Monday, April 04, 2022

How US arms dealers profit from ‘China threat’

A huge chunk of American taxpayers’ money has gone into the pockets of arms dealers over the past two decades

By XU YUENAI
APRIL 3, 2022
Two US Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft and two French Rafale aircraft break formation during a flight over France on May 18, 2021, during Atlantic Trident 21. The multinational exercise involved military service members from the US, France and the UK.
 Photo: US Air Force / Staff Sergeant Alexander Cook

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has continued for more than a month and caused inestimable casualties and economic losses as diplomatic efforts had little effect.

People always say “there are no winners in war.” But for the US military-industrial giants, war is a great opportunity to make huge profits and drive up their stock prices. Some people have noted that military conflicts or geopolitical tensions have become money-printing machines for the US arms dealers.

US military-industry companies apparently have a consensus that diplomatic efforts are unprofitable, but behind this lies the opportunity to make a profit.

According to US media reports, James Taiclet, chief executive of US military-industrial giant Lockheed Martin Corporation, said in January that the competition between major powers would lead to a strong growth in defense budgets and bring more business to the company. Gregory Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon Technologies, told investors that tensions in Eastern Europe had shown the company new business opportunities.

According to media reports, shares of major US military companies have surged significantly since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out. So far this year, Lockheed Martin’s shares have grown by about 25%, while Raytheon’s shares have gained 16.4% in the the same period. Shares of Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics also jumped.

Immediately after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US announced that it would provide military assistance totaling $350 million to Ukraine. President Joe Biden authorized $200 million worth of additional military equipment for Ukraine on March 12 and an additional $800 million on March 16. The new funds will come from a spending bill Biden signed into law on March 11 that includes $13.6 billion in new aid to Ukraine.

Since February, the Biden administration has authorized a total of $1.35 billion to support Ukraine, according to a report published by the US Congress.

At the same time, in the face of intensifying geopolitical tensions, Germany and other European countries have adjusted their defense policies, creating new “business opportunities” for the US military giants.

There is no doubt that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will prompt NATO member countries to boost defense spending. As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization uses a large number of US weapons, a significant portion of its members’ defense contracts will be won by US corporations.

Some observers note that in order to secure a steady stream of income from wars, the US military-industrial companies have put heavy efforts into lobbying the US government. One of their key means is to create various “threat theories.” And they are the originators of the “China threat theory.”

US military expenditures have grown significantly in the first two decades of this century, especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, resulting in an increase in the global arms trade. Not many people have asked who profited from this. Did the 20-year “global war on terrorism” (GWOT) give people in Afghanistan, Iraq or the US any benefit?

Since the start of the war in Afghanistan in late 2001, Pentagon spending has totaled more than $14 trillion, with one-third to one-half of that going to military contractors, according to a paper published by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Five major US military suppliers, namely Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, have won one-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years. There is no doubt that arms companies are the biggest beneficiaries of rising US military expenditures in the post-9/11 era.

Focus on China


Apart from instigating wars and creating geopolitical tensions, creating various “opposing strategic forces” and competitors and “threat theories” are important means for the Pentagon and arms dealers to increase revenue. Because of this, China has been portrayed as the “top threat” to the US.

In its 2022 National Defense Strategy report, the Pentagon raised concerns about China’s military power and called “great-power competition” the biggest threat to the United States’ security and global influence.

But “threat” assessments that aim to boost US military expenses are not based on existing challenges, such as global terrorism, North Korea and Iran, but rather some overstated risks.

Nine of the 12 members of the US National Defense Strategy Commission have direct or indirect ties to the defense industry, according to a report published by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a Washington-based nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption and abuse of power.

This has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the commission’s deliberations and conclusions.

The arms industry has ample tools at its disposal to influence decisions over Pentagon spending going forward.

The industry has spent $285 million in campaign contributions since 2001, with a special focus on presidential candidates, congressional leadership, and members of the armed services and appropriations committees in the House of Representatives and Senate – the people with the most power over how much the country will spend for military purposes – according to a report published last September by William Hartung, a director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy (CIP), a Washington-based non-profit organization.

In addition, US weapons manufacturers have spent $2.5 billion on lobbying over the past two decades, employing, on average, more than 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years, more than one for every member of Congress, Hartung wrote in his article, citing a report published by Opensecrets.org, a Washington-based nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit organization.


To cite just one of scores of examples, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, who was a major booster of Lockheed Martin’s troubled F-35 combat aircraft, joined the company’s board just four months after leaving the military.

These kinds of interactions raise serious questions about whether special interests or the national interest have the greater sway in determining US defense policies and procurement choices, Hartung wrote, citing a POGO report.

The revolving door swings both ways. For example, four of the past five US secretaries of defense came from one of the top five arms contractors.

