Daily Archives: July 27, 2021

Highschoolyearbooks are filled with the idyls of youthfootball games, proms, and notes from best friends forever. My 1980 high school yearbook was no different except for one picture.

The photography club snapped a shot of a massive billboardopposite the entrance tothe homepost ofthe 82ndAirborne Division. The message was the crowning glory of the Jimmy Carter yearsIRAN,LET OUR PEOPLE GO.That is what we had become,anation reduced tobegging Tehrans theocraticfanatics torelease U.S.diplomats and soldiers.

In the 1970s, the world assumed thattheUnited States was on an inevitable decline riven by problems at home and indecisiveness abroad. The crime was out of control.Oil prices had tripled,and gas lines were everywhere.Americans learned a new word:stagflation.

Thedefense budget tanked;there was no fuel for vehicles and no money for training.Overseas, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan,and Cuban proxies were rampaging through southern Africa.Meanwhile,Jimmy Carter apologized on behalf ofAmerica. Someacademics assessed as they do nowthat Americahad entered the Thucydides trap. In this trap,America played the role ofAthens and the Soviet Union played the role ofSparta.

Then-Senator JoeBidencut hispoliticalteeth inthis decade of disco and malaise.Hewas on the wrong side of historythen andwaswell onhis way to being, asformer Secretary of Defense Robert Gatessaidyears later,wrong about every major national security issue for40years.

It isa small wonder,that the Carter years have returned with a vengeance.Inflation is soaring. So, too, is the number of murders.Oil prices are climbing as thepresident strikes at the heart of American energy independence, all the while giving the green light for Putin to tie western Europe to a Russian gas pipeline.

Once more,theleader of the free worldfumbles opportunities to cooperate with allies and enables our adversaries in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was sentto Asia to reassure allies with memories of Obama-era indifferencetoward the Pacific region that Biden is cut from a different cloth.Yet even as Austin offeredthese assurances, the Biden administration was proposinga flat defense budget,one insufficient even to maintainpurchasing power.The incongruityhasnotbeenlost on nations looking to stand together with Washington to prevent Chinese military dominance of the Pacific region.

The same attitude applies to the Middle East where Arab statesin 2020buried age-old animosities toward Israel so as to stand together against the mullahs in Tehran. Throwing awaytheyears of progressencapsulated by the Abraham Accords, the Biden White House has returned to the Obama-era appeasement of Iran and its proxies.

Even in Europe,the message is one of retreat. The Trumpadministration halted Russian aggression in Ukraine by providing Kiev with weaponsable tokill Russian president Vladimir Putins tanks,helicopters and planes. The Biden-Harrisadministration unilaterallychoked offthe flow of military supplies to Ukraine, in the hope that Moscow would reciprocate.Instead,Putinhasmoved tens of thousands of troops to the border opposite Ukraineandcontinues to wage war on the cyber commons vital to American security.

People in London, whichis one of Americasmost important allies, wereleft flabbergasted by apresident who could not comprehend that Northern Ireland was a constituent part of the United Kingdom,not a province of the Irish Republic. The Canadians are reeling from the loss of thousands of oil and gas jobs as America relinquished its energypartnershipwith the stroke of apresidential pen.Thepresident of the French Republic declaredthat the wokepresidency of Joe Biden is a threat to the very soul of the French nation.

All of this means that America is now led by those who believe they exist to manage national decline,not lead the world.Secretary of State Antony Blinken has asked the United Nations Human Rights Council,a forum for world thuggery,to investigate racism in America. That means unleashingcouncilmembersChina, Russia,and Cubato vilify the United States with Foggy Bottoms blessing.

This is not new ground for Blinken. In March, the Chinese foreign minister hammeredhimby simply echoing Bidens own woke critique of America.The Wall Street Journalposited that the Chinese made clear that after the Trump years, Beijing wants a return to the policy of Obama accommodation to Chinas global advances. Blinkencould only respond with faculty lounge pieties about Americas imperfections.

In April, Bidens ambassador to the United Nations, Laura Thomas-Greenfield, embarrassed the United Statesbydenouncing her own nationbefore the UNHuman Rights Council, declaring that the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.

Theinabilityof these top officialsto be anything but defensive abouttheirown country sets the tone for what to expect in the next four years. How can America cope with a rampant China when her own leaders do not believe that the country is worth defending, even rhetorically? If they will not stand for a nation grounded in the universal principles of human dignity and individual freedom, then where will they stand?

Let us be clearaboutwhat is at stake. China and itsjunior partners, Russia and Iran, seek nothing less than the overthrow of the United States as the worlds most powerful country with the Middle Kingdom being at the center of a new world order.

