NEW: Oxfam apologizes to Haiti for prostitution scandal Oxfam has for the first time publicly released its internal report into the 2011 Haiti prostitution scandal which has badly damaged the British charity’s reputation around the world. The report includes allegations that three staff members “physically threatened and intimidated” a witness during an internal investigation into the scandal. Oxfam issued a formal apology to the Haitian government on Monday following the report’s release. “Oxfam is grateful to the Haiti Government for allowing us the chance now to offer our humblest apologies and to begin explaining ourselves and start the long road ahead of re-establishing trust and partnership, given our 40-year history with Haiti and its citizens,” Simon Ticehurst, Oxfam’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement. Ticehurst met with Haitian Minister of Planning and External Cooperation Aviol Fleurant Monday to discuss allegations against Oxfam staff after the 2010 earthquake, according to the statement. “We will stand ready to engage with the people of Haiti and have expressed our openness to collaborate as much as required with the Haiti Government,” Ticehurst said. Allegations first emerged last week that a number of staff members, including the country director, hired prostitutes at Oxfam properties while working in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Four staff were dismissed and another three others resigned following the investigation, including former Haiti country director Roland van Hauwermeiren. Related article Haiti minister says he may revoke Oxfam's right to operate in country The names of the other staff members involved in the scandal have been redacted in the publicly available version of the report. In the document, the UK charity said it would be meeting with the Haitian government on Monday to present them with a copy of their findings and apologize. The Haitian government has threatened to expel Oxfam from the country following the accusations. “If there has indeed been an infraction … I will not hesitate to revoke Oxfam’s right to operate in Haiti,” Aviol Fleurant, Haiti’s minister of planning and external cooperation, told CNN in an interview Friday in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Fleurant is in charge of the oversight of aid agencies. The staff members were deployed to Haiti in response to the devastating earthquake in 2010, which killed between 200,000 and 300,000 people. According to the document released Monday, allegations of sexual misconduct were first reported to Oxfam in July 2011 following an email from a source whose name has been redacted. Oxfam said it dispatched a team to Haiti to investigate the allegations and, during an interview with investigators, van Hauwermeiren admitted to hiring prostitutes on Oxfam property and agreed to resign. In an open letter, published by Belgian broadcaster VTM on Thursday, van Hauwermeiren denied sleeping with a prostitute in the villa Oxfam had rented for him. “I had up to three times intimate contact in my house. (She) was, in my opinion, a mature honorable lady, not an earthquake victim and no prostitute,” he said in the letter. Related article UN chief calls for culture change after Oxfam allegations In its 2011 report, Oxfam said allegations the sex workers were under-age could not be substantiated nor ruled out. The report didn’t address claims that van Hauwermeiren and his team had been previously reported for alleged sexual misconduct while working in the African nation of Chad, but no action was taken at the time. The UK government said Monday that Oxfam had a “long way to go to restore trust” with the public and the people it serves following the allegations of sexual misconduct, a Downing Street spokesman told CNN. On Tuesday the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee will hear from senior officials from aid charities including the current Oxfam Chief Executive Mark Goldring. The international charity, which has offices around the world, has already been severely damaged by the allegations which were first reported by the Times of London in early February. Two high-profile Oxfam ambassadors have resigned in the wake of the scandal, including actress Minnie Driver and Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The charity’s deputy chief executive Penny Lawrence also resigned on February 12 following media reports of the scandal, including allegations of a cover-up by management. CNN’s Zahrah Ullah contributed to this report.


President Donald Trump’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Dr. Dean Winslow, said Tuesday it is “insane” that a civilian can buy a semi-automatic weapon like the gun that Devin Kelley used in the Texas church shooting. Winslow made the comments in his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee. Related article Gun violence: More complicated than a 'mental health problem' “I may get in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semi-automatic assault rifle like an AR-15, which apparently was the weapon that was used,” Winslow said. Law enforcement have said Kelley used Ruger AR-556, which is a variant of an AR-15. The Pentagon declined to comment on Winslow’s remarks. Trump has resisted any action on gun laws in response to the deadly mass shootings that have occurred during his time in office. Related article Trump dismisses question on extreme vetting for gun ownership On Tuesday, Trump said that “there would have been no difference” in the deadly Texas shooting if an extreme vetting policy for gun ownership had been in place. “If you did what you’re suggesting there would have been no difference three days ago, and you might not have had that very brave person who happened to have a gun in his truck and shoot him, and hit him and neutralize him,” Trump said responding to a question during a joint news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “Instead of having 26 dead he would’ve had hundreds more dead,” Trump said. On Monday, Trump said that he believes the Texas church shooting was caused by a “mental health problem,” not an issue with gun laws in the United States. Related article Trump says Texas shooting result of 'mental health problem' not US gun laws “Mental health is your problem here,” Trump said, noting that “based on preliminary reports” the shooter was “a very deranged individual.” “This isn’t a guns situation,” Trump said. “This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.” Trump announced his intention to nominate Winslow on September 2. According to the White House announcement at the time, Winslow most recently served as a professor and vice chair of medicine at Stanford University. Winslow is a retired United States Air Force Colonel with several distinguished military decorations for his service, according to the White House. After 9/11 he deployed twice to Afghanistan and four times to Iraq as a flight surgeon supporting combat operations in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report


Sen. John McCain said Russian election-related hacks threaten to “destroy democracy” and faulted the American response as “totally paralyzed.” McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, again called for a select committee to investigate the CIA’s finding that Russia hacked Democrats’ emails in a bid to help President-elect Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. “This is the sign of a possible unraveling of the world order that was established after World War II, which has made one of the most peaceful periods in the history of the world,” McCain told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “We’re starting to see the strains and the unraveling of it, and that is because of the absolute failure of American leadership.” “When America doesn’t lead, a lot of other bad people do,” he added. McCain’s calls so far have been rejected by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who have backed investigations but said they want to see them conducted through already-existing Senate and House committees. “This is serious business. If they’re able to harm the electoral process, they may destroy democracy, which is based on free and fair elections,” he said. McCain further ratcheted up pressure on McConnell Sunday, sending a letter to the majority leader asking him to allow for a Senate select committee to probe Russian hacking. “Cyber is the rare kind of all-encompassing challenge for which the Congress’s jurisdictional boundaries are an impediment to sufficient oversight and legislative action,” McCain wrote to McConnell in a letter, cosigned by fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, incoming Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Only a select committee that is time-limited, cross-jurisdictional, and purpose-driven can address the challenge of cyber,” wrote the bipartisan quartet of senators. “We believe it is justified by the extraordinary scope and scale of the cyber problem.” McCain told Tapper on “State of the Union” responsibility for cyber-security is spread too broadly today. “The responsibilities for cyber is spread over about four different committees in the Senate, and each doing their own thing, frankly, is not going to be the most efficient way of arriving at a conclusion,” he said. In the interview, McCain spoke about the Russian hacking – as well as China’s seizure of a US underwater drone and the Syrian government’s slaughter of the citizens of Aleppo – in dire terms. In making another call for a select committee to investigate Russian hacking, McCain mocked President Barack Obama’s statement Friday that he had personally told Russian President Vladimir Putin to “cut it out.” “We need a select committee. We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to find out exactly what was done and what the implications of the attacks were, especially if they had an effect on our election,” McCain said. “There’s no doubt they were interfering and no doubt it was a cyber-attack. The question now is how much and what damage and what should the United States of America do? And so far, we’ve been totally paralyzed,” he said. “I’m sure that when Vladimir Putin was told quote ‘cut it out’ unquote, I’m sure that Vladimir Putin immediately stopped all cyber-activities. The truth is, they are hacking every single day.” CNN’s Ted Barrett contributed to this report.


