- Israeli Navy Deploys Drone Boat To Hunt Submarines During War Exercise
Seagull, Elbit Systems‘ groundbreaking autonomous vessel recently participated in an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) exercise conducted by the Hellenic and Israeli Navy.
The multi-mission drone ship deployed dipping sonar sensors initially designed to be carried by helicopters.
“The Seagulls’ performance in the exercise demonstrated that operating a dipping sonar onboard such a vessel significantly increases the operational working time while substantially enhancing detection capabilities and the effectiveness of Anti-Submarine Warfare,” said Elbit.
Three months before the exercise, the Israeli Navy completed a Sea Acceptance Test (SAT) for the dipping sonar (otherwise known as the Helicopter Long-Range Active Sonar (HELRAS)) that was successfully converted from operations on a helicopter to an autonomous boat.
The HELRAS was developed in the 1970s by FIAR and British Aerospace to detect submarines. The sensor was used throughout the Cold War for detection of Russian submarines.
The Seagull team includes three operators, with two remotely managing the mission and the third monitoring the autonomous navigation.
While transiting across the waters, the Seagull can perform real-time detections, mapping, and classification of submarines and mines.
The Seagull is not the first autonomous platform to be designed with submarine hunting in mind.
The autonomous ship “Sea Hunter,” developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to hunt submarines, was successfully transferred to the US Navy in 1Q18.
The US Navy also added a fleet of autonomous submarines with the purchase of four of Boeing’s Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) that will conduct anti-submarine warfare, electronic warfare, mine countermeasures, and strike missions.
Situational awareness of the sea will lie at the heart of 21st-century ASW and has remained a core mission area for the US Navy.
It seems America’s allies and the US Navy are racing towards acquiring new technologies that will better prepare them for future submarine warfare with Russia and or China.
- Berlin's "Quds Day" Panic Of 2019
Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,
So it appears we managed to survive another terrifying Quds Day in Berlin. It was certainly touch and go there for a while, what with the media issuing hysterical warnings about the hordes of “Hamas and Hezbollah supporters, neo-Nazis, and conspiracy theorists” that were going to materialize out of the ether, goose-step down the Kurfürstendamm, and reenact Kristallnacht, or something. The city was braced for an all-out Perso-Palestinian Quds Day Pogrom, which is always a threat on Quds Day in Berlin, but the hysteria level this year was elevated, due to the Anti-Semitism Pandemic that mysteriously erupted in 2016 for no apparent reason whatsoever.
OK, what, you’re probably asking, is Quds Day? It’s an annual event initiated by Iran to show support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism. It takes place on the last Friday of Ramadan, in opposition to Israel’s Jerusalem Day, the national holiday commemorating Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.
In Berlin, there’s an annual Quds Day march, which the German media typically respond to by whipping up anti-Semitism hysteria and fanatical, guilt-ridden support for Israel. This year was no exception … on the contrary.
A week or so before the event, Felix Klein, Germany’s “Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism,” warned Jews not to wear kippahs in public, on account of the unprecedented explosion of anti-Semitism throughout the country. According to the interior ministry, there were 62 violent anti-Semitic attacks in Germany during 2018, compared to 37 in 2017, which, in a nation of 83 million people, and with a history of real-life, goose-stepping Nazis, and of perpetrating the Holocaust, and so on … well, you can understand the Commissioner’s alarm.
The international corporate media began spreading the news that Anti-Semitism was once again on the march in Germany. The BBC reported that official figures showed that 1,646 hate crimes had been committed against Jews in 2018, up 10% from 2017! CNN reported that anti-Semitic hate crimes had increased by almost 20%! According to The Jerusalem Post, there were 1,800 anti-Semitic incidents committed against Jews in 2018! It was almost as if the Anti-Semitism Pandemic was retroactively metastasizing right before our eyes.
But whatever. The statistics don’t really matter. The point was, “Jews are not safe in Germany!” The Putin-Nazis had teamed up with the Iranian Nazis and the Syrian Nazis, who were backing the Palestinian Nazis, whose irrational hatred of the State of Israel the German Nazis had somehow weaponized (probably with a bunch of fake Facebook ads), and they were all going to storm the historic high-end shopping boulevard of West Berlin!
Then, on Friday, the day before Quds Day, in a desperate, last-minute, tactical maneuver, German politicians and cultural figures exhorted Jews and gentiles alike to defiantly wear their kippahs on Quds Day. BILD, the leading German tabloid, even printed little cut-out “BILD kippas” (complete with meticulous assembly instructions), and called on Germans to wear them on Quds Day to show their solidarity with State of Israel … uh, sorry, I meant with the Jewish people.
The BILD kippa tactic was a huge success! On Quds Day, fewer than a thousand people, many of them women and children, peacefully strolled along the Kurfürstendamm chanting slogans like “free, free Palestine,” and asking the world to stop the Israelis from penning people up in de facto ghettos, shooting their legs off with dum dum bullets, demolishing their houses, hospitals, and schools, stealing their land, randomly murdering them, and otherwise behaving like sadistic fascists. The hordes of “Hamas and Hezbollah supporters, neo-Nazis, and conspiracy theorists” that the corporate media had warned us were coming, oddly, never showed their faces … clearly, the “BILD kippas” scared them off.
