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      Invisible and unheard: how female veterans suffering trauma are let down by US healthcare

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      Invisible and unheard: how female veterans suffering trauma are let down by US healthcareWomen suffer PTSD at twice the rate of men yet their symptoms and stories are often overlooked For Felicia Merkel, the PTSD trigger is any loud sound – an overhead speaker, a slammed car door – transporting her back to the blistering heat of Afghanistan. For Liz Hensel, it is looking into her daughter’s chestnut brown eyes, their color reminding her of those of a young Afghan girl named Medina, who lost her mother and leg at the trauma hospital in Kandahar. For Jen Burch, the intrusive memory is of the man who assaulted her before she deployed.More than a decade has passed since these three women were deployed to Afghanistan. It’s now almost four months since the US military withdrew from Kabul on 30 August. Still, specific memories consume them. Three hundred thousand female veterans served in the 19-year war, and as media coverage dwindles and the nation slowly forgets, Felicia, Liz and Jen continue to remember.Their experiences in Afghanistan differed from those of the male soldiers with whom they served. Now, their stateside lives do too. Being a woman in war comes with its own set of distinct traumas. While congressional legislation that has recently been proposed is welcome, essential bills are still being blocked that would help repair the suffering these women have endured for years.Gender differences exist in trauma exposure. PTSD is twice as common in women than in men, according to a study conducted by Kathryn Magruder at the University of South Carolina.Yet they face additional obstacles when seeking support after their deployment.The Deborah Sampson Act passed in January of this year made gender-specific services available at veteran medical centers across the country.However, on 6 December, House and Senate armed service committee leaders tried to block the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act, which would enable veterans to report sexual assault to a neutral third party.Felicia’s husband says she is a lot jumpier now than she used to be. Talking about Afghanistan makes her sad, but as she has gotten older, sounds, not memories, trigger her PTSD. The anxiety hits. She breathes deeply. Then tries, with difficulty, to get her heart rate down.It was December 2010, the year of her first deployment. She was lying in bed at the base at Kandahar, watching American television, when she heard those crashing bumps. Seconds later, the sirens sounded. A rocket had hit. Felicia fell to the floor with a thud and ran for the nearby bunker.It was cold and dusty in there; a dirt track enveloped in a hollow concrete shell. Just feet away, medics worked on a man wounded in the chest; he had no pulse in his left leg. They called for clothing, anything that might be used to stop the bleeding. As the yells of the medics got louder, Felicia’s mind traveled further away.She couldn’t do anything to help. Eleven years later, she still feels that guilt and hears those sounds.She had arrived in Kandahar energetic and excited. She returned to Minnesota a year later, distant and dejected. The months after coming home were the worst. Gritting her teeth through weekly therapy sessions, she insisted that everything was fine. The therapist believed her, even telling her not to come back.On 4 January 2012, Felicia tried to kill herself. She began with a single antidepressant. Then she took five more. Then the bottle. None of her co-workers, family or friends knew about her clinical depression. She spent her 22nd birthday in intensive care.Post-military support at the time, she maintains, was significantly lacking.“Female service members have much more to deal with in the complexity of trauma,” confirmed Jennifer Pacanowski, founder of the non-profit Women’s Veterans Empowered and Thriving. “They also have less access to services, which are not as specialized to their needs as those available to male veterans.”The Deborah Samson Act, a bipartisan bill passed by the Senate in January 2021, will establish a policy to end gender-based sexual harassment and assault by training employees and providing legal services for veterans at risk. It will also staff Veteran Affairs facilities with a permanent female health provider.Felicia wishes she had access to these sorts of resources when she came home. Instead, during a 10-minute evaluation, it was determined she did not have PTSD, and that her grief stemmed only from her mother’s death.She was furious and felt unheard.Looking back, she believes that better healthcare policies for female veterans would have encouraged her to open up about her experiences and struggles sooner. Instead, she dealt with her feelings alone until she needed life-saving help.After deploying in August 2010, Liz began volunteering at Kandahar’s trauma hospital. She had already witnessed death. Just