Navy SEALs sue Biden administration over COVID mandate
A group of Navy SEALs filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate, the latest to join the legal fight over what critics are calling unconstitutional government overreach. Dozens of SEALs, along with other Navy service members, joined in the lawsuit after the Department of Defense refused to grant them COVID-19 vaccination exemptions. With President Joe Biden’s approval, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced in August that all U.S. service members must be vaccinated. “The fact that the government has not granted a single religious exemption from the vaccine mandate shows that the Biden Administration does not care about religious freedom,” said Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute, the legal group representing the plaintiffs. “Instead, this appears to be an attempted ideological purge. After all these elite warriors have done to defend our freedoms, the Navy is now threatening their careers, families, and finances.” “It’s appalling and it has to stop before any more harm is done to our national security,” he added. According to First Liberty Institute, the service members who requested religious exemptions to the vaccine were told they may face “court-martial or involuntary separation.” “Each of their religious exemption denials appear to be identical, suggesting the Navy is not taking their requests seriously,” the group said. “The Navy also warned some of the plaintiffs that if they sought a religious exemption, the Navy would confiscate their Special Warfare devices – such as the famous SEAL ‘Trident’ – that they proudly wear on their uniforms. The Vaccine Mandate substantially burdens the SEALs’ free exercise of religion, and the Department of Defense has failed to prove it has a compelling government interest, or that there are no less restrictive ways to further its effort to mitigate the Covid-19 virus.” The latest lawsuit comes after a federal court temporarily halted Biden’s mandate that private sector companies with more than 99 employees ensure that their workers are vaccinated or receive weekly testing. More than 20 states have joined a series of lawsuits challenging the private sector vaccine mandate. A separate vaccination mandate for federal employees is also facing pushback. Many SEALs have reportedly left in anticipation that they would be forced out. “We generally have about 2,500 Navy SEALs,” Robert O’Neill, a former Navy SEAL who claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden in Operation Neptune Spear, said after the mandate was announced. “It takes time to get to certain levels. Hundreds are leaving because of nonsense.” By Casey Harper | The Center Square
Colin Powell, exemplary general stained by Iraq claims, dies
Colin Powell, who served Democratic and Republican presidents in war and peace but whose sterling reputation was forever stained when he went before the U.N. and made faulty claims to justify the U.S. war in Iraq, has died of COVID-19 complications. He was 84. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell rose to the rank of four-star general and in 1989 became the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that role, he oversaw the U.S. invasion of Panama and later the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991. But his legacy was marred when, in 2003, he went before the U.N. Security Council as secretary of state and made the case for the U.S. war against Iraq at a moment of great international skepticism. He cited faulty information claiming Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed away weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s claims that it had no such weapons represented “a web of lies,” he told the world body. In announcing his death on social media, Powell’s family said he had been fully vaccinated. “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father and grandfather, and a great American,” the family said. Powell had been treated at Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Powell was the first American official to publicly lay the blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network and made a lightning trip to Pakistan in October 2001 to demand that then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cooperate with the United States in going after the Afghanistan-based group, which also had a presence in Pakistan, where bin Laden was later killed. As President George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, Powell led a State Department that was dubious of the military and intelligence communities’ conviction that Saddam Hussein possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction. And yet, despite his reservations, he presented the administration’s case that Saddam indeed posed a major regional and global threat in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in the run-up to the war. That speech, replete with his display of a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon, was later derided as a low-point in Powell’s career, although he had removed some elements that he deemed to have been based on poor intelligence assessments. Bush said Monday that he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell’s death. “He was a great public servant” and “widely respected at home and abroad,” Bush said. “And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.” Powell rose to national prominence under Republican presidents and considered a presidential bid of his own but ultimately moved away from the party. He endorsed Democrats in the last four presidential elections, starting with former President Barack Obama. He emerged as a vocal Donald Trump critic in recent years, describing Trump as “a national disgrace” who should have been removed from office through impeachment. Following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, Powell