This is part four of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.
State-sanctioned violence grows in Afghanistan as the Soviets prepare to withdraw
Moscow forces the replacement of their puppet leader in Afghanistan and struggles to find an exit
When the Soviets assassinated Hafizullah Amin on December 27, 1979, and installed Babrak Karmal as their puppet leader, KGB head Yury Andropov advocated for Mohammad Najibullah to be installed as the head of the state security services of Afghanistan—the KHAD. After his appointment, Andropov immediately started an influence campaign to convince Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Amin to support expanding Najibullah’s power, which earned him a seat in the Afghanistan Politburo.
When Najibullah took over the KHAD in 1980, he was responsible for 120 people. Six years later, the KHAD was an independent government Ministry with 30,000 highly paid employees trained by KGB advisors. Most of the KHAD budget came from the Soviet Union, and shortly after Andropov became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union in November 1983, he started laying the groundwork to replace Karmal with his protege, Najibullah.
During the six years Najibullah led the KHAD, the KGB funded and trained its staff. Over 16,000 extrajudicial executions were carried out, and 100,000 were imprisoned. The KHAD brutally tortured peasants and tribesmen, burned villages, killed livestock, and destroyed crops in an attempt to identify members of the mujahadeen. In the cities, anti-communists, intellectuals, professors, doctors, and educated professionals were threatened, assassinated, falsely imprisoned, and executed. Flush with funds from the Soviet Union and under Najibullah’s leadership, the KHAD was wildly corrupt.
When Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet Premier in 1985, he continued to follow the path created by Andropov, believing that after the Soviet withdrawal, Najibullah would be a stronger leader who would stay loyal to Moscow. The Main Defense Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet Union (GRU) disagreed. In their assessment, Najibullah would be even more polarizing than Karmal and would not be able to build a strong coalition with the various Afghan tribal warlords. Gorbachev was unmoved.
Soviet Union soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan -1986 Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain
Moscow hoped that their newly installed leader could bring the fractured Afghanistan nation to reconciliation, ending eight years of violence, allowing the exit of Soviet troops, and keeping a pro-Soviet government in place. On May 4, 1986, Najibullah was made the General Secretary of the Afghanistan Politburo, with Karmal remaining as the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. The assessment by the GRU that ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Pashtuns would resist cooperating with Najibullah, and the armed factions fighting against Soviet troops would reject him was accurate. Additionally, Karmal fought back, openly questioning Najibullah’s loyalty to Afghanistan, exposing his trail of corruption, and spreading misinformation.
Najibullah complained to Moscow that Karmal was interfering with his rule and asked for guidance, with Gorbachev deciding on a non-violent solution. In November 1986, Karmal was dismissed from the Revolutionary Council and exiled to Moscow. The Kremlin now saw the reconciliation strategy as a failure and decided that negotiating peace was the best option. Gorbachev also believed that due to the improving relationship with the United States, he could push for more favorable terms.
In March 1987, the first round of U.N.-sponsored peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan was held in Geneva, Switzerland, with the U.S. and the Soviet Union as guarantors. Pakistan negotiators refused to meet with the Afghanistan delegation because they did not recognize the Soviet-backed and controlled government as legitimate. The first round of negotiations failed, with Pakistan refusing to agree to a 16-month timetable for a controlled withdrawal of Soviet troops, demanding it be eight months. Additionally, the Soviets asked for the immediate end of U.S. arms shipments and financial support to the Afghan resistance as a condition for Soviet withdrawal. Washington refused.
In July, Najibullah made a secret trip to Moscow to meet with Gorbachev. The Soviet leader pressed him to make additional government reforms, hoping that the dead reconciliation plan could be brought back to life. Gorbachev’s council was undermined by the KGB, who advised against implementing some of his recommended reforms. Returning to Afghanistan, Najibullah announced that single-party rule would end. However, there were tight restrictions on what platforms would be acceptable. New parties were required to want to maintain relations with the Soviet Union, had to be Muslim, and had to oppose colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, racial discrimination, apartheid, and fascism. The mujahadeen and all but one armed faction fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government boycotted the August elections, but several new leftist parties were formed and were able to gain a handful of government seats.
In September, a second round of peace talks was held in Geneva. While progress was made in establishing the legitimacy of the Afghan government, no progress was made in establishing a timetable for the Soviet withdrawal, and the U.S. again refused to end military and financial aid before the Soviet troop withdrawal was complete.
In November, during the conference of the Afghanistan Politburo, Najibullah proposed accelerating the timetable for the Soviet withdrawal from 16 months to 12. A new constitution was approved, creating the office of the President. On November 30, Najibullah, running unopposed, was elected president of Afghanistan. Under the mandate of the new constitution, the Revolutionary Council would be dissolved and replaced with a General Assembly elected by the people.
On February 8, 1988, Soviet negotiators announced a conditional date of withdrawal from Afghanistan, hoping that the U.S. would agree to the immediate end of military and financial aid to the Afghanistan rebels. Washington rejected the proposal. With the domestic situation in the Soviet Union deteriorating, Gorbachev decided that an unfavorable peace deal was better than remaining in Afghanistan.
On April 14, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. signed the Geneva Accords. Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to non-interference and non-intervention, and Pakistan agreed to stop the flow of weapons across its border. The Soviet Union agreed that the withdrawal of the 40th Combined Arms Army would begin on May 15 and be completed by February 15, 1989. The U.S. did not have to end military and financial aid before the completion of the Soviet withdrawal.
On February 15, 1989, the last column of BTR-80 armored personnel carriers of the Soviet 40th Combined Arms Army crossed the Friendship Bridge into Soviet Uzbekistan. General Boris Gromov symbolically walked behind the troops, becoming the last Soviet soldier to withdraw from Afghanistan. Mobbed by reporters, he cursed profusely, later explaining that his anger was directed at “the leadership of the country, at those who start the wars while others have to clean up the mess.”
The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan elevates Osama bin Laden to a cult of personality
There are questions about how much combat Osama bin Laden was engaged in with the mujahedeen, but he did participate in a handful of tactical battles. During his time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, bin Laden used his wealth and influence to promote victories on the battlefield and recruit Arabs to the Islamic cause within Afghanistan. While bin Laden was media-shy, his talent as a leader was well-known in the Middle East, converting his influence into a cult of personality.
