Tariq Achkzai/AP

Supporters of the Taliban carry their signature white flags after the Taliban said they seized the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, across from the town of Chaman, Pakistan, July 14, 2021.

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump singled out Pakistan for giving “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror,” the same groups “that try every single day to kill our people” in Afghanistan.

At the time, it was seen as long overdue recognition of an open secret: that Pakistan, a U.S. ally, was backing its enemy, the Taliban.

“We have been paying Pakistan billions … at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting,” said Mr. Trump. “But that will have to change.”

Fast-forward four years, and what has changed instead is that the Taliban are today sweeping across Afghanistan and threatening the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, as U.S. forces withdraw unconditionally.

Pakistan has invested heavily in just such an outcome. Despite consistent denials, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been instrumental since 2006 in boosting the insurgents with explosives, cash, ideological recruits, and a cross-border safe haven, analysts say.

And yet, as the Taliban juggernaut has accelerated its advance and vowed to re-establish a strict Islamic Emirate, signs of concern are emerging in Pakistan about the dangers of an outright Taliban victory over the United States and the government in Kabul.

Key players in Islamabad may be changing their thinking, as they weigh the prospects of a relatively friendly Taliban-led state against the risk of sparking renewed civil war and instability in Afghanistan, a refugee exodus, and an emboldened cadre of Pakistan’s own recently regenerated jihadists.

“Pakistan wants the Taliban to take power [as] a culmination of the long-term strategy of bringing the Taliban back,” says Asfandyar Mir, an expert in political violence at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“But at the same time it is nervous. It certainly appears to have some buyer’s remorse [with] concerns that the Pakistanis are starting to express more and more,” says Mr. Mir, speaking from Islamabad.

Pakistan’s homefront

One Pakistani concern is that the “Taliban’s dependence on them is going down, which has manifested itself in testy, poor behavior in meetings with senior military intelligence officials,” he says, giving Pakistani officials the impression that today’s Taliban are “harder to control” than in the past.

A larger concern for Pakistan is the energizing impact the Taliban’s ascendance is having on Pakistan’s own jihadist insurgents, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which has close ties to the Afghan Taliban and has recently regenerated a campaign to overthrow the Pakistani state.

Tariq Achakzai/AP

Pakistani paramilitary soldiers stand guard in Chaman, Pakistan, July 16, 2021, near the Pakistan-Afghan border crossing following fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban near the Afghan town of Spin Boldak.

Pakistani intelligence and army chiefs reportedly have briefed Pakistani lawmakers that the Taliban and TTP – which has targeted numerous Pakistani intelligence and military officials – are two sides of the same coin.

“Our jihadis will be emboldened. They will say that ‘if America can be beaten, what is the Pakistan army to stand in our way?’” an unnamed senior Pakistani official told The Wall Street Journal of the Taliban advance.

“The TTP has really stepped up its violence against Pakistan. They have been hitting various military targets the last 6 to 12 months,” says Mr. Mir. “Pakistan probably underestimated that if you bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, that will obviously embolden Islamist insurgents inside the country. Due to the TTP’s stepped-up attacks, that reality is starting to crystallize.”

The Taliban now control more than half of Afghanistan’s 400-plus district centers – most of those seized since June – but none of the 34 provincial capitals. The United Nations reported Monday that 5,183 civilians were killed or wounded the first six months of this year – a 47% increase over the same period last year.

The United States, Russia, and China have all pressured Pakistan to convince the Taliban not to advance on Kabul, and to instead find a political solution. In March, all four nations issued a joint statement opposing the “restoration of the Islamic Emirate” – the name the Taliban used for their state when they ruled in the late 1990s, which was recognized then only by Pakistan.

The Taliban immediately rejected the statement as “against all principle and not acceptable.”

Khalilzad’s visit to Islamabad

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, visited Islamabad July 19 and met with the ISI chief and top officials. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his country, in the past, “made a mistake by choosing between warring parties” in Afghanistan and now has “no favorites.” After meeting Ambassdor Khalilzad, he said instability would cause “serious challenges” for Pakistan.

Just days before, Pakistan had tried and failed to convene a meeting in Islamabad between senior Afghan leaders, including President Ashraf Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai, with top Taliban leaders, to hammer out a power-sharing deal. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, told Indian television Saturday that Pakistan was “obsessively focused” on a political settlement but had “very limited leverage” over the Taliban.

Kabul has complained bitterly for years about Pakistan’s support of the Taliban, and seen few signs of change. Whatever its security concerns, Pakistan has not stopped the Afghan Taliban from using its territory to recruit Pakistani fighters, provide safe haven, or care for wounded fighters.

President Ghani on July 17 said Pakistan had, in the previous month, allowed more than 10,000 “jihadi fighters” to enter Afghanistan.

“Can Taliban convince a single [Afghan] including themselves that they aren’t puppets of Rawalpindi’s GHQ [Pakistani military headquarters]? They are just a kill and destruction squad in the hands of Pakistan,” tweeted Amrullah Saleh, the Afghan first vice president and former spy chief, earlier this month. “Pak has once again opted for a very dangerous and costly adventure,” he said in another tweet.

AP

Tajikistan Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin (left) speaks to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, at the Central and South Asia 2021 conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, July 19, 2021. Ambassador Khalilzad, Washington’s point man in talks aimed at ending decades of war in Afghanistan, made a brief visit to Pakistan as relations between Islamabad and Kabul reached a new low.

Peace talks as cover

Afghan officials say Pakistan has also abetted the Taliban’s use of intra-Afghan peace talks, which began last September but made little progress, to prepare for continued war.

Back in January, for example, Taliban negotiators were late in returning to the Gulf state of Qatar for talks scheduled to resume on the 5th.

