Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy, Governance, Obama, Responsibility, Trump

BALANCING ACT

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Increasingly Mr. Donald Trump is becoming the fulcrum on which our democratic republic balances, and he has not shown, yet, that he is rigid enough to affect the balance.  This is not to say he isn’t tough.  The constant attacks, threats of impeachment since inauguration, and unusual hatred, would wilt lesser men, and often has.  Much has been made of the turnover in Trump’s administration, as if it represented “chaos” in the administration.  While it may yield a little “chaos,” it is temporary.  The problem is that Trump believes that when someone is hired, he or she owes an outward loyalty, at least, to the “boss.”

What has taken him some time to recognize is that every – as in, every single one – person in a position to execute policy or influence policy, has an agenda.  Worse, since the Obama administration, agendas in Washington are no longer matters of how to accomplish national goals, no nuanced approaches to policy.  Agendas now are only to accept or to oppose the direction desired by the elected president.  Many of those recommended for top appointments, especially on matters of international policy, held an agenda of opposition, and deserved replacement.  The president now must become very strict towards his appointees, and this mood must extend deeper and deeper into the many agencies who are happy to oppose him.  (see: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2019/11/28/due-process/ )

Is Trump up for this?  It is hard to tell.  He seems not to take very much advice, else someone would have tempered his Tweeting; on the other hand, his selections for judgeships reveal good work and recommendation by someone else.  Still, he has not been as thorough in replacing appointees as his predecessor was, and many of those in the White House, State Department, Department of Justice and the “Intelligence Community,” are actively opposed to Trump, his background, his style of work and speech, and to his America-first policies.  Their allies in the Congress and other covens of Democrat-leftists, have done their worst to hamstring the president since he first appeared to have a chance at the nomination, never mind the election.

Despite the roadblocks and mistreatment by much of the press, Trump has managed to accomplish quite a bit, and he has changed the nature of American diplomacy somewhat.  Will it all bear fruit?  It is impossible to say, but certainly no more impossible to predict than have been the results of “normal,” deep-state diplomacy over the past 50 years.  The best way to guarantee the predicted outcomes in all that time has been for the United States to give up more – including sovereignty – than we ever have asked… or received in return.  Predictions of opposing sides’ accepting all the American largesse our “negotiators” could give away, always came true.

One hopes that should we not obtain the quality of a deal we need for U. S. benefit, that our “side” will stay strong and not immediately throw more value to the other side in order to “win” some sort of a deal that politicians can crow about, knowing that after a few dust-ups, most voters will forget what was even at stake and accept that the deal we got is better than “not talking” at all.  This is national hogwash, of course, and it stems from a general attitude of American unworthiness compared to other nations’ interests.  Trump supporters want a bull-dog negotiating for our side, both domestically and internationally.

At some point, one would surmise, the mendacity of the FBI, the CIA, the State Department and even the Obama White House, and the 3-year story of failing to prove any – as in, not even one – of the amazing allegations against Donald Trump and his appointees and supporters, would begin to dissipate the hot tempers that accompanied those allegations, both personal and legal.  At some point, the charges of “racism” and “sexism” should abate; the so-far indefatigable charges of “collusion” with Russians, well-debunked at great effort and expense, should fade away as the truth penetrates haters’ consciousness.  At some point, all of the energy needed to maintain hatred of Trump, the person, could be expected to turn toward political action.

But, with the gaveling into passage of two gaseous “articles of impeachment,” not yet.

Foreign Policy, Governance, Representation, Trump

REAL GOVERNANCE

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Despite his New York crudeness and bragadocio, Donald Trump has begun a service to the foundational ideas and premises of America, and thereby to every American.  He, himself, and every one of his most loyal compatriots, is oblivious to the magnitude of that service.  What has he done?