Or maybe it was the counter-demonstrators. Hundreds of anti-anti-Semites, including prominent German government officials, Israeli diplomats, Antifa factions, members of the local Jewish community, and BILD susbscribers confronted the march, wearing kippahs, waving Israeli flags, displaying giant “MAGA” banners, shouting “long live Israel” and “free Gaza from Hamas,” and giving the marchers the finger, and so on (which, OK, I found a little confusing, as, the last time I checked, Trump was still Hitler, and Antifa were supposedly a bunch of anarchists).
In any event, the hysteria has subsided. Berlin and Israel appear to have survived. The Jews can come back out of hiding, although it isn’t quite clear whether Germany wants them to wear their kippahs in public or not now. Hopefully, we’ll be receiving some sort of official directive from Commissioner Klein (or possibly Axel Springer) about that.
But, seriously, you can’t really blame the Germans for a going a little overboard with their anti-anti-Semitism hysteria or for being reluctant to criticize Israel. It wasn’t all that long ago that their parents and grandparents were heiling Hitler and systematically murdering millions of Jews, or looking the other way while it happened. Most of the Germans I’m acquainted with still feel kind of awful about that. Which isn’t terribly surprising, is it?
I mean, imagine, if you’re one of my American readers, if some other country conquered the USA, and put our political and military leaders on trial for all the war crimes they’ve committed, and for the millions of people they’ve systematically murdered, and taught our children the truth about our history … that might give you some idea of how most Germans feel about the Nazis and the Holocaust.
So, yes, Germans are a bit hypersensitive about anything resembling anti-Semitism, and they tend to conflate opposition to Israel with hatred of the Jewish people (despite the fact that Israel is doing a pretty convincing impression of the Nazis, what with its ethnic cleansing, walls, ghettos, sadistic goons, propaganda, and so on). Many Germans also overcompensate for their feelings of shame about the Holocaust by displaying an awkward fascination and enthusiasm for anything “Jewish” (you know, like many liberal Americans fetishize Native and African Americans), so that might explain the “BILD kippa” nonsense.
No, I’m not mocking or scolding the Germans … they’re still trying to work their history out. I’m just trying to track the propaganda and cynical emotional manipulation that we are increasingly being subjected to as the global capitalist ruling classes wage their War on Populism. The Quds Day Panic of 2019 is just one example. There are many more, both manufactured and all-too-real. The Charlottesville Nazis. Charlottesville II. The MAGA bomber. The Tree of Life shooting. The Christchurch attack. Jussie Smollett. MAGA hat Smirk Boy. And the list goes on … pretty much as it always has.
I’m sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone, but the world has always contained a minority of racist and anti-Semitic whack jobs. They didn’t suddenly start murdering people when Brexit passed and Trump got elected. They’ve been doing that for quite some time. And of course there is still anti-Semitism in Germany. Saxony is crawling with neo-Nazis. And Iran really would like to wipe out Israel, just as Israel would like to wipe out Iran. None of this is in any way new or shocking to anyone who has been paying attention.
The only thing that has significantly changed since November 8, 2016, is the official narrative we are being fed, in which anyone opposing global capitalism and the hegemony of neoliberal ideology is either a Russian or some kind of Nazi, and a new “anti-Semitism” or “fascism” panic is whipped up for us on a monthly basis.
The Quds Day Panic of 2019 (like the Charlottesville Kristallnacht of 2017) is going to be rerun, over and over, in endless variations, until 2020, or whenever the global capitalist ruling classes manage to restore Normality. By that time Israeli sports teams will probably be wearing little Palestinians on their caps, Julian Assange will be locked away in Supermax, and satirists like me … well, I think you know.
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C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.
- Do You Believe In UFOs? China Hints At Next Generation Ballistic Missile Test
UFO sightings across several provinces in China on Sunday was actually a Chinese submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test. China’s military hinted on social media Monday that it conducted a missile test after it posted a cryptic message about UFOs and a picture of an SLBM, reported the Global Times.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s Sina Weibo account, called DF Express, wrote a post Monday evening that said “Do you believe there are UFOs in this world?” with a picture of a ballistic missile in launch position.
The Navy then posted on its Weibo account an SLBM test, with a similar message: “Do you believe in UFOs?”
PLA forces conducted the SLBM test in the Bohai Sea and Bohai Straits, off the coast of northeastern China, which lines up with dozens of social media reports from residents across various Chinese provinces saying they saw a UFO streak across the sky.
Jane’s Defence Weekly said Sunday’s SLBM test could have been China’s next generation SLBM, called the JL-3.
The JL-3 is China’s third-generation SLBM that will likely deploy with the Type 096 submarine. The new missile is expected to fly further and is capable of carrying more warheads than current SLBMs, Xu Guangyu, a senior consultant at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
According to RT, the JL-3 has a range of up to 8,700 miles and can carry ten guided nuclear warheads. The long range of the SLBM allows it to strike Washington without a problem from the Bohai Straits. If China swaps out nuclear warheads with hypersonic gliders, it could be an unstoppable weapon for deterrent purposes.
