Manchin stares down Biden, Democratic leaders, declaring he cannot support 'trillions in spending' - Thomas Barrabi

 

​ by Thomas Barrabi

Manchin’s remarks followed days of intense dialogue between top Democrats regarding the spending bill

 Sen. Barrasso: 'Big brother' Biden trying to monitor your bank account

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Wednesday that he would not support "spending trillions more" on social programs, highlighting an ongoing dispute between the moderate Democrat and party leaders that threatens to derail negotiations on President Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill.

In a lengthy statement on the negotiations, Manchin said he has "made clear to the President and Democratic leaders" that it would be the "definition of fiscal insanity" to greenlight more spending despite funding shortages for social security and Medicare. Manchin also cited concerns about the potential impact to inflation and the shaky U.S. economic recovery.

"While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot – and will not - support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces," Manchin said. "There is a better way and I believe we can find it if we are willing to continue to negotiate in good faith."

The Left, which is demanding that Congress pass the full $3.5 trillion spending bill, was having none of it. "Progressives won’t back down on delivering paid leave, education, health care, child care, and climate action because of an arbitrary deadline," said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. "We’re sticking to our deal and delivering for the people."

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Manchin’s remarks followed days of intense dialogue between top Democrats regarding the spending bill, which consists of social programs that were left out of a separate $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Biden met separately with Manchin and fellow moderate Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on multiple occasions this week in a bid to find common ground.

White House officials have described the talks as constructive, though few substantive details have emerged. Manchin has yet to specify a topline number for a pared-down spending bill that would have his support.

"If there is one final lesson that will continue to guide me in this difficult debate ahead it is this: America is a great nation but great nations throughout history have been weakened by careless spending and bad policies," Manchin added. "Now, more than ever, we must work together to avoid these fatal mistakes so that we may fulfill our greatest responsibility as elected leaders and pass on a better America to the next generation."

Biden and his Congressional allies are working to placate both moderates and progressives within the Democratic Party. Progressive leaders have warned they will not vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless the Senate first passes an expansive social spending package.  

Thomas Barrabi

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/manchin-wont-support-trillions-spending-calls-negotiation

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2 states for 2 peoples? Try 4 states for 1 people - Prof. Shmuel Trigano

 

​ by Prof. Shmuel Trigano

The establishment of "Palestine" will lead to the return of refugees, the dissimilation of Arab Israelis, the rousing of Palestinian Jordanians, and the definition of Palestine as the unification of the West Bank, Gaza, and Arab regions inside Israel and Jordan.

With the return to power of former US President Barack Obama's team, we are once again hearing murmurings of "two states for two peoples." It is being reinforced by political media agencies with the aim of suppressing thought, but above all else – it conceals a lie.

What is meant by the term "Palestinian people"? What Palestinian people is deserving of a state to be called "Palestine"? They all pretend as if this was a population that lives in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, based on the fiction that Israel "occupied" these territories, which in fact were occupied for generations, by the Jordanian regime, and were never under
"Palestinian" rule. Does this refer only to the residents of Area A, in which the Palestinian Authority already enjoys partial autonomy? Should we add to this the Gaza Strip? What about the 5 million pseudo-Palestinian "refugees" (originally numbering 600,000 people), who have been waiting 73 years to enjoy the "right of return"? The return to what territory exactly? If we are to believe the statements from Palestinian leaders, this right of return will pertain to the State of Israel's territory on the 1967 borders.

It is clear, therefore, from the Palestinian statements that they are referring to more than the territory that was "occupied" following the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory of the entire State of Israel is on the line, and no Palestinian state will yield its demand for the unification of territories and populations. Let us not forget there is yet another branch of the Palestinian "people" that constitutes 70% of the population in Jordan, in which a Bedouin minority controls the throne. A glance at this landscape raised two geostrategic questions: How will the West Bank be connected to Gaza? Any land-based connection will cut Israel in two and expose it to the threat of infiltration, and this is in an era in which the Negev Region is already seen as a kind of no man's land. Do we intend to bring back the Polish Corridor? That territory, which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea and divided the bulk of Germany from East Prussia, was the pretext for the Nazi invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War II.

"Two states for two peoples," they say, but a state is first and foremost territory. There are 70 kilometers (around 45 miles) stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Should this imaginary Palestine come to exist, the State of Israel will return to a strategic depth of 15 kilometers (roughly nine miles) in the country's center. Its point of weakness will be within range of rocket fire from the mountains above the Sharon Plain.

The retreat from Gaza illustrated how much security we should expect, and the IDF's Operation Guardian of the Walls in May created a window of opportunity for a group that thus far had not been taken into consideration on the geostrategic map: Arab Israelis. They are full Israeli citizens, but they see themselves as members of the Palestinian people. They constantly demand, even in the Israeli Knesset, the dissolution of the state of which they are citizens and its transformation into a binational state. During the last conflict, we experienced a spike in the quality of the riots and pogroms against Jews during fighting on the front. How can one describe a civilian attack on the home front at a time of war? The script for the next conflict may already have been written. It goes without saying that within the framework of a coalition that includes Arab parties, Israel has tied its hands and feet on every political and governance issue.

The establishment of "Palestine" will spark a chain reaction: the return of refugees, the dissimilation of Arab Israelis, the rousing of Palestinian Jordanians, and the definition of Palestine as a unification of the West Bank, Gaza, and Arab regions inside the State of Israel and Jordan. Forget about the State of Israel, and definitely forget about a Jewish state. "Two states for two peoples" is a code name for an entirely different plan: Four states for one people.

 

Prof. Shmuel Trigano 

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/2-states-for-2-peoples-try-4-states-for-1-people/

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The Murderous Anti-Semitism of the Effort to Kill Iron Dome - Richard L. Cravatts

 

​ by Richard L. Cravatts

Why the Left thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for Jews to die in the name of Palestinian "self-determination".

