RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/04/america_needs_new_export_controls.html

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union seriously outspent the United States on military equipment. The U.S. and its NATO allies worried that the Russians would have such overwhelming military power that, at any moment, Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces could flood Western Europe, starting with the Fulda Gap, where NATO would be pushed back and defeated.

The problem today is less Russia — with decent technology but not enough funds to produce great numbers — than China — with money to produce, but not yet a great technological base. So China uses ours.

American companies face no meaningful export restrictions and they are eager to take advantage of low-cost manufacturing in China and potential access to China’s huge domestic market. This has had an impact on Chinese electronics as well as aircraft manufacturing, submarine capabilities, and more. What China has not been able to get from legal American imports, it has worked to acquire by electronic and human spying.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273421/trump-designates-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-joseph-klein

President Trump has decided to designate the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) to counter Iran’s global campaign of terrorism. “This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft,” President Donald Trump said in a statement Monday morning. “This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO.” The designation takes effect on April 15th.

The Iranian regime lives and breathes Islamic extremism, which it seeks to export through its global jihad terrorist network. The IRGC sits at the center of that terrorist network. It provides funding, equipment, training, and logistical support to terrorist proxy groups, including most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The IRGC has American blood on its hands, going as far back as bombings in Beirut at the Marine barracks in 1983 and at the U.S. Embassy annex in 1984. The IRGC also caused casualties to U.S soldiers in Iraq by providing roadside bombs to its proxies. As Special Representative for Iran and Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State Brian Hook explained on Monday, “The IRGC has been threatening American troops almost since its inception. And whenever we impose sanctions on Iran, it’s usually followed by a range of threats. What endangers American troops in the Middle East is an IRGC that operates with impunity and never has its ambitions checked in the Middle East. We’re taking an entirely new approach to this of significant sort of sustained maximum economic pressure to deny the IRGC and the Iranian regime of the revenue that it needs to conduct its foreign policy.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-designate-iranian-guard-corps-a-foreign-terrorist-organization-11554499401

The Trump administration is preparing to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, U.S. officials said, a step that would vastly escalate the American pressure campaign against Tehran but which has divided U.S. officials.

The decision, which could be announced as early as Monday following months of deliberation, would mark the first time that an element of a foreign state has been officially designated a terrorist entity.

National security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been strong proponents of the move, which is intended to help the U.S. crack down on businesses in Europe and elsewhere controlled by the IRGC, the officials said.

But Pentagon officials, including Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have cautioned against the move, several U.S. officials said, fearing it could lead to a backlash against U.S. forces in the region without inflicting the intended damage to the Iranian economy.

Central Intelligence Agency officials have also had reservations about consequences of the decision, the officials said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273190/pompeo-pounces-international-criminal-court-joseph-klein

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday new U.S. visa restrictions on those individuals directly responsible for any International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of U.S. personnel in connection with U.S. and allied military and intelligence activities in Afghanistan. The ICC prosecutor had previously requested approval from the ICC’s judges to launch a formal investigation into what the prosecutor called the “situation in Afghanistan.” That request is still pending.

Secretary Pompeo warned all those working for the ICC that “if you’re responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of U.S. personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should not assume that you will still have or will get a visa, or that you will be permitted to enter the United States.”

Secretary Pompeo added that the “visa restrictions will not be the end of our efforts. We are prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions if the ICC does not change its course.” Secretary Pompeo said that the Trump administration, which has already begun to implement the visa restrictions, would also use such visa restrictions “to deter ICC efforts to pursue allied personnel, including Israelis, without allies’ consent.”

The president of the Assembly of States Parties, the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC established by the Rome Statute treaty, responded that “the States Parties reconfirmed their unwavering support for the Court as an independent and impartial judicial institution, and reiterated their commitment to uphold and defend the principles and values enshrined in the Rome Statute and to preserve its integrity undeterred by any threats against the Court, its officials and those cooperating with it. This unwavering support continues today.”

The 123 or so State Parties to the Rome Statute decided, as was their sovereign right, to delegate their own domestic authority to adjudicate specific criminal atrocities involving genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression to the ICC. If they want to indulge in the fiction that the ICC is an impartial and non-political judicial body, they have the right to wear blinders when it comes to ceding jurisdiction over their own citizens to the ICC. However, they do not have the legal or moral right to use the ICC they have embraced to assert jurisdiction over countries such as the United States and Israel, which exercised their sovereign right to decline joining the ICC Rome Statute treaty. The United States and Israel do not need any help from the ICC and have steadfastly refused to recognize its jurisdiction.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/07/

As I have written previously, many elites think of the United States as being in a position similar to that of the vulnerable Hapsburg Empire: a large empire possessing indefensible frontiers. But, this comparison flawed. In fact, a more precise analogue to the United States is Switzerland.

A federal republic like the United States, Switzerland enjoys a natural barrier separating it from the rest of its neighbors in Europe. The United States has two massive oceans, whereas Switzerland has the beautiful Swiss Alps. From behind these natural barriers, the liberty-loving Swiss republic formed, and by European standards, so did a potent market economy. Switzerland hasn’t always been a peaceful state, but it has been able to maintain peaceful relations with all of its neighbors better than most other states. Its beneficial geography has afforded Swiss leaders the time to develop reasonable, low-cost methods for maintaining their country’s sovereignty without becoming too enmeshed in the chaotic world beyond its protective peaks.

Switzerland is not an isolationist country, however. Like the United States throughout most of its history, the Swiss simply prefer to rely on diplomacy and trade to handle the bulk of their interactions with most of the world. Switzerland has a robust international trading profile and is even an observing member in the flagging European Union. That said, it is not a full member of the EU. Such a membership would have threatened the Swiss freedom of action and they wisely avoided such a step. The Swiss interact with the surrounding world only when and how it benefits them.

Switzerland is also internationally respected. Today, America’s acceptance of an ever-increasing array of never-ending foreign entanglements has drained it of vital resources (and people) that could be put to better use making our Union more perfect.