Jennifer Williams | Vox

Ramadan: 9 questions about the Muslim holy month, answered

2024-03-08T15:00:44-05:00

A Palestinian woman makes tas kadaif (small pancakes in thick syrup) for iftar dinner at her home during Ramadan in Gaza City, Gaza, on April 27, 2020. | Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Ramadan is the Muslim holy month, and most of the world’s estimated 1.8 billion Muslims will observe it in some form.

Which means there’s a good chance you — or a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, your child’s teacher — will be celebrating, fasting, and doing all sorts of other activities that are unique to the holy month.

But what is Ramadan, exactly? What’s the deal with fasting? And is there anything special you should do or say when you’re around Muslim friends and acquaintances during Ramadan?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: Here are the most basic answers to the most basic questions about Ramadan.

1) What is Ramadan actually about?

Ramadan is the most sacred month of the year for Muslims — the Prophet Mohammed reportedly said, “When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of heaven are opened and the gates of hell are closed and the devils are chained.”

Muslims believe it was during this month that God revealed the first verses of the Quran, Islam’s sacred text, to Mohammed, on a night known as “The Night of Power” (or Laylat al-Qadr in Arabic).

During the entire month of Ramadan, Muslims fast every day from dawn to sunset. It is meant to be a time of spiritual discipline — of deep contemplation of one’s relationship with God, extra prayer, increased charity and generosity, and intense study of the Quran.

But if that makes it sound super serious and boring, it’s really not. It’s a time of celebration and joy, to be spent with loved ones. At the end of Ramadan, there’s a big three-day celebration called Eid al-Fitr, or the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast.

It’s kind of like the Muslim version of Christmas, in the sense that it’s a religious holiday where everyone comes together for big meals with family and friends, exchanges presents, and generally has a lovely time.

2) How does fasting work?

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars — or duties — of Islam, along with the testimony of faith, prayer, charitable giving, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca. All Muslims are required to take part every year, though there are special dispensations for those who are ill, pregnant or nursing, menstruating, or traveling, and for young children and the elderly.

The practice of fasting serves several spiritual and social purposes: to remind you of your human frailty and your dependence on God for sustenance, to show you what it feels like to be hungry and thirsty so you feel compassion for (and a duty to help) the poor and needy, and to reduce the distractions in life so you can more clearly focus on your relationship with God.

During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from eating any food, drinking any liquids, smoking cigarettes, and engaging in any sexual activity, from dawn to sunset. That includes taking medication (even if you swallow a pill dry, without drinking any water). Chewing gum is also prohibited (though I didn’t find that one out until about halfway through my first Ramadan after converting — oops).

Doing any of those things “invalidates” your fast for the day, and you just start over the next day. To make up for days you didn’t fast, you can either fast later in the year (either all at once or a day here and there) or provide a meal to a person in need for each day you missed.

Muslims are also supposed to try to curb negative thoughts and emotions like jealousy and anger, and even lesser things like swearing, complaining, and gossiping, during the month. Some people may also choose to give up or limit activities like listening to music and watching television, often in favor of listening to recitations of the Quran.

3) What is a typical day like during Ramadan?

During Ramadan, Muslims wake up well before dawn to eat the first meal of the day, which has to last until sunset. This means eating lots of high-protein foods and drinking as much water as possible right up until dawn, after which you can’t eat or drink anything.

At dawn, we perform the morning prayer. Since it’s usually still pretty early, many go back to sleep for a bit before waking up again to get ready for the day (I certainly do).

Muslims are not supposed to avoid work or school or any other normal duties during the day just because we are fasting. In many Muslim countries, however, businesses and schools may reduce their hours during the day or close entirely. For the most part, though, Muslims go about their daily business as we normally would, despite not being able to eat or drink anything the whole day.

When the evening call to prayer is finally made (or when the alarm on your phone’s Muslim prayer app goes off), we break the day’s fast with a light meal — really more of a snack — called an iftar (literally “breakfast”), before performing the evening prayer. Many people also go to the mosque for the evening prayer, followed by a special prayer that is only recited during Ramadan.

This is usually followed by a larger meal a bit later in the evening, which is often shared with family and friends in one another’s homes throughout the month. Then it’s off to bed for a few hours of sleep before it’s time to wake up and start all over again.

(Note: There are good reasons for only having a small snack to break your fast before performing the evening prayer and then eating a bigger meal later. Muslim prayers involve a lot of movement — bending over, prostrating on the ground, standing up, etc. Doing all that physical activity on a full stomach after not having eaten for 15 hours is a recipe for disaster. Just trust me on this one.)

Despite the hardship of fasting for a whole month, most Muslims (myself included) actually look forward to Ramadan and are a little sad when it’s over. There’s just something really special about knowing that tens of millions of your fellow Muslims around the world are experiencing the same hunger pangs, dry mouth, and dizzy spells that you are, and that we’re all in it together.

4) So do you lose weight during Ramadan?

Some of you may be thinking, “Wow, that sounds like a great way to lose weight! I’m going to try it!” But in fact, Ramadan is actually notorious for often causing weight gain. That’s because eating large meals super early in the morning and late at night with a long period of low activity bordering on lethargy in between can wreak havoc on your metabolism.

One meta-analysis of scientific studies on the effects of Ramadan fasting on body weight found that “[w]eight changes during Ramadan were relatively small and mostly reversed after Ramadan, gradually returning to pre-Ramadan status. Ramadan provides an opportunity to lose weight, but structured and consistent lifestyle modifications are necessary to achieve lasting weight loss.” [Italics mine.]

So just like with any other extreme diet plan, you may lose a few pounds, but unless you actually make “structured and consistent lifestyle modifications,” you’re probably not going to see major, lasting results.

5) Why do the dates of Ramadan change every year?

For religious matters, Muslims follow a lunar calendar — that is, one based on the phases of the moon — whose 12 months add up to approximately 354 days. That’s 11 days shorter than the 365 days of the standard Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the Islamic lunar calendar moves backward approximately 11 days each year in relation to the regular Gregorian calendar.

So that means that the first day of the month of Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, moves backward by about 11 days each year.

This has a large impact on how people experience Ramadan from year to year. When Ramadan falls in the winter, it’s much easier to fast: the days are shorter, which means you don’t have to fast as long, and it’s colder out, so not being able to drink water all day isn’t as big of a deal because you’re not sweating as much.

Conversely, when Ramadan falls in the summer, fasting can be brutal. In many Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa, summer temperatures can reach levels usually reserved for the deepest bowels of hell.

And in some Northern European countries such as Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (where, yes, there are Muslims), fasting can last an average of 20 hours or more in the summer. (And in a few places above the Arctic Circle, the sun never actually sets in the summer. In these cases, Muslim religious authorities have decreed that Muslims can either fast along with the closest Muslim country or fast along with Mecca, Saudi Arabia.)

6) Okay, but why is there always confusion every year about exactly what day Ramadan starts on?

There’s a reason “Ramadan start date” is one of the most-searched phrases every single year. That’s because Muslims around the world do not know when exactly Ramadan is actually supposed to start.

That also has to do with the moon — as well as disagreements about science, history, and tradition, plus a bit of geopolitical rivalry.

The beginning of each new month in the Islamic calendar starts on the new moon. Which means the month of Ramadan starts on the new moon. Simple enough, right?

Wrong.

If it’s been a while since your high school astronomy class, here’s a reminder of what the phases of the moon look like:

Back in Mohammed’s day, in sixth-century Arabia, astronomical calculations weren’t as precise as they are today, so people went by what they could see with the naked eye.

Since the new moon isn’t actually super visible in the night sky (as you can see above), Muslims traditionally waited to start fasting until the small sliver of crescent moon became visible. There’s even a saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed about waiting to start the fast until you see the crescent. (Some people think this is why the star and crescent is the symbol of Islam, but the crescent was used as a symbol long before Islam.)

This method was a bit messy, though, since things like clouds or just the difficulty of spotting the moon in some locations often led to different groups starting their fast on separate days, even within the same country. Each community, village, or even mosque within the village might send its own guy out to look for the crescent, with rival groups arguing over whether the other guy really saw it.

Today, however, we have precise scientific calculations that tell us exactly when the new moon begins, and we don’t need to wait until someone spots a tiny crescent in the sky. (In fact, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, “The need to determine the precise appearance of the hilal [crescent moon] was one of the inducements for Muslim scholars to study astronomy.”)

So problem solved! Except that some Muslim scholars believe we should still wait until the slight crescent moon is visible in the night sky because that’s what Mohammed said to do and that’s the way we’ve always done it.

Others argue that Islam has a strong tradition of reason, knowledge, and science, and that if Mohammed were around today, he’d choose the more precise scientific calculations over sending the guy at the mosque with the best eyesight outside to squint at the night sky.

To make things even more fun, some argue that the whole world should just follow the official moon-sighting decrees of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and the location of its holiest sites.

But not everyone thinks that’s such a swell idea — especially rival countries like Pakistan and Iran, which balk at the idea of treating Saudi Arabia as the ultimate authority on anything having to do with Islam.

7) Are there differences between how Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims observe Ramadan?

For the most part, no. Both Sunni and Shia Muslims fast during Ramadan. But there are some minor differences — for instance, Sunnis break their daily fast at sunset, when the sun is no longer visible on the horizon (but there’s still light in the sky), whereas Shia wait until the redness of the setting sun has completely vanished and the sky is totally dark.

