All

Biden and the ‘Blame America First’

Democrats

By: Newt Gingrich

April 18, 2024

When President Joe Biden warned Iran not to attack Israel with the single word “Don’t,” he was setting himself up to look foolish and weak.

The Iranian theocratic dictatorship pays no heed to President Biden. Iran’s leaders have taken Biden’s measure over months of proxy warfare. Iran and its proxies have killed Americans, routinely fired at American bases and ships, and enthusiastically ignored every American effort to appease them. Biden’s done nothing.

When he said “Don’t,” Iran did – with 335 drones and missiles. We might have expected some serious reaction from a president who had publicly instructed Iran not to attack. Instead, we got a pathetic, desperate, all-out Biden administration effort to convince the Israelis to claim a defensive victory and do nothing.

Just as Biden ignored the Chinese Communist spy balloon gradually crossing the United States, he thought the Israelis should ignore 335 drones and missiles fired at their country.

Watching the bizarre performance, it hit me that the Biden Doctrine is to cripple your allies and help your enemies.

Consider the facts.

As soon as Biden took office, he implemented policies that helped the anti-American Iranian dictatorship. They could chant “Death to America,” but he would send them money, release them from sanctions, and tolerate their strategy of waging war through proxies with no consequence. Even then, the Iranians and their puppets fired drones and missiles at American bases – killing some American military and wounding many more. There was no strong response from Biden.

When the U.S. military warned President Biden that leaving Afghanistan too quickly would collapse the pro-American government, we spent 22 years developing, he ignored the advice. He moved so quickly, it guaranteed the Taliban would win the war. Then he claimed the disaster was the best evacuation in history.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden said supportive words about Ukraine but slow walked equipment and help. Furthermore, the Biden Doctrine demonstrated it was OK for Vladimir Putin to wage war on civilians, kidnap Ukrainian children, and destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. But Biden opposed any Ukrainian response that would involve attacking Russia. Defense was OK, but a serious offensive to win the war by hitting targets inside Russia was off limits.

When the Iranian planned, trained, equipped, and financed Hamas terrorist assault of Oct. 7 horrified decent people everywhere, President Biden was briefly positive about helping Israel. However, as is typical of the Biden Doctrine, once our ally began to win, Biden shifted away from Israel and expressed concern for Hamas and the people of Gaza who had sheltered and supported Hamas.

Following the Biden Doctrine of undermining our allies and comforting our enemies, Biden proposed that the city of Rafah should become a sanctuary city. This would allow the remainder of Hamas and its leadership a safe place to recoup and avoid being destroyed by Israeli forces.

The tension shifted into a confrontation between our ally and the American President.

Meanwhile, Biden supports aid to Ukraine and Israel – so long as it is not offset by spending cuts elsewhere and nothing is done to protect the American border. Keeping the American border open is such a high priority for Biden and the left that stalling aid to Israel and Ukraine is an acceptable price. Illegal immigrants coming into the United States is of higher value to Biden than protecting our allies.

Forty years ago, at the 1984 Republican Convention, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick presciently described what Biden and the Democrats have become. She called them the “Blame America first” Democrats.

She said no matter what happens around the world “They always blame America first.”

Kirkpatrick described the Democrat doctrine as being “Less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich – convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.” Quoting the great French analyst Jean Francois Revel, she said, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”

Today, there are American fanatics in Chicago chanting “Death to America.” In four cities, there are other fanatics occupying Google offices demanding that Google drop its contract that is helping Israel defend itself. It is easy to see the damage the Democrats’ moral relativism is doing.

If the Biden doctrine continues, we won’t have any more allies – and our enemies will be much stronger.

Manasseh Sogavare and his party took 12 seats. Although six have not yet been called, the ruling party will not have a majority. Other parties want to reduce Beijing's influence. Tensions rose during the campaign, with clashes between rival villages. Negotiations for the next government could take weeks.

US Poised To Send 60 Additional 'Military Advisers' To Ukraine Tyler Durden Mon, 04/22/2024 - 11:05

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Gordon Friesen
By Gordon Friesen
President: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

It is a widely shared principle that, as long as our actions cause no harm to others, we might all be allowed to do as we please.

And so it is that many principled people --and even many who are personally repulsed by the idea of assisted death-- feel a visceral duty to support the "right" of others to choose the manner of their own passing. Unfortunately, however, HB 1283 would not merely create a liberty of permission for this purpose. Indeed far from it.

At the heart of HB-1283[i] lies, first, the concept of "medical assistance in dying" (even though majority patient trust has traditionally been founded on the Hippocratic Physician's promise not to kill); and second, the associated legislative assertion that MAID is not suicide (even though it plainly involves people deliberately taking poison to end their lives). Together, these extraordinary definitions herald a radical conceptual transformation of assisted death --from forbidden medical homicide to legitimate medical treatment-- and therein lies the special significance of Bills like HB 1283.