said he no longer considered himself a Republican. Powell rose from a childhood in a fraying New York neighborhood to become the nation’s chief diplomat. “Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means who was raised in the South Bronx,” he wrote in his 1995 autobiography “My American Journey.” At City College, Powell discovered the ROTC. When he put on his first uniform, “I liked what I saw,” he wrote. He joined the Army, and in 1962 he was one of more than 16,000 military advisers sent to South Vietnam by President John F. Kennedy. A series of promotions led to the Pentagon and assignment as a military assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who became his unofficial sponsor. He later became commander of the Army’s 5th Corps in Germany and later was national security assistant to President Ronald Reagan. During his term as Joint Chiefs chairman, his approach to war became known as the Powell Doctrine, which held that the United States should only commit forces in a conflict if it has clear and achievable objectives with public support, sufficient firepower, and a strategy for ending the war. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general, said the news of Powell’s death left “a hole in my heart.” “The world lost one of the greatest leaders that we have ever witnessed,” Austin said while traveling in Europe. “Alma lost a great husband, and the family lost a tremendous father, and I lost a tremendous personal friend and mentor. He has been my mentor for a number of years. He always made time for me, and I can always go to him with tough issues; he always had great counsel.” Powell’s appearances at the United Nations as secretary of state, including his Iraq speech, were often accompanied by fond reminiscing of his childhood in the city, where he grew up the child of Jamaican immigrants who got one of his first jobs at the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant directly across the East River from the U.N. headquarters. A fan of calypso music, Powell was the subject of criticism from, among others, singing legend Harry Belafonte, who likened Powell to a “house slave” for going along with the decision to invade Iraq. Powell declined to get into a public spat with Belafonte but made it known that he was not a fan and much preferred the Trinidadian calypso star, the “Mighty Sparrow.” Powell maintained, in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, that on balance, U.S. succeeded in Iraq. “I think we had a lot of successes,” Powell said. “Iraq’s terrible dictator is gone.” Saddam was captured by U.S. forces while hiding out in northern Iraq in December 2003 and later executed by the Iraqi government. But the insurgency grew, and the war dragged on far
FBI releases newly declassified record on September 11 attacks
A declassified FBI document related to logistical support given to two of the Saudi hijackers in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks details contacts the men had with Saudi associates in the United States but does not provide proof that senior kingdom officials were complicit in the plot. The document released Saturday, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, is the first investigative record to be disclosed since President Joe Biden ordered a declassification review of materials that for years have remained out of public view. The 16-page document is a summary of an FBI interview done in 2015 with a man who had frequent contact with Saudi nationals in the U.S. who supported the first hijackers to arrive in the country before the attacks. Biden ordered the Justice Department and other agencies to conduct a declassification review and release what documents they can over the next six months. He was under pressure from victims’ families, who have long sought the records as they pursue a lawsuit in New York alleging that Saudi government officials supported the hijackers. The heavily blacked-out document was released hours after Biden attended Sept. 11 memorial events in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. Victims’ relatives had said they would object to Biden’s presence at those remembrances as long as the documents remained classified. The Saudi government has long denied any involvement in the attacks. The Saudi Embassy in Washington has supported the full declassification of all records as a way to “end the baseless allegations against the Kingdom once and for all.” The embassy said that any allegation that Saudi Arabia was complicit was “categorically false.” The documents have come out at a politically delicate time for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which have forged a strategic, if difficult, alliance, particularly on counterterrorism matters. The Biden administration in February released an intelligence assessment implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi but drew criticism from Democrats for avoiding a direct punishment of the royal himself. Victims’ relatives said the document’s release was a significant step in their effort to connect the attacks to Saudi Arabia. Brett Eagleson, whose father, Bruce, was killed in the World Trade Center attack, said the release of the FBI material “accelerates our pursuit of truth and justice.” Jim Kreindler, a lawyer for the victims’ relatives, said in a statement that “the findings and conclusions in this FBI investigation validate the arguments we have made in the litigation regarding the Saudi government’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. “This document, together with the public evidence gathered to date, provides a blueprint for how (al-Qaida) operated inside the US with the active, knowing support of the Saudi government,” he said. That includes, he said, Saudi officials exchanging phone calls among themselves and al-Qaida operatives and then having “accidental meetings” with the