MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Foreign Aid Is the Problem, Not Senator Menendez

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

How many Americans realize that their government gives over a billion dollars of their tax money to Egypt every year? And, of course, it is not just Egypt. The United States also gives other countries billions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

Foreign Aid Is the Problem, Not Senator Menendez

By Laurence M. Vance

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife of “accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the senator, with help from his wife, using his position from 2018 to 2022 to benefit the Egyptian government, including on foreign military financing and foreign military sales.”

All in a day’s work for a member of Congress.

Menendez was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, until he was pressured to resign from the committee. He is accused of “providing Egyptian officials sensitive information about U.S. embassy employees in Cairo; ghost-writing a letter for Egyptian officials to U.S. senators, asking them to support the release of $300 million in aid; and approving or removing holds on foreign military financing and exports of defense equipment to Egypt.”

Turns out that “Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and House foreign affairs panels have the option to place holds on large foreign weapons sales and the transfer of Foreign Military Financing funds, which are grants the State Department provides to foreign governments to buy U.S. weapons.”

The real problem here is the foreign aid itself, not the shenanigans of Senator Menendez.

In 2022, the fiscal 2022 appropriations deal made $320 million in foreign aid to Egypt contingent upon Cairo meeting certain human rights benchmarks. However, it also allowed the Biden administration to use a waiver for up to $235 million. In the end, only $85 million in aid was withheld.

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says “he supports blocking $235m in military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns.” However, the largest chunk of aid, $980m, “was not subject to such restrictions and will go ahead.”

See the rest here

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America Must Stay Out of Other Nations’ Ethnic Conflicts

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

The same pitfalls of well-meaning Americans going on the internet and crying for the United States to involve itself in ethnic conflicts applies just as well in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as in the case of Ukraine.

America Must Stay Out of Other Nations’ Ethnic Conflicts

Here we go again. Last week, the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, likely provoked into action by its Iranian backers, launched an attack on the state of Israel, killing (at the time of writing) around 900 civilians and capturing Israeli soldiers, parading some of them on the internet, including women soldiers. Watching these videos is a revolting experience.

The State of Israel is already retaliating with attacks on the Gaza strip, but, predictably, neo-cons and liberal imperialists are already sounding the charge for yet another foreign intervention overseas. If you only listened to people on Twitter, you would think that Hamas had attacked the United States and not the State of Israel. I’ve written about this phenomenon in these pages before, but it seems that Americans of pretty much every political stripe are treating this conflict the same way that they have treated the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as a proxy for their personal political preferences.

In the case of Israel, there is at least more reason for the leap to defend a country halfway across the world. Unlike Ukraine, the United States has a long-standing relationship with the State of Israel, going back to its foundation in 1948. And ideologically, Israel has long been the most “Western-style” democracy in the Middle East, and so it makes a far more natural ally than the fragile kleptocracy that is the Ukrainian government.

But the same pitfalls of well-meaning (and perhaps not so well-meaning) Americans going on the internet and crying for the United States to involve itself in ethnic conflicts applies just as well in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as in the case of Ukraine. The attacks on the State of Israel, though horrific, are no threat to its existence, and they in no way threaten the United States or its interests.

Then why do people insist upon calling for America to be involved then? The reasons, such as they are, are various. Some genuinely seem to believe that America is and should be the world’s policeman, putting down conflict everywhere it flares up. Neocons and others identify “democracy” (i.e., political and social freedoms largely unique to Western civilization) with American power, and so they wish to spread these by intervening in such conflicts abroad.

But most people are not Neocons nor are they that into democracy. In fact, most elites are not either, and they are the ones that really matter, especially when it comes to foreign policy. So, why do they go along with this?

They do so mainly because support for the “good guys” in distant ethnic conflicts is a type of “luxury belief” that is easy for the high and mighty to latch onto. A “luxury belief” is one that elites embrace as a means of signaling their status. Rather than physical displays of wealth, luxury beliefs indicate one’s status in a higher, more morally virtuous elite. Embracing these beliefs is a way of maintaining one’s status in a world where wealth and the physical signs of status are increasingly available to non-elites.