Under Donald Trump’s administration, James Mattis (board member at General Dynamics), Patrick Shanahan (executive at Boeing), and Mark Esper (head of government relations at Raytheon) were appointed defense secretaries, while Biden’s current defense secretary Lloyd Austin was a board member of Raytheon Technologies, according to Hartung’s article.

Arms dealers also exert great influence by funding prominent think-tanks that strongly advocate for higher Pentagon budgets but never disclose the pecuniary interests behind them.

At least $1 billion in US government and defense-contractor funding went to the top 50 think-tanks in America between 2014 and 2019, Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the CIP, wrote in a report in October 2020, citing the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go To Think Tank Index report.

The top recipients of this funding were the RAND Corporation, the Center for a New American Security and the New America Foundation.

All these are only the tip of the iceberg. Frankly, the “China threat” is just another excuse for the Pentagon and arms dealers to get more money, otherwise it would be difficult to justify their claims. Without a “threat,” who would pay the arms dealers?

XU YUENAI

Xu Yuenai is a Beijing-based columnist specializing in international relations. More by Xu Yuenai

The Observer view on Britain’s cruel and unfit refugee policy

Ukrainian refugees are becoming the latest victims of a hostile bureaucracy that was two decades in the making

‘Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill will create a two-tier asylum system that lawyers believe would break international and domestic law.’
 Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Observer editorial
Sun 3 Apr 2022

More than four million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia began its barbaric military campaign against the Ukrainian people just over a month ago. It has been described by the UN’s refugee agency as the fastest-growing refugee crisis since the Second World War. Poland is host to almost 2.5 million refugees, Romania just over 600,000, Moldova almost 400,000 and the whole of the EU has opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, with no visa required. In contrast, the UK has issued fewer than 5,000 visas under the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme, not even a sixth of the number of applications.

There are aspects of the government’s response to the crisis that are to be commended, but on the worsening refugee situation it has been astonishingly mean-spirited. In the early weeks, the only refugee resettlement route was for Ukrainians with family settled in the UK; at first, this only applied to immediate dependents, but now includes extended family. People using this process have reported significant delays, with family members having to finance extended hotel stays in countries bordering Ukraine while they wait for the Home Office bureaucracy to process visa applications.

Eventually, the government bowed to public pressure to do more. Three weeks ago, it launched Homes for Ukraine, a scheme that allows Ukrainians to come to the UK if they are matched with a host to act as an individual sponsor for their visa and who can provide them with accommodation for at least six months (the host will be paid £350 a month by the government to do so). Under this scheme, refugees will get a three-year visa and be entitled to work and use public services in the UK.

The requirement to be matched with a host falls far short of what the government should have done, which is to match the EU’s visa-free offer and provide independent housing for refugees so that their numbers are not limited by the amount of willing hosts or the time it takes to run checks, a prerequisite to processing a sponsor visa. The requirement for refugees to match with sponsors adds layers of bureaucratic delay and exploitative potential. Charities that work with refugees have warned that the lack of proper safeguards will create opportunities for those who seek to exploit Ukrainian women and children. They report UK-based human traffickers and slum landlords have already tried to target them. The government has been slow to establish any efforts to actually match refugees to hosts; it has only just announced funding for a pilot scheme.
The lack of proper safeguards in this scheme will create opportunities for those who seek to exploit Ukrainian women and children

The government’s response to the crisis is a reflection of 20 years of hardening policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. It started under the last Labour government, whose ministers were all too happy to make political scapegoats out of refugees as a way of trying to boost its poll ratings, replacing cash support for asylum seekers with vouchers – later rolled back – and stoking public fears about “illegitimate” asylum seekers. But it has got much worse over the last decade under successive Conservative home secretaries, culminating in Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill, which will create a two-tier asylum system that lawyers believe would break international and domestic law. It seeks to criminalise anyone arriving in the UK to claim asylum without a pre-approved claim, despite the fact that the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Britain was a founding signatory, establishes the right of anyone with a legitimate claim to asylum to be heard fairly, regardless of how they arrive in a country. Meanwhile, the government has imposed far stricter than necessary limitations on resettlement schemes for Syrian and Afghan refugees over the last decade. Last year, 13,000 refugees in total were granted protection, the equivalent of just 20 people per parliamentary constituency.


The Home Office has always been one of the poorer-performing departments, but Theresa May, as home secretary, made further sharpening of its cruel and inhuman bureaucracy a matter of government policy. In her efforts to make the UK as hostile an environment as possible for undocumented migrants, members of the Windrush generation who had lived, worked and paid taxes in the UK for decades found themselves cut off from the NHS, robbed of their right to work and even deported. At the same time, the government has made it ruinously expensive and bureaucratic for young people who have grown up in Britain to regularise their status when they turn 18, consigning those who cannot afford it to becoming undocumented. An independent report published last week by Wendy Williams, who conducted the independent review of Windrush, found the Home Office had resoundingly failed to improve its culture and was consequently at risk of another major crisis.

