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October 2019

Dems Refuse to Credit President For Baghdadi Kill Trump’s devastating strike against international terror leaves Democrats angry and rattled. Ari Lieberman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/baghdadi-killed-dems-refuse-credit-president-ari-lieberman/

Trump’s devastating strike against international terror leaves Democrats angry and rattled.

A United States Special Forces team undertook a risky operation on Saturday night in Syria’s northwest Idlib province to track down and kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. Baghdadi was the lead commander of the infamous Islamic State, aka ISIS, the group responsible for mass genocide, torture and rapes throughout much of Iraq and Syria, and the beheadings of several Westerners including U.S. citizens. ISIS was formed in 2013 in the shadow of Obama’s order to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and at its zenith, controlled an area the size of Ohio.

The operation was approved by President Trump a week prior. On Saturday, at 9:23 p.m., he cryptically tweeted, “Something very big has just happened!” Trump was referencing the success of the mission. Baghdadi, who had a $25 million price tag on his head, had been liquidated.

During the nighttime raid, U.S. Special Forces stormed a compound confirmed by intelligence sources to be his hideout. A firefight erupted and several of Baghdadi’s men were either killed or surrendered. Baghdadi then ran into a tunnel, taking three of his family members with him. The SF team and its specially trained canines pursued Baghdadi. Once realizing that he was trapped with no chance of escape, Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest, which also took the lives of the three who accompanied him. Eleven women and children were safely evacuated by the team, which remained in the compound for two hours gathering valuable intelligence on ISIS operatives and operations. Forensic tests conducted on what remained of Baghdadi’s body confirmed his identity. Two of Baghdadi’s wives, who donned suicide vests, were shot before they had a chance to detonate. There were no U.S. casualties, though a dog which chased Baghdadi into the tunnel was unfortunately injured by the blast.

Balanced Trade advocate Raymond Richman dies at age 101 By Howard Richman and Jesse Richman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/balanced_trade_advocate_raymond_richman_dies_at_age_101.html

EE THE VOLUMES WRITTEN BY THIS DISTINGUISHED MAN- SOME WITH HIS SON AND GRANDSON:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=HOWARD+RICHMAN&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

One of the first advocates of balanced trade, Dr. Raymond L. Richman, died on October 23 at age 101. A commentary that he wrote in 2003 (The Great Trade Debate) recommended the very policy that President Trump is carrying out today — the negotiation of bilateral agreements that balance trade.  He concluded that commentary:

Is there any way to balance our trade? Let’s take a clue from the fact that barter is always beneficial to both parties. Instead of “Free Trade” as the slogan, how about the slogan, “Free and Balanced Trade”? We could announce to countries with whom we have large chronic deficits that their exports to us in the future will be limited to, say, 110 percent of what we bought from them last year. If you want to trade with us, you’ll have to buy from us. Let’s barter!

I’m sure the countries given this ultimatum will protest to the World Trade Organization (WTO) but there is precedent for bilateral agreements. We have a bilateral agreement with Japan now that limits the number of autos it can export to us.

The rules of international trade discriminate against the U.S. but the discrimination is not the cause of the deficit. The average level of U.S. tariffs is lower than that of any other large industrial nation. We have some barriers in the form of quotas but they affect a small proportion of our trade. The definition of dumping under WTO rules allows countries to rebate value-added taxes. Since we have no value-added tax and income taxes cannot be rebated, goods from many countries sell for less in the U.S. than in the countries in which they are produced. We could replace the corporate income tax with a value-added tax and subsidize exports by rebating the tax. Or we could change the rules to deny countries the right to rebate the value-added tax.

While such actions would do some good, the principal cause of chronic trade deficits was and continues to be capital flows from abroad. The U.S. went from being the world’s leading creditor nation in 1970 to become the world’s biggest debtor.

The situation calls for dramatic action. Stop the bleeding! Blue-collar workers have been bearing the burden of so-called “free trade” long enough. Let’s have balanced trade.

He was a well-respected economist who received a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1957 with Milton Friedman his dissertation advisor. Then he worked as a consultant for the OEEC, the World Bank, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Asian Development Bank. When he retired from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982, he became Professor Emeritus of Public and International Affairs.

Baghdadi Bagged by Mark Steyn

If I had to distill American strategic defeat and loss of purpose in the Middle East into a single image, it would be the Iraqi-Jordanian border post in June 2014. As I wrote in The [Un]documented Mark Steyn:

Eleven years ago, a few weeks after the fall of Saddam, on little more than a whim, I rented a beat-up Nissan and, without telling the car-hire bloke, drove from Amman through the eastern Jordanian desert, across the Iraqi border, and into the Sunni Triangle. I could not easily make the same journey today, but for a brief period in the spring of 2003 we were ‘the strong horse’ and even a dainty little media gelding such as myself was accorded a measure of respect by the natives. The frontier is a line in the sand drawn by a British colonial civil servant and on either side it’s empty country. From the Trebil border post, you have to drive through ninety miles of nothing to get to Iraq’s westernmost town, Rutba – in saner times an old refueling stop for Imperial Airways flights from Britain to India. Fewer of Her Majesty’s subjects swing by these days. I had a bite to eat at a café whose patron had a trilby pushed back on his head Sinatra-style and was very pleased to see me. (Rutba was the first stop on a motoring tour that took me through Ramadi and Fallujah and up to Tikrit and various other towns.)

In those days, the Iraqi side of the Trebil border was manned by US troops. So an ‘immigration official’ from the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment glanced at my Canadian passport, and said, ‘Welcome to Free Iraq.” We exchanged a few pleasantries, and he waved me through. A lot less cumbersome than landing at JFK. I remember there was a banner with a big oval hole in it, where I assumed Saddam’s face had once been. And as I drove away I remember wondering what that hole would be filled with.

Well, now we know. That same border post today is manned by head-hacking jihadists from the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’.