Category: international affairs

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international affairs privacy

The Cuban Missive Crisis

Cuba, China, surveillance

Very soon, maybe, the Chinese government will be able to peruse secret military and other electronic missives being transmitted “throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic,” according to a Wall Street Journal story.

Under an until-now secret agreement between China and Cuba, Cuba will charge China a mere several billion dollars for Cuba’s permission to build the eavesdropping station on Cuban territory.

If cited intelligence is accurate, the planned station would enable China to spy on emails, phone calls, satellite transmissions, and other communications. The data thus scooped up would probably facilitate China-sponsored cyberwarfare and other sabotage, as well as its pursuit of overseas Chinese nationals that the Chinese government wants to keep trapped in China.

Craig Singleton, an analyst for the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says that moving to establish the spy facility “signals a new, escalatory phase in China’s broader defense strategy. The selection of Cuba is also intentionally provocative.”

Perhaps the publicity about the spy station will help to stop it from happening.

John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told the Journal that its story is “inaccurate” without spelling out the inaccuracies. He also said that the U.S. is taking steps to counter Chinese development of such spy infrastructure. “We remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home and in the region.”

I guess we’ll see. Before it’s too late, I hope.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Look Around

China, war, freedom, slavery

Yesterday marked the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Not in China, where the Communist Party (CCP) has always clubbed down any public remembrance of the thousands murdered on that day by the bullets from the so-called People’s Liberation Army. 

While Hong Kong long witnessed massive June 4 vigils — even under COVID restrictions — that changed after the draconian National Security Law in 2020. Still, this year public silence required the Chinazis to arrest more than 30 Hong Kongers, some for “suspicion of carrying out acts with seditious intent.”

Seems our “leaders” quite quickly forgot about the Butchers of Beijing . . . and only now are waking up to the threat the CCP poses via their embrace of totalitarianism, their military build-up, the biggest since World War II, and their claims to Taiwan as well as the entire South China Sea.

“China has been bullying its neighbors for years,” explains Chris Chappell, host of China Uncensored on Rumble, before adding: “Now its bullying is coming back to bite it.”

Chappell notes that “[e]ven countries that kinda hate each other, like Japan and South Korea, have been teaming up because of the China threat.”

Mr. Chappell offers:

  • “Thanks to China, last year Japan announced a plan to double its military budget.”
  • South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol recently called Taiwan “a global issue” and joined President Biden in “[opposing] any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.”
  • “Australia is beefing up its military — specifically in response to China.”
  • “The Philippines . . . has moved back to closer ties with the United States, allowing the U.S. to expand its military presence there.” 
  • “India is also increasing its defense budget.”

This allied response has been spurred not by U.S. arm-twisting, but good old-fashioned fear. 

Chappell also applauded open collaboration with the U.S. and NATO by South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. But he dubbed NATO’s declaration of China as “a security challenge” “the understatement of the year.”

Attested by the weekend’s near collision of Chinese and U.S. naval vessels in the Taiwan Strait.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

Note: China Uncensored also plays on YouTube, but, as Chappell complains, “YouTube frequently demonetizes, suppresses, and secretly unsubscribes people from this channel.” 

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Here-at-Home Problem

China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, censorship, propaganda

The China problem is “not just a distant ‘over there’ problem,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) recently argued. “As the spy balloon incident as well as the illegal CCP police stations on American soil illustrate, it’s a ‘right here at home’ problem.”

It’s also a just-north-of-us problem. Canada is currently expelling a Chinese diplomat and dealing with the fallout over China’s interventions in Canadian politics, along with big financial gifts to a foundation for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father.

An article in The Globe and Mail nonchalantly explained the reasons China is engaged in trying to control the speech of every one of the planet’s inhabitants. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has many international goals:

  • “build acceptance abroad for its claims on Taiwan, a self-ruled island that it . . . reserves the right to annex by force.”
  • “play down its conduct in Xinjiang, where the office of former UN Human Rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet last year said China has committed ‘serious human-rights violations.’”
  • “generate support for a draconian 2020 national-security law to silence opposition and dissent in Hong Kong.”
  • “quell foreign support for Tibet, a region China invaded and annexed more than 70 years ago, and to discourage opposition to Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea and sweeping maritime claims in the region.”

Having committed a long list of crimes against humanity, the CCP understandably demands that everyone keep their mouths shut. 

Rep. Gallagher believes the U.S. should improve “our deterrent posture across the Taiwan Strait” and communicate “in clear terms that we will not stand idly by while the CCP continues to increase its aggression internationally” — while President Biden has repeatedly pledged U.S. military support for Taiwan.

But for some reason, Biden has never discussed the prospect with the American public. 

As if it weren’t our concern, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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deficits and debt international affairs national politics & policies too much government

Debt for Pakistani Trans

Pakistani transgender youth, American debt

Thirty-two trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money we don’t have.

