RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/19-billion-in-u-s-taxpayer-money-lost-to-waste-fraud-and-abuse-in-afghanistan-watchdog-finds/

$19 billion in U.S. taxpayer money was wasted or lost in government-funded projects in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2019, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Since 2009, SIGAR has reported on U.S. government funds that have been wasted in the course of rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan. Government and military officials have repeatedly told SIGAR that the U.S. military strategy in the country, and the effort to turn Afghanistan into a “modern” nation, was failing, according to the Washington Post‘s “Afghanistan Papers” report in 2019.

Congress has appropriated $134 billion since 2002 towards reconstruction and nation-building efforts, of which SIGAR has reviewed $63 billion, the agency stated in its new report. Of the amount reviewed, $19 billion—approximately 30 percent—has gone to waste.

SIGAR has identified $3.4 billion lost to “waste, fraud, and abuse” from January 2018 through December 2019 alone. Almost half of that sum spent on anti-narcotics operations, while various U.S.-supported reconstruction efforts were also found to lacking.

“For example, during our review of the Afghan Children Read program, which is…designed to support education service delivery by delivering books to schools, we discovered that principals and teachers at a quarter of the inspected schools found the books provided to the schools were not in usable condition,” the report stated. “In another example, during our review of the Department of State’s Good Performer’s Initiative projects in Kunduz province, we found that a sports stadium, which was built for community use, was not being used.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-middle-east-metamorphosis-11603148243?mod=opinion_major_pos7

George W. Bush and Barack Obama both tried to transform the Middle East. Neither found the kind of success he sought.

But as the U.S. has reduced its regional footprint and ambitions, the Middle East has begun to change on its own. One of the most recent signs of its metamorphosis was Saudi Prince Bandar’s blistering criticism of Palestinian leaders for their decades of poor decision-making. His words are underscored by his kingdom’s decision to open its airspace to commercial flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai. Taken with the United Arab Emirates shifting from not recognizing the Jewish state to building a warm peace and economic partnerships with Israel, it’s clear the region is moving away from the predictable sterility of the past toward something genuinely new.

In the new Middle East, the younger generation is turning its back on religious radicalism, and Arab public opinion is moving to accept the presence of a Jewish state. The Palestinians have lost their position at the center of Middle East politics, and it is Turkey and Iran, not Israel, that Arab rulers are most concerned to oppose.

Last week I asked U.A.E. Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba to explain what was happening, and the first thing he did was point me to recent polls by the Zogby organization and 12th annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey, which interviewed 4,000 young Arabs (18 to 24) in 17 countries.

President Trump’s peace plan, which many longtime Middle East experts dismissed as a ghastly blunder that would destroy the American role in Middle East peace negotiations, has turned out to be relatively popular on the Arab street. The Zogby survey found majorities in favor of the “Deal of the Century” in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16619/hold-iran-mullahs-accountable

Elliott Abrams, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, pointed out during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “The U.S. is committed to holding accountable those who deny freedom and justice to people of Iran and later today the United States will announce sanctions on several Iranian officials and entities including the judge who sentenced Navid Afkari to death.”

Holding the Iranian leaders accountable only for human rights violation is not enough. Pressure must be imposed on the regime to stop its military adventurism.

Iran has also, since the beginning of the JCPOA, brought terror and assassination plots to the EU. If the mullahs acquire nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them, they will not even need to use them; just the threat to European cities should be enough to produce instantaneous acquiescence. German intelligence has acknowledged that more than 1,000 members of Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, use the country to recruit, raise money and buy arms.

The EU needs to stop its appeasement policies with Iran’s mullahs. It needs to join the US in holding the Iranian leaders accountable.

The only Western government taking concrete steps to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its human rights violations, destabilizing behavior and aggressive policies in the Middle East is the Trump administration. On September 24, the United States blacklisted and slapped sanctions on several Iranian officials and entities over gross violations of human rights. Sanctions were also imposed on the judge who was involved in issuing the death sentence for the Iranian wrestling champion, Navid Afkari.

The EU, the UN and human rights organization have not taken any tangible action, even after Amnesty International released its report on Iran’s shocking human rights violations. Amnesty International warned that the Iranian regime has committed unacceptable atrocities, including victims being frequently “hooded or blindfolded; punched, kicked and flogged; beaten with sticks, rubber hosepipes, knives, batons and cables; suspended or forced into holding painful stress positions for prolonged periods; deprived of sufficient food and potable water; placed in prolonged solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks or even months; and denied medical care for injuries sustained during the protests or as a result of torture.”

The United States also imposed sanctions on Judge Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati, Judge Mohammad Soltani, Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz, and Adel Abad, Orumiyeh for being responsible for gross human rights violations, including torture, arbitrary detentions and unjustified executions. Elliott Abrams, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, pointed out during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“The U.S. is committed to holding accountable those who deny freedom and justice to people of Iran and later today the United States will announce sanctions on several Iranian officials and entities including the judge who sentenced Navid Afkari to death.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/how-trump-changed-world-matthew-continetti/

On Sept. 16 the editorial board of the New York Times did the impossible. It said something nice about President Trump. “The normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is, on the face of it, a good and beneficial development,” the editors wrote. They even went so far as to say that the “Trump administration deserves credit for brokering it.” I had to read that sentence twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps the world really is ending.

Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe—Iran—they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.

Just as remarkable as the deal itself is the bipartisan applause that greeted it in the United States. No one needs reminding that domestic politics is polarized and paranoid. Each party is convinced that the other one will extinguish democracy at the first opportunity. The past three presidencies have been jarringly discontinuous in style, temperament, and policy. But the same Democrats who sometimes appear eager to remove Donald Trump from office by any means necessary treated this foreign policy accomplishment with equanimity and acquiescence. “It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “a Biden-Harris administration will build on these steps.” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware told Jewish Insider that the agreement is “a very positive thing.”