Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Gordon G. Chang • June 23, 2021 at 5:00 am
Call this another Biden debacle in the making. China, it is evident, is now in no mood for substantive discussions, other than, of course, for the purpose of accepting America's surrender. American leaders, administration in and administration out, think it is important to meet face-to-face with adversaries, that they can somehow reason with them. That view is naïve, arrogant, and almost always incorrect. Chinese leaders of the communist variety often talk of "friendship" but are ruthlessly pragmatic, and often just ruthless. For them, personal feelings have no value in relations with other states. Personal diplomacy with Beijing is counterproductive: Americans chase after the Chinese and the Chinese take advantage of this eagerness. The incessant pursuit of Beijing makes America, in the eyes of the Chinese regime, an easy mark. If the reports about Dong are accurate, Biden should be now talking about imposing the most severe costs on China, not chasing after Xi Jinping to begin a conversation. America should, among other things, cut trade, end investment, prohibit technical cooperation, perhaps stop all travel altogether. Biden definitely should close China's remaining four consulates in the U.S. and send virtually all Chinese embassy officials home. The President should announce it is the policy of the United States to end communist rule in China. Chinese officials took Canadian hostages, known as "the two Michaels," in December 2018 and have held them since because they knew Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would do nothing about it. The Chinese believed Trudeau would do nothing because he had spent his career desperately trying to court China. — Charles Burton of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute. So, President Biden, stop turning the other cheek and start performing your most fundamental constitutional duty: Protecting America from foreign enemies.
President Joe Biden, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wants to begin a new round of "engaging" China. The incessant pursuit of Beijing makes America, in the eyes of the Chinese regime, an easy mark. China, it is evident, is now in no mood for substantive discussions, other than, of course, for the purpose of accepting America's surrender. Pictured: Sullivan (right) and Secretary of State Antony Blinken address the media following US-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska on March 19, 2021. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wants to begin a new round of "engaging" China. Call this another Biden debacle in the making. On June 17, after the troubled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Sullivan told reporters that Biden "will look for opportunities to engage with President Xi going forward." "Soon enough, we will sit down to work out the right modality for the two presidents to engage," Sullivan said. "It's now just a question of when and how." How about never? The U.S. and China have already engaged each other. Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down with China's top two diplomats, Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Anchorage in the middle of March.
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by Soeren Kern • June 22, 2021 at 5:00 am
The German Parliament and other federal agencies estimate that the true number Grey Wolves in Germany is above 18,000. This is five times more than the number of members (3,500) of Germany's neo-Nazi party. The ideology underpinning the Grey Wolves movement is a Turkish version of Aryanism and sets itself in opposition to anyone who is not Turkish or Sunni Islamic. It is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, as well as anti-American, anti-Armenian, anti-Kurdish and anti-Greek. The objective of the Grey Wolves is to unify all the Turkish peoples into a single country called Turan whose territory would stretch from Europe to China. The Grey Wolves also want to establish a new world order based on Islam that is led by Turkey; they are opposed to the assimilation or integration of Turkish immigrants into Western society. "Supporters of the 'Grey Wolves' are responsible for a large number of murders of political opponents and members of minorities in Turkey and abroad." — Die Linke, Parliamentary Resolution, November 2020. "So, the CDU is in reality working with the right-wing extremist Grey Wolves, although it preaches that right-wing extremism is the greatest danger in Germany." — Zara Riffler, Tichys Einblick. "Erdoğan despises the West and Western values. He says this openly at every opportunity.... One is not working here on integration, not even on a parallel society, but quite obviously on a counter-society.... Why can Merkel — and Germany — criticize Trump and the USA, but not publicly and unequivocally put Erdoğan in his place?" — CDU politician Ali Ertan Toprak, Tichys Einblick.
