Secure Freedom Minute

The top American and Russian diplomats met today in Iceland. The good news is that Tony Blinken was not publicly humiliated by this adversary’s representative – unlike when he submissively tolerated a diatribe against America by his Chinese counterpart two months ago.

The bad news is that, while Russia’s Sergei Lavrov chose to speak softly in Reykjavik, he swung a big stick in the run-up to today’s meeting of the Arctic Council there. In a recent press conference, the foreign minister declared, “It has long been common knowledge that [the Arctic] is our territory, our land.”

In fact, just as the Chinese Communists claim most of the South China Sea, thanks to their fortified bastions that can control it, Russia has been militarizing the polar region – and is getting into a position to do the same there.

We must challenge both.

This is Frank Gaffney.

Yesterday, the prospect of Genocide Games being held in China next February became decidedly more problematic.

A U.S. congressional hearing established on Tuesday that the participation of governments, corporate sponsors and athletes in Winter Olympics in Beijing would be tantamount to excusing and legitimating the Chinese Communist Party’s myriad crimes, including monstrous and ongoing ones against humanity.

Leaders on both sides of the political aisle and of Capitol Hill endorsed the thrust of testimony they heard: The United States must move and/or boycott games hosted by a regime that one witness, human rights champion Reggie Littlejohn, accurately described as a “transnational criminal organization.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi floated a trial balloon of restricting the boycott to diplomats and officials only. The CCP would welcome such a transparent fraud and betrayal of its victims.

The world must really boycott, not enable, Beijing’s Genocide Games.

This is Frank Gaffney.

Last week, 124 former military leaders warned that Marxists in America are imperiling our country. In particular, they declared that forcing into the military “politically correct policies” like critical race theory is degrading readiness and creating a major national security issue.

A recent casualty of such policies is a top-rated warrior named Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Lohmeier. He’s an expert on Marxist ideology, doctrine and subversion who’s authored a new book called Irresistible Revolution describing their manifestation inside the U.S. armed forces.

Pursuant to orders to root out extremism in the ranks, Colonel Lohmeir talked publicly about the Marxist nature of critical race training. Now, he’s been removed from command, exemplifying what the radical left is trying to do to our military and police – namely, purge patriots and replace them with those who will support and defend not the Constitution, but Marxist revolution.  

This is Frank Gaffney.

Since World War II concluded with Japan’s unconditional surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri, military conflicts have generally not ended, but been suspended. One side – usually the U.S. and/or its Western allies – simply decided to stop fighting.

Often bad things ensued, for example, the 2-plus million killed by Communists in South East Asia after we unilaterally terminated the Vietnam War. Joe Biden’s abandoning of Afghanistan is likely to result in horrific repercussions for our friends there – and for us.

In the case of Israel, ever since its outright defeat of Arab armies in 1967, externally imposed cease-fires have repeatedly bought time for its Palestinian and other enemies to regroup, and attack again more forcefully. That must not happen this time. If it does not actually crush Hamas, the consequences for the Jewish State – and U.S. regional interests – will be devastating.

This is Frank Gaffney.

For seventy-plus years, the Free World has insisted that the Jewish people must “Never Again” be subjected to violent “pogroms” – let alone genocidal attacks. Now, thanks in no small measure to Israel’s betrayal by Joe Biden’s administration, Never Again is being supplanted by “Yet Again.”

In recent days, Israelis have been subjected to 1,800 rockets from Gaza and rioting on Jerusalem’s sacred Temple Mount. Even worse, Jews are being brutally attacked on their streets and in their homes by Arab citizens of Israel.

These conditions are the more shocking for their contrast with those Joe Biden inherited from Donald Trump just 100 days ago. Then, the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood and Israel’s other enemies in the Persian Gulf states were on their heels. Now they are all at the Jews’ throats.

Never Again, again. Stand with Israel, again.

This is Frank Gaffney.

