By • The Spectator
Just over a week ago, Emanuel Macron said he wanted to end ‘Islamic separatism’ in France because a minority of the country’s estimated six million Muslims risk forming a ‘counter-society’. On Friday, we saw yet another example of this when a history teacher was decapitated in the street on his way home in a Paris suburb. Samuel Paty had discussed the free speech in the classroom and shown cartoons of Mohammed. Some parents had protested, leading to a wider fuss – and, eventually, his murder. M Paty was murdered, Macron said, “because he taught the freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe.” The president is now positioning himself as the defender of French values, determined to drain the Islamist swamp.
That Macron even gave an anti-Islamism speech was itself a sign of how fast the debate is moving in France. Five years ago, when Fox News referred to ‘no-go zones’ in Paris, the city’s mayor threatened to sue. Now we have an avowed centrist like Macron warning that the ‘final goal’ of the ‘ideology’ of Islamism is to ‘take complete control’ of society. Anyone making such arguments just a few years ago would have been condemned by the left as an extremist. Macron is promising a law on ‘Islamist separatism’, restricting home-schooling of Muslims and demanding that Islamic groups in receipt of French state funding will have to sign a ‘secular charter’.
But if he’s serious, why stop there? A week before his speech, for example, there was a stabbing outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which France’s interior minister described as an ‘act of Islamist terrorism’ and a ‘new, bloody attack against our country’. It would be brave and powerful to put up a monument in memory of people who were killed by the Islamists while fighting for freedom of speech: perhaps a statue of the Charlie Hebdo team or my late friend Theo van Gogh. At the statue’s unveiling, Macron might refute the false notion — increasingly widespread today — that scrutinising Islamism and Islamists is an act of ‘Islamophobia’. Defending universal human rights is an act of compassion, not a ‘phobia’; failing to make this point only leaves an opportunity for the real bigots of the far right.
In his speech, Macron also said that the ‘challenge is to fight against those who go off the rails in the name of religion… while protecting those who believe in Islam and are full citizens of the republic’. If he really means this, perhaps he could provide security and support to those French Muslims courageously speaking out against radical Islam? He could also support those French Muslims who seek to modify Sharia, historically contextualise the Sunnah (traditional Muslim practices) and establish a meaningful boundary between religion and state by challenging doctrinal purity. In the effort to combat the extremists, it is vital to distinguish the Muslims pushing for real change from the Islamists with silver tongues. A great many French Muslims are fighting against the Islamists, and Macron could do far more to support them.That he even gave an anti-Islamism speech was a sign of how fast the debate is moving in France
The battle of ideas against Islamism will, of necessity, be a long one and if he hopes to succeed Macron must ensure that French civil society and philanthropic foundations are fully engaged in this effort. He should disband subversive Islamist organisations that lay the ideological groundwork for violence, while calling on his fellow European leaders to do the same. It’s amazing how many of them, even now, prefer to avoid the topic.
He might also strengthen immigration laws to ensure that French civic values are taken into account in admission decisions. Those admitted to the Republic from abroad should be told to embrace the French notion of social cohesion, which means they cannot embrace separatism or Islamism, or belong to organisations that do.
Existing laws should be used more too. Not so long ago, an Algerian woman who refused to shake hands with male officials at a French naturalisation ceremony was denied citizenship as a result. Islamists can, in this way, be served notice that France is not their natural home.
French law allows the government to reject naturalisation requests on grounds of ‘lack of assimilation, other than linguistic’. So in the spirit of this law, Macron should start to repatriate asylum-seekers who engage in violence or the incitement of violence — particularly against women.
In foreign policy, he could tackle the ideological extremism that is disseminated by the governments of Qatar and Turkey — among others — through their support of Islamists, Islamist foundations and communitarianism in Europe (including France). He could take a much stronger stand against the Iranian regime — bilaterally as well as at the EU level — for its hostile activities on European soil, its vicious cruelty towards its own population and its efforts to export revolutionary Islamism throughout the Middle East. This would also mean further strengthening France’s ties to Israel, the UAE and Egypt and demanding that Saudi Arabia stop funding Wahhabi extremists abroad.
France’s corps diplomatique still possesses exceptional historical and linguistic knowledge of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This could be used to counter the activities of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir and their many branches and offshoots. Macron says his Bill will ‘dissolve’ Islamic groups whose principles clash with those of the French Republic. He can do so by cutting off the financial flows from foreign powers to the Islamist organisations within France.
Macron is right: Islamic separatism does indeed threaten to turn France into two nations. But if the problem is to be addressed, the French people need to be shown that the President has the guts not just to call out radical Islam — but also to take real, practical steps to defeat it.
Dear Mr. President and Director Navarro,
We write in support of the Administration prioritizing incentives for onshoring certain manufacturing, including pharmaceutical products and ingredients. As you well know, about 72 percent of pharmaceutical ingredients supplying the United States are not manufactured here. That is an alarming percentage, especially considering we are fighting a global pandemic.
For decades, American manufacturing has been disincentivized and pushed overseas. The Trump administration pledged to bring the supply chain and everything that it entails, including jobs and security, back to the United States. That is why President Trump made the tactical move to invoke the Defense Production Act, typically a wartime move, to bring the pharmaceutical supply chain home.
One tangible step the Administration has taken to secure our drug supply chain is early approval of a loan to Eastman Kodak to manufacture key pharmaceutical ingredients in Upstate New York. This move included some controversy, after some alleged that Kodak executives made improper stock transactions in advance of the loan announcement. But now that an internal investigation has cleared the company of wrongdoing, it is imperative that we stay the course and bring pharmaceutical manufacturing home from places like China, that are often at odds with American national security.
The Trump administration should be encouraging any capable American company to move its manufacturing back to the United States. Making America a compelling place to do business and also having robust trade relations with nations of goodwill is smart, but policies must change, and American companies must be incentivized and encouraged to take that step. The Trump administration has the opportunity to revamp American manufacturing – I hope you both follow through.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.
Sincerely,
George C. Landrith
President and CEO
Frontiers of Freedom
James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman
60 Plus Association
Judson Phillips
Founder
Tea Party Nation
Richard Manning
President
Americans for Limited Government
Andrew Langer
President
Institute for Liberty
Seton Motley
President
Less Government
Chuck Muth
President
Counsel on Government Relations
Rick Trader
Founder, Producer & Co-host
Conservative Commandos Radio Show
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis
President
60 Plus Association
John Cooper
President
Defending America Foundation
Susan Taylor
President
Strengthening America for All
Scott Johnson
President
The Last Best Hope on Earth Institute
Nicholas Willis
President
Americans for Liberty & Security
Martha Boneta
President
Vote America First
Kerri (Houston) Toloczko
President
Tacita Strategies
By • American Action News
In its first-of-its-kind “whole-of-DHS” Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA) report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provides a comprehensive look at the major domestic threats to the American homeland. Among them, it cites: Cyber, Foreign Influence Activity, Economic Security, Terrorism, Transnational Criminal Organization, Illegal Immigration, and Natural Disasters.
Unfortunately, the majority of media has only focused on one subset of one of those threat categories – White Supremacists. Right-wing extremism is a serious and growing danger, as highlighted today by the FBI’s arrest of several “militia members” for plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Governor.
However, the media ignores the DHS report’s concerns that this threat is also being exacerbated and fuelled by the violent racial chaos incited by the radical Left.
