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May 13, 2024> Bruce Thornton          –           Stop Negotiating With Wolves> Joseph Hanneman    –    Nearly 50 FBI, Homeland, Army Intelligence,                        JTTF Agents Worked on Jan. 6> Liz Peek          –           Will the Economy Slow or Fall Off a Cliff?> Nate Jackson            –           Trump Was Impeached for                             What Biden Just Did… AgainStop Negotiating With WolvesThe consequences of not learning from history and tradition. By: Bruce ThorntonFront PageMay 9, 2024 Last week an event took place that illustrates the folly of negotiating with passionate ideologues and autocrats with whom there is no common ground for a meeting of the minds necessary for a true agreement. This practical wisdom, based on human experience going back 28 centuries to Homer, has been forgotten by most modern Western leaders and foreign policy hands, who believe that negotiations, non-lethal “engagement,” and persuasion can override an autocratic adversary’s passionate interests and ambitions that by nature conflict with our own. The occasion was a three-day, humiliating meeting that our Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, attended in China. As Gatestone Institute’s Gordon Chang reported, “China, literally and figuratively, did not roll out the red carpet for [Blinken’s] arrival in Shanghai on Wednesday. Only a low-level official was on hand to greet Blinken as he stepped off the plane.” Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think-tank told Gatestone, “Aside from a calculated insult to the dignity of the United States, the move indicates Xi Jinping is making clear that the accepted norms of diplomacy will not be respected by China anymore.” So much for the “rules-based new world order” that the West thinks the Rest actually follow rather than engage tactically. But that assumption is a delusion, as Beijing has demonstrated even since George W. Bush welcomed China to the World Trade Organization in 2001, whose protocols and rules China has serially violated and gamed. And why shouldn’t it? What have been the material consequences for doing so? Or for ignoring contemptuously our diplomatic statements of  “concern,” or other finger-wagging scoldings? For example, one of Blinken’s tasks, Matt Pottinger writes in the Journal, during his visit was to repeat Joe Biden’s warning to China two years ago not to provide Russia with materiel and resources to support its war in Ukraine. Biden had also claimed that if Xi continued to do so, “he made sure the Chinese president understood he would ‘be putting himself in significant jeopardy’ and risking China’s economic ties with the U.S. and Europe if he materially supported Russia’s war.” Of course, nothing significant followed Biden’s stern but empty warning. The Secretaries of Commerce and the Treasury did threaten to impose economic sanctions, which apparently concentrated Xi’s mind briefly. But according to the Journal, “In 2023, when the Biden administration applied only token sanctions on Iranian entities that provided thousands of kamikaze drones to the Russians—drones that have saturated Ukrainian air defenses and caused widespread carnage—the Chinese probably decided that Mr. Biden’s bluster was a bluff. In March 2023, Mr. Xi visited the Kremlin in a bold show of solidarity with Mr. Putin. It turned out to be a watershed in Moscow’s war, effectively turning the conflict into a Chinese proxy war with the West.” Indeed, two years later as Blinken complained to the Chinese last week, their dismissal of Biden’s warnings has led to China becoming “overwhelmingly the No. 1 supplier” of Russia, and the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “fundamentally changed the course of the war.” Then there’s North Korea, an earlier beneficiary of Western appeasement. The Norks established the modus operandi, now being used by Iran, for gulling the West by playing the “diplomatic engagement” game until they could present the world with a fait accompli of several nuclear weapons. The history compiled by the Arms Control Association documents how the canny Kims survived over three decades of sanctions and flabby threats; pocketed “incentives” and other numerous “quids” without delivering the “quos”; participated in numerous negotiations and summits, and signed a plethora of “agreements” that they have serially violated. Their aim all along had been obvious: possession of nuclear weapons that can be delivered on missiles capable of reaching the U.S. And now North Korea is working with China and Russia to weaken the Western “rules-based international order” and ultimately replace it with a coalition of illiberal autocracies. The totalitarian triumvirate recently provided an example of their collaboration. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported, “The United Nations panel to monitor North Korean sanctions expired. It did so because in March Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution to extend its mandate. Russia was the only nation on the 15-member Security Council to oppose the extension—though China pointedly abstained.” The “panel” was one of many “parchment barriers” the West relies on to create the illusion of action when it is politically too costly. Having appeased North Korea by letting it acquire nuclear weapons, useless “sanctions” were imposed, and the panel was created to “monitor” the Norks and write reports to be filed and forgotten. But replacing action with rhetoric is why the UN was created, and how it has, with few exceptions, functioned for 79 years. We should have by now recognized that such machinations by member states in pursuit of national interests would prevail, if only because its precursor, the League of Nations, had failed for the same reasons. So while the West dithers and prevaricates by inadequately arming Ukraine, and blusters about Putin’s war, Iran provides home-grown drones partly financed with Biden’s billions in danegeld for the mullahs. North Korea is also helping out:  the UN sanctions monitor said “a missile recovered from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was a North Korean Hwasong-11 ballistic missile. This is on top of 10,000 containers of military munitions the Kim Jong Un regime has delivered in support of Russia’s war effort.” No word on why the “sanctions” haven’t deterred North Korea or Iran, which has brazenly flouted sanctions for years, and now stands on the brink of possessing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Such are the consequences of not learning from history and tradition, the wisdom of those who have come before us. Instead, we cling to feckless idealism about human nature, and ignore the real, multifaceted diversity of peoples and cultures that belie our arrogant fantasies about the “global community” of nations that want to be just like us––secular, prosperous, tolerant, and peaceful. No doubt many millions around the world do, but many other millions see our fashionable self-loathing, feckless spending on entitlements, neglect of our military, metastazing government debt, and failure of nerve in the face of our enemies’ challenges, and say “No thanks”–– or strive, like the “axis of evil” 2.0, to replace the West, especially the U.S., as the global hegemon and enforcer of global order. So here we are, preaching that war is an anomaly, rather than, as Plato said, by nature the default condition of interstate relations, and peace “is only a name.”So we extoll “diplomatic engagement” and negotiated agreements over force, also forgetting the wisdom of Thomas Hobbes: virtues like: “justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants, without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.” Finally, we must acknowledge and confront the reality of our enemies’ radically different foundational beliefs and purposes that preclude reasonable and honest negotiation absent a credible threat of force. As Achilles says to the doomed Hector, “argue me no agreements . . . as there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have a spirit that can be brought to agreement.” Until we restore realism to our foreign policy and stop being lambs negotiating with wolves, we will continue to weaken ourselves and strengthen our enemies. Bruce S. Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an emeritus professor of classics and humanities at California State University, Fresno, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.  Nearly 50 FBI, Homeland, Army Intelligence,JTTF Agents Worked on Jan. 6The heavy presence of undercover federal agentsconstituted an ‘induced entrapment of all whowere at the Capitol,’ defendant William Pope wrote. By: Joseph M. HannemanMay 6, 2024(Notation added by Rip McIntosh) Nearly 50 FBI special agents and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)—including U.S. Army counterintelligence, Homeland Security, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) personnel—were on duty Jan. 6, 2021, and later provided affidavits in federal Jan. 6 criminal cases, a new court filing says. A motion by defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, suggested that many of those agents were on U.S. Capitol grounds during the protests and breach that took place on that day. Mr. Pope wrote that the presence of so many federal agents should have resulted in a more aggressive security posture by police that would have prevented violence and the need for criminal cases later filed against nearly 1,400 people. “…The magnitude of the government’s actions on and before January 6 were so outrageous and shocking that they constitute an induced entrapment of all who were at the Capitol regardless of predisposition,”Mr. Pope wrote. Former U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Steven Sund said the FBI did not share any intelligence that would have indicated the violence that played out that day. The USCP intelligence division did not share all of the information it had gathered with Mr. Sund, who later told a U.S. House panel, “Jan. 6 was an intelligence failure.” Chief Sund writes extensively about this failure in his book Courage Under Fire which details the events leading up to and during January 6. Mr. Pope produced a spreadsheet of nearly 50 FBI special agents and other officers from the Bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force who indicated in criminal charging documents that they were on duty on Jan. 6. This group included a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent from Colorado, an NCIS special agent, FBI special agents from New York, Nashville, Memphis, Newark, Philadelphia, and Albany, New York, and an agent from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, the motion stated. “There is now ample evidence that the FBI had a heavy presence at the Capitol on January 6, which is even more alarming considering the fact that we now know they had intelligence that was not shared with other agencies,” Mr. Pope wrote, asking Judge Rudolph Contreras to reconsider his request for discovery on undercover FBI agents and other law enforcement agency activities on Jan. 6. “This constitutes outrageous government conduct.” The U.S. Department of Justice has not yet responded to Mr. Pope’s motions. The DOJ has a longstanding policy of not commenting on cases except in court filings. The Epoch Times asked the FBI via email for an estimate of how many personnel were on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The FBI National Press Office replied: “We’re not able to provide you with that information.” Mr. Pope said that “it is likely that hundreds of other FBI agents were also on duty on January 6, but have not overtly disclosed their on-duty presence.” ‘Raindrop Theory’Mr. Pope indicated part of the defense in his criminal case will use a variation of the controversial “Raindrop Theory” employed widely by the U.S. Department of Justice to argue that each protester at the Capitol helped create conditions that led to violence and a delay in counting of Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress. He argued that each undercover federal agent at the Capitol was a “raindrop”that was responsible for the chaos at the Capitol because the FBI and other agencies did not act on intelligence that would have resulted in more extensive security and prevented the breach and violence. By “flooding the field” with agents and not altering the security posture at the Capitol, the FBI and other agencies created an extensive entrapment by “outrageous government conduct,” Mr. Pope said in a 32-page motion. “I am seeking all discovery related to failure to act on intelligence to enhance the Capitol’s security posture, and all discovery related to undercover government operations at the Capitol, since such discovery is needed to demonstrate outrageous government conduct and will be exculpatory to my defense within the framework of the Raindrop legal theory,” Mr. Pope wrote. On April 23, Judge Contreras denied seven motions by Mr. Pope seeking information about undercover FBI agents and members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU). The judge sided with federal prosecutors “that defendant has failed to show that the government has an obligation to produce the requested material.”  [?????] Mr. Pope’s new motions ask Judge Contreras to reconsider his decision based on new information. Mr. Pope wrote that he is “adopting the ‘Raindrop Theory’ as a legal defense to show that agencies had intelligence but did not alter their security posture, thus allowing conditions to exist that induced the field flooding; and that persons in the crowd were working undercover for the same government agencies, and that their mere presence as raindrops, even if ‘modestly behaved,’ increased the chaos and flooding of the field.” The government “allowed conditions to exist that made flooding possible by withholding intelligence and intentionally maintaining a reduced security posture,” Mr. Pope wrote, and “saturated the crowd with their own agents and informants (raindrops), including at the initial breach points, which caused the field to be flooded.” Failures by the FBI, Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense led to the conditions that developed on Jan. 6, he said.“If it were not for these failures, I would have never perceived Capitol grounds to be open to the public, and there would be no entry into the Capitol, or charges filed,” Mr. Pope wrote. “These failures were the result of outrageous government conduct, and they resulted in a trap for the hundreds of Americans who have now been charged for January 6.” In citing his intent to use an entrapment by outrageous government conduct defense, Mr. Pope cited the 1973 Supreme Court case United States v. Russell. The High Court wrote in that case that “we may someday be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction.” “I am arguing that the scope and nature of government presence and involvement at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is ’shocking to the universal sense of justice‘ and violates the ’fundamental fairness’ mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment,” Mr. Pope said. Navy WarningThe U.S. Navy told its regular members not to attend the Jan. 6 speech by former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Pope said, citing a Navy email entered into evidence in the case of United States v. David Elizalde. Mr. Elizalde, 47, a Navy petty officer, was found guilty in a December 2023 bench trial of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building on Jan. 6, a petty misdemeanor. He was sentenced on April 19 to 30 days of home detention and fined $2,500. “The fact that the Navy took the unusual step of ordering their regular crews to not engage in First Amendment activity or attend a speech by their Commander and Chief [sic] on January 6, indicates that the Navy possessed intelligence that the events of January 6, 2021, would not be ordinary,” he wrote. “The Navy’s decision to share this warning with their own members, but not the general public, is evidence of outrageous government conduct,” he said. Citing a 2022 report in Newsweek, Mr. Pope said elite commandos were sent to the Capitol on Jan. 6 under the auspices of the FBI. This development was a stark contrast to the critical delays in getting National Guard troops to the Capitol to assist police, he said. “This extraordinary deployment of elite military forces appears even stranger when viewed in context of the Pentagon withholding National Guard forces for hours on January 6, and then attempting to cover it up,” Mr. Pope wrote. “In a recent congressional hearing, senior leaders of the D.C. National Guard testified that they were ready to deploy to the Capitol on January 6, but that Gen. Charles Flynn and Gen. Walter Piatt obstructed deployment and lied about events. “The Pentagon seemingly had enough intelligence to deploy commandos and warn Navy members to stay away from January 6 events, but their operational posture on intelligence indicates that rather than entirely prevent what happened, they were willing to allow a trap to be set for ordinary Americans like myself,” Mr. Pope said. Among the federal personnel working on Jan. 6, Mr. Pope cited the case of Charles Robertson, a U.S. Army Counterintelligence special agent from Colorado and a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Mr. Robertson wrote the FBI statement of facts in the case of Rebecca K. Lavrenz, 71, of Peyton, Colorado. Ms. Lavrenz was found guilty by a jury on April 4 of four trespassing-related misdemeanors for going into the Capitol in Jan. 6. Mr. Pope’s filing also noted recent disclosures by Judicial Watch that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deployed two bomb technicians to assist with the pipe bomb found at the Democratic National Committee on Jan. 6. Text messages obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) revealed there were “several CIA dog teams on standby” on Jan. 6. Mr. Pope cited what he called “outrageous conduct” by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) undercover officers, including “repeatedly urging people to advance up the steps to the Capitol, thanking people who removed fences, and congratulating people who broke windows.” The DOJ has not produced full discovery from the more than two dozen undercover officers working for the MPD’s Electronic Surveillance Unit, he said. Video, photographs, and investigative reports are still missing despite requests that they be produced by the DOJ, Mr. Pope said. “The fact that it has taken the government more than three years to produce these files, and that they are still withholding many others, is extremely alarming,” he wrote. “This slow roll of discovery obstructs defense preparations, especially in the context of my Raindrop Theory defense. The court should not allow the government to continue delaying remaining productions.”  Will the Economy Slow or Fall Off a Cliff? By: Liz PeekThe HillMay 10, 2024 Unemployment claims surged this week, suggesting the economy, and the jobs market, is weakening. The question is: Will growth slow, or is the economy about to fall off a cliff? Will there be a soft landing or a recession?   Americans continue to give President Biden low marks on the economy, despite incessant assurances from the White House that things are going great. Ongoing inflation, high interest rates, unaffordable housing and a softening jobs market seem more persuasive than a stock market fueled by AI enthusiasm and the president’s misleading claims that he has “created” millions of jobs.    The reality is, the U.S. economy is being supported by three shaky pillars: over-the-top government spending, an overly concentrated stock market and unprecedented illegal immigration. The result is flagging growth, volatile stocks, declining consumer confidence and pressure on unskilled wages.   There’s a reason famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller recently gave Bidenomics an “F” grade. He blasted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for too much government spending and Fed Chair Jay Powell for “fumbling on the five-yard line” in his fight against inflation. The billionaire is, of course, totally right.   Yellen “just keeps spending and spending,” Druckenmiller says, “[and] it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the average American is getting hurt by the inflation.” At the same time, Druckenmiller says Powell undermined his battle to bring down inflation by pumping up the prospects of rate cuts late last year. Right again. Soaring markets, juiced by optimism about lower interest rates, feed rising consumer optimism and spending, effectively counteracting the Fed’s effort to slow growth.  The result has been inflation numbers that are unexpectedly high and a Fed chair who has had to ice expectations of multiple rate cuts. Meanwhile, the economy is definitely slowing. April hiring, at 175,000 minus downward revisions of 22,000, came in below expectations, a report that was met with a Pavlovian response from traders. Stocks soared, and even amid renewed chatter about “stagflation,” predictions of rate cuts blossomed.   A year and a half ago, most investors were expecting a recession; today that concern has nearly vanished. And yet, there are some worrisome signs that could mean a downturn is coming. As Ed Hyman at Evercore ISI has frequently noted, in 2000, on the cusp of recession, everything was fine until it wasn’t.  Specifically, the job market was strong during the first five months of 2000, with additions averaging 265,000; in May, the government reported adding 223,000 jobs. The very next month, the “dot com” merry-go-round stopped, and for 26 of the next 42 months, jobs growth went negative.   ISI is monitoring signs of a downturn, including most recently the firm’s trucking survey, which tracks GDP and is in contraction territory. In addition, state and local tax receipts, another barometer of economic strength, are also declining.   The Institute for Supply Management reported that the PMI for the services sector fell into contraction territory in April, which was a surprise since that segment of the economy has enjoyed solid growth. Prices accelerated as new orders slowed; companies reported laying off workers at a faster pace. At the same time, manufacturing has been in a slump for 17 of the last 18 months.   Jobs remain key to consumer spending. Top-line figures on employment are misleading. Government, health care and social assistance contributed 60 percent of new jobs. That does not bode well for increased productivity or growth. The National Federation of Independent Businesses reported recently: “Owners’ plans to fill open positions continue to slow,” with the number expecting to hire at “the lowest level since May 2020.”   The weakening employment picture and still-high inflation are causing consumers to pull back. CEOs of numerous companies like McDonald’s, 3M and Starbucks have commented that (especially) low-income Americans are feeling pinched and are cutting back. After the burger chain reported disappointing sales, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski noted consumers “are more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending.” The management of 3M said consumer spending on discretionary items was soft and that overall outlays were likely to remain “muted.”   Inflation pressure shows up in declining consumer confidence in the future, which last month dropped to its lowest level since July 2022. The Conference Board reported that survey participants were anxious about prices, the jobs outlook, incomes and stock prices. Assessing present conditions, more respondents reported that jobs are hard to get.    Robust consumer spending has been driving the economy, fueled by excess savings piled up during the pandemic and the “wealth effect” of rising stock prices. But rising credit card debt is a warning sign that Americans are still shopping even though their savings have dwindled. With rates well above 20 percent on credit card borrowings, delinquencies are rising and spending is slowing.  Fed data shows that Americans pulled in their credit card borrowing in March. Total revolving debt, which mainly reflects credit card debt, grew by $152 million in March, a sharp drop from the $10.7 billion added in February, and the smallest increase since April 2021. Overall consumer debt, which includes auto and student loans, rose by $6.3 billion, considerably less than the $14.8 billion economists had expected.    One factor fueling spending has been hefty stock market gains — the “wealth effect” — which bolster confidence and expenditures. But the stock market rally is concentrated in 10 stocks, which together constitute 34 percent of the total market capitalization, the highest level of concentration since the 1970s. As one market observer notes: “Even at the peak of the 2000 Dot-com bubble, the weight of the top 10 stocks not break above 30% of the index.”   If the economy suddenly falters, the Fed will surely cut interest rates. Whether they will be nimble enough to stave off a possible recession remains to be seen. The record is not encouraging.   Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company.     Trump Was Impeached for What Biden Just Did… AgainThe president is withholding military aid fromIsrael in exchange for personal political benefit. By: Nate JacksonThe Patriot PostMay 10, 2024(Emphasis added) “President Trump withheld Congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine unless they granted him a political favor. It’s the definition of quid pro quo. This is no joke — Trump continues to put his own personal, political interests ahead of the national interest. He must be impeached. ” That was Candidate Joe Biden on October 19, 2019. Replace “Trump” with “Biden” and “Ukraine” with “Israel,” and Joe Biden just incriminated himself, at least according to new Democrat standards for impeachment. Two weeks after Congress approved and Biden signed a bill allocating $26 billion in aid for Israel, Biden announced that the U.S. would withhold weapons to protest Israel’s military action in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah,” Biden said, “I’m not supplying the weapons.” In other words, Biden wants to micromanage how Israel conducts its totally legitimate war against Hamas, and he wants to do so with a quid pro quo because he needs a political favor. Pro-Hamas hooligans in America are upset with Biden, and he needs to show them he’s reining in Israel so they’ll still vote for him in November. Unlike notoriously corrupt Ukraine, however, Israel effectively told Biden where he could stick those weapons. “If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I have said that, if necessary, we will fight with our fingernails.” In any case, the impeachment comparison is clear. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy sarcastically writes, “I’m old enough to remember when House Democrats impeached and Senate Democrats voted unanimously (though unsuccessfully) to convict and remove a president for withholding congressionally approved, taxpayer-funded aid from an allied country — one that desperately needed the aid while fighting a defensive war against a barbaric enemy — in order to pressure that desperate ally to help the president get reelected.” Republicans see the comparison, too. “The House has no choice but to impeach Biden,” said Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, “based on the Trump-Ukraine precedent of withholding foreign aid to help with reelection. Only with Biden, it’s true.” Florida Republican Representative Cory Mills is drawing up articles of impeachment against “President ‘Quid pro Joe’ Biden,” brilliantly using language straight from New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler’s articles against Trump in 2019. Not only is Biden a hypocrite now, but he’s done this before — in Ukraine. It was way back when he was just Barack Obama’s sidekick in 2015 and his drug-addicted son Hunter was peddling influence for Burisma in Ukraine. A Ukrainian state prosecutor was investigating Burisma, which might have proved awfully inconvenient for the Bidens. So, three years later, the elder Biden boasted that he had told Ukrainian officials: “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” The money was a billion-dollar loan guarantee. “Well,” he said, “Son of a b***h. He got fired.” Another quid pro quo for political as well as personal reasons. Biden isn’t the only one working quid pro quos. The United Nations, which has become notoriously anti-Israel in recent decades, is at it again. In April, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution paving the way for full UN membership for “Palestine.” Today, the General Assembly passed a resolution elevating the Palestinian Authority from observer status to functional membership as if it’s a separate state. The “State of Palestine” shall have the “right to be seated among Member States,” the draft said, urging the Security Council to accept it. So, what’s the quid pro quo? Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis, as well as kidnapped, raped, and mutilated hundreds of others, so, says the UN, here’s official recognition of a virtual two-state “solution.” Hamas doesn’t even have to release any hostages — including five Americans — if there are any still alive. That’s rewarding terrorism with legitimacy. To say it’s reprehensible is woefully inadequate.  Yet that is also effectively what Joe Biden and his hordes of protesting Marxists have done. Team Biden could invoke legal provisions that require the U.S. to cease UN funding (over $700 million this year) if the Palestinian Authority is recognized in this way. But we all know Biden’s not going to do that. Back to the quid pro quo and impeachment. It was preposterous to impeach Trump for his call to his Ukrainian counterpart, and impeachment shouldn’t be on the table for Biden now. Presidents deserve the latitude to conduct foreign policy as they see fit, even if it’s outrageously wrong, as it is in this case. Yes, he’s betraying a key ally while sucking up to Islamofascist terrorists and grown-toddler protesters on American college campuses. Yet it should be up to voters to take his totally disgraceful behavior into account come November. If Biden is to be impeached, it should be for gross dereliction at the southern border, but that’s another story. In any case, the lesson here is clear. As is always the case with Democrats, if it weren’t for double standards, they wouldn’t have any. If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato

A PRAYER BY BISHOP STRICKLAND

Bishop J. Strickland

A prayer for our nation and those who are called to serve her… Eternal Father, we come before you in humble prayer for the public servants of our nation, and in particular, for the members of our intelligence and law enforcement services throughout the country and the world.  Lord, we pray that these public servants who have been commissioned to perform their duties with great integrity, and in a fair and impartial manner, will uphold the law, will protect the lives and rights of our citizens, and will honor God as they honor the oath of office to which they swore.  May these public servants protect the safety and security of our nation and its citizens while always respecting the God-given sanctity and dignity of life of all those they serve.  May those who commit injustice or who cooperate with evil, those who are involved in corruption, those who participate in operations that harm innocents, or those who in any way abuse the trust of their position, be stopped, exposed, and brought to justice, and may they ultimately be brought to repentance and conversion for the salvation of their souls.  For all these public servants, Lord, and for protection against any evil which may come as a result of their actions, we pray, and we ask all this through Christ Our Lord.  Amen.

Jean-Francois Orsini	Apr 22, 2024, 2:16 PM (11 days ago)
to me

Dear Excellency,I am all set up to sell the use of my AlexTest of personality based on the Cardinal Virtues.But backtracking one step, I realized the need to promote first that the Cardinal Virtues are the best elements for a theory of personality… from there then the proposition of a test based on the Cardinal Virtues should be readily accepted.I must add that it took me time and money but I had the test statistically validated and proven reliable. That validation makes certain to all – and in particular to the materialistic world – that the test is “Scientific”.I am very happy to introduce the theory and the test in the very unChristian world of the “Human Resources”. This worldly world by many means introduces the regular person as a future and actual employee to the world of work without any spiritual basis. (although I have to defend the point that good Cardinal Virtues do not make a saint.. but would certainly help to rise to the state of grace for Christians).Maybe some of your readers might be interested. I am grateful for any help in this matter.God blessJean-Francois

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Advocating for a Cardinal Virtues Theory of Personality

Jean-Francois Orsini, Ph.D.

The significance of centralizing the Cardinal Virtues within a Theory of Personality cannot be overstated. Our initial reference point will be the Wikipedia article on Personality. It is imperative to acknowledge that Wikipedia pages exhibit a distinct secular bias; however, they do effectively articulate the perspectives of worldly intellectuals on any given subject.

The Wikipedia article on Personality acknowledges the absence of a consensus definition for personality. Nonetheless, insight into various personality theories can be gleaned by examining the specific psychological variables these theories address. The article enumerates several tests, including the Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), the Rorschach Inkblot test, the Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON-2006, and Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R), all designed to study abnormal psychology in patients. Eysenck’s test also assesses temperament, a stable trait distinct from personality. However, these tests fail to illuminate the construct of a healthy, serene personality, which lies at the core of an inquiry into a theory of personality.

It is notable that the Myers-Briggs test, despite its popularity, is absent from this list. This omission raises the question of whether the listed tests are esteemed for their reliability and validity, attributes which the Myers-Briggs test may lack due to its origins in informal observation by its creators, Myers and Briggs, who lacked formal training in psychology.

The article also references the Big Five Inventory (BFI), which incorporates some virtues, warranting closer examination. The development of the Big Five test involved analyzing the relationships among numerous personality-related words, employing factor analysis to distill these words into five categories. This method prioritized statistical efficacy over reasoned selection of personality traits, akin to a sleight of hand that circumvented rigorous conceptual deliberation.

The resulting five groups are: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. While Neuroticism pertains to mental health issues best addressed at the physiological level, Extraversion represents a temperament inherent from birth. Discriminating based on temperament in employment contexts would be unjust and diminish organizational diversity, although such information may be valuable for coaches and mentors.

Conscientiousness encompasses a spectrum of virtues, including fairness, perseverance, foresight, understanding, circumspection, and firmness of resolve. Similarly, Openness to Experience embodies virtues such as affability, docility, sagacity, gratitude, liberality (non-politically construed), reasoning, magnificence, and audacity. Agreeableness is niceness/meekness, gratitude, and fairness. These fifteen intertwined virtues within the Big Five framework render the retained three to lack precision and comprehensiveness, falling short of a robust theory of personality, which ideally encompasses at least thirty virtues or traits.

According to Aristotelian philosophy, virtues are stable habits cultivated through confronting life’s challenges, whether pleasurable or painful. Developing virtuous habits demands effort, such as cultivating courage in the face of danger, justice in the midst of personal interest, good judgment in decision-making, and temperance in self-restraint.

It is important to emphasize that a virtue theory of personality is not inherently tied to any doctrinal bias. The Cardinal Virtues, originating from ancient Greek philosophy, transcend specific religious doctrines and find promotion across diverse belief systems, ranging from the Catholic Church to the Freemasons. Hence, it is ideally suited for widespread adoption.

Employees who actively cultivate virtuous habits demonstrate self-engagement and a commitment to personal growth, fostering a readiness to engage meaningfully in their work. Therefore, virtues, particularly the Cardinal Virtues, warrant inclusion in a theory of personality. Psychologists should strive to deepen their understanding of virtues and embrace a virtue-based approach to personality theory.

“Personality might be defined as the sum total of all of rational habits grouped around the axis of intellect” (Brennan Robert Edward, OP, Thomistic Psychology, 1941).

BLADE OF PERSEUS

Iran’s Nightmares

Details of the recent limited Israeli retaliatory strike against Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries at Isfahan are still sketchy. 

But nonetheless, we can draw some conclusions.

By: Victor Davis Hanson

Blade of Perseus

April 25, 2024

Israel’s small volley of missiles hit their intended targets, to the point of zeroing in on the very launchers designed to stop such incoming ordnance.

The target was near the Natanz enrichment facility. That proximity was by design. Israel showed Iran it could take out the very anti-missile battery designed to thwart an attack on its nearby nuclear facility.

The larger message sent to the world was that Israel could send a retaliatory barrage at Iranian nuclear sites with reasonable assurances that the incoming attacks could not be stopped. By comparison, Iran’s earlier attack on Israel was much greater and more indiscriminate. It was also a huge flop, with an estimated 99 percent of the more than 320 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles failing to hit their planned targets.

Moreover, it was reported that more than 50 percent of Iran’s roughly 115-120 ballistic missiles failed at launch or malfunctioned in flight.

Collate these facts, and it presents a disturbing corrective to Iran’s non-stop boasts of soon possessing a nuclear arsenal that will obliterate the Jewish state.

Consider further the following nightmarish scenarios: Were Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles ever launched at Israel, they could pass over, in addition to Syria and Iraq, either Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, or all four. In the cases of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, such trajectories would constitute an act of war, especially considering that some of Iran’s recent aerial barrages were intercepted and destroyed over Arab territory well before they reached Israel.

Iran’s strike prompted Arab nations, the US, the UK, and France to work in concert to destroy almost all of Iran’s drones. For Iran, that is a premonition of the sort of sophisticated aerial opposition it might face if it ever decided to stage a nuclear version.

Even if half of Iran’s ballistic missiles did launch successfully, only a handful apparently neared their intended targets—in sharp contrast to Israel’s successful attack on Iranian missile batteries. Is it thus conceivable that any Iranian-nuclear-tipped missile launched toward Israel might pose as great a threat to Iran itself or its neighbors as to Israel?

And even if such missiles made it into the air and even if they successfully traversed Arab airspace, there is still an overwhelming chance they would be neutralized before detonating above Israel.

Any such launch would warrant an immediate Israeli response. And the incoming bombs and missiles would likely have a 100 percent certainty of evading Iran’s countermeasures and hitting their targets.

Now that the soil of both Iran and Israel is no longer sacred and immune from attack, the mystique of the Iranian nuclear threat has dissipated.

It should be harder for the theocracy to shake down Western governments for hostage bribes, sanctions relief, and Iran-deal giveaways on the implied threat of Iran successfully nuking the Jewish state.

The new reality is that Iran has goaded an Israel that has numerous nuclear weapons and dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles in hardened silos and on submarines. Tehran has zero ability to stop any of these missiles or sophisticated fifth-generation Israeli aircraft armed with nuclear bombs and missiles.

Iran must now fear that if it launched 2-3 nuclear missiles, there would be overwhelming odds that they would either fail at launch, go awry in the air, implode inside Iran, be taken down over Arab territory by Israel’s allies, or be knocked down by the tripartite Israel anti-missile defense system.

Add it all up, and the Iranian attack on Israel seems a historic blunder. It showed the world the impotence of an Iranian aerial assault at the very time it threatens to go nuclear. It revealed that an incompetent Iran may be as much a threat to itself as to its enemies. It opened up a new chapter in which its own soil, thanks to its attack on Israel, is no longer off limits to any Western power.

Its failure to stop a much smaller Israel response, coupled with the overwhelming success of Israel and its allies in stopping a much larger Iranian attack, reminds the Iranian autocracy that its shrill rhetoric is designed to mask its impotence and to hide its own vulnerabilities from its enemies.

And the long-suffering Iranian people?

The truth will come out that its own theocracy hit the Israeli homeland with negligible results and earned a successful, though merely demonstrative, Israeli response in return.

So Iranians will learn their homeland is now vulnerable and, for the future, no longer off limits.

And they will conclude that Israel has more effective allies than Iran and that their own ballistic missiles may be more suicidal than homicidal.

As a result, they may conclude that the real enemies of the Iranian nation are not the Jewish people of Israel after all, but their own unhinged Islamist theocrats.

Many Culprits Behind Rise of Antisemitism, Including the Media

By: Howard Levitt

Gatestone Institute

April 23, 2024

Over the last several years, Canadian employers have increasingly brought in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) trainers to rid their workforces of conscious, and even subconscious, racism. On the face of it, who can object to diversity, equity and inclusion? It is like objecting to Santa Claus.

Unfortunately, these workshops too often have been hijacked by radical ideologues who pitted races against each other. The unhappy story of Richard Bilkszto, who committed suicide after alleging he was deemed a racist by one such trainer for observing that Canadians are not more racist than Americans, was simply the publicly exposed tip of that iceberg.

I have had many Jewish clients, even before Oct. 7, complain about how Jews have been treated in these DEI seminars. To what extent has this radical training played a role in the sudden outpouring of antisemitism here?

Who indeed is to blame for the wave of hatred toward Jews that is roiling Canadian workplaces, universities, unions, social media postings, even our streets and neighbourhoods?

Antisemitism has had a long sordid history in Canada and, for some (ironically many of those who have never knowingly even met a Jew), it has always been hidden just below the surface. There was a reprieve after the guilt induced by the atrocities of the Second World War. But it is ascendant again, and surprisingly, its adherents are proudly so.

Who are the purveyors of antisemitism?

Obviously, first are the radical Islamists importing their ancient historic Jew-hatred based on their particular interpretation of the Koran. Their hatred of Christians and other “infidels” is only slightly behind in the hierarchy.