For medical care is universally seen as a positive benefit and a human right. To legally define assisted death in this way is thus to necessarily create entitlements, obligations and mandates whose implementation is entirely foreign to any fundamental notion of free choice.[ii]

Moreover, if we look to our Northern neighbour, we can already see exactly how such a medically justified regime of assisted death is destined to unfold. For since the first appearance of the term "MAID" in Canadian legislation (Province of Quebec, 2014)[iii] legal statutes and regulations have been enacted which require the performance of euthanasia in all institutions; by all medical professionals (with limited conscience-based exceptions only); and the proactive mandatory discussion of MAID with all eligible patients. Indeed, Canadian hospitals, and care teams have normalized euthanasia, to such an extent, that the vast non-suicidal majority of eligible patients are now obliged to navigate a clinical environment which has become objectively indifferent (if not hostile) to their continued survival.[iv]

Very obviously, no coherent system of individual liberty might ever have produced such a result. Quite the contrary: the simplest and most direct explanation of Canadian euthanasia lies, not in personal choice at all, but in the utilitarian budgetary advantage --to the State-- of systematically purging expensive and dependent persons from the public role.

Most certainly, also, a principled defence of death-by-choice does not require liberty-minded citizens to espouse this extreme theory of death-as-care. Both Switzerland[v] and Germany[vi], for example, recognize a general right to suicide (including assisted suicide) but explicitly refuse to accord such actions any objective validation (medical or otherwise), precisely in order to avoid the disastrous effects of entitlements, mandates and obligations as described above.[vii]

In conclusion, therefore: Although I am personally opposed to any assisted death whatsoever, I also recognize that a sincere philosophy of "live-and-let-live" may indeed inspire principled support for death-by-choice. But not with just any Bill. And certainly not with this one.

In the end, we must decide whether New Hampshire’s medical industry will be structured to prioritize typical patient satisfaction, or that of a small suicidal minority. And above all: whether the radical new paradigm of utilitarian death-medicine now seen in Canada --and so clearly echoed in HB-1283-- will be allowed to high-jack the freedom agenda entirely.

With the greatest respect, I request the defeat of this legislation.

Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Endnotes:

[i] "An act relative to end of life options" New Hampshire HB1283, 2024 (Link to Bill).

[ii] Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946) as amended (2005) accessed April 17, 2024 (Article Link) accessed April 17, 2024

[iii] "Act Respecting End-of-Life Care" Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014, as revised 2024 (Link to Legislation) accessed April 17, 2024

[iv] Lessons from the Canadian Euthanasia Experiment, G. R. Friesen, April 4, 2023 (Link to article) accessed April 17, 2024

[v] Swiss criminal code art. 115 (Link to Swiss Criminal Code) accessed Nov 4, 2023

[vi] German High Court decision February 26, 2020 (Article Link) accessed Oct 28, 2023

[vii] Fundamental Considerations in the Creation of a Minimally Intrusive Liberty of Assisted Death (produced for the Irish Joint Committee on Assisted Dying), G.R. Friesen, November 12, 2023, (Article Link) accessed April 17, 2024.

