FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The ‘Hotel California’ doctrine of US military intervention By Michael Rich

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/the_hotel_california_doctrine_of_us_military_intervention.html

It is easy to remember why the United States invaded Afghanistan.  Our country had just been attacked by terrorists based there.  The nation was united in a desire to protect itself from further attacks and bring the parties responsible to justice.

It’s not so easy to remember whether the justification for the invasion was based on a broader policy, whether there was discussion at the time of what would constitute victory, or whether the invasion was an actual war in the traditional sense.  More to the point, it’s unclear whether those questions have answers today, even as we exit Afghanistan.

I’ve read several articles written by people with a ton more knowledge than I have about whether our country should stay in Afghanistan or leave.  A lot of the writers had personal experience fighting in Afghanistan.  The opinions they offer differ, with some arguing to stay and others arguing to leave.  The positions of Trump and Biden seem to be aligned on the side of leave, which is remarkable, given how much else they disagree on.

As an average citizen, I supported the decision to invade.  Like most people, the attacks scared the daylights out of me, and I was riled up more than at any other time in my life.  I suspect that our leaders were at least in part reacting to the zeitgeist as much as, or possibly more than they were thinking about the end game.

At this point, I don’t presume to know the correct answer on the stay or leave question, though I could make a solid argument for either course of action.  Stay: The situation in Afghanistan could quickly return to pre-9/11 conditions and again become a haven for terrorists plotting to attack us.  Leave: There’s nothing more to do in Afghanistan that would justify expending more blood and treasure than we already have, and we need to rely on Homeland Security and the “Intelligence Community” to defend ourselves from future terrorist attacks.  You can add in arguments about the positive or negative impacts on Afghanis from either point of view.  On this count, most people would acknowledge that leaving is going to hurt the segment of the Afghani population who want to avoid a return to the tender mercies of the Taliban, including and especially women.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden’s stupidest mistake By Frank Friday

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/bidens_stupidest_mistake.html

You can’t say Joe Biden hasn’t been busy in the months since he took office. Like most great artists, Biden is prolific. The medium he works in, of course, is stupid mistakes, and he cranks out new ones every day. It is hard to say exactly which one is stupidest of all — like determining which Rembrandt painting or Beethoven symphony is the best.

The current open-the-borders-but-blame-it-all-somehow-on-Trump policy may be the most consequential. I would estimate this will lead to at least 5 million Central American paupers in the USA before Slow Joe finishes his term.

But maybe the ugliest and most humiliating stupidity is happening right now with the Afghanistan pullout, the one and only Trump idea Biden wants to follow through with — although I think Pres. Trump was having second thoughts.

The U.S. achieved mastery over the Taliban years ago. Since 2016, only a handful of our soldiers have been lost there, none last year. While the U.S. military on a global basis loses about 1000 servicemen every year to routine accidents and training mistakes.

At this point, having spent so much blood and treasure to pacify the country, why are we in such a hurry to pull out the 3,000 or so soldiers training and advising the government forces? Forces that seem willing to keep doing their own fighting and dying if we give them just a small bit of assistance.

If we completely pull out and demoralize the Afghans, I think they fold up and quit. The aftermath will be a bloody disgrace, something like the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the original Afghan fiasco the British Retreat from Kabul in 1842. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What Is China Doing? by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17551/what-is-china-doing

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”

There is one outcome that would be unacceptable to the CCP: China will do almost anything to keep the U.S. from concluding that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The CCP is already taking steps to encourage the U.S. to reach “the right” judgment, and it appears to have people in the West, including in the U.S., who are willingly supporting those efforts.

The Lancet has again come out with an unjustified dismissal of the lab leak theory, couched in support for the G7’s call for a new COVID origins study, led by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nothing could be better for China than having The Lancet as the messenger, lending scientific credibility to what the CCP wants the world to believe.

The July 5 publication of the letter in The Lancet is a strong signal that the CCP has launched an active disinformation campaign. The CCP will continue to spare no effort in ensuring that the COVID-19 virus appears to have originated somewhere other than China….

On May 26, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that he had asked the U.S. intelligence community to redouble its efforts to determine the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The U.S. findings are expected in about 90 days. So now we know what the Biden administration is doing, but what will the Chinese government, or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), do? In light of China’s obfuscation so far, it is absurd to imagine that it will be cooperating with the U.S. investigation. Neither will it be sitting idly by waiting to learn of the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions. Instead, the CCP will be doing everything it can to shape the report and ensure that the findings will be released in a context saturated by Chinese propaganda.