Osama bin Laden -1988 Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain
But bin Laden was looking ahead to the future. In 1988, shortly after the signing of the Geneva Accords, he quietly founded Al Qaeda. For him, Afghanistan was the end of the beginning. Al Qaeda would continue its violent jihad against what he perceived were the enemies of fundamentalist Islam and fight to establish Muslim states controlled by Sharia law.
Despite fighting against the Soviet Union, a lot of bin Laden’s beliefs were influenced by his exposure to Soviet propaganda, including late 19th Century Eastern European and Imperial Russia antisemitism. In the simplest of terms, bin Laden believed that Muslim Arabs faced four enemies: the Jews and Israel, the United States, “heretics,” and Shia Muslims, particularly Iranian Shias.
At the time of the Soviet withdrawal, bin Laden believed that the West had wronged Arabs and Muslims worldwide. The Al Qaeda charter established that the people of democratic nations directly participate in their government, making them legitimate military targets due to their complicity in their government decisions. Further, any “good Muslim” civilian who was killed due to their proximity to an attack would be blessed in death and go to paradise.
In 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and was given a hero’s welcome along with his Al Qaeda Arab Legion. He continued to lead a triple life, running aspects of the family construction business, continuing to work with Pakistan and Saudi Arabian intelligence agencies, and indirectly and directly supporting jihadist activity in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Bin Laden would return to Afghanistan to personally lead up to 800 Al Qaeda fighters in Operation Jalalabad, which was an attempt to install a pro-Pakistani mujahadeen government in Kabul. Although Soviet troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan, military aid to the Najibullah government continued. Moscow sent approximately $4 billion in weapons and ammunition, including OTR-21 Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile launchers with Scarab missiles and Su-27 multirole fighter aircraft.
Operation Jalalabad was a complete failure, with the Afghan army using its arsenal to stop the offensive. Up to 500 of bin Laden’s militants were killed, and he was forced to return to Saudi Arabia, further imbittered by another betrayal.
Once back in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden supported opposition movements against the Saudi royal family and ordered the executions of the leaders of the Soviet-backed Yemeni government. He also interfered with reunification talks in Yemen, which has led to decades of civil war, famine, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The unrest continues to this day, with north Yemini rebels switching from Al Qaeda-oriented dogma to gaining support from the Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran. Today, the IRGC-backed Houthi rebels control approximately 30 percent of Yemen and have interfered with global shipping since November 2023 in support of the Hamas-initiated war against Israel.
The increasing influence of bin Laden and his meddling in Saudi government affairs drew the attention of King Fahd and the ire of the then-President of Saudi Arabia, Ali Abdullah Saleh. They now viewed bin Laden as more than a problem they could manage—he was becoming a threat.
The Saudis weren’t the only country warily watching bin Laden and the Al Qaeda Arab Legion. U.S. intelligence was also hearing chatter that his plans weren’t just contained to the Greater Middle East.
It was now 1990, and in less than two years, the first attempted Al Qaeda terror attack on U.S. soil would be stopped, and the Saudi government would send bin Laden into exile.
Over the last four chapters, we’ve outlined a number of events that individually, are completely disconnected. However, in 1991, all roads from the Soviet Union, the U.S., Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan converge to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The only thing missing was the final spark. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was preparing to light that fire.
Tomorrow’s installment: Iraq invades Kuwait, sparking the First Gulf War. The Saudi Royal Family rejects a plan by Osama bin Laden, sending him into exile. The Soviet Union starts to collapse and the Kremlin starts another war.
This is part three of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.
Part Three – Efforts by the Soviets and the United States to contain Islamic extremism only helped it to spread
The rise of Saddam Hussein and the start of the Iran-Iraq War
After the death of his brother in an April 1966 plane crash, Abdul Salam Arif came to power in Iraq. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson considered Arif a political moderate and saw an opportunity to improve U.S.-Iraq relations with the hope of tugging the Middle Eastern nation away from the Soviet Union. On June 5, 1967, while dialog between Baghdad and Washington was ongoing, the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War started. In response to the U.S. backing of Israel, Arif severed diplomatic relations.
Arif’s political opponents used the Six-Day War as leverage to push his new government to nationalize the foreign-owned Iraq Petroleum Company so he could use oil as an economic weapon. Behind the discord, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was plotting a coup, with future president Saddam Hussein among the lead conspirators. On July 17, 1968, Arif’s government was overthrown in a mostly peaceful coup d’etat, installing Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as president. After taking control, the new Ba’athist government announced it would embrace its current relationship with the Soviet Union and grow relations with the Chinese People’s Republic.
Vice President of Iraq Saddam Hussein (L) and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, better known as the Shah of Iran (R), during the Algiers Agreement meetings in 1975 Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain
Hussein was named vice president of Iraq and led the full nationalization of the country’s oil industry, which was completed in 1972. At the time of the coup, relations between Iraq and Iran were poor due to Iran’s support of Iraqi Kurdish rebels. In late 1974, Hussein directed the Ba’athist government to improve relations with Iran, which led to the March 6, 1975, Algiers Agreement and two additional treaties also signed in 1975.
The Algiers Agreement aimed to settle maritime and territorial disputes in Iran’s Shatt al-Arab region and Iraq’s Khuzestan Province. Additionally, Iran agreed to end its support of the Kurdish Rebellion. After the agreement was signed, foreign relations significantly improved, ending almost a decade of isolation. The diplomatic success significantly expanded Hussein’s power.
After the signing of the Algiers Agreement, Hussein started an aggressive military modernization program, buying billions of dollars of hardware from the Soviet Union and France. In just 15 years, Iraq would build one of the largest conventional militaries in the world. In 1976, Hussein was named the General of the Iraqi Armed Forces while continuing to hold the office of vice president.
Around the same time, President al-Bakr’s health significantly deteriorated. Behind the veil, Hussein was already wielding presidential power and controlling the economy, the military, and foreign affairs. He used that control to become a feared strongman and started cultivating an inner circle of loyalists to take full control of the Ba’athist Party and the leadership of Iraq.
In 1979, President al-Bakr started negotiating with Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad for unification. If an agreement were reached, al-Assad would become the deputy leader of the combined nations, stripping Hussein of his power. On July 16, 1979, in what could be described as a one-man coup d’etat brought on by a health crisis, Hussein forced al-Bakr to resign and became the President of Iraq. Negotiations with Syria about unification immediately ended.
