Russia, Turkey, Iran: Adversaries of the West's NATO Alliance

by Con Coughlin • August 5, 2019 at 5:00 am

Germany's outright rejection of Washington's request [to support Washington's proposal for a maritime protection force in the Arabian Gulf to protect shipping from attacks by Iran] is likely to inflame tensions further between Washington and Berlin. U.S. President Donald J. Trump is already at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a range of issues, from Germany's obstinate refusal to meet its Nato funding commitments to its pursuit of closer energy ties with Russia through the construction of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Mr Trump is highly critical of the project. He argues that it will make Europe, and especially Germany, too dependent on Moscow for its energy needs, which could undermine the resolve of the Nato alliance to take a robust stand against Moscow in any future confrontation.
So, at a time when the Western alliance is already struggling with how to respond to Turkey's deepening military ties with Russia, Germany's refusal to fulfil its obligations to protect shipping in the Gulf will be interpreted by adversaries of the West such as Moscow and Tehran as yet further evidence of what would doubtless please them very much: deepening divisions within the Western alliance.

Germany's point-blank refusal to support Washington's proposal for a maritime protection force in the Arabian Gulf to protect shipping from attacks by Iran is yet another example of Berlin's diplomatic and economic sabotage of the Western alliance. Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a press conference on April 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Following the recent upsurge in Iranian aggression in the all-important Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf shipping artery through which flows one-fifth of the world's energy needs, Washington has sought international backing for Operation Sentinel, its naval operation to protect shipping in the region.

This search follows a series of Iranian attacks, including the shooting down of a US Navy drone operating in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a number of attacks against merchant shipping, such as last month's seizure of the British-registered oil tanker Stena Impero.

Continue Reading Article

The Green New Deal: Poverty for Everyone!

by Eric Rozenman • August 5, 2019 at 4:00 am

"The interesting thing about the Green New Deal... is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all... Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing." — Saikat Chakrabarti, the outgoing chief of staff for freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
Chakrabarti seems to have deduced two things. First, he saw a glass largely full and still filling but for some still empty, and concluded he must first shatter the glass. After that, he apparently failed to consider that the dystopian streets of San Francisco -- homeless people living in tents and defecating on sidewalks near high-rent high-rises, and the middle class and affordable housing squeezed by heavy taxes and constrictive zoning -- might be a result of local "progressive" politics. The problem is that if his "change-the-entire-economy-thing" would ever be imposed, America as a whole might resemble those dystopian streets. If Soviet Russia, Cuba or Venezuela come to mind, consider India before 2014, when its prime minister, Narendra Modi, was elected.
A free economy, in which countless healthy, growing businesses can spring up and actually hire countless people, and that way offer economic advancement for everyone? Not for Bose in the 1940s. And not, it seems, for today for many who have not looked at how socialism really works -- or unfortunately does not work.

Epitomizing today's progressives -- one might even call them reactionaries of the left -- is Saikat Chakrabarti, outgoing chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Chakrabarti was recently photographed wearing a shirt embossed with the face of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was an Indian nationalist who opposed Mahatma Gandhi and spent World War II collaborating first with Nazi Germany, and later with Imperial Japan. Pictured: Bose shares a laugh with German military officers, in a photo taken ~1941-1943. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

"A liberal is intolerant of other views. He wants to control your thoughts and actions." — President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967.

Johnson, the Texas Democrat who extended Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal with his own Great Society, was an old-school liberal, certainly on domestic policy. The political activist-agitators LBJ impugned then as "liberals" are today's progressives—one might even call them reactionaries of the left.

Epitomizing them is Saikat Chakrabarti, the outgoing chief of staff for freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y). Chakrabarti recently starred in a Washington Post article. The spotlight left a key to the influential staffer's undemocratic mentality in shadows.

Continue Reading Article