Despite social media posts from the military, there is still no confirmation from Beijing about the launch.
The missile launch came shortly after the US Department of Defense published its Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, along with the Trump administration raising 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods on Saturday.
Guangyu told the Global Times it’s necessary for China to showcase its new, rapidly growing military strength to counter US provocations.
And again, more evidence in real-time shows a rising China with impressive military strength is generating structural stress that threatens to dissolve America’s global empire and could eventually lead to a military conflict, otherwise known as Thucydides’s Trap.
- War Propaganda & The US Military Build-Up Against Iran
Tensions continue to grow in the Persian Gulf.
In early May, the US deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group as well as the USS Arlington amphibious transport dock, additional marines, amphibious vehicles, rotary aircraft, Patriot missiles and a bomber strike force to the region claiming that this is a needed measure to deter Iran, which allegedly prepares to attack US troops and infrastructure.
On May 21, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan claimed that the US had succeeded in putting the potential of Iranian attacks “on hold.” The declared victory over the mythical “Iranian threats” did not stop the US from a further military buildup.
On May 25, President Donald Trump declared that the US is sending 1,500 troops, 12 fighter jets, manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, and a number of military engineers to counter Iran.
Trump also approved an $8 billion sale of precision guided missiles and other military support to Saudi Arabia, using a legal loophole. The Trump administration declared an emergency to bypass Congress, citing the need to deter what it called “the malign influence” of Iran.
The forces deployment was accompanied with a new round of fear-mongering propaganda.
On May 24, Adm. Michael Gilday, director of the Joint Staff, issued a statement saying that “the leadership of Iran at the highest level” ordered a spate of disruptive attacks including those targeting an Aramco Saudi oil pipeline, pumping facilities, the recent sabotage of four tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a May 19 lone rocket attack on the area near the US embassy in Baghdad. Besides this, he repeated speculations about “credible reports that Iranian proxy groups intend to attack U.S. personnel in the Middle East”. Nonetheless, Adm. Gilday offered nothing that may look like hard proof to confirm these claims.
On May 28, National Security Adviser John Bolton blamed “naval mines almost certainly from Iran” for the incident with oil tankers off the UAE.
On May 30, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman went on an anti-Iran tirade during an emergency meeting of Arab leaders hosted in Mecca. He described the Islamic Republic as the greatest threat to global security for the past four decades, repeated US-Israeli accusations regarding the alleged Iranian missile and nuclear activities and urged the US-led bloc to use “all means to stop the Iranian regime” from its regional “interference”.
Despite the war-like rhetoric of the US and its allies and the recent deployment of additional forces in the region, Washington seems to be not ready for a direct confrontation with Iran right now. The USS Abraham Lincoln strike group remains outside the Persian Gulf, in the Arabian Sea, demonstrating that the Washington establishment respects the Iranian military capabilities and understands that the US Navy might lose face if the carrier were to make an attempt at demonstrating US naval power too close to Iranian shores.
Iran, in its own turn, stressed that it is not going to step back under these kinds of threats. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said that his country would not be coerced into new negotiations under economic sanctions and threat of military action.
“I favor talks and diplomacy but under current conditions, I do not accept it, as today’s situation is not suitable for talks and our choice is resistance only,” Rouhani said.
In the coming months, the US-Iranian confrontation in the diplomatic, economic and military spheres will continue to develop. Threats and aggressive actions towards Iran will not go without response. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that Teheran would move to instigate a hot conflict by its own accord, if no red lines, such as a direct attack on Iranian vital infrastructure or oil shipping lines, are crossed.
- Alabama Passes Bill Requiring Certain Child Molesters To Be Chemically Castrated
HB 379 in Alabama is a bill that requires certain child sex offenders to undergo chemical castration and, according to Fox News, it is now just awaiting the governor’s signature before becoming law. Unlike physical/surgical castration, chemical castration uses drugs to suppress sexual urges.
The bill was introduced by Republican state Rep. Steve Hurst and specifically targets sex offenders whose crimes involve anyone under the age of 13. Hurst says that his aim is to reduce the number of sex crimes committed against children by making offenders “think twice” before they act.
Rep. Steve Hurst “If we do something of this nature it would deter something like this happening again in Alabama and maybe reduce the numbers,” Hurst continued.
Hurst said: “They have marked this child for life and the punishment should fit the crime.”
To add insult to injury, the offender would also have to pay for the procedure. Refusing the procedure would result in a violation of parole, according to the bill.
Hurst concluded: “I had people call me in the past when I introduced it and said, ‘Don’t you think this is inhumane?’ I asked them what’s more inhumane than when you take a little infant child, and you sexually molest that infant child when the child cannot defend themselves or get away, and they have to go through all the things they have to go through. If you want to talk about inhumane — that’s inhumane.”
Attorney Raymond Johnson said there’s already harsh enough punishment for child molestation. He argues that the bill is going to meet resistance:
“They’re going to challenge it under the Eighth Amendment Constitution. They’re going to claim that it is cruel and unusual punishment for someone who has served their time.”
Several states have already passed similar bills, but it is not known how often the procedure occurs.
The bill now sits on Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk and awaits her signature.
