Saturday, December 22, 2018

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitics Review: Saturday December 22

By Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
President Trump, General Mattis, and the Emergence of  a Nationalist Foreign Policy. 

President Trump is withdrawing US troops from Syria and reducing the 15,000 Afghan mission by 7000 men. (Joshua Landis from the University of Oklahoma is probably the best commentator on Syria in America. He shows the key role of Turkey in this move. We apologize that RT was the only news source for Landis analysis.)The foreign policy establishment represented by Lindsey Graham and Bob Mendenz are apoplectic. They should be. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has resigned stating his reasons in a principled letter.  General Mattis said the President deserved a Secretary of Defense who shared his policy goals. There are not many men around who will fit that bill.  Very few men who have advanced in the military or foreign policy establishment in the last 30 years advocate the Trump nation to nation approach. General Mattis was very clear in stating his own views about strengthening alliances, confronting malignant actors and being wisely wary of competitors. His positions are the conventional wisdom of the last several National Security Strategy reports. (We discussed this a year ago in Globalist Generals and a Nationalist President). These conventional "bipartisan" Western goals are not the President's.
 President Trump as a nationalist wants to establish more nation to nation relations. He understands in the Mideast that it will be nation states-Turkey, Iraq and Syria that establish order where ISIS once reigned free. His desire for strong nation states to establish order in the region is in contrast with Israel which often prefers failed or civilly divided states as neighbors.  President Trump does not agree with the last three National Security Strategic assessments which saw Russia as "a revisionist power" who along with China "want to shape a world antithetical to our values and interests." Trump does not see grand strategy as the three encirclements of Russia, China and Iran. He is unfortunately very aggressive in isolating Iran. He has Republican and military support for his aggressive anti Iran coalition joined by the Saudis, Sunni Gulf kingdoms and Israel. (Hopefully this one large contradictory emphasis will be exposed and reversed by the Khashoggi--MbS affair and more investigation of the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks.)   Trump has never wanted to encircle Russia and he is open to a competitive great power relation with China instead of a South China Sea "containment of the emerging enemy" approach. The US foreign policy experts and the "western alliance" globalists all oppose his instincts.
Most military men have been educated in the West vs the Rest worldview.  This is also true of British and Australian foreign services who want the English speaking West to prevail over a multilingual multi civilizational alliance of the great nations. {One of the reasons Fox News is so schizophrenic in its coverage of Trump is that as a news organization, they have no cultural feel for American nationalism. Their Australian roots(and their overloaded English accented white boy commentators representing "the West") have favored a "Western values, Anglo modernist white individualistic" synthesis over a territorial American nationalistic multiracial religious working man accent.
 There are almost no Fox, CNN, ABC or PBS commentators who could explain(much less advocate) the alternative vision of China, Russia and the US bandwagoning rather than confronting, encircling and power balancing. President Trump doesn't have a Kissinger to explain the larger Nixon like realignment he is formulating. Unfortunately there are no Democratic Senators who can overcome the hate Trump movement to join him in a serious  antiwar initiative. This is the bitter fruit of partisanship that found no Republican senators aiding President Obama in his reluctance  to bomb Syria and his bold initiative with Iran.
 President Trump has resisted his own party and our failed military strategists. For his first two years in office he needed loyal military men in his top offices to protect his office even more than promote his policies. Now he must initiate or perish.  He needs fellow citizens, educated journalists and statesmen to follow his lead in learning from the history of the 20th century to formulate an American nationalist foreign policy.  It will take us all to break the stranglehold  of lobby funded careerists like Sen. Robert Menendez, ambitious presidential candidates like Senator Marco Rubio and honest but mistaken patriots like General James Mattis. This is especially true in applying nationalist perspectives to Mideast foreign policy. 
 (Addendum 12/23/2018: General Mattis in his resignation suggested late February 2019 as his departure time. President  Trump a few days later said it would be Jan 1. The media exploded that Trump was "forcing Mattis out early". When a high ranking  subordinate tells his commanding officer he doesn't agree with his policy but he'd like to stay an extra two months, no commander in chief worth his salt would comply. In a corporation the human resource department would accompany you to your desk and get your personals as you surrendered internet access and are terminated immediately.
 Ask Harry Truman about the duty of Presidents to maintain civilian control over popular generals. The Hate Trump Psychosis has the Left cheering for the globalist military network continuing unwinnable wars in Syria and Afghanistan  against  an elected  President trying to extricate us. These are wars about national governance that our military can't win... but can't bring themselves to leave. Our officers need the authority of an elected president to bring the troops home. We all need the foreign nation states of  Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan to establish political compromise and military control in their respective countries. Order follows from strong nation states in agreement about their shared boundaries. Every American nationalist and every left wing anti war progressive should be singing together: "Thank God for President Trump." )    





I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CHURCH

A NEW INNER CIRCLE NEEDED: Pope Francis governs by trusting top allies for advice and delegation of tasks. The effectiveness of his governance depends on how well he discerns the trustworthy. Unfortunately several top cardinals who have won his trust must be convincingly exposed as part of the problem not the solution.  In America they include Donald Wuerl and Blasé Cupich. In Honduras it is Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga. If seminarian abuse isn't enough, here is a widow.  The Honduran bishops denyMaradiaga right hand man is out. All from July, 2018.

