An American In Babylon - Trump's UN Speech

 

President Trump's UN speech attracted a fair amount of controversy among the chattering classes. It shouldn't have.

The United Nations has become a byword for useless, dysfunctional bureaucracy a mere 72 years after its founding.

Like Belshazzar's feast, it spends lavishly and conducts itself with opulence, but is rotted through with corruption and does little of any value while squatting in mordant self satisfaction.

Leave it to President Donald J. Trump to point out the wrong direction the UN has traveled since its founding in the aftermath of two devastating world wars, and to challenge it to change direction and become the force for good it was intended to be.



The president called for the UN and its members to reverse course, and to become what the UN was supposed to become on its inception...a group of sovereign, independent nations who prized freedom, democracy and peace and were willing to work together to promote them and to take action against rogue nations who threatened those ideals. If you read the original UN charter, you get a sense of just how far the UN today has removed itself from what it says.

Scandals like 'oil for food' where even the Secretary General's son was implicated in money laundering for Saddam Hussein to avoid UN sanctions abound. Countries like Iran routinely threaten genocide. And violate with impunity even UN Security Council series 7 resolutions like UNSC 1701, which called for the disarming of terrorist group Hezbollah and prohibiting UN members from rearming them. Iran and Syria rearmed Hezbollah without incurring any penalty whatsoever.

UN peacekeeping forces are more noted for trading food supplies for enforced prostitution, ignoring their supposed duties and allowing violence against civilians than for fulfilling their actual missions.

That's exactly why President Trump quoted Harry Truman, who stressed that the success of the United Nations depended on the “independent strength of its members.”

And unlike his predecessor, President Trump was unafraid to voice this simple truth;

“The United States of America,” Trump said, “has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world, and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all.”

And our president was equally honest about confronting thoe rogue nations who threaten peace and security. He called out the disgusting regime of Kim Jong-un in North Korea, saying thatthe patience of the United States is great, but not inexhaustible. Asthe president explained, If North Korea persists in its policy of nuclear blackmail, the United States “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” He continued: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Needless to say, the Leftist press worldwide fainted away collectively at that. But what President Trump said was the simple truth. The same is true about what President Trump had to say about the equally rogue, criminal regime of Iran, one of the world's biggest sponsors of terrorism, a foe of America who was openly complicit in 9/11.

The UN's ignoring of the Iranian regime's march towards nuclear weapons is so ingrained that they aren't even making an attempt to have it look like they're doing something. Not only has Iran has prohibited the UN from any inspection of their military facilities where there's been clear indications of manufacturing and testing nuclear weapons components, but the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog now allows Iran to self inspect their nuclear facilities that the UN is allowed to get a glimpse of. To accuse the IAEA and the UN of gross negligence whenit comes to Iran is a gross understatement.

You see, President Trump wasn't just giving a display of American resolve. This was a direct challenge to the UN, plain and simple. The UN, after all is supposed to be the forum where dangerous regimes like Iran and North Korea are supposed to be addressed and dealt with. While Trump was quite clear that America could handle these rogue regimes on their own, He said it would be far better if the UN actually did what it was supposed to do and dealt with these major threats to world peace. “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few,” Trump said in another memorable line, “then evil will triumph.”

Trump even had the intestinal fortitude to address Socialism.

No ideology has ever been so discredited by the evidence of history, but like a serially cheating wife or husband still offers hope to a long suffering spouse that this time, it will really be different. Except, of course, it never is.

Trump used the UN's failure to address the human tragedy now going on in Venezuela, once one of the richest countries on earth where Maduro's socialist regime is literally starving its population to death. It wasn't so long ago the Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and other Leftists were using Hugo Chavez and Venezuela as an example of how well socialism could work. Now, as the once rich country descends into poverty and chaos, they don't mention Venezuela any more.

“The problem in Venezuela,” Trump said, “is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”

So how did President Trump's speech go over? To most of the delegates of the UN, not very well. Being publicly unmasked like that is the last thing they wanted, let alone being challenged to make the UN what it was created to be. And of course, Trump's usual political enemies in the press and in the Democrat party went predictably ballistic. But as usual, the president has hit another bulls eye when it come to talking to the American people and to friends of freedom everywhere.

