Biden Just Gave France Something More Valuable than a Submarine Contract

The White House endorsement of European defense apart from NATO is worth more than a $66 billion deal with Australia.


France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) talks to US President Joe Biden before a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021.

 BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP

BY KEVIN BARON
EXECUTIVE EDITOR

DEFENSE ONE
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021 

The $66 billion submarine deal with Australia is lost, but France’s President Emmanuel Macron may have won something far more valuable from President Joe Biden.

For several years now, Macron has pitched the idea that Europe needs to boost its military spending and capabilities to better defend itself and its interests. U.S. and NATO leaders have largely responded politely but dismissively to a concept they argue could subvert the 71-year old alliance. Europe? Defend itself? Says France? Okay. But did the United States just come around?

The break came on Wednesday, after a week of Franco-American diplomatic faux pas from both sides over the surprise (to Paris) revelation that Australia would purchase American- and British-made nuclear-powered submarines instead of French diesel boats. Macron recalled his U.S. ambassador over it, and Biden had spent days trying to get his French counterpart to talk about it. When Macron finally picked up the phone, it’s unclear whether he got an apology from Biden. But buried inside the joint U.S.-French readout of their call came news of a major policy concession.

“The United States also recognizes the importance of a stronger and more capable European defense, that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to NATO,” says the joint statement.

That’s big. The part that matters most is the phrase “and is complementary to NATO.”

Recall that nearly two years ago, Macron called NATO a “brain-dead” organization. He has since argued in many venues that while NATO’s nuclear umbrella remains essential, Europe cannot and should not rely on outsiders— meaning the U.S., UK, Canada—for safety and security. Just weeks after Biden took office, Macron told the Atlantic Council think tank, “My mandate has been to try to reinvent or restore an actual European sovereignty.” Of late, he has argued that a stronger and independent European defense would make NATO stronger by relieving some of the burden on the larger defensive nuclear pact and allowing Europeans to think, plan, and act more quickly and independently.

It’s quite a turn after two decades in which U.S. officials have gently and not-so-gently prodded NATO’s European members to shoulder more of the burden of collective defense. Of course, that was always meant to take place within the construct of an alliance in which America is the big dog. The NATO supreme allied commander is an American military four-star officer, not French, German, British, or North Macedonian.

Recall that in February, Biden’s first transatlantic coming-out speech as president was filled with niceties that slighted Macron’s ideas by not even acknowledging them. Read aloud today, those remarks to the Munich Security Conference should be embarrassing for this White House. “I know the past few years have strained and tested our transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined — determined — to re-engage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership,” Biden said.

Ha, some trust. September’s submarine scandal torpedoed that sentiment. The French were given no notice, much less consultation, about the coming deal, according to the New York Times and other newsrooms. So French leaders are furious while American and British leaders are hardly apologetic. Biden hasn’t taken a single question about the deal; in his public opening remarks with the leaders of Australia and the UK at the United Nations this week he made no mention of submarines; only the other leaders did.

So let’s take this for what it’s worth, no more or less. The Biden White House’s one-line acknowledgement that a European defense capability that is separate but complementary to NATO is “important” was buried in a diplomatic readout of a private conversation. That is hardly a ringing endorsement. But it’s new, and rest assured Paris will use those words to continue making their case. Macron can now say he moved Biden further toward Paris’s position. And Biden can say he’s open to European defense evolution. Both can say they still love NATO. But none of us yet knows how far Biden is really to go down this path with Marcon, if at all.

They won’t have too much time to lurk behind vagaries. Biden and Macron agreed to meet in late October. If we don’t know more by then whether these world leaders are serious about creating a new European defense and security autonomy, that’s the question I would ask first.

It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories

George Monbiot

It’s not just anti-vaxxers. The themes of resisting power and regaining control of our lives have been cynically repurposed

‘How do we remain true to our countercultural roots?’ Anti-vax protesters in London, in September 2020. 

Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

Wed 22 Sep 2021 09.00 BST

It’s an uncomfortable thing to admit, but in the countercultural movements where my sympathies lie, people are dropping like flies. Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been hospitalised. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others.

It’s not just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an almost daily basis I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to left. I hear right-on people mouthing the claims of white supremacists, apparently in total ignorance of their origins. I encounter hippies who once sought to build communities sharing the memes of extreme individualism. Something has gone badly wrong in parts of the alternative scene.

There has long been an overlap between certain new age and far-right ideas. The Nazis embraced astrology, pagan festivals, organic farming, forest conservation, ecological education and nature worship. They promoted homeopathy and “natural healing”, and tended to resist vaccination. We should be aware of this history, but without indulging what Simon Schama calls the “obscene syllogism”: the idea that because the Nazis promoted new age beliefs, alternative medicine and ecological protection, anyone who does so is a Nazi.

In the 1960s and 70s, European fascists sought to reinvent themselves, using themes developed by revolutionary anarchists. They found fertile ground in parts of the anarcho-primitivist and deep ecology movements, which they tried to steer towards notions of “ethnic separatism” and “indigenous” autonomy.

But much of what we are seeing at the moment is new. A few years ago, dreadlocked hippies spreading QAnon lies and muttering about a conspiracy against Donald Trump would have seemed unthinkable. Today, the old boundaries have broken down, and the most unlikely people have become susceptible to rightwing extremism.

The anti-vaccine movement is a highly effective channel for the penetration of far-right ideas into leftwing countercultures. For several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right. Trump flirted with it, at one point inviting the anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr to chair a “commission on vaccination safety and scientific integrity”.