“Where were the Taliban?” Ahmad Shuja Jamal, head of international affairs and regional cooperation on Afghanistan’s National Security Council, asked rhetorically during a webinar this month hosted by the Frontline Club in London.

The answer, he said, came a few days later, when videos from Pakistan showed Taliban leaders “parading across a line of suicide bombers of the Taliban” and visiting “wounded Taliban terrorists” treated in Pakistani hospitals.

Mr. Jamal accused the Taliban of planting explosive devices manufactured with Pakistani-produced ammonium nitrate “in people’s orchards, in people’s crops, in people’s abandoned homes and pathways into and out of their villages.”

The solution, he said, is for the U.S. and others to “pressure Pakistan, so that they actually do play, finally, a constructive role that only they can play in this equation.”

Pakistan, however, despite stated concern about Afghan Taliban victories, appears to have done little to meaningfully knuckle down.

“There was a big push to mobilize fighters in the last few months, in the [Pakistani] tribal areas and in the Pashtun areas around the south of Afghanistan in Baluchistan,” Carlotta Gall, a New York Times correspondent who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than a decade, said in the webinar.

“We know there are a lot of bodies coming back, including of Pakistanis,” said Ms. Gall, author of “The Wrong Enemy.” The Nangarhar governor’s office tweeted Sunday, for example, that 39 dead Pakistani fighters were sent home the past two weeks. Videos show funerals of fighters in Pakistan, with white Taliban flags held aloft.

“It’s a massive, state-organized campaign, and it’s been going on for 20 years,” said Ms. Gall, whose book title invokes Richard Holbrooke, the late U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who once said, “We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country.”

“Pakistan has never given up on its idea to have a client state in Afghanistan,” she said. “It hasn’t changed. It hasn’t stopped. The Americans knew it all along.”

A colonial power

That has been most clear to Afghans, who have been shocked by the speed and scale of destruction of the current Taliban campaign – and are suspicious of any claimed Pakistani change of heart.

“Every Afghan now knows that the name used for these invasions is Taliban, but it’s actually the Pakistani Army in the uniform of the Taliban,” says Orzala Nemat, a Kabul-based analyst.

“Pakistan is planning this, has a huge hand in orchestrating what’s happening. It’s a very sophisticated offensive,” she says. “This time, if the Taliban have a full takeover, the damage ... will spread beyond Afghan borders, to Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere, and everyone should be aware of that.

“We are not faced with some madrasa-educated, ordinary-village young man,” says Ms. Nemat. “We are faced with a colonial power fighting Afghans, again, in the uniform of the Taliban. That is how it should be seen.”

More than six months after rioters disrupted Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, many questions remain about the worst breach of the United States Capitol in more than 200 years.

Lawmakers will seek to start filling in those remaining holes Tuesday, when the House of Representatives launches a new Jan. 6 investigation. 

Both Democrats and Republicans say they want to uncover the whole truth. But, to varying degrees, they are resisting lines of inquiry that could challenge or complicate their narratives about the events of that day and its causes. 

Democrats, and even some Republicans, blame the GOP for being unserious about investigating the events of Jan. 6, given that they have refused to implicate former President Donald Trump and his “Stop the Steal” messaging. Two-thirds of House Republicans voted against certifying the 2020 election results when they reconvened after the assault – a move critics say puts them in a sympathetic camp with the rioters themselves. 

Republicans, for their part, accuse Democrats of resisting inquiries into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s discussions with security officials ahead of Jan. 6 that may have shaped the Capitol Police’s approach that day. They characterize Democrats’ inquiries into Jan. 6 as the latest chapter in a long-running “witch hunt” against Mr. Trump, and say exercising a constitutional provision to challenge election results – which Democrats have also used in recent years – is far different than engaging in violence. They also have pushed for any inquiry to examine whether last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests contributed to an atmosphere ripe for political violence.

In May, Senate Republicans blocked the creation of a bipartisan independent commission, whose findings would likely have had a better shot at being seen as credible by both sides than the new select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack. Last week, Speaker Pelosi took the unusual step of vetoing two of the GOP’s five picks, saying they would undermine the committee’s integrity. Both are ardent Trump supporters who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, and one – Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan – may be a material witness to the events leading up to that day. Both he and GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spoke with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6 and, if called to testify, could fill in gaps about the president’s willingness to intervene after rioters in pro-Trump gear breached the Capitol and clashed with police officers, 140 of whom were injured and three of whom later died. Four Trump supporters also died, including one who was shot by a Capitol police officer.

In response, Mr. McCarthy pulled his three other appointees, calling the investigation a sham. He says he will launch a separate, GOP-run inquiry, which is expected to delve into why there was not a more robust security plan in place. However, without subpoena power, it is unclear how much new information they will be able to gather.

The select committee is now moving ahead with nine members appointed by Speaker Pelosi, including Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Both are vocal Trump critics who voted to impeach the president after he encouraged his followers to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, where Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win. 

Efforts to investigate Jan. 6 so far

Several fact-finding reports on the events of that day have already been issued. Speaker Pelosi tasked Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, a retired Army veteran, with conducting a review of Capitol security. His March report noted a number of vulnerabilities – including a Capitol Police personnel shortage of 233 officers, which has led to many officers working overtime and rarely having the opportunity to engage in training, which is essential for preparing for riot response. 

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi leaves her office after meeting with members of the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as they prepare for the start of hearings next week, at the Capitol in Washington, July 22, 2021.

U.S. Capitol Police have been sounding the alarm on inadequate training for years. In 2019, USCP union chairman Gus Papathanasiou testified that officers were only allowed to train at the Capitol Hill firing range, which was open only a few days a month. In addition, he noted that a three-day active shooter training had been reduced to just one day. 

