WITH TRUMP APPROVAL, PENTAGON EXPANDS WARFIGHTING AUTHORITY

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By LOLITA C. BALDOR

Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa.

This week it was Somalia, where President Donald Trump gave the U.S. military more authority to conduct offensive airstrikes on al-Qaida-linked militants. Next week it could be Yemen, where military leaders want to provide more help for the United Arab Emirates' battle against Iranian-backed rebels. Key decisions on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are looming, from ending troop number limits to loosening rules that guide commanders in the field.

The changes in Trump's first two months in office underscore his willingness to let the Pentagon manage its own day-to-day combat. Under the Obama administration, military leaders chafed about micromanagement that included commanders needing approval for routine tactical decisions about targets and personnel moves.

But delegating more authority to the Pentagon - and combat decisions to lower level officers - carries its own military and political risks. Casualties, of civilians and American service members, may be the biggest.

The deepening involvement in counterinsurgency battles, from the street-by-street battles being fought in Iraq right now to clandestine raids in Yemen and elsewhere, increases the chances of U.S. troops dying. 

Such tragedies could raise the ire of the American public and create political trouble with Congress at a time when the Trump administration is trying to finish off the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and broaden efforts against similarly inspired groups.

Similarly, allowing lower level commanders to make more timely airstrike decisions in densely populated areas like the streets of Mosul, Iraq, can result in more civilian deaths. The U.S. military already is investigating several bombings in Mosul in mid-March that witnesses say killed at least 100 people. And it is considering new tactics and precautions amid evidence suggesting extremists are smuggling civilians into buildings and then baiting the U.S.-led coalition into attacking.

Alice Hunt Friend, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cited yet another concern: Military operations becoming "divorced from overall foreign policy" could make both civilian leaders and the military vulnerable to runaway events.

"Political leaders can lose control of military campaigns," she warned.

But top military leaders say they need to be able to act quicker against U.S. enemies. And they've been staunchly supported by Trump, who has promised to pursue Islamic extremists more aggressively and echoed the view of Pentagon leaders that the Obama administration's tight control over military operations limited effectiveness.

Explaining his request for more leeway in Somalia against al-Shabab militants, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, told Congress this month that more flexibility and "timeliness" in decision-making process was necessary.

Approved by Trump on Wednesday, it was hardly the first military expansion.

The Defense Department has quietly doubled the number of U.S. forces in Syria. It has moved military advisers closer to front lines in Iraq. It has publicly made the case for more troops in Afghanistan.

The White House is tentatively scheduled this coming week to discuss providing intelligence, refueling and other assistance to U.A.E. as it fights Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to officials who weren't authorized to speak about a confidential meetings and demanded anonymity.

Some changes are happening with little fanfare. While there is limited American appetite for large-scale deployments in Iraq and Syria, additions are coming incrementally, in the hundreds of forces, not the thousands.

The result may be confusing for the public. Trump hasn't eliminated Obama's troop number limits. Thus, the caps of 503 for Syria and 5,262 for Iraq are still in effect.

But the military is ignoring them with White House approval and using an already-existing loophole to categorize deployments as temporary. For example, several hundred Marines and soldiers were recently sent to Syria to assist U.S.-backed Syria forces, including in the fight to retake IS' self-declared capital of Raqqa. All were deemed temporary so not counted against the cap.

On Friday, the Pentagon said that officially there are 5,262 U.S. troops in Iraq even as officials privately acknowledge at least a couple thousand more there.

It's still early in the Trump administration. And as the White House juggles complex details of several military campaigns, it is dealing with tax reform, its health care repeal failure, partisan infighting and expanding investigations into possible Russian ties to his presidential campaign. Observers say the expanding military power may reflect the administration's limited "bandwidth" at the moment.

But the military wants some decisions quickly.

Iraqi forces are trying to complete the recapture of Mosul, IS' stronghold, and more American advisers closer to the battle can help. U.S.-backed fighters are closing in on Raqqa and the Pentagon is pushing to accelerate the effort. Conducting both operations at the same time, the Pentagon argues, will put a lot of pressure on IS.

