RUTHFULLY YOURS

According to a congressional commission report issued In April 2012, U.S. government and private analysts missed the emergence of significant military developments by China that caught intelligence agencies by surprise.One month later, then recently-retired admiral Peter Daly (who went on to head the prestigious US Naval Institute) warned that coping with China and Iran at the same time was stretching the Navy thin, which would soon have to choose which theater to prioritize.Nevertheless, the Obama administration dithered. And as Beijing remilitarized and became more bellicose, Washington clung to the hope that military-to-military relations would somehow relieve tensions.Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia-Pacific was turning out to be one big FAIL. China went on to confront American warships in the disputed South China Sea, and to build small artificial islands for the purpose of placing military bases – including airfields – on them.In one instance, a US surveillance plane flying over these islands was “dramatically confronted” by the Chinese navy. “This is the Chinese navy … You go!” warned a Chinese radio operator.And China continued to build.On Tuesday state-run media in China came out with belligerent statements after guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sailed close to the disputed Spratly archipelago (see below).China is not afraid of fighting a war against the United States in the South China Sea, declared the Chinese media, while hurling a barrage of accusations at Washington. Foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang warned: “I advise the US not to make a fool out of themselves in trying to be smart.”

Too late, Mr. Lu. America already made a fool of itself when it elected Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief. NATIONAL SECURITY ROUND TABLE. READ COLUMN BELOW

WASHINGTON—Secretary of State John Kerry, before traveling to Vienna for meetings on Syria, on Wednesday said the planned talks are the most promising opportunity for a political settlement to the country’s 4½ year civil war.

The talks, to be held Friday, are expected to include Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, the European Union and France, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, adding that other nations are expected to announce they will attend as well.

Iran will participate in the political talks for the first time, after the U.S. and its Arab allies blocked Tehran from taking part in previous rounds citing Tehran’s support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Mr. Kerry, in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Wednesday, outlined U.S. policies across the Middle East, acknowledging the difficulties posed by Russia’s military buildup and bombing campaign and by brutal Islamic State tactics.

Allegations of financial exploitation and abuse are rife, despite waves of overhaul efforts.
One day in March 2012, 71-year-old Linda McDowell received a knock at the door of her small Vancouver, Wash., home. Ms. McDowell needed court-appointed help, the visitor told her.

It turned out that Ms. McDowell’s former housemate and companion had pushed for a court petition claiming Ms. McDowell was unable to take care of herself. The petition said Ms. McDowell had recently made an unsafe driving maneuver, had been disruptive in a doctor’s office and, in a recent phone call, had seemed confused over the whereabouts of some personal papers.

Based on the motion, a judge ordered an attorney to act as a temporary guardian with control over Ms. McDowell’s money and medical care. Ms. McDowell was also to pay for these services.

Recently, an old friend was moved into a dementia unit on the upper west side. It appeared to be as cheerful, well-run and upbeat as one could hope, with art-filled corridors and photos of patients’ families outside their rooms. Within a few weeks of his move, families were suddenly informed that the unit was closing and patients requiring this special security and care would have to be evicted. Although the facility encompassed only 28 beds, the panic and distress this notice caused made me curious about the availability of residential dementia units in NYC and I was shocked by what I discovered.

Going by the population numbers of the 2010 census, there are approximately 320,000 seniors who live in Manhattan. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 1 in 9 people over 65 has dementia, leaving us with approximately 34,450 Manhattan residents who are afflicted with this disease. Out of these, a significant number will eventually require custodial care outside the home, preferably in Manhattan so that elderly spouses (and family and friends) would be able to visit without driving or the expense of car service. Yet, in all of our medically sophisticated borough, there are only a handful of residential facilities which accept patients with dementia – under 200 beds in all.

The Heritage Foundation released its annual assessment on the state of the armed forces. The rating delivered by the 2016 Index of U.S. Military Strength is “marginal.” That might not be a bad grade for kindergarten kids to bring home. They have a couple of years before they have to apply to Harvard. But, that’s not much to show for a commander-in-chief after seven years of stewardship over America’s military.

Reacting to the report, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, bemoaned that “crippling America’s military readiness and capability at a time when we face a complex array of challenges not seen since the end of World War II.”

“In aggregate,” the Heritage report found, “the United States’ military posture is rated as ‘marginal’ and is trending toward ‘weak.’” Unlike other indexes which just add up what the U.S. military has, this assessment also measures the state of threats to our vital interests and the conditions under which the military might operate to determine whether the capabilities of the armed forces are sufficient.

Amid growing indications that Iran does not plan to comply with the July nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), there is a new report that the huge U.S. concessions offered to Tehran to get this agreement are already undermining global efforts against nuclear proliferation.

