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16 August 21
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ast month, President Joe Biden announced that America’s “military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31st.” In the time since the July 8 statement, a Taliban offensive has overrun city after city across the country. On Sunday, the militant group entered the Afghan capital of Kabul, and several countries, including the United States, began to evacuate their embassies. As reports emerged that the Taliban had seized the presidential palace, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
“We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events. … But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world,” said the U.S. president.
But that president wasn’t Biden. It was Gerald Ford on April 23, 1975, as North Vietnamese forces rolled toward Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.
A two-decade American effort to turn South Vietnam into a noncommunist bulwark in Southeast Asia had failed. A million-man army long advised, financed, trained, and equipped by the United States was crumbling as South Vietnamese soldiers fled the front lines. They stripped off their uniforms and attempted to disappear into the civilian population.
“We can and we should help others to help themselves,” said Ford. “But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours.”
Last month, Biden echoed the same sentiments, putting the fate of Afghanistan squarely on the shoulders of the Afghan government and military. It is, he said, “the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
While the United States and its allies had propped up the Afghan government for the better part of two decades and had spent at least $83 billion to build, advise, train, and equip its faltering armed forces, Biden seemingly washed his and the rest of the U.S.’s hands of further responsibility. “We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools — let me emphasize: all the tools, training, and equipment of any modern military. We provided advanced weaponry,” he said.
The case was the same in South Vietnam. The United States had provided billions in high-tech weapons, but it hardly mattered as North Vietnamese forces rolled toward Saigon. The U.S.-backed “puppet troops,” as they were called by the North, melted away.
A week after Ford made his speech, South Vietnam ceased to exist. The United States’s military efforts in neighboring Cambodia and Laos fared no better. “Some tend to feel that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded in nothing anywhere. I reject categorically such polarized thinking,” Ford told the crowd at Tulane University. “America’s future depends upon Americans — especially your generation, which is now equipping itself to assume the challenges of the future, to help write the agenda for America.”
That new agenda could have included a complete reevaluation of U.S. foreign policy and a rejection of the ruinous national security strategy and reckless foreign interventions that led to America’s embarrassing defeats in Southeast Asia. Ford had demanded that “we accept the responsibilities of leadership as a good neighbor to all peoples and the enemy of none.” But in a few short years, the United States began a massive effort to saddle the Soviet Union with its own Vietnam War. It was one of the most aggressive campaigns ever mounted by the CIA, aiding guerrillas in Afghanistan and setting the stage for 9/11, the forever wars, and today’s Afghan collapse.
The years since have been typified by U.S. military interventions that yielded little, like the ruinous 1983 deployment of U.S. Marines to Beirut, the 1986 bombing of Libya, and, more recently, military setbacks, stalemates, and defeats from Iraq to Burkina Faso, Somalia to Libya, Mali to, again, Afghanistan. Victories, such as they are, have been confined to efforts in places like Grenada and Panama.
As he concluded his July 8 speech, Biden, like Ford before him, attempted to turn the page. “We have to defeat Covid-19 at home and around the world … [and] take concerted action to fight existential threats of climate change,” he asserted. The rapid rise in Covid-19 infections and deaths in the United States, paired with the devastating report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggests that meeting these challenges may be far more difficult than those the U.S. faced and failed in Afghanistan.
Taking questions from the press in July, Biden was asked if he saw “any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam.”
“None whatsoever. Zero,” he replied.
He was, in some way, right. The Afghan collapse was far more precipitous than that of the South Vietnamese armed forces. But Biden ignores the clear parallels between that past moment of defeat and the current one at his own peril and that of the United States as a whole. Ford’s 1975 speech was loaded with absurd rhetoric about the future, lacking any real attempt at redefining American foreign policy. Without a true reevaluation this time around, the U.S. risks falling into well-worn patterns that may, one day, make the military debacles in Southeast and Southwest Asia look terribly small.
Kristen Clarke, a longtime civil rights lawyer, now leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
US Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke is testifying in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing about voting rights legislation, as the House prepares to move forward a major element of Democrats' voting rights push.
Her prepared opening statement addressed provisions in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were gutted by Supreme Court in 2013. House Democrats are preparing to introduce legislation to revive the VRA's so-called "preclearance" regime, which, before the 2013 ruling, required localities with a history of racial voting discrimination to get the department's or a federal court's approval for election procedure changes.
