The John Batchelor Show

Monday 17 September 2018

Air Date: 
September 17, 2018

Photo: Winner of the Twenty-first Century Afghan war:  Taliban.  Here, Jaluladin Haqqani.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; & Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal; and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re:  Afghanistan, like Vietnam,  is an endless battle for unclear reasons.
Why are we still there?  Afghan transport helo shot down by Talban in western Afghanistan; five killed. Shot down 8 or 9 PM Friday night; Taliban video shows  them in daylight.  Ergo, for ten to twelve hours, Afgh mil made no effort to retrieve the bodies or the helo; shows who controls the ground.  No reaction from the army the US has paid so much to train and equip.
See video on LongWarJournal.com  Zawahiri says fighting America overseas is same as fighting various entities nearby.  /  https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/09/taliban-claims-to-shoot-...
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD; and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re:  Province in SE Afgh, near Kandahar.  Afgh fighters and al Q come through. One of many areas where the Afgh is losing,  A preponderance of bases being lost by the Afghan military—and it didn’t even make the Afghan press. Shocking to the got at the Taliban are projecting power so widely around the country.  Taliban loot where they win. Afgh mil cuts a deal with Taliban or else withdraws tout de suite.   In an insurgency, a tie goes to the insurgents.  In 1967: “stalemate” in Vietnam meant: loser!
Jalaludin Haqqani: one of the most notorious and legendary jihadist figures.  Father was also one of Osama bin Laden’s earliest colleagues/mentors/backers.  Al Qaeda’s eulogy praises him and “our emirs.” Two jihadist organizations in Syria, the “Guardians of Religion” and Ansar al-Din, were among the groups praising Haqqani upon his announced death.
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Analysis: Al Qaeda eulogizes Jalaluddin Haqqani   Earlier this month, Al Qaeda eulogized Jalaluddin Haqqani, a legendary jihadist who was one of Osama bin Laden's earliest and most important allies. Other al Qaeda-linked groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, and individuals have honored Haqqani as well. /  https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/09/analysis-al-qaeda-eulogi...
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, and Alan Tonelson, RealityChek, in re:  Moon Jae-in goes north to meet Kim Jong-il, where, according to t h New York Times, DPRK continues surreptitiously to  manufacture A bombs.
Moon’s main goal is confederation; knows he has to get some sort of agreement from Kim on ceasing to mfr nukes. Kim won't favor that. Moon keeps shoveling cash into DPRK. Yonhap says 4 bil wan has been transferred to DPRK so far (over $3 bil).   US has stopped some of Moon’s more flagrant deeds, such as trying to reconnect rail lines between North and South. We’ll have to wait out Moon’s regime— and he’s also been bungling the economy, which has led to a diminution of his approval rating.  Moon has been taking down barbed wire, observation posts, and tank traps; with no reciprocal moves in the north, thereby making the South more vulnerable.  Un9lateral disarmament on the part of the South – reducing conscription, removing all sorts of important protections and rendering his side more vulnerable to intimidation.  Younger South Koreans by and large are not interested in the reunification story, since they’ve grown up as South Koreans. 
US companies in China are currently hostages.  We should be moving them out of China.  Pres Trump’s moves are designed to prevent Chinese theft of US intellectual property; we need to confront China across the board for some very very bad things they've been doing for decades.   
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 1, Block D:  Alan Tonelson, RealityChek, in re: Ive been skeptical that we’d see tariffs of this scale being imposed right away; president could have waited till after midterms. Also glad – make China much less competitive in the US market.
In retaliation, whatever China decides to do, it’ll hurt China more than it’ll hurt us. Added the equivalent of $100 bil in their money supply in the last few days – emergency situation.
]Chinese presence in global supply chains is very very great; China does have a lot of US industry over a barrel. Can US mfrs tough it out? US needs one more crucial feature: a major Oval Office speech explaining how this is essential for the c0untry, even if it occasions some short- and medium-term pain.
US can get supply chains out of China with varying ease. Multinationals are agile – except perhaps in consumer electronics. Not easy to replicate a large percentage of that even in a variable-wage country like Vietnam.
Need an overall US strategy for disengagement from China.  US industries in a surprisingly vulnerable position. 
 