hijackers while providing them with assistance to get settled and find flight schools. Regarding Sept. 11, there has been speculation of official involvement since shortly after the attacks, when it was revealed that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida at the time, was from a prominent family in the kingdom. The U.S. investigated some Saudi diplomats and others with Saudi government ties who knew hijackers after they arrived in the U.S., according to previously declassified documents. Still, the 9/11 Commission report in 2004 found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” the attacks that al-Qaida masterminded, though it noted Saudi-linked charities could have diverted money to the group. Particular scrutiny has centered on the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S., Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, and the support they received. In February 2000, shortly after their arrival in Southern California, they encountered at a halal restaurant a Saudi national named Omar al-Bayoumi who helped them find and lease an apartment in San Diego. He had ties to the Saudi government and had earlier attracted FBI scrutiny. Bayoumi has described his restaurant meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar as a “chance encounter,” and the FBI, during its interview, made multiple attempts to ascertain if that characterization was accurate or if the meeting had actually been arranged in advance, according to the document. The 2015 interview that forms the basis of the FBI document was of a man who was applying for U.S. citizenship and who years earlier had repeated contacts with Saudi nationals, who investigators said, provided “significant logistical support” to several of the hijackers. Among the man’s contacts was Bayoumi, according to the document. The man’s identity is blacked out throughout the document, but he is described as having worked at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. Also referenced in the document is Fahad al-Thumairy, at the time an accredited diplomat at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles who investigators say led an extremist faction at his mosque. The document says communications analysis identified a seven-minute phone call in 1999 from Thumairy’s phone to the Saudi Arabian family home phone of two brothers who later were detained at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war
The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises, and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war. Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport. Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting a hurried and risky airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans, and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants. In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. He said a number of American citizens, likely numbering in “the very low hundreds,” were left behind and that he believes they will still be able to leave the country. Biden said military commanders unanimously favored ending the airlift, not extending it. He said he asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to coordinate with international partners in holding the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who want to leave in the days ahead. The airport had become a U.S.-controlled island, a last stand in a 20-year war that claimed more than 2,400 American lives. The closing hours of the evacuation were marked by extraordinary drama. American troops faced the daunting task of getting final evacuees onto planes while also getting themselves and some of their equipment out, even as they monitored repeated threats — and at least two actual attacks — by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. A suicide bombing on Aug. 26 killed 13 American service members and some 169 Afghans. The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, and rural Pennsylvania. His decision, announced in April, reflected a national weariness of the Afghanistan conflict. Now he faces condemnation at home and abroad, not so much for ending the war as for his handling of a final evacuation that unfolded in chaos and raised doubts about U.S. credibility. The U.S. war effort at times seemed to grind on with no endgame in mind, little hope for victory, and minimal care by Congress for the way tens of billions of dollars were spent for two decades. The human cost piled up — tens of thousands of Americans injured in addition to the dead, and untold numbers suffering psychological wounds they live with or have not yet recognized they will live with. More than 1,100 troops from coalition countries and more than 100,000 Afghan forces and civilians died, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. In Biden’s view, the war could have ended 10 years ago with the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida extremist network planned and executed the 9/11 plot from an Afghanistan sanctuary. Al-Qaida has been vastly diminished, preventing it thus far from again attacking the United States. Congressional committees, whose interest in the war waned over the years, are expected to hold public hearings on what went wrong in the final months of the U.S. withdrawal. Why, for example, did the administration not begin earlier the evacuation of American citizens as well as Afghans who had helped the U.S. war effort and felt vulnerable to retribution by the Taliban? It was not supposed to end this way. The administration’s plan, after declaring its intention to withdraw all combat troops, was to keep the U.S. Embassy in Kabul open, protected by a force of about 650 U.S. troops, including a contingent that would secure the airport along with partner countries. Washington planned to give the now-defunct Afghan government billions more to prop up its army. Biden now faces doubts about his