Anti-Putin protesters plan next move as jailed opponent considers election bid

Alexei Navalny was hauled into court, and then a cell, after last Sunday’s protests. Now Russia’s youth, raised on digital media, may decide the future

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By Shaun Walker

“Nobody is scared of going to jail, but we have work to do,” said Kira Yarmysh, spokeswoman for Alexei Navalny, as she waited for the Russian opposition politician to be delivered to court for an appeal hearing on Thursday.

Navalny, who was marched to his hearing handcuffed to a stout police officer, saw his appeal rejected, and will spend the next week behind bars, serving out a 15-day sentence after he was arrested at last weekend’s protest in Moscow, one of more than 1,000 people detained by police in the capital alone.

There were protests in dozens of Russian cities last Sunday, called by Navalny over allegations of corruption against prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.

They were the biggest since a wave of protests in 2011 and 2012, and for the first time since that wave was crushed there is an air of uncertainty on the Russian political scene.

Navalny, a nationalist turned liberal who has published several investigations into the huge wealth of Valdimir Putin’s inner circle, has declared he wants to run in the election due next March. Putin is widely expected to stand again, and win another six-year term, which would take him to 2024 and almost a quarter-century of rule over Russia.

But after last week’s events both the authorities and the opposition have much on their minds. The Kremlin has to decide whether to launch a crackdown or try to weather the storm, while Navalny and his movement must work out how far they can push the Kremlin.

In the weeks prior to the protest, Navalny toured a number of Russian cities to set up volunteer headquarters to help run his campaign.

“We’re doing everything you’re supposed to do in an electoral campaign,” he said in an interview before last weekend’s rally. “We want to force them to allow me on to the ballot.”

Even Navalny’s own team were surprised at how many people came to the protest, and they now fear that if they organise new demonstrations, which usually fail to receive official permission to go ahead from the authorities, the arrests will continue.

Several organisations are attempting to keep the current wave going. Some groups unaffiliated with Navalny have called for a protest on Red Square today, while others have called for a repeat of last week’s “stroll” along Tverskaya, Moscow’s main street.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch living in exile in London, has called for protests on 29 April. But Yarmysh said Navalny’s team were most likely to wait until early in the summer before calling another demonstration.

“The problem is that we know that the minute we organise anything, that’s going to be another 15 days in jail for Alexei, and we want to focus on the pre-electoral campaign,” she said.

On Thursday, the offices of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation were still sealed off, after police and plainclothes officers raided them the evening after the protest and were filmed removing computers and other hardware from the building.

Yarmysh said all information about ongoing corruption investigations was stored securely but that the office’s closure had affected the foundation’s work. In a nearby office, lawyers and volunteers were helping relatives of those who had been arrested with paperwork and legal advice.

On Thursday, Putin compared the protests in Russia to the Maidan revolution in Ukraine and the Arab spring, both of which the Kremlin has previously characterised as being directed from the west. The Russian president said he was in favour of fighting corruption but did not address the specific allegations against Medvedev, and made a show of spending the day with his prime minister in the Arctic, making it clear that that job is safe for now. Medvedev has made no official response to the corruption allegations.

One lawyer defending some of those arrested, who did not want to be named, said police were searching for people involved in the more violent episodes last weekend and could launch a whole range of cases with potentially long prison terms at the end of them. “There’s a chance that this will end up very serious, and make the Bolotnaya cases look like child’s play.” After a protest in May 2012 on central Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, a number of protesters we given lengthy jail terms.

The defining characteristic of the protests last week was the presence of many very young Russians. “There were children there who were 16, or even 14,” said the lawyer. “These kids don’t remember Bolotnaya. I think it was a bit irresponsible to call them out without telling them there was a real chance of being detained or beaten by police.”

Navalny’s video about Medvedev has now been watched more than 16 million times on YouTube, and the politician has been successful at winning over a younger audience.