Anti-vax beliefs overlap strongly with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories. This tendency has been reinforced by Facebook algorithms directing vaccine-hesitant people towards far-right conspiracy groups. Ancient links between “wellness” movements and antisemitic paranoia have in some cases been re-established. The notion of the “sovereign body”, untainted by chemical contamination, has begun to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us of autonomy.

There’s a temptation to overthink this, and we should never discount the role of sheer bloody idiocy. Some anti-vaxxers are now calling themselves “purebloods”, a term that should send a chill through anyone even vaguely acquainted with 20th-century history. In their defence, however, if they can’t even get Harry Potter right (purebloods is what the bad guys call themselves), we can’t expect them to detect an echo of the Nuremberg laws.

I believe this synthesis of left-alternative and rightwing cultures has been accelerated by despondency, confusion and betrayal. After left-ish political parties fell into line with corporate power, the right seized the language they had abandoned. Steve Bannon and Dominic Cummings brilliantly repurposed the leftwing themes of resisting elite power and regaining control of our lives. Now there has been an almost perfect language swap. Parties that once belonged on the left talk about security and stability while those on the right talk of liberation and revolt.

But I suspect it also has something to do with the issues we now face. A justified suspicion about the self-interest of big pharma clashes with the need for mass vaccination. The lockdowns and other measures required to prevent Covid-19 spreading are policies which, in other circumstances, would rightly be seen as coercive political control. Curtailing the pandemic, climate breakdown and the collapse of biodiversity means powerful agreements struck between governments – which can be hard to swallow for movements that have long fought multilateral power while emphasising the local and the homespun.

So how do we navigate this? How do we remain true to our countercultural roots while resisting the counterculture of the right? There’s a sound hippy principle that we should strive to apply: balance.

I don’t mean the compromised, submissive doctrine that calls itself centrism, which leads inexorably towards such extreme outcomes as the Iraq war, endless economic growth and ecological disaster. I mean the balance between competing values in which true radicalism is to be found: reason and warmth, empiricism and empathy, liberty and consideration. It is this balance that defends us from both co-option and extremism.

While we might seek simplicity, we need also to recognise that the human body, human society and the natural world are phenomenally complex, and cannot be easily understood. Life is messy. Bodily and spiritual sovereignty are illusions. There is no pure essence; we are all mudbloods.

Enlightenment of any kind is possible only through long and determined engagement with other people’s findings and other people’s ideas. Self-realisation requires constant self-questioning. True freedom emerges from respect for other people.


George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

 

Biden plans to appoint anti-crypto and big bank critic to lead OCC

CRYPTOS | 9/23/2021 3:06:27 AM GMT

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• US President Joe Biden is vetting crypto critic Saule Omarova to head the OCC.
• The Biden administration has planned her nomination for the role since early August.
• Omarova believes that large financial firms could abuse the crypto market outside of regulatory oversight.

United States President Joe Biden aims to nominate Kazakh-American lawyer Saule Omarova for a role as a top Wall Street regulator. She is known for wanting to “end banking as we know it” and has been tapped to run for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Biden taps crypto critic to oversee the banking sector

The Biden administration reportedly plans to nominate Cornell University law professor Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) that oversees the US banking sector. Omarova has criticized the cryptocurrency and legacy banking sector in the past and has even pledged to “end banking as we know it.

She further believes that cryptocurrency only benefits the “dysfunctional financial system we already have.” 

Omarova described the digital asset sector as threatening the stability of the economy. According to a Bloomberg report which cited three anonymous sources, the law professor could be nominated as soon as this week.

Omarova, who teaches at Cornell Unversity Law School, specializes in banking law and corporate finance. She is expected to pursue tougher oversight and stricter regulations for crypto as she further believes that the sector is prone to abuse from large private financial institutions. 

If confirmed, she would also be the first woman to serve as comptroller. There would also be a significant shift from the previous administration headed by Brian Brooks, a crypto proponent and former Coinbase legal officer.

Since Brooks resigned from the position in May 2020, Michael Hsu, a former Fed official, has been running the OCC on an interim basis. So far, the Biden administration has struggled to fill the OCC role. 

Omarova may still face a tough confirmation fight as the Democrats have a narrow majority in the Senate. According to Bloomberg, banks that have been big donors to both political parties will potentially lobby aggressively against her candidacy as comptroller. 

The Biden Administration started to vet Omarova for the role in early August, according to the New York Times. She was seen as less controversial than the two previous candidates, Michael S. Barr and Mehrsa Baradaran. 

In line with Omarova’s views is US Securities & Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler, who recently stated that he does not see much long-term viability for digital assets.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

ELIZABETH HOLMES ‘WAS IN CHARGE’ OF THERANOS, SAYS GEN. MATTIS

She pricked his finger, and he fell under her spell

Getty

By Elizabeth Lopatto@mslopatto Sep 22, 2021, 10:30pm EDT

Theranos’s board member James “Mad Dog” Mattis, a four-star general and the former secretary of defense, served among the company’s impeccably credentialed supporters — but testifying in Elizabeth Holmes’s trial on Wednesday, he resembled nothing so much as a nattily-dressed grandfather. At one point, he seemed befuddled when the defense asked him if he remembered discussion of high-throughput devices.

