12 November 21
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The judge, Bruce Schroeder, deserves a lot of credit for that.
(A note: while I thought it odd that a 17-year old who’d so coolly turned himself in to police after shooting three people in the middle of a riot would come apart so completely while testifying in his own defense, I would point out that the witness box is a godawful place to be. I have testified twice in my life, both in civil actions in which I was neither plaintiff nor defendant. It’s a goddamn nerve-wracking experience even in the most benign circumstances.)
However, late in the afternoon session, as Rittenhouse was being cross-examined by prosecutor Thomas Binger, the trial veered into a very strange place. Binger, as I noted, has been the target of Judge Schroeder’s ire on several occasions, including earlier on Wednesday, when Schroeder told Binger, flatly, “I don’t believe you when you say you were acting in good faith.” (Binger had attempted to introduce, through a side door, evidence that Schroeder already had refused to admit under other circumstances.) When they came back from recess, the defense accused Binger of trying to incite a mistrial, and then moved for a mistrial with prejudice, which would mean Rittenhouse would walk and then he never could be tried again. Schroeder took the motion “under advisement,” keeping it in his pocket where it could function as a warning against angering him further.
Which is about when things got weird. Binger began to show Rittenhouse drone footage from the night of the shootings that seemed to contradict some of Rittenhouse’s account of what happened. Binger quite naturally asked the detective who was operating the iPad on which the drone footage was being shown to use the pinch-zoom function common to any of us who have an iPhone. The defense leaped to object on the grounds (I think) that “artificial intelligence” in the pinch-zoom changed the pixels according to what Richards called the “logarithms” of the device’s design. The software, Richards argued, might create “what it thinks is there, not what necessarily is there.”
Frankly, I didn’t know what in the hell Richards was talking about. Artificial intelligence? Logarithms? (I guess he was going for “algorithms,” but I can’t be sure.) But Judge Schroeder then leaped in and further confused matters. From the New York Times:
That objection set off a 10-minute discussion among the lawyers and Judge Bruce Schroeder. Mr. Binger said zooming in on images shown on iPads, iPhones and other similar devices is a routine part of daily life that all jurors would understand, and that the procedure would not affect the integrity of the image.
He argued that if the defense lawyers thought otherwise, they should have to present expert testimony saying so. But Judge Schroeder said that the burden was on Mr. Binger to prove that zooming would not distort the video. “Is the image in its virginal state?” the judge asked.
(Ed. Note: Oh, dear god in heaven.)
Mr. Binger then asked for an adjournment, but Judge Schroeder denied the request. Instead, he ordered a 15-minute recess and suggested that Mr. Binger could, perhaps, get somebody to testify to the zoomed video’s accuracy “within minutes.”
Were I a cynical fellow, I might conclude that Richards knows better, but that he was counting on the judge being something of a Luddite, which turned out to be a pretty good bet. So the judge gave the prosecution 15 minutes to find an expert to testify that something every baby’s grandma knows to be true is actually the way things are. Right now, that witness box Kyle Rittenhouse is in looks an awful lot like the catbird seat.
GOP Rep. Paul Gosar. (photo: Jonathan Ernst/Getty)
The far-right Arizona lawmaker posted an anti-immigration meme that appeared to endorse violence against Democrats.
The lawmaker, who has been linked to white nationalist and other extremist groups, tweeted the opening credits from the Japanese animated series “Attack on Titan” but altered to show himself in the place of the main character and with the show’s title in Japanese changed to “Attack on Immigrants.”
In the video, Gosar is depicted fighting the show’s “Titans” with far-right Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). In one scene, Ocasio-Cortez’s face is superimposed on one of the Titans. Gosar slashes its neck and kills it. In another scene, Gosar swings two swords at an enemy with Biden’s face edited onto it.
The clips are intermixed with real videos of U.S. Border Patrol officers corralling migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The words “drugs,” “crime,” “poverty,” “money,” “gangs,” violence” and “trafficking” flashed across the screen along with blood-splatter effects.
