In the dark of night and at the last moment Obama and Kerry reward terrorism once again with American tax payer dollars (See 1 and 1a below)
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Another take on Trump's speech and don't back down with the mass media. Treat their lies and attempts to demean as if they were ISIS. (See 2 and 2a below.)
===
This has been attributed to Warren Buffett. Makes sense whether attribution is correct or not.
Take away their hominy and grits. (See 3 below.)
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Apparently, Trump understands the mass media have lost their audience for two main reasons:
a) their bias is a turn off and
b) technology has fractured their monopoly.
Obama had his pinatas and now Trump has the mass media. Will they come to an accommodation? If they remain enemies that is not healthy but the mass media no longer believes reporting is their responsibility unless they also edit. They must mend their ways and return to objectivity and truthful reporting before Trump ceases defending himself. (See 4 below.)
Meanwhile in today's WSJ, Bret Stephens continues to express his displeasure concerning Trump's psyche.
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Thoughts from a dear friend and local LTE writer: "Peggy Noonan makes sense. However, I don’t think Trump NEEDS anyone behind him, at least I hope so. If he can get the economy rolling which will almost certainly happen with his energy policies, he will get lots behind him. The media, however, is going to need a generational turnover and our education system has pretty well assured that won’t happen. TG for the internet --- and tweeting! R------"
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A radical proposal but one I with which I agree. The U.N exists to dissipate heat but it has lost all moral authority. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
US quietly sent $221M to Palestinians in Obama's last hours
Officials said Monday that the Obama administration-- in its waning hours-- defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking.
A State Department official and several congressional aides told The Associated Press that the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning.
The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday.
The aides said written notification dated Jan. 20 was sent to Congress just hours before Donald Trump took the oath of office.
In addition to the $221 million for the Palestinians, the Obama administration also told Congress on Friday it was going ahead with the release of another $6 million in foreign affairs spending, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations, the congressional aides said.
The aides and the State Department official weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
Congress had initially approved the Palestinian funding in budget years 2015 and 2016, but at least two GOP lawmakers — Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee — had placed holds on it over moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations.
Congressional holds are generally respected by the executive branch but are not legally binding after funds have been allocated.
The Obama administration had for some time been pressing for the release of the money for the Palestinian Authority, which comes from the U.S.
Agency for International Development and is to be used for humanitarian aid in the West Bank and Gaza, to support political and security reforms as well as help prepare for good governance and the rule of law in a future Palestinian state, according to the notification sent to Congress.
The Palestinian funding is likely to draw anger from some in Congress as well as the Trump White House. Trump has vowed to be a strong supporter of Israel and has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Washington next month.
Some of Trump’s incoming administration has been split on whether to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
The Washington Post noted that most of the world doesn’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. East Jerusalem is also considered “occupied territory,” which Palestinians hope to call their capital if a two-state solution is ever reached.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, said Wednesday that she would back the embassy move, while Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee retired Marine Gen. James Mattis said he would “stick to U.S. policy” regarding Jerusalem.
Trump’s next ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, supports Israeli settlements and other changes to U.S. policies in the region.
Friedman said he looked forward to carrying out his duties from "the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem," even though the embassy is in Tel Aviv. Trump advisers have said that the president-elect will follow through on his call for moving the embassy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
1a) Game Time
George Friedman
1a) Game Time
By George Friedman
Last Friday, Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States. For Trump, as with every president before him, everything he said until that point consisted of promises. He had no power, so the only thing that could be expected of him was his analysis of what is wrong with the country, and what he would do to solve it.
On Friday, the question shifted from what he will do, to what he is doing. Presidents don’t stop promising, but the promises become more hollow over time if they are not matched by some degree of achievement.
The President’s Weak Position
The American presidency is a paradox.
It is the most noted position in the world, imbued by observers with all the power inherent to the world’s most powerful country. Everyone is now trying to understand what Trump intends to do.
At the same time, the American president is among the weakest institutional leaders in Euro-American civilization. He can do some things unilaterally, particularly in foreign policy, but Congress can block them. He can do some things by executive order, but the Supreme Court can overrule them. He can pass certain programs that require cooperation from states, but the states can refuse to cooperate. At every step, as the founders intended, his ability to act unilaterally is severely limited. The difference between how presidential power appears and how it is applied in reality is enormous.