Despite the signing of the Algiers Agreement and the subsequent treaties, relations between Iraq and Iran were strained. The new leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, repeatedly called for the overthrow of the Iraqi Ba’athist government in jingoistic speeches due to Iraq’s embrace of secularism. The newly minted President Hussein praised the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini and called for renewed Iraqi and Iranian friendship and a mutual pledge to stop interfering with each other’s internal affairs.
The call for better relations was hollow and fell on deaf ears, and the diplomatic situation between Iran and Iraq quickly crumbled. On March 8, 1980, Iran recalled its ambassador and demanded that Iraq do the same. The next day, Iraq symbolically declared Iranian Ambassador Fereydoun Adamyat persona non grata.
Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s GDP was the largest among the 36 U.N.-recognized Greater Middle East nations. It had over 300,000 active-duty military personnel and was deep into a modernization program, buying billions of dollars of weapons from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.
One of the immediate outcomes of Khomeini’s rise to power was the embargo of parts, munitions, and other materials to maintain Iran’s military. Arrests and executions eliminated skilled and loyal military officers and pushed their subordinates into hiding. Iran’s military readiness was falling apart.
To deal with dissenters and political enemies, Khomeini created a personal guard, the paramilitary Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), which would go on to be the terrorism-supporting arm of modern-day Iran. On April 30, 1980, Khomeini ordered the creation of the Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed, better known as the Basij. The all-volunteer paramilitary was comprised of poorly trained and led men, most will little education. Often referred to as the 20 Million, during speeches, Khomeini would boast that with the Basij, no nation could defeat Iran.
During the first eight months of 1980, Iran and Iraq accused each other of over 1,200 border incidents, airspace violations, and maritime disputes. Hussein now viewed the Algiers Agreement as a mistake and recognized that he could use the post-revolution chaos in Iran to his advantage. He also saw an opportunity to engage the U.S. through the enemy of my enemy is my friend politics.
Hussein believed he had an opportunity to quickly take back the disputed Khuzestan Providence and its oil fields while expanding Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf. On September 10, 1980, using the open issues of the Algiers Agreement as a casus belli, Iraq launched a limited military operation to seize the territories of Zain al-Qaws and Saif Saad. Twelve days later, the limited operation turned into a full-scale invasion of Iran, starting an eight-year war.
The Soviet Union becomes stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and completed its coup d’etat, Soviet troops launched a series of large-scale attacks in the central, northern, and western states of Afghanistan through 1985. While these large-scale attacks sometimes brought about temporary stability, the mujahadeen would retreat into Pakistan or deep into the mountains and return as soon as the Soviets withdrew.
Moscow had expected the Afghanistan army to do the majority of the fighting, with Soviet forces providing intelligence, logistics, close air support, and artillery. The opposite happened, with the local military units providing little support and frequently running from battles.
Soviet troops supported by the KGB and Afghanistan KHAD instituted brutal programs against the civilian population to try and find mujahadeen fighters, which only built more support for the Islamic rebel forces. However, the war was essentially a stalemate, and fighting against Soviet brutality made for odd bedfellows. With Western and Middle Eastern reporters embedded with mujahadeen, popular support in the Middle East, Europe, the U.S., and China rapidly grew. the mystique of chiseled-faced tribesmen bravely fighting against Russian tanks and helicopters on horseback was embraced as a noble struggle.
For Europe and the U.S., the fight within Afghanistan was seen as an extension of the Cold War. The Reagan Administration sought to destabilize the Soviet Union economically and diplomatically, with the Department of Defense budget swelling to $1.7 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The mujahadeen and other factions aligned against the Soviets were backed by the U.S., United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China. Funding for Operation Cyclone, operated by the CIA, dramatically increased in 1986 and included the supply of Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the Afghan resistance. The Stinger provided SHORAD capabilities to the mujahadeen, tipping the balance of power on the battlefield. Russian aviation was practically grounded, and without air support, the number of Russian casualties increased significantly.
With the Soviet military stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire, another seemingly unrelated event would alter the course of world history. On April 26, 1986, after a failed safety test on Reactor 4 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, technician Leonid Toptunov pushed the AZ-5 button meant to scram the reactor. Instead, due to a design flaw, Reactor 4 exploded, causing the worst nuclear accident in world history.
A combination of a failing and stagnant economy, the inability to keep up with Western defense spending, the war in Afghanistan, and the economic cost of cleaning up the Chornobyl disaster put the Soviet Union irreversibly on the path toward bankruptcy. The metaphorical rusting of the Iron Curtain and the Glasnost programs introduced by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev permitted public criticism of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Additionally, Gorbachev had been looking for an offramp since becoming Premier in 1985.
In 1987, with popular support for the war plummeting, Moscow announced it would start a controlled two-year withdrawal. For some, the announcement brought hope of a renewed Afghanistan. However, thousands of Islamic fighters didn’t come to fight for liberation. They choose to go to Afghanistan in response to the fatwas calling for the protection of historic Islamic lands from infidel invaders.
For some, like Osama bin Laden, the Soviet withdrawal announcement wasn’t the beginning of the end; it was the end of the beginning. What almost no one knew was bin Laden was already laying the foundation to form a new organization called Al Qaeda.
The United States embraces the Iran-Iraq War and pushes for a stalemate
In the first three months of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq achieved multiple successes on the battlefield before momentum shifted. With relations already firmly established, Iraq was able to freely buy weapons and ammunition from the Soviet Union, France, and China. While the U.S. didn’t directly supply weapons to Baghdad, Washington lifted dual-use sanctions, which permitted the sale of civilian technology and heavy equipment that could be easily pressed into military service. And while declassified records show that no single nation provided Baghdad with the resources and technology to produce chemical weapons, companies from France, the U.S., West Germany, the U.K., and the Netherlands sold dual-use components, with France selling precursor chemicals to support the production of Sarin nerve gas.
Iran had deeper problems and could only find support from North Korea for weapons and ammunition and one other very unusual ally. Israel provided spare parts and ammunition for the existing Iranian arsenal of U.S. military technology. Tel Aviv believed that if Iraq won the war, its victory could empower Syria, which would present a broader threat to their sovereignty and stability.
