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The Pitfalls of a Shady Peace in Afghanistan by Amir Taheri

Posted By on April 12th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15871/afghanistan-shady-peace

There are several fundamental problems with the “deal” touted by the administration as a ticket to peace in a land torn by war since the 1970s. To start with, it is not at all certain that the cast of characters that negotiated the “deal” actually do represent the Taliban…. Like the Mafia in Italy, it included a large number of “families” who came together… to set up an “Islamic emirate….” Today, we could identify a dozen groups of different sizes claiming the brand…. The only thing that unites the cartel members is a common dream to recapture Kabul and restore the “emirate” that allowed them to rule their patches of territory as they pleased.

The “deal” itself is a model of dangerous naiveté. It aims at exchanging something tangible and easily verifiable, that is to say the withdrawal of American troops, against something intangible and not easily verifiable in the form of a promise to prevent terrorist acts against American interests. More importantly, there is no mechanism for making the Taliban dealmakers pay for failure to honor it.

Any peace deal should be aimed at finding a place for them within the new Afghanistan, not the other way around, that is to say reshaping this new Afghanistan the way the mullahs want. They should disarm, accept the constitutional frame and seek a share of power through the ballot box.

Next, despite zigzags, the new Afghanistan, though cumbersome, corrupt and chaotic is stumbling forward on the right path; it is far better, or less bad, than anything the Taliban could or would offer…. The US won the war and the Taliban lost. The only way to peace, since the start of history, has been for those who lost to submit to the will of those who won.

Even before he entered the White House, Donald Trump insisted that, as president, he would avoid the policies that led to some of his predecessor Barack Obama’s glaring foreign policy failures. And, yet, he now seems set to pursue one of those failed policies with gusto by embarking on what could lead to a premature disengagement from Afghanistan.

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The Canadian Way of Dealing with a Pandemic: Ineffective, Clueless, and Dishonest By David Solway

Posted By on April 12th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/the-canadian-way-of-dealing-with-a-pandemic-ineffective-clueless-and-dishonest/

The only thing certain about the etiology of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it originated in and spread from China. Whether the local origin of the disease was a wet market in Wuhan specializing in bat soup or a Chinese lab with inadequate safety protocols is immaterial. The culprit in the lethal melodrama that is being played out around the globe is China.

Yet, if we are to believe many of our politicians and journalists, the good guy working to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 is—you guessed it—China. Some self-serving politicians in the U.S. would like to refer President Trump to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for crimes against humanity for his handling of the crisis—Ohio State Representative Tavia Galonski apparently can’t stomach Trump’s promotion of hydroxychloroquine, which ironically has already saved the life of fellow Democrat Karen Whitsett. A reporter for Phoenix TV tried to put Trump in a bad light by asking whether he was cooperating with China, in her estimation obviously the heroic partner in the struggle. It turns out that Phoenix TV has intimate ties to Communist China and is linked with the PRC’s Ministry of State Security. Joe Biden is a big fan of Communist China and has profited from his family’s business relations with the regime. Trump is beset by those who would like to see him fail in his ongoing effort to find a way between averting economic collapse and maintaining public health. Nonetheless, Americans can remain confident that a responsible president, for all the trials and confusions he must contend with, has their wellbeing at heart and labors tirelessly to provide a solution to the current disaster.

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Tennessee: Muslim Stabs Three Women to Death at Truck Stop, Motive Unclear By Robert Spencer

Posted By on April 12th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/tennessee-muslim-stabs-three-women-to-death-at-truck-stop-motive-unclear/

Idris Abdus-Salaam, 33, a truck driver from Durham, North Carolina, on Tuesday pulled into the Pilot Travel Center on Strawberry Plains Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee, got out of his truck, pulled out a knife, and went on a stabbing spree. He stabbed three women to death and injured a fourth. When confronted by police, Abdus-Salaam refused to drop his weapon and was shot dead. According to Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) spokeswoman Leslie Earhart, authorities are still trying to determine his motive. But will they miss an obvious clue that is right in front of their faces?

The three women Abdus-Salaam killed were all employees of the Pilot Travel Center. The fourth victim, who is in the hospital fighting to recover from the wounds Abdus-Salaam gave her, was a customer. If Abdus-Salaam knew any of them personally, the fact has not been reported. It may emerge that he did, but as of this writing, this looks like a random act of violence.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel Greenlights Coronavirus Blocking Sticker Pilot

Posted By on April 12th, 2020

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3804900,00.html

The Directorate of Defense Research and Development (Mafat) has greenlighted a sticker developed at Israeli research university Technion Israel Institute of Technology that attaches to surgical masks, adding an additional layer of protection against coronavirus (Covid-19), Technion announced Monday.