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The Chinese are Reclaiming Pandas from American Zoos. Let Them.

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

The only beneficiaries of such actions are panda-philes and bureaucrats at government-run zoos. Benefiting them at the expense of heating up tensions is, dare I say, not worth it.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-chinese-are-reclaiming-pandas-from-american-zoos-let-them/

by Benjamin Seevers

depositphotos 81405258 s

There are thousands of religions across the world and countless more personal creeds. 195 different countries dispense legal codes and many more nations and stateless peoples govern their own affairs according to their non-governmental customs and norms. Despite this, there are certain moral truths evident to all men. One truth stands out amongst them all as if it were inscribed on the hearts and minds of all men and preserved and passed down on stone tablets handed to Adam by God prior to the fall of man. What is this moral truth? Well, it is absurd to even ask that question. You should already know the answer: Thou shalt have pandas.

How many pandas should each country own? That’s unclear, but what is clear is that pandas are out there, and we must have them. Taking this into consideration, it is truly an act of injustice that China is hogging all of the pandas for themselves. Such an action is truly despicable and warrants, no, necessitates government action.

Joking aside, this is what Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) suggests in response to China reclaiming pandas from American zoos, stating, “I mean, they’re taking back our pandas. You know, we should take back all their farmland.” Excellent point, senator. Truly inspiring. In response to China reclaiming animals the United States certainly does not have a right to, Fetterman is suggesting seizing Chinese-owned farmland stateside. The absurdity of this position should be evident.

Not only is this a disproportionate response, the effect of doing so on foreign affairs would be either negligible or negative. As noted in an article published by the Libertarian Institute earlier this year, little farmland in the U.S. is owned by the Chinese—less than one percent to be exact—and as noted by that article and this article by Dr. Walter Block, seizing land may only heighten tensions rather than ameliorate them.

The United States is acting as if they have an immutable right to own these pandas. However, this is baseless. The pandas come from the Chinese government; therefore, the Chinese taxpayer has a more proximate claim to the pandas than any zoo in the U.S. Using government aggression to coerce the pandas back into the hands of American zoos is totally unjustifiable.

It is true that the pandas come from a decades-long loan agreement between the Chinese and U.S. governments, and the pandas currently being reclaimed by the Chinese government are not necessarily the same pandas that were loaned many years ago. But per the loan agreement, China has claim to any offspring of the pandas and they were still acting on behalf of the Chinese people when striking up the agreement. The Chinese people, therefore, maintain their greater claim.

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Israel Fostered The Rise Of Hamas, Even After It Turned To Terror

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

Deliberately undermining the peace process by eliminating acceptable counterparties

Throughout the 1970s, Israel’s nemesis was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In stark contrast to Hamas — which emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood — the PLO was a secular, leftist organization, led by Yasser Arafat, who headed the PLO’s Fatah faction.

As a former senior CIA official told UPI’s Richard Sale in 2001, Israel’s initial boosting of Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.”

Reminds one of US support of the Mujahideen against Iran.

https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/israel-fostered-the-rise-of-hamas

Brian McGlinchey

Members of the Hamas al-Qassam Brigade at an event marking the anniversary of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza (EPA-EFE/Mohammed Saber via Euractiv)

In the aftermath of Saturday’s terrorist and military attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “The forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas…In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people, it is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.”

Those sentiments are quite different from ones Netanyahu privately shared in 2019.

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators. Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Israel’s reckless exploitation of Hamas is as old as the group itself. Indeed, decades before Netanyahu’s closed-door candor, the Israeli government pushed Hamas into its initial prominence, with direct and indirect financial support.

Throughout the 1970s, Israel’s nemesis was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In stark contrast to Hamas — which emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood — the PLO was a secular, leftist organization, led by Yasser Arafat, who headed the PLO’s Fatah faction.

