RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/08/17/welcome-to-the-post-american-world-n1470228

After the fall of Saigon, the Soviet Union began five years of aggressive subversion around the world, culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. Henry Kissinger and the elites in the US and Europe all predicted a Russian victory in the Cold War. The fall of Kabul is worse: In Vietnam, we faced a well-trained and equipped North Vietnamese Army; we were humiliated by 75,000 rag-tag irregulars in Afghanistan.

The big difference is that China’s economy is fifty times bigger than it was in 1975 — $11.8 trillion in constant 2010 prices, vs. $250 billion in 1975. That’s what happens when you grow at 8% a year for fifty years. China’s exports to the U.S.–now running at an all-time record–are just 3.5% of China’s $15 trillion GDP. But they comprise a fifth of all U.S. consumption of manufactured goods. It would take $1 trillion or more and perhaps a decade to replace most of America’s dependency on Chinese imports, especially electronics. Among other things, we would have to train hundreds of thousands of engineers and skilled workers.

You learned everything you need to know about Chinese foreign policy from “The Godfather” — keep your friends close and your enemies closer. China’s main concern is an Islamist insurgency in Xinjiang, and several thousand Uyghur jihadists trained in Syria and elsewhere who have returned to China. Russia’s main concern is jihad among its Muslim minority, a fifth of the population of the Russian Federation.

China’s “Godfather” move is to recognize the Taliban while admonishing them to stay out of Xinjiang and leave the Uyghurs to their fate. China and Russia are cementing their alliance with Iran, which provided weapons to the Taliban. Iran will join the Sino-Russian umbrella group, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China will invest in Iran’s oil and gas, while it builds pipelines frantically to secure hydrocarbon supply from places the U.S. can’t touch.

The Biden administration is now begging Beijing and Moscow for help in Afghanistan. That will be expensive, as the South China Morning Post reports this morning:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken picked up the phone on Monday to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for a discussion on how the two countries could work together to achieve a “soft landing” for Afghanistan. He was told Beijing was willing, but Washington would need to step back the pressure on its greatest rival, according to China’s state media.

Wang earlier had spoken to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, with both sides agreeing that Beijing and Moscow should step up their communication and coordination over the Afghanistan situation.

In a flurry of diplomatic phone calls, Blinken also spoke to Lavrov, as well as Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, the European Union’s high representative Josep Borrell and foreign ministers from Pakistan, Britain and Turkey, in the aftermath of the chaotic fall of the Afghan government as the Taliban took over Kabul and the presidential palace on Monday.

One reason that Blinken is so solicitous toward Moscow and Beijing is the presence of 10,000 American citizens in Afghanistan, all potential hostages.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/taliban-spokesman-afghan-women-will-be-happy-living-under-sharia-law/

Addressing the media at a press conference Tuesday in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised that the country’s women would embrace sharia law, the strict Islamic fundamentalist moral code the militant organization subscribes to and enforces for citizens.

“Our women are Muslim, they will also be happy to be living within our framework of Sharia,” he said, according to a translation from the Independent.

The group’s representative indicated that the rights of women will be recognized and respected under Taliban reign, insisting that nobody should be “worried about our norms and principles.” On Monday, the UN Security Council released a unanimous resolution, securing the agreement of all 15 member nations, calling for the establishment of a new representative and inclusive government in Afghanistan that guarantees the “full, equal, and meaningful participation of women.”

Given the Taliban’s treatment of women under its previous reign in the 1990s, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed skepticism with the terrorist entity’s pledge to suddenly adhere to international standards of freedom, democracy, and human dignity. Prior to the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Taliban ruled the native population with an iron fist, prohibiting dancing, music, and most inter-sex fraternizing. Women were typically forbidden from working, attending school, and leaving the home without a burqa and male escort.

“This is a proud moment for the whole nation,” the spokesman commented. “After 20 years of struggle, once again we have emancipated our country,” he said referencing the two-decade span during which the United States military occupied the nation, forcing the Taliban operatives to retreat to the countryside. While Afghan women were repressed under the Taliban’s rule, they enjoyed many privileges and liberties to travel, study, drive, and wear makeup and attire of their choice during the twenty years of U.S.-secured peace.

Mujahid also ensured that the Taliban’s former enemies, including Afghans who collaborated with the U.S., would not be targeted under the new regime, despite conflicting reports from multiple outlets that some militants have already started going door-to-door in Kabul tracking down U.S. allies and sympathizers.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/a-rift-of-polands-making/

The diplomatic crisis unfolding between Jerusalem and Warsaw is unfortunate. Eastern European countries have been staunch supporters of the United States and Israel in a way that their counterparts in the Western continent have long ceased to be.