- US Army Officer Urges "Swift, Responsible Disengagement" From Afghanistan
Authored by Danny Sjursen via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for more than seventeen years. Despite many years of effort and billions spent, the U.S. military is still suffering casualties in that remote land. In 2017, fourteen American soldiers died in Afghanistan — some, in fact, shot from behind by their supposed local allies. Already, through January 2019, two more American troopers have been killed. They were the 2,418th and 2,419th U.S. military deaths in the war since 2001.
None of this sacrifice has defeated the Taliban or staved off enemy military advances throughout the country over the last several years. In fact, there have been a number of spectacular Taliban successes and attacks of late. On August 21, 2018, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s speech in the heavily fortified capital city of Kabul was interrupted by dozens of mortar rounds fired by the Taliban. It was no mere anecdotal anomaly.
In fact, August 2018 was the bloodiest August in terms of Afghan security-force casualties in any of the past 39 years of persistent war. In one district, 100 Afghan commandoes — the pride of the U.S. advisory effort — were slaughtered. In a five-day battle for the city of Ghazni, 100 more soldiers and police were killed, along with 150 civilians, when the Taliban massed 1,000 fighters to rush and briefly seize the city. At least 350 other Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) members were killed this past August. Massive high-casualty Taliban attacks proliferated throughout 2018, and have continued in the new year, with more than 100 Afghan troops killed in a single attack on January 22, 2019. Such casualty levels are, frankly, unsustainable.
To say the least, the war is not going well. That became inevitable the moment the United States initiated its “nation-building” strategy in 2002, and has remained the case irrespective of the levels of U.S. military and financial investment through the intervening seventeen years. America’s longest war has decidedly not achieved the supposed goal of establishing a liberal democracy in Afghanistan.
Luckily, in December 2018, Donald Trump announced his tentative decision to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and gradually de-escalate this unwinnable war. It remains to be seen, however, whether he will be dissuaded from doing so by a bipartisan, interventionist clique of the media and his own advisors.
Now is the key opportunity to end this aimless, costly war. As such, two realities should inform U.S. policy in this troubled country.
First, the seventeen-year active U.S. role in Afghanistan is only part of an intractable, ongoing 39-year war that the U.S. government and military cannot and will not “fix.”
Second, there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and it is long past prudent to disengage and bring all U.S. troops home, and simply accept the potential ugliness of Afghanistan — and the world — as it is, rather than how interventionists want things to be.
The bottom line
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The ongoing campaign in Afghanistan is America’s longest war, yet it has been largely unsuccessful and inconclusive. That is due to a key reality — the U.S. armed forces have gone to prop up the Afghan government, and there is no external military solution to Afghanistan’s ongoing 39-year conflict.
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Consistent and even amplified U.S. government spending has not produced, and is not producing, successful outcomes. Current political, economic, and security indicators are trending downward throughout Afghanistan.
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Risks to the United States in the way of casualties and monetary costs outweigh any potential benefits. Though casualty levels have decreased consistently with reductions in troop levels, American servicemen and women continue to die in this indecisive war.
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Two decades of futile efforts across the Greater Middle East show that armed nation-building does not work. The emergence of a stable, liberal democracy in Afghanistan, while theoretically desirable, is not a legitimate role for the U.S. government and vital national interest, and isn’t an achievable outcome in any event.
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The Taliban and homegrown, Afghan Islamist insurgent and terror groups do not present an existential threat to the United States.
A brief history of a four-decade war
Historically, Afghanistan has been a decentralized region resistant to foreign invasions or occupations. The modern borders, and concept, of Afghanistan coalesced only with the 1747 foundation of the Durrani Empire. During the 19th century, Afghanistan was a tool and buffer in the “Great Game” between the British and Russian empires in Central Asia. Misplaced British fears of Russia’s southward expansion led to three disastrous Anglo-Afghan Wars between 1842 and 1919. Afghanistan was a moderately stable monarchy in the first three-quarters of the 20th century. During the early Cold War, its government successfully played the United States and its global rival the Soviet Union against one another and received development aid from both.
However, the 1970s ushered in a persistent slide toward instability. The opposing Communist and Islamist movements each grew in strength and battled for control. The Soviet Union intervened in 1979 to prop up the nascent Communist government and waged a 10-year counterinsurgency against various Islamist mujahideen fighters opposed to the secular and socialist reforms of the new government. Despite committing some 120,000 modern troops and suffering tens of thousands of casualties, the Soviets ultimately failed in the face of Islamist-nationalist resistance and U.S military aid provided to the mujahideen through the auspices of the CIA.
The Soviets withdrew in 1989 and by 1991 both the U.S and Russian governments cut off military aid to the Afghan combatants. Brutal years of civil war followed. The Soviet puppet, Najibullah, held out for three years but fell to a mujahideen coalition in 1992. Afterwards the mujahideen factions fractured and divided the country among venal warlords. In response, in 1993-94, conservative, rural, and frustrated Pashtun clerics and students formed the hyper-Islamist Taliban movement and fought the warlords with increased success, eventually seizing Kabul in 1996. From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban imposed a brutal, archaic, and intolerant regime across most of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, a “Northern Alliance” of mostly minority groups (Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara) continued to resist in the far northern quarter of Afghanistan. During that period, the Saudi international terrorist Osama bin Laden sought and received safe haven from the Taliban regime.