Making cruel, inhumane and inflexible bureaucracy an integral aspect of government policy in order to try to drive down immigration and asylum numbers has had dreadful consequences. It has led to people who are British by any meaningful measure being denied basic rights and young people who have spent the majority of their childhood in Britain finding on turning 18 that they are not eligible for the same educational support as their peers. It has rendered the state incapable of fulfilling its ethical obligations to people fleeing conflict and torture in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Incremental reform will not do: the UK’s immigration and asylum system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch.
New Migrant Caravan Begins Journey to the US


Given the proximity to the Catholic Holy Week and the estimated travel time on foot or by improvised means, organizers of the new caravan had called this new attempt "Viacrucis migrante" (Migrant Stations of the Cross). | Photo: Photo: EFE

Published 3 April 2022 

The new caravan is called "Viacrucis migrante", in commemoration of the Catholic Holy Week.

A new caravan of 600 migrants from Central America and other countries of the region left Tapachula, Mexico on Saturday, with the purpose of reaching the United States (U.S.), one of the many that during the current year have started on their way to the U.S. southern border

News Coverage Of Venezuelan Migration Crisis Advocates Invasion

Given the proximity of the Catholic Holy Week and the estimated travel time of the caravan on foot or by improvised means, its organizers called this new journey the "Migrant Stations of the Cross".

On the way to Mexico's northern border they encountered a National Guard checkpoint, which provoked an altercation that resulted in a dozen people being detained and injured on both sides, according to local media reports.

The anti-immigrant operation, headed by the delegate of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Chiapas, Paola López Rodas, caused the contingent of foreigners to be divided. However, as a result of the isolated confrontations, 92 people were reported detained and 27 injured, according to the Casa de Dignificación Humana, the rest of the caravan managed to reach the community of Álvaro Obregón, 18 kilometers from Tapachula.



From that community they will resume their journey next Monday, because they wish to rest due to the aggression caused by agents of the National Guard and hope to regroup.

In recent years, the number of migrants who, organized in caravans, cross the entire Mexican territory towards the United States has increased. In the next few weeks, Washington should repeal Title 42, which restricted entry into the United States due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a measure that is expected to increase migration.


PUTIN STOPS JW DOOR KNOCKING
Jehovah’s Witnesses flee Russia for worship without fear

Published:Sunday | April 3, 2022 | 

Ted S. Warren
Dmitrii and Nellia Antsybor, who are from Russia and sought asylum in the United States in 2021, pose for a photo on February 28 at the home where they are living in Federal Way, Washington, as they hold Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower literature printed in Russian.


AP:

Over the past five years, hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been subjected to raids, arrests and prosecution in Russia. Many others have fled – including one couple, Dmitrii and Nellia Antsybor, who flew to Mexico last year, walked across the US border to seek asylum, and now hope to build a new life for themselves in Washington state.

After entering the US, the couple were separated and sent to different immigration detention centres; Nellia in Arizona, Dmitrii in California. Nearly three months passed before they reunited in late February.

Yet, despite that ordeal, and missing her twin sister and her mother left behind in Russia, Nellia welcomes her newfound freedom in Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle.

“It is nice to not be afraid to gather with our brothers and sisters, even if it is via Zoom,” she said through a translator. “I have a sense of ease now.”

One new source of concern: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.


“I am very worried about what’s happening with my brothers and sisters in that country,” Dmitrii said. “We pray for them.”

About 5,000 Witnesses in Ukraine have left, seeking protection in other countries, said Jarrod Lopes, a US-based spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

For Witnesses in Russia – Lopes estimates there are about 170,000 of them – there’s been anxiety since the country’s Supreme Court declared the Christian denomination an extremist group in 2017.

Hundreds have been arrested and imprisoned. Their homes and places of worship, known as Kingdom Halls, have been raided, and the national headquarters seized. The Witnesses’ modern, Russian-language translation of the Bible has been banned along with its globally circulated magazines, Awake and Watchtower.

Nellia said she and Dmitrii had long been on the radar of authorities in the cities where they lived. They decided to flee, she said, after her mother called in October and said police had a warrant for their arrest.

“To be a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia is to be constantly in legal jeopardy, constantly in fear of either an invasion of your privacy, confiscation of your property, or, in many cases, being locked up,” said Jason Morton, a policy analyst at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan federal agency that tracks religious-freedom violations worldwide.