plan to prevent al-Qaida from regenerating in Afghanistan and of suppressing threats posed by other extremist groups such as the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. The Taliban are enemies of the Islamic State group but retain links to a diminished al-Qaida. The final U.S. exit included the withdrawal of its diplomats, although the State Department has left open the possibility of resuming some level of diplomacy with the Taliban depending on how they conduct themselves in establishing a government and adhering to international pleas for the protection of human rights. The speed with which the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15 caught the Biden administration by surprise. It forced the U.S. to empty its embassy and frantically accelerate an evacuation effort that featured an extraordinary airlift executed mainly by the U.S. Air Force, with American ground forces protecting the airfield. The airlift began in such chaos that a number of Afghans died on the airfield, including at least one who attempted to cling to the airframe of a C-17 transport plane as it sped down the runway. By the evacuation’s conclusion, well over 100,000 people, mostly Afghans, had been flown to safety. The dangers of carrying out such a mission while surrounded by the newly victorious Taliban and faced with attacks by the Islamic State came into tragic focus on Aug. 26 when an IS suicide bomber at an airport gate killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 Americans. Speaking shortly after that attack, Biden stuck to his view that ending the war was the right move. He said it was past time for the United States to focus on threats emanating from elsewhere in the world. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “it was time to end a 20-year war.” The war’s start was an echo of a promise President George W. Bush made while standing atop of the rubble in
Father of first American killed: Afghanistan end ‘shameful’
Mike Spann, a Marine turned CIA officer, felt a duty to go to Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In one of his last phone calls home to check on his children, he told his father he was hopeful they would gather information to locate the mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, his father recalled. Spann was killed days later, on Nov. 25, 2001, during a prisoner uprising at the fortress where he had been questioning extremists. The 32-year-old CIA paramilitary officer from Winfield, Alabama, was the first of 2,448 American service members to be killed in combat in Afghanistan. Spann’s father said he was disgusted by images of America’s chaotic withdrawal Monday showing people, desperate to escape the Taliban takeover, clinging to the side of a departing U.S. military jet. “It makes me sick to my stomach when I see it. It’s disheartening. It’s shameful, I think. I think it’s shameful that we would do this,” Johnny Spann said. The elder Spann had just dropped off his granddaughter in Birmingham when he had to pull over and look at the images on his cellphone after hearing them described. The scenes of people plunging to their deaths from the plane reminded him of the Americans who jumped from the towers of the World Trade Center, he said. Spann said he is not opposed to Americans leaving Afghanistan but disagrees with the timing and how it was done. With the Taliban takeover, his mind goes immediately to the Afghans who helped his son and other Americans. “They are going to die. They are going to kill them. And how can someone stomach that when we know we made them promises? There is no telling how many people we would have lost if those people hadn’t helped us,” he said. Mike Spann always seemed destined for the military. As a teenager, he had Marine flags plastered on his ceiling and walls. During family trips, he would always want to go by military battlefields and landmarks. Near his graduation from Auburn University, he announced he was joining the Marines, a decision some questioned because he was a young husband. “Dad, I’ve always wanted to be a Marine. If I don’t do it now, I’ll never have another opportunity,” his father recalled him saying. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mike Spann felt a duty to go to Afghanistan even though the decision would mean leaving his two daughters, infant son and wife. The span of the war can be measured in Spann’s three children, just youngsters when their father died but now grown. In the years since his son’s death, Johnny Spann has become obsessed with learning the details — tracking down the autopsy report, photos and speaking to people who worked with his son in his last days. He is also sharply critical of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal decision. Much of the work his son and others did has been undone, he said, but that doesn’t make their contributions meaningless. “They helped us keep America safe, and that’s what they were doing for 20 years. They did their job. They did what they were supposed to do. They did what they were told to do. But they didn’t die in vain,” he said. His son, he said, went to find bin Laden: “He died before we found Osama bin Laden, but I think that maybe some of the things he did helped us get to that point.” The elder Spann cautioned people not to think that the threat to America has ended with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “This war is not over. We’ve just conceded territory that we took,” he said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
John Bolton critique of Donald Trump could define tell-all book battles
The government asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the release of the book.
Sidelined by pandemic, Trump campaign turns to digital shows
Trump’s reelection team is airing live programming online to replace his trademark rallies made impossible for now by the coronavirus pandemic.
