The chairs of the Senate’s leading foreign policy committees are calling for an investigation into President Biden’s handling of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan amid the Taliban’s swift (and largely expected) takeover of Kabul last weekend, and the grisly scenes of Afghans trying to flee in its wake.
Sens. Jack Reed (Armed Services), Mark Warner (Intelligence), and Robert Menendez (Foreign Affairs) are piling on the frenzy in Washington where interest in America’s longest war waned long ago, a dynamic that is seemingly playing a significant role in the collective shock at the events unfolding in Afghanistan throughout the past week.
And nowhere is that dichotomy more apparent than in these same senators’ reactions to the Washington Post’s investigation in December 2019 — dubbed the “Afghanistan Papers” — which found “that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”
Reed, Warner, and Menendez said very little about the Post’s findings. Only Reed suggested (to a reporter) that there should be some kind of congressional investigation, but none of them made a proactive push for a hearing.* There is no record of any statement about the Afghanistan Papers on their senate websites.
This kind of selective accountability for the war in Afghanistan is indicative of how the Washington establishment is more interested in playing politics with national security while appearing to be immune to learning lessons from America’s failed militaristic foreign entanglements.
Indeed, as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss observed: “It is really something to watch this town attempt to absolve itself from two decades of jingoism, profiteering, barely existent oversight, and zero accountability by suddenly demanding answers about Afghanistan.”
*This conclusion is based on LexisNexis search terms: “Jack Reed OR Mark Warner OR Robert Menendez OR Bob Menendez AND Afghanistan Papers AND hearing OR investigation”
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Images: Screen grabs from politico.com and huffpost.com|||
L-R: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after their meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, on Monday, January 30, 2023. DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS
State Department leadership is ignoring a recommendation from an internal panel to stop giving weapons to several Israeli military and police units due to credible allegations of serious human rights abuses, according to a major new report from ProPublica.
The alleged violations, which occurred before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, include extrajudicial killings, sexual assault of a detainee, and leaving an elderly Palestinian man to die after handcuffing and gagging him. Secretary of State Antony Blinken received the recommendation in December but has yet to take action to prevent the units involved from receiving American weapons.
The bombshell ProPublica report comes just two weeks after White House spokesperson John Kirby insisted to reporters that the Biden administration has yet to see credible allegations of Israeli human rights abuses, despite widespread concerns from human rights groups and aid organizations.
“The State Department has a process, and to date, as you and I are speaking, they have not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law,” Kirby said. “Unless you think we don't take this seriously, I can assure you that we do.”
“The State Department has looked at incidents in the past and has yet to determine that any of those incidents violate international humanitarian law,” he continued.
The report gives remarkable insight into the ways in which Israel receives unique treatment from U.S. officials in addition to its already privileged status under U.S. law. As ProPublica notes, allegations of Israeli human rights abuses are investigated by a special panel known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF).
The ILVF’s title is a reference to the Leahy Laws, which prevent units of foreign security services from receiving U.S. weapons if they are found to have committed significant violations of international law. For most states, this vetting process is straightforward and sometimes results in sanctions against specific units, with little input from top-level officials.
But not for Israel. Unlike with other states, Israeli officials are consulted by the ILVF during the vetting process. If the panel finds credible evidence of abuses, then their recommendation is passed onto a group of higher-level officials in Middle East and arms transfer policies. It’s at this point that the allegations are usually blocked, according to Josh Paul, a former State Department weapons transfer official who resigned in protest last year.
“It's at that point, typically, that the process grinds to a halt, whether it is from the leadership of a bureau involved in the process or sort of a higher level guidance that, ‘Hey, this isn't gonna go anywhere. Let's move on to the next thing,’” Paul told RS last year.
Remarkably, the recommendations revealed by ProPublica made it past this step, meaning that powerful State Department officials endorsed the sanctions before they reached Blinken’s desk. This suggests a greater level of internal anger over alleged Israeli abuses — and a greater willingness among top officials to flout U.S. law — than has previously been reported.
The State Department told ProPublica that the allegations require a “careful and full review,” adding that “the department undergoes a fact-specific investigation applying the same standards and procedures regardless of the country in question.”