Shia also celebrate an additional holiday within the month of Ramadan that Sunnis do not. For three days — the 19th, 20th, and 21st days of Ramadan — Shia commemorate the martyrdom of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed who was both the revered fourth caliph of Sunni Islam and the first “legitimate” imam (leader) of Shia Islam.

Ali was assassinated in the fierce civil wars that erupted following the death of Mohammed over who should lead the Muslim community in his stead. On the 19th day of the month of Ramadan, while Ali was worshipping at a mosque in Kufa, Iraq, an assassin from a group of rebels who opposed his leadership fatally struck him with a poisoned sword. Ali died two days later.

Ali is a hugely important figure in Shia Islam. His tomb in nearby Najaf, Iraq, is the third-holiest site in Shia Islam, and millions of Shia make a pilgrimage there every year. Although Sunnis revere Ali as one of the four “rightly guided” caliphs who ruled after Mohammed’s death, they do not commemorate his death or make a pilgrimage to his tomb.

8) What can I do to be respectful of my Muslim friends during Ramadan?

In some Muslim countries, it is a crime to eat and drink in public during the day in the month of Ramadan, even if you’re not Muslim.

Of course, this is not the case in the United States, where we enjoy freedom of (and freedom from) religion. And most American Muslims, myself included, don’t expect the non-Muslims around us to radically change their behavior to accommodate our religious fast during Ramadan.

I’ve had friends and coworkers who have chosen to fast along with me out of solidarity (or just because it seems “fun”), and that was sweet of them, but it’s not something I ever expect people to do. (Plus, they usually last about three days before they decide solidarity is overrated and being thirsty for 15 hours is not remotely “fun.”)

All that said, there are things you can do, and not do, to make things a little easier for friends or colleagues who happen to be fasting for Ramadan. If you share an office with someone fasting, maybe eat your delicious, juicy cheeseburger in the office break room rather than at your desk, where your poor, suffering Muslim coworkers will have to smell it and salivate (if they even have enough moisture left in their bodies to salivate at that point).

Try to remember not to offer them a bite or a sip of what you’re eating, because it’s sometimes hard for us to remember that we’re fasting and easy to absentmindedly accept and eat that Lay’s potato chip you just offered us. But if you do, it’s okay. We’re not going to get mad or be offended (unless you’re doing it on purpose, in which case, what is wrong with you?).

If you’re having a dinner party and you want to invite your Muslim friends, try to schedule it after sunset so they can eat. Muslims don’t drink alcohol or eat pork, but we usually don’t mind being around it. (Contrary to popular belief, we are not scared of or allergic to pork; we just don’t eat it. It’s not like we’re vampires and pork is garlic.) But do let us know if there’s alcohol or pork in something so we don’t accidentally consume it.

If you want to wish your Muslim friends or acquaintances a happy Ramadan or happy Eid al-Fitr, you’re welcome to just say, “Happy Ramadan!” or “Happy Eid!” That’s not offensive or anything. But if you want to show them you made an effort to learn more about their religion, the standard greetings are “Ramadan/Eid kareem” (which means “have a generous Ramadan/Eid”) or “Ramadan/Eid mubarak” (which means “have a blessed Ramadan/Eid”).

Even something as simple as learning one of those expressions and saying it with a smile to your Muslim friends will go a long way toward making them feel comfortable and welcome.

9) So if you're not supposed to get angry or complain or gossip during Ramadan, how come terror attacks by groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda sometimes spike during Ramadan?

Because terrorists are assholes.

Update, March 7, 2024, 3 pm ET: This story was originally published in 2017, and has been updated with new dates and to remove outdated references.

The big ship stuck in the Suez Canal is free

2021-03-29T13:32:49-04:00

Spectators watch as the Ever Given container ship moves along the Suez Canal toward Ismailia after being freed from the canal bank in Suez, Egypt, on March 29, 2021. | Islam Safwat/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Boaty McStuckface is now unstuck.

As of Monday evening local time, Ever Given, the massive container ship that had blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week, is free.

The dayslong saga of the stuck ship disrupted global trade to the tune of billions of dollars and captivated the world’s (and the internet’s) attention.

The 1,312-foot-long container ship was traveling from China to the Netherlands through the narrow canal last Tuesday when Egyptian authorities say a dust storm brought low visibility and heavy winds that caused the ship to run aground.

With the bow of the ship touching the eastern wall of the canal and the stern against the western wall, the vessel completely blocked the waterway, leaving dozens of smaller ships stranded on both sides.

It remained wedged there for days — creating what amounted to the world’s largest traffic jam in one of the most important shipping transit routes on earth.

Completed in 1869, the Suez Canal provides one of the shortest maritime routes between Asia and Europe by connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas and allowing ships to avoid having to go around the Horn of Africa.

Some 80 percent of the world’s trade travels by sea, and around 12 percent moves through the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal is also an important route for tankers transporting fossil gas and oil.

In an effort to increase traffic, the Egyptian government undertook an $8 billion expansion of the Canal back in 2015, extracting 260 million tons of sand to build a new channel and deepen and widen sections of the old canal. In 2020, 19,000 ships passed through the canal — more than 50 ships per day.

That number dwindled to zero while Ever Given remained lodged in the canal, prompting Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority, which operates and maintains the canal, to work furiously to try to free the vessel.

Expert salvage crews, tugboats, and excavating equipment were dispatched to the scene. Finally, after six long days — and with the help of the full moon, which caused the tide in the canal to rise — the ship was freed.

And the celebrations were glorious.

View Link

BREAKING: the ship is really moving now and horns are blaring in what sounds like celebration.

The stern has swung away from us and it looks like it’s really facing the right way now after hours of being jackknifed across the channel. pic.twitter.com/gTuvqWO5ta
— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) March 29, 2021

The ship has now been towed to Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake, about midway through the canal, where it will undergo an inspection, the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Osama Rabie said, according to state-run Al Ahram newspaper.

After that’s completed, the boat’s charter company will then decide on what to do next, CNN reported.

“The outcome of that inspection will determine whether the ship can resume its scheduled service. Once the inspection is finalized, decisions will be made regarding arrangements for cargo currently on board,” charter company Evergreen said, according to CNN.

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The Ever Given container ship has now arrived at the Great Bitter Lake, effectively clearing the Suez Canal. Video is from my colleague @S_Elwardany who’s on the ground | #SuezCrisis pic.twitter.com/WXNludpblO
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 29, 2021

In the meantime, traffic has finally resumed in the channel — bringing a happy (if expensive) end to one of the wildest stories of 2021 so far.

Trump has the authority to launch nuclear weapons — whether Pelosi likes it or not

2021-01-08T18:02:06-05:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to take President Trump’s nukes away. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reached out to the US military about taking away President Trump’s nuclear authority, an ask that may seem reasonable on the surface, given the violence at the Capitol this week.

But she’s playing a dangerous game with America’s national security.

In a letter to House Democrats Friday, Pelosi told her colleagues that she’d just spoken to the Pentagon about ways to prevent an “unstable” President Donald Trump from launching a nuclear weapon in his remaining days in office.

“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi wrote.

She later told House Democrats on a call that Milley assured her there are safeguards in place to prevent the president from ordering an illegal nuclear strike, USA Today reported. (A Joint Chiefs spokesperson later confirmed that Milley had spoken with Pelosi: “Speaker Pelosi initiated a call with the Chairman. He answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority.”)

It’s understandable that his critics on the Hill — who were hunkered down in the belly of the Capitol while Trump’s supporters raided their offices Wednesday — would be tempted to snatch the president’s keys to the “red button.”

But the House speaker does not have the authority to try to keep the nuclear codes from Trump. Like it or not, the president of the United States has sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon.

Pelosi knows this full well — and that’s the point.

The move was political, a way to gin up support for the new Democratic push to impeach Trump over his incitement of the violence that occurred at the US Capitol on Wednesday. (The Washington insider newsletter Punchbowl reported Friday that some Republicans would be “sure to support the move” to impeach.)

Pelosi is a savvy political operator, and painting Trump as not just unhinged but an imminent threat to global security is certainly a way to heighten pressure on members of Congress to support impeachment.

But in this case, Pelosi is playing with literal fire.

Using the US nuclear command-and-control system for politics undermines the longstanding US approach to dissuading foreign adversaries from attacking the United States with nuclear weapons.

The president, as commander in chief, has sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon for an important reason: speed. In order to deter an adversary from launching nukes at the US, the thinking goes, they need to know that the US can send one (or more, potentially a lot more) right back at them, even before the enemy nukes get close to the US.

The idea is that knowing the US can obliterate a country no matter what, even if the US is attacked with nukes itself, will prevent a country from ever trying it.

But if the president has to stop and ask a whole bunch of other people for approval first before ordering a nuclear strike, or if there’s any confusion about who actually has the authority to do so, that could slow things down to the point that the US’s ability to respond quickly before it’s destroyed in a massive nuclear attack could disappear.

(Vox reached out to Pelosi’s office for comment but has not received a response.)

Why Pelosi’s comments are dangerous

The ability to quickly launch a nuclear weapon is at the heart of America’s nuclear deterrence strategy.

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explains:

America’s nuclear system has been designed with an eye toward MAD — mutually assured destruction. That’s the idea that no country would nuke the United States first if it knew America would be able to launch a devastating response. Every US nuclear system is thus designed around establishing deterrence: making sure other countries can be certain that the US will be able to nuke them back no matter what.