Radio star and entrepreneur launches solar powered fridges for farmers Design will impact hunger, poverty, gender equality and healthcare Almost half of the food produced in the developing world is wasted before it reaches the consumer, largely due to a lack of cold storage. In Nigeria, the problem is particularly acute as agriculture is by far the largest employer – accounting for two-thirds of the labor force. The lack of electricity in rural areas makes it fiendishly difficult to keep food cold. Enter Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a radio presenter and social entrepreneur, with “Cold Hubs” - an enterprise that could transform millions of lives and the entire Nigerian economy. The start-up produces walk-in, solar-powered refrigeration units which extend the lifespan of fruit and vegetable produce from two to 21 days. The “Hubs” are designed for use in even the most remote corners of the country. They are simple to operate, and affordable to all. Ikegwunou is a farmer himself from the southern state of Imo, who previously founded the Smallholders Foundation – and its popular radio station – as a means of empowering rural workers. He believes the design responds to their most urgent need. “From talking to farmers, we identified the challenge of lost produce,” says the 33-year-old. “Most losses come in the markets, and when produce is taken from the trees…In Nigeria, electricity is unreliable so you have to make an alternate plan.” Ikegwuono resolved to pursue an off-grid solution. In 2012, he traveled to Dresden, Germany, to meet with scientists that had developed a solar-powered cold room that was never commercialized. Together, they refined the concept and technical specifications. The embryonic business then hired an office in the U.S., where the design was presented to investors and energy experts. After going through several prototypes, the entrepreneur emerged with heavyweight investors, an all-star team, and a world-class product. “When you take an idea to the US, it is torn apart, criticized and condemned,” says Ikegwunou. “If you come out unscathed – then you have an idea.” The first units were rolled out at Nigeria’s busiest markets in 2014, giving farmers an opportunity to test them for 100 Naira ($0.50) per day. There are now 10 in operation  – and constant use – with a further 50 to be unveiled in 2016. Farmers also have the option of forming co-operatives to buy their own, with subsidized repayment plans. Either way, Ikegwuonu anticipates they will see swift and substantial returns. “A basket of tomatoes sells for $60 when they are in the best condition,” he says. “Farmers lose 50% due to lack of storage - $30 a basket. For 50 cents they can eliminate the loss completely.” The company estimates farmers will see a 25% fillip to their annual income, and the benefits do not stop there. Increased food production – including fruit and vegetables – should help tackle the nation’s chronic malnutrition problem. There will be a boost to female employment as public units will only be operated by women. Rural healthcare will improve as medicines and vaccines can also be refrigerated. Serial entrepreneur Michael “Luni” Libes, founder of six start-ups, recently joined Cold Hubs as an adviser, and sees enormous potential. “This is one of the most innovative ideas I have seen to kick-start the cold chain, and in a way that is accessible to the most farmers,” says Libes. “The impact is twofold: At scale it should help Africa feed Africa, and it should stop farmers losing money. It should basically have an impact for both global hunger and global poverty…at least a billion people need this.” Cold Hubs has already achieved international recognition, having been selected as a partner program for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In September, the team was invited to present their work at UN headquarters in New York. Ikegwuono is confident the units can have a dramatic impact at home, but he also believes they can capture the global market. There is interest from the U.S. and Europe, and no obvious competitors. “I hope in 15 years this can be a brand name all over the world – the same as an LG or Sony product,” he says.


House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week in a letter where he threatened Sessions with a public grilling if he doesn’t produce documents about the Russia dossier to the House intelligence committee. Nunes, who despite stepping aside from directing the House Russia investigation has been leading his own separate investigation, accused Sessions and the FBI of stonewalling him repeatedly in a September 1 letter obtained by CNN. In the letter, he threatened to drag Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray before the committee for a public grilling and hold them in contempt of Congress – a jailable offense – if they don’t hand over the documents. The House intelligence committee issued a pair of subpoenas last month seeking documentation of whether the FBI or Justice Department used material from the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele as part of the federal investigation into possible collusion between the campaign of President Donald Trump and the Kremlin. Nunes also writes that he subpoenaed to discover whether information from the Russia dossier was used in the crafting of applications to conduct surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the letter, which was signed only by Nunes and no other members of the House intelligence committee, Nunes explained that he was extending the deadline for responding to the subpoenas to September 14. But he capped it off with a sharp threat. “If all responsive documents are not produced by the revised deadline, the Attorney General and Director of the FBI (Christopher Wray) shall appear before the committee at 9 a.m. on September 14, 2017 in room HVC-210 of the US Capitol during an open hearing, to explain under oath DOJ’s and FBI’s unwillingness or inability to comply in full with the subpoenas issued on August 24,” Nunes wrote. Nunes then closes the letter by stating that if the Justice Department and FBI do not provide the documents, he will seek to hold Sessions and Wray in contempt of Congress – which is punishable with up to a year in prison. Asked to comment, Nunes told a CNN reporter Tuesday evening: “I’m not talking to you guys.” The Republican leader of the House Russia investigation, Rep. Michael Conaway, said earlier Tuesday that he supported the effort to obtain the dossier documents. “We’ve got to run this thing to ground,” Conaway said. But Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, said the pair of subpoenas were issued over his objections last month and are designed to “undermine” the claims about the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. The subpoenas seek information about what the FBI knows about the compilation of the Russia dossier and coincides with a push by the committee to bring in Steele, the report’s author and a former British spy. Conaway said he does not know yet what will happen if Justice Department refuses to hand over the information and said the decision on enforcement will be up to House Speaker Paul Ryan. The dossier was funded by political opponents of Trump during the campaign. It contains allegations – some since verified – about Trump’s associates, finances and personal life. Trump has dismissed the allegations, calling them “phony.” The Washington Examiner was first to report the subpoenas.


House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter Thursday to House Speaker Paul Ryan urging him not to allow the House Russia investigation to be shut down. Pelosi’s letter says Democrats are “deeply concerned by the Majority’s efforts to curtail the House Intelligence Committee investigation and its overall failure to address Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.” “Nothing less than America’s democracy and national security are at stake, and therefore we must fully investigate Russia’s assault on our election systems to prevent future foreign attacks,” the California Democrat wrote. “We expect that you will take urgent action to ensure this investigation can continue, and justice can be pursued, unhindered.” Related: Top FBI official grilled on Comey, Clinton in Hill testimony Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warned last week that he was concerned House Republicans might end the committee’s Russia investigation at the end of the year, with no witnesses yet scheduled in 2018. The committee’s Republican leaders say they still have more witnesses to speak with, though they add that they hope to conclude their investigation as quickly as they can. A spokeswoman for Ryan said in response to the minority leader’s message that “Leader Pelosi would like to see this investigation go on forever.” “Whether it concludes next month, next year, or in three years, she will say it is too soon,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement. “For nearly a year, this Committee has been following the facts, and it continues to do so. The investigation will conclude when the Committee has reached a conclusion. It is also the Committee’s responsibility to provide recommendations to Congress to ensure what took place last election never happens again.” She added, “One would hope that Leader Pelosi would want those recommendations in time to implement them before the election coming just next year.” CNN’s Ashley Killough contributed to this report.


Bogoslof volcano erupted Saturday It "remains at a heightened state of unrest," agency says An Alaskan volcano that has erupted several times since last year spewed an ash cloud up to 30,000 feet, leading to an aviation warning. The Bogoslof volcano erupted Saturday, sending ash over the Aleutians Islands, the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) said. It “remains at a heightened state of unrest and in an unpredictable condition, and additional explosions producing high-altitude volcanic clouds could occur at any time,” the observatory said. The volcano sits under the flight path of many flights from Asia to North America and its ash cloud could adversely affect aircraft. “Ash and aircraft do not mix, as volcanic ash is abrasive, melts at jet engine temperatures, and can cause engine failure,”  the United States Geological Survey says. The aviation color code remains at red. Bogoslof’s current eruption sequence started in December, according to the observatory.  Its previous eruption events have lasted weeks, sometimes months. In May, an eruption prompted a similar temporary aviation alert but was subsequently downgraded to “orange.” Aircraft are often instructed to fly around or over ash clouds, although in some circumstances air traffic has been grounded due to the hazards from airborne ash. In 2010 the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland caused the cancellation of flights around Europe for six days. CNN’s Joe Sutton contributed to this report


President Trump unveiled the administration's Afghanistan strategy in a speech on Monday In it, he authorized more troops and said there would be no more nation building President Donald Trump’s newly unveiled Afghanistan strategy is meant to pressure the Taliban to the negotiating table by making clear there’s no way to win on the battlefield, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday. “We are there to facilitate and ensure that there is a pathway for reconciliation and peace talks,” Tillerson said. “As the pressure begins to take hold, we believe we already know there are certain moderate elements of the Taliban who we think will be ready and develop a way forward.” Trump’s South Asia plan is meant to force the Taliban to accept that they “will not win a battlefield victory,” Tillerson said. Addressing the terrorist group directly, he said, “We may not win one, but neither will you.” He cautioned that the effort will take time. “It is time to begin a process, a lengthy process, of reconciliation and a peace accord in Afghanistan,” he said. “How long that will take will be based on conditions on the ground.” Related video What's at stake in Afghanistan Tillerson was expanding on Trump’s Monday speech that laid out the administration’s approach to the war of almost 16 years, which has claimed more than 2,000 US lives and billions of dollars since it was launched by President George W. Bush in October 2001. Trump’s plan resembles the strategies of previous administrations, with a few tweaks and deliberately few details, including how long the US will stay. The President authorized more troops and declared that the US will avoid nation building, concentrating instead on empowering the Afghans to fight their own battles. Under Trump, the US will also continue to engage regional neighbors, such as India and Pakistan, in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. And while the President is continuing past pressure on Pakistan, he and Tillerson are taking a much more public route with US complaints over Islamabad’s ties to terror groups. On Tuesday, Tillerson declined to offer many more details beyond what the President had. “We are not going to signal ahead what our plans are,” he said. “We’re not going to signal an increase, decrease, timing, any of that,” he added, referring to troop levels, among other things. “It will be driven by conditions on the ground.” He added, though, that “the intent is there will be visibility to troop levels once the decision has been made.” And Tillerson added that, “the only way we can defeat an enemy that is as nimble and as cagey, tactically, as this enemy is, we have to be as cagey and tactical as they are. And we’ve not been fighting that way.” The top US diplomat also doubled down on Trump’s comments about Pakistan, noting that it can play an important role in delivering the Taliban to the negotiating table but warned that Islamabad must stop offering safe haven to terrorist groups or face consequences. A spokesperson for Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi said late Tuesday the leader was “disappointed” by the US’s policy statement, adding it “ignores the enormous sacrifices” made in the fight against terrorism. “Pakistan has been and will continue to be part of the global counter terrorism efforts,” the statement said. The US and Pakistan have long maintained a close security partnership, with the US providing hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to Islamabad in recent years. Much of that money goes toward supporting counter terrorism efforts and capabilities. Related video Afghan official praises Trump's 'firm messages' “We have witnessed terrorist organizations being given safe haven inside Pakistan to plan and carry out attacks against US servicemen and officials, disrupting peace efforts inside Afghanistan,” Tillerson said. “Pakistan must adopt a different approach.” The US will condition future support for Pakistan “on them delivering results in this area,” Tillerson said. Consequences could include Pakistan’s loss of status as a non-NATO ally and cuts to aid. “We have put people on notice that if you’re providing safe haven to terrorists, be warned: we are going to engage those providing safe haven and ask them to change what they are doing,” Tillerson said. Apart from the Afghan people, Tillerson said, Pakistan “will benefit more than any other nation,” particularly as the Taliban and other terror groups such as the Haqqani network strengthen to such a degree that they might soon threaten Islamabad itself, he said. Trump, like his predecessors, will pursue a strategy that combines military and diplomatic levers of influence to stabilize the country and deny a safe haven to terrorist groups, including ISIS and al Qaeda. The President offered little elaboration about the diplomatic side of that campaign, particularly how it would be carried out without a US ambassador in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Tillerson said Tuesday that, “we have very competent capable people on the ground now” to handle the diplomatic challenges. He added that the administration’s diplomatic approach, like the military approach, will be “conditions based.” “We must continue the reform efforts we’ve been working on for some time,” Tillerson said, “in particular much more rigorous efforts” around fighting government corruption. In his Monday address to troops at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, Trump offered few specifics, but he did outline reasons for his decision to extend and expand the US presence in Afghanistan, a reversal from his strident past criticism of previous administrations for involvement there. Leaving “would create a vacuum for terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda,” Trump said, as he described an extended deliberative process with his national security staff about how to proceed in Afghanistan. Trump said he had been told that decision making from within the Oval Office is more complicated.

