This article first appeared in the American Spectator (https://spectator.org/9-11-2001-20-from-grace-and-power-to-disgrace-and-cower/)

The divisive speech given by President Biden last Thursday — seeking to shift focus from his cowardly bug-out from Afghanistan to COVID, and to make Republicans — to Biden, a/k/a “the dark forces” — the issue rather than his horrendous first eight months in office, came on the anniversary date — 9/9/2001 — when Al-Qaeda assassinated the Northern Alliance’s greatest warrior-leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud; his son continues the resistance today. Tellingly employing suicide bombers disguised as photo journalists, with bombs concealed in pseudo-cameras, that strike was the kick-off trigger event for activating the suicide hijackers, already in America, to carry out the the 9/11 attacks. That horrific day, begun in September sunshine, descended into a dark inferno of searing flame, noxious gases, flying debris, and falling bodies; a total of 400 first-responders, who went into the crumbling structures knowing they’d likely not survive, saved thousands by their sacrifice. The aftermath saw a nation united in shock, grief, and outrage, and generated the motive force for America to project its military might 7,000 miles to confront Al-Qaeda.

From that extraordinary display of grit and grace in adversity, followed by “shock and awe” firepower in response, we now reel in disgraced disarray, our leaders cowering, prevaricating, posturing, and deflecting blame. To cover our failure to evacuate those Afghans who helped us — a number that SecState Blinken just told Congress may be not 100, but “several thousand” — the administration evacuated thousands of Afghans that the Taliban allowed us to take — who had not done anything for us. Think there just might be a few sleeper agents slipped into the mix?

We did not simply leave Afghanistan, but openly, abjectly surrendered to an enemy now hugely revitalized by our shattering defeat — to say nothing of a bonanza in military equipment — making ourselves a state sponsor of terrorism. Add to that an intelligence coup in giving biometric data on all Afghans who helped the Americans. Those who launched jihad 20 years ago are now poised to relaunch globally.

For their part, the newly empowered Afghan Taliban marked 9/11 by hoisting the Taliban flag over the Presidential Palace. The Taliban is torturing and killing Afghan counterterrorism agents who cooperated with the allied forces. And worst of all, it is beginning to round up Afghan males 12 and over, taking them to undisclosed locations — possibly to commit genocide. The area targeted for the round-up is the Panjshir Valley, a key region where the opposition Northern Alliance is based. As all this goes on, the president goes golfing.

During Saturday’s remembrance ceremonies, Biden and Harris found time to throw in their party’s favorite identity politics mantra: “Diversity is our strength.” Of viewpoint diversity the most they can manage is to pay lip service, while pursuing phantom armadas of white supremacy.

Meanwhile, what preoccupies the administration as the world is falling apart? NOT MAKING THIS UP: Confederate monuments.

Three days before the 9/112001 memorial ceremonies the most famous statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was torn down. Lee was, in fact, not only universally respected in his time by friend and foe alike; no one else could have brought the South to the peace table in Appomattox. Had Lee not done this, the likelihood is that Confederate diehards would have commenced a guerrilla war that could have lasted decades. The fearsome Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose cavalry bedeviled several Union armies — who himself had killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat, and had 30 horses shot out from under him — would have led the fight. Instead, in 1866 he became the first Imperial Wizard of the newly-formed Ku Klux Klan.

In a chillingly prophetic letter written in 2005, Civil War historian Shelby Foote wrote of Robert E. Lee:

They can tear down his statue. Lee would have been embarrassed by it. However, they cannot reverse the verdict of history. Lee will forever stand for duty and honor in opposition to tyrannical power. Those that want to dispute that comment and hurl insults must defend the status quo leading this nation into oblivion.

The statue, displaying “Marse Robert” on horseback, which stood in Richmond at the head of Monument Avenue for 131 years, was destroyed with the enthusiastic support of Virginia’s corrupt, power-drunk governor. The statue was desecrated, hacked up, and sent into oblivion by “woke” mobs — drunk with the arrogance that ignorance breeds. Thus was a once-revered figure in America’s national memory cast into the dustbin of history by neo-fascist servitors of the most tyrannical administration in American history. Along with their cultural elite allies — foremost in mass and social media — this unholiest of alliances poses the greatest security threat ever to America and the freedom that once was every American’s birthright.