If that certainty is lost — if the US’s ability to respond quickly to a nuclear attack by launching one of its own is in doubt — that deterrence effectively collapses.

US adversaries like Russia, China, and North Korea need to know that the US could launch a nuclear strike in minutes if need be, without any snags in the chain of command slowing things down or otherwise muddling the process.

The idea of Russia or China launching a nuke at the US right now for no reason other than they think they could get away with it because of Pelosi’s comments may seem far-fetched — and it is. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest any country has a plan or desire to start a nuclear war with the United States in the next two weeks.

The real risk is the damage to the longer-term perceptions of the US nuclear command structure.

Pelosi can try to remove Trump from office. But as long as he’s in office, he controls the nukes.

Pelosi may not like President Trump. She may think he’s unstable or unfit for office. She may think he shouldn’t be trusted to control America’s vast nuclear arsenal. But like it or not, Trump, as president, does control that arsenal. Not the military, not the vice president, and certainly not the House speaker.

“So long as Trump remains in office, he retains the legal authority to solely launch some or all of America’s nuclear weapons until 12:01 pm on January 20, or until he is removed from office,” Vipin Narang, a nuclear security expert at MIT, told Vox. “Any ‘safeguards’ that could effectively prevent POTUS from exercising sole authority to launch nuclear weapons are either illegal or illusory.”

As House speaker, Pelosi can certainly try to have him removed from office (as it seems she is doing). What she emphatically can’t do is tell the military not to comply with a lawful order from the president of the United States to launch a nuclear weapon.

“We have a nuclear monarchy,” said Joe Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a security foundation that tries to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, told Vox’s Lindsay Maizland for Vox in 2017. “Once [the president] gives the command, he cannot be overruled.”

Here’s how the system works:

1) The president decides a nuclear strike is necessary

It’s unlikely that the United States would turn to nuclear weapons as a first resort in a conflict. There are plenty of nonnuclear options available, such as launching airstrikes to try to take out an adversary’s nuclear arsenal.

But the United States has consistently refused to adopt a “no first use” policy. Trump could theoretically decide to launch a nuclear strike before an adversary’s nukes go off in America. In the heat of battle, the US military might detect an incoming nuclear attack from, say, North Korea, and the president could decide to respond with a similar strike.

Either way, the president is the one who ultimately decides to put the process of launching a nuclear strike in motion, but he still has a few steps to complete.

2) A US military officer opens the “football”

Once the president has decided the situation requires a nuclear strike, the military officer who is always by the president’s side opens the “football.”

The leather-clad case contains an outline of the nuclear options available to the president — including possible targets, like military installations or cities, that the US’s roughly 800 nuclear weapons ready to launch within minutes can hit — and instructions for contacting US military commanders and giving them orders to launch the missiles with warheads on them.

3) Trump talks with military and civilian advisers

The president is the sole decision-maker, but he could consult with civilian and military advisers before he issues the order to launch a nuclear weapon.

A key person Trump must talk to is the Pentagon’s director of operations in charge of the National Military Command Center, or “war room,” the heart of the Defense Department that directs nuclear command and control.

The president can include whomever else he wants in the conversation. He would almost certainly consult Adm. Charles “Chas” A. Richard, the commander of US Strategic Command (Stratcom), since Richard is responsible for knowing what the US can hit with its nuclear weapons.

Trump could also consult Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, and Gen. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in that conversation as well.

If any of the advisers felt such an attack would be illegal — like if Trump simply wanted to nuke North Korea or Iran despite no apparent threat — they could advise the president against going ahead with the strike.

What they can’t really do is overrule him.

Richard, the Stratcom commander, could also refuse to carry out the order if he felt it was illegal. But if he did so, Trump could just fire him and replace him with someone who would carry it out.

4) The president gives the official order to strike

After the conversation, a senior officer in the “war room” has to formally verify that the command is coming from the president using a series of alphanumeric codes.

Then members of the “war room” communicate with the people who will initiate and launch the attack. Depending on the plan chosen by the president, the command will go to US crews operating the submarines carrying nuclear missiles, warplanes that can drop nuclear bombs, or troops overseeing intercontinental ballistic missiles on land.

5) Launch crews prepare to attack

The launch crews receive the plan and prepare for attack. This involves unlocking various safes, entering a series of codes, and turning keys to launch the missiles.

Crews must “execute the order, not question it,” Cirincione told Maizland.

6) Missiles fly toward the enemy

It could take as little as five minutes for intercontinental ballistic missiles to launch from the time the president officially orders a strike. Missiles launched from submarines take about 15 minutes.

And then the president waits to see if they hit their target.

There is no reason to think Trump plans to randomly nuke anybody

It’s understandable that some might be nervous about what Trump could do in the remaining days of his presidency, angry, disgruntled, and with nothing left to lose.

Trump called on a rally of his supporters to march to the Capitol to demand Congress not certify the results of the election. He used language that encouraged violence, even if he didn’t outright call for it. That mob then turned violent and stormed the Capitol.

And as they rampaged and looted through the halls and offices of Congress, he refused to call them off after they’d already done significant damage. And when he did finally tell them to go home in peace, he also told them, “We love you. You’re very special.”

This is obviously not the behavior of a responsible person, let alone a responsible president. And it’s understandable that some would fear having a man that reckless in charge of a nuclear arsenal with the potential to destroy the world.

But egging on a crowd of unruly supporters is not the same as deliberately, knowingly, purposely launching a nuclear weapon that would kill tens of thousands of people. Or doing so outside of an active conflict or nuclear standoff, either.

The US military estimated that the atomic bomb it dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 killed about 70,000 people. That was just one bomb. And the weapons the US has today are far, far more powerful than the one used that day.

That doesn’t even take into account the numbers of Americans who would likely be killed in retaliation if the country Trump attacked also has nuclear weapons. Researchers at Princeton’s Science and Global Security Lab estimated in 2019 that even a “limited” nuclear war could cause 90 million casualties (meaning people killed or injured) in just a few hours.

There is no evidence that Trump wants to randomly nuke another country. In fact, he has long feared the prospect of nuclear war.

“I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process. It’s the ultimate, the ultimate catastrophe, the biggest problem this world has, and nobody’s focusing on the nuts and bolts of it,” Trump said in a 1990 interview with Playboy.

Trump has said many times that he learned about the destructive power of nuclear weapons at an early age from his uncle John, a professor at MIT who was a renowned scientific mind. “He was a brilliant scientist,” Trump said in another Playboy interview, this time in 2004, “and he would tell me weapons are getting so powerful today that humanity is in tremendous trouble. This was 25 years ago, but he was right.”

Even if a military conflict were to break out between the US and another country in the next two weeks before Trump leaves office, there’s still little evidence to suggest Trump would immediately respond with a nuclear weapon.

The most plausible conflict to erupt in that time span would probably be with Iran. But keep in mind that back in June 2019, Trump called off a planned strike on Iran meant as a response to the downing of a US military drone.

Trump tweeted his rationale for calling off the attack: “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” Trump wrote. “[N]ot proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry.”

For Trump to consider using a nuclear weapon on Iran, then, Iran would probably have to launch a massive, deadly attack on America or its allies in the next two weeks.

Even if it did, Trump’s decision to attack in response would result from a conversation with top military and civilian officials, and there are plenty of conventional weapons available to Trump below the level of a nuclear weapon that he could order the military to use. That may not be much comfort, of course — an attack with conventional weapons can kill tens of thousands of people, too.

Still, that’s not a nuke.

Was the US Capitol attack “domestic terrorism”?

2021-01-07T18:04:04-05:00

The US Supreme Court is seen through a damaged entrance of the US Capitol on January 7. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

“Don’t dare call them protesters,” President-elect Joe Biden said Thursday, referring to the pro-Trump mob that had seized the US Capitol the day before. “They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

He’s not the only one using the “terrorism” label to describe Wednesday’s events.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called the assault on the Capitol “textbook terrorism.” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, one of President Donald Trump’s key allies in Congress who helped legitimize the baseless conspiracy theories about the election that led to the violence, also called the attack “a despicable act of terrorism.”

Others, however, have argued terms such as “insurrection” or “sedition” are more accurate.

The debate over which acts should and shouldn’t be labeled “terrorism” is nothing new. For example, Muslims in the United States and elsewhere have long objected that events linked to “radical Islam” are labeled as terrorism by politicians and the media far more often — and far quicker — than attacks by white supremacists or neo-Nazis.

It’s often said that there is no definition of “terrorism.” But that’s not quite accurate. What people really mean is that there is no one standard definition of terrorism that everyone agrees on. It’s not that we don’t have a definition of terrorism; it’s that we have too many.

If and how you apply the terrorism label depends in large part on who you are and what your purpose is in using that label.

It’s useful to think about terrorism as three different things: a tactic, a legal term, and a political label. Understanding each of these ways the terrorism label is used is critical to understanding why different people call different things “terrorism” — and why it’s such a controversial, but important, term.

How analysts think: Terrorism as a tactic

Terrorism scholars and analysts primarily view terrorism as one tactic among many that groups (and in some cases individuals) use to achieve their goals — be they establishing a caliphate (like ISIS), gaining political and territorial independence (like Basque separatists in Spain), or persuading governments and corporations to act more responsibly toward animals or the environment (like the Earth Liberation Front).