Yet the Capitol Police budget has grown significantly in recent years to $515 million – larger than that of some metropolitan police departments, and just $40 million less than Washington, D.C.’s, which has more than twice as many sworn officers and a far larger jurisdiction. 

That statistic was included in a 95-page bipartisan report released in June from the Senate’s Rules and Homeland Security committees, based on thousands of pages of documents, firsthand accounts from more than 50 Capitol Police members, and interviews with key decision-makers from the FBI, National Guard, and Congress. 

“Does anybody have a plan?” the report noted a lieutenant repeatedly asked over the radio as the attack unfolded. The answer to that question: not really. 

The report outlined recommendations for addressing a number of failures, including federal intelligence agencies not issuing warnings despite known threats, inadequate preparation by the Capitol Police, and bureaucratic hurdles that delayed deployment of the National Guard for more than three hours after the Capitol was breached.  

Capitol Police assessed the potential for violence around Jan. 6 in mid-December, with a deputy chief warning that it “will bring some demonstrations, with the potential for some issues on the House floor.” But leadership concluded there were no specific threats to the joint session. After then-President Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department sent an email to law enforcement partners, including the Capitol Police, anticipating a protest on par with two previous pro-Trump gatherings in November and December. 

The FBI did not issue a formal intelligence assessment ahead of Jan. 6, but it did share a Jan. 5 report from a local FBI office in Norfolk, Virginia, warning of online threats of violence. It highlighted in particular a thread that read in part, “Be Ready to Fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in. ... Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war.” The report was shared with law enforcement partners at 7:37 p.m. on Jan. 5. 

The Capitol Police’s internal intelligence unit issued contradictory information leading up to the event, with a Jan. 3 assessment warning of violence but the daily bulletin categorizing the likelihood of civil disturbance as “remote” to “improbable.” There was no department-wide operational plan, and only about 160 of the 1,840 sworn officers were trained in responding to civil disturbance. Of those, fewer than 10 were “trained to use USCP’s full suite of less-than-lethal munitions.” 

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense issued two memos on Jan. 4 and 5 that strictly controlled the use of the National Guard, including deploying a Quick Reaction Force only as a last resort. These strictures contributed to the delay in deploying the National Guard on Jan. 6.

The bipartisan report concluded that the DOD’s response was shaped by the harsh criticism it had received for its response to Black Lives Matter protests in Washington over the summer, including the use of military helicopters. With those lessons in mind, it sought “to avoid the appearance of overmilitarization” in responding on Jan. 6.

The worst breach in 200 years

Before Vice President Mike Pence had even gaveled in the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, a huge crowd had left then-President Trump’s “Save America” rally in front of the White House and overrun barriers on the edge of the Capitol complex. Just over an hour later, they breached the Capitol itself. As Mr. Pence was whisked into hiding, a quick-thinking Capitol Police officer led a group of Trump supporters away from an unguarded entrance to the Senate chamber, where debate about whether to object to the results of Arizona’s election had been abruptly cut off. 

Most lawmakers were evacuated, but some, along with many staffers, were left huddling behind office doors as more than 800 people, some yelling that they wanted to “hang” Mr. Pence or hunt for Speaker Pelosi, streamed through the halls of Congress. More than 540 people have been charged by federal prosecutors in more than 40 states so far, according to a USA Today tally, including 16 who have  pleaded guilty.

Capitol Police appeared to be in disarray, calling for reinforcements but struggling to integrate them into existing units and lacking overall direction from their leadership, according to the bipartisan Senate report. According to existing protocols, the Capitol Police chief could not personally activate the National Guard, but was required to submit a written request to the Capitol Police Board, made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms, and the Architect of the Capitol. However, none of the members of the board appeared clear on how exactly the process was supposed to work, especially during an emergency, including whether such a request required unanimous or simply majority approval. 

Former USCP Chief Steven Sund testified before the joint committee in the Senate that on Jan. 4 he had met with Paul Irving, then House sergeant-at-arms, and requested that the Capitol Police Board declare an emergency and authorize the National Guard to provide assistance. He said Mr. Irving raised concerns about the “optics” of having National Guard troops at the Capitol during a protest – a characterization Mr. Irving denied in his own testimony, saying that he and his colleagues determined the intelligence did not warrant bringing in troops. Mr. Sund said he also made the same request of Michael Stenger, then Senate sergeant-at-arms, who denied the request. 

Mr. Irving reports to Speaker Pelosi, while Mr. Stenger reported at the time to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, before Democrats won control of that chamber. Four top GOP lawmakers wrote Ms. Pelosi in February, asking pointed questions about why Mr. Sund’s Jan. 4 request for National Guard assistance was denied and whether her office had given any instructions related to that or his subsequent request on Jan. 6. Two of those representatives – Rodney Davis and Jim Jordan – were among the five members Mr. McCarthy recently appointed to the select committee. 

Ms. Pelosi’s office has pushed back against such inquiries. “On January 6th, the Speaker – a target of an assassination attempt that day – was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was. This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Ms. Pelosi, told The Associated Press.

The select committee’s work

The select committee is chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, a 14-term congressman and the sole Democrat from his state’s congressional delegation, who has a history of bipartisan cooperation. He chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, which he has served on since 2005. Critics have noted that he voted against the certification of George W. Bush’s 2004 election in Ohio, along with 30 other Democrats. 

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, departs the Capitol after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed him to lead the new select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, in Washington, July 1, 2021.

Also on the select committee are Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin, the respective managers of the first and second impeachment trials of Mr. Trump, who hail from California and Maryland; Californians Zoe Lofgren and Pete Aguilar, chairwoman and member, respectively, of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the U.S. Capitol Police; former national security specialist Stephanie Murphy of Florida; former naval commander Elaine Luria of Virginia; and Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger.