Trump administration's Afghanistan strategy


Editor’s Note: W. James Antle III is the Washington Examiner’s politics editor and senior adviser and foreign policy analyst for Defense Priorities, a think tank focusing on the US military. The opinions in the article are those of the author. Having spent nearly $5 trillion on war in exchange for security benefits that are arguable at best requires some hard questions Let us hope that our new leaders will have the courage to ask them With a new president comes change. That’s what America sorely needs in foreign policy, where we have for too long been mired in a deadly status quo of ineffectual and often counterproductive intervention – especially in the Middle East. Like a hammer in search of a nail, policymakers are quick to solve national security problems through US involvement in foreign quagmires. Whether by invading, bombing or arming dubious international fighters about whom we know little, our activist foreign policy keeps creating vacuums that are filled by our enemies or assuming burdens that should not be borne by our taxpayers or brave service members. Related video Trump's challenges in the Middle East Yet our foreign policy has proved the most resistant to change, even when we elect presidents who appear to understand the problems with the current approach. President Obama opposed the destabilization that followed regime change in Iraq, but then repeated it in Libya. Similarly, President-elect Trump called the Iraq war a “big, fat mistake” and rejected the US serving as the world’s policemen. But he has mostly surrounded himself with supporters of that mistake and conventionally hawkish globo-cops when seeking to fill crucial national security positions in his coming administration. Even President George W. Bush campaigned on a “humble foreign policy.” We all know how that turned out. Our leaders started down this dangerous path even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but our current military footprint abroad cannot be understood apart from that dark day. We rightly avenged the savage murder of thousands of our countrymen and undoubtedly took steps that increased our preparedness for future terrorism, making Americans safer. Nevertheless, we must take inventory of where we are more than 15 years later. Despite being at war in Afghanistan for longer than the US fought in the Second World War, the Taliban now holds more territory there than at any point since 2001. A variant of the Islamic extremists who attacked America on 9/11 now holds more power and territory in Iraq than before 2003 invasion. Iran is also more powerful in the Middle East, having lost a regional counterweight. One reputable pollster found that 90% of young Iraqis consider the US an enemy. The US government is now re-engaging in Iraq to beat back ISIS, which metastasized after the overthrow of the old regime in Baghdad. Unlike the last war in Iraq, this one is proceeding without congressional authorization. Related video Latest on Mosul operation in Iraq “Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach,” CIA Director John Brennan told Congress in June. Our politicians ignore the consequences of regime change in Libya, which, as in Iraq, has left the country teeming with anti-American jihadists who we have resumed bombing with no end in sight. Instead, Democrats and Republicans clamor to do more in Syria, hoping to overthrow yet another regime that is loathsome but incapable of imminently threatening the US while simultaneously fighting the other sides of that civil war. Far from being a bystander, our government is already arming and training Syrian rebels. One such group of fighters gave a quarter of its weapons to an al-Qaeda affiliate. On Thanksgiving, we suffered the first American combat death in Syria. All this despite the fact that it is becoming less clear as to why getting involved in the civil war in Syria will prevent Americans from being killed in San Bernardino, Orlando or Boston. The biggest terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11 have not been directed from the Middle East. They have not been stopped by overthrowing or destabilizing foreign governments. They have not been prevented by mass surveillance of American citizens. If we cannot secure our own borders, how realistic is it that we can protect ourselves by redrawing the borders of Syria or Iraq? Related video Syria: The biggest issue for the next US president? How often are we going to repeat the same interventions on the advice of the same people whose recommendations and threat assessments have proven wrong in the past? November’s election results showed our political elites don’t even understand what is going on in our own country. Do they really possess the wisdom to create peaceful democracies in the Middle East? In a dangerous world, there are no easy answers. But having spent nearly $5 trillion on war, to say nothing of the deaths and injuries to our best and bravest Americans, in exchange for security benefits that are arguable at best requires some hard questions. Let us hope that our new leaders will have the courage to ask them.


Editor’s Note: Leslie Vinjamuri is an associate fellow with the US and the Americas Programme, serves on the council of Chatham House, and is an adjunct faculty member with the institute’s Academy for Leadership in International Affairs. She is also Associate Professor in International Relations at SOAS, University of London The opinions in this article are those of the author. Vinjamuri: Trump's public disavowal of the most basic liberal principles undermines the liberal order Moral authority and the liberal values that underpin it have always been essential in US leadership The US presidential election, the nastiest in its history, is finally over. The next president of the United States, Donald Trump, faces a daunting challenge to restore America’s moral authority as a global leader. That moral authority has been badly damaged over the past 100 days. The fact that many people see this as a problem of Trump’s own making means that the task will be even more complicated for him than it perhaps would have been for Hillary Clinton. As president, Trump will quickly find his hands tied if he does not seek to reverse this downward spiral. The tenor of the debate in the US has cast a shadow over the country, and that shadow is visible far beyond America’s shores. This shadow is one marked by uncertainty and fear about the implications of a Trump presidency, especially in Europe and Asia. But American values are reflected first and foremost through the lens of its domestic politics. Trump’s embrace of torture tactics, his racist language and his sexism create mistrust among America’s liberal allies and fear among allies that do not share a common culture with the United States. Related video Carl Bernstein: Trump win is 'tragic and dangerous' Trump also must reunite an American public that is deeply divided. If Trump fails to overcome these divisions, they are likely to take root and fester, with grave consequences for the future health of America and for the rest of the world. The last 100 days have seen a campaign dominated by mudslinging, racism, sexist attacks, false allegations, attacks on individual characters and a willingness to “go low.” The willingness of Trump to abandon a basic sense of decency, decorum and dignity in public debate has undermined international confidence in the US. In a world where power is more evenly distributed among a number of states – and many leading powers do not embrace similar values to those of the US – leadership that has the potential to unify will matter more, not less. Candidates may not need allies, but presidents do. Moral authority and the liberal values that underpin it have always been an essential component of American leadership. And America’s leadership has depended on the goodwill of its allies. The defection from liberal values, reflected in concrete policy proposals, makes this difficult. Foreign publics have recoiled as a candidate for president has threatened to withdraw support from key allies in Europe and Asia, to rethink its support for NATO, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin. When both candidates embraced political platforms that were anti-free trade – at a time when populism threatens the fabric of social life in many countries – America’s ambivalence will have generated fear among its partners. In Asia, many nations have hung their hat on the hope that the US would deliver the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This now looks increasingly unlikely. For European leaders – whose post-war recoveries were built on the back of the Marshall Plan and who now face their own crises driven by problems in the euro zone, immigration, and the politics of Brexit – the absence of American economic leadership leaves a gaping hole. Related video Wolf, Tapper react to Trump's historic win At a time when Europe is politically turning in on itself, tensions with Russia are high, and the US-China relationship calls for careful management, the leadership vacuum is palpable. In the twilight of Obama’s presidency we have witnessed a resurgent Russia that has violated human rights norms at home and sovereignty norms abroad. It continues to intimidate Baltic and Eastern Europe states. These countries are waiting to see if America will come to their defense. In Syria, Russia’s active backing of Assad’s attacks on innocent civilians is an even greater barrier to US-Russia relations and one that will be difficult for Mr. Trump to shy away from. In Asia, we are seeing China assume a more confident role in dealing with previous US allies. Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte said on a recent visit to China: “America has lost now. I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow.” Even North Korea is taking advantage of the current power vacuum. The next administration will not be able to ignore this threat for long, and absent cooperation from China, may not have many good options. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Nowhere has America’s role as a liberal leader been more symbolic than in its embrace of immigrants. That the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island continue to be two of the America’s top tourist destinations stands in stark contrast to the attacks on immigration that have dominated recent electoral politics. The 45th president of the United States will face a daunting, Janus-faced challenge – to restore at home and lead abroad. American leadership has always been marked by hypocrisy, but Trump’s public disavowal of the American commitment to the most basic liberal principles has threatened to undermine even the aspirations that the world has come to accept as fundamental to the liberal order.