There is the radical woke left, which has, since Israel’s underdog defeat of the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967, viewed Israel as an oppressor. I believe much of the antisemitism in the public sector union movement can be attributed to that strain.

There is the influence of DEI which has too often placed Jews at the top of a racial hierarchy, ignoring the fact that Jews have always been, and remain, dramatically more discriminated against than any other group, including those groups at the supposed bottom of the DEI hierarchy of intersectionality: Indigenous, Blacks, Muslims and the LGBTQIA+.

Allied with those forces are universities and colleges, which have been temples of wokeness for years, penalizing students who express views that dissent from their left-wing pronouncements. While campuses are hotbeds of support for Hamas, polls have shown young people who have not been in the clutches of our university and college professors support Israel, as do most other groups in Canada by large majorities.

Although I am distinguishing them, the left, the universities and DEI practitioners are somewhat interchangeable, and have many of the same members.

The last group which I believe has been responsible for rising antisemitism are irresponsible media publications.

Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, has been particularly one-sided and unrelenting in its coverage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. It still does not describe Hamas as a terrorist organization and has yet to apologize for falsely accusing Israel of bombing a hospital and killing hundreds — even though it has long been acknowledged that a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket was to blame and that the death toll was much lower.

Consistently, the CBC has presented a view of the war, distorted in Hamas’ favour.

In a recent column in the daily Toronto Sun, Warren Kinsella revealed that the CBC has a committee struck to directly oversee its coverage on Israel. He also reported that Jewish journalists there say the stories they pitch on the war are being routinely ignored.

CBC is the worst, but it is not alone. Montreal’s La Presse daily ran a ghoulish cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a repulsive vampire with a big nose and sharp claws poised to suck the life out of Palestinians, referring to him as “Nosfenyahu” in reference to the 1922 German silent horror movie Nosferatu, which has long been seen as deeply antisemitic. The Toronto Star has also published columns with strong anti-Israel positions.

I will close with a disturbing, but unsurprising, story about our public broadcaster. It says it all.

Early in the war, CBC sought out “deeply personal essays” about what it means to be Jewish and Canadian today, and welcomed Jewish Canadians to pitch their stories.

As a result, Shawna Cohen of Toronto submitted a piece. A producer from the CBC responded:

“Specifically, I’d like to hear from someone who wants a ceasefire/is finding it hard to be pro-Israel right now OR someone who supports the war despite the high cost of civilian life — and how their personal lived experiences inform those views. Please let me know if you might want to write something along those lines, and if so, what would your take be.”

Ms. Cohen wrote back:

“As a Jewish person, I feel I have a responsibility to let you know that the specific angle CBC is searching for is dangerous and narrow-minded. The Jewish community is feeling extremely unsafe — in Canada and beyond.

“Rather than providing writers with an opportunity to share how and why Jews are feeling this way, CBC has reverse engineered the narrative. It is specifically seeking out a rare breed of Jew who doesn’t support Israel and/or is willing to negotiate with a terrorist organization. Taking this approach only contributes to anti-Israel propaganda.

“To be honest, I was reluctant to pitch my story to CBC because of its established record of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist bias. From your response, it is clear that CBC does not welcome genuine opinions or perspectives that are not viewed through its own narrow, sociopolitical lens. This reality is unconscionable for a publicly funded broadcaster that considers itself the voice of a nation.”

She never received a response.

Hopefully our public broadcaster will be defunded soon enough. It has become a national disgrace.

Howard Levitt is the senior partner of Levitt Sheikh, Canadian employment and labour lawyers, and Bencher (Director) of the Law Society of Ontario.

Openly Jewish

By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Restoration

April 23, 2024

Last week, the English-speaking world watched in horror a short video clip of a Jewish man in central London being kept away from a pro-Palestinian protest march. It was filmed on Saturday 13th April. A British policeman addresses Gideon Falter, a smartly dressed man wearing a suit and small yarmulke, warning him:

You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.

These words are naturally horrifying to hear. It is no surprise, given the great suffering of Gazan civilians during Israel’s armed response to brutal and unjustifiable Hamas attack of October 7th, that tensions at such protests are high. Peaceful, law-abiding protest is a fundamental civic freedom in Western society. But it is utterly intolerable that anybody – let alone a British subject – should be unsafe on the streets of London because they look “quite openly Jewish.”

The public square can certainly be tolerant of a great range of political and religious groups, but it can’t be neutral.

Jewish organizations have warned that pro-Palestinian marches in London have featured anti-Semitic chants and slogans since October. Signs have been reported with the slogan, “Welcome to Gaza, twinned with Auschwitz.” Marchers have screamed the so-called Khaybar Chant: Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud! Jaish Muhammad soufa yaʿoud!(“Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return”). The chant refers to Muhammad’s slaughter of purportedly treacherous Jewish allies at the Battle of Khaybar. It is an implicit threat of Islamist violence against Jews – notably, it is not restricted to Israeli “occupiers.” Nor does it claim to represent any supposedly secular or inclusive Palestinian future. For Islamists, this is the subtext of “From the River to the Sea.”

The real shock of the April 13th video, though, is not the perceived threat of Islamist anti-Semitic violence. That we are used to. Instead, it is that a British police officer, an agent of the state, seems to suggest that being “quite openly Jewish” is unacceptable on the streets of a major Western city.

It is important not to be sensationalist here. The police officer, though his choice of words is highly dubious, was clearly motivated more by concern for Falter’s personal safety than by any personal or official anti-Semitism. There is no serious suggestion that the officer is himself a dangerous bigot.

Secondly, a much longer video has since emerged. Mr. Falter was certainly attempting to access the pro-Palestinian protest, with companions of his own. At one point he confronts the police officer, saying, “The Metropolitan police says these marches are completely safe for Jews, there is no problem whatsoever.”Falter seems keen to test this hypothesis. This is presumably in connection with his work as chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism. We might consider this brave, or imprudent, or needlessly provocative. It might even be all three.

None of this excuses what happened. It seems to be a pretty clear implicit admission that a significant proportion of the protestors might be violent anti-Semites.

Again, let’s be clear: peaceful protest is legal. Lots of the protestors will have perfectly legitimate concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza. A few of them would no doubt also march for Ukraine, or deplore the use of violence by thuggish, murderous regimes from Beijing to Baku.

But, apparently, not all of them. Clearly the London Metropolitan Police are aware that there is a real presence in these protests of an anti-Semitic, Islamist element. The kind who from time-to-time chant Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud!

How can these weekly protests be allowed to continue, at least in their current form, if this is the case? If another weekly political protest came with the serious threat of racist or religious violence, would it be allowed to continue? It seems hard to believe that any large-scale march which came with a regular risk of white supremacist chanting or violence would long be tolerated on the streets of Britain’s capital.

Restoring Public Spaces:

Western societies need to realize – need to remember what we all once knew – that peace, order, and lawful freedoms all need to be actively and publicly maintained. This maintenance needs to come from the state, from civil society, and from all citizens as free individuals. We can no longer afford that tired old liberal myth of a neutral public space.

We cannot pretend that there is no difference between peaceful protests and those which come with a threat of Islamist violence. We cannot pretend that there is no difference between different conceptions of the good, of the just society, of human dignity.

We cannot be blind to the way that some Islamist groups – Hamas and Al-Quds supporters among them – have a pretty good grasp of how to wield power in the public square. They know how to exert pressure on agents of the state, and how to project political strength on the streets. This isn’t a naive phenomenon.

Islamism is a world where the minaret towers over all. It’s the burka’s flowing tendrils blanketing women like an invasive vine in a once-flourishing garden. It’s the gathering in the square that proclaims “this is our space now.” It’s the adhan blasted loudly at the Christian or Jewish – or secular! – part of town. Until, one day, there are no non-Muslim parts of town left. The Christians of Istanbul and the Jews of Baghdad found this out the hard way. I pray the monied agnostics of Mayfair and Chelsea never do.

And they may not have to! That is, perhaps the British state can learn to differentiate between legitimate protests (however misguided), and marches that proclaim conquest.

The West needs to recover and to actively, publicly promote some basic ideas about our shared public peace. About the common allegiances and responsibilities of citizens. The public square can certainly be tolerant of a great range of political and religious groups, but it can’t be neutral. Attempted public neutrality is a vacuum that less-than-benevolent groups are always ready to fill.

In a free and democratic society, the day-to-day politics of domestic government, foreign activities, finance, etc., must constantly be debated. This is right and just. But at the same time, Western democracies must demand – in the public square – loyalty not to wispy, vague ideas of procedural neutrality and skin-deep inclusivity. Instead, we need to be a lot better at articulating the importance of public peace, the legitimate authority of our states, mutual fraternity with our fellow citizens, respect for the law, and the dignity of all human beings.

This isn’t a big ask, and it isn’t bigotedly intolerant. A country can be sure of itself and of its fundamental requirements, and still accept newcomers or visitors. Bluntly, people should normally be free to protest against a government’s foreign policy, or to stand in solidarity with those they think are oppressed overseas. But the political deal needs to be clearer, and straightforwardly articulated: the rejection of intimidation, violence, anti-Semitic extremism, and the pursuit of power by unconstitutional means. It’s the difference between having a law-abiding, European-style social democratic party in a country’s parliament, and tolerating organized political violence or state espionage by Communist groups. Western states sometimes benefit from the former, but must have the self-assurance to stamp out the latter.

If we don’t get better at doing this, our public square will be more and more vulnerable to hostile takeover. The present moment is a canary in the coal mine. If we don’t get better at doing this, we risk seeing more of our fellow citizens grimly warned of the dangers of being “openly Jewish.”

YOU CAN’T ALWAYS BE CERTAIN WHO IS YOUR FRIEND

With ‘Friends’ Like Mexico’s Obrador,

Who Needs Enemies Like Putin, Xi,

Kim Jong Un and the Ayatollahs?

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

April 1, 2024

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador—who prefers to be known as AMLO for short—issued to the Biden administration blackmail demands that sounded more like existential threats.

AMLO warned the U.S. that the current influx of some 10 million illegal aliens through the southern border will most certainly continue—unless America agrees to his ultimatums.

One, Obrador says the U.S. must now send $20 billion in de facto bribery payments to Latin American nations, many of them corrupt and dysfunctional. Apparently, he thinks it is America’s fault that millions of Latin Americans are fleeing these failed states northward, not the inept and corrupt governments that create such misery.

Two, AMLO demands amnesty for vast numbers of Mexican illegal aliens currently unlawfully residing inside the U.S. He apparently also thinks there is no such thing as U.S. immigration law. Or, if there is, such statutes do not apply to citizens of Mexico. Can we ask Mr. Obrador to simply grant permanent visa-free, no-questions-asked residence to any American living in a vacation complex in Mexico?

Three, he also requires America to lift sanctions against anti-American Venezuela. That communist government currently is part of the new China/Russia/Iran strategic axis. It is sending thousands of its citizens northward to enter the U.S. illegally.

Many of them are criminals, as the recent murder of Laken Riley by a felonious Venezuelan illegal alien attests. Dictator Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan regime recently threatened to invade and annex oil-rich Guyana, its smaller neighbor to the east. Maduro’s “security forces” have routinely murdered hundreds of political opponents. This rogue state is apparently Mexico’s newest ally.

Four, AMLO further requires the U.S. to stop its long embargo of communist Castroite-controlled Cuba, a decades-long avowed enemy of the U.S.

And what, AMLO was asked, would happen if the U.S. were to refuse Mexico’s blackmail threats?