During Barack Obama’s first two terms, he made a priority of embracing Palestinian, Iranian, Muslim Brotherhood and other Sharia-supremacists and undercutting Israel. This reckless regional policy conformed to a broader strategy of treating enemies better than friends.

Today, in what some call Obama’s third term, the Biden-Harris administration is making the same mistake – with potentially catastrophic consequences. Having emboldened jihadists from the Houthis in Yemen to the Taliban in Afghanistan to Hamas in Gaza and the mullahs in Iran, we are reaping the proverbial whirlwind. All these U.S. adversaries are attacking our friends with impunity.

Joe Biden insists “America is back.” We’re back alright, to being perceived as an impotent foe and an unreliable ally, ensuring we’ll have more enemies and fewer friends – and a vastly more dangerous world.

Retired senior military leaders are urging a major course-correction. They’re absolutely right.

This is Frank Gaffney.

Last month, retired French military leaders issued a powerful letter warning their country is in extreme peril. If its government doesn’t change course with respect to enemies within and abroad, they forecast France is doomed.

Yesterday, more than 120 former American generals and admirals sounded a similar alarm about our Republic and the dangers posed by enemies, foreign and domestic, against whom they all swore an oath to protect the Constitution. Fortunately, they continue to feel bound by it.

Specifically, they warned about a “Marxist” take-over of the United States, evident in the following: legislation designed to prevent future free and fair elections; dictatorial Biden executive orders; uncontrolled borders; Critical Race indoctrination; the breakdown of the rule of law; disastrous energy policies; appeasement of China; and the politicization of the U.S. military.

Like France, we need an urgent course correction. Now.

This is Frank Gaffney.

Foreign enemies have taken offline a huge piece of our nation’s critical infrastructure – the Colonial Pipeline network that supplies roughly 45% of the eastern United States’ requirements for oil, gas and jet fuel.

It’s unclear precisely who is responsible for this potentially devastating cyberattack on Americans and their economy. What we can say for sure is that, if we don’t make our critical infrastructure resilient, there will be more – and even worse – disruptions in the future.

For example, we now have in our most critical infrastructure – namely, the U.S. electric “grid” – as many as 300 high-voltage transformers manufactured in Communist China. It is a virtual certitude that Beijing’s vast cyber-warfare capabilities could easily shut down, and probably destroy, those huge devices, precipitating widespread and enduring blackouts across America.

Want to upgrade our infrastructure? Start with making it resilient.

This is Frank Gaffney.

Today is Jerusalem Day in Israel, a joyous occasion for the Jewish State, marking the anniversary of its liberation of the Old City from Arabs who long routinely defiled and barred access to its many sites and tombs sacred to Jews and Christians.

Palestinians are marking the day, as they have much of the Islamic month of Ramadan, with destructive attacks in the Old City, riots outside the Temple Mount’s Al Aqsa mosque and rocket fire and incendiary balloons launched from the Gaza Strip controlled by the terrorist group, Hamas.

Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has responded to to such Palestinian violence as Democrats have increasingly reflexively done – with moral equivalence between the perpetrators and the victims. The White House announced he called his Israeli counterpart to urge steps to “ensure calm, deescalate tensions and denounce violence.”

Counterproductive, at best.

This is Frank Gaffney.

We may get a taste today of Xi Jinping’s new world order with Chinese characteristics from the UN Security Council’s presiding officer, PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi. He memorably berated his hapless American counterpart, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, in Anchorage in March. Things probably won’t go much better this time around.

After all, the Chinese Communist Party has accompanied its growing military power and empire-building “Belt and Road Initiative” with so-called “Wolf Diplomacy.” This bullying has been encouraged by the Biden-Harris team’s reflexive appeasement of the CCP.

Especially concerning is the Administration’s backsliding on Donald Trump’s initiatives designed to prevent further underwriting of the Chinese Communists’ threatening activities by Wall Street, with the savings and investments of mostly unwitting Americans.

If you want more bad behavior from Beijing, all you need to do is reward it. We literally can’t afford either.

 This is Frank Gaffney.