Pictured: Turks in Berlin, Germany wave flags at a demonstration in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on July 15, 2017. One man in the photo is giving the hand sign of the Grey Wolves organization . (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
As German federal elections approach on September 26, the candidates hoping to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel are reiterating the need to thwart far-right extremism, particularly neo-Nazism, in Germany. In fact, the largest far-right extremist group in Germany is Turkish, not German, according to a new intelligence report on domestic threats to Germany's constitutional order. The Turkish neo-fascist movement Ülkücü (Turkish for "Idealists") — popularly known as Grey Wolves — now has at least 11,000 active members in Germany, according to the new annual report (Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020) by Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV).
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 21, 2021 at 5:00 am
Abbas appears to be emboldened by the Biden administration's decision to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians. This no-strings-attached money is being supplied without even a stipulation that the PA put an end to human rights violations and assaults on public freedoms. Lawyers for Justice said in a separate statement ... that the forms of torture in the PA-controlled Jericho Prison included hanging detainees from the ceilings, beatings and verbal abuse... and electric shocks. "The Future List calls on all electoral lists approved by the Central Elections Committee, all human rights bodies and all honorable people of this country to form a united front to confront the arbitrary political arrests that aim to silence every free voice that rises in the face of tyranny and corruption practiced by the Palestinian Authority." — The Future List, Shfanews.com, May 26, 2021. It seems clear that the diplomats care little if the PA is arresting, torturing and intimidating social media users and political activists. These diplomats and Western journalists do raise their voices -- and loudly -- when they have something damning to say about Israel. The silence of the international community and the Biden administration's blind and unqualified support for the PA only encourage the Palestinian leadership to step up its repressive measures against Palestinians. When Palestinians despair of any improvement in the PA leadership, they move towards Hamas and other terrorist groups that are seen by many Palestinians as a better alternative to Abbas and his Fatah faction. It is hardly surprising, then, that the most recent public opinion poll showed a dramatic surge in the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians. What should be surprising -- and disturbing -- is that the Western world is directly aiding and abetting this bloody shift of allegiance.
Did the Biden administration give the Palestinian Authority (PA) a green light to resume its security crackdown on social media users, political activists and rivals in the West Bank? Since Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit in May to Ramallah, PA security forces have arrested or summoned dozens of Palestinians for interrogation. The Palestinian human rights group Lawyers for Justice revealed that some of the detainees confirmed that they were beaten and tortured in the PA-controlled Jericho Prison. (Image source: iStock)
Did the Biden administration give the Palestinian Authority (PA) a green light to resume its security crackdown on social media users, political activists and rivals in the West Bank? Since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit in late May to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, PA security forces have arrested or summoned dozens of Palestinians for interrogation. Many of these Palestinians were accused of "insulting" Palestinian leaders on social media platforms or expressing support for the PA's rivals in Hamas and other Palestinian factions. Abbas appears to be emboldened by the Biden administration's decision to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians. This no-strings-attached money is being supplied without even a stipulation that the PA put an end to human rights violations and assaults on public freedoms.