Speaking truth to power is a Leftist cliche', but that is exactly what President Trump's UN speech did, in one of his finest moments.

President Trump Is 100% Right - The Media's Feeding Hate And Division

 

President Trump, whatever else he accomplishes during his term deserves major credit for unmasking our dishonest, partisan media. He's totally correct when he says, as he does here in Phoenix, that the biased media is feeding hate and division here in America. And it's hard not to believe, as President Trump says that they really don't want America to be great again, and lack love of country. And that's been evident long before Donald Trump became president.



What really happened here, as most of us know is that the biased media really thought Hillary Clinton was a shoe in. Their biased polls showed it. The Left controls most of academia, Hollywood, the publishing industry, most of the legacy media, most of pop culture, and most of the tech/Social media industry and its billions.

Much of the media actually worked for either the Clintons, Obama or both before they eased into their present sinecures.

Mrs. Clinton had the big money behind her.She had an army of the best consultants money could buy to plan strategy and carpet bomb the American people with vicious attack ads. She had the corrupt DNC in her pocket to grease the primaries so she would win easily. She had the media working fo her to provide partisan hosts and slant the debates. She even had a large contingent of #neverTrump conservatives on her side.

And against her was Donald Trump, running his first campaign ever, with a small campaign team, his plane, and not much else except well, himself.

The Left, especially the media were so convinced that they could destroy him easily, so confident of their own power that they went all out...and got careless. A lot of had already known how biased they were for sometime, but the waythey conducted themselves in 2016 pulled the Wizard of Oz's curtain away for America at large.

The media bet everything on one throw of the dice, and got snake eyes. Because against all expectations Donald Trump won the election in the biggest upset in American political history.

And the Left had a collective nervous breakdown. What happened on camera was hilarious enough, but I've heard that what happened when the cameras were off was even funnier.

Mrs. Clinton was so angry and distraught she threw a major tantrum backstage and wasn't even able to speak to her followers who were waiting to hear from her. Her campaign manager, John Podesta had to speak to them and tell them to go home. And once Mrs. Clinton calmed down, they came up with the fairy tale of 'Russian collusion' to alibi why they lost so badly.

Oddly enough it was Donald Trump who caught the heat before the election for saying that he would respect the results 'if it was an honest election.'

Remember this?



Did you ever see or hear former President Obama addressing the nation to decry the Left's disrespect for the 2016 election results? Did you see any of the legacy media excoriating Mrs. Clinton,the Obama Administration and the 'resistance' for disrespecting our democracy? Of course not, because the media was intimately involved in that disrespect and they still are complicit in it. And if that's not de facto hatred of our country, what is?

The bogus 'Russia story has been off the front pages for almost two weeks now. Instead, it's 'trump the racist,' 'Trump's insane,' and 'Trumps unfit for office' repeated over and over and over again in the classic cadence of the Big Lie.

The huge crowd of over 8,000 (put a few thousand outside who couldn't get in and braved the heat to listen on monitors) in Phoenix cheering the president on and the tiny contingent of 500 or so 'protestors' that showed up after all the hype shows us two things. That Trump hasn't lost his base and that the only place the Left's brown shirts can act out is in the solid blue enclaves sympahthetic politicans control...like Charlottesville, Chicago, Berkeley or Los Angeles. Anywhere else, the police are going to be allowed to do their jobs.

Which is of course what happened in Phoenix, which has a Democrat Mayor but one who wasn't going to let the Left run amuck in his city. Unlike Mayor Signer in Charlottesville, he ordered the police to keep the two groups separated. That angered the Left's thugs so much that as soon as Trump's crowd departed, they attacked the police...and got exactly what they deserved.

Phoenix ain't Chicago,Baltimore or Charlottesville. Not by a long shot.