Editor’s Note: Timothy Stanley, a conservative, is a historian and columnist for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of “Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between LA and DC Revolutionized American Politics.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Tim Stanley: Europe repeatedly struck by terror attacks, Britain 3 in 3 months. Officialdom says "carry on," but this wears thin in a changed world Stanley says Trump gets this. If he stopped tweeting for 5 minutes, he'd realize Europe is edging closer to his way of thinking on terror Europe is waking up to the need for change. We’ve been fighting the war on terror for a very long time, but we’ve recently seen an escalation. Tuesday, in France – which is still in a state of emergency since the 2015 Paris attacks – a man attacked police officers with a hammer, and officials have opened an anti-terror probe into the incident. Britain, my country, has suffered three attacks in three months; in the last, at London Bridge, seven people lost their lives to terrorists. As we mourn these dead, the very last thing we expect or need is a US president to insult the mayor of London. And yet Donald Trump launched a series of disgraceful attacks on Sadiq Khan on Twitter. Khan has called for the President’s forthcoming state visit to the UK to be canceled. I disagree. Trump is u ndiplomatic and ignorant. But he remains Britain’s closest ally and – please don’t tell any Europeans I wrote this –he’s not wrong about everything. There’s a lot he gets right. The challenges faced by America and Europe are different. America is a target for terrorists but is also isolated by geography. Europe sits on the edge of the Islamic world and has a large, overwhelmingly peaceful population of Muslims within its borders. I cannot stress how integrated – to use a patronizing term – those Muslims are, and proof of that is Khan himself. The son of Pakistani Sunni migrants, Khan is a feminist and pro-gay; he’s a successful lawyer, a left-wing icon and now mayor of, I’d argue, the greatest city in Europe. He could easily be a future prime minister. One reason why Donald Trump’s Islamophobia comes off so poorly in Britain is that it contradicts our experience of living side-by-side with Muslims. Related video Clinton: Not a time to lash out Our real problems are twofold. One, we have to deal with the rise of a political ideology that calls itself Islamic and radicalizes people into terrorism. The other problem is mass migration, which creates the pool of potential recruits and a pathway into Europe for those exporting terror. Europe has accepted a large number of people from the developing world at a rate so fast that it has overwhelmed parts of the host population. This is not my judgment, but the judgment of the very Europeans who let those migrants in. The liberal elite that two years ago announced that we would welcome anyone who could make it here is now sending them home. Britain has taken in refugees from Syria; Muslim migration mostly arrives here from the former British colonies of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Again, most of these folks are as British as I am – but some do not integrate, and segregation in inner cities is becoming self-evident. This exacerbates that toxic mix of politics, race and religion that has given the security services the job of having to trace an estimated 23,000 subjects of interest. They’re failing. Time after time, perpetrators of terror attacks turn out to be known to the authorities. One of the men who executed the London Bridge atrocity was actually featured in a TV documentary about radical Islam. He was filmed praying by a jihadi-style flag. Why wasn’t he arrested just for doing that? Because, like the US, we have very liberal speech laws and you can’t just throw a man in prison for expressing the wrong view. Our liberal culture is one of the best things about being European, but it also hinders us in fighting those who cynically exploit it. A foreign-born criminal in Britain can delay deportation for years by invoking human rights laws. Related video John Oliver mocks media after London attack We don’t want to close our borders. We don’t want to lock innocent people up. We don’t want to police free speech – although we do speak to a script. Whenever a terror attack happens, our politicians say: Everything is under control, keep calm and carry on, nothing must change. This is testing the patience of the public. Things are changing; they’ve changed dramatically for the families of the dead. Through this veneer of political correctness, Trump cuts like a knife. Trump gets it. Not the policy detail or the fine detail of the challenge we face, but he gets the raw, instinctive sense that things can’t go on as they are – that every time the elite say things are fine, they lose credibility and things feel even worse. The free world was led for eight years by the sublimely intelligent Barack Obama, who left office with things in pretty much the same disorder. The promise that Trump holds out is to be honest about the situation and take the steps necessary to change it. Where he oversteps the line, the law will hopefully restrain him – as the travel ban illustrates. Related video Trump: This bloodshed will end But he is right about the need for a Western-Israeli-Saudi alliance against terrorism. He is right about the basic need to restore control to migration. He is right to project an image of the West that is tough and unashamedly Western. The West should cease apologizing for what it is. The British Conservative government stands by the President in part because it needs him: Britain voted to leave the EU, and now Trump is Britain’s closest diplomatic partner. The situation recalls Voltaire, asked on his death bed if he’d renounce the devil; he replied: It’s a bit late in life to start making enemies. So, the state visit will go ahead, and there will be protests. But if Trump could only get off Twitter for five minutes and focus on the essentials of the Western alliance, he’d discover that Europe is edging closer to his way of thinking on the most important issue of our time. There is, increasingly, more agreement between us than disagreement.


Editor’s Note: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a CNN contributor and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: America can't expect its special operations forces to be the main answer for every military question They are trained for unconventional warfare and shouldn't be taking the place of our main defenses, she writes Somalia. Afghanistan. Syria. Iraq. And, as the awful headlines make clear, Niger. All places special operations forces are serving – and serving in harm’s way. Four US soldiers – including two Green Berets – and five Nigerien troops died this week in an ambush while on a joint patrol. They were there, as US Africa Command noted in a statement, “to provide training and security assistance to the Nigerien Armed Forces, in their efforts to counter violent extremist organizations in the region.” Green Berets – and the 3rd Special Forces Group in specific – have long been connected to the African continent, as US Africa Command noted last March in writing about a joint exercise. “During the Global War on Terror, 3SFG (A) was realigned to Afghanistan,” it said. “The group’s area of operations shifted back to Africa where Green Berets are sharing valuable lessons learned with their partners.” West Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. These are just a few of the regions where special operations forces are now leading the American charge on battlefields worldwide. And these are where forces, which make up just about 3% of the United States military and about 3% of America’s defense budget, are now in the driver’s seat in counterterror and training missions that are growing in importance as the post-9/11 fight against extremism enters its 17th year. But as much as the nearly 9,000 commandos (part of special operations command) are capable of, much more is being asked of them. And the trend – which began with the Obama administration – of America sending in special operations forces to avoid large-scale deployments of boots on the ground may at last be reaching its limits. The ghost of the Iraq war hangs over every decision made on the use of American military strength today, and it has pushed America to scale back its ambitions for US interventions in the Middle East. Related article 3 Green Berets killed in ambush in Niger In Iraq’s aftermath, the use of hard-to-detect, shadow-friendly special operations forces sent overseas in smaller numbers has made for fewer forces required and far fewer headlines blaring of ground troop deployments – and, most importantly, large-scale losses of American lives. But unseen doesn’t mean unused, as special operations deployments show. And American policymakers would do well to remember that special operations forces are not the answer to all military questions, nor are they an endless and infinite resource that can be used to solve all manner of vexing threats. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. An exceptionally high price is being paid by these elite American forces designed for unconventional warfare: in 2016, for the first time ever, special operations deaths outnumbered those of conventional forces. This is a striking fact, given that special operations accounts for not even 5% of all American troops. And special operations leaders want America to know their forces are neither superheroes nor catchalls for American military efforts. Related video 3 US Green Berets killed in ambush in Niger “First and furthermore, we’re not a panacea. We are not the ultimate solution for every problem, and you will not hear that coming from us,” said Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, who leads Special Operations Command, in testimony before Congress this past May. Theresa Whelan, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations, went further during the congressional testimony. “We’ve been operating at such a high tempo for the last decade-plus. And with budgets going down, what we’ve got to do is essentially … eat our young, so to speak,” Whelan, who was then the acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations, told the House Armed Services Committee. “We’ve mortgaged the future in order to facilitate current operations. That has affected readiness and it’s also affected the development of force for the future. And as the threats grow, this is only going to get worse.” Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Indeed, when it comes to Afghanistan, what the head of special operations told Congress he wanted to see was more “conventional” forces, and less “special” ones. “More conventional forces that would thicken the ability to advise and assist Afghan forces – that would absolutely be to our benefit,” Thomas said, when asked what he needed for the Afghanistan mission. While during much of the early years of the post-9/11 wars, the bulk of US special operations forces could be found in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Today, special operations missions have fanned out much farther. As the New York Times noted, in Africa “about one-third of the nearly 6,000 overall troops are special operations forces. The only permanent US installation on the continent is Camp Lemonnier, a sprawling base of 4,000 US service members and civilians in Djibouti that serves as a hub for counterterrorism operations and training.” So for special operations, the mandates are expanding and the desire to use them is growing. But humans have limits and so do forces that are special and elite by name, nature and by training. America would do well to remember the price of today’s wars that special operations forces – and their families – are bearing. Even if they live in the shadows, are easy to deploy in small numbers and are capable of leading many a fight, America’s special operations forces are not the Band-Aid for every military question the nation faces.