So now, the most important question is not, what does Trump intend to do… but instead, what will Congress do? Both chambers have Republican majorities. Republican control of the House of Representatives is overwhelming. Republican control of the Senate, though, is not.
The Senate has 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and two independents who are likely to vote with the Democrats. This essentially gives the Republicans a four-vote majority. Because the vice president would be the deciding vote in a tie… and because he is a Republican, three Republicans would have to switch sides to defeat any legislation.
Under the Constitution, senators are not elected to rubber-stamp the president. They are elected to represent their sovereign states. So this battleground will not be between Republicans and Democrats. Nor will it be between both chambers. The real battle will be among Senate Republicans.
Three defections make it impossible to pass any proposed legislation. As such, any Republican senator who can position himself as a potential defector will be able to negotiate for the president’s support on any number of issues. The president will either be forced to compromise or risk having the legislation defeated.
Approval Ratings Are Key
Senators are not free actors. They need to be re-elected. Their calculation on whether to oppose a Republican president will depend heavily (if not entirely) on whether the president will help or hurt them in their re-election bids. That depends on the president’s approval ratings, particularly in the senators’ home states.
According to a Fox News poll taken just before Inauguration Day, 37% of those polled approved of Trump’s performance and 54% did not. And therein lies Trump’s problem and battleground.
President George W. Bush, President Richard Nixon, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and President Harry S. Truman all had approval ratings around 37% toward the end of their terms. This number is normal for a failed or worn-out presidency.
I know of no president in the 20th century who began his term this way. Each party historically commands about 40% support among voters. When a president falls below 40%, he is actually losing support from his own party. It is normally hard to come back from that… and it usually takes years to get to that low level.
This poses a problem for Trump’s administration. With these numbers, it is possible that more than three Republican senators could decide that rigid support for the president might cost them their political lives.
Trump’s approval ratings are unlikely to fall below 37%, but to be effective, he can’t stay at that level. Republican senators will look at the president’s negative ratings in their states and calculate whether supporting his programs might lock 50% of voters against them. It is important to recall that constitutionally, a senator is supposed to serve the people of his state, not the president.
Because public support wanes over the course of a presidency (though it sometimes blooms with nostalgia later in his term), it is essential to start a term with as much support as possible. Therefore, if Trump wants to get controversial bills passed, he must build his popularity quickly. His staff, particularly the vice president, will be examining every Republican senator who is up for re-election in 2018 to determine how to help sway their states’ voters. Trump’s fear will be that he will alienate his core while failing to make inroads with his enemies.
The Other Roadblock
The final point to consider is, of course, the use of filibusters. This is a deep tradition in the Senate, and it has served as another check on power that the founders would have been proud of. Any senator may filibuster a bill, and if a whole party does it, the filibuster can only be stopped by getting 60 votes in favor or by letting the senators go on until they drop.
If the latter happens, the Democrats in the Senate would effectively be able to block Trump’s entire agenda. Alternatively, Trump would need the support of eight Democrats to get 60 votes to end a filibuster. That isn’t likely to happen.
The president can achieve some things with an executive order, assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t step in. But broader policies like infrastructure development won’t get passed without congressional support.
That battleground will be within the Republican Party in the Senate. The result will depend on whether Trump’s approval ratings increase above 37%. Just holding there won’t do it, as that number has been “Death Valley” for other presidencies… although we have no way to benchmark a presidency that starts at this level.
Before we wrap up this week, it is my pleasure to invite you to Geopolitical Futures’ very first conference, The Next 4 Years: The Role of the United States in the World. Attendance is strictly limited to 80 guests, so make sure to get on our invitation-only waitlist. For more details, and to join the waitlist, please click here.
George Friedman
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2) Trump’s speech wasn’t divisive. He said he’d fight for all Americans.
For all the legitimate criticisms of Donald Trump’s inaugural address, one charge that is wholly undeserved is that his speech was divisive and targeted solely at his core supporters. Read the plain words of what Trump actually said, and it is clear this is simply not so. He reached out directly and repeatedly to Americans who did not vote for him.
Trump addressed his remarks to “the forgotten men and women of our country,” who he said “will be forgotten no longer.” Who are these forgotten Americans? In Trump’s telling, they fall into two groups: the white working class living in the industrial heartland and poor, mostly African American, citizens living in America’s decimated inner cities.