April 22, 2024>Omega4America    –  The Super Bowl of Election Interference – 2024> Newt Gingrich    –    Biden and the ‘Blame America First’ Democrats> Richard A. Epstein     –    For Israel, Forbearance Could Be Fatal> Eran Ortal        –         Israel’s First Total War and Its Ramifications The Super Bowl of Election Interference – 2024If you dry up the Leftist ballot inventory the beast can be stopped By: OMEGA4AMERICAApril 18, 2024(Emphasis added) 2024 is lining up to be the Super Bowl of election interference to stop Donald Trump. Every nefarious technique from 2020 is on deck and a bunch of new ones are stacking up. One reality ought to be perfectly clear – and isn’t: there is no way to clean voter rolls in the swing states in the time remaining to impact 2024. The only strategy which has promise – because it works every time it’s tried – is to identify where mail-in ballots are going to be sent, note the ineligible location is a gas station or a convenience store, and challenge that ADDRESS – NOW – to stop a ballot from being sent. If you dry up the ballot inventory, the beast dies. Every day we get calls and emails – one this morning from someone who ought to know better – asking if we can determine the dead voters from death records. Wake up. The dead vote is not impacting elections. The people who vote in Wisconsin and Florida – probably by mistake – are not impacting elections. These are trivial numbers. They do NOT MATTER. Quit screwing around looking for dead voters, voters who vote in multiple states. Stop the Leftist ballot manufacturing operation – it is the heart of all voter roll fraud. The 2024 election will be decided in large part by:ü Voters, registered at ineligible locations such as convenience stores, restaurants and literally hundreds of other non-residence locations – where loose ballots accumulate.ü Illegal aliens being registered in swing states – who then move on to the next swing state – with their ballots accumulating at some NGO location.ü NGOs – religious, civic, or generally do-gooder actively recruiting new voters and stashing them in addresses where ballots will collect and be voted – not by them but by the NGO. Their funding is hidden, tax free, flowing like a river. In all three examples – BALLOTS COLLECT. Those loose ballots are the ammo dump for the Leftists to out-ballot-harvest honest citizens who think ballot harvesting is now OK.ü The first advantage of the ADDRESS DRIVEN strategy is it works. It was this little technique that saved the Senator Ron Johnson seat in Wisconsin in 2022.ü The second advantage is that it sounds great. You are making the Leftists fight having a ballot sent to a 7-11 or a Citizens Bank or Quality Laundromat – even Republicans can win that argument.ü The third advantage is it can be carried out now – with only 7 months to go until November. The lists of every ineligible location – in every county – can be generated quickly, inexpensively, to a phone.ü The fourth advantage is that this is permanent. Leftists need addresses more than names. Think that through a bit. Names can be made up. Names can come from illegal alien transients – signing a form at an NGO location – regardless of age. Names come from transients – churches, shelters, RV Parks, third parties mindlessly registering voter names for dough. (Wisconsin) Names are impossible to check because so many Leftist voters are transient. ADDRESSES are a real pain for the Lefties.·      Addresses are kind of permanent.·      They have attributes – like restaurant or disco.·      They have photos which can be pretty nasty when shown at scale.Watch one of our videos and feel the impact of a warehouse – a dumpy one, falling apart – which is a listed voter roll location! So think through what happens when thousands of physical locations appear on an OFF LIMITS DATABASE on your phone, that tie to 250,000 Wisconsin voters? Leftists need to keep adding new fake voters at real addresses. Names are easy – addresses are hard – if their ineligibility becomes instantly visible. When you remove the ineligible addresses by OUTING them – Leftists must place the 35 people at the 1 bed, 1 bath shack. Comparing property rolls – that sticks out like a bulbous red nose! Leftists knew relational database tech was so hard to use they could stash hundreds of thousands of transient names at warehouses, empty strip malls and hundreds of other locations. Sure, some Republican sleuth might find a few, but the scale was impossible to thwart. They got greedy. Leftists put transients by the hundreds of thousands into these locations. Nobody knew. All the national voter integrity orgs use relational technology which is blind to padding voter rolls – that’s why they haven’t made a dent in 30 years! Now we know which addresses are ineligible – because we cross search property tax rolls. And once a location is identified by its corresponding property tax record as a Korean restaurant, in a stand alone building, having 12 registered voters with Spanish surnames – kind of doesn’t work any more. Now comes advantage five. Surprise! If the address-challenge strategy is implemented, at full scale – including publishing photos of these sketchy locations NOW, on every social media site – making the Left defend that ballot sent to a gas station – they are on their heels! Stop ballots going to those locations and where do the Lefties put those fake voters? It’s to late to move them – by the hundreds of thousands – to residential locations. When they try, we can tell instantly they did it. Sally and Dave on Elm Street might not be cool with the news that 18 former strip mall residents now live in their house. We know they moved there – as voters, not real residents, because we cross search voter rolls on different dates and we can congratulate Dave and Sally on their new household. Maybe send them a postcard with a photo of their address, and 20 voter IDs registered there. See, this is a game two can play. Republicans don’t have to stand back and take it – they can actually do something innovative – and surprising – and when it’s over, they will feel so much better about themselves. So wake up and stop the madness of cleaning voter rolls. You are not going to get them clean in time to impact 2024. The only people who promote this crap are the national voter integrity orgs who do not have any technology – they use obsolete relational technology – so they cannot cross search property tax rolls with voter rolls. Thus, these grifter groups, in permanent money raising mode, deny that cleaning voter rolls is a complete waste of time. It’s a waste of time for you – not for them. They can raise endless dough selling the “cleaning of voter rolls” as a solution – when it hasn’t had any impact in decades. Time is getting shorter. Now might be a great time to count the days until November 5 and evaluate what can be done to stop the steal – and seriously implement ADDRESS driven challenges to having mail-in ballots go out. After all, giving the Leftists a surprise for a change might make everyone feel a lot better.  