 

Even for Congressional Democrats who, in recent years, have shown a growing animosity and even cruelty toward Israel, last week’s effort to remove $1 billion of funding to maintain Israel’s Iron Dome defense system was particularly grotesque. Congressional “Squad” members, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), pressured the Democratic House leadership to strip funding to Israel for this key military technology that tracks and intercepts incoming rockets and has a success rate of doing so of over 90 percent. 

It is one thing to seek to deprive a country of offensive weapons out of a wish to minimize further conflict, reduce casualties of that country’s enemies, or based on a record of abusive or disproportionate use of weaponry in previous military engagements. But Iron Dome is a defensive weapon, which, in neutralizing incoming and potentially lethal rockets, saves Israeli lives by ensuring that Hamas rockets never reach their intended targets. It also, of course, saves Arab lives, as well, since the inevitable political and military Israeli response to high numbers of its citizens’ casualties that might well occur in Iron Dome’s absence would be more aggressive and prolonged retaliation against Hamas, along with unfortunate, but inevitable, civilian casualties—especially since Hamas regularly (and in violation of international law) embeds itself and fires its rockets from Gazan neighborhoods, mosques, hospitals, and other non-military locations.

Any sentient being understands that Iron Dome reduces deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians, and therefore its use ought to be continued and supported, but not, apparently, the radical Leftist Squad, whose decision to push for these funding cuts cannot be explained away by any other interpretation than that these members of Congress do not care at all about Jewish lives and are willing to sacrifice them in a hollow, though long professed, desire to promote Palestinian self-determination. In seeking social justice for the Arabs, these policymakers, and their fellow Israel-hating travelers, wish to level the playing field of military engagement, favoring the weak in the name of equity and justice.

One moral challenge in asymmetrical war is that observers in the world community, apparently including the Squad, intuitively feel that Israel’s disproportionate military strength makes the conflict fundamentally “unfair,” that because it is technologically and logistically able to exact more harm on the Palestinians, Israel should always restrain itself to minimize enemy casualties. That may be a compelling emotional response, but it is, of course, not a legal or moral argument with any weight. In fact, it is precisely because of Israel’s military superiority that a rational adversary would have been deterred from attacking in the first place.

In May, as will be remembered, during the latest escalation of the conflict, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had fired more than 4300 rockets at Israeli neighborhoods from the Gaza strip. While more than 1,500 of those rockets were successfully targeting Israeli citizens, it was only because of Iron Dome’s efficiency in neutralizing more than 90 percent of these rockets that there were not more casualties. Even though it was Hamas’s aggression and lethal belligerency that initiated the renewed fighting, on university campuses, unsurprisingly, dozens of statements were issued that grotesquely proclaimed support for Hamas through Palestinian solidarity and denounced Israel for its aggression, disproportionate response, and overall perfidy in its attempt to protect its citizenry from being slaughtered.

A statement from a group of Rutgers University faculty, as one odious example, refers to the imbalance in the military might of both parties, pointing to the unfairness of Israel’s strength and justifying Hamas’s terrorism as a justifiable and understandable tactic of the weak. In its May 23^rd statement, “We Stand in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” the virtue-signaling faculty made the same assumption that the Squad did in seeking to strip Israel of the use of Iron Dome; that is, because they disapprove of Israel’s policies and military strength, they excuse—and, in fact, celebrate—the Palestinians’ use of terror, precisely because Israel, in their minds, is too strong, too powerful, and unlawful in being an occupying power.  

“While we mourn the loss of civilian life in Israel,” the statement disingenuously asserts, “we also refuse to engage narratives that demand an ‘equal sides’ approach to a fundamentally unequal reality. The demand to center Israel’s right to ‘self-defense’ erases the colonial context and delegitimizes the Palestinian right to resistance and to self-defense, both principles enshrined in international law.”

The Rutgers faculty and the supporters of the bill to deny Israel Iron Dome share one common view: terrorism against the Jewish state is acceptable, in their minds, because they devalue Israel’s existence and because justice for the Palestinians is desirable—at any cost—including Jewish lives. Why should Israel have the advantages of modern technology and weaponry—even with strictly defensive purposes—if the ever-aggrieved Palestinians are dispossessed, occupied, suppressed, and stateless? Why should Israelis be spared the threat of being murdered in their homes, schools, discos, and pizza parlors if terrorists—and their apologists—have decided they have a moral and legal right to carry out such acts because they seek social justice and are victims, it is falsely asserted, of Zionism’s imperialism, colonialism, and militarism?

This explains why the Left has regularly glossed over terroristic behavior on the part of Islamists—Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Al Aqsa Brigades, or others—and has romanticized this violence as “resistance.”  But that idealized world requires that state actors behave in rational ways, something that is clearly absent in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in which theology, apocalyptic views of the world, a longing for martyrdom, and genocidal ethnic hatred underlie the ideology of Israel’s current enemies, all of whom are terrorist groups and not conventional armies.

This rationalization, that violence is an acceptable, if not welcomed, component of seeking social justice—that is, that the inherent “violence” of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism will be met by the same violence as the oppressed attempt to throw off their oppressors—is exactly the style of self-defeating rationality that in this age has proven to be an intractable part of the war on terror. America-hating and Israel-hating academics and policymakers have not infrequently wished for harm to come to these countries at the hands of the victim groups to whom they readily give their sympathies. They frequently, and mistakenly, ascribe to poverty and helplessness the inclination to lead to terrorism on the part of otherwise weak and oppressed individuals. And, like Leftist apologists for other examples of revolutionary violence, they see an opportunity for the tables to be turned on the oppressors and an equal distribution of suffering to be brought about in the resulting power shift.