Considering terrorism as a tactic helps scholars and analysts think more critically about these groups and how to deal with them. That’s because although we often talk about “terrorist groups,” the reality is that most such organizations use a variety of tactics throughout their life span depending on their goals and capabilities at a given moment.

For instance, calling ISIS a terrorist group ignores the fact that in Iraq and Syria, ISIS often used more conventional military tactics — massing forces, launching complex operations, and taking and holding territory — in addition to carrying out terror attacks. ISIS also (briefly) functioned as a government, providing its version of law and order, repairing roads, keeping the electricity on, and even selecting textbooks for schools.

Treating ISIS as merely a “terrorist” organization fails to understand the way it operates, what its goals are, and how it maintains support and financing — all things that are critical to figuring out how it can be defeated.

Analysts also try to define terrorism along very specific lines in order to separate it from other kinds of violence, such as acts of war. This can be confusing to non-experts (and sometimes experts, too). For example, many scholarly definitions of terrorism do not consider attacks against military targets in a combat zone to be terrorism — only attacks against civilians (or “noncombatants”).

But what exactly is a “combat zone” when we’re talking about the fight against international terrorist groups? For groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, the whole world is a combat zone. And who exactly is a “noncombatant”? If ISIS detonates a car bomb that kills US military advisers on the ground in Iraq, is that terrorism or an act of war?

Similarly, many scholarly definitions of terrorism require that the attack have an explicit political motive. Which means that even a series of bombings that killed and injured large numbers of people may not be considered by scholars to be an act of “terrorism” if it turns out that the perpetrator had no clear political motive.

These distinctions explain why you might hear an analyst on the news say that a particular attack was “not terrorism” even though it may seem to you and many others to be a clear act of terrorism. The analyst is not saying that the attack was justified or that it wasn’t horrific, just that it doesn’t classify as “terrorism” as they happen to define it.

How law enforcement thinks: Terrorism as a legal term

On December 4, 2015, the FBI announced that it was officially investigating the San Bernardino shooting as “an act of terrorism.” However, that came only one day after the same FBI official, when asked whether the attack was terrorism, said, “It would be irresponsible and premature for me to call this terrorism. The FBI defines terrorism very specifically, and that is the big question for us, what is the motivation for this.”

So what gives? What’s the big deal with not wanting to call it “terrorism” when the FBI clearly was already thinking it was?

The answer has a lot to do with the fact that the FBI is a law enforcement organization and is part of the US Department of Justice. The FBI’s primary job is to investigate crimes with the goal of bringing the perpetrators to justice — in other words, to prosecute criminals in a court of law.

This means the FBI’s understanding of what constitutes “terrorism” has much less to do with how it views the circumstances of an attack and much more to do with whether the facts of the case meet the very specific legal criteria used to prosecute someone on terrorism charges.

Under federal law, “international terrorism” means activities that:

Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law
Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping
Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the US, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum

“Domestic terrorism” means activities that:

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the US

And 18 USC § 2332b defines the term “federal crime of terrorism” as an offense that:

Is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct
Is a violation of one of several listed statutes, including § 930(c) (relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a federal facility with a dangerous weapon); and § 1114 (relating to killing or attempted killing of officers and employees of the US)

These are the kinds of criteria law enforcement organizations like the FBI and others are concerned with when making the determination of whether a specific act constitutes “terrorism.”

Whether you and I (or even individual law enforcement officers) personally think an attack is terrorism doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether the authorities in question think they can make a case for prosecuting the perpetrator for terrorism in a court of law.

How politicians and pundits think: Terrorism as a pejorative term

In his seminal book Inside Terrorism, scholar Bruce Hoffman wrote, “On one point, at least, everyone agrees: ‘Terrorism’ is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one’s enemies and opponents.”

He explained:

[T]he decision to call someone or label some organization “terrorist” becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at the worst, ambivalent) light, and it is not terrorism.

Politicians often apply the word “terrorism” to the actions of individuals and groups they see as opponents and enemies in order to delegitimize and demonize them.

George W. Bush invoked terrorism and 9/11 when naming Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as members of an “Axis of Evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin have justified their attacks on Syria’s democracy opposition in the name of defeating terrorism.

The US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations is often portrayed in the media as some kind of exhaustive, authoritative list of terrorist groups around the world. But the truth is that which groups get included on the list and which get excluded is a largely political determination, not an analytical one.

Groups that may well engage in the same types of activities as groups on the list have been consciously left off the list for political reasons — out of fear of offending a country the US doesn’t want to offend, or because the group is on America’s side or pursuing goals that are in line with perceived US interests.

So was the US Capitol attack “domestic terrorism” or not?

Hoffman, the terrorism scholar, says Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol was an act of domestic terrorism because it meets the FBI’s criteria for that label.

But Hoffman is a scholar; he isn’t going to be the one making that determination when it comes to possible criminal charges for the perpetrators. That will be up to law enforcement.

And Biden and other political figures are using the label for clear political reasons (which doesn’t mean they truly believe the label fits). President Trump, meanwhile, has portrayed the violent mob that attacked the Capitol in a very different light, telling them in a video on Wednesday as they marauded through the halls of Congress, “We love you, you’re very special.”

They are his supporters, after all.

There’s an old cliché that everyone who studies terrorism has heard a million times and despises: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” It’s supposed to convey the idea that people are inconsistent in how they define terrorism and tend to eschew the word when the person or group in question is on their side.

But just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true.

China’s new national security law is already chilling free speech in Hong Kong

2020-07-02T12:22:05-04:00

Andrew Wan, a pro-democracy lawmaker, is arrested by riot police during a protest against the new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1. | Yat Kai Yeung/NurPhoto via Getty Images

At 11 pm local time on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s government unveiled the text of a draconian new national security law that gives the Chinese government vast new powers to crack down on free speech and dissent in Hong Kong.

Drafted in secrecy by top Chinese officials in Beijing — and not seen by the public until that very moment — the law criminalizes “secession, subversion, organization and perpetration of terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.”

Those who commit such acts — which experts say are vaguely defined in the law, and thus allow for an extremely broad interpretation by authorities — face severe punishment, up to and including life in prison.

“The things that you talk about, you write about, you publish about, and even the people you know about, that you have connection with, can be potentially at risk of being prosecuted under this law,” Ho-Fung Hung, a political economy professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on China and East Asia, told Vox.

And, according to the New York Times, “The law opens the way for defendants in important cases to stand trial before courts in mainland China, where convictions are usually assured and penalties are often harsh.”

The law went into effect immediately. Less than 24 hours later, Hong Kong police announced the first arrest under the new policy.

And they weren’t subtle about it: They immediately posted photos on their official Twitter account of the young man they’d arrested. His alleged offense? Holding a pro-Hong Kong independence flag.

#BREAKING: A man was arrested for holding a #HKIndependence flag in #CausewayBay, Hong Kong, violating the #NationalSecurityLaw. This is the first arrest made since the law has come into force. pic.twitter.com/C0ezm3SGDm
— Hong Kong Police Force (@hkpoliceforce) July 1, 2020

Chinese state media quickly reported the story of the first arrest — but they made sure to blur out the offending images of the pro-independence flag itself, lest they commit the same grievous act of promoting such a seditious idea (something the Hong Kong Police Force apparently didn’t think to do before tweeting the photos).

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For many Hong Kong watchers, these images marked the beginning of the end of the freedoms that Hong Kong, unlike the rest of mainland China, had enjoyed for decades.

The law effectively ends “one country, two systems”

The “one country, two systems” principle — enshrined in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s de facto constitution — has been in place ever since Britain handed back control of the territory to China in 1997.

As Vox’s Jen Kirby explains, “The ‘one country’ part means [Hong Hong] is officially part of China, while the ‘two systems’ part gives it a degree of autonomy, including rights like freedom of the press that are absent in mainland China. China is supposed to abide by this arrangement until 2047, but it has been eroding those freedoms and trying to bring Hong Kong more tightly under its control for years.” Kirby continues:

Last spring, Hong Kong’s legislature tried to pass an extradition bill that critics feared would allow the Chinese government to arbitrarily detain Hongkongers. That ignited massive protests, leading to months of unrest that sometimes turned violent. The bill was withdrawn, but the demonstrations continued, as the fight transformed into a larger battle to protect Hong Kong’s democratic institutions.

But Beijing’s imposition of this new national security law is the most direct and dramatic move China has made toward erasing those freedoms once and for all.

“[The National Security Law] is a complete destruction of the rule of law in Hong Kong and threatens every aspect of freedom the people of Hong Kong enjoyed under the international human rights standards or the Basic Law,” Lee Cheuk Yan, a veteran Hong Kong politician and activist, told US lawmakers during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the new law on Wednesday.

Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Vox, “This law really eliminates ‘one country, two systems.’”

But Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists aren’t cowed — or at least, not yet

On Wednesday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam held a press conference to announce the new law — a law drafted without her input and whose full details even she didn’t know until just the day before.

Outside, thousands of Hongkongers took to the streets to protest against — and in direct defiance of — it, despite a heavy police presence.

Riot police deployed around the city held up large purple banners that read: “This is a police warning. You are displaying flags or banners / chanting slogans / or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitute offenses under the ‘HKSAR National Security Law.’ You may be arrested and prosecuted.”

By the end of the day, nearly 400 people had been arrested, including 10 who were specifically arrested for violating the new law.