Since that 2013 Supreme Court ruling, Clarke said Monday, according to her written testimony "We have seen an upsurge in changes to voting laws that make it more difficult for minority citizens to vote and that is even before we confront a round of decennial redistricting where jurisdictions may draw new maps that have the purpose of effect of diluting or retrogressing minority voting strength."
Her testimony called on Congress "to pass appropriate legislation that will restore and improve the Voting Rights Act, enhancing the department's ability to protect the right to vote in the twenty-first century and beyond."
Legislation to restore the preclearance process -- a bill known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act -- has long been in the works. That bill is in addition to the For the People Act, which would establish nationwide ballot access mandates like expanded mail voting and early voting, while requiring that states adopt independent redistricting commissions.
The For the People Act passed in the House but it is stalled in the Senate, while the John Lewis bill is expected to be taken up by the House later this month. Pieces of both bills are being considered in Senate negotiations for a voting rights package that would win the support of West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin. But even with his support, a filibuster by Senate Republicans will keep the voting rights legislation from reaching President Joe Biden's desk. Manchin and other Democratic centrists have balked at changing the filibuster rules.
Even in the face of the legislative obstacles, the Biden administration has made voting rights a top priority. Clarke, who started her legal practice as a career attorney in the DOJ's voting section, is one of three attorneys with deep voting rights experience that Biden appointed to top DOJ roles.
Clarke, in her testimony, emphasized the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act when the preclearance regime was fully functional. Under it, 3,000 voting changes were blocked for their discriminatory intent or effect between 1965 and 2013, according to her written testimony. Still, Clarke said, that was only one percent of all the changes the department considered, and jurisdictions were otherwise able "to institute new voting changes or rules without interference."
She reiterated what Attorney General Merrick Garland alluded to in a recent Washington Post op-ed: that while the Justice Department has the authority to challenge individual laws that threaten voting rights -- the DOJ sued the state of Georgia this summer -- case by case challenges aren't adequate since litigation is complex, requires vast resources, and is too time intensive to adequately address inequities fast enough.
Her testimony also addressed what the absence of a preclearance regime means for the coming redistricting cycle, which will be the first redistricting cycle since the 2013 Supreme Court decision.
"Without preclearance, the department will not have access to maps and other redistricting-related information from many jurisdictions where there is reason for concern," she said.
Taliban fighters ride a pick-up truck into Kabul. (photo: Reuters)
he U.S. has reached a deal with the Taliban to ensure that evacuations from Kabul's airport can take place without interference from the group, according to a report by The Associated Press.
The deal was reached in talks in Doha, Qatar, between senior Taliban officials and Gen. Frank McKenzie.
The two sides apparently agreed to a "deconfliction mechanism” in which operations at the airport in Kabul are permitted to continue without interference from the Taliban.
McKenzie reportedly told the Taliban that any interference would be met with force from the U.S. military, who would move to defend the airport if necessary.
Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that he would not discuss the specifics of McKenzie's conversation.
"But I can tell you that the general was very clear and firm in his discussions with Taliban leaders that any attack on our people or on our operations at the airport would be met swiftly with a very forceful response, and I think I'll leave it at that," Kirby added.
At least seven people are believed to have died at the Kabul airport since the Afghan government fell and hundreds of Afghans rushed to evacuate the country.
The American flag at the U.S. Embassy has been taken down and all U.S. personnel have reportedly been evacuated to the airport.
Video from the airport showed desperate Afghans running alongside and clinging to planes as they taxied.
The U.S. military temporarily suspended operations at the Kabul airport due to Afghans rushing on to the airfield. Around 3,500 U.S. Embassy personnel are still waiting to be evacuated at the airport, CNN reports.
"Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals," the Department of Defense and the State Department said in a joint statement.
"And we will accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Afghans eligible for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas, nearly 2,000 of whom have already arrived in the United States over the past two weeks."
Mitch McConnell. (photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
nly in the retiring, legacy-focused mind of Ron Portman, the pragmatic, back-slapping hands of Chuck Schumer, and the misty eyes of the ever-nostalgic Joe Biden is the $1 trillion infrastructure bill a triumph of bipartisanship.
A one-time truce hardly heralds an Age of Aquarius or makes Mitch McConnell a reasonable person. It means that the wily minority leader has taken advantage of Biden’s weakness for opposition buy-in to extract concessions that weaken the bill but increase its odds of passage. Now when McConnell kills everything else, he can dredge up the time he delivered his lordly self and 18 others as an alibi.