TURN YOURSELVES INPope Christmas Message: To abusers he said, "Turn yourself over to civil authorities and prepare for Divine Judgment."  He thanked journalists for uncovering crimes. He also condemned "the infidelity of those who betray their vocation"..."they hide behind their good intentions to stab their brothers and sisters in the back to sow weeds, division, and bewilderment. They resemble Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus Christ and did not repent. They find spiritual and intellectual excuses to continue on their path to perdition."  He still concludes that the light of Christmas is greater than the darkness of corruption.

MARSHALL AND MICHAELInterview Taylor Marshall and Michael Voris - very interesting profile. His momma's lesson on abortion was a key and the faith of his dad and their loyalty to Notre Dame. On Pope Francis, all three of these good men are off base. Voris has an impressive  background as an investigative reporter. He is one of the very few authentic reporters on the depth and details of clergy corruption. His own grievous lack of filial piety toward the Holy Father is matched by one of the co hosts who seems to revel in the  "resist authority" zeitgeist. The EWTN hosts are also guilty of stabbing the Pope repeatedly in the back while ignoring the investigative work and crimes in their own dioceses. There is no courage in attacking the Pope while running from the local stench that cries out for expose.  It is a difficult task to combine filial piety, fraternal correction, and the necessity for an exorcism  of the huge cancerous homosexual network from within the apostolic fraternity.  It is a difficult necessary task which will  require many talented, courageous and prudent bishops, priests, and laymen. Bashing the Pope is no way to establish patriarchal fraternity. Investigating by name and offense the diocesan networks and corrupt religious orders is essential. This effort will be lay led at first.  They will have an effective place to bring evidence when serious bishops appoint diocesan Eliot Ness like promoters of justice to coordinate the inquisitions.  Michael Voris is a very wounded warrior but he is a warrior in a time of war. His betrayal of Pope Francis just when we need to unite many Catholics against our most corrupt clergy is sowing great confusion. Marshall Taylor is a good teacher swallowed by his own pomposity in betraying the Pope. Both of these men are opening to an alliance with Catacomb Catholics who oppose Vatican Two, the Luminous Mysteries, the Novus Ordo, and Pope Francis. This is the wrong coalition. These men can not  provide a glue for a priestly fraternity and a Maccabean brotherhood of laymen. Their misdirection is feeding the power of chicken hawk enablers like James Martin. The Pope must be our axis of unity not a paternal punching bag.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? The Ukrainian government nears passing a new law that would force the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to add "Russia" to its title since it recognizes Patriarch Kiril as its spiritual head and prays for him accordingly in the liturgy. Under the new law, Ukrainian Orthodox priests would be banned from visiting and ministering at Ukrainian military installations. Meanwhile the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church" title would be transferred to a schismatic church separate from Kiril. After Christmas the Ukrainian parliament will begin to consider a law that would be used to transfer church property...



II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA


PRESIDENT-LED REFORMReal Criminal Justice Reform - a Trump-Kushiner bipartisan triumph. The First Step Act.   The Trump consensus in 2020 will not be forged by a plea to "suburban women". It will be a nationalist "work and protect" appeal to black, brown, yellow, and white men to come together as fellow citizens and strengthen our common identity as Americans again under God. Men bond by territory even more deeply than race, class, or party. Christianity orders us to be brothers.  Each particular nation gives men a practical historical and territorial form to express and live out the public love of brotherhood. Public interracial cross-class brotherhood is as fundamental a form of Christian love as male-female marriage. It turns out the nationalists pay more attention to the imprisoned males than the feminist lavender coalition on the left or the war party tough on crime gang on the right. This was a serious reform that made a reality out of two favorite chants: "black lives matter" and "love trumps hate".  It was bipartisan in the best tradition. There is a group of Democrats who could help him considerably in both his infrastructure building agenda at home and his empire dismantling abroad.

FAREWELL WEEKLY STANDARDWeep not for the Weekly Standard.

NAZIS IN AMERICA? A famous German reporter for the country's largest newspaper came to America to find the rural supporters of Donald Trump. He wanted to show the Nazi specter that is alive and well in small town America. Actually the largest ethnic group in America is German if you don't lump all the Hispanics. The State of Minnesota has the 4th largest Germanic proportion (38%). The German scribe came to Fergus Falls, Minnesota and spun quite a yarn. Trouble is those Minnesota yokels found out about his fairy tale. The rural-big city divide found the truth tellers from the country exposing the big city reporter who has lost his job. There really aren't a lot of cryptic Nazis in Fergus Falls but there is a William Tell-like resistance to tyrants and liars.

APOLLO 8 AT 50: This Christmas marks the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Apollo 8 mission - the first time man orbited the moon. When three American men made the journey, they brought their Bibles with them and delivered a Christmas message the world would not have heard had the Soviets beat us there first.

III. THE NATIONS

ISIS IS GONE - TIME TO GO HOMEThe US is in Syria to help Israel against Iran. Time to leave? 
UNITED ARAB EMIRATESExcellent review of UAE and their young ruler MbZ who is a serious influence on Saudi MbS. The UAE is aggressively pro-monarchy, anti-populist, and anti-Muslim Brotherhood. They see Qatar and Al Jazeera as an enemy.

MORE LITTLE WARS TV: The guys from Little Wars TV teach us this week about little-known yet pivotal battle from the American Revolution at Princeton.

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