Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Australia, it seems, has become the proverbial canary in the mine shaft. With each passing day, the government and people of one of our most important allies are coming to grips with – and, in the process, warning the rest of us about – the true, imperialistic and totalitarian character of Communist China.

Australia’s security services and citizenry are learning hard lessons about the cumulative effects of decades of affording the Chinese an open door Down Under. The Communists in Beijing have fully exploited the resulting, abundant opportunities to penetrate deeply the resource-rich Australian economy, media, academic institutions and government.

Now, as the Aussies have begun to take corrective actions, they and the rest of the world are also getting a taste of Chinese retribution. Like so many experiencing the PRC’s growing coercion – Australians must find in America a formidable, engaged and countervailing friend. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The United States is taking a lot of flak these days for pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. At this week’s 25th annual U.N. handwringing session about global warming in Madrid, nations will compete to demonstrate their superior commitment to preventing ice caps from melting, sea levels rising, pestilence spreading, and conflicts erupting among other apocalyptic scenarios. House Speaker Pelosi is using the opportunity to excoriate President Trump.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is being vindicated with regard to one of his reasons for withdrawing from the Paris agreement – namely, that it required the U.S. to make onerous cuts in CO2 emissions but Communist China can continue adding to its pollution. In fact, Beijing is greatly increasing its numbers of coal-burning power plants and dramatically reducing its investment in renewables.

Good on Americans for continuing voluntarily to cut our emissions. China will not.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump and the First Lady spent Thanksgiving in Afghanistan with U.S. troops. While he was at it, Mr. Trump reset the terms for renewed talks with our principal enemy there, the Taliban.

The President prides himself on being an accomplished negotiator. Stipulating that the Taliban agree to a cease-fire – something they had heretofore refused to do – is a classic technique of moving the goal posts to improve the likely outcome of such talks.

Mr. Trump should now double down by establishing conditions under which such a cease-fire would likely conduce to an actual peace with security for the Afghan people. He should replace most of the remaining U.S. forces in country with contractors to support Afghanistan’s armed forces while adopting the successful Vietnam-era CORDS counter-insurgency model for securing the population.

That’s a formula for victory, not surrender to the Taliban.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

I find myself outside of the United States on this Thanksgiving – away from family and friends on the day most of us are blessed to celebrate with both.

This experience gives me a heightened appreciation of the men and women in our armed forces, diplomatic corps and other forms of service to our country who are similarly bereft of their loved ones today.

It also underscores the myriad reasons to be thankful for that country.

My appreciation for America was heightened by a visit this week to the Museum of Terror in Budapest. This shrine to the victims of Hungary’s occupation and oppression, first by the Nazis and then by Soviet Communists, prompts heartfelt thanks to God for the fact that the United States played a critical role in ending those horrors and has been spared their like within its own borders.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Donald Trump has established that he and his administration are the best friends the State of Israel has ever had in official Washington. Thanks to a succession of strategic moves, the United States has contributed materially to Israel’s ability to defend itself in an increasingly dangerous region.

Particularly important have been three diplomatic initiatives. Under President Trump, the United States has recognized: the reality of Israel’s capital being Jerusalem; the Jewish State’s right to annex and control the Golan Heights; and, most recently, the fact that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, known today as the West Bank, do not violate international law.

These steps afford Israel an unprecedented opportunity to consolidate its security posture in the face of intensifying efforts by Iran, its proxies and other Sharia-supremacists to destroy the Jews and their homeland. Bless you, Mr. President.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Chinese Communist Party’s worst fears have been realized in Hong Kong.  Voters there have overwhelmingly elected in relatively free local elections pro-democracy candidates. They have thus demonstrated conclusively the real popular support for protesters demanding liberty.

These elections occurred shortly after their massive demonstrations were endorsed by the U.S. Congress by a margin of 534 to one. And they make even more urgent President Trump’s signature on what’s called “the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.”

The world is now on notice that the people of Hong Kong not only yearn to be part of the Free World. They are part of it and must remain so – and a powerful example to those enslaved on the mainland of what might be possible if only they are also afforded a chance to express their desire for  an end to Communist repression.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

One of President Trump’s closest foreign allies is undergoing a similar form of political warfare dressed up as a prosecution and with a similar object – namely, removing him from power. The parallels between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s travails and those of his American counterpart are striking.

Both men have proven to be formidable candidates, frustrating rivals at the polls and prompting such foes to use politicized investigations and judicial proceedings to try to defeat their respective nations’ leaders.

Donald Trump has strenuously challenged the successive “witchhunts,” against him. And Bibi has vehemently denied the corruption charges filed against him yesterday.

Ultimately, it will probably be up to the voters in both countries whether these powerful leaders will continue to serve. But we should be under no illusion about the politicized and highly problematic investigations that seem designed to influence them.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

As the Chinese Communist Party boa constrictor inexorably tightens its lethal grip on Hong Kong, the United States government has finally expressed its unequivocal support for that territory’s freedom-fighters. In a unanimous vote in the Senate on Tuesday and a nearly unanimous one in the House yesterday, Congress has served notice on Beijing that there will be serious financial costs should it deny Hong Kong people the liberties they have courageously demanded since last Spring.

It now falls to President Trump to sign the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law. Given the veto-proof margins that bill enjoyed in both houses, it will be enacted, even if he declines to do so.

But Mr. Trump must seize the opportunity now, as an NBA manager famously, if briefly, urged a few months ago to “Fight for freedom; stand with Hong Kong.”

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

House Democrats’ hopes for their amazing shrinking impeachment inquiry now rest on U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. That’s because the previous, supposed star witness, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, amounts to a partisan Trump opponent in uniform.

 Worse yet for Vindman’s supporters, the record now reflects serious concerns expressed by superiors at the National Security Council about his judgment, conduct and discipline with respect to the chain of command. Among other things, he is believed to have been a leaker of sensitive information.

The government of Ukraine thought so highly of Lt. Col. Vindman, however, that it invited him to become its Minister of Defense on three different occasions. That alone would seem to disqualify him from serving as the National Security Council official responsible for the Ukraine portfolio, let alone being an impartial witness against the President.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

As impeachment hearings continue to dominate the news cycle, a reality check is in order. Attorney General William Barr provided one in an address to the Federalist Society last Friday.

He observed that: “Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called ‘The Resistance’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration.  

“Now, ‘resistance’ is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power.  It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate.  This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic.” 

The Attorney General went on to warn that “It is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.”

Bravo, General Barr.

This is Frank Gaffney.