As the committee holds its first hearing Tuesday with law enforcement personnel, key questions still remain. While earlier fact-finding investigations focused on security lapses at the Capitol, this probe is likely to delve much more into Mr. Trump’s rhetoric leading up to and on Jan. 6. It will also look at those who participated in the events of the day, including those who organized, trained, and funded the participants who came prepared to breach the Capitol. 

“We have to get it right,” said Chairman Thompson, who was among a group of representatives told by police to duck under their seats as Trump supporters tried to enter the House chamber. If his committee could help prevent another such attack, he said, “then I would have made what I think is the most valuable contribution to this great democracy.”

Manish Swarup/AP

Opposition activists protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, accusing it of using Pegasus spyware to hack mobile phones belonging to independent journalists, human rights activists, and other government critics.

When Indian journalist Rohini Singh learned that her mobile phone had been targeted by the cyberspying software Pegasus, she was upset by the apparent breach of her personal privacy. But she was even angrier about the threat she believes the hacking scandal poses to Indian democracy.

“In a democracy there is a free media … asking questions isn’t treated as an attack on the nation,” says Ms. Singh, a journalist working with The Wire, a prominent Indian news website. “A paranoid, authoritarian state spies on journalists, not a strong, confident democracy.”

But the scandal has also prompted renewed moves to strengthen privacy protection laws in India, following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2017 decision recognizing privacy as a fundamental right.

Ms. Singh’s mobile phone number was one of 300 Indian numbers targeted by an Indian client of the Israel-based NSO group, which says it sells state-of-the-art spyware only to selected governments to help them combat organized crime.

Last week a consortium of international media published findings by Amnesty International and French investigative group Forbidden Stories that the software had been used to hack phones belonging to politicians, lawyers, human rights activists, journalists, and businesspeople around the world.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s main rival, opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, was among those whose phone number appeared on the target list. So too were those belonging to independent journalists, Pakistani diplomats, representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and India’s elections commissioner.

This has fed suspicions that the Indian government was behind the hacks, seeking not only to listen in on phone conversations but to spy on all the information stored in the target phones, which the Pegasus software is capable of doing.

The government has denied this, telling researchers at the Pegasus Project that “the allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever.” 

Mr. Modi’s de facto deputy, Home Minister Amit Shah, said the reports were designed to “humiliate India on the world stage, peddle the same old narratives about our nation and derail India’s development trajectory.”

A chilling effect

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government took office in 2014, however, local and international democracy activists have decried what they call a slide toward an authoritarian state in India, which long boasted of being the world’s most populous democracy.

In its latest annual report, “Democracy Under Siege,” U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House downgraded India to the status of “partly free.” It said that “rather than serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence from countries such as China, Modi and his party are tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism.”

The government and allies “continued to crack down on critics during the year [2020], and their response to COVID-19 … encouraged the scapegoating of Muslims, who were disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus and faced attacks by vigilante mobs,” the report found.

The Pegasus snooping, and suspicions that the government is behind it, have a chilling effect on democratic processes and institutions, worries Rohini Lakshané, a technologist and policy researcher.

The spyware, which NSO insists it sells for the purpose of tracking terrorists and international criminals – and only to governments it has vetted – takes on a darker significance when it is used against political opponents and civil society, Ms. Lakshané says.

In such cases, “the surveillance serves the interests of the ruling political party, not that of the state in terms of national security or law and order. It signals to political dissidents that they will be similarly targeted if they continue to dissent,” she warns.  

Among the political targets was a prominent politician and fierce critic of the BJP, Mehbooba Mufti, the last chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir before the government revoked the state’s special autonomous status in 2019. Two of her family members were found on the Pegasus target list, though she herself was not.

“Pegasus spyware is just one more weapon that has been used to deal with political opponents and others who dare to raise their voice against [the government’s] draconian policies,” says Ms. Mufti.

Democracy at stake?

This is not the first time that the use of Pegasus spyware has come to light in India. In 2018, Canada-based cybersecurity group Citizen Lab named India as one of 45 countries where it said Pegasus was being used to spy on citizens. A year later, WhatsApp reported that a number of Indian journalists and human rights activists had been the target of Pegasus surveillance.

The BJP government at the time deplored what it called misleading attempts “to malign the Government of India for the reported breach” and said it was “committed to protect the fundamental rights of citizens, including the right to privacy.” 

The new scandal has provoked a flurry of moves to investigate its origins and boost online protections.

The chairperson of India’s parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, Shashi Tharoor, has summoned government officials to testify this Wednesday and demanded a “Supreme Court judge-led judicial probe” into the matter.

The Pegasus affair “reveals a need for urgent surveillance reform to protect citizens against the use of such invasive technologies,” declared the Internet Freedom Foundation, which works to defend digital liberties. The group urged legislation to give teeth to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2017 that privacy was a fundamental right.

The stakes are high, says Mishi Choudhary, legal director of the Software Freedom Law Center. “If we fail to safeguard our future by legislating now,” she warns, “we will be responsible for losing our democracy.”

Perhaps one hasn’t truly reentered post-pandemic life – unmasked, undistanced, unconcerned – until one has seen a pig fly.

We’re in Del Mar, California, a couple of beach towns north of San Diego. It’s early in our national Summer of Reentry. Just recently, California became one of the last states to lift all COVID-19 protocols, though some cities, such as Los Angeles, have reimposed them. And now here we are in the coastal sunshine and sea breezes at the San Diego County Fair, one of the first mega-fairs on the 2021 U.S. calendar. To be sure, it’s not as “mega” as usual. But it’s “mega” enough for games and rides and magicians. For a Ferris wheel rising high over the endless Pacific. For carnival barkers and food stalls and wild-animal whisperers. For astonishments. For crowds.

