Should the Gitmo detainees be priority-vaccinated?

Nearly 25 million Americans have now been vaccinated which is more than seven per cent of the population, still a low level but the programme is moving pretty fast, particularly with those perceived to be in the most vunerable part of the community - the elderly and sick. So why did the Pentagon suddenly announce that it was planning to go ahead with offering vaccination to the 40 terrorist-suspect detainees who are still incarcerated in the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba? You could argue on humanitarian grounds that if Covid were to get into the three main camps, Camp 5, Camp 6 and Camp 7, then the virus could run rampant very quickly and there could be serious-illness cases or fatalities. Should the US care about that? Well of course it's not just about the 40 detainees. There are still around 1,500 US troops guarding them and they need to be protected. It doesn't make a lot of sense to vaccinate the guards but not those they are guarding, even though they are doing so behind a glass-barrier screen. There's minimal contact between detainees and guards. I aassume the education pogramme they have at Gitmo, such as art classes where civilian teachers go inside the cell block area, were stopped a long time ago because of Covid. But vaccinating terrorist suspects regarded by successive US administrations, and I'm sure by Joe Biden as well, as the most dangerous "enemy combatants", five of them charged with mastminding the 9/11 deaths of nearly 3,000 people, is terrible PR. Sure enough, when the Pentagon made the announcement there was furious reaction from Republican congressmen who said it was despicable that while vulnerable American citizens were still waiting for their jabs because of a shortage of supplies, the Pentagon was going to give jabs to the 40 detainees in Guantanamo. The Pentagon, under fire, quickly announced a "pause". A smart move under the circumstances. But some of the detainees are not well and were they to catch Covid and die, there will be a lot of human rights lawyers who will denounce the Pentagon for failing to protect the terrorist suspects. Let's see how long the "pause" lasts.

Afghanistan: war by troop numbers

The analysis that went with my Times story on Afghanistan today: Ending the war in Afghanistan has been all about numbers. US troop numbers. Barack Obama sent thousands more but set a deadline for their deployment and Donald Trump wanted to pull them all out by Christmas. Joe Biden, president for ten days, now has a dilemma: does he stick with the Qatar deal signed by the US and the Taliban on February 29 and withdraw the remaining 2,500 American troops by May, the timetable set by last year’s agreement, or should he impose new conditions? The background into the numbers game provides an insight into how the politicians and the military often argue at different ends of the spectrum. When Mr Trump declared during the presidential election campaign that all US troops would be home for Christmas, he did so without any consultation with General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, his principle military adviser. According to senior US defence sources, General Milley was the only one who stood up to Mr Trump and argued against not just the Christmas pull-out but also the eventual compromise of reducing the force level to 2,500 by January. None of the big cabinet players took the general’s side. That included Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, Robert O’Brien, national security adviser, and Mark Esper, then defence secretary. “Esper just rolled over and supported the president,” one source said. General Scott Miller, US commander in Afghanistan, had made it clear he needed a minimum of 4,500 American troops to fulfil his top priorities: counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, maintaining coordination with senior-level Afghan commanders, providing intelligence capabilities and ensuring availability to the Afghan government of US air power. Sources said he felt this troop number was crucial until there was an enforceable ceasefire. General Milley went to Qatar on at least two occasions to confront the Taliban negotiators about the spiralling violence against Afghan security forces. Sources said he told them that the Afghan people were overwhelmingly against them regaining power and that if they continued to kill and maim they would never get voted into government. However, Washington politics was against the chairman of the joint chiefs. Mr Trump had ordered his negotiator, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, to get a deal come what may. There was no clause committing the Taliban to a ceasefire, just an agreement not to attack US troops. Mr Biden also wants to end the war in Afghanistan. But if he goes ahead with withdrawing all 2,500 troops in May and there’s no ceasefire, it will be seen as his first foreign policy failure, and a terrible omen for the Afghan people.

What Biden says according to his sign language interpreter

It just made me laugh even though it's a serious matter. Joe Biden's sign language interpreter turns out to be a big Trump supporter and when he was saying things like "we must stop building the wall on the border", she was signing the opposite! Hysterical. The people I feel really sorry for you are those suffering from hard of hearing who relied on her to tell them what the president was saying and got showered with Trumpisms. Anyway she has been found out, according to the Washington Post. Her appeal to be allowed to stay in the job has fallen on deaf ears haha! I used to wonder in the Cold War superpower summit days how accurately the interpreters interpreted when the American and Soviet presidents were chatting together. Were they tempted to do a bit of propaganda stuff to stir things up. Such power they had to over-interpret or sum up too concisely or just plain get it wrong, deliberately or otherwise. The problem for Biden is that he will want absolute assurance that when he says what he says the sign language expert is not playing games. The best solution is that he sends off all his aides to sign language school. Then they can watch every time Biden stands up to speak and interrupt if the president is misquoted by the sign language interpreter. It would make terrific theatre, especially for those with unfortunate deafness problems because they could watch and enjoy the spectacle and understand what the hell is going on.