One group voted for him; the other did not. On Friday, Trump promised to fight for them both.
Trump promised to fight for “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities” as well as those trapped in regions filled with “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.”
He promised to combat “the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential,” declaring that “we are one nation, and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams, and their success will be our success."
Trump promised that “we will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.” He promised to fight racial discrimination, declaring that “when you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice” and reminding Americans that “whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.”
He preached racial unity, declaring “whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the wind-swept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty creator.”
He declared “to all Americans in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny.”
Much of Trump’s language on inner-city poverty echoed the words of Ronald Reagan at the 1992 Republican convention. Reagan declared that “whether we are Afro American or Irish American . . . we are all equal in the eyes of God,” adding that “many [Americans] languish in neighborhoods riddled with drugs and bereft of hope. Still others hesitate to venture out on the streets for fear of criminal violence. Let us pledge ourselves to a new beginning for them.” No one called that “dark” when Reagan said it.
Now Trump has taken up Reagan’s call for Republicans to fight for the forgotten Americans in our nation’s inner cities. The big question, going forward, is: How will Trump do it?
The fear among anti-poverty warriors on the right is that Trump’s solution for inner-city poverty will be to throw money at the problem. That seems to be at least part of the strategy. Mike Allen of Axios reports that White House chief strategist Steve Bannon sees “a huge infrastructure bill as a way to attract voters, especially minorities, who opposed Trump in 2016” and that the Trump administration will “run new roads, repair tunnels and provide web access to other classes or regions of forgotten Americans.” Obama already tried that. It was called the stimulus, and it didn’t work.
Infrastructure spending won’t eradicate poverty. If government spending were the answer, poverty would have been eradicated long ago. Since President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty, we have spent many trillions of dollars fighting poverty — and yet the poverty rate in the United States remains virtually unchanged since Johnson’s day.
Fortunately, spending is not Trump’s entire strategy. We know, for example, that Trump cares deeply about school choice, which is a critical building block of any campaign to eradicate inner-city poverty, and that his nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, would lead a charge to massively expand educational options for children trapped in failing public schools.
Beyond that, Trump has many options if he wants to pursue innovative policies to creating opportunity for the poor and vulnerable. Last year, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) convened a congressional Task Force on Poverty, Opportunity &; Upward Mobility, which proposed a series of reforms as part of his “A Better Way” plan to help lift people “out of poverty and onto the ladder of opportunity.” These include proposals to add stronger work requirements to federal welfare programs; provide better job training to non-custodial parents so that they earn more and better meet their child-support obligations; remove penalties for aid recipients that discourage them from getting married or working more hours; and give states more flexibility to tailor aid packages to meet the specific needs of recipients instead of a one-size-fits-all approach from Washington.
My colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute’s department of poverty studies have also developed innovative proposals to fight poverty. These include an expansion of wage subsidies such as the earned-income tax credit (EITC) to include not just families with children but also younger, childless workers so that they can gain experience to put them on the path to self-reliance, as well as creating relocation vouchers for these chronically unemployed so that they can move to areas with more plentiful opportunities without fear of losing the support they depend on.
Trump, of all people, should understand that the old ways of doing things in Washington — throwing money at the problem without fundamental reform — will not help those trapped in poverty. As he put it, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.” That includes the inner-city poor.
It’s up to Trump to change it.
2a)
It’s possible that the new White House team knew what they were doing when they sent Sean Spicer out to meet the press for the first time to pick a fight and say things that were obviously untrue about the size of the crowd at Friday’s inauguration since it distracted the country from the anti-Trump protests as some pundits suspect. Perhaps the same was also the strategy behind President Trump’s astonishing performance at the CIA headquarters in which he also ranted about the press. After seeing him triumph after behaving this way during the presidential campaign, it’s possible to imagine that there is method behind the madness. But what we witnessed was just Trump being Trump. His thin skin and ever-boiling sense of resentment against any slight or criticism is still governing his actions in a way that has little to do with a coherent strategy.