Forget that building things is a GOP priority too, since a new exit ramp or a bridge to somewhere is as close to apple pie and motherhood as it gets in Washington. It was decidedly in McConnell’s interest to send a honey pot of money to Republican states just before the 2022 election. Grateful voters could repay the favor by returning the 79-year old to the majority before it’s too late.
Prior to this burst of comity, McConnell was largely a thorn in Biden’s side. The minority leader whipped votes against a third stimulus payment of $1,400 that proved so popular that his members took credit for the checks they’d voted against when they went home on spring recess.
Now he’s making up for not sending a check by sending a bridge. But c’mon man, that doesn’t make Republicans bipartisan, it makes them opportunists. If Biden weren’t hung up on everyone getting along, infrastructure could have been wrapped into reconciliation and passed on a party-line vote. The amount appropriated would have ended up closer to Sanders’ six trillion dollars rather than the Republican’s one trillion since it could be passed without them.
That’s not to diminish the first infrastructure bill to pass in three decades, or Democrats’ brilliance in hanging together to the end. There’s nothing more concrete than concrete and pouring millions of cubic yards into a falling-down country is all to the good. It reassures our allies that the U.S. isn’t completely gridlocked or in the grip of a violent mob calling themselves patriots. The lights are on.
But patching our sorry roads and upgrading our antiquated railbeds is no Construction New Deal. This hardly moves the country into the 21st century, as any civil engineer, the non-partisan kind with a pencil protector and no axe to grind, would tell you.
Earlier this year, McConnell went full obstruction. But when his bold pledge to focus 100 percent of his effort "on stopping this new administration" did nothing to reduce Biden’s favorables, which remained stubbornly high, or raise McConnell’s, which stayed depressingly low.
McConnell softened his approach calling Biden “a first-rate person” despite being hampered by his “left wing.” Speaking in Kentucky he told an audience he was so close to Biden he attended Beau’s funeral. He even chose Joe as the one president he’d be happy to be stranded on a desert island with—imagine a man as buttoned-up as his Brooks Brothers shirt enduring as much as a short flight with one who can’t be quiet? Only Biden might believe it.
All in a day’s work for McConnell, who expressed shock at the insurrection right after the Capitol was invaded but miraculously recovered to insist there was nothing to impeach, or investigate, here. He embraced the Gang Of route for infrastructure, preferable to a traditional committee process where majority counsel would alert Democrats when they were getting rolled. Republicans took a slotted spoon to the Democrats’ rich stew, skimmed out the truffles, not entirely a bad thing, but then proceeded to remove meat and bones. With the gruel suitably thinned, from $3 trillion to $1 trillion, McConnell, in a flash of cooperation, rounded up 19 yeas, including his.
You can’t credit bipartisanship for victory when Democrats could have passed the bill on their own and Republicans couldn’t be solidly opposed to something that 62 percent of Americans wanted. The GOP blew it on stimulus checks; they didn’t want to blow it again by withholding funds to fix buckling highways with weeds popping through the cracks.
Biden weakens his hand when he speaks nostalgically of reaching so far across the aisle he was asked to speak at Strom Thurmond’s funeral. His quest to prove he can attract Republican “friends” today is futile when most of those friends go along with the lie that he’s an illegitimate president.
Place your bets on who’s going to rack up more successes leading up to the midterms: Biden, who eulogized a notorious segregationist to show his bipartisanship, or McConnell, who faked his own show by delivering billions in federal funds for his members, laid the groundwork for saying no to everything else, and garnered credit for magnanimity in the process?
As a bonus he opened a smidgen of daylight between him and Trump by cementing his relationship with the bloc of 50-year old white guys in Ford-150s who love a smooth ride on fresh asphalt. The ex-president lashed out at McConnell and said he’ll never “understand why” he “allowed this non-infrastructure bill to be passed.”
Add that to so many things Trump doesn’t understand and you’ll get an idea of why he’s ranting from Bedminster and McConnell is speaking from the well of the Senate. McConnell explained that in searching for “an area of potential agreement,” he couldn’t “think of a better one than infrastructure.” And you can bet he never will.
Biden has to face it: The most partisan minority leader in memory doesn’t want to play nice with him any more than he wants the two to share an island.
It only took a few hours after the infrastructure vote for McConnell to revert to his true south, calling Democrats’ proposed budget a “reckless, partisan, taxing and spending spree” that would “shatter President Biden's promise of no middle-class tax hikes.” He also signaled he would be voting against the routine raising of the debt ceiling that would leave the U.S. defaulting on its obligations for the first time ever. Also, he’s just not that into protecting voting rights.