His presidency has operated, as most have done, at a public level, variously reported in praise and condemnation, broadcast and published – the level at which modern politics are negotiated and fulfilled.  Beneath that, he operates within the secret, classified levels that are presented to each president as though to initiate him to the centers of real governance, hidden from public view for reasons of “national security,” wink.  This secrecy conveys a patine of power and influence to which he has been inaugurated, shared by very few.  It is heady stuff, becoming a member of the world’s most august and arcane fellowship.  The continuity of the secrets, of the secretive machinations, of the vital, world-controlling decisions that only he can make, of the “nuclear launch codes,” and of the distilled intelligence few others will see, is really out of his hands.  It is shared with every president as part of the fable of democratic, civilian control not only of the vast domestic bureaucracies, but of even the military-industrial complex.  But, it is a fable.

Here and there brief windows open between the public and private presidencies and much heat is generated, politically, some of the citizenry become agitated, editorials are written, commenters supply commentary, and even Congress expresses its dudgeon, both high and low.  The portion of the public made restive by the once “secret” revelations is assuaged by palatable political lies and life goes on.  Very few lives are affected.  Elections, however, can be effected because of them.  Still, not much changes over time.

Beneath the “secret” level of (mostly military and international) governance, there is the amorphous, faceless, simultaneously unorganized yet unified, unelected and permanent, administrative state.  This vast majority of our “governors” have virtually no connection to any president or even presidency.  Each new “head” of the administration is largely uninvolved with this level.  It was in place – two millions strong – long before his election to the “most powerful office on Earth’ and it will remain in place long after he has “left his mark” upon America.

And now, Trump.  Trump got elected by defeating the penultimate deep statist, Hillary.  Hillary is a political deep statist; the permanent deep statists are, however biased, mainly interested in their individual interest areas, perhaps thanks to some college degree, and in their economic security, excellent benefits and virtual tenure.  Political  deep statists are more likely to adhere to either the socialist world view – and power – and to the eternal struggle to impose it upon the United States, or to simple, tawdry, utterly corrupt and corruptible personal financial aggrandizement.  This is where Hillary Clinton has spent nearly five decades and America has finally had enough of her.  Trump is clearly on a path quite divergent from the Clintons’.

Trump doesn’t much care about political correctness.  He doesn’t care much about whom he offends, even when he intends to offend them.  Most are offended because that is their “shtick:” finding offense everywhere and garnering immediate social media support that will bring the weak-willed to their sniveling, apologetic knees within the hour.  Otherwise decent, even productive and useful people, are made weak and malleable by the “woke” offense industry.  Soon, people like Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke are apologizing for being white.  This doesn’t work with Trump, one of the reasons his supporters stick with him.

Because he doesn’t suffer fools, Trump has engendered impressive levels of hatred here and there within the deep state.  He has a pro-America agenda, which is to say, an agenda that hews slightly more closely to the presumptions of liberty that were part and parcel of her founding.  He wants domestic policy to reflect individual responsibility and even-handed law enforcement, for example.  This is not the policy of the deep state, crafted in tens of thousands of regulations whereby virtually everyone may be persecuted or prosecuted for broken “laws” created by those unelected regulators.  Regulators hate Trump, even though he hasn’t struck all that deeply into their regulatory empire.  It is hateful enough that he undid some of the “great regulator, Obama’s” glorious flood of executive orders.

The deep, deep state, State Department department hates him because he wants America’s treaties and foreign relations, trade and otherwise, to work FOR the United States and no longer against us.  Most presidents make diplomatic noises while the State Department’s deep statists (largely globalist socialists) do what they “know” is best for the world; Trump intends to reverse much of that and make it pro-American.  They will undermine his policies wherever possible, like in Ukraine.  He has no interest in helping George Soros.

The EPA minions surely detest him because he wants land use to include humans.  It may sound silly, but many EPA regulators literally prefer squirrels and other four-or-more legged denizens of Earth over almost any two-legged ones… except for them, of course, and the other climate-change thinkers who, they dream, will wind up taking care of the planet far better than most humans have been, and in deserved comfort – few, if any, America-first conservatives included.