Additionally, the Left’s being in the thrall of multiculturalism has meant that radical members of Congress like the “Squad,” not to mention university faculty and students, have been seeped in an ideology that refuses to demarcate any differences between a democratic state struggling to protect itself and aggressive, genocidal foes who wish to destroy it with their unending assaults. For the multiculturalist Left, the moral strengths of the two parties are equivalent, even though the jihadist foes of Israel, for example, have waged an unending struggle with the stated aim of extirpating the Jewish state through the murder of Jews.

Thus, this inclination to worship multiculturalism forces liberals to make excuses for those cultures which have obvious, often irredeemable, moral defects, such as the Islamist foes who currently threaten Israel and the West.

It also, apparently, justifies stripping Israel of its very right to defend its citizens from being murdered by the genocidal impulses of Hamas, even when those defensive weapons protect Arab and Muslim lives as well as those of Jews. But in the name of social justice, only the suffering, human rights, justice, and very lives of the downtrodden Palestinians are of interest to Leftist radicals, and if Jews have to die as part of Palestinian self-determination, so be it.

If this is not naked anti-Semitism played out very publicly so that anyone with a moral compass can see it, then nothing is.

 

Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., a Freedom Center Journalism Fellow in Academic Free Speech and President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/murderous-anti-semitism-effort-kill-iron-dome-richard-l-cravatts/

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Karl Rove: Democrats will lose the House in 2022, the question is by how much - Fox News Staff

 

​ by Fox News Staff

Karl Rove predicts big Democrat losses in 2022 midterm elections.

 

Video

 

Karl Rove: 'Democrats are going to lose the House, no ifs ands or buts about it'

Fox News contributor Karl Rove predicts that Biden and the Dems will lose big in 2022.

Fox News contributor and political strategist Karl Rove joined "America's Newsroom" on Thursday, and gave his analysis on the potential political fallout from President Biden's massive spending plan. Host Bill Hemmer pointed out Biden's sinking poll numbers in key states. 

RONNY JACKSON: NANCY PELOSI, DEMS THINK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE 'COMPLETE IDIOTS'

BILL HEMMER: This is amazing stuff here now. The state of Colorado came out with a poll, a state that Biden won by 14 points. His approval rating in Colorado is at 42%. North Carolina, that was razor thin, he is 38%. In Texas, a state Trump won by nine points, he is at 32%. Iowa, a state Trump won by 10 points, he is at 31%. I don’t know what else is underneath there but none of that sounds good for a president who has been in office for eight and a half months.

KARL ROVE: No. In fact, if you look at it, it is not just those states. … He is underwater nationwide and underwater in critical battleground states that will decide the outcome of the 2022 Senate races and he is going to be underwater in critical battleground congressional districts. The Democrats will lose the House of Representatives no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The question is how many seats they will lose.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW

Video

 

 

 

Fox News Staff

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/rove-democrats-will-lose-house-2022-midterms

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US, Qatar target Hezbollah's financial network with sanctions - Neta Bar and Reuters

 

​ by Neta Bar and Reuters

"Hezbollah seeks to abuse the international financial system by developing global networks of financiers to fill its coffers and support its terrorist activity," US Treasury Department official says.

 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah | Screenshot

The United States and Qatar took coordinated action on Wednesday targeting a Hezbollah financial network in the Arabian Peninsula, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

The Treasury said it designated individuals including Ali Reda Hassan al-Banai, Ali Reda al-Qassabi Lari and Abd al-Muayyid al-Banaiare for having provided financial or material support to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shi'ite Islamist group that Washington has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

Qatar had also designated the network, the Treasury said, but it did not detail those actions.

"Hezbollah seeks to abuse the international financial system by developing global networks of financiers to fill its coffers and support its terrorist activity," said Andrea Gacki, director of the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

"The cross-border nature of this Hezbollah financial network underscores the importance of our continued cooperation with international partners, such as the Government of Qatar, to protect the US and international financial systems from terrorist abuse."

The individuals include citizens of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, as well as a Palestinian, the department said on its website.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the move was "one of the most significant joint actions" Washington has taken with a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council and urged other governments to follow suit in targeting Hezbollah.

Bahrain had also concurrently frozen bank accounts related to the network and referred three individuals to its prosecutor's office, Blinken said in a statement.

 

Neta Bar and Reuters

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/09/30/us-qatar-target-hezbollahs-financial-network-with-sanctions/

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Arab Israelis demand governance - Dr. Dalia Fadila and Tony Nasser

 

​ by Dr. Dalia Fadila and Tony Nasser

Yes, personal security is a top priority. Yes, we demand enforcement and law and order, including through the use of technologies used by the Shin Bet to thwart terrorism.

 

Arab Israelis protest violence in their community in 2019 | File photo: Herzl Shapira

Ninety-two percent of the Arab public support the Shin Bet security agency's involvement in efforts to rein in crime in Arab society. This is according to a comprehensive survey by the Stat Research Institute that examined Arab support for the use of advanced technologies used by the Shin Bet to collect illegal weapons in the sector.

The survey's findings contradict the winds blowing from the Arab political leadership and other radical forces and point to Israel's Arab citizens clearly demanding governance and showing unequivocal support for the state's fight against violence in the Arab street. This includes support for the limited and pinpointed use of advanced tracking technologies to collect illegal weapons.

Why is the Arab public so clearly demanding this painful treatment for its problem? We see this as an expression of the readiness of the Arab society and its translation into a public decision. No more accusations and no more general demands for action by law enforcement, but rather a discussion of the details and significance of necessary action by law enforcement and determining: Yes, we see personal security as a priority that comes before all others. Yes, we demand enforcement and law and order, including through the use of technologies used by the Shin Bet to thwart terrorist activity by both Jews and Arabs.