But experts fear that despite this initial strong opposition, the law’s chilling effect will happen eventually.

“People will be intimidated. They will charge people and they will sentence them,” Glaser said. “The Chinese have this saying, ‘Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.’ They will look for very early cases that they can prosecute so that they can demonstrate their resolve in the hope of intimidating other people from challenging their authority.”

Johns Hopkins’s Hung also said the law could have major implications for September’s Hong Kong legislative elections, because the Chinese government could use the new law as a legal basis to suppress pro-democracy candidates.

“Under the new law, many of the slogans, many of the opinions are going to be illegal,” Hung said.

There’s already a precedent for Chinese election officials intervening in Hong Kong’s legislative elections — in 2016, a number of candidates were disqualified for allegedly supporting Hong Kong independence, Hung said.

“I think that the Chinese were nervous after the last round of the district elections that there could be many Democrats who would be elected and, potentially, the pro-China legislature would lose legislators,” Glaser said.

“I think that if candidates do not moderate what they say, that they will be prevented from running under the law,” Glaser added. “They could easily be arrested.”

In fact, that has already happened: One pro-democracy lawmaker, the Democratic Party’s Andrew Wan, was arrested during the protests Wednesday.

It’s a stark example of just how quickly life has changed in Hong Kong, literally overnight.

Muslims love Jesus, too: 6 things you didn’t know about Jesus in Islam

2019-12-20T15:10:05-05:00

Muslim women take a selfie in front of a Christian manger displayed in front of the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on December 18, 2014. | Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images

Christmas, as everyone knows, commemorates the birth of Jesus and is a major religious celebration for Christians around the world.

But what many people don’t know is that Jesus is an important figure in Islam, too, even though most Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. (But some, especially some American Muslims, do celebrate it for cultural reasons!)

In honor of the holiday, here are six things you may not know about the role of Jesus — and his mother, Mary — in Islam:

Jesus, Mary, and the angel Gabriel are all prominent characters in the Qur’an (as are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and a bunch of other Bible characters).
Muslims believe that Jesus (called “Isa” in Arabic) was a prophet of God and was born to a virgin (Mary). They also believe he will return to Earth before the Day of Judgment to restore justice and defeat al-Masih ad-Dajjal, or “the false messiah” — also known as the Antichrist. All of this may sound pretty familiar to many Christians. (The fact that Muslims know that “al-Masih ad-Dajjal” is the Arabic name for the Antichrist created some…uh…unexpected problems for Netflix recently — warning: spoilers.)
Mary (called “Maryam” in Arabic) has an entire chapter in the Qur’an named for her — the only chapter in the Qur’an named for a female figure. In fact, Mary is the only woman to be mentioned by name in the entire Qur’an. As noted in the Study Quran, “other female figures are identified only by their relation to others, such as the wife of Adam and the mother of Moses, or by their title, such as the Queen of Sheba.” Mary is mentioned more times in the Qur’an than in the entire New Testament of the Bible.
Just as they do with all the other prophets, including Mohammed, devout Muslims recite “peace be upon him” after every time they refer to Jesus by name.
Muslims believe that Jesus performed miracles: The Qur’an discusses several of Jesus’s miracles, including giving sight to the blind, healing lepers, raising the dead, and breathing life into clay birds.
The story of Jesus’s birth as told in the Qur’an is also the story of his first miracle, when he spoke as an infant in the cradle and declared himself to be a prophet of God. Here’s the story:

And remember Mary in the Book, when she withdrew from her family to an eastern place. And she veiled herself from them. Then We [God] sent unto her Our Spirit [the angel Gabriel], and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. She said, “I seek refuge from thee in the Compassionate [i.e., God], if you are reverent!” He said, “I am but a messenger of thy Lord, to bestow upon thee a pure boy.”

She said, “How shall I have a boy when no man has touched me, nor have I been unchaste?” He said, “Thus shall it be. Thy Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me.’” And [it is thus] that We might make him a sign unto mankind, and a mercy from Us. And it is a matter decreed.

So she conceived him and withdrew with him to a place far off. And the pangs of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a date palm. She said, “Would that I had died before this and was a thing forgotten, utterly forgotten!” So he called out to her from below her, “Grieve not! Thy Lord has placed a rivulet beneath thee. And shake toward thyself the trunk of the date palm; fresh, ripe dates shall fall upon thee. So eat and drink and cool thine eye. And if thou seest any human being, say, ‘Verily I have vowed a fast unto the Compassionate, so I shall not speak this day to any man.’”

Then she came with him [the infant Jesus] unto her people, carrying him. They said, “O Mary! Thou hast brought an amazing thing! O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not an evil man, nor was thy mother unchaste.” Then she pointed to him [Jesus]. They said, “How shall we speak to one who is yet a child in the cradle?”

He [Jesus] said, “Truly I am a servant of God. He has given me the Book and made me a prophet. He has made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and has enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I live, and [has made me] dutiful toward my mother. And He has not made me domineering, wretched. Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day I am raised alive!”

That is Jesus son of Mary— a statement of the truth, which they doubt.

So although Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the son of God — a critically important distinction between Muslim and Christian views of him — Muslims do revere Jesus as an important prophet.

Merry Christmas!

Who’s who in the impeachment hearings

2019-11-20T10:29:06-05:00

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, arrives for testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, on November 20, 2019. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

The House is pushing ahead with its public impeachment hearings this week. And with at least nine witnesses set to testify, it’s going to be an intense one.

Three people will appear on Wednesday, including the most anticipated witness of these hearings so far, US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. In the text of his opening statement, Sondland writes he “came to believe” the White House would hold up military aid until Ukraine agreed to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden’s time on the board of the energy company, Burisma. Sondland writes he was concerned about a “quid pro quo.”

Sondland also testified that his efforts were directed by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. And, Giuliani, Sondland said, acted on the “orders” of President Trump.

That echoes what he said in a late amendment to his closed-door his testimony — he updated his October testimony to admit that he told a top Ukrainian official that military aid to Ukraine was likely conditioned a public announcement into those investigations.

Two other officials will follow Sondland on Wednesday: Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary at the Defense Department, and David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department.

House Democrats have been looking into whether President Donald Trump purposefully withheld US military aid to Ukraine and a presidential meeting in order to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into Trump’s political rivals — namely, Joe Biden.

The cast of characters has grown immensely throughout their inquiry, and now includes three ambassadors, multiple White House, State Department, and Pentagon staffers, Cabinet members, Ukrainian officials — and even the US and Ukrainian presidents.

But wait, who are all these people? As last week’s hearing showed, tons of names are bandied about as lawmakers try to learn the full story of Trump’s Ukraine policy — or try to protect him from being impeached.

So we’ve put together a list of the main players you need to know in this drama, including all the US officials testifying in the coming days and other figures who are likely to be mentioned or whose testimony has — or may still — shape the narrative around impeachment.

We didn’t include Trump because, you know, we figured you had that covered.

Your guide to the Donald Trump impeachment saga

Understand the impeachment process, from its history to what comes next. Explore the full guide here.

The witnesses testifying, or who have testified, this week

Gordon Sondland

Sondland is a wealthy real-estate developer who donated to Trump’s inauguration; his reward was the plum posting of US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland was deeply involved in the shadow campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals.

In a now infamous text exchange from September 2019, William Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine, texted Sondland to ask whether US military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky were being conditioned on Ukraine launching investigations into Trump’s political rivals. Sondland cryptically replied, “Call me.”

About a week later, Taylor again texted Sondland, writing, “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Sondland responded by denying that this was the case — and urging Taylor not to text about the matter anymore.

Sondland initially testified that there was no quid pro quo involving withheld military aid to Ukraine, but he later revised his testimony to say that even though he hadn’t recalled it earlier, yes, Ukrainian aid was in fact made contingent on investigations.

He will testify in an open hearing on Wednesday morning at 9:30 am Eastern.

Laura Cooper

She’s the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and thus the top Pentagon official working on Ukraine. In closed-door testimony last month, she told investigators that the White House had directed the freeze on aid to Ukraine and that Kyiv was concerned by the stalled support.

She will testify in an open hearing on Wednesday afternoon at about 2:30 pm Eastern.

David Hale

Hale is the State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs. He’s the highest-ranking career diplomat in the foreign service. Hale reportedly told the impeachment inquiry behind closed doors that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials didn’t want to protect ousted US ambassador to the Ukraine Yovanovitch because it could hurt the chances of military aid flowing to Ukraine.

He will testify in a public hearing alongside Cooper on Wednesday at 2:30 pm Eastern.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

Vindman is an Army officer who currently serves as the director for European affairs on the National Security Council, working first under Fiona Hill and then under Tim Morrison as their point person on defense-related issues involving Russia and Ukraine.

Vindman listened in to the July 25 call and offered damning testimony to House lawmakers last month in which he described the president making a clear quid pro quo “demand” of Zelensky: a White House meeting in return for investigations into the Bidens.

Vindman also testified that the White House’s readout of that call, which Trump has repeatedly characterized as “perfect,” omits some words and phrases that were said during call. Vindman said he tried to correct it but those changes were never made.

He will testify in an open hearing Tuesday morning at 9 am Eastern.

Jennifer Williams

Williams is a special adviser to Vice President Mike Pence for Russian and European affairs who worked in the State Department. She listened to the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, and reportedly told lawmakers in her testimony last week that the call was not a normal diplomatic call.