Interior has little use for Trump.  The careerists at Interior cannot imagine any wide-open spaces that are not restricted to bears, wolves and armadillos.  Humans don’t belong in those habitats, just lizards and beavers and so forth.  Any humans already mistakenly thinking they “own” a plot in those open lands can be eased – or forced – out of the “habitat,” and eventually housed in a 300 square foot dormitory space powered by solar panels, vegetables growing on the roof, drinking recycled water.  Only by being as uncomfortable as possible could humans – non-ruling humans – ever balance the ways we’ve despoiled all the “habitats.”  Trump isn’t into that view of the future.

It is impossible to evaluate the motivations of 2 Million federal workers.  The majority are lifers, eventually to retire from their federal jobs.  Each has his or her own motivations, personal “profits,” philosophies and biases.  No single description can apply to 5 people, let alone to a million or more, but given their similarities of employment, there are obviously some motivations, satisfactions, that they share.

Primary of these is a general approval of government, defined as interlocking bureaucracies within which, and among which, are performed the “real” work of government.  Federal government personnel are generally in favor of federal government: perfectly logical.  Next, each long-time employee is generally favorable toward his or her own agency or office.  Each perceives his or her work as valuable, if not vital.  Each, then, is likely to be resistant to any diminution of his or her agency or mission.  The managers in each agency are, more than just stability, desirous of growth – growth of mission and growth of personnel numbers.  Growth equals importance, promotion, better pay.  Built into the 15 executive departments of the Cabinet, are so many agencies that no firm count of them exists!

There are 200 at least, but there may be over 400.  These, alone, provide a substantial force for permanence and growth – a force that politicians cannot find the courage to temper.  Four hundred or so would seem to be a manageable, or at least a take-controllable number.  But it is merely the blueprint.  Within them all are PROGRAMS, programs and more programs.  Congress creates them.  For every one there is an advocacy group that at some time identified a problem that a federal agency/program was not addressing specifically.  The good intention of every advocate is probably real.  Problems exist.  Solutions are often obvious, but rarely easy to effect.  So, politicians are scratched at their most itchy spot: re-election.  Soon a bill is filed to great publicity, that will finally, after years of Republican inaction, solve this or that terrible problem.

Mainly out of ignorance for some, and out of innate anti-liberty socialist beliefs for the rest, problems, no matter how small or how caused, are federalized.  That the federal administrative state is possibly the least effective way on earth to solve problems, only describes the cynicism of politicians who put every problem in the federal lap or on the federal breast.  That they do so while the federal budget is $22 Trillion in debt – and more – only describes their utter mendacity and failure, over many terms, to uphold one of the most basic covenants the federal government makes with its citizens.  For shame.

Trump, unfortunately, has yet to express a willingness to change federal budgeting.

Still, whether it is because of, or in spite of himself, Trump has caused to be exposed the infidelities of globalists and socialists who prefer a continuing, costly, international policeman role for the U. S.  Several have been ejected and more soon will be.   But even if all of the untrustworthy DOJ, DOD, CIA and NSA apparatchiks were cleaned out… all of them… the liberty-corroding machinations of the molasses-heads just a bit deeper entrenched in the hundreds of agencies and thousands of programs (did you know there are over 1,000 federal programs “addressing” poverty?), will plod along, inflicting regulations with the force of law, able to strip citizens of their constitutional rights, among other things.  It is insidious, yet not corrupt, actually – it’s a way of stultifying, nightmarish administrative life.  Blame for it rests on 50 Congresses and a dozen presidents.  And on us.

Conservatives like to think that they are upholding the Constitution when they oppose communists, socialists, liberals and other Democrats.  They tout principles and vote to increase the debt ceiling like lemmings.  They are hated roundly for this, by the “woke” socialists who are not only not awake, but are barely aware of either the Sun or the Son.  God help anyone who threatens to cut the budget; only enemies of the Republic would conspire to allow the “government” to “shut down.”  It never does.

Culture, Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Governance, Representation, Trump

HATE TRUMPS REALITY

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Two world-changing events occurred in 2016: the U. K. vote to leave the European Union… and the election of Donald Trump to the U. S. presidency.  There are many parallels, both in the respective happenings and in their aftermaths.  Both events have exposed flaws in the collectivist trends both nations were in the midst of.  Both nations have experienced hate-filled political discourse ever since.