Obrador abruptly snapped, “The flow of migrants will continue”—an admission that Obrador himself has the power to stop or turn on illegal immigrant influxes into the U.S.

Translated, that means we can expect that another 2-3 million illegal aliens will leave Mexican territory to enter the U.S. unlawfully in 2024. Or if Joe Biden is attuned to the political disaster he has created by illegal immigration for his party in November, we should expect this cynical administration quietly—in the fashion on the eve of the last midterms of cancelling student loans, draining the strategic petroleum reserve, or currently slow-walking resupplies to Israel—to send cash to Obrador to limit inflows before the election.

In his long interview, AMLO also denied that Mexico is one of the most violent countries in the world, despite currently having the ninth highest murder rate among nations. AMLO claims further that there is no corruption in America, although Mexico also ranks among the world’s most corrupt nations.

As far as the nearly 100,000 American deaths per year attributed to Mexican cartel-produced and illegally imported fentanyl—often deliberately disguised as both illicit and prescription drugs to mask its toxicity and increase its usage—Obrador claims that the fault is solely on Americans who take the drug. He believes Mexicans simply supply the demand regardless of its legality and in such a way to ensure thousands of accidental overdoses.

AMLO adds quite dishonestly that there is no real drug use in Mexico. Consequently, the cartels supposedly do not threaten the stability of his government. He apparently shrugs that they are an American, not Mexican, problem, despite the cartels’ annual murdering of several hundred Mexican politicians and candidates.

Finally, under his “Mexico First” policy, AMLO warns he will not pass any law or adopt any policy that is American-inspired.

Much of AMLO periodic tough-guy rhetoric—in the past he has bragged of the huge expatriate Mexican community and the power it now exercises over American politics—is simply the bluster of an insecure, smaller neighbor overshadowed by its northern colossus, and both mindful and resentful of an often shared troublesome history.

In addition, Obrador is a radical socialist. He believes a nation’s prosperity is achieved through forced state, or indeed, international redistribution from the wealthier to the poorer—not by guarantees of free markets, individual freedom, consensual government, or the rule of law. Thus, Mexico’s problem is not its misuse of rich natural resources, lack of the rule of law, corrupt federal, state, and local governments, or the cartels, but simply exploitation by its northern neighbor. Obrador never asks himself why a resource-poor Japan or Switzerland is rich and a resource-rich Mexico is poor.

Two further questions arise in response to Obrador’s unhinged hostility. One, why is AMLO now so emboldened to threaten the United States with even more millions of illegal aliens leaving Mexico soil to enter the U.S. unlawfully?

And two, how will America answer such a belligerent neighbor?

Obrador is feisty and full of anti-American venom now for a lot of reasons. One, he was easily able to transit from his country 10 million illegal immigrants into the United States. He believes that with the existing 50 million foreign-born American residents, America is rapidly becoming a country of enough Latin American ex-patriates to ensure Mexico’s influence over American policy.

In projectionist fashion, Obrador also believes that the American melting pot is dead, replaced by the tribalist salad bowl, in which ethnic groups form large, permanent, and unassimilated blocs and vie for government money and influence against rival ethnicities.

In such a Hobbesian U.S., Latinos, Obrador believes, will come out on top and thus greenlight Mexico’s agenda. The idea that Mexican immigrants will likely quickly assimilate, integrate, and replace their Mexican identity and allegiance with an American persona, he believes, is now passé.

More disturbingly, AMLO assumes that Biden deliberately destroyed the U.S. border in order to welcome in the world’s poor and needy en masse. Biden, he believes, is engineering the new demographics. He has enticed a constituency that will repay de facto amnesty with fealty at the polls, and in the next census, he will thus help redefine dozens of congressional districts to favor Democrats. Thus, Obrador thinks his open-border policies synchronize with the open-border wishes of the Biden administration.

Two, Obrador sees the U.S. decoupling from China. Billions of dollars in American overseas investment are leaving China and being rerouted to Mexico. Hundreds of new factories producing everything from cheap consumer items to cars are now appearing in Mexico entirely for U.S. export.

Obrador assumes that without such outsourcing and offshoring to Mexico, the U.S. would suffer supply chain disruption, higher consumer prices, and shortages of vital goods—and thus be forced to return to its unhealthy dependence on China. So he believes Mexican labor in the U.S. and Mexican factories at home are indispensable to the U.S. economy, and thus he can say or do what he wishes to any president he chooses.

Three, while Obrador was for a while scared of Trump, he has utter contempt for the bumbling Biden administration in general, and, in particular, for an enfeebled Joe Biden himself. On a recent Biden trip to Mexico, Obrador beamed as he was filmed personally propping up a shaky Biden as he descended from the stage.

In Obrador’s view, any country that would open wide its border, welcome in 10 million foreign nationals, without legal sanction, without audit, without even processing, deserves the contempt he extends to it.

Just as he scans the world stage and sees Biden’s humiliating exit from Afghanistan, its passive response to serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on American installations in the Middle East, and its passivity when China launched a spy balloon over the U.S., so too, like other American belligerents, Obrador feels Biden’s America is now there for the taking. Thus his emboldened threats that no Mexican president of the past has ever leveled.

Finally, what can the U.S. do to reestablish its sovereignty and remind Mexico that its belligerency, its export of deadly fentanyl, its deliberate sandbagging of U.S. immigration law, its alliances with America’s worst enemies, and its greenlighting of the Mexican cartels’ anti-American, transborder mayhem all have existential consequences?

So what should the next president do to restore mutual respect and cooperation between our once amicable two countries? Five easy steps:

1.    Quietly finish the wall across the entire border.

2.    Begin deporting to Mexico the ten million illegal aliens who have unlawfully entered and resided in the U.S. over the last three years. Let Mexico disperse them to their countries of origin.

3.    Tax at 10% the $60 billion in remittances that annually flow into Mexico from the U.S. Remittances are Obrador’s largest source of foreign exchange and made possible only by American state and federal governments’ subsidization of Mexican national residents, that in turn frees them to send billions back home to Mexico.

4.    Declare the cartels international terrorist organizations. Begin sanctioning all Mexican banks, corporations, and known Mexico officials that traffic and do business with the cartels.

5.    Deploy the U.S. military to the border, not merely to create deterrence and aid the border patrol, but to end all cartel entry into the United States and to stop all unauthorized cross-border intrusions by Mexican paramilitaries.

Do all that, and paradoxically, Obrador will begin praising the U.S. and ask once again to cooperate in restoring a secure border.

Like so many passive-aggressive bullies, Obrador respects the strong adversaries he slanders but he has utter contempt for the weak leaders he praises.

HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST

For Israel, Forbearance Could Be Fatal

By: Richard A. Epstein

Hoover Institution – defining ideas

April 16, 2024

Drones and missiles from Iran spearheaded a large but largely unsuccessful attack in the Negev and the Golan Heights. Launched in retaliation for the attack of April 1, in which Israel took out seven generals and advisers in a military compound in Damascus, the attack came as no surprise—Iranian leaders have said for more years than one can count that their goal is the extermination of the Jewish state, along with, it appears, its entire population. But on this occasion, the Iranian objective was more muted. Iran announced in advance that at least for the short run, it would refrain from further attacks unless attacks by Israel or the United States were launched against them.

But given the long-term risks, there is no time to be complacent. It is all too clear that when oligarchs make statements of that sort, they intend to execute them. This, in turn, dictates the strategies that have to be performed in reply.

Thus, in dealing with potential allies and friends, the optimal strategy is—to use the common parlance—to put your best foot forward. Note that this cautious strategy does not require you to lose your balance. Rather, it indicates a willingness to go forward to the next level of commitment if there is a positive response. Your potential trading partner then puts his or her best foot forward as well. In such arrangements, it is possible that after several iterations one side (perhaps even you) will choose to defect, but with each round the relationship ideally becomes more stable. Both sides have large potential gains from trade, so that a defection that brings a short-term benefit will carry with it the loss of expected future gains, and as those get larger the probability of defection goes down.

One common example of the situation is in the contract at will, where it is understood from the very title that each party is allowed to pull out of any forward commitment without penalty. And yet these arrangements tend to last for long periods, through patterns of slow evolution. In international affairs, the game is far more complicated because each nation is not a single individual but a coalition of multiple groups that keep to a stable course, such that if the coalition gets fractured, the losses could be enormous. This is why bipartisan support for these deals is needed to overcome discontinuities with the shift in dominant power, and why Pax Americana, like Pax Britannia before it, is necessary to hold that coalition together. A breakdown in unity has been evident for at least a generation in the United States, which explains in part our reduced effectiveness in international affairs.

In this setting, no nation has the luxury of picking out the best trading partners, as can be done in private markets (where all others are under a strict injunction not to disrupt current contracts or use force or guile to prevent formation of new ones). Instead, there is an enormous range of players, some friendly and others hostile. The use of the best foot forward has no place in dealing with hostile players, as the risk is that the moment that foot is put forward, it will be lopped off, with no gain in response. Instead, the strategic dimension is transformed so that the only moves that are made are those that leave you better off if the party on the other side accepts, and leaves you no worse off even if they decline and take a strategy intended to inflict maximum pain.

As a matter of principle, any appeasement—defined here as a concession made without obtaining some strategic advantage—is sure to fail, and probably in the short term.

The swarm of Iranian drones and missiles was therefore no surprise, given that the United States has adopted for many years weak positions with major concessions in the vain hope that carrots without sticks would be able to conjure an improvement. Thus, after a strong recovery in the last years of President George W. Bush in Iraq, the Obama years were marked with a general retreat when the United States negotiated the nuclear arms deal with Iran in 2015. The Obama administration showered concession upon concession to persuade Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons program, despite every breach of promises by the Iranians on inspections. Indeed, the only reason the arrangement did not disintegrate sooner was that the Israelis were able to sabotage some of the Iranian nuclear weapons as the United States continued with its carrots-only approach of sending many billions of dollars to Iran under the Obama and Biden administrations. Donald Trump may not have been perfect on these issues, but he credibly held that he would be able to arrange a better US-Iran deal than the one he canceled.

Amid the return to strategic appeasement and supposed neutrality, Hamas attacked Israel with pitiless force by breaking an existing cease-fire on October 7, 2023. At that point, the only meaningful response was what Israel resolved and the United States has tried to block: a maximum effort to wipe out Hamas. There are no intermediate solutions that could prove stable, for as long as Hamas is in power, it will break the next cease-fire with the same impunity.

US foreign policy has made two grave mistakes after its initial burst of support for Israel. First, it has pushed hard for a cease-fire that can accomplish nothing, for in prolonging the war the precarious position of the civilian population becomes riskier than before. Meanwhile, the prolonged fighting reduces the resources that Israel has to mount its defenses against Hezbollah and Iran, while giving Iran additional time to smuggle weapons to the West Bank in the hopes of stirring up political instability and worse. Nor does a cease-fire allow for any rebuilding to take place or any new government to form, as the choice of the corrupt Palestinian Authority is a nonstarter, and the prospect of a demilitarized state for Palestinians is but a way station on the road to the extinction of Israel. 

As John Spencer has long documented, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has been notable for its general precision, while Hamas has violated every requirement of the law of war in ways that increased, perhaps intentionally, the number of civilian deaths, including by using human shields, fighting out of uniforms, and locating bases of operations near hospitals and other facilities, all on top of a tunnel system that has cost billions to create and maintain. There is also a propaganda war: a power that is prepared to use barbaric force will not hesitate also to wield lies and exaggerations, including the endless accusations of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.