A Look At President Trump's Strategy In Afghanistan

 

President Trump addressed the nation last night to outline his strategy in Afghanistan. Of course he didn't go into details,being smarter than his twp predecessors. There were no deadlines or grandiose claims, merely that America would start winning this war and that our eventual withdrawal would be based on conditions on the ground rather than any arbitrary dates.

He announced five “core pillars” to the approach: getting rid of any timelines for how long U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan; using all elements of power, including diplomatic and economic; getting tougher on Pakistan; getting India to help more with economic development; and expanding authorities for U.S. forces to fight terrorists.

He said it was up to the people of Afghanistan to “take ownership of their future” and to “achieve an everlasting peace.”

“We are not nation-building again, we are killing terrorists.”

Here's what the president had to say, in his own words. And it's obvious he's thought about this quite a bit:




Needless to say, the President received quite a bit of criticism, especially from the Left.

So let's look at what the president actually had to say.

AfPak is a war we should never have gotten involved with in the first place. I never went to West Point, but I also understand that it was crazy to send an army and billions of dollars worth of equipment to a landlocked country surrounded by hostile territory - and I include Pakistan in that. Most of the equipment needs to be unloaded at Karachi and sent overland to Afghanistan via the Torkum Pass, and aside from us needing to bribe the Pakistanis with billions every year, they've cut the road and kept us from supplying our troops on various occasions.

OTOH, both commanders in chief involved in this handcuffed our troops with ridiculous rules of engagement and various other things designed to appease 'hearts and minds' of the locals.Which of course, didn't work. The Brits kept the Afghans at bay for some time by paying the chiefs 'subsidies' to keep them from raiding India. The Afghan Wars only started when the Brits stopped paying.

The president isn't talking about arbitray deadlines and 'nation building' but victory If Trump lets our troops do what's needed and especially if he brings back great combat generals like McCrystal and starts fighting the war strategically, he has a chance. it also helps that by all accounts, the Afghani government has a lot more respect for Trump than they ever did for Barack Hussein Obama.

I have a feeling Trump and Mattis are going to fight a very different war than Bush and especially Obama, who actually appeared to be aiding and abetting the Taliban on numerous occasions... like giving up 5 top Taliban commanders and a cash ransom for Bowie Bergdahl, a deserter.

I also fully agree with his statement on getting a lot tougher with Pakistan. They have no interest in a stable Afghanistan, which was heading that way in the 1950's and 1960's.



What changed things was the Soviet invasion and Jimmy Carter's well intentioned funding of the muhadajeen, many of whom were Islamists and became the breeding ground for al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups. Since Afghanistan is landlocked, it was Pakistan who decided who get the money and arms, and they made sure it was the Islamists. That and Bill Clinton's failure to support the pro-Western Northern Alliance is what delivered Afghanistan to the Taliban. And as I mentioned, Pakistan has still given tacit support to the Taliban by periodically cutting off supplies to our troops and allowing the Taliban to have havens in their country except for periodic raids when the Taliban or allied groups have carried out terrorist activities in Pakistan itself.

One thing that could be especially effective is forgetting Afghanistan as a country to an extent and dealing with the local chiefs directly. They make most of their money selling opium, and they are forced to pay 'taxes' to the Taliban in order to be able to sell their crops at whatever price they can get...with most of the processing done in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.

Imagine what would happen if the U.S made them an offer they couldn't refuse?

"We want to be your friends, and as our friends, they will be able to sell their crops directly to us for a fair market price, and without any more taxes.to the Taliban. And we will help our friends defend their territory from the Taliban. of course, those who are not our friends will see their fields burned, much as we'd hate to do that."

Many of these Pashtun chiefs have territories that overlap the AfPak borders, Give them some help defending their territories and the bennie no longer having to settle for whatever price they can get and with Taliban taxation and this war could take on an entirely different complexion. Especially if we took a hard line with the Pakistanis about any obstructions and the consequences.

Yes, we could also simply leave, and part of me says 'why not?' . But there are inherent and obvious problems with that. With the right leadership, this could end up being a major graveyard for jihadis.

This was a mess Trump inherited from two dysfunctional commanders-in-chiefs. Let's withhold judgement and see how he does.