RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jewishpolicycenter

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress and the presidents alike have had no sustained policy review to establish militarily achievable objectives, coherent political goals, or even a workable definition of “the enemy” to guide lawmakers and military leaders.

Republicans and Democrats both removed governments with no plan for succession or the societal stresses and open warfare that would ensue. Without an updated Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), we “plinked terrorists” in various countries with drones or airplanes, assassinating at least four American citizens, and killing others as “collateral damage.”

American soldiers have been killed fighting in various countries, including several in Africa. We are spending billions “training” various militaries and militias and hoping they will fight who and how we want them to. Iran’s backing of rebels in Yemen is called the “Saudi war” to avoid dealing with the implications. The “Israel-Palestinian conflict” is to be resolved by creating an extra Arab state while the Palestinians definitively and publicly want to resolve it by eliminating the Jewish one.

President Trump ran against American military involvement in Syria and Afghanistan, and for a hard line on Iran. There is still no complete policy — and sometimes not even a particularly well-articulated policy — but it does appear that America’s focus has changed from retail to wholesale. From executing individual terrorists and recapturing pieces of territory to operating against the malign influence that funds and organizes large-scale Shiite — and Sunni — terror. From terror groups to a terror country.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/china_caves_to_president_trump_in_us_trade_war.html

China caved to President Trump’s Trade War demands as state-media published plans that foreign investors will no longer be subject to compulsory technology transfers.

As China’s Vice Premier Liu He was holding a televised meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office to announce big increases for U.S. agricultural exports to China, its Xinhua News Agency announced that China’s President Xi Jinping hopes to meet with Trump just before a March 5 vote by China’s National People’s Congress to ratify elimination of rules for foreign investment mandatory foreign technology transfers.

With the clock running down on Trump’s threat to increase a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion of Chinese exports to a 25 percent tariff on March 1, China is agreeing to meaningful structural trade reforms that the U.S. has been demanding for over a decade.

The move will open a wide swath of China’s internal markets that have been closed to U.S. service industry firms. The breadth of China’s “reform” regime supposedly includes elimination of non-tariff trade barriers such as eliminating state-sponsored cyber-intrusions and converting U.S. intellectual property rights, according to the Epoch Times.

With the draft legislation supposedly setting a goal of guaranteeing equal treatment of foreign companies already reviewed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in December, Xinhua stated: “Once adopted, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures (or contractual joint ventures) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises.”

https://quillette.com/2019/02/01/the

The day after Venezuela’s National Assembly voted to declare its president, Juan Guaidó, interim President of the Republic, I received a text from a former friend. “If the U.S. topples Vz [Venezuela],” he wrote, “I will hold you responsible.” I would have been happy to accept this responsibility had I done anything important enough to deserve it. But the idea was absurd and he knew it. If the Venezuelan regime falls—and I hope that it does—it won’t even be possible to credit (or blame) the United States. It is the Venezuelan people who finally are taking their destiny in hand and rejecting an intolerable status quo.

The message was not a serious attempt to apportion responsibility for Venezuela’s current upheaval; it was an attempt to shame me for my treacherous betrayal of the Bolivarian cause. An early supporter of the Revolution, I had traveled to Venezuela in 2013 to cover the April presidential elections. By the time I returned to the US, I was disillusioned and depressed. I decided I needed to start writing and speaking about what I had seen there. In an article I wrote for the radical magazine Counterpunch around that time, I argued that “the so-called ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ is bankrupt: morally, ideologically, and economically,” and I asked what we, as leftist solidarity activists, should do in response. “Should we continue to make excuses for incompetence, corruption, and irresponsibility and thereby make ourselves accomplices?” I asked. “Or should we tell the truth?”

Hugo Chavez, 45th President of Venezuela

I had resolved to tell the truth. Having been so wrong about something so consequential, I felt it was the least I could do. By then, Venezuela was already in a terrible mess. Many of those I had helped to convince of the possibilities offered by Bolivarian socialism were deeply suspicious of the mainstream media and deserved to hear what was going on from a writer they trusted. But, as it turned out, the people I wanted to reach didn’t want to hear such things. And the people I asked to publish my articles didn’t much want me to write about them either. As a result of my voltafaccia, former comrades and friends contacted my editors and publishers in (occasionally successful) attempts to have my articles spiked. I was denounced and slandered online and in print. Phone calls and emails to people I had thought of as friends now went unanswered. On those occasions when I encountered one of them in public, they looked the other way. Abruptly, I found myself excommunicated, and people I’d known for 30 or 40 years made it clear that they no longer wanted to be part of my life.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/venezuela-crisis-people-want-country-back/The people — the victims of this twisted socialist dream — just want their country back.

Caracas, Venezuela — “There are colectivos on every corner.”

My bodyguard points them out to me, the seemingly inconspicuous men standing a few feet away. The men belong to the colectivos, the heavily armed Maduro-loyalist gangs policing this city, always ready to intimidate and attack anti-government protesters.

Just after he points them out, one of them walks up to me and asks for my phone and passport. I hand him a copy of my passport and show him my phone. Without even bothering to search it, he tells me to delete whatever is on there.

I do as he says while he watches me, and when I am finally allowed to go I realize he didn’t think to check my phone’s trash. So I post the videos and photos, all in succession, while my bodyguard drags me away.

It’s only my second day in Caracas but already my third run-in with the alternative law in this city. There’s a growing sense of unease in me as I realize how truly totalitarian this country has become, creating a culture of desperation and fear. You fear everyone, not just the regime, but also all those who are on its payroll, wielding weapons in the name of this twisted socialist dream.

We are headed to the National Assembly where the self-appointed interim president, Juan Guaidó, is rumored to be making an appearance. Ever since the uprising against President Nicolás Maduro started almost two weeks ago, the country has been waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the nation’s fate to be determined through either violence or legislation, or both. Guaidó represents hope, but the path to freedom for Venezuela is paved with blood, tears, and radical uncertainty. Every other day here there are protests from both sides that result in riots and massive regime-led pushback, and it seems as if the people of Caracas are waiting for that final straw that will break the camel’s back.