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by Peter Schweizer • June 20, 2021 at 5:00 am
The actions of the Beijing government since the earliest days of concern about the disease have shown in stark relief how a closed, authoritarian society tries to deny and shift blame for its misdeeds. How it seeks to co-opt international health agencies. How it tries to bribe foreigners to do its bidding. How it has infected more than not just American bodies, but American society and its institutions at many levels. Almost no one in American politics, on the Left or Right, has been hailing the Chinese communist government for its efforts to stem the fourth deadly pathogen to come from its shores and devastate the rest of the world. The Chinese government concealed all information about how the virus originated, encouraging speculation they did so intentionally. According to Gordon Chang, they may even be preparing to do so again, only worse.... By comparison, Russia's crimes against the West, real and imagined, amount to a relative nuisance. Foreign policy, however, is made towards nations, not individual leaders. In geo-political terms it asks: What is another country's ability to help you, or harm you? In the 1980s no one would have suggested that Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, or Muamar Qaddafi was America's greatest enemy. They were obnoxious sideshows, annoying tinpot dictators with a flair for the microphone, but not existential threats on the order of the Soviet Union. What this poll suggests is that threat assessment has somehow become a partisan issue, based on political grudges and perceptions that have little to do with a particular nation's real capacity to damage American interests. The divide among Republicans and Democrats between China and Russia as our largest threat fails to account for a modern analysis of China's power, influence, aggressiveness in action, and willingness to corrupt American political and cultural leaders. It should not be a partisan issue, no matter how obnoxious one nation's current leader may be. Putin loves to tweak America; Xi prefers quieter, more damaging forms of aggression. It is vital for American voters to understand that bribery is a key part of doing business for both China and Russia. No matter how much he might like to, Vladimir Putin cannot threaten the balance sheets of huge American companies such as Apple and Microsoft; China could do it tomorrow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin loves to tweak America; Chinese President Xi Jinping prefers quieter, more damaging forms of aggression. (Photo by Kenzaburo Fukuhara - Pool/Getty Images)
Imagine yourself sitting at a poker table with one opponent who fingers his dwindling stack of chips while glowering at you and daring you to bump the pot. Meanwhile, your other opponent with more chips sits quietly behind his cards while his paid spies behind your chair signal him the contents of your hand. A national poll this spring showed a sharp divide between Democrats and Republicans over whether Russia or China is America's greatest international adversary. Democrats, perhaps still seething from Russia's clumsy efforts to sway the 2016 election to Donald Trump, see Vladimir Putin as a Bond movie villain and master manipulator. Republicans focused on commerce, cyber-security, and Asian ascension, look at emerging China as their greatest threat.
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by Amir Taheri • June 20, 2021 at 4:00 am
While Obama looked the other way, China militarized a string of atolls in seas around it as part of a long-term plan to forge an aggressive profile against its neighbor and the United States. The Chinese challenge can and must be met both in the global arena and inside the People's Republic itself. Any move in that direction would require a realistic assessment of the People's Republic in terms of hard and soft power. China's pursuit of global power and influence is modelled on the Western empire-buildings of the 19th century, which consisted of importing raw material, exporting manufactured goods, and weaving networks of trade with the help of a seemingly endless flow of settlers, gunboats and colonial outposts across the globe. China cannot fully adopt that model for a number of reasons. Its model is based on the assumption that capitalism can forever do without democracy, something that the experience of the Western imperial powers of the past proved to be fallacious.
China's President Xi Jinping's pretension for global leadership is more a sign of doubts about a model of capitalism without democracy. He hopes to replace the deadwood of Communism with the rotten timber of pseudo-nationalism. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
At the G7 summit in Cornwall last weekend, US President Joe Biden warned his fellow-summiteers that unless something was done "China would eat our lunch." Did Biden overegg the pudding with his colorful language or is the world ignoring the invisible chopsticks at work? In a sense China, as the biggest trading partner of almost all the G7 members, is already eating part of their lunch while it is clear that without Western investment, technology and, of course, markets, China might have remained hungry and stuck between the madness of Maoism and the inertia of Ah-Quism.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • June 19, 2021 at 5:00 am
Secretary of State Antony Blinken... stated at his inauguration hearing that he had "deep concern about the designation" of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, in that "at least on its surface it seems to achieve nothing particularly practical in advancing the efforts against the Houthis and to bring them back to the negotiating table...." One wonders if the same thinking would apply to Al Qaeda or Islamic State. In yet an additional form of appeasement, the Biden administration has been strenuously ignoring the Iranian regime's aggression and destabilizing behavior..... now, [Iran] is sending a destroyer... and a support vessel... to Venezuela. "If the boats [seven Iranian high-speed missile-attack craft] are delivered, they may form the core of an asymmetrical warfare force within Venezuela's armed forces. This could be focused on disrupting shipping as a means of countering superior naval forces. Shipping routes to and from the Panama Canal are near the Venezuelan coast." — H I Sutton and Sam LaGrone, USNI News, U.S. Naval Institute, June 1, 2021. Tehran has not only been using Venezuela for military cooperation, but also, it seems, to advance its nuclear program.... Iran's ruling mullahs, in fact, appear to have been using Venezuela as part of a larger agenda for increasing Iran's influence and the presence of its proxies in Latin and North America. Instead of confronting Iran's predatory regime, the Biden administration, has been forging ahead with the failed 2015 "nuclear deal" -- which permits Iran to become a legitimate, full-blown nuclear power in just a few years. The Biden administration is also turning a blind eye to the regime's alarming and increasing human rights violations.