If the state has at its disposal excellent technology that put an end to the constant bloodshed, clear the streets of illegal weapons, and fight resolutely and effectively against the despair, terror, and grief found in our families,' neighbors,' friends,' and acquaintances,' mourning tents, who cares what else this technology is used for? And how exactly will we be able to do this without it?

The fact that the Arab public did not provide assistance to the security prisoners who escaped Gilboa Prison made perfectly clear, regardless of statements from Arab leadership, how the Arab public feels about the state. The survey's results grant provide further proof.

The time, then, has come for change. We expect the state to demonstrate its governance, fulfill its basic obligations toward us, redeem us of the anarchy that is increasingly taking over our public spaces, destroying our communities, and killing our children. We expect it to rein in the violence and crime with the tools at its disposal. We have crossed the blood-drenched Rubicon. Absent this eradication, we cannot live democratic, safe, and flourishing lives.

We expect this because the enforcement of law and order does not stand on its own, but is rather a complementary and synergetic infrastructure condition necessary for deeper societal and cultural change. We are convinced that when the state grabs the bull of Arab crime and violence by the horns, and hope and security take the place of the killing, the fear, and the despair, there will be room for more long-term processes as well.

For example, deepening cooperation between our communities and the state, establishing informal educational frameworks for Arab youth to help us contend with their sense of a lack of purpose, establishing initiatives to guide them toward integration into the high-tech industry, and restoring the vitality that will lead to the realization of the immense potential found within that is just waiting to be realized.

 

Dr. Dalia Fadila and Tony Nasser 

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/09/30/arab-israelis-demand-governance/

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'Ultimately, Israel will intervene in Facebook's decisions' - Eran Bar-Tal

 

​ by Eran Bar-Tal

"If Facebook decides, for example, to block certain citizens, the question is on what basis did they make that decision? They are essentially editing, very similar to editors at a newspaper. We will clear this up," Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel tells Israel Hayom.

 

"There's a serious problem with social media sites such as Facebook, which consists of three aspects: transparency, revenue, and control," Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel told Israel Hayom in an interview on Wednesday.

"The built-in tension is between our recognition of freedom of expression and that the state shouldn't have control over the truth, and between ways this power can be abused. I can tell you we are in earnest discussions with [social media companies]. I've already met with TikTok's management and we are in discussions with Facebook and Twitter, and we are on the way to reaching understandings with them," said Hendel.

Hendel said regulations will be imposed, but that they will be consensual. "These dilemmas exist everywhere in the world. The debate in the United States crosses party lines – the Americans are focusing on the monopoly that's been created. We are learning from them and are trying to develop applicable models."

The communications minister added: "I am definitely not happy with the existing situation. I'm convinced we need to intervene somehow, and ultimately Israel will intervene. I'm in favor of doing this through dialogue.

"If Facebook decides, for example, to block certain citizens, the question is on what basis did they make that decision? They are essentially editing, very similar to editors at a newspaper. We will clear this up," he said.

With that, Hendel supports censorship in certain cases and even states that his ministry is in continuous communication with social media companies about censoring certain content.

"When it comes to 'fake news' from anti-vaxxers, for example, who present unsubstantiated research and false information, it's akin to incitement. This is a matter of life or death.

"On these issues, intervention is absolutely necessary," he says. "Facebook is in continuous contact with us regarding antisemitic content, for instance. When a video is posted of a young Arab man beating a Haredi person in Jerusalem, intervention is certainly called for. The question only pertains to the gray areas."

 

Eran Bar-Tal

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/09/30/ultimately-israel-will-intervene-in-facebooks-decisions/

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The mother of real estate bubbles looms in China - Peter Kauffner

 

​ by Peter Kauffner

The consequences of the collapse of a large corporation like Evergrande, however, are different in a command economy than they would be here.

You don’t have to spend much time in China to notice the mystifying glut of half-built apartment complexes, neighborhoods, and even ghost cities. There are certainly legitimate residences getting built, but the buildings I have in mind are concrete frameworks with no doors or window frames. They feature sky-cranes and scaffolding, but no construction workers. Buildings sit in this condition month after month. China is estimated to have enough unsold “housing” of this type for 90 million people.

These empty buildings are a manifestation of China’s enormous property bubble. The real estate sector has grown to at least 25 percent of the county’s GDP. This makes China’s bubble significantly larger than historic bubbles in, for example, Spain or Japan.

Turmoil at Evergrande, the country’s second-largest developer, has drawn attention in the international press. Evergrande’s bond prices are now only a fourth of what they were in March.

Although Chinese culture emphasizes thrift and savings, there is no tradition of ordinary people investing in anything other than real estate. They can’t invest abroad. Local stocks and bonds have a poor reputation.

The empty buildings are essentially a form of land speculation. Developers must build something on the land or it reverts to the government after a certain amount of time.

The government runs Chinese banks. They often finance shell projects and unneeded infrastructure as a way of padding GDP statistics. At the beginning of the pandemic, the government responded by encouraging loans of this type. But it later reversed course.

The banks began cracking down on property-related loans a year ago, triggering the crisis at Evergrande. Under the “three red lines” policy, developers must now bring their debt load below specified levels.

Evergrande is not expected to survive an upcoming series of payment deadlines. The Wall Street Journal is confident the government can prevent the contagion from spreading, while the Epoch Times expects a larger collapse.

If the bubble is successfully popped, that would mean more affordable housing for the younger generation. At the same time, many older Chinese would lose some of their savings and economic growth will be slowed. Perhaps China’s collective savings can be redirected to something more productive than empty buildings and stalled cranes. “Homes are for living in, not for speculation,” according to a mantra that officials have been repeating lately.