There’s nothing left but to end the filibuster. In one fell swoop Biden could fix half the potholes in government. The last person to filibuster for a really good cause was Jimmy Stewart, and that was in a movie 82 years ago. These days it’s more likely to be Ted Cruz reading Green Eggs and Ham or someone saying he’s calling a filibuster—and he’ll be at a fundraiser at the Capitol Grill if anyone needs him.
The founding fathers hoped for a more perfect union but planned for an imperfect one of majority rule. They did not enshrine the filibuster in the constitution, it’s just a rule that can be changed, like the one that disallows “disturbing another in his speech” by spitting.
A one-vote majority was good enough for the founders. Mr. President, let it be good enough for you.
Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump climb on walls at the U.S. Capitol during a protest against the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Reuters)
The defendant, Eduard Florea, also admitted to storing a large collection of ammunition at his home in the New York City borough of Queens.
Florea, 41, a software engineer and father of two, entered his plea at a remote hearing before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said Florea used the moniker "LoneWolfWar" on Parler, a social media platform used by conservatives, to make threats before and during the riot, where supporters of Republican then-President Donald Trump tried to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election win.
Florea, who did not attend the riot, allegedly referred to current Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia as a "dead" man.
Prosecutors said he also wrote while the Capitol was under siege: "I am awaiting my orders ... armed and ready to deploy" and "It's time to unleash some violence."
An FBI search of Florea's home in Queens later uncovered more than 900 rounds of ammunition, 72 military-style combat knives, two hatchets and two swords, prosecutors said. read more
Federal guidelines recommend that Florea spend 15 to 21 months in prison, but prosecutors intend to seek a longer term at his sentencing, scheduled Nov. 29. The defendant has been detained in a Brooklyn jail since January.
Florea's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A remote public connection to Monday's hearing failed before Florea entered his plea.
The Proud Boys are a far-right group that has supported violence and endorsed Trump. read more
Federal prosecutors in Washington said this month they were in preliminary talks with several Proud Boys defendants on possible pleas. [nL1N2P929Q}
More than 570 people have been charged in connection with the riot. Trump has falsely claimed that Biden's win resulted from widespread voting fraud.
Damage in Les Cayes, Haiti, on Sunday, caused by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. (photo: Ralph Tedy Erol/EPA/EFE/Shutterstock)
ALSO SEE: A Gang War Is Messing Up Earthquake Relief in Haiti
e go to Haiti for an update on the humanitarian situation after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s southwestern peninsula Saturday. The government has declared a state of emergency and says nearly 1,300 people have died and more than 5,700 are injured. Rescue workers are scrambling to find survivors as Tropical Storm Grace is expected to bring heavy rains to the island. Tens of thousands of people in devastated areas are now sleeping on the streets due to unstable buildings that could still collapse amid aftershocks. “It’s just one more item in a very, very long list of traumatic events that the people of Haiti are sustaining,” says Nadesha Mijoba, country director for the Haitian Health Foundation, in Jérémie, near the epicenter of the earthquake. We also speak with Ann Lee, chief executive officer of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort, who says the earthquake is exposing a larger problem of a “lack of systems and investment in existing systems.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to Haiti, where the government has declared a state of emergency after a major 7.2 magnitude earthquake, which hit Haiti’s southwestern peninsula Saturday. Haitian officials say at least 1,300 people have died; close to 6,000 are injured. Rescue workers are scrambling to find survivors as Tropical Storm Grace is barreling towards Haiti, expecting to bring heavy rains. Tens of thousands of people in the devastated areas are now sleeping on the streets due to unstable buildings that could still collapse amidst the aftershocks.
This comes a month after Haiti was plunged into further political turmoil following the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse. On Sunday, Prime Minister Ariel Henry suggested an election set for November could be delayed. Henry had declared a month-long state of emergency in some of Haiti’s provinces.
PRIME MINISTER ARIEL HENRY: [translated] We have declared a state of emergency in the west, the south, Nippes and the province of Grand’Anse. We have a medical emergency. The Health Ministry started distribution of medicines in the hospitals.
AMY GOODMAN: Prime Minister Henry also appealed to international donors to do a better job helping Haiti than they did after the devastating 2010 earthquake that left more than 300,000 people dead.