Called Maya, the 3D-printed sticker is made up of nanometric fibers coated with disinfectants and is meant to enhance the containment of nanoparticles and effectively neutralize viruses as they touch the mask, according to the statement.

Israel’s Ministry of Health has given initial approval for the use of the sticker by medical personnel and in the coming days, a pilot will begin at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya in northern Israel, to examine the sticker’s effectiveness and see if it reduces the incidence of infection among medical teams.

The technology behind the sticker was developed by Technion professor Eyal Zussman in conjunction with the Galilee Medical Center.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Do we really want WHO setting U.S. national health policy? By Dave Rybarczyk

Posted By on April 12th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/do_we_really_want_who_setting_us_national_health_policy.html

 Legislation proposed by Sens. Romney and Murphy would do just that. It’s more political opportunism on the back of the pandemic. 

Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) have introduced a “Global Health Security Act” creating “a new directorate” ostensibly “empowered to press the preventative levers that can protect the nation.”  More accurately, the bill (not yet assigned a senate number at this writing) requires the U.S. to adopt and implement the World Health Organization’s “Global Health Security Agenda” (GHSA) across the government.  The GHSA includes a detailed set of “International Health Regulations” (IHR) meant to ensure prompt and effective responses to international health incidents.  The Murphy-Romney legislation will embed the IHR into U.S. health policy and ultimately into our lives and homes.

Unfortunately, those International Health Regulations have already failed in the case of COVID-19 (and to be clear, not through any fault or omission of the United States).  The IHR procedures unequivocally and explicitly required China to report immediately the existence of the outbreak and to cooperate fully and transparently in its international investigation (emphasis added):

“Notification is now based on the identification within a State Party’s territory of an ‘event that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern’ (PHEIC). This non-disease specific definition of notifiable events expands the scope of the IHR (2005) to include any novel or evolving risk to international public health…”

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With Coronavirus, Overkill is What Works. We don’t know exactly how severe this pandemic will be. Still, we must act. By Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller

Posted By on April 11th, 2020

https://humanevents.com/2020/04/09/with-coronavirus-overkill-is-what-works/

As Americans endure the privations necessary to “flatten the curve” of new cases of coronavirus COVID-19, we wish that our leaders could manage even a fraction of the comity and tolerance exhibited every day by ordinary people throughout this country.

Sadly, we see too much of the opposite.

Putting aside the machinations of politicians, there seems to be a widespread need to blame any misstep, or even uncertainty, on somebody or something. The ubiquitousness of social media and the internet drives the conviction that there is a definitive answer for everything, if only you could find the right website or news channel, or follow the right people. And there certainly is no shortage of pundits and pontificators confident about offering predictions based on insufficient or anecdotal data—or, worse yet, making assertions that genuine experts know are false.

America would like to know the exact mechanism by which COVID-19 spreads in order to impose only those measures that are necessary and sufficient.

Unfortunately, although we have many insights, and are gaining more every day, that knowledge is not perfect. We do know that a sledgehammer will drive that nail—in other words, in this situation, overkill is what works, even if it cannot be continued indefinitely.

Currently, scientists have no way to accurately predict which infected patients will develop an often-fatal condition called “cytokine storm,” a severe immune reaction in which the body releases an excess of chemicals called cytokines into the blood too quickly, which compromises oxygenation of the blood in the lungs and can cause multiple organ failure. Surrogate variables like age and certain pre-existing conditions are helpful, but not definitive, predictors.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

New York CCP Virus Death Rate Stabilizing: Cuomo By Tom Ozimek

Posted By on April 11th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-york-ccp-virus-death-rate-stabilizing-cuomo_3308049.html

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday that deaths from COVID-19 in his state are stabilizing, but at a “horrific rate.”

Speaking at his daily briefing on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, Cuomo said that while there were encouraging signs that the dynamics of the outbreak were slowing, the death toll is stark.

“That is not an all-time high, and you can see that the number is somewhat stabilizing, but it is stabilizing at a horrific rate,” Cuomo said, noting that 783 people died from the virus in the past 24 hours, with the number of deaths ranging between 777 and 799 for each of the previous three days.

“These are just incredible numbers depicting incredible loss and pain,” he said, adding, “we mourn all those who we lost to this vicious virus.”