And maybe most important, it’s big enough for those crowds to feel communal again – for each of us to rub shoulders heedlessly under a warm sky and rejoin life en masse. 

Finally, after a 2020 gone dark, the rites of American summer passage are back. The flag-draped parades, the annual festivals (from arts to music to zucchini), the ritual family gatherings. And, yes, the endless cycle of state and county fairs. Here in San Diego you can sense in people their relief and hunger and joy – their eagerness to convene again in traditional ways. To have a collective adventure, maybe.

And maybe to see some things you don’t see every day – even see some things that, let’s be honest, you didn’t think you ever would. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

“You can play on your phone all day, but how often can you hold a pig?” says Zach Johnson, owner of Swifty Swine Productions, on why young people are attracted to his events at the fair.

The pig in question is named Swifty – so called by Zach Johnson, proprietor and ringmaster of Swifty Swine Productions. For 23 years, Mr. Johnson and his extravaganza have done the “circuit”: county fairs, state fairs, rodeos, car races. “All 50 states except Alaska and Hawaii,” he says proudly. Then last year he went nowhere.

Now, standing outside the enormous apple-red trailer that houses pigs and people, he grins in that Southern California light that makes every hour golden hour, and says, “I do love to race pigs.”

Next thing, he’s flipping switches, tapping his headset mic to check sound, readying for the 1 p.m. show – of which Swifty and her flying act will be a part. First, friends, there will be racing. 

Have you seen a pig race? (You don’t say.) In the next nine minutes, Mr. Johnson will introduce you. On this day, despite the afternoon having scarcely begun and the fair crowd still arriving, the grandstands are already filling up. At their foot is a small, short-fenced track, cushy with wood chips. Suddenly over the loudspeaker comes music and horn blasts you might hear at Churchill Downs. It’s time. “Should we bring ’em out?” Mr. Johnson asks. Indeed we should, says the crowd.

At which point Mr. Johnson knows he’s got you in the palm of his hand, because four tiny piglets come juddering down a ramp from the trailer and the entire audience involuntarily goes, “Awwww.” Mr. Johnson divides the watchers into four sections to back each pig, explains that the racers will run the track for the reward of an Oreo, and tells us our pigs’ names – which he’s repeated so often that he knows to the decibel how his listeners will respond. Meet “Kevin Bacon,” “Britney Spare-ribs,” “Brad Pig,” and “Kim Kardashing-ham.” And they’re off.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Piglets race around a sawdust-covered track at Swifty Swine Racing, a popular event at the San Diego County Fair. The winner gets Oreos.

They’re fast, which is not the point. They’re heart-meltingly cute, which is. (Well, most of them are fast. One is still contentedly rounding the quarter pole after the other three racers are in the barn. This gives Mr. Johnson the opportunity to intone, “Sorry section three, I think your pig” – here it comes – “pulled a hamstring.”)

Shortly there’ll be a second race, with slightly more adolescent pigs, this time named after politicians. (Hello, “Nancy Piglosi.” Hi, “Donald Trumproast.”) It’s worth noting that some animal rights activists don’t like pig races, believing the animals are being exploited for human entertainment, but there’s certainly none of that sentiment in the stands today. In any case, the racers here aren’t the stars. The star, who now emerges from the trailer cradled against Mr. Johnson’s chest in a single giant hand, is little Swifty herself. Awwww.

But let’s leave Swifty for the moment; there’s a whole fair to see.

Back at the midway, among drifts of people surrounded by billboard-topped food stands pitching delicacies rarely seen in life, you’re struck both by the gloriously pre-pandemic feel of the experience and by the surprise of the event having been pulled together at all. When the pandemic shut down much of America in 2020, the organization behind San Diego’s fair lost a reported two-thirds of its employees. Then, to get the 2021 fair up and running, it had to reckon with its annual June opening – far earlier in the season than the other big fairs in places like Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, and Massachusetts, some of which run as late as October. The June date meant plans had to be made during the throes of COVID-19, long before it was possible to know what early summer might bring. The countless partners providing food, services, and entertainment had to be persuaded to make commitments amid the uncertainty. “They were just rolling the dice,” says one partner about the risks the fair’s planners took. “Bravo to them.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Two women shoot down a big slide on burlap sacks.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Families enjoy a child-sized roller coaster.

It’s worked, mostly. Though the organizers are hesitant to be specific, several vendors estimate the 2021 fair to be only “a quarter its normal size.” Even late-season fairs like Minnesota’s have announced, “Recovery from the past year will take some time for many of our partners, so this year’s fair may look a little different from what we’re used to. I guarantee, though,” stated general manager Jerry Hammer, “that we will do our very best to give you the full-on Minnesota State Fair experience.”

A lot of things this summer may not quite provide the “full-on” pre-pandemic experience – but that won’t keep them from feeling pretty sweet. Or salty, as tastes could lean here on the San Diego midway. We’re headed for the “Extreme Dogs” performance (showtime 2 p.m.), but are having a hard time getting past the snack stands. You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about giant grilled sausages, charbroiled corn, Texas funnel cakes, smoked barbecue sandwiches, cheese bread, kettle corn, “award-winning giant turkey legs,” “battered” potatoes, ice cream, lemonade, pizza covered in fruit, and bacon-wrapped hot dogs. We won’t even mention the fried dough, fried artichokes, fried avocados, and fried bananas. (“If you can eat it, we can fry it,” one server tells me.)