weeks earlier, an injured soldier died with his head resting on her stomach. She dealt with this like any Marine had to do in any high-intensity combat situation: turn off emotion and focus.She could not, however, turn off the memories of the trauma hospital. As the mother of two young daughters, it tugged at every maternal instinct she had.American male service members were not permitted to work at the hospitals. Only because she was female could she see what she now can’t forget.The waiting room that November day was bustling with uncles, fathers, cousins and brothers.No one waited for Medina. Whoever brought the three-year-old Afghani girl had left. Her infected foot could not be saved, and Liz cradled the child as she came out of the anesthesia after the amputation. Rather than waking in familiar arms, Medina’s first sight was this stranger wearing desert camouflage with a pistol at her side. The anguish Liz felt reminded her that she could feel again after months surrounded by death.Now, Medina revisits Liz’s thoughts back in Virginia. She appears in flashbacks when Liz looks at baby photographs of her youngest daughter. She comes to mind when Veterans Day is celebrated on national television.Was the girl still alive? Could Liz have done more to help her? Was she attending school amid the Taliban’s ever-increasing restrictions on women’s freedom?Liz had flown to Afghanistan fearless and determined in 2010 but returned to the US four months later, injured and traumatized.In the weeks after her deployment, Liz felt as if she were watching someone else’s life in a movie. Physically, she was home, but mentally, she was in Kandahar.She tried going through the motions expected of her as a mother and a wife. Doing menial tasks – cooking dinner, hugging her child – things she had been so capable of doing before she left. But it felt to her like a tug of war, the past pulling her back, her mind fighting to remain present.It didn’t help that she felt her pain was invisible to the world. When attending Veterans Affairs medical appointments, the administration staff would sometimes ask her husband, who came along for support, who he was there to see. He would have to correct them and say the appointment was for his wife.It was only when they took the time to listen to Liz’s story that people validated her trauma. Research shows that post-traumatic stress in veterans varies by gender. If hers had been recognized earlier, she wonders, would she still be struggling with it 11 years later?Jen, like Liz, was working in Afghani hospitals because she was a woman. She, too, was haunted by a girl who had lost a foot. But, more, she was haunted by the long-term impacts of sexism and abuse in the military.Jen was sexually assaulted by her supervisor at a US military base, months before she was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010.She was made to report it through her chain of command, but was quickly stopped in her tracks. Everyone loved the man she was accusing.“We’re so glad to have him back,” said the male officer who handled her complaint.Jen wanted to deploy abroad. She knew no one would believe her. So she stopped, fearing that as a victim, she would be isolated.But trauma builds on trauma. This experience made Jen more vulnerable to the horrors she witnessed during her service in Afghanistan. Statistically, a history of sexual assault puts a veteran at higher risk for developing PTSD.Serving at Buckley Space Force Base in Denver, Colorado, when she returned stateside from August 2011 to 2014, things got worse.Jen started to go through some of the lowest moments of her life.Her co-workers assumed that she was being emotional about things because she was a woman. Someone she served with in Afghanistan observed that the only PTSD she had was from eating the bad food. This went on for a year and a half.Jen was assaulted before she arrived in Afghanistan. She worked overtime in the trauma hospital doing mortuary affairs; developed breathing problems; had glass nodules in her lungs. Yet she was perpetually made fun of. It was a very negative culture surrounding her post-deployment.No one wanted to hear her story.Although women are the fastest-growing veteran demographic, she believes that some men still don’t think of women serving in roles of high stress or exposure.Currently, the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act is being blocked. If the act had been passed when Jen was on active service, she would have reported her sexual assault.This is the same for many other women in the military, she believes. And while there is a mountain of legislation being passed to assist female veterans, this is still not enough.“If it means sharing the darkest details of my story, then I’ll keep doing this,” Jen said, “until the gendered gap in veteran healthcare is finally closed”.TopicsPost-traumatic stress disorderWomenUS militaryMental healthUS politicsHealthfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      VR experience offers journey into US president's nuclear bunker – video

