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Just another week in paradise ... heres a look back at the week that was.

The big story this week is Thursdays vote in the House of Representatives passing the most odious, cruel, and the politically suicidal pieces of legislation in modern American history. The GOPs American Health Care Act would strip away health insurance coverage for at least 24 million people. We dont know the more precise number because Republicans didnt bother to wait until the Congressional Budget Office scored the bill before voting on it.

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Calling this legislation a health care bill is a bit of a misnomer because there is nothing caring about it. The AHCA will reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $900 billion over the next 10 years and take away the subsidies that allowed millions of Americans to afford health insurance for the first time under Obamacare. It would also cut special education funding, potentially bring back lifetime caps on care, and remove protections so that things like having a C-section, postpartum depression or being raped would be considered a pre-existing condition and thus charged at a higher premium.

Its all very strange because who could imagine that the people in this picture would treat women so badly.

It is not an exaggeration to say that many Americans, perhaps thousands, even tens of thousands are going to die if the GOPs American Health Care Act becomes the law of the land.

Its up to Republicans in the Senate to be the responsible members of their party and stop this legislation in its tracks.

YOU DONT hear much about the US war in Afghanistan, which at 16 years and counting is the longest US conflict in the nations history. Seven and a half years ago, the Obama administration authorized a surge of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan bringing the total US commitment to approximately 100,000 soldiers. At the time, the administration, the US military and its enablers in the think tank and punditry worlds argued that Afghanistan was a vital national interest and that a further influx of US soldiers would break the momentum of the Taliban and strengthen the US-backed Afghan government.

How is that working out?

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According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, not so well.

Here are just some of the lowlights of their latest quarterly report.

Conflict-related civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose to the highest levels since 2009. Security incidents through 2016 and into 2017 are at their peak levels since 2017.

More than 660,000 people fled their homes in 2016, which is a 40 percent increase over 2015.

The Afghan government controls approximately 60 percent of the countrys districts, while the Taliban is dominant in about 11 percent and 29 percent is contested. Sixty-two percent of the countrys budget is reliant on outside donors, drug use among Afghan women and children is one of the highest in the world and half of all married women in the county between ages 15-49 report being victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

Remarkably, the United States has now spent $117 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan and while there have been some notable improvements in public health, school enrollment, and female empowerment, its hard to argue that Afghanistan is in dramatically better shape than it was 16 years ago when the US war there began. Moreover, its now clear that the surge did little to slow the Talibans momentum or put Afghanistan on the path to stability.

While the US presence in Afghanistan has fallen to 8,400 troops, the Pentagon is reportedly preparing a request for between 3,000 and 5,000 more soldiers. On one level its hard to countenance abandoning the Afghan people with the Taliban clearly remaining a viable insurgent force. But its also hard to see what is gained by putting more US soldiers in harms way for a conflict that few Americans are even paying attention to.

Whatever the right answer, its also clear that US policy in Afghanistan has been an unmitigated failure. Try to keep this in mind the next time some politician or pundit says the United States has the responsibility or capability to intervene militarily in a foreign hot spot. Indeed, the same people who were arguing the United States must do something in Syria earlier this year have had little to say about the policy disaster and thousands of needlessly lost lives that has been the U.S war in Afghanistan.

AP Photos/Massoud Hossaini

A damaged US military vehicle at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 3.

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IN OTHER NEWS, the president of the United States doesnt know why the Civil War was fought.

The secretary of states thinks human rights like freedom, dignity and the way people are treated are US values and that if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.

I know the State Department is a bit short-staffed these days but perhaps someone in Foggy Bottom could show Rex Tillerson a copy of this: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Tillersons tenure at State is a useful reminder that appointing oil executives with no experience of grounding in international affairs brings with it drawbacks: like a failure to grasp that democratic countries that uphold human rights and treat their citizens with respect are less likely to go to war and more likely to be effective trading partners for America. Anyone who tells you that standing up for universal human rights values is an obstacle to advancing Americas economic and national security interests is simply wrong.

I know it seems tough out there these days, but rest assured, America, even in the face of rampant White House corruption and nepotism, along with allegations of foreign meddling in the U.S. presidential election the chairman of the House oversight committee, Jason Chaffetz is focused on the real issues.

More here:
The week that was: Cruel health care bill, failed Afghanistan policy, and why was the Civil War fought? - The Boston Globe

KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN

Taliban militants captured a district just outside the northern Afghan city of Kunduz Saturday, officials said.

Mahfouz Akbari, a police spokesman for eastern Afghanistan, said security forces pulled out of Qala-i-Zal district, west of Kunduz city, Saturday to avoid further civilian and military casualties after more than 24 hours of heavy fighting.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents had taken the police headquarters, the governors compound and all security checkpoints. He said several police and soldiers had been killed and wounded.

Kunduz province map

Taliban there before

Over the past 18 months, Taliban insurgents have twice succeeded in seizing the town center of Kunduz for brief periods and the latest fighting underscores warnings that Afghan forces face another grueling year of fighting.

A shopkeeper, whose name is also Zabihullah, said the situation was reminiscent of last October when Taliban forces entered the city before being driven back after days of fighting and air strikes.

