus on the perpetrator and seek justice for your loved one?

Think about it.

Sources

MSN
State of New York, Office of the Attorney General
NBC
The New York Times
The Guardian
CNN
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – The Reproductive Health Act
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – Legislation to Protect the Rights of New York’s Working Men and Women
Wikipedia -Anthony Weiner
Salon
LegalMatch
News 12 Connecticut

Absurdity on Steroids

Civics, General, ,

I have a long-standing issue with people who choose to cast aspersions on childless couples, as if not having children was a defective character trait of some sort. Questions people might ask are: Why doesn’t Mr./Ms. XYZ have children? Are they having problems? Don’t they want any?

Of course, “they” can be easily interchanged with “you”, if you happen to be the target of interrogation about your reproductive status.

As someone who is childless, I’m embarrassed to confess I’ve harbored such thoughts about other childless couples because it’s none of my business any more than it is someone else’s business when they ask me why didn’t I and my spouse have any kids. Those comments are rooted in ignorance and intentionally or not, can feel like you are conveying that you think someone is lacking in something if they aren’t a parent.

(And if you were to argue, “Oh noooo! I never meant that!”, then why the hell did you ask about someone’s child status – or lack thereof, in the first place?)

There’s a multitude of reasons why a couple is childless and often, the reasons are deeply personal and excruciatingly painful to bear. And sometimes not: some people simply don’t want children. In any case, it’s nobody’s damn business. Ever.

Unfortunately, some people want to make it their business, be it family members, friends, or strangers, with expressions of pity (highly unwanted and unwarranted), shame, or outright judgement. Or all of the above. To my mind, this is an insidious, societal malady – judging people’s worth based on whether or not they have children.

I imagine this has been going on for millenia and still does, around the world – including here in the United States.

Casting aspersions on those who aren’t parents by a political candidate or politician is particularly galling and potentially dangerous. (I’ll get to the dangerous part in a bit).

Case in point: last weekend, J.D. Vance, a U.S. Senate candidate from Ohio, called out the “childless left” whom he said have “no physical commitment to the future of this country” in a fiery speech given to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s conference on the Future of American Political Economy.

He seemed to be aiming at certain politicians he dislikes: he specifically named Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, citing them as the childless future leaders of the Democratic Party.

“Why is this just a normal fact of …  life, for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?” Vance asked.

Why do you ask such a question, Mr. Vance? What’s not “normal” for you, is perfectly fine for others. A non-issue.

He cynically attacked some Democrats’ suggestion that voting rights be given to 16-year -olds by saying:

“Let’s do this instead. Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children.” He continued, asking, “Doesn’t this mean that nonparents don’t have as much of a voice as parents? Doesn’t this mean that parents get a bigger say in how democracy functions?”

Vance was offering a counterproposal: instead of offering the vote to 16-year-olds, increase the voting power of parents by multiplying their vote by the number of children they have.

Never mind that there are likely childless Republican couples who exist in the USA – the fact that this Senate candidate bothered to attack childless couples is despicable. And they ought not to have the right vote because of not having children?!

What a fucking moron!

Childless couples and couples with children alike pay taxes. Property taxes. School taxes. Taxes that go toward infrastructure. Taxes to support social safety nets for FAMILIES. Federal, state, and local taxes…etc, etc. If they’re paying taxes, then they have the right to vote.

Vance said childless Americans have “no physical commitment to the future of this country”. What’s he going to suggest next: that childless adults are not Americans?

He said,

“We should worry that in America, family formation, our birth rates, a ton of indicators of family health have collapsed,” the candidate said, highlighting the severity of America’s ongoing fertility crisis and calling it a “civilizational crisis.”

I don’t appreciate that he is valuing a person’s worth based on their ability to reproduce, as if the only value a woman has is if she’s a baby vessel and the man is a sperm bank.

Welcome back to the Dark Ages!

This guy, J.D. Vance, wrote a memoir called Hillbilly Elegy, which I read with my local library’s book discussion group. It was okay, I think. I don’t remember it well – it didn’t stick in my mind for days afterwards as some good memoirs do…and I’ve read many memoirs in my lifetime. I DO remember most readers in our group weren’t terribly impressed with his memoir. That’s not telling you much about his book, is it? Just my personal opinion of course! (Otherwise, I would be gushing over it…which I’m not.)

Now the creepy, potentially dangerous part:

Since Mr. Vance spewed out his anti-childless poison, the folks over at Fox & Friends decided it would be cool to take his proposal a step further by promoting the idea that “childless” Americans should not be allowed to participate in society by voting. Hey, they thought it wasn’t such a bad idea! They said it was an interesting idea.

Host Will Cain said. “I think it’s an interesting idea. I’m into interesting ideas. Let’s think about it. Let’s talk about it. He’s saying childless leaders are making decisions that are short-term in mind, not focused on the long-term future health of this country because they don’t have a stake in the game. Parents have a stake in the game, they have children so give parents a bigger say.”

FOX News has a scary-large number of viewers, in the millions, I believe. What a nice way to plant into their viewers’ minds the idea that people who don’t have children are of less value as human beings – as people who apparently lack character for not propagating the population, not least of all during a pandemic and a worsening climate change crisis. And therefore ought not have the right to vote.

Does J.D. Vance and the folks at Fox and Friends have any friends and relations who don’t have children for whatever reason? If so, would they gladly tell them that they think childless couples have “no physical commitment to the future of this country” and therefore, should NOT vote?

I can only fervently hope this SICK and dangerous idea of Mr. Vance’s doesn’t spread like wildfire and become entrenched as “mainstream” conservative thinking, let alone become the impetus for one more disgusting voter suppression bill.

Women and men are so much more than a baby vessel or sperm bank and have participated and contributed to the good of America since way before anyone alive today can remember, with child or without child. You need only remember the decades-long battle that women fought for women’s suffrage; the marches for civil rights for EVERYONE that continue today; and the advances in science and medicine that conquer cancer and face down a pandemic. Among many other scientific wonders.

Was a person’s status as a parent or not truly the central focus of any of those battles to move humanity forward? I don’t think so! You get the idea.

Let’s keep it that way.

Sources

The Federalist
Salon