The bleachers for the “Extreme Dogs” event are packed. I squeeze in next to Rob Suarez, a house inspector from nearby Escondido, who has a multigeneration gang of family in tow. “Been looking forward to this,” he tells me while we wait, peering up at the Ferris wheel in the distance and the giant slide that rises to the south. “We come every year. I mean, except last year.” I ask him if he’s comfortable amid the jammed-in crowd after what we’ve all gone through. He looks at me slightly askance. “Sure. I mean, I worked straight through. Lots of people did. All these stories about people ‘uncomfortable’ coming back out of hiding?”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Andrea Rigler throws a disc for her rescue dog Leap during a performance of “Extreme Dogs” at the fair.

It makes him mad, he says. “It’s like reporters don’t realize that most people didn’t get to hide.

“But hey, I missed this!” he says, meaning the whole carnival around us. “And these dogs? They’re crazy.”

The dogs, when they perform, are crazy. They catch any flying disc launched, all while spinning, flipping, springing over their handlers, or jumping 30 feet into a pool. The crowd loves them. “And they love the crowd!” handler Andrea Rigler says later. “They get hyped!”

Ms. Rigler seems pretty hyped herself, especially when performing with her rescue dog Leap, with whom she’s won the open freestyle disc world championship three times. It’s easy to see why.

Later we ask Ms. Rigler if the fair this year seems any different from all the fairs and exhibitions in pre-pandemic days. “Oh, yes,” she says. “People are less angry.” Less angry? “Nobody’s worried about anything,” she says. “At last. And that’s it, right? What we’ve wanted? Quit worrying. You can feel it in the crowd.”

After the dogs, we traverse the fairgrounds again. Musicians are playing, corn is being piled on grills, people are hawking flags. In the multiacre shopping arcade people are plugging bamboo pillows, products by Lakeside Scissor Sales, and a machine promising “total body vibration, sitting or standing.” (It’s next to the House of Pistachios.)

Not far away, a man is milking a cow. Her name is Alena, she weighs 1,500 pounds, and every day she gives 14 gallons of milk. Also, like all cows, she can smell things 6 miles away. The things you learn.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The bleachers are filled with a crowd waiting for the pig races to begin.

Eventually, we’re at Swifty Swine again. We catch Mr. Johnson and ask how he got into this ... profession. He says, “Twenty-three years ago in Texas I saw these guys” – he means a nascent version of the current show – “and thought it was so cool. Talked to the owner and it turned out he was ready to sell. So I asked my wife, Shannon, who was in corporate marketing at the time, ‘Hey, you wanna race pigs?’”

“‘Sure,’ she said.”

OK, then.

Now it’s showtime again. The pigs race. (This time it’s Kardashing-ham, by a snout.) And then out comes Swifty, ready to fly into her stainless steel water trough. In truth, Swifty is more of a swimmer than a flyer. Still, there’s a moment – your heart jumps at it – when she leaps from her platform and has nothing below her but sky. Then she splashes into the trough and paddles across it at speed. 

Watching beside me, Woz Jackson carries his daughter Kamelia on his shoulders. She claps, points, shrieks, and sighs the whole show – and says as soon as it’s over, “Daddy, can we get a pig?” Mr. Jackson just looks at me, laughs, and says to his daughter those words that every parent has wielded in crisis, “We’ll see, honey. We’ll see.”

I tell him I’m surprised kids still go for such analog events as this. Does he have any guesses why high-tech entertainment hasn’t rendered this sort of thing passé?

He shrugs. “Don’t know. All I know is my kids would kill me if we missed the fair.

“It’s a tradition,” he says.

Then he adds, shaking his head, “But how am I gonna not get a pig?” 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Juggler Mark Wilder performs on his 7-foot unicycle at the San Diego County Fair on June 17, 2021, in Del Mar, California.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Juggler Mark Wilder gets the children involved in his performance by asking several to throw him his batons while he’s high up on a tall unicycle.

A tradition, fairs definitely are – though that tradition has proved remarkably plastic, morphing over the centuries as fast as civilization and technology forced it to. The Romans held fairs. Medieval villages staged fairs so that potential customers would be present when merchants congregated. Renaissance fairs (“faires”?) were apparently so much fun that today a whole industry exists to reenact them. The very first modern state or county fair was held in 1841 in Syracuse, New York. (Among its attractions: a plowing contest. Who needs TikTok?) From it grew the tradition of the community agricultural fair, often timed to celebrate the harvest and provide those working the fields some respite and social pleasure. Agricultural fairs were a tacit recognition of communal interdependence. And a chance to boast. “Nice 800-pound squash you’ve got there, Eldrick. How do you like my 1,000-pounder?” In time, the “ag” element shrank, the pleasure element grew. With electricity came nighttime entertainment. With engines came rides. With amplification came noise.

Fairs turned into showbiz, literally. The movie “State Fair” appeared in 1933, was nominated for best picture, and sparked two remakes (1945, 1962) as well as – 63 years later – a Broadway musical. Its plot chronicles the Frake family’s annual sojourn from small farm to the biggest event imaginable: the Iowa State Fair. The elder Frakes have competition in mind (pigs, pies); the younger Frakes, romance. They all find what they came for – though exactly in what fashion they find it, I won’t spoil.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The Ferris wheel and other rides illumine the night.

Is it a surprise that the movies aren’t bad? Maybe it shouldn’t be, because for all the recipe-contest high jinks and love-match folderol, what the movies do best is bring to life what makes us love fairs in the first place. Their size, their sound, the exotica of their games, shows, rides, and exhibits. Their version of the world. I first saw “State Fair” as a kid, and I couldn’t think anything but ... I want to go.

I certainly understood why the Frakes wanted to go. But only later did I realize that their journey from innocence to experience was one of those archetypal narratives that we intuitively crave, the tale of leaving town and encountering “the other.” It’s the story of the hero’s metamorphosis. For the Frakes, the Iowa State Fair offered at a minimum an escape from their mundane routine. At the maximum it held the possibility of slipping out of one’s skin and stumbling into an adventure. Where might it lead?