The current but limited hostilities between Iran and Israel have their roots in the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021. The bungled withdrawal set the stage by turning a stable situation into a moral and social catastrophe, which continues unabated to the present day. The signals were unmistakable, and Hamas and Iran read the tea leaves. They have gained huge leverage because US leaders think the United States  can remain “neutral” by continuing to bargain with Hamas, which easily moves the goalposts with each new Western concession.

None of this should have happened. The hesitation of the United States and its allies will prolong the war and result in more deaths and dislocations than a uniform, firm response by Israel and all its squeamish allies. It is therefore incomprehensible that the New York Times should be calling for the United States to limit weapons supplies to Israel until it reforms its practices in Gaza. The Times seems to think Hamas has done nothing to put its own people in danger by its endless succession of bad acts. It is perverse to claim that this drastic curtailment of arms is needed now because “the war in Gaza has taken an enormous toll in human lives, with a cease-fire still out of reach and many hostages still held captive.” Indeed, these are just the reasons why the attack on Rafeh should proceed, so that this dreadful conflict can reach a just and quick conclusion.

“DON’T”

Biden and the ‘Blame America First’

Democrats

By: Newt Gingrich

April 18, 2024

When President Joe Biden warned Iran not to attack Israel with the single word “Don’t,” he was setting himself up to look foolish and weak.

The Iranian theocratic dictatorship pays no heed to President Biden. Iran’s leaders have taken Biden’s measure over months of proxy warfare. Iran and its proxies have killed Americans, routinely fired at American bases and ships, and enthusiastically ignored every American effort to appease them. Biden’s done nothing.

When he said “Don’t,” Iran did – with 335 drones and missiles. We might have expected some serious reaction from a president who had publicly instructed Iran not to attack. Instead, we got a pathetic, desperate, all-out Biden administration effort to convince the Israelis to claim a defensive victory and do nothing.

Just as Biden ignored the Chinese Communist spy balloon gradually crossing the United States, he thought the Israelis should ignore 335 drones and missiles fired at their country.

Watching the bizarre performance, it hit me that the Biden Doctrine is to cripple your allies and help your enemies.

Consider the facts.

As soon as Biden took office, he implemented policies that helped the anti-American Iranian dictatorship. They could chant “Death to America,” but he would send them money, release them from sanctions, and tolerate their strategy of waging war through proxies with no consequence. Even then, the Iranians and their puppets fired drones and missiles at American bases – killing some American military and wounding many more. There was no strong response from Biden.

When the U.S. military warned President Biden that leaving Afghanistan too quickly would collapse the pro-American government, we spent 22 years developing, he ignored the advice. He moved so quickly, it guaranteed the Taliban would win the war. Then he claimed the disaster was the best evacuation in history.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden said supportive words about Ukraine but slow walked equipment and help. Furthermore, the Biden Doctrine demonstrated it was OK for Vladimir Putin to wage war on civilians, kidnap Ukrainian children, and destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. But Biden opposed any Ukrainian response that would involve attacking Russia. Defense was OK, but a serious offensive to win the war by hitting targets inside Russia was off limits.

When the Iranian planned, trained, equipped, and financed Hamas terrorist assault of Oct. 7 horrified decent people everywhere, President Biden was briefly positive about helping Israel. However, as is typical of the Biden Doctrine, once our ally began to win, Biden shifted away from Israel and expressed concern for Hamas and the people of Gaza who had sheltered and supported Hamas.

Following the Biden Doctrine of undermining our allies and comforting our enemies, Biden proposed that the city of Rafah should become a sanctuary city. This would allow the remainder of Hamas and its leadership a safe place to recoup and avoid being destroyed by Israeli forces.

The tension shifted into a confrontation between our ally and the American President.

Meanwhile, Biden supports aid to Ukraine and Israel – so long as it is not offset by spending cuts elsewhere and nothing is done to protect the American border. Keeping the American border open is such a high priority for Biden and the left that stalling aid to Israel and Ukraine is an acceptable price. Illegal immigrants coming into the United States is of higher value to Biden than protecting our allies.

Forty years ago, at the 1984 Republican Convention, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick presciently described what Biden and the Democrats have become. She called them the “Blame America first” Democrats.

She said no matter what happens around the world “They always blame America first.”

Kirkpatrick described the Democrat doctrine as being “Less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich – convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.” Quoting the great French analyst Jean Francois Revel, she said, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”

Today, there are American fanatics in Chicago chanting “Death to America.” In four cities, there are other fanatics occupying Google offices demanding that Google drop its contract that is helping Israel defend itself. It is easy to see the damage the Democrats’ moral relativism is doing.

If the Biden doctrine continues, we won’t have any more allies – and our enemies will be much stronger.