“Those under 25 grew up with the internet. It’s not that they don’t watch TV, but they watch it differently,” wrote analyst Ekaterina Schulmann in a recent column. “They find programmes on YouTube, and get their news from social media. That means the TV propaganda bypasses them by, and even if they listen they don’t understand what they’re being told, because our propaganda is all aimed at Soviet [era] people.”

The authorities are fighting back in the classrooms. Over the past week, a new genre of video has begun to appear online, as students across Russia make clandestine films of their school or university teachers lecturing them on politics.

In Tomsk, one university professor told his students: “If there is no corruption in a state, it means the state is pointless.” In Samara, students were pulled from lessons to a large hall, where they were shown an educational film about the “bloody battle” that could be about to take place in Russia. “Experts say that all extremists have common characteristics: they have no morals and do not accept social norms,” said the film’s narrator as footage of Navalny was shown on the screen. Many of the videos show confident students arguing back against teachers, in a sign that the Kremlin may have its work cut out to silence the new generation of angry Russians.

Discussions have taken place during recent months over whether or not to allow Navalny to take part in the election next year, but while there were some who thought the opposition leader could create a sense of competition without seriously challenging Putin, most in the Kremlin believe him too dangerous to be allowed to run.

In 2012 oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov stood against Putin on a campaign that emphasised liberal values and pro-business policies but offered no direct criticism of Putin. It is possible that the Kremlin will put up a similar “semi-opposition” candidate next year.

“The problem when there’s no competition is that it’s hard to get people to come out to vote,” said one source close to the Kremlin. “So they will need to find someone to stand against Putin, but they want someone who plays within particular rules, and knows the limits. Navalny does not play by any rules.”

Ecological hotspot under geopolitical fire

China's construction of man-made islands and other military facilities has devastated coral reefs and marine life in the South China Sea

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By DAN SOUTHERLAND

Despite seemingly positive negotiations with Vietnam early this year, China has been challenging its Southeast Asian neighbor through new moves in the South China Sea. These include the construction of Chinese military facilities on man-made islands in contested waters.

While the security implications of the military build-up have been widely noted, less examined has been the damage caused to the marine environment, including vital coral reefs and other features.

The Spratly Islands in particular – claimed by both China and Vietnam – are recognized as a “biodiversity hotspot”, whose coral reefs protect young fish and other maritime species from predators and help to replenish fish stocks that are a crucial source of food for millions of people.

Ecologists have estimated there are as many as 600 coral reef species and 3,000 fish species in the island chain. Because of the territorial disputes, among other factors, scientific literature on the underwater ecoregion is limited.

Studies done by John McManus, a marine ecologist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School, show that Chinese island-building in the disputed Spratlys has resulted in the destruction of nearly 3,000 acres of coral reefs.

His research in 2016, in collaboration with others, estimates that the dredging required to create artificial islands on South China Sea atolls risks causing “irreversible damages” to “unique coral reef ecosystems.”

The academic study said the atolls serve as “safe harbor” for some of the least viable populations of highly threatened species and that the dredging threatens to push many aquatic species to “extinction.”

Other claimant nations have also destroyed coral reefs in the South China Sea. But scientists and other researchers say that the environmental destruction caused by Chinese dredging to create artificial islands is much more widespread than other claimants’ actions.

A report released in May last year on the South China Sea by the Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), which is associated with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, concluded, among other things, that Vietnam’s island-building in the Spratly Islands was on a much smaller scale than that undertaken by China.

Its researchers estimated that the “new land” created by Vietnam came to 120 acres, a small fraction of that created by China.

The AMTI examination also said that Vietnam’s work in the Spratlys on the 10 islets and reefs that it occupies was also “far less environmentally destructive, as it has not involved large-scale dredging of the reefs on which Hanoi’s outposts sit.”

“Nevertheless,” it said, “Vietnam has ignored calls, including by US officials, to halt its island building in order to support a consensus against the practice.”

China’s recent negotiations with Vietnam have offered some hope for better maritime management. During a visit to Beijing in early January, Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary, signed 15 agreements dealing among other things with economic cooperation, defense relations and tourism.