Lawmakers presumably asked Williams what, if anything, Pence might have known about Trump’s policy toward Ukraine. According to the whistleblower complaint, Trump insisted Pence cancel his plans to attend Zelensky’s inauguration in May. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry went instead.

She will testify, alongside Vindman, on Tuesday morning at 9 am Eastern.

Kurt Volker

Volker was the US special representative to Ukraine negotiations, tasked with working with America’s European allies as well as the Russians to negotiate an end to the Russian war in Ukraine.

A career foreign service officer, Volker took on the Ukraine job on a part-time, voluntary basis but eventually got caught up in the White House’s shadow foreign policy toward Ukraine spearheaded by Giuliani. Volker stepped down in September amid the brewing impeachment scandal.

The first witness to testify in the closed-door impeachment inquiry, Volker told House lawmakers in October that he’d tried to advance US interests while simultaneously working to dilute some of Giuliani’s influence. Yet text messages show that Volker was a willing participant — along with Sondland, Perry, and Giuliani — in the not-so-official efforts to pressure Ukraine to pursue investigations.

He will testify in an open hearing on Tuesday afternoon, starting at 2:30 pm Eastern.

Tim Morrison

Morrison joined the National Security Council when Bolton arrived at the White House and was briefly the top Ukraine official on the National Security Council, having taken over for Fiona Hill in July 2019. In his October testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Morrison essentially confirmed the quid pro quo: that Trump wanted to withhold military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.

Morrison did tell the committee he didn’t think Trump did anything illegal on the July 25 call with Zelensky, but he also said that at the time he feared if the details of the call were made public it could be politically explosive and weaken bipartisan support for Ukraine. Morrison resigned from his post at the NSC in October right before his scheduled deposition.

Morrison will testify alongside Volker on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 pm Eastern.

Fiona Hill

From 2017 to July 2019, Hill was a senior director on the National Security Council responsible for coordinating US policy on Europe, including the European Union, NATO, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Hill resigned from her position in the White House by the time the July 25 Trump-Zelensky call occurred, but in her testimony she gave a firsthand account of a tense White House meeting that took place on July 10, in the days leading up to that phone call — a meeting that’s now key to the impeachment inquiry.

At that gathering, several senior US officials — including Hill, Bolton, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland — met with top aides to Ukrainian President Zelensky to discuss, among other things, a possible Trump-Zelensky meeting, which the Ukrainians had been pushing hard for but which Bolton and Hill were reluctant to agree to at that stage.

Hill sat in on that meeting, and she testified that during the sit-down, Sondland “blurted out” that there was already an agreement in place: Ukraine’s president would get a meeting with Trump if he agreed to launch certain “investigations in the energy sector” — which she said later became clear was code for Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden served as a board member.

Bolton, Hill said, reacted badly to Sondland’s announcement — abruptly ending the meeting and later telling her, in rather colorful terms, to report it to the NSC’s lawyer, John Eisenberg. “[Bolton] told me, and this is a direct quote,” Hill said, “‘You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and [acting White House Chief of Staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up on this.’”

She will testify in a public hearing on Thursday, beginning at 9:30 am Eastern.

David Holmes

Holmes is a counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. He overheard US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s call with Trump about “investigations” alongside Suriya Jayanti.

He is expected to testify Thursday, alongside Hill.

The witnesses who already testified

Marie Yovanovitch

Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch was the US ambassador to Ukraine between August 2016 and May of this year. A widely respected career diplomat and the highest-ranked female ambassador at the State Department, Yovanovitch was the target of Giuliani-led attacks falsely accusing her of, among other things, working to thwart President Trump’s Ukraine policy and being close to the previous Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko. That smear campaign ultimately led to her unceremonious dismissal months before her time was up.

As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains, “Because Yovanovitch was ousted back in April, she can’t shed much light on the key allegations against Trump: that he pressured Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Joe Biden and his son in exchange for a White House meeting and withheld US military aid. All that unfolded after she left Kyiv.”

During her hearing last Friday, she withstood a real-time attack from Trump and made her case for how the president and his allies forced her out of her job as ambassador to Ukraine. What’s more, she said the administration’s actions may have increased corruption in Ukraine — not curbed it. As she departed the dramatic session, Yovanovitch received a rare standing ovation from onlookers.

William Taylor

William “Bill” Taylor is the current US chargé d’affaires for Ukraine — basically the acting ambassador at the US embassy in Kyiv. He took over for Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in May after she was pushed out by top Trump officials who falsely believed she was disloyal to the president. Taylor also served as the US ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.

In his closed-door deposition with congressional investigators last month, Taylor said his “clear understanding” of the White House’s position was that US military aid and other assistance wouldn’t go to Ukraine unless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. In other words, he believed there was a clearly proposed quid pro quo.

Taylor’s concerns about the White House’s Ukraine policy first came to light in text messages between him and two US diplomats in which Taylor expressed his worry that pushing the Ukrainians to open such an investigation would inappropriately involve that country in domestic US politics. The envoy, who in his testimony was very open about wanting the US to strongly support Ukraine, said he was worried that the aid-for-investigations ploy would hurt American-Ukrainian relations.

He reiterated all those points during Wednesday’s opening. He also dropped a bombshell, adding that he’d learned new information last week from a staff member about a previously unknown phone call involving Trump.

Taylor did not name the staff member but described that person’s account of going to a restaurant with Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland on July 26. The staffer witnessed Sondland call Trump and heard Trump ask Sondland, over the phone, about “investigations.” Sondland said the Ukrainians were ready to move forward with them.

It was later revealed that the staffer’s name is David Holmes, and will take part in a closed-door deposition on Friday — the same day as Yovanovitch’s hearing. It’s also been reported that a second US embassy official overheard Sondland’s call with the president.

George Kent

George Kent is the current deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s European and Eurasian affairs bureau. In that senior role, he oversees the Trump administration’s policy toward Ukraine, as well as Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Based in Washington, his job is to communicate with the US embassies in those countries and ensure that the administration’s policies are being properly carried out.

Perhaps more importantly, though, Kent also served as the senior anti-corruption coordinator in the State Department’s European bureau from 2014-15 — which means he has particularly good insight into how the US government normally goes about addressing issues of corruption in countries like Ukraine.

(Remember: Trump and his allies have argued that his demands of the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and his decision to withhold US military aid from the country stemmed from his concerns over corruption in the country and had nothing to do with his own personal political interests.)

During his closed-door deposition, Kent explained to investigators why the White House’s “corruption” defense is bogus. “Politically related prosecutions are not the way of promoting the rule of law. They undermine the rule of law,” he said. He also detailed Rudy Giuliani’s “campaign of lies” against US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, which ultimately resulted in her early recall from Kyiv.

Kent made these same points alongside William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, during Wednesday’s first public impeachment hearing.

The rest of the impeachment cast of characters

US officials

John Bolton: Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, he reportedly said he was concerned by what he described as the “drug deal” the administration was “cooking up” toward Ukraine.

However, it’s not clear how hard he tried to stop it. Bolton’s lawyers have said he is open to testifying publicly despite White House orders not to cooperate, but he is awaiting a court decision before agreeing to do so.

Catherine Croft: A State Department Ukraine expert who worked for former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker. She told congressional investigators about calls she received pushing for Yovanovitch’s dismissal as ambassador.

John Eisenberg: The National Security Council’s top lawyer to whom multiple administration officials reported their concerns about the White House’s Ukraine policy. In their testimonies, staffers said he chose to put the transcript of the problematic July 25 Trump-Zelensky call into an ultra-secret server. He has also repeatedly concluded no one involved in the quid pro quo scheme violated the law, despite noting how unorthodox it all was.

Rudy Giuliani: The former mayor of New York City is a central figure in the impeachment scandal. In his capacity as President Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani spearheaded the campaign to convince the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. He was also instrumental in pushing the false allegations against Marie Yovanovitch that ultimately ended her stint as the US ambassador to Ukraine well before her assignment was up.

Suriya Jayanti: Jayanti is an economics officer at the US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. She overheard US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s call with Trump about “investigations” alongside David Holmes.

Charles Kupperman: Kupperman was Bolton’s No. 2 at the National Security Council. Kupperman was subpoenaed by House Democrats to testify, but he asked the courts to weigh in first as he had also received orders from the White House not to testify.

Kupperman, as deputy NSA, likely had an insider’s view on what was going on in the White House with respect to Ukraine. But House Democrats dropped the subpoena last week, making it unlikely Kupperman will testify anytime soon.

Michael McKinley: McKinley resigned from the State Department on September 30, where he’d previously served as a top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. McKinley explicitly said he stepped down over Pompeo’s failure to support or defend State Department personnel amid the impeachment inquiry. McKinley told House lawmakers that he wanted to put out a statement of support of Ambassador Yovanovitch but that that request was denied.

Mick Mulvaney: He is the acting White House chief of staff. Trump told him to tell the Office of Management and Budget to put a hold on aid to Ukraine. When confronted about it by reporters in October, he said this kind of thing happens “all the time” and told critics to “get over it.” (He later unsuccessfully walked back his statements.) Based on current testimony, it seems that Mulvaney was intimately familiar with the scheme to pressure Ukraine.