After the bin Laden-perpetrated 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime, largely destroying or dispersing the al-Qaeda presence in the country. After deposing the Taliban, the United States and NATO made the fateful, and ultimately horrific, decision to shift the mission to nation-building. The continued foreign occupation of the country eventually buttressed the power and influence of the nearly shattered Taliban movement, which now gained strength and began contesting large sections of Afghanistan’s south and east by 2006. Increased violence and instability led to the announcement of a military “surge” by Barack Obama in 2009. By 2011, nearly 100,000 U.S. service members patrolled Afghanistan, though the Taliban was never decisively defeated. By 2014, the United States transitioned to an advisory mission of training the ANDSF and combatting transnational terror threats. Taliban influence only grew, and by 2018 the enemy contested or controlled a higher percentage of Afghan districts than at any previous time since the 2001 invasion.
A question of legitimacy
The Afghan central government in Kabul is largely unpopular and considered by many to be illegitimate. It faces regular criticism from the population and international community for its corruption, division, and inability to guarantee security. As a recent U.S. congressional report concluded, “Afghanistan’s … political outlook remains uncertain, if not negative, in light of ongoing hostilities.” Recent trends indicate that the U.S.-backed federal government is fragmenting along ethnic and ideological lines. That should come as little surprise. The last two presidential elections — in 2009 and 2014 — have been wracked by allegations of fraud, and the Parliamentary elections (scheduled for October 2016) were delayed almost indefinitely. Security is the main issue. Some 1,000 of 7,400 existing polling stations are now located in areas outside the government’s control. In the last presidential election, the United States had to broker a compromise arrangement between the two leading candidates in order to break the deadlock.
In recent years, the Uzbek Vice President (and notorious warlord) Abdul Rashid Dostum has criticized President Ghani’s government for favoring Pashtuns at the expense of minority groups. Dostum even fled the country in May 2017, in the wake of accusations of his perpetuation of political violence. That same month, representatives of several ethnic minority parties formed the Coalition for the Salvation of Afghanistan in opposition to the existing federal government. It is unclear whether the center can hold.
Meanwhile, peace and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban insurgents are ongoing, especially as increased violence has aided the growth of a nationwide peace movement. President Ghani has finally agreed to direct talks with the Taliban “without preconditions,” though the Taliban has largely rejected such initial efforts. In a sign of hope, however, the Taliban did agree to a three-day ceasefire in June 2018. The grassroots peace movement conducted a series of nationwide marches in favor of the cessation of hostilities. After 39 years of perpetual war, it appears that national public momentum increasingly favors an Afghan-brokered peace.
Moreover, in spite of U.S. boasts regarding the humanitarian advances of post-Taliban Afghanistan, human rights remain a significant issue. Simply put, Afghanistan’s conservative religious and political traditions are persistent and perpetuate the denial of educational and employment opportunities to women and girls. Furthermore, 70 percent of Afghan marriages are still forced; the practice of baad — giving away women in marriage to settle tribal disputes — remains prevalent; there is no national law against sexual harassment and women are still routinely jailed for adultery; men convicted of “honor killings” against adulterous wives, meanwhile, serve only a maximum of two years in prison; and, on several occasions, women’s rights activists have been assassinated. In fact, the number of women jailed for so-called moral crimes has increased by 50 percent since 2011.
Religious freedom is also severely restricted by the supposedly modern Afghan government. Members of small religious minority groups — such as Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, and Bahá’ís — face regular discrimination. Specifically, the Afghan Supreme Court declared the Bahá’í faith to be a form of blasphemy — punishable by death under Afghan law. It is highly questionable whether such an unstable and, ultimately, intolerant government is worthy of U.S. investment and sacrifice.
Eventually, the Afghan political and military crisis will reach an end state, one that might well end in a negotiated agreement. The Taliban movement is popular in large swaths of eastern and southern Afghanistan — it always has been — and is not going anywhere. It will be a part of Afghanistan’s political and security future. Such a messy arrangement is essentially a fait accompli, regardless of the levels of U.S. efforts, deaths, or other sacrifices. In the end, this is an Afghan, not an American, problem and it must ultimately be solved by Afghan methods and compromises.
Weakness and stasis: a deteriorating security situation
For nearly two decades, one U.S. commanding general after another has assured the American public that — with just a few extra troops and a little more time — he could achieve victory in Afghanistan. That is particularly disturbing considering the attention and resources dedicated to the war in Afghanistan, especially over the last ten years. After all, early in 2018, a Pentagon spokesman stated that “Afghanistan has become CENTCOM’s main effort.” Still, despite Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford’s testimony to Congress that the battlefield situation represented “roughly a stalemate,” he and other senior generals have been far more optimistic at times — promising success if only they received more troops, more money, more … everything. In February 2017, the overall commander (the sixth of seven since 2009), Gen. John Nicholson, stated that the United States had a “shortfall of a few thousand” troops, which, if provided, would help “break the stalemate.” One year later, after getting a few thousand troops and a new strategy from Donald Trump, Nicholson stated that “we’ve set all the conditions to win.”
