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Can Brussels raid the tens of billions of euros in Russian assets frozen by the European Union to pay for Ukraine’s recovery? This thorny legal question is currently under examination by the EU Commission as the cash-strapped bloc looks for potentially €18 billion ($18 billion) next year to keep Ukraine afloat as it fends off Moscow’s invasion. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission's president, told reporters on Tuesday in Berlin that she had set up a task force to both map what assets exist as well as the preconditions that must be met to seize them. “The will is...

"Not so long ago, Republicans said they had sworn off nation-building. Following the failure of the neoconservative project in Iraq and Afghanistan, GOP leaders seemed to have learned their lesson. But apparently not. Now nation-building is back with force, with a massive aid package to Ukraine that makes that country a US client state. Up next: a debate over expanding NATO. Many Republicans in Congress have already lined up to support both, almost reflexively. Why?"

While the Biden administration has already attempted to shift blame to Donald Trump for the scenes coming out of Afghanistan, Biden owns both the decision to leave and the catastrophic withdrawal he oversaw as commander-in-chief.“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces,” Biden said in a statement released Saturday.“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice — follow...

In the aftermath of Vice President Kamala Harris’s embarrassing trip to Guatemala and Mexico, we need to be clear about what triggered the crisis at the border.Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t need to visit Guatemala and Mexico this week to discover the “root causes” of illegal immigration, or, as she put it, “understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border, and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.” The reason migrants are arriving at our southwest border in near-record numbers — the “root cause,” if you will — is...

The best way to neutralize Iran is to have them overstretch. An older, forgotten grand strategy where adversaries bleed each other is in the Western interest. Here’s all one needs to know about what is happening in Iraq: As France 24 reported, “Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the heavily-fortified Green Zone after a funeral held for those killed in the US air strikes, letting them pass through a security checkpoint leading to the area.” Consider that for a moment, and let the anger surge through your veins.These are the same people...

I stopped at a gas station yesterday. An older lady was pumping gas and we got into a conversation about what is going on in this country. On Trump, she remarked sadly that he is under relentless, constant attack. I mentioned something about consequences to all of that and the nation would fall if the other side got their way and we parted ways. After thinking about that talk, it occurred to me that Democrats (including McCain) could not come up with meaningful ideas to move this nation foward. All they talk about doing is letting more immigrants in (for...

National ​security adviser HR McMaster used a 1972 photo of Afghan women wearing miniskirts to help convince President Trump to stay the course in Afghanistan, according to a report on Tuesday. ​McMaster showed the president a black-and-white photograph of three women walking down a Kabul street in miniskirts to ​convince him that Western culture had once thrived in Afghanistan and could again, the Washington Post reported. The photo was among the arguments the president’s staff used to make the case that he should not pull troops from Afghanistan – the site of America’s longest war, the newspaper said. In a...

FOX cut away from O'Reily and went live with Shep at :48 after the hour. Dropped all commercials. Other nets are going with all talking heads, but not following the show formats promoted earlier tonight. It's now still 4:10 AM in Syria, plenty of time for cruise missiles to impact if they had been fired from US ships in Med. Nothing confirmed, but "the natives are restless"

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The U.S. military has requested that the White House grant it more freedom in its approach to fighting a terror group that has been wreaking havoc in North Africa in recent years, Military.com reported. Aggressions by the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia could erupt into an all-out war, but the head of U.S. Africa Command was looking for ways to avoid turning the country into a "free-fire zone," he said Friday. Specifically, Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser was looking for "a little bit more flexibility" to "process targets in a more rapid fashion," he told reporters at the Pentagon. That "flexibility"...

Remember Afghanistan? The longest war in American history? Ever? When it comes to wars, we Americans have a selective memory. The Afghan war, dating from October 2001, has earned the distinction of having been forgotten while still underway. President Trump’s Inaugural Address included no mention of Afghanistan. Nor did his remarks last month at a joint session of Congress. For the new commander in chief, the war there qualifies at best as an afterthought — assuming, that is, he has thought about it all. A similar attitude prevails on Capitol Hill. Congressional oversight has become pro forma. Last week Gen....

