Tag Archives: foreign policy

Endless War Retreat

Posted on by
1

There are endless wars, and there are endless wars. Our nation’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed endless because of mission drift by a sequence of American administrations. Our goals in Iraq were, initially, limited and specific; although with hindsight, President Bush the Elder’s goals might have been too limited, a condition which led to the second phase of that war, the move to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. That goal, though, was nebulously defined, then it “evolved” across successive administrations, leading to continued combat involvement over too many years in Iraq.

Our war in Afghanistan began as a move to punish and destroy the al Qaeda that had executed the terror attacks in 11 September 2001. That mission was largely accomplished promptly, although it took a few more years to track down bin Laden and deal with him with finality. That tracking didn’t benefit overmuch by our continued warring in Afghanistan, though; instead that mission continually “evolved,” also, and we stayed in that fighting for some twenty years.

Those were two unnecessarily endless wars.

There is another war, though, that truly is endless, and the Biden-Harris administration is rapidly retreating from it, making that war increasingly dangerous to us and to our friends and allies. That’s the war terrorists—especially the rump al Qaeda and a rapidly regrowing Daesh—are fighting against us.

…Islamic State poses a growing threat to the US and its interests. You wouldn’t know it based on the Biden administration’s withdrawal from terrorist hot spots across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

And [emphasis added]

Over the past year alone, Islamic State has been linked to terrorist attacks and plots in Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Germany, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, and Turkey, among others. On July 25, the day before the opening ceremony of the Paris Summer Olympics, Belgian authorities arrested suspected members of ISIS-K for planning a terrorist attack. And in June, US law enforcement arrested eight suspects with possible Islamic State ties who had crossed the border from Mexico.
Yet the US has cut and run from terrorist sanctuaries. This month the US military turned over control of its final base in the African country of Niger even though the Islamic State and al Qaeda are on the rise in the region.

The latest example of this endless war, which is a direct outcome of our administration’s retreat, was the terror threat against a popular singer and her audience at a concert in Vienna.

Thanks to intelligence the US collected, Austrian law enforcement arrested three suspects for their involvement in an alleged plot to explode bombs and use knives against concertgoers at the Ernst Happel Stadium [where Taylor Swift had intended to hold an Eras Tour concert].
The alleged plotters had both the intention and capabilities to conduct a major attack. One of them, a 19-year-old Austrian, had recently pledged loyalty to ISIS. According to the head of Austria’s Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, he was aiming to kill “as many civilians as possible” in a suicide attack. He and one of his alleged accomplices, a 17-year-old man, had apparently radicalized online.

Maybe it’s time for the Biden-Harris administration, and for subsequent administrations, to learn the difference between endless wars and endless wars, stop running away from all of them without discrimination, and get after the terrorists who are fighting their otherwise endless war against us and against our friends and allies.

Yes and No

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors opened one of their Friday editorials with this:

On taxes and spending, he [Minnesota Progressive-Democrat Governor and Progressive-Democratic Party Vice President nominee-in-waiting Tim Walz] has sought to outdo California progressives and is making Illinois look like a model of fiscal discipline.
Ms Harris is slipstreaming behind the Biden Administration policies and refusing to lay out her own policy agenda. This makes Mr Walz’s record as Governor over the last six years all the more revealing as a window on the duo’s plans for the country.

It’s certainly true that Walz’s behavior as governor is demonstrative. It is, though, not entirely “all the more revealing” of a Harris-Walz profligate tax and more profligate spend policy, should they get elected. The editors make that clear in their own words, for all that they seem not to recognize that: Ms Harris is slipstreaming behind the Biden Administration policies.

Harris is not at all “refusing to lay out her own policy agenda.” The Biden-Harris policies are precisely the policies she’s intent on continuing, and that extends far beyond economics. Harris, and Walz beside her, are intent on continuing the Biden-Harris open borders policy, and they’re intent on continuing the Biden-Harris policy of speaking loudly while carrying no stick at all regarding our nation’s most dangerous enemies, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and Iran.

Harris’ slipstreaming is her statement, if not in so many words, of the policies she intends to pursue in a Harris-Walz administration.

Begging Iran

Posted on by
Reply

The subheadline tells the tale:

Biden administration mounts last-ditch appeal to Tehran, while also pushing to keep cease-fire talks alive

And this from Secretary of State Antony Blinken:

We are engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock with a very simple message: all parties must refrain from escalation. It’s also critical that we break this cycle by reaching a cease-fire in Gaza.

And this from a carefully unidentified US official:

We’re preparing to defend Israel in an April-like manner[.]

This timidity by our government is only leading to continued deaths of Israeli citizens at the hands of Iran and its terrorist surrogates, and the continued deaths of those Palestinians about whom the Biden-Harris administration pretends so shrilly to be worried, as Iran’s terrorist surrogate Hamas continues to hold Palestinians as shields.