As a result, conservative columnist Amnon Lord is among those stressing that Israel needs to be smart, not just right, when it comes to its relations with Poland.

Despite its nationalism, he recently wrote, Poland “is a type of ally. … The cooperation with it in terms of military aviation is a cornerstone of our national security. The Poles also buy weapons and other systems from us. Poland is also an important potential partner for Israel, together with the member countries of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), with regard to Israel’s effort to crack the anti-Israel Western-European bloc.”

It’s more than a valid point. But let’s not kid ourselves.

Poland’s hysterical reiteration that it played no part in the Holocaust—other than being victimized by the occupation of their country first by Hitler and then by Stalin—is problematic. Though technically true, both in relation to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the reality where the former is concerned is more complicated.

For decades, any mention of the death camps in Poland has been pounced upon by Polish politicians and intellectuals as a lie, or at least, as misleading. German-occupied Poland did, however, house 457 Nazi camp complexes. The most notable of these, Auschwitz-Birkenau, is the site of the annual March of the Living, which attracts participants from all over the world, including Israel.

Warsaw’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge any role in or cooperation with the genocide of the Jews—let alone pursue and prosecute individual Polish collaborators—culminated in actual legislation. According to a law passed by the Polish parliament and then signed in February 2018 by President Andrzej Duda, “Whoever accuses, publicly and against the facts, the Polish nation, or the Polish state, of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich … shall be subject to a fine or a penalty of imprisonment of up to three years.”

The outcry that ensued in Europe, the United States, and, of course, Israel, caused Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to amend the law, which he argued had merely been intended to “defend Poland’s good name.” He stated that the “correction” would be to switch violations from criminal offenses to civil ones.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chinese-media-threaten-taiwan-after-kabul-debacle-the-islands-defense-will-collapse-in-hours/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fourth

Chinese media outlets carried threats to Taiwan and criticisms of the U.S. during the chaotic American withdrawal from Kabul.

An editorial by the Global Times, a Chinese state-run outlet, took aim at Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and President Tsai Ing-wen.

“From what happened in Afghanistan, [the DPP] should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and the US military won’t come to help,” the editorial states. “As a result, the DPP authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane.”

The editorial called on the DPP to “keep cross-Straits [of Taiwan] peace with political means, rather than acting as strategic pawns of the US and bear the bitter fruits of a war.”

Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin also commented on the Afghanistan withdrawal on Twitter.

“After the fall of the Kabul regime, the Taiwan authorities must be trembling,” Hu wrote. “Don’t look forward to the US to protect them. Taipei officials need to quietly mail-order a Five-Star Red Flag from the Chinese mainland. It will be useful one day when they surrender to the PLA.”

In a separate tweet, Hu wrote, “Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than presidential transition in the US.”

The head of China Daily‘s E.U. bureau, Chen Weihua, encouraged CNN anchor Jim Sciutto to explain to his son that the U.S. clearly lost the Afghanistan War.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/europe/afghanistan-eu-us-credibility.html

Afghanistan’s rapid unraveling is already raising grumblings about American credibility, compounding the wounds of the Trump years and reinforcing the idea that America’s backing for its allies is not unlimited.

The Taliban’s lightning advance comes at a moment when many in Europe and Asia had hoped that President Biden would reestablish America’s firm presence in international affairs, especially as China and Russia angle to extend their influence. Now, America’s retreat is bound to sow doubts.

“When Biden says ‘America is back,’ many people will say, ‘Yes, America is back home,’” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst.

“Few will gang up on the U.S. for finally stopping a failed enterprise,” he said. “Most people would say it should have happened a long time ago.’’ But in the longer term, he added, “the notion that you cannot count on the Americans will strike deeper roots because of Afghanistan.’’

The United States has been pulling back from military engagements abroad since President Obama, he noted, and under President Trump, “we had to prepare for a U.S. no longer willing to assume the burden of unlimited liability alliances.”

That hesitation will now be felt all the more strongly among countries in play in the world, like Taiwan, Ukraine, the Philippines and Indonesia, which can only please China and Russia, analysts suggest.

“What made the U.S. strong, powerful and rich was that from 1918 through 1991 and beyond, everybody knew we could depend on the U.S. to defend and stand up for the free world,” said Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

“The sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years and so much investment in lives and effort will see allies and potential allies around the world wondering whether they have to decide between democracies and autocracies, and realize some democracies don’t have staying power anymore,” he added.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17647/china-plan-shut-out-world

Moreover, crackdowns in Xi Jinping’s China never really end. They are more than just “wiggles,” as superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio called them in a July 30 LinkedIn posting, as he attempted to explain away Beijing’s harsh moves against business.

