#foreign policy

septictankie:

Are Vaccine Boosters Widely Needed? Some Federal Advisers Have Misgivings.

“In interviews last week, several advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to the Food and Drug Administration said data show that, with the exception of adults over age 65, the vast majority of Americans are already well protected against severe illness and do not need booster shots.

“All the advisers acknowledged that they were obligated to make difficult choices, based on sparse research, in the middle of a public health emergency. But some said they felt compelled to vote for the shots because of the way the federal agencies framed the questions that they were asked to consider.”

Frustrated Biden officials are hoping to simplify the message on Covid-19 boosters

“Biden and his team are loathe to recommend against indoor holiday gatherings for another year, mindful that Americans are growing increasingly exhausted from pandemic-related restrictions.

“So, too, are Biden and his team mindful of not signaling an end to the pandemic after prematurely declaring ‘freedom from the virus’ over the summer. A subsequent surge due to the highly contagious Delta variant caused a return of mask requirements and closures, and led many Americans to sour on how Biden was handling the crisis.

“Once a bright spot in his poll numbers, more Americans now disapprove of Biden’s handling of the pandemic (49%) than approve (47%), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week.”

COVID-19 vaccine boosters could mean billions for drugmakers

“Most of the vaccinations so far in the U.S. have come from Pfizer, which developed its shot with Germany’s BioNTech, and Moderna. They have inoculated about 99 million and 68 million people, respectively. Johnson & Johnson is third with about 14 million people.

“No one knows yet how many people will get the extra shots. But Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects boosters alone to bring in about $26 billion in global sales next year for Pfizer and BioNTech and around $14 billion for Moderna if they are endorsed for nearly all Americans.”

WHO reiterates warning against Covid boosters for healthy people as U.S. weighs wide distribution of third shots

“The WHO strongly opposes the widespread rollout of booster shots, asking that wealthier nations instead give extra doses to countries with minimal vaccination rates. The U.S. has already administered over 2 million third doses nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended boosters on Friday for anyone 65 and older.

…

“”WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sept. 14 that most countries with under 2% vaccination coverage are in Africa, where less than 3.5% of the continent’s eligible population is fully inoculated against Covid. Africa will likely miss the WHO’s target of a 10% vaccination rate by the end of the year, Tedros added.”

To be clear, I am 100% in favor of vaccinations and don’t even begrudge people getting boosters since ordinary people don’t decide who is getting vaccines.

But I am convinced the reasons everyone in wealthy countries is getting boosters are politics and profit, while millions of people in the Global South still haven’t received a single dose.

Are Vaccine Boosters Widely Needed? Some Federal Advisers Have Misgivings.

“In interviews last week, several advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to the Food and Drug Administration said data show that, with the exception of adults over age 65, the vast majority of Americans are already well protected against severe illness and do not need booster shots.

“All the advisers acknowledged that they were obligated to make difficult choices, based on sparse research, in the middle of a public health emergency. But some said they felt compelled to vote for the shots because of the way the federal agencies framed the questions that they were asked to consider.”

Frustrated Biden officials are hoping to simplify the message on Covid-19 boosters

“Biden and his team are loathe to recommend against indoor holiday gatherings for another year, mindful that Americans are growing increasingly exhausted from pandemic-related restrictions.

“So, too, are Biden and his team mindful of not signaling an end to the pandemic after prematurely declaring ‘freedom from the virus’ over the summer. A subsequent surge due to the highly contagious Delta variant caused a return of mask requirements and closures, and led many Americans to sour on how Biden was handling the crisis.

“Once a bright spot in his poll numbers, more Americans now disapprove of Biden’s handling of the pandemic (49%) than approve (47%), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week.”

COVID-19 vaccine boosters could mean billions for drugmakers

“Most of the vaccinations so far in the U.S. have come from Pfizer, which developed its shot with Germany’s BioNTech, and Moderna. They have inoculated about 99 million and 68 million people, respectively. Johnson & Johnson is third with about 14 million people.

