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We're Just Discovering the Price of Killing Soleimani
Yet the United States cannot shove all blame on Iran for the human disaster of Flight 752. Nobody intended for civilians to die. That’s the way it is with unintended consequences—and why governments are supposed to weigh carefully the decision to employ deadly force.The Trump administration is telling an obviously false story about the decision to kill Soleimani. Instead of acknowledging that Soleimani was killed in reprisal, the Trump administration instead argues that the killing was necessary to avert attacks that were simultaneously so imminent that only killing could thwart them and so non-imminent that by attacking the top of the chain of command, the gunmen on the ground would somehow be stopped.Members of Congress who have received the Trump administration’s classified briefings have scoffed at its claims. The Trump administration refuses to share evidence even with the eight members of Congress who share the highest security clearance. Instead, Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News that viewers would just have to be assured that the Trump administration was telling the truth. This is the same Vice President Pence who told reporters that he stayed at a Trump resort on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, two hours’ travel from meetings in Dublin, because his great-grandmother had grown up nearby.The Trump administration’s accounts are noncredible. The world is owed the truth, however painful.From Iran’s terror-stained regime, not much is expected in the way of humanity or decency. A wave of protests erupted across Iran on November 15, at first over increases in the price of fuel, then over other economic and political grievances. The regime responded with repression that tortured and killed hundreds of people.From the United States, however, a different standard is expected. On the confirmed public record (as opposed to “take our word for it” secret information), Trump acted against Soleimani impulsively. When the killing escalated tensions with Iran, Trump and his administration told apparent lies to make their behavior seem more considered and more justified. In the first relief that Iranian retaliation had not done more damage, the president accepted accolades for his leadership. You just cannot admit that Trump was right for once became a pro-administration talking point. Yet now we are confronted with the full measure of the toll—however unintended—of open hostilities.Trump, of course, disclaims all responsibility, as he habitually does. He’s always been a credit-grabber and a responsibility-dodger. “It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood,” the president told reporters this morning about the downed airplane. As Gordon Sondland memorably put it, Trump cares only about big things, things that will benefit him personally. The victims of the crash of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 were not U.S. citizens, and certainly not residents of any state that Trump might win in 2020, so who cares, really? The loss of life had “nothing to do with us.” It was a “mistake on the other side.” The gun just went off; let’s not ask too many questions about who put the bullets in the chamber.
2018-02-16 /
Trump orders hit on Gen. Soleimani. Why it’s unlikely to deter Iran.
Iran’s most powerful, revered, and feared military commander long said he dreamed of being a martyr for the “resistance.” And in the early hours Friday morning that wish was fulfilled, when an armed American drone assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.U.S. officials portrayed the targeted killing as a “preemptive” action against the chief of Iran’s elite Qods Force and the leader of the Iraqi Shiite Kata’ib Hezbollah militia traveling with him. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they were planning an imminent attack that he asserted would have cost “dozens or hundreds of American lives.”Yet rather than acting as a deterrent, the U.S. strike is being seen in Iran as an acute escalation that amounts to a declaration of war and requires a military response.It is the latest in a series of events to raise tensions in Iraq in the past week – including the killing of an American contractor on an Iraqi base, a U.S. retaliatory strike that killed at least two dozen members of the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah, and, in turn, an attack led by that militia on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Together, they have brought the smoldering U.S.-Iran standoff to a new level of violence, and could trigger a much broader and more lethal direct conflict.President Donald Trump tweeted a picture of an American flag shortly after the United States claimed responsibility for the drone strike. He later tweeted that General Soleimani “killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans” and “should have been taken out many years ago.” California seemed to do everything right. So why are COVID-19 cases surging?But many are raising questions about the administration’s calculations in killing one of Iran’s most popular and iconic symbols of resistance. Despite ample opportunities, past American presidents and Israeli commanders had refrained from taking him out amid the high risk and uncertain consequences of global retaliation by Iran and its loyal proxies.As tensions flare, questions are also being raised about the apparent disconnect between policymakers in Washington and the realities in Iraq and Iran where, analysts say, American boasting about the assassination of General Soleimani is likely to energize and motivate Iranian-led retaliation.“The irony here is that an action that was supposed to deter additional Iranian attacks in the region is now bound to do the exact opposite,” says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.“President Trump has helped to consolidate the most hard-line elements within the Islamic Republic,” says Mr. Vaez, contacted in Oman.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “is averse to demonstrating weakness, and if Iran fails to respond, that’s how it’s going to be interpreted in Washington, and would invite additional U.S. attacks,” says Mr. Vaez. “Iran has developed this network of proxies and partners throughout the region precisely for this moment.”The assassination has also jeopardized U.S. ties to Iraq, and galvanized calls for the expulsion of more than 5,000 American troops deployed there. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi called the killing “a dangerous escalation” that will ignite a “devastating war in Iraq, the region and the world.”“This is just the beginning,” says an Iraqi official in Baghdad who asked not to be named. “So far you’ve had a few bits of glass broken [at the U.S. Embassy] ... a few walls that were spray-painted. There’s much more to come.”“I personally believe that the United States misread the situation,” says the official. “They are able to tell their audience back home that, ‘We got the guys that have been targeting us, and we were able to respond strongly.’”But the American troops in Iraq, adds the official, are “low-hanging fruit,” and vulnerable to attack by Iran and its Shiite militia allies. Indeed, Iranian commanders have warned for decades that they would respond to any American attack by targeting U.S. forces ringing the region, from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan.In Washington, the Pentagon announced Friday that the U.S. was sending 3,500 more American troops to the Middle East.Iran reacted with fury over the death of General Soleimani, who has masterminded an unprecedented expansion of Iranian influence in the past decade, as the Qods Force – the elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that handles operations abroad – marshaled Shiite militia forces from Lebanon to Syria and Iraq to Yemen, to battle Iran’s enemies.Ayatollah Khamenei on Friday praised General Soleimani’s “lofty status” as a martyr and warned in a tweet that “#SevereRevenge awaits the criminals who have stained their hands” with General Soleimani’s blood.“The Americans have been scrambling for a time not knowing what to do, but basically watching as those they consider to be their biggest enemies gain more and more influence over the Iraqi state,” says Renad Mansour, an Iraq expert at the Chatham House think tank in London.“This for them was to perhaps reassert its dominance with air power. But obviously the backlash would lead one to believe it wasn’t a wise move,” says Mr. Mansour.“It seems some of the more political parts of the American political establishment – the National Security Council, the White House – got a bit excited about all the anti-Iran sentiment coming out of Iraq.”Unique among Iranian commanders, General Soleimani – who cut his teeth as a military leader during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s – was the subject of a media campaign devoted to showing him in charge on the front lines against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.General Soleimani and the Shiite militias he helped to create in Iraq are often credited with swiftly intervening to save Baghdad in mid-2014, when ISIS swept across Iraq. But the continued influence and corruption of those Iran-backed militias – and the role of General Soleimani himself, who brokered the deal that created Iraq’s current government – have in recent months raised anti-Iranian sentiment among Iraqi protesters demanding political reforms.Iraqi protesters have also bristled at reports that the Iranian general helped orchestrate the tough crackdown and use of snipers against Iraqi protesters that took more than 500 lives.In response, Iranian consulates in the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala have been attacked and burned multiple times, and the offices of pro-Iranian militias and their political parties torched.But analysts say the retaliatory U.S. airstrikes on bases of the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah on Dec. 29, following the death of the contractor and several rocket attacks by Shiite militias, were seen by many in Iraq as disproportionate, resulting in the breach of the American Embassy and providing evidence of a lack of U.S. political awareness in Iraq.For example, a senior State Department official, when asked by a journalist about the possible consequences of the missile strikes, said, “We don’t have any fears in this regard.” Yet within hours, the Baghdad embassy was subject to an unprecedented attack, during which U.S. diplomats were in hiding for nearly two days and the walls were daubed with pro-Soleimani slogans.“It is another example of U.S. foreign policy being disoriented, as it has always been, regarding Iraq,” says Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.Iran or their allies in Iraq, he says, “set a trap” for the U.S. by killing the American contractor, which elicited the missile strike on the Shiite militia – and fanned anti-American sentiment.“Strategically, this is exactly giving the provocateurs what they wanted, which is turning the United States from an ally that helps Iraq fight its enemies, into a force that is bombing Iraqis,” says Mr. Kadhim.The result simply tapped into the fact that Iraqis today often reject all foreign influence, American as well as Iranian.“We have a lot of people [in Washington] who are thinking in jingoistic terms, which is completely detached from the reality on the ground in Iraq,” says Mr. Kadhim. “It’s very popular in Washington to give a narrative that, ‘Oh, we are loved in Iraq,’ and, ‘How dare you say that the Iraqis don’t like us to be there, and we are better than the Iranians.’ This is just nonsense.”The result is that the death of General Soleimani – the man who has garnered the highest approval ratings in Iran, with polls showing that 2 out of 3 Iranians held a favorable opinion of him – will have an impact, if not on Iran’s ability to exact revenge. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. “Without any doubt, it’s a severe blow to the Qods Force, but it’s certainly not a fatal one,” says Mr. Vaez of the International Crisis Group. Iran immediately named General Soleimani’s longtime deputy, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, as the new Qods Force chief.General Ghaani “might not have the same strategic vision or tactical skills,” says Mr. Vaez. “But the entire network that Soleimani has already laid throughout the region is for sure going to remain functional and will pose a threat to U.S. interests.”