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      Nuclear Biscuit, a simulated experience, allows US officials to wargame a missile attack and see the devastating consequences of their choices. 
      Players experience what the president would have to do in the event of a nuclear crisis: make a decision that would end many millions of lives – and quite possibly civilisation on the planet – with incomplete information and in less than 15 minutes. Here’s a snippet of the game as completed by Julian Borger, our world affairs editor

      ‘15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker More

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      in US Politics

      Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complications

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      Colin PowellColin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complicationsPowell helped to build case for 2003 invasion of IraqJoe Biden hails ‘a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity’02:36Ed Pilkington in New York@edpilkingtonMon 18 Oct 2021 17.53 EDTFirst published on Mon 18 Oct 2021 08.17 EDTColin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday.Washington mourns death of Colin Powell as first tributes come in – liveRead morePowell, a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, had been treated for Covid at Walter Reed national medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he died. He was fully vaccinated against coronavirus but had a compromised immune system having been treated for blood cancer.Announcing his death, his family said they had lost a “remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American”.Powell was America’s first Black secretary of state, serving in that role under George W Bush from 2001 to 2005. He rose to the heights of military and diplomatic service from relatively disadvantaged beginnings, having been born in New York City to Jamaican parents and raised in the South Bronx where he was educated through public schools before he entered the army via a college officer training program.A statement from Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, said they were “deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity” and referred to Powell having “repeatedly broken racial barriers [and] blazing a trail for others”.Biden further said of Powell: “Over our many years working together – even in disagreement – Colin was always someone who gave you his best and treated you with respect. Colin embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat … having fought in wars, he understood better than anyone that military might alone was not enough to maintain our peace and prosperity … Colin led with his personal commitment to the democratic values that make our country strong.”Kamala Harris, the first female and first Black and south Asian US vice-president, said Powell was “an incredible American” who “served with dignity and grace” and she praised Powell as a trailblazing inspiration in “what he did and how he did it”.He rose to occupy the top military position in the US government as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff between 1989 and 1993. In that role he presided over military crises including the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the first Gulf war in 1990-91.But it was in the buildup to the contentious invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Powell became a household name. He was the face of the Bush administration’s aggressive attempt to get the world community to back the invasion, based on false claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.In February 2003, as secretary of state, Powell appeared before the UN security council and made categoric claims that the then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. He said his intelligence was based in part on accounts of unidentified Iraqi defectors.The invasion went ahead without UN authorisation. The following year the CIA’s own Iraq Study Group released a report that concluded that Hussein had destroyed the last of the country’s weapons of mass destruction a decade previously.Powell stepped down as secretary of state in November 2004, following Bush’s re-election. He later insisted to reporters that he had tried to warn Bush of the consequences of invading Iraq, but had supported the president when the decision to proceed was taken.In a statement on Monday, Bush called Powell “a great public servant. He was such a favorite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad.”Dick Cheney, Bush’s vice-president who was a leading hawk on Iraq, simply said that working with Powell during the first Gulf war had shown him “Powell’s dedication to the United States and his commitment to the brave and selfless men and women who serve our country in uniform. Colin was a trailblazer and role model for so many.”Tony Blair, who as British prime minister also backed the Iraq invasion, called Powell a “towering figure in American military and political leadership over many years. He inspired loyalty and respect … his life stands as a testament not only to dedicated public service but also a strong belief in willingness to work across partisan division in the interests of his country.”01:45After his time in government Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. He grew increasingly disillusioned by the Republican party’s rightward drift.In 2008, despite party rivalries, he endorsed Barack Obama for president and later became one of Donald Trump’s leading critics.On Monday, Obama said Powell “never denied the role that race played in his own life and in our society more broadly. But he also refused to accept that race would limit his dreams,” adding that he was “deeply appreciative” that Powell had endorsed him.Trump pushed a lie that Obama had not been born in the US and, at a time when conspiracy theorists were suggesting Obama was a Muslim, Powell spoke out and said: “The correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is?’”Powell voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020 and was scathing about Republicans who remained silent or actively embraced Trump’s lies. In January he said he was so disgusted by the insurrection of Trump supporters at the US Capitol that he no longer considered himself a Republican.Powell, a prostate cancer survivor, was undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, when he contracted Covid-19. He was scheduled to receive his Covid booster last week when he first got sick. “He couldn’t go to his appointment,” Peggy Cifrino, his longtime chief of staff, told the Washington Post. “He thought he was just not feeling quite right, and he went to the hospital.”The FDA authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the immune-compromised and others in September, but the regulatory agency has not yet officially authorized boosters from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. FDA advisors recommended Moderna boosters for vulnerable groups on Thursday and Johnson & Johnson boosters for those above the age of 18 on Friday.This blood cancer makes it hard to fight infections, putting patients at increased risk for coronavirus, and less likely to respond to vaccines. Dr Derry Segev, a transplant surgeon and professor of surgery and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, told the Guardian earlier this month that severely immune-compromised patients sometimes don’t respond to additional mRNA vaccines adequately.“About 50% of [transplant] patients have no detectable antibody after two doses, and the ones who do have very low levels of antibody. You add a third dose, you get another few percent ultimately back in – but still even after three doses, and we’ve published even after four doses, there are a lot of transplant patients who don’t have good antibody responses.”“There are extremely rare cases of deaths or hospitalizations among fully vaccinated individuals,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a press briefing on Monday. But she emphasized that “an unvaccinated person has a more than 10 times greater risk of dying from Covid-19 compared to a fully vaccinated person”.Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s chief of staff, told CNN he also had Parkinson’s disease.Freshman progressive Democratic New York congressman Jamaal Bowman tweeted that Powell was an inspiration to him “as a Black man just trying to figure out the world”.Melody Schreiber contributed reportingTopicsColin PowellUS militaryUS foreign policyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Inside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste

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      The ObserverAfghanistanInside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste A Taliban commander invited the media to inspect the site where America plotted killing raids and tortured prisonersEmma Graham-Harrison in KabulSun 3 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTThe cars, minibuses and armoured vehicles that the CIA used to run its shadow war in Afghanistan had been lined up and incinerated beyond identification before the Americans left. Below their ashy grey remains, pools of molten metal had solidified into permanent shiny puddles as the blaze cooled.The faux Afghan village where they trained paramilitary forces linked to some of the worst human rights abuses of the war had been brought down on itself. Only a high concrete wall still loomed over the crumpled piles of mud and beams, once used to practise for the widely hated night raids on civilian homes.The vast ammunition dump had been blown up. Many ways to kill and maim human beings, from guns to grenades, mortars to heavy artillery, laid out in three long rows of double-height shipping containers, were reduced to shards of twisted metal. The blast from the huge detonation, which came soon after the bloody bomb at Kabul airport, shook and terrified the capital city.All formed part of the CIA compound that for 20 years was the dark, secret heart of America’s “war on terror”, a place were some of the worst abuses to sour the mission in Afghanistan would fester.The sprawling hillside compound, spread over two square miles north-east of the airport, became infamous early on in the conflict for torture and murder at its “Salt Pit” prison, codenamed Cobalt by the CIA. The men held there called it the “dark prison”, because there was no light in their cells, the only occasional illumination coming from the headlamps of their guards.It was here that Gul Rahman died of hypothermia in 2002 after he was chained to a wall half-naked and left overnight in freezing temperatures. His death prompted the first formal CIA guidelines on interrogation under a new regime of torture, eviscerated in a 2014 report that found that the abuse did not provide useful intelligence.The base has for two decades been a closely guarded secret, visible only in satellite photos, navigated by the testimony of survivors. Now the Taliban’s special forces have moved in and recently, briefly, opened up the secret compound to journalists.“We want to show how they wasted all these things that could have been used to build our country,” said Mullah Hassanain, a commander in the Taliban’s elite 313 unit, who led the tour of destroyed and burnt-out compounds, “burn pits” and incinerated cars, buses and armoured military vehicles.Taliban special forces include suicide attackers who recently marched through Kabul to celebrate seizing the capital. Vehicles now emblazoned with their official “suicide squadron” logo escorted journalists around the former CIA base.It was a grimly ironic juxtaposition of the most cruel and ruthless units on both sides of this war, a reminder of the suffering inflicted on civilians by all combatants in the name of higher goals, over several decades.“They are martyrdom seekers who were responsible for the attacks on important locations of invaders and the regime. They now have control of important locations,” said a Taliban official, when asked why suicide squads were escorting journalists, and if they would continue to operate. “It is a very big battalion. It is responsible for the security of important locations. They will be expanded and further organised. Whenever there is a need, they will respond. They are always ready for sacrifices for our country and the defence of our people.”They planned to use the CIA base for their own military training, Hassanain said, so this brief glimpse of the compound is likely to be both the first and last time the media is allowed in.The men guarding it had already changed into the tiger-stripe camouflage of the old Afghan National Directorate of Security, the spy agency once in charge of hunting them down. The paramilitary units that operated here, based in barracks just near the site of the former Salt Pit jail, included some that were among the most feared in the country, mired in allegations of abuse that included extrajudicial killings of children and other civilians. The barracks had been abandoned so fast that the men who lived there left food half-finished, and barracks floors were littered with possessions spilled out of emptied lockers, cleared in an apparent frenzy.Mostly they had taken or destroyed anything with names, or ranks, but there were 01 patches, and one book that was filled with handwritten notes from weeks of training.Nearby, the site of the Salt Pit jail had apparently been razed a few months earlier. A New York Times satellite investigation found that, since spring, a cluster of buildings inside this part of the CIA compound had been levelled.Taliban officials said they did not have any details about the Salt Pit, or what had happened to the former jail. Rahman’s family are still searching for his body, which has never been returned to them.Other torture techniques recorded at the site included “rectal feeding”, shackling prisoners to bars overhead, and depriving inmates of toilet “privileges”, leaving them naked or wearing adult diapers.Construction equipment was abandoned on the site, with concrete slabs half poured. Next door, a building that had once been fortified with high-tech doors and equipment had apparently been firebombed, its interior as totally destroyed and reduced to ash as the cars outside.Destroying sensitive equipment at the base would have been complex, and there was evidence of several burn pits where everything from medical kits and a manual on leadership was put to the flames, along with larger pieces of equipment.The Taliban officials were jumpy about letting journalists into areas that had not been officially cleared. They had found several booby trap bombs in the rubble of the camp, Hassanain said, and were worried that there might be more.For days, helicopters ferried hundreds of people from the base to inside the airport, where men from the 01 force – aware they were likely to be prominent targets for reprisals – helped secure the perimeter in return for evacuation in the final hours, under a deal struck with the US.Untouched nearby was a recreation hall with snooker, ping-pong, darts and table football gathering dust. A box in the corner held brain teaser puzzles. It was unclear what the Taliban, once so austere that they even banned chess, would do with the trappings of western military downtime.TopicsAfghanistanThe ObserverTalibanCIACIA torture reportSouth and Central AsiaTortureWar crimesfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump-Taliban deal had 'psychological' effect on Afghan government says top US general – video

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      The collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces can be traced to a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration that promised a complete US troop withdrawal, senior Pentagon officials have told Congress.
      Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of central command, told the House ‘the signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military’. He identified a troop reduction ordered by Joe Biden as the ‘second nail in the coffin’.