According to reports, Spicer was sent out to do battle with the press by the president who was upset about claims that he got a smaller turnout at his inauguration than President Obama got in 2009. But Spicer turned a ridiculous grudge into an even bigger mess with his performance. That problem was compounded the next morning when senior advisor Kellyanne Conway jousted with Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” When Todd offered proof that Trump’s very respectable audience was smaller than the crowd that showed up to witness the historic moment when the first African-American was sworn in, Conway’s countered that Spicer had merely offered “alternative facts.” In doing so the normally savvy but combative Trump aide created not merely a damaging meme but also a moment that may be seen as proof of an administration that is already out of touch with reality.
Why are they doing this? What most of their liberal critics — especially the same press corps that spent most of the previous eight years fawning on Obama — miss is that the Trump team and their supporters believe the press will seize upon any excuse to unfairly diminish their achievements and to tout those of their opponents. They are not wrong about that as the media’s willingness to publicize the leaked unsubstantiated secret dossier about Trump and Russia that may well have been completely bogus proved. Moreover picking fights with the press is popular not only with Trump’s fan base but also with conservatives and mainstream Republicans who may not be enthusiastic about the prospect of a populist administration that may be about to — if his inaugural address is any indication — jettison the Reaganite conservative ideas that have guided the party for the past 36 years. But the damage the weekend of “alternative facts” has done outweighs any advantage a spat with the unpopular media may Trump with people who already back him.
Playing the victim of unfair liberal media may be smart when you’re out of power but when a newly-sworn in president with the backing of friendly majorities in both houses of Congress plays that card it’s not as effective as it was when Obama sat in the Oval Office. Nobody except Trump cared about the relative size of the 2009 and 2017 inauguration attendance figures. But now everyone knows that even the glow of being feted as our 45th president wasn’t enough to soothe his ever-wounded vanity.
It’s way too early for the new West Wing crew to be retreating into a bunker when it comes to dealing with the press. Despite the disadvantages of a hostile media and a mobilized opposition, Trump has formidable weapons at his disposal in the form of the power of the presidency and Congressional majorities that are eager to hand him some victories. But if he continues in this vein, he will make it harder rather than easier on his allies to use those tools. The “alternative facts” gambit didn’t cause a press that was eager to embrace the anti-Trump women’s march to stint on their coverage. What it did was to make an otherwise unreasonable pre-emptive strike by the left at a new president’s legitimacy almost look reasonable and that’s something that should worry Trump’s supporters.
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3)The BUFFETT Rule
Let's see if these idiots understand what people pressure is all about.
Salary of retired US Presidents .. . . . .. . . . . .. . $180,000 FOR LIFE.
Salary of House/Senate members .. . . . .. . . . $174,000 FOR LIFE. This is stupid
Salary of Speaker of the House .. . . . .. . . . . $223,500 FOR LIFE. This is really stupid
Salary of Majority / Minority Leaders . . .. . . . . $193,400 FOR LIFE. Stupid
Average Salary of a teacher . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. .$40,065
Average Salary of a deployed Soldier . . .. . . .. $38,000
Here’s where the cuts should be made!
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:
"I could end the deficit in five minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election".
The 26th Amendment ( granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds ) took only three months and eight days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffett is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
Congressional Reform Act of 2017
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman / woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.
2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 3/1/17. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.
Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people, then it will only take three days for most people in the U.S. to receive the message. It's time!
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!
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4)
Trump, the Press and the Dictatorship of the Trolletariat
The president pursues a canny strategy of sending journalists on wild-goose ‘fact checks.’
By
I can’t keep up with the stream of social-media neologisms. What does “derp” mean, and
how do you even pronounce “pwn”? But one word I know is “troll.” A troll is someone
who deliberately kindles acrimony by making outrageous, offensive or confusing remarks
.Often it’s used as a verb, as in: Donald Trump has spent the past year and a half trolling
the news media.
And he has. But few journalists have appreciated the degree to which Mr. Trump’s entire
political and governing strategy depends on trolling them. They’ve mostly assumed his
penchant for exaggeration and invention was the result of psychosis, or just ego. By now,
though, it ought to be apparent that he’s doing it intentionally, and strategically.
On Saturday the president, in a visit to the CIA, claimed that up to 1.5 million people
attended his inauguration (evidently this is not the case) and that journalists—especially,
he assumes, those he thinks low balled the attendance numbers—are “among the most
dishonest human beings on earth.” Later that day, press secretary Sean Spicer appeared at a White House press briefing to claim, among other things, that last Friday’s inauguration was' the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe.”