But results have not matched such optimistic predictions. In February 2018, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called the situation in Afghanistan “worse than it’s ever been,” and predicted that “the American military can’t fix the problems.” More disturbing, and instructive, are the recent words of a true insider with new, creeping doubts about progress in Afghanistan — a most recent commander of the war. Speaking “from the heart” in a September 2018 farewell address in the ceremony marking his transition out of command, General Nicholson admitted that “it is time for this war in Afghanistan to end.”
Reality and ground-level metrics have confirmed Nicholson’s suspicions. The Taliban has made gains all around the country in recent years, even showing strength outside their traditional areas of support. They’ve even conducted mass operations briefly seizing major cities such as Kunduz (September 2015), Farah (May 2018), and Ghazni (August 2018). Nationwide, according to the July 2018 Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report, 44 percent of Afghan districts are either contested or controlled by the Taliban — the highest rate since 2001. What’s more, just before the Obama surge (often seen as the high tide of Taliban success) that number stood at only 30 percent of Afghan districts. When Obama initially agreed to a surge of nearly 100,000 U.S. troops on the ground, he claimed they were being sent to “reverse the Taliban’s momentum.” Clearly, in the long run that has proved unsuccessful.
Insurgent successes are largely funded by illicit narcotics, which have long filled the Taliban’s coffers. And, despite on-and-off efforts at drug (specifically opium) eradication, the metrics here are also disturbing. In November 2017, the United Nations reported that the total area used for poppy cultivation had broken a national record and was up 46 percent from 2016. Furthermore, opium production itself had increased by 87 percent. Overall, the trend of Afghan security has been downward — this, in spite of nearly seventeen years of varying levels of U.S. military commitment and sacrifice.
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- Baltimore City Cryptocurrency Ransomware Attack Will Cost At Least $18 Million
Baltimore has been struggling with an aggressive cyber-attack over the last five weeks, previously profiled here, it has now been revealed the attack will cost the city $18.2 million, reported WBAL-TV 11.
The cost estimates were disclosed at a recent City Council budget hearing: city officials have already paid $4.6 million for recovery efforts since the ransomware was discovered May 7 and could spend an additional $5.4 million in 2H19. The remaining $8.2 million is from the loss or delayed revenue and loss of interest and penalty income.
Henry Raymond, #Baltimore Financial Dir., says the #ransomware attack will not affect the city’s tax bills, which will will go out on time in July – says it’s costing $18 million @wbalradio pic.twitter.com/NYlYBHTkCg
— Phil Yacuboski (@WBALPhil) June 4, 2019
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As of Tuesday, 35% of city employees had their email accounts restored, with the possibility of a full system restore by the end of the week.
Baltimore City Ransomware update:
35% of city employees back on line with new passwords..should be 90% by end of week
Prop tax bills going out as usual July 1
Still no water billing
Est cost of attack: $18 mi
Ransom demand: $80k
US Conf of Mayors passing resolution to never pay pic.twitter.com/4E4zORnUDC— Jayne Miller (@jemillerwbal) June 4, 2019
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Some city operations have been shut down for the last month. Public works officials said no residents have received water bills because of the cyber attack.
Three weeks ago, we reported all essential systems required for transacting real estate deals in the city went offline becuase of the hack.
Realtor R.J.Breeden, the owner of The Breeden Group, who has dozens of homes listed throughout the city, said the hack is a loss of confidence in city officials. Breeden said several of his deals last month didn’t close because the title company he uses couldn’t write a deed without accessing lien certifications on city severs.
Hackers demanded the city pay an $80,000 ransom in Bitcoin on May 7, but Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young refused to pay. To be fair, the cost of a full system restore of the city’s servers would have been in the millions of dollars if the ransomware was paid.
“Even if you pay, you still have to go into your system and make sure they’re out of it. You can’t just bring it back up and believe they are gone. We would bear much of these costs regardless,” Deputy Chief of Staff, Sheryl Goldstein, said.
Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger was briefed last week by the National Security Agency that the Baltimore ransomware attack had nothing to do with a stolen NSA tool, contrary to our earlier reporting.
Members of Maryland’s congressional delegation, including Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Ruppersberger, Elijah Cummings, John Sarbanes and David Trone, received a classified government briefing on Monday about the incident.
“Yesterday, we heard that current evidence suggests the city’s network was infected via a phishing effort by malware known as RobbinHood,” the members said in a statement. “We urge against further speculation until the investigation is complete and look forward to sharing more as we learn more. We are grateful for the FBI’s ongoing efforts and plan to fully engage with DHS to strengthen systems in Baltimore and across the country to keep this from happening in the future.”
The Baltimore ransomware incident serves as an important reminder that cybersecurity on the municipality level is greatly needed – shows how one cyber attack can paralyze an entire city.
- How Connecticut's "Tax On The Rich" Ended: Middle-Class Tax Hikes, Lost Jobs, More Poverty
Authored by Orphe Divounguy, Bryce Hill, Suman Chattopadhyay via IllinoisPolicy.org,
In the past 30 years, just one U.S. state has adopted a progressive income tax: Connecticut. It made the switch from a flat income tax in 1996, phasing in the progressive income tax over three years.