The “UK” – Britain – had taken an economic step away from sovereignty when it joined the “European Community” in1973, and reinforced the decision by referendum two years later.  After the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, Britain took a political step away from sovereignty, as well.  Now the European Union, The “EU” placed controls and limitations on member “states” regarding citizenship, borders, immigration and judicial decisions, with the avowed intention of forming a “United States of Europe” and subverting cultural distinctions and national rights.  Britain has always been restive about the changes to its sovereignty, and public pressure and petitioning finally caused Parliament to create the referendum, yes or no, on leaving  the EU: the so-called “Brexit.”

What is interesting is the emergence of hatred as a dominant British political tool, more than even during existential threats of war over Britain’s lengthy warring history.  Per usual, all of what Brits call “hooliganism” is laid at the feet of “ultra-right-wingers,” who, apparently, are too stupid to recognize the wonderful future that’s possible with globalization.  If anyone objects vociferously to the slippery amalgamation into an ephemeral United States of Europe, he or she is pigeon-holed as a “right-winger” and not worthy of considered attention.

In other words, “nationalism” may be viewed only through the lens of Nazism and racism and all the other “isms” leftists use to end debates.  The benefits of national competitiveness in the elevation of living standards of every sort, is carelessly conflated with government’s benign intentions and centralized economic control.  Individual liberty is the first victim of centralization. The unholy alliance of history-ignorant education and a leftist press have proven useful in the imposition of this theory.

A similar effect has clearly been evidenced in the rise of Donald Trump.  With calls for his impeachment even before his inauguration, there is no surprise that his political opponents are clamoring ever louder for impeachment, now.  The only thing missing is an impeachable offense, but they’ll construct one or hire a contractor to create one for them.  Why not win at the ballot box by putting the efforts at impeachment to work building an electoral coalition?  That’s a good but separate question.

Why the hate across academia and liberal-leftist “communities?”  From Antifa on up, the degree of hatred for Mr. Trump and his supporters is indicative of tremendous fear: fear of losing something so dearly held that nothing is too extreme to defend it… even if that means disrupting democratic republicanism and the Constitution, itself.  What could that be?  That is the question, and a larger question in the U. S. than in the U. K.

Do leftists simply hate all non-leftists?  Maybe… they don’t like us, certainly, and think we are stupid for not appreciating their view of history’s inevitable direction.  But, hatred?  Takes a lot of energy to hate, maybe that’s why they aren’t very cheerful.  It could be that they have plans to facilitate the supposedly inevitable direction of human activity (and serfdom) and that those plans are so important that they must destroy everyone who opposes – even by disagreeing with – the idea of a universally socialist future.

Is it as simple as just hating Trump, the man?  He has lived a very exposed life and, until deciding to run for president, he enjoyed the benefits of wealth and acceptance in the elite circles of power and influence open to those who appear to not oppose the leftist vision.  You might say he exploited those benefits.  While not a perfect husband, he has been a good father by all measures, and treats his ex-wives gently.  Evidently he married more of his female affair partners than John F. Kennedy did his.  He has never had any questionable deaths connected to him or his companies, and no one has had to “take the rap” for him.  Is he a sweetheart?  No.  He’s rather ruthless in business… a requirement in the kinds of businesses he has worked in.  He’s a scrapper, willing to fight back when politically punched.  He seems quite patriotic.  What’s to actually hate so vehemently?

Trump must be a threat to something held very dear by all of those who have reared up to stop his presidency.  The measure of his enemies helps us size up the President, no longer simply Mr. Trump.  Trump’s life and past business successes and failures, did not include diplomatic niceties, euphemistic half-truths and pretend alliances.  Trump, himself, has never tried to present himself very differently than he actually is: brash, defensive, crude and vulgar at times.

He is vulnerable, politically, mainly from being a braggart, from which he slides in and out of embellishing the truth, even small truths.  Unlike people in ordinary life, many of whom have the same bad habit of embellishing stories, but for whom it doesn’t make much difference, Trump’s overstatements are described only as lies.  Others’ families and acquaintances recognize the habit and live – or work – around it.  It may even be a source of humor.

