Category Archives: foreign policy

Are Syrian Refugees Human?

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Syrian MFWIC Bashar al-Assad wants Syrian refugees to come home.  The civil war is winding down, after all, and soon everything will be jake.

But obstacles the regime is throwing up to their return show that President Bashar al-Assad—mindful of the strain refugees are putting on neighboring countries—is willing to use the exiles as bargaining chips to secure foreign aid and sanctions relief, Western diplomats and analysts in Beirut say.

Al Assad still doesn’t see his own people (I’m using “his own” loosely) as human beings. To him, they’re not human at all, just chits to be cashed in for dollars and euros.

Progress?

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Is northern Korea starting to fulfill the commitment Baby Kim supposedly made to begin denuclearizing?

An American research group [38 North website] on Monday claimed that North Korea has begun dismantling its main missile-engine test site [Sohae Satellite Launching Station], a possible sign that Pyongyang is fulfilling the promises North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made to President Trump at the summit in Singapore last month.

Or is it simply taking the site apart and moving it somewhere else?  A lot of engine tests, after all, can be done underground.  Only time will tell.

I wonder because of the big deal being made about northern Korea’s lack of missile launches and nuclear bomb tests over the last several months, beginning just prior to the US-northern Korea summit in Singapore, and the tear down of (one of?) northern Korea’s underground nuclear bomb test sites.

There are a couple of potential reasons (among several) for those latter items.  One reason for the lack of launches and tests is that the northern Korea nuclear weapons program has reached a milestone, and it’s simply been consolidating and studying the data collected before it begins anew, building on the outcomes of those analyses.  Another alternative is that

[t]he overall importance of the Sohae missile site has also likely diminished…since North Korea, apparently satisfied with its missile design, had shifted to mass production last year.

Or, they could be acting on that alleged commitment.

One reason for the underground test site dismantling seems rather obvious, albeit ignored in the MLMSM.  This is the same site that People’s Republic of China analyses say was ruined by northern Korea’s last bomb test and the subsequent earthquakes at the site and the collapse of the underground portions of the site.  The explosive dismantling of the surface portions of the site could have been just PR.  Or, northern Korea could have been acting on that alleged commitment.

Don’t attend to the chit-chat going back and forth between the two governments; watch instead the actions of northern Korea.  So far, the series of actions taken by northern Korea are indistinguishable from propaganda.

And all of it must be viewed against the backdrop of northern Korea’s parallel commitment to return the remains of our soldiers who are formally MIA in last century’s Korean War, a commitment that, so far, Baby Kim has chosen to not keep.

Another Role for UNRWA

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A writer of a Letter to the Editor of The Wall Street Journal wondered why the UNWRA still was involved in handling Palestinian refugees instead of the UNHCR, which handles all other refugees worldwide.  This includes Palestinian refugees in the Gulf states, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, but not those in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza, and other geography close to or abutting Israel.

Here’s what the UNWRA did in support of its “refugees,” in particular Hamas’ 2014 terrorist war against Israel in furtherance of their own Gaza “refugees.”

  • warehoused the terrorists’ rockets for them
  • allowed the terrorists to dig their tunnels under UNRWA facilities
  • participating in the terrorists’ staged propaganda

As another letter-writer in the same chain noted, UNRWA exists because those supporting terrorism demand it—especially, contra that writer, those in the UN.

An Example of Irrationality

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Here’s Donald Trump decrying Germany’s willingness make itself dependent on Russian energy supplies by pushing for Nordstream 2, which will mean that Germany will get 60% of its natural gas from Russia, to go with the 40% of its oil imports that already are from Russia.  Aside from becoming so dependent on an enemy for its energy, Germany will be paying Russia billions of euros for the privilege.

I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.

The Progressive-Democrats went hysterical over Trump’s remark.  Here’s House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) in a joint statement:

President Trump’s brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies, Germany, is an embarrassment.  His behavior this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the President is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies.

Because not wanting billions of euros to go to Russia in return for dependency on Russian good offices is somehow being loyal to Putin.

Sure.

A Couple of Interesting Graphs

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This, via Stratfor, illustrate the level of commitment and its nature of NATO member nations toward their own defense.  The first shows the breakdown of expenditures of those monies aimed at each member’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense.

Notice who’s spending the most on equipment—that actual teeth of defense.  Most of the nations spending the most are right across the fence from the Russian Bear.

This graph shows which nations actually are meeting their 2% commitment.

In case the note is unreadable, the asterisk for Bulgaria notes that its figure does “not include persons.”

There are four nations that didn’t meet their 2% commitment in 2017, but that are expected to meet it in 2018: Poland (which was very close in 2017), Romania, Latvia, and Lithuania.  France, which was nearly as close to its commitment as were Romania and Latvia, will not meet its commitment in 2018.  Germany, well down the list, isn’t even trying.