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

Asian-Americans are the Left’s inconvenient minority By Drew Allen

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/asians_are_the_lefts_inconvenient_minority_.html

“There are dark stains on the history of this nation,” writes Kenny Xu in the preface of his groundbreaking new book, ‘An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy.’ But the purpose of Xu’s relevant and timely book is not to condemn America for its past, but to celebrate America for its triumphs.

Xu continues to say that “we should be proud to have made so much progress in mostly, though not completely, overcoming…”

The chief concern in America today is not how much further we have to go to fulfill our original charter of freedom and equality for all, but just how far we have regressed in recent years from achieving this end. Americans fought a bloody Civil War to right the wrong of slavery. Americans fought a non-violent Civil Rights Movement to end race based segregation and discrimination. 

Despite these important achievements, all that progress is being undone and at a rapid rate. Xu identifies the root cause of America’s rapid regression, writing, “the attack on Asian-American excellence represents the decline of a larger concept in American society that has allowed its culture of excellence to prosper: meritocracy.”

Xu achieves two critical things with his book: he simultaneously shines a spotlight on the disturbing and unsung attacks against Asian-Americans, while also explaining how this is ushering in the decline of America, as a whole.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Who Was Karl Marx? A new book delves into 200 years of his evil influence. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/who-was-karl-marx-daniel-greenfield/

Karl Marx is over two centuries old. Ideas that used to be radical have long since become stale. Socialism is about as new and exciting as the telegraph or Bernie Sanders. Marxism is most likely to be studied in the countries where, as its proponents claim, it’s never really been tried.

Who was Karl Marx beyond the bearded guy on t-shirts in Berkeley and Austin?

In Who Was Karl Marx?: The Men, the Motives and the Menace Behind Today’s Rampaging American Left, investigative journalist James Simpson paints a scathing picture of Marx, his disciplines, and the political movement created by the fake prophet of a real catastrophe.

Marx was “hypocritically greedy, petty, arrogant, lazy, selfish, dishonest, two-faced, lecherous, bigoted and brimming with hatred”, Simpson writes, backing that up with historical anecdotes.

Does it matter that Marx was a virulent bigot, that he hated most people, and even sired an illegitimate son, kept him in poverty, and never let him go past the servants’ quarters?

It might not matter if Marx were just a writer whose work was disconnected from his loathsome personality, but Simpson convincingly argues that, “progressivism’s end  product  is merely the  reflection of Marx’s personality, played out to devastating effect on the world stage.”

Marxism, in other words, is terrible because Karl Marx was a miserable human being.

The same holds true for much of the Left. Its theories don’t just fail because they’re poorly thought out, but because they’re expressions of malice directed at the rest of the world.

But Who Was Karl Marx? is not a biography of Marx, so much as it’s a sketch of key leftist figures, and the influence of their ideas on the present. The book may begin with Marx, but it goes on to Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It touches on Lenin’s obsession with destroying his opponents through relentless dehumanization and smear campaigns in order to clarify the contemporary leftist obsession with political correctness and cancel culture.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Moral Narcissism at the National Education Association The first K-12 teachers’ union in the U.S. to endorse the BDS movement. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/moral-narcissism-national-education-association-richard-l-cravatts/

On May 19th, the 6200-member United Educators of San Francisco teacher’s union passed a grotesque “Resolution in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” committing its members to sign on with the anti-Semitic BDS campaign, stating “that UESF endorses the international campaign for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against apartheid in Israel,” thereby becoming the first K-12 teachers’ union in the United States to endorse the BDS movement.

Not to be outdone by its union brethren further north, chapter chairs of the United Teachers Los Angeles, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the second largest teacher’s union in the country, also voted overwhelmingly in May in support of a statement, almost identical to the San Francisco version, that expressed its “solidarity with the Palestinian people and call for Israel to end bombardment of Gaza and stop displacement at Sheikh Jarrah . . , [called] on the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to stop aid to Israel [and endorsed] the international campaign for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against apartheid in Israel.”

The engagement of public school teachers in activism against the Jewish state continued unabated in June when the 3-million member National Education Association proposed two anti-Israel resolutions, New Business Item 29, which committed the NEA to “publicize its support for the Palestinian struggle for justice and call on the United States government to stop arming and supporting Israel,” and NBI 51, which would create a campaign to “use existing digital communication tools to educate members and the general public about the history, culture, and struggles of Palestinians.”

The rectitude of the NEA educators pushing for condemnations of Israel manifests itself as what has been termed “moral narcissism,” the tendency of members of the well-meaning, intellectual elite to align with causes and ideological positions which are based, not on the actual viability or justice of a cause, but on how the moral narcissist feels about him- or herself by committing to a particular cause or movement.