As many media outlets reported immediately, fewer people seem to have attended the
event than watched Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. TV ratings, though higher than
Mr. Obama’s second inauguration, were lower than his first.
Many journalists responded to these remarks, predictably, with outrage. “Do citizens in dictatorships recognize what’s happening right here, right now?” CNN’s Brian Stelter
asked on Sunday morning. “Are they looking at the first two days of the Trump
administration and saying, ‘Oh, that’s what my leader does?’ . . . Will President Trump
deny reality on a daily basis? Will he make up his own false facts and fake stats? What
will the consequences be?”
It is a kind of dictatorship, but not the kind Mr. Stelter imagines—an inchoate autocracy
ready to metastasize into a propaganda-driven tyrannical state. No, this is the dictatorship of the trolletariat—a tyranny in which the media, and only the media, are subject to the ruler’s whims.
Mr. Trump has little but contempt for the mainstream media. Or at least he wants the
media to think so. He realized some time ago, as many a Republican presidential
candidate realized before him, that most journalists covering his campaign would
interpret his pronouncements and decisions in the worst possible light. Mr. Trump
decided not to play their game. Instead, he would troll them. Constantly, mercilessly troll
them.
The effect was to stop them from covering his candidacy in the usual ways—with the
kind of one-sided analysis guaranteed to make his Democratic opponent look superior—
and instead to send them off on crazy “fact checking” errands in search of intrinsically
worthless data. Did “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrate the 9/11 attacks in
New Jersey? Did he really oppose the Iraq war, and when? Is “The Art of the Deal” really
the bestselling business book of all time?
Now that he is president, reporters assigned to Mr. Trump are in a tough position. They
have to pay close attention to what the White House says, but they know the White
House may give them garbage and dare them to spend an entire working day trying to
verify or debunk it. Meanwhile Mr. Trump will make the ordinary decisions any
president must make—court nominations, executive orders, negotiations with foreign
leaders—while reporters are off trying to disprove some idiotic claim about the
president’s approval ratings. They’ll feel as if they’re in an impossible bind, trolled into
looking the other way, futilely insisting on their authority as the nation’s guardians of
truth.
I find Mr. Trump’s way of handling the news media highly disorienting and regrettable.
But it is a strategy, and the news media had better regroup and figure out how to deal
with it. One obvious way is to ask whether each truth-claim the administration’s giving
them is important or not. All administrations fudge the truth, mislead and sometimes just
lie. But is it an important lie, one calculated to evade the law or expand executive power?
For claims about inaugural viewership, the answer is surely no.
Mr. Trump has decided, rightly or wrongly, that the press is not the people. A ridiculous
“lie” to the press, in his view, is not a lie to the people. The press rejects that distinction,
believing themselves to be the crucial link between the people and the government—
indeed, between the people and reality itself. Right now, though, it doesn’t matter what
they think. They must deal with reality.
Mr. Swaim is author of “The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics” (Simon &
Schuster, 2015). He writes about political books for the Weekend Journal.
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By Warren Manison
Washington D.C Representative
Unity Coalition for Israel
Washington D.C Representative
Unity Coalition for Israel
In the past 95 years, there have been two attempts to establish an authoritarian world organization charged with maintaining international peace and security. The League of Nations was established in 1922 following WW I and the United Nations (U.N.) was established in 1945 following WWII. There was a carryover of major parts of the goals of the League into the Charter of the U.N. Unfortunately, major factors affecting world stability were not considered. These include an increasing population, competition for resources, ideologically driven turmoil and the inclination of mankind to ignore the Tenth Commandment that “Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Possessions”. In doing so, the world community disregarded the famous admonitions by George Santayana and Albert Einstein that those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat its failures. And failure it has been for the League of Nations and now for the United Nations.
The League of Nations was formed in 1922 to fundamentally prevent future wars through collective security and disarmament and to settle international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. The impetus for its formation was World War 1 that resulted in the deaths of some 18 million civilians and soldiers. At its zenith in 1935, there were 58 member states. Its ambitious Charter included obligations to: adjudicate disputes involving labor conditions, prevent human trafficking, address global health, safeguard prisoners of war and protect minorities in Europe. The history of the League is replete with failures to achieve these objectives. It failed to assure that the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI was implemented with reasonable justice applied to Germany and its WWI allies, regarding reparations. In effect this failure contributed to the emergence in Germany of the National Socialist Party (NAZI), the re-arming of Germany and to the Second World War. The League contributed to a near chaotic situation because of poor leadership, confusion and conflicting agreements between its members. A number of separate Treaties between various nations were negotiated adding to the confusion and furthering fears among some European nations that their future could be compromised. In 1933, Germany withdrew from the League as did Japan, Italy, Spain, and others. The onset of WW II exposed the failure of the League to prevent any future world war. The result was a death toll exceeding 52 million.
The United Nations came into existence in 1945 as a replacement for the failed League of Nations and with a Charter that incorporated many of the objectives of the League. Like the League, the U.N. has been a failure. It has not achieved the major goal of both organizations: maintaining international peace and security. In fact, it has created a false illusion that a world organization can maintain peace and security throughout the world without considering major factors that motivate nations and people and a systemic need for powerful, honest and evenhanded leadership.The failed history of the U.N. includes:
- Inaction in the face of an attempt by 5 Arab armies to destroy Israel in 1948 after the U.N. itself advanced a Partition Plan intended to enable Arabs and Jews to live together in peace in the then Palestine. This was its first test for world peace and security and it flunked.
- No intervention or action when N. Korea attacked S. Korea in 1950 and when N. Vietnam threatened and invaded S. Vietnam in the 1960s. It was the resolve of America to intervene and fight the forces of communism intent on subjugating S. Vietnam and S. Korea. Only when America took the lead, did the U.N. start participating.
- Sitting on the sidelines in the 1990s when Yugoslavia disintegrated with resultant chaos and bloodshed, providing only limited humanitarian aid. It took the forces of the USA to bring about a cessation of the conflict and a successful breakup of what was Yugoslavia.
- No intervention or action when Iraq’s Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. It took the determined effort by the U.S. to form a Coalition of 30 nations to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty.
- Lack of leadership to rally the world to support America when we were attacked on 9/11, suffering over 3,000 casualties
- Not taking a leading role in the Afghanistan/Iraq military action in 2003.
- Staying aloof from the bloodshed in Syria starting in 2011 that caused the deaths of some 500,000 people, mass migration of Muslims to Europe and resurgence of Russia into the Middle East.
- Not addressing the threat of Radical Islamic Terrorism emanating primarily from ISIS, which found a home in Iraq once American forces departed.
- A one-sided effort to bring an end to 68 years of conflict between Arabs/Palestinians and Israel.
Perhaps the worst transgression of its own charter was its inability to blunt the singular drive of one alliance within the U.N. to denigrate and de-legitimize the State of Israel, namely, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), consisting of 57 Muslim member states. This Bloc acts like a single minded international organization in its own interest within the U.N
Surprisingly, one voice spoke up illustrating how far the U.N. has gone in ignoring its own Charter and contributing to instability. This was the voice of the retired former U.N. Secretary-General of the U.N., Ban Ki-Moon who recently stated that the UN is biased against one country – namely Israel. He pointed out that in the past year, the U.N. has seen fit to pass 22 Resolutions against Israel, while ignoring the tremendous injustice against Syrian civilians, Iran support to world terrorism, and yes, absorption of Tibet by China against the wishes of the Tibetan people.
The history of both intended world peace keeper organizations is abysmal. The question has to be asked, is it possible to establish a world body powerful enough to maintain peace and stability and yet provide for independence of member states? The first step has to be recognition that the blueprint for both the League of Nations and the United Nations is a failure. The second step is to evaluate alternatives drawing upon these failures to consider a world body perhaps consisting only of powerful democratic nations. The third step is to dies-band the U.N. as more of a hindrance to world peace and to rely on the power and strength of America and democracies to maintain peace and stability. It should also be obvious that unless this issue is addressed and resolved, the 18 million fatalities of WW I, and the 52 million fatalities of WW II could tragically pale in comparison to what the next world war might cause.
Warren Manison
Washington D.C Representative
Unity Coalition for Israel
Washington D.C Representative
Unity Coalition for Israel
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