I checked the U.S. Debt Clock last night. The federal government was, at that time, $200 billion shy of owing that amount, $32 trillion.

It’s such a big number that it doesn’t seem real.

Maybe that’s why politicians ignore it. And keep spending, adding to it.

All spending that seems fishy contributes to that debt. But so, alas,does spending that a majority of Americans may want. When you are over-spending, all spending contributes to the red ink.

Still, to witness elected government officials throw money around with reckless abandon is especially irksome. Consider all the taxes that pay for that debt, continually as well as eventually. And the misdirected investments that get derailed from productive activity just to fund that debt.

Today’s example of idiotic spending? A mere $500,000. Half a million bucks. Chump change — next to the trillions on budget lines.

So this half-a-million is slotted to go to Pakistan.

To train Pakistanis to speak, read and write in English.

But the kicker’s in the headline, courtesy of The Epoch Times: “Biden Earmarks $500,000 for Transgender Youth, Other Groups in Pakistan.” The blurb makes the obvious point I wish to drive home: “Biden ‘hell-bent on spending money we don’t have,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman’s office.”

Biden’s prodigality will provide “intensive professional development courses for Pakistani transgender youth.”

The old saw about such foreign aid runs, “Don’t we have transgender youth in this country to help?”

But better to join Rep. Norman and point to the debt clock. And shake our heads.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs national politics & policies

Why We Fight

Biden, war, draft

A recent Senate hearing addressed a big problem facing America’s All-Volunteer Force (AVF): recruitment. 

The Army fell 25 percent short of its 2022 goal; the Air Force is 10 percent below; the Navy met its target for enlisted folks but not officers; and the Marines hit their mark but said “never before” has it been so challenging.

“The Pentagon has attributed its difficulties to a variety of factors,” reports The Washington Post, “including the nation’s low unemployment rate, school closings during the coronavirus pandemic that limited recruiters’ access to high school students and faculty, and a shifting culture in which more teens gravitate to jobs with work-life balance.”

As The Post paraphrased Army Undersecretary Gabe O. Camarillo, “the most significant barriers to service [include] fears of death or injury, suffering psychological harm, and leaving behind friends and family.” 

Indeed, what with possibility of overseas deployment and combat, the job of soldier certainly does not score well in the “work-life balance” category. While a sense of mission — and the country’s need — has helped spark interest in the past, that need has been blurred by a long string of misguided military adventures in recent decades.  

Sure, President Joe has repeatedly promised American military force in defense of Taiwan against repeated Chinese threats to invade.* But do young Americans perceive this as anything to them? Has the wokeness mission, stressed by the administration and the Pentagon and interrogated during the Senate hearings, occluded the more traditional sense of mission upon which the AVF has relied?

It’s time for Mr. Biden to speak to the people on the military’s core mission — including his promises, and those of other politicians. Asking them to keep his word. 

Plus, a personal presidential request might add an element of responsibility and accountability from the commander-in-chief to the soldiers recruited.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Farmers Strike Back

Dutch farmers, strike, protest, global warming, climate

Dutch farmers are making progress.

As we’ve noted, farms in the Netherlands or any other European country should not be destroyed on the altar of cockamamie EU climate goals.

Dutch farmers have been calling attention to their plight by clogging the streets with tractors. What may have a longer-term salutary effect is the showing that their new party, BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer Citizen Movement), which didn’t exist five years ago, has made in the recent Dutch election.

The election had the largest voter turnout in 30 years, and the BBB are expected to secure 15 Senate seats with about 20 percent of the vote. While that may not sound like a lot if you’re used to a two-party system, but eighteen parties are represented in the Dutch parliament.

A Green-Labour alliance is also expected to win 15 seats. The ruling four-party coalition of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, all in favor of the assault on farmers, is losing eight seats and will have 24 seats.

Wopke Hoestra, a leader of one of the government parties, said that the BBB showing was “a landslide we haven’t seen for years.” His party’s traditional farmer support “has evaporated,” reports UnHerd.com.

Hoestra: “It is an extraordinarily bitter pill.”

Aw gee. The Dutch central planners have been trying to strangle agriculture and deprive Dutch farmers of their livelihood, and the farmers — along with people who eat stuff grown on farms — don’t appreciate it!

Perhaps alienating 100 percent of a major constituency doesn’t always pay off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling folly international affairs

Doctor-to-Be of Theology

Dr. Greta Thurnberg

“The year 2023 is the centenary of the passing of the Freedom of Religion Act in Finland,” writes “conferer” Martti Nissinen, promoting a future ceremony of the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Theology — in which one degree will go to . . . Greta Thunberg.

Much has been made, online, of theologians, of all people, awarding an honorary degree to a young environmental activist demonstrating no academic much less godly accomplishments. The obvious suggestion: “what she’s selling is a religion”! 

But what stands out to me? Mr. Nissinen’s declaration of this year’s ceremonial theme: “Freedom.”