So, apparently, vilifying Israel and focusing singularly and obsessively on the Jewish state make the NEA’s moral narcissists feel that they are standing up for something important and making a moral cause for a people they see as victimized and oppressed, even when so many much more pressing and tragic social upheavals are taking place around the world. But it is Israel that the NEA puts in its crosshairs.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Good Omens For 2022 — For Now Will Republicans take advantage of the signs of doom for the Dems?Bruce Thornton

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/good-omens-2022-now-bruce-thornton/

The midterms are over a year-and-a-half away, which is a life-time in politics. But the Biden administration’s egregious incompetence and political tin ear are good omens for Republican chances of taking back the House and even the Senate.

Let’s start with the chaos at the border, and out-of-control and illegal immigration, one of the issues that helped Donald Trump win in 2016. The progressives want us to believe that the xenophobia and racism of the “deplorables” and “bitter clingers” accounted for Trump’s success. But quasi-open borders and sanctuary cities that protect felons and gangster are unpopular with most voters, including Latinos and blacks who bear the lethal cost of policies promoted by tony cognitive elites who don’t have to pay for their juvenile idealism.

Once the crisis exploded, Kamala Harris––or “Que mala” as she was called in El Paso––worsened the optics of the disorder: coyotes and cartel human traffickers getting rich; children penned up in “cages,” to use the Dems’ hyperbole; endless throngs in the hundreds of thousands streaming over the Rio Grande in broad delight, and being welcomed ashore by border agents. And her uncontrollable cackle and obvious lack of preparation reinforced the administration’s fecklessness.

And who can forget Kamala’s lame “root causes” rationalizations for conditions created by Biden’s reversal of all Trump’s policies that had the border under control? Guatemala’s president set the record straight when he fingered Biden’s irresponsible statement that the U.S. would “reunite families,” and his virtue-signaling rhetoric that accompanied his repudiation of Trump’s policies like the “Remain in Mexico” protocol for asylum seekers. If the Republicans are smart, the copious dramatic videos from this disaster will be broadcast 24/7.

Next, the Dems and the politicized DOJ have attacked states like Arizona and Georgia that are cleaning up their election laws to restore electoral integrity. Arizona’s reforms have been vindicated by the Supreme Court, which makes AG Merritt Garland’s witch-hunt pretty much DOA. The dishonest “voter suppression” rationale, one predicated on the insulting claim that blacks are too incompetence to secure photo I.D.s or find a polling place, is not convincing anybody beyond the hard-core Democrat constiuency of race-hustlers and electoral fraudsters. Most ordinary citizens outside the blue-state progressive silos want their votes to count, instead of being cancelled by fake ballots.

No more convincing are the desperate rationales for the steep increases in violent crime ever since George Floyd’s death while in police custody last May rationalized big-city mayors’ pull-back of their police forces, allowing BLM and their Antifa black-shirts to run wild for months. Worse, many Democrat mayors and politicians endorsed BLM’s “defund the police” demands, which created the Ferguson Effect on steroids. No surprise that cops have been retiring in droves, and gun-thugs are taking over public spaces. Finally, not content with their policy blunders, the Dems are trying to sell voters on the idea that Republicans’ have been defunding the police because they’re resisting Biden’s print-tax-and-spend bills. Voters aren’t going to fall for the old Marxist (Groucho and Karl) principle, “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Important Reading on the Critical Race Theory in Schools Debate By Dan McLaughlin

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/important-reading-on-the-critical-race-theory-in-schools-debate/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

Conservatives are on the march in the political offensive against the teaching of Critical Race Theory and related racialist concepts in K-12 public schools, a battle that has moved into state legislatures. I have written about some of the philosophical problems with the “anti-anti-CRT” movement. But it is also the case that the anti-CRT initiatives must navigate a series of political and legal obstacles, and prudent consideration of those is a worthwhile task for those of us who believe in that cause.

Greg Lukianoff, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has some thoughts worth reading in a blog post co-authored with three other FIRE staffers. FIRE is, as I have detailed, an essential defender of free speech rights in higher education, without which conservative college and graduate students would be in a much worse situation. As you might expect, Lukianoff is somewhat skeptical of using state laws to limit the teaching of ideas in any school, particularly universities, but he takes a thoughtful approach to the important distinctions: between public and private schools, between universities and K-12 schools, between academic freedom and the power of government to intimidate and indoctrinate students. On the legal and political status of public K-12 education:

