The John Batchelor Show

Monday 18 May 2020

Air Date: 
May 18, 2020

 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleague: Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness
 
Hour One
Monday 18 May  2020  / 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:  Transnational ambitions and attack capabilities of al Qaeda; e.g., Saudi national, al Shamrani, on 6 Dec 2019 in the Naval station in Pensacola took weapons and killed three America Naval personnel . In February, al Q issues a memorial honoring Shamrani.  Today, DoJ and FBI showed he’d been an AQAP man.  The more recent time al Q struck inside the US was 6 Dec 2019.  A number of his Saudi colleagues on base were expelled thereafter. He fooled his colleagues, the Saudi military and the US.  He joined the Saudi military in order to do an operation inside the US.  He was a patient sleeper agent, and someone else will do it again. In the press conference today, someone called AQAP “an offshoot of al Q” – its not; it's centrally al Q.  A real misunderstanding in the US of what’s actually occurring.
Afghanistan: Taliban have refrained from committing major suicide attacks in the capital and provincial capital.
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD; and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re: Drones are an effective tactic, but not a strategy. Good at taking out a senior terrorist, but overall it doesn't suppress the threat.  Pentagon claims that so many al Q ops  have been taken out that the organization is largely obliterated. IC won’t say how many out of how many.  There’s still a [large] bevy of leadership.  Zawahiri is still alive well almost twenty years after 9/11.
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 1, Block C:  Professor Arthur, in re:  The Chinese Communist Party meets; includes a bunch of billionaires/ The Two Sessions: the important is the annual mtg of the Peoples Congress; will review 2019 and set plans.  Other Chinese Peoples Consultative Conference, meant as outreach to subvert other countries and societies. They announce a plan to go west; develop the Chinese interior.   Dystopia.  For a millennium the southeast has been the center of aesthetics, crafts, intellectual matters; but the CCP has trashed it.  If you can't make the highly educated, well-endowed, perfectly situated East coast, succeed you're not likely to succeed where there’s little water and grass can't grow . What they'll do is print money, create projects that will fail.  A year before the virus, people said the economy was growing at maybe 1% or 2%.  They’ve always got a new project in the drawer. This one is partly in response to the catastrophe that’s affected 90% of the population. The guys in the Natl Peoples Congress have zero knowledge of economics, and as can't make wise investment.  Malallocation of resources means that where  you erroneously put money just makes things worse. 
The huge chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor has elected to choose the US, and build a factory in Arizona; but Huawei is throwing a huge investment into TS.  This could pose an existential risk to Huawei (overinvest, steal research) [—except Mainland will infuse spies into the US plant – ed.]      TS chairman is very American and very smart.  
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 1, Block D: Professor Arthur, in re:  The Wuhan virus: the Wuhan Virology Lab.  Assertions hat the virus was in Europe perhaps as early as October. Blackout of phone contact in Wuhan lab in October.  CCP sent in a crew to “clean up” the lab. If it’s man-made, can create chimeric viruses. Why did they bld the lab in the first place?  China has an immense biowarfare development operation.  What they do have is a public relations problem.  How they handle this palpable change in intl sentiment. No country in the world will be fooled by a country that won't let international researchers in.  Xi said China will participate in a WHO-led investigation after the pandemic is over, contradicting his foreign minister. Everyone also wants to know the WHO’s role in [protecting] China. Eventually, the truth will come out.
 