The recommendations come as a growing number of Western states have cut off arms sales to Israel due to its actions in Gaza, where a months-long Israeli campaign against Hamas has left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead and many more on the brink of famine. Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain have all cut off arms sales, and British government lawyers have reportedly recommended to their leadership that it should do the same.
U.S. lawmakers are also scrutinizing sales to Israel following its actions in Gaza. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) — the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — has placed an informal hold on a long-term deal that would send F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
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President Joe Biden is seen with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as he departs from the Friends of Ireland ceremony on the House steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on March 15, 2024. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto)
The House Republicans released three of the bills on Wednesday. The supplemental package includes approximately $26 in aid for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. The fourth bill, which Johnson says will include the "REPO Act, TikTok bill, sanctions and other measures to confront Russia, China, and Iran," has not yet been introduced. The legislation will reportedly include an "open" amendment process and is expected to be voted on on Saturday night.
After months of waiting, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to unveil an ambitious foreign aid plan this week.
According to a one-pager that contained an incomplete list of the items in the bill posted on X on Monday by PBS News correspondent Lisa Desjardins, the plan includes at least $48 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, as well as money for allies in the Indo-Pacific and operations in the Red Sea.
As far as the foreign aid is concerned, details of the plan are remarkably similar to the bill that the Senate passed in February, and which Johnson has thus far refused to bring to the House floor for a vote. That bill contained roughly $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, and $14 billion in security assistance for Israel.
Johnson’s plan is reported to also include other Republican sweeteners such as legislation that could ban TikTok and permit the U.S. to seize Russian assets to increase the scale of aid for Kyiv.
The House is planning to vote on each of the elements separately later this week, and then send one single package to the Senate containing each approved piece. While the aid for the Indo-Pacific figures to be uncontroversial and a version of the TikTok ban has already passed the House, the other parts of the legislation face a more complicated situation.
A number of congressional Democrats have raised concerns about approving more unconditional aid to Israel as it continues to carry out its war in Gaza which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. But, in the aftermath of Iran’s strikes on Israel over the weekend, a sufficient number of Democrats are likely to vote in favor of the aid. And, as Politico noted this morning, “there’s an understanding that [sending aid to Israel] will be the price of finally securing Ukraine funding.”
The biggest holdup, as has been the case since Johnson assumed the speakership, is additional assistance for Ukraine. Regardless of the “important innovations” that Johnson hopes to include in the legislation, getting a package through while surviving politically remains a difficult needle to thread.
The problem for Johnson has never been procedural or substantive — the Speaker will likely need Democratic support to bring the legislation to a vote, and each element of the package should have enough votes to pass on its own. But none of Johnson’s maneuvering over the past few months is likely to relieve him of the accompanying political headache.
After the House passed a bill to fund the government last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion to vacate, a process that could result in a vote to remove Johnson from the speakership. Following Johnson’s announcement to the GOP conference that he was moving forward with his foreign aid proposal, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said that he would co-sponsor Greene’s motion. Massie has told reporters that there will be more GOP votes to remove Johnson than the eight that voted to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy last October.
Some members of the Freedom Caucus, who have been opposed to continued funding for Kyiv, have also expressed concern over Johnson’s plan, but it is unclear whether they would support removing him.. The group put out a statement on Monday saying that “under no circumstances will the House Freedom Caucus abide using the emergency situation in Israel as a bogus justification to ram through Ukraine aid with no offset and no security for our own wide-open borders”
Johnson appeared Tuesday to take on his detractors. “I am not resigning,” he said after a morning meeting of fellow House Republicans on Capitol Hill. Calling himself a "wartime Speaker," he called efforts to oust him “absurd ... not helpful.”
The Republican Party’s margin in the House is so narrow — it will drop to 217-213 when Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) resigns on Friday — that Johnson can only afford two GOP “no” votes before having to rely on Democratic members to save his job. Some Democrats have already said that they were open to helping Johnson if the Speaker allows a vote on Ukraine aid.