Last year, there were 105 guilty verdicts against Witnesses in Russia, according to the commission. The maximum sentences issued to them have increased from six to eight years.

The Russian government has never given a detailed justification for the crackdown.

“I don’t think that there’s any reasonable person that can substantiate that the Witnesses are fundamentally extremists,” said Emily Baran, a Middle Tennessee State University history professor. She has studied Soviet and post-Soviet Witness communities.

‘COMPLETE NONSENSE’

It is a label that even Russian President Vladimir Putin described as “complete nonsense”, when asked about it in 2018.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians, too, so I don’t quite understand why (they) persecute them,” he said.

Although Witnesses are Christians, they are guided by distinctive beliefs and practices, including the refusal of blood transfusions, abstinence from voting, conscientious objection to military service, and avoidance of participation in national ceremonies and holidays. Pre-pandemic, Witnesses engaged in door-to-door proselytising, a key part of their faith.

Aside from Russia, Witnesses experience persecution in several former Soviet republics, including Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. One notable case is the imprisonment of a 70-year-old Tajik citizen, Shamil Khakimov, who received a seven-year sentence in 2019.

In Eritrea, where military conscription is mandatory, there are several Witnesses in prison. In South Korea, where most young men must perform military service, Witnesses were routinely imprisoned for refusing, until a 2018 court decision affirmed their rights to conscientious objection.

The Witnesses “seem to really ruffle the feathers of your more authoritarian-minded governments who require a baseline of participation in the State,” Morton said. “The fact that they want to remain separate from some of the typical functions of celebrating the State or participating in certain state rituals, puts them on the radar.”

The recent crackdown is not the first endured by Witnesses in Russia. During the Soviet era, they were deported to remote areas of Siberia. They often faced employment discrimination and lost custody of their children.

“They didn’t do the kinds of performative aspects of being part of Soviet life,” said Baran.

The denomination’s American origins put Witnesses under scrutiny during the Cold War, Baran said. “Because they were part of an international religious group, the Soviet Union thought this was evidence of a larger capitalist conspiracy.”

Nellia and Dmitrii decided to flee Russia after weeks of playing hide-and-seek with police officers and disguising their appearances to outwit security cameras.

“We figured that they would eventually find us,” Dmitrii said.

They left on a one-way flight from Moscow to the resort city of Cancun, Mexico. After a brief stay, they flew to the border town of Mexicali in December, then approached US border agents to request asylum.

While in US detention, the couple celebrated their 12th anniversary and Nellia continued her tradition of writing love poems to mark the occasion.

“I beg God that this time passes quickly and better times are ahead,” she wrote. “My beloved, wait for me, wait for me, and don’t be overly sad about me.”

Dmitrii said he studied tax law in Russia, but now hopes to be licensed as a truck driver – if he can avoid long hauls that would take him far from his wife. Nellia isn’t sure what job she might pursue.

The Antsybors are among many Witnesses – likely several thousand, according to Lopes – who have fled Russia since the crackdown began in 2017. Many have found refuge in other European countries.

Evgeniy Kandaurov fled Russia with his wife in August 2021 and has resettled in Germany. He said their home was raided by police officers in February 2021, with an officer of the internal intelligence agency giving orders remotely.

The officers took custody of bags of their belongings, including all but one wedding photo.

Kandaurov, whose father was a Communist, became interested in the Jehovah’s Witnesses after two years of army service. He was baptised in 1994 and became a “special pioneer”, expected to devote at least 130 hours each month to ministry work.

He travelled across Russia to advocate for the rights of Witnesses to evangelise and worship peacefully, often helping those who had encounters with police.

“This was in fact my favourite form of service: defending our rights in court,” he said in an interview from his new home in Wiesbaden, a town west of Frankfurt.

Kandaurov said he was interrogated for several hours on multiple occasions.

“We couldn’t sleep: every knock at the door, every heavy footstep out in the hallway, it deprived us of our sleep, it was nerve-racking,” he said.

Last summer, he and his wife left Russia – driving through Moldova and Ukraine, then flying to Germany. Their modest belongings included their one surviving wedding photo.

He now spends much of his time writing to those left behind and worshipping on Zoom with his new friends, thankful to be practising his faith freely.

“I don’t have to whisper,” he said.
The Observer view on the French election and rightwing populism

Observer editorial

Emmanuel Macron is expected to win but voter support for Marine Le Pen shows the threat of the far right must be tackled

Marine Le Pen has dropped plans to restore the death penalty and leave the euro, making her candidacy more acceptable to centre-right voters. 
Photograph: Chesnot/Getty

Sun 3 Apr 2022

Despite his unpopularity – 54% of French voters disapprove of his performance in office – Emmanuel Macron is widely expected to win a second five-year term in France’s presidential election, whose first round will be held next Sunday. Yet it is already clear who has won the campaign as opposed to the vote: the populist forces of far-right nationalism grouped around the candidacies of Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour.