Biden and the ‘Blame America First’DemocratsBy: Newt GingrichApril 18, 2024 When President Joe Biden warned Iran not to attack Israel with the single word “Don’t,” he was setting himself up to look foolish and weak. The Iranian theocratic dictatorship pays no heed to President Biden. Iran’s leaders have taken Biden’s measure over months of proxy warfare. Iran and its proxies have killed Americans, routinely fired at American bases and ships, and enthusiastically ignored every American effort to appease them. Biden’s done nothing. When he said “Don’t,” Iran did – with 335 drones and missiles. We might have expected some serious reaction from a president who had publicly instructed Iran not to attack. Instead, we got a pathetic, desperate, all-out Biden administration effort to convince the Israelis to claim a defensive victory and do nothing. Just as Biden ignored the Chinese Communist spy balloon gradually crossing the United States, he thought the Israelis should ignore 335 drones and missiles fired at their country. Watching the bizarre performance, it hit me that the Biden Doctrine is to cripple your allies and help your enemies. Consider the facts. As soon as Biden took office, he implemented policies that helped the anti-American Iranian dictatorship. They could chant “Death to America,” but he would send them money, release them from sanctions, and tolerate their strategy of waging war through proxies with no consequence. Even then, the Iranians and their puppets fired drones and missiles at American bases – killing some American military and wounding many more. There was no strong response from Biden. When the U.S. military warned President Biden that leaving Afghanistan too quickly would collapse the pro-American government, we spent 22 years developing, he ignored the advice. He moved so quickly, it guaranteed the Taliban would win the war. Then he claimed the disaster was the best evacuation in history. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden said supportive words about Ukraine but slow walked equipment and help. Furthermore, the Biden Doctrine demonstrated it was OK for Vladimir Putin to wage war on civilians, kidnap Ukrainian children, and destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. But Biden opposed any Ukrainian response that would involve attacking Russia. Defense was OK, but a serious offensive to win the war by hitting targets inside Russia was off limits. When the Iranian planned, trained, equipped, and financed Hamas terrorist assault of Oct. 7 horrified decent people everywhere, President Biden was briefly positive about helping Israel. However, as is typical of the Biden Doctrine, once our ally began to win, Biden shifted away from Israel and expressed concern for Hamas and the people of Gaza who had sheltered and supported Hamas. Following the Biden Doctrine of undermining our allies and comforting our enemies, Biden proposed that the city of Rafah should become a sanctuary city. This would allow the remainder of Hamas and its leadership a safe place to recoup and avoid being destroyed by Israeli forces. The tension shifted into a confrontation between our ally and the American President. Meanwhile, Biden supports aid to Ukraine and Israel – so long as it is not offset by spending cuts elsewhere and nothing is done to protect the American border. Keeping the American border open is such a high priority for Biden and the left that stalling aid to Israel and Ukraine is an acceptable price. Illegal immigrants coming into the United States is of higher value to Biden than protecting our allies. Forty years ago, at the 1984 Republican Convention, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick presciently described what Biden and the Democrats have become. She called them the “Blame America first” Democrats. She said no matter what happens around the world “They always blame America first.” Kirkpatrick described the Democrat doctrine as being “Less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich – convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.” Quoting the great French analyst Jean Francois Revel, she said, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.” Today, there are American fanatics in Chicago chanting “Death to America.” In four cities, there are other fanatics occupying Google offices demanding that Google drop its contract that is helping Israel defend itself. It is easy to see the damage the Democrats’ moral relativism is doing. If the Biden doctrine continues, we won’t have any more allies – and our enemies will be much stronger.  For Israel, Forbearance Could Be Fatal By: Richard A. EpsteinHoover Institution – defining ideasApril 16, 2024 Drones and missiles from Iran spearheaded a large but largely unsuccessful attack in the Negev and the Golan Heights. Launched in retaliation for the attack of April 1, in which Israel took out seven generals and advisers in a military compound in Damascus, the attack came as no surprise—Iranian leaders have said for more years than one can count that their goal is the extermination of the Jewish state, along with, it appears, its entire population. But on this occasion, the Iranian objective was more muted. Iran announced in advance that at least for the short run, it would refrain from further attacks unless attacks by Israel or the United States were launched against them. But given the long-term risks, there is no time to be complacent. It is all too clear that when oligarchs make statements of that sort, they intend to execute them. This, in turn, dictates the strategies that have to be performed in reply. Thus, in dealing with potential allies and friends, the optimal strategy is—to use the common parlance—to put your best foot forward. Note that this cautious strategy does not require you to lose your balance. Rather, it indicates a willingness to go forward to the next level of commitment if there is a positive response. Your potential trading partner then puts his or her best