Rick Perry: The current secretary of the Department of Energy, Perry led the US delegation to Ukraine for Zelensky’s inauguration in May. Along with US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and special Ukraine representative Kurt Volker, Perry was pretty bullish on Zelensky and urged Trump to work with him. His full role in the scandal isn’t clear — Perry hasn’t testified — but Trump has blamed Perry for getting him to set up the July 25 call with Zelensky.

Perry announced he would be resigning from his post as energy secretary in October but as of now he is still in the job.

Mike Pompeo: Pompeo is the secretary of state, though his role in l’affaire Ukraine is still a bit murky. Pompeo listened in on the July 25 call between Zelensky and Trump. Based on testimony so far, Pompeo allowed Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy with Ukraine to happen under his watch at State. Several former officials who’ve testified have also expressed their disappointment over Pompeo’s failure to publicly defend career diplomats like Yovanovitch, who became collateral in the Ukraine scheme.

Phillip Reeker: The acting assistant secretary in charge of European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department, Reeker testified to House lawmakers that he tried to defend Ambassador Yovanovitch against attacks from Trump’s political allies, specifically Giuliani. Reeker said he wanted the State Department to issue a statement of support for Yovanovitch, which ultimately didn’t happen.

Mark Sandy: The deputy associate director for national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget, Sandy told House investigators he received no explanation for why the White House froze the military aid to Ukraine. He found the decision to be highly irregular, informed by his many years working these issues at the OMB.

Ukrainian officials

Oleksandr Danylyuk: Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s former national security adviser — so essentially John Bolton’s counterpart in Ukraine through September. He took part in the July 10 White House meeting in which US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland said investigations into the Bidens were important to President Trump.

Just 10 days later, Danylyuk relayed his concerns about Ukraine being used as a pawn in Trump’s reelection campaign to US Chargé d’Affaires for Ukraine Bill Taylor and US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.

Per Taylor, Danylyuk remained in close contact with US officials. In early September, Danylyuk mentioned to National Security Council director for European affairs Tim Morrison that he was concerned about dwindling US support for Ukraine.

Yuri Lutsenko: Ukraine’s now-former prosecutor general who helped plant the seeds for the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and about Ambassador Yovanovitch that fueled Giuliani’s actions.

This spring, Lutsenko (who was still the prosecutor general at the time) gave interviews to the publication The Hill in which he announced he was opening investigations into Ukraine’s meddling into the 2016 elections (this is a debunked conspiracy theory that alleges Ukraine worked with Democrats to frame Russia for election interference) and into Burisma, the company tied to Hunter Biden.

Lutsenko has since retracted many of his allegations and said there’s no reason to investigate the Bidens.

Igor Fruman: a Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani. Fruman was arrested, along with Lev Parnas, in October on charges related to campaign finance violations tied to illegal donations to US political campaigns, including a pro-Trump super PAC. Parnas and Fruman also allegedly lobbied to get Yovanovitch removed from her post in Ukraine.

Lev Parnas: another Ukrainian associate of Giuliani’s. Parnas was arrested, along with Igor Fruman, in October on charges related to a campaign finance violations over illegal donations to US political campaigns, including a pro-Trump super PAC. Parnas and Fruman also reportedly began working with Giuliani in his campaign to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and to get Yovanovitch removed from her post.

Parnas is now saying through a lawyer that in May he traveled to Ukraine to tell the new administration that Vice President Mike Pence wouldn’t attend Zelensky’s inauguration unless the prosecutor investigated the Bidens. He said he did so at Giuliani’s instruction — something Giuliani has denied. There’s some doubt about how legitimate this story actually is as Fruman has also denied it.

Petro Poroshenko: the Ukrainian president who was ousted in 2019 after the election of Zelensky. The New York Times reported that, as Poroshenko faced grim reelection prospects, he became more receptive to pursuing the investigations that the Trump administration wanted: one into Burisma and the other into aspects of Ukraine’s role in the 2016 elections.

Viktor Shokin: Ukraine’s former top prosecutor who was fired in March 2016. Trump’s allies have falsely claimed that Vice President Joe Biden tried to get Shokin fired because he was investigating the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma where Biden’s son Hunter served on the board. There’s a video of Biden discussing his efforts to push Shokin out, which Trump claims is proof of a conspiracy.

But Trump is wrong. When in power, Shokin was seen as an obstacle to cracking down on corruption in Ukraine, and the investigation into Burisma had actually languished during Shokin’s tenure. What’s more, Biden’s push to get Shokin fired wasn’t Biden’s idea — it was Obama administration policy that originated at the State Department. Other Western governments and international organizations also embraced the view that Shokin had impeded efforts to crack down on graft in Ukraine and should be fired.

Andriy Yermak: Yermak is a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who features heavily in text messages released by the House in the impeachment probe between US State Department officials.

In July, Volker put Yermak in touch with Giuliani, and Yermak later met with Giuliani in Madrid. Yermak lobbied for a meeting between Zelensky and Trump. According to House testimony from Volker, Giuliani insisted that the Ukrainians commit to investigations and Zelensky announce publicly probes into Burisma and the 2016 elections before any such meeting could be set.

Volodymyr Zelensky: Zelensky was overwhelmingly elected president of Ukraine in April 2019. A former comedian, Zelensky had no political experience, though he literally played a president on TV. The newcomer rode a populist, anti-corruption message into office and in July won a majority in Ukraine’s parliament, known as the Rada, clearing the way for his agenda.

Zelensky attends a session of Ukrainian parliament (Rada) in Kiev, Ukraine, on August 29, 2019. | STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images" />

That parliamentary victory preceded the now-infamous July 25 phone call with Trump where the president asked Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and investigate the Bidens. Zelensky, an untested president dealing with a war with Russia in eastern Ukraine, needed US military assistance.

The central question of the impeachment investigation now is whether Trump, knowing this, withheld security aid to force Zelensky to pursue investigations into his political rivals.

Zelensky, for his part, has made it clear that he wants to stay out of the US political drama. Meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations in September, he said that Ukraine did not want to interfere in the US elections. “I think good phone call,” Zelensky told reporters of the July 25 conversation. “It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me.”

Justin Trudeau faces backlash after photo and video are uncovered showing him in brownface

2019-09-19T11:48:27-04:00

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, delivers remarks to supporters at a fundraising event on September 5, 2019, in Brampton, Canada. | Arindam Shivaani/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the handsome, charming champion of Western liberal ideals of diversity and inclusion, is facing a mounting political crisis after revelations that he appeared in brownface on more than one occasion in his not-too-distant past.

It all started on Wednesday evening, when Time magazine published a photograph of Trudeau wearing offensive makeup at an Arabian Nights-themed party at West Point Grey Academy, the private day school where Trudeau was a teacher in 2001. The photo appeared in the school’s 2000-’01 yearbook. Trudeau was 29 years old at the time the photo was taken.

In the image, Trudeau is dressed in a white turban decorated with a large feather in the front and what looks like a flowing white robe — what he later described as an “Aladdin costume.” His face, neck, and hands are all covered in dark brown makeup. He stands with a group of four women, his arm around one — none of whom are wearing brownface.

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Speaking to reporters shortly after the story broke, Trudeau said, “I deeply regret that I did that. I should have known better, but I didn’t. … I’m deeply sorry that I did that.”

“I take responsibility for my decision to do that. It was something that I didn’t think was racist at the time,” Trudeau said, adding that he knows now that it was racist. “I’m pissed off with myself for having done it.”

When asked if he’d ever done something like this at any other time in his life, he revealed that in high school he’d participated in a talent show in which he “wore makeup and sang ‘Day-O,’” referring to a traditional Jamaican folk song.

Then, on Thursday, yet another instance of Trudeau appearing in brownface surfaced. Canada’s Global News obtained video showing Trudeau, his face and neck covered in dark brown makeup, laughing, raising his hands in the air, and sticking out his tongue. He is dressed in a T-shirt and ripped jeans. His arms also seem to be covered in the dark makeup, but it is a bit difficult to tell for sure given the grainy quality of the video.

It’s unclear when and where the video was taken, but it appears to be a separate instance from the Arabian Nights party. The Liberal Party of Canada, which Trudeau leads, confirmed to Global News that it is Trudeau who appears in the video.

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The prime minister is currently on the campaign trail in advance of the country’s federal elections on October 21. He indicated to reporters that he planned to continue campaigning, saying he’ll have to work harder now to convince voters of his values.

He’s already facing the fallout from an unrelated political corruption scandal in which he and his political allies were accused of improperly pressuring Canada’s now-former minister of justice and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to drop criminal corruption charges against the Quebec-based engineering company SNC-Lavalin.

That scandal has somewhat tarnished his shiny image as a proponent of progressive values, as Vox’s Jen Kirby explained:

Trudeau, who became prime minister in 2015, made transparency, inclusion, and openness a centerpiece of his leadership philosophy, and he became democracy’s biggest cheerleader. He modeled his governing platform on promoting gender equality and indigenous rights.

His alleged pressure campaign and the eventual sidelining of Wilson-Raybould — a former prosecutor and indigenous woman who was once a symbol of Trudeau’s diverse and gender-balanced cabinet — very much looks like a betrayal of those values.

The big question in the upcoming election was whether Trudeau’s record on other issues and his personal boyish charm would be enough to convince voters to reelect him. The revelation that he once chose to wear brownface multiple times — including at least once while he was a teacher attending a school function, no less — will certainly cause some voters to rethink whether Trudeau is the man they thought he was.

Osama bin Laden’s son, the “Crown Prince of Terror,” is dead. Or is he?