The signs of tightening tyranny come from the top. Both Biden and Kamala Harris accused Americans of targeting Muslims after the 9/11 attacks: Said Biden, “We also witnessed the dark forces of human nature. Fear and anger. Resentments and violence at Muslim-Americans, true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion.” Harris, for her part, threw in Sikhs as well: “Sikhs and Muslim-Americans were targeted because of how they looked or how they worshipped.” The FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics database shows that in 2001 55.7 percent of religiously motivated attacks targeted Jews, and 65.9 percent targeted Jews in 2002. For Muslims the 2001 figure was 27.2 percent in 2001 and 10.8 percent in 2002. At most one can argue that there was a bump immediately after the attacks; but omitted — naturally — is the fact that Jews targeted vastly exceeded Muslims in both years. The latest FBI figures, for 2020, show Jews were targeted in 57.6 percent of religiously motivated attacks — 676 out of 1,174 — while Muslims were targeted in 69 out of 1,174 — 5.9 percent. Thus, in 2020, Jews were targeted just shy of 10 times as often as were Muslims. (If the argument is that Muslims were reluctant to step forward, the same can equally be said for other religious groups; absent supporting data, elevating by bald assertion any group’s silent victims versus others is classic bootstrapping.)

Biden and key administration figures like press secretary Jen Psaki have joined with ostensibly private social media companies to censor speech critical of the government’s policies on COVID vaccines — even blocking balanced discussion of vaccine pros and cons. They are nominating judges who are militant secularists; the administration’s arguments for curbing religious freedom have already been rebuffed by the Supreme Court, including several 9-0 adverse rulings. The president said that from the outset the Second Amendment has limited the type of people who can own a gun and the type of guns they can own. The State of Texas is going to build a 733-mile wall to secure the Texas-Mexico border, of which only 150 of 1,250 miles are currently protected by barriers; and Team Biden does next to nothing to vet illegal migrants for disease and eligibility.

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker sees a serious decline in Biden administration credibility, despite a pernicious double standard mainstream media employ to protect him for behavior they condemned when judging Trump:

His credibility problem isn’t simply sapping Mr. Biden’s poll numbers or even his ability to advance his political agenda. It’s further eroding trust in government, undermining America’s tattered reputation in the world and making it immeasurably harder for authority — now and in the future — to maintain the kind of trust that is essential to the functioning of a free society.

Among America’s most important allies there is no longer any trust that Mr. Biden can be relied on as a serious partner. They’re now making their own plans. At home, people are so bewildered and angry about the endless inconsistencies on masks, lockdowns, and vaccines that many of them have simply stopped paying attention.

Perhaps worst of all, save assaults on free speech: the Treasury announced IRS plans to monitor all monetary transactions of $600 or more:

This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime.… This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a … gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600.

Dennis Prager sees our greatest threat from the union of radical, totalitarian Leftists who seek to control others, and the growing number of people who increasingly accept such control as legitimate:

They currently dominate four of the five English-speaking countries (the United Kingdom may be the one exception). The ease with which Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders have accepted the loss of liberty in their respective countries has been the saddest and most frightening development since the rise of totalitarianism in the early 20th century.

Even sadder and more frightening has been the acceptance of authoritarianism by half of the American people. America has been the beacon of liberty in the world. America was the country to which France gave the Statue of Liberty. America has been, as President Abraham Lincoln characterized it, “the last best hope of Earth.” America’s self-image has been that of a “sweet land of liberty” and of “the land of the free and home of the brave.”

Four unchecked years of the Biden/Harris administration bid fair to undermine American freedom and prosperity. Former Trump director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe called President Biden “our greatest national security threat.” He has, he said, gotten everything wrong over his first eight months. Truly “profound and grave damage” has been done, because we will not be able to get human intelligence — this is a “ripple effect” that will hurt us everywhere. Ripple damage is generic: It is not particular to the direct damage done in Afghanistan; rather, it damages our standing across the entire geopolitical spectrum — allies, neutrals, and foes, on all seven continents, militarily, politically, economically, and culturally.

Bottom Line. As our foreign adversaries gain strength and resolve, whilst our allies wilt in despair, we are coming undone by the metastasizing malignancies of internecine strife. Either these baleful trends are soon reversed, starting with the 2022 mid-term elections, augmented by courts that step up to affirmatively block unconstitutional infringements on our freedoms, or America will rapidly fall into a civilizational death spiral.

At the dizzying speed at which Team Biden is moving, waiting for 2024 amounts to putting a band-aid on multiple simultaneous Stage 4 cancers. Preventing implosion requires that a critical mass of the public see the myriad dangers, sense their immediacy and gravity — and, above all — express their disgust where it counts most: by a landslide vote for change.

John Wohlstetter is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for Interanational Strategy.

(This article first appeared in Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com/israel-joins-arab-club-us-sponsorship-opinion-1628991)

By: Simone Ledeene, senior fellow and Victoria Coates

Last week, a laconic statement from the Department of Defense marked a tectonic shift in Middle East security cooperation, as the United States formally designated that Israel would now be part of the U.S Central Command (CENTCOM). President Donald Trump announced the proposed change on January 15, 2021, and while the escalation of violence in Gaza this spring seemed to put the designation in some jeopardy, it went into effect on September 1, 2021. The initiative to move Israel into CENTCOM is a direct result of the Trump administration-led Abraham Accords normalization agreements between the United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed one year ago today on the South Lawn of the White House.