By exclusively and selectively highlighting one clause, in one line, in the 25-page report, the media made it appear this was the only threat in the entire report. Instead, it is only one part of a large range of domestic threats the report covers. More importantly, the media totally ignores DHS report’s concern over how recent anti-police and racial rioting may fuel and provide cover for violence in these other groups.
In context, the report states that “Ideologically motivated lone offenders and small groups pose the most likely terrorist threat to the Homeland, with Domestic Violent Extremists presenting the most persistent and lethal threat.”
It then goes on to note that, “Among DVEs [Domestic Violent Extremists], racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists—specifically white supremacist extremists (WSEs)—will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.”
The HTA continues by saying, “Spikes in other DVE threats probably will depend on political or social issues that often mobilize other ideological actors to violence, such as immigration, environmental, and police-related policy issues.”
This means that domestic extremists other than White Supremacists – such as Leftist environmental or pro-immigrant and anti-police extremists, could pose a greater threat, depending on circumstances.
To support its assessment on WSEs, DHS focuses on life-threatening homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) attacks in the U.S. in 2018 and 2019 – a fairly limited timeframe and crime definition. Excluded from this are violent, yet, not immediately “life-threatening” incidents such as riots.
Of these past two years, the report says, “2019 was the most lethal year for domestic violent extremism in the United States since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.” According to the DHS data, Violent Extremists conducted 16 attacks, killing 48 people. Of those, “WSEs conducted half of all lethal attacks (8 of 16), resulting in the majority of deaths (39 of 48).”
While all killings are tragic, these numbers are far less dramatic considering that over 500 people have been murdered on the streets of Chicago so far this year.
Still, the threat is real, and should not be ignored.
What should also not be ignored are the next bullets in the report about how “Other racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists [other than White Supremacists] could seek to exploit concerns about social injustice issues to incite violence and exploit otherwise peaceful protests movements.”
This appears to refer to how the current wave of violent, unchecked Leftist BLM/Antifa racial and anti-police protests and riots are encouraging and inciting others to violence as well, while also being pushed by foreign state actors.
The HTA states:
ANOTHER MOTIVATING FORCE BEHIND DOMESTIC TERRORISM THAT ALSO POSES A THREAT TO THE HOMELAND IS ANTI-GOVERNMENT/ANTI-AUTHORITY VIOLENT EXTREMISM.
Yes, DHS rightly notes that a subgroup of American extremists, White Supremacists, pose a significant threat of lethal attacks in the U.S., but they are far from the only threat, as the media has portrayed.
Meanwhile, the media ignores DHS concerns about the significant role that current Leftist-incited chaos, rioting, and violence are playing in increasing all these threats.
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a fuller essay by Professor Berman, “Leaving Socialism Behind: A Lesson From German History,” that is published by the Hoover Institution as part of a new initiative, Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism: The Human Prosperity Project.
The images of East Germans eagerly pouring into West Berlin on the night of November 9, 1989, have become symbols of the beginning of the end of the Cold War and, more specifically, evidence of the failure of communist rule in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) and its socialist economic system. Yet that historic moment was only the final dramatic high point in the long history of dissatisfaction with living conditions in the eastern territory of Germany, first occupied by the Red Army during the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and, four years later, established as the GDR when, in Winston Churchill’s words, the Iron Curtain fell across the continent.
Between the formal political division of Germany in 1949 and the final hardening of the border with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, a constant population flow from east to west took place, a movement away from Soviet-style socialism and toward Western capitalism. East Germans stopped voting with their feet only when the construction of the Wall in Berlin made it impossible to leave; outside the capital, prohibitive barriers already had stretched across the whole country. Nonetheless, many continued to try to escape, and hundreds lost their lives, shot by border guards in brave attempts to “flee the republic,” as the crime was cynically designated.
To state the obvious: there are no similar accounts of throngs of westerners clamoring to enter East Germany. Between 1950 and 1989, the GDR’s population decreased from 18.4 million to 16.4 million, while that of West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG) grew from 50 million to 62 million.1 This tally is an indisputable judgment on the failure of socialism. The GDR system was unable to persuade its population to remain willingly. Only the Wall and the rifles of the border guards prevented East Germans from departing.
Several distinct, if interrelated, factors contributed to the economic limitations of the GDR. As noted, it emerged from the Soviet Occupation Zone, and the Soviet Union’s treatment of its defeated wartime adversary was harsh. Extensive manufacturing capacity was systematically dismantled and moved to the Soviet Union, further undermining an industrial base already reduced through wartime destruction, although this phenomenon declined by the early 1950s. In contrast, West Germany was benefiting from the very different American occupation and the positive effects of the Marshall Plan. While the West German economy profited from access to the world economy, East German trade remained largely constrained to the Soviet bloc. In addition, from 1949 to 1961, the population flight to the west disproportionately involved middle-class and relatively wealthy East Germans, who took their skills and amplified capital flight. Each of these elements arguably put East German economic performance at a disadvantage.
Yet the primary difference between East German underperformance and the West German “economic miracle” involved the antithetical organization of the countries’ economic systems and the philosophical assumptions underpinning them. Jaap Sleifer writes:
The difference between the two systems may be characterized by the structure of ownership and the degree of centralization in decision-making. West Germany, as a capitalist country, mainly relies on private and individual ownership and control of the business enterprise, whereas in East Germany, as a socialist country, state enterprises were predominant. Regarding the degree of centralization, capitalism provides wide areas of discretion for freedom of individual choice, which leads to decentralization of economic decisions, whereas socialism shows a more centralized approach towards economic decisions.2
The comparative performance of the East and West German economies therefore provides a nearly textbook case of the difference between socialist and capitalist economic paradigms. To be sure, other factors played a role, such as the countries’ differing treatments by occupation forces and the ongoing migration from east to west. Yet each of these two potentially mitigating circumstances was also simultaneously symptomatic of the opposed economic systems: the East German economy was disadvantaged precisely because the Soviet Union imposed its model of socialist planning, while the brain drain (and capital drain) to the west was a function of and response to the effects of the socialist model. In contrast to the imposition of the Soviet model—a derivative of the Marxist ideological legacy—in the GDR, West Germany benefited from the free market vision of thinkers such as Walter Eucken and Ludwig Erhard, who steered it toward its successful model of a social market economy: i.e., a capitalist economy tempered by a social safety net and restrictions on monopolies.
As a result, the contrast between East and West German economic performance became a set piece in representations of the Cold War. In 1960, Bellikoth Raghunath Shenoy, a prominent classical economist from India, provided a journalistic account of his visit to Berlin, not yet divided by the Wall, which included these trenchant observations:
The main thoroughfares of West Berlin are nearly jammed with prosperous-looking automobile traffic, the German make of cars, big and small, being much in evidence. Buses and trams dominate the thoroughfares in East Berlin; other automobiles, generally old and small cars, are in much smaller numbers than in West Berlin. One notices cars parked in front of workers’ quarters in West Berlin. The phenomenon of workers owning cars, which West Berlin shares with the USA and many parts of Europe, is unknown in East Berlin. In contrast with what one sees in West Berlin, the buildings here are generally grey from neglect, the furnishings lack in brightness and quality, and the roads and pavements are shabby, somewhat as in our [Indian] cities.3
He goes beyond economic observations to remark on the culture he sees:
Visiting East Berlin gives the impression of visiting a prison camp. The people do not seem to feel free. In striking contrast with the cordiality of West Berliners, they show an unwillingness to talk to strangers, generally taking shelter behind the plea that they do not understand English. At frequent intervals one comes across on the pavements uniformed police and military strutting along. Apart from the white armed traffic police and the police in the routine patrol cars, uniformed men are rarely seen on West Berlin roads.4
Evidently more is at stake than contrasting consumer cultures or access to privately owned cars. East Berlin is, in Shenoy’s view, symptomatic of a repressive society in which the inhabitants fear authority and shy away from contact with outsiders lest they draw attention to themselves:
The main explanation lies in the divergent political systems. The people being the same, there is no difference in talent, technological skill, and aspirations of the residents of the two parts of the city. In West Berlin efforts are spontaneous and self-directed by free men, under the urge to go ahead. In East Berlin effort is centrally directed by Communist planners. . . . The contrast in prosperity is convincing proof of the superiority of the forces of freedom over centralized planning.