As leader of the National Rally, formerly the Front National, Le Pen has strengthened her grip on second place after a shaky few months. Her support is at about 20%, against Macron’s 28%, and she is closing the gap. As matters stand, Macron would beat her in the two-candidate second-round runoff on 24 April by 56-44%, although one poll last week suggested the margin has shrunk to only six points. Predicted low voter turnout is increasing uncertainty.



French election polls: who is leading the race to be the next president of France?

The appeal exerted by Zemmour has faded but remains significant. The Islamophobic pundit-polemicist has about 10% support. If the first-round far-right vote, including the 2% who support the fringe party, Debout la France, united around one candidate, Macron would be pushed into second place.

Luckily for Macron and France, this is unlikely to happen – on this occasion, at least. And in the second round, enough socialists, communists, Greens, centre-right conservatives and followers of the hard-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, can be expected to hold their noses and back Macron, if only to keep Le Pen out of the Élysée.

If so, that would be a repeat of the 2017 runoff result. But while Macron won easily then, by more than 30 points, his margin this time may be in single figures. So how has Le Pen made up so much ground? Observers point to hard work and an ability to learn from past mistakes. Eschewing large rallies, she has tirelessly courted the working-class “vote populaire” through personalised, town-hall-type gatherings up and down the country while Macron strode the international stage.

If and when Le Pen loses again, far-right supporters
 may conclude moderation of any kind does not pay

Zemmour’s repulsive, headline-catching anti-immigrant rants may have helped highlight Le Pen’s relatively less extreme stance. Unlike him, for example, she says Ukrainian refugees are welcome. She has dropped plans to restore the death penalty and leave the euro. This shift reflects her strategy of detoxifying a party long seen as irredeemably racist, thereby rendering her candidacy more acceptable to centre-right voters.

It’s working, up to a point. A study published by Le Monde found fewer voters now see Le Pen as a threat. While 50% would still not vote for her under any circumstances, the figures were higher for Zemmour (64%) and Mélenchon (53%). The downside is that if and when Le Pen loses again, far-right supporters may conclude moderation of any kind does not pay.

This is the huge challenge facing a Macron second term. Like Britain, France is struggling with the destructive impacts of deindustrialisation, globalisation and austerity. Extremism of the right (and left) has flourished among working-class voters who feel betrayed and forgotten. As with Brexit and in Trumpist America, a divisive discourse demonises migrants, Muslims and minorities of all kinds. It is fatally corrosive of society.

The Ukraine crisis has understandably distracted Macron from campaigning. But pernicious forces are advancing at home, too, and he needs to do better at thwarting them and pulling the country back together. The trend is clear. The root causes of national distress must be addressed – or France could face a far-right nightmare in 2027.
Majority of Americans support talking about LGBTQ people in schools

The survey comes amidst an all-out conservative attack on LGBTQ youth.

By Molly Sprayregen Sunday, April 3, 2022

Photo: Shutterstock

Amidst an all-out conservative attack on LGBTQ youth, a new survey has found that the majority of adults in the United States believe LGBTQ issues should be taught in schools.

The survey of over 2,000 adults, released by the Trevor Project, found that 57% of US adults do not believe LGBTQ resources should be blocked on school Internet, and 56% oppose banning LGBTQ books from school libraries. 52% oppose banning the discussion of LGBTQ topics in the classroom, and 38% said it was appropriate for elementary school students to discuss them.

Additionally, 55% and 52% of respondents supported the accessibility of hormone therapy and puberty blockers for trans youth respectively if supported by a young person’s doctor and parents. Only one in three respondents said legislators should be allowed to make gender-affirming care for youth illegal, even if doctors and medical associations recommend it.

The survey comes amidst major outcry regarding Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law on Monday and bans elementary school teachers from mentioning LGBTQ people in class.

It also comes as Republican lawmakers across the country continue to wage war against LGBTQ books in school libraries and propose bills outlawing gender-affirming care.

“This poll emphasizes just how out of step recent political attacks aimed at LGBTQ students and their families are with public opinion,” said Sam Ames, director of advocacy and government affairs for The Trevor Project. “A majority of adults reject the government overreach we’re witnessing across the country – whether it’s banning books, censoring school curriculums, or intervening in medical care decisions that are best left to doctors and parents.”

“All LGBTQ young people deserve access to safe, affirming learning environments and the health care they need. We urge lawmakers to look at these data and to listen to their constituents’ concerns before pushing politically unpopular, misguided policies that will cause real harm.”
RAND Pentagon Report…US Military Could Have Done More To Prevent Civilian Harm In Raqqa

On Apr 3, 2022


A general view of Raqqa, Syria. (AFP)


The US military could have done more to reduce civilian harm during the battle to liberate Syria’s Raqqa city from ISIS from June till October 2017, according to a report requested by the US Department of Defense (DOD).

