Jason Ditz

Watchdog: US Wasted More Than $15.5 Billion in Afghanistan

by Jason Ditz | Jul 31, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Responding to requests from members of Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has made his first attempt to calculate exactly how much money the US wasted in Afghanistan. After 10 months of research, SIGAR said they could document $15.5 billion in waste since SIGAR’s inception in 2008. This is 29 percent of all of the spending audited by the SIGAR, who concedes the figure is probably low. Current SIGAR John Sopko says that the figure is “likely only a portion of the total waste, fraud, abuse, and failed efforts.” He warned that the $4 billion in...

Mueller Indicts 12 Russian Intel Officers Just Days Before Summit

by Jason Ditz | Jul 14, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Indictment fuels new calls to cancel Trump-Putin summit On Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 12 Russian GRU officers. The 12 are accused of conspiring to hack Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC computers to leak information ahead of the 2016 election. Robert Mueller This was the second substantial set of indictments coming out of the investigation. In February, the Justice Department indicted 13 other “conspirators” claiming that they had stolen the identities of US citizens to manipulate the campaigns. Russia has denied all the charges. While indictments aren’t surprising,...

Trump, Kim Arrive in Singapore for Tuesday Summit

by Jason Ditz | Jun 12, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The historic Trump-Kim summit is just 48 hours away, and both leaders have arrived in Singapore. Kim arrived on an Air China plane Sunday afternoon local time, and Trump arrived just hours later at Paya Lebar Air Base. This caps weeks of questions around the summit. President Trump withdrew from the summit after North Korea angrily condemned John Bolton’s talk of a “Libya model.” North Korea remained patient, and after another week of lower-level talks, Trump said the talks would happen as originally scheduled. Trump has been very public about not participating in a lot of preparations...

Iran Informs IAEA of Intention to Produce More Uranium Feedstock

by Jason Ditz | Jun 7, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Falsely reported in multiple outlets as Iran greatly increasing its uranium enrichment, the Iranian government has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that they are increasing their production of uranium hexaflouride, the feedstock used in centrifuges. Under the P5+1 nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to produce a certain amount of low-enriched uranium in the centrifuges, which take the feedstock and produce fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. The uranium is enriched to around 4%, far below the 90-95% needed for weapons-grade uranium. The European Union confirmed that...

Israel Promises Probe After Gaza Medic Shot in the Back

by Jason Ditz | Jun 5, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The death of 21-year-old Palestinian medic Razan Najjar on Friday has fueled a lot of anger across the region, particularly with news that she was shot in the back by Israeli snipers. The Israeli military has since promised an investigation into the killing. Killing of civilian protesters in Gaza was already controversial, and the death of the photogenic young nurse who was treating the wounded protesters is even moreso. Her funeral drew a large following, and protests started afterwards. Medics getting shot deliberately by Israeli snipers at the Gaza border has been a common occurrence...

Senate Dems Threaten Legislation to Undermine North Korea Nuclear Deal

by Jason Ditz | Jun 5, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

A letter from a number of ranking Senate Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is setting out a series of demands for any denuclearization deal with North Korea. The letter suggests they intend to undermine any sort of deal made in the Trump-Kim summit next week. The letter demands any denuclearization deal be complete and “permanent,” and threatens legislation to prevent any sanctions relief without their approval. They also demand that Trump force China to play a role in enforcing the deal. This closely mirrors the way Congressional Republicans undermined the P5+1 nuclear deal...

Justice Dept Told Trump Syria Attacks Were ‘Legal’

by Jason Ditz | Jun 4, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In April, the US fired a large number of missiles at multiple sites across Syria, supposedly in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack. The Justice Department told president Trump before the attacks that this would be perfectly legal. New documents released on the matter told Trump that he didn’t need Congressional authorization to attack Syria in April because attacking them was “in the national interest,” and Syria was so unlikely to retaliate that it wasn’t technically a war. A lot of this argument centers on an interpretation of what war “in a constitutional sense” actually...

Trump’s Iran Sanctions Threaten US Goal to Stabilize Afghan Economy

by Jason Ditz | May 31, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

US foreign policy in one country often finds itself at cross-purposes with the agenda in another country. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Afghanistan, where US efforts to prop up the occupied nation’s collapsing economy is at serious risk. The cause of that risk? US policy in neighboring Iran. President Trump has been aggressively escalating US sanctions against Iran, oblivious to the impact it would have on other nations in the region, Afghanistan in particular. Afghans see the Chabahar port project in southern Iran as an economic lifeline to them. Afghanistan’s lone western highway...