The Perils of Selective Memory
Today it is especially important to remember both objective economic differences between the two Germanies and these subjective experiences: i.e., the dynamic excitement Shenoy felt in the west as opposed to the timidity of the east. Preserving these insights is vital because of current attempts to idealize socialism retrospectively by pointing to allegedly positive aspects of the East German performance.
While socialist-era statistics are notoriously unreliable, it is likely that East German standards of living were in fact consistently the highest in the Eastern bloc: i.e., better than in the other satellite states and certainly superior to the Soviet Union. Yet that hardly proves the success of GDR socialism; Germany long had been wealthier than its eastern neighbors. GDR standards of living also reflected the political pressure on East German leadership to attempt to keep up with the standard of living in the west, of which the East German population was well aware. This constant comparison with the Federal Republic is one unique feature of East German socialism; Poland never had to compete with a West Poland, or Hungary with a West Hungary. Yet artificially propping up the standard of living in East Germany contributed to the indebtedness of the state and its ultimate fragility, and, in any case, the GDR’s living standards never came close to matching what West Germans grew to expect. East Germany’s per-capita GDP has been measured at only 56 percent of GDP in the west.5
Nonetheless, one can hear apologists for the GDR and its socialist system argue that the East German state provided social goods such as extensive child care, correlating to a relatively higher degree of participation by women in the workforce. In post-unification debates, such features are sometimes taken as evidence of the accomplishments of the GDR. Yet in fact they represent instances of making a virtue out of necessity: in light of migration to the west and the dwindling population, raising labor force participation through the inclusion of women became unavoidable.
Such retrospective considerations arise from rosy false memories in the context of post-unification reality. The past may look attractive to those who do not have to relive it. Yet there is in fact no evidence of any significant interest on the part of former GDR citizens in returning to the socialist regime. One can observe some dissatisfaction in the former East Germany with the character of the unification process for various reasons, including a perceived condescension on the part of West Germany. East Germans at times experience the western critique of the GDR as offensively triumphalist, and, worse, they believe that the western critique of the socialist system simultaneously belittles their own lives within the system. This dynamic can generate defensiveness on an individual level, but it rarely turns into a reactive identification with the former regime.
The abrupt transformation of life through the unification of 1990, the economic disruption as East German enterprises collapsed, and the GDR’s sudden integration into a West German and, more broadly, cosmopolitan world has produced the phenomenon of Ostalgie, a nostalgia for the east. Sometimes it is expressed merely as a yearning for the (few) consumer products of one’s childhood, and sometimes it is a more complex psychological orientation toward a remembered youth in an allegedly simpler past. In Ostalgie discourse, the repressive aspects—the role of the Stasi, the secret police, the extensive surveillance network, the lack of a free press—are minimized or absent. The psychological appeal of Ostalgie—of succumbing to the glow of a wrongly remembered past—can be used by left-of-center politicians to conjure the illusion of a better past in order to advocate for statist policies in the present.
The failure of East German socialism to establish its legitimacy by maintaining the loyalty of its population—who, given the chance, evidently would have largely decamped to the west—was a matter of economics, but not only of economics. At stake was instead the broad infringement on human freedom that made life in the GDR undesirable. It is not only in terms of material prosperity that socialism fails.
“We Are the People”
Two pieces of literary and historical evidence testify to the indigenous flaws in the mindset of the East European satellite countries and especially the GDR, where patterns of subordination, obsequiousness, and obedience worked against the disruptive capacities of individuality, creativity, and spontaneity that drive change and growth. The “really existing socialism,” as it was labeled, held a systemic bias against the recognition of any signals that might allow for autocorrection. Infallibility and determinism, hallmarks of socialist thought, systematically eliminate opportunities to undertake modifications on the basis of experience.
The first piece of evidence is the poem “Song of the Party” (Lied der Partei), which became the anthem of the ruling Communist Party of the East Germany. It was written by German-Czech Communist poet Louis Fürnberg in 1949, and remembered particularly for its repeated line that conveys the core message “the Party is always right.”
The Party, the Party, it is always right!
And Comrades, may it stay that way;
For whoever fights for the right
Is always in the right.6
It conveys an unironic insistence on absolute obedience to the organization, which in turn is regarded as all-defining for the existence of its members. Worse, the song propagates a radical consequentialism: if one is fighting for the right, one is necessarily in the right—the end justifies the means. No room remains for any ethical limitation on the instruments one uses to reach a goal. As a document of the psychology and values of GDR socialism, “Song of the Party” helps explain the widespread suppression of individuality. Fürnberg’s ethos also displays the desiccation of political life that radical revolutionary writer Rosa Luxemburg foresaw years earlier as a result of the essence of the Bolshevik program and the socialist enterprise.7
The second piece of literary evidence comes in the summer of 1953, after spontaneous worker protests erupt across East Germany, reaching a high point on June 17 with strikes in all major industrial areas. The Soviet occupation forces suppress the uprising quickly, as protestors are shot and executions follow. Poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht responded to the suppression with a poem that has been repeatedly cited to show the mismatch between statist governance and democratic legitimation. In “The Solution” (Die Lösung), he describes the head of the Communist writers’ organization handing out flyers criticizing the workers for disappointing the government. Brecht’s laconic suggestion: the government should “dissolve the people and elect another.”8
The poem captures the distortion of political life inherent in East Germany, corroborating the prediction in Luxemburg’s critique of the Bolsheviks: that the hollowing-out of democracy and the elimination of rights, consistent with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s animosity to “civil society” and merely bourgeois liberty, produces dictatorship as the defining feature of socialism.
Such was Communist culture in the early years of the GDR. Later, just before the end of the socialist regime, matters had begun to change. There is evidence that servility and subordination were giving way to different personality types no longer consistent with authoritarian rule. “Sometimes this results in exaggerated anti-authoritarian behavioral patterns,” wrote Walter Friedrich, the director of the Youth Institute, in 1988. There also were expectations of greater freedom in personal lives and in relationships, such as “the demand for freedom in choosing a partner, and surely also the phenomenon of cohabitation and the high divorce rates here,” Friedrich wrote. “The greater demands by women, especially younger ones, for self-determination should also be regarded from this perspective—right up to feminist postulates.”9 He went on to report on how changes in personality characteristics were also leading to greater engagement in organizations such as church groups and the environmental movement. A protest potential was growing.
