Tag: foreign policy

The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Among Newspapers Paid Millions by Beijing-Controlled News Outlet to Publish Propaganda this Year

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An English-language newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department paid U.S. media companies nearly $2 million for printing and advertising expenses over the past six months, even amid heightened scrutiny over Beijing’s disinformation efforts in the West.

China Daily paid The Wall Street Journal more than $85,000 and the Los Angeles Times $340,000 for advertising campaigns between May and October 2020, according to a disclosure that the propaganda mill filed this week with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

China Daily also paid Foreign Policy magazine $100,000, The Financial Times, a U.K.-based newspaper, $223,710, and $132,046 to the Canadian outlet Globe & Mail for advertising campaigns, according to the filing.

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Commentary: When Joe Does Iraq

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Fourteen years ago today marks the low point of the Iraq War. Mounting U.S. casualties and raging sectarian violence in an undeclared civil war was the order of the day. That changed late in the afternoon when Sheik Sattar Bezia abu Risha handed me a hand written three page document that would become the charter of the Anbar Awakening. The very thought of Iraqi tribal leaders siding with American forces, especially in Ramadi — the most dangerous city in the world, and the site of the first al Qaeda Caliphate — was unprecedented alliance. Anbar Was Lost was both the front page headline and the consensus intelligence assessment, and any mention of progress was deemed unbelievable. We had found an ally that was willing to fight the terrorist of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) with us. Sadly, most of those freedom fighters are dead today because of the poor policy decisions and neglect of the Obama-Biden White House.

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Commentary: Trump’s Huge Middle East Win

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Even The Washington Post’s David Ignatius had to admit President Trump hit a home run with the deal he helped negotiate for Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize diplomatic relations.

“This was, as he tweeted, a ‘HUGE’ achievement,” Ignatius wrote. It is viewed as an “’icebreaker” that could open the door to other countries, such as Bahrain, Omar and Morocco, opening diplomatic relations with Israel.

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Commentary: Trump Does Not Threaten Europe’s Sovereignty, He Asks Them to Embrace It

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For a perfect illustration of Europe’s collapse as a serious political force, one could do no better than to read a February 27 article by former German Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. In “The West’s Final Countdown,” Fischer warns the U.S. presidential election in November “will have an overwhelming and decisive impact on the future” of all of Western Europe and of the West generally. So far, so clichéd.

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Commentary: Listen to Trump, Not Democrats on Foreign Policy Matters

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The predicted has happened in Iran and more quickly than had been expected. On the evening of the day on which the Iranian authorities managed to bungle the funeral of their late terrorist chief, Qasem Soleimani, at least 50 people were trampled to death in their grief, and the crisis over the supposed escalation of hostilities subsided. (At least, unlike during the funeral of the Iranian theocracy’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the coffin did not fly open, spilling the corpse on the mourners.)

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The Battleground State Report: Trump’s Unpredictability Is a Game Changer Both Foreign and Domestic

Julie Carr

During a live recording on Friday’s Battleground State Report with Michael Patrick Leahy and Doug Kellett – a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of national weekend syndication rollout – with Kellett out of the studio, Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star Report’s all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the show.

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Commentary: Neglect of Foreign Policy Led to the Deep State

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Questions of foreign policy, particularly those of war and peace, are among the most critical in politics. A lost war can destroy an empire and erase a nation. Victory can attain safety, security, and prosperity for many generations. An inconclusive campaign—such as our neverending stalemate in Afghanistan—can sap national confidence and shatter the minds and bodies of a generation of veterans.

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Commentary: D.C. Establishment Wants to Remove Trump Because He Wants to End the Endless Wars

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It is fitting that the Washington, D.C. establishment wants President Donald Trump removed from office for considering withholding military assistance to Ukraine, or that the talk of impeachment intensified as Trump was announcing the U.S. military withdrawal from Syria, for it was that type of caution in the use of military force that helped Trump get elected in the first place in 2016.