2018-02-16 /
All the Ways Iran Could Hit Back at the U.S. for Killing Soleimani
All the Ways Iran Could Hit Back at the U.S. for Killing SoleimaniRETALIATION PLAYBOOKIran has spent decades developing plans and forces to prepare for contingencies like Qassem Soleimani’s assassination. But just how crafty might Tehran’s retaliation be?Adam RawnsleyPublished Jan. 04, 2020 5:01AM ET BEAST INSIDEVahid Salemi/APIran’s top covert operator is dead at American hands and Iran’s Supreme Leader says he’s aiming for “severe revenge” against the U.S. for the attack. But what could that look like?Welcome to Rabbit Hole. Iran has a number of options at its disposal to respond to the U.S. assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and has spent decades developing the plans and forces to prepare for these kinds of contingencies. The Islamic Republic’s military is no match for the U.S. in a conventional fight, so any response is likely to be asymmetric, involving proxy groups and denials of attribution and responsibility.
2018-02-16 /
James Comey, Trump Foundation, North Korea: Your Friday Briefing
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)Good morning. Investigations rattle Washington, some clarity on North Korea and fiscal reform in Malaysia. Here’s what you need to know: ImageCredit...Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press• Two major investigations grabbed U.S. headlines. A Justice Department report concluded that James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was “insubordinate” in his unorthodox handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.Mr. Comey, in an Op-Ed, disputed some of the report’s conclusions, but embraced its existence as “good for the F.B.I.” Above, he spoke in Canada last week.And the New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit against Mr. Trump’s charitable foundation, accusing it and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.Mr. Trump reacted with vitriol, calling the civil suit an attempt by the “sleazy New York Democrats” to damage him. Here are the basics of the case._____ImageCredit...Kim Joon-Bum/Yonhap, via Associated Press• The U.S. clarified its policy on North Korea.Only after “complete denuclearization” would North Korea get “relief from sanctions,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, while on a tour of Asian nations.Mr. Pompeo’s tough stance was intended to reassure Japan and South Korea, and to deny reports in North Korea’s state media that the U.S. had agreed to ease the sanctions at the summit meeting in Singapore.They were also a clear appeal for cooperation from Beijing, where Mr. Pompeo met with President Xi Jinping on Thursday._____ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York Times• “The more we look into the previous administration, the more bad things we find.”Malaysia’s new prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, 92, has discovered that the country is in far worse financial shape than feared. The national debt, tallied at $170 billion by the previous administration, has been reassessed at $250 billion — 80 percent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product.The fiscal housecleaning has reached Goldman Sachs. The U.S. investment bank made $600 million selling bonds for 1MDB, the scandal-hit state investment fund. Now Malaysia wants some of it back._____ImageCredit...Khaled Abdullah/Reuters• In Yemen, the city of Al Hudaydah came under intense attack for the second day, in the largest battle of the country’s yearslong civil war.A Saudi-led coalition pounded the city, trying to capture the port from Houthi rebels. And Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an architect of years of war, was watching his Saudi team lose to Russia in the opening match of the World Cup in Moscow.ImageCredit...Pool photo by Alexei Druzhinin• Soccer, and beyond.Our team is following every game, and every angle of the World Cup as it unfolds in Russia.As our columnist writes, the tournament is about Russia “proving to its people as much as to its rivals that it can deliver the world’s most-watched sporting spectacle.”In recent weeks, Russia tried to tame its habitual xenophobia in anticipation of the 500,000 foreign soccer fans descending on the country. (It even organized a class on how to smile.)Not everyone got the memo. One member of Parliament cautioned against hugging visitors from other continents — diseases, you know._____Business• A trade war with China? The Fed doesn’t seem too worried. In announcing an interest-rate increase for the second time this year, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, emphasized that there was no evidence that trade frictions were weighing the strong U.S. economy.• Beijing has been scrambling to break China’s addiction to ever-rising debt, but its crackdown on easy money is starting to hit growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.• Didi Chuxing, China’s ride-hailing giant, resumed late-night car pooling with a new safety rule: Men can’t pick up female passengers, a problem in a place where most drivers are male.• Apple plans to close a loophole that let the authorities hack into iPhones, adding to debates over security versus privacy.• U.S. stocks were up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.In the NewsImageCredit...Danish Ismail/Reuters.. ORG XMIT: DEL211• Syed Shujaat Bukhari, a leading journalist in Indian-administered Kashmir, was fatally shot by unidentified gunmen. [BBC]• The U.N. human rights office called for an investigation into abuses by India and Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir, criticizing the Indian security forces in particular for inflicting mass civilian casualties. [The New York Times]• Roughly 2,000 U.S. troops are in Syria. Recently, a statement went out calling for direct attacks against them. This video examines who sent it, and why. [The New York Times]• A Vietnamese-American was among those detained in Vietnam for protesting a cybersecurity law and proposed special economic zones that raised fears of Chinese encroachment. [The New York Times]• “You monster!” The family of a 19-year-old Chinese student confronted the woman convicted of killing her in a road rage incident in Arizona. The judge in the case accepted a plea deal that will impose a mandatory 25-year prison sentence. [A.P.]• A former Walmart in Texas has become the largest migrant children’s shelter in the country — a warehouse for more than 1,500 boys, aged 10 to 17, caught illegally crossing the border. [The New York Times]• Albert Einstein’s travel diaries, kept during visits to Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan, India and Palestine, expose some unpleasant stereotyping. [The New York Times]Smarter LivingTips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.ImageCredit...Chiara Zarmati• The dangers of belly fat may be more harmful than you know.• The Mediterranean diet can cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes — a conclusion reconfirmed after the initial landmark study of its benefits was retracted and reanalyzed.• Recipe of the day: Lemon sweet rolls are a perfect project for the weekend.NoteworthyImageCredit...Indranil Bhoumik/Mint, via Getty Images• Traces of a Jewish past can be found across the Middle East and North Africa and in Central and South Asia. “It’s in synagogues and cemeteries, in the facades of old buildings, in language, food and the memories of those who left. You just need to know where to look.”• The U.S. Open has brought all of the big names — yes, that means Tiger Woods — to Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, N.Y. Our live leader board shows that the old-school course had many players struggling through the first day.• And a best seller returns after 18 years. “Kitchen Confidential,” a memoir by Anthony Bourdain, is No. 1 on both our paperback nonfiction best-seller list and our combined print and e-book nonfiction one. Find all our best-seller lists here.Back StoryImageCredit...R Dumont/Getty Images“Man, woman or child, Ella is the greatest,” Bing Crosby once said.Ella Fitzgerald, who died on this day in 1996 at the age of 79, began her journey to stardom by winning a talent contest as a teenager.She had originally intended to dance, but stage fright made her decide to sing instead.The “First Lady of Song” spent more than 60 years in the limelight, working with more musical legends than we can count. She won 13 Grammy Awards and received a National Medal of Arts.With a range of nearly three octaves, she relished big band, jazz, bebop, scat and swing. She is perhaps best known for her Song Books of the ’50s and ’60s: eight albums, each dedicated to the likes of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart.But her young life was filled with hardship.Her mother died when she was 15 years old. She ran away from an abusive stepfather and had a spell in a reformatory where beatings were common. She was living hand-to-mouth in 1934 when she won that crucial amateur competition.As she received an honorary doctorate at Yale, she said: “Not bad for someone who only studied music to get that half-credit in high school.”Anna Schaverien wrote today’s Back Story_____Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. You can also receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights. And our Australia bureau chief offers a weekly letter adding analysis and conversations with readers. Browse our full range of Times newsletters here.What would you like to see here? Contact us at [email protected].