A year later, the East Germans were pushing their way into West Berlin. Even after the border opened, some continued to harbor illusions that the GDR might remain a separate state. Parts of the East German intelligentsia and cultural elite promoted this idea; after all, they had often benefited from relatively privileged positions. But in the voices of the demonstrators during the fall of 1989, especially in Leipzig, where a series of “Monday demonstrations” unfolded, and then in Berlin, an important transition took place. The crowds expressed aspirations to end not only the dictatorship but also eventually the division of Germany. Before the opening of the Wall, in October and early November, the demonstrators regularly chanted, “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people), asserting the democratic claim on popular sovereignty against a regime that had never achieved legitimacy through a free election. “We are the people” was, in effect, a call for a realization of the democracy that had been consistently denied by the dictatorial character of GDR socialism, precisely as Luxemburg had predicted would develop out of Lenin’s pattern of suppressing of elections and civil rights. As in Russia, so too in Germany.
On October 3, 1990, East Germany—or, more precisely, the five Länder in the territory of East Germany—joined the Federal Republic, leading to the formation of a single German state and the end of the post–World War II division. Whether this unification was inevitable is a matter of academic speculation at best. What one can say with certainty is that the specifically socialist character of the GDR—its poor economic performance and its constitutively repressive character that precluded political processes of democratic legitimation—made the continuity of an independent state deeply unappealing.
In the end, East Germans chose to abandon socialism to pursue greater prosperity and political freedom through integration into the liberal democracy and social market economy of the Federal Republic. There are few regrets.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court, and the future of American democracy
By • The Washington Free Beacon
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has clarified what is at stake in the 2020 election. It is not, as some believe, democracy itself. Nor is it, as others assume, our continued existence as a nation. Democracy will survive Donald Trump, and the United States of America will outlast Joe Biden. The question that 2020 will help to answer is what sort of democracy, and what sort of nation, America will be as it prepares to enter the second quarter of the 21st century.
The reaction to Ginsburg’s death, and to Republican plans to fill her seat on the Supreme Court, underscores the choice before the electorate: Does it prefer to live in a democratic republic ordered toward the principles of the Founders and the constitutional structure they designed to protect individual liberty? Or would it rather dwell in a plebiscitary democracy where the original meaning of the Constitution, when it is not explicitly repudiated, is politely overlooked in order to satisfy ever more radical egalitarian demands?
Needless to say, the answer is up in the air, and has been for some time. But we may be nearing a settlement, one way or another. The civil unrest of the past several months has made unignorable the existence of a large body of opinion that holds something is terribly wrong with America as founded, something that cannot be redeemed, and that American history and American institutions must be drastically revised to atone for the injustices committed against racial minorities. President Trump, in his inimitable way, has made the opposite argument, and called for a renewed appreciation of the American story and a resurgence of national pride.
Ginsburg’s passing heightened the tension. Suddenly an abstract cultural debate was transformed into a concrete political-legal struggle, and the prospect of lasting victory for one team (Trump and Mitch McConnell’s) looked real. The fight over the Supreme Court vacancy Ginsburg left behind also illuminated the lengths to which some progressives are prepared to go to make real their vision of the future. And it is in their openness to institutional upheaval that the real import of this election may be found. If enacted, the measures these Democrats propose would warp our constitutional system. They would turn the American government into a creature far different from the one the Founders made. This would be the upshot of the “structural reform” that, until the last week, lived mainly on Twitter and in the heads of policy wonks.
These Democrats say that, if President Trump’s nominee to replace Ginsburg is confirmed, and next year brings a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate, then the first order of business for the new government, in the middle of a pandemic and a troubled economy, will be abolishing the legislative filibuster and packing the Supreme Court by adding anywhere from two to four justices. Such a move, which even the greatest president of the 20th century was unable to achieve, would polarize this country even more than it already is, and delegitimize the Court in the eyes of millions. But it is just the start of what some on the Democratic left would like to accomplish.
The Electoral College has been on the chopping block since 2000. If it goes the way of the dodo, presidential campaigns thereafter will be determined by who has the greatest allegiance in the biggest cities of the largest states. To override the supposed Republican advantage in the Senate, where every state enjoys equal representation, some progressives would grant statehood to Washington, D.C., and to Puerto Rico, and maybe Guam and American Samoa while they’re at it. These changes would make it much easier for Congress to eliminate private health insurance, enact universal vote by mail, “decarbonize” the economy, grant citizenship to illegal immigrants and voting rights to noncitizens, suppress political speech, resume taxpayer funding of abortion, and cross out the Second Amendment. The sheer number of bad ideas in play would be overwhelming.
Now it is true that at least the first item on this agenda would be debated according to the present rules. And the multiple veto points within the American kludgeocracy would no doubt interfere with, and sometimes upend, the boldest plans of the progressive Democrats. It is also the case that incorporating new states gives rise to challenges both constitutional (are we really willing to grant the remaining residents of the federal District of Columbia—the first family—three electoral votes?) as well as political (does Puerto Rico even want to be a state?). But the very fact that we are having this conversation at all—and that Biden, at this writing, has neither ruled out the court-packing scheme nor said whom he would nominate to the Court—ought seriously to worry defenders of the Founders’ Constitution.
In 1963, in the first chapter of The Conservative Affirmation, Willmoore Kendall offered his definition of American conservatism. Conservatives, Kendall wrote, oppose the “Liberal Revolution” that would replace representative government with majoritarian democracy:
Put an end, the Liberals insist, to ‘rural overrepresentation’ in the lower house of Congress and in the state legislatures—bringing them in line with the principle one-man one-equal-vote. And that principle, once adopted (it is French political philosophy, not American), must call finally for abolition even of the U.S. Senate as a check on majorities, and would in any case make the House the creature of numerical majorities at the polls. Abolish the electoral college, the Liberals insist further, and so make the President also the direct agent of the popular majority. Reform the party system, the liberals insist still further, so that each of our parties shall be programmatic, ideological—like those of the ‘real’ democracies in Europe—and that the two parties together shall submit, at election time, a genuine choice to the electorate. Abolish the filibuster—so runs the next point in the program—because it frustrates, serves no other function except to frustrate, the will of the majority. Rescind the seniority-principle in congressional committees, the program continues; it also obstructs the will of the majority. Now give the Liberal attackers their way on all these points, and the form of government explicated in the Federalist Papers will be no more.
That is what 2020 is about.
China has a plan to overtake the USA with a fused effort that combines trade with military expansion, as described in a new Pentagon report. It shows how China’s vaunted “One Belt, One Road” plan to build infrastructure worldwide is used for military advantage along with economic benefits.
Many signs show that China’s plan to overtake the U.S. is working. Sadly, most American media ignore this. Also sad is that some U.S. businesses would let China expand within our own borders, pushing out American companies from delivering goods domestically.
China’s navy is now larger than America’s, reports our Department of Defense. And China’s fleet of merchant vessels is larger by far.
The Chinese economy has grown to become second only to the U.S.—and it’s gaining on us. Some reports say China has already passed us in productivity. Other studies show China conducts significantly more world trade than America.
A Financial Times survey found that “China rules the waves.” Forbes reports that the United States has become “ridiculously dependent” on goods from China. The American Enterprise Institute pronounces “We’re too dependent on China for too many critical goods.”
A new report by the Center for International and Strategic Studies finds China “[dominates] the entire global maritime supply chain, [controls] the world’s second-largest shipping fleet . . . and [constructs] over a third of the world’s vessels” while also “producing 96% of the world’s shipping containers . . . and own[s] seven of the ten busiest ports in the world.”
China for years has been on what Forbes describes as a “seaport shopping spree . . . buying up the world’s ports” on every continent save Antarctica. The rationale is explained in the Pentagon’s brand-new paper, “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.” It paints a fascinating picture of how China’s worldwide “One Belt, One Road” initiative is being used not only to benefit China’s seagoing trade, but also to establish footholds with great military value.
