Category Archives: defense policy

Don’t Destabilize the Alliance

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That’s NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s request of Republican Presidential Primary candidate Donald Trump over Trump’s continued, bluntly phrased, pressure on NATO members to meet their spending commitment of 2% of GDP to NATO.

It isn’t Trump’s rhetoric that risks NATO destabilization, though. When Trump was President, he threatened US withdrawal from the alliance if the other member nations didn’t start meeting that commitment. At the time, only a handful aside from the US were meeting the commitment, and after his threat, a few more stepped up and met theirs. This after 50 years of “pretty please” had fallen on deaf freeloading ears.

Now, with renewed pressure from likely Republican Presidential candidate Trump, more are meeting their commitment. According to Stoltenberg, 18 of the 31 members are “on track” to meet their commitment (meaning they still haven’t, but now are saying the right words in their respective legislatures).

That leaves 13 members who are shirking their duty. That leaves 13 members who are betraying their fellow members by rendering themselves incapable of meeting their Article V commitment to those members in any concrete way. That leaves 13 members who are imposing risks on their fellow members by rendering themselves so plainly incapable of resisting an attack on themselves that they tacitly invite one, requiring their fellow members to spend their blood and their treasure to rescue them.

That leaves 13 members who are the ones risking destabilizing the NATO alliance.

The Hur Report

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Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Progressive-Democrat Joe Biden’s years long mishandling of classified documents—with classification ranging from Confidential through Top Secret and many of them NOFORN (not releasable to foreign entities regardless of underlying classification) or HCS-O (a human intelligence classification control, whose violation endangers the lives of those who would talk to our intelligence personnel)—concluded in part that Biden had them illegally, moved them around illegally, and hung onto stored them illegally. Then, shockingly, he declined to refer Biden for criminal prosecution: Biden, Hur claimed, was too sympathetic and mentally feeble a figure, and it would be difficult to get a conviction.

Leave aside the fact that “difficult” means “possible,” and only a lazy or a weak-on-favored-politicians prosecutor would decline the difficult task. Stipulate, instead, that Hur’s no-prosecution recommendation was made honestly, however erroneously.

Consider, rather, that Attorney General Merrick Garland has the authority to reject the Special Counselor’s recommendation and prosecute Biden anyway, on the basis of the facts throughout the Hur report.

But don’t look for Garland to do that. He is, after all, Joe Biden’s made man.

Hur’s report can be read here.

Joe Biden’s Classified Documents

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These images are from the Hur report:

This is the quality of Biden’s “storage” in his locked garage. The protecting Corvette automobile is not present.

This is another look angle at some critical, and exposed, boxes.

These two boxes are those in the red circle in the preceding image, with other boxes removed for clarity. Were these boxes of classified documents that Biden was illegally holding onto rifled through while he was holding them? The foreground box has one end torn almost all the way down—that doesn’t happen with the box just sitting there undisturbed. Even had that happened as the box had been moved from other locations to this one, it seems likely that such moving damage would have been repaired, or the box replaced. The box behind it appears similarly opened. The furniture around the two boxes didn’t fall over on their own initiative—they’ve been knocked over, possibly as the boxes were pulled out from among the furniture for better access.

Another box that might have been rifled through.

And another exposed box.

The Hur report can be read here.

President Joe Biden’s Disdain for Israel

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It’s made manifest in just the last few days, as if his constant pressure on Israel to agree a ceasefire, which would only allow the terrorist Hamas to rest, refit, and resume terrorist attacks, hadn’t already made his dislike clear.

Recall that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA) has committed to putting forward a stand-alone bill that would fund Israel in the latter’s fight for survival against the terrorists in the current Hamas-instigated war.

Now Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has said he’ll veto that bill if it makes it to his desk [emphasis in the original].

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 7217, making emergency supplemental appropriations to respond to the attacks in Israel for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes.
The Administration spent months working with a bipartisan group of Senators to reach a national security agreement that secures the border and provides support for the people of Ukraine and Israel, while also providing much-needed humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by conflicts around the world. … The Administration strongly opposes this ploy which does nothing to secure the border, does nothing to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against Putin’s aggression, fails to support the security of American synagogues, mosques, and vulnerable places of worship, and denies humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.
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If the President were presented with H.R. 7217, he would veto it.

This is Biden’s attitude toward Israel. He doesn’t like the nation, and he doesn’t like its Prime Minister. The bill doesn’t do those other things by design—that’s the nature of stand-alone, single subject bills. And it makes clear that Biden does not actually support Israel; he’s merely using that nation, holding it hostage—along with our own border security—against his getting his personal political way and his blocking anything Republican.

[T]his bill is another cynical political maneuver. If Biden were serious about supporting Israel, he’d call what he views as Republican gaming and sign the bill, then say, “Next.” Instead, he’s doing what he’s accusing Republicans of doing: playing politics with another nation’s survival.

We all need to remember his duplicity next November.

Deal Breaker

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Apparently, there’s a complicated, multi-phase “ceasefire” that involves staged releases of terrorist-held hostages and Israeli-held terrorist prisoners that’s being developed. Among the criteria being discussed is Israel ceasing, in the first, six-week, phase, all drone surveillance operations.

Above all else, ceasing drone surveillance must be an absolute deal breaker.

Trust the terrorists not to reposition, including infiltrating back into the central and northern parts of the Strip; or to refit; or to rearm during the ceasefire?

Of course they will, and six weeks is an eternity for accomplishing that, but Israel willfully blinding itself to the movements and resupply efforts would be monumentally stupid and hugely expensive in Israeli blood.

This is a deal that shouldn’t be getting any words at all beyond, “No.”

Israel is winning this Hamas war, if grindingly; now is not the time to call a halt, even temporarily. Now is the time to pile on—and for the Biden administration to get out of the way and join the piling on, at least by covering Israel’s flanks by eliminating the Iranian proxies’ combat sites and weapons caches in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.