2018-02-16 /
Supreme Court allows rule to turn away immigrants who may need public assistance
The Supreme Court issued an order Monday to temporarily allow a Trump administration rule that would deny certain immigrants legal status in the U.S. if they failed to meet new standards proving they won't rely too heavily on public benefits. The 5-4 decision, made by the court's conservative majority, means the rule is permitted to continue until a lower court makes a determination. The rule requires immigration officials to assess factors including an applicant's age, health and assets, while expanding the list of off-limits public services to include Medicaid, food stamps and housing subsidies. Pregnant women, children, refugees, asylum seekers and certain members of the military are generally exempt. Under a separate administration move last week, pregnant women attempting to enter the country are now facing more scrutiny and could have their visas denied if immigration officers find they’re traveling to have a child on U.S. soil. The rule that the Supreme Court is temporarily allowing is expected to have a broad impact on those applying for permanent legal status in the U.S. An analysis from the Migration Policy Institute last year found 70% of recent green card applicants would have been impacted had the rule been implemented earlier. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham praised the high court's decision in a statement Monday. "Today’s stay from the Supreme Court is a massive win for American taxpayers, American workers, and the American Constitution," Grisham said. "This decision allows the Government to implement regulations effectuating longstanding Federal law that newcomers to this country must be financially self-sufficient and not a "public charge" on our country and its citizens." But backlash from civil rights advocates decrying the imminent implementation of the policy was swift. "The public charge rule is yet another attack on immigrant communities and is especially harmful for survivors of gender-based violence who are subject to the rule," said Irena Sullivan, a senior attorney at the Tahirih Justice Center, a group that advocates for trafficking victims. "Abusers commonly use threats of violence and deportation to keep survivors economically dependent on them and to prevent them from escaping." Claudia Center, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Disability Rights Program, claimed the rule was designed to intentionally hurt immigrants and those in need of specialized care. "It enshrines the false stereotype that people with disabilities do not contribute to our society," Center said in a statement. "Families will suffer. Congress has repeatedly declared that disability discrimination violates federal law. This rule must be stopped." Immigrant communities were rattled when the rule was first announced last spring. Many worried it could impact U.S. citizen children if parents decided not to use public services out of fear their green card applications would be denied. A University of California San Diego study released last August found undocumented immigrants were much less likely to seek out emergency health care after hearing about the public charge rule. Following the Supreme Court's decision Friday, immigrant advocates and legal analysts were quick to encourage those who believe they may be affected to seek out legal resources, noting the complex web of policy alterations made by the new rule should be navigated on a case-by-case basis. ABC News Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
2018-02-16 /
Apple’s virtual WWDC could be the future of keynotes
Over the past five years, I’ve heard more than one person wonder aloud if the pomp and circumstance of Apple’s live events are always worth all the trouble. I can remember some Apple presentations that were truly memorable, and live attendance was a must. But Apple is in a different place in its history, and more announcements are incremental improvements to existing products instead of brand-new world-changing product lines such as the iPhone. That may change in the future. Maybe when Apple finally announces its augmented reality glasses, for example, it will be crucial to hold a live event—if possible.But today’s keynote for Apple’s first virtual Worldwide Developers Conference should prove to the company that it can hold compelling virtual presentations for lesser announcements. Apple normally spends months preparing for the WWDC live keynote, at which it announces the latest updates to its various operating systems. The event is also a pep rally to reenergize developers to continue building on Apple platforms. This year, Apple’s virtual approach to the event showed that a live stream could get those jobs done. Though COVID-19 necessitated the move to an online presentation, virtual WWDC may be something that sticks long after the health danger is over—just like other byproducts of the pandemic.I expected this year’s WWDC to be a bunch of demos filmed in advance in some dark studio or in the depths of the Steve Jobs Theater. But though Tim Cook’s opening remarks were shot in the theater, much of the presentation was shot upstairs in the lobby, with the vegetation of the Apple Park campus visible through the large windows surrounding the space. Other presentations took place in the bright, round space on the lower level just outside the theater, which is made of white stone, beautifully lit from above. This put Apple and its speakers in front of a familiar background that expresses its brand and attitude better, perhaps, than any other. It made the keynote feel like an airy, outside experience, even as most of us have been trapped inside for the past few months.Tim Cook[Photo: courtesy of Apple]The video production, of course, was flawless. And Apple didn’t forget to add a bit of humor, with watchOS chief Kevin Lynch doing some exercises in the Apple Watch section and software honcho Craig Federighi slightly out of breath from dashing up the stairs during one interlude.Tim Cook’s opening comments on the George Floyd death and demonstrations, and on COVID-19, stayed short. Cook talked about racial equity and the pandemic’s effects mostly in relation to Apple’s products and business, not as a free-floating piece of social commentary from a CEO who felt an obligation to mention them. Cook would have likely expressed similar sentiments at a live event—but the quiet of the empty theater in his virtual remarks felt more appropriate than a noisy audience would have.Apple presentations are no longer male, white, untucked-business-shirt affairs. This year’s WWDC had plenty of female presenters, though very few people of color. Because the presentations were shot in advance, there was zero technical fumbling or presenter nervousness. There was a whole lot of Federighi, but that’s true with most WWDC keynotes lately, and it’s not a terrible thing. He’s a strong presenter and a good face for Apple as a company. In fact, we may have been watching the heir to Tim Cook when Craig was onstage.Yael Garten[Photo: courtesy of Apple]Apple’s events aren’t what they used to be. When Apple was a younger company that took more risks, it was always possible that Steve Jobs would come out on stage, say “Oh, and one more thing,” and then casually hold up a new product that would literally change the world. For that kind of news, you wanted to be there to see it live. For some of us who have been fortunate enough to be there for moments like that, it’s an experience we won’t forget.But Apple keynotes like that haven’t happened for quite a while. The last one I can remember with a historic feel happened back in 2014, when the company announced the Apple Watch, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus within one event. It was a big deal, and you knew it while you sat there watching. For variations on existing products, new service announcements, and software updates, a live performance may be less necessary.Craig Federighi [Photo: courtesy of Apple]In recent years, as Apple has live-streamed its keynotes, the bulk of the audience has been made up of Apple enthusiasts. For them, the more polished and efficient flavor of today’s prerecorded event had only upside. And for the two primary in-person constituents of Apple’s live events—members of the press and developers—there are also tangible benefits to a virtual event. While Apple’s live events can be a lot of fun for journalists—they provide a place to hang out with colleagues old and new, and in-sperson, hands-on product demos can’t be replaced—there’s much less stress involved with covering a virtual event. No traffic, no scrambling to get a good seat in the theater, no struggling to find good Wi-Fi or power outlets, and no yearly “running of the journalists” into the theater to jostle for a good seat. It’s easier to record during the event. Screenshots often look better than photos of a live event. — Carolina Milanesi (@caro_milanesi) June 22, 2020Doing these events virtually—and for free—also makes them more fair for developers. In person, the conference has long cost thousands of dollars to attend and sold out almost instantly. As of last year, developers had to enter a lottery to win a ticket to attend WWDC, which means that only a small percentage of developers got to attend, and only then if they could afford the considerable expense of traveling to San Jose.Ultimately, both the classic live keynotes and this online one have their trade-offs. But today represents a solid proof of concept for virtual Apple events.
2018-02-16 /
The savage beauty of Hillary’s tweet on Comey’s email use
The story of the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s personal email server during the 2016 presidential election is back in the news today, and the layers of irony keep piling up.Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz released an investigation into the FBI’s investigation, the results of which strongly criticize former FBI director James Comey for insubordination and for poor judgement in his decision to reopen the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server just 11 days before the fateful 2016 presidential election. Many think–and for good reason–that Comey’s action breathed last-minute new life into Donald Trump’s unlikely bid for the presidency. But my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018As more information about the IG’s investigation comes out, we learn that Comey himself was found to have used a private email account to conduct official government business. (Remember, Comey played a starring role in the FBI’s war to require tech companies to build “back doors” for law enforcement access to encrypted data on their devices. Apparently, he doesn’t value security and privacy, even in his own official business.)Late on Thursday, Hillary Clinton chimed in with a tweet that was rich with its own irony. Responding to news of Comey’s private email account, she tweeted, simply, “But my emails.” She was referencing the “But her emails” meme, which apparently emerged soon after Donald Trump won the 2016 election shortly after Comey re-opened the investigation into Clinton’s email server. The meme has persisted as an oft-tweeted sarcastic reaction to Trump administration scandals, mishaps, and embarassments which wouldn’t have occurred if Clinton had won the election. Here's the section of the report on this: pic.twitter.com/4Q1WM739Ew — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 14, 2018The IG report’s criticism of Comey’s late October 2016 re-opening of the Clinton email investigation, and its findings of Comey’s own private email use, certainly qualify as “damning revelations” against the legitimacy of the 2016 election. And, yes, I can almost hear the tapping of Breitbart readers’ fingers typing out “But her emails!” in the comments sections. Well, Hillary beat them to the punch, in what may be one of deadliest trolls we’ve seen in 21st century politics.