THE SUPERBOWL OF ELECTION INTERFERENCE

April 22, 2024>Omega4America    –  The Super Bowl of Election Interference – 2024> Newt Gingrich    –    Biden and the ‘Blame America First’ Democrats> Richard A. Epstein     –    For Israel, Forbearance Could Be Fatal> Eran Ortal        –         Israel’s First Total War and Its Ramifications The Super Bowl of Election Interference – 2024If you dry up the Leftist ballot inventory the beast can be stopped By: OMEGA4AMERICAApril 18, 2024(Emphasis added) 2024 is lining up to be the Super Bowl of election interference to stop Donald Trump. Every nefarious technique from 2020 is on deck and a bunch of new ones are stacking up. One reality ought to be perfectly clear – and isn’t: there is no way to clean voter rolls in the swing states in the time remaining to impact 2024. The only strategy which has promise – because it works every time it’s tried – is to identify where mail-in ballots are going to be sent, note the ineligible location is a gas station or a convenience store, and challenge that ADDRESS – NOW – to stop a ballot from being sent. If you dry up the ballot inventory, the beast dies. Every day we get calls and emails – one this morning from someone who ought to know better – asking if we can determine the dead voters from death records. Wake up. The dead vote is not impacting elections. The people who vote in Wisconsin and Florida – probably by mistake – are not impacting elections. These are trivial numbers. They do NOT MATTER. Quit screwing around looking for dead voters, voters who vote in multiple states. Stop the Leftist ballot manufacturing operation – it is the heart of all voter roll fraud. The 2024 election will be decided in large part by:ü Voters, registered at ineligible locations such as convenience stores, restaurants and literally hundreds of other non-residence locations – where loose ballots accumulate.ü Illegal aliens being registered in swing states – who then move on to the next swing state – with their ballots accumulating at some NGO location.ü NGOs – religious, civic, or generally do-gooder actively recruiting new voters and stashing them in addresses where ballots will collect and be voted – not by them but by the NGO. Their funding is hidden, tax free, flowing like a river. In all three examples – BALLOTS COLLECT. Those loose ballots are the ammo dump for the Leftists to out-ballot-harvest honest citizens who think ballot harvesting is now OK.ü The first advantage of the ADDRESS DRIVEN strategy is it works. It was this little technique that saved the Senator Ron Johnson seat in Wisconsin in 2022.ü The second advantage is that it sounds great. You are making the Leftists fight having a ballot sent to a 7-11 or a Citizens Bank or Quality Laundromat – even Republicans can win that argument.ü The third advantage is it can be carried out now – with only 7 months to go until November. The lists of every ineligible location – in every county – can be generated quickly, inexpensively, to a phone.ü The fourth advantage is that this is permanent. Leftists need addresses more than names. Think that through a bit. Names can be made up. Names can come from illegal alien transients – signing a form at an NGO location – regardless of age. Names come from transients – churches, shelters, RV Parks, third parties mindlessly registering voter names for dough. (Wisconsin) Names are impossible to check because so many Leftist voters are transient. ADDRESSES are a real pain for the Lefties.·      Addresses are kind of permanent.·      They have attributes – like restaurant or disco.·      They have photos which can be pretty nasty when shown at scale.Watch one of our videos and feel the impact of a warehouse – a dumpy one, falling apart – which is a listed voter roll location! So think through what happens when thousands of physical locations appear on an OFF LIMITS DATABASE on your phone, that tie to 250,000 Wisconsin voters? Leftists need to keep adding new fake voters at real addresses. Names are easy – addresses are hard – if their ineligibility becomes instantly visible. When you remove the ineligible addresses by OUTING them – Leftists must place the 35 people at the 1 bed, 1 bath shack. Comparing property rolls – that sticks out like a bulbous red nose! Leftists knew relational database tech was so hard to use they could stash hundreds of thousands of transient names at warehouses, empty strip malls and hundreds of other locations. Sure, some Republican sleuth might find a few, but the scale was impossible to thwart. They got greedy. Leftists put transients by the hundreds of thousands into these locations. Nobody knew. All the national voter integrity orgs use relational technology which is blind to padding voter rolls – that’s why they haven’t made a dent in 30 years! Now we know which addresses are ineligible – because we cross search property tax rolls. And once a location is identified by its corresponding property tax record as a Korean restaurant, in a stand alone building, having 12 registered voters with Spanish surnames – kind of doesn’t work any more. Now comes advantage five. Surprise! If the address-challenge strategy is implemented, at full scale – including publishing photos of these sketchy locations NOW, on every social media site – making the Left defend that ballot sent to a gas station – they are on their heels! Stop ballots going to those locations and where do the Lefties put those fake voters? It’s to late to move them – by the hundreds of thousands – to residential locations. When they try, we can tell instantly they did it. Sally and Dave on Elm Street might not be cool with the news that 18 former strip mall residents now live in their house. We know they moved there – as voters, not real residents, because we cross search voter rolls on different dates and we can congratulate Dave and Sally on their new household. Maybe send them a postcard with a photo of their address, and 20 voter IDs registered there. See, this is a game two can play. Republicans don’t have to stand back and take it – they can actually do something innovative – and surprising – and when it’s over, they will feel so much better about themselves. So wake up and stop the madness of cleaning voter rolls. You are not going to get them clean in time to impact 2024. The only people who promote this crap are the national voter integrity orgs who do not have any technology – they use obsolete relational technology – so they cannot cross search property tax rolls with voter rolls. Thus, these grifter groups, in permanent money raising mode, deny that cleaning voter rolls is a complete waste of time. It’s a waste of time for you – not for them. They can raise endless dough selling the “cleaning of voter rolls” as a solution – when it hasn’t had any impact in decades. Time is getting shorter. Now might be a great time to count the days until November 5 and evaluate what can be done to stop the steal – and seriously implement ADDRESS driven challenges to having mail-in ballots go out. After all, giving the Leftists a surprise for a change might make everyone feel a lot better.  Biden and the ‘Blame America First’DemocratsBy: Newt GingrichApril 18, 2024 When President Joe Biden warned Iran not to attack Israel with the single word “Don’t,” he was setting himself up to look foolish and weak. The Iranian theocratic dictatorship pays no heed to President Biden. Iran’s leaders have taken Biden’s measure over months of proxy warfare. Iran and its proxies have killed Americans, routinely fired at American bases and ships, and enthusiastically ignored every American effort to appease them. Biden’s done nothing. When he said “Don’t,” Iran did – with 335 drones and missiles. We might have expected some serious reaction from a president who had publicly instructed Iran not to attack. Instead, we got a pathetic, desperate, all-out Biden administration effort to convince the Israelis to claim a defensive victory and do nothing. Just as Biden ignored the Chinese Communist spy balloon gradually crossing the United States, he thought the Israelis should ignore 335 drones and missiles fired at their country. Watching the bizarre performance, it hit me that the Biden Doctrine is to cripple your allies and help your enemies. Consider the facts. As soon as Biden took office, he implemented policies that helped the anti-American Iranian dictatorship. They could chant “Death to America,” but he would send them money, release them from sanctions, and tolerate their strategy of waging war through proxies with no consequence. Even then, the Iranians and their puppets fired drones and missiles at American bases – killing some American military and wounding many more. There was no strong response from Biden. When the U.S. military warned President Biden that leaving Afghanistan too quickly would collapse the pro-American government, we spent 22 years developing, he ignored the advice. He moved so quickly, it guaranteed the Taliban would win the war. Then he claimed the disaster was the best evacuation in history. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden said supportive words about Ukraine but slow walked equipment and help. Furthermore, the Biden Doctrine demonstrated it was OK for Vladimir Putin to wage war on civilians, kidnap Ukrainian children, and destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. But Biden opposed any Ukrainian response that would involve attacking Russia. Defense was OK, but a serious offensive to win the war by hitting targets inside Russia was off limits. When the Iranian planned, trained, equipped, and financed Hamas terrorist assault of Oct. 7 horrified decent people everywhere, President Biden was briefly positive about helping Israel. However, as is typical of the Biden Doctrine, once our ally began to win, Biden shifted away from Israel and expressed concern for Hamas and the people of Gaza who had sheltered and supported Hamas. Following the Biden Doctrine of undermining our allies and comforting our enemies, Biden proposed that the city of Rafah should become a sanctuary city. This would allow the remainder of Hamas and its leadership a safe place to recoup and avoid being destroyed by Israeli forces. The tension shifted into a confrontation between our ally and the American President. Meanwhile, Biden supports aid to Ukraine and Israel – so long as it is not offset by spending cuts elsewhere and nothing is done to protect the American border. Keeping the American border open is such a high priority for Biden and the left that stalling aid to Israel and Ukraine is an acceptable price. Illegal immigrants coming into the United States is of higher value to Biden than protecting our allies. Forty years ago, at the 1984 Republican Convention, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick presciently described what Biden and the Democrats have become. She called them the “Blame America first” Democrats. She said no matter what happens around the world “They always blame America first.” Kirkpatrick described the Democrat doctrine as being “Less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich – convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.” Quoting the great French analyst Jean Francois Revel, she said, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.” Today, there are American fanatics in Chicago chanting “Death to America.” In four cities, there are other fanatics occupying Google offices demanding that Google drop its contract that is helping Israel defend itself. It is easy to see the damage the Democrats’ moral relativism is doing. If the Biden doctrine continues, we won’t have any more allies – and our enemies will be much stronger.  For Israel, Forbearance Could Be Fatal By: Richard A. EpsteinHoover Institution – defining ideasApril 16, 2024 Drones and missiles from Iran spearheaded a large but largely unsuccessful attack in the Negev and the Golan Heights. Launched in retaliation for the attack of April 1, in which Israel took out seven generals and advisers in a military compound in Damascus, the attack came as no surprise—Iranian leaders have said for more years than one can count that their goal is the extermination of the Jewish state, along with, it appears, its entire population. But on this occasion, the Iranian objective was more muted. Iran announced in advance that at least for the short run, it would refrain from further attacks unless attacks by Israel or the United States were launched against them. But given the long-term risks, there is no time to be complacent. It is all too clear that when oligarchs make statements of that sort, they intend to execute them. This, in turn, dictates the strategies that have to be performed in reply. Thus, in dealing with potential allies and friends, the optimal strategy is—to use the common parlance—to put your best foot forward. Note that this cautious strategy does not require you to lose your balance. Rather, it indicates a willingness to go forward to the next level of commitment if there is a positive response. Your potential trading partner then puts his or her best foot forward as well. In such arrangements, it is possible that after several iterations one side (perhaps even you) will choose to defect, but with each round the relationship ideally becomes more stable. Both sides have large potential gains from trade, so that a defection that brings a short-term benefit will carry with it the loss of expected future gains, and as those get larger the probability of defection goes down. One common example of the situation is in the contract at will, where it is understood from the very title that each party is allowed to pull out of any forward commitment without penalty. And yet these arrangements tend to last for long periods, through patterns of slow evolution. In international affairs, the game is far more complicated because each nation is not a single individual but a coalition of multiple groups that keep to a stable course, such that if the coalition gets fractured, the losses could be enormous. This is why bipartisan support for these deals is needed to overcome discontinuities with the shift in dominant power, and why Pax Americana, like Pax Britannia before it, is necessary to hold that coalition together. A breakdown in unity has been evident for at least a generation in the United States, which explains in part our reduced effectiveness in international affairs. In this setting, no nation has the luxury of picking out the best trading partners, as can be done in private markets (where all others are under a strict injunction not to disrupt current contracts or use force or guile to prevent formation of new ones). Instead, there is an enormous range of players, some friendly and others hostile. The use of the best foot forward has no place in dealing with hostile players, as the risk is that the moment that foot is put forward, it will be lopped off, with no gain in response. Instead, the strategic dimension is transformed so that the only moves that are made are those that leave you better off if the party on the other side accepts, and leaves you no worse off even if they decline and take a strategy intended to inflict maximum pain. As a matter of principle, any appeasement—defined here as a concession made without obtaining some strategic advantage—is sure to fail, and probably in the short term. The swarm of Iranian drones and missiles was therefore no surprise, given that the United States has adopted for many years weak positions with major concessions in the vain hope that carrots without sticks would be able to conjure an improvement. Thus, after a strong recovery in the last years of President George W. Bush in Iraq, the Obama years were marked with a general retreat when the United States negotiated the nuclear arms deal with Iran in 2015. The Obama administration showered concession upon concession to persuade Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons program, despite every breach of promises by the Iranians on inspections. Indeed, the only reason the arrangement did not disintegrate sooner was that the Israelis were able to sabotage some of the Iranian nuclear weapons as the United States continued with its carrots-only approach of sending many billions of dollars to Iran under the Obama and Biden administrations. Donald Trump may not have been perfect on these issues, but he credibly held that he would be able to arrange a better US-Iran deal than the one he canceled. Amid the return to strategic appeasement and supposed neutrality, Hamas attacked Israel with pitiless force by breaking an existing cease-fire on October 7, 2023. At that point, the only meaningful response was what Israel resolved and the United States has tried to block: a maximum effort to wipe out Hamas. There are no intermediate solutions that could prove stable, for as long as Hamas is in power, it will break the next cease-fire with the same impunity. US foreign policy has made two grave mistakes after its initial burst of support for Israel. First, it has pushed hard for a cease-fire that can accomplish nothing, for in prolonging the war the precarious position of the civilian population becomes riskier than before. Meanwhile, the prolonged fighting reduces the resources that Israel has to mount its defenses against Hezbollah and Iran, while giving Iran additional time to smuggle weapons to the West Bank in the hopes of stirring up political instability and worse. Nor does a cease-fire allow for any rebuilding to take place or any new government to form, as the choice of the corrupt Palestinian Authority is a nonstarter, and the prospect of a demilitarized state for Palestinians is but a way station on the road to the extinction of Israel.  