Environmental cooperation was also on the agenda, but details of the discussions were not made publicly available. Anti-Chinese feelings are widespread in Vietnam, and tensions over disputed fishing grounds in the South China Sea have been a constant thorn in bilateral relations.

Murray Hiebert, a Vietnam expert and deputy director of the Southeast Asia program for CSIS, says that “everyone knows that the Vietnamese have to find a way to live next to China, but Vietnamese nationalism makes it necessary for them not to let China roll over them.”

Threatening moves 

China has tried every year since 1999 to impose a fishing ban north of the Spratly Islands, enforced maritime militia vessels back by their coast guard and apparently to preserve fish stocks and prevent illegal fishing. But Vietnam regards these bans as attempts to intrude on its sovereignty.

Bill Hayton, the author of a book on the struggle for power in the South China Sea, said “while the ban itself might make sound conservation sense, its annual unilateral imposition has prevented other countries from joining it because they fear that acquiescence could be interpreted as recognition of Chinese sovereignty.”

This has in the past contributed to clashes between Chinese vessels and Vietnamese fishing boats, most often around the Paracel Islands.

In February, China’s agriculture ministry, as expected, announced a fishing ban, including several areas claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam that would last from May 1 to August 16. The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry strongly objected to the ban, which it described as “unilateral.”

In the meantime, recent developments on China’s man-made islands in the Spratlys have threatened Sino-Vietnamese cooperation even more.The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative issued a report on March 27 saying that China has now reached a new stage in the construction of military facilities on several of its artificial islands.

China is concluding major military construction in the Spratly Islands on what are known to some experts as the “Big 3”—Subi, Mischief, and Fiery Cross Reefs, facilities which AMTI has tracked through satellite photography for nearly two years. The construction includes runways, hangars, and radar.

Together with an air base in the Paracels, this will allow China’s combat aircraft to operate over “nearly the entire South China Sea,” according to the AMTI report.

This would appear to leave little room for cooperation between China and Vietnam on preserving the environment on and around the Spratlys—except on China’s terms.

China occupies seven atolls in the Spratlys. Other claimants to islets, reefs or cays in the group include the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. China claims the Spratly Islands outright by historic right.

But Vietnam has the largest presence, with troops occupying more than 20 reefs or islets. Clashes appear possible, whereas an all-out war seems unlikely.

But as marine ecologist McManus says, “once substantial armed conflicts have begun, it will be very difficult to achieve the level of international cooperation…needed to halt the decline in these valuable marine resources.”

A climate of lies: Denialism goes wider, and weirder, as Trump amplifies Republican mendacity

Climate-change denialists were already terrible, but they've grown bolder and more bizarre in the age of Trump

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By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Perhaps the best way to understand the presidency of Donald Trump is to recognize that he’s building on and advancing the already advanced authoritarian tendencies of the Republican Party. Nowhere is this more obvious than when it comes to climate change denial.  Even before Trump was elected, a whopping 84 percent of the conservative Republicans polled by Pew Research refused to accept that climate change is real and caused by human activity, and even 65 percent of the moderate Republicans surveyed rejected the facts.

Make no mistake: Climate-change denial is a straight-up conspiracy theory. To reject the scientific consensus necessarily means believing that climate scientists around the world are lying to the public for some nefarious purpose. And with an avid conspiracy theorist like Trump in the White House, Republican politicians are just becoming bolder in their widespread policy of denial.

On Wednesday Rep. Lamar Smith, the climate-change denialist who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, ridiculed one of the foremost peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world, Science.

“That is not known as an objective writer or magazine,” Smith said, dismissing testimony given by climate scientist Michael Mann, who referenced a recent article by Jeffrey Mervis in the publication.

The best part? Smith wasn’t even disputing claims about climate science. He was trying to discredit reporting that quoted him directly. Here’s the exchange in full:

Michael Mann: [Smith] indicated at this conference that he, according to Science, and I am quoting from them, he sees his role in this committee as a tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the U.S. research community, as a scientists I find this deeply disturbing.