Season 3, Episode 15 of the American TV Show American DaD – This Clip accurately explains the Iran-Contra Affair
While those were the publicly visible relationships, the U.S. was supporting both combatants. From 1981 to 1986, the CIA sold weapons to Iran through French shell companies. The profits were given to the Contras, who used the money to buy weapons to fight against the Soviet-backed Sandinista government in Nicaragua. When the Iran-Contra Affair was exposed, it blew up into a political scandal.
In 1986, Iranian forces captured the Fao Peninsula in Iraq, sending jolts through the West. Concern grew that Iran could win the war, spreading racial Islam across the Middle East. Due to support through the Iran-Contra Affair, Tehran started sharing military intelligence with Washington, which was already receiving military intelligence from Iraq. The 1986 Iran-initiated Tanker War didn’t help Tehran’s cause, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia boosted military support to Iraq. To tip the balance of power back, Washington started sharing the Iranian military plans with Baghdad.
Iraq regained the initiative, pushed Iranian forces out of the Fao Peninsula, and on August 20, 1988, United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 ended the Iran-Iraq War. While both nations were left economically devastated, the Iranian military was an empty shell. One to two million people died, including at least 500,000 soldiers. The majority of the military dead were members of the Iranian Basij. Among the dead were at least 60,000 killed by chemical weapons, including 50,000 Iranians and 10,000 Iraqi Kurds.
For Hussein, the last eight years allowed him to transform into a brutal and feared dictator. With the war against Iran over, Hussein set his sights on a new military objective.
Tomorrow’s installment: The Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden becomes a cult of personality.
This is part two of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as the ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.
Part Two – The Soviet’s coup d’etat and invasion of Afghanistan catches the attention of Osama bin Laden
The Kremlin fears the spread of radical fundamentalist Islam
On December 5, 1978, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a 20-year “friendship treaty.” Moscow saw stable relations with Afghanistan as a key national security issue and had worked to improve bilateral relations since the end of World War II. The agreement included economic and military assistance and was meant to prop up the new government of Nur Muhammed Taraki after a violent coup d’etat.
Just as Western intelligence had failed to detect the coming Iranian Revolution, their Soviet counterparts failed to warn the Kremlin of the April 1978 Suar Revolution in Afghanistan, which overthrew President Sardar Mohammed Daoud. Daoud had come to power in a 1973 coup d’etat and was executed, as were over 2,000 military and government officials.
Hafizullah Amin and Taraki of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan led the brutal takeover and ended the 152-year Barakzai Dynasty. Taraki was named the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the de facto leader of Afghanistan, and replaced the single-party rule of Daoud with the single-party rule of the Communist Party. Initially, Amin and Taraki were aligned, but in less than a year, their relationship had turned hostile as Taraki made a series of politically and religiously unpopular decisions, and Soviet influence turned into interference.
By March 1979, just two months after the Shah of Iran abdicated, 25 of the 28 Afghanistan states were no longer considered safe. The new government was already unraveling, with Amin tugging at the threads. He maneuvered the Afghan Politburo to name him Prime Minister, eroding Chairman Taraki’s power.
Moscow saw Amin as a threat who leaned toward Pakistan, China, and the United States, with KGB operatives believing he was working with the CIA. As Prime Minister, Amin instituted extreme repression within Afghanistan in an attempt to stem protests and growing antigovernment violence. By July 1979, Soviet-controlled media was publicly declaring their non-support for Amin’s leadership.
Behind closed doors, the Kremlin was unimpressed with Amin and Taraki, believing that neither was capable of maintaining power. Moscow became increasingly worried that the Islamic Revolution in Iran could spread to the Muslim-dominated Caucasus and the southern Soviet republics. Brezhnev’s advisors were trying to convince him that intervention in Afghanistan would be required to prevent a similar revolution from happening in Central Asia and then spreading through Russia.
In June 1979, the first Soviet troops entered Afghanistan at Kabul’s request. The arrival of military equipment, including T-72 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, occurred in the open, but the Soviet Union took the little green men approach with troops. A battalion of “unarmed” airborne soldiers (VDV) was deployed as “specialists and advisors.” A month later, Kabul asked for two more Soviet divisions, which Moscow ignored.
In the next four months, 160,000 Afghans fled to Pakistan to escape the growing political and religious violence. Despite a strained relationship with the Carter Administration, Pakistani leaders appealed for the U.S. to intervene indirectly by providing support to a growing number of Afghan Islamist rebels. Within the halls of Washington, D.C., the Domino Theory of the 1960s still guided foreign policy, and there were concerns that if the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, communism could spread to other nations.
Despite their misgivings about Taraki’s ability to rule, Moscow backed him in an attempt to remove Amin as Prime Minister. Amin was invited to Moscow in September, and after returning to Kabul on September 11, 1979, Taraki invited him to a September 13 meeting. Amin refused but ultimately bowed to Kremlin pressure. Arriving at the planned meeting on September 14, Amin barely escaped a Kremlin-backed assassination attempt. Diplomatically, the plan backfired, with the Afghanistan military rallying around Amin.
Taraki was arrested under the order of Amin, and the Kremlin considered a rescue plan but concluded that Afghanistan’s military leadership had coalesced around Amin. During an October 8 phone call with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Amin asked what he should do with Taraki, and Brezhnev told him the decision was his to make. On the same day, Taraki was murdered by suffocation, and Amin believed that he had secured control of Afghanistan.
The Kremlin wasn’t being completely paranoid as they discussed how Amin was leaning toward the West. On October 15, Amin reached out to the U.S. State Department, stating he was interested in speaking to anyone at the U.S. mission. The interim Chargé d’Affaires to Afghanistan, James Bruce Amstutz, advised Washington not to have further discussions with Amin. He cited the murder of Taraki, rifts within the Afghanistan military, the crumbling security situation, the ongoing executions of political rivals, and the dangers of how the Kremlin could respond.
Amstutz’s warnings were ignored, and on October 27, Amin had a 40-minute meeting with U.S. diplomat Archer Blood. The meeting was uneventful, with Amin expressing his desire to improve U.S. and Afghanistan relations and trying to make a case to receive foreign aid. Blood expressed Washington’s concern about Kabul’s lack of attention to poppy growers and the drug trade, anti-West rhetoric, and the ongoing government-sanctioned violence. The meeting was not kept secret from the Soviets and was the leading news story in Afghanistan on the same day.