As John Spencer has long documented, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has been notable for its general precision, while Hamas has violated every requirement of the law of war in ways that increased, perhaps intentionally, the number of civilian deaths, including by using human shields, fighting out of uniforms, and locating bases of operations near hospitals and other facilities, all on top of a tunnel system that has cost billions to create and maintain. There is also a propaganda war: a power that is prepared to use barbaric force will not hesitate also to wield lies and exaggerations, including the endless accusations of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. The current but limited hostilities between Iran and Israel have their roots in the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021. The bungled withdrawal set the stage by turning a stable situation into a moral and social catastrophe, which continues unabated to the present day. The signals were unmistakable, and Hamas and Iran read the tea leaves. They have gained huge leverage because US leaders think the United States  can remain “neutral” by continuing to bargain with Hamas, which easily moves the goalposts with each new Western concession. None of this should have happened. The hesitation of the United States and its allies will prolong the war and result in more deaths and dislocations than a uniform, firm response by Israel and all its squeamish allies. It is therefore incomprehensible that the New York Times should be calling for the United States to limit weapons supplies to Israel until it reforms its practices in Gaza. The Times seems to think Hamas has done nothing to put its own people in danger by its endless succession of bad acts. It is perverse to claim that this drastic curtailment of arms is needed now because “the war in Gaza has taken an enormous toll in human lives, with a cease-fire still out of reach and many hostages still held captive.” Indeed, these are just the reasons why the attack on Rafeh should proceed, so that this dreadful conflict can reach a just and quick conclusion. Israel’s First Total War And Its Ramifications For the first time, Israel is committed not onlyto the defeat of the enemy’s forces but also tothe annihilation of its regime. That is one reasonthe Gaza war proves to be a long war of attrition. By: Eran OrtalThe Caravan NotebookApril 19, 2024 For the first time, Israel is committed not only to the defeat of the enemy’s forces but also to the annihilation of its regime. That is one reason the Gaza war proves to be a long war of attrition. It is the consequence of not only the Oct 7th catastrophe, and a years-long policy of appeasement but also the gradual derailment of Israel’s defense strategy. What is needed now is a reform aimed at restoring IDF’s decisive battlefield capabilities, without which we face the impossible dilemma of living with further hostilities building up on our borders or a Gaza-like war on a greater scale in  Lebanon.  As war is making its comeback to history everywhere, the West should take note of  Israel’s endeavors.  In his book, The Culture of Military Innovation (Stanford 2010), Dima Adamsky refers to the Israeli strategic culture as one of tactical excellence and innovation on the one hand and theoretical incapacity on the other. Many of us, including Adamsky, himself, saw that culture as changing for the better. Unfortunately, the multi-front Gaza war exposed the inadequacies of that change – too little too late. The war in Gaza is a showcase for the sharp contrast between IDF’s superb performance in the offensive phase in Gaza, and the clear mismanagement of the war at the higher military and political levels. While that gap is apparent for all observers to see, what is less obvious is the failings of Israel’s three-decades-long strategy which collided with the changing circumstances. Analyzing the war from that perspective does not relieve Israeli leadership today of the October 7th disaster, the protracted nature of the war, and the ongoing hostage crisis. However, It does enable a deeper look into our strategic position and hopefully provides for better learning and adaptation. Israel’s first total warBy “total war” I do not mean to say that Israel is engaged in a 20th-century style conflict between nations that involves the industrial base, cities, and population of both sides and the unlimited use of all weapons at hand. In fact, I cannot think of a more bizarre case where a nation, after experiencing an attack such as occurred on  Oct 7 is fighting the enemy on one hand and seeing to the delivery of food, medicine, water, fuels, and even internet communication to the enemy’s population on the other. Needless to say, Hamas’s fighting force is the number one beneficiary of that flow of commodities. What total war here refers to is the complete contrast between Israel’s limited wars of the past and the present one. It is the first war in our history where the aim is not simply to remove the immediate military threat to Israel and end the fighting quickly, but rather it is a commitment to the annihilation of both the military force and the political regime of the enemy. Let it be clear: this is a just and necessary war. Nevertheless, it does drag Israel into a war of attrition that clearly overwhelms the capacity of the IDF and Israel to sustain military, civilian, and international efforts. So the real question at hand is how Israel cornered itself in this dead-end situation. The most apparent answers will be the failures that led directly to Oct 7 such as the lack of early warning, followed by the devastating collapse of the thinly deployed  IDF forces on that day. On a strategic level, however, the question is how did we allow the build-up of the Hamas army on our border? Even the shameful policy of appeasement towards Hamas, a policy as old as Hamas’s rule over Gaza (2007) does not provide a complete answer. If we are to learn anything beyond the political blame game that is tearing Israel apart, we should search even further. Three disruptions put Israel’s traditional defense strategy out of balance. Just as Adamsky described it, while the IDF was relatively quick to adapt tactically, the strategic flaws were overlooked and the more profound military change that was needed was delayed. That is a process that originated in the days of the Israeli-held security zone in south Lebanon in the 1990s. David & GoliathThe most basic observation of Israeli strategy and doctrine in the 50’s was the fact that we cannot change the nature of the conflict by force. We cannot defeat the Arab coalition in the way the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So the small state of Israel devised a modest strategy:ü We will only aim for a military, not a political defeat of our adversaries. ü To do that, we will concentrate all resources and personnel in a short decisive war effort that will take the war to the other side to remove the immediate threat. ü We will make all efforts to avoid protracted warfare we cannot sustain. Fast-forward to the 1990’s and circumstances seemed to have profoundly changed. The Soviet Union had just fallen, further weakening its Arab clients, Egypt had withdrawn from the Arab coalition, and the IDF was one of the most modern militaries on the planet with cutting-edge targeting and airpower precision strike capabilities. And yet, faced with guerrilla warfare in southern Lebanon, Israel’s strategy was disrupted. Protecting our northern border from within southern Lebanon has led to prolonged warfare with new Lebanese factions. Moving the battle to the other side now proved more of a problem than a solution. A new strategy was starting to emerge. Never to be officially put in words or on paper, its preferred principles were simple:·      Israel’s advantage lies in airpower.·      Decisive battlefield maneuvering is impractical in the new context. Fortunately, it is also unnecessary.·      Israel is now the Goliath of the equation. Indeed, it is a regional power. We can and should engage in a war of attrition, rather than finding a way to remove the emerging threat.·      Guerillas are inherently less sensitive to airpower. So, Israel’s strategy will be one of coercion, aimed at a “responsible state address” such as Lebanon or Syria, hosting or supporting them. Gradually, three processes took place:·      Airpower coercion became the securing base for the strategic deconfliction strategy practiced with the withdrawal from Lebanon (2000) and disengagement from Gaza (2005).·      The IDF became a formidable targeting machine. Later other excellent tactical adaptations to the deteriorating situation, like air-defense systems, were achieved. Seen as a thing of the past, ground forces were largely left behind.·      Unaffected by the new strategic theory, the adversaries have grown from small guerrilla entities to full-scale militaries based directly on our borders. Rather than responding to  Israel as a superpower, the other side simply enhanced its ability to inflict damage on our cities and disrupt peace on our borders. By the early 2000’s Israeli leadership talked about deterrence but was simultaneously deterred itself. The much-talked-of air campaign Israel has engaged in in Syria since 2012 only serves to highlight the lack of Israeli willingness to stop the entrenchment and armament of Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon. The big disruptionsThree major disruptions led to the derailment of Israel’s traditional strategy:ü Control over foreign hostile populated areas, like South Lebanon or the Gaza Strip, has proven to drag Israel into undesired prolonged warfare.ü Rockets and missiles have proven to be the ultimate strategic equalizer working against Israel’s military superiority. ü Holding Israeli cities hostage, they have made it possible for the weaker side to deter Israel from decisive operations, allowing the unhindered build-up of forces by Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas. It also rendered the withdrawal strategy useless as the rockets were aimed and fired at Israeli civilians from deep within Lebanon and Gaza. As for Iran – we went to bed in the 90s with some small and isolated guerrillas on our borders. One day we woke up realizing these are the paws of a huge Iranian tiger. We were thinking of ourselves as a Goliath gradually degrading weaker adversaries, only to learn we are in a war of attrition with a giant via its proxies. Therefore it turns out that our main disruption was not from our adversaries but from within. Short-sighted policy from most Israeli governments helped, but the roots of  the deterioration lay in false optimistic assumptions that were not challenged sufficiently: Can airpower really sustain a strategy by itself?Can Israel sustain the strategic competition with Iran while conducting attrition warfare with its growing proxies on its borders? Progressives and OrthodoxWe have favored a false theoretical framework, never to become official and truly challenged, and the comfort of doing more and better of the same. We have made huge tactical improvements but failed to make more profound adjustments to our theories and capabilities. One can make that statement based on the IDF’s concept of victory from 2020 when it was given official recognition. That concept was supposed to be a vital first step for a military modernization plan. The plan was aimed at the reconstruction of the traditional defense strategy with decisive victory on the battlefield at its focal point. A variety of capabilities and organizational changes were planned to target the enemy’s distant fire and trajectories by utilizing modernized ground forces as well as air assets. Unfortunately, it turned out to be too little too late. For too long the strategic environment and actual threats were rapidly changing for the worse. Israel’s strategic and military thinking was stuck between two opposing schools of thought. The first school created a framework of false assumptions that allowed the comfort of kicking the can down the road. The concept of engineering our adversaries’ intentions rather than preempting their capabilities failed. These schools of thought can be described as “strategic progressives“, turning wishful thinking into a strategy. Reacting against that, the other school can be labeled “military orthodoxy“, denying the change of circumstances altogether. It called for bigger ground forces and a more aggressive approach with the unpromising prospects of house-to-house fighting to clear the enemy from Lebanon. This was a twentieth-century attrition approach to deal with the twenty-first-century challenge of a dispersed enemy with long-range capability. Policymakers, from all sides of the political map, thought that cure was worse than the disease. ConclusionCornered now into a long total war against the Hamas regime, Israel can hardly sustain the effort needed and has no good solutions for the simultaneous threat from Lebanon. In contrast to its self-image as a regional power, Israel re-discovered its basic limits. As successful, flourishing, and technologically advanced as we grew up to be, we are still only David. Israel is not capable of politically engineering our neighborhood, not even in the small Gaza Strip. The failure is far from being tactical or local. Rather than adapting to a new set of military threats within the correct framework of Israeli defense strategy, we have insisted on living in a dream world where terror organizations have state-like responsibility and Israel is a regional power that cannot be beaten. From the three disruptions mentioned, the tangible one we can militarily work with is the second – arms fire, missiles, and rockets. Defeat that, and there is no Iranian ring of fire nor an adversary capable of deterring Israel from preempting threats. We can and should come up with an approach that does exactly that. That approach may be of great interest for the West as it is faced with similar military challenges. The Russian war over Ukraine has come to be a war of attrition dominated by long-range weapons. China’s strategy relies on deterring a possible US response for an armed provocation as its ranged A2AD missiles are deployed and aimed at any approaching navy and air force assets. If we can contribute valid and substantial ideas and capabilities to change that for the better, it could also facilitate a fresh restart for Israel internationally. Brigadier General (Ret.) Ortal is the author of The Battle Before the War (Modan and the Ministry of Defense 2022, Hebrew) which deals with change and the need for change in the IDF. He now teaches Defense Strategy at Reichman University, serves as a senior consultant for strategy and technology at the Israeli MOD, and is a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.  If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato

THE WISDOM OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

The Wisdom of Thomas JeffersonApril 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826 “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe,  we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those  who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”  “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.  A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”  “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the  government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”  “ My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”  “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”  Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:  ”I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…”

Gaza: Truths Behind All the Lies

 

Gaza: Truths Behind All the Lies

By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

March 28, 2024

“Occupied Gaza.” Prior to October 7, there were roughly two million Arab citizens of Israel but no Jewish citizens in Gaza. Gazans in 2006 voted in Hamas to rule them. It summarily executed its Palestinian Authority rivals. Hamas cancelled all future scheduled elections. It established a dictatorship and diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid to build a vast underground labyrinth of military installations.

So Gaza has been occupied by Hamas, not Israel, for two decades.

“Collateral Damage.” Hamas began the war by deliberately targeting civilians. It massacred them on October 7 when it invaded Israel during a time of peace and holidays. It sent more than 7,000 rockets into Israeli cities for the sole purpose of killing noncombatants. It has no vocabulary for the collateral damage of Israeli civilians, since it believes any Jewish death under any circumstances is cause for celebration.

Hamas places its terrorist centers beneath and inside hospitals, schools, and mosques. Why? Israel is assumed to have more reservations about collaterally hitting Gaza civilians than Hamas does exposing them as human shields.

“Disproportionate.” We are told Israel wrongly uses disproportionate force to retaliate in Gaza. But it does so because no nation can win a war without disproportionate violence that hurts the enemy more than it is hurt by the enemy.

The U.S. incinerated German and Japanese cities with disproportionate force to end a war both Axis powers started. The American military in Iraq nearly leveled Fallujah and Mosul by disproportional force to root out Islamic gunmen hiding among innocents. Hamas has objections to disproportionate violence—but only when it is achieved by Israel and not Hamas.

“Two-state solution.” Prior to October 7, there was a de facto three-state solution, given that Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza were all separate states ruled by their own governments, two of which were illegitimate without scheduled elections.

It was not Israel, but the people of Gaza and the West Bank who institutionalized the “from river to the sea” agenda of destroying its neighbor.

Israel would have been content to live next to an autonomous Arab Gaza and West Bank that did not seek to destroy Israel in their multigenerational efforts to form their own “one-state solution.”

“Ceasefire.” The so-called international community is demanding Israel agree to a “ceasefire.” But there was already a ceasefire prior to October 7. Hamas broke it by massacring 1,200 Jews and taking over 250 hostages.

Hamas violated that peace because it thought it could gain leverage over Israel by murdering Jews.

Hamas now demands another ceasefire because it thinks it is no longer able to murder more unarmed Jews. Instead, it now fears that Israel will destroy Hamas in the way Hamas sought but failed to destroy Israel.

Did Hamas call for a cease-fire after the first 500 Jews it massacred on October 7?

“Ramadan.” Joe Biden believes that the Muslim religious holiday of Ramadan requires Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

But did either Hamas or any other Arab military ever respect Jewish—or even its own—religious holidays?

The October 7 massacre was timed to catch Israelis unaware while celebrating the Jewish religious holidays of Simchat Torah, Shemini Torah, and Shemini Atzeret on Shabbat.

Moreover, Hamas’s surprise attack was deliberately timed to commemorate the earlier sneak Arab attack on Israel some 50 years earlier.

On October 6, 1973, the Israelis were the target of a surprise attack when celebrating the religious holiday of Yom Kippur. Arab armies also assumed they would achieve greater surprise when attacking during their own religious holiday of Ramadan.

So, Arab militaries fight opportunistically both during Jewish and their own Islamic holidays. Egyptians and Syrians still boast of their 1973 surprise attack on Israel as the “Ramadan War.”

Only Westerners, not Arabs, believe there should be no war during Ramadan.

“Civilian Casualties.” Israel risks the lives of its soldiers to prevent civilian deaths. Hamas risks the lives of its civilians to prevent terrorists’ deaths. Israel considers it a failure, and Hamas considers it globally advantageous when more civilians die than its soldiers.

“Foreign Aid.” The Biden administration threatens to cut off or slow-walk aid to Israel if it continues to retaliate against Hamas even though they started the war. So the administration promises to give more aid to Gaza after the October 7 Hamas massacres than it gave to Gaza before them.

“Prisoners.” The international community that favors Hamas, nevertheless, knows it would be safer to be a prisoner of Israel than of Hamas. It knows women are not going to be raped in custody by Israelis but are by Hamas. And the unarmed are more likely to be mutilated and decapitated by Hamas than Israelis.

Is the international community more likely to charge Israel than Hamas for war crimes because the Jewish state seeks to avoid civilian deaths that Hamas finds useful?