The reason that Evergrande can’t lead to an economic collapse is that China lacks a financial free market. There is no issue of bankers panicking in response to an unexpected turn in the market. Risk and concerns about profitability won’t stop the banks from lending either. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, directs the lending policy of the commercial bank in accordance with the dictates of the Communist Party.

The factors that are likely to determine China’s economic prospects in the near term are the overall debt level and corporate transparency. China’s debt increased to 270 percent of GDP in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. But it has since come under control.

On the other hand, Xi Jinping’s policy of shielding China and its businesses from scrutiny could lead to a backlash from foreign investors. Although China has significant savings of its own, such investment still plays a crucial role in the economy, as the dysfunctional property market illustrates.

Fresh from his victory over the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, Xi is imposing a dystopian vision on one sector of Chinese society after another. Alibaba boss Jack Ma and the other tech moguls, China’s swaggering elite until just last October, have been bought to heel.

Ma was planning the largest initial public offering ever when the party demanded that he pull the plug. The tech giants have turned over months of profits to the government to show their loyalty. Popular actors have been erased from the Internet with no explanation given.

Paid private tutoring on core subjects, such as English, has been banned. Chinese high school students focus their studies on passing the college entrance exam, which once emphasized English. Courses on “Xi Jinping Thought” are replacing those that taught English.

For many years, China focused on economic growth and catching up with the West. Not for the first time, the country has turned inward. This follows a recurring pattern in Chinese history that scholars call “anti-foreignism.” Previous examples include the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. The “Great Firewall” keeps foreign influence off the Chinese internet. The communications technologies once thought to be a bulwark of freedom have been repurposed as tools of authoritarianism.

Peter Kauffner lives in Sequim, Washington.

Image: A Chinese ghost city. YouTube screen grab.

 

Peter Kauffner

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/the_mother_of_real_estate_bubbles_looms_in_china.html

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The Real Palestinian 'Heroes': Terrorists - Bassam Tawil

 

​ by Bassam Tawil

What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

• As far as [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.

• This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or injuring of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.

• This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.

• What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

• Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians' worthless words.

As far as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (pictured) and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen. (Photo by Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

While many international media outlets focused their attention on the escape of six Palestinian inmates from an Israeli prison on September 6, as well as the ensuing dramatic manhunt launched by thousands of Israeli police officers and soldiers, only a few – if any – reported on the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership's ongoing glorification of terrorists.

The PA lionization of Palestinian terrorists, including those who have been caught by the Israeli security forces, tried and are currently serving prison sentences, is not new. In fact, this is a practice that dates back to the first years of the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964.

Since then, the PLO has not only been heaping praise on Palestinian terrorists who murder or wound Jews, but has paid monthly stipends to them and their families.

Earlier this year, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) revealed that the PA paid more than NIS 512 million ($175 million) in salaries to terrorist prisoners in 2020. PMW assessed that the amount paid to terrorist prisoners accounts for nearly 3.25% of the PA's annual budget.

According to PMW, the PA attempted to hide its payments to terrorist prisoners by transferring more than a billion shekels to the PLO, of which 512 million shekels was used to pay the terrorists and their families.

This policy of providing financial aid to terrorists and their families is not a policy that the PA and its leaders ever tried to hide. Quite to the contrary; PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and many senior Palestinian officials continue to boast of their role in rewarding the terrorists and their families.

In 2018, a defiant Abbas said in Ramallah during a ceremony to honor Palestinian prisoners:

"We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners, and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners. From our standpoint, the martyrs and prisoners are stars in the firmament of the Palestinian people's struggle, and take priority in every matter. In 1965, a few days after the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution, the first mission undertaken by the martyr late president Yasser Arafat was to establish an institution to care for the families of the martyrs and the mujahideen of Palestine – for they are the pioneers and must be cared for, and we will care for them."

The recent escape ad recapture of the six prisoners served as a reminder of the PA's continued support for, and admiration of, terrorists who carry out attacks against Jews.

As far as Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.

This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or wounding of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.

Although five of the terrorists who escaped belong to the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – a group that seeks the elimination of Israel and opposes the PA leadership's "moderate" policy towards Israel -- Abbas and his senior officials in the West Bank continue to call them "heroes" and "brave prisoners."

Although four of the PIJ terrorists were convicted of murdering and wounding several Jews, Abbas and his representatives continue to refer to them as "political prisoners" and "freedom fighters" who are being held in prison for nothing other than "opposing Israeli occupation."

Abbas has made it a habit to receive and honor convicted and suspected terrorists after their release from Israeli prisons.

Just two months ago, Abbas defied COVID-19 rules and was prepared to risk his health by inviting an ex-prisoner, Alghadanfar Abu Atwan, to his office in Ramallah.

Abu Atwan was invited to Abbas's office shortly after he was released from Israeli detention on suspicion of involvement in anti-Israel terrorist activities, the nature of which have not been revealed by the Israeli security services.

During the meeting, Abbas was quoted as saying that the released prisoner "represents a model for the Palestinian youth that we are proud of."

Such meetings between Abbas and Palestinian prisoners are common and aimed at sending a message to the Palestinian public about the great esteem Palestinians hold towards the terrorists and their families. Abbas is actually telling the Palestinians: If you go to prison for murdering or wounding a Jew, you will earn the utmost respect and even be honored by the president himself.

While the manhunt for the six fugitives was underway, Abbas sent his spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, to relay the following message to the Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world: "Our brave prisoners in the Israeli prisons are the heroes of the Palestinian people, and there will be no peace or stability without the release of all our prisoners."

Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy chairman of the ruling Fatah faction (headed by Mahmoud Abbas), even warned Israel against attempting to recapture the convicted terrorists, whom he hailed as "heroes." According to al-Aloul, the re-arrest of the terrorists who escaped from Israel's Gilboa Prison would be tantamount to a "crime" and "violation" of their rights.