Equating Israel’s struggle to defend itself in a war for its survival against its terrorist attackers with those terrorist attackers is disgustingly, deeply immoral. Defending Israel in an April-like manner, wherein American forces, along with Jordanian and British forces, shot down an important number of the 300+ missiles, rockets, and cruise missiles Iran fired at Israel that April, was sufficiently inadequate that Israel finds itself in a similar strait today.

Purely defensive efforts are wholly inadequate.  Without further second-guessing the Biden-Harris effort last April, what will be necessary today are Rules Two and Three. The US must destroy Hezbollah and Houthi launching facilities, whether or not they’re preparing to launch, along with those terrorists’ missile and rocket storage sites and their ammunition and fuel dumps. The US must go further: our forces must sink the Iranian navy afloat and destroy Iran’s air defense sites and its launch facilities and associated missile and rocket storage sites.

That will leave Israel free to deal with the close-in threats: those rockets, missiles, and cruise missiles that do get through to range of Israel’s defenses, and to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist forces.

In the meantime, though, Hezbollah is firing rockets into northern Israel, killing tens of Israeli men, women, and children, all with no response from the US.

Israel is a critical ally of ours. Either we are a critical ally of Israel, or we are not. The Biden-Harris administration’s activities are not encouraging.

Here’s a Thought

Posted on by
Reply

I do get them on occasion.  The Five Eyes Alliance, consisting of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have issued a report delineating the utter dependence of those nations (and the Western world at large, I add) on the People’s Republic of China for supplies of rare earth elements, elements that are Critical Items in producing a nation’s modern weapons and that are Critic Items in national economies dependent on computers, communications, and infrastructure distribution nodes. That report, DECREASING RARE EARTHS DEPENDENCY: HOW THE FIVE EYES ALLIANCE CAN MINIMISE RARE EARTHS TRADING RISK WITH CHINA (all caps in the original) can be read here.

The report recommended diversify[ing] away from China for the importing of rare earth elements (REEs). The authors proposed this be achieved through “two key policies:”

  • broadening the scope of the Five Eyes Alliance to include increased trade and cooperation on REEs and REEs-dependent goods and services
  • actively seeking alternative sources, whether through new import sources or substitutes for REEs

My thought concerns that last. The Five Eyes, along with the nations rimming the South China Sea, particularly Viet Nam, the Philippines, and the Republic of China, also along with the Republic of Korea and Japan—all of which are even more dependent on rare earth acquisition—should begin actively mining the South China Sea floor, which is rich with rare earth nodules just lying around on the surface of the floor. In support of those mining operations, the Five Eyes’ navies should be prepared to sink PLAN shipping that attempts to interfere with this mining of the sea floor underlying these international waters. If those additional interested nations choose not to participate, the Five Eyes should proceed anyway.

That might seem more confrontational than heretofore, but that’s what we need instead of backpedaling all the time or constantly seeking to accommodate the PRC.

Harris Intends to Continue…

Posted on by
Reply

…her boss’, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s, disdain for Israel and that nation’s obligation (not merely right) to defend itself, an obligation that of necessity requires it to destroy an enemy whose openly stated goal includes the butchery of Israeli women and children en route to the extermination of Israel the nation.

Here’s Progressive-Democrat Vice President and likely Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential nominee Kamala Harris on the matter of Hamas creche-mate Hezbollah’s attack on Israel’s Druze children in the northern village of Majdal Shams as cited by The Wall Street Journal:

[A]lthough Israel has a right to defend itself, she would “not be silent” about “the death of far too many innocent civilians.”

This is Harris cynically naively taking the terrorist Hamas at its word regarding the entity’s casualty claims, claims that are carefully undifferentiated between civilian and combatant casualties and that are wholly unsubstantiated. This is Harris, also, completely disregarding Israel’s statements regarding the civilian to combatant casualty ratio in this Hamas-inflicted war while also disregarding the civilian casualty losses Israel has suffered at the hands of both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Harris also is committing the moral equivalence sewage of equating Hamas and Hezbollah’s terrorism with Israel’s fight for its existence against these terrorists: she’s demanding an unconditional cease fire, immediately.

I will not be silent. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who has been calling for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home, and let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.

She doesn’t care (it’s not possible to conclude she doesn’t know) that such a cease fire would benefit only the terrorists while doing nothing to recover the terrorist-seized hostages, many of whom the terrorists have already butchered while held or allowed to die of injuries while held. She doesn’t care (it’s not possible to conclude she doesn’t know) that Hamas will not agree to release the hostages or the hostage bodies unless and until Israel withdraws completely from the Gaza Strip, leaving Hamas in place to reconstitute, rearm, and resume attacking and butchering Israeli citizens. This is a straightforward continuation of Biden’s anti-Israeli policy. All that Harris lacks, so far, is a public intent to interfere with arms resupply of Israel, as Biden has done.

This is the candidate the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to put in the White House. This is the anti-Israeli policy Party wants to infuse throughout Congress by expanding its Senate majority and seizing a majority in the House.