RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight

The United Nations General Assembly (GA) doesn’t take itself seriously. Unlike U.N. Security Council resolutions, GA pronouncements have no enforcement mechanism and often serve only to permit countries to vent — mostly at Israel. But this travesty helps determine the allocation of general U.N. funds — American tax dollars among them, albeit fewer under the Trump administration. So, it is worth parsing the activity of the GA last week.

Thirty-five resolutions were proposed in the GA by the U.N. Special Political and Decolonization Committee. The Committee, which includes Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Bolivia, and Venezuela, has no North American, Western European, or Scandinavian members. Twenty-seven resolutions used general language and named no specific country; eight targeted Israel.

If you thought this would be a good time for the U.N. to recognize the desperate efforts of the people of Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran to throw off repressive and kleptocratic governments — and specifically, to rid themselves of the destructive machinations of the mullahs of Iran — the GA didn’t agree with you.

If you were waiting for the U.N. to condemn horrific violations against the people of Syria by its own government and aided by Russia and Iran, or to stand up for the Rohingya who have been forced out of Myanmar, or to consider the plight of the Muslim Uighurs of China herded into camps, you’re still waiting.

Slave labor in Qatar; Venezuelans reduced to eating garbage; North Koreans with no discernible human rights; Palestinian-Arab children taught that the highest form of life is death — their own and that of as many Jews as possible; civil war in Libya; increasing repression of the press and of dissent in Russia — all ignored. Turkey, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and Saudi Arabia — ignored.

https://quillette.com/2019/12/05/tensions-in-nato-and-the-looming-end-of-pax-americana/

As NATO leaders gathered in London this week to mark the 70th anniversary of history’s most venerable military alliance, it has been widely forgotten that not so long ago the specter of armed conflict haunted the European continent. When the Washington treaty establishing NATO was signed in April 1949, the Soviet Union occupied the captive nations of Eastern Europe and an invasion of Western Europe by the Red Army was not a remote possibility. On current trends, the Atlantic alliance may well suffer a premature demise as the world moves into another great power rivalry that is also an ideological contest between democracy and autocracy.

A terse review of the historical record is in order here. In the aftermath of World War Two, the United States committed itself to a revolutionary foreign policy. The extraordinary task of maintaining some semblance of international order after two global conflagrations was premised on a controversial but compelling notion of enlightened self-interest. The guiding principle of U.S. statecraft was that the peace of the world was in grave and permanent jeopardy, and thus that it needed to be imposed and kept by force, or at least the credible threat of it. This momentous undertaking required that American power remain second to none, and for it to be deployed in outposts far from the American mainland. It was only through this forward engagement, providing moral and material succor to vulnerable allies and international norms, that would prevent a breakdown in order that would draw the world into yet another violent maelstrom.

America’s reluctant but immense decision to take the lead in upholding a decent international order did not enjoy a long honeymoon. It rapidly came under ferocious challenge by Soviet power pressing to extend its imperium from Berlin to Baghdad, from Helsinki to Havana, and from Seoul to Saigon. The containment doctrine that flowed from the novel understanding of America’s self-interest aimed to thwart Soviet expansion. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, set up in 1949 as a key pillar of containment, upheld the principle of anticipatory self-defense. However, the “self” that was being defended, as was pointed out by isolationists of the day, was not exactly the American homeland, but the sovereignty of American allies and the security (as well as the prevalence) of the American way of life.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/18/chinese-woman-gets-10-months-in-prison-for-birth-tourism-scheme/

The New York Post reports, “A judge on Monday sentenced a Chinese woman to 10 months in prison for her role in a business that helped wealthy pregnant Chinese women lie on visa forms and to immigration authorities and travel to Southern California, to give birth to children who would automatically receive US citizenship.”

US District Judge James Selna issued the sentence to Dongyuan Li, who was expected to be released on Monday due to time served, New York Post writes.

Federal prosecutors opposed the sentence and said they believed Li should be sentenced to years in prison to deter others from helping women lie on visa applications and hide pregnancies in these so-called birth tourism schemes.

“I just think it sends the wrong message,” Charles Pell, the federal prosecutor, told the judge.

Li pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and visa fraud for running a birth tourism company in Southern California known as “You Win USA.”

Federal authorities said the company helped more than 500 Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver American babies, and that Li used a cluster of apartments in Irvine, California, to receive them.

Authorities said the company coached the women to lie on their visa applications and hide their pregnancies when  moving through customs in U.S. airports.