For KGB leader Yury Andropov, this was a bridge too far and only confirmed his belief that Amin was a U.S. foreign agent working for the CIA. Just as the U.K. had convinced the U.S. in 1953 that Iran would flip to lean toward Moscow, Andropov convinced Brezhnev that Afghanistan was ready to flip toward Washington. This was an unacceptable national security threat to the Soviet state.
The Kremlin started to set conditions for a coup d’etat and invasion of Afghanistan. On December 13, the KGB attempted to poison Amin and, days later, attempted to assassinate him. On Christmas Day, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which Amin believed was meant to restore order and cement his control of the nation. A second Soviet attempt to poison him on December 26 also failed. Finally, on December 27, Soviet troops attacked the Presidential Palace, and Amin was killed by gunfire, believing up to the last moment, the troops had come to secure his power.
The Soviet invasion and violent overthrow of Amin shocked the world. The United States, Pakistan, and China condemned the aggression. Pakistan worried that after pacifying Afghanistan, the Soviets would invade their country to reach the Indian Ocean and establish warm water naval ports. China accused the Soviet Union of wanton expansionism and warned other developing nations that continued relationships with Moscow would lead to a similar fate.
The Soviet Union installed Babrak Karmal as a puppet leader. Days later, Karmal declared that Amin was a conspirator, criminal, and a spy of the United States. In neighboring Pakistan, the radicalization of a Saudi heir to a construction fortune, Osama bin Laden, was about to begin.
Osama bin Laden joins the fight against the Soviet invasion
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957. Raised in wealth and privilege as a member of the bin Laden family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, parts of his formative years are cloudy. His father divorced his mother shortly after he was born. He was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. When bin Laden’s father died, he inherited a small part of the family fortune, receiving an estimated $25 million ($124 million when adjusted for inflation).
Bin Laden attended Oxford University in England in 1971. It is unclear if he ever earned a degree, and if he did, what it was in and from which university. He also attended King Abdulaziz University and, over five to six years—ending in 1979—focused his studies on economics, business, and, in a non-academic setting, religion. When bin Laden left college, he traveled to Pakistan to support the Afghan rebels fighting against the Amin regime and eventually Soviet troops.
Declassified documents and multiple intelligence leaks, including from Julian Assange, revealed there was no clear evidence or documentation that bin Laden was directly trained or had direct contact with the CIA or the U.S. military. Islamabad insisted that U.S. funding, training, and equipping of the mujahadeen be channeled through Pakistan. It is clear that bin Laden served as an operative for Saudi Arabian and Pakistani intelligence and operated as a go-between for the U.S. It is also clear that bin Laden, whether by proxy or directly, was trained and equipped by the U.S., along with thousands of others. What has been lost to history is whether bin Laden traveled to Pakistan for his own interests or as an agent of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP).
Although the Soviets had installed Karmal as their puppet leader in Afghanistan, there wasn’t unity within the Kremlin on how to proceed. Some intelligence officers and military leaders warned that bringing the remote and mountainous country under full Soviet control would take years, not months. The release of declassified records after the collapse of the Soviet Union revealed that there were individuals who had the clairvoyance to see Moscow was being dragged into a dangerous extended war.
It was now the spring of 1980. In Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was tightening his grip. An April 24 attempt by the U.S. to rescue 52 diplomats being held hostage by Iranian students at the U.S. embassy in Tehran would end in catastrophe.
Khomeini didn’t limit his jingoism to the U.S. and its allies. He started to antagonize his equally ambitious and more secular neighbors in Iraq. Baghdad was also watching the Iranian Revolution and had two growing concerns. First, the spread of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs was viewed as a threat to state security. Second, Khomeini had just inherited one of the most powerful conventional militaries on the planet and had the means to execute his threats. Something would have to be done.
Tomorrow’s installment: Saddam Hussein rises to power and starts the Iraq-Iran War while the Soviet Union becomes stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire. The Cold War heats up with the election of Ronald Reagan. Soviet forces become increasingly brutal in Afghanistan, growing the influence of Osama bin Laden.
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[KING COUNTY, Wash.] – (MTN) An anti-vaccination protest led by the Proud Boys turned violent in Olympia today, with one person shot. The Northshore School District reported new COVID cases at multiple schools on Friday. Predictions of a sickout over vaccine mandates by Washington State Ferry appear to have not come true.
The Washington state employees union appears to have reached a deal with the state over the COVID vaccine mandate. Federal unemployment programs including $300 a week in extra federal benefits, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) for the self-employed, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), and extended unemployment benefits end today for Washington state residents.
The Washington State Department of Health does not report data over the weekend.
The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 48 COVID-related deaths on Friday and the third day in a row with more than 4,000 new COVID cases in the Evergreen State.
Anti vaccination “End of the Mandate” rally turns violent in Olympia with one shot
After forcing three schools into lockdown on Friday in Vancouver, Washington, the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys, planned an anti-vaccination protest in Olympia on Saturday called End of the Mandate. The group originally planned to gather on the Capitol grounds but moved their planned event to Sylvester Park to confront a group of Antifa protesters.
Several short video clips showed 50 to 75 heavily armed Proud Boys, including some carrying firearms and others with shields, paintball guns, and baseball bats, roaming the streets of Olympia chanting, “fuck Antifa.” The Proud Boys and their supporters left the main anti-vaccination protest and stalked the streets of Olympia for 20 minutes, assaulted several people including area residents who were uninvolved in the protest. All of their actions were documented on live streams.
Reporter Alissa azar being attacked by the proud boys in Olympia
The group then started chasing another person for approximately a half-mile. According to a Facebook post by the Washington State ACLU, several people running from the Proud Boys tried to board a city bus, and reports are one of them fired 5 shots, striking one person in the foot. The bullet allegedly struck Proud Boy leader Tusitala “Tiny” Toese in the ankle. A single 9mm casing was observed at the scene on a live stream.
Other people are reporting that the gunshot was self-inflicted, while others are claiming it was fired at the people boarding the bus by a person among the Proud Boys, ricocheted, and struck Toese. There is no update on Toese condition. The actual shooting was not caught on camera.