2018-02-16 /
Giuliani: Trump 'probably' has power to pardon himself but has 'no need to do it'
Rudy Giuliani has backed claims made in a newly leaked memo from Donald Trump’s legal team that the president can’t be compelled to testify by a grand jury subpoena as part of the Russia investigation.That question was posed on Saturday when the New York Times published a January-dated letter from Trump’s lawyers to special counsel Robert Mueller, which argued that Trump could “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon”.Asked if that meant Trump has the power to pardon himself, the president’s attorney remarked that he “probably does”. But the political ramifications, Giuliani added, “would be tough. Pardoning other people is one thing. Pardoning yourself is another.”Ultimately, Giuliani told NBC’s Meet the Press, he thought Trump pardoning himself would be “unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment”.He added: “He has no need to do it, he’s done nothing wrong.”Giuliani said he would be “willing to sit down with Mueller and argue it out if he has an open mind to it”.The former New York Mayor and mob prosecutor has taken a leading role in defending Trump, sometimes with conflicting statements that get information out there but also making it appear accidental or disinformation.On Thursday, Trump said that he is considering pardoning Martha Stewart, the home decorating mogul who served five months in prison for obstructing justice and similar charges as part of a 2004 insider trading investigation. Trump is also mulling whether to pardon the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.With the notion of pardoning the pair, many interpreted as a signal to allies ensnared in the Russia probe but also to raise the topic of how widely the president – any president – can use the executive office’s pardoning power.But Giuliani also appeared to want it known that if Trump used his power to pardon himself, and triggered a constitutional crisis, it would be in vain since there had been no obstruction of justice in the first place. “He [Trump] has broad constitutional powers and somebody who wants to question that has a big burden to show there is no explanation for what he did. I would like to caution them to exercise constitutional restraint here.” Giuliani said he doubted Trump would now grant Mueller an interview. “I mean, we’re leaning toward not,” Giuliani told ABC. “But look, if they can convince us that it will be brief, it would be to the point, there were five or six points they have to clarify, and with that, we can get this – this long nightmare for the ... for the American public … over.”Giuliani also on Sunday backed Donald Trump Jr, who had arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has connections to the Kremlin, soon after clinching the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.On Saturday, the letter by Trump’s lawyersacknowledged for the first time that the president had dictated a statement about his son’s meeting, which also involved Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and is believed to be part of Mueller’s reasoning for looking at a cover-up involving Trump over the extent to which his campaign was working with Russia.Trump’s lawyers and the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders previously denied the president had dictated the statement and only offered suggestions.On Sunday, Giuliani, by turns, said that conflicting statements about the source of Don Jr’s statement were one reason he would not want the president, his client, to grant an interview to Mueller’s prosecutors.“I mean, this is the reason you don’t let the president testify,” he added.
2018-02-16 /
Why are California wildfires so bad? An interactive look
The 2018 wildfire season is shaping up to be California's most destructive and expensive on record, with $432m already spent on firefighting and containment. Cal Fire asked lawmakers for an additional $234m in early September - the earliest the agency has ever requested emergency funds - to prepare for the peak of the fire season, which traditionally runs through the fall. A report released 27 August, the fourth in a series of climate change assessments commissioned by the state, found that if global warming continues at its current rate, California residents can expect more deadly weather patterns, including longer droughts, higher temperatures and bigger wildfires. But how did the most populous state in the US get to this point? 40+ dead trees per acre 15-40 dead trees per acre < 15 dead trees per acre California is a heavily forested state Forests and grassland cover about a third of California's 100m acres. The state contains more forest than any other in the country except Alaska. Source: University of California Forest Research and Outreach Climate change is making the state hotter and drier Hot temperatures and dry conditions caused by global warming are taking a toll on west coast forests. The past five years in California have been the hottest on record, and the state recently came out of a nearly six-year drought, its second worst in history. A lack of rainfall coupled with disappearing groundwater increases the likelihood of tree death. Dead trees act as explosive fuel when wildfires start. Source: California Fourth Climate Assessment There are millions of dead trees in California Because of drought, rising temperatures and a growing epidemic of migrating bark beetles that prey on trees, an alarming number of trees, nearly 129m, have died since 2010. California has removed only 1.3m of these trees in that same period: the rest litter the state's forests with tinder. Source: Cal Fire Tree Mortality Map Much of California is a time bomb The large number of dead trees, combined with California's already dry, hot and windy climate, has made much of the state susceptible to wildfires. It doesn't take a lot to start one - humans are responsible for 84% of them - and with about a quarter of California counties facing severe or worsening drought conditions, rain and groundwater are often unavailable to help put out fires. Source: California Fire Hazard Severity Zone Map People are moving into high fire-risk zones California's population grew by 3 million between 2000 and 2010, and according to the risk management company Verisk, in 2017 over a quarter of the state's population lived near moderate or high-risk fire corridors. With this increase in population comes a higher possibility of a human-made wildfire. And as people move into these high-risk area, more buildings are in harm's way: structures generally burn longer than vegetation, allowing fire more time to spread. Source: Verisk Wildfire Risk Report What's being done? The California governor, Jerry Brown, and other state Democratic leaders are attempting to impose regulations to combat climate change. The state recently passed a bill that doubles down on sustainability and renewable energy targets across the board, requiring that the state get 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2026, 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2045. With those efforts and a commitment to more prescribed burns to reduce the amount of flammable material on public lands, the state hopes to rein in future out-of-control fire seasons. Source: California Fourth Climate Assessment
2018-02-16 /
Trump: US killed Soleimani to 'stop a war' with Iran
Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video Trump: US killed Soleimani to 'stop a war' with Iran US President Trump gives a statement after ordering an airstrike that killed Iran's top commander.