Rep. Lamar Smith: Who said that?

Mann: This is according to Science magazine, one of the most respected outlets when it comes to science . . .

Smith: Who are they quoting?

Mann: This is the author, Jeffrey Mervis.

Smith: That is not known as an objective writer or magazine.

Here is an excerpt from Mervis’ piece, on which Smith was trying to cast doubt:

“Next week we’re going to have a hearing on our favorite subject of climate change and also on the scientific method, which has been repeatedly ignored by the so-called self-professed climate scientists,” Smith told the Heartland Institute’s 12th annual conference on climate change in Washington, D.C. . . .

Then boos filled the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., after Smith mentioned the fourth witness — Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Pennsylvania State University in State College and a frequent target of climate change doubters. “That’s why this hearing is going to be so much fun,” Smith said with a huge grin on his normally impassive face.

I’ve quoted that at length to make clear that Smith was not objecting to a scientific theory or finding but rather a description of his own behavior that was witnessed by more than one reporter and caught on tape.

But with Trump in the White House, it’s no surprise that other Republicans feel emboldened in their dishonesty, denying not just scientific data or research but even their own words. Denying something he’s been caught saying on tape is a common habit of Trump, after all.

All this suggests why conspiracy theories like climate-change denial are closely tied to authoritarianism. Yes, people of all political stripes can become caught up in conspiracy theories and hoaxes. But authoritarians are particularly prone to denying even obvious facts, because of the nature of their ideology. To the authoritarian, “truth” does not flow from empirical or verifiable reality but instead is determined by those whom the authoritarians deems to be the proper leaders. (Usually a self-appointed designation.) Reality is what Smith or Trump or whatever Republican demagogue says it is, not your videotapes or scientific evidence.

This, in turn, helps explain the fact that befuddles many journalists: Trump supporters will eagerly endorse Trump’s lies, even when they clearly know he is lying. Take, for instance, this amazing clip in which CNN’s Alisyn Camerota keeps going around and around with Trump voters about their belief that millions of people voted illegally. What quickly becomes clear is that they know that “millions” is not a reality-based statistic, but they insist on believing this anyway. “True” is whatever Dear Leader says is true and has no relationship to actual evidence.

All of which is to say we’ve only just entered this fun house of mirrors where Republicans boldly make stuff up and don’t really care if it meets your reality-based version of truth. Things are probably just going to become weirder from here.

Take, for instance, this amazing story from Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Scott Wagner — who likes to say “Donald Trump is a visionary and he’s a leader” and who is hoping to be the Republican nominee for governor — got downright trippy with the climate-change denial, according to NPR’s StateImpact:

“I haven’t been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year – you know, the rotation of the earth,” Wagner said in an event organized for county commissioners opposed to natural gas drilling regulations. “We’re moving closer to the sun.”

That bears no relationship to reality. In fact, the Earth’s orbit (which is what Wagner probably meant by “rotation”) is literally what keeps it from plummeting toward the Sun. But that’s just centuries-old knowledge, demonstrated through mathematics and observation, so not relevant in our age of Trumpism.

“We have more people,” Wagner added, continuing his imaginative foray into science. “You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can.”

The only truly surprising thing is that Wagner didn’t get even more creative, while he was just making stuff up. Blame climate change on women having too much sex! Or Barack Obama’s affection for Islam! In Trump’s America, there’s really no need to worry about sounding plausible when you spin outrageous lies.

What Happens to a Country Whose Leader Can't Say 'I'm Sorry'

He’s spent a lifetime banging his highchair and blaming the dog for his mess.

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By Marty Kaplan

“I blame myself—it was my fault, and I take full responsibility for it,” Donald Trump never said, not once in his entire life.

Here’s what else the president didn’t say about the rout and ruin of repeal and replace: “I was clueless about health care policy. Instead of reading my briefing books or even my own bill, I played golf. I bullshitted my way through every meeting and phone call. And when it was explained to me that this dumpster fire of a bill would break my promise that everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they are now, which was a huge applause line by the way, I threw my own voters under the bus.”  