Gunshots fired in Olympia during an anti-vaccination protest that rapidly devolved into violence
In another video, Toese required a tourniquet and there was a significant amount of blood loss. The Proud Boy leader is currently on probation and was involved in violent assaults in Portland, Oregon last month. Tiny’s profile has increased in recent months with the arrests of Ethan Nordean and Rufio Panman for their alleged involvement in the January 6 insurrection, thrusting Toese into a leadership role.
Reports of multiple people being shot and a potential stabbing appear to be untrue. The situation is evolving and more information continues to come in. Despite multiple claims of a person arrested by right-wing social media accounts, the Gateway Pundit is reporting no one has been arrested.
There is an additional report of a person being arrested for pepper-spraying police officers before the shooting, but that is also unconfirmed. Olympia Police and Washington State Patrol didn’t have a significant presence, gathering on the edges of Sylvester Park. At one point the Proud Boy mob marched past the Washington State Patrol building adjacent to Capitol grounds. Over police scanners, the Olympia Police reported they didn’t have adequate resources to respond to the Proud Boys.
This is by far the most violent incident involving protests against mask and vaccination policy in the United States after a series of increasingly violent events in the past week.
Washington Federation of State Employees reaches tenative agreement with Governor Inslee over vaccine mandate
The union is reporting the following concessions were made by the state and is encouraging members to vote in favor of the deal.
Members who complete vaccination by October 18 will be credited one day of personal leave as an incentive, that must be taken within the 2022 calendar year
Anyone who wishes to retire by December 31, 2021, can do so regardless of their vaccination status as long as they submit their retirement paperwork by October 18
Any employee who files for a medical exemption by September 13, and has not had the evaluation process completed by October 18, will not have their pay suspended until the exemption decision is made
If an exemption is denied on valid grounds, the employee can use their annual leave and leave without pay to become fully vaccinated within 45 days
If an employee is not fully vaccinated by October 18, but has received their first dose, they can use leave without pay for up to 30 days to complete vaccination and return to their previous position or equivalent
The state will share vaccination rate data with the union, and partner to target worksites that are lagging for vaccine education and access
A requirement for telecommuting workers to return to the office on 3 days notice has been removed
Washington State Ferries sickout over vaccine mandate never materializes
According to the Washington State Ferries site, operations have been smooth over the holiday weekend. The only run impacted due to staffing issues was Seattle/Bremerton, which is operating on one ferry over the weekend, which was announced yesterday.
PeaceHealth reports 95% of employees elected to get vaccinated by deadline
Among the less than 300 remaining, an undisclosed number are awaiting final disposition on medical exemption or religious requests. The number of personnel who opted to resign is far lower than what activists predicted.
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Vaccination
Another poll has come out showing support for getting the COVID vaccination is growing. The latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll conducted after the Food and Drug Administration gave the Pfizer vaccine full approval for people over 16 years old, mirrors findings from the Axios/Ipsos poll we reported on last week.
The survey was done from August 26 to August 31 and found 19% of U.S. adults declaring they do not intend to be vaccinated. This is down 5 points from the previous poll and is almost identical to the Axios/Ipsos poll that found 14% would never get vaccinated, and 6% declaring it was unlikely.
The same poll reported 72% of respondents have already received the vaccine. According to the CDC, 74.8% of Americans 18 and older have received at least one dose. On September 3, 1.4 million COVID vaccine doses were administered, including 550,000 people who were newly vaccinated. It was the highest number of doses given since July 1.
King County, Washington is reporting over 83% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over.
COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.
Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital appealed to the public to follow guidance from officials to prevent any additional surges The 226-bed facility is caring for 223 patients, 50 with COVID and 6 on ventilators. Although the hospital has 226 beds on paper, 36 of those are for psychiatric care and labor and delivery. The hospital has expanded capacity by adding wards and parking patients in the emergency room while they wait for an available bed.
Back to School
School District
Status
Quarantines
Closures
Bellevue
GREEN
None
None
Lake Washington
YELLOW
– Kamiakin Middle School (28) – Juanita High School (8)
None
Northshore
YELLOW
– Bothell High School (12) – Cottage Lake Elementary (3) – Crystal Springs Elementary (6) – Fernwood Elementary (4) – Frank Love Elementary (1) – Hollywood Hill Elementary (1) – Inglemoor High School (1) – Kokanee Elementary (1) – Maywood Hills Elementary (4) – North Creek High School (2) – Northshore Middle School (2) – Ruby Bridges Elementary (15) – Shelton View Elementary (4) – Skyview Middle School (2) – Sunrise Elementary (1) – Timbercrest Middle School (2) – Wellington Elementary (6) – Westhill Elementary (1) – Woodin Elementary (2) – Woodinville High School (8) – Woodmoor Elementary (6)
None
Local School Districts Scorecard
The scorecard has been updated to include data from the Northshore School District.
How we score a district
GREEN: Less than 10 reported COVID cases within the entire school district contained to one facility.
YELLOW: More than 10 confirmed COVID cases resulting in quarantine of students, faculty, coaches, or transportation, or less than 10 confirmed COVID cases in more than one facility. Less than 10% of the student body is infected, and no school buildings have been closed due to infections or loss of faculty.
RED: The district has been forced to close at least one school or makes the decision to move to remote learning due to COVID infections, or the district remains opens with no school closures, but more than 10% of students are quarantined.
Officials in Spokane are reporting an unknown number of COVID cases among students at Rogers High School. Spokane Public Schools Spokesperson Sandra Jarrard doesn’t know how many cases there currently are, she told KREM 2’s Morgan Trau. In an email to parents, she added that the “situation is considered confined and not considered an outbreak.”
The contact tracing team is conducting an investigation to compile a list of close contacts, she said. Anyone who is considered to have been in close contact with those COVID-19 positive received “separate communication” with more information regarding testing and quarantine requirements. Staff and students that are not notified by the contact tracing team, have been determined not to have had close contact with the confirmed case, she added in the email.
Yesterday in the comments, there were questions about the vaccination rates by zip code in our area. We have that information.