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Commentary: ‘Orange Man Bad’ Becomes Foreign Policy

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Have you noticed an uptick in the appearance of a specific talking point from the political and military elite about President Trump’s recent drawdown in northern Syria? It goes something like this: Yes, the president was in a tight spot in Syria – caught between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Kurds, who we were allied with against ISIS. But the president was wrong to pull U.S. forces out of northern Syria the way he did. Very often, these detractors say the president ordered the precipitous drawdown of U.S. forces in Syria without “consulting the Pentagon.”

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Commentary: Lindsey Graham Gets the Kurds and Syria Backwards

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“We can’t abandon the Kurds now,” said Senator Lindsey Graham during a recent appearance on Fox & Friends. “When Turkey goes into Syria, they’re not going in to fight ISIS. They’re going in to kill the Kurds because in their eyes they’re more of a threat to Turkey than ISIS,” the South Carolina Republican said on “Fox & Friends. According to reporting by William Cummings for USA TODAY Graham added that “every military person” has told Trump not to pull the troops out.

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Washington Correspondent, Neil McCabe from One America News Network Talks to the Tennessee Star Report About President Trump’s Recent Syria Decision

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – host Leahy welcomed weekly guest and One America News Network’s, Neil McCabe to the show to talk about President Trump’s recent decision to remove US troops from Syria.

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Commentary: Trump Shows Value of Tariffs as Foreign Policy Tool

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by Christopher Roach   The great American foreign policy debate began with the two parties’ divide over Vietnam. Until the Vietnam War, Republicans and Democrats more or less held to a consensus on the value of containment. After the war, Republicans favored unilateralism, a strong military, and clear-sighted pursuit of national interests that included the use of force against foreign threats. George W. Bush exemplified this thinking, and his early, bold action in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, found success in spite of knee-jerk criticism from the Left. On the other side, the Democrats favored multilateralism, negotiations and diplomacy, and a preference for domestic wealth redistribution over military investment. A persistent Democratic criticism of the Iraq campaign was not that it tried to introduce democracy into a broken part of the world, but rather that Bush failed to obtain the blessing of France. Democrats, particularly John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign and Barack Obama in 2008, treated diplomacy like magic, where consensus was an end in itself. Mere talking would align other nations more closely to our preferred path. The main foreign policy debate of the 2004 and 2008 elections was the Iraq war. In 2004, Bush remained firm…

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Commentary: America’s Defense Establishment Appears Too Big to Succeed

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by Brandon J. Weichert   The United States has a problem: It has a military-industrial complex built on assumptions about international security dating from the last century. Despite maintaining a larger defense budget than the next 10 countries behind it, the United States has been painfully slow to respond to the new, relatively cheap, threats of the 21st century. Our foreign-policy establishment continues to view today’s asymmetrical threats in 20th-century terms. Doing so allows the defense establishment to remain within its proverbial comfort zone of large budgets, even larger bureaucracy, and highly-centralized authority in Washington, D.C. America’s defense establishment today is a microcosm of the entropy befalling Western political institutions in general. The longer we fail to adapt to today’s various threats, the more unsafe we are. What’s more, the standard operating procedures that have defined American military policy are no longer applicable today. Like the defense establishments of Europe in 1914, our modes of deterrence are ill-suited for the new century. Unlearning Lessons of the Past As military historian Hew Strachan describes in his excellent 2003 book, The First World War, the way that European leaders in the run-up to that conflict conceptualized the “Balkan Crisis,” and the way…

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Commentary: Switzerland’s Foreign Policy Should Be a Model for America