I am extremely worried. There are security forces everywhere, he said. Everyone in my family is worried and if the situation gets worse, well have to leave.

Heavy fighting

According to U.S. estimates, government fighters control about 60 percent of the country, with the rest either controlled or contested by the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

Although the Taliban made a formal announcement of their spring offensive last week, there had been heavy fighting from the northern province of Badakhshan to the Taliban heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar in the south.

In the Helmand province Saturday, Gen. Aqa Noor Kentoz, provincial police chief, said at least four police officers were killed Friday night at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

The four might have been attacked by an insider, Kentoz said, and an investigation is underway.

No one immediately claimed responsibility.

There have also been several operations against Islamic State militants in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which have also involved U.S. special forces and air strikes.

More than 1,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed since the start of the year, according to Afghan officials and figures cited by U.S. Congressional watchdog SIGAR, along with more than 700 civilians.

Also, more than 75,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the first four months of the year, according to United Nations figures.

More troops needed

Earlier this year, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, said he needed a few thousand more international troops to boost the Resolute Support training and advisory mission and break a stalemate with the Taliban.

The U.S. military is due to make its formal recommendations to President Donald Trump within the next week, a senior official told a Senate committee last week.

Read the rest here:
Taliban Again Seize Northern Afghanistan City - Voice of America

The Taliban

The United States, and later its anti-terror coalition partners, moved into Afghanistan militarily after the 2001 radical Muslim attacks on Washington and New York City to root out and bring to justice the terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans.

Years later, before the Afghans officially took over the mission of their own nations stability, with the close of the International Security Assistance Force Mission at the end of 2014, the U.S. had lost nearly 2,300 military service members, and saw another 20,000 wounded there. At one point the U.S. had about 100,000 members of its military there.

But it now appears that outside help is going to be needed again, as violence has left thousands dead and has surged in ways that now even are impacting its neighbor, Pakistan, and creating international concern, according to a report in Joseph Farahs G2 Bulletin.

For example, the Express-Tribune reported just Friday that a team of Afghan soldiers fired on a census team in Chaman, inside Pakistan, killing at least seven people and injuring another 38.

The report said mortar shells from the Afghanistan side of the border hit houses in a village called Kali Luqman, and at least three children were injured there.

The report contained a statement from Pakistani officials that if such incidents do not stop, Pakistan reserves the right to respond to preserve its sovereignty and protect its civilians.

It is the responsibility of the Afghan government to ensure that such incidents are permanently topped, said a communique from the office of the Pakistani prime minister.

Afghani officials, meanwhile, have been enraged because of previous attacks, including those on American University in Kabul and on Mazar-e-Sharif.

They have been demanding the perpetrators be turned over to Afghanistan, and the conflict was so deep Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recently turned down an invitation to visit Pakistan.

A recent U.S. government report cited the surging violence and bloodshed in Afghanistan. NBC said the report paints a picture of increased violence and bloodshed in the war-torn nation and suggests that preventing the Taliban and other insurgents from increasing their control of the countryside will continue to be a challenge for Afghan security forces.

The report is from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The report finds the casualties shockingly high and confirmed that during the first six weeks of 2016, 807 security forces personnel were killed by Taliban factions.

Mass casualty attacks against civilian targets also increased. The report cited an attack that killed 50 people at Afghanistans largest military hospital on March 8 and another that killed two investigators from the Major Crimes Task Force on April 10, NBC said.

The casualties during 2016 totaled 11,418, putting it in line with a full-scale war across the nation.

And the number of Afghans fleeing for the lives up 40 percent from 2015 totaled more than 660,000.

The U.S. report explained how holding insurgents to their own territory was increasingly becoming a challenge for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farahs G2 Bulletin.

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Rampant violence in Afghanistan raising new alarms - WND.com

Interests of Washington, Ankara and Tehran are on trajectories suggesting accelerating clashes within and among the three states. President Trump made a congratulatory call to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan after a controversial vote on a referendum then invited him to the White House, prompting a plethora of bipartisan criticism; also, Tehrans agents assassinated an Iranian businessman in AnkaraSaeed Karimian, founder of Gem TV, who had previously been tried in absentia by an Iranian court.

Its no surprise Ankara is playing down the possibility of an Iranian hit team operating on Turkish soil. Hinting it was an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) team would anger some politicians in Tehran, and what is left of the Turkish opposition media will note Erdogans sacking of thousands of police and security forces has left Turkey vulnerable to terrorist attacks. With the IRGC in a spat with one of the approved candidates (First Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri) in the Iranian elections this month, now is not the time the IRGC needs negative publicity about being involved in an assassination abroad.

With this breaking news in mind, consider how Washington, Ankara and Tehran are on trajectories suggesting accelerating clashes.

On April 25, 2017, Turkish planes carried out airstrikes against suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq and in northeastern Syria, killing elements of the Syrian Kurds militia, known as the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, and, with errant fire, elements of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Governments peshmerga. The Turkish military said its goal was to prevent Kurds from smuggling fighters and weapons into Turkey. Ankara accuses members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of conducting terrorist attacks in Turkey from neighboring Iraq and Syria. It considers the YPG an affiliate of the PKK. Washington expressed concerns that this action was not properly coordinated, potentially imperiling U.S. military personnel in Syria fighting alongside Syrian anti-Islamic State forces.