2018-02-16 /
Comey, Trump Foundation, Border: Your Thursday Evening Briefing
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest.ImageCredit...Justin Tang/Canadian Press, via Associated Press1. “I do not agree with all of the inspector general’s conclusions, but I respect the work of his office.”That was James Comey, in an Op-Ed for The Times, after a Justice Department report found that he was “insubordinate” in his handling of the Clinton investigation during the 2016 election. Above, Mr. Comey speaking in Canada last week.The report does not challenge the decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server to store classified information. Nor does it conclude that political bias at the F.B.I. influenced that decision.Nevertheless, it paints an unflattering picture of one of the F.B.I.’s most tumultuous periods, which included the start of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.Here are the highlights of the 500-page report.____ImageCredit...Paul Sancya/Associated Press2. The New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit against President Trump’s charitable foundation. Above, Mr. Trump presented a check from the foundation to a veterans’ group in Iowa in January 2016.The suit accuses the foundation and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.Mr. Trump reacted with vitriol, characterizing the civil suit as an attempt by the “sleazy New York Democrats” to damage him. Here are the basics of the case.____Image3. We went inside Casa Padre, a converted Walmart in Texas that is being used as a privately run shelter for nearly 1,500 boys, aged 10 to 17, caught illegally crossing the border. Above, a photo of the exterior taken by our reporter.The facility has had to obtain a waiver from the state to expand its capacity, because children are now often being separated from their parents at the border. Some conservative religious leaders are sharply rebuking the Trump administration for such separations.The administration has also ruled out domestic abuse as grounds for receiving asylum. On our podcast “The Daily,” we talk to one asylum seeker from West Africa, who fled domestic violence.____ImageCredit...Stephen Maturen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images4. The Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota law prohibiting voters from wearing T-shirts, hats and buttons expressing political views at polling places.As enforced by election officials, it banned even general political messages, like support for gun rights or labor unions. About nine other states have similar laws.The case started when members of the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which says it works to ensure “election integrity,” turned up at polling places wearing T-shirts bearing Tea Party logos and buttons saying “Please I.D. Me.”____ImageCredit...Sedat Suna/EPA, via Shutterstock5. Stephen Bannon is betting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can disrupt banking the way President Trump disrupted American politics.Ten months after he was fired from his job as chief strategist to President Trump, Mr. Bannon is meeting with cryptocurrency investors and hedge funds.He has discussed working on so-called initial coin offerings through his investment business, Bannon & Company. And he told our reporter that he has a “good stake” in Bitcoin.He’s even floated the possibility of creating a “deplorables coin.”____ImageCredit...Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersIn the opening game, above, Russia thrashed Saudi Arabia, 5-0.In the audience was the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, whose forces’ assault on a port city in Yemen is threatening a countrywide famine.____ImageCredit...Lisa Rathke/Associated Press7. New policies regarding free speech on campus are part of a growing and well-organized campaign that has put academia squarely in the cross hairs of the American right.Republican-led legislatures in several states have imposed rules barring students from blocking another’s speech at public colleges and universities.The goal is to foster an atmosphere of civility and avoid the kind of disruptions that prevented conservatives from speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, Middlebury College, above, and other schools.But the policies raise a tough question: When one person’s beliefs sound like hate speech to another, how do you ensure a more civil political debate?____ImageCredit...Kayla Reefer for The New York Times8. We sat down with Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, who placed a distant third in the primary for governor last week.He lost to Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor, and John Cox, a Republican businessman who won the endorsement of President Trump. Those two will face each other on the November ballot.The loss was striking. Political consultants are still debating what went wrong, and what the results say about the power of the Latino vote.“This guy was a two-term mayor of Los Angeles running to be the first Latino governor since the 1800s,” said Roberto Suro, a professor at the University of Southern California, “and nobody stood up to salute?”____ImageCredit...Martin Parr/Magnum Photos9. Some important news, just in time for Father’s Day: Dads are now at the center of the fashion universe.Chinos, fanny packs, orthopedic sneakers, socks with shorts, baggy blazers: The fashion world wants it all. The looks were seen in the spring runway shows, part of a mass move to the unique and the downright fugly. Above, a vintage look, from 1994.“Brands are trying to produce mystery in this overexposed atmosphere,” a design consultant explained. “They’re doing it by either picking something extremely random or something extremely obvious. Dad style is both.”____ImageCredit...CBS10. Finally, on “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert welcomed an odd couple that we might be seeing more of in the future: Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, and Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived White House communications director.They refused to address reports that an agent had pitched them as the stars of a new talk show. But Mr. Scaramucci, above left, didn’t shy from self-deprecating humor.Mr. Colbert ribbed him about his curtailed tenure: “One 11-day period is now called a Scaramucci.”“It’s actually not long enough to be called a Scaramucci,” the guest answered. “It’s called a Mooch.”Have a great night.____Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning.Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [email protected].
2018-02-16 /
How Will Iran Respond To Trump's Assassination Of Soleimani?
The assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani ordered by President Donald Trump is the most aggressive escalation yet in the conflict between the United States and Iran, risking violent retaliation and volatility across the Middle East. While U.S. officials now warn of a potential Iranian response, analysts say there are a variety of forms that such a reprisal may take. As head of Iran’s Quds Force elite military unit, Soleimani was the central figure in Iran’s foreign clandestine operations and its network of military proxies. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Friday following the U.S. airstrike that killed Soleimani, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei attending in a show of how important Soleimani’s death is to the Iranian government. Khamenei has vowed “forceful revenge” against the U.S. for Soleimani’s death, while other Iranian officials condemned the attack and similarly promised retribution. Already backed into a corner by Trump’s maximum pressure campaign of economic sanctions, analysts expect that Iran will retaliate but say a traditional military conflict isn’t something Tehran considers advantageous. “Iran has known for a very long time that it can’t win in any kind of conventional military warfare with the United States, but it has proven to be very sophisticated at asymmetric warfare,” Ellie Geranmayeh, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told HuffPost. Iran’s conventional military forces lag behind those of the United States and Israel, another adversary, and it’s much more adept at relying on insurgent-style attacks and proxies to exert its influence. Iran cultivated a wide network of pro-Iranian militias under Soleimani’s leadership, and it’s possible that after his death those become the primary actors in responding to his killing. The U.S. has a wide range of interests, assets and allies that could all become targets for an Iranian response. These range from embassies and consulates to shipping routes and oil facilities, according to Naysan Rafati, Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group. Iran may additionally target U.S. partners in the Middle East, which would threaten to draw more actors into the conflict. The U.S. and other nations have already put embassies on security alert, and on Friday, American defense officials announced the deployment of over 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East to counter threats from Iran. Iran and its proxies could also seek to target U.S. personnel in the region or carry out their own assassinations, an extreme option that would almost certainly lead to further escalations in the conflict. With “the U.S. president coming out in a tweet to publicly condone the assassination of an Iranian official, you are now basically opening up space for a huge range of possible targeted killings and retaliation from Iran,” Geranmayeh said. “The very public nature in which the U.S. is boasting about the assassination is cornering Iran into a position where they have to respond in kind.” But Iran is also wary that an overt attack against the U.S. or its interests abroad could result in airstrikes on Iranian soil, experts say, and could opt for a more indirect approach. Many of the attacks against American-affiliated entities in the past year have come from Iranian-linked militias and allowed Tehran a degree of plausible deniability. These militias also have varying degrees of independence, and given that the leader of the Iranian-linked Popular Mobilization Forces was also killed in Thursday’s airstrike, they may seek reprisal on their own that may further complicate the situation. “Some of these groups have their own reasons now to act with or without instruction from Tehran,” Rafati said. “You have a wide array of possible actors, either acting on guidance from Iran or on their own initiative, across a very fragile regional chessboard.” Military action is also not Iran’s only avenue for responding to Soleimani’s death. Since Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018 and has since imposed harsh economic sanctions, Iran has continually threatened to no longer comply with the agreement to curb its nuclear program and has taken provocative but largely reversible steps to increase its uranium enrichment. Prior to Soleimani’s death, Iran was expected to issue a statement on its nuclear plans next week and may use the opportunity to announce a more aggressive move away from the nuclear deal and towards weapons-level enrichment. There is also the potential for Iran to carry out cyber attacks against the U.S. as a means of avoiding conventional conflict, although the country likely lacks the capability to carry out a large scale operation against infrastructure or heavily secured targets. Whatever Iran’s response, analysts warn that the assassination of Soleimani creates a situation where deescalation is unlikely. Although the U.S. intended the killing to be a deterrent against Iran’s foreign influence operations, in the short term it may bring increased threats to Americans abroad, heighten the possibility of open conflict with Iran, and draw the U.S. further into foreign entanglements. “In the past week things have moved so fast,” Geranmayeh said. “It’s not clear to me how we have a cooling off period.” RELATED... Another Strike On Pro-Iran Convoy Reported North Of Baghdad Chuck Schumer Says Trump Doesn't Have The Authority To Go To War With Iran Legality Of Trump's Order To Kill Iran General Depends On Threat testPromoTitleReplace testPromoDekReplace Join HuffPost Today! No thanks. Download Calling all HuffPost superfans! Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter Join HuffPost
2018-02-16 /
Iran Issues Warrant to Arrest President Trump Over Killing of General
Iran issued a warrant to arrest President Trump and 35 others over the killing of a top Iranian general earlier this year, a largely symbolic order that is Tehran’s latest attempt to draw international attention to what it has labeled an act of terrorism.Iran has asked Interpol for assistance in detaining the individuals, who include Mr. Trump and political and military officials from the U.S. and other countries, Tehran Prosecutor-General Ali Alqasi Mehr said Monday, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency....
