Category Archives: defense policy

Dismantling?

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Northern Korea has announced that it will dismantle “its nuclear test site” sometime between 23 and 25 May.  It’s one of several sites, though, not its only one.

Still, it’s a hopeful move, to be sure.

On the other hand, it also could be a disingenuous con job.  Northern Korea has lied before about dismantling its nuclear facilities; it also has dismantled and then rebuilt nuclear facilities.  In the present case, the facility Baby Kim is purporting to dismantle is the same site that People’s Republic of China researchers have indicated is already ruined by earthquakes and collapses from northern Korea’s latest nuclear bomb test.  That test generated an explosion far greater than the mountain under which the test occurred could handle.

We’ll see.

The JCPOA, Trump, Europe, and Progressive-Democrats

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Most of you are aware that President Donald Trump has taken the steps required to withdraw from the Obama-Kerry-engineered arrangement whereby Iran would be delayed—maybe—from getting nuclear weapons instead of getting them sooner.  Among those steps are a 90-day window within which several existing business arrangements can be wound down before a set of sanctions gets reinstated and a 180-day window within which the rest of the business arrangements can be wound down before another, more stringent, set of sanctions gets reinstated, or added.

Now we have the European signatories, Great Britain, Germany, and France decrying the withdrawal and insisting that we should have stayed in the thing.  Never mind the evident weaknesses in the JCPOA (including in particular an inability to inspect thoroughly and on a no-notice basis, so we have no way of confirming that Iran is complying at all) and the additional factors of concern—that Iran is actively pursuing a missile delivery system for its nuclear weapons, actively funding its client terrorist entities around the Middle East, and directly fomenting unrest and open rebellion around the Middle East.

We should have been willing to renegotiate rather than withdraw.  This is disingenuous.  Great Britain, Germany, and France have had the 16 months since Trump’s inauguration to renegotiate; they’ve refuse to do so.  Even French President Emmanuel Macron, who claimed to be willing to renegotiate, turned out to be only talking; he made no concrete proposals.  Never mind that Iran has said it will not renegotiate.

Meanwhile, Great Britain, France, and Germany are conducting their separate negotiations with Iran.

Now we also have Progressive-Democrats decrying the withdrawal and insisting that the Trump administration should use those windows to conduct negotiations (with the Progressive-Democrats, too) with a view to improve the JCPOA and plug its weaknesses and address those additional factors of concern.  Never mind that Iran has said it will not renegotiate.

Never mind, either, that the Progressive-Democrats have already had those same 16 months in which to renegotiate, and they’ve refused to do so.  All these worthies have been willing to do is insist that the JCPOA be kept intact, until very lately—and even lately, on claiming that the thing’s weaknesses could be plugged, they’ve declined to offer any solutions, only to make demands to…talk.

Trump took a lot of heat for not acting immediately on his inauguration to keep his campaign promise to withdraw from the JCPOA.  Instead, he gave our European partners and our Progressive-Democrats those 16 months to negotiate and arrive at a better arrangement vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and its serial and concurrent misbehaviors.  They refused.

It’s no wonder that the United States had to act unilaterally, and that this administration has had to act in the face of active Progressive-Democrat obstruction.

National Sovereignty

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The European Court of Justice has decided it is the arbiter of a nation’s borders and of entry permissions, and not the nation itself.

The court heard the cases of two men, one Afghan and one with Croatian and Bosnian citizenship, and ruled the severity of their crimes or alleged crimes and how long ago they took place need to be taken into consideration before an entry ban is permitted.

The ECJ ruled that, while an EU member can bar entry to such persons, it must satisfy the court that its rationale is good enough; it is no longer a matter of national sovereignty, and that member cannot simply say, “No entry.”  This is an assault on the sovereignty of nations; it takes away from the nation its right to determine for itself who will be allowed to enter.

It attacks the principle of sovereignty that no person has an inherent right to enter any nation other than his own without that nation’s prior permission, and it attacks the tightly associated principle of sovereignty that no nation has an inherent obligation to let any foreign person in.

The ECJ’s ruling attacks the principle of sovereignty that borders are the province of the sovereign nation and its sovereign neighbor and arrogates the meaning of borders to the court.

Aside from the sovereignty question, there’s also this.  It may be a good or a bad idea for a nation to bar entry to this or that individual or to bar this or that group of individuals.  It’s often a moral question, too.  But it’s not a question that’s within the purview of an international court.  Nor is the morality of the matter a question that’s within the purview of any court.  Acting on a moral question—the very definition of what is moral—is a political act and a political definition.  It cannot be a judicial one, it cannot be the decision of a few who are unaccountable to the nation’s people.  Not in any free society.

This last, especially, has implications for immigration cases currently before the Supreme Court or soon to be.  Will the Justices make the political determination of who is allowed into the United States—as far too many district and appellate judges have presumed to do—or will they leave the political decision properly in the hands of our nation’s political actors?

The Veterans Administration

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…won’t clean up after itself.  In this instance, literally.  This is the VA “hospital” room a veteran was placed in when he went to that…facility…for treatment that involved 18 injections.  Injections to be done in a room as filthy as this.

Dr Karen Gribbin, the chief of staff at the George E Wahlen Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center, on Saturday reportedly said that Wilson should not have been in the room. She said the rooms should be cleaned prior to each patient and called on an investigation.

Wahlen is the imitation hospital at which this failure occurred.  The vetaran’s father, who posted the tweet, also tweeted

The condition of the room was the way it was when he went in, no other room was offered and no attempt to clean it up was made for the duration of his appointment[.]

Gibben also admitted that the veteran got his injections in that dirty room, but she claimed that the injection equipment—the needles, for instance—

would have been used just on him.

While that is, in fact, highly likely, how can we be sure, given the condition of the room and the level of professionalism and of integrity demonstrated by going ahead with the patient’s treatment there?

And this:

Gribbin was asked what the typical procedure was for when to clean patient rooms in order to ensure they are clean for each visit.

“We are investigating that. To be quite honest I do not work in that clinic area and I am not sure…exactly what that process is. We will be absolutely clarifying that, making sure our policies and procedures are well thought out and well communicated to staff[.]

She’s the Chief of Staff.  How is it possible that she does not know her own procedures or protocols?

Again, I say: disband the VA altogether and use its budget and nominal future budgets for vouchers for our veterans to see the doctors, clinics, and hospitals they choose, when they choose, and for the care they choose.  Enough of the VA’s trash.  Literally.

The original tweet, posted by the veteran’s father, can be seen here.  Poke through the reply thread, too.

 

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

German Defense Spending

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Recall that at the just-concluded summit between President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump urged Merkel to increase Germany’s defense spending.  Recall further Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s subsequent meeting with NATO bigwigs in which he urged NATO members generally to increase their defense spending.

This table illustrates why Germany really needs to plus up its defense spending.

And this:

In February, the newspaper Rheinische Post cited an internal Bundeswehr paper stating that the army lacked the necessary basic equipment for its deployment in a NATO rapid reaction force.

Basic equipment: really basic, like tents for winter shelter, winter clothing, even combat basics like protective vests.

Germany’s Defense Minister has said she wants €12 billion ($14.6 billion) more than currently allocated to begin to bring the nation’s military establishment to a higher state of capability.  That’s barely a third of one per cent of Germany’s €3.4 trillion ($4.2 trillion) GDP.

I have to ask: is Germany serious about its own defense? Or does it really intend to continue to freeload off other NATO members—not only the US?