This year, of all years, we might wonder. Last summer there were no fairs, no amusement parks, no parades to speak of, no music festivals thronged with crowds. Leave town? Many of us haven’t left our houses. And if we’ve encountered “the other,” it’s been via Zoom.

“A city needs its dreams,” wrote the great design anthropologist Christopher Alexander in “A Pattern Language,” his team’s seminal handbook on how to construct towns and houses based on centuries of human experience. One prescription for how to conjure those dreams? “Set aside some part of the town as a carnival – mad sideshows, tournaments, acts, competitions, dancing, music, street theater, clowns ... which allow people to reveal their madness; weave a wide pedestrian street through this area; run booths along the [alleys].” So it is at the fair. So it was in San Diego on the midway – people finally free to reveal their madness, however civilized. Wander the “wide pedestrian street” here and you might see anything. You might see a man on a 7-foot unicycle juggling machetes. You might see a rescue dog become a superhero.

You might see a flying pig.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Two people have their photo taken with Swifty, a potbellied piglet.

So, wanna meet Swifty? Of course you do. Just like the 43 people who are lined up right now, only minutes after the 4:30 show. For $10, Mr. Johnson has promised, you can hold Swifty and get a picture to commemorate the moment (he calls it a “pig-ture”). Full color, 5-by-7, yours in 30 seconds, thank you.

To judge by who’s lined up, Swifty appeals to all ages. “You can play on your phone all day,” Mr. Johnson observes, “but how often can you hold a pig?” Swifty by now has been toweled off and swaddled, and appears to accept her devotees with affectionate grace. 

“She’s not bristly!” says Delaynee Martinez, age 11, after holding Swifty for a photo alongside her cousins. 

The line grows longer.

We head back across the park to find the charismatic Ms. Rigler on break before the last “Extreme Dogs” performance of the day. This is her first event since the pandemic’s onset in March 2020, and she tells us about her year of “getting by” – doing online dog training and driving rescue dogs from one part of America to another. Now, “I’m just happy to be back out. It’s a breath of relief.” Things are normalizing; her performance and competition schedule is filling up. She glances toward the parking lot a hundred yards away, where a smorgasbord of RVs are wedged cheek by jowl. One of them is hers, and inside are her 10 dogs. Ten? “They’re our pets, too,” she says.

As we part with her, the sky has begun shading toward evening. Streaks of lilac in cornflower blue.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Swifty, the swimming potbellied pig, leaps into a tub of water as the crowd chants, “Go Swifty, go!”

We aim for the exit, but the river of people has other ideas. Somehow we’re sweeping again toward the pigs. The 8 p.m. show is about to begin, and even from far away you can see the grandstands are now overflowing. There are baby strollers, wheelchairs, children on their parents’ shoulders. As we walk, we’re passed by a little girl tugging her mother in the direction of the tiny arena. “Mommy, are they going to race? Is that where they’re going to race?”

Oh, they’re going to race, all right. By the time we’re nearby, they are racing. And we don’t intend to watch them again. Really, we don’t.

Except that this time the buzz is even louder than before, the gravity of its energy pulling people from the sideshows, the arcade, the picnic tables. Around us the lamps are coming on, the carnival air is electric, and we’re all together, at last, all finding the groove of those timeless summer rhythms. And then from inside I start to hear it: “Go Swifty, go!” Louder now, feeding on itself. “Go Swifty, go! Go Swifty, go!” And I’m thinking, What will it be like this time? How astonishing? How preposterous?

So forgive me, but I have to leave you now, because Swifty’s about to fly again.

And, sure, you can blame it on my too-long-cooped-up heart, but I need to see how far.

Hours before the U.S. men’s gymnastics team competed in Saturday’s qualifying round, Alec Yoder was feeling the pressure. 

Mr. Yoder is at the Olympics specifically as a pommel horse specialist, not contributing to the overall team score. “I’m in Tokyo for one routine,” he says. “If I didn’t do well tonight, I would have done one routine in Tokyo.”

So he approached Sam Mikulak, the only member of the team with past Olympic experience. Mr. Mikulak shared something he wishes he’d learned when he was younger. 

“This doesn’t define you,” he said. “It’s bigger than that. You’re bigger than that.”

When Mr. Yoder later mounted the pommel horse that evening, he felt a rhythm and kept it. His legs spun clockwise as his arms marched between grips, ending in a handstand that gently dipped to the ground. 

The judges awarded him a 15.2, the fourth-highest overall score. Mr. Yoder would advance – and his elated team erupted into a series of hugs and fist pumps. 

The celebrations mark a new tone for men’s gymnastics – a discipline the United States hasn’t medaled in for 13 years. The team, which finished fifth in team finals Monday, far behind the medalists, approaches competition like podium training, as gymnasts refer to official practice sessions: focused and driven, but also relaxed and joyful. It’s a sense of peace the team credits in part to Mr. Mikulak, who last year reset his relationship to the sport.

When the pandemic delayed the Games last year, Mr. Mikulak confronted the potential loss. He’d built his life around gymnastics, and seeing its fragility made him feel hollow. He didn’t have a clear line between sport and self. 

The suspenseful wait meant Mr. Mikulak, like so many athletes now in Tokyo, had to rethink his approach to a goal that had become all-consuming. He developed a new method, and in the process found a new sense of resilience. As the U.S. team’s older brother of sorts, he’s tried to pass on the approach, creating a bond he’s never experienced in nearly a decade of Olympic competition. 

“This could have been such a horrible experience, but we’ve got such a strong-willed group here and we’re able to make the most out of any opportunity,” says Mr. Mikulak. 