2019-08-01T13:55:59-04:00

In this image from video released by the CIA, Hamza bin Laden is seen as an adult at his wedding. The never-before-seen video of Osama bin Laden’s son and potential successor was released November 1, 2017, by the CIA in a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader at his compound in Pakistan. | CIA via AP

Numerous outlets including NBC News, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that Hamza bin Laden, the son and presumed heir of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, may have been killed, citing unnamed US intelligence officials.

“The officials would not provide details of how Hamza bin Laden died or if the U.S. played a role in his death,” notes NBC News, which first reported the death on Wednesday. “The death occurred some time in the past two years, said the officials, but confirmation came only recently.”

For most news events, independent reporting from three major media outlets would be enough to be reasonably sure that a story is true. But when it comes to the death of a senior terrorist leader, there’s reason to be skeptical.

We’ve been through this before

Just take the case of the notorious one-eyed Algerian terrorist and senior al-Qaeda operative Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who has been reported “killed” so many times — only to be discovered still alive shortly after — that his death has become a running joke among terrorism analysts.

Or take the case of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive leader of ISIS, who has been reported injured or killed numerous times. In 2015, the Guardian reported that Baghdadi had been grievously wounded in an airstrike and was no longer in control of the terror organization. A few months later, the New York Times reported that “rumors that he was killed or injured this year have been dispelled.”

In June 2017, Russia’s defense ministry said Baghdadi had been killed in an airstrike in Syria; the head of the defense committee in Russia’s upper parliamentary house is quoted as saying a week later that “this information is close to 100 percent,” according to Reuters, which also paraphrased him saying that “the defense ministry would not have released information about Baghdadi’s death if it believed it could be later proved incorrect.”

Baghdadi is, of course, still alive — just a few months ago, ISIS released a video in which the leader appeared in good health; he even explicitly mentioned several recent events, proving the video wasn’t made very long ago.

And then, of course, there’s the case of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who died in April 2013 — but whose death the Taliban leadership kept secret even from their own fighters for two more years, only finally admitting he was dead in 2015.

Why it’s so hard to know for sure if these guys are really dead

So what’s the deal? Are all of these reports just fake news? If by “fake news,” you mean “news outlets purposely publishing known lies,” then in nearly all of these cases, the answer is no, probably not.

To understand why these reports so often turn out to be false, you need to remember the kinds of environments these terrorist leaders are usually operating in: chaotic war zones like Syria, or the tribal areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where the legitimate governments of both have little to no control and local warlords and militias reign supreme.

In those places, it’s not like you can just send a few police officers or government officials over to the local hospital morgue to identify a body and then hold a press conference to confirm that a terrorist leader has in fact been killed.

Instead, US intelligence officials have to rely on intercepted communications between terrorist operatives, often unreliable reports from other countries’ intelligence agencies, internet chatter, local media reports of airstrikes and bombings, and other sources to try to piece together an accurate picture of what’s going on.

And keep in mind that these terrorists are also some of the most hunted men in the world, and they know it. Which means that they are very, very careful to make sure their communications can’t be easily intercepted.

So the information intelligence agencies are working with is fragmented at best. And for journalists, who are yet another step removed from the raw intelligence, the picture can be even blurrier.

Even when the US is directly involved in the killing of a terrorist operative, as was the case with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, the public may never know all the details of exactly what happened.

That’s because the intelligence community may not want to disclose details of its operations that could potentially reveal classified sources and methods it used to find and kill the target, or because certain details (like exactly what was done with bin Laden’s body) may be seen as too politically sensitive to reveal right away.

If Hamza bin Laden is dead, it’s still not clear how much it even matters for al-Qaeda

None of this is to say for sure that Hamza bin Laden isn’t dead. These reports could very well prove accurate. But until we have an official, on-the-record confirmation from the US government or al-Qaeda (or, ideally, both), it’s good to remain a bit skeptical.

But let’s assume for a moment that he is dead. Who is he, exactly? And what would his death mean for al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001?

In the years since 9/11, al-Qaeda’s power and influence has declined steadily as the US and its allies relentlessly hunted down its leaders, disrupted its finances, and foiled plot after plot. The death of Osama bin Laden, the group’s charismatic leader, in 2011, and the stunning rise of ISIS just a few years later turned the once-powerful terrorist juggernaut into yesterday’s news.

As I’ve written previously, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama’s second-in-command who assumed leadership of the organization when bin Laden died, has neither the charisma nor the jihadi warrior qualifications of his predecessor, and his lackluster leadership has further contributed to the decline in status of the al-Qaeda organization.

Many observers believed that Hamza, the young, millennial scion of the group’s founder, could be the answer to al-Qaeda’s prayers. Unlike Zawahiri, who is approaching his 70s, Hamza is only in his 30s (he’s thought to have been born in 1989).

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Hamza “was the only known son of Osama bin Laden who was still aligned with the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Another son was killed along with his father in 2011 during a Navy SEAL raid on their compound in Pakistan. A third son has distanced himself from al Qaeda.”

Hamza has been a known member of his father’s terror organization for years, and though Zawahiri is still functionally the boss, Hamza has long been talked about as a possible successor to the al-Qaeda “throne,” earning him the nickname the “Crown Prince of Terror.”

“Even at the age of 16, Hamza appeared, imprecating dire threats against the West, in a video made for his older brother Mohamed’s wedding,” British historian and scholar Michael Burleigh wrote in the Telegraph in 2011. Burleigh continued:

He read the verses: “Accelerate the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark. Oh God, reward the fighters hitting the infidels and defectors. God, be pleased with those who want to go for jihad – and blind those who are watching and want to capture them.” It was this ditty which won him his Crown Prince nickname.

In more recent years, Hamza has issued numerous statements calling on fighters to rise up and avenge his father’s death.

Osama bin Laden's son Hamza urging Muslims to "rise in rebellion…against the agents of the Americans" in new speech, per @siteintelgroup pic.twitter.com/FzOAAohePu
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 7, 2017

It’s unclear whether Hamza had ever taken steps to follow through on his rhetoric and plan attacks on the US, but the Wall Street Journal notes that “U.S. officials had become increasingly concerned in recent years about Hamza bin Laden’s repeated threats and calls for attacks on Americans at home and abroad as well as against U.S. allies.”

It’s also unclear where, exactly, Hamza has been hiding out for all these years. As the New York Times notes:

The location of Mr. bin Laden had been the subject of public speculation. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he and other members of Al Qaeda fled to Iran, where they were detained. He was eventually allowed to leave Iran, then reportedly moved with his family to the Pakistan border region. At one point, intelligence showed that he had traveled to Syria in the past several years, former officials have said.

But if Hamza is truly dead, the prospects of him one day seizing the mantle of leadership and restoring al-Qaeda to its former (horrific) glory are dead too.

So while we should remain skeptical about reports of his death at this stage, it’s not too soon to hope they might be true.

UK signs order for WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to be extradited to the US

2019-06-13T09:19:19-04:00

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador on May 19, 2017, in London. | Jack Taylor/Getty Images

British Home Secretary Sajid Javid has officially signed an extradition order to send Julian Assange to the United States. It’s the first step in what could prove to be a lengthy legal battle over whether the WikiLeaks founder should face prosecution in the United States for his actions surrounding the publication of classified materials from former US Army analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010.

In May, the US Department of Justice indicted Assange on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. According to the indictment, they accused Assange of having “repeatedly sought, obtained, and disseminated information that the United States classified due to serious risk that unauthorized disclosure could harm the national security of the United States.” The WikiLeaks chief faces up to 10 years in prison for each count of violating the Espionage Act.

He also faces a single charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in the US for allegedly working with Manning to hack into a Defense Department computer to access classified Iraq War documents.

Yet there’s no guarantee he’ll ever see the inside of a US federal courtroom. The extradition order is merely the first step in the process, and Assange’s lawyers will almost certainly challenge it.

“It’s a decision ultimately for the courts,” Javid told the BBC. “I want to see justice done at all times, and we’ve got a legitimate extradition request so I’ve signed it, but the final decision is now with the courts.”

Assange has been a fugitive for almost a decade

As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains, “Assange is an Australian ‘hacktivist,’ who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, with the stated goal of publishing information the powerful were trying to keep secret.” Prokop continues:

Starting in 2010, WikiLeaks published a video of an airstrike in Iraq that killed civilians, military documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and State Department cables in which diplomats gave candid assessments of foreign governments — all provided by US Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning.

In June 2012, Assange turned up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, seeking asylum from potential extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault. Though the charges were unrelated to the US hacking case, Assange and his supporters feared they were merely a pretext for his eventual extradition from Sweden to the US.

And for the next seven years, Assange became a long-term — and at times unwelcome — houseguest of the Ecuadorian Embassy. During that time, the statute of limitations on one of the sexual assault cases ran out; the Swedish government also chose to drop the charges on the second sexual assault case because they saw no way to proceed while Assange was in the embassy.

But in mid-April 2019, the Ecuadorian government finally had enough of Assange and kicked him out. Police in the UK promptly arrested him.

This time around, though, his immediate concern isn’t possible extradition to Sweden (though Swedish authorities say they are reopening their investigation). No, this time he’s facing an express trip directly to America to face espionage charges.

Whether he will ultimately make that trip will be up to British courts to decide. But one thing is for sure: Julian Assange’s legal troubles are far from over.