Carter famously said that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan revealed what was at the heart of Moscows ambitions. He immediately putintoproductionthe B-1 bomber, theAbrams Tank and the Minuteman 3systems Ronald Reagan would build upon to confront the Kremlin.

At least the man from Plains was honest enough toreverse course when he realizedhe was wrong.Do notcount on a similar epiphany from the current occupant of the White House. One canonly pray that Americanswill not witnessmoregrovelingbillboards on Bragg Boulevard.

A former secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairsandundersecretaryof Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Robert Wilkie is a visiting fellow in The Heritage Foundations Center forNationalDefense.

Image: Reuters

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Is Joe Biden the 2021 Version of Jimmy Carter? - The National Interest

By Kim Harrisberg

JOHANNESBURG, July 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - From factories and malls going up in flames to supermarkets stripped bare by looters, South Africans were shocked this month when the army was used to stem the worst violence in decades.

What exactly sparked the riots and how do government, and regular citizens, hope to build back better in one of the world's most divided and unequal countries?

What triggered the violence?

When former president Jacob Zuma was arrested on 7 July and jailed for refusing to appear at an inquiry into high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018, his supporters took to the streets to demand his release.

The protests quickly evolved into widespread looting as rioters blocked major highways and set fire to chemical plants, farms and food storage facilities. The violence claimed more than 300 lives and billions of rands worth of damage.

President Cyril Ramaphosa called the riots "a failed insurrection" by Zuma supporters, signalling an ongoing political battle within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which took power at the end of apartheid in 1994.

Did coronavirus play a role?

While some looters were filmed driving in expensive cars to raid malls, many said they were poor and jobless. Women, including the elderly, stole food and nappies while children grabbed clothes and shoes.

Coronavirus has decimated the economy, with the first hard lockdown in 2020 causing 3 million job losses within months, with women in the informal sector particularly hard hit.

Almost half of South Africanssurveyed by research firm IPSOS last year said their household often went hungry because they did not have enough money to buy food.

And unemployment hit anew record high of 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021, with more than 7 million people unemployed.

Child support grants were topped up during the pandemic, andnew relief schemes were introduced but these benefits stopped in April, as the government said it could not afford them.

In June, South Africa went in to a third lockdown, causing massive hardship for poor families who rely on daily wage labour like construction and domestic workers, creating a tinder-box ready to ignite.

Isn't South Africa the richest country in Africa?

South Africa is a country of paradoxes. It is not uncommon to see a shoeless beggar hold out his hand towards the tinted windows of a Ferrari at the traffic lights.

Rich in diamonds, gold, platinum, copper and coal, South Africa is home to36,500 dollar millionaires - twice as many as any other country on the continent, according to New World Wealth and AfrAsia Bank.

Meanwhile, more than half of South Africa's 60 million people live in poverty, official statistics show.

This deep inequality stretches back to 17th century colonialism and slavery, followed by 46 years of racially segregated, white minority rule from 1948 to 1994.

Racial tensions remain, with roughly 70% of privately-owned farmland in South Africa owned by whites, who make up less than 9% of the 58 million-strong population.

What happens next?

Despite the violence and loss of life, many have lauded Zuma's imprisonment as a sign that all are equal before the law.

Ramaphosa announced acrisis relief fund for South Africans whose businesses were looted and asked the public to donate. But some on Twitter decried it as a "relief fund for the looters" or worried it would provide "more for people in govt to steal".

Ramaphosa also said he was considering introducing a basic income grant, which civil society has long lobbied for, and met with 90 business leaders to discuss urgent relief efforts.

The millionaire businessman's wing of the ANC is under pressure from the Zuma faction and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, both of which have called for mines and banks to be nationalised and land confiscated without compensation.

Ramaphosa's planto revive the economy and create jobs by building ports and generating energy has won support, though critics say the ANC must do more to end corruption, unemployment and simmering anger over continued wealth disparities.

Meanwhile, ordinary South Africans have wasted no time responding to the crisis with fundraising networks and street clean ups, and charities have rallied to collect food parcels while lines snaked outside soup kitchens.

Related stories:

Sharp-eyed grandmothers combat looting and crime in South Africa

In South Africa, a zero-waste food bus hopes to drive away hunger

Trash for cash: South Africans fight hunger with digital currency

($1 = 14.5396 rand)

(Reporting by Kim Harrisberg @kimharrisberg; Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

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What's behind the rioting that rocked South Africa? - Thomson Reuters Foundation