One of the most significant of these concessions allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium even while the JCPOA is in effect. This contradicts years of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt all uranium enrichment, and previous U.S. policies that have strongly discouraged nations from beginning peaceful uranium-enrichment programs due to the ease with which they can be used to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

Although Obama-administration officials deny it, this concession has been interpreted by Iran and other nations as conceding to Iran the “right” to enrich uranium. Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review in August that this denial is hard to take seriously, since John Kerry conceded Iran’s right to enrich in 2009, when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The chickens have already come home to roost on the uranium-enrichment concession: The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which in 2009 signed an agreement with the U.S. barring it from pursuing uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, is now considering renouncing these commitments.

Never mind that since last December President Obama has been falling all over himself to please and appease Cuba’s Castro regime. He has failed to come up with arguments compelling enough to persuade Congress to lift the embargo on Cuba. So, while pocketing Obama’s concessions, Havana has been complaining to the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. embargo is still in place. On Tuesday, the General Assembly continued its annual tradition of approving a resolution [1] slamming the U.S., urging the tailoring of U.S. law to UN interests, and demanding that the U.S. embargo be lifted. As usual, the resolution passed with near total support, the tally this year being 191 in favor, 2 against — the two holdouts being the U.S. itself, plus Israel (which, as a loyal ally, voted with the U.S.).

Lest anyone think this is some clearcut case in which the UN collective is right, and the U.S. is wrong, let’s be clear on what this vote is really about. It is not actually about Cuba per se, or the embargo. Cuba is a tyranny that routinely violates the principles of the UN charter, without incurring protest by the eminences of the UN. And Cuba has had abundant opportunity for years to trade with most of the world. The real constraint on its economy is Castroite communism, not the leaky barrier of the U.S. trade embargo. In this long-running saga, the Castro regime is not the victim. It is the villain.

The Obama administration’s official policy on U.S. military ground forces is that they should no longer be sized for possible “large-scale prolonged stability operations.” The policy was stated in the administration’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, and dutifully reasserted last year in the Pentagon’s signature planning document known as the Quadrennial Defense Review.

“Stabilization operations” can include the range of missions spanning counterinsurgency, state-building, large-scale counterterrorism, and large-scale relief activities conducted in anarchic conditions. Though constraints like sequestration have limited the money available for the U.S. military, the Obama policy calling for a smaller standing ground army reflects a deliberate strategy shift and not just a response to cost-cutting, since some other parts of the military are not being reduced.

According to a piece in the Huffington Post, the word “too” is sexist and hurts women by constantly making them feel like they’re not good enough.

In a piece titled “The 3-Letter Word That Cuts Women Down,” University of Vermont freshman Cameron Schaeffer explains that she had an “epiphany” about the word after talking with a friend about how she should cut her hair.

“Our conversation ended with, ‘Well you don’t want it to be too short or too long,’” Schaeffer writes.

“There is no proper way for a woman to cut her hair, let alone do anything right in this world . . . Everything is too this or too that,” she continues.

Now, when she says “everything,” of course what she really means is “everything as it applies to women.” After all, the very real damage inflicted by this word is yet another tragedy that only affects us:

It’s been a good month for champions of the traditional family, but don’t expect the family wars to be ending any time soon.

In recent weeks, a barrage of new evidence has come to light demonstrating what was once common sense. “Family structure matters” (in the words of my American Enterprise Institute colleague Brad Wilcox, who is also the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia).

Princeton University and the left-of-center Brookings Institution released a study that reported “most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes.” Why this is so is still hotly contested.

Another study, co-authored by Wilcox, found that states with more married parents do better on a broad range of economic indicators, including upward mobility for poor children and lower rates of child poverty. On most economic indicators, the Washington Post summarized, “the share of parents who are married in a state is a better predictor of that state’s economic health than the racial composition and educational attainment of the state’s residents.”

Boys in particular do much better when raised in a more traditional family environment, according to a new report from MIT. This is further corroboration of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous 1965 warning: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.”

Perhaps most intriguing — and dismaying — a new study by Nicholas Zill of the Institute of Family Studies found that adopted children have a harder time at school than kids raised by their biological parents. What makes this so dismaying is that adoptive parents tend to be better off financially and are just as willing as traditional parents, if not more so, to put in the time and effort of raising kids.

Zill’s finding highlights the problem with traditional family triumphalism. Adoption is a wonderful thing, and just because there are challenges that come with adoption, no one would ever argue that the problems adopted kids face make the alternatives to adoption better. Kids left in orphanages or trapped in abusive homes do even worse.