PRIME MINISTER ARIEL HENRY: [translated] In this crisis, we want more appropriate responses than those we received after the 2010 earthquake. All aid that will come from outside the country must go through Civil Protection. I do not want aid to arrive in a disorderly manner, where everyone decides what they want.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by two guests in Haiti. In Jérémie, near the epicenter of the earthquake, we’re joined by Nadesha Mijoba, country director for Haitian Health Foundation. And in Port-au-Prince, Ann Lee, CEO and co-founder of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Nadesha, let’s begin with you. You are right there. Jérémie has been devastated, Les Cayes. Can you describe the scene on the ground?
NADESHA MIJOBA: A lot of destruction, a lot of houses destroyed. The cathedral in downtown Jérémie has sustained a lot of damage. People are — the best way for me to describe it — traumatized, terribly scared. You mentioned people are sleeping outside in the streets, but it’s not only because many are homeless — and, in fact, many are homeless — but there are many, many people that have decided to sleep out in the streets out of fear because of the many aftershocks that have been felt and more destruction and that their houses are going to come down on them. Interestingly so, last night, one of our main compounds, we had staff and other members of the community literally sleeping on the grass of the compound yard.
AMY GOODMAN: I remember this so well from just after the earthquake in 2010, when everyone was sleeping outside. Nadesha Mijoba, can you describe the moment of the earthquake and where you were, for example, and what people did at that moment?
NADESHA MIJOBA: Well, it has to be admitted that it was fortunate that it was about 8:30 — or, it was 8:29 in the morning, where most people were outside of their home, thankful to the fact that many go to the church, many go out to the market, etc. So, that, I suppose, was helpful in the sense that we don’t have a lot more devastation that is already in existence.
The issue of the earthquake, it has to be said, is just like one more item in a very, very long list of traumatic events that the people of Haiti are sustaining. So, there was a lot of shaking of the ground, a lot of things flying, people running, of course, out into the streets screaming. Yeah, it’s a horrifying scene to see.
AMY GOODMAN: The mayor of Les Cayes, among many others, was also killed in the earthquake, is that right? And describe, for people who are not familiar with Haiti, the southern peninsula — Les Cayes, Jérémie — how connected it is to the rest of the country.
NADESHA MIJOBA: Well, Cayes and Jérémie are in the southern peninsula of Haiti. And, for example, Jérémie is about eight — about six to eight hours driving from Port-au-Prince and about an hour by plane, and it’s about an hour and a half connected to Cayes, which is the largest next city to us in Jérémie. And it’s about three hours, four hours, from the city of Cayes to Port-au-Prince. And it’s connected by a main highway, not what you would think of a highway in the U.S., but a main road from Port-au-Prince to Cayes, and then another one road from Cayes to Jérémie.
It must be said that the road between Cayes and Jérémie right now sustained a lot of destruction. The bridge to enter Jérémie has been damaged, which means at this time Jérémie is disconnected from the rest of the country. So all the aid at this time needs to come in via either airplane or by sea. Cayes, the road is open to Cayes, thankfully, and aid is arriving there. Also must be said that the situation in Cayes appears to be a lot more severe than that of Jérémie. They really sustained a lot of damage. And a lot of the dead thus far [no audio] —
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Nadesha Mijoba, who is country director of Haitian Health Foundation. Go ahead, Nadesha.
NADESHA MIJOBA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you one other question. The corporate media in the United States immediately focused on, they say, “And then people immediately started looting.”
NADESHA MIJOBA: Also very fragile.
AMY GOODMAN: I think — I think it would be very differently described in the United States, when people are desperate, after there was an earthquake, going for necessary supplies. How would you describe it?
NADESHA MIJOBA: Well, that’s my biggest concern right now, the humanitarian disaster that is about to unfold. You know, the situation here was fragile to begin with. Over the last year, the number of acute malnourished children has grown to about 61% across the country, given the sociopolitical situation that the country has experienced over the last year. And the gang violence taking place in the Martissant area has made it very difficult for supply trucks to come into the Jérémie or even the southern peninsula of Haiti. So, the markets here were fragile to begin with, the access to supply, the access to food items, not to mention the costs of those food items, because everything, when it does come in, has to come in under a lot of security, which creates, you know, an additional cost to the vendors.