      Top US general says Afghan collapse can be traced to Trump-Taliban deal More

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      in US Politics

      Blame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in Afghanistan

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      AfghanistanBlame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in AfghanistanAnalysis: Senators’ questions to military leadership a contest in sharing out responsibility for failures Julian Borger in WashingtonTue 28 Sep 2021 18.52 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 Sep 2021 19.02 EDTThe deeply partisan US Congress is rarely a conducive place for national introspection and Tuesday’s Senate hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal did not provide an exception.In the midst of the point-scoring and blame-shifting on display in the senators’ questions to the nation’s military leadership, it was clear that it was a contest to apportion shares in failure.And behind the debacle of the pullout that left tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans behind, there were fleeting references to the far deeper failure of the preceding two decades – a reckoning that has only just begun for the Pentagon and the US foreign policy establishment.US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley saysRead moreFor obvious reasons, the Republicans on the armed services committee sought to keep the focus on the past eight months, accusing Joe Biden of surrendering to terrorists, throwing in occasional demands for the immediate resignation of the three military leaders sitting before them: the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, the head of Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.The three witnesses, nudged from time to time by the Democrats, would occasionally point out that the surrender in question truly began in February 2020, with the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban in Doha.In return for a US withdrawal by 1 May this year, the Taliban agreed to seven conditions, but as Gen Milley pointed out, they only stuck to one of them: not to attack the departing Americans. Every other undertaking, such as entering into good-faith negotiations with Kabul and breaking ties with al-Qaida, the Taliban had reneged on. But Trump nonetheless sought to accelerate the withdrawal, at one point demanding it be completed by January.The Republicans barely mentioned the Doha agreement, preferring to frame the withdrawal as Biden’s original idea. It was hardly surprising. Over the past four years, the party has become accustomed to cognitive dissonance. The one backhanded Republican reference to Doha came from Thom Tillis who asked why Biden had stuck to Trump’s bankrupt deal.“I don’t buy the idea that this president was bound by a decision made by a prior president,” Senator Tillis said. “This was not a treaty. And it was clearly an agreement where the Taliban were not living up to it. President Biden could have come in, reasserted conditions and completely changed the timeline.”The answer the White House has given is that the Doha agreement gave the Taliban considerable momentum, boosting their morale, destroying Afghan government self-confidence, and freeing 5,000 Taliban fighters. Reneging on the deal by a new administration would have meant a return to war with far higher stakes, and probably tens of thousands of soldiers.Milley, McKenzie and Austin, however, took a different route in their testimony. They confirmed that in the policy of review in February, March and April, they had advocated retaining a small force of about 2,500.They were not questioned on how such a remnant could have withstood a resumption of direct attacks from an invigorated Taliban. Instead the focus of many of the exchanges centred around Biden’s baffling insistence in an ABC News interview on 19 August that he had received no such advice from his military advisers.The three witnesses tried to get around this awkwardness by saying that while they had believed a small force should have been retained, they could not possibly disclose the nature of their advice to the president.Asked by Senator Tom Cotton if Biden had been speaking the truth, Austin could only squirm and insist the president was “an honest and forthright man”.In his opening statement Austin had sought forlornly to widen the focus from the last few weeks of the US presence in Afghanistan to the preceding two decades and warned: “We need to consider some uncomfortable truths.”Mismatch of mindsets: why the Taliban won in AfghanistanRead more“Did we have the right strategy? Did we have too many strategies?” he asked. So much faith had been put in nation-building that the sudden collapse of the army and the government, and the panicked flight of President Ashraf Ghani “took us all by surprise”. “It would be dishonest to claim otherwise,” Austin said.Milley said the US military would be trying to learn the lessons of the Afghan failure for a long time to come, but he outlined some of his initial thoughts.One of his lessons, the general said, was not to give the enemy a fixed date for your departure as the Doha deal had done, but base it on a set of conditions. Another of Milley’s conclusions was “don’t Americanise the war” and don’t try to build another country’s army as the mirror image of US forces.But as Milley himself conceded, these were lessons that were supposed to have been learned in Vietnam. The Biden White House had been anxious to avoid parting scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975 but that is exactly what happened, in part because those lessons had been forgotten.The deeper question – never likely to be answered, or even asked, in the bearpit of Congress – is why the US has suffered from such recurrent amnesia each time it has gone off to war.TopicsAfghanistanUS CongressJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansDemocratsTalibananalysisReuse this content More

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      Milley defends China calls and says ‘I am certain Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese’ – live

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      Key events

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      In deep red West Virginia, Biden’s $3.5tn spending proposal is immensely popular

      5.00pm EDT
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      Today so far

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      Federal agencies to take modest steps to expand voter registration

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      15:40

      Sanders urges House colleagues to vote against infrastructure bill

      1.34pm EDT
      13:34

      Grisham book: Trump told Putin he had to pretend to be tough

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      Warren to Fed chair Powell: You’re a dangerous man

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      In deep red West Virginia, Biden’s $3.5tn spending proposal is immensely popular

