The John Batchelor Show

Monday 16 November 2020

Air Date: 
November 16, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleague: Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness
 
Hour One
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, @thomasjoscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD; and Bill Roggio, @billroggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re: Al Masri targeted killing in Iran.  US used Israeli connections. /  Al Qaeda’s second-highest leader, accused of being one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa, was killed in Iran three months ago, intelligence officials have confirmed.
       New York Times: Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down on the streets of Tehran by two assassins on a motorcycle on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the embassy attacks. He was killed along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden.  The attack was carried out by Israeli operatives at the behest of the United States, according to four of the officials. It is unclear what role if any was played by the United States, which had been tracking the movements of Mr. al-Masri and other Qaeda operatives in Iran for years.
       The killing occurred in such a netherworld of geopolitical intrigue and counterterrorism spycraft that Mr. al-Masri’s death had been rumored but never confirmed until now. For reasons that are still obscure, Al Qaeda has not announced the death of one of its top leaders, Iranian officials covered it up, and no country has publicly claimed responsibility for it.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, @thomasjoscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD; and Bill Roggio, @billroggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re:  The effect of the US elections on various war theatres.  Trump intending to take back 2,500 troops each in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep a defensive force posture in both countries.  Will Mr Biden make a significant change, and accept the fact that al Qaeda has grown since Biden was in office?  No. We’ve known for 19 years that Iran has been sheltering al Qaeda—but it took that long for the US to target one member in Iran. How many others are there?  Al Q is nowhere near defeated.  Tom and I have been documenting this till we’re tired of it.   See: Generation Jihad, at longwarjournal.org
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:   Alan Tonelson, @AlanTonelson, @USBIC1, U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation, and Gordon Chang, @GordonGChang, Daily Beast, in re:  RCEP.  Pres Trump early on withdrew from TPP (it was front-loaded against the US). All the counties in the RCEP but Australia rely on exporting much more than they import to maintain growth.  So who’ll import? Nothing here for the US—nor even for most of the countries that’ve signed the deal.   Chinese consumption is tailing off – and: China doesn't honor trade deals.  Japan signed on a week ago; China hoped India would, but it didn't.  Uncertain if Biden’s version of “Buy American” would help the US much, since his definition of American includes all its allies.   “Securing supply chains” means only that we can access product  from countries we consider to be friendly;  of course, a bunch of the signatories of the RCEP were US allies . . .  Biden’s spokesmen have said, “China tariffs will be reviewed,”  meaning that Biden dasn’t lift the tariffs in the foreseeable future.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Gordon Chang: @GordonGChang, Daily Beast, in re: India not joining RCEP:  Decision foreshadowed by Chinese predation in the Himalaya.  The question is, why would Japan join? Probably because it has a new PM, and the Japanese trade lobby got its way. Looking forward: a deep understanding in India that economics with China is never just economics—also, strategic and military; ignoring a treaty is part of unrestricted warfare. Chinese Communist Party is trying to shame India into joining RCEP; India’s political classes see all this clearly.  The whole Indian population mistrusts China now, so it's not just a BJP move.  Chinese elite thought it could get away with the predations of Ladakh; China is learning slowly.  Revive the TPP?  The US pharmaceutical sector demanded deeds that would have destroyed the Indian pharmaceutical sector; so major revisions would be needed.  https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/rcep-indias-stance-unchanged-even-as-15-others-invite-it-as-observer-keep-door-open/articleshow/79236605.cms
 
Hour Two
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  David Drucker: @DavidMDrucker, Washington Examiner;  & John Fund, @johnfund, NRO, in re:  Larry Hogan, the GOP governor of Maryland who won in 2018.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  David Drucker: @DavidMDrucker, Washington Examiner;  & John Fund, @johnfund, NRO, in re: The special run-off election in Georgia.  In 60 years of Georgia run-offs, the Democrats have won: none.  Stacey Abrams has requested 600,000 mail-in ballots?   “If we win the Georgia run-offs, we’ll change the whole country”—Chuck Schumer along with Pelosi, AOC.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Andrew C McCarthy, @AndrewCMcCarthy, Ball of Collusion; and Thaddeus McCotter, @ThadMcCotter, American Greatness, in re:
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block D: Andrew C McCarthy, @AndrewCMcCarthy, Ball of Collusion; and Thaddeus McCotter, @ThadMcCotter, American Greatness, in re:
 
Hour Three
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:  . . .  Israel just made peace with Sudan; Russia is not a benign actor. Polisario:  backed by Algeria; have been active, blocked only road leading southward from Morocco to Mauretania.  About 200 trucks are stranded there.   Morocco has offered Polisario autonomy but not full independence; rejected.  WHO meeting at UN; in the depth of a global pandemic, it spent four hours having 30 nations blast Israel for supposedly depriving Palestinians and Syrians of health care—even though tens of thousands of Palestinians have been treated in Israel, as have many from Syria who sneak across the northern border into Israel for emergency medical treatment.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Indiana Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:  From 625 BCE, discovery of 100+ wooden sarcophagi, Egyptian  26th Dynasty. 
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Harry Siegel @harrysiegel,  New York Daily News and Daily Beast, in re:  New York City public schools in the time of the pandemic.  The city is ruled by the mayor; the state, by the governor. These two do not speak.  Schools to be closed if 3% or more of the population is covid-positive: a number set by the UFT (teachers’s  union). This is not science; it’s political. Parents are beside themselves.  Cuomo could help out a lot, but prefers to have DeBlasio be blamed.  Schools are open Monday and Tuesday of this week; but Wednesday or Thursday — ¿quién sabe?
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  John Bolton: @AmbJohnBolton, AEI,  in re:  China’s Communist Party rules the country, but its goals are those of the Ch‘ing Dynasty: hegemony. The notion that the end of the Cold War was the end of history was delusional.  Illusion that China was becoming a Westernized democracy. Taiwan s h share dg of the spear: its created a flourishing free society, its success is menace to Beijing’s rulers—a vital, independent country. This is why China is repressing Hong Kong: the freedom thing is a virus for the CCP.
Presidential transition:  Jefferson’s inaugural address stated, “We are all federalists, we are all republicans.”  Biden is welcome to challenge China with the TPP, but he’s gotta do a better job than Obama did.  American sentiment is now widely against China, generated in large part by the Wuhan virus. 
 
Hour Four
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship, by Steven Ujifusa
There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business—one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring that one’s goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price.
       “With the verse of a natural dramatist” (The Christian Science Monitor), Steven Ujifusa tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano—men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China’s expatriate communities to the sin city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston’s shipyards to the lavish sitting rooms of New York’s Hudson Valley estates.
       Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that “takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time” (Candice Millard, bestselling author of Hero of the Empire), drawing back the curtain on the making of some of the nation’s greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel.
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship, by Steven Ujifusa 
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block C: Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship, by Steven Ujifusa
Monday 16 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block D: Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship, by Steven Ujifusa