Covid vaccination is becoming increasingly political

If only it were simple. You develop vaccines, make sure they are safe and super-efficient and then distribute them evenly throughout the world, so everyone benefits and the global pandemic dies. Unfortunately that is not the case and each day we hear more rows going on about who is getting what and whether some countries are being shunted to the bottom of the pile. The row between the EU and the UK is a classic example. The EU took a long time to get its act together and didn't put in orders for the whole bloc until everyone had agreed what they wanted. By the time they made up their bureaucratic minds, the UK government had beaten them to it by three months, ordering millions of doses of Pfizer and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines and got on with a jabbing programme as soon as the vaccines arrived. But the EU has cried foul because AstraZeneca is now faced with production problems and has told the EU it will only get 60 per cent of what they ordered in a first phase, meaning several months of delay. The EU hierarchy has gone ballistic, crying unfair unfair, and they want the UK to give up some of their share. BorisJohnson says no way. Now Germany has tried to downgrade the Oxford vaccine by saying it's not good enough for over 65s, claiming the trials didn't include sufficient numbers of over 65s to give any confidence it will work for this age group. Boris says it's rubbish. It's all nasty political stuff. The worst thing is that it will make people aged over 65 concerned about the Oxford vaccine. I can forseee people turning up for their jab and refusing to have the Oxford model and insist on the Pfizer one. Then what will happen? Oxford AstraZeneca need to publish more data to reassure everyone, especially the Germans. Meanwhile, the EU and UK and AsraZeneca are at loggerheads with no sign of anyone being happy. What a disaster at a time when we are all living in hope, thanks to the vaccines, that life could get back to normal.

Trump will never be impeached

I think it's pretty safe to predict that Donald Trump, former president of the United States, will never be convicted on impeachment charges. He may be well away from the Washington swamp, playing golf at his resort in Florida, but his towering influence on the Republican party remains as strong as ever. No Republican senator - well may be a handful - is going to risk his/her career by voting in favour of impeachment. It just ain't going to happen. A few days ago it looked different. There was talk of Republicans wrestling with their conscience and thinking seriously about joining the Democrats in the Senate and finally getting rid of Trump, convicting him and preventing him ever again from standing for public office. It was going to be a mighty swipe at Trumpism, cleaning out the stables to allow a new lot of hopeful presidents to have their turn. But there was so much vitriol aimed at senators considering such a bold move that that scenario has all but vanished. The Democrats need 17 Republicans in the Senate to side with them to get Trump convicted to ensure the two-thirds majority required. Absolutely not going to happen. The Republicans, probably all of them, will vote against impeachment claiming that it's unconstitutional to impeach someone who is no longer the president. Many lawyers disagree but that's the stance the Republicans are taking and they will stick with it. Will any Republicans dare to go against their colleagues? I doubt it. A few might but their careers will be over if they do. Trump in Florida has cast his huge shadow over the party and they are frightened, yes frightened, to go against him.

The UK's grim milestone

Not only has the UK now confirmed the death of 100,000 people from Covid-19, but it is apparently the smallest country in the world to register 100,000 deaths. Somehow that makes it even worse. Other countries such as the US, Brazil and India have suffered more deaths but they have much bigger populations. Ergo, the UK is the worst country on the whole planet as far as the pandemic is concerned. Why the hell is this? What's gone wrong apart from the constant changes of mind by the government and the failure to stop people flying into the UK from around the world from the very beginning including those coming from China where the virus began, closing and opening and then closing schools at the drop of a hat, encouraging people to book holidays abroad and then advising everyone to stay at home, announcing a five-day respite so all families could snuggle and hug and kiss and envelope each other around Christmas and then expect everyone to obey when Christmas was cancelled at the last moment, and reopening all restaurants and then closing them and allowing drinks to be taken away from pubs and then forbidding it, and then insisting on masks being worn on public transport and in shops but failing to enforce it and promising that lockdown will all be over by February, then March, then April, then the summer, then by the end of 2021 then into 2022 until everyone is driven mad, mentally depressed, angry, desperate and cast into blackness. Apart from all of that, it has all being going swimmingly well.

Future of Guantanamo in Biden's hands

A FULLER VERSION OF MY STORY IN THE TIMES TODAY: The Pentagon is to review options for closing Guantanamo after President Biden indicated he wanted the detention camp for suspected terrorists in Cuba to be shut. Retired General Lloyd Austin, the new US defence secretary, has also said he plans to end the Guantanamo era after 20 years of incarcerating hundreds of suspects defined by the US as enemy combatants, the majority of whom were never charged. “A review of the closing of Gitmo [Guantanamo] will proceed once guidance is provided by the Biden administration,” a Pentagon spokesman told The Times. There are only 40 detainees out of the peak figure of 780 inmates left in the camp. But they include 14 “high-value” al-Qaeda suspects such as the five held for allegedly organising the 9/11 terrorist atrocity in the US in 2001. Pentagon prosecutors have said that these high-value detainees should never be released. All of them were interrogated by the CIA in secret “black” prisons in Europe, the Far East and North Africa, using methods that included the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. Previous attempts to close Guantanamo and transfer the remaining detainees to maximum-security jails in the US for trial in the federal justice system have failed because Congress prohibited it. President Obama signed an executive order to shut the camp on his first day in office in January 2009. Although 197 detainees were transferred to other countries under his eight-year administration, the camp stayed in business. Under President Trump only one detainee was repatriated. More than 500 were sent home or to third countries under President George W Bush. Nine have died. Only eight have been convicted at Guantanamo military tribunals. As the Pentagon waits for a decision from the White House, the military legal supervisor for the 40 detainees remaining at the camp has authorised the trial of three suspects charged with the Bali bombing which killed 202 people more than 18 years ago. The timing of the trial announcement by Colonel Jeffrey Wood who is responsible as “convening authority” for fixing dates for military tribunals at the Guantanamo courthouse took detainee defence counsel by surprise. Colonel Wood announced the day after Mr Biden had been inaugurated that he had approved charges of conspiracy, murder and terrorism against three Guantanamo detainees who have been held for 17 years. “Generally the decision to refer a case to trial is exclusively within the discretion of the convening authority by military justice rules of procedure,” the Pentagon spokesman said. “The timing sure looks like someone is trying to make it hard on the incoming secretary of defence to close Guantanamo,” Denny LeBoeuf, a Guantanamo specialist lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said.