The World and Everything in It - August 25, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

People are crossing the U.S. southern border in record numbers. Their countries of origin are changing— but U.S. response is not.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour.

Plus for the love of aviation: an air show with a missionary twist.

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on misunderstanding reality.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, August 25th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden keeps to Kabul Aug. 31 deadline despite criticism » President Biden declared Tuesday he is sticking to his Aug. 31 deadline to complete all evacuations from Afghanistan.

Biden cited threats from an ISIS affiliate…

BIDEN: Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US and allied forces and innocent civilians.

The decision defies allied leaders who want to give the evacuation more time.

And Republicans, like Congressman Michael McCaul said Tuesday that the president is caving to the Taliban, which has demanded that the evacuation conclude by the end of this month.

MCCAUL: I can tell you that there’s no way we can humanly get all of our American citizens and Afghan partners out of the country by that time. And particularly after the decision made today, he will have blood on his hands. People are going to die and they’re going to be left behind.

But Biden said he had asked the Pentagon and State Department for evacuation contingency plans that would adjust the timeline for full withdrawal should that become necessary.

The United States in recent days has ramped up its airlifts. That comes amid new reports of rights abuses that fuel concern about the fate of thousands of people who fear retribution at the hands of the Taliban. 

Fighting escalates between Israel, Hamas-backed militants » Meantime, violence is escalating elsewhere in the Middle East. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a new wave of incendiary balloons into Israel Tuesday. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The two sides have engaged in their heaviest cross-border fighting this week since an 11-day war back in May.

Hamas-backed militants have launched incendiary balloons into southern Israel several times in recent weeks, setting fires on the other side of the border. And on Saturday, they held a violent demonstration along the Israeli border fence. Hamas wants Israel to lift a stifling blockade on Gaza.

During the demonstration, a militant next to the fence pulled out a pistol and shot an Israeli sniper in the head at point blank range. The Israeli remains in critical condition. Some two-dozen Palestinians were also hit by Israeli fire.

Early on Tuesday, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes on Hamas targets in response to incendiary balloons. The Israeli military said that Hamas also fired machine guns into Israel, drawing an additional airstrike.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

House passes $3.5T Biden blueprint » House Democrats muscled President Biden’s multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle Tuesday.

The measure passed straight down party lines.

AUDIO: On this vote, the years are 220. The nays are 212. The resolution is adopted.

That after Speaker Nancy Pelosi and party leaders struck a deal with more moderate-leaning Democrats.

In brokering the compromise, Pelosi committed to voting on the bipartisan $1 trillion package no later than Sept. 27th. Her preference had been to hold out and not consider the bipartisan bill until she could take up both bills together.

Georgia gov. deploys National Guard to hospitals amid COVID-19 surge » Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is deploying national guardsmen to hospitals that are once again swamped with COVID-19 patients. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: More than 100 National Guard personnel are deploying to 20 hospitals across the state.

The medically trained Guardsmen and women will help staff at hospitals in Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, and other cities across the state.

The Guard is coordinating with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Community Health in the effort, Kemp said.

Many southern states have seen a big surge in hospitalizations. New admissions in Louisiana have set new records in recent weeks. That state data show that more than 90 percent of those hospitalized are not fully vaccinated.

Nationwide, hospitalizations have increased nearly sevenfold since late June.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Former NFL star Herschel Walker announces U.S. Senate bid » Former NFL Pro Bowl-er and University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker is running for the U.S. Senate.

He launched his Republican campaign on Tuesday. He’ll challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock for the Georgia Senate seat Warnock captured in a special election in 2020.

Walker is a political newcomer. He’ll enjoy the backing of former President Donald Trump, who urged him to run.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the crisis at the southern border.

Plus, Western skepticism meets Islamic fanaticism.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 25th of August, 2021. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Washington Wednesday.

Historically there have been seasonal surges in the number of migrants crossing the southern border. But this year is different.

During a recent visit to the southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said border officials are facing a migrant surge he calls “unprecedented.”

MAYORKAS: The situation at the border is one of the toughest challenges we face. It is complicated, changing, and involves vulnerable people at a time of a global pandemic.