Hour Two
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 2, Block A:  Henry Miller, Pacific Research Center, in re:  The Moderna Study 
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 2, Block B:  Henry Miller, Pacific Resarch
Monday 18 May  2020  / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness,  in re: Al Asami, oil minister of Venezuela, is in charge. Iran is sending five oil takers to Venezuela, carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of gasoline; Zarif said if the US does anything to interfere, it’d be massively dangerous and punished.  Through Suez Canal to Mediterranean, on to South America.  False propaganda: “this is linked to a US military exercise in the Caribbean” (which is not occurring).  Shrinking foreign reserve because of gold diminution.   Teheran museum:  32 anti-Jewish cartoons on display. Quds Day, established in 1979 by Khamenei in tribute to Palestinians. The Palestinian Art Museum is in – Teheran.
The tomb of Esther and Mordecai in Hamedan, Iran: it was vandalized but not destroyed; what was damaged was a Jewish shrine also valued by Muslims. Fifth C. BC.   Firemen put out the fire. 
Secretary Pompeo in Israel: Asked Israel not to make more deals with Chinese who are bldg. a desalination plant in Ashdod, and other projects. A delicate story. 
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, on WHO:  he called for Hezbollah to be disarmed, and criticized Israel as a matter of natural habit, and asked Lebanon not to [support] Hezbollah; but not saying much of anything about WHO.
A Turkish admiral got busted: a significant admiral was suspended from active duty, was very popular, clashed with the defense minister. Admiral was the architect of a maritime limit that extended from Turkey to Libya.  He was also trying to make a deal with Israel on maritime rights, and got demoted.
The king of Jordan  has come out strongly against any annexation. Seven members of Congress are requesting sanctions against Jordan for refusing to extradite a mass killer, instead making hi a celebrity. An enclave that Israel gave to Jordan on condition that Israelis could continue to farm it; Jordan shut  that down.
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 2, Block D: Indiana Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness,  in re: CIA and BND both said to have known that Eichmann was living in Argentina but said naught for years.  Fort Sam Houston: said to have held graves with stones engraved with a swastika and laudatory words  Huge indignation among veterans and others.  Swastikas removed. Now, people are looking around the country for more. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 3, Block A:  Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness,  in re:  FBI normally goes to FISA court.  Gen Flynn goes to Dominican Republic for a Christmas holiday of a few days before the Administration started.  Perhaps Kislyak went home for Christmas.  Therefore, the call might have been from DR to Moscow.  . . . Illegal for US to use foreign intell services to target American citizens; but there are sneaky workarounds.
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 3, Block B:  Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness,  in re:
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 3, Block C:  Harry Siegel, New York Daily News,  in re:  New York’s Mayor DeBlasio; his assertions and waffling that served him, and the city, not well.
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 3, Block D:  Elin Suleymanov, @ElinSuleymanov, @azembassyus, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Washington; and Brenda Shaffer, @ProfBShaffer, Georgetown University,  in re:   President Trump writes to President Aliyev in honor of Republic Day, May 28, also with supportive words concerning Nagorno-Karabakh.  We’re most grateful to President Trump, and his kind words to what was the first democratic republic in Central Asia, now 102 years old.   President Trump is focussed on strategic matters of importance.   Conference of Turkic-Speaking States, also incl the Non-Aligned Movement.  Caspian intraregional cooperation. The Minsk Group.
 
Hour Four
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 4, Block A: John Fund, NRO, & David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re:  Brennan says he thinks he’s in the crosshairs of the Durham investigation.  I think much of this is noise to the populace.  We’re now so tribal that no one cares about  information that contradicts their point of view.  Any info that gets in the way?  We find a way to consider it dubious. . . . A third group hates both candidates. They were 17% of the electorate in 2016; many voted for Trump, others for Hillary; each “the evil of two lessers.” Marco Rubio now head of Senate Intell Committee pro tem.  He’s alert to Cuban and Venezuelan depredations. Strong preference to hold the GOP convention as planned in early July, but no final decision yet.  Nomination must be held physically in person.
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 4, Block B:  David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, & John Fund, NRO, in re: Look at going to retail establishments—restaurants, gyms, and the like—less than 10% of attendees there are Democrats; Republicans are the main people out and about right now.  JF: Statistics gathered since March.  Colorado governor, Democratic but not following h e rest.  Distinguishes between those who died of the virus, and those who died for other reasons. Found a 23% inflation of virus deaths; whereas that 23% died of other reasons and may have had the virus at the same time. Dr Birx said plainly: “I don't trust the numbers.” GOP launching an attack against China; looking to leverage anger over the virus into a major policy and political win in the campaign.  Democrats want to blame Trump’s previously conciliatory statements on China. 
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 4, Block C: Bill Gertz, @BillGertz, a national security correspondent for The Washington Times, in re: China has a major biowarfare program in contravention of the treaty it signed in 1984.  Also, ”dual-use” work in labs.  The New Highland of War  . . . specific ethic-genetic attacks can target certain ethnic groups; book published in 2017; now made head of Natl Defense University of China.  Chilling.  Chinese have already done experiments against ethnic groups.  Biological weapons Convention website, a side conference from 2011: listings of 12 different nations’s contributions outlining the types of research they were doing. China: bio-ethnic genome sequencing, How to make pathogens to which humans are more susceptible . .  and more. Bioweapons to assassinate world leaders. Fort Detrick: six varieties of research.  China doesn’t distinguish between military and civilian. A top PLA general, a woman, was sent to Wuhan to take over the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  
Monday 18 May  2020   / Hour 4, Block D: Lorenzo Fiori,  Chief Technology Officer. Finmeccanica; in re: Centenary of the birth of Ionnis Paulus II; Papa Francesco made the first service in the Vatican in honor of him. Social distancing at masses henceforth; and currently no handshake. You do that mentally. Priest serving the blessed read uses gloves. Drastic increase of people taking busses, metro, public transport.  Public is showing very positive and practiced behavior. Shops and caffès: some open, more soon.  Parking places at shopping nexuses that were wholly empty last week are now busy; shows a vigorous beginning of commerce. Schengen Treaty, includes Switzerland?? For Italy, tourism is most important.  Morale of the country: mostly positive, befitting he national character.  We often do our best under pressure; so with a bit of luck we ‘ll overcome concerns, acknowledging that we’ll face [more problems]  in the autumn.