The new Defense Department report explains the dual nature of One Belt, One Road, which seeks to “fuse” trade and military purposes: “cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge; building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes; and leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes.”
Estimates are that China is spending at least $150-billion each year on acquiring civil-military footholds at major chokepoints of world trade. Then they can attempt to deny passage by other nations, much as they now seek to do in the South China Sea.
So why would anybody invite China to expand its control into the domestic waters of the United States? Just as other nations have been paid handsomely to let China take over their shipping facilities, some American businesses believe they can save money by letting other countries (including government-subsidized Chinese entities) to transport goods between destinations within the United States.
Current U.S. law, known as the Jones Act, prohibits shipping goods or passengers between American ports (or along our rivers and canals) unless the vessel is built, owned and crewed by Americans. Those pushing to repeal the Jones Act would allow China to expand its power grab to extend into America’s borders.
And the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, recently pronounced China as a greater national security threat to the United States than any other nation, including working to influence and interfere in our elections.
The Frontiers of Freedom Foundation has a free paper online that explains the details of China’s plans to rule the waves. Even though major media refuse to sound the alarm about China’s ambitions, Americans can wake each other up and should start doing just that.
By defying conventional wisdom on the Middle East and China, he reshaped both political parties
By • The Washington Free Beacon
On Sept. 16 the editorial board of the New York Times did the impossible. It said something nice about President Trump. “The normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is, on the face of it, a good and beneficial development,” the editors wrote. They even went so far as to say that the “Trump administration deserves credit for brokering it.” I had to read that sentence twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps the world really is ending.
Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe—Iran—they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.
Just as remarkable as the deal itself is the bipartisan applause that greeted it in the United States. No one needs reminding that domestic politics is polarized and paranoid. Each party is convinced that the other one will extinguish democracy at the first opportunity. The past three presidencies have been jarringly discontinuous in style, temperament, and policy. But the same Democrats who sometimes appear eager to remove Donald Trump from office by any means necessary treated this foreign policy accomplishment with equanimity and acquiescence. “It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “a Biden-Harris administration will build on these steps.” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware told Jewish Insider that the agreement is “a very positive thing.”
The irony is that Trump’s opponents are ready to accept this “very positive thing” despite warning against and objecting to the policies that contributed to it. Through his personal relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump reaffirmed that there is “no daylight” between the United States and Israel after an eight-year caesura. He defied conventional wisdom when he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, when he withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, when he cut off aid to the Palestinians, when he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and when he ordered the lethal strike against Qassem Soleimani. But the catastrophes that the foreign policy establishment predicted would follow each of these measures never materialized. What emerged instead were the Abraham Accords and a growing alliance against Iran.
It is in the realm of foreign policy that Trump’s deviations from political norms have had the most positive and irreversible consequences. If he becomes president, Joe Biden may mistakenly try to revive the chances for Palestinian statehood by getting tough on the Israelis. He may attempt to resuscitate the moribund Iran deal. But it is highly doubtful that he will rescind the Abraham Accords, or withdraw recognition of Israel’s Golan sovereignty, or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. He won’t have the support for such decisions. And he won’t have any good reason to make them. Anyone who has read the news latelyunderstands that a strong and engaged Israel is good for security. Her enemies are our enemies.
By establishing inescapable facts on the ground over the ceaseless objections of critics, President Trump overrides the often meaningless verbiage that constitutes international diplomacy and ends up changing the very terms of the foreign policy conversation. Nowhere has this dynamic been clearer than in U.S. relations with China.
Beginning with his surprise call to Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in December 2016 and continuing through his resumption of U.S. Navy freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea the following year, his tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, his and his administration’s rhetorical barrage against China beginning in earnest in 2019, and culminating in his multiple actions against China this year, from limiting travel to canceling visas to forcing the sale of TikTok to tightening the vise on Huawei to selling an additional $7 billion in arms to Taiwan, Trump has reoriented America’s approach to the People’s Republic. No longer is China encouraged to be a “responsible stakeholder.” It is recognized as a great-power competitor.
Resistance to this proper understanding of China’s position in the international system remains strong. But it is unquestionably the case that both Republicans and Democrats are starting to see China more as a threat than a partner. And it is Donald Trump who is behind this clarification of vision. (Xi Jinping and the pandemic helped too.) Whatever a President Biden might do about China—and he seems far more interested in repairing our alliances in “Old Europe” than in tackling this paramount challenge of the 21st century—he would operate within the constraints Trump established and on the intellectual terrain Trump landscaped.ADVERTISING
There is no greater measure of presidential significance than a chief executive’s ability to transform not just his own but also the opposing party. When it comes to the Middle East and China, the Democrats are closer to Donald Trump today than they were at the outset of his term. That they find themselves in accordance with someone whom they despise is evidence of Trump’s ability to realign politics at home and abroad. This is no small feat.
Some might say it’s worthy of a prize.
State says it will accept ballots for 8 days after election, even without postmark
By • The Washington Free Beacon
Republicans are challenging a move by Minnesota election officials to allow ballots to be counted past Election Day even if they are not postmarked.
State representative Eric Lucero (R.) and Republican elector James Carson filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging secretary of state Steve Simon’s consent decree that allows mail-in ballots to be counted as late as eight days after Election Day with or without a postmark. The lawsuit argues the decree violates the U.S. Constitution by moving the ballot deadline without the authority of the state legislature and violates federal law by permitting “ballots with no post mark and no evidence of having been cast on November 3” to be counted.
“This means that persons in Minnesota may vote for days after Election Day and have their votes counted,” the lawsuit states. It also warns that the decree will likely lead to disputed results, disenfranchised voters, and may even cause the results of the vote in Minnesota to be rejected entirely.
The consent decree states that if a ballot is not postmarked, “the election official reviewing the ballot should presume that it was mailed on or before Election Day unless the preponderance demonstrates it was mailed after Election Day.” Simon described the seven-day window as “an automatic seven-day cushion” for Minnesota voters.
Simon’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the assumption that unmarked ballots were sent on or before Election Day.
The lawsuit was filed with the support of the Honest Elections Project, a nonpartisan election integrity group whose executive director Jason Snead told the Washington Free Beacon that the decree could incentivize illegal voting.
“You wind up with these ballots that arrive potentially many days after the election, they could be the decisive ballots. But there’s absolutely no proof that they were cast validly on Election Day,” Snead said. “And when you consider what’s at stake here, not only does that amplify the need for us to have clear outcomes, it also amplifies the incentive to try to gin up a few extra ballots after the fact if you see that your candidate is losing.”
“Even if that’s not going to happen, the mere fact that it is possible risks casting doubt on the result,” he said.
Minnesota is among 16 other states this year that permit mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day to be counted, including the battleground states of North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas. With the exception of West Virginia, which allows ballots without postmarks to be counted up to one day after the election, it is the only state to allow ballots without postmarks to be counted.
As the election nears, Republicans and Democrats have stepped up efforts to litigate state voting regulations. Lawsuits filed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and Nevada have pitted the parties against one another in protracted fights over the use of ballot drop boxes, and ballot deadlines, as well as rules for collecting, processing, and counting ballots. Republicans have largely favored maintaining existing voting regulations within states, while Democrats have advocated expanding voting access and loosening regulations.
By • American Action News
Twitter, the social media giant that dominates online chatter, suspended Friday the account of the pro-ballot integrity group “True the Vote,” after alleging the group’s tweets about military ballots and voting deadlines violated the platform’s rules.
True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht responded angrily to the move, the latest in a series of actions by the media platform that have some accusing it of trying to stifle debate and the free flow of information during the election season to the detriment of conservative candidates and activists.
Twitter temporarily suspended the group’s account, according to a statement from Engelbrecht, after a Sept. 15 post that encouraged citizens and potential voters to confirm their counties were following the rules for mailing out ballots to members of the military serving in other states and overseas.
Twitter and other social media sites have in recent months announced new policies to protect against tampering by foreign nationals and security agencies seeking to affect the 2020 election. The increased supervision of posts began after congressional investigating committees and an inquiry overseen by former FBI Director Robert Mueller all concluded the Russians had penetrated U.S. social media platforms with misleading messages during the 2016 campaign. No evidence was ever produced, however, that demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow in these activities as many Democrats charged then and still maintain was the case.
Advocates for the military have for some time complained that ballots for local, state, and federal elections are often not mailed out early enough for soldiers, sailors, and Marines serving overseas to receive them, fill them out, and return them in time for them to be counted. Effectively, they say, this leaves America’s troops in the field – many of whom are presumed to vote Republican – disenfranchised.
“True the Vote, an election integrity advocacy organization, was sending out information of public interest regarding deadlines for our military voters, pursuant to the ‘Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment’ Act, federal law, which requires states to send absentee ballots to UOCAVA voters at least 45 days before federal elections,” Englebrecht said, adding that information “in no way” violated Twitter’s terms of service.
The now-controversial tweet was “retweeted” by President Donald J. Trump two days after it was initially posted, an act Engelbrecht suggested in a statement might have provoked the ire of Trump opponents inside Twitter supervising what goes up on the platform while searching for electoral disinformation.
True the Vote is appealing the sanction and said it fully expects to have its access to the site restored in short order. Officials at Twitter could not be reached for comment.
By • Newsweek
“Never forget.”
That’s what we all said nearly twenty years ago while struggling to cope with our grief. Since the days of George Washington, we’d thought of ourselves as more or less removed from what he called “messy, foreign entanglements,” protected from the rest of the world by two great oceans and divine providence.
We’d jumped into the thicket a time or two. America saved the world at least twice during the 20th century, probably three times given our willingness to contest an expensive, global Cold War which occasionally turned hot in places like Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East at the cost of our greatest treasure: the young men and women sent to fight.
Was it strange that we never asked to be thanked for it? No, that’s just the way we are. We want to live our lives in peace, left alone to make our own choices, secure in our liberties as God gave them to us. We flirted with the building of empires but that really wasn’t for us. We wanted to be, and often were, the good example for others to follow.
Then came 9/11. A group of religious fanatics hijacked four U.S.-flagged airliners, turning them into flying missiles aimed straight at the heart of our political and commercial institutions. Two of them hit New York’s Twin Towers with such explosive force the buildings crumbled to the ground as if they were made of sand.
A third jetliner reportedly headed for the White House crashed instead into the Pentagon. On the fourth plane, the passengers who’d learned what had happened on the other three revolted against their captors. The ensuing struggle meant their plane, instead of piercing the dome of the U.S. Capitol as planned, broke apart in a field in Pennsylvania.
“Never forget,” we said afterward. “Never forget the everyday Americans and the others from all walks of life who perished that day,” we said. “The people who represented the multitude of differences between Americans but were, for a brief moment, united by their humanity.”
“Never forget,” we said about the first responders from the police and fire departments and emergency techs in New York City, Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and rural Pennsylvania who came to the aid of those injured, dying, or dead. Especially those who died that day because their jobs had them rushing into the burning buildings rather than out of them.
America, we forgot—and we should be ashamed.
Over the last decade, we’ve watched as the nation turned in on itself. First responders are being shunned, even assassinated. In California this past weekend, so-called peaceful protestors gathered outside the hospital where two Los Angeles County deputies who’d been ambushed were being treated, shouting their hopes the officers would die.
This didn’t start with Donald Trump. This didn’t start with Barack Obama. It started outside politics, in the American culture where somehow we’ve been divided up, piecemeal, into groups airing grievances. Left or right, it makes no difference. We’ve allowed ourselves to be pitted against one another, and we should be ashamed.
We’ve forgotten that in America each life matters. We’re all created equal, as individuals, not assigned at birth into groups because of skin color, economic status, education, or biological sex. We are an imperfect nation, to be sure, but almost certainly less imperfect than any other.
The fanatics responsible for the murder of more than 3,000 of our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers on that dark day nineteen years ago didn’t attack us in protest of the country’s history of systemic racism. Or because women get paid less on average than men. Or because some people think you should have to show a government-issued photo ID that proves you are who you say you are before you can exercise your right to vote. Pick any complaint you want; it isn’t why America was attacked.
We were attacked because, out of all the nations of the world, America stands for the idea that all men and women are by their birthright free and should be treated equally under the law. We were attacked because of our ideas about religious liberty—that different faiths can coexist respectfully and peacefully—and because we believe women have just as much right as men to pursue an education. And for many other reasons, all of which have to do with what is best about us, because of the ideas that make our civilization strong. We are one nation and, fundamentally, we all matter. In the heat of the moment, we’ve forgotten that. Yet rather than dwell much longer on our errors, let’s come together in our strengths to make this nation all it can be, for now and for generations to come.
By • American Action News
Many agree that the United States is fortunate that the soaring Bald Eagle was chosen over the lowly Turkey, proposed by Benjamin Franklin, as its national bird. It is majestic, powerful, swift, and deadly. But now, it has also accidentally proven to be a capable anti-drone weapons system.- Advertisement –
Last month, a Bald Eagle engaged and defeated a Michigan state government drone flying over the Great Lakes. The drone the eagle took down was ironically operated by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).
According to USA Today, the $950 drone was 162 feet above the waters of Lake Michigan mapping shoreline erosion when attacked by the Bald Eagle. The bird reportedly swooped in and ripped a propeller off the drone causing it to fall into lake 150 feet offshore.
Despite an exhaustive search, the downed drone was not found.
“The motive for the attack is currently unknown, though territorial disputes and hunger are the leading theories,” reported USA Today, adding, “The drone team is considering ways to prevent future attacks, such as using designs that would make eagles less likely to mistake EGLE drones for seagulls.”
In a tweet, Michigan State Representative Beau M. LaFave said this about the “Eagle vs EGLE combat”: Michigan Eagle takes on EGLE (Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy) and wins. Bird can be heard singing “I fought the law, and I won”
One major positive from this incident, noted USA Today, is that it highlights a “thriving eagle population. A 2019 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey showed 849 active nesting sites in Michigan, up from a low point of 76 nesting sites in the 1970s.”
Another takeaway is that the Bald Eagle may be able to serve as a natural counter-drone defense system. Perhaps DARPA, DOD and DHS are already secretly working on this.
By • The Federalist
President Donald announced another historic peace deal for the Middle East on Friday between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain.
A joint statement released by the United States, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the State of Israel announced the “establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
The agreement also specifies that “peaceful worshippers of all faiths” will be allowed to visit mosques and holy sites in Israel.
In the statement, King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed their intent to “achieve a just, comprehensive, and enduring resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and praised Trump for “his dedication to peace in the region, his focus on shared challenges, and the pragmatic and unique approach he has taken to bringing their nations together.”
President Trump tweeted his support of the deal, calling it “another HISTORIC breakthrough” with “our two GREAT friends.”
The peace deal is the second of its kind involving Israel in the last month in a broader effort by the Trump administration to facilitate “stability, security, and prosperity” in the Middle East. A similar deal was struck between the United Arab Emirates and Israel in early August, making it the first “Gulf Arab country to open relations with the Jewish nation.”
In the Israel and UAE peace deal statement, the White House signaled the United States will be helping Israel continue to facilitate peace in the region with their largely Islamic neighbors.
“As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and at the request of President Trump with the support of the United Arab Emirates, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.”
Because of his efforts in facilitating peace in the Middle East, President Trump received two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
White House Innovations Director Jared Kushner praised Trump for assisting in two previously “unthinkable” deals for the Middle East. He said the deal met much “optimism” on his most recent trip overseas.
“This makes America safer, allows us to bring our troops home, and allows us to work on bringing prosperity to American communities,” Kushner said.
According to the joint statement, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani will sign the official “Declaration of Peace” on Sept. 15 at the White House.
By • Newsmax
The Pentagon is wisely examining future risks of missile attack and making plans to prevent them. These plans will take at least 10 years to develop — maybe even longer, as everything often does not go as planned. In the meantime, we have our current generation Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) protecting America. While waiting for the next generation missile defense to be developed, we must keep our current generation defenses up-to-date and fully capable.
This is where there is troubling news. To afford the next generation system, the Pentagon is planning to use the funding for updates and improvements to our current GMD system to pay for the development of a future system — effectively limiting our defenses and placing America a greater risk over the next 10 years.
Our enemies are pursuing more capable missiles — greater range, greater speed, greater maneuverability to avoid interception, the ability to deploy better decoys and the ability to jam defensive technologies to effectively blind them. So it is very risky to forgo improvements to our current defenses while we work on a future system that won’t be ready for at least 10 years!
I wholeheartedly endorse the need to develop a next generation missile defense system. But the idea of leaving us exposed to a devastating missile attack in just a few short years and then leaving us even more exposed for the balance of the next decade is completely insane. The Pentagon is effectively saying that it will trust in the goodwill of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and in the kindness of the Communist Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping — who actively hid the truth from the rest of the world and lied about COVID, making the pandemic more deadly and the economic impact devastating. Imagine the insanity of trusting in the goodwill of the Iranian Mullahs? Even Russia, while no longer our chief geopolitical rival, still poses a significant risk.
We must always outpace the evolving threats. Thomas Jefferson wisely warned Americans that the price of liberty is “eternal vigilance.” And George Washington counseled that “to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” These words should ring loudly in our ears. To fail to be vigilant on something as important as nuclear missile attack is worse than stupid, it is suicidal!
Our layered missile defense includes elements that protect our troops around the globe wherever they may be, and the vast American homeland. GMD defends America’s vast homeland. Patriot, Aegis and THAAD are designed to protect American warfighters, bases and ships from missile attack. Their coverage zone is far too small to effectively protect the vast US homeland.
For example, Aegis as impressive as it is, defends an area that is 14 times smaller than GMD, based on material recently presented by VADM Jon Hill, Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. And THAAD’s area defended is less than half that of Aegis and neither gives a second shot intercept opportunity.
To defend the vast American homeland, we have GMD. And that is the system the Pentagon wants to significantly upgrade in about 10 years. Eventually, the plan is for GMD to employ the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI). But neglecting our current GMD system — killing off all upgrades, zeroing out all improvements, and refusing to increase the number of interceptors we have available will only benefit our enemies and place Americans at risk until the day the new system is available — at least 10 years from now.
Without the ability to test the system and keep our defenses sharp, we would simply be hoping for good results. Hope isn’t a serious strategy when it comes to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
To be blunt, leaving the current system without incremental upgrades for the next 10 years while announcing a major system upgrade that will hopefully be ready in 10 years, sounds like an invitation to attack before the new system is in place and while the current system has grown outdated and less capable. We shouldn’t be sending that sort of invitation to the world’s dictators.
The President and many in Congress on both sides of the aisle want to upgrade our current defenses and also develop the needed next generation defense. Americans of all political stripes should want to prevent America from suffering a devastating nuclear missile attack.
We need Congress to provide sufficient funding for missile defense so that we can keep our current defenses strong, and so that we can develop even better future defenses to meet the growing risks. To do less than this is reckless and courting disaster. And those who are willing to recklessly court disaster should never again be trusted to serve the American people.
Could it signal a new era in the Middle East?
By • DrLarryOnline.com
President Trump last Thursday announced the first Middle Eastern treaty in 26 years between Israel and an Arab country. Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will establish full diplomatic relations between the two countries. The heart of the agreement is the UAE recognition of Israeli sovereignty in exchange for Israel’s postponing its intention to annex the Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The treaty is being hailed as a major step toward peace in the Middle East.
Most of us do not know enough about the situation to understand the importance of this step. So, let’s take a quick look.
From President Trump’s first trip abroad which was to Saudi Arabia in 2017 and ever since, one of his first priorities in foreign policy has been to promote peace in the Middle East, which has cost the United States so much blood and treasure in the past several years. The underlying motivation for USA involvement since the 1920’s has been protection of America’s oil supply, the greatest source of which has been the Middle East, specifically (since the fall of Iran in 1978) Saudi Arabia.
One of the greatest imperatives, therefore, has been to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. Luckily, the development of new technology for the venerable practice of fracking has made that goal achievable, and the encouragement of the new Administration has assisted the industry to realize America’s independence from importing foreign oil – a major milestone in Middle Eastern policy.
The full effect of this abundance, however, has been delayed by the lack of available refinery capacity, due to very onerous restrictions imposed by previous Congresses aimed at protecting the environment. Nevertheless, the USA now occupies a much stronger position than previously in its Middle Eastern negotiations.
The other major factor in Middle Eastern policy since 1948 has been the US relationship with Israel, particularly, the hostility with which Israel has been viewed by its Arab neighbors. Egypt, the largest Arab neighbor of Israel, made peace with Israel in 1978. That treaty was brokered by President Jimmy Carter after President Richard Nixon saved the Israelis from defeat in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. However, there have been few additional breakthroughs since then as the Palestinians grew more and more influential after being adopted by Iran.
This treaty has followed a succession of moves by the Trump Administration over the past three years, after President Obama had alienated the Sunni Muslim neighbors of Israel by his extraordinary treatment of Iran, the leader now of the Shia Muslim countries in the age old feud between the two branches of Islam. The open enmity of the Iranian leadership toward all the allies of the United States, especially against its Sunni neighbors, has been growing as Iran has committed more and more resources to its terrorist activities. Understandably, the Obama pact has therefore become ever more odious to our Sunni allies. So, in order to show them good faith, Trump repudiated that agreement (which was never ratified by the US Senate).
Next, he moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, implementing a promise made by several of his predecessors but never executed. He then formed the Sunni-Israeli Coalition which unofficially coordinates the anti-Iran activities of its members – Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman. The establishment of this group is an astonishing development, given the fierce anti-Israeli posture of Arabs in the past. It also engages the leader of the Sunni opposition, Saudi Arabia, with Israel in a way which was inconceivable only a few years ago.
Now comes the treaty with the UAE. Because of its strategic position at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the beginning of the Gulf of Oman as well as its vast oil reserves, the UAE is very influential as a trend-setter among the Sunni countries. It also has a very vulnerable coastline across the narrowest stretch of Persian Gulf water between its shores and coast of Iran.