In the position of U. S. President there is no room for it… none, we’re told.

People want to hear the lies they expect.  They want to hear about “diplomacy” and “budget cuts” and “working-class” families like Teamsters, and about “working families” with indefinable careers, and the great favorite, “investments” in the future or in our children.  Another whopper we like to hear is “religious freedom.”  While more liberal leaders are expected to purvey “white” lies that keep America happy and keep secret the daunting business of the executive branch, Trump is pilloried for overstating, he is the worst liar in American history, after all.

Trump’s election, though, has interfered with our worldwide economic position, our military standing, the sanctity of our national borders, our ability to complete or repair relations with many nations, and with our ability to conduct domestic business.  Why?  Because of something Trump has done?  Some action that has hurt our standing everywhere?  That doesn’t seem like the Prudent answer.

Hatred of Trump, the man, is the damaging cause.  Hatred, stirred by certain leaders in the Democrat party, and continuously stirred up by them, to a degree pushed by international socialists, is the hammer that has been pounding the U. S. domestically and internationally since before he was elected!  Hatred.  Political action founded on hatred.  Trump has awakened and exposed the essential fraud of the socialist, administrative, “deep” state – the statist monster of socialist dreams and the ultimate threat to our constitutional form of government.

When has this phenomenon ever been seen in the United States?
Leading up to and during the second Civil War. Now we are entering the fourth. 

Widespread hatred, particularly violent hatred like that exercised by so-called “antifa” gangs, is a symptom of civic breakdown.  Political leaders are the very people whom we hire to subdue these effects of social dissatisfaction, or hopelessness, yet many are foregoing their responsibilities or actually encouraging the breakdown.

There are many threats to freedom, the greatest of which from outside, is China.  They have permanent interests from which they do not deviate.  One of those is to achieve dominance over the United States – everything else is secondary.  Yet we, U. S. citizens  AND our so-called representatives, are allowing Chinese interests to dominate us internally! Who voted for Nike?  Politicians on both sides are profiting mightily – and in cash – from connections to Chinese companies.  We keep re-electing them.  Trump is trying to stand up to the Chinese and receives bitter domestic resistance for trying.  You just can’t gore a single ox, anymore.

Meanwhile, we are doing our best to ignore history, these past few decades, and many seem determined to undermine the American idea from within.  A world that is still fundamentally not-free, and dominated by soulless international bankers, is in no way the place for the end of national identities, to be replaced with global socialism – for “climate” reasons or any other.  It seems more than Prudent, now – today, to defend and strengthen our Constitutional, democratically-elected republican form of government.

Foreign Policy, Politics 2017, Trump

RUMORS OF WAR

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There are wars and rumors of war. How pleasant the last year of Ronald Reagan’s term appears, looking back. The Soviet Union was falling apart, the economy was in good shape, there was no ISIS, the Middle East was relatively calm, commodity markets were “under control,” so to speak, Syria, Libya, Venezuela and even the East Coast of Africa, Iraq and Iran were comparatively un-troublesome. Nicaragua was yanked back from Communism, Chile restored free elections, casting off Pinochet’s military police state (CIA -created), and American ships were still welcome in the Philippines. Thankfully, the senior George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis for president. Desert Storm and Bill and Hillary Clinton were yet to burden the polity.

Read the history of the ‘80s and things were anything but calm and peaceful. Nelson Mandela was still in jail, Robert Mugabe was firmly installed as “president” of Zimbabwe, and Hosni Mubarak was in his first decade of his never-untroubled leadership of Egypt and rough alliance with the U. S. Africa was in turmoil and many were starving, there, while tribal racism threatened millions. Argentina barely functioned with double digit inflation, yet decided to invade the “Falklands/Malvinas” to “reclaim” its sovereignty, based as much on proximity as on history. The U. K. decided under Thatcher, to re-take them. Ronald Reagan easily subverted the Monroe Doctrine to help his friend, Maggie, sink the General Belgrano.