Since the Biden administration assumed office, it has been increasingly appeasing the Iranian regime, which in return, is further emboldening and empowering the mullahs. Pictured US President Joe Biden (right) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from right) in Geneva on June 15, 2021. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the Biden administration assumed office, it has been increasingly appeasing the Iranian regime, which in return, is further emboldening and empowering the mullahs. The first appeasement came when the administration changed the previous administration's policy of maximum pressure to a policy of appeasement toward the Iran's proxy militia group, the Houthis. Even as evidence -- including a report by the United Nations -- showed that the Iranian regime is delivering sophisticated weapons to the Houthi militia group in Yemen, the Biden administration suspended some of the sanctions against terrorism that the previous administration imposed on the Houthis. The previous US administration had designated Iran's proxies, the Houthis, a terrorist group.
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by Lawrence Kadish • June 18, 2021 at 5:00 am
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Photo by Otto Herschan Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
America! Since our founding we have stood tall against every assault and every enemy. This is not the time to despair. Rather, we need to go beyond simply recognizing today's threats and embrace the spirit of a nation that has weathered the worst our foes have ever thrown against us. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America's most vigorous patriots, used the power of poetry to rally his fellow citizens and remain true to the steadfast courage of our forefathers when he penned, "The Building of the Ship." The poem compares building a ship to building a nation and within the verses he implores us to defend it! Their words still ring out: "In spite of Rock or Tempest roar, in spite of false lights on the shore."
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • June 18, 2021 at 4:00 am
The genuine power in Iran is made up of unelected, authoritarian, religious and fascist military elites who, for decades, have, frozen in place the revolutionary, theocratic ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The nomination mechanism for presidential candidates is itself part of the fraudulent process. Past elections have either been rigged in favor the hardliners, as in today's election, or so overshadowed by the power of the regime's deep state, that no president is been able to effect any substantive reforms to loosen the chokehold that the mullahs maintain on Iranian citizens. The most likely dark horse is former Central Bank of Iran President Abdolnasser Hemmati, a (relative) moderate.... Hemmati's biggest obstacle is the lack of interest by the majority of Iran's electorate. They seem to have despaired of any real change in the Islamic Republic, at least in the near future. The US negotiating team, seemingly desperate for a deal -- any deal -- with the mullahs, could cause far less global damage if they despaired of it, as well.
(Photo by Ali Najafi/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's so-called presidential election today, June 18, is a fraud, a ruse for the world to observe and seemingly domestically designed to release some pent-up popular pressure. Iran's presidency itself is a weak institution of weak political superstructure which also includes the legislative branch (the majles, the sort-of equivalent of a parliament). This highly visible but insubstantial governmental apparatus masks the real power in Iran: the "deep state" of the Islamic Republic.
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • June 17, 2021 at 5:00 am
[B]igots... in the United States and Europe, insist on characterizing Israel as an apartheid state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel has real diversity, not the kind of phony diversity that characterizes many American institutions. American diversity is simply a euphemism for more Blacks, and especially more Blacks who hold the same views about political and racial matters. The best evidence of this truism came from Google's appointment of a chief diversity officer who had expressed anti-gay and anti-Jewish views.... He is Black and that is all that diversity means at Google and many other American institutions. It is different in Israel, because Israel is such an inherently diverse nation that takes its diversity seriously. Every Muslim majority nation is officially a Muslim state that bestows considerable benefits on members of that faith. England is an Anglican Christian state with an established religion. Catholicism is the official religion of several European countries. Many national flags and emblems have crosses, crescents or other distinctly religious symbols. So stay tuned to see how the now government manages to survive the challenges of diversity. In the meantime, however, stop singling out Israel for demonization by mislabeling it as apartheid or undemocratic.
