The Secret Wars
April 16, 2020
“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” ― Malcolm X
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.“ ― Jim Mattis
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” ― Ecclesiastes 1:9
Majid Saeedi via Getty Images
The Secret Wars: From Arab Spring to America’s Fall to Russian Winter
The Kremlin has long wanted a foothold in Libya. Tripoli’s interior minister said: “This has been Russia’s dream since World War II.” Donald Trump’s election made the dream a reality.
2011’s Arab spring began with a thirst for freedom and the overthrow of Libya’s long-time leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. The bloody civil war has now morphed into an internationalized war, where foreign governments openly provide the weapons, money, even fighters.
Officially the US recognizes only Tripoli’s UN-sponsored provisional government. But a raft of Arab monarchies and authoritarian states — Russia included — threw their support behind a septuagenarian warlord, Khalifa Hafter, who has said Libya is “not ripe for democracy.” Even before Trump took office, Hafter was being pitched to the president-elect’s foreign policy team at a secret meeting in December 2016. High level lobbying on Hafter’s behalf continued.
Before an American-backed peace conference between warring factions convened last spring, Hafter had a phone conversation with then-White House national security adviser John Bolton, to get the administration’s blessing for an assault on Tripoli. Bolton did not say no. Russia meanwhile was contriving behind the scenes to gain more leverage over Hafter, conducting secret meetings in Moscow with former officers in the Qaddafi-era military and security services.
Hafter’s April 4 attack on Tripoli backfired badly. But Moscow anticipated failure, and was ready to prop up the warlord’s sagging advance with thousands of trained mercenaries who continue to operate in Libya.
White House acquiescence in Hafter’s brazen assault stunned the international community. Tripoli’s government was the US military’s main Libyan partner in counterterrorism. A former British ambassador to Libya noted: “It seemed as if the Americans were switching sides in a way that didn’t make sense.”
Bryon Smith via Getty Images
More Secret Wars: Autocrats Flex as Pax Americana Fades Away
- Last fall President Trump withdrew most of the American troops in territory occupied by Syrian Kurds in northeastern Syria, and gave Turkey a green light to invade. Some American forces are still present in the area, but the farthest west they can travel is the village of Tal Tamr. Many Syrian Kurds fled to that village seeking shelter.
- The area is mostly controlled by Syria, but Turkish militias hunker down not far away. Tal Tamr is a community cloaked in fear. “Turks will kill every Kurd,” said one woman who asked not to be identified.
- Most in the village are glad Americans are close by, although frustrated that Syria’s civil war is in its ninth year, with no end in sight. Other Kurdish refugees still harbor anger at the US for permitting Turkey’s invasion, betraying them as allies and forcing thousands to flee for their lives. (NPR)
Be The Climate Change That You Don’t Want To See In The World
- A study published this month in Nature predicts that climate change could result in a more abrupt collapse of many animal species than previously thought, starting in the next decade if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced. Large swaths of ecosystems would falter in waves, creating sudden die-offs that would be catastrophic not only for the wildlife but the humans who depend on it. (Gulp)
- The research adds to the already bleak picture for the world’s wildlife unless urgent action is taken to preserve habitats and limit climate change. More than a million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction because of the many ways humans are changing the earth by farming, fishing, logging, mining, poaching and burning fossil fuels.
- The scientists say if global warming was held to below 2 degrees Celsius the number of species exposed to dangerous climate change would drop by 60 percent. (NYT)
Additional World News
- Scientists confirm dramatic melting of Greenland ice sheet (Guardian)
- The Rise of a Hindu Vigilante in the Age of WhatsApp and Modi (Wired, $)
- China Limited the Mekong’s Flow. Other Countries Suffered a Drought. (NYT, $)
- Possible Chinese Nuclear Testing Stirs US Concern (WSJ, $)
Covid-19
- ‘Crime against humanity’: Trump condemned for WHO funding freeze (Guardian) & What Does The World Health Organization Do? (NYT, $)
- Volunteers create world’s fastest supercomputer to combat coronavirus (Guardian)
- Surely the link between abusing animals and the world’s health is now clear (Guardian) & Our Cruel Treatment of Animals Led to the Coronavirus (NYT)
- The single most damning sentence in the New York Times coronavirus exposé (CNN)
- CDC, FEMA have created a plan to reopen America. Here’s what it says. (WaPo, $)
- Big Business Pledged Gentler Capitalism. It’s Not Happening in a Pandemic. (NYT)
- Why Sweden’s Lax Coronavirus Approach Could Be Backfiring (Time)
- What Doctors on the Front Lines Wish They’d Known a Month Ago (NYT)
- Putin’s Bleak Covid-19 Admission: ‘We Don’t Have Much to Brag About’ (NYT)
- Stay 6 Feet Apart, We’re Told. But How Far Can Air Carry Coronavirus? (NYT)
- Lesson From Singapore: Why We May Need to Think Bigger (NYT)
- Sticking to a routine and continuing self-care is a great way to boost productivity while staying safe and sane at home.