foot forward as well. In such arrangements, it is possible that after several iterations one side (perhaps even you) will choose to defect, but with each round the relationship ideally becomes more stable. Both sides have large potential gains from trade, so that a defection that brings a short-term benefit will carry with it the loss of expected future gains, and as those get larger the probability of defection goes down. One common example of the situation is in the contract at will, where it is understood from the very title that each party is allowed to pull out of any forward commitment without penalty. And yet these arrangements tend to last for long periods, through patterns of slow evolution. In international affairs, the game is far more complicated because each nation is not a single individual but a coalition of multiple groups that keep to a stable course, such that if the coalition gets fractured, the losses could be enormous. This is why bipartisan support for these deals is needed to overcome discontinuities with the shift in dominant power, and why Pax Americana, like Pax Britannia before it, is necessary to hold that coalition together. A breakdown in unity has been evident for at least a generation in the United States, which explains in part our reduced effectiveness in international affairs. In this setting, no nation has the luxury of picking out the best trading partners, as can be done in private markets (where all others are under a strict injunction not to disrupt current contracts or use force or guile to prevent formation of new ones). Instead, there is an enormous range of players, some friendly and others hostile. The use of the best foot forward has no place in dealing with hostile players, as the risk is that the moment that foot is put forward, it will be lopped off, with no gain in response. Instead, the strategic dimension is transformed so that the only moves that are made are those that leave you better off if the party on the other side accepts, and leaves you no worse off even if they decline and take a strategy intended to inflict maximum pain. As a matter of principle, any appeasement—defined here as a concession made without obtaining some strategic advantage—is sure to fail, and probably in the short term. The swarm of Iranian drones and missiles was therefore no surprise, given that the United States has adopted for many years weak positions with major concessions in the vain hope that carrots without sticks would be able to conjure an improvement. Thus, after a strong recovery in the last years of President George W. Bush in Iraq, the Obama years were marked with a general retreat when the United States negotiated the nuclear arms deal with Iran in 2015. The Obama administration showered concession upon concession to persuade Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons program, despite every breach of promises by the Iranians on inspections. Indeed, the only reason the arrangement did not disintegrate sooner was that the Israelis were able to sabotage some of the Iranian nuclear weapons as the United States continued with its carrots-only approach of sending many billions of dollars to Iran under the Obama and Biden administrations. Donald Trump may not have been perfect on these issues, but he credibly held that he would be able to arrange a better US-Iran deal than the one he canceled. Amid the return to strategic appeasement and supposed neutrality, Hamas attacked Israel with pitiless force by breaking an existing cease-fire on October 7, 2023. At that point, the only meaningful response was what Israel resolved and the United States has tried to block: a maximum effort to wipe out Hamas. There are no intermediate solutions that could prove stable, for as long as Hamas is in power, it will break the next cease-fire with the same impunity. US foreign policy has made two grave mistakes after its initial burst of support for Israel. First, it has pushed hard for a cease-fire that can accomplish nothing, for in prolonging the war the precarious position of the civilian population becomes riskier than before. Meanwhile, the prolonged fighting reduces the resources that Israel has to mount its defenses against Hezbollah and Iran, while giving Iran additional time to smuggle weapons to the West Bank in the hopes of stirring up political instability and worse. Nor does a cease-fire allow for any rebuilding to take place or any new government to form, as the choice of the corrupt Palestinian Authority is a nonstarter, and the prospect of a demilitarized state for Palestinians is but a way station on the road to the extinction of Israel.  As John Spencer has long documented, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has been notable for its general precision, while Hamas has violated every requirement of the law of war in ways that increased, perhaps intentionally, the number of civilian deaths, including by using human shields, fighting out of uniforms, and locating bases of operations near hospitals and other facilities, all on top of a tunnel system that has cost billions to create and maintain. There is also a propaganda war: a power that is prepared to use barbaric force will not hesitate also to wield lies and exaggerations, including the endless accusations of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. The current but limited hostilities between Iran and Israel have their roots in the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021. The bungled withdrawal set the stage by turning a stable situation into a moral and social catastrophe, which continues unabated to the present day. The signals were unmistakable, and Hamas and Iran read the tea leaves. They have gained huge leverage because US leaders think the United States  can remain “neutral” by continuing to bargain with Hamas, which easily moves the goalposts with each new Western concession. None of this should have happened. The hesitation of the United States and its allies will prolong the war and result in more deaths and dislocations than a uniform, firm response by Israel and all its squeamish allies. It is therefore incomprehensible that the New York Times should be calling for the United States to limit weapons supplies to Israel until it reforms its practices in Gaza. The Times seems to think Hamas has done nothing to put its own people in danger by its endless succession of bad acts. It is perverse to claim that this drastic curtailment of arms is needed now because “the war in Gaza has taken an enormous