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American presidents can easily reshape the world for the worse with destructive and mercenary foreign policy. It makes no sense to consider hopefuls for president, like Ron Desantis, who have no clear record, clear opinion, or clear theology on foreign policy.
Pilger accurately critiqued Obama early in Obama’s political adventures. Pilger remembers the Ukrainian game Obama played, which was part of an international reset, and the opening of doors to American money laundering in Europe’s most corrupt nation, Ukraine.
Writes Pilger,
“In the year NATO invaded Libya, 2011, Obama announced what became known as the ‘pivot to Asia’. Almost two-thirds of U.S. naval forces would be transferred to the Asia–Pacific to ‘confront the threat from China’, in the words of his defence secretary.
“There was no threat from China; there was a threat to China from the United States; some 400 American military bases and assorted installations formed an arc along the rim of China's industrial heartlands, which a Pentagon official described approvingly as a ‘noose’.
“At the same time, Obama placed missiles in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia. It was the beatified recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who increased spending on nuclear warheads to a level higher than that of any U.S. administration since the Cold War—having promised, in an emotional speech in the centre of Prague in 2009, to ‘help rid the world of nuclear weapons’.
“Obama and his administration knew full well that the coup his assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, was sent to oversee against the government of Ukraine in 2014 would provoke a Russian response and probably lead to war. And so it has.”
The narrow strait is the most important chokepoint for the world's oil supply. Some 21 million barrels — or $1.2 billion worth of oil — pass through the strait every day.
Will a closed Strait hurt Iran? In terms of international oil sales, yes, but in terms of daily life, no. Iran pumps 3.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. The situation at this hour:
Most people hear “Hormuz” and think gas prices.
That’s part of it. But it’s bigger. It’s a central artery for global trade, and we talked about how disruptions hit second-order systems fast, including inputs tied to food production (field work and fertilizers), trucking, and downstream shocks in everything from shipping insurance to medicine, medical supplies, medical treatments and regional stability.
This is why the “we’re energy independent so it doesn’t matter” line is naive. In a globally priced commodity world, you don’t get to opt out.
Former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes to Christ and discovers the supernatural Christian heritage of West, and how worldly families destroyed it. She is now married and living in the US.
"I like Os Guinness’s analogy of the cut flower civilization. I find it very vivid in regard to non-Christian conservative parents. Conservative non-Christian families are cutting themselves off from our foundational roots.
Let’s think about what happens to a plant when the roots die. What happens when you pick flowers and put them in a vase? Obviously, the flowers wither. And if you cut conservative morals off from Christianity, they fade.
"This decline is exactly what we have seen in the West over the last century and a half. Some people say the decay dates back to the Enlightenment. It’s a gradual fading that goes on and on. My fear is that we have landed in a place of moral wilderness.
"For the West to restore itself, it has to rediscover and revive its biblical roots. I insist that the biblical...