      Zack Harold reports:
      Elizabeth Masters isn’t a natural Joe Biden supporter. A self-described conservative who lives in Parkersburg, in deeply Republican West Virginia, she said she registered to vote in the last election so she could cast a ballot for Donald Trump.
      Masters says she doesn’t approve when people “just stand for a handout” – she doesn’t think the United States should be spending money on undocumented immigrants, for example – but says anything that will “help people that are trying to do for themselves, I’m all for it”.
      To that end, Masters has found herself supportive of efforts by the Biden administration to pass a $3.5tn budget proposal that is full of ambitious plans to help poorer and working class Americans on a range of social issues from childcare to healthcare.
      Though vehemently opposed by Republicans and West Virginia’s own Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, there is some evidence that the proposals contained in the spending plans – which some have likened to the 1930s New Deal – are more popular among grassroots Republicans than their political representatives. That may be especially true in West Virginia, which is a poor, largely white and working class state whose residents would stand to greatly benefit from the Biden effort.
      That is why Masters says she supports the Child Tax Credit, the monthly payments from the IRS given to families with children making less than $200,000. The Build Back Better plan would make the credits permanent.
      Masters and her husband recently took out a loan to repair the roof on their house, only to lose the home in a fire. They did not have insurance, so they are still paying on the loan. The Child Tax Credit payment she receives each month for her nine-year-old son covers that loan every month.
      Biden’s budget bill includes his Build Back Better plan, which would cut taxes for most Americans, raise taxes on the rich, train more workers and lower costs for healthcare, childcare, education and housing.
      When the nonpartisan nonprofit WorkMoney surveyed more than 50,000 of its 2 million members nationwide, it found 81% of respondents said they supported this plan. That includes 90% of liberals who took the survey, 81% of moderates and 66% of conservatives.
      Conservative backing appears even more robust in West Virginia, home of Manchin, a moderate Democrat who is one of the critical holdouts on the budget bill and whose efforts could derail the entire plan – or see large chunks of it scrapped as he balks at the budget’s price tag.
      But according to the survey, 80% of more than 800 people surveyed in his home state believe he should vote to pass the bill. That includes 77% of conservatives who responded to the survey.
      Read more:

      5.00pm EDT
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      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Gen Mark Milley defended his calls with Chinese officials in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, saying the conversations were meant to “de-escalate” tensions between the two nations. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said during a Senate hearing today, “I know, I am certain that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese.” Republicans had called for Milley’s resignation over reports that he was attempting to prevent Trump from launching an attack on China.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that senior military leaders were caught off-guard by how quickly the Afghan government and military collapsed. “We helped build a state, Mr Chairman, but we could not forge a nation,” Austin said at the hearing. “The fact that the Afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise. And it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.”
      Gen Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, contradicted Joe Biden on what military advice he received regarding Afghanistan. While not going into detail about his private conversations with Biden, McKenzie said that he recommended keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan to help ensure the stability of the Afghan government. Biden has previously said that he never received such advice from military leaders. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters that Biden heard “a range of viewpoints” on the matter.
      Congressional progressives are sticking to their position that they will not support the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the reconciliation package passes. Ahead of the expected Thursday vote on the infrastructure bill, the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair said members would not support the legislation unless the spending package advances at the same time. Senate budget committee chair Bernie Sanders has expressed his support for the House progressives’ stance as well.
      Senator Elizabeth Warren said she would not support Jay Powell’s renomination as Federal Reserve chairman. “Your record gives me grave concerns,” the Massachusetts Democrat told Powell at a hearing this morning. “Over and over, you have acted to make our banking system less safe, and that makes you a dangerous man to head up the Fed, and it’s why I will oppose your renomination.”

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.45pm EDT
      16:45

      Florida is suing the Biden administration over its immigration policies, while Republican governor Ron DeSantis is barring state agencies from helping with relocating undocumented immigrants.
      The AP reports:

      DeSantis’ order authorized the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Highway Patrol ‘to detain any aircraft, bus, or other vehicle within the State of Florida reasonably believed to be transporting illegal aliens to Florida from the Southwest Border.’
      He also ordered the agencies to gather information on the identities of any immigrants arriving illegally in Florida from the Mexico border and told state agencies not to spend money assisting those immigrants unless required by law.
      Attorney General Ashley Moody’s lawsuit claims the federal immigration policy will cost the state millions of dollars and cause harm to Florida.

      Biden’s immigration agenda has come under harsh scrutiny in recent weeks, after alarming footage surfaced of border agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants in the border city of Del Rio, Texas.
      Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Friday that there were no remaining migrants at the camp underneath the Del Rio bridge, and administration officials had previously said they would suspend the use of horses in Del Rio.

      4.28pm EDT
      16:28

      Sam Levine

      The US constitution gives the president little power to act unilaterally around voting. But the set of actions the White House announced on Tuesday signals an aggressive effort to use the power Joe Biden does have.
      Voting rights groups have long advocated for expanded voter registration opportunities at federal agencies.
      Expanding voter registration to the Indian Health Service could help 1.9m people register, according to a report issued last year by the Brennan Center for Justice. Expanding voter registration at naturalization ceremonies could help add a significant portion of the 760,000 people naturalized each year to the voter rolls, the report said.
      The actions come six months after Biden issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to come up with plans to provide voter registration assistance.
      The announcement also comes as the White House has faced some criticism from civil rights groups who say it is not pushing hard enough to get federal voting rights legislation through congress.