toll in human lives, with a cease-fire still out of reach and many hostages still held captive.” Indeed, these are just the reasons why the attack on Rafeh should proceed, so that this dreadful conflict can reach a just and quick conclusion. Israel’s First Total War And Its Ramifications For the first time, Israel is committed not onlyto the defeat of the enemy’s forces but also tothe annihilation of its regime. That is one reasonthe Gaza war proves to be a long war of attrition. By: Eran OrtalThe Caravan NotebookApril 19, 2024 For the first time, Israel is committed not only to the defeat of the enemy’s forces but also to the annihilation of its regime. That is one reason the Gaza war proves to be a long war of attrition. It is the consequence of not only the Oct 7th catastrophe, and a years-long policy of appeasement but also the gradual derailment of Israel’s defense strategy. What is needed now is a reform aimed at restoring IDF’s decisive battlefield capabilities, without which we face the impossible dilemma of living with further hostilities building up on our borders or a Gaza-like war on a greater scale in  Lebanon.  As war is making its comeback to history everywhere, the West should take note of  Israel’s endeavors.  In his book, The Culture of Military Innovation (Stanford 2010), Dima Adamsky refers to the Israeli strategic culture as one of tactical excellence and innovation on the one hand and theoretical incapacity on the other. Many of us, including Adamsky, himself, saw that culture as changing for the better. Unfortunately, the multi-front Gaza war exposed the inadequacies of that change – too little too late. The war in Gaza is a showcase for the sharp contrast between IDF’s superb performance in the offensive phase in Gaza, and the clear mismanagement of the war at the higher military and political levels. While that gap is apparent for all observers to see, what is less obvious is the failings of Israel’s three-decades-long strategy which collided with the changing circumstances. Analyzing the war from that perspective does not relieve Israeli leadership today of the October 7th disaster, the protracted nature of the war, and the ongoing hostage crisis. However, It does enable a deeper look into our strategic position and hopefully provides for better learning and adaptation. Israel’s first total warBy “total war” I do not mean to say that Israel is engaged in a 20th-century style conflict between nations that involves the industrial base, cities, and population of both sides and the unlimited use of all weapons at hand. In fact, I cannot think of a more bizarre case where a nation, after experiencing an attack such as occurred on  Oct 7 is fighting the enemy on one hand and seeing to the delivery of food, medicine, water, fuels, and even internet communication to the enemy’s population on the other. Needless to say, Hamas’s fighting force is the number one beneficiary of that flow of commodities. What total war here refers to is the complete contrast between Israel’s limited wars of the past and the present one. It is the first war in our history where the aim is not simply to remove the immediate military threat to Israel and end the fighting quickly, but rather it is a commitment to the annihilation of both the military force and the political regime of the enemy. Let it be clear: this is a just and necessary war. Nevertheless, it does drag Israel into a war of attrition that clearly overwhelms the capacity of the IDF and Israel to sustain military, civilian, and international efforts. So the real question at hand is how Israel cornered itself in this dead-end situation. The most apparent answers will be the failures that led directly to Oct 7 such as the lack of early warning, followed by the devastating collapse of the thinly deployed  IDF forces on that day. On a strategic level, however, the question is how did we allow the build-up of the Hamas army on our border? Even the shameful policy of appeasement towards Hamas, a policy as old as Hamas’s rule over Gaza (2007) does not provide a complete answer. If we are to learn anything beyond the political blame game that is tearing Israel apart, we should search even further. Three disruptions put Israel’s traditional defense strategy out of balance. Just as Adamsky described it, while the IDF was relatively quick to adapt tactically, the strategic flaws were overlooked and the more profound military change that was needed was delayed. That is a process that originated in the days of the Israeli-held security zone in south Lebanon in the 1990s. David & GoliathThe most basic observation of Israeli strategy and doctrine in the 50’s was the fact that we cannot change the nature of the conflict by force. We cannot defeat the Arab coalition in the way the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So the small state of Israel devised a modest strategy:ü We will only aim for a military, not a political defeat of our adversaries. ü To do that, we will concentrate all resources and personnel in a short decisive war effort that will take the war to the other side to remove the immediate threat. ü We will make all efforts to avoid protracted warfare we cannot sustain. Fast-forward to the 1990’s and circumstances seemed to have profoundly changed. The Soviet Union had just fallen, further weakening its Arab clients, Egypt had withdrawn from the Arab coalition, and the IDF was one of the most modern militaries on the planet with cutting-edge targeting and airpower precision strike capabilities. And yet, faced with guerrilla warfare in southern Lebanon, Israel’s strategy was disrupted. Protecting our northern border from within southern Lebanon has led to prolonged warfare with new Lebanese factions. Moving the battle to the other side now proved more of a problem than a solution. A new strategy was starting to emerge. Never to be officially put in words or on paper, its preferred principles were simple:·      Israel’s advantage lies in airpower.·      Decisive battlefield maneuvering is impractical in the new context. Fortunately, it is also unnecessary.·      Israel is now the Goliath of the equation. Indeed, it is a regional power. We can and should engage in a war of attrition, rather than finding a way to remove the emerging threat.·      Guerillas are inherently less sensitive to airpower. So, Israel’s strategy will be one of coercion, aimed at a “responsible state address” such as Lebanon or Syria, hosting or supporting them. Gradually, three processes took place:·      Airpower coercion became the securing base for the strategic deconfliction strategy practiced with the withdrawal from Lebanon (2000) and disengagement from Gaza (2005).