“I’ve just become very grateful for where I’m at right now.”

Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Samuel Mikulak of the United States performs in the floor exercise during the Men's Team Qualification at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, July 24, 2021. Mr. Mikulak is the only member of this year's team with previous Olympic experience.

Narrow chance

This summer’s opportunity almost didn’t come.

Both of Mr. Mikulak’s parents were gymnasts at the University of California, Berkeley, and he’s been in gymnastics since he was a toddler. A lifetime in the sport also means a lifetime in its culture. With success based on not just technique, but poise, gymnastics demands a level of perfectionism and calm. For Mr. Mikulak, that pursuit grew into an obsession. 

“I’ve put so much pressure on myself in the previous years, and I’ve been battling a lot of mental health and physical health [issues],” he says. 

The U.S. emerged medal-less at his first two Games in London and Rio de Janeiro. Both years, the team finished fifth overall, and in the 2016 high bar, Mr. Mikulak’s specialty, he came one spot short of a bronze. His determination to do better fueled a cycle of endless training. 

Then the pandemic almost took it all away. 

Feeling adrift, confused, depressed, Mr. Mikulak sought help from mental health professionals, family, and his fiancée. He needed something more from gymnastics than a chance to medal. He needed to feel at peace, to feel that “wherever we land, we’re going to be proud of the performances we put out there,” as he said Saturday. 

At U.S. nationals this summer, Mr. Mikulak barely made the team after falling twice from the pommel horse. Now, he’s taken this final chance to compete as an opportunity to mentor his teammates, reminding them there’s more to the Games than hardware. This year the team plays as much as it competes. 

“It’s brought us a lot closer than I think I’ve ever been able [to be] with my previous teammates,” he says. “Being out there with these guys is the most fun I’ve ever had for my Olympic experience.”

Dylan Martinez/Reuters

Samuel Mikulak of the United States, Brody Malone of the United States, Shane Wiskus of the United States and Yul Moldauer of the United States stand before the Men's Team Qualification at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre, Tokyo, July 24, 2021. They advanced to Monday's team finals, where they placed fifth.

Putting it into practice

Japan, China, and the Russian Olympic Committee took the top three spots in qualifiers, by a wide margin, and were favored to do so again in team finals. Sure enough, in Monday’s nail-biter competition, China earned bronze, while the ROC executed a dramatic concluding floor routine to edge out Japan for gold.

Free from expectations that they’ll medal, the U.S. team’s week has been more carefree. Podium sessions take place to the tune of a raucous and diverse playlist – from Tim McGraw’s “Something Like That” to “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen. They cheer ferociously during each other’s performances, and serve copious high-fives and celebratory poses – shooting a lightning bolt or rocking an imaginary baby – after landing. 

“It felt a lot like podium training,” team member Shane Wiskus says of this weekend’s competition. “We just kind of stayed in our own bubble and made it easier to focus on the apparatus.”

On the vault, the team’s final apparatus, Mr. Wiskus rolled before recovering for a hasty landing. It was a costly error, for a team that can’t afford them if it hopes to medal. All the same, his team applauded and came to his side at the end. On the U.S. men’s team, that’s become the expectation.

“These guys are right there to pick me back up,” says Mr. Wiskus. 

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/FILE

Jane Goodall arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary film "Jane" at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 2017.

Scientists are pointing to human actions for bringing on a mass extinction of many forms of life on Earth. A million species are now at risk, warns the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity, whose ambitious goal is to put in place new programs around the world that will allow humans to live in harmony with nature by 2050.

“When one little species goes extinct, it may seem unimportant,” notes celebrated primatologist Jane Goodall, “but every time one species disappears it’s like pulling a thread from [a] tapestry and eventually that tapestry hangs in tatters and that can lead to ecosystem collapse.”

One challenge to saving Earth’s ecosystem can be discouragement, losing hope that it can be done quickly enough, or at all. 

Dr. Goodall, who’s spent more than six decades studying the natural world and its creatures, is having none of that. She urges everyone to join in by taking little steps in their own lives to preserve the environment, steps that together can make a huge difference. 

There’s much work to be done, she concedes, but also plenty of motivated people already doing it. 

“There are so many tackling seemingly impossible tasks and succeeding,” Dr. Goodall said in her acceptance statement for the Templeton Prize in June. The prize, valued at about $1.5 million, was established by the philanthropist Sir John Templeton to honor those who use the sciences “to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it,” the prize announcement says.

Dr. Goodall gained fame for her work with chimpanzees and other primates in Africa, changing how scientists viewed them. Her latest book, “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times,” will be published in October.

Traveling the world Dr. Goodall has seen “so many projects of restoration, animal and plant species being rescued from the brink of extinction, people tackling what seemed impossible and not giving up,” she recently told The New York Times. “Those are the stories that should have equal time, because they’re what gives people hope.”

Growing up in England in a Christian household, Dr. Goodall has over the years developed her own sense of the spiritual basis of the universe. As a youth “religion entered into me,” she recently told the Religion News Service. “I developed a really strong feeling of spiritual connection with the natural world.”

She loves that, today, “science and religion are coming together and more minds are seeing purpose behind the universe and intelligence,” she says. “We don’t live in only a materialistic world.”

Dr. Goodall has found that developing empathy for animals and adhering to strict scientific methods aren’t at odds with each other. 

“It’s having empathy with what you’re studying that gives you those ‘aha’ moments – ‘Yes, I think I know why he or she is doing that,’” she says. Then she uses scientific methods to “prove that my intuition is right or not.”

Dr. Goodall’s long – and continuing – career provides proof that a deep love for the natural world, and the vast variety of life it expresses, can overcome fears for its future. It can encourage all of us to take needed steps of progress.