As a former senior CIA official told UPI’s Richard Sale in 2001, Israel’s initial boosting of Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.”

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U.S. Neocons Aren’t Doing Israel Any Favors By Encouraging A Multi-Front War Against Them

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

– with guest Anya Parampil

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

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A Constitution the Government Evades

Posted by M. C. on October 12, 2023

“Six months ago, FBI officials boasted that in 2022 their agents had spied on only 120,000 Americans without search warrants! Under the Constitution, that number should be ZERO.“

“The reason for the FBI revelation is the pending expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the bipartisan animosity toward its extension.”

antiwar.com

by Andrew P. Napolitano

Six months ago, FBI officials boasted that in 2022 their agents had spied on only 120,000 Americans without search warrants! Under the Constitution, that number should be ZERO.

This revelation is supposed to give members of Congress comfort that the folks we have hired to protect the Constitution are in fact doing so. In reality, the feds continue to assault and violate a core freedom protected by the Constitution – the right to be left alone.

The reason for the FBI revelation is the pending expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the bipartisan animosity toward its extension.

Section 702 is unconstitutional on its face as it directly contradicts the core language of the Fourth Amendment. It permits the feds to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreign persons who are either physically or digitally present in the United States and all with whom they communicate – American or foreign – who are located here.

Thus, for example, if you call or text or email an art dealer in Florence, Italy, from your home in New Jersey, or your cousin in Geneva, Switzerland, calls or texts or emails you at your home in California, the FBI can monitor all those communications without a search warrant. And then the feds can monitor the future calls you make and texts and emails you send and receive.

The reason for the search warrant requirement is to prevent a repeat of what British agents did to the American colonists before the Revolutionary War. Then, secret British courts in London issued general warrants to British agents in America, which authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found.

When British agents used their general warrants to search colonial homes ostensibly looking for tax stamps in compliance with the Stamp Act, they were really attempting to find who among the colonists entertained revolutionary ideas that might lead to a revolt against the king.

The existence and the enforcement of the Stamp Act proved so unpopular that Parliament rescinded it after just one year of British agents roughing up colonists in their homes. But the former bond between colonials and their king had been irreparably breached and a sea change in colonial thinking pervaded the land. The core of that sea change was not taxation without representation; it was “freedom.”

To the colonial mindset, freedom had one universal meaning. It meant freedom from the government – from king and Parliament.

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War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2023

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above)

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal,

Wow! Big surprise there.

https://michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/war-natural-gas-israeli-invasion-gaza-gas-fields?publication_id=1910355&post_id=137832719&isFreemail=true&r=9atnc

Michel Chossudovsky

Almost 15 years ago in December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009).”

The following article was first published by Global Research in January 2009 at the height of the Israeli bombing and invasion under Operation Cast Lead.

Author’s Note and Update

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” which wasled by its Military Chief Mohammed Deif. On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War.”

Israel has now (October 7, 2023) officially declared an illegal war on Palestine. 

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance. Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”? Did Netanyahu and his vast military-intelligence apparatus have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack?

Was a carefully formulated plan to wage an all out war against Palestine envisaged prior to the launching of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”?

According to Dr. Philip Giraldi,

“As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.”

[Did Netanyahu have foreknowledge] about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map… in retaliation” (Philip Giraldi, October 8, 2023)

It should also be understood that Netanyahu’s October 7, 2023 illegal declaration of war against Gaza is a continuation of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead.” The underlying objective is the outright military occupation of Gaza by Israel’s IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

Flash Back: Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009)

Gaza belongs to Palestine. In December 2008, Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip under Operation Cast Lead. The justification for this invasionwas “persistent terrorist activities and a constant missile threat from the Gaza Strip directed at Israeli civilians.”

What was the hidden agenda?

The purpose of Operation Cast Led was to confiscate Palestine’s maritime natural gas reserves.