·      The IDF became a formidable targeting machine. Later other excellent tactical adaptations to the deteriorating situation, like air-defense systems, were achieved. Seen as a thing of the past, ground forces were largely left behind.·      Unaffected by the new strategic theory, the adversaries have grown from small guerrilla entities to full-scale militaries based directly on our borders. Rather than responding to  Israel as a superpower, the other side simply enhanced its ability to inflict damage on our cities and disrupt peace on our borders. By the early 2000’s Israeli leadership talked about deterrence but was simultaneously deterred itself. The much-talked-of air campaign Israel has engaged in in Syria since 2012 only serves to highlight the lack of Israeli willingness to stop the entrenchment and armament of Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon. The big disruptionsThree major disruptions led to the derailment of Israel’s traditional strategy:ü Control over foreign hostile populated areas, like South Lebanon or the Gaza Strip, has proven to drag Israel into undesired prolonged warfare.ü Rockets and missiles have proven to be the ultimate strategic equalizer working against Israel’s military superiority. ü Holding Israeli cities hostage, they have made it possible for the weaker side to deter Israel from decisive operations, allowing the unhindered build-up of forces by Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas. It also rendered the withdrawal strategy useless as the rockets were aimed and fired at Israeli civilians from deep within Lebanon and Gaza. As for Iran – we went to bed in the 90s with some small and isolated guerrillas on our borders. One day we woke up realizing these are the paws of a huge Iranian tiger. We were thinking of ourselves as a Goliath gradually degrading weaker adversaries, only to learn we are in a war of attrition with a giant via its proxies. Therefore it turns out that our main disruption was not from our adversaries but from within. Short-sighted policy from most Israeli governments helped, but the roots of  the deterioration lay in false optimistic assumptions that were not challenged sufficiently: Can airpower really sustain a strategy by itself?Can Israel sustain the strategic competition with Iran while conducting attrition warfare with its growing proxies on its borders? Progressives and OrthodoxWe have favored a false theoretical framework, never to become official and truly challenged, and the comfort of doing more and better of the same. We have made huge tactical improvements but failed to make more profound adjustments to our theories and capabilities. One can make that statement based on the IDF’s concept of victory from 2020 when it was given official recognition. That concept was supposed to be a vital first step for a military modernization plan. The plan was aimed at the reconstruction of the traditional defense strategy with decisive victory on the battlefield at its focal point. A variety of capabilities and organizational changes were planned to target the enemy’s distant fire and trajectories by utilizing modernized ground forces as well as air assets. Unfortunately, it turned out to be too little too late. For too long the strategic environment and actual threats were rapidly changing for the worse. Israel’s strategic and military thinking was stuck between two opposing schools of thought. The first school created a framework of false assumptions that allowed the comfort of kicking the can down the road. The concept of engineering our adversaries’ intentions rather than preempting their capabilities failed. These schools of thought can be described as “strategic progressives“, turning wishful thinking into a strategy. Reacting against that, the other school can be labeled “military orthodoxy“, denying the change of circumstances altogether. It called for bigger ground forces and a more aggressive approach with the unpromising prospects of house-to-house fighting to clear the enemy from Lebanon. This was a twentieth-century attrition approach to deal with the twenty-first-century challenge of a dispersed enemy with long-range capability. Policymakers, from all sides of the political map, thought that cure was worse than the disease. ConclusionCornered now into a long total war against the Hamas regime, Israel can hardly sustain the effort needed and has no good solutions for the simultaneous threat from Lebanon. In contrast to its self-image as a regional power, Israel re-discovered its basic limits. As successful, flourishing, and technologically advanced as we grew up to be, we are still only David. Israel is not capable of politically engineering our neighborhood, not even in the small Gaza Strip. The failure is far from being tactical or local. Rather than adapting to a new set of military threats within the correct framework of Israeli defense strategy, we have insisted on living in a dream world where terror organizations have state-like responsibility and Israel is a regional power that cannot be beaten. From the three disruptions mentioned, the tangible one we can militarily work with is the second – arms fire, missiles, and rockets. Defeat that, and there is no Iranian ring of fire nor an adversary capable of deterring Israel from preempting threats. We can and should come up with an approach that does exactly that. That approach may be of great interest for the West as it is faced with similar military challenges. The Russian war over Ukraine has come to be a war of attrition dominated by long-range weapons. China’s strategy relies on deterring a possible US response for an armed provocation as its ranged A2AD missiles are deployed and aimed at any approaching navy and air force assets. If we can contribute valid and substantial ideas and capabilities to change that for the better, it could also facilitate a fresh restart for Israel internationally. Brigadier General (Ret.) Ortal is the author of The Battle Before the War (Modan and the Ministry of Defense 2022, Hebrew) which deals with change and the need for change in the IDF. He now teaches Defense Strategy at Reichman University, serves as a senior consultant for strategy and technology at the Israeli MOD, and is a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.  If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato

How do you maintain your convictions when your culture is smothered? https://youtu.be/1dBSLVT3XSw?si=KMYog_EzwheB0uUy

When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.

On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.

The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.

It was a total victory for the war party.

The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went along with it. The last thing the people running Biden’s White House want to see as a close election approaches are ads blaming Biden for “losing Ukraine.”

The US and its allies have already sent over $300 billion to Ukraine and the country is still losing its war with Russia. Nobody believes another $60 billion will pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. But this additional money is meant to keep up appearances until November at the expense of Americans who are forced to pay for it and Ukrainians who are forced to die for it.

Speaker Johnson could not have passed these monstrosities without the full support of House Democrats, as the majority of Republicans voted against more money for Ukraine. So in the worst example of “bipartisanship,” Johnson reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him Speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare/(corporate) welfare state.

After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, Members waved Ukrainian flags on the House Floor and chanted “Ukraine, Ukraine.” While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some way it seemed fitting. After all, they may as well chant the name of a foreign country because they certainly don’t care about this country!

Along with sending $100 billion that we don’t have to fund more overseas war, Speaker Johnson threw in another version of the Tik Tok ban, which gives Joe Biden and future presidents the power to shut down websites at will by simply declaring them to be “foreign adversary controlled.”

Not to be outdone, the US Senate on that same day passed the extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act, which not only allowed the government to continue spying on us without a warrant, but also contained new language massively expanding how they can spy on us.

Many conservative voters are asking what the point of Republican control of the House is if the agenda is determined by Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.

What is the silver lining in all this bad news? Most Republicans in the House voted against continuing the Ukraine war. That’s a good start. Our ideas are growing, not only across the country but even in the DC swamp. Take courage and don’t give up! Work for peace!

Hedge Fund CIO: "That's Why I See Us Headed Into A 1970s-Style Inflation" Tyler Durden Mon, 04/22/2024 - 10:05

Here we go with Part Four of our latest audio diversion: The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie's 1922 caper set in a London seething with Bolshevists and labour unrest. Linda Powers, a Kansas member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes of Saturday's episode:

The endangered species no one cares about...

Not surprisingly, neoconservatives have tried to rehabilitate the British Empire, calling it benign and a civilizing force in Africa and Asia. Like all other empires, however, it was held together by violence and subjugation.

An exceptional heat wave linked to El Niño is negatively impacting the cost of food staples. Rice now costs 52 pesos per kilo, an anomaly at this time of the year, harvest season. By presidential order, the head of state gives the green light to streamline sanitary procedures for other agricultural products as well.

Head Of Climate Research At Hedge Fund Andurand Expresses Skepticism Over Carbon-Credit Boom Tyler Durden Mon, 04/22/2024 - 08:45

The island nation exports more than 50 per cent of its tea to Iran, Iraq, and Palestine. Attacks in the Red Sea have already slowed deliveries, but exporters have not noticed major price increases for now. However, as the war continues, small farmers will likely pay a heavy price.

Has Donald Trump Worn Down by the Deep State Collapsed?

Mike Whitney Reports

https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/trump-sold-out-his-base-to-shovel-95-billion-to-ukraine-and-israel/

Increasingly medical studies show that the Covid Vaccinated people suffer higher than normal rates of dangerous and deadly illnesses.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/6-major-adverse-reactions-found-among-99-million-vaccine-recipients-new-study-facts-matter-5591300?utm_source=Enews&utm_campaign=etv1-2024-04-21&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAceE5JjMFys3H%2BbdAvWpUcQzPZ0WlGLZbDFlFfmdQNQ%3D%3D

Three Medical Studies Prove the Chronic Illnesses of American Children and Adults Are the Consequence of Vaccinations

https://www.globalresearch.ca/do-vaccines-make-us-healthier/5855358

Remember the Medical Authorities, “our” government, and our doctor, and our media told us the Covid vaccine was safe and would protect us.

They lied through their teeth.

Epidemic of 15-19 Year Olds Dropping Dead in Schools and Dorms Across USA and Canada in April 2023

https://www.globalresearch.ca/epidemic-15-19-year-olds-dropping-dead-schools-dorms-across-usa-canada-april-2023/5816841

Tucker Carlson Reports Congress Is Run by the Intelligence Agencies

Having kiddie porn put on their computers is the fear of all who dissent from the police state agenda.

https://www.rt.com/news/596361-tucker-congress-child-porn-blackmail/