America’s 16 years in Afghanistan: From triumph to stalemate
Sixteen years of U.S. warfare in Afghanistan have left the insurgents as strong as ever and the nation’s future precarious. Facing a quagmire, President Donald Trump on Monday outlined his strategy for “victory” in a country that has historically snared great powers and defied easy solutions. America’s longest-running war began well as U.S.-led forces quickly toppled the Taliban government and disrupted al-Qaida leaders who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from Afghan soil. But the fighting never ended. In recent years, security has gradually worsened as Taliban insurgents, enjoying sanctuary in Pakistan, have gained a foothold across the country. Afghanistan’s rampant heroin trade, official corruption and infighting among the nation’s elite have only compounded problems. Trump is the third U.S. president to grapple with the Afghan challenge. A look at the phases of the U.S. involvement to date: — REGIME CHANGE Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, a massive U.S. air campaign targets al-Qaida fighters and Taliban troops, training camps and air defenses. Anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance enter Kabul as the Taliban flee. By December 2001, Afghan groups agree on a deal in Bonn, Germany, for an interim government. With Afghanistan liberated from Taliban control, the U.S. military force grows to 2,500 as troops scour the mountainous Tora Bora region looking for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. He eludes capture. Although President George W. Bush remains leery of supporting nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, the U.S. expands its counterterrorism operations. By the end of 2002, there are 9,700 U.S. troops in the country. — DEMOCRACY AND DISTRACTION In November 2004, Hamid Karzai, who had served two years as interim leader, is the clear winner in Afghanistan’s first direct election for president. The Bush administration hails the vote as a key step in the nation’s transformation. Millions of girls return to school after being barred under the Taliban. As the country opens up, Western aid helps the economy grow, at least in urban areas. But the Taliban, enjoying sanctuary in Pakistan, show signs of re-emergence, launching sporadic attacks on government forces in eastern Afghanistan. Although Karzai is an ethnic Pashtun, which comprise the bulk of Taliban recruits, his government alienates what is Afghanistan’s main ethnic group. Karzai’s administration is dominated by former commanders of the Northern Alliance. U.S. troop numbers swell to 20,000, but Washington’s attention increasingly turns to Iraq. The U.S. invades in March 2003, toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It struggles with the aftermath. Soon Iraq is gripped by an explosion of sectarian violence that preoccupies Bush until he leaves office. — MORE WESTERN TROOPS, MORE VIOLENCE In 2006, NATO assumes responsibility for security across the whole of Afghanistan, pumping troops into Taliban heartlands in the south of the country. The U.S. ups its forces in the country to 30,000. Britain, Canada and others boost their contributions. But the violence and lawlessness worsens. Production of opium, the raw material of heroin, soars to a record high, funding the insurgency and fueling official corruption. Tensions grow between Afghanistan and Pakistan over cross-border Taliban attacks. In the fall of 2008, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen concedes, “I’m not sure we’re winning.” — SURGE President Barack Obama, vowing to refocus U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, enters office in 2009 endorsing shifts to a counterinsurgency strategy designed to protect Afghan civilians rather than hunt down Taliban. He quickly sends in 21,000 more forces. After a prolonged policy review, Obama orders an additional surge, bringing troop levels to a high of 100,000 by August 2010. He says the U.S. will begin withdrawing forces by 2011. Critics say the drawdown date diminishes the incentive for the Taliban to negotiate for peace. Bin Laden is killed in a U.S. special operations raid in Pakistan in March 2011. Obama then presses ahead with plans to hand over security responsibilities to Afghanistan by 2014. By the end of that year, NATO ends its combat mission in the country. U.S. relations with Karzai, however, deteriorate. A contested election to replace Karzai introduces a more pro-U.S. leader in Ashraf Ghani, but his government is bitterly divided. — NO WITHDRAWAL With violence reaching post-2001 highs and Afghan security forces taking heavy casualties, Obama backtracks on plans to virtually withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of 2016. He leaves office with 8,400 troops still in the country. The U.S. kills new Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in a drone attack in Pakistan in May 2016, derailing peace talks. But on the battlefield, the Taliban are in the ascendant and threaten provincial capitals in both the north and south. The Islamic State group gains a foothold in eastern Afghanistan. — ENTER TRUMP Trump says little about Afghanistan during his first seven months in office, while the military grows antsy. The Pentagon proposes sending in nearly 4,000 more U.S. troops to increase training of Afghan forces and counterterrorism operations, but the administration is divided on strategy. Nearly everyone considers the fight a stalemate, and some in Trump’s administration even propose withdrawing or handing over the entire American effort to private security contractors. Among Afghans, anti-Western sentiment grows over deteriorating security, even in the capital, Kabul. The economy also suffers, partly as a result of a drawdown in foreign forces. As Trump is poised to announce his plan, Afghanistan’s government controls only about half of the country. After months of debate, Trump finally unveils his strategy in a prime-time television address. He says the U.S. will win “in the end,” defeating al-Qaida and IS fighters, and ensuring the government doesn’t fall to the Taliban. He refuses to provide troop increase numbers or timelines, saying military assistance would be determined by results and the cooperation of Afghanistan’s beleaguered government. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