King County COVID vaccination rates – at least one dose – by zip code as of September 3, 2021
Zip Code
Percent vaccinated, at least one dose, 12 and older
98155
92.0%
98028
88.7%
98011
88.0%
98034
85.2%
98033
91.9%
98072
91.0%
98052
>95.0%
98004
>95.0%
98039
93.8%
98005
94.5%
98007
88.9%
Vaccination rates for those 12 and older by zip code – at least one dose
Local area vaccination rates far exceed state and national averages, and are even higher for adults 18 and over. There is a touch of irony that the lowest vaccination rate is in the same zip code where the first COVID death was officially recorded in the United States.
National Round-Up
Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker reported 300,957 new cases and 3,910 COVID-related deaths on Friday. It is important to note several states, including hard-hit Florida, only report their data once a week. This creates an artificially high number. Data is best viewed on a 14-day rolling average to analyze long-term trends and a 7-day rolling average for emergent trends.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady reported he had COVID in February, shortly after the Super Bowl. He has since been vaccinated, and NFL officials report that the Buccaneers are one of only two NFL teams to be 100% vaccinated. It is reported that COVID filed a complaint with the NFL, claiming Tom Brady cheated by deflating his blood pressure and watching films on how COVID infects cells and replicates. A representative for Brady refused to comment.
Brady’s former coach, Bill Belichick, created controversy on Wednesday when being asked about the release of Quarterback Cam Newton. Belichick dodged the question, but went on to say, “high number of players, coaches and staff members” have tested positive for COVID-19 after they were fully vaccinated.”
“We released our data last week from the first three weeks of August, and that data has consistently shown higher rates of infection in unvaccinated players than in vaccinated players. That was true at intake when they first came into training camp and it was true during that first three-week period of August that we released,” he said. “From a medical perspective, go to any major medical center in the country and as you walk around, those patients who are hospitalized, those who are in the ICU, you see the evidence the vaccines are working.
“We know that vaccines are working. What we are seeing are some vaccinated people who test positive. But their illness tends to be very short and very mild, and that’s exactly what the vaccines were designed to do,” he continued. “Let’s all remember the vaccines were designed to prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. They’re doing a terrific job of that so far, not only in the NFL where we haven’t seen any serious cases but in society as a whole.”
According to data from the NFL, 0.3% of players experienced a breakthrough case from August 1 to 21, while 2.2% of unvaccinated players became ill. The sevenfold difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated mirrors data across the country.
COVID also claims that Belichick filmed how it operates against the immune system and supplied the films to Brady. However, officials were quick to point out that the relationship between the two soured in 2019.
At a Madison County School Board meeting Thursday night, parents remained split on masks with seven speakers opposed to a mandate and four in support.
“What kind of future will our kids have if they are being told from a young age to cover their mouth?” Kim Davis said during the meeting. “This is a decision for we the parents, not the school board. I demand the right for parents to decide for their child.”
The state argues the coalition lacks legal standing to challenge a law that, among other things, bars communities from enacting COVID-19 restrictions that affect businesses, schools, and churches. Irvine argued members of the coalition can’t show they were harmed by the law.
Irvine also argues the challenged provisions are constitutional.
Kelly Walker has not been arrested for his role in the incident at a Tuscon elementary school on Thursday, despite instigating the incident and issuing threats over social media.
California
Although California has done better than other west coast states in the current surge and has a highly vaccinated population, regional hot spots persist. Hospitals in the eight-county San Joaquin Valley region have had fewer than 10% of staffed adult ICU beds for three consecutive days. State officials labeled it a “surge,” triggering special rules announced last month that require nearby hospitals to accept transfer patients.
In Fresno County and neighboring counties, the number of confirmed and suspected coronavirus patients in hospitals is more than double what it was four weeks ago, the Fresno Bee reported.
If ICU capacity were to drop to zero, the state of California would enact forced patient transfers to other facilities where surging cases are not occurring.
Florida
It’s another sign that Florida has reached a peak, but the last part of a COVID surge is the worst. While new cases and hospitalizations continue to drop, COVID-related deaths continue to climb. Fatalities are a trailing indicator, and typically peak 4 to 6 weeks after new cases reach a peak, and 2 to 3 weeks after hospitalizations peak. Outcomes for patients who end up on ventilators are poor with the Delta variant, with 70% to 80% dying. For the lucky few who quality for ECMO, only 30% will move back to a ventilator.
But it also reported 2,345 new COVID-related deaths, the highest single-week death toll since the start of the pandemic.
Due to normal lags in how deaths are reported, more than 1,900 of these deaths occurred weeks earlier. New federal data shows that Florida’s daily death toll peaked at 244 on Aug. 15, well above the previous record of daily deaths set in August 2020.
It is estimated 40,000 Floridians received monoclonal antibody treatment, which is credited for preventing 10,000 hospitalizations.
Currently, the only thing that has staved off a worst-case scenario, in which health care officials have to start rationing care to those most likely to survive, is 438 medical relief workers, including nurses and respiratory therapists, provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a blunt assessment that Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, provided Friday to the Senate Special Committee on COVID-19. HAH is the major trade group for hospitals and long-term care facilities.
While last week Raethel didn’t want to disclose projections on when the state’s demand would outstrip supply, he told senators Friday that AirGas, which runs the state’s largest liquid oxygen plant, notified FEMA on Aug. 27 that Hawaii could run short as soon as Monday. Since then federal, state and hospital officials have been scrambling to find a remedy.
Oxygen is being flown to the state and is expected to arrive on Sunday. Another shipment is expected to be flown in on Wednesday.
Lt. Governor Josh Green warned that if total hospitalizations exceed 500 people, a statewide shutdown would be considered. Additionally, government officials warned that if the state has to move to “crisis standards of care,” vaccination status would be considered.
Currently, 85% of all hospitalized patients are unvaccinated.
“On Sept. 3, 2021, we will require all U.S. employees, plus all U.S. contractors who must work inside our buildings to conduct their jobs, to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Any U.S. employee (without an approved accommodation exemption for religion or disability) who chooses not to complete a full vaccine regimen by Nov. 15, 2021, will no longer be permitted to work for Micron following that date. Any U.S. contractor (without an approved accommodation for religion or disability) who chooses not to complete a full vaccine regimen by Nov. 15, 2021, will no longer be permitted to work inside a Micron building following that date. As vaccines become more readily available in other Micron locations worldwide, we anticipate requiring vaccination where allowed by local law.“
Micron has locations in Colorado, California, Idaho, Minnesota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. The company is one of Idaho’s largest employers.