      4.17pm EDT
      16:17

      Federal agencies to take modest steps to expand voter registration

      Sam Levine

      Federal agencies are going to take modest steps to expand voter registration, the White House announced on Tuesday.
      Among the actions: The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service will provide voter registration opportunities and assistance to their patients.
      The Justice Department will facilitate voting for those eligible who are in federal custody and help people understand the rules of voting in their states once they’re released from prison.
      The Department of Homeland Security will invite local government officials and non-profit groups to register voters at naturalization ceremonies.
      The Department of Transportation will encourage local transit agencies to weigh offering free or reduced fares on election day.

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EDT

      3.56pm EDT
      15:56

      Meanwhile, on the issue of the debt ceiling, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said today that using reconciliation to raise or suspend the debt ceiling is “risky” and a “non-starter”.
      But with Republicans digging in on their opposition, reconciliation may be the only option for Democrats to raise the debt ceiling in a party-line fashion.
      House majority leader Steny Hoyer had suggested earlier today that reconciliation may be the path forward, but he then walked back those comments after Schumer and other Senate Democrats criticized the idea.
      “Today I was asked whether reconciliation is an option to address the debt limit. It is certainly not the best option, nor the option we’re pursuing,” Hoyer said on Twitter, adding that Republicans “have a responsibility to the country to ensure the US does not default”.

      Steny Hoyer
      (@LeaderHoyer)
      Today I was asked whether reconciliation is an option to address the debt limit. It is certainly not the best option, nor the option we’re pursuing. Senate GOP are putting our economy & families at risk. They have a responsibility to the country to ensure the US does not default.

      September 28, 2021

      3.40pm EDT
      15:40

      Sanders urges House colleagues to vote against infrastructure bill

      Progressive senator Bernie Sanders is urging his House counterparts to oppose the bipartisan infrastructure bill until a reconciliation package is passed.
      Sanders, who chairs the Senate budget committee, said on Twitter, “Let’s be crystal clear. If the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own on Thursday, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the Democratic Caucus in Congress.”
      Sanders warned that approving the infrastructure bill would “end all leverage that we have to pass a major reconciliation bill,” meaning Democrats would not have an opportunity to expand Medicare or invest in affordable childcare.

      Bernie Sanders
      (@SenSanders)
      Let’s be crystal clear. If the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own on Thursday, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the Democratic Caucus in Congress.

      September 28, 2021

      “It also means that Congress will continue to ignore the existential threat to our country and planet with regard to climate change,” Sanders said.
      “I strongly urge my House colleagues to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill until Congress passes a strong reconciliation bill.”
      As of now, House progressives are standing firm to their position that they will vote against the infrastructure bill if it is taken up on Thursday without a plan to simultaneously advance the reconciliation package.
      Given Democrats’ very narrow majority in the House, the progressives’ stance raises the possibility that both bills may fail.

      3.20pm EDT
      15:20

      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that he would soon put forward a bill to fund the government past the end of the month.
      If Congress does not pass a government funding bill in the next two days, the government will shut down on Friday.
      “I think very soon we will put down a bill to deal with the shutdown and move forward,” Schumer said this afternoon.

      CSPAN
      (@cspan)
      .@SenSchumer: “I think very soon we will put down a bill to deal with the shutdown and move forward.” pic.twitter.com/nM5Mpn4bMq

      September 28, 2021

      Asked whether he could assure the American people that the country will avoid a government shutdown, Schumer said, “We’re doing everything we can to avoid a shutdown, and we should put something on the floor.”
      The majority leader expressed hope that Senate Republicans would help Democrats pass a government funding bill, accusing them of “playing games with the American people — political, nasty and destructive games”.

      3.05pm EDT
      15:05

      The White House press secretary reiterated that Democrats had previously hoped Republicans would help them raise the debt ceiling in a bipartisan fashion, which occurred during Donald Trump’s presidency.
      Jen Psaki added, “It’s also our hope that, if Senator McConnell isn’t going to help us avoid a default and a shutdown, at least he’ll get out of the way and let Democrats do it alone, so we can avoid a default, and right now that question remains up in the air.”
      But as Psaki held her briefing, McConnell threw another wrench into Democrats’ efforts to raise the debt ceiling along party lines.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer requested unanimous consent to move toward a final vote on suspending the debt limit without having to overcome a filibuster. McConnell objected, and the saga over the debt limit continues.

      CSPAN
      (@cspan)
      .@SenSchumer makes unanimous consent request to move to a final vote to suspend the debt limit without 60-vote threshold filibuster.@LeaderMcConnell objects. pic.twitter.com/7t7dPPhJev

      September 28, 2021

      2.41pm EDT
      14:41

      A reporter asked Jen Psaki whether Joe Biden would consider supporting abolishing the Senate filibuster to raise the debt ceiling.
      “The president’s position has not changed on that,” the White House press secretary said.
      Senate Republicans remain adamant that they will not support any effort to raise the debt ceiling, intensifying concerns over a potential default next month.
      Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said in a letter today that Congress must raise or suspend the debt ceiling by October 18 to avoid economic disaster.