The report, prepared by RAND researchers, studies the causes of civilian harm in Raqqa and provides insights into how the DoD can reduce civilian harm in future operations.

Titled “Understanding Civilian Harm in Raqqa and Its Implications for Future Conflicts,” the report revealed that coalition attacks on Raqqa left between 774 and 1600 civilian casualties, listing data received from Airwars and Amnesty International.

It said that when the city was finally liberated from ISIS, 60 to 80 percent of it was estimated to be uninhabitable.

The 130-page report also said the Raqqa operation involved a significant amount of building and other infrastructure damage, which severely undermined the ability of civilians to rebuild their city with limited local resources and international support.

It said the high rate of building damage was the result of a reliance on air and artillery fires to root out a dug-in enemy and protect the lives of friendly forces.

According to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, RAND said that approximately 11,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed in Raqqa between February and October 2017—corresponding to approximately 40 buildings destroyed per day.

It said that despite robust policies, procedures, and mitigation efforts, coalition forces caused significant civilian casualties and could have prepared and performed better.

“The coalition’s chosen strategy of encircling and defeating ISIS in Raqqa meant that coalition forces did not implement any formal pauses or negotiate exit corridors that might have allowed civilians (and potentially ISIS fighters) to leave the city prior to and during the fighting,” the researchers found.

Also, RAND said that despite the extensive damage to civilian structures and infrastructure caused by the coalition’s military operations, the US government did not marshal the resources needed to assist local actors in Raqqa with the reconstruction of the city.

As a conclusion, the report recommended that prior to the start of military operations, DoD must take a broader approach to civilian harm that considers how strategic choices might affect civilian-harm risks.

Separately, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported renewed Turkish attacks on SDF-controlled areas in the Raqqa countryside, where several artillery shells hit positions in Mualaq village and the surrounding areas of Ain Issa camp. However, no casualties have been reported.

The Observatory also reported that regime security services have reopened a center for settling the security status of suspects in the countryside of Al-Mayadeen city, east of Deir Ezzor.

Regime forces have opened the settlement center in Al-Mayadeen countryside four months ago and settled the security status of at least 3,000 inhabitants of the city and its countryside.


Source: Asharq Al-Awsat


Talks on new UN climate report going down to the wire
 
BY FRANK JORDANS• ASSOCIATED PRESS • APRIL 3, 2022

Steam comes out of the chimneys of the coal-fired power station in 
Niederaussem, Germany, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021. (Michael Probst/AP)

BERLIN — Negotiations between scientists and governments over a key United Nations climate report were going down to the wire Sunday, as officials from major emerging economies insisted that it should recognize their right to development.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-backed science body, is meant to show the paths by which the world can stay within the temperature limits agreed in the 2015 Paris accord.

The agreement aims to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) this century. But with temperatures already more than 1.1C higher than the pre-industrial baseline, many experts say that's only possible with drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

The closed-doors meeting was meant to wrap up Friday so that the report could be presented to the public on Monday.

But several observers, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the proceedings, told The Associated Press that the talks were still far from finished with less than 24 hours to go before the publication deadline.

One senior climate scientist said about 70% of the text had so far been agreed and there was still hope the negotiations might finish Sunday.

India has emerged as a key voice pushing for recognition in the report that developing countries have contributed a far smaller share of the carbon dioxide emissions already in the atmosphere than industrialized nations and should therefore not need to make the same steep cuts. India, which remains heavily dependent on coal, also wants poor countries to receive significantly more financial support to cope with climate change and make the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Others, such as oil exporter Saudi Arabia, argue that fossil fuels will still be needed for decades to come and phasing them out too quickly could hurt the world's poorest.

The text being negotiated is a summary for policymakers that will serve as the basis for government talks at international climate meetings such as the upcoming U.N. summit in Egypt this fall. The underlying science report outlining the world's progress in cutting emissions is not subject to negotiation, but it cannot be published until the summary is agreed.

A previous installment last year warned that there is no doubt the rapid climate change seen in recent decades is caused by humans and some effects of global warming are already inevitable. Last month, the science panel outlined how further temperature increases will multiply the risk of floods, storms, drought and heat waves worldwide.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Monsignor accused in Vatican financial trial says he ‘only obeyed’ bishops above him

Monsignor Mauro Carlino, who helped negotiate the Vatican’s relationship with Italian financier Gianluigi Torzi, testified that Torzi had ‘duped’ the church.

