Category Archives: foreign policy

Orbiting Nuclear Weapons

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Russia is working on antisatellite weapon systems that would use nuclear explosions in orbit to destroy satellites in large numbers rather than conventional weapons that would attack satellites individually. A Wall Street Journal article centered on a Russian two-year-old launch of a satellite intended to conduct research into such a weapon had this, which is concerning for other reasons, also.

The eventual weapon, if and when deployed in orbit, could wipe out satellites in a part of space dominated by American government and commercial assets, they said, including SpaceX’s Starlink constellation….

An at least as large concern is that such a detonation or detonations would create EMP pulses that would be extremely damaging to our electric grid and the computer networks controlling that grid; to our oil, natural gas, and water distribution grids; and to the data centers handling our communications and financial systems.

Deliberate Insult?

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Amid the hoo-raw over Hamas claiming to agree to a sham deal for a cease fire and Israel sending tanks into Rafah to secure the Gaza side of the border crossing there despite Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s order not to and his already withholding weapons shipments to Israel, there’s this tidbit:

An Israeli delegation, Hamas officials, mediators from Qatar, and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency arrived in Cairo for discussions on a cease-fire proposal from the militant group. CIA Director William Burns arrived there from Qatar….

Leave aside the WSJ‘s dishonesty in claiming Hamas terrorists are a militant group. Biden sent an underling from an agency that has no authority to conclude any sort of international agreement, nor any sort of agreement between nations and a terrorist network entity. The CIA has no such capacity in its portfolio, not even the Director. Biden has sent his SecState to prior such discussions, and he’s sent his SecDef to prior such discussions. These two do have authority to conclude diplomatic or military agreements. Biden chose, this time though, to send his head spy instead.

So: a calculated insult by Biden aimed at the man for whom he has such blatant and public disdain—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—or just another example of Biden’s oblivious incompetence?

(Aside: one outcome of the IDF’s seizing the Gaza side of the border crossing could be one of making safer and easier the entry into the Gaza Strip of humanitarian aid, done by isolating the terrorists from the entry point. Of course, the press and the Biden administration don’t want to mention that part.)

A Plan to Protect Rafah Civilians

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, and especially his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have made plain their opposition to Israel’s military entering Rafah without a realistic plan to move civilians out of harm’s way. And this, from Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies Executive Director Tamir Hayman:

The benefits are very few, especially if you compare it to the negative effects[.]

Apparently, he thinks destroying Hamas and preventing the permanently serial occurrences of October 7s promised by Hamas leadership doesn’t outweigh the potential loss of opportunity to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia and build a regional partnership that could act as a counterweight to Iran on the line. Or he doesn’t believe Hamas’ promise to continue its campaign of destruction of Israel. On either of those alternatives, I think he’s wrong.

Thus, I propose a plan that would, if not permanently, at least for a very long time, protect those Rafah civilians, and all of the civilians of the Gaza Strip.

The IDF should go into Rafah without further delay, go in in force, and utterly destroy the remaining Hamas terrorists. That would release those civilians from being used as shields by the terrorists, and it would stop those civilians’ residences, schools, mosques, and hospitals being used by the terrorists as weapons storage sites, weapons launching facilities, and command centers.

The destruction of Hamas, removing the cause of civilian harm, is the best and most long-term effective way to move civilians out of harm’s way.

Suckers

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As the WSJ editors note, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is so desperate in his kowtowing to his terrorist-supporting Left and to the just as enthusiastically terrorist-supporting staff in his administration, that he’s gone so far as to hold up a weapons shipment for Israel. He’s anxiously trying to force Israel to agree a cease fire right damn now.

Meanwhile, he’s ignoring the simple fact that Hamas is demanding a permanent end to the war it began last October 7 and continues to prosecute. Biden also is ignoring that Hamas has walked away from the latest round of cease fire “negotiations” because Israel can’t agree to an end to a war that Hamas can only be trusted to resume.

We’re told that Hamas hasn’t budged on its negotiating demands, which include a permanent end to the war, not merely a cease-fire.

Israel is right on that. Hamas will never honor an agreement for a permanent end to the war: Hamas has promised October 7 attacks until Israel is destroyed. This is just Hamas playing Biden—and far too many others in his administration and in administrations in Europe—for the suckers they are.

Now, as I write this, in the moment Israel has warned Rafah residents to evacuate to a set-up-for-the-purpose humanitarian aid area in al-Masawi (roughly 3-4 miles north of Rafah and within a quarter mile of the sea coast) in advance of an imminent assault on the city, comes word that Hamas claims to have agreed a framework for a cease fire. But framework only, and with no mention of any hostage releases or trades.

That’s another Hamas sucker play.

Misguided

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The Wall Street Journal‘s subheadline summarizes the error.

Biden administration, rocked by a wave of protests at college campuses, needs Israel to cut a deal to stop the fighting

The article centers on Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Israel, among other visits in the Middle East, and Blinken’s Presidential charge to cut a deal with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to distract (my term) from the turmoil on so many American college and university campuses and that turmoil’s negative impact on Biden’s reelection chances.

The “deal” is this:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is beginning a visit to Israel to press for a cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip….

Its relationship with campus turmoil is this:

…as protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip spread across US college campuses. Biden needs the Israeli leader to deliver a halt in fighting that could ease domestic pressure over the conflict.

No. The two are wholly unrelated, beyond the tangential point of contact between the disruptors’ claimed purpose and the war Israel is fighting for its own survival against the terrorist gang operating out of the Gaza Strip.

The disrupters—they’ve long since crossed the line between legitimate protest to disruption with their violence, vandalism, threats to murder “Zionists,” active blocking of students from attending class, demands (a toddler’s temper tantrum) that their positions be satisfied entirely and immediately—either are actively supporting the terrorists of Hamas or are toddlers (never mind chronological ages) throwing temper tantrums, and in either case, they are acting out their antisemitic bigotry.

College and university management teams need to stop condoning, if not actively supporting, these terrorist supporters’, bigots’, and toddlers’ behavior, and instead call in the campus and city police to eject them from campus, arrest them, and bring them to trial for their violence and threats of murder and their vandalism.

As a University of Florida spokesman said as UF started just these actions,

This is not complicated. The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children—they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.

Not complicated at all. It may be that some managers are starting to do that, but it’s far too soon to say with any confidence.

With Israel engaged in its war for its existence, Biden needs to get out of Israel’s way and instead actively support it as it goes into Rafah and a couple of nearby villages to finally destroy Hamas, the terrorist gang that has promised an endless repetition of October 7s.