“No one knows yet how many people will get the extra shots. But Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects boosters alone to bring in about $26 billion in global sales next year for Pfizer and BioNTech and around $14 billion for Moderna if they are endorsed for nearly all Americans.”

WHO reiterates warning against Covid boosters for healthy people as U.S. weighs wide distribution of third shots

“The WHO strongly opposes the widespread rollout of booster shots, asking that wealthier nations instead give extra doses to countries with minimal vaccination rates. The U.S. has already administered over 2 million third doses nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended boosters on Friday for anyone 65 and older.

…

“”WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sept. 14 that most countries with under 2% vaccination coverage are in Africa, where less than 3.5% of the continent’s eligible population is fully inoculated against Covid. Africa will likely miss the WHO’s target of a 10% vaccination rate by the end of the year, Tedros added.”

A damning new report shows that one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine makers appears to have played a role in restricting access to those very vaccines. The report, “Pfizer’s Power,” published this week by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, examines Pfizer’s contracts with the United States, United Kingdom, European Commission, Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic and Peru. They offer a rare glimpse into the power Pfizer has to silence governments, throttle supply, shift risk and maximize profits in the middle of a public health crisis.

Pfizer’s Power

A Billionaires’ World

com-intern:

Not-So-Great-Powers | Rafia Zakaria

“Human connection, care, and concern are wonderful feelings which sustain humanity. Ukraine deserves all the empathy we can provide, but empathy is not a zero-sum game, and the lessons of the present can and should change American interpretations of the past. For decades, some Europeans imagined that they had evolved beyond war, that their evolved humanity had arrived at an epoch where the garishness of armed conflict was simply impossible. As Afghans and Iraqis could have told anyone who cared to ask, there has been no giant leap in human evolution; war is still grisly, bombs still kill, and babies are born nevertheless in subway stations in Kyiv and tiny village hovels in Helmand.”

com-intern:

Africans living in Ukraine say they were stuck for days at crossings into neighboring EU countries, held up by Ukrainian authorities who pushed them to the ends of long lines and even beat them, while letting Ukrainians through.

Africans Say Ukrainian Authorities Hindered Them From Fleeing

com-intern:

Noam Chomsky on NATO expansion

Back to the war after a word from our sponsors!

com-intern:

Afghanistan Exemplifies the Depravity of U.S. Foreign Policy

“Two-thirds of the Afghan population is under 25 years old. That means most Afghans either were not yet born or were too young to remember 9/11. Remember also that most of the hijackers were Saudi, and none were Afghan. The U.S. is collectively punishing—with starvation and theft—an entire group of people who were not even alive for a crime their country did not commit.”

A divisive sickness plagued the kingdom. Generations, classes, races, turning on each other. They died not all, but all were sick. At last the Afghan Hound was called upon to unite the provinces and quieten discontent.

“My dear friends”, she said, “I think these trials show that heaven intend to tell us that we will need to build a country that works, not for a privileged few, but for every one of us. So let us find the one of us whose crimes are worst to draw the lightning on his head alone and, hopefully, at one stroke atone for all. For history teaches that in times of crisis, one often makes these sacrifices. So search your consciences, look deep inside; reveal the ugly thing you always thought to hide. Hold nothing back, wipe clean the slate: a public confession is good for the state!”

“I have insulted great nations and foreign statesmen, volunteered the Orangutan. Had they harmed me at all? No, not in any way. So that was wrong, of course. But wait - there is more. I must admit that sometimes it occurred that, inadvertently, I lied and mislead my fellow animals about those nations and about international alliances”.

“Oh, Sire,” said the Afghan Hound, “We have the best of kings, whose scruples show his noble soul. But, I ask, why was mocking other countries a sin? Those low, retarded things were honoured when you made fun of them. And, I observe, this international alliance got what such meddling, bureaucratic organisations deserve. The European Union, exploiters all.”  