This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.

The PLO, which is also headed by Abbas, said as the manhunt was underway that the terrorist prisoners are "the advanced vanguard and the best of the Palestinian youth because they sacrificed their lives for the sake of their homeland and their people."

It is this kind of rhetoric that prompts Palestinians to join the jihad against Israel and set out on missions to attack Jews. It is also this type of rhetoric that sent thousands of Palestinians to the streets to express solidarity with the fugitives and all terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

The statements and actions of Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in the aftermath of the escape of the six terrorists demonstrate clearly how the Palestinians have transformed murderers and thugs into societal role models.

What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

To Palestinians, the real "heroes" are those who are in Israeli prison for carrying out terrorist attacks against Jews.

By praising the terrorists and depicting them as "heroes" and "martyrs," the Palestinian leadership is underwriting those who engage in violence, seek the elimination of Israel and reject any peace process in the Middle East. Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians' worthless words.

 

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17764/palestinian-heroes-terrorists

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Black Lives Matter Killed 2,000 Black People - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

The number of black murder victims rose 62% in one year.

 

The Black Lives Matter movement and the allied criminal justice reform movement which opened jails and decriminalized crimes led to a nearly 30% surge in murders in 2020.

The 29.4% increase is historically unprecedented.

The worst one-year percentage jump in murders was a 12.7% increase in 1968 during a crime wave that led Democrats and Republicans to embrace tough on crime policies. 1968 was the year that LBJ signed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act into law. But the opposite happened in 2020 as Democrats and some libertarian Republicans colluded to dismantle the criminal justice system, open up the jails, and endorse Black Lives Matter.

The pro-crimers have the blood of thousands on their hands.

The FBI’s numbers are in and they show that Black Lives Matter and its corporate backers killed more black people in one year than anything short of an African civil war.

3,595 black people were murdered in 2019. But in 2020, 5,839 black people were murdered.

That's an additional 2,244 black people killed.

56% of the murder victims of 2020 were black.

While people of all races were more likely to be murdered in the year of Black Lives Matter, black people were disproportionately likely to be killed as a result of police defunding and the George Floyd Effect, as well as the pressure on the justice system to open up prisons, free criminals, and stop arresting new criminals in the name of fighting for the big lie of racial justice.

3,060 white and Latino people were killed in 2019, which rose to 4,167 in 2020. The 36% increase is devastating, but the number of black people murdered in 2020 shot up 62%.

The 62% increase in the murders of black people should be the headline in every single media outlet which currently treats the lack of black classical musicians or chefs as a major crisis.

While statistics like 135 "unarmed" black people being shot by police in 5 years becomes a cause for massive riots, violent assaults on innocent people, and the defunding of the police, a 62% increase in the murders of black people won’t even get a mention from the same media which regales us with claims that car accidents are racist because of disproportionate impact.

The 62% increase in the murders of black people is the biggest disproportionate impact statistic.

If the 2,244 black people had been shot by white people, Asian people, or Republicans, we could talk about it. Indeed, the odds are that we would never talk about anything else. Ever.

But unfortunately it’s the devastating result of black-on-black crime.

Black perpetrators were responsible for 5,832 murders or approximately 50% of the murders despite making up only around 13% of the population.

White people and Latinos who make up 76% of the country accounted for 3,981 homicides or 34%. American Indians were responsible for 116 murders and Asians for only 65 murders.

Black people both commit murders and are the victims of murders at disproportionate rates.

There is no escaping these facts.

Coddling criminals and defunding police hurts people of all races, but black people are the ones suffering the worst from the gang members and criminals in their communities.

The number of black murderers rose 38% from 4,208 to 5,832. That’s a sharp increase in black murderers, but it’s dwarfed by the 62% increase in black murders. The number of black crime victims is rising much faster than the number of black criminals.

Black people are becoming victims at higher rates than they are becoming criminals.

That is exactly why it was black communities who originally championed a crackdown on crime, why the NAACP had originally demanded the death penalty for drug dealers, and why black people are still far more likely to oppose police defunding and other pro-crime measures.

Even in the one category of violent crime, rape, that decreased overall in 2020, that was true of every group except one where the number of black rape victims defied the trend.

But black rape victims, like black lives, don’t matter to Black Lives Matter.

In Israel, the hashtag Arab Lives Matter took off after the rise in arab-on-arab crime to demand that Israeli police stop the criminals. In the United States, Black Lives Matter is a demand that the police allow gang members to shoot up black neighborhoods with no interference.

The additional 2,244 dead black people are a tribute to Black Lives Matter’s efforts.

While Robin DiAngelo cashes in preaching the cult of anti-racism, and suburban white liberals search their souls for systemic racism, what’s really destroying black people is in the numbers.

5,839 black people were murdered in one year.

Homicide doesn't even make the CDC's top 10 causes of death for men in America, but it's number four for black men. In 2017, it caused 5% of the deaths of black men, more than strokes, diabetes, or most diseases. The only things more likely to kill black men than black-on-black crime are heart disease, cancer, and accidents.

Among black men under the age of 20, homicide is the leading cause of death at 35.3%.

(Those were 2017 numbers, the 2020 numbers, if they’re released, will be much worse.)

It's also the leading cause of death for black men from 20-44 years old at 27.6%.

Only at the age of 65 does homicide drop out of the top 10 causes of death for black men.

There are no such numbers among any other group, including black women. They reflect a high rate of gang violence, drug dealing, and violent crime among a subset of black men. This crisis is not news. There has been ample research on the subject going back generations that the new wokeness decided to shut down, suppress, and penalize anyone who mentioned it.

In 2020, the Left used George Floyd’s overdose death to initiate a massive cultural revolution, supposedly on behalf of black people, but in reality to spread terror and seize power.

