• Order responds to call by victims’ families suing Riyadh
• Full record to be released over six months after review
Joe Biden has announced the wholesale review and declassification of files from the investigation into the 9/11 attack, in response to intense pressure from Congress and victims’ families currently suing Saudi Arabia.
Related: ‘A horn blew when human remains were found’: Wim Wenders’ six hours in the hell of Ground Zero
Continue reading...The White House on Sunday reasserted its promise to capture or kill the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on Kabul airport, as Joe Biden travelled to Delaware for the repatriation of the bodies of the 13 US troops who died.
Related: Pentagon names troops killed in Kabul – some were babies at time of invasion
Continue reading...The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, underlined Joe Biden's comments on Thursday's attack on Kabul airport, saying: 'I think he made it clear he doesn't want them to live on planet Earth any more.'
Biden’s national security team has warned him that US troops remain under threat of another terrorist attack just 24 hours after the devastating suicide bomb at Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members and at least 90 Afghans.
Continue reading...The evacuation of thousands of Americans and their Afghan allies from Kabul would have been 'hard and painful no matter when it started or when we began', Joe Biden said on Sunday, amid fierce criticism of his administration’s handling of the US withdrawal.
Answering questions, he said it was possible that his deadline for the completion of the evacuation, 31 August, would be extended
Continue reading...President defends US exit but makes changes to airlift effort at Kabul airport after criticism over deaths and chaotic scenes
The evacuation of thousands of Americans and their Afghan allies from Kabul would have been “hard and painful no matter when it started or when we began”, Joe Biden insisted on Sunday, amid fierce criticism of his administration’s handling of the US withdrawal.
Related: Pentagon orders commercial airlines to help in Afghanistan evacuations
Continue reading...Analysis: The stunning US defeat has left Afghans and Americans distraught and confused but some gains may not be easily erased
On 1 October 2001, three weeks after the 9/11 attacks and six days before the bombing of Afghanistan began, there was a small protest march in Washington.
The marchers wore badges saying “Don’t Turn Tragedy into War” and “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War”, and argued that war was not the inevitable response to the terrorist outrage.
Continue reading...‘If something’s out there, let’s seek it out, and it is probably a foreign power,’ says chair of Senate foreign relations committee
If the idea that we are being visited by aliens seems too much to contemplate, the thesis that the extraordinary-looking craft are the work of terrestrial adversaries seems only slightly less far-fetched – and at the same time, deeply troubling for US security experts.
In pressing for the Pentagon’s UFO report to be published, congressional leaders briefed on the intelligence have pointed to the urgent security threat implied by the “unexplained aerial phenomena”.
Continue reading...Some members of Congress were given advanced details about Pentagon report, which is scheduled to be released before 25 June
A group of senior American politicians have warned that UFOs pose “national security concerns” after getting a confidential briefing on a highly anticipated report on unidentified aerial phenomena that is set to be released later this month.
Some members of Congress were given advanced details about the contents of the Pentagon report, which is scheduled to be released before 25 June, and several said they are deeply worried about the findings.
Continue reading...The former strategic analyst says the culture of official secrecy is worse today but urges whistleblowers: ‘Don’t wait years till the bombs are falling and people have been dying’
When the police arrived, a 13-year-old boy was photocopying classified documents. His 10-year-old sister was cutting the words “top secret” off each page. It seemed their dad, Daniel Ellsberg, had been caught red-handed.
But the officers were responding to a false alarm and did not check what Ellsberg and his young accomplices were up to. “It was a very nice family scene,” the 90-year-old recalls via Zoom from his home in Kensington, California. “It didn’t worry them.”
Continue reading...Joe Biden will use his visit to Europe this week to “rally the world’s democracies” in a reset of US foreign policy after four turbulent years under Donald Trump – all while threats to American democracy, stoked by Trump, proliferate at home.
Related: After Trump: Biden set to outline US policy to Johnson, Putin and more
Continue reading...President called Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday to inform him US would make designation on 106th anniversary of the genocide
Joe Biden has become the first US president declare formal recognition of the Armenian genocide, more than a century after the mass killings by Ottoman troops and opening a rift between the new US administration and Ankara.
Related: Biden vows US will work with Russia on climate
Continue reading...Historians will judge America’s longest war. Now, the sounds of helicopters over my home take me back to Losano Ridge, Gardez, the men I fought for and those who did not return
I am one of more than 800,000 American military veterans who have served in Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands more served in other capacities, from intelligence and diplomacy to aid and development. It’s fair to ask whether the end of the war affects how one views his or her own small role in the effort. If we didn’t “win”, whatever winning means in a war like this, did we matter? Were the sacrifices in vain?
Related: Damned either way, Biden opts out of Afghanistan as US tires of ‘forever wars’
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday the US is concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.
Related: Chaos Under Heaven: Trump as raging bull in a China policy shop
Continue reading...The Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand, the US admiral chosen to lead the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific region has warned.
China considers recovering control over Taiwan its “No 1 priority”, Adm John Aquilino, nominated to become commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defense, made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, meeting President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.
Related: Afghan peace summit includes just one female delegate
Continue reading...The president does not just share Irish roots with John, Robert and Ted Kennedy – he also wants to lead America in the world
It was a popular Washington sport: find the past president who best explained Donald Trump. There was a touch of Andrew Jackson’s populism, a dash of Richard Nixon’s skulduggery, a sprinkling of Ronald Reagan’s myth-making. But now all that is over, who are the closest matches to Joe Biden?
Related: Lucky review: how Biden beat Trump – and doubters like Obama and Hillary
Continue reading...Joe Biden has condemned Vladimir Putin, saying he thinks the Russian leader is a killer and that he told him he did not have a soul. Biden’s remarks were made on ABC News in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. The interview coincided with the release of a declassified US intelligence report that bolstered allegations Putin was behind Moscow’s interference in the 2020 election. When pressed on the allegations against Russia, Biden said Putin ‘will pay a price’ for the attempts to swing the vote in Donald Trump’s favor
Continue reading...The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has proposed a series of steps to help restart stalled peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, according to a letter from Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani published on Sunday by Afghanistan‘s TOLONews.
Related: Afghans dread the ‘danger hours’ as fragile gains of 20 years slip away
Continue reading...Robert D Kaplan’s outstanding book makes a strong case for US engagement based on human rights and helping refugees
What adjective should describe “the American” active in foreign policy? Graham Greene chose “quiet”, as his character harmed a country he did not understand. Eugene Burdick and William Lederer used “ugly”.
Robert D Kaplan, one of America’s most thoughtful chroniclers of foreign affairs, proposes “good” to describe Bob Gersony, who in “a frugal monastic existence that has been both obscure and extraordinary” has devoted his life to using the power and treasure of the US to serve others through humanitarian action.
Continue reading...Joe Biden will deliver a message of national unity when he assumes the presidency on Wednesday, seeking to begin healing a country fractured by the acrimony of Donald Trump’s administration and ongoing threats of violence by his supporters.
Related: America is broken – can Biden and Harris put it back together?
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