In the wake of his Waterloo, instead of manning up, Trump blamed Democrats for not voting to strip health insurance from 24 million people, not voting to cut Medicaid by $880 billion in order to cut taxes by $883 billion and not voting to obliterate the signature legislative accomplishment of the Barack Obama years.

“Look,” he complained with crocodile bafflement to the New York Times, “we got no Democratic votes. We got none, zero.” Yet Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan had not asked a single Democrat what it would take to get them to support a health care bill. “The good news,” Trump said, seeing the sunny side of the catastrophe he predicts is coming, is that the Democrats “now own Obamacare.” Don’t blame me—it’ll be their fault when it explodes, not mine.

Trump blamed Republicans, too. The morning of Friday, March 24, when the bill was still in play, he tweeted that if the Freedom Caucus stops his plan, they would be allowing Planned Parenthood to continue. That afternoon, amid the wreckage, Trump told the Washington Post’s Robert Costa he was just an innocent bystander. “There are years of problems, great hatred and distrust” in the Republican Party, “and, you know, I came into the middle of it.”

White House aides, bravely speaking without attribution, blamed Ryan for snookering the rookie-in-chief into tackling Obamacare before tax reform. Trump himself told Costa, “I don’t blame Paul.” He repeated it: “I don’t blame Paul.” Then again: “I don’t blame Paul at all.”

The laddie doth protest too much, methinks. By tweet time Saturday morning, clairvoyantly touting Jeanine Pirro’s Saturday night Fox News show, Trump had found a surrogate to stick the knife in Ryan without his fingerprints on it. “This is not on President Trump,” Pirro said, avowing that “no one expected a businessman,” a "complete outsider,” to understand “the complicated ins and outs of Washington.” No, it’s on Ryan, she said. Ryan must step down.

Blame precedes politics. In Western civilization’s genesis story, Adam blamed Eve for tempting him, and he blamed God for Eve. But America’s genesis story contains a noble, if apocryphal, counter-narrative: When George Washington’s father asked him who chopped down the cherry tree, the future father of his country didn’t blame someone else—he copped to it. That’s the legacy Harry Truman claimed when he put “The buck stops here” sign on his Oval Office desk.

But Trump is the consummate blame artist, a buck-passer on a sociopathic scale. He kicked off his campaign by blaming Mexico for sending us rapists and stealing our jobs. He blamed Hillary Clinton for founding the birther movement. He blamed President Obama for founding ISIS. He blamed Obama’s Labor Department for publishing a “phony” unemployment rate. He blamed 3 million illegal voters for his losing the popular vote to Clinton. He blamed the botched raid in Yemen on U.S. generals. When U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled against his Muslim travel ban, he blamed Robart for future terrorism: “If something happens, blame him and the court system.” He blamed “fake news” for treating Michael Flynn, “a wonderful man” he had fired as his national security adviser, “very, very unfairly.” He blamed Obama for wiretapping Trump Tower. He made his spokesman blame British intelligence for carrying that out. When GCHQ called that a crock, Trump played artful dodger: “All we did was quote … a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”

Obamacare is imperfect but fixable. But Trump wants to bomb it, not improve it. He wants to light the fuse and then blame Democrats for exploding it. Trump could shore up the insurance exchanges that cover 10 million Americans by marketing them when enrollment opens again in November—but I bet he won’t. He could instruct government lawyers to appeal a lawsuit halting federal subsidies for co-payments and deductibles of low-income enrollees that House Republicans won last year—but I bet he won’t. On the other hand, he has the power to narrow the essential benefits Obamacare requires insurers to provide by, say, limiting prescription drug coverage and lowering the number of visits allowed for mental health treatment or physical therapy—and I bet he will.

Will Trump get away with it? He’s spent a lifetime banging his highchair and blaming the dog for his mess. No wonder he calls the free press fake news; no wonder he calls citizen activists paid protesters. You call someone who gets away with blaming others “unaccountable.” You know what the antonym of that is? Impeachable.