The pandemic has hit New York City especially hard, with 94,409 confirmed infections and 5,429 deaths, according to an NYC Health tally from April 10.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Power of Media Ignorance By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on April 11th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-power-of-medcoronavirus-pandemic-power-media-ignoranceia-ignorance/

Almost two weeks ago I offered at NRO a few synopses of various theories about why California — which, for a variety of reasons, had seemed so ripe for a New York–style epidemic — had nonetheless strangely been exempt at least for a while from the virus’s spread. I included the pedestrian possibility of some previously acquired “herd immunity,” given the state’s singular exposure from November to January 31 to direct flights from China, including those from Wuhan, and initial CDC and media reports last year of an unusually early and severe assumed flu hitting the state.

Within a few days, I was hit by media inquiries and private calls asking about my ongoing “coronavirus antibody testing studies.”

Despite ad nauseam corrections that I had never claimed in the NRO article or elsewhere to be a doctor, much less an epidemiologist or a conductor of any such study, and that the Hoover Institution is not a medical school, the fake news still spread.

I got dozens more calls and emails were from private citizens who thought they had the virus and wanted confirmation of that supposed fact, in order to venture out and help others with antibodies. Some said they wanted “in” immediately.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

“Risks and COVID-19” Sydney Williams

Posted By on April 11th, 2020

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Most decisions we make involve some measure of risk. Generally, the consideration is fleeting. Do I take the stairs and risk falling, or the elevator and risk it breaking down? At times, the choice is more absolute: Do I take the double-black diamond with moguls, or do I go around on the bunny trail? Sometimes the odds are important: Is my need to cross the street against traffic so great that the attempt should be made despite oncoming traffic? Risk is ubiquitous.

It is embedded in the friends we make, where we go to college, what job we take and in our choice of a marriage partner – a risk my wife and I took fifty-six years ago today. A wise friend used to say that he was never upset with mistakes he had made but was troubled by risks he never took. Risks vary depending on what we do. To a soldier in combat, risks have different consequences than the ones we encounter daily. In his 1916 collection of poems, Mountain Interval, Robert Frost included “The Road Not Taken.” At a fork in the road a traveler pauses, knowing he cannot walk down both paths, so chooses “the one less traveled by…”  The reader never knows whether the choice was a good one or not, only that it “has made all the difference.” As well, progress is impossible without risk. A baserunner cannot steal second without taking his foot off first. Neither can we avoid risk. “Security,” as Helen Keller once wrote, “is mostly a superstition.”

Risk is defined as the interaction with uncertainty, a measure of the probability of danger or loss, against safety or profit. In our daily lives, we try to mitigate risk. We are encouraged to look before we leap. Insurance companies employ actuaries to assess risk and calculate premiums. Investors use algorithms to quantify the risk of loss against the potential for gain. While these calculations are never perfect, they are Darwinian in that those who are best at measuring risk tend to be the most successful, what Joseph Schumpeter termed creative destruction in industries as they adapt to change.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Authoritarian Overreach Is Unnecessary to Fight the Pandemic By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on April 11th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-consent-governed-authoritarian-overreach-unnecessary/

There are worse things that can happen than a pandemic.

‘An overreach by our police officers.” Yeah, I’ll say.

“Overreach” was the concession that the police department in Brighton, Colo., grudgingly offered regarding their arrest of Matt Mooney, a 33-year-old former state trooper. Mooney was handcuffed in front of his six-year-old daughter. His “crime”? Playing tee-ball with her on an empty field. Cops on the scene capriciously decided that this transgressed the state’s social-distancing restrictions.

The incident would be madness under any circumstances. But it wasn’t even true as alleged. Under the rules — which are executive edicts, not criminal laws enacted by the people’s legislative representatives — the fine print said the park was not closed to groups of fewer than five. Mooney, his wife, and their toddler were social distancing. Indeed, they were farther apart on the empty softball field than at home. It was the police who sloughed off social-distancing: physically handling him, cuffing him without wearing protective gear as unworn masks dangled from their belts, sticking this insolent criminal in the back of a squad car as they sought guidance from headquarters — because what cop wouldn’t need guidance on this one, right?

The dragnet was called off and Mooney was released after a few minutes. The state is really sorry. And its officials would love to tell us more but, you see, an internal investigation is underway so they can’t be expected to comment — just to shelter in place, hoping this lunacy slides down the memory hole but quick.

And who’s to say it won’t?