The results were disastrous. And they should halt, or at least caution, Illinois lawmakers now pushing to do the same.
Connecticut’s experience is a warning that switching to a progressive income tax will eventually end in a tax hike on Illinois’ struggling middle class, result in fewer jobs – particularly for those on the margins of the labor force – and increase poverty. It will fail to combat inequality or fix the state’s finances.
While Connecticut lawmakers sold the progressive tax as a way to provide middle-class tax relief and reduce property taxes, neither occurred. Instead, everyday taxpayers have been hit with recurring income and property tax hikes.
The typical Connecticut household has seen its income tax rates increase more than 13 percent since 1999. At the same time, property tax burdens (property taxes as a share of income) have risen by more than 35 percent.
Making matters even worse, the policy change cost the state’s economy more than $10 billion and 360,000 jobs, ultimately shrinking the labor force by an estimated 362,000 workers.
The Connecticut progressive income tax failed to fix state finances. In the wake of its progressive income tax experiment, Connecticut has continually raised taxes on the middle class, has a chronic outmigration problem, and finds itself in a financial situation that is just as dire as Illinois’. Connecticut has run state budget deficits in 12 of the past 15 years, and is holding more debt per capita than almost any other state.2
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s argument for the progressive tax relies on the same myths – that a progressive income tax will allow for middle-class tax relief and lower property taxes, and shore up the state’s finances. On the contrary, if Illinois ditches its constitutionally protected flat income tax, Illinoisans will face the same fate as Connecticut – higher taxes for everyone, fewer jobs and an even more sluggish economy.
INTRODUCTION
A constitutional amendment filed Jan. 29 by state Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, would eliminate Illinois’ flat income tax in exchange for a progressive income tax.3 But no one has filed a bill in the current General Assembly telling Illinoisans what the rates would be. Pritzker backed a progressive tax throughout his campaign, but putting the amendment to voters requires its passage by a supermajority in each chamber of the General Assembly; it would not require the governor’s signature.
As state lawmakers consider scrapping the state’s flat income tax, they should look at what happened in the last state to do so.
In the past three decades only one state has adopted a progressive income tax. That state was Connecticut, which first introduced a state income tax in 1991 and introduced a graduated rate structure in 1996.
This report employs the “synthetic control method” as in Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003)4 and investigates the economic impact of the tax changes in Connecticut. A full description of the methodology is included in Appendix A.
WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE CONNECTICUT TAX HIKES?
Connecticut became the last state to enact an income tax in 1991, introducing a flat 4.5 percent income tax rate. In 1996, the state decided to phase in a progressive income tax featuring tax brackets with a 3 percent tax rate and a 4.5 percent tax rate. This income tax relief was short lived. In the time since phasing in the income tax, the median household has seen their income tax rates increase by more than 13 percent. Today, Connecticut has seven income tax brackets with marginal income tax rates ranging from 3 to 6.99 percent.
Effects of the tax hikes on real GDP
Connecticut’s decision to enact an income tax had immediate negative effects on the state’s economy, initially costing the state’s economy more than $4 billion, with the economic cost growing to $10 billion following the decision to make the income tax progressive and to gradually raise rates.
The effects of the tax changes are consistent with the expert literature on the subject. Economists widely agree that tax hikes have adverse effects on economic output (see Appendix B). They also agree that progressive tax structures reduce economic growth even more than flat tax structures (see Appendix C). Connecticut’s results provide additional evidence that tax increases are highly contractionary.5
Effects of the tax hikes on the labor market
Connecticut’s tax changes had similar effects for workers. The tax increase initially cost the state nearly 233,000 jobs and worsened after the switch to a progressive income tax, with the state losing a total of 362,000 jobs.
While the progressive income tax is often touted as a way to achieve more equal economic outcomes, employment losses hurt everyone. Job losses after Connecticut’s switch to a progressive tax were primarily concentrated among higher paying jobs, meaning that jobs that allow individuals to move up the income ladder were either destroyed or never created.
This is a typical experience for states with progressive income taxes. These states tend to have persistently higher income inequality, with the gap between the rich and the poor often growing faster than states with flat or no income taxes.
These outcomes show why the academic literature remains divided as to whether progressive income taxation reduces inequality (see Appendix D).
The initial passage of the flat income tax reduced Connecticut’s labor force by nearly 186,000 individuals. In the time since the income tax became progressive, the job market shrank by 362,000.
The large declines in the labor force and employment that followed the tax increase aren’t surprising. Blundell (2014) finds that labor force participation, employment and hours worked respond to tax incentives, especially at early and late stages of an individual’s work life.6
Effects of the tax hike on poverty
When compared to the rest of the nation, Connecticut has historically been a wealthy state with fewer of its residents falling below the official poverty line. However, following the introduction of an income tax, poverty rates in Connecticut began to increase while falling in other states.7 From 1980 to 1991, before the introduction of the income tax, Connecticut had a poverty rate of 5.5 percent. That rate had soared to 8.1 percent in the period after the progressive income tax was implemented, from 1996 to 2007.