2018-02-16 /
Thousands mourn Iran's Soleimani as at least 2 rockets hit Baghdad
Thousands gathered in Baghdad Saturday to mourn the death of those killed in a U.S. airstrike that has sent tensions soaring throughout the Middle East.Mourners chanted "Death to America, death to Israel" as they marched in a funeral procession for Iran's top general and Iraqi militant leaders who were killed in the strike early Friday near the capital's international airport.Among them was Iraq's prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi.The crowd of mostly men dressed in black fatigues carried their country's flag and the flags of Iran-backed militias that are loyal to Qassem Soleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force whose death has raised fears of escalation and even all-out war.President Donald Trump said Friday that he ordered the the drone attack that killed Soleimani in order to prevent a conflict.Congress received formal White House notification of the attack Saturday, according to two senior Congressional sources. The notification is required within 48 hours under the War Powers Act of 1973.It was sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Senate's president pro tempore. The document was classified, the sources said.On Saturday, one rocket landed inside the Green Zone, a secured area in central Baghdad where the U.S. and other nations have embassies, and another in the Jadiriyah neighborhood across the Tigris from the Green Zone, a U.S. military official and Iraq's Joint Operations Command confirmed.Three rockets were also fired at Balad Air Base, an Iraqi Air Force compound nearly 50 miles north of Baghdad. All three projectiles landed outside the installation where U.S. personnel are based, a U.S. military official said.Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.There were no reports of casualties or damage to buildings. NBC News has not confirmed the source of the rockets.Washington said Friday it was dispatching another 3,000 troops to the region, while U.S. allies across the world have urged caution.Qatar, which often serves as a mediator in the Middle East, said its foreign minister had discussed "ways of exercising restraint" during a visit to Tehran Saturday.As the world waits to see what comes next, Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) said early Saturday another airstrike hit a convoy north of the capital, killing at least six people.But both the Iraqi military and the PMU — an umbrella group of mostly Iran-backed militias — later denied any airstrikes had taken place in the area. The U.S.-led coalition also denied carrying out any airstrike.Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, said to be the deputy of the militias and a close adviser to Soleimani, was also killed in Friday's strike.Iraq's president, Barham Saleh, told NBC News Friday that tensions are running high in the country, which has been gripped by anti-government demonstrations and saw protesters storm the U.S. embassy in Iraq earlier this week."The situation in Iraq is very fragile, very precarious," he said, calling for restraint on all sides."Iraq cannot be condemned to another cycle of violence. We have had too many wars over the last four decades."The Iraqi Parliament plans to meet Sunday to discuss how the nation will respond.The Pentagon has justified the targeted killing of Soleimani by saying he was actively developing plans to attack U.S. diplomats and service members in Iraq and elsewhere throughout the region.He is also blamed for orchestrating a series of attacks on allied bases in Iraq in recent months, including a rocket strike that killed a U.S. contractor and wounded four other service members last week.That prompted the U.S. to carry out deadly airstrikes last Sunday on weapons depots in Iraq and Syria that it said were linked to Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite militia group. That in turn prompted the demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy involving as many as 6,000 people, many of whom were linked to the group.Iraq's leadership is facing mounting pressure to expel the 5,200 American troops it hosts. The country's parliament is expected to hold an emergency session on Sunday in response to the airstrike.Meanwhile in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani visited Soleimani's house to pay respects to the late general's family. He was seen hugging Soleimani's son and greeting his wife.Images of the general have been plastered across billboards around the capital, where a farewell ceremony will be held on Sunday evening in Tehran's Mosalla Mosque.The main funeral ceremony will be held in Tehran on Monday where Khamenei will lead prayers. On Tuesday, Soleimani will be buried in his home town of Kerman."They (Americans) do not realize what a big mistake they have made," Rouhani warned as he visited the family."They will see the consequences of their mistake not only today but in the years to come."
2018-02-16 /
How Did OAN Get the Biden Ukraine Tapes?
What is most remarkable here is that none of this is particularly surprising. Russian interference in the 2016 election has been closely studied over the past four years, and America’s vulnerabilities have only worsened in that time. As my colleague Franklin Foer wrote recently, “Russia’s interference in 2016 might be remembered as the experimental prelude that foreshadowed the attack of 2020.” That OAN is now a player in such interference suggests an escalation that the Biden campaign has been bracing for.Indeed, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—who has recalled being secretly recorded himself, among other forms of harassment, when he was posted in Moscow—told me, "There’s never been a moment like this in American history.”That includes 2016. McFaul said what he’s seeing now reminds him of tactics the Kremlin has used against its domestic political opponents. “It’s not to convince you of a different point of view. It’s to convince you that there is no truth,” he said. “When it feels like nobody’s telling the truth and there is no truth, the reaction to that is despondency and demobilization.”It’s hard not to feel some déjà vu here. In 2016, Russian intelligence agents hacked the emails of Democratic National Committee staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and delivered them to WikiLeaks, as a way to get them into the American media. Some outlets learned a lesson from that episode, and have treated new Biden recordings out of Ukraine with care. Others have not. Andriy Derkach, who released the Biden tapes that have already come out, is a former member of a pro-Russian political party who graduated from a KGB-run academy in Moscow. OAN lends his efforts a veneer, however thin, of journalistic legitimacy.The person now claiming to have more tapes is OAN’s Chanel Rion, the on-air personality who went with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, on his December trip to Ukraine in part to find information on Biden to help Trump. Rion, who has become famous for her conspiracy-inflected questions at White House briefings, emailed the Biden campaign May 29 claiming that she was working on an “in-depth report” about recordings that appear to be of Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine. “We have over five hours of these recordings (beyond what has been posted online by Nabu Leaks),” she wrote, referencing a Ukrainian website suspected of Russian links.Derkach, a politician known as the “Ukrainian Putin,” has been a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was really behind the interference in the 2016 election instead of Russia. And he has previously been eager to provide damaging material about Biden for Trump’s sake. Derkach released a batch of recordings three weeks ago, claiming that they had been made by Poroshenko and given to him by “investigative journalists.” (Poroshenko has said the audio is “fabricated.”) Most mainstream-media outlets have decided that the recordings that have emerged so far offer “little new insight into Biden’s actions in Ukraine,” as The Washington Post’s Carol Morello wrote after the recordings were first released.
2018-02-16 /
Turkey Is Now the Most Dangerous Player in the Middle East
JERUSALEM—Turkey carried out widespread airstrikes in northern Iraq on Monday, concentrating on areas inhabited by the Yazidi minority who are still trying to recover from the genocide perpetrated by the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.“Erdogan apparently feels he’s been given license to act like this because of his close personal relations with Donald Trump. ”While Ankara claims it is bombing “terrorists,” the areas on Sinjar mountain that were struck appear to be caves and small structures and Turkey has provided no evidence linking these Yazidis to threats to Turkey. It is yet one more example of Ankara’s increasingly brazen attempts to cultivate authoritarian rule and extreme nationalism at home while using disproportionate military force abroad, attacking and occupying portions of Iraq, Syria and Libya.At a time when conflicts from Syria to Libya and Yemen have left countries more divided than ever and without a path to peace or method by which locals might have a say in the future, Turkey, a member of NATO, has played an increasingly destabilizing role in almost all these conflicts. In November, Ankara signed a deal with Libya’s embattled Tripoli-based Government of the National Accord that secured Turkey claims to a wide swath of the Mediterranean. Placing itself astride Greek and Cypriot waters with talk of a “blue motherland” at sea, Turkey then sent drones to Libya and recruited thousands of poor Syrians to fight as mercenaries for Tripoli, ignoring a U.N. arms embargo. Ankara’s increased involvement had the result of increasing Russia’s support for the Libyan opposition as both sides fueled a deadly proxy war. Then came Turkey’s decision to flood Syria’s Idlib province with its forces in February 2020 as Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups clashed with the Syrian regime. After Turkish soldiers were killed in Idlib, Ankara decided to turn around and threaten Europe with a flood of refugees if more was not done to support Turkey. Once again, Turkey created a crisis and used desperate Syrians as pawns, just as in Libya.Meanwhile Turkey has continued to occupy two areas in Syria, Tel Abyad and Afrin, now cleansed, to use a weighty but appropriate word, of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and minorities. In March the United Nations said Turkish-backed Syrian rebels cut off water to almost 500,000 people in eastern Syria at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. In Turkish-occupied Afrin recent clashes have revealed that Syrian rebel groups target minority Kurdish and Yazidi women for kidnapping and have carried out widespread abuse against minorities. Afrin, once one of the only peaceful areas in the maelstrom of the Syrian civil war, is now dominated by armed militias backed by Turkey and minorities either fled or live in fear.Ankara’s policies have gotten worse over time, accelerated by unchecked demagoguery at home as the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has jailed journalists and opposition politicians while threatening neighbors and refugees. Erdogan apparently feels he’s been given license to act like this because of his close personal relations with Donald Trump. The two of them speak frequently. Erdogan also has forged close relations with Iran and Russia, the two other authoritarian regimes that play a major role in the Middle East. Together these countries cynically carve up Syria and Libya into spheres of influence and Turkey’s military operations in northern Iraq, often bombing areas where refugees and internally displaced persons live, continues without international pushback.So, here’s the bottom line: While the United States has focused on Iran as a source of instability in the Middle East, Turkey is rapidly becoming a much greater threat. Its NATO membership gives it a carte blanche to bomb and invade countries without criticism. It brazenly sends proxies and mercenaries to Libya, bombs the most poor and vulnerable areas of Yazidis in Iraq, illegally occupies Afrin, and threatens its neighbors and dissidents at home. To achieve the veneer of support for its operations Ankara has even hijacked social media, as a recent Twitter study with Stanford’s Internet Observatory revealed 37 million fake tweets by pro-government propagandists.The United States and the international community need to stop reacting to every threat by Ankara and demand Turkey adhere to international laws, but the Trump administration’s increasing isolationism has emboldened aggression by Turkey, which believes it can act with impunity. This perpetuates a decade of wars in the Middle East and has fed a vicious cycle of conflict in vulnerable areas, such as Sinjar. Instead of enabling the reconstruction of areas recently plagued by ISIS, these new rounds of conflict fed by Turkey’s ambitions are keeping the region from healing. Ankara’s spreading chaos has undermined almost everything done to achieve stability in the post-ISIS period in Syria, Iraq and the wider region.