Washington agrees the PKK is a terrorist organization, but disputes the conclusion that YPG is a group that all parties to the Syrian conflict concur is a terrorist organization in word and deed, in part due to its membership in the American-led international coalition against the Islamic State. The Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. Since then, the coalition has made significant gains against the terror group. Coalition forces have been relying on the ground forces of the American-backed and YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and are closing in on the de facto capital of the Islamic State, the city of Raqqa, Syria.

Collision of American, Iranian and Turkish Interests

Iran and Turkey share with the United States opposition to the Islamic State and to increased Kurdish autonomyan independent Kurdish state is, for Tehran and Ankara, unimaginable. Still, they approach each other warily in cooperation against Islamic State and Kurdish rebelsmore frenemies than partners. This situation is partially due to widely different relations of the state to religion in each country: in Turkey, the elected president dominates religious leaders; in Iran, the Ayatollahs dominate the political leaders. Washingtons approach to how Iran and Turkey conduct their respective military operations in Iraq and Syria needs to reflect the joint and competing interests of the two coalitions in northern Iraq and in northeastern Syria.

An example of the accelerating clash of American and Iranian interests in Iraq is praise Iraqi president Fuad Masum gave to Iran. Per MEMRI on March 28, 2017, Masoum hailed Iran for the effectual supports [sic] it has provided for the Arab country in the fight against terrorism [and stressed] that . . . Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani is in Iraq as part of Baghdads plan to get help from foreign-military advisors. Then, on February 7, 2017, to counter Iran, the Trump administration is considering designating the entire IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, rather than only individuals or units, some of which are currently designated, according to Reuters.

Link:
America, Turkey and Iran Could Be Headed Toward a Showdown - The National Interest Online

James S. Robbins 12:04 a.m. ET May 7, 2017

Handout via epaIranian President Hassan Rouhani, right, in Tehran on April 9. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, right, in Tehran on April 9, 2017.(Photo: HO HANDOUT / Handout via epa)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement. The positive finding of the State Departments routine periodic review of the nuclear agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was surprising given President Trumps assessment that it was the worst deal ever negotiated. Some analysts believed Tillerson was signaling that the Trump administration would let the agreement stand rather than rip it up as the president had promised.

But there is something deeper going on. The key language in Tillersons statement dealt with the National Security Councils inter-agency review to determine whether continued suspension of the sanctions is vital to the national security interests of the United States. This phrasing points to the key weakness in the structure of the deal.

Barack Obama was eager to sign a comprehensive agreement with Iran, but was unwilling or unable to assemble the type of domestic political coalition needed to sign a formal treaty, or to have Congress rescind the sanctions laws, which are still on the books. Instead, U.S. negotiators cobbled together a deal based on exploiting loopholes that allowed the president to waive various aspects of the sanctions laws when it is in the national interest of the United States to do so. For Obama the answer was, yes it is. The Trump team says, not so fast.

Much has happened since the Iran agreement was implemented that raise questions about whether its costs outweigh its benefits. The deal gave Iran access to around $100 billion in frozen assets around the world. Questions the NSC can examine include: how much money has Iran received? How much has been used to support Irans global terrorist network? How much has underwritten Irans intervention in Syria civil war? How much has gone to Irans controversial and potentially illegal missile program, which incidentally is not covered by the agreement? And is Iran in fact complying with the deal, or is it cheating?

In addition, previously secret aspects of the deal have begun to be revealed, such as the Obama administration freeing Iranian prisoners accused of major crimes related to the nuclear and missile programs. These shady aspects of the bargain make it easier for the Trump administration to make the political case against it, which Americans opposed by wide margins to begin with.

If the National Security Council determines that Irans activities are not in U.S. national security interests, the president can lift the sanctions waivers. This puts Iran in a bind. Tehran has threatened it could restart its nuclear program in a new manner that would shock Washington. But if Iran chooses openly to violate the terms of the deal, this would activate the agreements Article 37 snap back mechanism which restores all the pre-JCPOA international sanctions. The only way the snap back would not happen is if the UN Security Council votes otherwise, but the United States could veto any resolution that keeps the deal alive.

This puts Iran in a lose/lose position: accept renewed and potentially tougher U.S. sanctions while staying within the framework of the JCPOA; or breach the deal and suffer the snap back consequences. Of course, Iran could just attempt to go full-bore to develop nuclear-armed missiles as quickly as possible and hope for the best. But the developing crisis with North Korea should be instructive to Tehran. The Trump administration is less willing than its predecessors to accommodate or ignore the nuclear ambitions of rogue states.

Welcome to the art of unmaking the deal. OK Iran, your move.

James S. Robbins, a member of USA TODAYs Board of Contributors, has taught at the National Defense University and the Marine Corps University and served as a special assistant to the secretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. He is author of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive.

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OPINION: The art of unmaking the Iran deal - Daily Record