So, the situation is quite critical at this time. And now with the storm coming, I am petrified what that is going to do to the health of the community, the amount of rain that is going to come down. I can envision a lot of hungry, malnourished people, a lot of respiratory conditions, diarrhea, skin conditions, with the deterioration of the hygiene situation. So, yes, it’s not something that you envision, going to a market anywhere else, or, rather, the little markets are quite fragile right now. Unfortunately, there is some violence that is unfolding, as well, in some of the little towns in the area. So, I think the critical nature of responding is going to have an impact on what unfolds over the next few days.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go from Nadesha Mijoba in Jérémie, the country director of the Haitian Health Foundation, to Ann Lee, the CEO and co-founder of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort. She is in Port-au-Prince right now. Ann Lee, talk about the state of the hospitals right now, both at the epicenter and around it. I mean, you have a country that is so hard hit, this impending storm that’s barreling down on Haiti right now, this massive earthquake and, of course, a country devastated by COVID.
ANN LEE: What we’re seeing right now is really an uncovering of the long-term disaster, which is the lack of systems and the investment in existing systems. The hospitals right now are overrun. There’s shortages of basic materials, of bandages, of alcohol, of medical professionals.
For us, right now what we ask for, as people see this unfold from the comfort of their homes, is to understand that, you know, Haiti has been, over so many decades, struggling with these external shocks, and the last thing we need are short-term responses. We need to invest in these systems, groups like HHF, GHESKIO, Partners in Health. These long-term health networks are what we need to invest in, and supporting them through materials, through additional surge capacity of medical professionals. We have to work through these systems, and not in parallel. And that’s what I hope that folks who are watching this unfold can understand, that all the help and assistance we need has to be long-term and to continue to support what’s down there, the systems that are down there.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk specifically, for example, about the hospitals now, those who have been — well, they’re still looking for bodies, but also for survivors, the airports being used as hospitals.
ANN LEE: There’s a number of locations right now where we have our medical mobile units, and, essentially, they’re creating mini field triage centers. They don’t have the capacity to take on very, very hurt individuals, but are able to kind of triage. But this is happening on the lawns of existing hospitals or even in any green space that they can find.
Right now, again, materials getting down to the south has been very difficult. The supply chain, again, as HHF has well stated, has been cut not just because of the landslides and the broken bridges, but also with the insecurity, to be able to cross through cities, who are also frustrated for not getting support, are creating road blockages. So, again, supply lines are being cut. And so, the need to get these supplies to these hospitals are so critically important. Air support, sea support, all those things are critically needed from external supporters.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, there was a cholera outbreak after the earthquake, and it ended up it was from U.N. workers who were there, and it led to a complete devastation of Haiti. Your concerns right now? And we just have 30 seconds, Ann.
ANN LEE: We need to learn from 2010. We need to learn that we have to, essentially, do no harm and think about building the systems and working within existing networks that are already on the ground, these local groups and the existing networks that are there, and not try to jump in and, essentially, do more harm than good.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will continue, of course, to cover what’s unfolding, this catastrophe in Haiti. Ann Lee, CEO and co-founder of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort. And again, thanks to Nadesha Mijoba, country director, Haitian Health Foundation, speaking to us from Jérémie. Ann Lee, in Port-au-Prince.
That does it for our show. Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, MarÃa Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Adriano Contreras. Our general manager is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley. I’m Amy Goodman.
Temperatures in Death Valley, Calif., may have reached record highs this July. (photo: Bridget Bennet/Reuters)
he National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US said on Friday that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded globally.
"July is typically the world's warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded. This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe," said Rick Spinrad, administrator of NOAA.
How Hot Was It?
NOAA said the average global temperature this July was 16.73 degrees Celsius(62.07 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding the previous record set in July 2016 by .01 degree Celsius.
NOAA climatologist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo said land temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere, with heatwaves in North America and parts of Europe, pushed the mercury past the record.
The last seven Julys from 2015 to 2021 have been the hottest ever, in 142 years of recordkeeping, Sanchez-Lugo added.
Although temperature data released by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service showed 2021 as third hottest July ever recorded, Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based research center, told AFP news agency that data differences among agencies is not unusual.
"The NOAA record has more limited coverage over the Arctic than other global temperature records," he said.
'Clear Impact' of Climate Change
"Regardless of exactly where it ends up on the leaderboards, the warmth the world is experiencing this summer is a clear impact of climate change," Hausfather said.
"The extreme events we are seeing worldwide — from record-shattering heat waves to extreme rainfall to raging wildfires — are all long-predicted and well understood impacts of a warmer world. They will continue to get more severe until the world cuts its emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases down to net-zero," he added.
A report released by the UN last week issued a red alert for climate goals, are "nowhere close" to achieving the 1.5-degree target set during the Paris climate agreement.
Earlier this week during a heatwave in the Mediterranean region, a temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit) was reported in Sicily, which if officially confirmed, would be the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe.
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