2018-02-16 /
Qassem Soleimani's death could trigger an Iranian cyberattack
In the hours after an American airstrike killed Qassem Soleimani, the powerful major general of the elite Iranian Quds Force, the world is braced for how Iran might respond. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the country had already settled on a plan.“A forceful revenge awaits the criminals who have his blood and the blood of the other martyrs last night on their hands,” Khamenei said in a statement.If, when, and where this retaliation might take place, and in what form, is at this point anyone’s guess. Iran is a major power with a sophisticated military that could launch attacks on American personnel or interests anywhere in the region. It is also a pragmatic country that likely wants to avoid an all-out military conflict with the United States.One option the country has at its disposal outside of traditional weapons, and which worries US officials, is a cyberattack. And that could happen anywhere.Iran has proved adept at such strikes before.In 2012, in apparent retaliation against US sanctions, the country attacked Wall Street banks with denial of service attacks, knocking their websites offline. In 2015, Turkey blamed Iran for cyberattacks on its electric grid, which shut down power for some 40 million people. In 2017, dozens of parliamentary email accounts in the UK were compromised by a cyberattack linked to Iran. And earlier this year, Iranian hackers managed to steal terabytes of data from a US government contractor.In June, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned of a “recent rise in malicious cyber activity directed at United States industries and government agencies.”“Iranian regime actors and proxies are increasingly using destructive ‘wiper’ attacks, looking to do much more than just steal data and money,” CISA director Chris Krebs said in a statement at the time. “These efforts are often enabled through common tactics like spear phishing, password spraying, and credential stuffing. What might start as an account compromise, where you think you might just lose data, can quickly become a situation where you’ve lost your whole network.”After the assassination of Soleimani, Krebs cautioned network administrators to “brush up” on Iranian tactics, techniques, and procedures, known as TTPs, and said Iranian hackers could target critical national infrastructure, or CNI.Sam Curry, the chief security officer at Cybereason, a Boston-based computer security firm founded by three former members of Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s storied cyber warfare wing, said an Iranian cyberattack could come in various shapes and sizes. As with any form of asymmetric warfare, not knowing where the strike will land is the real issue, he said.“They’re not going to start developing now the attacks that they’ll use, they have developed them already,” Curry told Quartz. “It could be military, could be civilian—the initiative now lies with Iran to pick and choose among the options they have. Will they retaliate in kind? Send a message of escalation? The question is, what and where and when?”The United States has carried out its own cyberattacks against Iran. In 2010, a malware attack known as Stuxnet, which experts believe was jointly developed by the United States and Israel, destroyed one thousand centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear research facility.Chris Morales, head of security analytics at Vectra, a California-based provider of technology that applies AI to detect and hunt for cyber attackers, said the United States and Iran have long been engaged in some degree of cyber warfare.“Iran has identified cyber capabilities as part of their attack strategy a decade ago and have slowly been building up capabilities since they were hit with Stuxnet,” he said.As a result, the global cybersecurity community is on high alert, Curry said, adding that he hopes the United States has not just given Iran a casus belli, or a “cause for war.”“An escalating conflict would be a very bad way to start 2020,” he said.Acting Department of Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement Friday that the agency was preparing for possible responses from Iran.“The entire department remains vigilant and stands ready, as always, to defend the Homeland,” Wolf said. A spokesperson for US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, said the the United States remained committed to de-escalating the conflict with Iran.Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York City, did not respond to a request for comment.
2018-02-16 /
US senator: Huawei 5G is like Soviets building west's submarines
A Republican senator told MPs that using Huawei kit in 5G phone networks would be akin to allowing Russia to build submarines for western nations during the cold war, in a tense hearing that saw him clash with opposition MPs.Tom Cotton, who represents Arkansas, said he had geopolitical and technical objections to Huawei and claimed that, if hacked, its equipment could track the movements of key parts for F-35 fighter jets.Deploying Huawei, the politician continued, “would be as if we had relied on adversarial nations in the cold war to build our submarines, or to build our tanks. It’s just not something that we would have ever considered.”The senator was speaking before a defence subcommittee inquiring into UK proposals to allow Huawei to deploy up to 35% of 5G equipment, which has come under heavy criticism from the White House and the Conservative right.Ten days ago, an increasingly nervous Downing Street said it was reviewing a plan put forward by Boris Johnson as recently as January and indicated that it could be prepared to eliminate Huawei involvement entirely by 2023.Cotton said that he would welcome the UK removing Huawei “even earlier” and argued that the Chinese company’s kit could be targeted by People’s Liberation Army hackers to track the movement of key parts of US F-35 fighter aircraft if it were compromised.The senator has recently submitted an amendment to the US 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that would block the deployment of US air force F-35s in countries where Huawei equipment is used, and told the committee “we believe our airmen could be at risk”.But he was challenged by Kevan Jones, a Labour MP who has sat on the intelligence and security committee. The backbencher said GCHQ had concluded there was no security risk to Anglo-American operations.“There is no way, there’s no evidence at all, that anything, that cooperation between our two nations is going to be compromised in terms of what has been proposed,” Jones said, and accused Cotton of making “threats to try and change policy in UK”.The senator disagreed, saying that the US National Security Council was reviewing intelligence sharing with the UK in the light of the initial Huawei decision, prompting Jones to interrupt. “There’s no way that Huawei equipment will come anywhere near anything in terms of our signals intelligence,” the Labour MP added.Using the cover of parliamentary privilege, Cotton asked Jones “why are you so eager to put a criminal organisation’s technology into your networks” and accused Huawei of supplying technology used by Beijing to suppress China’s Uighur Muslim minority.Huawei says that it is a privately owned company, controlled by an employee trust, which is independent of the state. Its leaders say it has not cooperated with any attempt to orchestrate surveillance by the communist regime and its technology has been audited as compliant by Britain’s spy agencies.Stewart McDonald, an SNP MP, also challenged Cotton, arguing that the behaviour of Donald Trump, particularly during the George Floyd crisis, adversely affected the United States’s ability to lead on the issue. “The current presidential leadership and, in particular, his style of leadership is grossly undermining,” McDonald said.Speaking after the hearing, Victor Zhang, the vice-president of Huawei, said the hearing demonstrated that the senator’s principal concern was that the company had become too successful in an industry where the US has traditionally dominated. “It’s clear its market position, rather than security concerns, underpins America’s attack on Huawei as the committee was given no evidence to substantiate security allegations,” he added. Topics Huawei China US politics Telecommunications industry Telecoms news
2018-02-16 /
How Trump Deals With Iran and What It Tells Us
Two days later, facing opposition that stretched from the Pentagon to his own party’s leadership on Capitol Hill, Trump folded. “I like to obey the law,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Kelly Magsamen, a national-security official in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, told me that Trump’s interest in targeting Iranian cultural sites did not come from the Department of Defense. “Where is that coming from? Is that coming from a political adviser? From the latest person he spoke to at Mar-a-Lago?” she asked rhetorically. “I worked at the Pentagon. Any U.S. soldier—all the way down to a private, all the way up to four-star general—would know that’s violation of international law. And it’s un-American.”I’ve spent the past several days trying to learn where the idea originated. One Trump-administration official told me that the news media were the ones who used the term cultural sites, not the president. I reminded this person that Trump had specifically used the term twice in two days. “Did he?” came the response.I asked White House officials about another idea floated to me: whether Trump’s intention was more specific, to target political monuments; they did not confirm that it aligned with Trump’s intention.I posed the cultural-sites question to Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump confidant who was briefed in advance on the Soleimani drone strike during a golf trip with the president at Mar-a-Lago over the holidays. Graham told me that he didn’t know where Trump got the idea.“I understand it’s an emotional time and he wants to create maximum deterrence. In my view, this doesn’t create deterrence. The goal is to divide the Iranian people from the regime. They’re already divided. I wouldn’t want to do anything to unite them.”A former White House official, who, after insisting that no one in the national-security establishment could possibly have advised the president to demolish, say, the ruins of Persepolis, told me: “I know the man well enough to know that’s something he dreamed up all by himself.”Listening to the president’s 10-minute address at the White House yesterday, a non-Iranian foe seemed to be on his mind: Barack Obama.Since inauguration weekend 2017, a guiding principle of Trump’s White House has been, simply: If Obama did it, undo it. Trump devoted part of his speech yesterday to denouncing one of the signature foreign-policy moves of the Obama administration: a deal with Iran aimed at curbing the regime’s nuclear-weapons program. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018, even though his own administration had deemed Iran to have complied with its terms.In his remarks, Trump called the agreement “foolish” and “very defective,” and then gave a distorted account of its terms. He said, for example, that the Obama administration had “given” Iran $150 billion as part of the deal. In fact, the money came from Iran regaining its own assets, which had been frozen. Trump also claimed that the missiles fired by Iran were financed “with the funds made available by the last administration.” That baseless assertion implies that if Americans are killed by Iranian attacks, Obama has blood on his hands.Having undermined Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, Trump has yet to put forward a concrete plan to replace it. He opened his speech by declaring that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon on his watch. But negating Obama’s work isn’t a strategy to bring that about; it’s a tactic to tarnish his legacy. Peter Nicholasis a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where he covers the White House.