My attempt at fable writing is heavily indebted to the 17th century French writer Jean de la Fontaine, particularly ‘The Animals Stricken with the Plague’. The italics were lifted from Elizur WrightandCraig Hill’s translations of his work. Like many of his contemporaries, La Fontaine used animals to criticise the monarchy and the unfairness of the justice system.

In ‘The Animals…’, the lion-king gathers the animal kingdom to discover out who is responsible for the plague that has struck his state. Each animal, from the most to the least powerful, lists its sins. All are forgiven until we reach the poor, feeble ass, who owns up to having eaten a whole field of grass, a laughable transgression compared with the human and animal deaths acknowledged by fellow mammals. But the ass has no backing, no one dependent on his power, so he is condemned to death, which La Fontaine uses to illustrate his point that “human courts acquit the strong, and doom the weak, as therefore wrong.”

I have been thinking about this fable since Wednesday evening, when the new British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. My biggest issue with Boris Johnson isn’t that he supported Brexit. Rather, it is his repeated and well-documented insults against foreign powers. A few hours before nominating him, May had declared, on the steps of 10 Downing Street, that she would prioritise “not the mighty nor the wealthy nor the privileged” but the working class.

Yet giving Johnston the Foreign & Commonwealth Office immediately negated the spirit of her speech. You have to be extremely privileged to be handed a top foreign policy job despite repeatedly making fun of foreign states and dignitaries. Many FCO staffers Johnson addressed the next day would probably see their careers seriously hindered, if not terminated, had they made, on the record, even half of Johnson’s comments. The political court has, for now at least, acquitted the mighty, wealthy and privileged Johnson.

Not only is the NSA listening to private American phone calls and reading private American emails, but they’re actively lying about it.

Written by Glenn Greenwald for the Intercept:

Paul explained how the NSA routinely and deliberately spies on Americans’ communications — listens to their calls and reads their emails — without a judicial warrant of any kind:

The way it works is, the FISA court, through Section 702, wiretaps foreigners and then [NSA] listens to Americans. It is a backdoor search of Americans. And because they have so much data, they can tap — type Donald Trump into their vast resources of people they are tapping overseas, and they get all of his phone calls.

And so they did this to President Obama. They — 1,227 times eavesdrops on President Obama’s phone calls. Then they mask him. But here is the problem. And General Hayden said this the other day. He said even low-level employees can unmask the caller. That is probably what happened to Flynn.

They are not targeting Americans. They are targeting foreigners. But they are doing it purposefully to get to Americans.

Paul’s explanation is absolutely correct. That the NSA is empowered to spy on Americans’ communications without a warrant — in direct contravention of the core Fourth Amendment guarantee that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause” — is the dirty little secret of the U.S. Surveillance State.

As I documented at the height of the controversy over the Snowden reporting, top government officials — including President Obama — constantly deceived (and still deceive) the public by falsely telling them that their communications cannot be monitored without a warrant. Responding to the furor created over the first set of Snowden reports about domestic spying, Obama sought to reassure Americans by telling Charlie Rose: “What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls … by law and by rule, and unless they … go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause.”

Read the entire article here.

Rand Paul: “This legislation will strengthen our foreign policy, enhance our national security, and safeguard our resources.”

Written by the Office of Senator Rand Paul:

This week, U.S. Senator Rand Paul introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists Act (S. 532) to prevent American taxpayers’ money from being used to directly or indirectly support armed militants who are allied with or often working under the command of al-Qaeda, ISIS, or other terrorist groups. The legislation serves as a companion bill to H.R. 608, which Representative Tulsi Gabbard (HI-2) reintroduced in January.

“One of the unintended consequences of nation-building and open-ended intervention is American funds and weapons benefiting those who hate us,” said Dr. Paul. “This legislation will strengthen our foreign policy, enhance our national security, and safeguard our resources.”