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by Brandon J. Weichert   As I have written previously, many elites think of the United States as being in a position similar to that of the vulnerable Hapsburg Empire: a large empire possessing indefensible frontiers. But, this comparison flawed. In fact, a more precise analog to the United States is Switzerland. A federal republic like the United States, Switzerland enjoys a natural barrier separating it from the rest of its neighbors in Europe. The United States has two massive oceans, whereas Switzerland has the beautiful Swiss Alps. From behind these natural barriers, the liberty-loving Swiss republic formed, and by European standards, so did a potent market economy. Switzerland hasn’t always been a peaceful state, but it has been able to maintain peaceful relations with all of its neighbors better than most other states. Its beneficial geography has afforded Swiss leaders the time to develop reasonable, low-cost methods for maintaining their country’s sovereignty without becoming too enmeshed in the chaotic world beyond its protective peaks. Switzerland is not an isolationist country, however. Like the United States throughout most of its history, the Swiss simply prefer to rely on diplomacy and trade to handle the bulk of their interactions with most of…

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Commentary: Retreat, Regroup, and Reinvest in a Realist Foreign Policy

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by Christopher Roach   Donald Trump’s administration has allowed the United States to renegotiate its orientation to the rest of the world. Partisans have sniped in contradictory ways, criticizing him both as a warmonger and a naïve peacenik, but they rarely offer thoughtful alternatives to the course Trump has taken. Trump’s foreign policy has two sides, both of which are radical departures from the recent past. He has embraced foreign policy minimalism, whether in the Middle East or with regard to long term commitments like NATO. At the same time, Trump has undone inertia and pursued confrontation, whether in the war of words with North Korea’s leader in 2017 or in the application of tariffs against China, long the fair-haired child of the foreign policy establishment. President Trump rightly pointed out during the 2016 campaign what a disaster the Iraq War had been and explicitly rejected the regime-change policies of his predecessors. He also signaled a willingness to have warmer relations with Russia, which the foreign policy leaders of both parties oppose out of habit and opposition to that country’s cultural conservatism. Trump, however, sometimes disappoints the peace camp. He bombed the Syrian regime in 2017 for its alleged use…

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Last Defenders of Islamic State’s Caliphate Surrounded

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by Jeff Seldin   The last defenders of the Islamic State terror group’s self-proclaimed caliphate are surrounded in a small neighborhood in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, facing imminent defeat. The assessment Saturday, from a commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, follows days of slow and difficult fighting as IS fighters cling to an ever-shrinking sliver of land, pausing only for intermittent negotiations over a possible surrender. “In a very short time, we will spread the good tidings to the world of the military end of Daesh,” Jiya Furat, the SDF commander leading the final assault, told reporters during a news conference outside Baghuz. Furat said the self-proclaimed caliphate, which once covered large swaths of Syria and Iraq, had been reduced to an area covering no more than about 600 square meters, and that IS fighters were coming under fire from every direction. But efforts to finish off the final IS enclave have been slowed due to concerns about civilians, including the wives and children of the terror group’s fighters, trying to escape to safety. “There have been some lapses in the battle as we continue to see hundreds of civilians still attempting to flee,” coalition spokesman, Col.…

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Trump Plans to Declare ‘100 Percent’ Victory Over Islamic State Caliphate

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by Jeff Seldin   U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he expected to formally declare victory over the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate in the next week. “Nobody thought it was possible to do it this quickly,” Trump told members of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, who were meeting in Washington. “It should be formally announced, probably sometime next week, that we will have 100 percent of the caliphate,” he added. “We’ve had victory after victory.” U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe that up to 1,500 IS fighters are still clinging to a 50-square-kilometer patch of land in Syria, but have been more cautious in their assessments. In just the past week, they have described the fighting as tough, saying coalition-backed forces were pushing through booby-trapped streets and settlements. And they warned that even once the last of the IS-held territory was liberated, the terror group still would have as many as another 30,000 fighters and supporters dispersed throughout Syria and Iraq. Yet despite more wary assessments from top military and intelligence officials, Trump said Wednesday that the terror organization had been decimated, losing tens of thousands of fighters and more than 60 high-ranking…

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House Votes Overwhelmingly to Prohibit Exit From NATO