Various emergency measures issued by Beshear are set to expire as a result of the landmark court decision. Lawmakers will decide whether to extend, alter or discontinue each emergency order, and they are expected to put their own stamp on the state’s response to COVID-19.
In the CentraCare health care system, which operates hospitals and clinics in central Minnesota including St. Cloud, the number of hospitalized patients is higher now than during the spring surge, said Dr. George Morris, medical incident commander for CentraCare’s COVID-19 response team.
The vast majority of patients with COVID in CentraCare’s hospitals — more than 90 percent — are unvaccinated, Morris said.
“I’m not trying to shame or blame here,” he said. “But so much of our resources have to be committed to unvaccinated COVID patients … that limits our ability to provide needed medical care for others.”
Nebraska
State officials activated the statewide patient transfer center as increasing cases push rural hospitals to the brink. Nurse Sarah Swistak at Nebraska Medicine is exhausted and frustrated.
“It’s filling up quicker and quicker every day that I come in,” said Swistak. “Last week I think our numbers were in the 40s. I believe this morning we were in the 70s. So our infectious disease unit is full.”
Swistak said the pandemic is overwhelming the hospital once again.
“The rate of this surge and this spike is so much quicker than what it was last fall that it’s scaring a lot of us,” said Swistak.
Starting September 4, nurses at the center will call hospitals around the state to find open beds for COVID-19 patients.
“I tell people I’m crisped. I’m way past burnt out,” says Dr. Andrea Jones, a Nebraska Medicine family medicine physician who has spent much of the past 18 months caring for desperately ill COVID-19 patients. “It’s hard for me to understand why people won’t do the right thing. What’s it going to take for people to do the right thing?
“I’m going to be honest. It’s really made me question my faith in humanity.”
Jones says she has been screamed at by hospitalized COVID-19 patients who refuse to believe they have the virus. On other occasions, she has told family members that a patient’s heart is damaged, or their liver is failing, and the patient’s family members have laughed in her face.
That’s ridiculous, they say. That can’t be from COVID-19. It can’t make anyone this sick.
“These people are in complete denial,” Jones says. “All I can do is care for them the best I can and move on.”
Oregon
Last week we wrote about Josephine County and how the COVID ravaged county suffers from poverty, low overall vaccination rates, and rampant misinformation supported by their political leaders. The numbers out of the rural county are in a word, devastating.
On Saturday, Josephine County released information on the deaths of their most recent COVID fatalities, including a 25-year-old unvaccinated woman who had underlying conditions.
Josephine County officials said they now have a total of 145 COVID-related deaths. Of those patients, 144 died from complications relating to COVID infections. Of the 145 COVID-19 patients who died, 129 were unvaccinated.
Combined, the southwestern counties of Oregon have a COVID death rate 17 times greater than the more vaccinated metro tri-counties.
To provide some context on how extreme 60.1 deaths per 100K is, the target for new COVID infections is 25.0 or less per 100K.
Wyoming
Memorial Hospital in Sweetwater County has been forced to move to “crisis standards of care,” which includes the canceling of day surgeries and considering patient care on a “case by case basis.” The 99-bed acute care hospital located in Rock Springs is currently caring for 16 COVID patients, but the emergency department is overwhelmed with both COVID and normal medical cases.
Emergency services director Kim White stated, “We are at crisis level. We appreciate the patience. The emergency room staff is extremely busy keeping up with the number of people presenting in the ER. Extra members of the hospital’s healthcare team have been brought in to help cover the influx.”
Only two weeks after school started, multiple districts are enacting mask mandates. Some parents have pulled students out of school rather than complying, and some teachers have been suspended. Wyoming has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation.
Ivermectin, again. Outrage has grown among advocates of ivermectin that the US government is giving the drug to Afghanistan refugees. The theory being pushed in social media memes and short twitter bursts is the refugees are being given the drug to treat and prevent COVID while Americans aren’t being offered the same options.
These messages use a common misinformation technique, linking to a document that doesn’t support the position in the meme in the hopes no one will actually go to the document and read it. Well, we did.
The document referenced is the Overseas Refugee Health Guidance, which was updated in 2019. There is your first problem with the conspiracy theory, the document was updated before SARS-CoV-2 was detected. We bolded the key language.
This guidance is intended for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) physicians and other panel physicians who administer overseas pre-departure presumptive treatment for intestinal parasites but may also be referenced by U.S. medical providers caring for refugees who will be receiving presumptive treatment after they arrive in the United States.
While these recommendations have been implemented in many overseas sites, logistical and procurement issues still limit their full implementation in some. All Middle Eastern, Asian, North African, Latin American, and Caribbean refugees should receive presumptive therapy with:
All Middle Eastern, Asian, North African, Latin American, and Caribbean refugees should receive presumptive therapy with:
Albendazole, single dose of 400 mg (200 mg for children 12-23 months) AND
Ivermectin, two doses 200 mcg/Kg orally once a day for 2 days before departure to the United States.
Further in the documents for recommendations, which were created in 2008:
Prior to departure for the United States, all refugees originating from the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, Latin American, & Caribbean should receive presumptive therapy with ivermectin for Strongyloides infection and with albendazole for infections caused by soil-transmitted helminths.
Further, the guidance states that children under 33 pounds, pregnant women, and women who are breastfeeding should not be given ivermectin. Ivermectin is listed as a Category C drug, which indicates, “Either studies in animals have revealed adverse effects on the fetus (teratogenic or embryocidal, or other) and there are no controlled studies in women or studies in women and animals are not available. Drugs should be given only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the fetus.”
In simple terms, ivermectin can cause birth defects.
An analysis of existing studies concluded, “After excluding dozens of ivermectin studies with “high risk of bias,” the collaboration left little room for optimism: “Based on the current very low- to low-certainty evidence, we are uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin used to treat or prevent Covid-19.” The Cochrane Collaboration recommended that ivermectin use be restricted to clinical trials that might actually generate high-quality data.
One more time, for the people in the back, ivermectin is an effective treatment used around the world to treat intestinal parasites and some parasites of the dermis and epidermis.
Journalists, activists, and researchers defending the First Amendment
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