REICHARD: The Border Patrol reported that its agents encountered migrants more than 200,000 times in the month of July alone. That included a record number of unaccompanied minors.

Joining us now is Victor Manjarrez. He served for many years as sector chief for the U.S. Border Patrol. Today, he is Associate Director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas El Paso. Good morning to you, sir!

VICTOR MANJARREZ, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: The surge in border traffic is much bigger this year. But it’s exceptional in another way. Normally any surge in migration will peak in the spring and then tail off as the weather gets hotter. But that’s not the case this year, correct?

MANJARREZ: No, it's not. In fact, the idea of a seasonal surge really has tapered off probably in the last decade. 20 years ago you could really see defined seasonal surges, where you can come up with the first of the year all the way through the spring, and kind of die off there in the summer. And so what we're seeing here is not a seasonal surge. It's just really a huge influx of activity.

REICHARD: Three in 10 migrants crossing the border last month were from places other than Mexico and Central America. Many were from South America, the Caribbean and even from countries in the Eastern Hemisphere.

What’s fueling the changing demographics in border traffic? And what does that tell us?

MANJARREZ: The changing demographics is really interesting because if you look back the last 10 to 15 years, you've seen a subtle change of the demographics. Predominantly, it used to be about 97 percent of the individuals were Mexican nationals, and about 2.5 percent were from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the rest of that percentage was from the rest of the world. And so what we're seeing now is 30 percent to 35 percent of individuals other than Mexico. And so part of that you've seen lately has been, one is economics. We've really seen not only in the United States during the pandemic, have we seen, you know, the economy take a hit. It's taken big hits worldwide, and it's very impactful when you start looking at the countries in Central America and South America. So the primary driver really have seen—in terms of the Mexican nationals—have been economics. And secondly is messaging from the U.S. government has a big part of the play in terms of those surges and who comes to the United States.

REICHARD: The Biden administration’s focus and response to the border surge is on what it calls root causes, the reasons why people from Central American countries are coming over. But a large percentage of people crossing over the border aren’t from Central America as you’ve referenced. Victor, will that force the administration to change its current approach?

MANJARREZ: I believe so. The idea of root causes, you know, being a practitioner and studying this for the last 35 years, is always the primary choice to address when we look at the border security ecosystem. But it’s a tough bear to tackle when you start addressing Central America and you start seeing larger groups of individuals coming from different parts of the world. For example, we're seeing larger groups of Ecuadorians coming in from South America. And that really has (not?) been a historical track. And now we're starting to see people from European Bloc countries. So yes, the approach by the administration is going to have to be much broader than looking at root causes of Central Americans. You're looking at really globally.

REICHARD: As I understand it, the administration has released tens of thousands of migrants inside the country with orders to appear for court hearings. That’s what critics call “catch and release.” Is that a common practice? Are these people tested for COVID-19, for example? How’s the administration in general handled people coming across the border that border agents detain?

MANJARREZ: Well, if you ask a border patrol agent that's nonsupervisory during the day in and day out, if they were to answer, they would say it's been a mess. There's no no logistical way, a realistic way to test all these people for COVID. So they tell you, they're pretty fearful of the people that they're detaining, the people that come in contact, and the folks that they're setting up for a notice to appear down the road for a hearing. Historically, over half of the people never show up. And so I think that's the case that's going to happen with these individuals. They're just simply not going to show up down the road, you know, whenever they get calendared 12 months, 18 months down the road. So you know, the agents will tell you, it hasn't been handled very well. As an outsider looking at what's being done and knowing that the job of border security is risk mitigation, it looks like the Department of Homeland Security has failed at this point.

REICHARD: Leaves it to citizens to deal with it all, I suppose.

MANJARREZ: It really does and it leaves it to communities who are not resourced. And, quite frankly, it's not their responsibility to handle the job of the federal government.

REICHARD: I want to ask you about the “remain in Mexico” policy. That is, of course, the Trump-era policy that required migrants to stay in Mexico until their immigration court date.
A federal judge in Texas recently ordered the administration to reinstate that policy. But the Supreme Court temporarily halted that order while they take a look at it, so we’ll have to see where this goes. But how has the rollback of that policy under President Biden changed things at the border?