Ms. Thunberg has been pestering and entreating leaders of the world to “do something” to “save the planet” from “climate change.”

What she demands is not freedom, but more

  • taxes
  • mandates
  • prohibitions. 

Whatever the actual threat may be, there is no hint of freedom in her agenda. And if you want more of that message, consult the latest alarm from the IPCC.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a bizarre restatement of past pronouncements, warning “that we are almost half way through the ‘last chance decade’ to pull the brakes on climate change.”

“The world is only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels,” explains The Guardian. “On current trends, we will shoot past the target within a decade.” 

Dooming the planet. 

Pushing this fake “global accepted goal” has a historical context. Many similar past warnings that haven’t come true. But, more pressingly, the worldwide panic over a pandemic that even to politicians increasingly appears to be a complete failure of the experts.

Why trust the Expert Climatologists when the Expert Epidemiologists have so disastrously failed us?

Just don’t ask Dr. Greta.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Now and Then

Tibet, China, Dalai Lama

This March in San Francisco, hundreds of Tibetans and their supporters rallied to protest the government of China and to commemorate the Tibetan uprising of 1959.

“As we are in a free nation,” one of the protesters, Lobsang Chodon, told the Epoch Times, “we have the rights to rally and protest; we have the rights to parade and speak out. We can say whatever we want to say. So we have to speak out loudly for our brothers and sisters who cannot speak out. We will fight until the end, until Tibet is freed, until we can get back to our homeland.”

In March 1959, the Dalai Lama (born 1935), champion of the rights of the Tibetan people and autonomy for Tibet, was forced into exile by the Chinese Communist Party.

This had not been the plan. 

The plan had been to kidnap the Dalai Lama as he attended a theatrical performance at the invitation of People’s Liberation Army. The PLA’s invitation or demand that the Dalai Lama attend included an insistence that he not bring his guards with him and that no one be told that he would be leaving the palace.

The Dalai Lama accepted or pretended to accept the invitation.

Word of the danger spread rapidly. On the day that he was scheduled to travel, many thousands of Tibetans surrounded his palace before the CCP could get its hands on him. And the Dalai Lama managed to flee into exile.

I welcome these protests, for they remind us of a history we must not forget.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency international affairs

Time for Truth Is . . . Now?

China, Covid, FBI

The “kooky” conspiracy hypothesis that in 2019 a Wuhan laboratory that had been rebuilding viruses to make them better, stronger, faster then somehow unleashed the COVID-19 virus on the world has been gaining traction lately.

Three years ago, such a thing was declared to be impossible, or at least extremely unlikely. After all, the Chinese government itself, which always tells the truth, had repudiated this explanation, even going so far as to conscientiously refuse to cooperate with investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

Many policy makers and media mavens in the West nodded vigorously. No need to inquire further.

But the dam has been breaking in recent months. Now, even U.S. government agencies — government agencies themselves! — are saying yeah, probably a lab leak.

The FBI has hopped on the probably-lab bandwagon and, according to its director, has been on the wagon a while.

FBI director Chris Wray says: “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

Quite some time now? And kept quiet?

Author James Kunstler wants to know if the FBI knew during all the time that fey Wray “was in charge of a battalion of FBI agents assigned to managing Twitter, Facebook, and Google . . . to make sure that anyone who opined about Covid coming from the Wuhan lab got censored, banished, cancelled, reputationally destroyed.”

It’s hardly “kooky” to inquire as to what the FBI was thinking, simultaneously believing something to be true and, yet, in contravention of the First Amendment, working to suppress that very belief.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war international affairs Internet controversy social media

Too Funny or Too On-Target?

China, Youtube, censorship, copyright

Since nobody has noticed or documented a Google policy of banning YouTube videos that are too funny, let’s go with “too on-target” as the reason that Google deleted a popular YouTube channel, the RutersXiaoFanQi channel, devoted to satirically slapping China autocrat Xi Jinping.

Some of RutersXiaoFanQi’s videos survive in lesser-known YouTube channels. (Here is one. Here is another.) The approach of the videos seems to be to keep throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Apparently, the ratio of sticking to falling flat was too high for Xi and Google.

Unfair to Google? Maybe. We don’t know what happened behind the scenes.

Did Google just automatically delete the channel after having received a certain number of complaints about copyright violations from Xi’s offices? Or did Google honchos sit around an oak conference table, mull all the variables, and solemnly conclude “We simply must appease the Xi regime!”?

YouTube did not respond to an inquiry from Radio Free Asia about the matter. But RutersXiaoFanQi had received a notice stating that “Your YouTube account has been shut down following repeated copyright warnings,” presumably pertaining to music used in the videos.

It is unlikely, though, that various owners of whatever tunes the channel used bothered to lodge any complaints. It is much more likely that, as RFA speculates, the censors of Xi’s regime are exploiting YouTube’s system for reporting copyright infringements. 

And that Google’s YouTube is taking the easy way out.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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