The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Photo by Steen Jepsen/Pixabay/Creative Commons

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Monsignor Mauro Carlino, testifying in a monthslong trial concerning  corruption in the church, told judges on Wednesday (March 30) that his involvement in a 2017 London real estate deal was limited to obeying orders.

“Before the cross I have asked myself many times what I did wrong,” said Carlino. “I only obeyed,” he added.

A former personal secretary to Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who served as sostituto, or chief of staff, to the Vatican’s secretary of state when the deal was made, Carlino is the second defendant to testify at the trial of 10 Vatican employees accused of defrauding the church of more than $200 million in the investment in a London apartment complex.

Prosecutors have charged Carlino with extortion and abuse of office in his role of negotiating the Vatican’s exit from the deal.

Becciu testified on March 17, addressing charges that he transferred Vatican funds to family members. He will resume his testimony on April 7, when he will discuss his dealings with Cecilia Marogna, a consultant on geopolitical affairs. Vatican judges announced on Wednesday that Pope Francis had lifted a ban on discussing Marogna’s activities in public due to her familiarity with intelligence on sensitive global matters.

Carlino, who declared his ignorance of complex financial matters, nonetheless described how he played a key role in the negotiations as the Secretariat of State attempted to regain control of the property in London’s posh Chelsey district that was losing money for the Vatican.

In 2019, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, who had replaced Becciu as sostituto, asked Carlino to talk to Italian financier Gianluigi Torzi, a co-defendant in the trial who had acquired a controlling stake in the London property after being retained to help the Vatican buy it outright.

Parra, Carlino testified, emphasized the importance of “loyalty, obedience and confidentiality” in his conversations. 

Monsignor Mauro Carlino. Video screen grab

Monsignor Mauro Carlino. Video screen grab

“As a priest, on every occasion, I tried to be obedient toward bishops,” Carlino said, adding that the relationship between a priest and his bishop is much deeper than the one between an employer and employee, since bishops represent Christ’s apostles.

“I did not move a finger without the authorization of my superiors and more than anything I have worked only and exclusively in obedience to the sostituto,” Carlino said.


RELATED: Vatican archbishop to bring Pope Francis’ take on being pro-life to the United States


To advise Carlino as mediator with Torzi, Parra appointed a lawyer named Luca Dal Fabbro, as well as Luciano Capaldo, an architect, and Fabrizio Tirabassi, an employee of the Vatican Secretariat of State who was familiar with the London investment.

Francis took a direct interest in the London deal, Carlino confirmed, relating how, on the day after Christmas in 2018, the pontiff met personally with Torzi at the Vatican, where they allegedly discussed how the church could regain control of the property. The directive from the pope “was to pay as little as possible and to acquire complete control of the building,” Carlino said.

A deal signed with Torzi on May 2, 2019, gave the businessman an additional $17 million to relinquish his voting shares. That evening, Parra and other actors in the deal celebrated together at a restaurant in Rome “paid for by the Holy Father,” Carlino said.

But the monsignor said Torzi had “tricked and duped” the Vatican, and also cast blame on Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, the former head of the Secretariat of State’s administrative office, who had initially overseen the London investment. Carlino said that Perlasca, who was investigated by Vatican authorities before becoming a prosecution witness, had lost the trust of the substitute, saying Parra suspected him of “grave infidelity.”

Carlino is expected to continue his testimony Tuesday, when the judges will also hear testimony from René Brülhart, the former president of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, and its former director, Tommaso di Ruzza. Both are accused of abuse of office. 


RELATED: Time to end tax havens for Russian oligarchs, crooked politicians and criminals

Anglican Church of Canada blunders stoke calls for general secretary to resign

“The ACC absolutely has the capacity to respond in an appropriate way, but it has made deliberate and calculated choices not to," a survivor said.

The Anglican Church of Canada logo. Courtesy image

(RNS) — Survivors of abuse and anti-abuse advocates in the Anglican Church of Canada are calling for the denomination’s general secretary to resign, saying he and other ACC leaders have continued to bungle their response to the leak of a draft of an article on sexual misconduct written for the denomination’s paper.

“The ACC absolutely has the capacity to respond in an appropriate way, but it has made deliberate and calculated choices not to out of its need for self-preservation or out of fear,” said Cydney Proctor, a self-identified survivor of sexual misconduct.

In February, an advocacy group called ACCtoo published an open letter claiming a “high-ranking official of the ACC” leaked a draft of an Anglican Journal article about the ACC’s mishandling of abuse allegations to some of the ACC authorities implicated in the story.

On March 13, the executive office of the ACC’s governing body, called the Council of General Synod, apologized and said it was conducting reviews of the ACC’s journalistic practices and sexual misconduct policies.