Mr. President-Elect: Neither you nor Secretary Clinton said much in the campaign about the war in Afghanistan. I don’t blame you. It’s a complex issue, and there was no electoral payoff in it. In the last four years, America’s policy in practice has been to “not lose” in Afghanistan with the least amount of expenditures possible. Washington’s uncertain trumpet has encouraged the Taliban to fight harder and for Pakistan to help them. In the ensuing chaos, both al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State have stronger positions in Afghanistan than they did just a few years ago. This is, in...

Eight years ago, President Obama pledged to wind down the war in Iraq and redouble efforts to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. “As president, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be,” he said during a campaign speech. “This is a war that we have to win.” Lasting peace, Mr. Obama said, would depend on not only defeating the Taliban but helping “Afghans grow their economy from the bottom up.” He added, “We cannot lose Afghanistan to a future of narco-terrorism.” Now, at the twilight of his presidency, these goals...

The following is the text of a speech delivered August 21, 2016 at the American Freedom Alliance conference in Los Angeles entitled: “Islam and Western Civilization: Can They Co-Exist?” Col. Douglas MacGregor is a respected military strategist who was a heroic tank commander during the 1991 Iraq war. As the Gen McChrystal scandal broke in 2010, Col MacGregor, who attended West Point with McChrystal, and was angered by the US military’s disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan “nation building” efforts, commented accurately: The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is...

(CNN)Donald Trump on Monday will lay out his strategy for defeating radical Islamic terrorism, painting the fight as an ideological struggle on par with that of the Cold War. In Ohio, the Republican presidential nominee will lay out proposals to combat ISIS and prevent terrorist attacks in the US, including banning individuals from countries with heavy terrorist footprints where the US government cannot adequately vet visa applicants and increasing cooperation with willing Middle Eastern allies, a senior Trump campaign official said. Trump is also set to make clear in his prepared remarks that the US will abandon any ambitions for...

During an event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Thursday to discuss how women are disproportionately affected by climate change in developing countries, Jane Harman, president and CEO of the center, said that many of the refugees around the globe today are being displaced by climate change. Harman said it is in the interest of the United States to “build resilience” in these countries to prevent migration and even terrorism. “It seems to me that the U.S. has a direct interest in building government capacity, which will build resilience in the countries you’re talking about,” Harman said....

Ted Cruz says that in Afghanistan, “I don’t believe we should be engaged in nation building.”Cruz, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, blasted Barack Obama’s Afghanistan decision, insisting, “It’s a recognition that what the President has been saying for years, that Al Qaeda is decimated was never true. That it was political spin.” “The reality is we live in an incredibly dangerous world and sadly the failures of the Obama/Clinton foreign policy have made the dangers greater,” Cruz claimed.Todd later asked Cruz, “If you become President though, you’re gonna keep this policy in place of keeping those troops there...

After the pro-Western government of China was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan in 1949, when the Communists took over mainland China, bitter recriminations in Washington led to the question: "Who lost China?" China was, of course, never ours to lose, though it might be legitimate to ask if a different American policy toward China could have led to a different outcome. In more recent years, however, Iraq was in fact ours to lose, after U.S. troops vanquished Saddam Hussein's army and took over the country. Today, we seem to be in the process of losing Iraq, if...

Berlin (AFP) - Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government, a German newspaper reported Sunday. Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure.

As the US is on the verge of generating yet another self-inflicted wound in the Middle East, and another worldwide blow to its already depleted moral authority, many will wonder what prompts this sort of destructive behavior. While most everyone has a view, and while it is likely such easily predictable disasters stem from a combination of factors, there is one that is often overlooked. What is that one? Cultural Insensitivity. Somewhere along the way America’s various Administrations starting humming that irritating song from the Disney studios, “It’s a Small World After All”. It’s NOT a small world. It’s a...