When Mattis first met Theranos’ Holmes in 2011, he told the court, she pricked his finger to give him an idea of the blood draw process. And like a damsel in a fairy tale, he fell under her spell. At the trial of the US v Elizabeth Holmes, he said he was “taken” with the Theranos device. Now “young Elizabeth,” as Mattis addressed her in an email, faces 10 counts of wire fraud and two of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

“I WAS A STRONG BELIEVER IN GETTING THIS IN THEATER SO IT COULD STAND AND DELIVER.”

Mattis’ testimony on Wednesday was the most damning of the trial so far. He portrayed Holmes as firmly in control of Theranos, even telling board members what to discuss with the press. He also seems to have been misled about the capabilities of the Theranos analyzer, called Edison.

“I’m trying to find a way to employ your device on a swift ‘pilot project’ or ‘proof of principle to expedite its entry to our forces,” Mattis wrote Holmes in October 2011, when he was the commander of US Central Command. In today’s testimony, he said he had wanted to see a side-by-side comparison with existing blood testing technology. That never happened.


The small size of the analyzer was particularly appealing to him, he testified. Sick bays on ships have limited room, remote locations make it hard to set up labs, and the idea of being able to quickly and accurately run tests to triage wounded soldiers was particularly appealing. “I was a strong believer in getting this in theater so it could stand and deliver,” he said.

“IT WAS PRETTY BREATHTAKING WHAT SHE WAS DOING.”

Mattis also described Holmes as “sharp, articulate, committed” and said she was “aggressive” about trying to work with the Department of Defense. At the time, she didn’t say that Theranos didn’t have the resources to do this, nor did she mention the commercial launch.

To Mattis’ knowledge, the Theranos analyzer was never deployed in clandestine operations, on military helicopters, or anywhere else in the military. This is a particular problem for Holmes’ defense, as she told investors Theranos devices were being deployed in Afghanistan.

After retiring from the military, Mattis visited the Theranos headquarters in late 2013. There he saw the Theranos analyzer — and didn’t see the commercially-available equipment that Erika Cheung and Surekha Gangakhedkar testified Theranos was using for most of its tests.

Holmes invited him to join the Theranos board to help her build a good corporate culture — his management experience would be helpful, she told him. “It was pretty breathtaking what she was doing,” he said. As a board member, Holmes was not just his primary source of information on Theranos’ tech, she was his sole source of information, he said.

“MS. HOLMES WAS IN CHARGE.”

Mattis invested $85,000 into Theranos when he joined the board, a significant amount for “someone who has been in government for 40 years,” he said, smiling slightly.

At board meetings, Holmes was the primary presenter. Her co-defendant, Sunny Balwani, who is being tried separately, sometimes gave financial forecasts, but “Ms. Holmes was in charge,” Mattis said. There were board meetings where Balwani wasn’t even present, he said.

This testimony is, naturally, a problem for the defense, which has been trying to shift blame onto Balwani, among others. But it’s consistent with media profiles of Holmes in that period, which presented her as being in complete control of the company.

Holmes’ media coverage was introduced directly today. First up was a Wall Street Journal article that claimed the Theranos devices were “faster, cheaper and more accurate than the conventional methods and require only microscopic blood volumes, not vial after vial of the stuff.” That was consistent with Mattis’ understanding of the technology at the time, he said. The article was also featured in a board meeting.

“DUTY OF LOYALTY”

It wasn’t until later that Mattis learned only a few tests were actually run on the Theranos machine. If he’d known that third party devices were being used for most tests, that “would have tempered my enthusiasm significantly,” he said.

Mattis also spoke to Roger Parloff for his Fortune article — and before doing so, he asked Holmes for guidance about what to say. Parloff’s article claimed that Theranos “does not buy any analyzers from third parties,” which was not true. But the claim was consistent with what Mattis understood at the time, he told the court. He also received directions about a New Yorker article: he was not to discuss how the tech worked.

Later, a Theranos lawyer emailed Mattis to tell him not to talk to John Carreyrou, who was reporting his blockbuster story about Theranos; in the email, Carreyrou’s forthcoming story was described as defaming the company and exposing trade secrets.

After the story came out, the board of directors was rebranded as the board of counselors. A slide from that meeting was shown to jurors — and the only part of it that wasn’t redacted were the words “duty of loyalty.”

“I THOUGHT ALL ALONG THAT WE WERE DOING IT ON THERANOS’ GEAR.”

That didn’t stop another board member, Richard Kovacevich, former head of Wells Fargo, from emailing Holmes and the rest of the board with questions. “So when blood is withdrawn in venous tubes, do I understand correctly that the tests are done on lab-like equipment and not Edison and those are sent to CLIA for testing while Edison is only being used for the FDA tests?” Kovacevich wrote.

Holmes replied that Theranos was transitioning between regulatory standards, and Mattis said he understood that Carryerou had essentially “caught [the company] in mid-stride.” Holmes did not tell the board that third-party tests were used because Edison didn’t work for everything. “I thought all along that we were doing it on Theranos’ gear,” he testified.

But after some “surprises, disappointing surprises,” Mattis said he began to question if Edison actually worked. “There came a time when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore,” he said. He resigned as a member of the board in late 2016, because he understood he was going to be nominated as the Secretary of Defense.

Damaging as his testimony was, it also seemed that Mattis was easily confused. He wasn’t entirely sure where he’d met Holmes for the first time, though he knew it was before or after a speech in San Francisco. He also didn’t remember he’d bought stock options in the company — though the defense displayed the paperwork showing he did. When asked how much he made a year as a board member, Mattis said $50,000; documents introduced by the defense revealed he’d actually made $150,000 a year.

But when the defense tried to get him to say that Holmes never told him the tech was ready, Mattis pushed back. Holmes had told him the tech was ready to deploy in the field for a side-by-side comparison with existing blood tests, he insisted.

“I assumed it would be more than a handful of tests,” Mattis said, “or it would be useless to us.”

U.S. Militarism's Toxic, Planet-Killing Impact on Climate Policy

Twenty years of Pentagon violence and waste should ring alarm bells inside the head of every American, warning us that we have allowed our government to spend trillions of dollars waging war while ignoring real existential dangers to our civilization and all of humanity.

Climate activists demonstrate outside of the White House calling on President Joe Biden to quickly pass a climate-friendly infrastructure plan on June 4, 2021 in Washington, D.C. 

(Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

September 22, 2021

President Biden addressed the UN General Assembly on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a “point of no return,” and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. “We will lead not just with the example of our power but, God willing, with the power of our example,” he said.

But the U.S. is not a leader when it comes to saving our planet. Yahoo News recently published a report titled “Why the U.S. Lags Behind Europe on Climate Goals by 10 or 15 years." The article was a rare acknowledgment in the U.S. corporate media that the United States has not only failed to lead the world on the climate crisis, but has actually been the main culprit blocking timely collective action to head off a global existential crisis.

The anniversary of September 11th and the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan should be ringing alarm bells inside the head of every American, warning us that we have allowed our government to spend trillions of dollars waging war, chasing shadows, selling arms and fueling conflict all over the world, while ignoring real existential dangers to our civilization and all of humanity.

The U.S. is not a leader when it comes to saving our planet.

The world’s youth are dismayed by their parents’ failures to tackle the climate crisis. A new survey of 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25 in ten countries around the world found that many of them think humanity is doomed and that they have no future.

Three quarters of the young people surveyed said they are afraid of what the future will bring, and 40% say the crisis makes them hesitant to have children. They are also frightened, confused and angered by the failure of governments to respond to the crisis. As the BBC reported, “They feel betrayed, ignored and abandoned by politicians and adults.”

Young people in the U.S. have even more reason to feel betrayed than their European counterparts. America lags far behind Europe on renewable energy. European countries started fulfilling their climate commitments under the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s and now get 40% of their electricity from renewable sources, while renewables provide only 20% of electric power in America.

Since 1990, the baseline year for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, Europe has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 24%, while the United States has failed to cut them at all, spewing out 2% more than it did in 1990. In 2019, before the Covid pandemic, the United States produced more oil and more natural gas than ever before in its history.

NATO, our politicians and the corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic promote the idea that the United States and Europe share a common “Western” culture and values. But our very different lifestyles, priorities and responses to this climate crisis tell a tale of two very different, even divergent economic and political systems.

The idea that human activity is responsible for climate change was understood decades ago and is not controversial in Europe. But in America, politicians and news media have blindly or cynically parroted fraudulent, self-serving disinformation campaigns by ExxonMobil and other vested interests.

While the Democrats have been better at “listening to the scientists,” let’s not forget that, while Europe was replacing fossil fuels and nuclear plants with renewable energy, the Obama administration was unleashing a fracking boom to switch from coal-fired power plants to new plants running on fracked gas.

Why is the U.S. so far behind Europe when it comes to addressing global warming? Why do only 60% of Europeans own cars, compared with 90% of Americans? And why does each U.S. car owner clock double the mileage that European drivers do? Why does the United States not have modern, energy-efficient, widely-accessible public transportation, as Europe does?

We can ask similar questions about other stark differences between the United States and Europe. On poverty, inequality, healthcare, education and social insurance, why is the United States an outlier from what are considered societal norms in other wealthy countries?

One answer is the enormous amount of money the U.S. spends on militarism. Since 2001, the United States has allocated $15 trillion (in FY2022 dollars) to its military budget, outspending its 20 closest military competitors combined.

The U.S. spends far more of its GDP (the total value of goods produced and services) on the military than any of the other 29 Nato countries—3.7% in 2020 compared to 1.77%. And while the U.S. has been putting intense pressure on NATO countries to spend at least 2% of their GDP on their militaries, only ten of them have done so. Unlike in the U.S., the military establishment in Europe has to contend with significant opposition from liberal politicians and a more educated and mobilized public.

From the lack of universal healthcare to levels of child poverty that would be unacceptable in other wealthy countries, our government’s under-investment in everything else is the inevitable result of these skewed priorities, which leave America struggling to get by on what is left over after the U.S. military bureaucracy has raked off the lion’s share—or should we say the “generals’ share”?—of the available resources.

On poverty, inequality, healthcare, education and social insurance, why is the United States an outlier from what are considered societal norms in other wealthy countries?

Federal infrastructure and “social” spending in 2021 amount to only about 30% of the money spent on militarism. The infrastructure package that Congress is debating is desperately needed, but the $3.5 trillion is spread over 10 years and is not enough.

On climate change, the infrastructure bill includes only $10 billion per year for conversion to green energy, an important but small step that will not reverse our current course toward a catastrophic future. Investments in a Green New Deal must be bookended by corresponding reductions in the military budget if we are to correct our government’s perverted and destructive priorities in any lasting way. This means standing up to the weapons industry and military contractors, which the Biden administration has so far failed to do.

The reality of America’s 20-year arms race with itself makes complete nonsense of the administration's claims that the recent arms build-up by China now requires the U.S. to spend even more. China spends only a third of what the U.S. spends, and what is driving China’s increased military spending is its need to defend itself against the ever-growing U.S. war machine that has been “pivoting” to the waters, skies and islands surrounding its shores since the Obama administration.

Biden told the UN General Assembly that “...as we close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy.” But his exclusive new military alliance with the U.K. and Australia, and his request for a further increase in military spending to escalate a dangerous arms race with China that the United States started in the first place, reveal just how far Biden has to go to live up to his own rhetoric, on diplomacy as well as on climate change.

The United States must go to the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow in November ready to sign on to the kind of radical steps that the UN and less developed countries are calling for. It must make a real commitment to leaving fossil fuels in the ground; quickly convert to a net-zero renewable energy economy; and help developing countries to do the same. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says, the summit in Glasgow “must be the turning point” in the climate crisis.

That will require the United States to seriously reduce the military budget and commit to peaceful, practical diplomacy with China and Russia. Genuinely moving on from our self-inflicted military failures and the militarism that led to them would free up the U.S. to enact programs that address the real existential crisis our planet faces—a crisis against which warships, bombs and missiles are worse than useless.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the 2018 book, "Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Her previous books include: "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection" (2016); "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control" (2013); "Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart" (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) "Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide)" (2005).



NICOLAS J.S. DAVIES  is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PERMANENT+ARMS+ECONOMY%3B+

The Feminist Case for Cutting the Pentagon Budget

Twenty years after the United States invasion of Afghanistan, the peace activists and feminists who opposed the war from the beginning were proven right. 

Now, let’s listen to them and slash the Pentagon budget to reinvest in our communities.


Pentagon logo is seen ahead of a press conference on January 28, 2021

 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)


CARLEY TOWNE

September 22, 2021

I was eight years old when the United States invaded Afghanistan in October of 2001. By that time, politicians and the media had used every trick in the book to justify invading an entire country that had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks.

While I don't remember much from the months leading up to the war, one argument-- that bombing Afghanistan would bring democracy to the region and, by extension, free oppressed Afghan women-- stuck with me.

Cutting the Pentagon budget would mean more money to invest in a peace economy that prioritizes people and planet.

Twenty years later, I watched in horror at the swift Taliban takeover of Kabul as U.S. troops withdrew from the country in defeat, leaving behind the Afghan women the United States supposedly wanted to help. As someone who grew up in the shadow of the United States' "War on Terror", watching as Kabul descended into chaos was the perfect distillation of the utter depravity of spending $2 trillion to invade and occupy another country for two decades.

After spending over $300 million a day and killing over 70,000 innocent Afghan civilians, all while creating fertile ground for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the cynical claim that the United States bombs countries for women's equality is being exposed as the hideous lie that it is. Despite this fact, there remains a persistent narrative that U.S. militarism can still be deployed in the name of women's rights around the world.

In the wake of the death and destruction left by the United States' "War on Terror," it's time for a reckoning. Gone are the days when anyone should take seriously the same politicians and political commentators who are funded by companies that profit from war.

It's time instead to listen to the peace activists and feminists who were right all along, including Representative Barbara Lee, who cast the sole vote in opposition to the Authorization of the Use of Military Force in 2001. In that now-famous speech, Representative Barbara Lee cautioned against the use of military action, saying doing so would "run too great a risk that women, children, and other non-combatants will be caught in the crossfire."

Earlier this year, Representative Barbara Lee proposed legislation that would redirect $350 billion in Pentagon funding (about 50% of the entire budget) to socially necessary programs that would disproportionately benefit women, people of color, and the working class.

If we're serious about advancing women's rights and actually addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet, slashing the enormous $741 billion Pentagon budget and prioritizing spending on education, healthcare, and climate change must be at the heart of our work.

Cutting taxpayer subsidies to private military contractors would prevent future wars that kill innocent civilians, including women and children.

Since the beginning of the so-called "War on Terror," the United States Pentagon budget has become increasingly commercialized, meaning that a greater percentage of our tax dollars are spent on private military contractors. In 2020, well over half of the Pentagon budget, $437 billion, went directly into the pockets of private military contractors including $158 billion which went to the top five weapons contractors in the country. These same companies use their enormous profits which they derive from U.S. tax dollars to fund the campaigns of politicians and lobby Congress to approve increased Pentagon funding. This creates a perverse incentive to continue deadly, unpopular, and dangerous wars that leave innocent civilians dead in their wake to continue the flow of taxpayer money into the coffers of private military contractors. This vicious circle continues year after year, despite the fact that private military contractors are notorious for waste, fraud, and price gouging.

This is one of the many reasons why, despite popular support for cutting Pentagon spending, Congress continues to increase the Pentagon budget year after year. By cutting taxpayer subsidies to weapons companies, we could begin to address the corporate capture of our politicians and end this clear conflict of interest.

Cutting the Pentagon budget would mean more money to invest in a peace economy that prioritizes people and planet.

Slashing taxpayer subsidies for private military contractors isn't enough. The end of the U.S. War on Afghanistan should be a wake up call about our national budget priorities because we can't continue down the path of deadly and destructive U.S. militarism. Instead, we must invest in what feminists and peace activists have been advocating on behalf of for decades: healthcare, infrastructure, and the climate solutions we so desperately need.