Just as the proletariat paid the price for the leftist revolutions conducted on behalf of the working class, black men are paying the price for the latest revolution being waged on their behalf. The people paying the price may be ordinary, or they may be gang members themselves. The dismantling of the criminal justice system also led to an unprecedented expansion in crime that recruited a generation of black teens into drug dealing, robbery, and carjacking. The police now routinely arrest armed carjackers as young as twelve years old as part of the new crime wave.

Even if a new anti-crime consensus is forged between conservative Republicans and moderate Democrats who shed the madness of criminal justice reform, the damage will be hard to fix.

Cracking down on crime increased property values in black areas, led to a growth in black small businesses, and made it more possible for black teens to go to college, and earn higher incomes. Black Lives Matter calculatedly undermined many of those achievements. The teens whom teachers’ unions kept out of school, joined gangs, and began to deal and steal will find it much harder to build stable lives. The women they might have married and the families they might have built are more casualties. It is hard to build things, but all too easy to break them.

The 5,839 dead black people are just the most obvious sign of the social wreckage.

While black people are the biggest victims of black crime, they are not alone. As these statistics show, we all pay a price. Some pay it directly in the forms of murders, muggings, and assaults. But we all pay for the social cost indirectly through our taxes, the price of goods and services, the cost of insurance, the broken social compact and lack of trust, and the diminished future of our cities and our country. The criminal justice reform movement, like all leftist propositions, was based on ignoring everything we had learned from the past about crime and how to fight it.

The Black Lives Matter movement terrorized cities and became the official dogma of Corporate America. Every major institution began accusing itself of systemic racism and purging itself.

Meanwhile thousands of black men died in the streets of major cities. The CEOs and university presidents heard the death toll reported on the evening news and paid no attention because it was taking place in neighborhoods and housing projects that they would never set foot into.

Now the sum total of the carnage is in. 5,839 black people killed. 2021 is on track to see more elevated murder rates. The question is how many black people have to die until the big lie of systemic racism, the scam of anti-racism, and the criminal justice reform killing fields end.

* * *

Photo credit: Pixabay

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/black-lives-matter-killed-2000-black-people-daniel-greenfield/

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Generals scramble to avoid responsibility for Afghanistan - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

There has never been a point in American history when the military was headed by such despicable weasels.

In Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, there’s a point in the story when things have gone terribly wrong for everyone. The characters respond by disavowing personal responsibility and telling everyone else that it’s “Your Fault.” That song could have been the background music to the nauseating spectacle in the Senate Tuesday, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and head of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the debacle in Afghanistan.

Each general swore under oath that he advised Biden to leave troops in Afghanistan:

Top generals told lawmakers under oath that they advised President Joe Biden early this year to keep several thousand troops in Afghanistan — directly contradicting the president’s comments in August that no one warned him not to withdraw troops from the country. pic.twitter.com/cqGmpcJkJI

— POLITICO (@politico) September 28, 2021

 

In other words, Biden was either lying or being senile when he assured George Stephanopoulos that “No one said that to me [keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan] that I can recall.”  Note the wiggle room about maybe not recalling.  Heck, I can believe both (lying or senile). After all, Biden is both the most corrupt man ever to occupy the Oval Office and the first person to be actively senile when he took the presidential oath of office.

Having said that, Austin, Milley, and McKenzie are such a disreputable, craven, dishonest, pathetic bunch of political hacks that it’s entirely possible to believe that they’re just singing the Sondheim song: “It’s Biden’s fault!” I mean, look at these three:

Austin shut down the military to weed out imaginary White Supremacist extremism. And now, when it comes to whether anyone actually told Biden about those 2,500 troops, he lapses into passive voice, saying “input was received by the president.”

Milley? Gen. White Rage himself consistently bad-mouthed Trump, openly (and illegally, given his role in the military) celebrated Biden’s win, and admitted that he’d promised to give the Chinese advance warning should American launch an attack against it. Think about that last one in connection with Gen. Mike Flynn having been destroyed merely for urging a Russian politician not to overreact to a diplomatic slight from the outgoing Obama administration.

And there’s Gen. McKenzie who tried in August to sell the embarrassing withdrawal as “a monumental accomplishment.” Or as Milley finally admitted, what happened in Afghanistan “was a logistical success but a strategic failure.” That’s a nice way to say a humiliating defeat for America and a betrayal of her allies.

These embarrassments to America’s long and honorable military history, as I said, were desperate to place blame anywhere but on themselves. Milley (as was to be expected) was the worst. He insisted that Americans abandoned in Afghanistan would have “been at greater risk” if the military had stayed “past the 31st.”

But here’s the thing about all these guys saying that Biden is to blame (which I’m sure he is): Why did they go along with a plan that they now claim they knew in advance would be disastrous? And having gone along with it, perhaps in the naïve and unfounded belief that they could somehow prevent the worst from happening, why did they try to spin defeat as success?

And when they got called out on it by a single brave Marine Lt. Col., why did they go full Soviet, sending him to a psychiatrist and the brig, rather than doing what any decent Japanese politico would have done under these circumstances—resign in disgrace and, perhaps, commit seppuku?

It’s very clear that these poltroons and their equally craven predecessors in the Pentagon squandered American lives in Afghanistan for two decades. They never imagined victory. They imagined career advancement for themselves until their retirement, at which point they’d get economic advancement in the military-industrial sector. Meanwhile, over 2,400 American troops died, as did over 1,800 civilian contractors. Another almost 21,000 Americans were sent home with wounds, some (thankfully) light, some so appalling it’s a miracle they survived. They left America able-bodied; they came home to a life of physical disability.

And meanwhile, these medal-bedecked political hacks sit there and say “It’s his fault; it’s not my fault. It’s their fault; not my fault.” These moral weaklings should be shamed out of the military. (I’m absolutely sure that all three men have physical courage much, much greater than mine but this was a time for moral courage—and they failed.)

