Photo:Nuremberg 1945-46
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW 
Hour One
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block A: Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President on the national security advisory staff; in re:
Pres Trump in Israel: Israelis were thrilled at the presidential visit.  Jerusalem was filed with frozen zones, traffic jams – all were fine.  “We've been starved for eight years under Pres Obama’s administration and we’re gorging now on the joy of having a friend and ally in the US.”  Trump had gone to the heart of Islam – Riyadh – and said, “You must take responsibility to clean up the threats.”  He didn't shy away from what had to be said to Sunni community; he also conveyed an unmistakable  message to the Iranian mullahs: We simply will not allow the nuclearization of the Iranian Republic nor will we sit by as it destabilizes its neighbors and our allies. 
Pres Trump got a great deal of attention in Riyadh because of the 59 Cruise missiles in Syria. The Moslem world understood that Iran and Syria will no longer be the bullies who aggress on the region. Statecraft is the understanding that all instruments of state power must be utilized simultaneously.  Diplomacy functions where there’s implicit and explicit understanding that behind everything are the ability and willingness to use force. 
Abbas succeeded in sabotaging Pres Trump at the last minute at the Church of the Nativity; however, he in fact lacks authority in this, this thirteenth year of a four-year term.  He’s incapable of acting; he likes things as they are, where he and his kleptocrats nab all the money and pocket it.
Pres Trump addressed the political culture: when you reward (in this instance, make cash payments) to people convicted of crimes and they're paid more for killing larger numbers of civilians), clearly that’s not leading toward peace. 
The Western Wall is theoretically in the Eastern, or Palestinian, side of Jerusalem; by visiting there, the president clarified that Jerusalem is one unified city.  This commander-in-chief understands the geography of business.  Saudis understand that the necessary stability for their safety and success requires regional stability, which in this instance needs the US to lend a hand. 
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block B:  Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President on the national security advisory staff; in re: In the middle of the presidential trip came the news of the tragedy in Manchester.  All these years , Israel has stood up to precisely this kind of assult, yet he BBC and Sky News and French TV all treated Israel as though it was  bad actor nd had brought the death an destruction on itself. Here, the BBC did not make the connection and compare the decades of terrorist violence that the Israeli people have had to live through –attacks,  shooting, knife-stabbings, In Manchester, it wasn’t soldiers or adults on their way to work — it was eight-year-old-girls. 
When your citizens go to Syria or Libya, it's not on holiday. What do ypu do with your citizens when they come back from a jihadi war zone?  This is a policy decision that all of Europe can no longer afford to avoid.
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:  Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes; and author, Liberty Risen, @ThadMcCotter; in re:  The FBI director was deceived by communication between the AG and the Clinton campaign and Comey was asked to intervene . . . . All incredible.  Now it turns out that the FBI is investigating Jared Kushner because he met with Russians. That’s illegal?  As Andy McCarthy points out, what kind of investigation is it – criminal? National security?  All allegations and no data yet.  Mr Kushner’s security clearance is to be revoked over smear tactics?  Too much is never enough [for the opposition].    Now, merely talking to a Russian is enough for a headline; even Joe McCarthy never imagined this; he at least had to say “Soviet Union.”  Proposals to impeach the president for no crime.  Now, also VP Pence.  Democrats are stuck on November 8, 2016; don't seem to understand how you lose an election then start rebuilding for the next election.    Were is not for the damage being done to the republic, it’d be laughable,  But it's really injurious. Creating chaos.  They once warned that Trump wouldn’t accept the election results. Look at them now. Word that the FBI is investigating Trump’s children anent compute hacking, although no one seems to know if it occurred.   FBI went to the family the day before Comey was fired.   The institutional damage to the republic is not to be underestimated.