A new study out from the National Priorities Project estimates that we have spent $21 trillion on militarization since the beginning of the so-called "War on Terror"--a fraction of which could have funded programs like Medicare for All that have been dismissed as "too expensive". An exciting new piece of legislation from Representative Mark Pocan is one great example of how much we could gain if we began to prioritize global solidarity and peace over U.S. militarism. The bill would reallocate just over one percent of Pentagon spending to pay for vaccinating 30 percent of the world's population.

It's clear that we could achieve ambitious progressive policies by redirecting even a fraction of Pentagon funding. However, there's a persistent myth that, despite the many documented cases of waste and fraud, Pentagon spending is justified because it creates so many jobs. However, dollar for dollar spending on the Pentagon budget is an opportunity cost compared to funding education, healthcare, or green infrastructure. Consider that for every $1 billion we could generate 26,700 jobs in education and 16,800 in clean energy compared to only 11,200 jobs in the military.

That means that redirecting Pentagon funding to socially necessary programs would create more job opportunities in industries which are often dominated by women that also happen to be better for the environment than more extractive industries.

For too long our national budget has prioritized Pentagon funding and private military contractors over people and planet. Now that the United States has finally begun the long task of ending the forever wars, we've reached a critical turning point. We can either continue down the failed path of funnelling money into the enormous, destructive, and wasteful U.S. war machine or we can radically alter course and invest in a peace economy.

This time, we should choose to be on the right side of history.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

CARLEY TOWNE is a National Co-Director at CODEPINK, a women-led anti-war organization working to redirect tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs. You can contact her at carley@codepink.org

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PERMANENT+ARMS+ECONOMY%3B+

'Enough Is Enough': Report Shows Big Oil's Offshore Tax Loopholes Cost US at Least $86 Billion Per Year

"We continue to bankroll the very fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis, then wonder why our planet is on fire."


"Our government cannot continue to bankroll climate destruction," said Friends of the Earth on Wednesday. (Photo: tolkien1914/flickr/cc)

KENNY STANCIL

September 22, 2021

A new report released Wednesday identifies $86 billion worth of offshore tax loopholes that a dozen U.S.-based oil and gas companies exploit each year as part of a "tax bonanza," a finding that comes as climate justice advocates push Congress to eliminate subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

"Our government cannot continue to bankroll climate destruction," Friends of the Earth tweeted Wednesday.

The report (pdf), compiled by Friends of the Earth, Oxfam America, and BailoutWatch, reveals the consequences of "two esoteric provisions in the tax code worth tens of billions of dollars to Big Oil's multinational majors," including ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and other polluters most responsible for the climate emergency.

As a result of the GOP's 2017 tax law, corporations that drill overseas benefit from special treatment under the Global Intangible Low-Tax (GILTI) framework, which covers Foreign Oil and Gas Extraction Income (FOGEI).

The Treasury Department estimates that repealing the Trump-era exemption for FOGEI would raise $84.8 billion in revenue from just 12 companies that are currently eligible for the carveout, the report notes.

"It is unfortunate but not surprising that the handful of companies benefitting from these loopholes are lobbying to protect their special treatment."

—Chrive Kuveke, BailoutWatch

Another corporate handout, the so-called dual capacity loophole, is "a longstanding gimmick" wherein fossil fuel giants "artificially inflat[e] their foreign tax bills" to evade U.S. taxes.

Although they are permitted to claim tax credits for taxes paid to foreign governments, U.S. companies are not allowed to do so for non-tax payments such as royalties.

"In practice, however, the categories often are commingled—particularly when companies make a single combined payment including both taxes and fees," the report explains. "A foreign country may even try to disguise non-tax payments as a tax, knowing that in many cases a multinational company may receive a foreign tax credit from its home country. Existing regulation gives dual capacity taxpayers vast latitude to assert what portions of their payments are taxes eligible to offset U.S. tax bills."

Eliminating the dual capacity loophole would raise at least an additional $1.4 billion, according to the Biden administration, while the Joint Committee on Taxation puts the figure somewhere between $5.6 billion and $13.1 billion. The report points out that "the estimates vary so widely in part because we have precious little visibility into Big Oil's payments to governments—and that's just how the companies want it."

"As Democrats propose closing loopholes to help cover the cost of their $3.5 trillion reconciliation package," the report states, "these obscure subsidies present a rare chance to act on climate, fund infrastructure, and promote tax fairness in a single stroke."

While the House Ways and Means Committee's markup of the Build Back Better Act includes a tax reform proposal that would reverse the FOGEI carveout and the dual capacity loophole, it would leave intact at least $35 billion in federal subsidies for domestic fossil fuel production—despite President Joe Biden's call to phase out polluter giveaways over a decade.

House Democrats' failure to stop showering Big Oil with public money—a move supported by a majority of people in the U.S. and many, though not all, Democratic lawmakers—has drawn progressives' ire.

"The House bill made a decent start by targeting Big Oil's international tax loopholes, but it went nowhere near far enough," Lukas Ross, Climate and Energy Justice program manager at Friends of the Earth, said Wednesday in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "needs to lead on climate and ensure that all $121 billion in fossil fuel subsidies are repealed in the final package," Ross added.

According to Daniel Mulé, policy lead for Oxfam's Extractive Industries Tax and Transparency project, "U.S. Big Oil companies like Exxon and Chevron have fought tooth and nail to keep the payments they make to governments around the world a secret, while paying lip service to the global movement for payment transparency."

"This secrecy," said Mulé, "has a potential tax impact in the U.S. as well, as it makes it all the more difficult to discern if U.S. oil and gas companies are illegitimately inflating their foreign tax credits."