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The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill affirming congressional support for NATO, amid renewed concerns over President Donald Trump’s commitment to the 29-member alliance. The bipartisan NATO Support Act, which forbids the use of funds to withdraw from the alliance and states that it is U.S. policy to remain part of the alliance, passed by a 357-22 vote. Beside asserting Congress’s control over the money, the bill reaffirms U.S. backing of NATO and its mutual defense clause. It also voices support for Montenegro, its newest member, and for “robust” U.S. funding for the European Deterrence Initiative, and for the goal that each alliance member spend at least 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Just hours before the vote, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell, the top U.S. diplomat to Europe and an outspoken NATO supporter, tendered his resignation amid strained ties in trans-Atlantic relations. The House vote and Mitchell’s resignation come amid tensions with European leaders over Washington’s commitment to NATO and transatlantic ties in general. The New York Times, citing federal government sources, recently reported that Trump put forward the idea of withdrawing the United States from…

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Commentary: Better Ways to Fight Extremism in Syria Than Endless War

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by Austin Mulka   Yesterday I posted a status in unequivocal support of President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of Syria. The post elicited the abhorrent wails of the president’s purported supporters, one of whom denounced me as a supporter of “child killers.” As baseless as the claim was, empathizing with an opponent’s argument is the most efficient means of coming to mutual understandings of disagreement. Ultimately, those in opposition to pulling out of Syria firmly believe that military intervention is a principled position against the murder of children. As such, any opposition to this position, such as my own, must indicate its reciprocal support. Insofar as I am unequivocally against the murder of children, I hope to explain why military intervention is not the most effective means of fighting the Islamic regime and three alternatives to war with proven effectiveness. Journalism First and foremost, I would like to state that I am not a supporter of the Islamic regime in Syria. In The Home That was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, Arab-American journalist Alia Malek details her first-hand accounts of horrendous acts and grievances by the Syrian regime. Having lived in both Syria and the United States,…

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Commentary: The ‘Trump Doctrine’ is the Future of Conservative Foreign Policy

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by John Fonte   For the past two years we have seen the emergence of a coherent Trump doctrine in both words and deeds. There is a remarkable consistency throughout all of President Trump’s speeches, formal documents (such as the National Security Strategy) and actions of the administration. To understand the Trump doctrine, we must begin with candidate Trump’s first major speech on foreign policy on April 27, 2016 (thus even before the Indiana primary) to the Center for the National Interest at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. All the elements of the Trump doctrine are revealed in this maiden speech. This includes reversing military decline (“We will spend what we need to rebuild our military”); an emphasis on economic strength and “technological superiority” in geo-political competition; confronting the threats from China, North Korea, Iran and radical Islam; opposing nation-building; reversing Obama’s ambivalence with strong support for Israel; ending illegal immigration; and “strengthening and promoting Western Civilization.” Finally, the candidate rejected the “false flag of globalism” and declared, “The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.” These core elements were expanded upon in different speeches to the United Nations, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), in Warsaw,…

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Israeli Soccer Team Adding ‘Trump’ To Name To Celebrate Embassy Move

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by Peter Hasson   An Israeli soccer team is adding “Trump” to its name in celebration of President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the team announced on Sunday. Beitar Jerusalem, will now be known as “Beitar Trump Jerusalem,” according to a statement the club posted on Facebook. “For 70 years has Jerusalem been awaiting international recognition, until President Donald Trump, in a courageous move, recognized Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel. President Trump has shown courage, and true love of the Israeli people and their capital, and these days other countries are following his lead in giving Jerusalem its rightful status,” the statement said. “The football club Beitar Jerusalem, one of the most prominent symbols of the city, are happy to honor the President for his love and support with a gesture of our own. The chairmen of the club, the owner Eli Tabib and the executive manager Eli Ohana have decided to add to the club’s title the name of the American President who made history, and from now on will be called Beitar Trump Jerusalem,” the statement continued. (Editor’s note: The english translation follows the hebrew language announcement.) Trump announced the…

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