CENTCOM got its name because the Middle East is literally located in the middle of everything. Israel is the most central point in that centrally located region, sharing as it does a maritime boundary with a European country (Cyprus) and a border with an African country (Egypt), as well as boasting Asian neighbors such as Jordan. In the wake of the Abraham Accords and the resultant burgeoning economic and cultural ties among the signatories, the timing is now ideal to develop a similar regional security relationship. This relationship would expand cooperation and improve Israel Defense Forces (IDF) integration with U.S. and partner forces throughout the region. It would also help CENTCOM promote a more holistic and inclusive regional security framework. There would be opportunities to conduct joint military exercises that include the IDF, which would indirectly provide Israel the occasion to communicate with countries that have yet to sign normalization agreements. Additionally, Israel would now be able to assign IDF liaison officers to CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa—and, hopefully in the future, to subordinate headquarters across the region.

As events in the Middle East crashed into the American consciousness due to the Iran and Afghanistan crises in 1979, President Jimmy Carter established the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (JTF) as a response mechanism for rapidly unfolding events. In 1983, under President Reagan, that JTF became CENTCOM. Its area of operation runs from the Pakistani border with India to Egypt’s border with Libya. U.S. military regional combatant commands, including CENTCOM, are responsible for the deployment, support and operational employment of U.S. forces in their areas of responsibility, as well as for developing military relationships with allies and partners in their respective regions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani, and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan pose from the Truman Balcony at the White House after they participated in the signing of the Abraham Accords where the countries of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognize Israel, in Washington, DC, September 15, 2020.

In the course of the 1983 reorganization, Israel, Syria and Lebanon remained part of the European Command (EUCOM), which was established after World War II. At the time, placing Israel under EUCOM made some sense. Israel had existed for just 35 years and had formal diplomatic relations—chilly ones, at that—with only one Arab country: Egypt. All the others refused to recognize or maintain formal ties with the Jewish state. Memories of oil embargoes and the 1970s-era Arab boycott were still fresh, and it seemed only prudent to consider “diplomatic sensitivities” by making CENTCOM the U.S. military’s interface with the Arab world. EUCOM provided assistance to the IDF and conducted joint exercises and contingency operations with the IDF and America’s NATO allies.

In 2004, however, President George W. Bush moved Syria and Lebanon to CENTCOM, and Israel alone among the countries of the region remained in EUCOM. This encouraged the unfortunate perception that Israel is somehow separate, or different, from the rest of the Middle East. Major threats to Israel were, and are, within CENTCOM’s boundaries—specifically, those from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Israel’s airspace is also under CENTCOM’s area of operations, including assets involved in detection, suppression and prevention of missile threats in the broader Middle East. The situation has become increasingly awkward, as the European Union is now significantly more anti-Israel than the Arab world; during the 2014 escalation of violence in Gaza, for example, EU complaints about Israel and advocacy for the Palestinians complicated an already-thorny situation. Given that Israel now has full relations with four Arab countries and is developing additional relationships in the region, the Trump administration concluded it was no longer necessary to maintain the fiction that Israel is somehow in Europe. It therefore initiated the process that came to fulfillment on September 1, 2021.

The consequences of President Joe Biden‘s recent chaotic and catastrophic surrender in Afghanistan, which is also part of CENTCOM’s area of operations, may take a generation to fully comprehend. But even in this bleak context, the restructuring of CENTCOM to incorporate Israel stands out as a beacon of hope that, thanks to the Abraham Accords, American national security interests in the Middle East may yet be salvaged—and, if properly supported and encouraged, even strengthened in the future.

Victoria Coates is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and a former deputy national security advisor for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council staff.

Simone Ledeen is a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Policy and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.

(This article first appeared in The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/571115-democrats-are-abandoning-us-allies-is-egypt-next?rl=1)

By: Simone Ledeen, Senior Fellow

The Biden administration and leftist congressional allies have perpetuated a tired charade of prioritizing human rights over other security-focused considerations with regard to relations with several key partners, including Egypt. One of the loudest Democratic voices in opposition to continued security assistance for Egypt is Sen. Christopher Murphy (Conn.), who questions a number of established partnerships supporting U.S. objectives across the Middle East.

In the past weeks, much has been revealed by our appalling abandonment of U.S. citizens and allies in Afghanistan. If promoting human rights was a primary consideration, the Biden administration would not support the Taliban — a designated terrorist organization under the United Nations and U.S. Treasury Department — which, this past week, blamed the U.S. for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

With this new reality, it is worth circling back to the administration’s dangerous approach to the U.S.-Egypt relationship, where some hard questions must be asked of Democrats advocating a halt to critical security assistance.

