RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/crucial-vote-on-iran-looms-at-u-n/

The United Nations is preparing to vote on a resolution that would extend an arms embargo against the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, which is seen as a major test of President Donald Trump’s hardline policy on the rogue state, The Hill newspaper reports.

The vote comes as a top State Department official prepares to exit the administration and a once-vocal critic of President Trump prepares to assume a higher profile.  

The proposed resolution marks the latest tough action taken against Iran by the United States under President Trump, who famously withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, back in 2018. 

President Trump had been a frequent critic of the deal, which was the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy. The deal eased restrictions on the Islamic nation and made it easier for the oil-rich Iranians to pursue the development of nuclear weapons.

But other member-states of the United Nations have remained more sympathetic to the regime and continue to support the idea of the Iran deal, even as the deal itself has all but collapsed following the U.S. withdrawal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his case for the resolution, and reminded others that the United States would ultimately ensure some sort of arms embargo against Iran. 

“The proposal we put forward is entirely reasonable,” Pompeo told reporters last week. “One way or another, we will do the right thing,” he added. “We will ensure that the arms embargo is extended.” 

In the event the resolution fails, Pompeo suggested the United States could impose a “snapback” of all sanctions that the Obama Administration levied on Iran prior to the conclusion of the deal.

State Department official Brian Hook, who had been traveling to various allied countries to convince them to vote in favor of the resolution but was increasingly seen as ineffective, resigned from the department on Thursday. Hook was named as Pompeo’s special representative to Iran in 2018. Previously, he was a top advisor to former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/11/why-is-desperately-poor-india-beating-new-yorks-covid-19-response/

For some reason, Andrew Cuomo and Anthony Fauci have become the faces of responsible COVID-19 policy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

New York spends more money per capita on healthcare than any other state in the Union. It ranks third in the country in physicians per 100,000 population at 375.1. In terms of raw infrastructure and medical resources, New York should have been one of the best places in the world to receive treatment for COVID-19.

Yet analysis of New York’s COVID-19 statistics reveal it to be one of the most deadly places in the world for a COVID-19 patient. Consider that the tiny country of San Marino reports the worst “deaths per 1 million population” for COVID-19 at 1,238 per million. Belgium, which is the second worst, reports 852. New York is a disaster compared to even those grim numbers. New York is second in the nation at 1,688 deaths per million. If it were a country, it would lead the world. 

The numbers don’t lie. New York should be the poster child of what not to do. Because whatever it’s doing to respond to COVID-19, it’s not saving lives. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci somehow learned the opposite lesson from these morbid statistics. He said, “Many parts of the United States didn’t do enough to combat the coronavirus—but New York state did . . . New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly by doing things [that are recommended to fight the disease].” One of those recommendations was to ban or severely restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. This ban came quickly in response to President Trump endorsing the drug.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16336/china-military-war

Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S. presidential election, speculating that “stirring up external frictions, especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for his re-election campaign.”

The leaders of China’s Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by anyone, including the U.S., to stop China’s grab of Hong Kong this year — 37 years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green light to keep on grabbing.

China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a “fishing fleet” of 250 vessels showing up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25 through August 2.

If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.

Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One expert at Zhejiang University’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by China.

If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S. military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim “self-defense.”

One writer suggests that the PLA should immediately move fighter aircraft to Chinese air bases in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. He also boldly claims that the augmented presence of U.S. naval and air assets in the South China Sea is no longer just a show of force by America.

Chen Hu, a Chinese military journalist, also asserts that the U.S. is now intent on provoking a conflict and is preparing for battle. Chen claims that the return of B1 bombers to Guam and continued deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the South China Sea, despite the conclusion of military exercises, is supposedly a sign of Washington’s aggressive intent. Chen suggests that recent U.S. “Freedom of Navigation” maneuvers and the high number of U.S. surveillance collection missions along the Chinese coast is additional proof of American attack planning. Former PLA officer Wang Yunfei and naval equipment expert suggests that flights by American RC-135, E-8c, and RC-12X surveillance aircraft equate to “pre-battle strategic technical surveillance.” As the joke goes from the children’s playground: “It all started when he hit me back.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16332/iran-hezbollah-drug-smuggling

“Presumed to have been issued by Iranian religious leaders, the fatwa reportedly read: We are making drugs for Satan — America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, we will kill them with drugs.” — Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, Hurst Publishers, 2013.

According to an FBI report, declassified in November 2008, “Hizbullah’s spiritual leader… has stated that narcotics trafficking is morally acceptable if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of the war against the enemies of Islam.”

The international community, the United Nations, and specifically its Office on Crimes and Drugs, remain totally silent on Hezbollah and Iran’s large-scale drug trafficking across the world.

When governments or organizations that operate under the legitimacy of a state engage in smuggling drugs, the negative consequences can be devastating for other nations. The Iranian regime and its proxy Hezbollah appear to be increasing their efforts to smuggle illicit drugs to other countries, particularly in the West.

A Lebanese man, Ghassan Diab, was recently extradited from Cyprus to the United States for charges linked to laundering drug money for the militant group Hezbollah. According to the US Department of Justice, Diab is alleged “to have conspired to engage in, and actually engaged, in the laundering of drug proceeds through the use of the black market peso exchange in support of Hezbollah’s global criminal-support network”.

Italian authorities announced on July 1, 2020 that they had seized 15.4 tons of counterfeit Captagon pills produced in Syria, a country reportedly the largest producer and exporter of the Captagon (fenethylline). The seized 15.4 tons of counterfeit Captagon pills are worth an estimated $1.3 billion. Captagon, a super-charged amphetamine, is banned in many countries due to its addictive nature. Reportedly, the seized drugs were so carefully hidden that the airport scanners did not detect them, according to Commander Domenico Napolitano of the Naples financial police. It was the interception of calls made by some criminals that assisted the local police in seizing the drugs.

Greek authorities, in July 2020, also seized a large haul of Captagon pills, also from Syria and worth more than half a billion dollars. The Greek financial crimes unit said:

“It is the largest quantity that has ever been seized globally, depriving organized crime of proceeds that would have exceeded $660 million (587.45 million euros).”

Why has Syria become the epicenter of producing illegal drugs and exporting them to other countries including the West? Possibly because Iran and Hezbollah exert significant influence in Syria and there is scarcely any credible international organization monitoring what is happening in Syria, a lapse that makes it difficult to these kinds of detect criminal activities.