The “Attack on Titan” opening credits are often parodied as part of a meme.
Gosar has been a dedicated purveyor of conspiracy theories and lies about the 2020 election and was named by organizers of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol as one of a group of GOP lawmakers who communicated with them in the weeks before the attack, according to a recent Rolling Stone report. Gosar reportedly suggested to organizers that they would be offered a “blanket pardon” by then-President Donald Trump.
Gosar was denounced online for appearing to endorse violence with his Sunday tweet. Ocasio-Cortez responded with a thread noting his white supremacist ties and calling out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for failing to rein him in.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said Gosar was “more comfortable with violence than voting.”
Gosar’s digital director, Jessica Lycos, told The Washington Post in a statement that “we made an anime video” and “everyone needs to relax.”
“The left doesn’t get meme culture. They have no joy. They are not the future. It’s a cartoon. Gosar can’t fly and he does not own any light sabers. Nor was violence glorified. This is about fighting for truth,” she told the Post.
Scores of Twitter users commented that they had reported the video. According to Twitter’s rules, content that glorifies violence is prohibited.
A Twitter spokesperson said the platform had placed a public interest notice on the Tweet as it violated its hateful conduct policy.
“As is standard with this notice, engagements with the Tweet will be limited. People will be able to Quote Tweet the Tweet, but will not be able to Like, Reply or Retweet it,” the statement said.
The post also appears on Instagram; a Facebook spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
January 6th rioters U.S. Capitol. (photo: Fox)
The Jan. 6 committee had been scheduled to get the records Friday.
The committee had been set to receive the first batch of documents, which lawmakers say is key to their investigation, on Friday. In papers filed Thursday, lawyers for Trump asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to temporarily delay the turnover and to "maintain the status quo" while they push ahead with an expedited appeal.
In a brief unsigned order with no noted dissents, a three-judge panel of the appeals court granted Trump "an administrative injunction" late Thursday and set arguments for Nov. 30.
The order was issued by Judges Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents. Millett and Wilkins were appointed by former President Barack Obama. President Joe Biden appointed Jackson.
Courts often issue such injunctions to allow more time to consider the underlying issues. The order was not a ruling on whether Trump or the House committee has a stronger legal argument.
"The purpose of this administrative injunction is to protect the court's jurisdiction to address appellant's claims of executive privilege and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits," the judges wrote Thursday.
Trump, who has tried to claim executive privilege over the scores of memos, e-mails and records of White House conversations and visits, contends that the records should be kept secret "in perpetuity."
Biden has disagreed and said the National Archives should release the records.
White House counsel Dana Remus told the National Archives in a letter obtained by NBC News that the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was "the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal government since the Civil War" and that Trump's efforts to keep Congress in the dark about what happened "is not in the best interests of the United States."
"Accordingly, President Biden does not uphold the former President's assertion of privilege," Remus wrote.
The House committee and the National Archives did not oppose Trump's request to the appeals court.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from Trump's team to "maintain the status quo" this week, saying "the status quo in this case" is that the National Archives will disclose the documents Friday "absent any intervening court order." The ruling was one of three she issued in the past week refusing Trump's demand to keep his records secret.
"At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President. And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent's view is accorded greater weight," she wrote in a separate 39-page ruling.
"Plaintiff does not acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent President's judgment. His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power 'exists in perpetuity,'" she wrote. "But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President."
Trump has also argued that certain witnesses subpoenaed by the committee should not have to answer questions because of executive privilege, as well. One of them, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, is the subject of a criminal referral to the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate at all.
In a statement earlier Thursday, a lawyer for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows suggested that his client would challenge the committee's requests.
"Contrary to decades of consistent bipartisan opinions from the Justice Department that senior aides cannot be compelled by Congress to give testimony, this is the first President to make no effort whatsoever to protect presidential communications from being the subject of compelled testimony," said the lawyer, George Terwilliger. "Mr. Meadows remains under the instructions of former President Trump to respect longstanding principles of executive privilege. It now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict."