Israel stands among the countries of the world most committed to achieving real equality for all its citizens. Pictured: Members of Israel's new cabinet attend their first meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Israel on June 13, 2021. (Photo by Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
I challenge anyone to name a parliamentary democracy that has had a more diverse coalition government -- racially, religiously, ethnically, ideologically, politically, national origin -- than the current Israeli government. It includes people of nearly every color from Black Ethiopians to brown Muslims to swarthy Sephardim to pale Russians. It includes a modern Orthodox Jew as Prime Minister, along with fundamentalist Muslims and atheist and agnostics Jews. It has a gay cabinet member, a deaf member of the Knesset and people who trace their roots to Asia, Africa, Europe and America.
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • June 17, 2021 at 4:00 am
Communist China seems not only to be directly challenging the US lead in space exploration; its space plans also appear to include an ambitious military dimension, much of whose contents look as if they are controlled by the CCP's People's Liberation Army (PLA). These PLA programs include a vast array of counter-space weapons systems designed to degrade or destroy US space assets. Even if there are areas where the US and Chinese space programs could serve universal concerns... sadly, it would seem foolhardy to cooperate on any program with the CCP. It has not made a secret of its intent to unseat the US as the world's leading superpower... within the next 15-30 years. It has already declared war on the US; the US just seems not yet to have read the memo. China seems to be trying to maneuver a surreptitious surrender, by undermining the US from within, accompanied by the threat of a costly, high-powered war. Unfortunately, many in the US seem to be complying. Meanwhile, in America, we appear busy with diversions -- educating our children to hate our country; allowing our government to torpedo our economy by killing growth and launching a ruinous debt; disabling our energy supply while boosting that of our adversaries; exploding our taxes while making us support countless illegal migrants -- that are enabling Communist China to fulfill its dream: enfeebling America to take control not only of "near-Earth" space but everything under it as well.
Communist China's space program is demonstrating that it is on a trajectory possibly to surpass the US in the military and scientific exploration in our solar system. Today, June 17, China launched a three-astronaut crew who will inhabit the command module of its soon-to-be-completed Tianhe Chinese Space Station. Pictured: The astronauts appear at a departure ceremony before launch on June 17, 2021 in Jiuquan, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Communist China's space program is demonstrating that it is on a trajectory possibly to surpass the US in the military and scientific exploration in our solar system. China is planning a space spectacular to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on July 23, 1921. Today, June 17, China launched a three-astronaut crew who will inhabit the command module of its soon-to-be-completed Tianhe Chinese Space Station. This planned human launch follows the June 10 multiple satellite deployment from Northern China's Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. One of these satellites is designed to track near-earth asteroids.
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by Soeren Kern • June 16, 2021 at 5:00 am
In retrospect, Germany's much-vaunted Hezbollah ban appears to have been little more than a publicity stunt aimed at silencing critics of the German government's pro-Iran foreign policy. Hezbollah has effectively evaded the ban by transferring many of its activities to charities and cultural centers controlled by Iran. Iran's main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH). "Like all pro-Iranian institutions, IZH is based on the model of the Islamic state of Allah and the ideas of the 1979 revolution with the aim of expanding and Islamizing the entire world. Western values, liberal ideas or the free democratic basic order are in contradiction to this. Due to the history and the animosity between Iran and Israel, the teachings of IZH have a strong anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli attitude." — Annual Report for 2020, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, Hamburg branch. "Although it contains 'democratic' elements, this doctrine does not serve to establish the rule of the people, i.e., democracy, but rather to establish the rule of Allah, whose 'guardians' are Shiite Islamic scholars. Therefore, Hezbollah spreads an extremist Islamist ideology and represents a threat to the constitutional order." — Annual Report for 2020, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, North Rhine-Westphalia branch. "For Hezbollah, Germany represents a space for logistical and financial support services. Although its supporters in Germany are well networked internally, they are not very visible to the outside world because they are careful not to be openly connected with Hezbollah." — Annual Report for 2020, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, Rhineland Palatinate branch. "One gets the impression that no one has really tried to completely shed light on and smash the structures of Hezbollah in Germany." — German MP Benjamin Strasser. The Hezbollah ban was in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who wanted to take a harder line against Iran and those who did not. As a result, the ban fell far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and was apparently aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allowed Germany to claim that it had banned the group even if it had not.