Massie, who has already called on Johnson to resign, said that this outcome would not work for Johnson. If he relies on Democrats, “He goes further in the hole with Republicans. He becomes toxic to the conference,” Massie said, according to NBC News’ Sahil Kapur. “For every Democrat who comes to his aid he’ll lose 2-3 more Rs.”
The Biden administration and prominent Senate Democrats have so far reserved judgment on Johnson’s proposal, saying that they wanted to see the final details before weighing in, but they appeared open to supporting the eventual package. “It does appear at first blush that the Speaker’s proposal will in fact help us get aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel and needed resources to the Indo-Pacific,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We just want to get more detail.”
Biden and Johnson spoke by phone on Monday night, and, given the hurdles that the speaker will have to overcome to get his plan through the House, he is likely to want to ensure that whatever does get through has support in the Senate and White House. Johnson also met with former President Donald Trump over the weekend in Florida, but the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee’s praise for the Speaker does not appear to have won over skeptical Republican members. Trump was noncommittal about supporting Johnson’s aid request, though he maintained that any future money sent to Kyiv should be "in the form of a loan rather than a gift."
Some Republicans may be determined to advance a foreign aid bill to the floor regardless of how the votes on the looming legislation go. “One House Republican made the point to me that if this GOP plan doesn’t pass, the floodgates will open and they’ll just sign the Senate bill discharge petition,” said Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman on X.
The discharge petition, which would send the bill to the floor over the Speaker’s objections, currently has 195 of the necessary 218 signatures. Only one Republican, the recently retired Rep. Ken Buck, has signed on so far.
House rules typically allow 72 hours for members to review bill text before voting. If that procedure is followed, Johnson’s foreign aid bill could be brought to a vote as soon as Friday night.
Over the weekend, Iran launched over 300 missiles at Nevatim Air Base, a base in southern Israel that houses U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversaw a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria just a few weeks ago, has already promised to retaliate. Observers viewed these brewing tensions with concern, ringing the alarm bells of the breakout of a wider war.
Not JP Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. On Monday morning, Seifman upgraded JPMorgan’s outlook from “hold” to “buy” for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of Israel's F-35s, and set a higher price target for the stock.
Seifman says the change was pre-planned, but noted that these developments could be good for business. “What we can say is that it’s a dangerous world and while that is not a sufficient condition for defense stocks to outperform,” he said, “it is a potential source of support, especially when they are under-owned.” JP Morgan owns $355 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, about a third of which was bought in the last quarter of 2023.
UK investment bank Liberum Capital was similarly bullish on defense stocks, so long as a wider war does not break out. “In our base case scenario of Israel retaliating but in a limited way that keeps the conflict from escalating further, this could lead to a 5-10% correction in the stock market together with further strength in the U.S. dollar,” Liberium told investors. “The obvious short-term winners will be oil & gas stocks as well as defense contractors.”
As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on March 29.
Lockheed Martin has played a large role in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, manufacturing Hellfire missiles, providing transport planes, and supplying F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. A missile that hit journalists on November 9 of last year in Gaza City was reportedly manufactured by Lockheed Martin. “Their core business model has no respect for human rights,” said Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice.
While privately acknowledging conflict is good for business, the defense industry and its financiers publicly claim they are simply doing America’s bidding. As Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet once said, “It's only up to us to step to what we've been asked to do and we're just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that's our role.” After all, it was the U.S. government — not Lockheed Martin — that came to Israel’s defense and intercepted the majority of Iran’s missiles.
But this “we just do what we’re told” defense doesn’t quite work given that defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics. Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, told Responsible Statecraft that defense contractors “are often the ones creating demand by lobbying the U.S. government and pushing for sales of these weapons.”
In 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million lobbying Congress. The three companies that lobbied the House’s version of the annual defense policy bill the most were RTX (formerly known as Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. During the 2022 election cycle, Lockheed Martin contributed nearly $4 million to political candidates. So far, 2024 promises similar results. In its 2023 annual report, Lockheed Martin wrote that, “Changes in the U.S. Government’s priorities, or delays or reductions in spending could have a material adverse effect on our business.”
Sure, 84% of voters might be concerned about the U.S. being drawn into conflict in the Middle East. But as far as defense companies and their shareholders are concerned, business is booming.