      2.28pm EDT
      14:28

      The White House press secretary said Joe Biden had a “constructive meeting” with Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema today to discuss the reconciliation package.
      Jen Psaki noted that Biden was still meeting with senator Joe Manchin when she came out to the briefing room.
      According to Psaki, the senators agreed that the country is at a “pivotal moment” right now, but it’s unclear whether any progress was made toward agreeing on a top-line cost for the legislation.
      A CNN reporter spotted Sinema returning to the White House for another meeting as the press briefing started:

      Kevin Liptak
      (@Kevinliptakcnn)
      Sinema is back at the White House (2:10 p.m. ET) pic.twitter.com/TJSupZCh81

      September 28, 2021

      2.20pm EDT
      14:20

      The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing, and she faced questions about Pentagon officials’ testimony before the Senate today.
      A reporter asked Psaki to respond to the claim from Gen Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, that he recommended keeping 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan to help ensure the stability of the Afghan government.
      The reporter asked whether Joe Biden misrepresented the military advice he received, given that the president previously said he did not hear anyone suggest an ongoing troop presence in Afghanistan.
      Psaki said Biden heard “a range of viewpoints” on the matter, and she argued maintaining a troop presence would have risked further casualties.
      Asked who recommended the complete troop withdrawal that occurred, Psaki said, “I’m not going to get into specific details of who recommended what.”

      2.11pm EDT
      14:11

      House progressives are sticking to their position that they will not support the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless the reconciliation package is simultaneously approved.

      Congresswoman Cori Bush
      (@RepCori)
      Today is Tuesday.The infrastructure vote is Thursday.And I still will be voting “No” unless we first pass the Build Back Better Act to deliver universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, Medicare expansion, paid leave, climate action, and so much more.

      September 28, 2021

      Congresswoman Cori Bush said on Twitter, “Today is Tuesday. The infrastructure vote is Thursday. And I still will be voting ‘No’ unless we first pass the Build Back Better Act to deliver universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, Medicare expansion, paid leave, climate action, and so much more.”
      But it seems virtually impossible that the reconciliation package can be advanced on that timeline, raising the possibility that both bills could fail.

      2.01pm EDT
      14:01

      Martin Pengelly

      Away from the Milley-McKenzie-Austin hearing, things are not getting any easier for Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden when it comes to passing Biden’s ambitious domestic spending plans.
      The House Progressive Caucus says in a new statement it won’t vote for the bipartisan $1tn infrastructure deal until the spending plan is passed via reconciliation.
      Caucus leader Pramila Jayapal of Washington state said of the spending plan: “This agenda is not some fringe wish list: it is the president’s agenda, the Democratic agenda, and what we all promised voters when they delivered us the House, Senate, and White House.”
      In a letter to colleagues, Pelosi writes: “The change in circumstance regarding the reconciliation bill has necessitated a change in our Build Back Better legislation but not in our values.”
      Pelosi also said “negotiations are being led by President Biden to advance his vision”. Biden was expected to meet two key moderate senators: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Yesterday, prominent House progressive Ilhan Omar called the two senators “Republicans”.
      Of course, no one’s word in Washington is final until it’s final. But there’s meant to be a vote on the infrastructure deal on Thursday.

      1.47pm EDT
      13:47

      Martin Pengelly

      The hearings before the Senate armed services committee have resumed, with Gen Kenneth McKenzie facing questions about future operations and strike capabilities regarding Afghanistan from Senator Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican.
      “Hard to do but we can talk more about it in the closed session,” the general says, referring to classified aspects of the US strike capacity, then admits that the US must still rely on co-operation from Pakistan – which hosted Taliban groups during the US occupation.
      “They’re going to be very conflicted about this,” he says, “as they have been for the last 20 years.”
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin is asked how many US citizens are still in Afghanistan. He tells Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, that 21 just came out.
      Here’s some essential reading from Julian Borger, about some essential reading from Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post:

      1.34pm EDT
      13:34

      Grisham book: Trump told Putin he had to pretend to be tough

      Martin Pengelly

      Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin he had to act tough next to the Russian president for the cameras, according to the former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
      “OK, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes,” Grisham says she heard Trump tell his Russian counterpart in Osaka in 2019. “But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.”
      Grisham makes the claim in a new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, which will be published next week. The Washington Post obtained a copy.
      Trump’s presidency was dogged by his relationship with Putin, the focus of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.
      Mueller did not establish a conspiracy but stressed that he did not exonerate Trump of seeking to obstruct justice. Speculation over the two leaders’ relationship remained rampant, particularly over a meeting alone save for interpreters in Helsinki in 2018.
      In front of the media at the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, with Grisham sitting nearby, Trump joked with Putin that they should both “get rid” of journalists who published “fake news”, saying: “You don’t have this problem in Russia.”
      Putin said: “Yes, yes, we have too, the same.”
      Trump later smirked, pointed at Putin and said: “Don’t meddle in the election.”
      Grisham was Trump’s third press secretary, an unhappy reign in which she did not hold a single White House briefing. Her book has been extensively trailed, titbits including a comparison of Melania Trump to Marie Antoinette.
      Full story: More