The report draws attention to several legislative proposals that would do away with subsidies for domestic fossil fuel production as well as tax exemptions for foreign extraction, including:

The End Polluter Welfare Act from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.);

The No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act from Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas);

The Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act from Sens. Van Hollen, Sanders, Whitehouse, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowski (D-Ill.);
The Clean Energy for America Act from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.); and
The End Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies Act from Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Donald McEachin (D-Va.), and Katie Porter (D-Calif.).

The report was released the same day members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus urged House leaders to include a repeal of domestic fossil fuel subsidies in the Democrats' Build Back Better Act.

"Instead of creating jobs," the progressive lawmakers wrote, the subsidies "widen the profit margin of fossil fuel companies."

The report emphasizes that fossil fuel champions—including the Exxon lobbyist who was caught on camera discussing how the company benefits from offshore tax loopholes and intends to further undermine climate action—are fighting hard to preserve billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded handouts.

"Big Oil isn't going quietly," said Chrive Kuveke, an analyst at BailoutWatch. "Since Biden became president, it is unfortunate but not surprising that the handful of companies benefitting from these loopholes are lobbying to protect their special treatment."

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Letter Urges Progressives to Fight 'Wall Street Democrats' Holding Biden's Agenda Hostage

Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) 

listen during an event on June 17, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, 

D.C. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)

"The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It's time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to extend that principle to the legislative process."

JAKE JOHNSON

September 22, 2021

A pair of advocates for higher taxes on the rich sent a letter Wednesday urging members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to keep up their fight against "Wall Street Democrats" who are attempting to water down—or even kill entirely—a centerpiece of their party's domestic policy agenda.

"As a matter of national policy, the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It's time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to extend that principle to the legislative process," Morris Pearl and Erica Payne of the Patriotic Millionaires wrote in their letter (pdf) to Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC.

"It's time for real Democrats to get serious about exorcising the rot from the heart of their party," Pearl and Payne wrote, referring to what they described as the "Wall Street Wing" of the party. "At this pivotal moment, the best and only way for honest Democrats to stand for their fellow citizens is for them to stand publicly against other members of their caucus."The letter calls on CPC members to stick to their promise to vote against a bipartisan infrastructure bill favored by conservative Democrats unless a much broader budget reconciliation package advances simultaneously. On Tuesday, Jayapal said that "more than half" of the CPC's 96 members are committed to opposing the bipartisan measure unless it's coupled with the reconciliation bill, which is expected to include major investments in green energy, child care, housing, and other Democratic priorities.

The letter points specifically to conservative Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's (D-Ariz.) recent threat to tank the reconciliation package if the House doesn't approve the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill next week.

As Politico recently reported, at least "five to 10" conservative Democrats have signaled to the party leadership that they would rather let the bipartisan infrastructure package fail than go along with progressives' plan to approve both bills at the same time.

"The red line has been crossed," Pearl and Payne declared in their letter. "Let the fight begin with progressives voting no on an inadequate package that doesn't scratch the surface of the repairs this country needs, no to a package that fails to provide support for our families, no to selling off our strategic oil reserves rather than raising taxes on billionaires, and no to egocentric grandstanding at the expense of thoughtful debate and reasonable compromise."

"Call their bluff and force your 'centrist' colleagues to choose between passing both bills, or neither," they continued. "Force them to go big or go home—go home to their districts and explain why they did nothing to mitigate the damage wreaked on this country by a global pandemic and decades of government neglect. Let them go home to their voters and explain why maintaining preferential treatment for the rich in the tax code was more important to them than providing free pre-K to our children."

After meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday, Jayapal is set to meet with President Biden Wednesday to discuss the path forward for the reconciliation package, which is still being finalized in congressional committees.

In an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning, Jayapal said that despite the narrative being spun by right-wing Democrats and some corporate media outlets, members of the party's conservative wing are the ones who are "willing to crash the entire Democratic agenda by refusing to come together."

"We are the only people in the room right now that have said we want both bills done," Jayapal said, referring to progressives. "There are other people in the Democratic Party who are saying, 'We only want the infrastructure bill, and maybe or maybe not we'll get to the other bill.' We are saying, 'Let's stick to the deal that was made, both bills, so that we can deliver real results.'"

In their letter, Pearl and Payne argued that conservative Democrats "have not even articulated a single coherent criticism" of the reconciliation package, which is overwhelmingly popular among Democratic voters.

"Their performative objections to the bill's size and timeline of its passage are nothing more than a smokescreen for the fact that they do not want to raise taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations," the pair wrote. "By acting against the interests of the country, against the interests of their constituents, and against the president of the United States, these rogue politicians are virtually ensuring the defeat of their party at the ballot box."

"This is a fight progressives should fight, and one you can win."

Read the Patriotic Millionaires' full letter:

As a matter of national policy, the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It's time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to extend that principle to the legislative process. To that end, we are writing to urge members of the Progressive Caucus to continue to stand strong, to stand together, and to refuse to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless it is directly coupled with the full $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

We've been to this horror movie before and, yes, the call is coming from inside the House (and Senate). It's time for real Democrats to get serious about exorcising the rot from the heart of their party. At this pivotal moment, the best and only way for honest Democrats to stand for their fellow citizens is for them to stand publicly against other members of their caucus.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema's threat to kill President Biden's Build Back Better Plan if the House fails to pass the bipartisan infrastructure package on September 27th should mark a turning point for progressives (and every other civic-minded member of the Democratic Party for that matter). The red line has been crossed. It's time to proceed to the much-anticipated, long-overdue public showdown with the Wall Street/No Labels Wing of the Democratic Party.