Typically we try to believe that politics creates war and the conditions for war, but we can’t quite succeed at that. While war may be a political tool, it rarely rewards the party or leader in power in the intended way. On the other side of the mirror, however, it can be observed that war often creates politics – in fact, not just often, but generally – in that militarism is easily equated with patriotism and tends to divide the body politic along patriotic lines. One cannot hide from the truth that neither the body politic nor the nations at war are generally benefited. Individual politicians or their party… maybe.

Now, what? A supposedly “America first” presidential candidate (meaning to a degree: America only) has been turned in the span of 5 months to a president willing to view the world like a so-called “neo-Con.” Abruptly, acts of war – missiles into Syria, super-bomb into Afghanistan, threats of hot responses to North Korean “provocations” – are deemed useful internationally. Supposedly, this turn-about and its apparent unpredictability of the new president, will move China to change its policies toward North Korea; will cause Russia to pull back from its prior stance in Syria, and possibly in Ukraine and Georgia. Even Iran’s theocrats will quake at the threats of Donald Trump since we have been willing to take some actions against people or things that have almost no chance of retaliation.

Perhaps we should bomb Venezuela because the government there is starving its people and being mean.

Sudan and Zimbabwe are worth at least some cruise missiles, aren’t they? How demeaning it is to choose Syria… Syria! Sudan has at least as crappy a government as Syria! We live in a strange nation growing stranger.

Americans think, many of us, that the U. S. is pure and well-intentioned and very misunderstood by all the nations or groups that distrust us and wish to kill us. Our global deployment of military activities: 156 countries in a recent estimate, is for humanitarian aid and economic development. Well, that’s right – economic development of somebody.

Maybe it’s necessary. Multiple administrations have thought so. The “Truman Doctrine” of containing Communism has morphed into the unspoken – dare we say, secret – doctrine of containing everybody. The World’s policeman, indeed.

Well, say the thoughtful ones, if not us, then who? China? Russia? God forbid! Believe us, they thoughtfully pronounce, you don’t want to live in a world that’s not “led” by the United States. Perhaps not.

Money talks. Our beneficial “Petro-dollar” scheme buttressed by Saudi Arabia has permitted the U. S. to borrow and spend in astronomical quantities, to the degree that our worldwide military adventures have been “free,” sort-of. We have outspent our income – the largest income in the world to boot – for 50 years, by creating unlimited debt. Maybe it is completely fair that we “protect” the world with its own money. After all, it costs us only the interest – and a few thousand of our very best men and women. At least during this election cycle.

So, Mr. President, what are we going to stir up? It’s one thing to risk your own people, quite another to risk most of South Korea. Or Japan. Attacking the North Koreans can never be done with clear knowledge of all of their capabilities. What if they have pre-positioned a couple of nukes next to the DMZ? Or just offshore of South Korea? How many “South” Koreans are really “North” Koreans? Some, for sure.

And, then, there ARE the 30,000 or so Americans watching the DMZ from the South who are some sort of “trip wire” in the event North Korea starts an invasion. That must be a comfort. Most likely, if the North does decide to make a move, it won’t start at the DMZ, it will start well behind it, in Seoul. Then what shall the 30,000 do? Invade the North? That’s not a plan, either. The North has many, many more troops and artillery arrayed on their side.

If the North moves it will be all or nothing – do or die. They must know that Hell will shortly find them if they start anything. By the same token, if the U. S. starts something, the North must either fold its tent and retreat or, again, go all out with everything they have – they’ve sort-of talked themselves into it.

Oh, Mr. Trump, what are you going to do? You risk the South at the very least. Recent endeavors show that there are not enough bombs to deliver victory without protracted ground action. Do you really think China will allow the decimation of its handy cat’s paw? Or will Russia, for that matter? Who will overnight become whose friend if things “go hot?”

Finally, like abused children, North Koreans will not abandon their homeland or their dear leader. I think you have not contemplated the potential of a new Asian war long enough, Mr. T. You’ve not been in office long enough: and there can be only two terms.

Foreign Policy

The UN, or something better?