Another consideration can be imputed to the government in that its economy – and its citizens – tend to be aggressive, prosperous and progressive. The increased familiarity with Israel is bound to be reflected in an increased exposure to the United States which bodes well for one of the historically most active trading centers in the Gulf, if not in the entire Arab world. This aspect of the new treaty is highlighted by the invitation to the principals to come to the White House for the official signing of the treaty in the next three weeks.
In summary, this treaty joins similar treaties between Israel and two other Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan (1984), and is a significant step towards the President’s goal of creating a more peaceful Middle East, where the USA’s interests can be trade and commerce instead of war and violence. However, this development and the trend of the Sunni nations to band together with the United States does have a military implication.
For one thing, it puts Iraq, a traditional enemy of Iran, but one where Iranian influence has been rapidly increasing, right in the crosshairs of the territorial distance between Iran’s eastern border with Iran, and its western border with Saudi Arabia. In spite of all the sacrifices Americans made to win freedom for the Iraqi people, the ascendency of Iran’s influence there makes its future posture toward the USA highly problematical.
Be that as it may, UAE’s joining the American side of this rivalry must be comforting to them. And this, of course, is due to the Trump revival of America’s military capabilities. Seeking protection from a country which could not defeat a ragtag force of Afghan rebels in 19 years would not be attractive without it. Only a double-edged initiative of diplomacy and might will win new friends.
Finally, there is China. The UAE is one of China’s major suppliers of energy. Accordingly, China has been taking a notable interest in the UAE — and all of the Gulf states. It is not beyond imagination that China has had its eye on major influence, if not control, of the Persian Gulf, with its friend Iran on one bank and the UAE on the other. China’s avowed goal of world domination would be well served if their permission, if not assistance, would be required for commerce to continue in the world’s most active energy industry depots. In that particular race, the treaty means America 1, China 0.
Well done, Mr. President, and congratulations also to your young phenomenon, Jared Kushner (who represented the President on these negotiations).
By • Real Clear Politics
Between June 24 and July 22, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General William Barr, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a series of speeches on the China challenge. In mid-July — after the national security adviser’s and FBI director’s speeches but before the attorney general’s and secretary of state’s speeches — the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights released a draft report.
The report examines the implications of the American Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the place of human rights in American foreign policy. Focusing on principles rather than concrete policy controversies, the report provoked considerably more partisan rancor than the series of speeches by high-ranking administration officials about the need for the nation to address the Communist Party of China’s resolute efforts to marshal its dictatorial powers to undercut American interests and transform world order.
Perhaps the relatively restrained reception of the four speeches is a good sign: It may suggest an emerging national consensus about the urgency of the China challenge. Yet awareness of a daunting problem does not guarantee the capacity to deal with it effectively. The controversy over the commission’s report — indeed, the indignation and scorn directed by many politicians, pundits, professors, and NGOs at the very idea of allocating taxpayer dollars to regrounding U.S. diplomacy in America’s founding principles and constitutional responsibilities — reflects the nation’s disunity, a disunity that thwarts the planning and implementation of foreign policy.
Understanding the nation’s founding principles along with its governing structures and its international obligations is crucial to developing a prudent appreciation of the nation’s vital interests and the practicable means for achieving them. In a time of severe political polarization, moreover, such understanding can contribute to the reinvigoration of the social cohesion and political consensus, the civic concord, on which developing and executing a demanding foreign policy has always depended.
The administration’s recent series of speeches about China stresses the connection between governing ideas and foreign policy, for China as well as for the United States.
In his June 24 speech at the Arizona Commerce Authority in Phoenix, O’Brien ascribed “the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s” — the failure “to understand the nature of the Chinese Communist Party” — to the refusal to “pay heed to the CCP’s ideology.” The CCP’s ruthless indoctrination of its own people and promulgation of deceitful propaganda abroad, along with its purchasing and stealing of personal data about Americans and hundreds of millions around the world, flows from communist convictions: “Under communism, individuals are merely a means to be used toward the achievement of the ends of the collective nation state,” said O’Brien. “Thus, individuals can be easily sacrificed for the nation state’s goals.” In contrast, the United States, “will stay true to our principles — especially freedom of speech — which stand in stark contrast to the Marxist-Leninist ideology embraced by the CCP… and above all, continue to proclaim that all women and men are entitled by right of God to liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness.”
In his July 7 remarks at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Wray focused on the threat posed by China’s counterintelligence operations and economic espionage. American citizens, according to Wray, “are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.” By means of a “whole-of-state effort,” China uses technology to steal personal and corporate data “to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary.” Because communism erases the distinction between government and party, public and private, and civilian and military, the CCP can concentrate prodigious resources to exploit U.S. freedom and openness to erode American competitiveness and prosperity. The United States, maintained Wray, must redouble its commitment to enforcing criminal laws and upholding international norms: “The FBI and our partners throughout the U.S. government will hold China accountable and protect our nation’s innovation, ideas, and way of life — with the help and vigilance of the American people.”
In his July 17 speech in Michigan at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, Barr summarized the predatory commercial practices by which China has cornered markets, induced economic dependence, and transformed the international order to advance its hegemonic interests. In particular, Barr emphasized that Beijing has impelled American enterprises to toe China’s party line. Hollywood alters the content of its films to avoid offending the CCP. Apple removed a news app from the phones it sells in China because of CCP displeasure over the app’s coverage of the Hong Kong democracy protests. Under pressure from Chinese influence campaigns threatening the loss of access to China’s enormous markets, American business leaders of all sorts “put a ‘friendly face’ on pro-regime policies.” And American higher education and research institutions face, and in many cases have succumbed to, China’s determined efforts “to infiltrate, censor, or co-opt.” To counter the China challenge, Barr calls on corporate and academic leaders to appreciate “that what allowed them to succeed in the first place was the American free enterprise system, the rule of law, and the security afforded by America’s economic, technological, and military strength.”
In his July 22 capstone speech at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, Pompeo distilled the China challenge: “China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else.” Stressing that America’s quarrel is with the Chinese Communist Party, which governs dictatorially, and not with the Chinese people, whose human rights the CCP systematically violates, Pompeo maintained that the United States must change China’s behavior. To do so the U.S. must fully understand Chinese communism, which drives the regime’s quest for global hegemony. To be sure, “the only way to truly change communist China is to act not on the basis of what Chinese leaders say, but how they behave.” But how Beijing behaves becomes intelligible in light of what the CCP says at party gatherings and in official documents about the imperatives for totalitarian rule at home and the establishment beyond China’s borders of a worldwide tributary system with Beijing at the center. Because of China’s hegemonic ambition, formidable economic power, and unremitting military buildup, Pompeo asserted, “securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time, and America is perfectly positioned to lead it because our founding principles give us that opportunity.”
But will we seize that opportunity? Can an angry and divided nation draw on its founding principles and constitutional traditions, as the secretary of state asked the Commission on Unalienable Rights to do? Can citizens across the political spectrum take pride in, preserve, and carry forward America’s great achievements in respecting the nation’s founding principles while learning from the country’s flagrant deviations from them? Can people throughout the nation recover the conviction that the practice of American constitutional government and the belief that inspires it — that all are by nature free and equal — provide the common ground on which citizens of diverse persuasions can air their differences, accommodate competing perspectives, make their cases, and instruct and be instructed, and so rededicate themselves to the shared enterprise of self-government?
To rise to the China challenge, we must.