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block D:  Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times & Fox, in re: A tale of two presidents; first, Pres Obama, who went to Cairo and Riyadh but not Jerusalem, which led to eight years of romancing [part of the equation.]   In contrast, Pres Trump went to Riyadh and Jerusalem, repaired the alienation of Israel from early in the Obama Adm, and restoring relations with other Arab nations that had been alienated not only by the Iran deal but also by dishonored promises.  At the time of the Obama speech in Cairo, everyone was euphoric: trade councils, investments, so many promises; a year later, so let down and then furious when he interjected himself into the Egyptian riots and supported Morsi of he Muslim Brotherhood.  All Egyptians waned the State Dept: Don't do this.  But he did, and Egypt is still recovering 
This time, all Arab states were invited to Riyadh (except Syria, and of course the non-Arab Iran), and all were delighted with Pres Trump’s words.  The very notion that Rouhani was moderate was openly not true.  Americans not always aware that Jordan is as much under a terrorist threat as the US is.  Israel has been the US’s one truly democratic ally in the Middle East; Trump did a lot of good in restoring regional alliances,  Saudis know that Trump’s biggest interest is to create jobs in the US; he returned with over $100 mil in arms deals, genius by Saudis and also Trump.  The only people who doubted Trump’s success were Americans writing for newspapers. 
 
Hour Two
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re:  The rope of Yalta as a thematic hook is apropos of the situation we’re in today as Yalta prefigured the post-War world; what we inhabit today basic boundaries and the concert that great powers are in charge, still btian, Also, the idea that Orwell took from the Teheran conference, where the same three guys, arkans of human destiny, met and the world was divided into thee spheres, a la 1984.     Yalta asserted a kind of legitimacy for the top-dog powers to rule the world, and for Britain and Russia, and more recently for China, Yalta is still the model that guides our great-power politics.  Ratifies the notion that the way the world should be is up to the top three. Frankly, this is a funny kind of situation for the future, and underscores why Putin is so intent on regaining a world-power status for Russia.  Trump Adm not interested in dealing with NATO, which is a sort of subset of the UN; prefers to deal directly with Russia.  The world of Trump and Bannon and a few others shows an [uninterest] in dealing with smaller powers.  The US is an inwardly-looking, parochial culture.  We recognize other cultures after they become assimilated in the US and then they cook their own food:  “Universalism in one country” – as long as you prove yourself to be a new, real American.  The reason Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at Yalta was that Stalin was afraid to leave his country lest there be a coup.
During WWII, Americans were all over Europe even through the Seventies and Eighties, creating a kinship. With the Cold War ending and diminution of US troops’s stationed there, an attenuating of that kinship. 
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re: NATO likes the US to have all the guns and all the butter. Ukraine conflict is now on the border.  If we back away, Europe will be fine, make deals with Russia- they live there.  Then we go home and take care of ourselves.  The Bundeswehr has been growing by accepting into its ranks brigades from other countries – Holland, Czech Republic. If it included Belgium, Austria, Hungary,  Romania, Slovakia, and the three Baltic countries, Germany cd create a multinational army not unlike what it had in 1941. Britain: its threatening to walk away from NATO; you need the powers to take care of their own spheres of influence. That’s where the Trump Adm is going.  We’ve got a standing managerial class that finds work for itself in foreign climes; we don’t need it.  US is facing an end of empire and sloughing off the managerial class – potentially a revolution.  Yalta, 1945; Brussels, 2017.
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:   Bob Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space; in re:  Legal protection to property rights in space. Govt domination is not a good idea. Need assets, . . .  ability to borrow . . . Intellectual property rights from conduct in space also is not protected.   Article 6 of Space Treaty says nations may regulate their own citizens; but how good will that protection be?  Eventually , may be that space citizens won’t be under any Earth-bound law, will tell us to go jump in a lake.
The squealing of pigs.   Deficit and debt. Excellent article in Nature:  National Science Fdn saw that it might get cut; went to all dept heads: How can we lose 20% and not lose our core program?  They figured it out, and then lost 11%, so they managed well. Space treaty & space law.
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:   Bob Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space (2 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Bruce Hoffman. Anonymous Soldiers (part V of VI)
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Bruce Hoffman. Anonymous Soldiers (part V of VI)
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:  Max Boot, Invisible Armies (part II of II)
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block D:  Max Boot, Invisible Armies (part II of II)
 
Hour Four
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:  Satterfield, Saving Big Ben
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Satterfield, Saving Big Ben
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block C:  Hall, Five Down, No Glory.
Friday  26 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block D:  Hall, Five Down, No Glory.