President Donald Trump said Friday that the southern border is “under siege” – a day after his administration released statistics that showed illegal border crossings held steady in April and are in line with historical trends. “Our Southern Border is under siege. Congress must act now to change our weak and ineffective immigration laws. Must build a Wall. Mexico, which has a massive crime problem, is doing little to help!” Trump wrote on Twitter Friday. Our Southern Border is under siege. Congress must act now to change our weak and ineffective immigration laws. Must build a Wall. Mexico, which has a massive crime problem, is doing little to help! Although there was a significant spike in border crossings in March, figures released Thursday by US Customs and Border Protection show that the number of apprehensions in April roughly held steady compared to that month. Border crossings also remain in line with historic seasonal trends, and numbers are still consistent with Obama administration years – slightly below fiscal years 2013 and 2014 but slightly above 2015 and 2016. Related article Caravan organizers: 158 migrants have crossed into US to seek asylum Trump’s claim on Friday that Mexico is “doing little to help” also contrasts with some public statements by members of his administration, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who thanked Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in March for “helping to foster a close partnership” with her department. Trump has escalated his rhetoric against illegal immigration in recent weeks, especially in the wake of an annual migrant caravan that is seeking asylum in the US. He’s also ordered the National Guard to deploy troops to the border to address what the administration calls a “crisis” there. CNN’s Tal Kopan contributed to this report.


A truck armed with explosives blew up in 2009 at a base in Afghanistan Prosecutors alleged Al Farekh was a member of al Qaeda from 2007 to 2014 An American citizen was found guilty Friday of conspiring to aid al Qaeda and to bomb a US military base in Afghanistan. Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, 31, could face life in prison after a federal jury Brooklyn, New York, convicted him on nine counts, including conspiracy to murder US nationals and to use a weapon of mass destruction. His sentencing is set for January 11. Federal prosecutors claimed Al Farekh was a member of the terror organization from 2007 to 2014. Court papers detailed his alleged participation in the January 2009 attack on a US military installation in Khost, Afghanistan, where a truck armed with explosives blew up at the gate of the base and a second truck was prepared to do more harm. “The trial evidence showed that he was involved in a variety of terrorist activity,” acting Assistant Attorney General Dana Boente said after the verdict was rendered. Al Farekh was born in Houston and grew up in Dubai. According to the US Attorney’s Office, he attended the University of Manitoba in Canada between 2005 and 2007, and there became friends with co-conspirators – and later fellow al Qaeda members – Ferid Imam and Maiwand Yar. According to court documents, Al Farekh left to train in Pakistan after he watched videos encouraging violent jihad and online lectures by the now-deceased al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who “inspired numerous terrorist plots against Western targets.” Related article New al Qaeda documents reveal the bureaucracy of terror The plan in the 2009 Afghanistan attack, court records show, evidently was for the first truck to explode at the gate to the base while a second truck, following closely, carried “significantly more explosive ordinance” and was intended to detonate inside to “maximize casualties and damage.” The second vehicle got stuck in the crater caused by the explosion of the first and did not detonate. Several Afghan nationals were injured, and a US soldier was knocked to the ground. Eighteen fingerprints collected from packing tape used to bind together the explosive materials matched to Al Farekh.


New: An International Red Cross plane arrived in Sanaa with aid workers UNICEF aircraft carried 1.9 doses of three vaccines, enough for 600,000 children Critically needed aid arrived Saturday in war-torn Yemen, some of the first such aid to arrive since Saudi Arabia imposed a blockade of the country in early November. Passenger planes carrying aid workers and around 1.9 million vaccine doses – enough for 600,000 children – landed in Sanaa, United Nations World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said. Three types of vaccines were sent to protect against at least eight deadly diseases, including whooping cough, tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia and meningitis. .@UNICEF’s chartered flight just brought in over 15 tonnes of the most needed lifesaving Penta, BCG and PCV vaccines to protect about 600k children from diphtheria, tetanus, etc. The needs are huge and there is much more to do for#YemenChildren. #Yemen pic.twitter.com/ezgGKQ1gi6 A WFP ship carrying wheat flour that had been waiting off the Yemeni coast since November 11 also was expected to arrive Saturday at the Port of Hodeida, she said. “To feed the 7 million people suffering severe famine, we need this kind of access on a regular basis, as we had before November 5,” Etefa said. “We are hoping that commercial ships carrying food will also be allowed access to Yemen’s ports soon, as the country imports 90% of its food and this is the only way to end the famine.” A plane carrying eight aid workers with the International Committee of the Red Cross also landed Saturday in Sanaa, a spokeswoman said. “Today is a very good day, and we are very pleased,” Iolanda Jacquemet said. “But there will be no relief for the 27 million people of Yemen until commercial goods are allowed in the country.” Wracked by civil war since 2015, Yemen is now largely split between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and an internationally-recognized government supported by the Saudis. Related article Saudi blockade pushing Yemen toward 'worst famine in decades' Early this month, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted over the skies of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The missile caused no casualties or known damage, but it rattled the region politically, and the blockade was imposed shortly thereafter. The closures cut off UN-supervised relief supplies and led to severe shortages of food and medicine. Before the crisis began, between 80% and 90% of food imports entered through the port at Hodeida and Sanaa’s airport, according to Jens Laerke, for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Facing international pressure, Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN announced on November 13 that his nation would reopen government-controlled ports and airports within 24 hours to humanitarian shipments. Two days later, the Saudi-led coalition announced it would reopen the Sanaa airport and the key Port of Hodeida for humanitarian purposes the following day. Related video Yemen girl becomes symbol of war The United States – which conducted its most recent airstrikes in Yemen on Sunday and Monday in support of the Saudi-led coalition, according to Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon – welcomed news that the blockade had been lifted. “We look forward to additional steps that will facilitate the unfettered flow of humanitarian and commercial goods from all ports of entry to the points of need,” the White House said in a statement. “The magnitude of suffering in Yemen requires all parties to this conflict to focus on assistance to those in need.” Stocks of vaccines have run low in Yemen, where a child dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes, according to UNICEF. Related video Battling cholera inside Yemen's ruined hospitals The country also faces one of the world’s worst cholera outbreaks in modern history. There have been more than 900,000 suspected cases of cholera in Yemen since late April, many of them in children, and more than 2,000 people have died from it, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). More than 8,600 people died and nearly 50,000 others were injured between the start of Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 and mid-September of this year, according to WHO.  More than half of the country’s medical facilities have closed, cutting off much of the population from essential health care. CNN’s Tamara Qiblawi, Hamdi Alkhshali and Lorenzo D’Agostino contributed to this report.


Trump has at times said he wants to build a wall all along the border Other times, he's said that it's not necessary in places where there's a "natural barrier" Jorge Perez is happy to build buildings – and he builds a lot of them around the world – but not President Donald Trump’s border wall. Perez, the billionaire CEO of Related Group, has maintained a 20-year friendship with Trump. They’ve done business together. The Perez and Trump families have vacationed together. Perez said he likes Trump and that he’s always been a good business partner. But the relationship stalled in December when Perez received an email from The Trump Organization that included attachments showing a border wall and a handwritten note from Trump. “The handwriting was his,” Perez said. CNN was shown the email. The White House said it is unaware of the conversation between the two, and a senior White House official told CNN Trump has been looking at various blueprints and sketches of the wall along with his top advisers. The email Perez received gives a glimpse into Trump’s preliminary thinking about how to design it. “Inside the email was the wall, you know, the 2,000 mile, 30-foot wall, with some sketches, and he said, ‘I would love to get you involved in this. Please give me a call,’” Perez said. The picture actually shows two walls, a primary wall and a secondary wall, with a security road in between. It’s a design former border patrol agent Rowdy Adams believes would be most effective in an urban settings. “(By) the time someone breaches that first barrier and gets across the roadway … you might want a secondary fence to slow them down until a response vehicle shows up,” Adams explained. Trump has at times said he wants to build a wall all along the border. Other times, he’s said that it’s not necessary in places where there’s a “natural barrier.” On Wednesday, Trump revealed the wheels are in motion. “The wall is getting designed right now,” he said. But he won’t have his friend’s help. Perez said he’s a Democrat who, despite a request from Trump himself, did not support his candidacy. “I am totally opposed to the wall because a) it’s wrong and b) it’s not going to work anyway … It’s an insult to all Hispanics and maybe all immigrants in this country.” Perez believes an improved economy in Mexico is a better solution. He said he has five projects in Mexico right now. “I think my Mexican partners would shoot me if I’m in any way involved in the wall,” he said. Perez, who was born in Argentina to Cuban parents, smiled and said he told Trump he has one more concern. “I said you need to remember also that my name is ‘Perez,’ so if you do build a wall, what side of the wall do I get to stay in?” he said.


Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday he wishes President Donald Trump had not moved to exit the Iran deal and supported talks between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. “I think that we need more discussion at a higher level with Iran,” Paul said on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Trump announced last week he was removing the US from the nuclear agreement, and at a rally following his decision to exit the deal, Trump said he still hoped to make a better agreement. Paul said Tuesday there’s “no evidence” Iran violated the agreement forged during the Obama administration. He added that, while the deal had shortcomings, keeping it in place was preferable to “ripping it up.” “I think that it was a mistake to rip up the agreement, and we should’ve built on the agreement rather than stepping backwards,” Paul said. Just as he supported talks with North Korea, Paul said he would support negotiations with Rouhani. But the US is further away from an agreeable situation with Iran now that Trump moved to leave the multiparty agreement to provide Iran sanctions relief in exchange for verification that Iran did not work to build nuclear weapons, he said. “Unfortunately getting out of the Iran agreement, I think we’re now starting from scratch with Iran,” Paul said, adding he thought there was “potential” to add more to the agreement before Trump’s decision to exit unilaterally from the deal. “But now I think we’ve gone back to square one,” he continued. Paul said those in the administration who believe exiting the deal would make it more likely to establish a stronger agreement with Iran are wrong. “I think there’s a certain naivete to think, oh, the Iranians are going to be excited about a new deal when we ripped up the old one,” Paul said. “No, I think it’s going to be a great deal of struggle, and I foresee years and years of trying to figure out how to get better relations with Iran again. I think we’ve taken a big step backwards.”


Editor’s Note: Jeff Yang is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a frequent contributor to radio shows including Public Radio International’s “The Takeaway” and WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” He is the co-author of “I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action” and editor of the graphic novel anthologies “Secret Identities” and “Shattered.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Jeff Yang says there's more to the story of the virulently racist ad that stirred controversy and led to an apology He asks: How much of the racism in China is exported from the West? Last week, a Shanghai-based French photographer named Benoit Florençon posted video of a commercial he’d seen on local television. Nearly 9 million YouTube views later, the ad has become a viral phenomenon, as well as the epicenter of a turbulent global debate over anti-black racism in the world’s most populous and fastest-emerging superpower. In the ad, a pretty Chinese woman responds to the flirtatious advances of an African house painter by popping a detergent pellet into his mouth and then shoving him into her washing machine. After a few seconds of calmly listening to him scream and struggle, she lifts the lid with a smile to reveal that the black man has been transformed – into the pale-skinned young Chinese man of her dreams. An anodyne tagline follows: “Change begins with Qiaobi.” The posting drew explosive responses from pundits and viewers in the West, who quickly dubbed it the “most racist ad ever” and, more often than not, excoriated China as a place of narrow-minded xenophobia and unrestrained bigotry. The detergent company apologized for the ad. But the ad was ultimately seen as just part of a larger phenomenon. Also brought up in the conversation over Chinese racism: The Chinese version of Disney’s “The Force Awakens” poster, which minimized black British hero John Boyega’s image, and the continued popularity of a brand of toothpaste called Darlie – a scrubbed version of its original name, “Darkie,” which should be obvious to anyone who sees the grinning minstrel image that’s still prominently featured on the product’s packaging. But many of these commentators are overlooking a key factor that explains, without excusing, the gut-wrenching racist spectacle of the Qiaobi commercial. For one, a few generations since China’s opening to the world, the nation is still very much a racial monoculture. Some 92% of Chinese belong to the dominant Han ethnic group; most of the rest of the population consists of domestic minorities such as Zhuang, Uighurs, Hui, Miao and Tibetans. Non-Chinese foreigners, including those from elsewhere in Asia, the West, the Middle East and Africa, are overwhelmingly clustered in big cities, which means that the vast majority of China’s 1.4 billion people have never met a non-Chinese person, and probably never will. And when they do encounter black people, their instinctive reactions tend to be the same as the ones they have to anyone physically different from themselves: They’re curious, not hateful. My friend Paula Madison, the now-retired former chief diversity officer of NBCUniversal, has made regular pilgrimages to China since 2011 – the year that she and her brothers first visited the country to connect with her long-lost extended family, the relatives and descendants of her Chinese grandfather. Those trips ultimately led her to write a book and produce a documentary on the journey, “Finding Samuel Lowe.” “As a black woman with Chinese ancestry, obviously I’m very interested in how black people are treated in China,” she says. “Is the ad awful? Yes. But the most racist ad I’ve ever seen? Are you kidding? Not by a long stretch.” Related article 'Roots' of a new conversation about race Madison says that class-based skin-color bias is a more likely anchor for the commercial’s questionable attempt at humor, rather  than racism, given that most Chinese have no direct exposure to black people. “I refer to it as ‘shadeism’ – people in China think of dark skin as something associated with working in the fields, with being a poor peasant,” she says. “The paler you are, the more likely you are to be wealthy.” This “paler is better” sensibility certainly (ahem) colors the typical Chinese person’s view of those who are born darker by virtue of their race. But it doesn’t automatically produce negative associations. In fact, a study jointly conducted by researchers at Washington State University and Towson University found that attitudes among high school students in China toward African-Americans were generally more positive than their stereotypes of Americans in general – with the exception being students who had extensive exposure to U.S.-based media, who were more likely to perceive African-Americans as “poorer,” “less moral,” “less polite” and “less intelligent” than other Americans. The researchers ultimately concluded that the results “can be explained by how African-Americans are portrayed more negatively in American media.” That should be a wake-up call for those of us who initially reacted with horror at this “most racist ad ever.” Yes, anti-black racial perceptions exist in China. But in no small part, they’re imported – a product of the resiliently toxic framing of blackness by the stereotypes of violence, poverty and ignorance in Western media. (Even the Qiaobi ad itself is a foreign transplant: It’s a near beat-for-beat lift of an Italian detergent commercial that has the reverse outcome, featuring a woman laundering her unappealing white husband into a muscular, stereotypically hypersexualized black man, grinning next to the tagline, “Colored Is Better.”) Related article Hollywood: Drop the bleach “I’ve never personally experienced racism in China – which is not to deny that it exists,” says Madison. “But I have experienced it in Hollywood without question. And I think that China generally sees black people through the realm of pop culture, whose arbiters continue to perpetuate the myth that people of color don’t ‘play well’ in that market.” In her eyes, the studios’ reluctance to distribute films with black protagonists overseas – leaving only movies in which blacks appear in secondary roles defined by one-note stereotypes – isn’t just a contributor to racially ugly perceptions of black people; it’s a primary cause. So if you’re aghast, as you should be, at a Chinese ad featuring literal whitewashing, consider that the figurative whitewashing performed by Hollywood is a big part of what made it possible. Which means that – to contradict the ad’s tagline – change doesn’t begin with Qiaobi; it begins at home. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine. Jeff Yang is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a frequent contributor to radio shows including Public Radio International’s “The Takeaway” and WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” He is the co-author of “I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action” and editor of the graphic novel anthologies “Secret Identities” and “Shattered.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.