2018-02-16 /
What young Iranians think about the latest US
Babak stays up late, so he saw the news in real time, in the early Friday morning hours in Iran. The Americans had killed Qassem Soleimani, one of the country’s most celebrated military figures, in a targeted strike. “I didn’t know how to feel,” Babak, a 25-year-old software engineer from Bandar Abbas, a city in southern Iran, told me. “I couldn’t say I’m glad that he died, and I couldn’t say I was happy.” Babak was shocked that the Trump administration had taken out Soleimani. But he also saw the senior military commander as an extension of the Iranian regime — a man who served the government, and not necessarily the people of Iran.Most of all, Babak was nervous. So, too, were other Iranians Vox spoke to in the aftermath of Soleimani’s death. Nervous about what would happen next. Because Tehran would retaliate, it had no choice. And that could provoke the United States, again.Which meant things could only get worse for Iran. Like Babak, most of the people Vox spoke to, via encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, are skeptical of the current Iranian regime. (Vox is not using full names to protect the privacy of those who participated in this story.) They’re all relatively young, educated, and tech-savvy (while Iranians have access to social media, they often need to use workarounds with VPNs to tap into Western media). And they’re just a very, very small sliver of the voices in Iran, as they themselves said. But their complicated feelings about Soleimani’s killing are reminders that US foreign policy decisions, or even a startling Trump tweet, look and feel a lot different if you’re sitting in, or scrolling through social media in, Iran. Iran struck back at the United States overnight Wednesday, firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq that house US troops. Though the attacks caused no casualties, it was a very public show of precision and power by Iran. President Donald Trump, uncharacteristically quiet after the attack, responded Wednesday morning with a brief address that described Iran as standing down, diminishing the likelihood of further major armed conflict, at least the immediate future. But he also made it clear his administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran isn’t over, and he announced the US is putting even more crushing sanctions on Iran. Sanctions aren’t exactly welcome news for Iranians, who feel a lot of the pain of the economic penalties. Iran’s economy is in bad shape, and the sanctions have made it even worse. But after days of hearing planes rumble overhead, worrying about a possible military draft, or wondering whether to flee the capital for the coast, this deescalation, even with the new sanctions, feels a little like a reprieve. As Maryam, a 20-year-old student living part-time in Kermanshah, a Kurdish city in western Iran, put it: “Iran has learned how to live with sanctions.”Soleimani was a revered figure for many Iranians. He was touted as Iran’s protector, who defended the country against ISIS. Even those who didn’t share this view, or who questioned whether his influence in places like Syria or Yemen had really advanced Iran’s interests, understood that the death of a such a powerful man would not go unanswered. “A lot of people around me also respected him because his job was defending Iranian borders,” Alireza, a 28-year-old working for a foreign company in Tehran, told me. “So assassinating him was really the worst move the US move could have ever done, in my opinion.”It was a blow to the country’s pride, a brazen assassination of a senior official by the United States. “If this strike wasn’t ordered by Trump directly, if [Soleimani] had stepped on a mine or something, people wouldn’t mourn like that,” Maryam told me. “Most of the people are just angry, their pride, they’re like oh my god, Donald Trump himself — he pressed a button and then they killed him?”Alireza said he knows a lot of people who oppose the regime and the Quds Force, the elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that Soleimani commanded. “But I’ve seen many of my friends changing their profile pictures to support the regime now,” he said. “They’re wanting revenge. They feel angry. Their pride is hurt, and they want the government to do something.”A month ago, Iran was divided, with massive demonstrations of protesters agitating for change. After Soleimani, that feels lost. “The people who were chanting for change with Iran’s relationship with the world. They have lost their voice, they cannot speak up now,” Alireza said. “Everyone is now quiet.”More than one person referred to it as a forgetting, as if Soleimani’s death had created this collective memory lapse. “The regime violently cracked down on the protests,” a 23-year-old student at the University of Qom told me. “It was like the people total forgot that this guy stands for this kind of act against people. It somehow surprised me.”“But,” the student added, that “was before the tweet of Mr. Trump. Then I [thought], ‘maybe the people, they are right. We should support the regime.’”Two days after Soleimani’s killing, Trump tweeted a disturbing threat: “[I]f Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets if Iran struck any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”Trump’s threat to strike cultural sites invoked the possibility of a war crime. Members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, tried to walk the comments back, dismissing it as “hypothetical” and saying the US would follow the law. But many Iranians took Trump seriously. “When you threaten cultural sites, people do believe him, because it kind of feels like he’s crazy,” a 26-year-old masters student working in public relations who lives in Tehran, told me.For some, the promise to attack cultural sites also proved that, despite all of Trump’s rhetoric, he — and maybe his administration, too — didn’t actually care about the Iranian people after all. Maryam, the student from Kermanshah, said she once believed Trump separated the Iranian government from the people. That’s how she saw the economic sanctions: as punishment against the regime, not the people. But when Trump threatened to bomb Iran’s cultural sites, she thought, what harm would that do to the government? None. “That’s when we realized he isn’t anti-regime, he’s just anti-Iranian all along, and we didn’t know it,” Maryam said. She was never a fan of her government. But she said that in talking to her friends over the past week, she came to an understanding: There is no good side — not the regime, not Trump, nothing. “This regime is the worst, but Donald Trump is the worst,” Maryam told me. “At least this regime is Iranian.”Even those like Sepehr, a 22-year-old student in Tehran who saw the regime’s focus on the mourning of Soleimani as just another example of regime propaganda, said he was put off by Trump’s tweet. “Today, I had an exam that was about restoration of historical places — I’m not kidding,” Sepehr told me on Tuesday. “It was very weird, because I thought, why are we testing this because Trump is probably going to ruin it?”“That’s that the only thing that I’m mad about it,” he added. “He says he loves the people of Iran, but he doesn’t care about the culture, or the cultural places.”“Ohhh war started,” a WhatsApp user from Iran messaged me Tuesday night, as reports of Iranian missiles hitting al-Asad base in Iraq began to break. Babak was up again; it was about the same time of night as it had been the week before when the attack on Soleimani happened. In Bandar Abbas, which is close to the Strait of Hormuz, he heard the sounds of airplanes. “Seeing airplanes in the skies we thought that’s [it], we’re officially in war with US.”Maryam also said she couldn’t sleep that night. “Well, there you go,” she thought. “We’re [entering] war with the United States.” It was one of the worst nights of her life, she told me. Maryam finally fell asleep at 6 am. But when she woke up later and saw that Trump had tweeted “All is well,” and that no Americans had died, she knew they weren’t at war. Trump’s speech Wednesday may have quashed fears of an imminent conflict. But several people we spoke to said that while this might, hopefully, be it for now, the fallout from Soleimani’s death is still undecided and unresolved. A 23-year-old student in Tehran told me he didn’t think this was over, and now no one was paying attention to Iran’s real problems, like human rights abuses. “I’m just worrying about my future, my life,” he said. “I don’t know what will come for me.”Then again, as Sepehr, the architecture student, wrote to me after Trump’s speech: “But at least it’s not an actual war.”
2018-02-16 /
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