Tag Archives: foreign policy

The PLO and Peace

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The US is cutting off funding for the PLO, and we’re closing the PLO’s delegation office in DC.  Various apologists for the terrorist organization are up in arms over the Trump administration’s sterner stand.

…the administration that appear to be moving away from the 1993-95 Oslo accords before the administration has explained what it thinks should come next.

Walking away from the Oslo peace framework? That framework doesn’t exist; the PLO walked away from it long ago.  See, for instance, PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s intifada after walking away from the historic and generous Israeli peace offer brokered by Bill Clinton in 2000.

Moreover, neither is the Trump administration required to lay out its strategy vis-à-vis the PLO in public—and thereby let the PLO develop its resistance to it—before it has presented its plan to Israel and the PLO nor is it required to negotiate with the PLO through the press.

Palestinians call move “reckless”

Reckless? What’s reckless is the PLO’s support for Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel.  What’s reckless is the PLO’s paying bounties to surviving families of terrorists killed in PLO and PLO-supported terror attacks.  What’s reckless is PLO’s support for Hezbollah.

Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center:

They [the Trump administration] are dismantling the traditional American architecture to create a two-state solution

That traditional architecture has worked so well over all these years.  No, it’s time to stop wasting time and resources on that obvious failure and try something else.

Beginning with encouraging the PLO to become interested in peace.

A Change in Tone?

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Recall the start of President Donald Trump’s response to the People’s Republic of China’s economic conflict with us, when he began imposing tariffs on PRC goods over their continued theft of American companies’ intellectual property.

Vice President Wang warned US business chieftains there would be corporate casualties. President Xi told others that Beijing would “punch back” at the US.

Now we’re getting sweet words.

Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s economic-policy chief, told visiting American business representatives that US companies’ China operations won’t be targeted in Beijing’s trade-brawl counterattacks. “We won’t allow retribution against foreign companies,” Mr Liu said[.]

We promise.

Sure.

No, this is not a change in tone.  It’s smoke-blowing and just a change in tactics.  The PRC still is requiring foreign companies—especially American companies—to take on a majority partner as a condition of doing business in the PRC.  Sure, the government is making noises about only requiring a minority partner (49% ownership), but they’ve enacted nothing.

The PRC still is requiring foreign companies—especially American companies—to install backdoors in their operating system software and their software products so the government can enter and poke around to its heart’s content.

The PRC still is hacking into American businesses and our government facilities to steal our companies’ and government’s secrets.

On the other hand, that last may indicate that the change in tone is serious.  The PRC may have gained enough confidence in its hacking chops that it doesn’t feel the need to demand the surrender of our secrets; it may be confident that it can steal them at will.

Either way, there’s no reason to take Liu at his word.  Actions matter.

Little Nations

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…and big nations.  There’s a meeting of 18 nations of the Pacific, the Pacific Islands Forum, occurring in the nation of Nauru, an island nation in the Pacific.  Nauru is 2500 miles north of New Zealand, and it would fit inside Providence, RI (in fact, it would fit inside my home town of Kankakee, IL).

The People’s Republic of China is present at the meeting as an observer; it’s not a member of the PIF.  You already know where and how big the PRC is.

Nauru formally recognizes the Republic of China, resident on the island of Taiwan, and it does not recognize the PRC—Nauru’s version of a One China Policy.  The PRC tried to take advantage of the meeting and the size disparity to force an opportunity for its representative to speak at the forum when it’s not otherwise authorized—that lack of membership bit.  Nauru President Baron Waqa said

[The PRC official] insisted, and was very insolent about it, and created a big fuss and held up the meeting of leaders for a good number of minutes when he was only an official.  Maybe because he was from a big country he wanted to bully us.

Waqa and the tiny island nation faced him down; the rep did not speak to the forum.

It would be good if some larger nations were inspired by this and also faced down the PRC.

Democracy

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The Progressive-Democratic Party and the Left in general no longer believe in democracy, whether republican or popular.  Here’s Robert Reich, Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration:

The title of his piece is the gist of the position: Don’t Impeach Trump, Annul His Presidency.  Read past the irrational hysteria in his first several paragraphs, hysteria like this:

Even if he loses in 2020, we’ll be fortunate if he concedes without being literally carried out of the Oval Office amid the stirrings of civil insurgency.
Oh, and let me remind you that even if he’s impeached, we’d still have his loathsome administration—Pence on down.

and you get to the meat of his—and their—demand.

Suppose, just suppose, Robert Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s outcome.
In other words, Trump’s presidency is not authorized under the United States Constitution.
…
What then? Impeachment isn’t enough.

He went on:

Impeachment would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only response to an unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency.
Annulment would recognize that all such appointments, actions, and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court declares legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it had never been passed.
It would logically follow that the Court could declare all legislation and executive actions of a presidency unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void, as if Trump had never been elected.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.
…
[The Trump Presidency] should be annulled.

Here are the Party and the Left—anyone from either of the two heavily overlapping groups—decrying their man’s demands.  By their studied silence are they known to agree.  That Reich’s piece is so irrational does not bother them in the least.  Nor does his desire to completely rewrite history to a depth and breadth that would shame the leadership of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the ongoing People’s Republic of China.

That irrationality, however, is a threat to our great republican democracy.  Remember this in the fall.

Security and Hacking

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The USAF and software company Merlin Cryption have developed a “cybersecurity technology”—and encryption technique—that has yet to be hacked, having been tried by the likes of Louisiana-based Cyber Innovation Center and the University of Louisiana in extensive testing.

The problem I have, based on published reporting and my status as a non-expert in the security field, is this from Brandon Brown, Merlin Cyrption’s CEO.

It uses a random data generator that never repeats a pattern. This puts it in a good position to overcome AI and Quantum computing….

Once you have a computer doing “random,” you’ve generated a pattern. Randomness requires access to infinitely large numbers with infinitely numbers of digits in them. Computers are bit-limited in how big a number they can represent—if nothing else, by the number of bits their storage media can hold and the number of bits their memory media can hold, much less the number of bits their CPU chips can process.  There is only so many unique draws from the population that a computer can do, even if that number approaches ginormosity.

Experts are optimistic.

One industry cybersecurity expert called the new technology “what the government has been looking for…a single solution to protect digital assets….”

No, this is just the convenience—and enormous risk—of putting all the eggs in one basket.  That’s not cool.

Understand: this is a valuable advance in security; it’s just not hack-proof.  Advances in computing power and in the horsiness of CPUs and storage will allow the hackers to catch up—and get back in the lead.  This is why even Merlin Cyrption won’t make any claim of hack-proof.