The Bajau people in Southeast Asia, or "sea nomads," are known for superior diving skills This may be due to their larger spleens and what's in their DNA, a study says The Bajau people of Southeast Asia, known to many as “sea nomads,” are renowned for their amazing diving abilities. Some can hold their breath for minutes at a time, plunging dozens of meters below the surface of the sea with nothing more than goggles and weights. What wasn’t previously known was whether their preternatural diving skills have a genetic basis, given that they may spend 60% of their workdays underwater hunting for fish and sea cucumbers. “That doesn’t really compare to any other humans. The closest thing to that is sea otters,” said evolutionary geneticist Melissa Ilardo, whose latest research focuses on a Bajau community in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Her new study may have uncovered genetic adaptations that allow the Bajau to go for longer periods without oxygen – and which might give them unusually large spleens. She published her findings Thursday in the journal Cell with colleagues from the University of Copenhagen and the University of California, Berkeley. “The way they dive is so natural,” Ilardo said. “There’s nothing like seeing them in the water.” Ilardo was struck by how the Bajau seemed “so incredibly comfortable in the water.” She recalled how a Bajau man free diving alongside her suddenly dropped another 30 or 40 feet to scoop up a giant clam “like it was no problem at all.” To understand what the team then discovered, you need to understand what happens to the human body when it dives into the water, Ilardo explained. First, the heart slows, which lowers the amount of oxygen consumed. Blood vessels in the extremities also constrict, channeling oxygen-rich blood to vital organs. Lastly, the spleen contracts. “The spleen is a weird one,” Ilardo said. “I hadn’t really heard much about the spleen. I know that you can live without a spleen, so it was kind of like, ‘What is the spleen even doing?’ “ The spleen is a fist-size organ that sits alongside the stomach. Its roles include filtering out old cells and supporting the immune system. But the spleen also serves as a reservoir of oxygen-carrying red blood cells; when it contracts, it gives the body what Ilardo called an “oxygen boost,” allowing you to hold your breath for longer. Research on diving seals has suggested that larger spleens could be linked to longer dive times. “If natural selection had acted in seals to give them larger spleens, then it might’ve done the same thing in humans,” Ilardo said. Using an ultrasound machine, Ilardo found that the Bajau had spleens that were roughly 50% larger than those of their land-dwelling neighbors on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. And it didn’t seem to matter whether a Bajau person was a diver or not, which suggested that this was not merely a result of underwater training over time. Then, scanning the Bajau DNA for clues, the researchers identified a possible culprit for their larger spleens: a variant of a gene called PDE10A, which has been linked to higher-than-average thyroid hormone levels in Europeans. There is no known link between thyroid hormones and spleen size in humans – but in mice, there is. However, the researchers did not measure the thyroid hormone levels of the Bajau participants. The genetic variant they identified wasn’t specific to the Bajau, Ilardo said, and there could be many other genes that affect spleen size. “That’s where you need much bigger studies asking people to see how long they can hold their breath,” said Marc Feldman, professor of biology at Stanford University and co-director of its Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics. Feldman was not involved in the new study. “People vary in that particular phenotype (or trait), but it’s not one that we go around testing very much. It’s not like (body-mass index), height or levels of high cholesterol.” Feldman said that the relationship between the PDE10A gene, spleen size and diving ability couldn’t be proved solely on this study of 43 Bajau; it would require thousands more participants on a much larger scale. “There aren’t enough people who spend so much time underwater to make a really definitive statistical statement,” Feldman said. Ilardo’s team found three additional genetic variants that they say might be connected to the underwater prowess of the Bajau. The strongest hit overall came from a gene called BDKRB2, which may increase how much peripheral blood vessels constrict. The more these vessels constrict, the more they reroute oxygenated blood to crucial organs – such as the brain and heart – and potentially boost diving time, the researchers wrote. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. It’s genes like these that may have given some Bajau divers the best shot at surviving deep free dives and collecting food for their families over many generations, Ilardo said. “Free diving is extremely dangerous, and so even highly trained free divers often die because they lose consciousness on ascent and they drown,” said Ilardo, who has been free diving recreationally since she was 4 years old. “If that’s happening over thousands of years, then the people who are surviving are those that are carrying the genes that give them an advantage.” Though evolution is typically described on the order of millions of years, the Bajau have been diving this way – by holding their breath – on the order of only thousands. “What we’re taking about is evolution over a relatively short time span,” Feldman said. This isn’t the only evidence of “recent” human evolution. For example, researchers identified a “genetic adaptation to high altitude” among Tibetans. What makes the Bajau different, Ilardo said, is that their historically seafaring lifestyle and fishing practices may have driven the evolutionary process. “This isn’t an adaptation to harsh conditions. It’s the co-evolution of human culture and humans as a species,” she said.


Editor’s Note: David Manne is the executive director at Refugee Legal, which provides legal representation to some of the people sent to Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. The state of limbo of Australia's refugees is dangerous for their health, David Manne argues Their suffering "has seemed endless" As a new era begins in US foreign policy, there are around 2,500 people, the great majority of whom are refugees, closely monitoring news of these events with a very direct, very personal interest. The fate of these people, who have been held in prolonged limbo in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, hangs heavily on the future of the deal struck between the US Obama administration and Australia to resettle 1,250 of them in the US in an apparent exchange for refugees from Central America. The recent brinkmanship between US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over the fate of the refugee deal has attracted intense interest internationally. Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal! So far, attention has focused largely on its ramifications for the deal and future relations between the two hitherto close allies, and the broader implications for US foreign policy not only on refugees and migration, but for relations with other States. But what about the consequences for those people caught up in all of this – the 2,500 children, women and men with heartbeats who have been marooned on Nauru and Manus Island for years? Their future hangs on the deal. More than four years ago, they arrived by sea in Australia seeking safety as refugees, only to be exiled for “offshore processing” in these impoverished Pacific nations under Australia’s hardline “border protection” policies. Many had fled from extreme brutality and oppression in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Iran. This explains why the majority have been judged to be refugees needing international protection. Yet these vulnerable people have since been subjected to deeply inhumane and degrading conditions, effectively funded and controlled by Australia, in these Pacific nations. A swathe of reports by bodies such as the UN Refugee Agency, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented this treatment and consistently found that it violates fundamental human rights and causes untold harm to people held there. Until recently, their suffering has seemed endless because a central plank of Australian government policy is a total ban on these refugees ever being able to resettle in Australia. It is largely due to successive governments having locked themselves into policies of deterrence where protection of borders has been prioritized at the expense of protection of people. As a result, people arriving by boat seeking asylum are barred from applying for protection in Australia and are either being turned back at sea or sent to offshore processing. With no other viable prospects for resettlement in sight, this human warehousing has had the effect of extinguishing hope and deepening despair, resulting in severe damage to the refugees’ physical, emotional and psychological health. This is why for many of these refugees, the announcement last year that the Obama administration had agreed with Australia to resettle some of them instilled some crucial hope where none had seemed to exist. Trump has heated exchange with Australian PM Refugee deal: What you need to knowUS-Australian ‘great alliance’ threatened?Children urge Australia to free them Trump has heated exchange with Australian PM Refugee deal: What you need to knowUS-Australian ‘great alliance’ threatened?Children urge Australia to free them Of course, it should never have come to this. Australia should have honored its obligations under the Refugees Convention by processing and providing protection in Australia to people judged to be refugees, instead of asking the US to shoulder those responsibilities. But, however aberrant the deal, it has presented the only realistic option for these people to rebuild their lives in safety and with dignity; an option many have been desperate to pursue. And yet, at the time of writing, it’s still not clear what will happen. Confusion and contradiction surround communications from US President Donald Trump and his administration. The deal has shifted from being shrouded in secrecy to being shrouded in uncertainty. The latest commitments by Trump to honor the deal appear to come with huge caveats. Although the present mood appears to be mixed, most are torn between hope and despair. Some remain numbed by it all. Given the hope raised by the deal, ongoing uncertainty is likely to cast people into further despair about whether they will ever find a decent future in safety. None of this is helped by central questions remaining unanswered. This means these refugees still don’t know how many will be chosen for resettlement, who will deemed eligible, or how long it will take. Trump’s insistence that an additional “extreme vetting” be applied to anyone seeking resettlement adds further uncertainty, particularly given that what it means or adds to existing processes remains a mystery. Both the US and Australia already apply very stringent security vetting processes for any refugees resettled. As noted by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, this vetting has been highly effective. If the deal is ultimately derailed, it will be a devastating blow for those who had hoped to settle in the US. Many have already put their names forward and are being interviewed by officials in the hope of a US visa. Mental health experts have previously warned that unless swift action is taken to restore hope, many more women, men and children will express their despair by trying to harm or kill themselves. This danger is rooted in the fact that literally no other realistic resettlement options have been identified by Australia. Neither Papua New Guinea nor Nauru has the will or capacity to provide safe and sustainable futures for those held there. The only other option, Cambodia – a country impoverished, unsafe and utterly unsuitable for resettlement – has disintegrated, with people clearly unwilling to go to such a place. As it stands, no other suitable country appears willing to take in these people. This is hardly surprising given that the international refugee framework is based on cooperation and burden-sharing between countries. In practice, this requires countries to protect refugees who seek sanctuary in their territory. This predicament compels an urgent rethink by the Turnbull Government which must involve resettlement of these people in Australia where they can rebuild their lives. Australia can honor its international obligations and can in turn avoid being beholden to the US under a new leader whose commitment to refugee protection remains highly questionable. We must not lose sight of the dire plight of the more than 2,000 people stuck in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. It is their lives which are at stake. So too is the commitment to fundamental principles of humanity which underpin the global compact for protection of refugees. Editor’s Note: David Manne is the executive director at Refugee Legal, which provides legal representation to some of the people sent to Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.