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We’ve been part of the United Nations for 72 years, nearly a third of our national history. At the end of World War II the U. S. stood astride the globe, stronger than any other nation or even groups of nations. We were so rich that we financed several countries’ rebuilding after dramatic devastation, both militarily and politically. The globalists, led by Averell Harriman, David Rockefeller, Henry Luce, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, himself, and a host of left-leaning FDR advisers and academics, saw a unique opportunity to dilute American sovereignty and independence.

The UN’s purpose was to “end” war and provide “prosperity” and the ability for everyone to “live free.” Grand, grand ideas that never would have been the topic of worldwide planning had it not been for the external and internal success of the British and American empires. Like most benign, centralized efforts, the “UN” attracted – and still attracts – many globally-minded Unitarian types. These are they who believe the words of Pope John Lennon: “…no Hell below us; above us only sky…” because “Love is all you need, love is all you need, love is all you need…,” songs best appreciated with a toke.

Free sex, seed-free weed and the UN and to Hell …oops, to oblivion, then, with the United States, Christianity and the requirements of citizenship. “Nothing to kill or die for; the brotherhood of man…”

One of the first, and greatest acts of the U. N. was to create the nation of Israel in 1948. Hitler’s allies, the hard-rock Muslims who have been fighting the Hebrews for millennia, were not happy with this tiny piece of land’s becoming a home for the most oppressed of oppressed people, and they caused two things to happen: first, the “Palestinians” separated themselves from “Israel,” and then Arab League militias and mercenaries attacked cities in the Israeli portion of the Resolution 181-partitioned land. Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq attacked the fledgling nation, including with air strikes and even forces from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. By 1949 the Israeli’s had defeated the uncoordinated forces arrayed against them. In the process they gained the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. More wars followed and still Israel stands.

Israel made the desert bloom and planted, as well, a democratic republic amidst a dozen dictatorial, theocratic, tribal and royal countries, sworn to it’s destruction. In the Muslim view, once land is possessed by Muslims it becomes sacred, never to be stained by the presence of infidels. Their habit is to erect mosques on “conquered” land, often directly upon infidels’ religious sites. For such land and sites there can be no future negotiation – only discussions about how to remove all other infidels.

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has been a target of hatred in the UN, the high-minded body that had created it 22 years earlier. As the United States became more intimately connected with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, attempting to eliminate Soviet influence and build however shaky alliances in tolerance of Israel, the hatred of fundamental Islamists, particularly since the installation of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has been concentrated on the “Great Satan,” America at least as much as on the “Little Satan,” Israel. And so it continues.

Aside from the near-total corruption of the UN Secretariat and its multiple “missions,” the UN has become a forum of hatred and opposition for the United States, reinforcing the self-hatred, fifth-column actions of many Americans, themselves, and interfering with foreign policies of the U. S., England and most of the industrialized “First” World.

Things are changing. The European Union has shown its inability to resolve its finances as sovereign countries fail to adhere to dictates of the Über bureaucrats serving the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Europe is a “nation” of rules… rules that require the steady erosion of sovereignty from its member states. Britain voted to withdraw, not to form a competing “nation,” but to reform itself. The United States elected Donald Trump for much the same reason.

I believe we should take the next, logical step: form, with the U. K. and others, an international Association of Representative Republics. And have it stand for some things. Things like honest government, honest courts and honest contracting and trade; things like democratic elections, representative legislatures, parliaments and councils; things like free speech and the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Except for a handful of charitable works, the U. S. could divest itself of U.N. influence and interference. Membership in the A. R. R. would be open to every sovereign nation that governs itself according to principles that we believe in, including religious tolerance and non-theocratic governance.

As I perceive it, member-states of the Association of Representative Republics would maintain their treaty relationships, including trade agreements, but agree to somewhat better terms with other A. R. R. members. Military treaties should remain bilateral, but with a general agreement to continue working toward non-aggression toward every other member. But there is no reason to subject ourselves to constant attack and calumny while we erode our own sovereignty at the U. N. Better to expend our efforts and treasure among nations that have roughly equal goals of freedom, prosperity and security for every member nation, and in helping other nations to qualify under those principles.

Funding various terrorist nations and sub-groups who wish to destroy us and our allies, is not foreign policy – it is foreign folly.