In the wake of the invasion, Palestinian gas fields were de facto confiscated by Israel in derogation of international law.

A year following “Operation Cast Lead,” Tel Aviv announced the discovery of  the Leviathan natural gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean “off the coast of Israel.”

At the time the gas field was: “ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration. (See Felicity Arbuthnot, Israel: Gas, Oil and Trouble in the Levant, Global Research, December 30, 2013

The Gazan gas fields are part of the broader Levant assessment area.

What has been unfolding is the integration of these adjoining gas fields including those belonging to Palestine into the orbit of Israel. (See map below)

It should be noted that the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline extending from Egypt’s Sinai to Syria constitutes an area encompassing large gas as well as oil reserves.

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This Is Exactly What It Looks Like

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2023

https://substack.com/inbox/post/137854657

If I was an Israel supporter I’d be thinking very carefully about the things I’m posting online in the build-up to what could end up being regarded as one of history’s worst genocidal massacres. The internet doesn’t forget. What you’re tweeting today could haunt you for life.

❖

The Israel-Palestine issue is not complicated; an apartheid regime abuses and oppresses an indigenous ethnic group who don’t have the same rights as others. The only reason anyone thinks it’s complicated is because they assume if it were simple, the news would’ve told them so.

Really Israel-Palestine is one of the easier conflicts to understand on the world stage; conflicts like Ukraine or Syria are much more complicated. It’s obvious at a glance that there’s one group in power and another group being treated very badly by that group, but because the press frames it as a complicated issue with its sympathies wildly slanted toward the apartheid regime, people assume it can’t be as simple as what it looks like at first glance.

It is, though. Israel is exactly the abusive apartheid regime it looks like on the surface. Remember this as the bodies pile up and Gaza is turned into a smoldering crater. This is exactly what it looks like.

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American Neocons Push For War With Iran — But Israel Does Not

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2023

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

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Bill Gates Investing $40 Million For mRNA Vaccine Development In Africa

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2023

Africa, apparently, doesn’t have enough problems.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bill-gates-investing-40-million-mrna-vaccine-development-africa

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Wednesday, Oct 11, 2023 – 04:15 AM

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Gates Foundation is spending $40 million on countries in Africa and other economically backward nations to produce new mRNA vaccines in efforts to prevent against diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.

Bill Gates speaks onstage at the TIME100 Summit 2022 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, on June 7, 2022. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME)

On Monday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced $40 million in funding to “advance access to mRNA research and vaccine manufacturing technology that will support low-and middle-income countries’ (LMICs) capacity to develop high-quality, lifesaving vaccines at scale,” according to an Oct. 9 press release. The $40 million will be spent on boosting access to a low-cost mRNA research and manufacturing platform developed by Belgium-based Quantoom Biosciences.

While $20 million will go to Quantoom, two research institutes in Africa—located in Senegal and South Africa—will get $5 million each. The remaining $10 million will go to vaccine manufacturers from low- and middle-income countries.

Quantoom’s platform can lead to a more than 50 percent drop in mRNA vaccine development costs compared to traditional mRNA technology, the release said.

The foundation argues that mRNA vaccines have “simpler research and manufacturing processes” compared to traditional vaccines. As such, expanding the technology to countries like South Africa and Senegal can lead to the development of low-cost mRNA vaccines for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.

The $40 million funding adds to the foundation’s previous investment worth $55 million in mRNA manufacturing technology.

“Putting innovative mRNA technology in the hands of researchers and manufacturers in Africa and around the world will help ensure more people benefit from next-generation vaccines,” said Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare and a global expert on vaccines.

“This collaboration is an encouraging step that will increase access to critical health technologies and help African countries develop vaccines that meet the needs of their people.”

The Gates foundation’s new investment comes as mRNA technology has sparked numerous safety concerns. During a testimony at the European Parliament last month, cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough said that everything he has learned about mRNA vaccines has been “horrifying.”

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