MANJARREZ: Well, the policy was was extremely helpful. When you start looking at the flows and try to compare what happened, you know, what's currently happening in the last seven months, compared to maybe the seven months prior on that. There was a definite change of the flow where the flow was kind of a trickle. It wasn't much coming up because of a policy that was put in place about remaining in Mexico. Now, that trickle has become a flood. And the impact on that is that at some point, we're going to decide that the folks who need to come to court hearings to plead their case. The vast majority are economic migrants, but they're coming to claim a political asylum, and unfortunately, very few will qualify for that.

REICHARD: The Biden administration recently decided to hold off on trying to walk back Title 42. It would be helpful for you to explain what Title 42 is and how the government uses it.

MANJARREZ: Well, Title 42 is actually -- there's a misconception that it's Customs and Border Protection, or the Department Homeland Security that implements it. Yeah, Title 42 actually is under the authority of CDC, that allows the restriction of visitors or incoming individuals into the United States based on health reasons. It could be a communicable disease. It could be all sorts of things based on health reasons. And so, Title 42 became very helpful in terms of restricting that flow, which kept many folks in Mexico and other countries—just origin countries coming up. And so I would imagine that DHS and CDC are working pretty close together in terms of how long this will be extended, but ultimately, it becomes a decision by CDC to further extend it, if that's the case.

REICHARD: We will stay attuned to this story. Victor Manjarrez was sector chief for the U.S. Border Patrol and now is Associate Director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas El Paso. Sir, thank you.

MANJARREZ: Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: New Zambian president takes office—We start today here in Africa.

Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema took the presidential oath of office Monday.

HICHILEMA: Unless our citizens participate in this process we will create a sense of alienation and no one will be safe in such an environment. We are intertwined, we can share common benefits, common values from the process of development. That is possible. It just needs a clever, a smart way of mixing it up, and we will do that.

Hichilema won a landslide victory over incumbent Edgar Lungu. It was his sixth attempt at the presidency.

Analysts hailed the election as a triumph over authoritarianism and attempted election rigging. It was the 17th win for an opposition party in sub-Saharan Africa since 2015. More than 70 percent of Zambians turned out to vote in the August 12th election.

Lungu lost in part because of the country’s economic crisis. Amid rising inflation and unsustainable spending, the government recently defaulted on its loans. Zambia is rich in copper, but more than half of its 18 million people live in poverty.

Iran confirms authenticity of prison video—Next we go to the Middle East.

The head of Iran's prison system admitted Tuesday that leaked video showing abuse at the notorious Evin prison is authentic.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Farsi]

Speaking to reporters, Iran’s judiciary chief said authorities are investigating the incident. The prison chief apologized for what he called “unacceptable behaviors” but offered no plan for reforms.

Hackers reportedly stole the video footage taken by the prison’s security cameras. The videos showed fights among prisoners and guards. They also show overcrowding in cells and harsh conditions. In one shot, a prisoner smashes a mirror and tries to cut his arm with a shard of glass.

Evin has long been known to house political prisoners and those with ties to the West.

Ukraine holds summit on Crimea—Next we go to Eastern Europe.

AUDIO: [Sounds of camera shutters, chatting]

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky hosted a summit over the weekend to rally support for ending Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula. The president of the European Council joined leaders from Lithuania, Sweden, Poland, and Croatia at the event in Kyiv.

ZELENSKY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

During the meeting, Zelensky said Ukraine would never be able to reclaim Crimea on its own. But he said international help would make it possible to get rid of the armed aggression.

Russian-backed separatists took over the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. More than 13,000 people have died, and the fighting continues. Ukraine said one of its soldiers died in an attack on Sunday.

American woman entombed in France’s Pantheon—And finally, we end today in Europe.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French]

A famous African-American singer, dancer, and actress who was a spy for the French resistance during World War II has achieved one of the country’s highest honors. Josephine Baker will be memorialized in France’s Pantheon mausoleum. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the decision on Sunday.