One year after Germany banned Hezbollah from operating on its soil, the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group's presence in Germany is stronger than ever. Iran's main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque (pictured) and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH). (Image source: Staro1/Wikimedia Commons)
One year after Germany banned Hezbollah from operating on its soil, the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group's presence in Germany is stronger than ever. In the twelve months since the ban entered into effect, Hezbollah's propaganda and fundraising activities in Germany have continued apace; the number of its followers in the country has increased; and the Hamburg mosque which serves as Iran's main base of operations in Germany has gained in influence. In retrospect, Germany's much-vaunted Hezbollah ban appears to have been little more than a publicity stunt aimed at silencing critics of the German government's pro-Iran foreign policy.
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by Judith Bergman • June 15, 2021 at 5:00 am
China's border actions against India have been described as a "salami tactic". China seems to be seeking to dominate territory through incremental operations too small to attract international attention and not large enough to spark an actual war with India -- but sufficient to accumulate real results over time in the form of gained territory. It is similar to the tactic China has been using in the South China Sea. For this purpose, China uses gray-zone warfare, a maneuver at which the country has become expert, especially against Taiwan. The concept entails actions that fall just short of war -- others have termed it "indirect war" -- but the purpose is the same: to overcome resistance -- or a perceived enemy -- by inducing exhaustion. "Overall, China's increasing ties to the Indian Ocean and beyond have expanded enormously over the past two decades.... Crucially... it appears that China does intend to develop some sort of Indian Ocean force." — Christopher Colley, Wilson Center, Washington D.C., April 2, 2021 "If India is weakened militarily and economically... its value as a counterweight to China and the broader U.S. goal of countering China's regional influence would also be undermined." — Daniel S. Markey, Council on Foreign Relations, April 19, 2021.
One year after China ordered an attack on the disputed border between India and China in the Himalayas --which deteriorated into a situation in which 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese soldiers were killed -- tension along the border remains high. Pictured: An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on June 19, 2020 in Gagangir, India. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)
One year after China ordered an attack on the disputed border between India and China in the Himalayas -- which deteriorated into a situation in which 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese soldiers were killed -- tension along the border remains high. "China's occupation since May 2020 of contested border areas is the most serious escalation in decades and led to the first lethal border clash between the two countries since 1975," according to the "2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community," published on April 9, 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Military tensions between China and India go back nearly six decades to the 1962 Sino-Indian war, when China began attacking India. Although relations subsequently improved, the shadow of the war remains partly in the form of disagreement between the two countries about where the exact border -- or the Line of Actual Control (LAC), as it is called -- is located.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 14, 2021 at 5:00 am
The Palestinian Authority says that it should be the only party in charge of the reconstruction and that all funds must be channeled through its government. Hamas, on the other hand, insists that the funds from the international community be sent directly to its coffers. "The Palestinians must remove this Iranian occupation in Palestine so that they can live in peace." — Nora Shanar, Saudi author, Elaph, May 10, 2021. The message the Arabs and Muslims are sending to the Biden administration and other Western donors: Stop showering money on corrupt and failed Palestinian leaders whose stock-in-trade is purloining international funds. The Palestinians do not need money as much as they need new leaders whose commitment to the welfare of their people outweighs their interest in their own pockets.