ACCtoo, however, noted that the council did not fully address ACCtoo’s original demands, which include a request that the person who leaked the draft resign.

Two days after the council’s statement went live, General Secretary Alan Perry, chief operating officer of the ACC’s governing body, was identified publicly as the person who shared the story draft.

Perry had been known to be the leaker by some inside the church since at least September 2021, when the church’s top official primate, Linda Nicholls, referred to him by title in a summary response to the incident that was published on the ACC website March 15. “In light of the sensitivities of such an article,” Nicholls wrote, “a draft was shared with the Director of Communications, General Secretary and Primate. Believing it was a penultimate draft, it was shared by the General Secretary with dioceses/institutions reflected in the article.”

On March 23, Perry said in a statement that the sharing of the article “happened on my watch.” He also expressed “regret” at the harm caused to survivors but did not accept personal responsibility for circulating the draft. Perry and Nicholls did not respond to requests for comment.

It’s not clear whether the ACC intended to reveal that Perry had leaked the draft when it posted its response this month, but now, the Anglican Journal’s former editor-in-chief Matthew Townsend, Proctor, ACCtoo and at least one member of the council told Religion News Service they are calling for Perry’s resignation.

ACCtoo also learned last week that a report of an investigation into the Anglican Journal leak had been shared with the Anglican Journal’s editorial board. That report — which ACCtoo has repeatedly requested be shared with survivors — contained an appendix with confidential information about Proctor’s original complaint, according to Townsend.

Cydney Proctor. Courtesy photo

Cydney Proctor. Courtesy photo

“Multiple sources have confirmed that in fact, the full report received by the editorial board included an appendix that not only identified one of the perpetrators in my story, it also provided details of my complaint against them,” Proctor said in a March 24 video. “This further degrades the trust which remains between me and the General Synod’s senior leadership. It is another breach for which I demand another apology.”

The chair of the editorial board did not respond to request for comment.

In its statement, CoGS, as the council is commonly known, had recommended that the report be shared with the editorial board, and claimed the report said “absolutely nothing about the circumstances of the original complaints by the individuals.”

A member of CoGS told RNS that the council has not seen the report and had no knowledge of the appendix. The CoGS statement also said the primate offered to meet with survivors and share the full report with them, “with appropriate mutual assurances of privacy and confidentiality.”

ACCtoo believes survivors should have access to the report independent of a meeting with the primate. In a March 16 email addressed to the primate, general secretary and members of CoGS, ACCtoo co-founders Carolyn Mackie and Michael Buttrey asked for a copy of the report to share with survivors. As of Tuesday (March 29), they had not received a response.

Finn Keesmaat-Walsh, a member of CoGS from the Province of Ontario, dissented from the CoGS statement in a Facebook post on Thursday, saying it did not address ACCtoo’s three requests.

“I’m not willing to give up hope that reconciliation can happen, and that with appropriate steps, this church can heal from this,” Keesmaat-Walsh told RNS. “But I don’t think that healing will be possible without the three goals that ACCtoo put in their letter being met.”

On Monday, Townsend, who quit his job at the journal in June in protest of the handling of the controversy, called for further accountability in his own statement. He emphasized the need to share the investigator’s report with survivors and released his own resignation letter to further validate the facts in ACCtoo’s open letter.

“My sense from the very start was that the church’s leadership didn’t really understand the gravity of the breach. For me as a journalist, this kind of confidentiality breach is the worst thing that could happen in your career, and the worst thing you could do to sources,” Townsend told RNS. “I continue to be concerned that the church isn’t quite taking this seriously, and that the approach is still not trauma-informed in any kind of way.”


RELATED: Anglican Church of Canada leaders apologize to survivors, respond to ACCToo


ACCtoo is also concerned about the appointment of Bishop William Cliff as chair of the ACC’s Communications and Information Resources Committee, which oversees the General Synod’s communication policy, according to the church website. Cliff is the bishop of Brandon, the diocese where Proctor has said she experienced sexual misconduct by a church leader. Cliff, according to Proctor and Townsend, is also one of the original recipients of the Anglican Journal article draft. Cliff did not respond to requests for comment. 

“He needs to recuse himself,” Proctor told RNS. “No one even remotely tied to this situation should be in charge of the communications of the national church.”

For ACCtoo and its supporters, the ACC’s response so far to the leak demonstrates a focus on institutional self-preservation over the needs of survivors.

“There is so much work that needs to be done in the church to respond to survivors of sexual violence,” said Mackie. “But this particular incident is symbolic of all of that. Until they can address this properly, and take accountability for what happened, we can’t trust that any other efforts to change systemic responses in the church will bear any fruit.”


RELATED: ACCtoo calls Anglican Church of Canada to repent for mishandling abuse allegations