The modern view of education as a pipeline designed to carry children from preschool to graduate school tends to obscure the fact that K-12 education had a very different evolution from the university system. Compulsory public education was a project advanced by politicians and enacted by legislatures for a political purpose [as far back as 1794]…[W]hat will become the curriculum in most public K-12 schools is democratically decided by a combination of state legislatures, local school boards, and individual schools. As such, they represent the will of the people, as expressed in local and state elections. The individual schools cannot exceed the scope granted them by their school boards, which themselves derive power and authority from the state…Because K-12 attendance is compelled by the state and, at public schools, funded predominantly by local taxes, it is understandable that the substance of that teaching is subject to democratic oversight, through state legislatures and elected (or appointed by those who were elected) school boards. Legislators are expected to exercise oversight when citizens with children in the schools voice legitimate concerns about curricular matters.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Continues Crackdown on Companies By Sean-Michael Pigeon

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/china-continues-crackdown-on-companies/

The Chinese Communist Party has tightened its grip over its political and economic system in a number of high-profile moves. From silencing those who mention Taiwan’s independence to quashing Hong Kong’s independence, the CCP is aggressively targeting people and institutions that it deems a threat. A new Bloomberg report finds that the Communist Party will be closing a legal loophole that benefitted Chinese tech companies. This change has worried U.S. investors and politicians who are rightly concerned about whether China is stable enough to invest in.  

The China Securities Regulatory Commission is amending a rule that mandates companies get approval from the Chinese government to list their companies in the U.S. or Hong Kong. Before, tech companies were able to maneuver around this rule by setting up companies offshore. This loophole has been quite lucrative for Chinese firms, which have raised over $75 billion in first-time share offerings in the United States. Despite the financial success of companies that have used this loophole, Bloomberg reports,

The proposed change is the first indication of how Beijing plans to implement a crackdown on overseas listings flagged by the country’s State Council on Tuesday. Closer oversight would plug a gap that’s been used for two decades by technology giants from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Tencent Holdings Ltd. to attract foreign capital and list offshore, potentially thwarting the ambitions of firms like ByteDance Ltd. contemplating going public outside the mainland.

Since the American and Chinese economies are increasingly intertwined, this is not only a problem for Chinese consumers. CNBC reported that the $2 trillion Chinese tech market has been a major object of American investment. This means that any volatility in the Chinese market can deeply affect our own economy. Politicians are becoming more aware of this issue. The Financial Times reported that Marco Rubio said,

“American investors still have no insight into the company’s [DiDi, a Chinese ride-sharing app] financial strength because the Chinese Communist party blocks US regulators from reviewing the books,” Rubio said. “That puts the investments of American retirees at risk and funnels desperately needed US dollars into Beijing.”

All of this volatility is projected to have a negative effect on the Chinese economy because regulating companies hurts growth and stifles innovation. Xi Jinping’s attacks on his own country’s firms show the dangers of a socialized economy. More important, it should serve as a warning to American investors who heavily invest in foreign, state-run economies. America can’t stop the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarianism from hurting its own economy, and American investors should be careful tying their financial success to China’s benevolence.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Yet Another One Of My UChicago Peers Was Brutally Murdered By A Stray Bullet In Lori Lightfoot’s Crime-Infested City A home is not a home when you’re terrified for your life. Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the CareNotCops organizers should be ashamed of themselves.By Audrey Unverferth

Posted By on July 8th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/07/yet-another-one-of-my-uchicago-peers-was-brutally-murdered-by-a-stray-bullet-in-lori-lightfoots-crime-infested-city/

One of my University of Chicago peers was viciously murdered on Thursday by a stray bullet on a Chicago Green Line CTA elevated train. Like countless other UChicago students, Max Lewis was traveling home after his summer internship downtown, when a bullet came through the train window and struck him in the neck. Lewis passed away after being taken off life support on Sunday. He was 20 years old.

As a rising junior at the University of Chicago, Lewis was excelling. Reading about Lewis’s life, he sounds like the type of person we all hope to be—full of joy, surrounded by friends, and excited for his promising future. He was living in Chicago for the summer to complete a prestigious investment banking internship.

Lewis didn’t have to work in person, but he was such a friendly, dedicated individual that he chose to make the trek downtown. His young life was senselessly cut short when his train ride home was interrupted by yet another Chicago shooting. 

According to the police, Lewis was not the intended target of the attack. The case is still being investigated, and no arrests have been made. 

“Max was a talented student and beloved campus leader and friend who will be greatly missed,” UChicago stated in a university-wide email. “He was pursuing a double major in economics and computer science, treasurer of the Promontory Investment Research RSO, president of the fraternity AEPi, and actively involved in the student community on campus.” 

When reflecting on the loss of his friend and fraternity brother, Zachary Cogan rightly slammed Chicago’s inexcusable violence. “This happens all the time in Chicago,” he emphasized to the Chicago Sun-Times. “It needs to end.”