Marsha Blackburn gets the last word on this one:

.@MarshaBlackburn: "Maybe we're going to remember you three as the three that broke the military." pic.twitter.com/RCLjvJvtrU

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 28, 2021

Image: The three generals. Collage from YouTube screen grab.

 

Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/generals_scramble_to_avoid_responsibility_for_afghanistan.html

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Kamala Harris lauds student accusing Israel of ethnic genocide - Arutz Sheva Staff

 

​ by Arutz Sheva Staff

Vice President Harris says she was 'glad' university student expressed 'her truth' by accusing Israel of 'ethnic genocide'.

 

Vice President Kamala Harris lauded a college student during an even in Virginia last week, after the student accused Israel of “ethnic genocide”.

The incident occurred last Tuesday at George Mason University, during an event marking National Voter Registration Day.

In a question and answer segment, one student expressed her dismay over US aid to Saudi Arabia, as well as to Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

"I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine,” the student said. “But then, just a few days ago, there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart, because it is an ethnic genocide and the displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure that you’re aware of this.”

“Americans are struggling because of lack of health care, public health care, and affordable housing, and all this money ends up going to inflaming Israel and backing Saudi Arabia and whatnot. I think that the people have spoken very often in what they do need, and I feel like there is a lack of listening.”

Nodding as the student spoke, Harris then said she was “glad” the student raised the issue, and praised her for voicing “her truth”.

“This is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we're fighting for in a democracy, right?"

"Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.' That's not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.”

"The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody's voice should be suppressed on that.”

 

Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/314151

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Generals Contradict Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal - Lloyd Billingsley

 

​ by Lloyd Billingsley

What advice did Biden hear from senior military officers -- and when did he hear it?

 

“I know president to be and honest and forthright man.” That was Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. Trouble was, the questioner, Sen. Tom Cotton, did not ask Austin for his opinion of Joe Biden.

The Arkansas Republican, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne, wanted to know if it was true that, as Joe Biden said last month in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, no senior military officer advised him to leave troops behind in Afghanistan.

“Their input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure,” Austin testified but the senior military officers weren’t going to speak of “what they personally recommended in confidence.”

As U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie testified, the officers recommended the United States maintain a presence of at least 2,500 U.S. service members in Afghanistan. Gen. McKenzie told the committee he made a similar recommendation in the fall of 2020 under the Trump administration. The general believed “the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government.”

Asked about future military involvement in Afghanistan, Gen. McKenzie said the United States reserved the right to go after ISIS and al-Qaeda targets, but “it will not be easy to do that.”

Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee his assessment was to maintain 2500-3500 troops and “move toward a negotiated solution.” On the other hand, Milley told Sen. Cotton, “I don’t discuss exactly what my conversations are with a sitting president in the Oval Office.”

Cotton pointed out that Kabul fell on August 15, and wondered why it took 10 days to ask about the continued presence of U.S. forces. If all this is true, Cotton said, “then why haven’t you resigned?”

Milley told the committee “resigning is a really serious thing – it’s a political act – if I’m resigning in protest. My job is to provide advice – my statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president, and that’s my legal requirement. That's what the law is.” The president “doesn't have to agree with the advice,” and “it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken.” On a personal note, Milley said, “my dad didn't get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima,” and that raised another issue.

Alexander Milley did serve with the Fourth Marine Division at Iwo Jima, but if the American had tipped off Japanese Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi about an upcoming U.S. attack, Alexander Milley would have been expected to do more than resign. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book Peril, Gen. Milley told his Chinese counterpart Gen. Li Zuocheng that he would tip him off about a U.S. attack, despite a complete lack of evidence that President Trump planned any such thing.

If all that is true, the best remedy for Milley would hardly be resignation. Back in the 1980s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger described Wojciech Jaruzelski as a “Russian  general in a Polish uniform.” If people saw Gen. Milley as a Chinese general in an American uniform it would be hard to blame them.

Back in 2013, when he was second in command in Afghanistan, Gen. Milley told reporters “right now, I would say that the conditions are set for winning this war.” It didn’t exactly turn out that way, and in 2021 Milley helped set the conditions for a disastrous and humiliating withdrawal. In effect, the son of the Iwo Jima veteran helped the Taliban plant their flag in victory over the United States.

According to I Alone Can Fix It, from Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, Gen. Milley believes Donald Trump is the moral equivalent of Adolph Hitler, Trump’s followers are “brownshirts,” and Trump’s complaints about voter fraud were calls for genocide. For Gen. Milley, the enemy is domestic, and the same is true of Lloyd Austin.

The secretary is a “determined advocate” of Critical Race Theory and the “1619 Project” as part of Pentagon training programs. He wants to purge the ranks of “extremists,” code for supporters of Donald Trump and the January 6 protest. None of this will make the United States more prepared for an adversary such as China. Indeed, such divisive indoctrination makes America weaker and more vulnerable.

Also on Tuesday, Sen. Cotton asked about the thousands of Afghan evacuees “about whom we know nothing.” He referenced assaults and sex crimes at Ft. McCoy and wondered if these evacuees “are going to be a menace.” 

“I’m certainly aware of the allegations and I take the allegations very seriously,” secretary Austin said. “I assure you that our commanders at our bases have what they need to protect our troops and our families that live at those bases.” No word about any danger to the general populace.

In similar style, embattled Americans know nothing about the thousands of “migrants” now streaming across our border and being shipped all over the country. Under Milley, Austin, and the “honest and forthright” Joe Biden, this is the year of living dangerously.

 

Lloyd Billingsley

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/generals-contradict-biden-afghanistan-withdrawal-lloyd-billingsley-0/

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