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the panel's chair, responded by threatening to set in motion the same proceedings that led to Bannon's criminal referral if Meadows skips out on Friday's deposition.
"Such willful non-compliance with the subpoena would force the Select Committee to consider invoking the contempt of Congress procedures...as well as the possibility of having a civil action to enforce the subpoena brought against Mr. Meadows in his personal capacity,” he said in a letter to Terwilliger.
Judge Bruce Schroeder. (photo: Sean Krajacic/AP)
Bruce Schroeder snaps at prosecutors and queries iPad footage as defense rests case in homicide trial
Schroeder heavily admonished prosecutors in the trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin, questioned the authenticity of some pinch-to-zoom footage presented in evidence, and apparently forgot to silence his phone in court, which at one point rang with a song used at Donald Trump’s rallies.
The trial is in its second week. The defense team rested its case on Thursday afternoon, setting the stage for closing arguments on Monday, and the prosecution said it would seek approval for the jury to consider lesser charges against the teenager on some criminal counts.
Kyle Rittenhouse had taken the stand in his own defense on Wednesday and Thursday amid dramatic scenes in the courtroom.
Rittenhouse, 18, has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree attempted intentional homicide.
He killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, when he shot them with a military-style assault rifle during night-time protests in August 2020, after a white police officer shot a local Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back and gravely wounded him.
The Kenosha county assistant district attorney, James Kraus, on Thursday said he planned to ask the judge to allow the jury to consider lesser charges on the counts involving Huber and Grosskreutz, a move that would lower the burden of proof for conviction.
Meanwhile, proceedings had became highly charged on Wednesday. Rittenhouse sobbed on the stand, the defense requested a mistrial and the judge gestured and shouted angrily at the lead prosecutor, accusing him of asking questions of the defendant that were legally out of bounds.
Schroeder, 75, is Wisconsin’s longest-serving circuit judge. Over the years he has developed a reputation of being a tough jurist.
“He has a reputation for doing what he believes is the right thing and being an independent thinker,” said William Lynch, a retired attorney who served on the Wisconsin board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy group at the time Schroeder controversially started ordering sex workers to get tested for HIV in the 1980s, which drew scrutiny.
After graduating from Marquette law school in Milwaukee in 1970, Schroeder worked as a prosecutor and was then appointed as circuit judge in 1983 by Wisconsin’s governor at the time. Schroeder, whose current term ends in 2026, has been “in this business for 50 years”, as he said at one point during the Rittenhouse trial’s jury selection.
He is known for delivering lectures that emphasize the importance of civic duty to prospective jurors. Schroeder opened jury selection last week by reaching back to the fall of the Roman empire to stress the gravity of jury duty, saying: “When Rome fell, the world changed dramatically.”
He also spoke of priests blessing trials in which defendants had to place their hands on burning coals or in boiling water – if they “didn’t come out too badly”, that was a sign from God of their innocence.
The judge gave potential jurors trivia questions, echoing the style of the TV quiz show Jeopardy.
One potential juror said he had nasal surgery scheduled. The judge asked him: “What would you rather do: be here with me or have your nose operated on?”
Before the trial, Schroeder ruled that the men shot by Rittenhouse cannot be referred to as “victims” by prosecutors. Defense attorneys may, however, call them “arsonists” or “looters” if they could justify those labels. Prosecutors argued that Schroeder was establishing a double standard.
On Wednesday, Schroeder appeared to sympathize with the defense team after Rittenhouse’s lawyers suggested Apple’s pinch-to-zoom feature on tablets and phones can distort video evidence.
The company’s “iPads … have artificial intelligence in them that allow things to be viewed through three-dimensions and logarithms,” the defense team argued. “This isn’t actually enhanced video. This is Apple’s iPad programming creating what it thinks is there, not what necessarily is there.”