A review of veteran care finds "world class" mental care, but veterans have a hard time accessing it Over half of those who need care don't know that they do Thomas Burke Jr., a Marine who returned from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq to attend Yale Divinity School, has also done three tours in the Veterans Health Administration for mental health care and says he’s experienced mixed results. Burke, 28, served in the infantry. He said his first counselor, in 2011, didn’t have much experience with combat veterans and wasn’t much help. In 2012, he clicked with his second counselor, who “really cared and took time to get to know me and gave me enough of a baseline to productively go through my academics.” Before becoming a minister and providing mental care of his own, he tried to get back into counseling. But it was a “very negative experience,” he said. Related article The Catch-22 that keeps many vets from getting help “I went in, being vulnerable and laying out my problems, and they were dismissive and condescended to me and treated me like I am some victim and were not getting to the bottom of the problem and essentially said ‘thanks for telling us,’ ” Burke said. “Imagine what damage that can do to veterans who seek help. “It’s hard for me to badmouth the VA, because there are a lot of good people there who are trying to help and do care about vets, but a lot of people I talk with do badmouth them,” Burke said. Many Americans who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars need mental health care, but they aren’t always getting enough from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Health Administration, according to the results of a congressionally mandated investigation released Wednesday. About 4 million people have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest sustained US military operations in history. A disproportionate number have come back with mental health challenges like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, research shows. The number of suicides for veterans of these wars has reached a record. The VA has not always been able to handle this crushing need for services. But when veterans get mental health care from the VA, it is of “comparable or superior quality” to the kinds of care available elsewhere. Related article US Army veteran uses hockey to serve his country According to the new study, nearly half of American veterans who need mental health care don’t get it. Also, more than half of those who would benefit from care don’t know they need it, the research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found. The majority of those who could use these services don’t know whether they are eligible, don’t know how to get the services and don’t even know that the VA provides mental health care, according to the report. That’s “one of the things the report pointed out that I found the most distressing,” said Louis Celli, national director of the American Legion’s veterans affairs and rehabilitation division, which was not involved in the new report. Celli said the VA does a “herculean job through social media campaigns and outreach with their partners” to let veterans know about the care it provides. “It’s hard to imagine more you could do, short of knocking on everyone’s door,” but he believes the lack of care is a “failure on the community’s part.” One workaround that the American Legion has found successful is enlisting veterans’ families to help them get the care they need. That’s what helped Seth Robbins. An Army veteran who was stationed predominantly in Korea, the 40-year-old has gotten his health care through the VA for more than a decade, but he sought help for anxiety only after his wife gave him an ultimatum. “As soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, we are taught to ‘suck it up and drive on.’ We heard that on a regular basis, and it gets into your head,” Robbins said. He also hesitated to seek treatment because he had concerns that were shared by veterans in the report. Related article Vets use unconventional therapy to treat PTSD For instance, Robbins worried that his rifles would be taken away if he talked about his anxiety. “There’s also the stigma or the feeling that something is broken and I’m not the normal one or that they’ll lock you up,” he said. “But I’ve got a job and a family to support and a house.” The VA has helped him “get to a place where I can manage.” Veterans also find the VA’s appointment system “burdensome” and “unsatisfying,” the report said. Robbins agrees and says he’s lucky his father, a Vietnam veteran, showed him how to navigate the system. He also feels lucky to have a federal job that gives him the freedom to go to appointments that can take hours out of his day. Other veterans said transportation challenges and the distance to the VA from their homes can be a huge obstacle to getting care, according to the report. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. For veterans like Robbins who succeed in getting treatment, the report found that they encounter “tremendous mental health care expertise” and that the system can deliver care in a “truly integrated and strategic manner.” But the report added that chronic staffing challenges and confusing procedures and policies continue to be a challenge. The American Legion’s Celli said that along with the new report, he thinks it’s important to note that the system has improved amid the extra scrutiny of the agency over the past several years. Robbins, for one, has noticed a change in 15 years – a “vast improvement.” Celli said that he knows the system isn’t perfect but that the American Legion will continue to fight to improve it. “We are not VA cheerleaders, but we do work with them every day to make sure they do rise to the occasion and take care of veterans,” he said. “We’ve seen the progress, and we hope more veterans will seek out this care.”


Former national security adviser Michael Flynn announced Monday he's pleading the Fifth Sen. Mark Warner said Tuesday that might not apply to his documents The leaders of the Senate Russia investigation said Tuesday they will continue to pursue critical documents from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, issuing two additional subpoenas to a pair of businesses Flynn ran. Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr and Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, told reporters they did not believe Flynn could seek Fifth Amendment protections in regard to the documents they requested, and were seeking a firm answer. The committee is leaving open the possibility to filing contempt charges against Flynn later if he refuses to comply. Burr said Tuesday that “all options are on the table” if Flynn doesn’t comply – including possibly holding him in contempt of Congress – but he added that was a long way off from where they are now. A source close to Flynn told CNN Wednesday that the new subpoenas target Flynn’s LLC and a Flynn corporation. The source said the new request is significantly narrower than the first request the committee made for his personal records, which Flynn refused to comply with, invoking the Fifth instead. Related article Calculating or naive? Trump caught in cloud of Russia probe revelations Flynn is weighing next steps before deciding on what action he wants to take before the May 30 deadline. Warner said earlier Tuesday he doesn’t believe that Flynn’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights gives him blanket immunity. Another Republican on the committee – Sen. Marco Rubio – encouraged Flynn to comply. “I hope Gen.Flynn decides to comply with our Intel Committee subpoena to produce business documents. Otherwise all options should be on table,” he tweeted. I hope Gen.Flynn decides to comply with our Intel Committee subpoena to produce business documents. Otherwise all options should be on table Warner said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash at the Peterson Fiscal Summit that he respected Flynn’s decision to invoke his right against self-incrimination but said they will have news later Tuesday related to what comes next. “We are still pursuing vigorously, will have more to announce later today in terms of next steps,” he said. “We respect anybody’s right to take the Fifth Amendment but I don’t believe that a request for documents” such as calendars or visas would be granted blanket immunity would apply. On another important piece of the investigation – the upcoming testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey – Warner expressed confidence that his committee will get Comey’s side of the story, despite the Justice Department’s decision to appoint a special counsel to lead the FBI investigation. “Mr. Comey wants to tell his side of the story and I’m glad he has chosen to do that with the Senate intelligence committee,” Warner said. Warner explained the importance of continuing the Senate investigation even in light of the Justice Department’s decision. “There may a series of cases where we have facts about people having contacts with Russians prior to the campaign and sharing of information that may fall short of legal collusion, but still be factual that we need to report to the American people in terms of our counterintelligence investigation.” Related article Ranking House intel Dem: Subpoenas coming after Flynn denies request Warner, a Virginia Democrat, also told Bash that if reports that Trump asked top intelligence officials to publicly deny evidence of cooperation between his campaign and Russia are true, Trump’s requests would be “outrageous.” He added that the new reports have now demonstrated a pattern. “Anybody who gets close to this investigation loses their job or ends up in a difficult position,” he said, before listing Flynn, Comey, fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Virginia senator explained that “This is an administration who says there is no there there. They sure as heck aren’t acting like there is no there there.” Warner pointed to reports that Trump called Comey a “nut job” in an Oval Office meeting with top Russian officials, saying the comments were “outrageous.” “I don’t care where you stand on the political spectrum,” Warner said. “This is just not the way an American president should act.” CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty contributed to this report.


Watch “New Day” and “CNN Newsroom” each Friday to see inspiring stories of officers going above and beyond the call of duty. It was a celebratory day earlier this summer as officers in the Kansas City, Kansas, police department were being promoted to captain. The room was overflowing, and Chief Terry Zeigler was overseeing the promotions. Capt. Robert Melton was down the hall managing the office. An anonymous 911 call alerted police that a car was driving recklessly and someone in the car was shooting near a housing complex. Melton raced to the scene without hesitation. Do you know an officer who has gone above and beyond what the job requires? E-mail us at BeyondtheCallofDuty@cnn.com. Moments later, the chief received another call. There had been an officer-involved shooting. “And the first thing you think is we shot somebody. And then they said Melton’s been shot,” Zeigler recalled. The room emptied. “I am thinking to myself, ‘Ok, well, he is probably alright. He was wearing his bullet-proof vest. He always wears his vest,’” Zeigler said. Soon after, an update came in from one of the other officers. “I know he had his vest on. And (the officer) said, ‘Yeah that doesn’t matter. He got shot in the head,’” Zeigler remembered. Melton spent more than a quarter of a century in law enforcement and was a decorated veteran who served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He received several military honors, including the Bronze Star. Melton loved his military career, but his family and fellow officers always came first. “The weekends were for us, the evenings were for us. It was for family,” said Officer Zeta Bates, Melton’s fiancée and colleague at the department. Bates wears Melton’s badge close to her heart. The badge, a gift from the San Antonio Police Department, has Melton’s name on one side and a poem on the back. “The expression ‘family and police officers’ can’t be any more true. I mean, we all bleed blue,” Bates said. The Kansas City Police department, which hadn’t lost an officer in almost two decades, faced another tragedy just weeks earlier when Det. Brad Lancaster was shot and killed while pursuing a suspect. The chief tasked Melton to help plan Lancaster’s funeral. Melton’s notes resulted in a detailed guide to assist in planning a police officer’s funeral. “When he turned it in, he said, ‘It is all done. Put it on the shelf. Hopefully, we will never have to use it again.’ And then less than two weeks later we are pulling that book off the shelf. To try and navigate another funeral, and this time it was his,” Zeigler said. A crowd of more than 1,000 people, including law enforcement officers from across the country, filled the stadium to honor and mourn Melton. Mourners donned blue and black ribbons with Melton’s badge number, 1799.  Yet again, the town was holding a funeral for another fallen officer killed in the line of duty. “The outpouring of support from our community has been phenomenal,” Zeigler said. Bates choked back tears as she thought back to that day. “At his funeral we were at his graveside. And Chief Zeigler was presenting that flag. I never in a million years pictured that would be me being given that flag.” By crafting the department’s protocol manual, Melton wrote his own funeral ceremony. From the flyover of helicopters to the riderless horse, he documented every detail. “I mean, the way the casket entered the stadium, the way it was taken out, honor guard, the graveside service … Those little things to detail that he thought would be significant for the Lancaster family, we wanted to make sure we repeated that for his family,” Zeigler said. “Not only was he a hero in our community, but an American hero. He was on the front lines fighting terrorism to keep our nation safe.” It was a sentiment that echoed throughout the ceremony that was so eloquently created by the very man who was being buried.