Let the fight begin with progressives voting no on an inadequate package that doesn't scratch the surface of the repairs this country needs, no to a package that fails to provide support for our families, no to selling off our strategic oil reserves rather than raising taxes on billionaires, and no to egocentric grandstanding at the expense of thoughtful debate and reasonable compromise.

Call their bluff and force your "centrist" colleagues to choose between passing both bills, or neither. Force them to go big or go home—go home to their districts and explain why they did nothing to mitigate the damage wreaked on this country by a global pandemic and decades of government neglect. Let them go home to their voters and explain why maintaining preferential treatment for the rich in the tax code was more important to them than providing free pre-K to our children.

The bipartisan bill on its own doesn't deserve to pass. It's inadequate in its investments, and almost embarrassing in its "pay fors." No, selling off our strategic oil reserves is not better than taxing billionaires. The bipartisan bill is, quite simply, a bad bill. And the only possible justification for voting for a bad bill is the commitment that a good bill will result.

The two-bill process was already the concession to these legislative hostage-takers. The original—and much better—plan was to pass the entire Biden Build Back Better Agenda in one package. But the Wall Street Wing refused.

They have not even articulated a single coherent criticism of the package. Their performative objections to the bill's size and timeline of its passage are nothing more than a smokescreen for the fact that they do not want to raise taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations.

Their ardent opposition to provisions that are overwhelmingly popular with voters of all political backgrounds, like taxing billionaires at higher rates than people who work for a living or allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, have no political or policy justification. Bipartisanship is not a value system, it's an excuse for putting the interests of the rich over your constituents and assuming they will be too busy working second and third jobs to notice.

This is a fight progressives should fight, and one you can win. The president of the United States is with you, and so are the vast majority of the American people and the bulk of Democratic primary voters. And to be clear, failure to act—failure to adequately address the challenges this country faces—will doom Democrats in 2022. Holding onto power requires using it effectively when you have it. By acting against the interests of the country, against the interests of their constituents, and against the president of the United States, these rogue politicians are virtually ensuring the defeat of their party at the ballot box.

Democrats must put the interests of Americans who work for a living over the interests of the investor class, put the interests of our children and grandchildren over the interests of coal barons, and put a basic sense of fairness at the heart of our nation.

So please, stay strong, vote no until the reconciliation package is approved too. We've got your back.

---

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Kabul Restaurants Owned, Staffed by Women Now Closed

In order to feed their families, women are seeking ways to work and earn money, Tabasom said.

Women-owned businesses, especially restaurants and cafes, have remained closed for the past month since the Taliban entered Kabul city.

Niki Tabasom spent one million Afs to open a café in Kabul three years ago. She said that her café’s staff was all women who lost their jobs when the previous government collapsed.

She was collecting about 20,000 Afs daily from her café.

Niki Tabasom told TOLOnews: “The café has been closed since the Taliban came to Kabul. My colleagues and I lost our jobs.”

In order to feed their families, women are seeking ways to work and earn money, Tabasom said.

“Women are the breadwinners for some families, so these families are facing economic and financial problems,” she added.

The café’s employees said that each of them is leading a family. Opportunities for work must be found for women.

Qadira said: “They should consider our demands. When they don’t pay attention, how will the Taliban start governance?”

Sabrina Sultani said: “I was earning my livelihood by working at the café for two years. I helped my family.”

Afghan businesswomen lost millions of Afs as the Taliban took Afghanistan in mid-August.

Noor-ul-Haq Omari, head of the Union of Kabul Workers, said: “Investments led by women have unfortunately stopped. They lost their jobs and funds. In some cases, the women have sold their company’s expensive things at a very low price.”

Dozens of Afghan businesswomen had begun to invest in various fields across the country over the past few years, and now this has stopped.

Afghan Newspapers Stop Printing, Go Online

Watchdog organizations recently said the Afghan media outlets are running out of funds and face a lack of information under the Taliban.

The Afghanistan National Journalists’ Union on Wednesday reported that due to the financial crisis, around 150 print media outlets across Afghanistan have stopped printing newspapers and magazines since the fall of the former government. Many of these outlets continue publishing news online, while some have shut down completely.

Ahmad Shoaib Fana, chief executive of the national journalists union, said: “Print media has stopped in the country. If the situation goes on like this, we will face a social crisis.”

Ali Haqmal, a journalist working for 8 Sobh newspaper, reports that the outlet is now publishing online. He said: “We made efforts to do whatever people expect. We focus on reporting online, and we still try to get the information to the people.”

Ashaq Ali Ehsas, deputy chief of 8 Sobh newspaper, said: “Each day 15,000 papers were being published and distributed in Kabul and some provinces. The process was disrupted due to problems over the printing and distributing of newspapers after the fall of the government."

Arman Mili Newspaper is another famous newspaper which has stopped operating. Sayed Shoaib Parsa, the founder of the newspaper, said: “We had 22 employees here. All lost their jobs. We are waiting for the situation to normalize so we can restart publishing.”

Watchdog organizations recently said the Afghan media outlets are running out of funds and face a lack of information under the Taliban.

Afghan Media Face Budget Issues, Lack of Access to Information

Afghanistan: 51 Media Outlets Closed Amid Fighting