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June 2022

A Tyranny Brews In Washington

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/17/a-tyranny-brews-in-washington/

One of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is the crushing of free expression. Speaking against the state is not allowed. What, then, to make of the Biden’s administration’s efforts to silence Americans?

We’ve editorialized against the Disinformation Governance Board, which is wounded though not as dead yet as it should be. That’s but one example. Add to that the White House’s campaign to enlist the private sector in muzzling voices that dare oppose the loony green energy policies Democrats have been trying to force on the country for decades. It’s not just the Second Amendment this administration wants to erase, it’s the first one, too.

Many Americans are skeptical of the promises that renewables like wind and solar will not only meet this country’s energy needs but will do it at low cost. We have many times over the years shown why this distrust is warranted. So have our valued contributors, most recently when H. Sterling Burnett of the Heartland Institute wrote that “belief that wind, solar, batteries, and electric vehicles combined can effectively and cheaply power the nation … is foolish and belied by existing evidence.”

I&I has also made the case over and over, as we did last month, that the claims that man is overheating his only planet are, well, overheated themselves. Doing so has probably put us on a White House blacklist of dissenters whose ideas have to be squashed. We think of it as an honor.

Israel, Armenia and Presbyterians An American church has a glaring double standard when it comes to settlements in the West Bank and Nagorno-Karabakh. By Eugene Kontorovich

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-armenia-and-presbyterians-pcusa-settlers-antisemitism-christians-war-11655414458?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

The Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, whose annual General Assembly begins this weekend, has long been pugnaciously anti-Israel. It routinely passes resolutions accusing the Jewish state of “settler colonialism,” “apartheid,” and “illegal occupation.” Yet the PCUSA has a long-established program dedicated to supporting settlements in occupied territory—and funds a variety of pro-settler charities.

The PCUSA’s approach to the Israel-Arab conflict lies at the crossroads of liberation theology and replacement theology, the ancient doctrine, frequently invoked by anti-Semites, that God’s covenant with the Jews has been annulled in favor of others. Since 2014 the church has pursued a boycott of Israeli businesses. It also calls the Jewish state’s presence in biblical areas a “violation of international law” and “sin against God.”

But in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area once part of Soviet Azerbaijan, settlements apparently aren’t a problem for the PCUSA. The area had a mixed Armenian-Azeri population until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as part of their historic homeland, but the United Nations and the U.S. consider it occupied Azeri territory.

The Azeri population fled during the war and hasn’t been allowed to return. At the same time, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has encouraged the movement of settlers into the occupied territory.

China’s New Way of War by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18612/china-new-way-of-war

“Chinese thinkers have clearly stated that the core operational concept of intelligentized warfare is to directly control the enemy’s will. The idea is to use AI to directly control the will of the highest decision-makers, including the president, members of Congress, and combatant commanders, as well as citizens.” — Colonel Koichiro Takagi, senior fellow of Training Evaluation Research and Development Command, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, War on the Rocks, April 13, 2022.

“War has started to shift from the pursuit of destroying bodies to paralyzing and controlling the opponent. The focus is to attack the enemy’s will to resist, not physical destruction” and to cause “the brain to become the main target of offense and defense of new concept weapons… To win without fighting is no longer far-fetched.” — Bill Gertz, describing a report written in 2019 by China’s People’s Liberation Army, in the Washington Times, December 29, 2021.

“The PLA plans to employ all available tools to the overarching objective of reducing an enemy’s will to resist.” — Ben Noon, research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute and Dr. Chris Bassler, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Defense One, September 17, 2021.

“Influencing human cognition requires a large amount of detailed personal information to identify influential individuals or to conduct influential operations according to the characteristics of subgroups of people. China has already collected a massive amount of personal information on government officials and ordinary U.S. citizens…. China has even succeeded in identifying CIA agents operating in foreign countries using such data. These activities are particularly aggressive and coercive in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which the Chinese government considers its territory. Attempts to use digital means to influence elections have also been seen in Taiwan’s recent presidential election.” — Colonel Koichiro Takagi, War on the Rocks, April 13, 2022.

While cognitive warfare may sound like science fiction to most people, experts have cautioned that the US needs to take the threat seriously.

“They should also designate the cognitive arena as a new operational arena, along with land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace, to raise awareness and invest resources. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider how to win the ‘battle of narratives’ to counter the manipulation of public opinion in wartime.” — Colonel Koichiro Takagi, War on the Rocks, April 13, 2022.

Iran’s Constitution exposes the Ayatollahs’ threat to the USA: Yoram Ettinger

 https://bit.ly/3OdedpM

Iran’s Constitution – the roadmap of Iran’s global strategy

*The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran lays the foundation of the systematic, rogue, fanatic, domestic, regional and global conduct of Iran’s apocalyptic Ayatollahs since assuming power in February 1979.

*The Ayatollahs’ Constitution provides a roadmap for the exportation of the Islamic Revolution by utilizing subversion, terrorism, civil wars, the proliferation of ballistic technologies, drug trafficking and proselytization.

*The Ayatollahs’ Constitution aspires for the triumph of the oppressed “mustadafun” (e.g., Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) over the oppressive and arrogant “mustakbirun” (e.g., “The Great American Satan,” Saudi Arabia, Israel).

*The strategic goal of the Ayatollahs’ Constitution is to establish a universal Shiite society, based on the teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini, and bring to submission the Sunni Moslem “apostates” and the non-Moslem “infidels.”

*According to the Ayatollahs’ Constitution, the Islamic Republic’s armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are responsible for the safeguarding of Iran’s frontiers, as well as the fulfillment of the mission of Jihad (Holy War), striking fear into the hearts of the enemies of Allah, and extending the supremacy of Shiite Islam throughout the entire world.

*The Ayatollahs’ Constitution considers the 1979 Islamic Revolution – and the 1978 toppling of the pro-US Shah of Iran – as a crushing victory over despotism and the US, a prelude to global Shiite domination. 

*The Constitution regards the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a basis for the continuation of that revolution both inside and outside Iran.