Posted on 03/27/2020 7:32:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
To fight the coronavirus at home, France is removing all military forces from Iraq.
When NATO scaled back its war games in Europe because of the pandemic, Russia reciprocated. Moscow announced it would cancel its war games along NATO's border.
Nations seem to be recognizing and responding to the grim new geostrategic reality of March 2020: The pandemic is the real enemy of us all, and while we fight it, each in his own national corner, we are in this together.
Never allow a serious crisis to go to waste, said Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel during the financial crisis.
Emanuel was echoed this month by House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, who called the coronavirus crisis "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."
What Clyburn had in mind is what Democrats advanced as their alternative to the $2.2 trillion emergency bill. It was designed to force President Trump either to swallow it whole or to take responsibility for vetoing a critical transfusion of federal funds to keep the economy alive.
Among the items stuffed in the Democrats' proposal:
A $15-an-hour minimum wage imposed on companies receiving funds. Blanket loan forgiveness of $10,000 for students. New tax credits for solar and wind energy. Full funding of Planned Parenthood. Federal dollars for fetal tissue research.
$300 million for PBS, which has been promoting the LBGT agenda to school kids. Mandating "diversity" on corporate boards as a condition of companies receiving funds. Election "reforms" to increase Democratic turnout. Insistence that airlines, to get a bailout, offset carbon emissions from jet engines. $35 million for the Kennedy Center.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and congressional Republicans ash-canned almost the leftist wish list.
But Trump should go further, turn the tables, and seize this crisis to do what he was elected to do -- impose a new foreign policy.
Isolate America, not from the world, but from the world's wars.
The New York Times and Washington Post editorialized Thursday for an easing of the economic sanctions we have imposed on Iran.
This would be a humanitarian gesture when Iran is suffering more than any country in the Middle East from the virus. More than that, it would be a statement that America is not at war with the Iranian people.
This unilateral gesture by Trump, asking nothing in return except negotiations, would put the onus for Iran's isolation squarely with the ayatollah and his regime.
As for Vladimir Putin's cancellation of war games in response to NATO's cancellation, Trump could seize upon this as an opening to engage Russia as candidate Trump promised to do.
Does anyone believe Putin wants a war with NATO?
Should he do so, does anyone think Italy and Spain, two of the largest NATO allies, but both suffering greatly in the coronavirus crisis, would invoke Article V and declare war on Russia?
When Hitler was our foe, America created a wartime alliance with Stalin in the common cause of crushing the Axis powers. Liberals and leftists yet defend the Popular Front between the democracies and Stalin. If we could unite with Bolsheviks to defeat Nazis, surely we can join with Iran's rulers to cope with and crush the coronavirus.
When, if ever, will there be a better time to make good on Trump's campaign pledge to extricate America from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?
Consider also the Korean Peninsula.
Kim Jong Un has been testing rockets again over the Sea of Japan.
Transfixed by the coronavirus crisis, however, the world is paying him no attention. We should make a final offer to Kim Jong Un to pull our U.S. forces from South Korea and lift sanctions for verifiable reductions and restraints on his nuclear arsenal.
We are ready for a deal. But If Pyongyang refuses to talk, we should tell him we are going home and are allowing South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. And let Kim deal with them.
The coronavirus pandemic is the greatest crisis since the Cuban missile confrontation of 1962. After that crisis, John F. Kennedy sought to use the world's brush with Armageddon to establish a detente with the Soviet Union of the Communist dictator who had put the missiles in Cuba.
Following our Cold War victory, we have not done that. Instead, we plunged into wars that were none of our business to deal with imagined threats and advance utopian causes like establishing Jeffersonian democracy in lands where tribalism and dogmatism are rooted in the very soil.
The coronavirus is the enemy Saddam Hussein never was. And the ayatollahs never had tens of millions of Americans "sheltering in place."
What the coronavirus crisis tells us is not that we should turn our backs on the world but that, in engaging with the world, we should put our own interests first, as every nation in the world is doing now.
“Can This Pandemic Usher in a New Era?”
