Progressive-Democrats, Drugs, and Nuclear Weapons

It’s a long read, but Politico‘s piece is worth the time.

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

Project Cassandra was making serious headway against Hezbollah’s drug dealing and money making—a $1 billion per year business that would seem to dwarf its terrorist activities—but as ex-President Barack Obama (D) and his (ex-)Secretary of State John Kerry got closer and closer to concluding Obama’s Executive Agreement with Iran that put a fig leaf over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Cassandra was increasingly restricted.  David Asher, a DoD finance forensics analyst who helped establish Project Cassandra:

The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away.  So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations—even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission—it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.

And here is the confession of all of that by Obama administration personnel who are figuratively hiding their faces so as not to be identified and called to account:

Former Obama administration officials declined to comment on individual cases, but noted that the State Department condemned the Czech decision not to hand over Fayad.

Because ObamaTalk always was so effective at changing the behavior of our nation’s enemies.

And

Several of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were guided by broader policy objectives, including de-escalating the conflict with Iran, curbing its nuclear weapons program and freeing at least four American prisoners held by Tehran, and that some law enforcement efforts were undoubtedly constrained by those concerns.

There it is.  Curbing the drug trade, cutting Hezbollah off from its major source of money were not as important as that administration’s public appearances regarding peace in our time with Iran.  What else was less important than appearances?

…insight into not only drug trafficking and other criminal activity worldwide, but also into Hezbollah’s illicit conspiracies with top officials in the Iranian, Syrian, Venezuelan, and Russian governments—all the way up to presidents Nicolas Maduro, Assad, and Putin….

And more directly, getting at “the Ghost,” Abdallah Safieddine, Hezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran who was—and still is, courtesy of these decisions

a major supplier of conventional and chemical weapons for use by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his people.

All bought and paid for with the proceeds from that drug trade.  Al Assad gassing his own people, after all, just wasn’t that important.  All enriching Hezbollah, too, and funding its own weapons inventory and increasing its threat to Israel.  Notice, too, that drug trade connection to Iran, with whom Obama and his Kerry were so desperate to conclude a deal with which they could pretend to look good in the eyes of the American Left.

There’s lots more in the Politico piece.

It’s hard to believe that the Progressive-Democrats in Congress at the time, at the very least the Party’s leadership, didn’t also know about this preference for an enemy’s—a terrorist organization’s—prosperous drug trade.

This is the set of priorities, the level of morality, that the Progressive-Democratic Party will have on offer in the 2018 mid-terms, the 2020 general election—imagine another Progressive-Democrat President—and beyond.

Vladimir Putin’s Image

Nathan Hodge is concerned.  He’s worried that our deprecating the Russian Chief Oligarch is only strengthening him at home.

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, being cast in the West as a global supervillain is proving a boon for his image at home.

It’s not at all clear, though, why it matters that any moves in the West, much less by us, might enhance Putin’s domestic image. It’s not like Russians have any say in how their government is populated or what those government men do.

What does matter is whether the West succeeds in circumscribing the nation of Russia’s behavior.  Putin himself isn’t relevant to that.

The Decision

After President Donald Trump announced that the US would officially recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital—a long-standing fact away from which US administrations had been ducking away for over 20 years—global (or at least European and Middle Eastern) expressions of angst have been loud.

Out come the pop psychology analyses.

Martin Indyk, former US Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, former US Ambassador to Israel, and current Executive Vice President of the Brookings Institution:

It was an appeal to his evangelical Christian base, pure and simple[.]

Of course it was.

No, wait.  Steven Spiegel, UCLA’s Center for Middle East Development Director [paraphrased by Deutsche Welle]:

Trump’s inclination to shake things up….

That must be it.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It couldn’t possibly be simply because it was a right thing to do, especially after decades of failure to achieve peace while using Jerusalem as a bargaining chip.  Nor could it matter that the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace with Israel, and they’ll object—violently—to anything an American administration might do.

Mm, mm.

Feelz, especially feelz of European nations and those of the Middle East, must take precedence, must be obeyed.  Oh, the ego-driven horror of not being listened to on this.

Confirmation

…of Palestinian lack of interest in peace with Israel.  Here’s Hamas Politburo Chief, Ismail Haniyeh:

We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada in the face of the Zionist enemy. …  We want the uprising to last and continue to let Trump and the occupation regret this decision.

And

…10 Palestinians were arrested in East Jerusalem overnight after Molotov cocktails were thrown.

Notice that: this isn’t just protestation of a decision with which the Palestinians disagree.  This is deliberately violent protest.  The decision with which these terrorists disagree is nothing more, in their minds, than an excuse to murder Israelis.

That’s the Point

Six months after it went into force, China’s tough new cybersecurity law is still troubling US technology executives who fear that it will put the intellectual property of their companies and the data they collect in jeopardy.

And

…while the law went into effect June 1, the Chinese government is still drafting specific implementation rules.

And

Company and trade-group representatives are also concerned that the network-equipment security reviews could expose proprietary source code, jeopardizing their trade secrets[.]

The People’s Republic of China wants other nations’ intellectual and technology property, and it’s willing to steal it in any way it can.  Especially targeted are businesses the PRC considers “critical information infrastructure:” computer-network operations in telecommunications, energy, transportation, information services, and finance.

Notice that.  These technologies also are critical to the other nations’ security. But that’s why the PRC demands the accesses and is so…hazy…about its rules facilitating getting those accesses.

One more reason to restrict the amount and nature of any business dealings with the mainland.