With fewer jobs available and an increased tax burden, more residents found themselves below the poverty line than before the state began raising its income tax.8
After the flat income tax was enacted, 12,000 more Connecticut residents found themselves living in poverty. After the tax became progressive the problem worsened, with 64,000 individuals falling below the line.
Despite the tax being touted as a tool to combat poverty and help struggling citizens, the policy made matters worse for the most vulnerable. As noted above, while the academic literature is divided as to whether the progressive tax reduces inequality (see Appendix D), in Connecticut, it did not provide relief to lower-income residents and actually increased poverty.
Did progressive income tax hikes stabilize Connecticut’s budget?
Connecticut’s progressive income tax hasn’t done anything to alleviate the state’s dire fiscal condition. The state has run budget deficits in 12 of the past 15 years and has more debt per capita than any other state.9 The state is also plagued by persistent population decline driven by domestic outmigration in recent years.
Lack of structural reforms to the state’s budget has led to years of middle-class tax hikes.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ILLINOIS?
Connecticut’s experience suggests Illinois could suffer a similar fate if lawmakers push for a progressive income tax. That means less economic growth, fewer jobs, a shrinking labor force and deterioration in economic conditions that would result in more individuals falling below the poverty line.
Contrary to claims that a progressive tax would only hit high earners, such a policy would harm everyone. The results in Connecticut suggest the tax led to a large increase in the poverty rate.
It is worth asking: Who is most at risk of falling below the poverty line in Illinois? The empirical evidence suggests Illinois residents who live in non-metro areas, don’t have college degrees and are non-white are at increased risks of being below the poverty line.10Add a progressive tax, and those most likely to take the hit are Illinois workers who lack a college degree, are minorities and live in rural areas.
Residents throughout Illinois, particularly in places such as Alexander, Cass, Scott and Pulaski counties would be most harmed. In the Chicago area, residents of Calumet, Cicero, Thornton, Rich Township and Berwyn would be most harmed.
Instead of protecting Illinois’ most vulnerable residents, a progressive income tax may end up harming already vulnerable communities.
A BETTER PATH FORWARD
Rejecting a progressive income tax would spare Illinoisans from Connecticut’s sorry fate. Changes to the state tax code will not fix the structural flaws with the state’s finances or reform the main cost-drivers, pensions and government employee healthcare costs. Those two items have led state spending to increase 48 percent faster than Illinoisans’ personal incomes in the past decade.
So long as state expenditures continue to outpace the growth in the state’s economy, Illinoisans will be forced to endure tax hikes regardless of the structure of the state income tax. A progressive income tax will only make it easier for politicians to gradually raise middle-class taxes, as in Connecticut.
A progressive tax is a bad deal for Illinoisans. They would be giving up constitutional protections for an illusory promise from lawmakers to lower taxes for some. But a look at Illinois’ history and the outcomes of progressive tax states show that promise is unlikely to be kept. Any progressive tax rates will almost certainly rise to the level of spending in Springfield – and that means tax hikes on the middle class.
Illinois’ families and the state’s economy simply can’t afford more tax hikes.
Illinois is already experiencing the weakest economic expansion in state history, and a progressive income tax hike will only serve to hinder the state’s sluggish economy.
Instead, Springfield needs to spend within taxpayers’ means. That is why lawmakers should limit growth in spending to the growth in Illinois’ economy – to what taxpayers can afford.
- Millennial Net Wealth Collapses, Study Finds
The net worth of millennials (18- to 35-year-old) has collapsed 34% since 1996, according to a new, shocking report from Deloitte.
Millennials are financially worse off than any other generation before them. With student loans, auto and credit card debts, rising rents, and out of control, health-care costs have pushed their average net worth below $8,000.
Deloitte told The Washington Post that their findings reveal that millennials are delaying home-buying and marriage because of massive debt loads and rising costs are making big ticketed items virtually unaffordable.
“The narrative out there is that millennials are ruining everything, from breakfast cereal to weddings, but what matters to consumers today isn’t much different than it was 50 years ago,” chief retail officer Kasey Lobaugh told the Post. “Generally speaking, there have not been dramatic changes in how consumers spend their money.”
Lobaugh described the soaring wealth inequality gap as another reason why young adults have little or no net wealth. In a separate report, we highlighted in April that 60% of millennials don’t have $500 in savings.
The Post said education expenses had climbed 65% in the past decade. Food prices have increased by 26%, health care costs are up 21%, housing jumped 16%, and transportation costs rose 11%,
Researchers noted that eating out and alcohol expenses made up approximately 11% of total income, about the same amount a decade ago.
“Only 20 percent of millennials were meaningfully better off in 2017 than they were in 2007, with precious little income left to spend on discretionary retail,” the study said.
The study showed millennials had delayed the American dream of a house, family, and automobile because of their insurmountable debts.
Since 2005, retail spending has increased by about 13%, to roughly $3 trillion per year, but Deloitte said much of that growth is due to population increase, not a robust consumer base.
In the past decade, the income growth of the top 10% of Americans jumped 1,305% more than the bottom 90% of Americans – which means millennials stuck in the gig-economy with multiple jobs and high debt loads will be trapped in a life of financial misery.
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