A new ‘era’??
Is that anything like a couple million America-hating criminals crashing the US border with complete and perfect liberty?
New era of totalitarianism. More liberty/constitutional right less tyranny are never more than 2 election cycles away.
READY - AIM - VOTE - REPUBLICAN (leadership at the top). The rest of the SCUMBAGS can be eliminated in subsequent elections.
live - free - republic
Thanks, Chief
And it isn’t even over yet.
What a dolt. Not one word about China.
I guess you could say that many of the world’s old enemies have been replaced with only one.
The Eu will be role and Chna will lend them money.
The new era will be war.
Sort of, Iran, per capita, is being destroyed at its leadership level.
............
In China, Hubei and Wuhan, their government went out and arrested anyone with a cough.
...........
Chinese in large scale ratted out their neighbors that they suspected were sick.
...........
Curfews stopped nearly all outside foot and vehicle traffic.
...........
That’s what a totalitarian, dictatorship can do.
Absolutely... I believe the world has been changed forever, or at least for the next hundred years or so..
China has lost the trust of the western world.. I, for one, will be looking elsewhere for my junk... :(
This article made some good points, but is anyone else getting a little tired of the over the top theatrics associated with this virus? It becomes more apparent every day that the worst case scenarios used to justify incredible political overreactions have been exaggerated by factors of ten, a hundred, or even thousands of times. There seems to be no limit to the stupidity and panic going on.
Here is a comment I have been making related to the Spanish Flu:
Consider:
1. The Spanish Flu was far, far more devastating than this virus.
2. Growing up I heard about the Great Depression 10,000 times more than the Spanish Flu.
That is how bad an economic depression is.
What new era is Pat talking about ushering in?
Be careful. I’ve seen pictures of gymnasiums packed with folks in iron lungs. That had to have had an “effect on the economy”/
First of all .... getting rid of polio took some time and DURING that time a lot of developments occurred, not the least of which was iron lung usage.
In no way do those facts interfere with the meme's statement that we cured Polio The 1950's were years America could do no wrong ... successful on two battle fronts, led by a 5 star general for President and the willingness to continue in our "can do" attitude.
All I'm trying to do is promote good and healthful thinking over this cowering in fear crap we're volunteering for.
Feel free to say whatever you like. Just saying, be careful. Words have a different taste on the tongue when going down.
I think it will change some things. But, unless it spreads a lot more, faster...I think this will be a blip on our kids’ radar.
Perhaps handshaking and hugging leave.
If it kills the leadership in Iran and causes the people to rise up... that’s a bonus.
As as asides;
My wife just returned from Walmart... (early Friday afternoon) .. and was able to get everything on our list ... Ramen, 20lb rice, pepperoni any and all fresh veggies, cheese .... there seemed to be no shortage of anything except my beloved frozen apple juice.
My wife is a small Filipina and she was surprised no one was wearing masks (she had brought hers but wouldn't wear it unless she saw others) AND as an obvious Asian, no one seemed to shy away from her.
We live in SW Pa about 45 mi. SW of Pittsburgh and at least this day seems to be normal in our neck o' th' woods
Let's see, what's on the Globalist agenda?
Oh, that's right:
1. Get rid of "dirty" cash and go digital on a global scale - CHECK
2. Increase surveillance, restrictions, and tracking on citizens on a global scale - CHECK
3. Exponentially increase the power of government and suppress all rights - CHECK
4. A new global "religion" to combat "extremism" - CHECK
Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Current technology allows for the antichirst to seize total world control like has not been possible at any time in history.
Where's you hear that?
That would be TERRIFIC if true.
It is indeed an interesting turn of events.
I may bring back an old thread from a few years ago. Perhaps in the next couple of days.
I know there are a lot of things I will never take for granted again when this is over.
Exactly. I wonder what people thought in the 4th and 5th centuries when they read John the Apostle's Revelation of Jesus Christ? How could the entire world view events like the two witnesses, in real time? They must have thought it simply impossible.
Today? A walk in the park.
We are so close to the Rapture.
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