The announcement follows a series of stunning attacks on private business.

Xi’s moves to force China’s companies off foreign exchanges could be in preparation for an expropriation of foreign shareholdings in Chinese businesses.

On August 11, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the central government’s State Council issued what the official Xinhua News Agency called “an outline on promoting the building of a rule of law government from 2021 to 2025, on the basis of the successful implementation of a previous 5-year plan.”

The Chinese party-state’s announcement included a promise to enact a series of laws on, among other things, national security, tech innovation, monopolies, education, health and quarantines, food and drugs, and foreigners.

“The announcement,” Reuters stated, “signals that a crackdown on industry with regard to privacy, data management, antitrust, and other issues will persist on through the year.”

Just “through the year”? By its own terms, the announcement makes clear that the crackdown will continue until at least the end of the ongoing 14th Five-Year Plan, in 2025.

Moreover, crackdowns in Xi Jinping’s China never really end. They are more than just “wiggles,” as superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio called them in a July 30 LinkedIn posting, as he attempted to explain away Beijing’s harsh moves against business.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/we-once-waltzed-in-kabul?token=

Catastrophe. Calamity. Chaos. Humiliation. Tragedy.

All words that can be used to describe what we are witnessing right now in Afghanistan, 20 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

You can believe, as many people I respect do, that this war should have ended long ago. You can believe that it was always unwinnable and should have never started in the first place. You can believe that it was utterly naive that America ever thought that something resembling human rights could take root in this foreign land.

But the disgraceful, haunting scenes we are now witnessing— were those also a fait accompli? Of course not.

And I cannot look away from them. From the helicopters evacuating Americans from the U.S. embassy. From the Taliban flag flying over the presidential palace; and from the terrorists who hoisted it hosting a press conference inside. From the supposed leaders of the free world beseeching medieval barbarians to recognize “the international community,” warning them that “the world is watching.”

Saad Mohseni @saadmohseni
Another Saigon moment: chaotic scenes at Kabul International Airport. No security. None.

The most shameful and dishonorable part of this shameful and dishonorable exit is Washington’s abandonment of those Afghans who helped us, trapped by American bureaucracy and now by the Taliban itself.

The email inbox for emergency visa requests for Afghans who worked with American forces has reportedly crashed. “This is murder by incompetence,” said one former sergeant trying to get apply for Special Immigrant Visa on behalf of his Afghan counterpart.

Richard Engel @RichardEngel

There is so much to say about this unfolding catastrophe. In the coming days I will have pieces from the likes of Gen. H.R. McMaster, Justin Amash, Thomas Joscelyn, Nikky Haley and others explaining what this unraveling means for America and the world. If you haven’t yet subscribed, now is a great time to lend us your support:

But before the day was out I wanted to share this moving essay by the journalist Kathy Gilsinan, whom I have long admired, about her friends trapped in Kabul.

We hear a lot about privilege these days in America. Reading Kathy’s moving essay, I am overwhelmed by my own.

I am a free woman — a freedom hard-won and so very far from inevitable.

It’s a freedom that Afghans tasted and will now lose. A freedom that so many of them sacrificed to secure. Surely we owe them something more than abandonment? — BW

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17645/iran-damaged-wings

As the great Iranian theologian Kazem Assar put it: “Monarchy and Shi’ism are the two wings with which the Iranian eagle can soar to unimaginable heights.”
This time, however, things may turn out to be different as the Khomeinist regime has tried to clip off both wings of which Assar spoke.
Over the years, rather than the clergy taking over the state, it is the state that has tried to take over the clergy.
Under Khomeinism, state-appointed mullahs control vast enterprises that pay no taxes and are answerable to no one.
Isn’t it time to recognize the Khomeinist regime for what it really is: a banal despotism disguised as a clerical regime to confuse both Iranians and foreign Iranologists while trying to destroy not only Iran’s monarchic heritage but also its religious tradition?
More importantly, isn’t it time for the traditional clergy to end its often complicit silence about the damage that Khomeinism has done to Iran’s identity, culture, social cohesion, economy and even religion?

The past four decades in which the Khomeinist ideology has dominated Iranian state structures, a new breed of “Iranologists” has emerged in Western academic and media circles. Most old Iranologists saw Iran as a glorious but long dead civilization distinguished by religious tolerance, ethnic diversity and an abiding love of artistic creativity. Those who focused on Iran’s story after the advent of Islam recognized monarchy and the Shi’ite clerical institution that, while at times in conflict, played complementary roles in Iranian society.

With the seizure of power in 1979 by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a new breed of Iranologists emerged to declare the definite end of monarchy in Iran and the advent of a theocratic regime backed by re-energized clergy.