Egypt has gone out of its way to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after the recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas. But the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas only care about one thing: filling their own coffers with funds earmarked for suffering Palestinians. Pictured: An aid convoy of construction equipment and material provided by Egypt arrives in the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing on June 4, 2021. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)
Last month, Egypt succeeded in its effort to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Since then, however, Egypt has been unable to secure an agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority over the reconstruction of buildings and homes that were destroyed during the 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict. Egypt has gone out of its way to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after the recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas. First, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi pledged $500 million to contribute to the reconstruction effort. (Qatar has promised a similar sum to help rebuild the Gaza Strip). Second, Egypt dispatched the head of its General Intelligence Service, Abbas Kamel, to the Gaza Strip and West Bank for talks with leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority about the reconstruction plan.
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by Chris Farrell • June 14, 2021 at 4:00 am
American taxpayer money is being filtered through the UN to foreign non-profits assisting migrants trying to enter the U.S. Turning over any portion of our immigration process to the UN is a disaster waiting to happen. Americans always have recourse to elections to replace ineffective and/or corrupt politicians. What recourse for accountability exists for UN officials and their NGO surrogates? How does the Biden administration ensure the UN will respect U.S. sovereign national security interests related to persons entering our country? Americans should know that UNHCR operations have not been without scandal and controversy. In April 2019, NBC News ran a three-part series called "Asylum for Sale," detailing a seven-month long investigation across five countries which uncovered claims against UN officials. The Biden administration is ignoring immigration law. The UN and non-profits are actively working to subvert and reverse U.S. immigration law. The UN is squandering U.S. taxpayer money on organizations and processes that undermine our national security.
According to sources within Mexican law enforcement, in refugee centers like Tapachula and Matamoros, UN officials pressure Mexican immigration caseworkers to move migrants north to the United States as quickly as possible, regardless of status or process. Pictured: A staffer from the UN International Organization for Migration congratulates immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as a group of at least 25 asylum seekers were allowed to travel from a migrant camp in Mexico into the U.S. on February 25, 2021 in Matamoros, Mexico. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Most Americans are not even aware that the United Nations is hard at work implementing the Biden administration's open borders policies for the U.S.-Mexican border. But UN agencies in Mexico play an important role in assisting migrants with U.S. asylum applications and quickly moving them north into the U.S. -- currently at an unprecedented level. The Biden administration has requested that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) channel U.S. funds to non-profit groups in Mexico for identifying and referring the "neediest" asylum seekers to U.S. officials. Reuters reporting on the question of "neediest" includes persons with medical conditions, those who have experienced long periods of displacement, sexual minorities and victims of crime, trafficking and sexual violence. Details are sparse concerning whether the UNHCR realizes a fee or percentage for their channeling efforts.
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by Gwythian Prins • June 13, 2021 at 5:00 am
Sheikh Jarrah, the ostensible cause of the latest conflict in the Middle East, is not so complicated. It is a private rent dispute, caused by squatters and by Palestinian tenants who acquired protected tenancies (not ownership) during the period of Jordanian occupation 1948-1967 when Jordan illegally sequestrated the property rights of Jewish landowners. The Palestinian tenants and squatters are refusing to pay their Israeli landlords rent for properties that have been in undisputed Jewish ownership since the middle of the 19th century.... The Ayatollahs have, since Iran's Revolution of 1979, like their proxies, vowed the total destruction of Israel... This goal is also inscribed in the charters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the current Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas.... This agreement between China and Iran strengthened the hands of both countries to test the resolve of a Biden administration filled with Obama era appointees committed to two of his signature foreign policy errors, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and a dogmatic prioritisation of the so-called "Two State Solution" that is now dead and buried. With people such as Hady Amr, now the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for "Israel-Palestine," who implausibly Biden sent to "mediate" what cannot be mediated, hope dies. Amr is parti pris: someone who once said that he was "inspired by the Palestinian intifada." He has in the past wrongly accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.... Obama's third signature error in foreign policy forms a bridge to the other set of dots to be joined up. Fifteen years ago the many small islands and reefs in the South China Sea which are now PLA bases with runways and ports, were uninhabited, many of them tidally submerged and marked with metal poles (which confer no territorial rights under UNCLOS - the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea). It was mainly on Obama's watch that this militarisation proceeded, unchallenged, when it could and should have been nipped in the bud... If the militarisation of the South China Sea is left intact, Communist China's navy -- The Peoples' Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) -- will soon have a second and secure southern approach to Taiwan for the invasion which it has threatened for so long.... Declaratory PLAN doctrine states that in the event of war it holds at risk US assets from Guam to the far side of Hokkaido: hence US bases in Japan. The PLA has also threatened missile attacks on Australia, where key Five Eyes intelligence assets are situated. PLA planners must be aware that these are red lines as much as an attempt to invade Taiwan. Any such actions would trigger US escalation, as recent speeches by senior USN officers have confirmed. It appears that the Communist Chinese are throwing down a gauntlet to test our resolve.... But Communist China is not ten feet tall. As the recent failure of the PRC space station suggests, we should not automatically assume technological omnipotence. In any event, equipment does not equal capability. We should also remember, as Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Thirty Six Stratagems of the Warring States/Three Kingdoms period both observe, that perception of power has a power of its own and that the most elegant defeat is the one incurred by the moral disarmament of the enemy.... Over recent months, the US Dept. of Defence has been engaged in a series of technical moves of significance...They have not been much remarked... but all can be found in the professional military literature, as they should be if they are to compose a credible deterrent to make Xi Jinping think again and stay his hand.... Iran...needs little encouragement to attack Israel, especially via its proxies where it can claim "plausible deniability". The current bout of violence and its sequel suit Xi Jinping's command group well as a "Dead Cat" tactic: a misdirection so that eyes are off the prime area of interest for the PRC. That area is....the recent illegal occupation of the South China Sea by this untraditional maritime power [and] the "continentalisation" of this sea-space..... In short Xi Jinping's command group must be aware that many windows are closing for it and that time is not on their side unless they can persuade the Free World to self-harm sufficiently that we disarm morally. For this, there is evidence of intent and, unfortunately, of current success.... Therefore the Free World must not fall for the Dead Cat gambit. We must firmly support Israel, the window of the West in the Middle East, and we must maintain the Abraham Accords as the best road to normalisation in that region. If we ensure that we are all awake but not woke, we thereby can resist cultural subversion and moral disarmament through the PRC Ministry of State Security... 'make friends for China' strategy within our body politic. In these ways, the threat posed to us by the most patient, intelligent, malign and formidable enemy that we have faced, can be defeated.... By preference, a united front of firm deterrence and ostracism may cause the Mandate of Heaven to move from Xi Jinping's communist dictatorship, as it has from over-reaching Chinese leaders many times before.... We have a duty to the betrayed democrats of Hong Kong and by extension to all decent Chinese people to help them to liberate themselves. But for twenty years we have averted our eyes and so the hour in now late. Many in the Western establishments who were defeatist or complicit have much to answer for. Therefore, to prevail the Free World may have to use force if needs be; and if force must be used, then sooner is safer than later.
The Free World seems finally to be waking up to the fact that for at least a decade we have been in 'grey war' with the new alliance of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea (CRINK) without openly realising it. Pictured: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the signing ceremony for Iran and China's "25-year strategic cooperation pact," on March 27, 2021 in Tehran. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The Free World seems finally to be waking up to the fact that for at least a decade we have been in 'grey war' with the new alliance of China, Russia, Iran and N. Korea (CRINK) without openly realising it. Within high circles in the Western Intelligence Community (which is awake, not woke, thankfully) there is a name for it: ghost attack. Ghost attack is described thus in two stages: Stage One: "Commit non-attributable, or feasibly deniable, acts of war that advance your own national power and physically harm your adversaries, but do not fit traditional legal standards to mobilize them to a formal response." Stage Two: "Then foment chaos, advance the narrative of your innocence, and underline your adversary's incompetence through information warfare."
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