Laurent Kupferman launched the petition to include Baker in the monument to the country’s most revered national figures.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French]

He called her a woman of action who immediately joined the effort to oppose the Nazis in her adopted home. He also hailed her efforts to spread tolerance, especially of racial differences. Although she lived in France, Baker was active in the U.S. Civil Rights movement. She gave speeches and performed in America in the 1950s.

Baker died in Paris in 1975.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Here’s another case of man’s best friend to the rescue!

An 83-year-old British woman was recently out for a walk when she took a tumble down a creek bank and couldn’t get up.

Neighbors called police after the unnamed woman went missing for more than an hour.

And police in Cornwall say she has her four-footed friend to thank for her rescue. Her faithful pet stood atop the hill and noisily called for help, allowing rescuers to find her.

But you’ll notice, we did not the four-footed friend Piran barked for help.

That’s because in this case, man’s best friend, was a black feline.

The cat perched atop the creek bank and loudly meowed until emergency workers arrived and pulled her to safety.

Authorities said the woman was in stable condition days after the accident.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: another in our series, “Summer destinations.”

Every year during the last week of July, people who love airplanes converge on a small city in Wisconsin. To the locals it’s the “AirVenture” —the largest gathering of airplanes in the country, put on by EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association.

EICHER: But for many of those who come to the AirVenture, it’s known simply by the name of the city, “Oshkosh.” WORLD correspondent Hayley Schoeppler spent several days there to learn more about what draws so many people together. Turns out, it’s a whole lot more than just airplanes.

AUDIO: [CROWDS]

HAYLEY SCHOEPPLER, REPORTER: For anyone experiencing AirVenture for the first time, it can be overwhelming. The sheer number of acronyms and initialisms is enough to make your head spin: EAA, FAA, MAF, IAMA, JAARS.

Acres of small planes parked in fields. Helicopters buzz overhead, giving attendees an aerial view of the event. John Deere tractors chug by the world's busiest control tower for this AirVenture week—pulling trams loaded with people of all ages. One tram takes attendees to the north 40—to see the Warbirds.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF TRAM]

At the far edge of a field filled with 1940s-era planes, brown tents mark a World War II encampment. It’s part of the Warbird Living History Group. Mike Pope, one of the khaki-clad re-enactors has been coming to Oshkosh for 18 years.

MIKE POPE: Things started with a couple of guys just setting up mannequins with uniforms on and then they'd show up with uniform so on and then some other collectors came in and started setting things up. And now we have anywhere from 60 to 100 members that will show up on any given year.

Like so many other things, AirVenture was canceled last year due to COVID. Pope is glad to be back.

POPE: Oshkosh, is you know, Christmas, birthday, Thanksgiving, all rolled into one. We've got a lot of people that when they get out of their car this is the first place they come to; they want to get the exposure because there's a lot of World War II as you look across the way there World War II airplanes everywhere. They come through here to kind of get put into the mood and the exposure and everything, Okay, it's now 1943 We're back at World War Two. Now let's go look at the airplanes and talk to the pilots and enjoy that part of it.

And it’s not just looking at airplanes. Every afternoon crowds gather along the runway. It’s time for the daily airshow:

AUDIO: WELCOME TO EAA/AIR SHOW

Planes dive and loop...

AUDIO: [SOUND OF PLANES]

...Warbirds reenact Pearl Harbor...

AUDIO: [WARBIRDS & MUSIC]

...stealth fighters roar overhead...

AUDIO: [SONIC ROAR]

Step away from the airshow and there’s a different kind of buzz. Between the expo buildings and the admissions gate, two roads meet. Here you find a group of tents with three airplanes and a helicopter outside. Visitors take turns sitting in the helicopter for a picture or trying the controls of the Helio Courier in a simulation island landing.

This is where the Christian aviation groups gather, many sharing a large white tent sponsored by IAMA—the International Association of Missionary Aviation.