“For years, the U.S. government has been supporting armed militant groups working directly with and often under the command of terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government. Rather than spending trillions of dollars on regime change wars in the Middle East, we should be focused on defeating terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, and using our resources to invest in rebuilding our communities here at home,” said Rep. Gabbard. “The fact that American taxpayer dollars are being used to strengthen the very terrorist groups we should be focused on defeating should alarm every Member of Congress and every American. We call on our colleagues and the Administration to join us in passing this legislation.”

You can read S. 532, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, HERE, and you can find more information below:

S. 532, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act:

• Makes it illegal for any U.S. federal government funds to be used to provide assistance covered in the bill, including weapons, munitions, weapons platforms, intelligence, logistics, training, and cash, to terrorists.

• Prohibits the U.S. government from providing such assistance covered in the bill to any nation that has given or continues to give such support to terrorists.

• Instructs the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to determine the individuals and groups that should be considered terrorists, for the purposes of this bill, by determining: (a) the individuals and groups that are associated with, affiliated with, adherents to, or cooperating with al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or ISIS; (b) the countries that are providing assistance covered in this bill to those individuals or groups.

• Anticipates changing conditions by requiring the DNI to work with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Armed Services Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence to review and update the list of prohibited countries and groups every six months.

• Provides for accountability and transparency by requiring the DNI to brief Congress on its determinations.

Only read 29 books this year, well short of my usual goal. Focused more on history and foreign policy in Asia - Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Far East. I didn’t read much fiction this year, but I did read The Witch Who Came in From the Cold, a good book about spies, good witches and bad witches set against the backdrop of the Cold War.

No Saloon in the Valley by James Ivy

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey

The Snowden Files by Luke Harding

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

The Challenges to Democracy by Murray Havens

The Trouble Makers by A. J. P. Taylor

The Secret State by John Hughes-Wilson

Deadly Little Secrets by Kathryn Casey

The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom by John Pomfret

A Great Place to Have a War by Joshua Kurlantzick

Dereliction of Duty by H. R. McMaster

Powerplay by Victor Cha

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaSalle

Pacific: The Ocean of the Future by Simon Winchester

Hiroshima by John Hersey

Ike’s Gamble by Michael Doran

America’s War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew Bacevich

Deep State, Vol. 1 by Justin Jordan

Terror in France by Gilles Kepel

The Witch Who Came in From the Cold by Lindsay Smith, et al

The Terror Years by Lawrence Wright

Afghanistan by Martin Ewans

The Great Gamble by Gregory Feifer

Bloodlines by Melissa del Bosque

The Khyber Pass by Paddy Docherty

The Templars by Dan Jones

Hannibal by Patrick Hunt

Caliphate by Hugh Kennedy

The Caliphate by Thomas W. Arnold

Happy New Year everyone. Taking a look back at my 2018 reading list. Read 33 books this year; up from last year, but still short of my goal. Still, some good reads from the past year:

The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk

Cibola Burn by James S. A. Corey

The Resurgence of Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

Setting the East Ablaze by Peter Hopkirk

Pimp by Iceberg Slim

Trespassers on the Roof of the World by Peter Hopkirk

JFK’s Forgotten Crisis by Bruce Riedel

Taliban by Ahmed Rashid

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Smiley’s People by John Le Carre

Tournament of Shadows by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac

Call for the Dead by John Le Carre

Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman

Moonraker by Ian Fleming

War on Peace by Ronan Farrow

Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

Preacher, Volume 5: Dixie Fried by Garth Ennis

Preacher, Volume 6: War in the Sun by Garth Ennis

Preacher, Volume 7: Salvation by Garth Ennis

Preacher, Volume 8: All Hell’s a-Coming  by Garth Ennis

Preacher, Volume 9: Alamo by Garth Ennis

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

George Blake: Double Agent by Edward Cookridge

The King in Yellow by I. N. J. Culbard and Robert W. Chambers

A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind by Michael Axworthy

Hezbollah: A Short History by Augustus Richard Norton

The Eye of The World by Robert Jordan

Destined for War by Graham Allison

The Good Spy by Kai Bird

LikeWar by Peter Singer and Emerson Brooking

The Hell of Good Intentions by Stephen M. Walt