Hour Two
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, & John Fund, NRO, in re: Declassification of all text msgs, no redaction, from Comey to everyone involved, and the right pages of the FISA warrants (10-12 and 17-34 of the fourth warrant).  Overwhelming volume; the public will walk away believing whatever it started with. Media have covered the story in such a glancing fashion for so long that . . .    What did the bureaucracy do that it oughtn’t have done during a presidential election. Explain why some of these people are still working there. 
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At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.
In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.
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The participants used text messages, not email or phone, because they actually thought that method was secret, safe.
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Fund, NRO, & David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re: Judge Kavanaugh has asked for a meeting in public with the Judiciary Committee to respond to charges by a female who claims that Kavanaugh as a teenager was once inappropriate.  Mon 24 Sept in the Senate at its most dramatic. . . .  Ben Franklin said, “We all hang together in the revolution or we hang separately”— this is the predicament the GOP is in.  Kavanaugh has gone through six total FBI investigations—few humans have been that thoroughly vetted ever.  Dirty joke on a listserv?
President is   also going through with $220 bil in tariffs against China, starting in January 2019.
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Benham Ben Taleblu, FDD, in re:  Iran — the suspect nuke production; and the unusual conduct of former Secy of State Kerry. KDPI, Kurdish Party for Democracy in Iran, was targeted by Iranian drones (seven short-range ballistic missiles killed up to fifteen people); no kinetic reaction from the US, so the IRGC will continue, Evolving missile technology; looking to increase accuracy; have a robust quantitative advantage, know that Trump is busy with reimposition of sanctions.  Sanctions: Europe’s Plan B has been to buy off the ayatollahs with cash (not always successfully).  Non-dollar-denominated . . .   
Europe: Political – Europeans believe that the deal was working;  2. Economic – they want the bz and  cash;  3. Ideological – “You can always settle things with talk."
The regime understands who Pompeo is, and begin to appreciate the Trump policies. Rouhani has the most coherent strategy, tries to bld bridges with Europe.
State Department:  John Kerry is carrying on with the enemy. No easy precedent here. What’s his mission? Whom is he working for?  My fear is that he may not be giving the best advice to Zarif – to wit, what the State Dept and Treasury are saying.   Why do people forget that Iran ins the number-one state sponsor of terrorism?     . . . Zarif is suave and elegant in his [mendacity]. 
Monday 17 September 2018 / Hour 2, Block D: Aaron Klein, Breitbart Middle East Bureau Chief, in re:  Andrew Gillum, mayor of Tallahassee, with his deep connections to radical, anti-Israel and anti-American policies over a long time.  BDS enthusiast.  Foreign policy is key with the Evangelical and Jewish votes.  Podcast: ranting against Israel, against the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem; 2016 CAIR conference with two agenda items: primarily, boycott against Israel, where Gillum spoke very warmly.  Deeply involved with Dream Defenders, a radically anti-Israel organization. The group’s founder includes Gillum as a committed member.  . . .  Dream Defenders oppose police, want to abolish all police and prison in America.  And the Floridian race is very close.  Gillum was a long-shot candidate who enjoyed an enormous infusion of cash at the last minute; is relying on Soros access. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block A: Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re:
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Eli Lake, Bloomberg, in re: Why did Iran salvo missiles into Iraq to destroy a meeting? @EliLake @BV
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block C: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: Have two hundred years of Lockeian Liberalism destroyed the Liberal Order? @BerkowitzPeter @HooverInst
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, and Haim Benaroya, Rutgers; in re:  Colony on the Moon
 
Hour Four
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block A: Aykan Erdemir, in re: Erdogan of Turkey condemns an "interest rate lobby" as a code for anti-semitisim. @AykanErdemir @FDD
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block B: Benjamin Weinthal, in re: Germany treats BDS at arm's length; & What is to be done? Benjamin Weinthal @FDD
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  Thunder in the Argonne: A New History of America's Greatest Battle (Battles and Campaigns Series), by Douglas V. Mastriano 
Monday 17 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  Thunder in the Argonne: A New History of America's Greatest Battle (Battles and Campaigns Series), by Douglas V. Mastriano 
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