One organization in the IAMA tent is SOAR which stands for “service oriented aviation readiness.” Kevin Dunn is director of operations:

DUNN: At SOAR we're, we're a missionary aviation training program designed specifically to focus on getting pilots and aircraft mechanics to the mission field. Aviation missionary aviation at this point in time in history is still requires the pilots to have a mechanics license.

For the Christian missionary aviation groups that gather at EAA, it’s about more than recruiting, raising support, and evangelism. Terry Yoder is president of SMAT, or the School of Missionary Aviation Tech.

YODER: Aviation has such expensive resources that I think it’s actually poor stewardship for any of us to hoard the resources that we have. It’s so much better to share the resources—they’re God’s resources anyway and not our own; so we shouldn’t be claiming them for ourselves. That includes personnel, that includes the airplanes, that includes all kinds of things.

Over at SOAR, it’s the same story.

DUNN: Interacting with the friends that I have here, and interacting amongst other missionaries had a conversation this morning with another Aviation Group and other mission Aviation Group for almost two hours there. They were picking our brains on how we do things, and they're because they're trying to do some of the same things. And that's the kind of stuff that just is invaluable in our industry, because this is really the only one of the very few places during the year that we can get together as a as an industry and as, as organizations that understand what we do, and say, Hey, well, how do you do this? And what are you doing in this area? And so that's, that's a huge, that's a huge, huge part of it.

Given technological advances, some might question whether Christian missionary aviation is still needed. Dunn says it is.

DUNN: There's a lot of places around the world that just don't have the same thing that we have. And you don't have to go far. You can go down into Mexico and Guatemala and Honduras . . . we forget that there's a whole bigger world out there that that that needs to be affected needs to hear the gospel.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Hayley Schoeppler in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 25th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on our leaders’ failure to grasp the meaning of Islamic fundamentalism.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, was one of the season’s most talked-about novels 30-odd years ago. It’s about five students at an elite New England college who become enamored with the spirituality of the ancient world. Seeking to experience for themselves the esoteric ecstasies of pagan worship, they try drugs, sex, even semi-starvation. All to no avail, until they finally recognize the obvious: to summon the gods, you must believe in them. For one night, they manage to believe. Their faith is rewarded—in a way.

These young people had received a late-20th century, pragmatic, relativistic Western education. They were trained to step into the upper levels of business, government, academia, and public policy. To be thought-leaders and world-shakers of the 21st century. Our present-day bureaucrats and policy makers were educated in the same way, and at the same time, as the fictional characters of The Secret History, only without the pagan reawakening. They’ve been taught, by and large, that faith is a cultural artifact. Many have never experienced it, and don’t understand it.

That’s why they’ve never been able to grasp the nature of Islamic fundamentalism.

I doubt that every Taliban, Al Qaeda, or Boko Haram follower is a true believer. A lot of them may just be along for the ride or the political advantage. They melt away whenever their group takes a beating. But the foundation and lifeblood of these organizations is faith. They truly believe in a worldwide caliphate and will go to any lengths, attack any enemy, wait any length of time to achieve it. That’s how the Taliban could wait 20 years to retake Afghanistan, and how they could do it in so short a time. That’s why happy talk about negotiating with them was always futile: genuine faith can’t be negotiated, only embraced. Or else.

The Western world has lost its own faith, but still misses it. Though taught that all beliefs are subjective, kids are encouraged to believe in something, even if it’s just themselves. But relativistic faith is an oxymoron. True faith must have a true object, and it matters what that object is.

After their wild night of pagan ecstasy, the privileged college kids of The Secret History come to themselves with blood on their hands and a corpse at their feet. Belief in vengeful gods had led them to murder. Belief in extreme forms of Islam has led to violence and tyranny all over the world, and has returned to Afghanistan. Or more likely, it never left.

Shortly after 9/11, the atheist Sam Harris wondered in print if Western skepticism could ever overcome Islamic fanaticism. The short answer is no. What will it take for our pragmatic, short-sighted generals and politicians to believe it?

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Taliban takeover. We’ll find out how the terror group’s return to power in Afghanistan could shake up politics around the world.

And, we’ll find out what U.S. weapons the Taliban now have.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.”

Go now in grace and peace.

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