Schroeder responded that the prosecution shouldered the burden of proof that Apple does not use artificial intelligence to manipulate footage.
“You’re the proponent of the exhibit, and you need to tell me that it’s reliable,” he said. The judge also suggested prosecutors find an expert during their brief recess, saying: “Maybe you can get someone to testify on this within minutes? I don’t know.”
During the prosecution’s cross-examination on Wednesday, Schroeder stunned trial viewers as he reprimanded assistant district attorney Thomas Binger for questioning Rittenhouse’s post-arrest silence, which Schroeder has disallowed.
“Don’t get brazen with me,” Schroeder told Binger at one point.
As the defense argued for a mistrial with prejudice over Binger’s actions, Schroeder’s phone suddenly rang to the ringtone of God Bless the USA.
Released in 1984 by Lee Greenwood, the song is popular in conservative circles and often played as Trump’s entrance theme during his rallies.
The trial continues.
Audrey Carter's son, Dwayne Cheeks, was killed in 2018. She said the Baltimore Police Department destroyed some of his belongings after telling her she couldn't get them back. (photo: Andre Chung/NBC News)
Lawyers for victims argue these seizures are unconstitutional.
Suddenly, bullets flew, hitting her in the chest. When she turned to run, a bullet struck the back of her head and lodged itself in her skull. Then Spencer lost consciousness.
“When I came to, I had been shot in the head. I asked, ‘Where’s my phone?’ and my mom said, ‘The police took it,’” she said.
Now, Spencer is one of four plaintiffs suing the Baltimore Police Department over what they say are illegal seizures of their personal property, including cash, clothing and cellphones. Two of the other plaintiffs include Damon Gray, a man who was shot in June 2019, and Faye Cottman, a woman who was shot in March 2019. The fourth plaintiff, Audrey Carter, is suing on behalf of her son, who was shot and killed in June 2018. Cottman also specifically alleged that her phone was searched without her consent.
To date, none of the plaintiffs or their loved ones have been able to get their property back even though none of the four is accused of a crime. Gray pleaded guilty to a narcotics charge in August, an unrelated incident.
Spencer and Carter are the first among this group to speak publicly about their case.
The federal lawsuit, a proposed class action, argued there may be thousands of other victims of violent crime who have had their property “unlawfully seized, searched, and destroyed” by the Baltimore Police Department.
“There’s a saying in Baltimore: When you get shot, throw your possessions to your friend. Otherwise, you’ll never see them,” said Tianna Mays, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
NBC News reached out to the Baltimore Police Department, the Baltimore solicitor’s office and the Baltimore City Lodge No. 3 Fraternal Order of Police, which all declined comment.
Calvin Harris, director of communications for the Baltimore city mayor’s office, said in an emailed statement that he would not comment on “anything contained in active litigation.” But attorneys for the Baltimore solicitor’s office wrote in a court filing submitted in September that it’s legal for police to “take possession of the clothing of the victim and all available evidence.”
That’s not how the plaintiffs’ attorney sees it. In fact, in a motion Mays filed Nov. 5, she argued that seizing items like phones lack “evidentiary value.” She noted that “these warrantless searches and wholesale seizures are unconstitutional and are the reason for this lawsuit.”
Experts say that if the lawsuit’s claims are borne out, it would bring more scrutiny to the Baltimore Police Department. In 2016, federal investigators concluded the Baltimore Police Department makes “unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests” among other findings. That Department of Justice report resulted in a formal agreement between Baltimore police and the federal government to reform the city’s practices.
Joe Margulies, a law professor at Cornell University, said presuming the lawsuit’s claims are accurate, the practice of seizing victims’ phones is highly problematic.
“If the allegations are true, the [Baltimore Police Department] is not just seizing but searching phones,” he emailed. “If they seized a defendant’s phone, they’d have to get a warrant before they could search it. Someone will have to explain to me why the victim is entitled to less protection than the accused.”
David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, pointed out that while police procedure allows items to be seized as part of evidence of a crime, “there is no such evidence of that that I can see here,” he emailed.
“And again, even if they can seize it, they can’t search what is inside the device without a warrant, unless there is consent (and there is none here),” he continued, referring to a 2014 Supreme Court case that firmly established the necessity of a warrant to search a cellphone.
After waking up in the hospital, Spencer, 27, who works as a medical assistant, quickly realized the police took her clothes, about $400 in cash and the key to her car, according to the lawsuit.
“Y’all not going to find anything in my phone. I was the one who got shot!” she said, adding that she was never given a receipt or other documentation from the police listing what items they took or why.
After she made multiple attempts to get her items back over the following months, the police department told her it could not hand anything over because of Covid-related protocols, according to the lawsuit.
“My outfit alone was $300,” she said. “I just lost a lot of money that I can never get back. I would like to have my stuff paid for.”
She said she continues to live with the consequences of this random shooting.
“I really don’t go outside; I go to work and I go home, now,” she said. “Anything that drops or pops, I’m like, ‘What was that?!’ I‘m scared to live a normal life. I still have a bullet in my head, so that’s scary too. I’m praying that nothing happens. They said the bullet is lodged in my skull, so it’s not going anywhere. They said removing it would cause more damage than not removing it.”
While Spencer has been waiting for her clothing for over 18 months, Audrey Carter has been waiting nearly twice as long.
In June 2018, Carter’s son, Dwayne Cheeks, was shot to death at a dice game on Germania Avenue, less than a mile from where Spencer would be shot nearly two years later.
At the same time, according to the lawsuit, Baltimore police seized a number of items that were found on Cheeks when he died, including his cellphone, keys, earphones and a lottery ticket.
Almost instantly, Carter began talking to people in the neighborhood where Cheeks was killed, trying to learn more information about who may have taken her son’s life. Meanwhile, she repeatedly asked if the Baltimore Police Department would return any of her son’s possessions, only to be told the department could not do so as it might hinder the investigation, she said in an interview.
“I said ‘OK, fine, if that’s what you need to do,’” she said. “‘I don’t want it back other than for any other reason than it was his.’”
Finally, by December 2019, she was able to arrange a meeting with a Baltimore police officer to get back some of the items. But then Carter learned much of her son’s final possessions had accidentally been destroyed, she said.
Carter said she was devastated. She wanted these items for sentimental reasons and hoped to pass them along to Cheeks’ children. She reached out to the Baltimore Police Department’s evidence control unit head and demanded an explanation.
“They say, ‘We sent you out a letter,’” she said. “I said ‘OK, I never got a letter.’”
Carter said she was told the letter had first been sent to Cheeks himself.
“I said, ‘Do you understand that’s my son? You’re sending a letter to my son at his old address!’” she said. “So he said the letter came back. Of course it came back, because [my son] has passed, he’s not going to accept the letter! I said, ‘It doesn’t make any sense that you would send a letter to the deceased!’”
In January 2019, federal prosecutors first named Correy Cawthorn as a suspect in the killing of Cheeks. Court records show that in February 2019, Cawthorn pleaded not guilty to the charges. Cawthorn and his co-defendants were also named in a superseding indictment returned in May 2021, when federal prosecutors added new defendants. Federal authorities alleged Cawthorn was a high-level member in the “Triple C” gang, which they said was involved in drug trafficking and is responsible for 18 murders.
But even now, Carter said, other than the cash Cheeks had on him when he died, she has been unable to get back anything the Baltimore Police Department still holds that belonged to her son.
“As far as I know, they should still have his watch, his wallet and his phone,” she said.
People hold Cuban flags in support of Cubans demonstrating against their government, in Hialeah, Florida, last July. (photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty)
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno RodrÃguez Parrilla said in a meeting with diplomats on Wednesday the U.S. is helping plan a protest the Cuban government has forbidden, alleging that the U.S. is trying to destabilize the country, Reuters reported.
"U.S. policy ... is doomed to failure. It is unfeasible. It hasn't worked for 60 years. It does not work now ... and it will not work in the future," Rodriguez said.
State Department Spokesperson Ned Price addressed the accusation back in October, saying the U.S. is supportive of the Cuban people.
“But what we have seen in Cuba since July 11th, what I suspect we will see mid-next month in Cuba, is a demonstration not of the desires of the United States Government,” Price said. “What we have seen, what we will say – what we will see is a manifestation of the unmet needs, of the unmet aspirations of the Cuban people, and the Cuban people’s clear attribution of responsibility for those unmet needs and unmet aspirations to the Cuban Government.”
The Cuban government has already warned the leader of Archipelago, the Facebook group leading the protest, against going through with the demonstration, which the group's leader says is for civil liberties and human rights.
"We are not mercenaries, nor are we receiving orders from anyone," Yunior GarcÃa Aguilera, leader of the Archipelago group, said after meeting with government prosecutors. "We are openly demonstrating a difference of opinion.”
Rodriguez also accused Facebook of "altering logarithms, altering the geolocation mechanism to simulate the massive presence in Cuba of people with accounts that are known to reside outside our country, primarily in Florida and in the U.S. territory,” according to Reuters.
He said Facebook violated international law and could be sued for “practices against Cuba.”
Archipelago says that more than half of its 31,501 Facebook members live in Cuba, per Reuters.
The upcoming protest comes after huge civil liberties demonstrations broke out in Cuba over the summer, during which a human rights group documented systematic abuses the government allegedly committed against protesters.
The U.S. House recently passed a resolution supporting the Cuban protesters and the upcoming protest on Nov. 15. Forty Democrats and no Republicans voted against its passage.
The Hill has reached out to Facebook for comment.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt conducts a training exercise in the Pacific in 2017. (photo: U.S. Navy)
Leaders at the COP26 summit have no intention of tackling the growing environmental impacts caused by their 'defence' spending
Western politicians, in particular, want to emerge from the summit with their green credentials burnished, proving that they have done everything in their power to prevent a future global temperature rise of more than 1.5C. They fear the verdict of unhappy electorates if they come back empty-handed.
Climate scientists are already doubtful whether the pledges being made go far enough, or can be implemented fast enough, to make a difference. They have warned that drastic action has to be taken by the end of this decade to avert climate catastrophe.
But the visible activity at the summit hides a much starker reality. The very nations proclaiming moral leadership in tackling the climate crisis are also the ones doing most to sabotage a meaningful agreement to reduce humanity’s global carbon footprint.
A photo from the opening of COP26 showed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, warmly greeting US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But rather than fete them, we should treat this triumvirate as the big villains of the climate talks.
Their armed forces are the most polluting on the planet - and the goal at COP26 is to keep that fact a closely guarded secret.
Hidden from view
US expenditure on its military far outstrips that of any other country - except for Israel, when measured relative to population size. Although the UK trails behind, it still has the fifth largest military budget in the world, while its arms manufacturers busily supply weapons to countries others have shunned.
The US military alone is estimated to have a larger carbon footprint than most countries. It is widely assumed to be the world’s largest institutional consumer of crude oil.
And emissions from the West’s militaries and arms makers appear to be growing each year rather than shrinking - though no one can be certain because they are being actively hidden from view.
Washington insisted on an exemption from reporting on, and reducing, its military emissions at the Kyoto summit, 24 years ago. Unsurprisingly, everyone else jumped on that bandwagon.
Since the Paris summit of 2015, military emissions have been partially reported. But all too often the figures are disguised - lumped in with emissions from other sectors, such as transport.
And emissions from overseas operations - in the case of the US, 70 percent of its military activity - are excluded from the balance sheet entirely.
Conflicts and wars
Most of Europe has refused to come clean, too. France, with the continent’s most active military, reports none of its emissions.
According to research by Scientists for Global Responsibility, the UK’s military emissions were three times larger than those it reported - even after supply chains, as well as weapons and equipment production, were excluded. The military was responsible for the overwhelming majority of British government emissions.
And new technology, rather than turning the military green, is often making things much worse.
The latest fighter jet developed by the US, the F-35, is reported to burn 5,600 litres of fuel an hour. It would take 1,900 cars to guzzle a similar amount of fuel over the same period.
Norway, like many other countries, has been queuing up to get its hands on this new-generation jet. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen, the total emissions by the Norwegian military over the next decade will rise by 30 percent as a result of its F-35 purchases alone.
As well as discounting the environmental harm caused by military equipment procurement and supply chains, countries are also excluding the significant impacts of conflicts and wars.
Each year of the US occupation of Iraq that began in 2003, for example, is conservatively estimated to have generated emissions equivalent to putting an additional 25m cars on the road.
Military spending up
Unlike the farming and logging industries, or the manufacturing industries, or the fossil fuel industries, efforts to curb the growth in military spending - let alone reverse it - are off the table at the COP26 summit.
And for that, Washington has to take the major share of the blame.
Its “defence” budget already comprises about 40 percent of the $2tn spent annually on militaries worldwide. China and Russia - ostensibly the two bogeymen of the COP26 summit - lag far behind.
The government of Boris Johnson unveiled last year what it called “the biggest programme of investment in British defence since the end of the Cold War”. Britain is no outlier. After a short-lived “peace dividend” caused by the break-up of the Soviet Union, global military expenditure has been on an almost continuous upward trend since 1998, led by the US.
Paradoxically, the upturn began about the time western politicians began paying lip service to tackling “climate change” at the Kyoto summit.
US military spending has been rising steadily since 2018. It is set to continue doing so for at least another two decades - way past the deadline set by climate scientists for turning things around.
The same global upward trend has been fed by a surge in military expenditure by Middle Eastern countries - notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE - since 2013. That appears to reflect two trends rooted in Washington’s changing approach to the region.
First, as it has withdrawn its overstretched occupation forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has increasingly outsourced its military role to wealthy client states in this oil-rich region.
And second, as Israel and the Gulf states have been encouraged to forge closer military and intelligence ties against Iran, these same Gulf states have been allowed to play military catch-up with Israel. Its famed “qualitative military edge” is being gradually eroded.
Propping up this Middle East arms spree is the UK, which has been exporting to the Saudis, and the US, which heavily subsidises Israel’s military industries.
Power competition
All this means that, while western politicians promise to cut emissions at COP26, they are actually busy preparing to increase those emissions out of view. Ultimately, the problem is that little can be done to green our militaries, either substantively or through a greenwashing makeover. The military’s rationale is neither to be sustainable nor to be kind to the planet.
The arms manufacturers’ business model is to offer clients - from the Pentagon to every tinpot dictator - weapons and machines that are bigger, better or faster than their competitors. Aircraft carriers must be larger. Fighter jets quicker and more agile. And missiles more destructive.
Consumption and competition are at the heart of the military mission, whether armies are waging war or marketing their activities as purely “defensive”.
“Security”, premised on a fear of neighbours and rivals, can never be satiated. There is always another tank, plane or anti-missile system that can be purchased to create greater “deterrence”, to protect borders more effectively, to intimidate an enemy.
And war provides even greater reasons to consume more of the planet’s finite resources and wreak yet more harm on ecosystems. Lives are taken, buildings levelled, territories contaminated.
The UK has 145 military bases in 42 countries, securing what it perceives to be its “national interests”. But that is dwarfed by more than 750 US military bases spread over 80 countries. Shuffling off this energy-hungry power projection around the globe will be much harder than protecting forests or investing in green technology.
The US and its western allies would first have to agree to relinquish their grip on the planet’s energy resources, and to give up policing the globe in the interests of their transnational corporations.
It is precisely this full-spectrum power competition - economic, ideologic and military - that propelled us into the current climate disaster. Tackling it will require looking much deeper into our priorities than any leader at COP26 appears ready to do.
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