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The Boy Who Cried “Fake News”
- President Trump doesn’t like hard questions from reporters, and he really doesn’t like hard questions asked by female reporters. His go-to behavior is just to talk over them.
- That’s what he did at Monday’s coronavirus briefing — talked over reporter Paula Reid. Trump was defending his decision not to close down the economy in January because there were hardly any reported Covid-19 cases. He’s touted his decision to close the borders to China, although scores of flights from there still managed to arrive.
- The CBS reporter wasn’t satisfied with his non-answer, since it wasn’t until sometime in March that the White House began taking a shutdown seriously. “The argument is that you bought yourself some time. But what did you do with that time? You didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now, nearly 20 million are unemployed, tens of thousands of Americans are dead,” Reid said, pointing out the US had coronavirus cases in February.
- Trump then began talking over Reid, raising his voice and calling her “disgraceful,” adding: “Look, look, you know you’re a fake. You know that, your whole network, the way that you cover it is fake.” Trump continues to give himself credit for closing borders in January. But he’s never said anything about what he did in February. (Guardian)
- Wounded by media scrutiny, Trump turned a briefing into a presidential tantrum (Guardian)
Additional USA News
- ‘Designed for us to fail’: Floridians upset as unemployment system melts down (Guardian)
- Shoulder-to-Shoulder, These Detroit Workers Have No Choice but to Ride the Bus (NYT)
- Elizabeth Warren Endorses Joe Biden for President (NYT, $)
- Trump Wanted a Radio Show, but He Didn’t Want to Compete With Limbaugh (NYT, $)
- Protests are changing as coronavirus spreads (CNN)
- South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots. (WaPo, $)
- Opinion | The Coronavirus Has Laid Bare the Inequality of America’s Health Care (NYT)
- Pastor Who Defied Social Distancing Dies After Contracting Covid-19, Church Says (NYT)
- Counting the dead: National tolls are only an estimate, and that is a problem (NBC)
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos grows fortune by $24bn amid coronavirus pandemic (Guardian) & Millionaires to reap 80% of benefit from tax change in US coronavirus stimulus (Guardian)
- The Rich Really Are Different. They Can Shelter In Nicer Places (NPR)
- Truly, Nuts in America: Florida Gov. DeSantis declared WWE an “essential service.” His explanation doesn’t make much sense. (Vox)
Won’t You Be My Pen Pal: Embracing Thoughtfulness and The Slow Life
- In this time of coronavirus-imposed isolation, social media allows us to stay connected to the outside world. But according to psychotherapist Roberta Borden Wilson, it’s also a “double-edged sword” because it forces instantaneous communication, making it impossible for us to filter out negative posts. All this negativity can trigger our brains into releasing a cascade of stress hormones that raises blood pressure, increases anxiety and depression and also contributes to substance abuse issues and addiction.
- On the other hand, something people often did before social media can bring feelings of peacefulness and calm: using a pen and paper to write letters the old-fashioned way. Borden Wilson says there really is something to the calming sensation one can get from reading a letter someone has written that differs from writing and reading social media posts.
- “Writing letters engages practices that we consider within psychotherapy to be mindfulness. When we put pen to paper, we have a tendency to be more reflective and insightful and sensitive about what we write. The process makes us want to be the very best versions of ourselves. Writing letters uplifts others and we avoid the sort of negative ‘word vomit’ we see in social media.” (BBC)
- Daily Pnut is setting up a pen pal program. If you’d like to join please complete this very brief form by this Friday, 4/17, at 6pm PST. We will then randomly connect two subscribers to each other via e-mail e-intro. The email e-intro will include the addresses you provide. As always, we ask people to be kind, thoughtful, and courteous.
Additional Reads
- Music can boost your productivity while working from home – here’s how (Guardian)
- The Buy-Nothing Work From Home Setup (NYT, $)
- Eating Is Weird Now. Here’s How to (Kind of) Get Back to Normal. (NYT, $)
- Do screen time rules still apply in lockdown? (BBC) & What do our eyes say about us? (BBC)
- Uplifting: 99-Year-Old British Veteran Raises $9 Million For Health Service By Walking Laps (NPR)