Egypt faces multiple security challenges and requires urgent assistance in order to continue providing leadership on regional security matters. The nation and its president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, are critical bulwarks against the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical islamist groups. It is clear that if security assistance is not provided by the United States, Egypt will seek it elsewhere, likely with Russia or other strategic rivals.

The House passed a 2022 foreign aid bill that proposes withholding $150 million from Egypt — a larger amount than in previous years — and that does not include the standard national security waiver for a portion of that withheld assistance. Due to long-standing fiscal problems, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cairo is financially strapped and now risks losing U.S. financial assistance, which constitutes a big chunk of its annual military budget. Meanwhile, as its budget is expected to remain in a deficit through 2025, pressure is building in Egypt for more austerity measures. With citizens under 30 representing more than half the total population, the trajectory is unsustainable.

Our interests are harmed without Egypt as a key partner. Egypt has fought a Sinai insurgency, which at times, has spilled over into other parts of the country. The ISIS affiliate in Egypt has claimed responsibility for most attacks and the country has been under a state of emergency since April 2018, when two ISIS-claimed suicide bombings at churches in Alexandria and Tanta killed at least 45 people.

Next to the Sinai Peninsula, Sisi helped to broker peace — at least for now — in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Although Egypt has historically played an important role in Israeli-Palestinian relations, many were caught off-guard by this development. It is a fragile peace, but this Egyptian-negotiated ceasefire highlights the critical regional leadership Cairo can and should provide.

Egypt faces a strategic challenge on its western border from the multi-year civil war in Libya and significant related security threats. Cairo is concerned that Turkish-sponsored Syrian mercenaries, combined with Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, could create an Islamic-oriented government in Tripoli. While a ceasefire was signed in 2020, Libya remains volatile and insecure.

Building on U.S. strategic security relations with Egypt, Central Command is currently engaged in a massive regional military exercise called Bright Star. In its statement on the exercise, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo states that the U.S.-Egypt security partnership plays “a leading role in regional security and efforts to combat the spread of extremism.” To illustrate the size and scope of this exercise, other countries participating include: the United Kingdom, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, Kuwait, the UAE, Tunisia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania as well as Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Greece and Pakistan. This exercise is in addition to the counterterrorism training that took place earlier in the year.

Cairo’s security is also challenged from the south, as the Nile River flows through Sudan and into Ethiopia. Egypt depends on the Nile River to meet 95 percent of its water needs. Ethiopia, which also relies on the Nile for water, built and filled the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam despite objections from both Egypt and Sudan. Both countries say that once filled, this dam will increase water instability; a particularly serious problem for Egypt as its major cities are growing exponentially. Searching for sustainable solutions to this emerging water crisis, Egypt has requested assistance from U.N. and African Union friends and allies to reach a rapprochement with Ethiopia and hopefully avoid a military confrontation.

Egypt is facing massive security challenges — both internally and externally. The United States needs Egypt to continue as a key regional leader in maintaining peace and stability, which are both in our long-term interest. Congressional Democrats must abandon their anti-Egypt rhetoric and focus on providing necessary security assistance in order to ensure U.S. national security interests are aggressively protected.

Cairo has taken a leadership role in addressing a number of important regional security challenges and should be encouraged and supported, not punished.

Simone Ledeen is a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Policy. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy. Twitter: @SimoneLedeen

LETTERS@THETIMES.CO.UK

Friday September 03 2021, 12.01am, The Times

Sir, Further to Nathalie Loiseau’s Thunderer (“Britain and the EU must forge strong foreign policy bond”, Sep 2), it is France that determines the EU’s foreign policy. There cannot now be a call for a new and strong EU-UK partnership on foreign, security and defence policy when we cannot trust France as a friend.

In spite of our bilateral defence treaty and our support for France’s efforts to defeat terrorism in the Sahel, France was a poisonous influence throughout the Brexit negotiations. It exploited the Irish border and fisheries issues and sought in every way to undermine the City of London. France has also allowed the Channel migrant scandal to be a running sore for 20 years. It seeks access to our technology for its own advantage and has blocked our continued involvement in projects in which we had massively invested.

In this small, dangerous world, there should of course be close co-operation in all policy areas with our continental neighbours. But it is paramount for all who seek to protect our freedom, prosperity and way of life to revitalise the transatlantic alliance (Iain Martin, “The end of Pax Americana leaves us all in the cold”, Comment, Sep 2) in a reliable and meaningful way. Trust is at the heart of all friendships.

Geoffrey Van Orden, a distinguished fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, is a former leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament.